NB: If you haven't already, please do check out the Prologue here:
https://steemit.com/writing/@penny-rose/rose-garden-sanatorium-prologue-updated
And Chapter 1 here:
https://steemit.com/story/@penny-rose/rose-garden-sanatorium-chapter-1-updated

Chapter 2

Taylor

Taylor woke bolt upright in a panic, sweat dripping down her face and back. She stared wide-eyed out into the darkness of her room trying to gather her bearings and calm her erratic heartbeat.

“What-?” she muttered to herself in the middle of the dark. Of course; she was alone. She was always alone. She preferred to be alone. So no one was there to hear her.

She rubbed her clammy face nervously and peeled her reddish brown hair off her forehead from where the sweat had made her hair damp and stick to her face. She noticed her back also felt hot and sticky from even more perspiration.

She span round to look at her phone, which was sat untouched on her dark brown and cheap bedside table resting next to the half-empty bottle of whiskey that she only bought on her way home after work. She ignored the bottle, too confused and disorientated to really care about alcohol at the moment and picked up her phone while her head swam. She pressed the button on the front of it and the room lit up from the screen. 22:11 flashed at her from the dark. With a groan of frustration, she threw herself back onto the bed. It was still Thursday night, it wasn’t even the morning yet.

She draped her long pale and thin arm over her forehead for a few minutes, going over the strange dream that had evidently woken her up. A strange horrific creature was laughing at her, large horns protruding angrily from his head, sharp yellowing teeth behind an evil grin, black leathery wings spread intimidatingly wide and a sharp tail wiping back and forth as if mocking her.

But as well as laughing that she could hear in that unusual dream, she could hear other voices; shouting, yelling, crying and screaming. The sounds pierced through her as if they weren’t coming through her ears but through her soul. It was mixed with a vague yet strange burning smell that she could almost still feel lingering in her nostrils.

She pushed the thoughts back and sat up slightly to grab the bottle of whiskey from the bedside table with a slight grumble and took a large swig. She had work in the morning and she already wasn’t looking forward to it. At least the whiskey would make it easier to bear for now.

She took another large swig of the liquor, replaced it on the bedside table and laid back down on her bed and closed her eyes, trying desperately not to think about the strange dream and instead focus on trying to sleep.

**

Taylor groaned and rubbed her face as she woke up from her rough night sleep, the morning sun slowly making its way up. Her head felt a little fuzzy and she was sure something had woken her up, something a little weird. But she just brushed it off as another strange dream, just like the first time she got woken up.

At least this time she knew it was the morning and she knew her alarm would go off at any minute; the sun was up. Although she didn’t feel quite awake. She felt like she could sleep for days.

She fumbled around on her bedside table and picked up her mobile to check the time, it flashed 05:33 at her a little too cheerily and she groaned again. In only two minutes her alarm was going to go off.

She let her arm fall onto the bed, her mobile phone still in her hand as she stared up at her ceiling, she aimlessly looking at the strange pattern as she tried to remember why she felt so tired. She knew why her head swam, that was because of the alcohol. It did that the morning after a long night drinking. She only drank in the first place because she didn’t sleep well the previous night. But the tiredness felt like she hadn’t slept again.

That’s when she remembered the dream. She frowned heavily as she tried to remember the details. The strange red and horned creature wasn’t hard to forget, but she was trying to remember other details. There was someone else there, but she couldn’t remember who it was, if she knew the person, if it was a man or a woman, or if it was another one of those creatures. But then, surely she’d remember if it was a creature?

She also remembered having a strange feeling when she woke up. That was what creeped her out the most. And it wasn’t just the feeling, it was the voices, the shouting, yelling, crying-

Suddenly her head came alive with voices and she gasped, bolting upright. They got louder and louder the more she thought of them until she closed her eyes almost instinctively and they suddenly vanished.

She frowned and opened her eyes out into the morning haze that was in her bedroom and wondered what that was all about? She remembered suddenly that that’s what had woken her up the second time. Voices. Strange voices that felt like they were coming from within her, rather than hearing them through her ears. She tried to think about what they were saying, trying to figure out what it meant? Did she hear any words?

Suddenly her head swam with voices again and she screamed, holding her temples and willing them to leave her alone. Just as quickly as they came, they went again.

She stared wide-eyed out into the strange normalness of her bedroom but jumped when her alarm went off on her mobile. She looked around and found her mobile alive with noise as if it was reminding her that there was real world outside of her craziness.

She pushed the thoughts about what happened back, deciding to find time to think about what just happened later and pushed herself up. She had a busy day ahead of her. She looked at the empty bottle of whiskey on her bedside table, realising that she had actually drunk the whole lot last night. Besides, if she got up now, she could make it to the corner shop before work. With an exasperated huff, she threw the covers off and pulled herself round to the edge of the bed. Her feet, which were still loosely in yesterday’s socks, hit the old cream carpet below her, it was a slightly comforting feeling and brought her marginally back to reality.

She sighed. Back to the grind of another work day. A job which she hated. A job to pay for a life she hated. But what other choice did she have?

She looked back at the empty bottle of Jack Daniels next to her bed. There was a glass next to it too. She had missed that the first time she looked. It was unusual for her to even bother with a glass. But she hadn’t meant to drink the whole bottle. She had thought if she got a glass, she wouldn’t drink the whole lot. Again. Clearly she was wrong. Again.

There was still a bit of the golden liquor in the glass. She sniffed and snatched the glass up in her shaking and clammy hand and downed it in a quick effortless flick. The welcoming warmth hit the back of her throat after the alcohol had made it to her stomach. When the short yet sweet experience was over, she slammed the glass down on the bedside table and reluctantly pulled herself off the bed to trudge to her bathroom, leaving the empty bottle and glass on the table, used and abused. A headache was already starting to form.

**

Only ten minutes later, Taylor stood in her compact kitchen, feeling refreshed and a little more awake. Although she was ignoring the headache. Probably a hangover. She grabbed a cereal box determinedly from the cupboard above her sink and poured the contents into a bowl that was sat on top of the kitchen counter top. The news playing in the background on her small and cheap flat screen TV which was sat lonely in the living-room. She watched it while shoving a large spoonful of cereal into her mouth and lent against the divide between the kitchen and her living-room.

She had managed to find some clothes after having a shower, changing out of yesterday’s shirt that she slept in. She was now dressed in yesterday’s simple black work trousers and a clean plain white t-shirt. It wasn’t a work t-shirt, it was actually an unused gym t-shirt. It was plain enough not to notice it was though. But just in case, she wore a black jacket over the top of it anyway. The jacket was well-worn, the colour was fading on the outside, the reminisce of the old dark black was seen around the pocket on the front and the sleeves were starting to fray where they were slightly too long, which she liked, as it kept her wrists warm. She seemed to always get cold, especially at work when the air-conditioning was always on, even during the winter.

She watched the news play while a frown steadily creeped onto her face. Something had caught her attention.

“A young man by the name of Samuel Chaudhary has been reported missing, his mother last saw him at six o’clock yesterday. He is reported to have gone out with friends after having dinner with his parents but has not returned home since. Samuel is twelve years old and may have been out with friends of the same age-” said the news reporter with a tight blonde bun and a sympathetic face that appeared to be just the right level of professionalism without looking upset at the report or too happy. Taylor hated that, seeing a news reporter that looked too happy when reporting bad news.

Taylor wondered what it would be like for that poor mother knowing that her son didn’t come home that evening. She wished she had a mother who would be worried about her own whereabouts if she went missing. What if she were to just pack a bag of essentials and disappear? Not show up at work. Not tell anyone she was leaving. Would anyone care? Her own mother had died a long time ago, a particular time of her life that she wasn’t too keen on remembering. And she had no other family. No father, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, not even grandparents. It was always just her and her mother. It wasn’t until recently that she started to wonder why there was no other family, it never occurred to her before that it was a little odd. Her hand automatically went up to the small scar on her cheekbone, a habit that she had only recently gotten into.

The news reporter moved on to the next piece of news, explaining that there was a strange sighting of a flying animal seen in the early hours of the morning. But Taylor snorted at the media hype of what was probably just an escaped parrot or something and turned off the TV. She remembered there was something like that that happened before and it turned out to be a large African Grey parrot, someone’s pet that had accidentally escaped and caused a bit of a stir.

After taking the last spoonful of cereal she placed the bowl lazily in the sink unwashed with the rest of the unwashed plates, bowls, cutlery and even a discarded pizza box from two nights ago and grabbed her work ID from the side. She had to leave early anyway, she needed something from the shop. Something which she was supposed to have left of last night if she didn’t drink the whole bottle. It was Friday today, she would need it after she got home. It was going to be a busy day.

**

Taylor sat slouched on her usual bus in a daze. The number 1a, which she caught from her usual bus stop at 7:05. She simply sat and stared out of the window, her face resting lazily in her hand, while her arm was resting on the side of the bus’s window frame uncomfortably, watching the pitiful world go by.

She watched a young woman attempting to walk down the road in the opposite direction the bus was travelling. A red faced screaming toddler squirming in his pushchair as the young mother apparently still half-asleep spoke into her mobile phone. Taylor wondered who she was talking to. A boyfriend? A friend? A work-colleague to explain she was going to be late for work yet again because her son didn’t want to put on his shoes again?

This led Taylor to wonder what everyone else in the world was up to. She wondered if maybe there were others out there that had lives more interesting than hers. Or at least lives they liked. Or did everyone else in the world get up every weekday, to go to a boring job, only to come home to eat and sleep, drowning their sorrows into a bottle of whiskey at the weekends? Although those days were starting to seep into the weekdays now. She wondered what her life would be like if things changed? What if she didn’t have to drink? What if-, her life had more meaning?

But before she had chance to daydream about what her life would be like if she didn’t have to work, didn’t rely on alcohol anymore and that she had a bigger greater purpose in the world, she felt a strange feeling resurface in her chest and she suddenly glimpsed someone walking unsteadily in an alleyway.

Luckily the bus slowed down for a set of traffic lights which had moved from amber to a rather definitive and resounding red and thus giving Taylor a direct view of the alleyway. She peered curiously out of the window and saw a strange person. He was wrapped up in some sort of fabric to keep himself warm. His slightly dark face looked sunken and in pain, dark circles framed his strange eyes. She would have just thought the poor guy was just a homeless person out on his luck looking like he had just resurfaced from a safe place to squat for the night. But those eyes didn’t sit well with her. They were too dark. Unnaturally dark. She wasn’t sure if what she saw was right, it must have been a trick of the light or something, because not only was he in slight darkness from the alleyway but it was another typically British cloudy day.

But just before the bus jerked forward again to continue past the now green traffic lights, knocking Taylor’s elbow off the window edge and breaking her eye contact, the man managed to look right at Taylor. His face furrowed into a curious frown as if he somehow knew she had been there watching him. Those dark eyes weren’t just dark, they were completely pitch black.

What was also curiously interesting, was that not only did the man have strange pitch black eyes, which she realised were exactly like the eyes of the creature in her dream last night. But she realised that feeling was the same feeling she had in her dream too. A feeling she couldn’t quite explain, it was just there in the depths of her being. It was like trying to explain that she heard voices, but they didn’t come to her ears, but from within. So was the feeling.

Suddenly a mixture of voices came into her head again, just like they did in the morning. She gasped and closed her eyes tightly and pointlessly shut as the inside of her head came alive with a mumbling and muffling mess of sounds. She knew it was talking, but she couldn’t make out words let alone sentences. She held her hands to her temples and groaned, the more she thought of them, the louder they got.

“SHUT UP!” she yelled suddenly. Her voice reverberating in her ears. The voices stopped. She was left with dead silence again. Only the hum of the bus’s engine and the surrounding traffic was heard. No talking.

She blinked and looked up, seeing a few faces curiously staring at her from their seats around her. Of course, the voices were in her head, no one else could hear them.

‘Am I going mad?’ she thought to herself as she deliberately diverted her attention to the outside world once again, but noticing a few people still staring at her curiously. Even the bus driver was looking in his rear-view mirror to see what the fuss was about.

She sighed and took out the bottle of alcohol that she had bought from the shop that morning, she had told herself she wasn’t going to take even a sip until she was home and could finally relax. But it didn’t take her a lot to convince herself she needed a sip. Ignoring the strange look she was getting from a young girl in the seat on the other side of the bus, Taylor unscrewed the cap and took a large swig of the calming liquid.

---

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Feel free to check out my other work here:

I fell in Love with a Psychopath
Read Chapter 1 here:
https://steemit.com/writing/@penny-rose/i-fell-in-love-with-a-psychopath-chapter-1
Read Chapter 2 here:
https://steemit.com/fiction/@penny-rose/i-fell-in-love-with-a-psychopath-chapter-2

Ender's Love
Read Chapter 1 here:
https://steemit.com/writing/@penny-rose/ender-s-love-chapter-1-warning-strong-language
Read Chapter 2 here:
https://steemit.com/fiction/@penny-rose/ender-s-love-chapter-2

It's My Mistake
Read Chapter 1:
https://steemit.com/fiction/@penny-rose/it-s-my-mistake-chapter-1-updated

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