Chapter 252/When Madness Paints the World

Chapter 252: 252/When Madness Paints the World

Chapter 252

Kyra’s POV

My feet moved with silent, timid steps over the polished floor of the stark white hospital room. Stephanie lay completely still, submerged in a heavy, unnatural sleep on the narrow bed. I closed the distance between us, easing onto the edge of the mattress beside her. Extending a soft hand, I stroked my fingers through the loose red strands spilling across her pillow, whispering in a low, tender voice.

"Steph... sweetie?"

"She’s totally unconscious... She can’t hear you."

A sharp shiver racked my shoulders, and I spun around in surprise. Dr. Vincenti stepped into the room with slow, measured composure, both hands buried in the pockets of his crisp white lab coat. I drew my brows together, my lips trembling with silent anxiety.

"Is there any real hope for her recovery, Doctor?"

He drew a long, heavy breath and let it out with a quiet sigh, his eyes tracking the motionless figure on the bed. "It’s been six full years... Her condition isn’t improving. It’s deteriorating."

I squeezed my palms together tightly, my knuckles turning pale. "Is she... still relapsing into the same delusion?"

"Yes." He offered a single, solemn nod before continuing. "Her mind severs itself from reality to construct a world that has zero bearing on the truth. But what breaks your heart is that every single one of these hallucinations continuously orbits one specific, brutal focal point... the exact trauma that shattered her to begin with."

My eyes widened in silent dread, my throat constricting as I whispered, "You mean... the nightmare with her father?"

"Regrettably... yes."

I turned back to face her pale, sunken features, sliding helplessly down a current of agonizing memories. I remembered the harrowing nightmare how that absolute monster of a father had locked her beneath the earth in that pitch-black basement, abusing her mercilessly for a full month straight until she fell pregnant, only to suffer a violent miscarriage under his relentless brutality.

I had been away on an extended vacation with my family at the time, and when I returned to look for her, she was gone without a trace. But a sickening instinct told me something was deeply wrong with her father’s demeanor, prompting me to alert the police immediately. When they raided the property, they pulled her out of that dark basement in a state that barely resembled a human being.

The real Stephanie never came back from that day. She became a hollow shell a body without a soul.

As time moved on, Cédric the younger brother of Dr. Alexander, who works as a physician at this facility—proposed to me. Whenever we came together to visit her, her mind began weaving elaborate, terrifying fantasies out of the faces around her. She imagined Dr. Alexander was her former professor with whom she shared a dark affair, eventually convincing herself she was carrying my fiancé Cédric’s children. She distorted the kind floor nurse into a sinister maid making veiled threats, turned the facility director Mr. Victor into Alexander’s grandfather, reshaped Dr. Vincenti into her corporate boss, and even warped poor Isabella, the sweet patient in the adjacent room, into Cédric’s secret fiancée.

Suddenly, amid the downward spiral of my thoughts, Stephanie’s eyelashes fluttered. Her eyes snapped wide open.

I jumped, startled, forcing a tense, uncertain smile onto my face. "Steph... Are you awake?"

She didn’t give me the chance to breathe another word. In a flash of absolute frenzy, she lunged off the pillows, her hands locking around my neck with terrifying, lethal force as a raw sob tore through her throat.

"You took Cédric from me! You betrayed me! How could you betray me when you’re my only friend?!"

"Stephanie! Get off!" I gasped, sheer panic seizing my chest.

The men surged toward the bed in a matter of seconds. Dr. Vincenti threw his weight forward to pull her hands away, Dr. Alexander rushed in to pin her writhing shoulders, and Cédric, who had been waiting out in the hallway, burst through the door in absolute terror.

He grabbed my shoulders, pulling me back. "Kyra! Baby, are you okay?!"

Stephanie’s wide eyes locked onto his face, the air dying completely in her chest. A jagged, heartbreaking scream ripped from her throat, rattling the walls of the room.

"Baby?! You call her ’baby,’ Cédric?! What about me?! Did you forget about me that easily?!"

Dr. Alexander stepped forward, raising his hands in a firm, authoritative command. "Everyone out of the room now! We need to sedate her immediately!"

My legs felt heavy as lead as I backed out into the hallway, trembling uncontrollably while Cédric guided me by the arm. Standing in the endless white corridor, tears spilled over my lashes, dropping onto the cold floor.

"I feel so helpless watching my best friend like this, Cédric... She’s breaking apart right in front of my eyes."

He pulled me into his chest, wrapping his arms securely around my shoulders. "There’s nothing you can do, Kyra... It’s completely out of our hands."

"I know... but my heart aches for her."

A moment later, the door creaked open. Dr. Alexander and Dr. Vincenti stepped out into the hallway, absolute exhaustion etched deep into their faces.

Alexander let out a low, grim sigh. "We had to sedate her again. Keeping her conscious in this state drives her mind into a dangerous, spiraling crisis."

I raised my eyes to his, desperate for a sliver of hope. "Is there really no other treatment we can try, Doctor?"

He shook his head solemnly. "Unfortunately, no... Tomorrow, when you come back to visit, she will likely treat you with complete warmth, as if nothing ever happened. Every time her mind forces her back to the ’basement,’ it automatically resets to the very beginning... as if the entire loop gets wiped clean to start all over again."

I wiped a stray tear from my cheek, keeping my voice low. "Thank you, Doctor."

Noticing the exhaustion weighing down my body, Cédric squeezed my forearm tenderly. "Should we head home now, sweetheart?"

I gave a weak, faint nod. "Yeah... let’s go."