Get me out of this place before i cause more damage

“Stop it. Please stop, just for a moment,” Keera whispered, her eyes rolling back
into her head as she breathed in. She was having a very hard time controlling her
rapid mood swings and her night terrors had kept her from getting any sleep at all
over the past days. Keera leaned forwards slowly, her arms shaking. Where we-
re her cards? She gasped, closing her eyes tightly; where were they? She dug in
to her vest pockets desperately, her heartbeat almost stopping. She needed to
feel her poker cards in her fingers, she had to feel the smooth surface of each card
or she was bound to vanish from existence- or at least that was what her mind was
screaming at her as she rumbled with the zippers to her pockets, her fingers twi-
tching. Her fingers came in contact with a smooth playing card and her eyes flutter-
ed open. Keera breathed in deeply as she brought the deck to her cheek, stroking
the edges as she tried to steady her heartbeat after such a fright.

Keera sunk in her chair slowly, stretching her legs out under the table as she whisp-
ered, “tap, tap, tap, tap, bloody freakin’ tap!” she scanned the leaky cauldron, the re-
gulars were there at the tables they had claimed as there own- much like Keera had
claimed her own table- and the waitresses & the bartender were there as well, but
something was out of place; someone new was there, Keera just knew it by the way
the usually loud and obnoxious group of gossiping women whispered to each other
and glanced over their shoulder at a table on the far end of the room. Keera fallowed
their eyes and spotted a man about her age sitting there at one of the newer tables.
He looked like he had been to hell and back- though Keera guessed she looked about
the same. Keera thought for a moment; would it be wise to approach this odd man?
Odd- yeah right! Look who’s talking! Keera wasn’t really pondering anything, she
already knew what choice she would make; she always jumped in the car that was
most likely to drive her to hell, it was just the way she was.

Still holding onto her playing cards tightly, Keera stood from her usual table and headed
across the room, her eyes scanning the man as she got nearer. He didn’t look familiar in
any way at all. Good. She wasn’t in the mood to lie, she just wanted to have a con-
versation with someone who didn’t dwell within her damaged mind; anything to distract
her from her own problems. “Hi,” was all Keera said before sitting down beside him.

Keera turned her head to one side, curious. What could make a man cry like that?
A woman. It didn’t take much thought, really. She rested her chin in her palm and
watched him. “We all have bad days- but if people around you see that your hav-
ing a bad day, they will have something to use against you; they will know what
gets to you,” Keera stated abruptly as she looked down at her cards. She knew
she was out-of-line speaking to anyone that way, she had no reason to intrude,
but she was so very tired of sitting around, drumming her fingers against the sur-
face of her table in futile attempt to drown out the ticking she heard constantly.
Even if she didn’t trust a single person, it helped to be around people, it helped to
hear them speak.

Rubbing her face, Keera spread out her cards along the table, and then moved them
back into an orderly deck. “Do you know how to play poker?” she asked, glancing
up at him. Something about the man made her uneasy, but she guessed she was
just unable to trust any human being on earth other than herself. “because its is a
lot of fun once you get the hang of it…” she added.

“Stop!” Keera hissed, smashing her fist against her head once, narrowing her eyes.
She leaned her head backwards for a moment and inhaled, calming almost immediately.
She wondered for a moment what the man would think of her after seeing her act so
strangely, but only for a moment; she had been through enough ridicule to know that
other people’s assumptions were almost never correct.