Read Online Tentyrian Legacy by Elise Walters - Free Book Online

years since Ari’s last scan, and imaging
technology had improved significantly.
    The doctors couldn’t attribute her condition
to her unusual corpus callosum, but they resolved that it was worth
exploring. At least one doctor in particular did. Dr. Aman Raad saw
Ari’s brain scan by chance. He was a neurologist new to Silver
Hill, and his pioneering research made him well respected in the
psychiatric community. Raad had accepted a position at Silver Hill,
as he’d wanted to move away from the demands of a daily operating
schedule. In his role at the facility—Connecticut’s best treatment
hospital for psychiatric disorders and addictions—Raad had reviewed
neurological scans of patients and assisted in appropriate
treatment plans.
    Dr. Raad had been taking his first in-depth
tour of the Silver Hill lab when he saw Ari’s scan on the light
box. He immediately pointed out the abnormal thickness of the
neural bridge and requested Ari’s file. Dr. Wilson, Ari’s primary
doctor and director at the hospital, agreed it was an interesting
find but remained convinced her previous diagnoses remained
accurate. After all, Ari’s medication worked before to treat her
schizophrenia and cluster headaches. It was her not taking the
medication, as indicated by the toxicology reports, that was the
catalyst for her episode.
    Ari hated Silver Hill. The mental noise she
experienced was excruciating. With patients, nurses, orderlies, and
doctors surrounding her, the voices in her head increased tenfold.
Not even the walls of her private room could keep them out. On top
of it, Ari was pumped full of drugs, and she felt like she was
sleepwalking while a constant buzzing played over loud speakers.
She felt numb as she went through the motions of answering the
doctors’ questions and interacting in her group sessions. It was a
constant struggle to stay focused and to not give in to the
hysteria that was building in her mind.
    Ari felt sad for the people around her. In
many instances, they were worse off than she. There was one woman
who used to be the perfect housewife—that was until the stress of
four children and a cheating husband sent her into a spiral of
depression and an unsuccessful suicide attempt. There was one boy
in her therapy group, not much older than her, who suffered from an
oxycodone addiction. And then there was her lunch companion who
saved her a seat every day. He was around thirty and had Tourette’s
syndrome, in addition to an imaginary friend. Ari was amongst a
bunch of misfits—even she didn’t belong.
    Surprisingly, Silver Hill was beautiful. It
had acres of rolling lawns, gardens, and trees. The rooms and
hallways were immaculate, and the staff was pleasantly mannered.
But the environment was choking Ari. With every day that passed,
she felt she was one step closer to losing touch with reality.
    Ari refused to speak about what happened with
her physics teacher to the doctors. In the days leading up to her
parents bringing her to Silver Hill, she tried desperately to
explain what happened. But her father wasn’t around to explain it
to and her mother simply didn’t believe her. In her mandatory
therapy session with her parents and doctor on her first day, they
discussed her as if she weren’t even in the room. She was
invisible. The truth was irrelevant.
    Ari was feeling that invisibility again as
she sat in another session with her parents and Dr. Wilson.
    “Arianna, now that you have had time to
reflect on what has happened, do you understand how important it is
that you take your medication?” said the tight-faced doctor as he
pushed his rimless glasses further up the bridge of his nose. He
waited expectantly for Ari to answer.
    “I understand that to you I am a lab rat. And
to my parents I am a problem,” she replied bluntly. Ari heard her
mother gasp at her uncharacteristically bold words, but it didn’t
stop her. “The medication I have taken on and off for over ten
years doesn’t work. So no,