Acid Rain by R.D Rhodes (ebook reader txt) 📕

and politicians? They were the most dangerous people around. Why hadn’t my dad ended up in one of these places?

I was worried I would go crazy in that room. I didn’t know if I was crazy before but staring at those same four walls under that same tiny ceiling was inevitably going to make anyone deteriorate. What the fuck is this really meant to do? I thought. I’m a human being. An animal. This isn’t a fit environment for anything to be in. You learn respect by being shown respect and you learn love by being shown love. But the nurses here are so,.. I could blackmail Sanders? Tell her exactly what I saw in that room upstairs. And that if she doesn’t take action against Liz and Kev, I’ll find a way to report them all. Will that work though? Oh, I want to punch that guy so much! Just to see that smirk wiped off his face... But the only way you’re going to stay sane is by pushing all your future dreams away. Discard all visions of beaches and seas, forests and rivers. Numb your brain and think of nothing. Ah, this is hell.

I looked at the window. It was hours past lights-out time and pitch black out there.  The only light came from the small shaft that squeezed in from the corridor. I twisted in my bed and turned my face against the pillow.

Rain drummed against the window. It was still dark, and I couldn’t tell how long I had slept. I guessed it was about one am but there was never any way of knowing. I got up and tiptoed to the window in my socks. The rain was driving in sideways through the bars against the glass. A thick shadowy mass of cloud covered the sky, and a wind was picking up. Everything was black. I could just and no more make out the silhouette of that abandoned building across from me.

I stood there, watching and listening for a while. The rain hit the glass with big splashes and ran down in strokes from the top to the bottom. I didn’t feel tired, only restless. It was cold too, in my shirt and jammy bottoms.  I got back into bed.

My head felt itchy. I had gotten into the habit of scratching it more and more and now every time I went to prop up the pillow, I could see the faint glimmers of another few strands of red hair. I pulled the covers over me and rolled about. About half an hour later I gave up. I reached down to the floor and picked up Confucius. The shaft of light was just enough to read in if you put the page directly in it. I got comfy in my cocoon and opened it up.

I didn’t know how long had passed as I lay there reading but it seemed like hours. It wasn’t so bad actually. There were a few wee pearls of wisdom in there, and a lot of common sense,

“When away from home, treat all you meet as if they are dignitaries. Show respect to the common people, as if you were at a solemn ceremony. Treat others as you would like to be treated. Then there will be no strife, either in the home or in the country at large.”

I liked that, “Treat others as you would like to be treated.” Maybe he was right, do that and you might solve half of the world’s problems. Didn’t someone else say something like that, something like “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle?” And they were both said thousands of years ago. But what had changed? Maybe Harry was right, maybe nobody bothered to listen.

I flicked to the last page and counted back the twelve I had left to go. I took a little break to consider the meaning of what he was saying, and was imagining Confucius in his robes, wondering solemnly around some Chinese court, when something cut across the light.

I caught a glimpse of it from the corner of my eye and in those milliseconds the message hit my brain and told me something wasn’t right. I went cold with shock all over. I leapt off the bed and ran to the door and stared out the panel - at the white mist floating along the corridor! It was shapeless, glowing with lucid light, and didn’t expand or rise like mist or smoke is supposed to but stayed compact as it kept drifting along the floor. What the fuck is that?! I panicked. I pressed my cheek into the glass to get a better look as it headed down towards the common room, then I couldn’t see it anymore. I felt my hand along the wall and slammed the buzzer, bouncing on my toes, trying desperately to see. A minute later the night nurse came running, blonde and in her mid-twenties. She stared at me through the panel.

“What is it?” she panted.

“LET ME OUT, PLEASE! PLEASE! I NEED TO GET OUT!”

She saw my alarm and without hesitation despite her fright, unlocked the door. I burst outside and sprinted in the direction it had gone.

“HEY, WHERE YOU GOING?!!”

I sprinted to the end of the hall and turned into the common room, then spun around and ran back. The corridor was empty but for the nurse still standing outside my door looking at me. Where did it go? I searched into the panels of the other rooms, but they were all dark inside, I couldn’t see a thing.

“Hey, I asked you a question. Get back in your room please. You’ll wake everyone up!” The nurse’s worried voice called.

I jogged up to her, “DID YOU NOT SEE IT?”

She looked at me nervously. “See what?”

“Whatever that was.”

“…Have you.. had your meds today?”

“Yes! But it’s not that, I