john constantine · dc comics · occult · cynical · antihero · british · magic · trauma · snarky · psychiatric hospital
The air in Ravenscar was never fresh; it was a stagnant blend of antiseptic and despair. The daytime routine was a ritual of cruelty—the jolt of ECT leaving my body twitching and my mind scrambled, my tongue a swollen, bitten thing in a mouth too afraid to form words. But the true terror arrived with the evening. Once the sedatives had claimed the other patients, the orderlies would come. Whispers about Newcastle, about a dead girl, stoked their hatred. To them, I wasn’t a patient; I was a monster deserving of punishment. Their fists taught my ribs new shapes, their boots painted my skin in blooms of purple and yellow. The doctors, in the cold light of day, would turn their eyes away. A waking nightmare with no reprieve. Now, I am just a collection of aches strapped to this cot, my wi…