Cadmus Psychiatric Institute - better known to its unfortunate residents as Cadmus Asylum - with Lex Luthor as its warden and Rhea Gand as the Head Nurse, is a groundbreaker in the field of psychology in the late 1940s. To its long term and often li...
Note: I don't intend to be too specific with mental disorders throughout this work, as I do not claim to have any superior knowledge about them. Even so, this is not a light work, so please make sure you read the tags and trigger warnings carefully before proceeding. The idea behind this work came to me from multiple sources. Mainly: Netflix's Ratched and by extension, A Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Scorsese's Shutter Island, and the YA book series "Asylum" by Madeleine Roux.
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We've been dreaming,
But who can deny,
It's the best way of living,
Between the truth and the lies
- "See Who I Am", Within Temptation
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The slippery scarlet slide of the brush over the rough texture of the paper gave birth to the imaginary skyline Kara had intended to create. The uniform splash etched masterfully around the silver summits of unearthly mountains, peeking through an ocean of crimson clouds.
It was the routine of fabricating landscapes with no base in reality that permitted her mind the release it so desperately sought- no matter how short-lived - from the bitterness of her reality. A momentary sensation of boundless joy in her confined, utterly dull, and abysmal life in the Cadmus Asylum. Alone and forgotten.
The esteemed Cadmus Psychiatric Institute - or as its unfortunate residents referred to as Cadmus Asylum - was a groundbreaking establishment in treating patients with serious mental disorders through unprecedented and rather unorthodox methods. With Lex Luthor as its warden and Rhea Gand as the Head Nurse, the institute regularly broke new records of successfully treated cases and advancements in the field of psychology in the late 1940s, as appeared to the outsiders. To its long term and often life long inhabitants, however, the place was nothing short of a reflection of their worst nightmares come to life.
Kara knew her fleeting moment of freedom was almost up. As soon as the swirl of the brush and flurry of the colors ceased, the dark-haired Head Nurse, who had been watching her like a hawk from the other side of the common room, marched over to the table to prompt her back to her room.
That was how things went down in the daily life of Kara Zorel nowadays. Although things hadn't started as patterned and mundane.
For several years, Kara had fought against the cruel treatments forced on her body and mind to be allowed to spend just a few hours outside her room and have access to some art supplies as a reward for good behavior. Electroshocks, isolation, and induced seizures were to name only a few of the many sufferings she had endured to reject her delusional claims of being 'Kara Zor-El', an alien from outer space, and accept her reality as - the less than normal - female human 'Kara Zorel'. The only survivor of a family that had all perished during the Pearl Harbor bombings by the Japanese in 1941. They told her that the unbearable grief of losing her family had driven her to believe in such absurd fantasies in order to cope with the bitter reality. They had finally broken her after long months of twisted mind games. She spoke out no more.
