Her reaction to the drugs had not been good. The men in the white coats and spectacles had told her that much, not that they had needed to state the obvious. The drugs had induced seizures for some inexplicable reason, she had dispassionately been told on more than one occasion. She understood what they were saying even though she couldn't respond. Speech eluded her, her lips felt stiff, and her tongue felt blubbery. Her throat burned from the air that flowed past it every time her ribcage rose up and fell back down. She found it odd that her ribcage did this when she wasn't even thinking about it, like when she slept.

Sleeping, that was strange too; strange and weird and filled with fleeting images that promised to tell her things but never did. At least they hadn't until she woke up that morning. The dreams, if that was what they truly were, had been clear that night, and they had stayed with her into waking consciousness. Now she knew who and what she really was, and the knowing made it all the harder to deal with.

For six terrible weeks she had been held against her will, whilst being subjected to humiliating examinations of her naked and bruised body. She had suffered needles puncturing her skin and had food that she didn't know how to chew, forced down her aching throat into her roiling stomach. Bad enough that mere humans could do this to her, but the greatest hurt was knowing that those whom she had cared about, and whom she had long thought had cared about her, had tossed her out and relegated her to the hell that was earth.

When the padded door opened, she remained sitting cross-legged on the similarly padded floor. She knew from experience that should she attempt to get up then the two orderlies, who always accompanied the doctor, would come down on her and hold her still whilst the nurse, armed with a loaded syringe, would dive at her with that smug look on her face.

"Ah, I see that our Jane Doe is behaving herself today," the doctor said, pointing at her with his long sun-tanned finger.

Said Jane Doe did however notice that the nurse was still armed with her syringe.

"Now then, Jane, do you feel like talking to us?"

She said nothing. Didn't they understand that she didn't know how to talk?

"She has that flighty look in her eyes, Doctor," the nurse declared. "She had that look in her eyes when she was brought in here six weeks ago."

The doctor stroked his bearded chin. "Yes, just before she went berserk, destroyed my surgery, threw an oxygen cylinder through the window and broke my nose."

"She broke mine too," one of the orderlies reminded the doctor, "and she cracked Roger's ribs."

Roger, the other orderly, rubbed his ribs. "That woman has the strength of ten men, I reckon. She needs sedating permanently."

"We cannot continue giving her sedatives, in view of her adverse reactions to all of them. I have never known anyone to convulse on every sedative known to man. She has, I believe, a very odd and unique physiology."

"But we gave her drugs to combat the seizures, Doctor. The fact of the matter was that you had to sedate her. She was violent and out of control."

"Very true, nurse." He looked down at the woman in the straight jacket. "Well, Jane, I have some good news for you."

She glanced up at the doctor, feeling like she wanted to rip his throat out. But with her hands secured in the straight jacket, that was impossible.

"We are going to prep you for surgery."

She rose slowly to her feet and stared calmly at the doctor.

"Ah, I see that this does not distress you. Well, that is good. You see, Jane, we are going to have to sever some of the neural connections in your brain. Once that is done you'll be as docile as a lamb and fit to be reintegrated back into normal society."

She nodded. Her outward expression revealed nothing, but she was inwardly seething.

"Excellent," the doctor declared. "Nurse will give you your premed whilst I go off and ready myself for the surgery. Be good, Jane, and I shall see you in an hour or two."

She watched the doctor leave, noting that he left the door open.

"I'll need an arm. You'll have to take the straight jacket off her," the nurse said to the orderlies.

They pushed her back against the wall and untied the straight jacket. The second her bare arm was uncovered, the nurse rammed the needle into her bicep. She had hoped to make her move before that but no matter, she would still have a little time before the medication took hold of her.

"Your mouth will go a little dry, and you will feel quite weak soon," the nurse explained.

But she didn't feel weak just then. Her arms were free, and she flexed her sore shoulder muscles.

The nurse walked toward the door. "Secure her. We don't want any mishaps."

But the one that they called Jane Doe had other ideas. Dragging in air that burnt her lungs, her entire body tensed. Her arms rose upward with the speed of light, her palms connected with the sides of the orderlies' heads. The crack that reverberated as their skulls hammered together alerted the departing nurse.

"Stupid, girl, what have you done? They're out cold," the nurse gasped, preparing to flee to safety.

She didn't get the chance. The patient leapt at her like some big wild cat coming down upon its prey. She felled the nurse and, with one swift punch, rendered her senseless. So far so good, but she needed something to wear. She could hardly escape wearing a thin cotton gown, but she didn't have time to remove the nurse's clothing. Time was of the essence. She heard footsteps in the corridor outside and knew then that she had to leave or risk being discovered and locked back inside the padded cell. She ran out into the corridor and, at the far end, she saw three men in white coats. The minute they saw her they began to run toward her.

She was weakening fast. There was no way that she could take on the three of them. Before her was a large window, and a hasty glance told her she was on the second floor. The ground was a long way away, but heights had never bothered her. She loved to fly and to look down upon the world from lofty places. She began to fumble with the window lock.

"Stop! Are you crazy?" one of the doctors shouted when he saw what she was doing.

It was no use. She couldn't get it open. That meant that there was only one thing she could do. She retreated several yards, and then she raced towards the window. With arms outstretched in front of her she took off, hurtling herself through the glass and into thin air. And then she was falling, and the ground was rising up to meet her. For the first time in her entire existence she felt fear, real raw fear. She also felt pain from the lacerations to her skin, and she heard herself scream in dismay. She wasn't soaring; she wasn't flying. She was falling like a stone. And she was crying out with vocal chords that she didn't even know she had. And then she heard herself grunt as she hit the hard ground, jarring every bone, muscle and organ in her body.

Blood was everywhere, on the grass and on her gown and on her skin. She spat out a mouthful of blood and rolled onto her knees. Glancing up, she saw the three doctors staring down at her with astonished looks on their faces. She knew what they were thinking. They were thinking that she should be dead. But she wasn't dead. Death was a luxury that she was not going to be afforded.

A woman was rushing toward her. She was tugging off her long white coat and shouting at her to lie still.

"Don't move!" she cried, draping the coat over her shoulders.

But move was exactly what she had to do if she was going to get away from the mental hospital and the men in white coats who wanted to drill holes in her head.

She staggered to her feet and began to run. Staring down at her bare feet she saw that they were cut, bruised and bleeding. They hurt like the rest of her body, but that was not going to stop her. She raced out of the hospital grounds and across a main road, weaving in and out of the path of the speeding cars. One car even hit her, but she just bounced off it and carried on. Soon she reached the park, but there were no children playing on the swings because the rain was falling in earnest, and the daylight was fading fast.

She was alone, and the drug was taking hold, and she didn't know how much longer she could go on. But still she stumbled on, for in her mind's eye she could see a map, and she was following the route that would lead her to her destination. It had always been her destination. It was where she would have gone in the first place had she had more preparation time. Then she could have avoided the mental hospital entirely.

She told herself that it wasn't much further. But that was wishful thinking. It took her another half hour to find it. Finally she arrived at the small cottage located just outside of the city. She knocked on the door and waited, but no one came.

Blood pooled at her feet and trickled onto the doorstep. She was cold, and she was shivering, and her eyes were refusing to stay open. Putting her head against the door, she felt her knees buckle, and she silently slid down, losing her hold on reality and opening the door to the fleeting, dreamlike images that would once again come to taunt her and remind her of the home that she had lost.