Electric shock

Professor Terry Sydney was holding the ends of wires near the temples of a tall, young blonde girl who was laying still on a bed.

She was going to perform a regular clinical procedure – electroshock therapy.

The old, garbage-looking machine made cracky noise - the amperage was rising.

The girl clutched her teeth, in anticipation of pain, which was considered to be necessary.

- Just a bit more dopamine for your brain, dear, and you will be fine, - promising words of professor Sydney sounded from above, a wave of her grey hair swam in front of the girl. Her eyes began hurt. She shut them, wondering if she stopped hallucinating.

The wires got straight and hot, and the current hit neurons in the girl's head.

"If only he could see it" - the thought ran in her head, then splitted at two, and she heard another voice repeating what she said – cruel, ugly, a voice of an old madman. It belonged to the only person from her past whom she truly hated – her grandfather. He used to make fun of her, when she was so little she couldn't understand the words she heard.

The wires got colder, and Terry Sydney turned the current off. Amperage lowered, before it disappeared, and the electroshock machine got silent.

The grumpy voice in her head disappeared. All the girl heard was ventilator humming, interrupted by distant steps of professor Sydney.

The girl couldn't sit, her body was straight as a stick. She couldn't control her muscles yet, frozen and shocked after the procedure.

- Welcome back to reality, sweetheart, - professor Sydney said cheerfully.

As she looked around, she realized that she was in a hospital room, and that an old, pale woman was staring at her. The woman's grey hair were plaited in two pigtails. It seemed childish and inappropriate for the doctor, the girl thought. She used to be a sort of strict school director, before she got to "Atlantis".

- Who are you? - she heard her own voice, so weak and wretched, as if it was someone else's.

Professor Sydney made a sigh, and instead of replying rolled up a sleeve of her patient's pijama. A familiar pain of a needle calmed down the girl, as a soporific rushed in her vein from the syringe, held firmly by the psychiatrist.

When the knock to the door sounded, the girl didn't hear it – she fell asleep.

- Professor Sydney? - a black curly hair appeared in the doorway. - It's about Pierrot, we need to talk immediately.

- What happened, Victoria? - Terry Sydney stood up from her chair, making sure that eyes of her patient are closed.

Victoria looked around the room, her eyes fell on the slim figure lying on the bed.

- Who is that?

She asked.

- Not your concern, - professor Sydney cut off, throwing over Eve a blanket. - So, what about Pierrot?

As the door shut behind them and Victoria followed her supervisor to the main hall, she couldn't think about Happy Pierrot anymore.

She just recognized her brother's missing girlfriend, lying on a hospital ward.