Chapter Text
Yuri woke up to find herself in an unfamiliar location. She was lying on her back on a small, uncomfortable bed, in a dim, yellow room. She sat up, and noticed that she was wearing a hospital gown. Light green, down to her ankles.
So I guess my habit had gotten the better of me, she thought.
The last thing Yuri remembered was taking one of her knives, a butterfly knife, she thinks? To her thighs in the bathroom at her school. Someone must have found her there, passed out in a pool of blood. Just a year ago, Yuri could never have imagined herself self harming in a school bathroom, and yet, there she was. The addiction had gotten stronger and stronger ever since she entered her final year of high school. She didn’t quite understand why.
Yuri looked down towards her gown and lifted it up so she could see the damage. Sure enough, her thighs were wrapped in bandages, covering up her wounds. She sighed.
Yuri climbed out of bed to examine her surroundings better. There was a small table beside her bed, upon which sat a digital clock showing her that it was 5:47 am. Earlier than she usually woke for high school, she thought. There was also a plush rabbit on the table. Yuri picked up the toy. It was purple, and very soft. There was a tag on its ear with writing that said “get better soon! :)” but she didn’t recognize the handwriting. She wondered who it could be from. Her parents, maybe? It had been a while since she saw their handwriting, honestly, and she couldn’t remember what it looked like. When Yuri was a child, her parents often gave her handwritten birthday cards and little notes, but they were both so busy with work now that they rarely did that sort of thing any more…
Yuri opened the drawers in the table, but found nothing. This place was shaping up to be pretty boring.
I wish I could write, Yuri thought. If only I had my notebook with me. This place has the perfect ambient atmosphere for some delightfully dark poetry…
Yuri’s thoughts were interrupted by a loud beeping sound. It was coming from the alarm clock, now displaying 6:00 am. I guess that was wakeup time here. Yuri didn’t mind, since she was already awake, and starting to get bored of the small room.
Within a minute, a nurse rushed to her door.
“Ah, you’re awake,” said the nurse. “You must be Yuri. Nice to meet you. You can call me Nurse Grora.”
“What is this place?” asked Yuri.
“The Lindentree Psychiatric Hospital,” she said. “You’ve been involuntarily committed, considering that you were found in a pool of your own blood from self harming. But don’t worry, this place is meant to help you feel better. We have lots of therapists on staff, and there are plenty of groups for you to participate in. Now come on, breakfast is being served in the cafeteria. Come with me.”
Yuri got up to follow the nurse.
The psych ward, hmm, she thought. Definitely a lot different from how it is portrayed in books.
Yuri thought back to her favourite books, with their depictions of madness. Tragic young girls chained up to beds, screaming. Ophelia, mute, twirling in a white dress. The hallucinations of Alice. This place was none of that, just a sterile yellow room filled with a pensive silence. Interesting.
Upon entering the cafeteria, Yuri walked up to the buffet table to examine what was being served. It looked like the buffet at a hotel she stayed at once, except the food was noticeably worse. Looked like the cafeteria food in her high school, which she consistently steered clear of. No lunch lady was going to serve her runny mashed potatoes, canned beans, and a weirdly rubbery burger.
Yuri settled on toast, picking up a packet of jam and a flat, dull knife to spread it with. She also went for a cup of green tea, the best way to start the day, in her mind. She then found a solitary table to eat at. The cafeteria was starting to fill up, with lots of sleepy looking people shuffling their way to their seats in their long gowns and socks. Yuri chewed. The toast was too hard, as if it had been sitting out for a while. The jam was too artificial. The tea was alright, she guessed.
“Hey.” said a stern sounding voice. “Can I sit here?”
Yuri looked up. In front of her was a girl with long blonde pigtails, blue eyes, and a blank expression on her face.
“Sure, I guess.”
“Great. You seem like one of the least annoying people here. Some of these people just can’t shut up.”
“Yeah… well I mean, its my first day here, but I know what you mean. I like to be alone with my thoughts too, and that isn’t easy when someone is yapping at you.”
The two girls chewed their food in silence. Yuri looked at what the blonde was eating. A bowl of yogurt, mixed with cereal and blueberries. When she was done, she immediately got up from her table.
“Hey wait, what’s your name?” asked Yuri.
The blonde looked annoyed at her for a second, and then said “Froze.”
“I’m Yuri.”
“See you around, Yuri.”
With that, she got up and left.