One minute I was in the Act room, the next I was returning to a nightmare. My mind and body had become too weak to resist the memories. And the psychosis fed on my trauma.
I write these memories in the present tense because that's the way I relived it. Each memory felt like I was back there again — reliving every excruciating, harrowing detail. And I want you to do the same.
This time, it was a nightmare I'd lived at six years old. A wardrobe, my sister screaming, my brother crying, and a monster in the house that resembled a man I no longer associate myself with.
Skip this chapter if you feel uncomfortable.
Unfortunately for me, I couldn't skip it.
I don't know how long I've been in this wardrobe.
There's no clock. No light. Just the smell of shoeboxes, old coats and jackets that I'm squished between, and varnished wood.
My legs are aching. I can't sit down. My fingers and toes have gone numb. My breath is quiet because if they hear me, he'll find me.
And if he opens the door, I'll be next.
My sister told me not to make a sound. She closed the doors herself, knelt in front of me and whispered, "Don't move, okay? Just be quiet. No matter what you hear."
I didn't understand what she meant until the yelling started.
The walls shake when he shouts — not literally, but it feels like they do, like the whole house is rattling. The air gets thicker. Harder to breathe.
I cover my ears with my palms, but it doesn't help.
I hear glass break downstairs. A thud. Then a high-pitched scream. Not Amber.
Mum.
The sound makes me gasp. My hand flies to my mouth. I'm shaking. My legs feel like they're about to snap.
I can hear my mum being thrown around the living room. Her scream only lasts a second and then she goes quiet. She always goes quiet after the first hit.
Our baby brother starts crying. I can hear him crying for her, for it to stop.
My stomach twists. I want to be sick, but I can't. I don't want him to hear me retching.
A door slams, close this time. The door at the bottom of the stairs.
Footsteps. Heavy footsteps up the stairs, two at a time, and a pair of smaller, quicker feet running after him.
"Emily! Fucking show yourself, you coward!" His voice booms through the house.
Amber's voice is louder now. She's begging our father to stop. I can hear the desperation in her voice, but she's not crying. She never cries in front of him — that's one of her rules: never show weakness, it only fuels him.
Another sound. A sharp smack. Amber yelps.
I bite my hand to stop the scream that wants to escape. My teeth sink into the skin above my thumb, while my eyes burn with unshed tears.
It goes quiet again.
Has he stopped? Is it over? Is he still at the top of the stairs?
Thud.
Something hits the wall.
I can't hear Amber anymore.
The tears in my eyes start falling, rolling down my cheeks and over my hand.
I stay silent, my ears straining to hear his heavy breathing, my sister's voice, or footsteps on the landing.
And then — he comes into the room I'm in.
My heart stops. I hold my breath.
A long silence.
Just when I think I'm safe—
The wardrobe doors swing open.
There he is. My father.
I don't even register the look on his face. My screams follow me as I bolt out between his legs before he can catch me. I fly down the stairs, screaming and crying.
Amber rushes after me.
The monster follows too. His boots slam on each step as he yells at us.
In the living room, I run past Mum who's sat on the couch, cradling Alex in her arms. She looks terrified but unable to move. Alex is wailing too loud, like an apocalyptic siren.
In the kitchen, I have nowhere to go. In a split-second decision, I desperately clamber into the empty cupboard under the sink — the space just big enough to fit my tiny 6-year-old body. I quickly shut the doors and hold my breath, trembling violently.
Amber howls at him furiously. I can almost see her standing protectively, a human shield between him and this cupboard.
I caught a glimpse of her face before. Her nose is bleeding. There's a cut on her eyebrow. Her yellow school shirt is torn at the collar like he grabbed it.
I wait.
And wait.
And wait...
Eventually, the screaming stops.
The front door slams.
He's gone.
My body jolted upright as I woke from the nightmare, breathing erratically and shaking, but the second I moved to sit up, pain struck. Quick and blinding. I let out a cry through clenched teeth. The movement had pulled something out of my arm. My back hit the bed again, hard, as my body gave out.
That's when I noticed the wires. Thin leads ran across my chest, tucked under the gown I hadn't been wearing before. A cannula in the crook of my left arm had been ripped out in the panic — blood now dripping down my elbow. Something tugged at my fingertip; a pulse oximeter. Just under my nose, a thin plastic tube looped around my cheeks. Oxygen. Cold and dry, hissing faintly.
I was in a hospital bed.
Not the Act room. Not the cell. Not the hallway.
The walls were off-white. A blue curtain was pulled halfway around me. The machines beeped fast to my right, matching my racing heartbeat. IV lines feeding fluids into my veins. Monitors and sensors all over. A thin blanket covered me, tucked tight around my legs.
"She's awake, get me another cannula," a female voice said to my left as she pressed gauze to the new injury.
A pair of nurses stood next to the bed.
One of them stepped back, getting equipment. The other checked a small machine and held my arm. I couldn't see their faces.
They were talking in English but it sounded all garbled and clinical — "BP's elevated—151 over 92," one said. "Heart rate's 118. She's tachy."
"Titrate the midazolam down by half," the other responded. "And hang a new bag once this one's done."
Their words barely registered. Too medical, too detached. Like I was a case study, a list of numbers and symptoms.
They both wore sage green scrubs, masks covering their faces, hair hidden under matching caps. They didn't look at me. Just my stats. My arm. My blood. I was a task.
The nurse closest to me adjusted something on the monitor, and the beeping slowed slightly. "Let's clean this up first," she said to the other, who returned with a new IV line, still in its packaging.
The one beside me met my eyes briefly then. Her gaze was calm, unreadable. "You pulled out your cannula," she said, voice flat but not unkind. "You'll feel a pinch, okay?"
I flinched when she swabbed my arm with alcohol. "Try not to move this time."
I didn't. Couldn't. My limbs suddenly felt like they were dipped in lead.
She slid the cannula into the vein with practised ease. Tape, flush, connect. Cold fluid pushed through the line and into my bloodstream.
I turned my face away.
A third figure stepped into view then. A male, taller, not wearing a mask, and vaguely familiar as a face I'd seen once before.
Dr. Sam.
I looked up at him and groaned, more in confusion than frustration, and he offered a calming smile. "Hi, Emily. I hope you're feeling better."
I tried to speak but nothing came out. My throat felt raw and shredded like someone had taken a cheese grater to it.
"You don't have to talk," he said. "You've been unconscious for about two days. You needed to be heavily sedated. We've kept you under to ease the pain and let your body rest."
He moved closer as the nurses turned away, and I could see him more clearly now. Slicked back light brown hair. Tired brown eyes with soft wrinkles at the corners that made him seem older than he was. A grey shirt under a pristine white coat, sleeves rolled at the cuffs, and a stethoscope draped around his neck.
"You're in the East Wing," he explained. "The institution's medical ward."
I tried to nod, but even that hurt. He seemed to notice.
"You're being monitored closely — for physical injuries and... psychological episodes. I take it you had one just then before you woke up... Am I right?"
'Episodes. Right. So that's what they're calling them now. Might as well say I'm fucked,' I thought, bitterly, and I would've said it if my mouth wasn't so dry. I hummed slightly in response.
"Tyler made the call," he continued. " He wanted you put in recovery. Your psychosis appears to be getting worse."
Tyler?
"He wanted your recovery supervised. Closely. He was, uh... concerned."
Concerned?’
He and that word didn't relate in my head. I almost laughed, but it caught in my throat like broken glass.
Dr. Thorne didn't push it. He didn't ask questions, didn't stare. Just watched me with quiet empathy. There was no hunger in his eyes, nor anger, nor tension. Just patience.
He glanced at the nurses. They nodded.
"We'll be with Mr Choi in bay 12. Call if you need anything," one of them said before stepping away.
Sam looked back at me. "We're not enemies in here, Emily," he said, brushing a stray hair from my forehead, tenderly but not creepily. "You can rest safely. That's all you need right now. I'll be back later to check on you, okay?"
And then he was gone, footsteps soft as he followed the nurses out.
I must've drifted again. The next time I opened my eyes, it was darker. Nighttime.
My gaze moved sluggishly, tracking across the ceiling before settling on the far wall. There, hanging slightly crooked, was a clock. A real one. Analog, black numbers against a cream face — the kind you'd find in a school hallway or a waiting room.
02:17. Afternoon or night, I didn’t know.
I stared at it, wide-eyed. Something about the sight of it felt unreal. It ticked, slowly, like a metronome but more... comforting. Somehow, that made me want to cry. Emotion formed a lump in my throat, but I swallowed it down.
I had no idea what day it was, never mind the month. Could've been November. Could've been January. Could’ve been June. The last date I remembered with any clarity was sometime in October, right before that night at the club. Right before Tyler. Before I lost everything...
A sound broke the thought. A faint cough, almost apologetic, from somewhere to my right.
I turned my eyes and saw a nurse sitting at a desk with a file on her lap. She was reading, occasionally writing something down. There was a warm lamp providing just enough light, casting a dull glow across her face and the walls, everything bathed in orange.
I wanted to speak — to ask where I was, what day it was, what had happened — but the effort was too great. My throat felt thick, and my tongue refused to move. Even moving a finger felt like trying to lift a steel beam. I was awake, but only just. My body wasn't ready to follow me yet.
I just lay there, barely breathing, surrounded by the low hum of machines. The monitors to my side beeped in slow, steady rhythms of artificial reassurance.
My arms were wrapped in thick gauze and I couldn't feel the cuts anymore. Numbness had spread like ink in water. That meant the drugs were working, but I wasn't sure if I liked that or not.
The nurse flipped a page in the file with a quiet rustle. Her pen scratched across the paper. She didn't speak.
So I closed my eyes, not out of exhaustion, but because consciousness felt too heavy, like trying to swim across the ocean, wearing heavy clothes, without a life vest, blindfolded. And the tide pulled me under again.
When I resurfaced, it wasn't by choice, it was sudden.
Not a memory — movement. Multiple voices and controlled chaos. The scrape and squeak of gurney wheels and curtain rings clattering. Sharp instructions spoken low and fast.
The overhead light was switched on, bleaching the room in harsh white, blinding me for a moment.
A silhouette moved on the other side of the curtain. Then three more. Voices overlapped.
"Patient 231196, unresponsive upon arrival. Resp rate's unstable. GCS three."
"BP's crashing. 90 over 65—"
"He's cyanotic! Get that tube back in—"
Something metallic hit the floor. I flinched. I couldn't see through the curtain, but I could hear everything. The suction, the hiss of oxygen, the urgency. A short burst of electric whine and a defibrillator.
"Clear!"
Bang.
"Clear!"
Bang...
"Clear!"
I stared at the ceiling, frozen, barely blinking. 'Come on, stay with us...'
A long, unnatural stillness.
The kind that follows failure.
The kind that doesn't need to be named...
Flatline.
Then Dr. Thorne, tight with emotion, "Time of death - 6:34 am."
And then someone whispered: "Tyler's gone too far. That's the third one this month."
The words sank like stones in my stomach. I turned my face slowly toward the curtain, even though I couldn't see past it. I stared anyway. Past the edge of the fabric, past the machines and wires, past the wall.
The other monitor stopped beeping, quietly unplugged.
Now, only my own monitor filled the room, steady and persistent — a reminder that I was still alive.
That man had been alive when they brought him in. And now he wasn't. Just like that. No name. No final words. Just numbers on a chart and a flatline.
I didn't want to think about what he might've seen last. Whether he'd endured another Act. Whether the last face he'd seen had been Tyler's. Whether he'd been scared. Whether he'd been like me.
I listened to the silence that followed, the rustle of the curtain as they drew it fully closed. A zipper. A wheeled gurney.
The room emptied, the man wheeled away. But the echo of those words stayed in my head long after they'd left.
'Tyler's gone too far.'