No Man Is An Island [Open]

[SASHA ALEXEI RASKOLNIKOV]

I must have, it was the only response he would ever give when faced with all the evidence of his crime. There was not an ounce of belief in his own words. It was almost as though he didn’t accept it but instead simply resigned to the fact that there were no other ways of explaining what had happened. He never gave himself the chance to really think any of it through but why would he? The end result would be far from predictable.

It made sense though. Could anyone expect it to be any other way? Why would any person want to accept their crimes and know that the punishment would be justified, that there was no way to measure the degree of justice or lack of it.. It was all much too complicated. There were so many things to consider, so many factors floating around in his head. This was what made Sasha so comfortable being by himself. Even sitting here courtyard, the thoughts and questions were swimming around in his head. It was always the idea of things, the concept of if it had been fair for it to happen, he never thought of it in terms of if he should have done it because until this day, Sasha Raskolnikov, can not believe that he had done what he did.

No, Sasha would not even comprehend it let alone accept it. So what was his fate to be? To stay in this place. To be marked as one of the criminally insane. Wouldn’t this be a better fate than if none of it had ever happened? That was the topic of today. Those were the nature of the thoughts flooding his head because thinking, and detaching himself even further from those events seemed to be a much easier way of dealing with it. Accepting it was not an option.

It was quiet here, at least for the moment. Sasha sat under a tree, his knees pulled up close and his arms wrapped around them. It was the closest thing he could find to a corner and things in a corner were usually left alone. That was generally how he spent his days, moving from one corner to the next, always in the quietest spot. It was an easy way to get crazier than you were when you went in but Sasha never thought twice about it. Alone was good, alone meant no problems. It meant no one to be hurt by and no one to hurt… Though in his mind the latter was still near impossible.

Reaching over slowly, he brushed his fingers over the grass, gripping at them gently. Several years ago anyone who knew him would say, this boy couldn’t hurt a fly, but look at him now. That was one of the things he couldn’t do, look at himself and know what had happened. He didn’t even have the memories… The doctors probably knew it all though. They would know that somewhere in that head of his was the key to having it all unfold. Sasha didn’t want that day to come. He wanted to be helped but at the same time, he was fighting against it in his own way.

[* LEAH MAY PARKER.]

leah was overall a pretty happy girl. she was patient, sweet, a nice person. she wasn't angry that she was at the asylum. sure, it wasn't her first choice, she didn't want to be there, but she wasn't going to be the difficult patient. it was always the difficult ones who had a longer stay. granted, leah was a level two so her stay probably wouldn't be as long as a level three. level ones, she guessed, could leave whenever their families decided to pull them out. level fours probably would only get out if the government decided to raid the place. so as a level two, she was going to cooperate. she didn't have any authority problems, or aggression issues that would need to be overcome, like level threes, however she had a problem that would be nearly impossible to 'cure'.

leah was schizophrenic. she knew that some of the things she saw or heard were in her head, but there were the things that she believed. the normal things she believed. for example, if she were walking in the mall and a little girl started talking to her, she would talk back - her friends would have to nudge her so she'd know it was a hallucination. however, if she were having a nightmare, woke up and he was there, then she would be fully aware that it wasn't real, yet a part of her would still believe it. that wasn't all that schizophrenia was. she would laugh at inappropriate times and smile when she should be crying. schizophrenia was something she couldn't really help. she took daily meds to help the hallucinations and dellusions, however the laughter was difficult to fix. however, that wasn't her only problem. she was a pyromaniac as well. she was careful with flames though. leah was a smart girl. she wouldn't set anything on fire, wouldn't burn herself or anyone else, and she was careful. what more could they ask for from a pyromaniac?

so why was leah there besides those issues, if she were such a good child? her parents were a little crazy over their 'social status'. a pyromaniac wouldn't due. that bit of information slipped during the enrollment process, though. they had enrolled her to see what they could do about the schizo. they didn't want to be known for having a schizo child. they were loving parents, really, but their image was something they upheld. thus, they told everyone she was at a boarding school and leah didn't complain. she didn't want to be known as the crazy girl (even though she already had some of those names flying around). which led back to the cooperation. she wanted to leave, and in order to do that, she'd have to cooperate. if she fought the staff constantly, what would they think? they'd say she was too unstable to be let loose. loose. the term made her sound like a monster, which leah was the opposite of. if someone wanted to call her a monster, she'd have to be the adorable, sweet monsters from the kids story book, WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE.

leah felt kind of like a monster because she was lonely. she hadn't seen her best friend in a while and hadn't talked to anyone, even during lunch. it made her feel as though people were avoiding her, which she knew better to think. they weren't doing it intentionally, were they? leah let it go. the quiet lunch had actually been kind of nice. she took her FUZE drink bottle outside with her. she was going to hang around in the courtyard and see who she'd find. maybe she'd meet someone new. she didn't really know that many people in the asylum so she figured that to make the best of her time, she'd need to find some friends, or at least someone to keep things interesting.

once outside, she unscrewed the top of her drink, and tipped it back. capping it as she walked, she looked around. her blonde hair flew lightly in the breeze, kind of reminding her of a PANTENE commercial. she was a very pretty girl, so she liked to imagine things like that. it made her feel... good inside - like maybe she could do that and be appreciated or noticed. not that she felt unappreciated, it was just nothing made her feel at home in the asylum. not yet. so, she decided she'd start by saying hello to someone. seeing a boy, the only one who was alone in the courtyard, she decided to go up and so socialize because it was easier one on one - yet it was also sometimes considered strange.

"hello," she said, approaching the boy with a smile. he seemed nice enough, but of course, looks could be deceiving. when people first looked at leah they would've never expect a pyromaniac or schizo girl.

tags;;

[/b] sasha raskolnikov
notes;;[/b] ...[/blockquote][/blockquote][/size][/justify]

[SASHA ALEXEI RASKOLNIKOV]

It didn’t take long for Sasha to get distracted in what he was doing. The only time he was ever really aware of the things around him was when it got loud or there were people around causing enough of a disturbance. At that point though, he would be on the move again for a new spot. Right now he had been here long enough to have a few specific places he would switch through and it was slowly starting to form some sort of routine for him. The days were blurring together and he had stopped counting them. That probably wasn’t a good idea, if a person was so lost they couldn’t tell you the date or even the month then they’d probably seem a little crazier than most. He didn’t mind though, it wasn’t as though someone was going to ask him such a question anyway.

It was strange the way he was. He always seemed calm and quiet and had a very serene look about him. Sure, he had one blackout on record where things when really badly but that was the only time it had ever happened which was why his case was a little more difficult to try to improve. All the doctors had to go by was that one incident and with Sasha not saying anything or not even knowing anything about that, they had practically nothing.. Except perhaps his past, but Sasha didn’t like that talk about that. He wouldn’t get violent if it were brought up though. His first instinct would be to retreat or just say nothing. He had a severe fear of conflict and confrontation which was a little more difficult to avoid in this place.

It took him a second for the greeting to register. Sasha hadn’t really spoken to anyone unless he had to and all his thoughts were in Russian so switching languages tended to take a moment or two. In that moment he had glanced up at her looking a little startled by the unexpected company and a little lost for a second because speaking in a thick Russian accent, “Did you want me to leave?”. He didn’t want to get in anyone’s way and Sasha was the sort of guy that felt the need to get out of any situation to avoid the potential risk of a confrontation. With a mental institution, you could never predict a person’s behaviour and that tended to make it worse for him. Instead of looking at a person and deciding they were safe to speak to, everyone here was a threat and thus should be avoided at all costs. It was a horrible way to live but he had resigned to his fate and was now just drifting along, letting time blur together, waiting for something to change.

[* LEAH MAY PARKER.]

looking at the boy, she couldn't help but wonder about the time it took for him to acknowledge her words. maybe he didn't talk a lot. maybe he was mute. or maybe he just spoke russian. that was understandable for the time it took for him to answer. if he was native to russia, then his thoughts would probably be in russian, thus he'd have to take the time to translate them and translate them correctly. however, what he said was shocking to her, though she didn't show it. usually people in the asylum were either willing to talk or they told the person to eff off, never actually say that they would. did leah come across as intimidating? it would be nice to know since she never looked at herself that way.

she had bright blue eyes and long blonde hair that was naturally in loose curl-like waves. she had angled side bangs that looked good on her and blended nicely with her hair where the bangs and the longer hair met. today she was wearing light jeans and black flats. the flats probably weren't smart incase she had to make a run for it (which she only had to do once in her time here), but she didn't think that far ahead sometimes. she was also wearing a long white graphic t-shirt. it had the eiffel tower printed on it and french words beside it. all of it was at an angle. she really had no idea what the french meant. she had looked it up once and apparently it meant 'nothing can compare to paris'. leah didn't really know if that were true or not because she'd never been, but she could believe it. the only country that could challenge paris was ireland, where she had been and loved. then again, she was irish and an irish step dancer, so she felt very comfortable there for one reason or another. at one point, at a pub, she had even been convinced to dance in the center of the room where dancer after dancer were showing off their talents to the clapping residents.

nobody was clapping here and showing happiness. in fact, this boy was trying to make an escape route. if he really wanted to leave, leah wouldn't object. however, he had asked if she wanted him to leave, and the truth was, she didn't. the whole point of going up to talk to him was to broaden her horizons at alkaline, not let it slip away. "oh, you don't have to leave," she told him with a smile, "i was just coming to introduce myself." now this would be the part where she would introduce herself, but it slipped her mind. that was rather difficult to do considering she had just told him that was her goal, but it had. perhaps she was waiting for his reaction, or maybe she was testing the water after being quite quiet all day. whatever the reason a few seconds passed before she realized she hadn't even performed the task she had set out to do which was, in fact, to introduce herself.

"oh," she told him, as if just remembering her purpose - which she was. "i'm leah." that was such an american sounding name. she wondered if, because she knew he was russian, he would have a cooler sounding name. it probably wasn't right to think something like that, but she couldn't help it. she loved it when people had different names, accents, or anything that just wasn't american. america was so boring in her eyes.

tags;;

[/b] sasha raskolnikov
notes;;[/b] ...[/blockquote][/blockquote][/size][/justify]

[SASHA ALEXEI RASKOLNIKOV]

The girl wasn’t particularly intimidating. On the contrary, she seemed rather sweet but Sasha was cautious and overly so. He was wary or anything that came close to him or crossed his path. He saw a threat in most things but he wasn’t quite at the level of paranoia that got the attention of the Doctors in this place. He had just slipped under the radar with that one with the help of his calm nature. Even if he didn’t like something, he would quietly accept it and move on.

It made to be wavy of others in this place. Though she seemed nice enough, she would have been brought here for a reason and Sasha didn’t even want to begin to speculate on what that reason might be. His own reasons were the last thing anyone would expect of him. Looking at the boy who was cautious around everyone and seemed rather apprehensive and was very much an introvert, you wouldn’t thing he was capable of stabbing a man twice his size with a kitchen knife about fifty-four times.. And that’s without considering the man would probably have fought back after the first time. Sasha was skinny, and he was very much a rake back then, anyone could have taken him down but he still managed to do that much damage and that was saying something. He had come out with a few bruises and things but the man was still a bloodied mess of a corpse and he was perfectly fine. It was a true sign of what he was capable of but Sasha seemed so certain that the event wasn’t going to repeat. The doctors still hadn’t figured that one out. Blackouts were the sort of thing that recurred but he hadn’t with Sasha and they were beginning to doubt it. They were beginning to question it and wonder if he did remember and if he did know what he was doing but Sasha still refused to speak which mean his treatment was going no where.

“I don’t?” Sasha asked, first wondering why she would come up to him if it wasn’t to tell him to leave. That to him was odd. The word, Oh, was formed on his lips but the sound never came out when she said she was introducing herself. She wanted to talk. She can’t be very much of a threat if she just wanted to talk for a while and Sasha could probably manage a conversation. It would be a nice change from being lost in his thoughts or buried in a book and it would improve his English. There can’t be much wrong with that, can there? He could see a million ways in which it could go wrong but Sasha was used to being pessimistic.

Sasha just watched her quietly for a moment. There was a brief few moments of silence but he was used to that. In fact, Sasha was more comfortable with silence than with noise. For him, back before any of this ever happened, if he said nothing he was more likely to suffer a lot less than if he took the rick and spoke and happened to say the wrong thing. He was still very much afraid of that. Sasha did not like conflict one bit and he tried almost too hard to avoid saying or doing the wrong thing. The last thing he wanted was to offend someone and get hurt because of it. That was what he was used to though, do something wrong and you get consequences. A lot of times though, he’d suffer the consequences even when he hadn’t done anything wrong as all.

She gave him her name though, but he wasn’t terribly used to talking to people so he simply watched her with curious blue eyes as though she were some rare species he had only just encountered for the first time. “Sasha.. M..My name is Sasha,” he said in his harsh accent, faltering just slightly from not being used to introducing himself like that. The only people he was used to speaking to were the psychiatrists and occationally the nursed but they all knew his name. His voice wasn’t particularly low but the way he pronounced them sounded a little harsher than some accents.

[* LEAH MAY PARKER.]

so he did have a cooler sounding name. sure, some people in america had that name, sasha, but it was just cooler sounding when he said it. a lot of people found russian accents, and german accents, and some other accents to be harsh sounding. leah wasn't one of those people. she loved hearing other peoples' style of talking. she thought they all sounded unique and just so pretty. however, when sasha spoke he was slow and slightly stuttered. leah couldn't decide if it was because he was cautious around her or just nervous in general, or if it was because he had to translate his thoughts from russian. leah took french class in school, so she knew that it was difficult to translate from a language one knew perfectly, to a language that was less familiar.

leah gave him a nice smile and told him, "it's nice to meet you, sasha." she looked around the courtyard at the other patients interacting with one another, and wondered if any were in a situation similar to them. perhaps someone was meeting someone for the first time and trying to break the ice. leah had another sip of her FUZE. it was a much needed drink and it was so good too! it was a nice distraction. it would definately come in useful if somebody decided to make an 'awkward moment'. it provided a distraction. leah didn't really want a distraction though, because the purpose of her coming up to him was to strike up a conversation, make both of them feel a little more comfortable with the day, not resort to drinking when she lost words to speak. she was searching for those words when a thought occured to her.

she wasn't actually going to question him, but she wondered what brought him here. besides her pyro obsession and her schizo, she also had OCD which was obsessive compulsive disorder. pretty much, if things were crooked or unbalanced, she had to fix it. if something didn't look right, she'd have to fix it. she wondered what plagued this boy. what did he do that sent him to an asylum. she had heard that a foreign patient had stabbed a man many times and that he claimed not to remember. she had read it on the bathroom wall, a common place for rumours to spread, but didn't know who it was. there were many people who could classify as 'foreign'. she didn't really know any, but she was sure there would be quire a few. however, it wouldn't be fair to jump into questioning, and it would be the opposite of friendly. perhaps if they knew eachother better, they could share these things, but asking if he was a murderer just didn't see to be a good conversation starter.

so instead, she questioned his accent - a generic statement. "your accent," she smiled, "it's russian, right?" obviously. leah knew her accents. languages were a different story, but she knew the accents surprisingly well. usually it was the accents people couldn't identify, not the language. with leah it was the other way around however.

tags;;

[/b] sasha.
notes;;[/color] sorry it's kinda crappy. i can't multitask too well. [/blockquote][/blockquote][/size][/justify]

[SASHA ALEXEI RASKOLNIKOV]

Sasha just watched her, almost judging to see if he should even be talking to her. He had already decided it was fine but he still wasn’t quite used to it yet. He hadn’t always been like this though. He was cautious yes, but he never used to go out of his way to avoid most people. He had a few friends, if one could even call them that. The boys he hung out with at school occasionally. He never got too close to them and always felt different for one reason or another. This wasn’t the same though. He didn’t even know this girl and here he was just staring at her not entirely sure of what to say to her.

Sasha nodded when the girl spoke again. It was a simple question, one he could answer quite easily. Sasha didn’t care to keep basic facts to himself. If someone were to ask him a direct question, he wouldn’t hesitate to tell them the truth. However, it was the same basic lines over and over again. Yes I am here because I stabbed someone, yes it’s true that I don’t remember it etc, but the details always stayed vague or were left untold.

“Yes, I am. I was born in Moscow,” he explained, getting into the swing of things and starting to get used to the whole ‘having a conversation’ thing. A few extra details seemed to make a difference and it would probably give her a little more information about him and perhaps more to talk about if that was what she wanted.

“Where are you from?” Sasha asked, when stuck with another short silence to fill. He figured he could do with a little more information about her anyway. What he really needed to know was if she was safe to be around or if she might have a sudden attack of whatever she might be afflicted with because that was the one thing he wanted to avoid.

[* LEAH MAY PARKER.]

the first thing that leah thought of when she thought of moscow was skating. she didn't really know why. the olympics had highlighted some very skilled russians, so maybe that was what she was thinking of - even though she had no way of knowing whether or not they were actually from moscow or some other town. something more practical that she thought of was napoleon's invading of russia in the early eighteen hundreds. moscow had performed a scorched earth policy - which was a really smart move. it left napoleon and his army with nothing and napoleon, being the stubborn guy he was, hadn't retreated. instead, he went further into russia and lost most of his men because they didn't have food or any sort of back up amunition and it was winter. the people of moscow had been smart in abandoning their homes and gathering what they could before setting fire to the town. now she had something else to think when she thought moscow. this didn't include olympics, russia in general, or napoleon. now she could think of sasha, a connection to moscow that not many people probably had. those were the things that leah now thought of when she thought moscow.

it wasn't uncommon to find leah smiling, as a matter of fact, she smiled quite often. when she was little her dad would call her the happiest girl in the world. she never cried real long, sure she was stubborn and got angry, but she was usually a very happy, bubbly little kid. always smiling. even at the ripe age of sixteen she was showing off her pearly white more often than not. she wasn't really showing them off, but many people would think they were teeth worth showing off. they were straight, and pure white. she used whitening strips and whitening tooth paste and her dentist cleaned her teeth with a whitening formula of some sorts. she loved her teeth and always imagined being on a commercial for smiles. that would be such an easy job, she just had to smile which, as mentioned previously, was a frequent action. so it was no surprise that she gave a small smile when she answered his words. "i'm from nowhere special," she told him, "just georgia, a boring state in the south made up of people who can't decide whether or not to have accents."

that probably sounded strange and she wondered if he'd understand what she meant. then she mentally slapped herself. being foreign didn't mean he was stupid. he was probably really smart. it wouldn't surprise her. he seemed like the smart, quiet type, trying to do good and stay out of people's way. but then, if he was trying to do good, why was he here? maybe he was like leah. leah was smart and trying to do good, yet she, like everyone, had her problems. something in the back of her mind told her that this was the foreign boy everyone rumoured about. she didn't know why she thought this, and she hated herself for it. she didn't like jumping to conclusions, but what if it was him? she wasn't going to run scared, that'd be rude and completely unecessary. she would like to know though, it'd be something nice if she was going to live in an insane asylum. leah wasn't insane though.

"but moscow," she added, still with a small smile, "moscow beats georgia - even the name's cooler." it was true. a lot of people in georgia couldn't decide whether or not to have accents, or so it seemed. they had southern accents, but leah couldn't detect them because she was so used to them, and they weren't as strong as others so it was difficult to tell. the farther south, the less strong they seemed. it was strange how an accent could range so broadly through a state. something could dissapear and reappear even if it was just something simple like the way somebody spoke. she wanted to know what it was like in moscow, how the people were, but she'd let him tell her if he so desired. she didn't want to attack him with questions and make him feel like an alien. he was just a normal person after all, just from a place seemingly more interesting than leah's own backyard.

tags;; sasha raskolnikov
notes;; ...

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[SASHA ALEXEI RASKOLNIKOV]

For Sasha, his home wasn’t such a great place. The country itself might have been great but he never got to see much of it. He always stayed close to home and was never allowed to venture very far. His father liked having total control over them and always seemed to want to know where they were and what they were up to at all times. Sasha never got to do anything fun. He never went out on those family trips, he had never even gone swimming or ice skating or rode a bike. He didn’t even know how to ride a bike, he never had to learn and as far as his father was concerned, he didn’t need to. His school was close by and he could walk there, where else could he possibly want to go?

They were a working class family as well and his father never made a whole lot of money. They had what they needed but it was always hard trying to make ends meet. His father’s alcohol addiction didn’t exactly help matters either but this was the like Sasha knew and so he thought this was how things were. It was the only reason he went along with it, believing that maybe this wasn’t so bad and maybe life wasn’t that great for some other people too. That wasn’t true though, but he knows that now, especially with the books he gets to read and the worlds he finds in them.

Sasha nodded just slightly when she explained she was from Georgia. That was some where South, but that was as much as Sasha knew about that Georgia. The other one though, the one near Russia, that he knew a little more about.

“There is a place called Georgia that is close to Russia,” Sasha informed her, eyes averted as he picked at the grass on the ground in front of him. She seemed to think Moscow was a pretty cool sounding name but Sasha didn’t think much of it. To him, it was just the place where he lived. There was a Georgia there though, and the name sounded nice in his opinion but he left that up to her to decide. He didn’t like giving his opinion too often, just in case it conflicted with something else. Sasha just didn’t want to get into any kind of trouble.

He hardly even looked at her as they spoke. Keeping fairly quiet and looking down at the ground. Eye contact wasn’t always such a good thing some times. Or at least that was what he had concluded from experience. Though technically, his experience of the world had been quite skewed. Sasha didn’t mind talking to her though. She seemed nice enough but he was the type that needed to be pushed into things otherwise he was just stand still and nothing would get done. He would throw in a random line if he felt it was safe to but he wouldn’t start talking about something with that that direct question.

[* LEAH MAY PARKER.]

leah wasn't good at small talk. she could get on a roll if she had a topic to talk about and if she was with friends - people she felt comfortable with, or if she had something to work with. sasha wasn't giving her much. however, that wasn't reason to just get up and walk away for three reasons. first, that'd be rude. leah was a sweet, patient girl and was nice. she was never really rude, and to her, walking away without reason (although no conversation could be reason) was just rude. this led into the second reason. she was patient. patient people could search long and hard for something to converse over and she had to do that. thirdly, he wasn't completely terrible to be seen with. was he? even so, that would fall under the category of rude. it was just down right rude to walk away from someone because being seen with them was either, a, embaressing, or b, not up to visual standards. leah had no real reason to walk away and although there wasn't much action, sometimes she didn't need that and it was nice just to be around someone whether things were going smoothly or not (of course, if things were rocky then maybe it wouldn't be so pleasant).

this wasn't rocky though. this was just slow. perhaps he was one of the paranoid type. don't talk to someone because they're going to use your words against you. don't get within arms reach because they're going to harm you. don't this. don't that. it was a terrible way of living, and leah knew that, so she didn't judge the fact that perhaps he might be that type. or maybe he was like her with schizo, so he was afraid he'd be caught talking to nothingness which was the time when rumours spread and her name was changed to the girl talking to air. that wasn't really one of leah's fears, but perhaps it was other peoples. besides, it wasn't her place to decide what he had. she didn't know him well enough... and there was her answer. maybe he just wasn't good infront of new people. that was how leah was if somebody came up to her, generally speaking. she would assume it had something to do with his past, but that might not be true. she couldn't assume things because she couldn't control it, nor could he. so she let it be for now. small talk was suiting them just fine. so far nobody had called her schizo-girl and he hadn't lashed out or had gotten lashed at.

the reason leah didn't like the name georgia was because she didn't think that certain names could be feminized - if that was even where the name came from. she knew that sometimes parents who wanted a boy, would change the designated boy's name to fit a girl. maybe that was what they did with georgia. maybe it had been george but people got upset so it was changed to georgia. only certain names could be feminized like that in leah's personal opinion. then again, to her, georgia just wasn't always the place she wanted to be so maybe that's why she didn't like the name - because it reminded her of the good times as well as the bad times. "i think it's cooler sounding when it's as a country," she commented loosely, not really realizing she had even said it. once she realized she was supposed to be talking, and already had, she asked about it. "have you ever been?"

some people here didn't like bringing up their past. leah had no problem for herself because she had a relatively normal past. in fact, once you get past the tiny issues that landed her at alkaline, she was normal and her past was the same. some other's weren't as fortunate. due to that she wondered if her words would be welcome or not. then again, it was a simple question, was it not? it only required a yes or no, and some information if he so chose to. knowing leah however, she would probably ask another question if he had, in fact, been. some people might not like this, and if she were to say, 'if you don't mind sharing,' they might think she was making false judgements or accusations that ought not to be made.

tags;; sasha raskolnikov
notes;; ...

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