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The sound of hysterical laughter fills Tina's room. It's her own laughter, of course. She's all by herself inside these padded walls. Yet while she stares at the soft, white sky of padded ceiling above her, all she can do is laugh and laugh as loudly as her lungs can manage.

Under the thick layers of her straitjacket, her arms ache inside their tight canvas prison. Muscles sore from atrophy and confinement, her feeble struggles can do nothing to save her from the unwilling hug with which she's forced to hold herself. So she's laughing.

All around her, walls of white and soft enclose her little world. Thick enough to muffle her loudest cries and contain them from the world beyond. Soft enough to sap away the energy from even the fiercest tantrums. She could throw herself against the walls with all her might, only to tire herself out to no effect. So she's laughing.

In the fold behind her left ear, a small patch of fur itches horribly. Her body constrained as it is, there's no way she could ever reach the itch to scratch it. Trying to rub it against the smooth rubber floor isn't helping at all, and it's only getting worse. So she's laughing.

Fastened too tight, the straps around her thighs dig into her flesh with a painful pinch, and rub like fire whenever she moves her legs. The raw flesh feels like burning needles from chafing against the tight leather for so long. So she's laughing.

Sealed in this featureless room, she's completely disoriented from the outside world. The passage of time has no meaning in her padded solitude. Has it been ten minutes since she was last spoken to, or twenty hours? She honestly can't tell, much less know how long she has left to wait until someone opens her door again. So she's laughing.

Inside her body, a chemical cocktail of medications flow through her system. Her aching head is swimming with a mixture of foreign substances stirring up her thoughts. And her flabby, drugged limbs will hardly obey her commands as she lies useless on the floor. Even her agency over the contents of her own body has been stolen from her, as she's left at the mercy of whatever drugs they decide to dose her with. So she's laughing.

Not because she thinks any of it is funny.

She's laughing because she has to. She's laughing because it's the one vector of control she still has over herself. She's laughing because it's the only way she can stop herself from crying or screaming. She's laughing because, behind her terrified eyes, she can feel a fit of shrieking inside her that'll start the moment she stops laughing but won't end until she passes out from exhaustion.

So she's laughing.

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