The Voice In Her Head

First Day

I don't know why I chose this job. I don't know why I went for the job interview. I mean, obviously it was for money, but did I really need this job? A psychologist at an insane asylum? I've been a child psychologist before, but this is different. This place displays something different. Were they even human there? After what has been done to them, what they did to themselves, and what they had done to others? Are they even human? What they acted like towards me... Some of them were in the corner, rocking back and forth, some were pacing back and forth, some were having outbursts, some were writing things on the wall in what seemed to be blood, some were laughing hysterically. It was creepy as hell to be honest.
But there is no going back now, I guess.
Me? I'm Audrielle. Audrielle McKay. I'm almost twenty-one, and as has been stated, this is my new job. I'm starting it on Monday, tomorrow. And trust me, I'm not excited.
They told me during the interview that I would be assigned a certain patient for daily care. I would be checking up on a few others every now and then if I was told to, but other than that, I would stay with a certain patient. I know nothing about this patient except for the fact that they will be under my care. I don't even know the gender. I can only guess, with how the patient was described, that it's a her. I don't know "her" age, and I don't know any problems of "her's". And so that's what I am figuring out tomorrow.
I would sleep tonight, but it keeps getting interrupted by flashbacks of what I saw. Oh, and another thing, I did not see my patient. She's a new one, and she was kept in a different hallway for newbies. I was apparently not allowed to see that hall until the actual first day, so that's that. Anyways, every time I fell asleep, I woke up just a little bit later, thirty minutes or so, from some sort of flashback. So it was a restless night.
The next morning, though, I got myself ready. Put some food in my system, then got dressed in the scrubs they had given me. The only thing good about it was that it was comfy. As I headed for the place, I gained butterflies in my stomach. It was creepy back there, I didn't exactly want to work there. I mean, I could back out at any moment. But I'm not going to. Gotta be stronger than that, am I right? I pulled into the concrete parking lot, got out of the car, took a long deep breath, and went inside.
I walked to the receptionist and before I could say anything, she looked at me and said, "You're Audrielle, right? Here for the job?"
"Right," I replied.
"I'll show you to your patient, I know exactly where you'll be at." She lead me down a hallway without any cells, not the same place I went the other day.
"How do you know all this, may I ask?"
"We don't have many people applying for the job, obviously. So I know everyone who applies here, and I know where they'll be at too."
She went through double-doors, onto another hallway, no cells yet. She then handed me a clipboard with a pen attached to it and a blank piece of paper on it that I didn't even realize she had picked up to begin with. She also handed me a key.
"Today, you'll be just bonding with your patient. Put down any specific notes you'd like to remember here. The key is for you to get into the cell."
"Alright, thank you." We went through another double-doors, and she stopped.
"Look for cell 9A. Your patient will be in that one."
"Alright." She left me then to go back to her desk, and for me to find 9A.
I walked down the hallway, trying not to look at everyone and only at the numbers above the cells.
"Hey, wait." A voice called.
I turned my head in the direction of it, 4A.
"Please, get me out of here. I don't belong here, I really don't." He said, desperate.
"That's not my job. I can't help you out, buddy."
"Damnnit, help me break out or something. I have a friend to get back to. And I don't know what's going on back there, I need to help him out with the shit we have on our hands."
"Look, if I wasn't going to get fired for helping you, I just might. But it's my first day, and I do not want to get fired on the first day. I can talk to you later though. I'm Audrielle, and you would be?"
"It's Vince, and hopefully you'll change your mind soon, Audrielle. I have bad things going on at home, and getting out of here, I might be able to get answers for what is happening to us."
"Answers? Alright, look, I'll get back to you later on today, okay? I have something to attend to for now."
"But... Alright." He looked down and turned away, obviously sad.
I can't let him bring me down though, I'm sure many people here will act like that. I then headed for 9A, and once getting there, I noticed a girl inside. Just like a suspected. She seemed younger than me, for sure. She instantly looked at me.
"Hi," she said softly. "I guess y-you're my... nurse."
"I am. May I come in?"
"Y-you..." she stopped for a moment. "Yes, you may."
I unlocked the door, went in, and closed it behind me.
"You may sit there." She motioned to a wooden chair that looked old but sturdy. I sat down and she sat on her bed.
"So, I'm Audrielle. You can call me Audri. And you are?"
"I... Hi Audi. I hope you don't mind if I forget the 'r'. I'm... Jain. Yeah, Jain." She seemed unsure of her name, like she didn't quite know it.
"I don't mind. It's nice to meet you, Jain." I wrote down her name. "How old are you?"
"I think... I'm fourteen or fifteen..." Once again, unsure. She played around with her pink hair shyly. I wrote that down.
"Are you not sure?"
"No, I don't really remember. I've been occupied too much to r-really remember..."
"Occupied? How so?"
"It's this... th-thing. It's in my head, a-and no one believes that he's there. But he talks to me. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's bad. I-I like him when he's nice and funny and silly."
"Does he have a name?" I was actually interested by him.
"Yeah. I-It's Mark, but he usually doesn't go by that."
"What does he go by?"
"He goes by..." She went dead silent for a little bit. While she thought, I wrote down "person in head, good and bad, Mark".
"He doesn't want me to tell you." She finally told me.
"Why not?"
"It might blow his cover."
"Oh, okay. I can respect that." I added to my last point "goes by something else, cannot be told or else cover blown".
"Thank you. Do y-you believe he exists?"
"I do believe he exists. I mean, he talks to you, doesn't he? He has his own personality, right? How would he not be real?" I had always believed that voices in people's heads existed. Mark must have been one.
"You're the first person to say that. Th-thank you. Mark thanks you too."
"Tell him he's welcome, and that whoever doesn't believe in him is an idiot."
"I will." She paused, in thought, probably telling this "Mark". "He's happy." She smiled. And it wasn't a creepy one. It was a kind smile. A cute smile.
I wrote in all caps, but not big nor blocky, "MARK IS REAL, YOU IDIOTS".