It's happened again, Esther thought to herself as she felt the familiar feeling creep in. As usual, her vision began to blur and images swirled around in her vision until it all went blank and everything abruptly became still as her vision returned.
Her surroundings hadn't changed since the devils found her, a sterile white room with hints of gray in the form of the bars on her windows. She would never believe the lies the men in the white coats kept telling her, they said she was crazy for seeing things but she knew they were the crazy ones for not seeing what was so obvious.
The white coats trooped in again with their leader holding the syringe that contained liquid peace, but the voices didn't like that and they shrieked in her ears. Esther knew that to make the voices stop, she had to get them out of her head and this she did by repeatedly bashing her head against the wall. The white coats ran to overpower her, but she was like a woman possessed, the voices gave her strength, until she felt the prick in her arm and saw the liquid peace enter her bloodstream through the syringe.
Esther couldn't move, her mind was blissfully blank but she still kept her eyes opened as she heard the white coats enter the room next to her and the male occupant begin to scream at them before he went silent. It was because she couldn't move that she couldn't raise the alarm when a figure walked into her room through the wall between her room and her neighbour.
It was a little girl with her hair in rough braids, then it became a woman with her hair shaved off on one side, then it was the little girl again, the figure sat down on the chair beside her bed and began humming, only pausing to stroke her hair every now and then. Esther was terrified, and the girl knew it, the girl leapt up, visibly agitated by Esther's demeanour.
"Esther don't look so glum, you know who I am. I have always been a part of you, helping you, pushing you, talking to you. I am known by many names, but you, Esther, you can call me Madness. Because you're finally unable to resist the cold seductive lure of Madness"
After her speech, Madness sat down again and continued to stroke Esther's hair and mumble garbled words in her ear. Esther was trapped, unable to move or scream for help when the attendant came in to check in on her, she could only try to plead with her eyes, but all the attendant saw was a mad woman staring at her with spittle dribbling down the corner of her mouth.
The attendant all but ran out of there, unnerved Madness. by the crazy woman in the bed, and left her there that night. Alone. With Madness. And that was when Esther began to accept the sweet comfort of Madness.
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