INSANE

【3】

I fell, my ankle catching on a large piece of glass. I let out a cry as the glass sliced my arm painfully.

Both my friends, Scarlett and Jade were still running down the long, dark hallway as if nothing at all happened. How could they not hear me?

I shouted to them, louder, but still, they wouldn't turn around. I knew I had no hope when I felt the ice cold hand on the back of my shoulder. Traveling up to my neck, the long, sharp fingers sliced my skin slowly.

I didn't feel any pain anymore because the world around me spun, slow at first, until it got faster and faster. Then, everything went black.

"Scarlett and Jade," I whispered a little too loudly, trying to get comfortable, but I couldn't. I had no space to myself.

I'm in an asylum, I now knew. The fact was inevitable. But I wasn't sure exactly which one I was in. I wasn't sure this was a normal physiatric hospital because of the way they tied me up when I wasn't refusing or posing as a danger to anybody. But, I didn't dare ask those questions. I didn't know what these people were capable of.

The nurse continued pushing me. "If you keep acting up, you're going to need some treatment Katie."

I shook my head, fear sneaking up on me once again. "Where's my parents? C-Can I see them?"

This time, Elizabeth didn't say anything. She pushed me with a strong grip, wordless. That was until she slowed down and I was pulled out of my hopeless thoughts.

I glanced up to see a vision I never saw before, laid out in front of my face. It almost felt like I was in a horror movie but instead, a real life horror movie.

Two female nurses dressed exactly like Elizabeth made their way slowly and carefully down the hallway, their footsteps echoing. In between them was a man. His head was angled downward, watching the floor. His eyes looked cloudy and dazed. But, it was his outfit that was the worst...

He had on a full white body straitjacket. His arms were barely visible only because they were strapped crossed over his lower stomach. The restraints were made out of a leather and they were black. It went all the way up his chest to his face where it covered his mouth and nose, and reached way up the center of his face to the back of his head.

Behind the man was another man, but he was dressed in an old styled suit. Though this man was big, he wasn't bigger than the "patient" they were walking.

My eyes were basically glued to the sight, mainly at the man in the straitjacket. His head was pointed straight to the floor until suddenly, he lifted his head up, stopped walking, and gave me a chilling, long stare, right into my soul. His face looked like a deep-grey color of paleness; almost resembling the skin tone of a zombie.

I turned my head away, not wanting to upset anybody because it was clear that this guy was mentally unstable.

"You'll get used of this," Nurse Elizabeth whispered to me as she rolled me past the scene.

I shivered, tears threatening to come out of my eyes. What did I do to get here? Wasn't this place abandoned? Are we even at...

I didn't need to ask myself the question because it was answered as we rounded the corner of the hallway. Displayed on a sign at the large entrance to a different area read: Pinebrooke Lunatic Asylum Dining.

With a key from her pocket, the nurse opened the heavy, wide door that I assumed led to the cafeteria. I couldn't help but wonder why there weren't electric doors that would open with a key card like I've seen in prisons, but I didn't dare question it because I was still confused about how we possibly were inside the Pinebrooke Asylum if it had been abandoned for so long. Maybe this was just another, improved asylum? Though I knew nobody really called it an "asylum" anymore, though the name of this one clearly stated the word.

With that, the door to the cafeteria opened. Expecting to hear the sounds of utensils being used, I was proved completely wrong when I heard the sounds of people gagging, people screaming, and nurses and doctors I assumed screaming at the patients.

Against my will, Elizabeth was pushing me into the "cafeteria" which had small tiles full of rust from years of use.

"If you behave, I can feed you," she exclaimed without a tone in her voice. "If you don't cooperate though Katie, you will be the next to get that-" she pointed to an area all the way to the side of the room where multiple patients were strapped down to hospital chairs. Some were screaming out, some were just silent. Nurses were gathered around them with men doctors who were shoving different tools into the patient's mouths, basically force feeding them.

I froze, my heart catching in my throat. I was speechless. Is this even legal? I had to ask myself. But, I didn't have an answer.

Nurse Elizabeth wheeled me over to a row of hospital chairs that were almost all occupied. These seats were across from where patients were being force fed. Though I really didn't want to hear people being basically tortured, Elizabeth warned me about what would happen if I didn't "behave." What really is behaving here? Not being able to talk? Being afraid to do everything that was once normal? Living in constant fear?

She transferred me from the uncomfortable, hard wheelchair to the hard-cushioned hospital chair. This time, she strapped my ankles down, my body, and my upper arms. Unlike before, now I was able to move the bottom parts of my arms below my elbow which I was grateful for.

"I'll get your food." The Nurse instructed, slowly making her way to the center of the room where bowls with some kind of "food" inside them sat.

"Don't. Eat." A man from a few chairs down shouted in a hoarse voice. "They...they..." he stuttered. I wasn't judging him, but by the tone of his voice he sounded unstable. But at the same time, petrified and serious. His voice turned into a whisper. "They'll poison you, and then, nobody will ever know what really happened to you." From around him, nurses were abruptly pulling him up and out of his seat.

"When you have shock therapy everyday as a punishment like me, you think things won't get worse," he continued, his eyes not leaving my face. "But...then you realize it does. It gets much worse than that."

"Dunk him," one of the men doctors stood up from across the room, nodding at the crowd of nurses. His deep voice sounded normal, as if this was something he ordered to be done everyday.

The patient laughed as he was thrown into a wheel chair by the nurses and strapped down quickly. "I've been through worse than that." Then, he threw his head back some more and continued laughing as if somebody just made the funniest joke in the world.

And the crazy thing was, as they lead the man out of the eating room, he wouldn't stop laughing.

************************

Nurse Elizabeth held a bowl of some type of orange, thick liquid in front of me. Could it really be poison? Or was the man just going crazy? I wouldn't blame him for that — just being in here makes you go crazy by the way the nurses treat you.

"What's that?" I asked in my most polite tone not wanting to offend her and make her change her mind about feeding me herself.

Elizabeth didn't look at the spoonful of food she was pushing into my mouth, she just studied my expression, which at that moment, was pure fear. Even though I tried my hardest to hide it, it seeped right through.

The taste of the "food" hit my tongue all at one time. At first, it tasted like completely nothing. Only seconds later, I was trying not to gag. I recognized the taste the "food" was giving me. It was the one and only poisonous taste that crushed pills gives you, except the taste was overloaded.

"This is the easy way of eating and receiving your cure," Elizabeth reported.

Cure? What cure? What's wrong with me? How does this place still exist?