Tainted blood seeped down the inside of the cell wall. My hands have been bleeding for what feels like decades. Footsteps verge on the metal door. The loud screech of the door makes my ears bleed and I fall to the cracked concrete floor.

“Here’s your food”, bellowed the uptight looking guard. He must be their leader. The black of his uniform was almost as black as the night sky. He had a strong jaw and a shaped up haircut underneath what looked like a police officer hat. His hips looked as if they had 20 pound tumors on them.

A body was heaved into the room with me. An alive one—finally I’m not alone. The straggly and limp man looked at me with a grimy grin. I wanted to probe him his name but I doubt he would want bothered. His uniform was worn and tore. His arms were skinned to the bone.

Weeks past and not one of us had verbalized a word to each other. There was a force that made me try to talk to him because I didn’t want to feel isolated anymore. There was already enough isolation back home in Barnhill. Having less than 400 people in your area gets lonely.

Barnhill was my home. The green land towered over the community and rivers cut through the valleys. I lived next door to an old chapel. The priest was arrested for gouging a woman’s eyes out. His name was Willchestki or Killski or something of that nature. He moved here from Europe in the early 1920’s. He was a quiet man. Beard on beard on beard. He didn’t look like a priest. He always looked worn and dirty.

“What is your name?” I enquired with wonder.

He crooked toward me with disgust. “I told you my name the last time we met. How about you tell me my name?”

“What do you mean? I’ve never met you. You’re the first person that’s been in here since my Sergeant croaked.”

“Look at my eyes and say that you don’t know my name.” He had a thick, Russian twang. I was nearly positive he had fury in his voice. His lips were shielded as he spoke by the griminess and thickness of his beard. “Since you forgot my name Jackson I suppose I’ll tell you again. My name is Melvin Killiwiski.”

Why did he know my name? Why does he think that we’ve met before?

“I don’t know you. I’ve never met a Russian…” I said as I was briefly stopped in mid-sentence.

“I’m not Russian”, Melvin alleged almost offended.

“What are you then? Hm? Polish?”

“I’m American”, Melvin said. I was in awe. How could he be American if he had a Russian army uniform on? All Russians were to return to Russia during World War 2. I turned towards the bloody wall almost as if I could see beyond my life. “I’m from Ohio. Small town. Barnhill. I used to live by an old church. As a kid I used to play on the roof of the shed.” Melvin scoffed. “I played on that rusted shed roof until I fell off it one day.”

I turned to Melvin whose eyes were brighter than fireworks on the fourth of July. His eyes prompted me of mother’s. Bright blue and somewhat green.

“Bulls**t. I was the only kid within miles of that church. I fell off that roof. I broke my arm and gashed open my forehead”, I uttered as I pointed to the scar on my head.

“I was there Jackson. I was there when you got stitches in your head. I was there when you got caught, you and your men. You put me here.”

“What do you mean I put you here? I didn’t make you get caught.”

By now my hand had new cuts and gouges on it. The bleeding was speeding up as if bleeding was the only thing I knew how to do.

“YOU PUT ME HERE!” Melvin screamed. “YOU PUT ME HERE BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T WANT TO BE ALONE ANYMORE. I’m here to stay Jackson. There is no getting rid of me. The only way you can get away from me is if you kill me. Better yet, why don’t you kill yourself? Put us both out of our misery.”

A choking sensation struck my body.

“Melvin stop!” I screamed. I looked down my body to see my hands about Melvin’s neck.

“Don’t stop!” Melvin begged. “KILL ME! KILL ME YOU SON OF A BITCH! KILL ME!”

The wall behind Melvin was black and seeming farther with each passing second. I tried to grasp Melvin but a sharp sensation crippled my body. Almost as if I was paralyzed. The door to Bunker #3 unfastened swiftly. The German leader’s uniform was no longer black but glistened in the light from the window. The black wall in front of me burst with bright colors.

Where was Melvin?

I heard a distant voice. But not with my ears—with my conscience.

“I’ll be back.”

Dr. Gaye

“We need to erase all files of Melvin.”

“You don’t think the state is gonna come looking for him do ya?”

I beheld at Warden Rowe and then back down at the floor.

“Melvin is our most dangerous patient we have here at Sunnyvale. There is no treating this. There is no way of dealing with him”, I said as I look over Melvin’s file.

Melvin Jackson DOB: 5/25/1984

Height: 6’0” Weight: 185 Date of Intake: 2/14/2001

Address: 213 Oak Spring Road, Barnhill, OH.

Diagnosis: Severe Schizophrenia, Bipolar, PTSD

Treatment: Abilify Oral

Notes: Will go under Schizophrenic shock. Imagines a man named Melvin Killiwski. Severely suicidal.

Melvin has been a patient for 13 years and has never gotten better. The walls of his room were covered with blood and words like “End” and “Kill”. He was the most dangerous patient I’ve ever came across. Even some of the psychopaths that have past threw here have been treatable then put into state prison or wards number 1 or 2. Melvin has been in ward #3 for 13 years. Ward 3 is where we place all of the severely harmful patients—harmful to themselves and others.

“We must do what must be done Rowe. There’s no treating this. He’s been showing no signs of improvement for 17 years, ever since he came here.”

Suddenly we were interrupted by an orderly who looked frantic.

“He’s back”’ said the orderly. “You better come here.”

We charged down the corridor of doors with faces of the insane in them. The orderly was waiting at the metal, white door of ward 3. The walls became thinner and covered in cob webs and ants. The screaming became more distinct of Melvin’s voice. Three guards armed with batons and shackles were waiting for us.

A choking cacophony came through the cracks in the between the door—followed by “KILL ME, KILL ME”.

Warden Rowe led the assault on Melvin’s room. Rowe cracked threw Melvin’s door like a nut coming out of its shell and ran to Melvin who was bleeding from the neck and hands. He must have stabbed himself with shard of concrete ripped from the wall.

“Seize him! Get him constrained” yelled Warden Rowe as he placed Melvin on his stomach. Melvin lashed on the ground for what seemed like hours until he suddenly came to an abrupt halt. The gash in his neck from the concrete shard has enlarged and began to bleed profusely.

“He’s losing blood”, I uttered. “Get him to the infirmary!”

Rowe walked up to and whispered in my ear. “I thought this is what you wanted. Melvin is killing himself. You didn’t do anything.”

I looked at Melvin’s wall. He had drawings on them. Drawings of death—all from blood.* Melvin recovered from his injuries and was taken into a cold, dark room—a room that would remind you of a medieval dungeon. Melvin sat in a wooden chair with his hands constrained. Warden Rowe approached from his office holding a piece of lined paper.

“Do you think this will work?” Rowe asked.

“Of course it will. If we can get a confession from Melvin then we can get him transferred to another location.”

“It just doesn’t feel right Gaye.”

“Do you want to have to be there when he cuts off his own leg or his arm or hell, even his head?” I looked at Rowe’s blank stare and I proceeded into the room and sat up the video camera.

Dr. Gaye and Melvin Jackson

“Tell us everything Mr. Jackson. Who is Melvin Killiwiski?”

I pressed the shot of sedative into his arm. The bandage on his neck was bloodied and 3 of his fingers were taken off because of the severe damage done to them.

“Melvin… is inside of me. He’s in my head. He isn’t real. My name is Melvin Jackson and I’m a severe schizophrenic. I place a man named Melvin Killiwiski inside me because that’s what I do. I’m crazy. Killiwiski was the last name of the man who killed my mother and ripped out her eyeball. He was the pastor at the church beside my house. My name is Melvin Jackson and Melvin Killiwiski is not real.”

“Thank you Melvin”, I gracefully said. “You’re going back to your cell now.” Melvin left the room and I turned off the video camera that was recording Melvin’s confession and collected the premade script I made him read.

“So this is what you want? Melvin knows he’s crazy now he can be rehabilitated. Moved out of your asylum, forever”, Rowe said from outside of the door. I rolled my eyes.

“He won’t be our problem anymore.”