Narrative
Who: Brendan Colcord & St.Brady's Mental Hospital Officials When: Thurs, Earl-Afternoon Where: Zener School What: Brendan has overstayed his welcome at Zener, or so the hospital thinks.
Brendan has pushed his luck enough to demand staying at Zener even after the hospital had deemed him unworthy of being among other people so soon after his mental treatment. It was understood after all. One could not imagine a young boy who had been locked in a cellar for over a year with nothing but water and scraps of food to keep him alive and nothing but the dirt under his feet as company, every so often hearing the crying or screaming of other children somewhere in the darkness around him. It had taken years of mental rehabilitation until Brendan could even interact with other people normally again, and to top it off, his parents had vanished after he was kidnapped. He had no one, no where, and nothing, until Zener of course.
But sadly Brendan wasn't ready for that, as much as he wanted to be. At least the hospital didn't think so. Word had reached them that he had certainly made improvements and attachments to people such as Justin and Mr.Six, but that was short lived. St.Brady's had requested Brendan to return for the summer, but he seemed heart set on going to New York City with Justin, to seemingly live happily ever after. This was not to be.
The officials were granted entrance to the school simply through legal loopholes and paperwork. After much screaming, kicking and flailing, Brendan's dorm appeared as if a small tornado had ripped the room apart. He was lucky that Brea had left when he did or he may have been caught in all that mess. The men in white jackets, who worked as nurses for St.Brady's managed to wrestle Brendan down outside the school and were forced to drag him towards the ambulance. All around the grounds of the school, flowers wilted and died instantly, trees seemed to bend and tear up their roots from the ground, grass turned brownish yellow. Brendan screamed as he clawed at the ground, grass and weeds wrapping around his hands and wrists, trying to pull him from the men's grasp, but the vines just seemed to snap away. The only thing left for them to do was to cling to Brendan. He continued to wail and cry as he clawed at the dying grass, vines sprouting up and wrapping around him, thorns digging into his skin, trying to hold him back, but that only tore up Brendan's clothes and left small traces of blood in the grass.
Finally the sedative kicked in, and Brendan's control of his powers and conciousness was lost. He was placed down on the cot in the back of the ambulance and strapped down. He last fading thoughts were that of Zener. All the people he had met. All the classes he had taken gone to waste. Mr.Six and how he had let his teacher down, even after he had taken such interest in helping Brendan. And finally that of Justin. Justin, the one boy at Zener who treated Brendan like a person. The one boy who made a true bond with Brendan, the one who had not shunned him away and actually helped Brendan become a real member of socioty. Brendan passed out as the ambulance doors were shut and started off down the road, heading back to St.Brady's Mental Hospital.
Somewhere in the wreckage of Brendan's old dorm, among all the broken furniture, shreded text books, ripped sheets and mess lay the broken flower pot that Justin had once given Brendan that held Brendan's best friend, a fern, Fido. By the time the ambulance was leaving the grounds of Zener, the fern was long dead.