Chapter 6
Chapter Six
“Finally!” I exclaim, wrapping my arm around my twin brother’s shoulder, “Freedom at last.”
“Will you stop! We do not actually have our freedom. We have traded one prison for another,” he says, somewhat mournfully.
“We lost our minds in that ward, brother. At least in this one, we get to keep our heads.”
He sighs deeply, and I can see how much being in Ward D has affected him.
Ward D is also referred to as the ‘rabbit hole’ because we lose ourselves down there.
They keep us drugged to ensure compliance and, ninety percent of the time, restrained to the bed by a fabric handcuff.
I had a little more freedom – no cuffs, and was only occasionally sedated when Nurse White would be visiting.
The rabbit hole still took its toll on me; the isolation was suffocating, and the silence from Dusty when I managed to sneak into his room at night nearly pushed me to the brink of insanity.
My mind was lost because I did not have my brother, left in my own company, but Dusty was trapped in a drugged state, and I hate that I couldn’t save him.
“Desmond,” Dusty sighs.
“Yeah?”
“What time is it?” he asks, a hint of desperation in his tone.
I search the hallways for a clock, but I see none, and I do not want to give away the one I have wrapped around my ankle.
“I don’t know, but I’m sure there’s a clock up ahead.”
“We’re going to be late,” Dusty says rather frantically, “We can’t be late.”
“We won’t be late, and there is no rush. I promise you,” I say.
Dusty moves forward, the guards trailing behind us at a leisurely pace. His movements are sluggish, and I’m thankful that they do not rush him .
I played cards with the two guards behind me, gaining favours over the years, but I couldn’t save my twin – no matter how many favours I garnered.
The weight of that failure sits heavily on my chest, and guilt threatens to eat me alive.
“I’m tired, brother,” Dusty yawns, and I let him lean against me as we walk.
“I know, and once we get to the new ward, you can sleep off these godforsaken drugs, and you’ll be as good as new,” I tell him, keeping my arm wrapped around his waist.
One of the guards behind me scoffs a laugh, and I turn my head to glare at him over my shoulder.
I may have acted friendly with them in order to try to save Dusty from the torment of Ward D, but I would burn Wonderland to the ground if given the chance.
We reach the doors, and the once pristine white walls and red diamonds are lackluster from years of neglect.
We are forgotten down here in the rabbit hole, left to rot because they can’t be bothered with us.
Solitary confinement is just below us, and somehow, they are treated better than we are.
“Names?” the guard at the door asks, and my brother and I smirk at each other.
“I’m Desmond, and he is Dusty,” I say.
“Or am I Desmond, and he is Dusty?” Dusty says .
“Or are you Dusty, and I am Desmond?”
“Maybe you are, and maybe I am not.”
“What on earth are you both blabbing about? Who is who?” the guard raises his voice, irritation at our antics evident.
“Does it matter who we are? One is Desmond, and the other is Dusty.”
“It matters because we need to know where to put each of you.”
Fear grips me, and I see the same panic on Dusty’s face, which is almost identical to mine.
If they separate us, we will lose our minds, only having each other when others did not want us.
Dusty has always been my anchor, abandoned by our parents here and left with only each other.
The thought of being torn away from him again, but this time not being able to see him, is unbearable.
“But you cannot!” I speak out loud, so unlike me.
You should never show your hand before you have dealt it, and yet here I am, showing them that they can use Dusty against me—he is my only weakness in this horrible place.
“But we can. So, names? I will not ask again.”
“Dusty,” he sighs, pointing his finger towards his chest, then to me, “Desmond.”
I stay silent, and when the guard presses the button to release the doors, I’m moving forward before they have even begun to open .
The guards follow us but continue to keep their distance until we enter our new ward.
“Are we being kept together?” Dusty asks.
“You can thank the warden for that one, but yes, you have a shared room with an ensuite,” the second guard says, nodding his head for us to continue forward.
The hallways seem to bend and twist up here, and even the guards accompanying us seem to lose their way a few times, but finally, we reach our room.
A piece of paper is stuck to the door with Sellotape, and I smile at the all-too-familiar writing that decorates it.
“Is that?”
“It is.”
“I did not know…”
“Me either, but let’s go,” I say, pushing open the door and heading into our first shared room since we got here.
The rabbit hole only had single rooms, but beds were pushed against a joint wall, and we could sometimes talk through it when Dusty wasn’t drugged up to his eyeballs.
The guards don’t stick around to chat, having done their job of escorting us here. They turn and leave the moment we are both in the room, leaving us to figure out this new ward on our own.
At least we have each other .
Dusty falls into his bed, not even sparing a glance at the rest of the room, and his snores soon fill the space.
I chuckle but know that he needs this – what I need is a shower.
There are few options for what door in this room could lead to the ensuite, and when I open the door to the bathroom, I marvel at the space we are giving up here.
It’s spacious, bigger than the measly one down in the rabbit hole, and the walk-in shower looks like it has enough room for more than two people to stand inside of it.
There’s soap and shampoo provided, and I practically weep when I see that the temperature isn’t capped like it was down there.
Turning the water to scalding, I submerge myself under the hot stream and sigh blissfully as I feel the years of grime from never feeling clean enough wash off of my skin.
“Des?” Dusty’s concerned voice, heavy from sleep, comes from the room, and I curse myself for disappearing without warning him.
“In the bathroom!” I call back, and his shuffled footsteps echo into the tiled room.
“I thought…”
“I know, but I couldn’t resist showering off from being down there, y’know?”
“Keep the shower on for me? I feel gross, too,” he says .
Dusty turns to the sink, rummaging around in the cabinet underneath, and pulls out two toothbrushes and toothpaste.
He wastes no time scrubbing his teeth, repeating the process twice more before he finally slumps against the counter, “They still feel gritty.”
I reach for the towel and step out, “Shower and see if that helps; if not, we’ll do laps around these corridors until you get tired.”
“Thanks, Des,” he sighs and jumps straight into the scalding water, sighing blissfully, much like I had.
I change into joggers and a striped t-shirt, preparing myself for a night of laps to tire Dusty out from the thoughts that plague his mind. Otherwise, he gets lost in them, scrubbing his arms raw from the phantom pains of needles penetrating his skin.
The rabbit hole fucked us both up, and I just hope that being on the top level of Wonderland helps us both.
“I…” Dusty says the moment he emerges from the bathroom, his arms scarlet from how hard he’s scrubbed.
I stand, holding out matching clothes, and he smiles, taking them and getting changed.
“Come on,” I say, holding the door open.
The long, seemingly never-ending hallway is dark, but thankfully, there aren’t many other patients out as we emerge from our room. I bask in the comfort of being next to my brother as we walk—no talking needed.
I hope the top level of Wonderland is different from the rabbit hole. I don’t think we could survive it again.