Chapter 3: Ally

Growing up by the ocean, Gloria was used to being woken by the cawing of seagulls in the mornings. Their grating sounds were always accompanied by a pleasantly sharp sea breeze, but today there was nothing but a damp odor.

For a moment, Gloria was disoriented.

Then she remembered.

Midnight Hollow lay in a dark valley, far from the shore. Tall mountains blotted out the sunlight for most of the day. The only nearby water was a large lake, so murky with algae that it looked black as ink.

The source of the cawing hadn't been gulls, of course, but a murder of crows flying by.

The lake had to be where the musty odor was coming from, Gloria reasoned. At least she hoped it was that.

Though, honestly, there was no way to tell.

Everything in this old building smelled mossy and moldy to Gloria.

The communal bathroom was no exception.

Gloria's bare feet felt every sharp edge where the cold tiles didn't line up evenly. She would need to find some slippers to wear, she thought, but for now she had no time to waste.

She knew there was only one functioning shower, and for once nobody else was in here.

Gloria gasped when a raised voice suddenly echoed through the room.

"Shut up," the pale girl screeched, her face almost touching the wall, "I hate you! You suck, you horrible piece of--"

Gloria was about to turn on her heel and leave silently when the girl noticed her. "Oh, the shower," the girl said, tucking a strand of her wildly disheveled hair behind her ear. "I'll leave."

"You don't have to," Gloria mumbled, "I can wait if you're... uh... using it." She glanced at the spot on the wall where the girl had directed her anger until a moment ago, but nothing about it stood out to her. In a bout of curiosity she asked, "What were you..."

"Ugh, just venting," the girl said. "I know it looks nutty, but sometimes it helps to let it out even if there is no one to yell at, you know? Besides, I'm already in the loony bin - might as well act like it."

Gloria looked at the pale girl and wondered if she had been too quick in her judgement. The girl was obviously lonely, and having met some of the other patients, Gloria could understand her eagerness to talk to someone new.

"I'm sorry about the other day," Gloria said, trusting that she didn't need to elaborate any further. "I'm Gloria, by the way."

"I'm Ally," the girl said, "Allegra. But I prefer Ally." Her entire demeanor still unsettled Gloria, but the friendly tone was reassuring.

"Ally then," Gloria smiled.

“So what’s your therapy goal,” Ally blurted out abruptly.

Immediately, Gloria was taken aback again. “Oh, it’s …" her voice trailed off. 'Isn’t that private?' was the first thought on her mind, but that was what had made their first conversation go wrong. She wasn't going to make that mistake again. "I'm supposed to paint and write," she said.

"Cool," Ally replied simply. “Mine is to be Leader of the Free World!”

Gloria stared at her in disbelief.

Ally kept an expressionless face for another moment, then burst out laughing. “Got you,” she snorted, “got you good, huh? Leader of the Free World! Like that's ever going to happen!”

Gloria tried a smile. “Heh, yeah…”

Ally's laughter died down slowly, but finally she wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and added more calmly, “Nah, I’m gonna be an astronaut.”

*

Gloria still wasn't sure what to make of Ally, but the simple thought of having one friendly face to turn to had given her a new sort of courage.

Like the rest of Midnight Hollow, the 'Sun Room' never saw much sun. It did, however, hold a good supply of canvases and several tubes of paint.

For a moment, the empty white surface before her was daunting. What was she supposed to paint? Her mind was as blank as the canvas. All her ideas just seemed stupid. She'd never been good at this. Why had she thought things would be different this time?

Gloria was about to drop her brush and do something else instead when she realized that, well, there was nothing else to do. She sighed.

It's okay, she told herself, this one won't be a masterpiece yet. And she laid down her first stroke.

"Whatcha paintin'," the gaunt man mocked in a childish voice, but Gloria didn't even hear him.

She smiled to herself as a lighthouse slowly began to materialize.

Blue for the ocean, yellow for the light. Red for the red stripes of the lighthouse, leaving the white ones blank. And then finally, Gloria managed to unscrew the top of the dried up tube of green to paint the grass.

She was putting down the colors in their respective areas meticulously, rubbing the brush back and forth, making sure to fill empty spaces as best she could. Sometimes the thick paint just wouldn't cooperate with the texture of the canvas, but Gloria persisted.

When she was finished, Gloria took a step back and frowned. All the colors she'd put down had made perfect sense to her. The ocean was blue. Grass was green. So why did her painting look nothing like what she had seen in her mind? It resembled the crude drawing of a child, nothing more.

Her first tentative attempts at writing felt equally clumsy.

"Music group," the nurse announced and promptly began strumming the strings of the old guitar in a haphazard way.

Discordant or not, the music seemed to draw in the other patients. The room filled up quickly.

Needless to say, their presence made Gloria uncomfortable. Trying to find the right words was difficult enough - having someone standing right behind her as she did so only made it worse.

She felt like all eyes were on her, piercing stares fixed on her back.

She tried to tell herself that she was just imagining it.

But eventually it was too much.

Gloria saved her text file, turned off the computer and slunk out of the room, careful not to attract any attention.

Meals, the nurse had explained, were up to the patients to prepare. It was supposed to keep them in touch with the real world, she had said.

As for Gloria, her real world experiences with kitchens had never included anything like this.

Everything was shabby, filthy, or both. A thin layer of greasy dust covered every surface. However, a viciously growling stomach wouldn't let Gloria ponder this.

She opened the fridge, selected a few reasonably fresh looking vegetables, and got to work.

Considering the mediocre tools and ingredients she'd had, the ratatouille turned out surprisingly good.

Things were okay. But whenever her mind strayed to the life she'd left behind or how she had gotten here in the first place, Gloria quickly forced her thoughts back on the present moment. One bite, then another.

The task of eating done, Gloria did the dishes. This kitchen certainly didn't need any additional dirt.

Focusing on the present moment became difficult when the only toilet in the building was occupied.

Really difficult.

This had probably been the biggest test of Gloria's willpower all day, but she stayed strong and persevered, making it in the nick of time.

The thin sheets on Gloria's bed felt just a little less scratchy that night.

Chapter 2: Introductions

"This must be the doctor then," Gloria thought as she came down the stairs the next morning. He was talking animatedly to a sullen young man and did not seem to notice Gloria as she walked by.

Well, she would meet him soon enough. Gloria let her gaze wander across the wood paneled therapy room. Framed certificates made out to a Dr Wayne Burroughs were displayed on the walls beside the brimming bookshelves.

A sudden voice from behind made Gloria flinch. "Well, hello there," the nurse chirped happily. "Take a seat, dear girl."

"The doctor is busy right now," the nurse explained, sparing Gloria the need to voice her question, "so I'll be conducting your first therapy session today." She paused, arranging the notepad beside her to be perfectly parallel to the table's edge. "Don't worry," she smiled, "I may not be a doctor, but I'm a trained professional nonetheless."

The nurse instructed Gloria to take the notepad and pen and write a simple sentence she dictated. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, Gloria wrote, over and over again.

"Writing gets the brain going," the nurse answered Gloria's unspoken question again. "It's a simple exercise, nothing more."

 Still, she took the sheet from Gloria's hand, folded it up carefully and tucked it away in a pocket.

 "So," the nurse continued, "time to start talking about your therapy goal. What is it you want out of life?"

Gloria was perplexed at this sudden, almost philosophical question. She furrowed her brows, pondering. She'd never really given much thought to this, just going along with whatever was expected of her.

The nurse took Gloria's silence as a refusal to answer. She frowned. "Come on," she said impatiently, "There has to be something. Everyone has a lifetime wish."

Genius though she was, Gloria had never been able to think clearly when put on the spot like this. However, in her current state of apathy, Gloria was not distracted by the nurse's piercing stare and suddenly came up with the answer. Perhaps it had been there all along, in the back of her mind, buried deep underneath past failures and lost hopes.

“I guess I always liked... I always wanted to..." Gloria cleared her throat, still searching for the right words, "paint... and write."

“Well then, that is your therapy goal,” the nurse exclaimed happily, not missing a beat.

“Huh?”

“You will be working on achieving that goal here. Your lifetime wish: Mastering the painting and writing skills. You'll be an illustrious author." The nurse chuckled briefly at her wordplay before continuing, "This is our patented therapy - patients work independently toward an established goal. Once you achieve your goal, you will be healed and released!”

'Mastering' the painting and writing skills? How could such a thing even be measured? And how on Earth was this supposed to fix anything? Gloria was bewildered at this obvious lack of logic, but had no chance to speak as the nurse continued to prattle on.

"You've seen the Sun Room, of course. That's where the easel is, and a computer for you to write on. You'll have to share them with the other patients, but I'm sure you'll manage."

As Gloria stared in stunned silence, the nurse shooed her out with a hand gesture. "What are you waiting for," she chirped. "Go, be creative!"

Gloria arose ponderously and made her way out of the therapy room.

The Sun Room, as the nurse had called it, was hard to miss. Only a few wooden arches separated it from the reception area, so the sounds from within echoed eerily through the entire building.

A broken vinyl record on an old gramophone repeated the same few notes over and over, in a fruitless attempt to keep on spinning.

Gloria's muscles tensed. All she could think of was stopping that unnerving sound. In her stride toward the gramophone she only just managed to dodge a rickety table with a house of cards balanced precariously on top.

 Gloria approached the gramophone. Like most sims her age, she had only seen these archaic machines in movies, so she had no idea how to operate one. She briefly considered asking the woman beside the gramophone for help, but she seemed too engrossed in the window to even notice the music, let alone someone seeking advice.

Gloria simply put her finger on the disc and pushed it gently, letting the small needle finally escape the deep scratch. It seemed to do the trick. The music continued and Gloria breathed a sigh of relief.

The woman, however, spun around in shock and stared first at the gramophone, then at Gloria.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Gloria said. "Were you listening to that?"

The woman tensed, sinking into herself and cowering like a cornered animal, Her red-rimmed eyes were widened in terror as her lips pressed into a thin line. She looked close to tears. It was a pitiful sight.

Gloria was aghast to have caused this much distress. "I-I'm really sorry. Really," she stammered. "I didn't mean to upset you. I... I can try to put it back to the way it was. Would that be okay?"

The woman's eyes were still fixed on Gloria, now brimming with unshed tears. 

Gloria decided to attempt a change of subject. "I'm Gloria, by the way," she said with a smile she didn't feel. When the woman remained silent, she prompted, "What's your name?" Silence.

"That's Cathy," a voice from behind announced. Gloria spun around. A tall, gaunt man with long hair was leaning against the wall. He displayed a row of bright white teeth in a boisterous grin that gave his unshaved face a manic look. Had he been there all this time?

Uncomfortable, Gloria turned back to the woman. "Oh, Cathy then. It's nice to meet you!"

This time, Gloria's weak smile was met with a scowl.

 The man behind her guffawed. "Chatty Cathy, that's what we call her. Get it? Dumb as a rock, and just as talkative. Chatty Cathy, chatty Cathy," he began to chant.

 Gloria stared at him in shock. She felt the blood drain from her face. When she got her bearings again, she quickly addressed the nameless woman, "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to call you--" But the woman had already walked off.

Gloria had too many problems of her own to worry about the other patients right now, she tried to tell herself. But this whole situation only reminded her too painfully of her own fragile feelings and how comments like these had hurt her in the past.

She needed to apologize and explain herself.

As Gloria turned to follow the woman, she bumped into the table behind her and felt her stomach clench when she saw the card house lean to one side. For a moment, it looked like its delicate balance was lost.

Miraculously, it remained standing. Gloria smiled to herself, glad that she hadn't ruined yet another patient's day.

"What are you doing," a deafening voice bellowed from behind her, "Get away from that!"

 Gloria stood frozen as the huge man boomed his anger at her. Most of his words were a jumble, but the message was clear: He was sick and tired of people messing with him and his things; and Gloria had better keep away from his card house, or else. It was intimidating, to say the least.

The gaunt man could barely contain his glee. He laughed and pointed, calling out comments that only incited the big man's rage even more.

Gloria ran.

She ran as fast as her feet would take her, up the stairs, not looking back to see if she was being followed.

Finally, she pushed open the metal door of her room and closed it firmly behind her.

This was going to be difficult.