The patients of Green Valley Asylum

Crib or prison cell

The walls of Green Valley Asylum were painted in sterile white, but for Isaac, they might as well have been the pastel blue of the nursery he had left behind. At 18, Isaac sat in the corner of his padded cell, rocking slowly, clutching the soft stuffed bear the doctors had given him. It wasn't his bear—he'd left that behind in the nursery with his father. But the comfort it gave him was the same. The familiar, suffocating comfort of regression.He barely remembered how he had arrived here. There had been flashing lights, loud voices, strong hands pulling him away from his father. His father—Andrew—had been screaming, but Isaac didn't remember what he had said. All he knew was that he had been taken from one cage and placed in another."Isaac, can you hear me?"The voice came from the other side of the room, soft and careful, like the voice of one of the nurses who used to care for him. But this wasn't a nurse, and he wasn't in the nursery anymore. He was in Green Valley, where they had put him after they took him from his father's house. After they found out what Andrew had done.Isaac didn't answer. He never did.Dr. Mills, the psychiatrist assigned to his case, crouched down beside him, her clipboard held close to her chest. She had seen patients like Isaac before, but none quite so deep in their regression. He had been trapped in his father's delusion for years, reduced to an infant-like state, unable to care for himself, barely able to speak. He hadn't made eye contact with anyone since he arrived at the asylum three months ago."Isaac, I know you're scared," Dr. Mills said gently, her voice soft but firm. "But you're safe here. Your father can't hurt you anymore."The mention of his father sent a shiver through Isaac's small frame. He clutched the bear tighter, pressing his face into the soft fur, as if it could block out the world. His father wasn't here, but the control Andrew had over him was still there—buried deep in his mind, woven into the fabric of his thoughts.For years, Andrew had treated Isaac like a baby, trapping him in a twisted version of love and care. Isaac had once been a normal boy, but as the years passed, his father's control became all-encompassing. Diapers, bottles, high chairs—his father had stripped away every layer of his adolescence, until there was nothing left but a shell of a child, dependent on him for everything.It had started when Isaac was 12. Andrew was obsessed with protecting him, convinced that the outside world would corrupt him. He had taken Isaac out of school, locked the doors, and turned their home into a prison. At first, Isaac fought back, but as time passed, his father's grip grew tighter. Isaac's will, once defiant, crumbled under the weight of Andrew's suffocating love.By the time Isaac was 16, his father had fully regressed him to infancy. Isaac had forgotten what it was like to make his own choices, to have thoughts that weren't shaped by his father's control. The world outside the nursery was terrifying, unknown, and Isaac had learned to fear it just as much as his father did.But now, in the asylum, the nurses and doctors were trying to reverse the damage. They wanted Isaac to remember who he was, to reclaim his identity. It was a slow, painful process, and Isaac wasn't sure if he wanted to go back to being who he was. The regression was all he had ever known. It was safe. His father had made sure of that.Dr. Mills sat down beside him, her presence warm but non-threatening. She didn't touch him—she knew better than that—but she stayed close, her voice a constant, grounding presence."Isaac," she said again, gently coaxing him to engage. "Do you remember what it was like before? Before your father kept you in the nursery?"Isaac's breath hitched at the word. *Nursery*. The room had been his entire world. The crib, the changing table, the soft lullabies his father sang to him before bed—it had all been so suffocating, but so familiar. His father's face, filled with love and madness, loomed large in his mind.He didn't want to remember.Isaac shook his head, his eyes squeezing shut as he pressed the bear closer to his chest. Dr. Mills didn't push him. Instead, she let the silence stretch between them, waiting, patient.In the corner of the room, the clock ticked softly. The sound reminded Isaac of the nursery. His father had always kept the clock ticking in the background, as if time could be controlled, held in place, like he had tried to do with Isaac's childhood.But Isaac was no longer a child. Not really. He was 18 now, and somewhere deep inside, buried under the layers of regression, he knew that. He could feel it—the flicker of his real self, the part of him that wasn't the baby his father had wanted him to be."Isaac," Dr. Mills said again, softer this time. "Your father can't control you anymore."The words struck something deep inside Isaac, something that hurt and freed him all at once. Tears welled up in his eyes, and for the first time in months, he made a sound. A small, broken whimper escaped his throat, and he let go of the bear, his fingers trembling as he clutched the floor beneath him.Dr. Mills didn't say anything else. She let him cry, let him feel the emotions that had been buried under years of infantilization. Isaac sobbed, his body shaking with the force of it, and for the first time, the padded walls of his cell didn't feel like another version of the nursery.When he finally looked up, his eyes met Dr. Mills' for the first time. They were still glassy, distant, but there was a spark of recognition, a small glimmer of the boy he used to be before his father had taken everything away."I... I don't want to be a baby anymore," Isaac whispered, his voice small and fragile, like a toddler just learning to speak.Dr. Mills smiled softly, her heart aching for the boy in front of her. "You don't have to be, Isaac. You're not a baby. You're a young man, and you're safe now."Isaac swallowed hard, his chest tight with fear and hope. He didn't know how to be anything but his father's baby, but somewhere deep inside, he wanted to learn. He wanted to remember what it felt like to be free, to think for himself, to live.The road ahead would be long, and Isaac knew that the scars his father had left would never fully heal. But in the quiet of the asylum, in the soft light filtering through the barred windows, Isaac took his first step toward reclaiming his life.For the first time in years, he wasn't just Andrew's baby.He was Isaac.