White.

All Ezra sees is white.

White walls, white floors, white uniforms. In that very moment, he couldn’t think of a colour he hated more. This… maddening plainness symbolised everything that was wrong with the place. It was difficult, if not impossible to distinguish where one wall ended, and where another began, giving the impression of an infinite, white abyss. Growing up, Ezra always thought white was the colour of purity, wholeness - everything Remmington’s was not, as anyone who took up residence here would realise. Things weren’t so bad though, some days, especially when the orderlies left him to his thoughts, and the voices in his head quieted down. But the more he dwelled on the matter, the more he realised what a thinly-veiled lie it was.

He hated this place.

Ezra could barely remember how long he’d been here. A week? A month? A year? It all sounded wrong to him, even as they swirled around in the recesses of his mind. The drugs they pumped him full of did everything except their intended purpose, memories slipping from him like sand through his fingers. Sometimes, Ezra was convinced that it was all just a ploy to keep him docile; placid. After all, how could he plot an escape route when he could barely walk down the corridors without tripping over his own feet? But those thoughts never stayed with him for long, his mind drifting away to other ideas before he could tighten his grasp.

Plodding aimlessly along, Ezra’s footsteps were muffled into silence by the linoleum floor. No one had come to bother him today, which was a first - though he couldn’t say he was very happy about it either. Ezra had been jonesing for a cigarette ever since this morning, how was he going to get one with nobody around? Of course, he knew better than anyone that smoking was strictly prohibited for patients, but who was going to enforce such a rule when you could simply take advantage of it? Nothing came without a price, though it was one he was willing to pay to stave off withdrawal.

Before he could bump into an orderly, however, Ezra noticed someone out of the corner of his eye. Those wilful shocks of purple hair drew a stirring of recognition out from within him, although he couldn’t quite put a name to the face just yet - all he knew was that it started with an ‘A’.

“What’d they do to you?”

The words spilt forth from his lips before he could stop them, and he began to approach the girl as if on a tether. Ezra’s movements were slow, unsure. It wasn’t often that he made conversation with the others in Remmington’s, preferring to keep to himself. So why was he starting now? The answer to that was question was unknown, even to him. But maybe, just maybe, this would be the first thing in this place to do him good.