MAKE THINGS SO COMPLICATED !

[* LEAH MAY PARKER.]

LAWS state that in many public places smoking is prohibited. Laws in Georgia also state that it's illegal to read your favourite book to your friends in public after 2:45 AM. Leah knew this because she lived in Georgia. The law wasn't really enforced in her town. Why? Because it was just plain rubbish. Ready after 2:45 AM, is the same as reading before it. Some laws just didn't make sense. However, there were those laws that did, and they were quite strict. Leah followed laws, as for following rules however, it all depended on her mood.

LEAH wasn't a wannabe bad ass who just went out to break rules and prove her point that 'oh, I'm better than everyone else because i can break rules and do what I want'. That wasn't a point she wanted to make, and it was just completely stupid. What kind of respect did that earn you? None. If anything, it just got people ticked off. Well, it got Leah pretty aggrivated towards repeat offenders. Leah herself was an occasional repeat offender. She was partly in the asylum for pyromaniacy - if that was even the proper phrasing. So she had a little fascination with fire. No big whoop. She didn't burn anyone. All she really did was watch it burn things. That was the point of fire, wasn't it? And the point of getting Leah over her fire addiction, was to make sure she didn't get her hands on matches and lighters. She did it anyway. That was the sort of little rules Leah broke. In a way, she also broke a law. This was kind of considered a public place. It was private property, but it was a common room, so more than just she was allowed in there.

SURROUNDED by many people, this was the busy sort of day. After dinner, before evening meds and check ups. Leah had a lighter in her pocket. Normally she had matches, but her last set was taken away by authority last week. She would find a way to get her hands on more, and even if she couldn't, man was man. Man learned how to make fire afterall; they brought light into a dark world. Why not enjoy it? It kind of seemed like Leah had a sick obsession with flames, which she didn't have that bad of an obsession. It was merely an interest due to the fact that it calmed her down somehow - like she was burning away her troubles, worries, and fears. Besides that, she was a teen with a fascination with fire. It was natural. She'd grow out of it right? That's what her parents always said.

ANYWAY, Leah was in the corner fo the common room - a place not wonderfully secured by the authorities - a small lighter in her hand. It was blue, and the type that in order to be used, had to have a thumb run over the top real fast and hard. She was just in the corner minding her own business, ocassionally causing a flame to appear, then reappear. Appear. Then reappear. She wished she had a piece of paper, or something that the flames could lick at and burn. It was so fascinating.

tags: open.
notes: none?

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[shazam]

GODDAMN RESTLESS GYPSY MAGIC
JUST ANOTHER DEVIL CHILD

Audé's knees shook gently against each other as she peered around the doorway into ye old common room. Never since entering Alkaline had she held such a passionate appreciation for her life and peers in her previous life back at High School. Everybody scared her here, and she never felt safe. She wasn't one of them, she wasn't! Why couldn't her parents just have strapped her to a board and gag her mouth with a nyquil soaked rag like any normal, caring human being? A large boy with a shaved head rubbed a plastic spoon methodically across the back of his hand, enthralled in his task. A petite girl cling possessively to an all-too-patient self mutilating boy, an anorexic like herself. Some had their nails trimmed halfway down to keep from hurting themselves or other people, and she jumped when one such of those girls was nabbed and pulled out of the room, blood dribbling down her chin from trying to bite her tongue off. She didn't know whether to throw a tantrum in frustration or curl up in a ball and weep. She wasn't one of them. Aude was on the dive team and photography club at school, she at least used to get good grades, volunteered at therapeutic riding and had big plans for her life which included France, college and people halfway in their right minds. Alkaline had never been part of her plans.

For the first week she had refused to leave her room, and by the second week a staffer had convinced her out, offering her a personal tour. She wanted the protection all the time; it was so far out of her comfort zone, and she could do nothing about it. For the first time since her arrival Aude had coaxed herself out, missing human contact. Her meals were part of her treatment and delivered to her room everyday, and there was a bathroom connected to her dorm. Despite the fact that she had to ask permission to use the can to make sure she didn't purge her food, if she wanted to, she could survive her stay at Alkaline purely within the vicinity of her dorm and little therapy room. But it was this morning that it struck Aude - Between herself, her roommate and therapist, she had forgotten what people look like. So, after a day of psyching herself up, she had mustered the courage to a journey outside her room.

Aude ate slowly, not wanting the anxiety of her impending trip upsetting her stomach and, subsequently, her doctors. She swallowed water between every bite, a habit still with her from her ED days, but she didn't feel full until she had cleaned her plate. Not wanting to take any chances she changed her shirt before leaving, pulling on the most nondescript piece of clothing she owned: a long sleeved gray tee with no logos, buttons, ruffles, sequins, colors or cleavage to offend anybody, above a simply pair of black leggings. She braided her hair and tucked the end protectively over her shoulder, to prevent pulling or burning or plucking of any kind. She wasn't taking any risks tonight. Her little notebook and pen dangled from a small chain connected to the brace on her right wrist, the one to help with her carpal tunnel. She had a plan for the night, having spent the entire day coming up with it. She was cleared for permission to the tiny library, and before plunging into the world of the common room Aude checked out a copy of 'The Hounds of the Baskervilles'. Her big, bold plan was to spend the evening in the corner, pretending to read while instead studying the local wildlife, otherwise known as her peers. Despite initial second thoughts, the petite girl crept quietly into the room, careful not to make eye contact or draw attention to herself in any way, book in hand. She let out a frightened squeak after almost tripping over a wayward foot, and scurried to the nearest, wall collapsing silently onto a smelly old bean bag chair and immediately burrowing her head in her book, desperately attempting to ignore the girl with the lighter directly to her left. Time for plan "B".

Now I just have to come up with it...

[* LEAH MAY PARKER.]

CRAZY. Leah was thinking that she could look just as crazy as half of the people in this room if someone were peering in from the outside world. Most people were acting pretty normal... for the most part anyway. Her blank stare at the flame would be her downfall. It was apparent she had a fascination, after all, she had to be a little obsessed to be entertained with the action she was performing. Watch as I make this fire appear, and reappear, she thought like a child only more sarcastic then a child ever would. When she was younger and going through phases of interests one of those phases had been magic. She would wear a black cload and a black top hat and perform magic shows for her family. A typical child. Leah was actually less than typical, and she didn't really like it all that much. She just wanted to get back to her old life, and she was sure many people at Alkaline agreed with her.

GENERALLY everybody at Alkaline Asylum was there for a reason. They had issues. What teenager or young adult didn't have issues? Throwing a ton of people together with larger issues than normal was like throwing two beta fish together and expecting them not to kill eachother. It was just a messed up high school minus the classes and a few other things added. Like potential pyschos, Leah thought. Now, Leah was a sweet girl; kind and patient. However, when she was stubborn and sticking to her views (of not wanting to be there), she could become a little unpleasant, and her previous thoughts weren't all that nice. Look at me, she thought with a sigh towards herself, I'm just like them, only I'm looking more the part. She glanced at the lighter rather than the flames, and then determined that if she was going to seem normal, that she would have to try to give up the pyro. Again, she would have to try, and try was the key word. Maybe she'd just keep it to a lower scale. Not mess with it as much as usual.

USUAL was out of her vocabulary. There was no real usual with her however. Randomly somebody could start talking to her, somebody that didn't exsist. Randomly, she could laugh about the topic of death. Her mother could die and she would laugh because something in her mind just didn't process when appropriate times to laugh were. She sometimes hated herself for that. However, those were the things that made her UNusual. Leah sometimes couldn't decide if she'd rather be unique or the same as everyone else. In cases like these, she sort of was voting for the conformist answer. She lowered the lighter. Everything was burned away, she confirmed in her head, everything was over and done with and there'd be no more burning invisible things until tomorrow. That was that.

THERE was a squeak like yelp that caused her attention to flick up and away from the lighter. A blonde girl was making her way quickly to a bean bag to Leah's left. Parker didn't really mind though. It gave her a reason to bring the lighter back up. Leah hadn't seen the whole scene play out, so she was slightly afraid to look up. Was somebody there that only Leah could see, and that girl could see, to freak the girl out? Leah didn't take the time to look for the source of said potential incident, instead she burned away the memory. Just another reason to call her crazy - thinking she could burn away memories. Her father would laugh at the thought, but then again, he was the one that supported her enough to build her a fire pit. It wasn't that crazy in reality, was it?

WHAT was crazy though, was that her lighter slipped from her grasp, the small flame flickering out. That would be that. No more lighter. Parker did need to get it back though. What if someone took it from her, or it accidentally lit something on fire? That would be bad. The lighter could not fall into the wrong hands. It was right infront of the other blonde girl, and feeling as though it would be rude to simply reach over her, she tried to get the girl's attention. "Excuse me." No luck. "Excuse me?" Still no luck. Maybe she was talking to a hallucination. It wouldn't be the first time. Reaching out, she tapped the girl on the shoulder and once she got her attention she asked her, "do you mind getting me that?" However, once she looked the girl over, her voice failed her and the last few words were fading out out of her mouth. She was staring at a spitting image of herself, and now she was more confused then ever.

tags: aude.
notes: twins, ftw! oooh, that rhymes. haha.

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