• Melanie
    The walls of the place were like those of which I’d placed around myself. They weren’t meant to keep anyone out. They were meant to keep me in. Well, me and all the other psychotic children they decided to round up like cattle and stuff in here. I cried. I begged. I screamed. Anything to keep me out of the crazy house. But no one would listen. They told me to calm down. I tried. Figured maybe someone would listen if I did. I was wrong. “Mom,” I croaked. “Please.” I grabbed her hand, pleading with her. She shook her head, and kept her eyes forward, refusing to look at me. Two nurses or whatever the hell they were came to take me away to Happy Pill Wonderland. Yep. I was headed into a treatment center.
    I tried to make myself stop crying. Anything to keep from looking weak. My mom tried to hug me. I shrugged her off. As far as I was concerned, this was all HER fault. She was the one who had decided it was perfectly okay to go through my stuff. For all I knew, she had been purposefully looking for some way to get rid of me, and this “hospital” fit the bill. In more than one way. I wondered how much “prison for the mentally challenged” was costing my mom. Or was it the insurance company they were charging? Didn’t matter. Anyway, if she really wanted me to go, she could watch me go. Right now. I followed the nurses through the magical door into Therapeutic Narnia and didn’t look back.

    Before I entered, they wanted me to take all my clothes off so they could check for drugs or weapons. Y’know, normal things every fourteen year old girl carries around. That was sarcasm. Just so you know. Anyway, off went my clothes. And on went the ugly green hospital scrubs that would just make me the most popular psychopath in the whole treatment center. My mother would be so proud.

    Finally, after asking way too many personal questions, consisting mainly of things they could use against me to keep me longer, they let me in. Like I even wanted to go in. The walls on the inside were about the same color as those that surrounded the building itself. A dull, boring, yet intimidating grey. The kind of grey that lets you know you aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, and you’re stay wont exactly be like that of a Vegas casino. There was a hall with open doors that led to grey rooms with cheap beds. Inside those beds were humans, being pent up like animals. Children being locked up and treated like criminals. Their crime? Asking for help. America’s mental health system seems to be doing it’s best in making sure those kids do not make that mistake again.

    Some random lady trying her best to pretend to be friendly leads me down the hall and stops at a room. I look up at the number. Room twenty-three. I walk in and the woman flips on the light switch, completely disregarding the poor girl/animal/criminal trying to sleep in one of the two cheap beds. As another woman saunters in to set up my bed, a man walks in and makes an offer to get me a urine test. Well, not exactly an offer. More like a demand. Jesus, these people were demanding. First they want to take my clothes off, then they want me to pee for them? What kind of sick circus was this?
    Lily
    I woke to a stunningly bright light flooding my closed eyelids. I struggled to keep my eyes closed, but they fluttered open anyway, exposing my eyes to the white artificial light. I saw Marie, a staff member, fitting sheets to the bed next to mine. A bed that had been empty since Shannon left. Shannon was my old roommate. She was nice. I missed Shannon. Then I realize there is another person standing in my room. She had long dark hair, long legs, olive skin, and a pissed off look on her face. Is she new? Probably. I reach for my glasses, and push them onto my face. The girl walks out of my room with Mark, who is holding a urine test cup. “What’s going on?” I asked Marie. Marie sighed heavily, obviously annoyed. “That’s your new roommate. Now go back to sleep.” She says, with an irritated edge in her tone. I nod place my glasses back on the desk, turn away, and try to go back to sleep.

    I close my eyes, and listen as Marie finishes making the bed. The crinkle and shuffle of the sheets comforts me. I know someone is there, and it isn’t someone who wants to hurt me. Or does she? She could hurt me right now if she wanted to, make up some story about how I was getting out of control and needed to be contained. And everyone would believe her. Now I am afraid. I wait for her to leave. Eventually, the noise of the bed sheets being fitted into place stops, and I hear footsteps. Then the light goes off, and I can rest, knowing I am alone, and there is no one who can hurt me. No one except myself.