I woke with a start and bolted up almost hitting my head on the low ceilings. The smell of peroxide wafted up my nostrils. White walls surrounded me with cheesy posters of inspiring quotes filled with false hope. My chest felt like it was on fire and my arm was hooked up to an iv. The clear liquid dripping entranced me for a second, but the careful steps of a nurse coming into my room snapped me out of it.

“What am I doing here? How did I get here?” My head was reeling with a hundred unanswered questions. She stared at me like a deer stuck in the headlights, obviously hadn't expected me to wake up anytime soon.

“Uh… well I can explain” she stumbled on her words, unnervingly skittish around me for some reason. “You really don’t remember do you? You were the one who burned down the school on Pine Street. It’s been all over the daily paper the past few days. No one was hurt thank god, but you were the only one found at the scene” She looked at me in disgust, and I returned the glare with a look of horror. How the hell could this have happened? My stomach was in knots I had forgotten how to speak. She left because she couldn’t look at me anymore. Just like that I was left alone and even more confused.

The worst thing that I had done was steal some gum in a dare when I was in 5th grade. I was a normal guy and I refused the fact that I had burned down a school. It was killing me that I couldn’t remember a thing that happened from the past week. I tried to control my breathing and I slowly got off of my bed, I needed to investigate or I would go crazy just waiting as the clock inched by.

There was a mirror at the end of the room, and who I saw in it I couldn’t recognize. They had put me in a plain white t-shirt, sweats and chunky tennis shoes, but that wasn’t what made a chill go up my spine. I looked closer at my face, it was covered in bruises. I rubbed my tender cheeks and soot went into my hands. My blue eyes glowed red faintly like after you sleep for a long time and my shaggy brown hair was a tangled, snarly mess.

A plastic bracelet was strapped onto my wrist with a tiny black plastic cube on it. It had an equally tiny red light on the cube that flashed every few seconds. I tugged and tugged on it trying to get the damn thing off, but it wouldn't budge. There was small black letters that spelled out Woodborough’s Institution for the Mentally Different. My eyes widened and heart started to race again after reading those few words. A mental hospital? No. This wasn’t me. I tried so hard to remember what happened, but the more I tried to remember the more I seemed to forget. I couldn’t help but burst out of my room. I whipped around looking down the hallways for an exit, there was nothing. Just rows and rows of doors and more white walls. Not wanting to make a scene I casually walked down the maze of the hospital until I found the main desk. I tried to collect myself as much as I could and look about as normal as a person could be in that situation. The woman there met my gaze steadily, my scrubby looking face not phasing her in the least.

“What can I do for you James?” she was nice, almost welcoming and it only made me more frustrated. “look lady, I just need someone to tell me why i’m here. I mean come on, haven't you people played this charade long enough? Just bring out the cameras now why don't you? I must be getting punked” my voice was rising, she could sense the desperation for answers in it.

“Now, now. I know you're confused but I can explain everything if you let me.” The woman got up out of her seat from behind the desk, she held out a cordial hand without hesitation. I shook it willingly, not used to anyone in this place treating me like a human being.

“Allow me to introduce myself, I’m Dr. Daray, head of this wonderful place” she said with an eerie smile. She was much older than the other nurse that was in my room before.

“I am very sorry we haven't been very accommodating to you James, I know you have been through an awful lot this past week. You have amnesia, you must have hit you head during your… well lets just call it an accident. Hopefully your memory will start coming back soon so we can figure out just what has happened.” She waited for a response. I had forgotten in that second how to breath, which didn't help with the whole talking thing. All my brain would let me process was her hideous 80's style perm and her sad attempt at bleaching her woman-stache. After an achingly long pause the gears in my brain started to work again. I nodded slowly and asked what was going to happen next. “Well, a few nice people are going to ask you some questions. It’s just protocol here no big deal, you just need to tell them what you can..” just like that two burly men came into the main entrance, they nodded at the doctor to make sure it was alright to interrupt and she nodded back. They escorted me down the hallway to a little room with a desk, 3 chairs and one dim light.

I felt like life had eaten me up, spat me out and left me completely and hopelessly alone. The rest of the day was a blur. I talked to a bunch of people in suits and lab coats, they asked me a lot of questions and made me sign a bunch of paperwork. The men seemed to get frustrated with me because I obviously wasn’t much help with the whole questions thing considering I couldn’t remember a thing that happened over the past week. The questions varied from why did I commit this terrible act to if I could remember what I had for breakfast yesterday.

At the end of the grueling day they finally gave me a break and took me to the dining hall for dinner. The meal was a delightfully dreadful mystery meat- emphasis on the mystery part. I felt like the new kid on the first day of school again, not knowing who to sit with. I just decided to plop myself down to the closest table. There were about 8 people at the table, all staring at me like I was a martian. They probably were trying to figure out what was wrong with me and why I was here. I said an awkward hello and scarfed down my food so I could get out of there. The guy on my right made a fort out of his bread then proceeded to stab it repeatedly with his not-so-deadly plastic fork. The woman on my left just stared and mumbled to her plate and the rest mindlessly ate their food in silence.

I was glad to get out of there, I needed solitude from everyone else, and my own mind but this would have to do. I walked down to my new room and switched the lights on. My heart jumped when I realized someone was on my bed. He was incessantly picking at his fingernails, not caring one bit who I was.

“Are you real?” he asked in a solid tone.

“Um… yes of course? Why wouldn’t I be?” I responded warily

“You never know, you could be in my head. That’s what my doctors tell me, that’s what everyone tells me.” he stated so casually. And just like that he went back to anxiously picking at his nails. I tried to be nice, maybe I should try to make at least one acquaintance. I tried to make small talk with him, after some prying I found out that his name was Harvey, he was a war veteran and had schizophrenia. He said that he started to see imaginary people after Vietnam. He also said that he hated meeting new people because he wasn’t sure if they were real or not. I could tell he was skeptical of me but continued to talk to me, probably because no one else would except for his own mind. I was exhausted and decided sleep would be the best medicine and slept for hours.

A few days passed by which consisted of therapy sessions that would somehow help me trigger my memory and a lot of waiting around. The sessions didn’t help and I showed no progress of gaining it back anytime soon. I spent a lot of time with Harvey, we seemed to understand each other, even though we were two very different people. He would occasionally stare at nothing and ponder whether it was real or in his head. Rarely he would talk to his illusions, but he was always very friendly yet soft spoken.

All that waiting got me to thinking that I needed to get out, and obviously it wasn’t going to happen if the hospital had anything to do with it. I needed to escape and find the burned down school to investigate what really did happen that night that I lost my memory.

On the fifth dreary day I was pacing up and down the hospital, snooping around to see if there was any small glimmer of potential freedom. A window in the back corner of one of the rooms caught my eye. Usually every window was locked securely so no one got any ideas. This one however was wide open and I was sure that I was slim enough to get through it.

I bolted to my room to tell Harvey my plan, I knew I could trust him. He was skeptical of it. Harvey said that he hadn’t heard of anyone escaping before.

“I want in.” He persisted

“It’s dangerous you know, I don’t want you to get into trouble. I need to get out of here and back to the real world.” I warned him, I couldn’t let him mess up my plan. Even though it wasn’t much of a plan to begin with. He was very smart though and he could help me.

“You don’t think I want out too? Sure I have some issues, doesn’t everyone? Mine just are a little more obvious than others but that doesn’t mean I should get locked up, it’s not like I killed anyone…” He trailed off, consumed with his thoughts.

“Okay. We will leave tonight”

We waited until 11, that was everyone’s calling in time for bed. We crept into the room with the unlocked window, narrowly avoiding the guard that walked around the hospital at night. We would have to move fast before the cameras noticed our departure. The window made a wrenching screech as I opened it, luckily it went unnoticed. I sucked in my gut and squeezed through it. Harvey was bigger than me but that didn’t stop him, nothing would prevent him from escaping now.

We were in the courtyard now where patients would go to play ball or watch the birds, I liked it because it got my mind off my terrible situation. The wired fence towered over us. I looked at Harvey, his eyes wide with fear. I could sense him trembling and tensing up.

“Come on, we can do this. We have to do this.” I reassured him as best I could.

We started to clamber up the fence. The problem wasn’t the height of the fence, it was only about 10 feet tall, the real problem was the barbed wire. Ever so carefully we meticulously dodged the wires, only getting a few cuts and scratches. We jumped down, gracefully landing on our faces, but we were okay, all we cared about was that we were out of that hell-hole.

We started to sprint down the road, not daring to look back. Something caught my eye, it was my bracelet. The red light was blinking furiously. All of a sudden we heard the bone-chilling wailing of the hospitals alarm. Oh no. My heart stopped. I recognized the street we were on, I lived just a few blocks away, and the remains of the elementary school was even closer but I wasn’t exactly sure where. In the distant I could see the guards beaming blue lights that screamed no escape.

Just run. That was all that I could think about. My feet were going as fast as they could take me. Adrenaline surged through my veins, I was determined to do anything in my will to get out of this mess. This wasn’t, couldn’t be all for nothing. The guards were catching up, their search lights pierced through the darkness and sirens wailed, getting louder and louder. Harvey was panting and struggling to keep up, I knew he wouldn’t be able to last much longer. The school had to be somewhere close, I recognized the street but the darkness made everything look foreign and I struggled to even see a few feet in front of me. A large brick building was on our left, I made the signal to Harvey that we could b-line it and hide in there. He nodded and gave an affirmative grunt. The fence to the building was a breeze to get over- no barbed wire was a blessing. I wasn’t positive that the guards hadn’t seen us, but I couldn’t worry about that now. We found a small back entrance to the building, a small, rusted over steel door that looked like it hadn't been used in years. Harvey and I made our way down the even darker corridors to a large room. I crouched down, frantically my tear-filled eyes searched for a better hiding place, anything to get me out of this seemingly impossible situation. There was nothing. Nothing but darkness and the shallow sound of my breathing.

It seemed like we were in some sort of cafeteria. As my eyes adjusted I could see the tiles on the floor and stacked chairs and tables in the corner. There were paintings on the walls that looked like it had been done by children, with brightly colored finger paints.

What I saw next I would never forget. A giant banner cascaded over the cafeteria with bold letters that said Woodborough’s Pine School Elementary School. I was in shock, my body refused to move. I looked over at Harvey who looked just as baffled as I was.

All of a sudden the door swung open and the guards came flooding through like a hive of angry hornets. Before I could think twice they tackled me, showing no mercy. I hit my head on the way down and everything went black.

Beep. Beep. Beep. The heart monitor droned at a steady pace. My eyes cracked open and the same white walls blinded me for a second, it was like deja vu. I craned my neck to look around, Dr. Daray was standing in the corner of the room waiting for me to regain consciousness. Outrage and bewilderment was the only feelings I had towards her.

“I demand to know what’s going on, no more lies. No more cheating me out of the truth.” I stated blatantly. Dr. Daray looked down, for the first time she didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to sugar-coat it. The questions came flowing out of me like word vomit.

“Why is the school not burned down? What aren't you telling me? Where’s Harvey? Is he okay?” She looked at me with pain in her eyes.

“I don’t know what your talking about, James. No one does frankly, about the school or this Harvey person.” She exasperated

“What the hell are you talking about!?” I got up from my bed and got just a few inches away from her face, I could smell the coffee from her breath. I made dagger eyes at her but she calmly took a step back.

“I don’t know how to tell you this James, but you have been diagnosed with a severe case of schizophrenia. Harvey? Not real. You burning down the elementary school? Not real. The nurse telling you about it? Not. Real. It’s all in your head, don’t you see? The reason you are in here is because you are a danger to the outside, who knows, you could become violent with a bad hallucination, not because you burned down a school. You made that up in your head as a coping device, you refused the fact that you are in here because of your disease. Harvey is like your alter-ego, he’s the only one who understands you because he IS you. It’s not your fault, you just need to stay in here so everyone can be safe.

I refused to believe it, but maybe she was right everything added up now. I didn’t remember the school burning because it never happened.

After days of coping with this new realization, relief and clarity made it’s way to my head, even though I did still see Harvey. I tried to ignore him the best I could, but it was futile. How could I escape from something now that I knew it was my own self that I had to escape from? The future is uncertain for me, the only thing I could do now was live day by day, to adapt to the circumstances presented and to accept that my imagination was my reality. The mind is the most powerful tool you can have, but can destroy you if one little thing is off. How can anyone really know what to believe if you only have your head to differentiate what's there or not? There is a fine line between what is imagination and what is reality and brains have the ability, or disability to cross it.