The fluorescent lights hummed with a sickly drone above me, casting a harsh glare on the sterile white walls. My fingers, still stained with an imaginary crimson, trembled as I clasped them together, my head bowed low.

The hospital gown, a scratchy blue, felt like a cage. Patient 220, the badge proclaimed, a number, not a name. My name, Danielle, felt like a distant echo, a whisper from a life that no longer existed.

My hair, a tangled mess, fell across my face, hiding the dried blood on my lips. I had chewed on them again, a nervous habit that left a metallic taste in my mouth. On my wrist, the plastic band felt like a shackle, constant reminder of where I was. Or, rather, where they said I was.

Today, like every day, the voices were a low thrum beneath the surface, waiting. Waiting for the interview room. Waiting for the questions I couldn't answer, the truths I couldn't speak. It was easier to draw. Easier to let the chaos spill onto paper than to let it escape my lips and unleash the tormentors in my mind.