Exit Protocol

Tuesday morning visit. The psychiatrist sits across from me, reviewing notes, then looks up.

"Why do you feel so guilty?" he asks. Direct, no preamble. "A four-year-old child can't be culpable. Even if she committed horrible acts."

I consider the question. The way it's phrased, the assumption embedded in it.

"Humans are contemptible," I say. "They need scapegoats. Even defenseless children work fine as sacrificial meat."

He writes something. Doesn't argue.

But there's another truth circulating in my mind, one I don't speak aloud: my guilt isn't about what I did. It's about existing at all. I've always perceived my mother's hatred for my birth. My brother's hatred for my presence. The original sin wasn't action. It was being born.

"I'm leaving Thursday," I tell him.

He sets down his pen. "We'd like you to reconsider."

"No."

Over the next two days they send different doctors, different psychologists. Each makes their case. Each suggests I need more time, more stabilization, more observation.

One psychiatrist, youngish, earnest, tries a different approach.

"It's harder with you," he admits. "Your erudition, your intelligence. But everyone here is like you. That's the point. You're not alone in how your mind works."

I appreciate the honesty. But it doesn't change anything.

"Thursday," I repeat.

They ask who's picking me up. Family, friends, support system.

"No one," I say. "I'll leave on my own."

The suspicion has been growing: asking someone to retrieve me is just transferring ownership. Moving from one keeper to another. The ward as way-station between masters.

Better to walk out alone.

Thursday morning arrives with that particular quality institutional departures have. Everything looks the same but feels conclusive.

I find Vincent in the smoking area.

"Leaving today," I tell him.

He nods. Already knows, apparently. Information travels.

"Take care of yourself," he says. "Watch the coffee."

I almost laugh. The coffee machine theory, still alive between us.

204 appears in the corridor as I'm collecting my donated wardrobe. We don't say much. Just acknowledgment. Two operatives recognizing each other's trajectories.

"Good luck," he says.

"You too. Hope you find him."

He knows I mean his father's killer. Nods once.

Final attempt at the exit. A psychiatrist I haven't seen much during my stay intercepts me at the administration desk.

"You know," he says, voice carrying performative concern that lands as malice, "in your life you've only made disasters.” “How come? I have a degree and doctorate…."

The cruelty is so naked it almost impresses me. Using my education as weapon. Suggesting that intelligence should have protected me from chaos, that my credentials prove my failure rather than my capability.

I look at him steadily.

"Yes," I say. "That's accurate."

His face shifts. He expected defense, argument, emotion. Not agreement.

I sign the discharge papers. Take my bag. Walk through the doors that lock from outside.

Outside, the air feels different. Not freer exactly. Just outside.

I find a bar down the street. Order coffee, real coffee, not institutional sludge. Sit at a table near the window.

Henry messages. He's running a commission but can pick me up after, take me to his place for lunch. Get to know each other better outside the ward context.

I wait. Drink coffee. Watch people pass who aren't patients, aren't staff, aren't part of the system I just exited.

The city continues its operations. Indifferent to my discharge, my guilt, my vampire DNA, my possibly-engineered flora.

Henry's apartment is small, organized, exactly what I expected from watching him arrange his ward space. Tech equipment, books in precise stacks, minimal decoration.

We eat. Talk about surface things, testing whether our ward connection translates outside institutional walls.

It does, mostly. Same humor, same recognition of shared damage.

But something's off in my head. That dissociative quality, like watching myself from slight distance.

I leave in the late afternoon. Thank him for lunch, for the company, for being real.

Walk three blocks before I realize: my electronic cigarette. Left it on his table.

The awareness arrives without emotion. Just data. I've left something behind. Physical evidence of presence, abandoned through inattention.

Sign of dissociation.

My mind fragmenting again, attention scattering, objects slipping through gaps in consciousness.

I don't go back for it.

I find a bench. Public space, neutral territory. Sit down.

The mantra surfaces, unprompted:

Sit. Breathe. Recalibrate.

Three steps. Simple protocol for moments when the system destabilizes.

Sit: occupy physical space with intentionality.

Breathe: maintain biological function with awareness.

Recalibrate: adjust internal parameters to current reality.

I do all three.

The city moves around me. Traffic, pedestrians, commerce, all the machinery of collective human operation.

I'm outside the ward. Free in the technical sense. But the patterns persist. The theories, the connections, the crystalline certainties that might be insight or delusion.

The vampire DNA circulating in my cells. The intestinal flora possibly producing compounds. The memories of trains and explosions and children placed in impossible positions.

The guilt that predates memory, woven into my existence before I had language to name it.

All of it continues. The ward didn't contain it. Discharge doesn't erase it.

I sit. Breathe. Recalibrate.

Somewhere in the city, Henry has my cigarette on his table, physical proof I was there.

Somewhere in the ward, Vincent and 204 continue their trajectories through institutional time.

Somewhere in my past, a train exploded. Maybe I caused it. Maybe I didn't. The ambiguity doesn't resolve.

I stand. Start walking.

The protocol holds: sit when needed, breathe always, recalibrate constantly.

The system adapts.

I continue.