GLASS CHILDREN [Completed]

COME OUT AND PLAY

If you swipe/click right, there's a photo of what Nikolas sees of the entrance part of Rosewood Asylum.

Putting his cold hand to the near-broken handle on one of the asylum doors, Nikolas found that the door was stuck. Wondering to himself how William got it open, he pulled on the handle as hard as he could. No luck.

    "Come on..." he whispered to himself, taking a breath of fresh air that felt more like ice chips going down his esophagus, making his neck ache.

    It was still fairly dark outside, but the moon basically lit up the large, open space that the asylum sat on in the middle of a grassy field. It was strangely placed, but nevertheless, Nikolas was still petrified of the place itself and the macabre secrets that lay behind the walls that only Lily and the others knew existed. Just the simplest thought of going inside made him cringe.

    "Most of us crawl in through here," a voice came from beside him with a rush of cold air. "It's easier."

    Recognizing Lily's soft voice, Nikolas turned to a space beside him and say the brown-haired girl hanging half way out of a broken window. Yeah, he thought. Crawl in like rodents.

    "It's not that bad, I promise." Lily tried to assure him, but he wasn't buying it nor was he about to hop into an insane asylum through a broken window with shards of glass sticking up in various places.

    "Easy for you to say," Nikolas remarked. "You're used to it."

    "Whatever..." the girl said with a sigh as she rolled her eyes at him. "This is literally the only way to get in, though. The doors are boarded up from this side."

    "Then how did—"

    "They walked through it, stupid," Lily scoffed. "I wouldn't try it, though. It feels weird."

    "Yeah? So does getting pushed off of a slide and getting your neck and one of your arms broken..." Nikolas said as he began to sense a slight anger in his voice when he spoke to the girl. He didn't like her or her brother; his growing hate for the other children was just as strong.

    "Look," Lily began as she disappeared for a short moment and reappeared to the left of Nikolas, leaving him wondering as to how she could do that. "I know you're a bit 'freaked out' or whatever, but we killed you for a reason...we saved you, don't you know that?"

    "Saved me?" Nikolas asked, furrowing his eyebrows. "Saved me from what? My parents fighting? I was going to go back, anyway..." he admitted. "I never meant to actually go that far from home, but I was—"

    "Upset?" she practically finished his sentence. "Believe me, being upset gets you nowhere, here. We were all upset at one point."

    "Meaning?"

    As much as Nikolas wanted Lily to answer his question, he found that as the last syllable of the word exited his lips, she disappeared into thin air. Whether she was coming back or reappearing again was entirely up to her, but he didn't know that.

   

   

"Lily..." he called her name out as he dusted off the small shards of glass that clung to his clothes from the window. "Are you in here?" he asked, listening to at least three voices that answered back in a faded tone—they were all his, of course; no real answers from Lily or her little brother.

    The asylum was coated with a layer of dirt and dust on the floors, walls, and staircase rails that went in two different directions on both side of where he stood at the bottom of a small landing. The darkened red carpet didn't make the place look more welcoming at all, either.

    "I'm just a piece to the little game you all like to play, aren't I?" Nikolas asked to no one—or nothing—in particular. His voice echoed louder. "Am I right, Lily?"

    "We're not game pieces," a small voice answered from behind him that he'd recognized as William's right off the bat. "You aren't, either...we're all just here; here for one purpose."

    Startled, Nikolas whirled around to find the eyeless little boy clutching his gasmask and curling and uncurling the frail fingers on his other hand over and over again. "What's th-that purpose?" he asked, stuttering out of fear of how the child looked. He didn't want to ever admit it, but he was afraid of all three of the strange toddlers.

    "No one knows." William said before running back up the stairs at a fast enough pace to where Nikolas couldn't catch up to him all that well. He didn't even have time to procrastinate on whether to follow the little boy, he just did it without giving his actions any thought at all.

    "Come play with us!" a tiny voice giggled from a hallway at the top of the stairs. "Let's play Hide-And-Go-Seek!" that same voice said loud enough to where Nikolas could hear it better.

    His breathing picked up slightly from the twenty-two stairs that he ran up—yes, he counted. It was a habit. "I won't..." he said, sternly. "I'm tired of playing...but if you guys really want to play, we could play a game that is totally opposite form Hide-N-Go-Seek."

    "But that takes the fun away," William creeped up next to him and said. Although Nikolas had never noticed it before, he then realized that the three-year-old was wearing a metal leg brace on his right leg. It seemed to have loose screws and chipped as well as rusted materials that it was made from, but he didn't mention it.

    "I know..." he said, taking a deep breath. "That's the p—"

    "Let's make a promise on something." William cut him off as he dug into the pocket of his white clothing. "If I give you a clue, you have to promise to play the game."

    "But—"

    "Yes or no?"

    Annoyed at William's interruption, Nikolas gave in. "Fine..." he muttered, looking down the hallway of rooms and old drawings that were strung up along the chipped walls. "I promise."

    Slowly taking his hand from his small pocket, William folded up a piece of paper and then handed it to Nikolas with a saddened expression lining his features. He didn't say anything, but if he did, it was beyond Nikolas's hearing abilities.

    Taking the folded up piece of paper from the boy's hand that was cold and gray, Nikolas looked up and noticed that he wasn't there anymore; footsteps in the distance were, though, with the faint creaking of the child's leg brace.