INSANE

【10】

I slipped into the hallway, shutting the metal door behind me and locking it shut the way they locked the patients in. Then, I started to walk to nowhere in particular. Small lightbulbs hung down from the ceilings, spaced out. Many of the lightbulbs were flickering, some of them even out. It seemed they didn't take care of this place very well, reflecting just how they treated the patients.

I tried desperately to find a staircase that would take me to the ground floor, but at the same time, I didn't want to be caught.

I glanced down at myself. I was still wearing the white hospital short sleeved gown. Wrapped around my lower wrists were gauze, the same as before. I wasn't sure what their purpose was, but as much as I wanted to find out I didn't want to see what might've laid under them.

I pushed myself to keep walking. My knee had turned a dark shade of blue and black and it was still dripping blood. With every step I took, it stung with pain. My bare feet didn't help either. The floors were solid, but they were full of slippery dirt or broken objects. The janitors here didn't seem to do their jobs well, or maybe they didn't have any at all. That would be a reward to the patients.

I jumped as I passed a room filled with a man screaming his lungs out. He was tall enough to grab onto the bars at the top of the metal door window. The man's head was also showing a bit below his hands. He had scratches all over his face. Some looked fresh, some looked aged. Inside his room it was completely dark, similar to mine.

His room number read 1178.

As soon as he spotted me, he started to bang on the metal door. The whole door shook almost like it was going to give out any second and fall over.

"It's coming!" he screamed in a deep voice. "GET ME OUT OF HERE!" Suddenly, the tone of the man's voice changed. His expression also changed to a softer expression. "My name is Ray. What's your name?" Then, he started laughing. It was like a laugh I never heard before. Similar to the laugh of a cackling wild hyena. Without warning he screamed again at the top of his lungs. "LET ME OUT OF HERE!"

Stay calm, I directed to myself, forcing myself to keep walking. Don't slow down.

The man shook the door once again and let out a long scream.

It sounds like the haunted house my father would always take me to, I thought, remembering the things I always loved to do with my family. But the only difference is this isn't an act.

I found myself thinking why people that seemed so dangerous like this man weren't tied down the way I had been.

I continued walking on, looking from the left side of the hallway to the right side. The hallway looked so familiar. It seemed to be the exact same hallway I had been with my friends when this place was abandoned. However, now it wasn't decaying and falling apart as it had been. It seemed like I literally went back in time to when this place was in use. Nurse Elizabeth had even told me the year: 1946.

How could this happen? I ask myself helplessly. How? I never thought time travel was possible, but somehow, someway it happened.

Suddenly, the lightbulb above me flickered which led to a clattering sound to the left of me. I jumped and stopped again in my tracks to see another man looking out of his door through the bars.

"Where do you think you're going?" he inquired loudly in a seemingly drunken voice though I knew he couldn't be drunk. His eyes weren't focusing on me or anything, they seemed to be all over the place. "You're not supposed to be out, and if they catch you nobody will ever know what happened to you."

My eyes widened at his words which I knew were nothing but the truth. I ignored him, attempting to push myself on. I can't stop now.

He then began rattling the door before eventually he began kicking at it as hard as he could.

Fear ran through my veins as I rushed past his room.  He can't get out. You're safe. Well, as safe as you can be inside this place.

My legs were heavy, but still I forced them to keep going.  Silence fell from the man who had just been loudly kicking the door.

But that was when I heard a sound that was even more disturbing than what the two men were saying.

It was the sound of a group of nurses' voices. And they were coming down the hallway...toward me.