March 3rd.
Poison.
That's the first word that came to me when they handed me this notebook and said I could "process." The pen they gave me is hospital-blue, not my usual black. I notice the color more than the paper. I always notice color. It's one of the first senses to dull when exposure begins—taste, then smell, then hue, and maybe touch.
The room is fine, objectively. Square, sterile, walls painted the exact shade of milk that pretends it's white. I believe it's called Off-white if I remember correctly. There's a vent that hisses on a cycle of thirty-two seconds. I timed it. Someone thought that would be soothing. I suppose to most people it is.
Dr Rhodes says writing will help "re-establish continuity." He has the careful diction of someone who's practiced empathy in a mirror. I told him that diagnosing a psychiatrist must feel like trying to sell holy water to a priest. He smiled, which meant I'd landed a nerve.
It would have saved my time, storing all of this information in my head anyways. Writing all my observations in this book only wastes time.
I asked for my files, or at least the incident report. He said they're being "reviewed." I reminded him I used to write those reports. He asked how that made me feel. Classic deflection. I told him it made me feel like a rat in a maze that built the maze herself.
There's a window, sealed, double-paned. I pressed my palm to it; the glass vibrated faintly with the HVAC rhythm. Outside is just a courtyard—square of grass, one tree, trimmed into obedience. Someone has tried to make the outside match the inside.
It wasn't a very good job in my opinion. Not many people perfect in the things they do.
Lunch was protein mush disguised as chicken and a cup of water that smelled faintly metallic. I didn't drink it. I told them I have a sensitivity to tap minerals. Cora, the nurse with the too-bright hair, wrote that down on her clipboard without looking at me. I like her less for that.
I am not here under duress. I signed the forms. I remember the pen trembling slightly because the fluorescent lights flicker at a frequency that triggers fine motor tremors after prolonged exposure. That's a fact, not paranoia. I could show them the data.
Still, every door here clicks behind me. Not loudly, just enough that it vibrates in the bones. Like the tick of a Geiger counter.
Rhodes says I have to find "the beginning." But beginnings are arbitrary; in toxicology, everything's already reacting before you notice it. The first symptom isn't the start—it's the confession. That is what starts it all.
So: Poison.
That's where I'll start, because everything that came after tasted of it.