T
he Sunnyside Orphanage was ironically named. In the lower, shady part of London, it was full to bursting of junkie's unwanted or orphaned kids, and it was anything but sunny. Hell, despite the fact that none of the kids there had any aspirations of a happy life, the sun itself never shone there, literally. The huge, cramped flats surrounding it made sure of that. The entrance was good-looking enough. You could tell it was a place with not enough funding straight away, don't get me wrong, the wooden floor squeaked, the chairs were old and the padding virtually gone, and the large frond-plant was plastic. The once crème wallpaper was now beige and the old, wooden front desk from the days when it was a swanky hotel was chipped and splintered.
Children were shuffled into the lobby where they were inspected and either taken away or left; though many that were taken would appear again, crying. There weren't any stable people in this area…..some were good people, just without money, and others just realized they couldn't handle it.
Others were just bad people.
The first thing you learned about Sunnyside is that you didn't cry.
Crying upset the other sad children, and so they would cry too, and before you know it, there would be lots of screaming, snotty children. One child in particular was always quiet. She didn't talk to anyone, always sat in the corner, and always cried silently. The girl was about age five. She was small for her age (and skinny), with long, curly black hair that was always tangled. She would always write in this tattered notebook she carried with her all the time. She never showed it to anyone.
The girl's name was Astra. She was getting abused by her family, so she ran away.
Most of the people there thought she was...peculiar.
She would see things that weren't there, hear voices, and talk to herself. No one wanted her.
Astra had Schizophrenia, which was a disease with no cure. The children were frightened of this little girl.
Doctors offered their services to the girl, but she kept causing trouble. She wrote on the walls, threw tantrums, caused fits, screamed for no reason, and sometimes beat the other children up.
iNSaNiTY
Like floating on air
PSYCHoPaTHY
A carefree life
iNSaNiTY
An illusion that can't end
CaPTiViTY
Unable to run away
iNSaNiTY
Like floating on air
PSYCHoPaTHY
A carefree life
iNSaNiTY
An illusion that can't end
CaPTiViTY
Like the corruption is continuing
Astra rocked back and forth on the old creaky bed, her eyes wide with fear. She just had a distant memory of her older brother Cosmo, the hilt of the knife deep in his back. Her mother had done this. So, in her sadness, in her grief, she ran away to the Orphanage.
The next day, the last child inside the Orphanage was adopted. Astra was now the only kid.
Weeks passed, but no one new came to Sunnyside.
The Schizophrenic child was all alone.
Sta.sh
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