Documents of InsanityThis entailed a writing contest to document how you managed to get into our dear Asylum. What's your plague? Were you insane? Committed a crazy crime? Or perhaps you did nothing at all? Innocent or insane, these fellow inmates told us their tales.
Prompt: [/u]
"Hm? Why, it seems that our new inmates are looking for some lovely rat companion and partnership, no? Of course, I'm pretty sure all of you want to escape these walls, regardless of why you're here. Oh, but that does bring a question to mind that I must ask you, my loves..."Lord Thaddeus grins as he tips his hat and gives a little bow, his twinkling eyes trained on each inmate.
"Why, oh, why are you here, dear inmates? Surely there must be something wrong with you! Oh, come on. Just a wee tale? Ah, that's the spirit!"Entries:[/u]
Minkey55[/center]
It started about a month ago. I started painting strange pictures at my art studio. At first people loved them, so I was in demand to paint more, more than I could really handle.
But then some said that something was wrong. It showed that I needed help.
It was only a whisper at first, but they grew. Suddenly their was a banging on my door, and two men in white burst in to my art studio in front of every one. I was dragged out into the street.
I called for help pleaded for them to save me, but I was tossed in the back or a van like rubbish.
Banging on the back, I gazed at the people gathered around, still screaming for help. One face jumped out at me.
My life long friend and co owner to the art store, Leanna. Unlike the others, she was smiling.
I yelled, pleaded, begged for her to talk to them, but she turned to one of the men.
"See how mad she is? She needs this help." With out the others seeing, she slipped him some notes.
The engine started and I was thrown about in the back like a rag doll. About half way, a large bump threw me so hard, my head bounced off the wall knocking me out.
When I awoke it was dark. The bed was hard and there was no apparent way out.
Calomel Hunched against a rear corner of the room, the richly appointed walls around her seemed real to the touch. Was it real, were the rats themselves even real? The doctors said no. The woman didn't want to believe them. She watched the other inmates carefully, furtively, as if any one of them might turn on her, 'ratting her out' as it were, to the doctors about her hallucinations. She chuckled softly, near silently at the small joke. What was one mad laugh among dozens? Perhaps it wasn't truly madness, but the fearful near-sob of a woman at the end of her mental endurance.
"Calomel," she whispered and watched the dark rat's ears twitch in her direction. Good hearing, he had. Was that even her name? "My name is Calomel." It was, because she said so. The name printed on the little plastic bracelet around her wrist meant nothing. It was what they called her, but it wasn't her name. The strawberry blonde pulled at the bracelet with slim fingers, distracted by the red pin-dots up and down her arm where they pumped her full of medications to dull the mind. "I...I don't belong here," though by how she acted, surely she did. Perhaps it was the medication.
Standing, the drab gray slip of a dress fell straight and loose about what must have once been a beautifully proportioned frame. While the frame still existed, medication and 'therapy' had withered away the softness of curves and dulled the woman's hair. Dirt and dried blood lie under her nails and she stepped through the other inmates to crouch near the rats, dropping gently to her knees to peer at them. If they were truly not there, then who would begrudge an insane woman her hallucinations?
"I'm from very, very far away," she whispered. "From Shai'Vel. I traveled...here, to establish trade. I have forgotten where here is, do you know? There is little magic outside Shai'Vel, of course. I explained who I was, where I was from, and asked to meet...to meet, damn these drugs they feed me. I cannot think!" Frustrated, Calomel ran her fingers through her hair, brushing it out and away from her face. She tried to concentrate through the fog of mood-altering prescriptions. "To meet with their leadership. They called me mad, arrested me...brought me here. I...I have to go home." She focused on Thaddeus, her eyes an odd hazel color, sometimes more yellow than brown in the sanitarium lighting. The longing in her voice was palpable, a heart-wrenching desire for comfort. "But you...you are magic. Like home. I miss home."
Leopardstar Eyes of jade glinted dully as they focused upon the heavily scarred form of Lord Thaddeus. Already some among them had begun a story to tell, not that #999, or Leopardstar cared to listen to. It wasn't the story that really mattered, it was the person behind it. And who was #999, or Leopardstar? Well, she was young still, no more than 16, at least 13. She had hair the color of midnight with tips of dark chocolate brown. But who was she really? Even Leopardstar didn't remember much anymore.
The young lady was slumped against the cold wall, chewing what once must have been a piece of gum with all the flavor sucked out of it. She hadn't asked for another yet, in her favorite flavor, strawberry. Sometimes she got lucky, sometimes she didn't. "You wish to hear a story, eh?" she cackled. "Well, then a story I will tell." She clasped her hands together and bent forward, closer to the rat. Her eyes twinkled just as much as his did, her dark hair casting a shadow across her once-tan face turned pale in the shadows of the sanitarium.
"It all started a few years ago...I was happy then. I had a house, loving family, pets, and a good education. Not that I liked homework and school, no. I also had friends. I could be crazy when I wanted to, sane when I wished it. But I was never insane, no, never. If you ask me this place makes you insane!" She laughed then, a haunting laughter that echoed throughout the whole place. Just the usual kind of laughter, nothing out of the ordinary. "My name was Litonya then, 'darting hummingbird,' and I was in love with fantasy books and realms of magic and mystery you could say. There was nothing wrong with it, no, but I guess it didn't matter to them!" Her voice shook as he pointed vaguely but the meaning was clear and true, the doctors. "I had to begun writing by then, little by little, piece by piece. Simple writings, short stories of my own work. I was proud of them, oh there was still so much to do! I had to work on them, and so I did. The words were sweet at first, but I didn't always like how happy they were, the flavor of rich darkness seemed nicer in writing and I soon liked my villians more than my heroes. That was where it began.
About a year after I had first started my stories a polite young man introduced himself as an author too and wanted to see some of my works. And so I did. I never noticed the instance I looked away at how he stared at me, intently, watching my every move. How when I wrote he looked over my shoulder and there was always a frown upon his face and a look of puzzlement in his eyes. I don't remember his name, I barely remember my own. And if I did, I would be glad to forget it, make note. For he was the one who betrayed me in the end, summoning up them as if he was a conjuror and telling them to 'take me away!' I tried to convince them that there was nothing wrong with me. But the instance they read my stories, they whipped their hands away as if burned and continued to take me away. Pleads? Hah, they didn't matter. My family, my friends, my life...what did it all matter to them? My words...they were like a plauge, an evil deed to them. But, they were just words, just stories born of imagination. I liked to write them, it was no different than a hobby of collecting model horses or making wooden hearts. But no, those snakes had no heart, they had no eyes either to see!
As tears spilled down my cheeks, 'Litonya,' I could hear him say, '...it's all for the best...' Who gave him the right to say that? Who did?! I cursed him then and there, as they pushed me roughly into the backseat and tied me up. Curse him, curse them, what harm had I done! None, that's what! Then they gagged me, what more could I say? They should have blindfolded me too. I had let a rat, pardon me, a viper in my house, never knowing where he hid his venom, behind those charming fangs!" #999 spat on the ground and grimaced before sinking back into the shadows. "Now you know...all you need to anyway."
Maowing I stare at the rat, tattooed like a dancing girl, in colors that you just don't see on living rats. Maybe the doctors are right. Maybe I am mad. I must be, if I hear rats talking. She walks over to me, graceful and elegant. "I am Dame Enola, mistress of this cell. May I ask why you are hear? And don't just say 'Because I was put here.' That is such a boring conversation to have." There's nothing else to do. I sit down on the hard stone floor littered with food scraps and dirt.
"I lived in a town that lays to the east of here, and I know this because when they bought me here I could see the sunset the whole time. My family sent me here, they thought I was strange, mad, and maybe I am." I sighed. Why did I want to tell this rat everything?
"People thought I was mad, because I heard dogs, birds, trees, everything, talking. I couldn't communicate with them, but I heard them. Then I made the mistake of telling my brother. The way he recoiled, it was frightening. He used to love me, and that love turned to hate." I looked at the rat again, who walked closer, and curled up on my leg, her fur poking my skin through the rips in my skirt, waiting.
"Now I know this much. Either I truly am mad, or they are all wrong. I hear you talking, speaking to me, and I am talking to you. You can hear me, right?" The rat looks up, then says,
"Of course I can hear you. You won't lack people that can hear and speak to you here. You're not alone anymore Miss." With that, Dame Enola as she called herself, scurried up my arm, and sat on my shoulder.
Jazz I sigh. Many memories flood back to my mind. Memories that seemed like nothing more than a bunch of fantasies, child's play. I quietly lean back against the ice cold, gloomy walls.
"People take life for granted. You never truly know what you've got until its gone.
Freedom." My eyes investigate the room, trying to put a face to the mysterious noises "I was ordinary, just ordinary. I prayed to be something special, different - a girl that's parents would be proud to say 'that's my daughter', I never was and never will be that girl. Every night as I drifted to sleep the same dream would reoccur, a dark dream. "
"I was running, from what was a mystery. I followed a pebbled path to an unknown destination. The trees would sway in the crisp wind, as if they were dancing. The thick fog would suffocate any light that attempted to shine through, the moon was my only source of light. I walked slowly, turning my back every now and then. I kept walking until the road ended. simply stopped. The wind picked up and I turned to back to discover... The dream always ended there - like a timer."
"As months passed, my mind started playing tricks on me. Symbols would randomly appear - In trees, engraved in the dirt or even in my own food! I thought I was hallucinating. My friends started to leave me, thinking I was loosing my mind. I had no body. One evening, I decided to leave my home. Venture out into a new world, a fresh start. I traveled into a pine plantation, quietly walking along a path. Something seemed almost familiar, my mind started running through memories, but nothing reached out. I decided on a overgrown pine tree to be my camping place for the night. I lay my head against the surprisingly warm pine-needles, I fell into a deep sleep. A dreamless sleep." I shudder. "Then I awoke here, in this dark place"
I run my fingers along a indentation in the wall, gazing at the strange markings. I quietly whisper
"Do any of you see these symbols too?"Felicia Queens How did I get here? ....I'm not really sure. You see, I was just walking to my favorite store-the one that sells those wonderful skeletons, you know?-to pick up a lovely new girl for the tea party scene. But then, before I made it there, a really odd-looking group of people came out of nowhere, bound me, gagged me, and tossed me all trussed up in the back of their carriage! Yes, CARRIAGE! Can you believe that?
Now if you'll excuse me, dear sir rat, I think I hear a bird outside calling my name.....Bansee T’was a stormy cold day, I was now sitting with a wonderful white coat on. How did I get here? Why had my family been so mean? Where to begin? It was only the angel talking to me telling me that they were after me and I made sure that they could not harm me. Shall we say that they will never bother any one again. I sat in there hearing them talk to me, what could they do now? They told me about it all, and I wrote it down the book grew and the talking became louder. They told me to do things that it would make me safe. I did as I was told. The blood had a beautiful color and once I wrote the chant on the wall it glowed as they told me. I begin the chant and watch the blood dip down the wall, I began to hear a lullaby they sang to me. I fell asleep there on the floor knowing all well that I was finally safe. The dreams came dark and sinister showing me the truth. I was woken by a man with the white coat. My mother telling them I hear things and she said, “just look at her room. The walls covered in blood and bones all on the floor. This is not a sound mind.” She then ran out of the room crying, I smiled knowing all well they could not hurt me they told me so. I was then taken to hospital. White walls, cold floors, it’s too bright here I want my room the safe dark room where they are. Some followed me but not all I miss them, do you think they will come look for me? I miss them greatly and want them back. The man in white walks in and ask me, “Why did you do that to your room?” a cold smile crossed my face and I said, “They told me,” tilted my head my smile now dripped a small drop of blood. “Do you know what you have done young lady?” he asked. I laughed and told him, “What the art work on my wall? They said to do it and it would make me safe. It did, did you see it glow? Did you feel the warmth for it?” I closed my eyes to remember, remember the glow, the happiness and them. As I did this a smile etched a cross my face and I began to chant once more, the man got up and began to walk out of the room not letting me out of his sight. “I will get those who will harm me and have their blood to drink,” I opened my eyes and stared at him, “know me, fell me, fear me.” I began to laugh it sounded like if the devil was within me. By this time he ran out of the room, then I heard a lot of talking from behind the door, “…..she is not fit….” “…..she would…..” “....we must send her….”
The doctor walks out of the room white as if he had seen a ghost. “The child has something wrong with her,” he stated to the nurse. She states, “Is she not fix of mind doctor?” He looks at the nurse and says, “I do not know Martha, we must help her out of this or send her to the asylum.” “NO! doctor she is to young for that. Her mind will never return then.” the nurse has a look of shock. The doctor turns to the man coming up the hall, “Good evening, Brother Jerald. I am sorry to call you in so late from the monastery, but we need your help.” Brother Jerald nodded, “The evening prayers will hold for now. What troubles you my son?” “You must speak to this young girl. I would like to know what you think Brother.” Brother Jerald understood and walked to the door, he saw a shadow through the door and nodded. Opening the door he saw a sight that sent a chill down to his very core. There sat a young girl her arms covered in blood and she was using it to write on the wall. He walked in and sat on a chair not to far from her. He spoke, “Good day young one.”
I turned to see who was talking to me, I hoped it was one of them that have finally found me but to no avail it was a man with a brown dress on. “Good day sir,” I turned back to my writing and listen to them tell me what to do. He spoke once more, “Young lady do you know who I am?” “I do not nor do I care. Please I am in the middle of something and I can not talk.” I stuck my finger once more into the wound and once covered in blood I place the next line of the chant on the wall. The man now looked around the room, nothing there so how did she have those cuts, “Young Miss how did you cut yourself,” in a harsh tone he spoke to me. I turned and I spoke to him once more, my voice deep and evil I said, “It’s none of your business what I do and they will take your soul and eat it up if you continue to bother me,” the sound echoed through out the room as if a hundred voice had spoken at once. He fell back into the chair, his face now showed fear. He got up and walked quickly out of the room. I smiled once more alone with those who kept me safe. Once more the voice came from behind the door “….there is no hope…” “…..she can not be saved…” “….we must do the Exorcist tonight..”
Brother Jerald walked out shaking his head, “Poor child she has been possessed by a demon and if nothing is done there is no hope for her.” “Brother can she not be saved,” Martha asked. “Yes dear but we must do and exorcism this very night or the demon will gain a stronger hold on her.” The doctor nodded and went to prepare the room.
It was quite outside the room making it easy for me to hear them, I continued to write and chant. Their voice once more grew making me happy, my friends protect me. The lullaby now began and I laid on the floor my blood not began to drip on the floor not much now since I have not opened it up once more, the they sang to me. I began to let sleep take me to be once more in the dreams with them and the truths they would show me. They broke through the door and grabbed me, I yelled as they dragged me to a room full of candles and crosses. It so dark and hard to breath I start to cough the smoke was thick in the room. They began to chant and I began to cry.
The doctor and nurse walked in the room, she was sleeping. “This must not be messed up we should now get her into the room. We know not how she will act or if the demon will try to harm us.” Bother Jerald stated. The doctor and nurse walked slowly and quite as not to wake her. The doctor took her legs and the nurse her hands. She awoke and began to yell and scream. They took her to a room which was for the exorcism, it was filled with religious artifacts, candles and incense. They tried her down and began to chat the religious rights. She began to cry.
"Holy Lord, Almighty Father
Everlasting God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ
Who sent your only begotten son into the world
To crush that lion
Strike terror Lord, into the Beast
Let your mighty hand cast him out of your servant
Sarah Lafayette
So he may no longer hold captive this prisoner
I cast you out unclean spirit
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ
It is he who commands you,
It is God himself who commands you,
it is God The Holy Ghost who commands you
By this sign of Holy Cross
Give way to Christ
The power of Christ compels you
The power of Christ compels you
The power.....the power..…” Brother Jerald chanted.
The doctor and nurse watch but all she did was cry. Brother Jerald chanted all night but nothing she stopped crying and just whimpered. Bother Jerald now tried sat down and wiped the sweat from his brow. The sun began to come up and he started, “She does not have a demon with in her. She has just lost her mind. Its sad but she must be sent to asylum. They might be able to bring her back from where she is.” The nurse now began to cry, “Poor child she might never return from there. She is lost.” The doctor nodded and went to write up the papers. She was untied and walked to the first room, left there until the coach came to pick her up.
They are now gone there spell did not affect me, a smile crossed my face once I was alone with in the walls of that first room. They came back the voice talking to me saying, “So close soon you shall be with us,” the lullaby began once more, I laid down to rest. The humans place me in a white jacket that tide my arms behind me and lead me to a coach. I sat within it and watched the country side pass through the bars on the windows. We reach a dark and sinister place, but I start to feel safe and happy, I hear them now clearly and can now see them. Red eyes with in the shadow, I’m HOME.
CheshireSneer "You actually want to know my story?"
A woman of about 20 years of age emerged from the shadowed part of her room. “I used to be an artist, you see. A digital artist.”
Victoria clicked her teeth together, her eyes wide. “Sat in front of the computer hours, upon hours… making art. Designing websites, designs logos and just having fun painting. I did all kinds of art for people. I loved it…”
Her eyes became distant, wider still. “Then my eyes started to go… it was the worst thing. I always feared it. Who wouldn’t! An artist losing her eyesight, what good was she then.”
Victoria turned away violently for a moment, turning into the dark corner, covering her face with her hands. A groan then scuffling, she emerged with a small rat on her shoulder that was nuzzling her hand. This little female was the only one keeping her from doing something violent. Her eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot. “So I caught word of this cornea transplant. What did I have to lose? I went made an appointment to get the transplant. The donor was unknown. Everything went perfectly! I had my eyesight back and that was all that mattered. The business didn’t matter, the money didn’t. Art was my passion.”
She broke off mid-sentence and the gray hooded rat snuggled up to her neck. “But one night whilst up working on the computer, my eyes were tired. Just before I was going to stop and image flashed in front of my eyes.
What the hell? I said and stopped for a minute. I remember this night clearly.”
She stood up, her black pants, dirtied. Her long, white flowing shirt crinkled from sitting and yellowed with age shifted underneath the black leather corset. “An image of something mangled, bloodied. A body? It wasn’t possible to tell. That night I went to bed and they stopped… thought night after night, right before I sleep images flash through my mind.”
The rat, lady Amelia skittered down and sat on her crossed arms. “I went back to the doctor and explained what happened slowly, when he stood up abruptly knocking papers around. I sprang back in surprise when he spoke harshly. Who did the transplant!? I responded stuttering to who my doctor was, to which he responded there was no such doctor! The doctor, supposedly wasn’t a doctor at all but insane. Apparently what he had done was transplant a killer’s corneas into my eyes. Not only that, but apparently they were brothers.”
She just blinked, once and very quickly that it was hardly noticeable. Her eyes were bloodshot, and odd colored. One was gray, and one was a greenish hue. They changed slowly to separate colors then back. Some artistic eyes you could call them… “I was outraged! I began screaming to ‘change me back, change me back.’ The doctor not wanting a lawsuit on his hands and to protect his brother, he told the nurses to restrain me… to which,”
she paused a second, her eyes shifting color again. “I grabbed a scalpel and jammed it in the doctor’s eye. At this point the images wouldn’t stop flashing in front of my eyes, horrible images, and I screamed over and over… ‘change me back!’”
Victoria tugged at her shirt pulling it out from underneath the corset further. "To which obviously I was carted off here… kicking and screaming, the images never stopped. Never stopped until they gave me that fiery liquid that made me sleep…”
She looked distant again. The rat skittered back up to her shoulder, comfortingly. “It’s something that could drive a person mad,”
with that she grinned maniacally, her eyes red. “But really… we’re all mad here?”
Vagabond Priest The night that this main trouble in her life started had more to do with a strange man than it ever could herself. She had not been entirely right and where she'd like to be, no. The visions were disturbing and she could barely control them. Sometimes their message was unclear. But, she'd lived a comfortable life, and had all she needed: a house inherited from her father, and pencils. Lots and lots of pencils.
It was the night another not-entirely-right person had slipped off the chain to her inner door and snuck into her home that things changed. He was ragged, barely past his childhood and of no distinguished background. He was cold and hungry. The girl living in this household was a common sight among London's sidewalks, and he had learned her habits just by living in the area and being observant. A life of struggling to survive earned him a gift for taking what he needed; he had planned on getting a bit of bread, maybe some coins, then leaving like he'd never been here.
He passed quietly through the short entrance hallway, and into a large room which made up most of the building. His eyes darted around the room for signs of danger. There was a tarnished oil lamp on top of a crate, burning only just bright enough to light one side of the room. A worn sofa was covered in watercolor cakes and piles of paper. The woman he was so used to seeing was lying on the ground, hair tangled and curled around her outstretched arms. She was lying in an odd position, with a cheek pressed against the wood planks, like she'd been trying to pick something off the floor and fell asleep once she'd reached down. Charcoal was smudged into her skin and caked around the joints of her hands. It looked as if crumbling, black, dusty ash had been worked under her fingernails to the quick. Honestly, it looked like it'd started becoming a part of her hair and skin.
The lady was lying underneath a large piece of canvas. It'd been hung from hooks in the ceiling with care, using baker's twine. She'd probably nicked the materials out of a studio bin. She seemed to know her stuff, and he could see caricatures and portraits everywhere around the room... When's riffraff like him going to see another piece of art, going into people's homes?
He'd looked more closely at the canvas, which depicted a horse with it's head held high. It was very pretty, if a bit disproportionate since few people in the city had ever lived far enough or been rich enough to see a real, breathing horse. It also had quite a bit of metal sticking out of it's skeleton. He chose to ignore that, since it made him squeamish, and concentrated on the face where a lot of care and detail had been placed.
His sight went straight to the horse's eyes. Swirls and curves of black defined the eye orbit. Rushed, frantic energy and marks made with sweeping gestures had gone into defining the bones and shading. He guessed that she had smudged and worked the medium into the canvas with her forearm, until a more focused, obsessive energy occupied her mind. Lines swooping downwards and away from the bones made it seem like the socket was somewhat bowl-shaped.
Then the curves got more crowded. They trailed and spiraled into a center, getting darker as they went until they met in a pool of India ink that made it difficult to tell what was being defined anymore. The only indication of an eye, of some sort of window into a mind or conscious, was a small pinprick of white ink.
The further he looked, the more detail he noticed on that small, bright dot.
And the closer he looked, the more the inward spirals seemed to draw his eyes into the pit-- further into areas darkened to imply perspective, to provide an illusion that the socket just went deeper until they reached some far, far hint of a mind miles below the surface.
He slowly realized there were little hints of mahogany among the lines. Thin sepia lines indicated tree roots. Chunks of grey were rock. A sensation devoid of gravity clawed at and gripped his stomach, and he was reminded of when he'd fallen down a well when he was still a very small farmboy, and how he could see the details of the well's walls in slow-motion while that hand on his belly dragged him plummeting down into the icy, stagnant, shining white water below.
He was reminded with a tiny, mocking voice in his head that he'd never lived on a farm in his life.
Jolted, he finally realized his entire field of vision was nothing but that detailed spot of white and the black around it. He staggered backwards and a sharp gasp caught in his throat. As his vision reeled away from that insidious pit, he could see the room again-- could see the charcoal strokes, could see the canvas and the dozens of paintings just like this, and the girl on the floor who was starting to wake up from all the noise he'd been making.
The thief stumbled while looking for his balance, or preferably, his more grounded sense of reality compared to the horse that he now felt staring at him. He desperately clutched a chair lurking in the darkened side of the room for support. Looking at anything, anything in the room that wasn't a painting or a piece of paper, he looked at the girl who had propped herself on her elbows. She was watching him with heavy eyelids, and it was at this point, in the entire affair, that a lopsided smile crossed her sleepy visage.
"Hey, hey.. Do you like that drawin'? His name is Ferrous. I think he likes you."
The conclusion of the story is quick and painful. There was her presentation to a court by a pair of constables, who had shown up at her house days after that night without warning. Being influenced by the ravings of the thief (who was nothing but a gent in their eyes), they did not answer her questions or recognize her right to know what she had done wrong. Her paintings were presented as evidence of instability and, since most of the canvas and wood had been taken from the trash, of her criminal nature. She had fought for a few words in edgewise. Most of it was lost. If she was accused of madness, and there was no other witness to her defense, how could anything she said be reliable?
She ended up here weeks later. She had been in such a daze through this whole time that all she could think of was her house and how she needed to tend to it. She had heard secondhand that her paintings were selling for a decent amount through the city. All she could think of, in this sanitarium parlor surrounded by sweet vermin and wounded minds, was of Ferrous. He hadn't spoken to her in all that time. She needed him now more than ever, really...She realized at this point that she'd been rambling on in her mind while staring vacantly at Lord Thaddeus. It'd been going on for about five minutes of nothing but focusing her eyes on the band of Thaddeus's top hat. He was probably rather perturbed by now. But she'd feel rude if she went on for so long just about herself; this was a party (maybe) and it would be rude to bring so much focus onto herself. With these thoughts, and the calculations of the social risks she'd been running in her mind, she summarized her story.
"I like to draw bones n' guts n' metal. A gent crept into my home to steal a bit, and he did not care for my work. Kind of bothered him. A lot. So I was sent to the judge as a disturbed individual, and they found me so disturbed, so now here I am and hopefully I'll make friends!"
Her skill was with images, not words.
