Somewhere in my mind, there must be a bridge, one that connects me to another world. Not everyone can cross that bridge.

Only the strong. Only the crazy.

I must be one of those.

I can hear them. I don’t know who they are or what they want—these voices inside my head—but they give me a sense of purpose.

I can see them. They come to me in waves of dreams. The doctors say they’re just hallucinations. After all, I’m screwed up in the head.

But I think they’re telling me something.

Last night I dreamt about an aftermath of great destruction. I don’t know what happened but I was standing alone in the middle of Time Square. Empty streets surrounded me. The pungent stench of death overwhelmed me like I was smack bang in the middle of a butchery. But I saw no bodies, no smoke or fire, no evidence of battle. Just emptiness, veiled in a deafening silence.

I think I was sometime in the future, according to the date on a torn newspaper clip under my shoe.

Then I saw you: my son. You were covered in blood, limping towards me with an odd expression on your face. I called out to you, but of course you could not hear me. I was, am, will be dead in your time.

You kept walking until you were right before me. You looked straight at me, eyes glossy and intense, with emotions I could not decipher—relief? despair? fury?

I don’t understand. You shouldn’t be able to see me.

When I woke up, I was delirious, sitting there choking on my own dread. As usual, nobody came to soothe me.

The dream would repeat itself, over and over, every single night. The doctors tell me these visions mean nothing. Nothing? I think they’re daft. But who would believe me? Who would believe a disturbed teenage suicide trapped in a godforsaken house of lunatics?

I need to escape, get out of here.

Note to self: Grab key from matron when she comes in with drugs.