I begin to stutter, but nothing coherent leaves my lips. The games these two are playing are becoming dangerous. They're now trying to convince me that I'm not even myself.

"Nathaniel Davis," the doctor says. "You two were roommates nearly three years ago. He figured out a way to overdose on his meds—you found him."

There are so many things that still didn't make sense. If what Dr. Tingsley is saying happens to be true, then I am absorbing the personalities of the people I've lost and keeping them alive in my psyche. What doesn't make sense is why Nathaniel was just now presenting himself after Judith's death. When I voice my question, the doctor just shrugs.

"It's wishful thinking," he answers. "Who wouldn't want to be young and handsome again?" A small, almost pained smile touches the doctors thin lips. "We believe that Judith's death came as such a shock to you that it suddenly sparked all these personalities to resurface. Before last week, we thought we'd gotten your meds perfected. You seemed to have full control. Now you're talking to yourself in the middle of the night and freaking yourself out."

"So, is Johnny another person who died then?" I asked after a moment.

Dr. Tingsley and nurse Samantha shoot worried looks at each other, obviously not expecting the question. I just glance between the two of them until the doctor clears his throat and returns my gaze.

"Uh, yes," he answers cautiously, his brows scrunched in concern. "We moved you to his ward several months after Nate's passing because you'd been begging for a new room since the boy's death."

"Were we friends?"

Doctor Tingsley grimaces at the question before answering. "Not exactly."

"Anyway," he continues on, "I want to know that you're understanding what we've been saying here today."

"What?" I joke with a lift of my brows. "That I'm a crazy, seventy-something year old murderer. Uh...no. Definitely don't believe you." I laugh, but it lacks humor.

"That's what I figured." The doctor sighs before standing and walking towards the door.

He leaves me alone with Samantha for several awkward minutes before returning with a small handheld DVD player. He takes his seat and places the device in front of me.

"I'd like you to watch this video," he says, his voice tinged with regret, and I feel myself tense with the need to deny whatever the video reveals.

The nurse hits play, and I watch as an old man walks the edges of a room, his hand skimming over the cushioned material until his finger lands on a hole. I can feel a slight tremor vibrating through my core as I witness the man bend slightly to peer through the hole. I've seen this before. The old man with his head leaning against the wall—unmoving. Only, he isn't unmoving. Every few minutes he backs away from the hole, walks the perimeter of the room, and then peers into the hole again.

He looks completely mad, but I remember doing those exact things just days before. Walking the edges of my new room, laughing internally at the weird old man I kept seeing in the hole, and talking to Judith as if we were meeting for the first time. Only, when I watch it on the video, I am only ever by myself: eating imaginary food, talking to imaginary people.

The video reveals Samantha entering the room on a few occasions to bring me food, but I have no memory of those moments. Anytime she'd enter, I'd barely even lift my head in acknowledgement. She'd just silently wait for me to eat and then leave.

"The monitors were an experiment," the doctor says softly. "We hoped you'd realize it was you that you were watching in the hole. We were wrong."

Not able to watch any more, I tear my gaze from the crazy old man on the video and glance down at my fingers. But, when I notice the bulging veins spidering their way over my age-spotted hands, my chest nearly collapses in on itself.

"Mirror," I gasp, fear strangling my ability to yell the way I want to. "Get me a mirror."

The doctor nods at the nurse, and she disappears before returning moments later with a small mirror. I hesitantly take it from her, but don't spare my thoughts a moment to refuse what needs to be done. Without pausing, I bring the mirror up to my worn, wrinkled face. My head feels light, like I'm floating too high in the clouds, and breathing is difficult.

"My name is Henry McGreggor," I whisper, "and I'm a seventy-eight year old psychotic killer."

Suddenly I'm laughing, the deep chuckles escaping with hysterical desperation. The room spins for a moment and I can feel the edges of my mind folding in on itself as reality blares into existence. Memories flood through me with each pump of my heart. I remember everything: my old nurse, the easy banter between us, and then the complete dread at discovering that she had died. I can remember Nate and how I'd viewed him as a grandson. I wanted more than anything to provide him with the love he deserved. I wanted to fix him, to get him out of the hell I knew this place would eventually become for him.

Sadly, I had failed him. He'd taken his own life when his meds stopped working and his hope withered away. And in my mind, I took that failure upon my own shoulders. I felt that I deserved to be hated by Nate because I'd completely let him down. So I created my own version of him, the version that was ruthless and haunting—it was my way of giving myself what I deserved: misery.

I even remembered Johnny, and the unexplainable hatred we felt for each other, but there was someone else who hated him even more. The doctor hadn't elaborated about Johnny's death, but now I could recall everything on my own. His death hadn't been an accident. It had been the result of severe loathing from none other than Angelina Valentine.

Angelina had hated the man, more so than I had. The rumor was that he had cornered her in the ladies room one night and had his way with her. The moment his hands touched her skin, he'd signed his own death sentence. As someone with a sick attraction to fresh blood, Angelina had found a way into his room days later and ripped his heart from his chest with a butter knife.

Now, for some reason, I was keeping the two psychos alive in my own mind. There was no explanation as to why I'd want a rapist and a murderer to reside in me, but for some reason they were there, wreaking havoc on my sanity. At this point, I'd do almost anything to have my own mind back. I'd happily live the remaining years of my life as an old man if it meant ridding myself of these terrors.

And yet, even with the horrifying truth now revealed in my once clouded mind, I continue to laugh. This is madness, but I can't stop roaring with the hilarity of it all. I'm a psychopath—might as well act the part.

The doctor dismisses me moments later when I ask to return to my room. I need a few minutes to myself to fully digest everything that I've learned. The strangest part about it is, I'm not shocked. It's almost as if I'd known all along, but I was never in my right mind long enough to figure it out. Now that I've been shown proof, I feel like I can finally move on and let go of all the personalities battling for attention.

I lay on my bed, eyes wide open as I gaze up at the ceiling. There's something almost peaceful about being back in my own territory—in my own body. It's been awhile since I've felt this comfortable, and I want nothing more than to sink into an endless sleep.

My eyes began to drift shut and it's not like the other times. When Nate had been dominating my body, I'd have moments where things would just fade to black. It had been like shifting into non-existence and then randomly reappearing later. I hadn't understood that those were moments when Nate was being shut out.

Slowly falling to sleep is so much more peaceful. It's like a soft lullaby as my eyelids flutter slowly into their resting place. But, just as my body is drifting off, something near the door catches my eye. With a single blink, I'm sitting up, wide eyes scanning the small window where I could swear I'd seen someone walk passed. I almost laugh at my wildly pumping heart, because most likely it was just a nurse or guard.

But then she walks passed again, and this time she stops and turns her crooked head towards me—a menacing smile spreading over her ruby tinted lips. My heart seizes in my chest.

No, no, no.... This can't be happening.

I blink, rubbing my eyes roughly and hoping that she'll be gone when I glance up again... but she's not.

Angelina stands gazing back at me, clearly amused by the horror frozen on my face. She lifts a pale hand and flutters her fingers at me in a seductive wave, and I can do nothing but stare. Then she leans forward, pressing her crimson lips to the glass before walking away.

I sit staring at the heart-shaped imprint she'd left with her mouth, unable to pull my eyes from it. It looks so real, but I know it's all in my head. After my intervention this afternoon, and coming to terms with the freak I am, I thought all of this would end. But proof of my insanity had left its signature on the glass—mocking me with the truth of my condition. I'd never be free from this place.

Samantha comes knocking on my door two hours later. She has dinner in her hands and a smile on her face. She appears friendly, though a bit too innocent for a place like this. I'd finally calmed down, realizing that I shouldn't fear figments of my own imagination.

Like usual, Samantha stands by as I slurp down soup and stuff french bread into my mouth. It's like I haven't eaten in days. The delightful flavors hitting my tongue make me want to savor each bite, but I can't. I know Samantha has other patient's to feed, so I hurry through my meal and watch her leave.

But she stops just in front of my door before turning back around with an amused smirk on her lips.

"Looks like you've got an admirer," she says, nudging her chin towards the stain on the small window.

I nearly choke, startled by the fact that she can actually see proof of my imagination. Which means only one thing:

It's real.

The moment she leaves the room, I'm stumbling to my feet and racing towards the door. I check my own lips for any wounds that would prove I'd done this myself. Maybe Angelina had come out at one point and done this to scare the real me. But, when my fingers skim the window, dread fills my gut. Because, the bloody lip stain isn't on the inside...

Terror winds its way into my muscles, contracting as my body stiffens. With concrete legs, I trip backwards, but the moment my hands touch my bed, the lights go out.

Silence settles over the room, the only sounds being my own gasps of fear. Nothing happens for several agonizing minutes, and then a soft breeze swishes passed me. I turn, but see nothing. Laughter echoes around the room, and I pull myself into a ball in hopes of becoming invisible. I watch, chest convulsing with panic as an image on the far side of the room separates itself from the darkness. She would look beautiful, if not for the crimson life dripping from her gaping mouth. With each step, her broken neck has her head swinging back and forth on her shoulders.

I dry heave into my fist as dread washes over me. I'm sweating, trying to keep my gaze trained on the outline of her body. But, with a simple blink, she's gone. Just my imagination, that's all this is.

But a chill at my back proves me wrong as an icy claw clenches around my chest. I feel her press up against me, her breath grazing my ear. I'm suddenly being suffocated in my own crazed screams as she her dead lips mutter three simple words, 

"Bye Bye, Henry."