Tap, tap, tap.

I drum my fingers on the table, the sound echoing through the overly bright room. The light makes my eyes hurt, so I shut them, blocking out the world. I've been looking at these walls for too long anyway.

I wish it were darker, that it would rain. Something. This place is too, too cheery. It should show some of the personality of what it really is.

I'm almost sure that I shouldn't be here. It wasn't my fault; I didn't do it. But isn't that what all criminals are supposed to say?

I suppose this doesn't really count as a prison. There are no bars on the windows, no fences, no guards outside my cell with guns they don't really need.

Yet, I'm trapped here. I'm here for something I didn't do, something that shouldn't have happened. They couldn't prove it because I didn't do it. There was no evidence yet I was convicted anyways. I can still remember the judges voice: cold, and hard.

"Insane," he had droned out, sounding like a machine, a robot. Something manufactured and styled until it was no longer human and didn't resemble what it used to be.

Insane. Sanity gone, perished, terminated, diminished, dead. Sanity proven negative.

Sanity denied.

Yes, that sounds like something one of these robots would have said. Sanity denied, like I failed a test or something, and we weren't talking about something as intricate as a person's thoughts.

Maybe this is a test, maybe I did fail it. But there are too many "Maybes" in that sentence for my liking.

I lay my head down on the cool tabletop. The skin on my forehead is squished flat. I can feel my heart thumping steadily in my chest. Maybe if I try hard enough, I can slow it down so it's almost stopped, and the robots won't be able to detect me creeping out of here. I'll get out of this prison.

Not likely. I bet they would be able to figure out a few more ways to keep me here in this hell.

Maybe I am going crazy.

There's a knock on the door. I don't answer; I don't need to. The nurse on the other side comes in almost instantly. I sit up and look up at her bleakly.

She gives me two small white pills, and I take them, chasing them down with a glass of water from a small plastic cup. If the cup were glass, I would take a bite. Crunch-crunch-crunch. Maybe on the way down it would slice me into pieces.

But it's not.

She makes me open my mouth, checking that I have, indeed, swallowed them. Then she gives me a sugary-sweet smile. The kind of tentative smile you'd use on a dog that might bite. She turns and leaves without saying a word.

Any more days like this and my head will surely implode.

I calmly walk over to the bathroom, closing the door behind me. I flip the lid of the toilet up and spit out the two pills and then I flush the toilet. I get up, ignoring what I just did because I've done the same thing every other day I've been here. It's just not worth it anymore.

As I'm walking out the bathroom, an envelope is slid under the door. I pick it up. It's from my older sister, Bridget. She was the only one who believed I was innocent, that I was sane.

I don't read it yet, I don't open it. I stagger to my bed and place it under my pillow. I'll save it for when I really need it, for when I need something to keep me from breaking down.
I lay down and close my eyes.

How am I going to get out of here? It needs to happen soon, too, or else I really will go insane.

My fingers clench the sheets beneath me, grounding me, like I might float away if I wasn't too careful.

Does thinking you're the only one who's sane make you crazy?