"I don't want to go home."

The eerie silence snaps against my words. My eyes slip to the tarnished concrete beneath my bare feet, my hands binding so tightly together in my lap that all the colour gracing my knuckles begins to dissipate.

"Why don't you want to go home, Cassidy?"

The muted light adorning the ashen ceiling trembles at the thickly foliated repugnance woven into each word. Bloodless walls sulk on all four sides of the room, merely watching. I'm confident that if I throw a fist into one of them, the dense concrete façade will dissolve, and left behind will be hundreds of pairs of yellow-ringed eyes annexed to bodiless heads.

I lift my gaze to meet the dusky slits that are trained on my hunched frame. They almost resemble eyes. "Something doesn't feel right," I force the words from the knot tightly wound inside my throat.

"The visions are coming back?" the woman poised imperiously in the cadaverous armchair directly before me inquires, inclining her astute chin in my direction.

I'm not sure I'd call her a woman, in truth. Something inhuman fervently lingers amongst her every action like a viscid substance that no amount of exertion can entirely eradicate. Strands of wiry ebony plaster her skull, secured into a sparse knot that latently cowers behind her head. Leaden material stretches to the end of each of her limbs, challenged by only the black leather cladding her fingers and the pointed heels binding her feet.

Her question scantily piques the rage coating my bones. Through teeth gritted into a stiff clamp, I grind out, "they were never visions."

The ominous black holes garnishing the pallid surface of her face gore into my head. "Then what were they, Cassidy?"

Laced by iniquity, her tone sends an unwanted shiver quivering down my spine. I drag in a breath, attempting to discount the opacity settling heavily across my chest. Responding to the question is futile. Our laconic conversations increasingly plague the exasperation dwindling through my mind as my parole draws ever near. It's no secret that she reciprocates my feelings towards these mandatory psychiatric sessions, though. Twice a week I sit on the wooden plank fastened to the metal frame upon the concrete, honoured by the company of the rigid-backed, brooding female who exhibits few mortal qualities. Dr. Langley will eternally tarry amongst the rest that are unable to fathom my pivotal sentiment.

Langley rises to her exceedingly high shoes, fixing the mottled green clipboard clutched within her grasp shut. A stony glaze embellishes her hollow countenance as she places a single knock against the reinforced door. Beyond the sealed opening, steel scrapes against steel, screeching to a rapid cessation as the door is coerced open.

Reaching almost two metres in height, the bald-headed guard who plays warden to my every step looms like a branch-less tree above me. Fingers nearly as thick as my wrists close around my upper arm as I step into the spiritless hall. Sammy hasn't let loose a smile since the day I'd first landed myself in this correctional facility. Some say his dolefulness was inspired by the name I'd stapled to his back, ensuing his reluctance to provide me with his real name.

"Take her to the wing," Langley commands, moving past my guard. The heels of her shoes snap against the concrete as she starts down the constricted corridor, a rustling hiss erupting from each of her steps as her rayon pantsuit chafes against itself.

The order sends the air circulating through my blood hurtling into the open, leaving me straining to haul oxygen back into my lungs. No one gets sent to the wing after one of Langley's infamous sessions; not unless they're being released.

Sammy's grip tautens around my arm. "Move, kid," he instructs. His voice never fails to make me feel as if someone is attempting to abrade my skin with emery paper.

My feet, hardened by the five intermittent years spent tramping over erratic flooring, scrape against the cement as Sammy begins to walk. I stumble as inertia takes a hold of me, but Sammy's strides don't falter. My shins connect with the stony ground and the unsound concrete delves into the scrubs clothing my legs as I grapple with air in an attempt to achieve stable footing. The prosaic walls simply stare as my efforts are rendered unavailing. No part of them differ from another section. They drift by me like a languorous stream of water spurting from a fall so high that its peak peers above the clouds. The only relief from them is the glow irradiating from the dreary lights that illuminate the wing as the tunnel-like corridor nears an end.

Sammy pries his fingers from my arm as the walls confining us metamorphose into what seems like unfettered space at the first glance upon exiting the hall. I manage to catch myself before completely tumbling to the floor, straightening my back once again.

Yellowing lights ascend the levels clawing towards the glass roof. Four rows lined by ashen walls and ashen doors loiter beyond metal banisters that climb horizontally alongside the lights. Barely enough room to stick an arm through the barricades is allowed. Steel stairs scale the walls, each level set with its own wire door to thoroughly cage in each story.

Sammy extends a crooked finger in the direction of the plastic chairs that string along the centre floor of the wing. "Sit there until they call you."

"I know how it works," I snap in response, slinking down into one of the tense chairs and folding my arms over my chest.

"Until next time, kid," he releases his words in a grunt, his dark eyebrows twitching upwards.

A noisy huff escapes my lips as I slump down against the grating plastic chair back, watching Sammy's bulky frame amble into the claustrophobic hallway once again. Static dissonance drones like ethereal rain in the midst of the wing, thrumming against my eardrums like a dull ache.

Locked in their cells, several hundred girls ranging from ages thirteen to eighteen absently dwell, many drugged beyond recognition. West Pier Juvenile Detention Centre is not know for its congeniality. Those who wind up here have not only been convicted of at least one Class A felony, but have additionally been declared to be suffering from detrimental psychological impairments. Rehabilitation by means of drugging a child into a state of disoriented silence seems to be their frequented counterbalance for most. No one ends up here unless all hope has truly been eradicated for them. Cells are only deserted three times a day; for breakfast, for yard time, and for dinner. Forty minutes, three times daily. Without the drugs, people would be bashing their heads against the concrete walls until death claims them.

I don't lift my eyes as the bolts occluding the wing door howl in protest to being unlocked. The door's steel base shrieks against the same concrete that comprises the entire facility.

"Ella Cassidy."

I expel a short sigh, forcing myself to my feet. The woman by the door wears plain clothes, mousy hair loose by her shoulders and her face adorned by cosmetic paint.

"Don't got all day, Cassidy," she sniffs, labouring my surname with contempt as if I've somehow inflicted torment upon her.

I blink back the eye roll threatening to grasp my expression as I trudge towards the person who is to decide what I reenter civility wearing.

"Sorry, ma'am," I utter out.

She offers me a mere grunt in response as I take another condemned step towards liberty. Behind me, she bolts shut the door once again, the force used to close it ricocheting from wall to wall. As if controlled by a switch, the white noise roaming throughout the inner precinct is relinquished, leaving the silence to curse my mind.

"Put these on," the scrawny woman who stands at more than a head shorter than me instructs, setting a bundle of clothes on the counter she's moved to sit behind.

I comply wordlessly, slipping from the powder blue scrubs I've been confined to for the past fourteen months, and into the loosely fitting white tee, and shapeless black track pants.

The woman slides a tawny envelope across the desk as I set down my previous attire. "Thirty days of medication and a hundred bucks," she declares, folding back against her cushioned seat. "Bryant will show you out."

I slip the envelope beneath the waste band of my pants, my gaze drifting behind me. Steely eyes meet mine, the face behind them scarred by time. The man donning the callous expression stands by the doorless passageway that is flanked by the filmy metal detector arched above the opening. Silently, I follow him, my feet padding along the softening concrete.

For the fifth time over the course of the past five years, I'm permitted to step onto the yolky grass boxed in by the wire fence that towers above my head. Fists clenched and jaw set, I allow the abating winter atmosphere to take me into its acrimonious embrace. Bryant advances towards the gate; the last obstacle separating me from the dreaded world on my doorstep.

Latently swimming in the pit of my stomach, the dread employed by the idea of departing the facility begins to cultivate as my feet tread onto the other side of the fence. The air tastes different on this side. Freedom burns within each molecule of oxygen drawn into my lungs, disseminating into my bloodstream in morbid chunks. Once again, my mind is no longer satiated by murky fog, and my thoughts sanction their own escape from the casket they retreat to when I am held within the confines of West Pier.

But with my freedom comes the release of the horror that skulks inside my brain. It's the hazy shadow that unhurriedly unfurls upon my mind, binding each thought one by one into its icy hold. Words like vicious doves soar from its mouth, manifesting abhorrent ideas within my head. It renders my own inclinations abortive, blazing a trail for its endeavours. Intangibly palpable, it prowls beneath my surface.

And as its countdown declines, its sovereignty over my proceedings magnifies. I am its weapon, and at my hand, its exploits will be painted red for all to mourn.

Ten.