Nillium Neems

Copyright © Francisco Jose
Ruiz 2015

All characters in this book
are fictional. Any resemblance to real people is purely
intentional
coincidence.

All rights reserved. No part of this book
may be copied or reproduced without the author’s express
permission.

Day 1

Hi! My name is Nillium
Neems. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it? I know it
doesn’t for me. If it had been
my
choice, I would have been named something cool
like Sasha or Tanya. Something exotic. But, I guess that’s parents
for you. They just have no idea what kind of name a girl really
wants. They always settle for something lame, or at best,
average.

Not that I ever knew my parents that well.
I’ve been in and out of mental institutions since I was four years
old. Mainly ‘in’ since the brief periods of ‘out’ consisted of me
being released, celebrating my freedom, and then doing something
crazy to get right back in again. Often times before I’d even left
the institution grounds.

Never was it my parents who came to pick me
up either. They gave up on me by the third time I’d been committed
and had by all accounts, officially disowned me. Every time I’ve
been released since, which are becoming fewer and fewer, it’s
either been some state provided caretaker who has come to get me,
some would be foster parent, or no one at all. The doctors at the
ward, or as I call it, Home, have actually been so callous as to
lead me to the exit, wish me good luck in a weary voice with a
shake of their head, and then walk off. Leaving it to humble little
me to find my own means of transportation, not to mention somewhere
to stay.

So here I am, twenty years old if memory
serves me correctly, which is doubtful, and I’ve spent most of my
life inside of Atrium Psychiatric Ward. Yay... I’ve learned the
system inside out, been subjected to more drugs and forms of
‘treatment’ than I would care to count, and am probably damaged
beyond repair. Not that I wasn’t to begin with, since there’s
obviously something very wrong with me to have been put here in the
first place.

Although, that brings me to the odd bit in
my little introduction. I really have no idea why I’m here... They
say I’m crazy, but I don’t really know why. Supposedly I have
schizophrenia, because of all the things I claim to see, but I know
they’re real. I know what I saw, and that’s the end of it as far as
I’m concerned, even if I did kill that man. Well, more than one
man, but they weren’t really men at all. But enough of that line of
thought, let me get back to the main point.

The reason I’m writing
this, is because I’m lonely. I have no friends here, since they
don’t like us interacting with each other, and the few people (I
use that term loosely!) that I
am
allowed to interact with, I find great difficulty
in trusting. Out of everyone I have ever met, there is not a one
that I place any faith in I’m afraid.

So I’m writing this account, call it a
journal if you will, just so that I have someone to talk to about
everything. I don’t care who you are, chances are that no one will
ever even read this, but I just really... need someone to talk to.
It helps soothe my spirits to write this stuff down. I have to hide
it from the doctors of course, ha ha, or else they’d think I was
even more of a loon than they already do.

God, I hope they don’t ever
throw this away. If there is a God anyways. I’ve certainly never
seen Him do much for
me!

Nil, Out. I’ll write again tomorrow with any
luck.

Day 2

Forgot to mention in my last entry. Please
call me Nil. Nillium is simply unbearable, and Nil is at least
acceptable, albeit, barely. Anyways, now for an account of how my
day has gone. With any luck, yours has gone better...

An orderly shook me awake around 7:00AM,
telling me it was time to be escorted down to the breakfast hall. I
must have been inadvertently behaving myself, for it had been a
while since I was actually allowed out of my room.

Nevertheless, I was rather fond of sleep and
didn’t feel much like budging. With an angry grunt, the orderly
grabbed me by the scruff of my hospital gown, forcibly hauled me
off the bed and threw me against the wall. Have I mentioned yet how
much fun life is here at the ward?

I was used to this rough kind of treatment
and rolled with the punches as you might say, twisting my body as I
hit the wall to catch myself with my arms. It mostly worked, though
I would have a bruise the next day for sure.

I got sullenly to my feet and stared at him.
I recognized today’s tormentor as Copley, a not overly bright man,
whose only real love in life seemed to be the salty pretzels that
he always carried around in a small Ziploc baggy.

"Breakfast." he said flatly, his voice
jagged. "Move."

With a weary sigh, I turned on my heel and
walked through the open door to my room, making my way down the
hall. Copley followed closely on my heels the whole way, probably
looking for a reason to push or hit me. Don’t get me wrong, not all
of the orderlies were, um, jerks. Some of them were decent enough
people. Just... not Copley.

We made it to the breakfast hall without
further incident, and thankfully, Copley remained standing at the
door. The room was well supervised enough that he wasn’t required
to follow me in, giving me at least a tiny measure of freedom. I
could sit where I wanted, even talk to the other patients as I
pleased, assuming I didn’t get too rowdy.

I sat across from Jeremy. He’s an alright
guy, kind of a thin, frail sort, who tends to shiver as if in the
cold. But at least he’s not one of the Monsters.

"What’s for breakfast?" I asked him
brightly, peering into the metal bowl in front of him.

"...Oatmeal?" Jeremy replied, as if making
his best guess at a hard question, afraid of getting it wrong. Poor
Jeremy didn’t like questions. They stressed him out.

I frowned as an orderly placed an identical
bowl of food in front of me, studying its contents suspiciously.
Jeremy stopped eating, waiting for my assessment of our meal. He
always placed a great deal of value on my opinion. Who knows why,
he just did.

"There’s bugs in it," I said at last,
pushing my food away in disgust.

"I-I d-don’t see any," he replied, his
expression narrowing in alarm.

"There’s a lot of them," I expounded.
"You’ve probably already eaten some."

Jeremy looked at his food, looked at me,
back to his food, and screamed. He fell out of his chair in his
haste to flee, scrambled to his feet, and made his panicked way out
of the room. I hadn’t meant to scare him. I just had that
tendency.

A rather skinny orderly hurried over to me,
drawing the small baton that all of them were armed with and
brandishing it threateningly.

"Nillium Neems," he said roughly, stopping
less than a foot from me. "Are you causing trouble again?"

I opened my mouth to make some kind of
snarky comment, but then closed it promptly in horror. He was no
orderly. He was one of the Monsters...

"I... I’m not causing any trouble," I
whispered quietly. I gave a small, involuntary shudder. The Monster
noticed and I know he liked seeing my fear.

He grunted, satisfied with my reaction, and
turned his back to go terrify someone else. Well I didn’t have much
choice now... I owed it to my own sanity and to the safety of every
other patient in Atrium to stop him and his kind. Otherwise they
would terrify us without end. I’d already killed a few of them in
my time.

Sure that he was no longer paying attention
to me, but before he could take more than a few steps away, I
grabbed my plastic fork and snapped it in half against the table.
They didn’t let us have metal cutlery for obvious reasons. But that
didn’t matter so much when you knew how to snap plastic ones at the
right angle to give it a sharp point.

On silent feet, I took a running leap,
bringing my arm around in an arc to stab him right through the
carotid artery in his neck. I’d had practice, so I knew right where
to aim. But I didn’t stop there, oh no! For I had practice too in
not getting caught.

I rolled as I hit the ground, dropping my
weapon and tumbling right under the nearest table. I crawled from
there till I was at a sufficiently safe distance not to become
suspect.

A cry rang out a moment later as people
began to take notice. Wardens, the main security force of the ward
and a step up from an orderly, rushed in. I felt very thankful in
that moment that I was already on the ground, for they began
indiscriminately clubbing anyone that was standing who stood in
their path.

Someone’s hand reached down and hauled me to
my feet, dragging me towards the door. I didn’t struggle, for I
knew it wouldn’t do me any good. I just let the man take me back to
my cell, where he shoved me through the door and slammed it behind
me, scurrying off to go do the same to the other patients.

I let out a sigh of relief that it was over.
At least the man who’d grabbed me hadn’t been another monster. The
creatures infested the ward to its very core.

So all in all, my day was sort of a good
one. I’d killed another monster, reducing their numbers ever so
slightly, but now we were all on lockdown. Probably for a good few
days. Guess it means I have more time to write to you, my Bookish
Friend!

Cheers,

Nil, Out (In several days after lockdown is
lifted, ha ha)

Day 3

Couldn’t sleep well last night due to
rustling within the walls. Again. Sounded like rats, but I know who
it was, no matter how he tries to disguise himself. I finally got
to bed around 3:00AM, although it was hard to tell the exact time
since my clock was lying. The time was probably closer to
4:00AM.

I was woken up somewhere around 7:00AM for
breakfast, which they shoved through the slot in my door and went
on their way due to lockdown. Thankfully, it seems I’m not getting
blamed for the killing yesterday. I was too quick for anyone to
notice. Yay me.

I’m certainly not eating the food. Not after
seeing what was in it. But anyways, without anything better to do I
might as well get around to describing my room to you.

It’s a 10x10 square, with a heavy metal bed
placed near the center of the furthermost wall. They only let me
have one scrubby blanket and a single tiny pillow. Though the good
doctors of Atrium were more than generous in supplying my bed with
thick leather straps on both sides, for when they felt like
restraining me for the night (or day). In the corner of my room is
a little rusty toilet and in the other corner, is a small black
desk that’s bolted to the floor so I can’t use it as a weapon. Why
they gave me a desk I have no clue, since I’m only allowed to have
three personal possessions at a time.

The walls of my room are smooth, sterile and
white, made from some kind of plaster or drywall. It’s not the
sturdiest stuff, as I’ve managed to chip a fairly large hole
through one of the walls, which are fortunately hollow inside.
Gives me a rather handy place to hide this little journal. I’ve
saved the wall chippings of course, managing to stick them back
together so I have a removable ‘lid’ to place over the hole in the
wall when I think someone’s coming.

And that’s about it as far as my room is
concerned, other than the sturdy metal door that leads into it.
Making it, naturally, rather impossible to escape. The door at
least had a little window in it so that I could look out.

About midday, Doctor Flagham came in to
check on me and give me my daily dose of whatever new poison they
decided to try out. He frowned upon noticing my uneaten
breakfast.

"Nil, you haven’t eaten today. Are you
feeling alright?"

I just shrugged, laying back in my little
bed. I’d given up long ago trying to explain things to any of the
fools. He wouldn’t have believed me that the oatmeal was soaking in
blood, even though it so clearly was.

"Nil, you have to
eat
something
,"
he said with a deep sigh.

I sighed myself, being fed up with this
routine. It wasn’t that old Hammy was a bad sort, on occasion I
think he cared about me. He was just too stupid to see what was
going. I rolled onto my side so that I was facing away from him and
feigned sleep. He probably knew I was faking it, but he got the
hint and left, closing the door gently behind him.