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The room was an improvement over his last one. There was a small table, and a chair, and even a window, though narrow and too high up on the wall for Russell to reach.
The room was dark, almost pitch black. It was just as well, since Russell had already seen everything there was to see.
He lay on top of the covers, staring at the blank ceiling high above him. It was around three in the morning, probably, or maybe four. There was no way to be sure with no clock in the room and a lock on the door.
Nothing would happen until eight in the morning. Then, a nurse would show up with food on a cardboard plate and pills chopped up into plastic measuring cups. She'd change the dressings around his neck, never saying a word and never meeting his eyes. Cold. Professional. Considerably kinder than Russell deserved.
After that, he'd be left to his own devices until next morning. The drugs made his head swim well into the afternoon, but apart from that, they changed nothing. How could they have? What else was there left to do except lie down and wait for death?
When he slept, he saw no dreams.
The psychiatrist wasn't that old, he supposed. Maybe as old as Mayor Saxon had been, and with far fewer grey hairs.
Unlike Mayor Saxon, Russell didn't like him. He pulled the bathrobe over his pyjamas more tightly around himself and averted his eyes.
"So." The psychiatrist had a deep voice, and he always spoke to Russell like he thought he was slow. "When you returned and discovered the crime scene, how did that make you feel?"
"Angry." He had no idea what the psychiatrist wanted to hear. "And sad."
"Why did you feel sad?"
"Because it was my fault. If it hadn't been for me, Dad wouldn't have met her. She'd still be alive now." He had confessed all this already, both at the police station and in the courtroom. Why did they keep bugging him about it? Nothing would change.
"I see. How does it make you feel now?"
"The same."
Nodding, the psychiatrist scribbled something into his pad, then looked up, clearly expecting him to continue.
Russell pretended he had gone mute.
Bright green eyes. That was how Russell could tell the nurse was new. Bright green eyes the shade of jealousy, just like those of another nurse he had known not long ago.
He quickly shook off the first impression. This nurse had short, black hair and a round face, and even though she looked fairly young, she had the air of an aunt.
She beamed at Russell.
Guess she didn't know.
"Good morning! Did you sleep well?" Her voice was so warm and kindly that at once, Russell felt sick.
"Yeah," he managed, looking away. He didn't recall sleeping.
The smile on the nurse's face faded. She looked around the barren room before turning her eyes back to Russell, her gaze so intense it felt like she was trying to bore through his skull with it.
"Does it hurt that much?" she asked in a quiet voice.
"Um..." Instinctively, Russell raised his hand to his throat. "Not really. It feels a lot better."
"That's not..." The nurse looked like she had bitten her tongue, then gave Russell an obviously fake smile. "That's good to hear. Can you sit on the edge of the bed so I can check your wounds?"
The nurse crouched down next to him as he shifted himself and carefully unfurled the dressings around his neck. "It's healing well. With luck, it won't even scar."
"Mmhm." Russell wasn't really listening.
The nurse's good mood had returned based on the way she hummed as she rolled open a fresh bandage roll. "You must be so bored here. Would you like me to bring you something to keep you busy?"
He shrugged. "Not really."
"There must be something you'd like. Do you have any hobbies?"
"Video games."
"Oh." The nurse's smile lost a few teeth. "That's trickier then. Hmm..." She brightened up. "I can't promise I can get you games, but I'll definitely bring you something cool. Okay?"
"...Okay." Russell couldn't help but stare. Was this some kind of a trap? Either way, he was beyond caring.
"Have they told you it's a miracle you're here?"
Russell nearly nodded, then realised he probably shouldn't while someone's hands were on his throat. "They said I stopped breathing for a moment."
"And now you seem to be heading towards a full recovery." The nurse secured the bandage and stood back up. "I'd say it means you were meant to live."
Russell kept staring at the wall for hours after the nurse had left.
"...It wasn't fair. I worked so hard at school and at my hobbies while she sat around and was loved. Why was it always her and not me? Why wasn't I loved the same way even though I tried so hard? I just..."
Joining the peer support group would do Russell good, his psychiatrist had said. He went along with it, but didn't really see the point. It was nice enough to sit in a big room with pictures on the wall twice a week, but he had nothing in common with his supposed peers.
The boy speaking was the one who had nearly strangled his sister. Or the one who had set his neighbour's dog on fire because his parents wouldn't get him one. He couldn't remember.
He closed his eyes and waited for the hour to pass by, not hearing another word as the boy kept pouring his heart out.
"Ta-da!" The nurse held out the book with both hands. The cover depicted a sword-wielding hero standing defiantly against a massive dark cloud creeping up from the horizon. "It's a gamebook. Have you played them before? It's like a video game on paper."
Russell said nothing as the nurse set the book on the table and rummaged through the large plastic bag she had brought with her. "There's more. I don't know if you like drawing at all, but..." she set a large, loose-leaf sketchbook next to the gamebook, followed by some pencils, an eraser, a pencil sharpener, and a box of crayons identical to the one Russell recalled using in elementary school. "NON-TOXIC" read the sticker plastered on the side of the box. "You can use these to write too if you like that better. I'll bring you some comics next, okay?"
Russell was probably supposed to say something at this point. "Thanks."
"Oh, before I forget! I have something really special for you." The nurse dashed into the corridor, forgetting to lock the door behind her. Russell stayed put.
"I've always thought looking after something living is the best thing you can do." The nurse backed into the room, holding something in her hands. "Since this is an allergen-free zone, I couldn't bring you an animal, so," she whirled around and proudly presented a standard terracotta flowerpot to Russell. "I brought the next best thing."
Mutely, Russell accepted the flowerpot. It didn't seem to have anything but soil in it, but when he squinted, he saw something white poking through the earth.
"Water it daily, okay? I won't tell you what flower it is until it blooms." The nurse's green eyes gleamed. "Don't forget that it needs love to grow."
It was night-time again, probably. Russell had no idea how long he had slept.
He squinted at the darkened room around him. There was a light-switch by the door, but that would require him to get up.
His sweeping gaze paused on the plastic green watering can on the table, and the flowerpot next to it. The fledgling plant stood where the nurse had left it the previous morning, untouched since then. Russell hadn't meant to neglect it, but getting up to water it took more energy than he had.
He turned to his side and stilled. He was unlikely to catch more sleep until the evening, but until then, he could pretend he was lying in a coffin.
Time passed.
Then, very slowly, he rolled out of bed, and half walked, half stumbled to the table.
"You have a visitor. A boy your age."
The nurse made the announcement like it was joyous news from Heaven. As weeks went by, Russell was more and more convinced she was a hallucination, some residue from the dream trying to trap him with kindness.
A boy his age? It had to be Chris. There was no-one else.
Russell kept lying on his stomach. Gravity had increased tenfold at the nurse's words, holding him steadily down.
"Russell? Are you asleep?"
"No," he mumbled into his pillow.
"Well, it's time to get up now. Visiting hours are almost over."
Russell didn't move a muscle.
"Don't you want to see him?"
He squeezed his eyes shut and said nothing. Of course he wanted to see his best friend. That wasn't the problem.
He couldn't. It was too much like a reward.
A minute ticked by. Eventually, the nurse sighed. "I'll tell him you're not well today. I'm sure he understands."
He heard the door close.
Then, just as quickly, it was opened again. "By the way, Russell...Is there a reason why the flower's on the floor?"
Wearily, he opened his eyes and raised his head an inch from the pillow. The nurse was eyeing the flowerpot standing by the door with a frown.
"It's for sunlight," he said, allowing his head to sink back down. "I move it around so it catches more rays."
The nurse left without a further word. Russell could have sworn she had smiled again.
"This stranger, then...what was he like?"
Russell turned away. "I don't want to talk about it."
"I'm afraid it's important." When Russell said nothing, the psychiatrist continued: "Can you at least describe his actions for me?"
Russell looked at everything but the psychiatrist. "He offered me candy. Then he told me that if I needed a place to stay, I should come with him. He said I could watch all the tv that I wanted, and he had lots more candy at home."
"And then what did you do?"
Russell said nothing.
After the silence had extended for several minutes, the psychiatrist set his pad down and peered at him over his glasses. "You really don't wish to talk about it at present time?"
"No."
Mercifully, the psychiatrist nodded. "Very well. Perhaps later, then."
As Russell slid off the armchair to leave, the psychiatrist suddenly spoke up, his voice as droning as ever. "Take care until next week."
Russell didn't respond.
For all he had doubted it, the gamebook wasn't too bad. He killed several hours flipping through the pages and finding new magical objects as his hero explored dangerous cities and wastelands in order to save the world from the Emerging Darkness, a nebulous evil force threatening to swallow it whole. It wasn't until he reached the end of the adventure and was told he had missed a critical piece of the puzzle to stop the menace that he found his interest waning. The mage he met at the end offered to turn back time to the first page so he could find it, but instead he slammed the book shut and threw it aside.
Leaning against his elbows, he rested his eyes on the flowerpot. He kept watering the plant daily, almost religiously, but had little to show for it. The white beginning of the stalk had grown just a smidgen higher, and that was it.
Sighing, he reached out for the sketchbook. He'd always been rubbish at drawing; he'd never bothered with it at home, and art had been the first class he had started to skip at school. All the same, he gripped the pencil and began to doodle.
Fifteen minutes later, he held the sketch up against what little light filtered in through the window.
A five-year-old could do better.
He crumbled the paper into a ball and tossed it aside, then tossed himself onto the bed. Why bother?
Minutes ticked by. Then hours.
Long after midnight, when sleep still eluded him, he pushed himself back up and slouched to the table. He wielded the pencil like a knife and attacked a fresh sheet of paper.
"Hey, man."
Russell stopped dead in his tracks. It really was Chris behind the glass. His hair was an inch longer and his face gaunter, but other than that he was the same Chris as always.
Russell sat down on the other side of the glass, too stunned to speak through the holes in it. Wasn't this a prison thing? Then again, in a way he was still in a prison.
"How did you get here?" he finally managed.
"I sneaked a ride on a bus, what else?" Chris gave him his usual lopsided grin, like nothing had changed, like he was still talking to a fellow truant prowling the streets rather than a deranged maniac who had been sentenced to death less than six months earlier. "Finally decided to give me the time of day, huh?"
"Sorry."
Chris shrugged. "Whatever, man. So how're they treating you here?"
"Fine." Any life was more than he deserved. "How are you?"
"Same old, same old. Oh, except we almost got evicted last month."
"What?"
"Yeah, trouble making rent. It's cool. We got it all sorted out in the end. Turns out the landlord takes things other than cash as payment too."
Russell's heart sank.
"Yeah, anyway..." Chris leaned onto the counter on his side of the glass. "Mom said that after you're released, you can come live with us."
Russell stared. "Won't that be—"
"It's fine! We'll manage." Chris' brow furrowed. "Besides, Mom knows what you're really like. She won't hold any of this crap against you."
Russell stilled. His guilt, always present as a shadowy force lurking right behind his eyes, threatened to swallow him whole once more. "It's not crap, Chris. I killed people."
"Yeah, but everyone knows your mom and dad—"
"Not them," Russell interrupted sharply. "I killed other people too. People who hadn't done anything to me."
That wiped the last of the smirk off Chris' face. He sighed.
"I know, man," he said quietly, looking very grave now that his wry amusement had passed. "I mean, real talk...that's some messed up shit you did. I couldn't believe it when I first heard about what happened." He grimaced. "It's done, though. It's in the past. We'll keep going. We've gotta stick together, right? Cause we're the same."
That elicited a quick smile from Russell, the first he had cracked since returning to the real world. "Last time I checked, you hadn't murdered anyone."
Chris snorted. "And I'm not gonna if it means I end up in a loony bin like you!" He grew serious again. "Think about it, though. The offer, I mean. I know the place is a dump, but better live in a dump than be homeless."
"I don't think I'll get to choose where to live like that. They're going to relocate me and change my identity when I turn eighteen." Russell wasn't supposed to know about it yet, but the green-eyed nurse was always spilling the beans. Usually, he paid the secrets no mind, but with Chris right in front of him, future seemed a little less like make-believe.
Chris balked. "They can't keep you locked up for that long! You're a free man after this, right?"
Memories of the Happy Dream Experiment flashed through Russell's mind.
"No." He turned his head to the side so Chris couldn't see his eyes. "I'm really not."
"Russell? Would you like to say something today?" The psychologist running the group session was looking at him expectantly. She asked the same question roughly around the midpoint of each session, and so far had always received the same mono-syllabic response.
That day, however, Russell surprised even himself. "...Yes."
"Go on, then." The psychologist's reddish brown eyes brimmed with warmth. She reminded Russell of a mother he had once known.
He slowly realised he didn't really have anything to say, and grasped at the first thought to cross his mind. "I've been growing a plant in my room."
Someone to Russell's left in the circle sniggered. The psychologist acted as if she hadn't heard a thing. "What kind of a plant is it, Russell?"
"I don't know. It doesn't have any flowers yet." Russell glanced at his peers. Most of them looked bored, or else amused. "It's sprouted leaves now, and they're getting pretty long."
"Thank you, Russell." The psychologist looked like she meant it, too: a rare genuine smile ghosted on her face as she turned her head away. "How about you, Mandy? What's going on in your life?"
Russell leaned back as Mandy began telling of her week and allowed the words to wash over him like waves.
The nurse peered at the crude sketch of a figure in a long, green coat. "He looks very gentle."
Russell averted his eyes. "He was."
"Can I see the others?" When Russell made no protest, the nurse picked up the entire stack of drawings and began leafing through them. "She looks like an angel, doesn't she? ...oh, and these two are clearly siblings..." Her fingers stilled. "Wings and horns?"
"He was a Draken," Russell explained. "They mostly lived on Dragons' Peak up in the mountains."
"And this?" The nurse held out a sheet picturing a vaguely feline blob.
"That's a Cattie. They lived in Cloakpoint. It wasn't a fun place, but they did have a movie theatre."
"And this?"
One picture after another, Russell told the nurse about all the residents of his dream.
After he fell silent, the nurse set the papers back onto the table with care. "You have a great imagination."
"I do?"
"Absolutely. Have you showed any of these drawings to your psychiatrist?" She kept smiling as Russell shook his head. "Maybe you should try that."
"Maybe." His drawings were so terrible he would rather not have shown them to anyone. He'd allowed the nurse to give them a look only because she had walked in on him drawing, and because he still wasn't entirely sure she was a flesh-and-blood human and not a figment of his imagination.
"Think about it." And with that, the nurse left him alone with nothing but his sketches and his memories to keep him company.
The psychiatrist's eyebrow rose. "And what did you feel then?"
"Pain." Russell was almost certain Dreamsend Research had to have cobbled up some sort of a report of the events in his dream. Wouldn't the psychiatrist have read it? Why had Russell been asked to repeat everything he had done after the first injection, week after week?
At least he was finally done now.
"Anything else?"
"Guilt." It was the same as pain, really.
"Confessing your sins didn't ease you guilt?"
"No. I just figured that since I couldn't save anyone, I should at least be punished."
The psychiatrist always spoke gently, but his voice softened even further. "Do you still feel that way?"
"...I don't know."
After carefully scrutinising Russell's expression, the psychiatrist seemed oddly satisfied as he jotted another note down.
Russell stared at the alien landscape that was the outdoors.
He wasn't supposed to dawdle in the corridors, even with an escort, but the green-eyed nurse had said this particular part of the ward saw little use at the moment and that she'd take full responsibility. And so, he allowed the view of a concrete parking lot and a few black, shrivelled bushes to sink in, trying to remember what gratefulness felt like.
"What month is it?" he asked.
"January." The nurse tilted her head. "A new year."
"Where's the snow?" Snow was a real thing, wasn't it? He couldn't be so far gone he'd imagined its existence, could he?
"It'll come. It's just late this winter." She stepped over to Russell's side and bent her knees until her head was on level with his ear. "I thought I'd bring you here because there's something special I need to tell you. It's still a secret, so don't tell anyone." She lowered her voice even though no-one else was around. "You're going to be transferred to another facility."
Russell's eyes widened, and he turned to stare. "What?"
"Your psychiatrist decided you've made all the headway you can under these circumstances. He firmly believes you will respond better to a more therapy-focused treatment, and we don't have the resources for that here." The nurse was smiling as usual, but it was the same fake smile she had worn when he had first met her. "Honestly, I think it's a good thing. It's pretty far from here, but you'll get to spend more time with other kids your age and receive more care than we can give you. They might even have on-site art tutoring with any luck."
Russell couldn't respond, because quite unexpectedly, his blood had turned to ice. He clutched the windowsill with both hands as his mind tried and failed to reorient itself.
"This isn't right," he finally choked out.
It had been little more than a whisper, but the nurse had heard it anyway. "What isn't? I understand this must be a shock at first, but once you get used to the idea you'll—"
"No." An old wound had ruptured inside him, a jagged-edged gash that cut him down to the bone. "This isn't right because you're trying to help me."
As long as he'd been stuck in a small room, pretending he was dead, he'd been able to ignore the fact he was still most undeservedly alive. It had been a quiet purgatory, with the nurse's appearances and his ventures to the other rooms seeming like delusions, less real than anything in the dream world had been.
Now, they expected him to live again.
"Why shouldn't we help you?" The nurse's voice was far too gentle. Combined with the fact she was a real person after all, it was more than Russell could take.
He quickly spoke up. "Because I deserve death. That's what everyone said before the experiment, and nothing has changed. Just because I understand—"
He swallowed. He no longer saw any dreams, but the ghosts waited for him whenever he closed his eyes all the same.
"I should've died," he continued. "I shouldn't have been born in the first place. I definitely should die now."
"Russell..." There was no mistaking the pity in the nurse's voice.
Russell's eyes burned. "Why was I born?" He'd never asked the question out loud before, even when it had dominated his entire mind. He meant to continue, to ask what possible reason could the nurse have to assume he had survived for a reason, but before he could, the wound gushed out through his eyes, turning into water on the way. He rubbed his eyes angrily, but no tears actually sprang forth.
The nurse's hand was on his shoulder. "Sit down for a moment. You'll feel better."
Russell doubted it, but he allowed the nurse to guide him to a bench on the other side of the corridor and slumped down.
His hand rose to his throat. Despite the nurse's reassurances, the puncture wounds had scarred.
The nurse sat down next to him, looking unusually pensive. "Let's think about something else for a moment. Like that friend of yours who shows up every once in a while."
"Chris," said Russell.
"Yes, him. You want to see him again, don't you?"
"It doesn't matter. I don't deserve to live."
"And who made you the arbiter of that?" The nurse's smile made a sudden recovery that ended as soon as it had begun. "I still believe you have a future ahead of you, Russell. Maybe you don't see it yet, but you can do a lot of good in this world."
Russell listened on, not nearly digesting the words. It was a nice thought, he supposed, but of little use to someone rotten to the core like him.
"You don't believe me, do you?"
He didn't see the point of contradicting her.
"Well... In the end, only you can decide if your life's worth living or not." The nurse looked different without her customary smile. Older, and very tired. "Only... maybe you don't have to decide on it right now. It's a big decision, you know. It's easier if you do it one step at the time."
Russell raised his head and stared. "What do you mean?"
"It might be okay if instead of making an absolute decision, you focus on just today. Then, you can think about it again tomorrow and see how you feel about that day, too." She looked Russell directly in the eye. "You don't have to answer this out loud, but...is it okay if you keep living until tomorrow?"
It was more of a hypothetical question than anything, Russell mused. He had no immediate means of killing himself. They'd made sure of that.
Still... he had already lived for fourteen years longer than he deserved to. What was one day more?
"I guess," he finally said.
"Then you don't have to think about it today. It's tomorrow's problem." The nurse's smile re-emerged like sunlight peeking through the clouds. "Maybe you can instead use today to practice drawing. Did you already finish everyone from your dream?"
"Yeah..." Russell grimaced. He'd drawn everyone, sure, but so poorly he'd have to re-do all of them if he wanted them to reflect the true essence of the people in his dream even a little bit. No matter how many sheets of paper he went through, the pencils disobeyed his orders, and what emerged on the blank page was such a far cry from the images in his mind it was almost funny.
Only, it wasn't funny. Those people were just as dead as the people Russell had killed in the first place, and unlike the people in the real world, they lingered in his memories alone. As soon as he was gone, they'd be gone too.
They deserved a better fate than oblivion and ugly sketches coloured in crayons.
If Russell had the choice, he would've erased himself from history if it meant his victims could live. But that wasn't a choice. All that remained was attempting to create a proper record of them before he died, and so keep them alive in memory, or else forsaking them completely.
"We have to return to your room now," the nurse's voice came from somewhere far away. Russell snapped his eyes open. "Sorry you didn't get a longer break, but I have to go to a hearing and can't leave you out here alone."
"A hearing?"
"Oh." The nurse's smile didn't quite vanish, but it turned thin. "Don't worry about it. It has nothing to do with you." She re-summoned her cheer. "Let's go, then."
Wordlessly, Russell stood up and followed the nurse back to his room.
The next day. He'd think about it the next day.
The flower bloomed.
Russell stared at the white, down-turned blossom with narrow, delicate petals, for what must have been the second hour in a row.
The nurse had looked so pleased when she had found him with it. "I knew you could do it."
It was the last time Russell had seen her. For the past few days, the one to check up on him had been the indifferent nurse from when he had first been brought to the closed ward. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but he felt in his gut it wasn't. That hearing, whatever it had been, didn't seem to have ended well.
Still, the flower bloomed.
"It's a snowdrop. Do you like it?"
Russell rested his head against the table, unable to tear his eyes away from the flower until they shut on their own.
When he next opened them, it was in the early hours of the morning based on the scant light filtering in through the tiny window. The snowdrop was still there.
He couldn't remember any of it, but he had a distinct feeling he had dreamt that night.
The transfer came the following week.
He left his sketchbook behind. He could always get new drawing equipment, and his old attempts at depicting his dream were seared on his mind, anyway. He left the books and comics behind, too, even the gamebook, which he had ultimately never solved. Perhaps he could ask to have it back if he felt it mattered later.
In fact, he took nothing with him but the clothes on his back, and most importantly, the flowerpot, which he held against him with both hands as the two officials who had come to escort him marched him down the corridor.
The officials were both stone-faced and dressed all in black. He had an odd feeling they were the exact same pair who had escorted him to the Happy Dream Experiment, too, but he couldn't be sure.
The corridors outside the closed ward were narrower than he had expected, and far twistier. They walked past several rooms with windows facing the corridor, with staff members doing paperwork and chatting amongst themselves.
For a fragment of a second, Russell thought he saw the green-eyed nurse in one of the offices, wearing a cardigan and jeans instead of her uniform. He turned his head to look, but they had already marched around a corner.
Soon after, they entered what had to be the outermost lobby and walked to a pair of massive glass doors. The official to his left pushed the one on his side open, and Russell took his first tentative steps outside and walked down the marble white stairs.
At once, his senses were shaken awake by winter hitting them at full force. He blinked rapidly, unnerved by the sheer novelty of cold, fresh air, and shivering despite his new jacket. He drew the flowerpot closer to his body to supply some warmth to the snowdrop.
The official to his right noticed this. "Don't worry, kid. Those bloom when there's snow on the ground. They can deal with frost."
The official to his left snorted. "Since when were you a botanist?"
"My grandma grew them back in the day. Get in the car." The last part was directed at Russell.
Russell obeyed and sat down on the back seat. He carefully set the snowdrop next to him to put on his seatbelt, then peered through the darkened windows. The building they had exited was smaller than he had expected; the hospital itself, with its numerous buildings, stretched on as far as he could see at all sides. The clouds trailing the sky were grey, but bright, clean sunlight made its way through the cracks, dancing on the light dusting of snow covering everything in sight.
He closed his eyes, greeting the visions waiting for him like old friends.
The following day, he'd ask himself the same question he asked himself every morning. The following day, the answer he gave himself might be different.
But for now...
He picked up the snowdrop and held it close as the engine of the car blared to life.