Janice had a new patient.

This new patient was different from the others- unlike the others in the psych ward, he was calm. Whenever she met with him, it was if he were the one putting her under the hypnotic state instead of vice versa, as it should have been.

"So, Mr. Donovan..." Janice began.

"Derrick," he corrected her cooly. He smiled at her slightly.

"Derrick, can you tell me why you had admitted yourself into this facility?" Janice asked, peering at him through her round glasses.

Derrick gently held her hand with both of his. Janice did not pull away, since she was used to this sort of thing from her patients.

"I can do better than that." Derrick looked up at her, his smile grim and his eyes looking black. "I can show you."

He gripped her hand tighter, causing Janice to wince.

Suddenly, Janice's vision went dark as Derrick's eyes rolled into the back of his head.

It felt as if the floor had fallen out beneath them. Slowly, then quickly, they descended into the darkness.

                                                                       **********************

Janice felt a scream rise up in herself, but the numbness of her entire body prevented it. She could not hear herself or feel anything... it was as if silence had overcame her.

Janice reached for Derrick's hand, trying to scramble onto her feet. She couldn't feel it. She couldn't feel it she couldn't feel it she couldn't feel it.

She glanced around. There were stretches of darkness that were piercing upwards all around her.

Janice stumbled across a small area, then fell against one of the dark stretches. Finally, she had regained some feeling in her hands and felt of the dark, which was painfully rough. Was it a tree? Was she somehow in a forest?

"Where are we?" She couldn't hear her own voice.

She felt something grab her hand- a human hand. "Derrick?" she asked, but still couldn't hear her own voice.

The hand pulled hard on her, then she was being dragged across the rugged, flaky ground.

Feeling had come back to Janice's body- mostly. She could feel hard bits, itchy bits, and painful, prickly bits all over her body as she was being dragged deeper into the abyss.

                                                                       ****************

Janice felt the hand release her own, and she fell onto the ground, the bits tumbling off her body.

"Where are we?" she asked. She could barely hear her own voice. "Derrick?"

His wide smile came at her through the darkness, but something was wrong.

Much too wrong.

"Welcome to my mind." He grinned further still, his pointed teeth showing.

He grabbed her by her shoulders,the back of her shirt pressed up against her back tightly.

"It's the darkest part of me," he muttered as he pulled Janice closer to his face. His breath reeked.

"Look into my eyes!" he screeched, "Just look into them!" He gave Janice a jolt.

Derrick's eyes were completely black now- but somehow, you could see the reflection of the dark forest within them.

"Let me go!" Janice screamed.

Derrick just smirked. "You are the captive, and this is your prison."

"Let me go! Let me go!" Janice continued to scream as Derrick's grip tightened and tightened and became harder and harder...

                                                                     ********************

"Shh... shhhh... shhh.... Calm down, Janice," a nurse with a soothing voice said as several people struggled to keep the young lady down.

Janice continued to writhe and scream as the people struggled to put her in the straight jacket.

A man with dark eyes and a calm expression walked into the room.

"Excuse me," he told the working people, pulling out a syringe. He uncapped it.

"This will only hurt a bit," he promised Janice, pushing it through the sleeve of the straight jacket and into her arm.

Janice screamed for only a minute more and fell unconscious.

"Thank you, Doctor Donovan," the woman told him.

The doctor smiled strangely and gave her a slight nod.

"Take the patient to her room. Janice will need plenty of rest,"  Doctor Donovan told her.

"Yes, sir, Doctor Donovan," the nurse told him, helping the other workers to pull the lady on the stretcher.

"I wonder who my next patient will be," the doctor wondered out-loud once the workers left.

He grinned at the prospect, his pointed teeth showing.