Adaptation

[Jillian Verna]

A week ago, I was tricked into disclosing information to the wrong personality of one of my patients. This information was meant to help Jillian fight her mental illness, a serious multiple personality disorder, in order to prevent her from harming any more of this hospital’s staff. One of her more violent identities, Elena, lied about who she was, declaring herself to be Jillian. There was no way I could tell the difference, as she is a very cunning individual.

Now, Jillian is back in control, and I have told her everything I told Elena. I’ve told her of the possible danger to herself if Elena gains control of her body again. Jillian has remained dutiful to taking her pills, keeping her disorder in check for the time being. She has had no more incidents and has shown nothing to suggest that she may attempt to escape again. However, I believe Elena may be sabotaging Jillian from the inside. She has been hurting herself at night, in her sleep. Tonight, she will have to sleep in a straightjacket for her own safety.

My staff and I have tried to evaluate her every day since the incident last week, but to no avail. I will continue to study her and ask questions. This is an unprecedented phase in the study of people with multiple personalities. I’ve never had two of the personalities within a single individual know about their illness at the same time. Before now, it was something my colleagues and I thought to be impossible. Something is changing with Jillian, and I believe she may be a pivotal link to yet another exciting, scientific discovery by myself and my team.


Milo Thurmond leaned back in his chair, holding the newest page of his medical journal close to his face. An ink pen dangled idly and almost fell from his thin fingers, dribbling a touch of ink onto his purely white marble floor every now and again. He didn't notice in his agitated state. As he neared the end of his note-taking exercise he frowned. I won’t learn anything from this. It’s too arrogant. He crumpled the page into a ball and tossed it over his shoulder. The ball missed the trashbin in the corner of his unnecessarily large office by several feet, landing next to a few other worthless pages. I need to be able to look back on this and learn something if the time calls for it. He pulled a fresh piece of parchment from a drawer and placed it in front of him. Leaning forward, he started over with new determination and vigor.


A week ago, to this very hour, I quite possibly made the largest mistake of my career…

[Jillian Verna]

“Oh boy, I wonder where I am?” Kris asked herself.

It was nighttime, with only the crescent moon and glimmering stars to light the area around her. She was lucky to stand underneath a clear sky, otherwise she’d be lost, wrapped in a cocoon of complete darkness. Trees surrounded her on all sides with the topmost parts swaying gently in a breeze. Crickets chirped from seemingly everywhere, filling the forest with an upbeat, yet peaceful song. The young girl had no idea how she got there… and she couldn’t have been happier.

“Weeeeee!” she yelled, skipping aimlessly forward with her arms in the air. “I’m free as a bird!”

Some branches nicked at her arms and caused her to bring them back down, but they did nothing to dampen her spirits. Her dark brown tresses bobbed up and down over her shoulders as she continued through the unknown woods. She felt no sense of fear or urgency at the situation of being completely lost. She found nothing odd about being in the middle of a forest, dressed in nothing but a flimsy, white hospital gown. Carefree excitement and joviality were her only concerns. One of the musical insects jumped onto the girl’s shoulder and she allowed it to stop her merry prancing.

“Well hello there,” she said to the cricket as it started to slowly crawl down the arm of her gown and make its way onto her scratched wrist. “My name’s Kris. I bet you love it in this forest. It’s so peaceful. I wouldn’t mind living here if I were a bug.”

She looked at it, not expecting it to talk back, but still hoping it might understand. “So anyways, I was listening to you and your friends singing. You guys and gals really are talented. I wouldn’t mind being able to play music with my legs. I doubt I could though, since I’m human and all.” Her words gushed out of her mouth like a rushing stream of water.

She looked down at her legs in mock sadness before smiling back at the small critter. “So anyways…” The insect jumped away, possibly out of agitation. “Bye then!” she called out to it.

“Duh, dumb, duh, duh, dumb... La, di, da, da, di...” She continued to skip through the forest for hours, singing nothing in particular. Everywhere she went, the crickets hid. Even the smallest creatures in the forest wanted her to close her mouth, if only for a minute, but nothing silenced her. She would continue to annoy the forest for the remainder of the night.

[Jillian Verna]

Jillian woke with a start, unaware of where she was for a moment. A dream of some unknown forest trickled out of her mind without a chance for her to remember anything. She tried to stretch, but couldn’t for some reason. As she groggily woke up, she looked down at her arms forcibly crossed over her chest. Her legs were also bound. Oh yeah…

She had argued against wearing the straightjacket, telling her doctor that she was fine. The unexplainable cuts and bruises she had exhibited during several days of the past week, however, did little to help her argument. In the end, Milo had simply told her that she had no say, that she was merely a patient and that he was the doctor that knew what was best. Having struggled with the orderlies until the jacket was firmly in place, she had spent the first half of the night doubting she would get comfortable enough to sleep.

She lay, resignedly, waiting for a member of the hospital staff to come to her room and release her from the fabric prison. The springs in her mattress creaked underneath as she rustled a bit between the sheepskin sheets. A few short, burly bars surrounded the edge of her innovative bed, intent on keeping her from rolling and falling to the floor. Her arms felt itchy, most likely caused by the tight folds of cloth around them. A barred window with nothing but darkness outside told her that there was still at least another hour before morning. Maybe two. She sighed, hating every single moment of her past week.

Every afternoon, she had been forced to answer seemingly the most pointless questions Milo could come up with. She felt no different compared to how she had felt before he told her everything. News that another personality within her wanted her dead meant little to the young woman that had nothing to live for. The thing she had truly taken to heart from his information was that she could live a normal life. He had told her about his cure, the pills she took everyday, albeit bitterly. When asked why she couldn’t live outside of the hospital, supplied with the pills to regulate her mind, Milo had abruptly ended the conversation.

A tear strolled down her cheek as she wondered about all the normal things she could be doing if given the chance. The small salty bead dabbed at the corner of her lips and broke apart as she dwelled on the futility of staying positive. She couldn’t understand why her doctor would want to take a normal life away from her. For those lonely remaining moments before dawn, her thoughts stayed with that fantasy world. She imagined the experience of marrying a good man and starting her own family in Scara Brae, free from the torments of her illness. Her daydream remained vague since her lack of experience with the outside world gave her very little imagination to draw upon.

Eventually an older nurse she knew, but not by name, came in. “Good morning, Jillian. How was your night? Sleep well enough with that thing on?”

“It’s itchy.” The patient pointed her chin at the straps around her arms. “Get it off.”

“Alright, alright. That’s what I’m here for anyways.” The nurse slowly unattached the straps locking her limbs in place. Before she could finish, Jillian’s arms started squirming, trying to free herself faster than the older nurse seemed capable. “Stop all that moving, Jillian. Come on now.” Jillian continued to fidget and the nurse continued to fuss. “STOP!” the woman finally exclaimed, clearly irritated. “Let me do my job. I’m almost done, and you’re making this harder for the both of us. Almost there…” She gave the last strap a final tug, loosening the jacket enough for Jillian to get out. "There you go."

“Thanks,” the patient said somewhat scornfully, quickly pulling her arms free to give them a good scratch. As soon as she exposed them, both women took in a shocked gasp. Up and down her arms were several tiny, fresh scratches.

“Jillian, how’d you cut up your arms like that? You couldn’t move…”

[Jillian Verna]

---------------

“You don’t remember anything about last night?” Milo leaned forward on the long table between Jillian and himself, his knobbly elbows keeping him upright.

“The only thing I remember is losing half of my night’s sleep because of how uncomfortable your straightjacket idea made me.” Hunger, tiredness and an overall aggravation kept her responses curt at best.

The nurse had immediately taken her to see Milo, unsure of what to make out of the mystery cuts. All the patient wanted was some of the typically bad hospital food for breakfast. Instead, she was in an early meeting with a man she was growing to dislike more with every passing day. She saw the way he looked at her, like a lab rat, useful for little more than experimental exercises and endless questioning. He feigned interest in her well-being, but she couldn’t see how he could really care about her happiness if he was willing to needlessly keep her locked in the mental illness ward of Mortileu Hospital.

Now, he simply sat there, staring at her as if he expected her to suddenly leap from her seat and do something spectacular. The doctor no longer had Jillian bound to her chair during their afternoon sessions, or during that particular morning. Rather, the small man relied on a guard that could easily keep the girl in check. It seemed that the more questions arising from her abnormal existence, the more he wanted to make her feel like she was at home. It was impossible for her to feel at home though. She didn’t even know what a home might feel like.

She watched as Milo suddenly seemed to get an idea and started jotting it down in his traveling notebook. I don’t need to sit around for this.

“Can I go now?” she asked acidly. “I haven’t eaten.”

Milo made a glance at her for a moment, pushing his sliding pair of wire framed spectacles back to the bridge of his nose. “Oh yes, of course. I had forgotten what time it is. Enjoy your breakfast and we’ll talk about this later.”

As she walked past him, she glanced at the doctor's studious activities.



…and now she might be figuring out how to use Jillian’s dreams to her advantage. Elena may start causing some serious problems a lot earlier than…


She didn’t stand there long before the guard gave her a sharp shove toward the door. “No dawdling,” was all he bothered to say.

“Dim wit,” she spat at him as she exited the room, “I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

The guard smiled while following behind her, as if amused with her angry tantrum. Closing the door behind the two of them, he spoke again. “I’d say you’ve caused enough problems for that man. So when it’s time for you to leave him to his work, you’d best not stand around.” He placed a firm hand on her shoulder. “You’re dangerous after all.” His grip tightened as if to show her that she wasn’t too dangerous in his mind. She winced as she possibly felt some small bruises forming, but kept her mouth shut. She didn't want to give him any satisfaction.

“Just take me to my breakfast, will you?”

[Jillian Verna]

“Aye, I’ll get you there.”

They had only just begun to move before the man stopped, in turn causing Jillian to stop as well. The guard let his hand slip from her shoulder, calloused fingers sliding down her side and landing at the curve just before the hip. She spun her head around to glare at him and found him looking down at her chest. Her cheeks reddened as he brought his eyes back to hers. Written on his face was a complete unconcern that she had caught him staring.

“Still want to go to the cafeteria, right now?” The sincerity of his question caught her unaware and she stood dumfounded for a moment. The guard seemed to view her silence as a form of approval and dug his fingers into her sides, in a half forceful and half tickling manner. It caused Jillian to instinctively lunge away from the hand, flattening herself against the hard body of the man. Realizing that was his intention, she pushed herself away.

“Don’t you dare…” she whispered harshly. “I’ll see you fired for this.”

He looked at her in amusement. “Oh? You’re going to tell on me? Somehow I don’t think they’ll believe one of the crazy patients over a staff member, but that’s just me.”

“I’ll scream.”

The guard chuckled. “And I’ll be sure to say you went off the deep end.”

“Then I’ll be in the same position I am now.” She paused, taking another step back, just in case he tried anything else. The guard, for all his brawn, still had a decent amount of brain activity however, and stayed in place.

“Then it looks like we’re at an impasse. Do we go through with that whole ordeal, or do we simply forget this ever happened and be on our way? The choice is yours, m’lady.” The last was said with a charm that may have worked outside the situation. The squeak of an opening door excited Jillian momentarily, only to realize that the sound had come from another hall.

She considered screaming, just to make the man’s life more difficult, but it was a fleeting thought. Still hungry, she didn’t want to prolong her discomfort any longer. The idea of drawing more attention toward herself wasn't particularly favorable either. “Just take me to the cafeteria.”

He nodded and put his hand back on her shoulder, not gripping her nearly as tight as before. He didn’t seem angry, just let down, as if he had truly hoped she might accept his sexual invitation. In all honesty, she could imagine the guard being a gentler soul than he probably wanted others to know, rough and tactless as he might be on the outside. He wasn’t even terrible to look at, she found herself musing. In another life, maybe. He did offer her the companionship she yearned for, but it would be tainted. She hated everything about her prison and he was a part of it. In fact, he was an enforcer of her captivity.

With that thought, something in her mind clicked. He was the missing link, the piece of the puzzle known as ‘escape.’ She just needed to figure out how to get him to help her out of Mortileu Hospital.

“What’s your name, by the way?”

“Why do you care? You’ve never bothered to ask before.” The guard seemed to be distancing himself mentally.

“I just thought I’d ask. I mean, we’re a part of each other’s lives, aren’t we?” She noticed that he didn’t seem to be buying into her rubbish reasoning. Quieting to a whisper, she added, “And it’d be easier to find you in the middle of the night if I knew your name.”

That rekindled the light in his eyes immediately. “In that case, my name’s Derrick." He gave a moment's pause, still slightly suspicious. "So what’s the cause for this sudden change of heart?”

“Oh, I suppose the heart wants what it wants and there’s no reason to fight it.” They reached the doors of the cafeteria. “But we can’t talk about it any more right now. We’ll solve our… problem,” she gave him a sly wink, “as soon as possible.”

“Aye, m’lady,” he whispered, obviously struggling to contain his excitement.

[Jillian Verna]

That was the last they spoke of it; both entering the cafeteria and going their separate ways. Derrick assumed his typical position near the doors, where he could make sure none of the patients got too rowdy and where he could watch one patient in particular. Jillian headed toward the food counter while trying to maintain her whirlwind of thoughts of escape, staying safe while doing so, and the life she’d live once free.

They blinked away as the largest mole that a man's face had ever exhibited climbed into her view, bobbing up and down in a familiar fashion. Surrounding the brown lump, disheveled facial hair grew in splotches of gray and black across chin, cheeks and neck, poorly hiding a leathery face cursed with pockmarks. It was the face of a man destined to live alone and it was the face of the kindest man Jillian had ever known.

“Aye, Jillian! How’re ya doin’ today?” Roufo leaned forward as he gave the troubled patient a toothy grin, ladling her plate with cheese, bread, and an unrecognizable substance soaked in gravy.

“I’ve had better days, Roufo,” she sighed, unsure whether she should thank the chef for the questionable meal. She opted to decline thanks, but didn’t cut the conversation short as she had so many times before. “How’s your day been?”

“Ah, its been alrigh’ I ‘pose. Ya know, same stuff goin’ on today as most other days.” His grin grew wider. Honest, personable, and not the smartest person to grace Mortileu Hospital’s halls, he was certainly the most genuine.

“What do you do when I don’t see you behind that counter?”

“Hm? Well that’s a bit of an odd question there, don’t ya think?” Perhaps it was an odd question, but Jillian wasn’t certain they both thought it was odd for the same reason. From her view, it was odd that she wasn’t already sitting alone at a table, pretending to enjoy or even tolerate the meal he had administered. “S’pose I do them dishes, clean up the kit’en, and go home. Nuh’in special.”

The patient gave the chef a rare smile. Then she felt an odd sensation, some sort of tug within her, and passed out.

---------------

There was a vague prodding feeling at the outskirts of her consciousness, like a blind beggar fumbling for food on the side of a street. Whatever was searching Jillian’s mind undoubtedly wasn’t looking for food and the part of her that was aware of the strangeness forced her body to stir. Someone exclaimed a sigh of relief and shook the patient in hopes of speeding up the waking process. Succeeding, the young woman’s eyes slowly opened and she felt one more violent jab at the inner workings of her mind before the strange entity retreated for good. Its parting words sent a chill down her spine.

“Almost there. I will be free.”