Awakening

I awaken screaming my, body trembling, my heart sprinting, I throw myself upright. I manage to stifle my panic for when I look around I find im laying in a bed. I look around the room im in and find an empty bed beside mine. Sunlight shines through the open windows. A cool spring breeze brings fresh air into the building. The nightmares, they dont stop and havent for a long time. I look at a calendar in front of my bed. It reads March 2nd, 1924.

A bottle of pills sits on the night stand. I feel pain in my legs and I am soon reminded that I have none, only stumps below the knees are what remains. A Wheelchair sits beside me and I struggle to clamor in to it. After multiple unsteady attempts i eventual succeed. I roll my self out of the door and into the hallway. Sunlight blinds me from the multiple windows. My eyes adjust and I see men walking about and women scurry in nurses uniform. One nurse approaches me and sayes, Oh! good you are awake.", "How did the new meds work last night?". I smile faintly. I watch as a man bangs his head in to the wall, an orderly rushes to stop him. A few men mill about in wheelchairs. Days have turn to weeks in here, weeks into months, months in to years. All the while the nightmares continue. I see a sign hanging that reads, "Sunny View Asylum for the Insane". I hate it here. Ever since that day on the front, my life has been changed.

Doctors prescribe me so called miracle cures with a wide assortment of medications. Nothing helps, every night the nightmares return, every day I fear slumber. Shell Shock they call it. A soldiers disease.I watch sometimes as my roommate writhes in his bed at night, calling out to his long dead friends, he screams in horrible fashion for which the nurses have to give him a tranquilizer to sleep. If only I could be so lucky. Tranquilizers still bring the nightmares for me.

We have a recreation room though few of us patients here rarely visit. The ones who do often have eyes that seem to stare at an unforeseeable distant object for which I haven't a clue. Others talk to men who are not there, hallucinations are what the orderlies call them. Some men I watch as I roll about spontaneously burst in to tears. Orderlies try to tend to the poor souls but nothing can stifle their sobs. Its disheartening to watch.

May days pass and I find my roommate died in the night.Too much tranquilizer the doctor said. I will miss him greatly. He was my only ally in this wretched place. We would often postpone our sleep talking of our experiences in the war, our longing for the outside world, and a finally of our horrible nightmares neither one of us can be rid of. God how I hate this place! I long for my release! They tell me I cannot leave for I am too unstable they say.

One night I hatch my plot. I take the bottle of pills on my nightstand and with a large gulp swallow as many as I can. I lie there in bed longing for deaths sweet release. I feel my stomach tighten and burn, my chest aches with pain but I dare not cry out. I endure for suicide is painless and my great reward is worth enduring the immense pain I feel. My vision is encroaching to darkness.

My pain is unbearable but I do not cry. I am almost filled with excitement and dread. Excited that my torment will end and I will find peace. Dread for what if I don't find what I am looking for. My body turns numb and my vision fades away. This is it, the great unknown. Everything turns to black.