Paranoia
stage 5
@honestlyitsjustkennaswriting, @goldenoceanarps, @thelunarmasquerade, @phoenix-risen87, @samariah-keeper, @jackandmarksavedme88, @theluckoftheclaws, @bitchschnitzel
Maya hadn’t slept for a week and exhaustion clung to her like smoke. Every attempt at sleep would play terrifying visions on her closed eyelids; now she could barely blink without the fear of seeing something. Not that having closed eyes mattered, even with her eyes open she would see the creatures, or see something watching her from the corner of her vision. Sometimes he would disappear if she rubbed at her eyes hard enough, or if she completely ignored him, but that was hard to do, and was generally pretty hit or miss.
To use the same analogy, smoke hung to her like exhaustion, her spending time burning sheets of paper and drawings of the visions she would see.
After a few days of these visions coming and going with little warning, Maya started to become more on edge. She had been leaving her room much more since the visions had started, scared of being alone, but still scared of everyone.
Once, when she had her back facing to the entrance to a room, Jack had come in, and she almost jumped out of her chair when he said hi. And it wasn’t just that one instance, the number couldn’t be counted on her hands, and she knew everyone in the house had noticed her change in character. Several of them had spoken to her about it, but every time she would deny anything being wrong. What if they thought she was crazy? She had gone through a lot, and she knew they had all thought it before, there had been moments when she had doubted her sanity.
But despite their obvious concern, she continued to cover up her disturbances, scared of rejection.
There was one final incident that caused Maya to take action on her deteriorating state. Playing video games with Chase and Jackie, she had seen the same staticy figure who had been following her for weeks approach her. Not only did he approach her, but he approached Jackie and Chase, grabbing Jackie by the throat when he reached him, and stabbing him in the chest. Seeing Jackie attacked like this made Maya hysterical, and it was almost half an hour before the two men managed to calm her down. When she had become more sensible, she saw Jackie alive and well, sending her backwards once again into a state of hysteria.
Whilst they calmed her down the second time, she would murmur, to herself or to them they weren’t sure, “Help, help, I need help.”
Every time, Chase would rub her back and reply, “We’re here, we’ll help.” By the time she was calm enough to talk normally, Chase and Jackie were still saying they would help however they could.
“Help me?” She was meek, still shaking.
“What do you need Maya, tell us what you need and we’ll do it.” Jackie had seen Chase becoming more panicked, and he took over completely once she was vocal.
“Hospital, no more people, alone, help.” She took a gulp of air as tears started to roll down her cheeks again.
“Okay, okay, stay with me Maya. Are you hurt?” She shook her head, but he pushed up her sleeves to check. “Okay, can you tell me more what you want?” Nodding, she started trying to say what she wanted.
“Alone, doctors, iso-isolation,” She stumbled over the longer word, but it told Jackie what she wanted, much to his dismay.
“Okay, okay Maya, we’ll get you into an isolation ward.” He made eye contact with Chase, neither of them knowing what to do. Chase, having calmed himself down without any incident, stood up to go and find the others, needing to discuss what Maya had said. Meanwhile Jackie stayed with Maya, trying to keep her half-calm.
“She said what?!” Jack exclaimed when Chase had found him and Marvin.
“She said she wanted isolation, like in a psych ward. We can’t put her in isolation can we?” Marvin was pacing the kitchen, and Jack was drumming his fingers on the table.
“If she said it’s what she wants then what else can we do? She’s been getting worse and worse these past few days, none of us can deny it. Maybe some time with professional help would benefit her.” Marvin stopped pacing, instead wringing his hands together as he spoke.
“You should have seen her today,” Chase resumed, “She sounded like something possessed, said she saw ‘him stab Jackie’.” He made air quotes, telling them exactly what she said. “Jackie is completely fine, there was only us three in the room.” Jack rubbed his forehead in exasperation.
“Fuck!” He slammed his hand on the table. “We can’t deal with this ourselves, she needs proper help. I’ll take her to the hospital later.” Standing up, Jack walked out, going to see Jackie and Maya in the sitting room.
***
Jack pushed Maya up into the psychiatric wing of the hospital, stopping at the desk.
“How can I help you?”
Gesturing to Maya, Jack replied, “She wants to sign in as an in-patient. Is that a thing she can just do?”
“It’s a lot of paperwork, but that is how it works.” The receptionist stood up and walked out from behind the desk. “Follow me, we can get her checked in.”