The music played, the beauty of only a piano to then be accompanied by violins and other variety of instruments. I lifted up my dress as I walked down the spiraling staircase laces with soft carpet. As I reached the last step My eye level raised only to be met by an emerald green pair. I couldn't see his face as it was covered with a mask in the shape of a raven. It was Gartloch Lunatic Asylum's masquerade ball. His gloved hand was out stretched and as I placed my hand in his he lightly placed a kiss on it. He finally looked up so his sparkling green eyes met my glowing amber ones. Every other year I just came to these events for my father. He was a proud owner of a fellow asylum so he tried to steal customers so to say. We walked out to a space on the dance floor as the music began signaling the next dance was about to begin. Gartloch Lunatic Asylum only had one rule, no talking and dancing at the same time. The useless rule really but we all stuck to it. My golden dress swiped the floor as we changed direction as did many other dresses. As we danced our eyes never left each others and with the golden glow of the dangling crystal chandeliers conveying a warm ambiance to the room. The masks always brought my brain to think of mysteries and what lay beneath them. A mask could cover a horrible scar showing as long as you wear it no one will know who you truly are.All it takes to be someone else for a night is a single piece of clothing to cover your face. The mask covering most of what the world sees to be your face drawing attention to the eyes. My mother always said to me "The eyes are the window to the soul.". As I danced this mystery man all I could do was look into his eyes. The green he had was not like the ugly green you would get a carpet but that of a precise stone that one would pay a very good price on. The colour of his eye was not the only thing bewitching me about them. He looked sad almost as if he had suffered a great loss. He looked like his heart had been broken but he was keeping a straight face smiling to the world masking the pain he felt in his heart, a void, an empty space that someone once must have filled. As the song came to an end we bowed and I was expecting a parting of ways to come upon us but as I left to get some fresh air he followed in the background following each step I took until I reached the empty hall.
The silence was one that would haunt you if you were there long enough or if the silence was not broken. The mystery man who had taken the task of following me to keep me safe upon himself soon turned round the pillar opposite me. He undid his bow tie and loosened his collar revealing a more laid back look. I was mesmerized at how casual he was with a woman he had just met who could at any point get him sent out this asylum. He continued to display his confidence and courage and take a Cigar out his pocket. It was the victorian norm to smoke as it showed you to have a higher social status in society unlike the poorer who do not have enough money to afford such luxury. We hadn't said a word to each other ever we just stood in silence as he blew his smoke rings learning to casually upon the pillar for the grand wooden staircase, one of many that fill this building. As a model victorian citizen I am expected to be on my best behavior at all times and in doing so causing life to be a series of balls and another formal event such as afternoon teas and pretending to be deeply interested in the politics and how the government is running the country. There is only so much intreats painted pout can fake. After finishing his cigar and dropping the remains on the floor he gave me a look signaling up the grand oak staircase and he held out his hand for me.
We ran up the many stairs causing me a large difficulty in my ball gown as it has such detailing catching on to everything and the weight was the same as me. Mystery man had had enough of this by the 3rd flight of stairs causing him to pick me up bridal style and racing to get to a solid floor. We made the mutual decision to change our clothes into patient gowns to make us more mobile and able to run away easier. I hid my self behind an old screen and as my dress dropped to the floor it caused a cloud of dust to rise from the ground as if the floor in the room had not seen a brush in over 50 years. I slipped on a plain white gown and walked out kicking my dress away making sure it was out of sight from anyone. I and the Mystery man introduces him self as I didn't want to run around somewhere not knowing their name. His name was Thomas Clouston."My name is Edilla Longfellow." I said trying not to sound like my normal posh rather stuck up self. We ran hand in hand until we reached a great set of oak doors leading to the garden outside and the giant maze.
We ran outside our hands still attached as if sewed together until we got to the maze. When I was younger I and the servants child would play tag together out in the garden maze of our asylum. I lightly slapped Thomas's arm and began to sprint waving in and out of the narrow passageways but all the time making sure he was behind or near me. I got to the centre of the made and in it was a giant crystal . This caused the moonlight to shoot in all directions making the centre of the maze look like some sort of fictional land from one of my books. Thomas caught me eventually after taking a few wrong turns here and there.The moonlight shot into his eyes causing them to look illuminated in the moonlight. I didn't know what was more beautiful the moonlight or his eyes. He was like an angle. His skin was so pale, his lips so pink and soft, his eyes so alluring. Every detail of his face looked perfect from single freckle underneath his eyes to the small beside his nose. The moonlight emphasized every detail of his face. His eyes looked fixed on mine. He was doing to me as what I was doing to him. He pulled out a white rose from behind his back casing em to feel flattered but as he passed me I pricked my finger. I made sure he didn't notice as I wiped the blood on my finger off it but sadly the rose got one single droplet of blood on it but for some reason making it look purer. It was a symbol of that night to me. It started off beautiful but then that beauty once there got covered and no one found out. Thomas moved in closer to me pulling me in at the waist so our faces were almost touching. I could feel his breath on my lips, our eyes level. I closed my eyes and it all went black from there.
I woke up in a small room. The walls were plain and the bed was nearly a metal frame with a mattress that felt more like a brick. I knew a room like this anywhere. I was now a patient in Gartloch lunatic asylum. I wasn't start raving mad. I was not a lunatic or a psychopath. I was Edilla Longfellow andI was not mad. Considering everyone else was screaming to get out I figured that screaming would get me no attention. I stood up to look out the small grate in the door and who was at my door. No other than Thomas Clouston who due to the uniform I assumed he was Dr. Thomas Clouston. He walked up to me and held my hand through the bar seeing I was confused and terrifies and a sea of other negative emotions. As a woman who was more inclined to the finer things in life being shoved in a cage in some cheaply made clothing with no explanation is surely not going to have a good outcome. The look I gave Dr. Clouston said it all as he just returned it. I saw the pain in his eyes the same pain he had in his eyes when he was dancing with me but the only difference is the rest of his face matched his eyes. I got put in here because my father had asked Thomas to spy on me and become friends with me as he had a suspicion there was something wrong with me. Turns out he was right. I suffered from bad blackouts forgetting what I had done and in my blackout state were acts were far from peaceful. As Thomas said this I saw a tear in his eyes then I remembered who he was. He was the servants son I once played tag with. My father paid for him to become a doctor. He had changed his name to become a doctor because when we were younger his name was Edward Cansdale. As soon as I said his name I could tell it was him. I could never forget my old best friend I just didn't know what he looked like after 5 years. we were now both 17 soon to be 18. We looked into each other eye even though seeing Thomas had broke my heart. A bell rang so Thomas had to leave and all he said was "I promise I will get you better and get you out of here Edilla I promise." with that he gave my hand a squeeze through the bars and he left rushing off to see what task he was about to be given.
The times was 6 o'clock in the morning and the nuns were coming round with daily pills for everyone but when the nun finally got to me she unlocked my door and insisted I had to be moved by request of "Gartlock's finest doctor,Thomas Clouston." I was proud of Thomas and of how far he had come. When we were younger his mother dies of some mental disease so he vowed to me that day he would become a doctor and help others not lose their parents as he did his. The woman was a lot stronger than me so she just dragged me all the way our the room down many corridors until we reached the door to what much have been one of the staff rooms. I had a large double bed like my one at home, chest of drawers and a grand painting. There was a photo sitting on the side of the bed. It was one of me and Thomas when we were younger. It was the day my father opened Hartwood mental institution. I and Thomas were hand in hand. My father had always though as Thomas as a son to him so he was in all the family photos. Once the nurse had left I juts held the photo and cried. I couldn't take it. I was never going to be as happy ask was in this again. I was going tot rot in here for the rest of my miserable life like the rest of them. If I wasn't mad t the start then I would have surely gone mad after what I had been through.
After about a year of being in this hell, I was finally allowed to walk around the asylum. I was grateful about this as for the past year all I had done was venture around my room, doctor offices and all I had to talk to was the nun who followed me around everywhere. I had no problem with her but I wished she was Thomas. I was allowed to see Thomas on my birthday but that was the only day because according to the other doctor I could attack him and he wouldn't be able to work so they would loose their finest doctor. I wandered the halls aimlessly until I heard music playing. I decided to follow it and I'm glad I did as it was a common room. It had around 9 people in it. 4 woman playing chess. A boy with Down syndrome playing pattycake with some other boy and then him. A pale skinny boy with jet black hair and bright blue eyes who went by the name of smith. When I walked in he strutted over , hips swaying side to side looking rather drunk holding a cigaret and puffed it in my face and introduced himself in the most high pitched voice I had ever heard from a male.
I was currently sitting on the floor of my cold stone hard cell.The tears ran down my face and as I bit my lip my tongue touched my lips causing me to taste the saltiness. I scratched the back of my hand so much it started to bleed. The blood ran down my hand and dripped off my fingers as water would after a shower.I watched in fascination as the crimson liquid flowed down past my nail hitting the concrete floor making the mildest dripping noise. Thomas was outside my cell earlier. He told me 3 words that I never wanted to hear from his ever. "you are sick." I know I am but he treated me like a glass ornament. He had to be fragile with me as the slightest thing would crack me. If people Think I'm crazy let's show them what crazy really is.
I start screaming so I get the attention of one of the nurses. I had rubbed the blood from my palm of my face and also scarred my face so it was bleeding. I had tugged and tangles my hair so emphasized how crazy I looked. As the nurse entered my room I decided to show how crazy I could be. I took a running start at the oversized woman snarling and snapping my teeth shouting death threats at her. What I didn't think about was how the overweight nurse was a lot stronger than I. I must have weight about the weight of her right toe. She picked me up and threw me over her shoulder. I was screaming and kicking and punching her but due to the facts, I would not eat or sleep I was weak and tired. My effort was lost. My eyes were falling heavy and they stung a bit. The last thing I remembered was getting a needle jabbed into me.
I woke up Strapped into a chair by my wrist ankles and waist. I had a piece of wood in my mouth. As I began to wake up and flutter my eyelids I was greeted my the sight of doctors prodding and poking at me. The fat horrible nurse put eye clamps on me and I tried to scream and struggle to get out but the tight leather restraints were stopping me from accomplishing much. One of the stronger looking doctors held me down and the other doctor injected me with more fluid. The last thing I saw was Thomas and a group of doctors run in and stop what was happening. I was slipping in and out of conciseness and with this all I could see was Thomas. He was shaking me head yelling something that I couldn't make out well undoing the ropes. He and the team of doctors he came with carried me out and that's all I recall.
I was in the woods running. I could feel the fresh breeze on my face. The wind through my hair. My dress dragging across the forest floor ripping as I run.The green velvet fabric making a trail showing where I once was .The sun beating down on me.My eyes shining in the sunlight, my hair flowing behind me. My lungs filling and emptying with air as I ran. My body feeling free as I run. All my worries were gone. I felt free. As I ran the sun began to sink and the stars began to appear. The twinkle so beautiful and the glow of the mood. In life, you must appreciate the small things, The little things such as a start night. The simple act of holding hands or running. The fact you are alive.I ran until got to the edge of the word and without realising I began to fall. I desperately clawed and scratched at with the small change I would grab something. falling I felt like it would never end and then it happened. I heard that dreaded laugh. A laugh that made you want to kill the source. I was screaming, falling, in a panic and no one was helping me.
I woke up covered in sweat and tears with a piercing scream and Thomas running to see me. He jamp onto the bed and engulfed my shaking body into his. I was so cold but the heat of his body warmed me soon. I was crying so hard I couldn't breathe. I wanted it to stop. The screaming all I could hear was the screaming. I was grabbing at my head screaming for the voices and screams to stop. I was now officially crazy. There was no saving me. Thomas held me close resting his head on mine. I just grabbed his suit jacket. I tried to get closer but I couldn't get any closer as I was pressed into him. I looked up into his emerald green eyes sparkling as he looked back into mine. The looking his eyes was undesirable. I couldn't tell if it was pain or if it was guilt. I just wanted to look into his eyes forever. When I looked into his eyes the screaming stopped. IT freed my brain from the torture and torment. His eyes traveled from my eyes to my lips. He moved his hand from my back to my hand and my small thin fragile fingers intertwined which his stronger larger hand. He kept his other hand on my back. He moved his face closer to mine. I closed me eyes as he did his and moved my face toward his. My cold cut lips met his perfect soft warm ones. In the seconds, we kissed I felt free. I had the same feeling you do when you are running through the woods. The freedom. The feeling like you are infinite. A feeling no one could bring down. Our lips left each others and we just looked at each other. I rest my head on his chest and we lay down. He gave me a large plain t-shirt and a pair of his underwear to sleep in earlier but he just slept in his suit. We lay down to get comfy and I moved closer to his absorbing his warmth. I ay my head on his chest so I could hear his heart beat. As I listened I thought, this keeps us alive, if this dent beat we die. I listened to the rhythm of it. the simplicity of it. The sound was sweeter than any music. It was bliss listening to the beat of his heart, his breathing. The simple things we do to keep us alive are the most beautiful. To me, he was the most beautiful thing in their asylum, not the high-class architecture or the pretty ornaments or installations of art and poetry dotted around the institution but Thomas Clouston. My eyes began to feel heavy in my state of relaxation. Everything started to go blurry and finally it all went black.
Bang, the door flew wide open causing a vase of flowers to fall over and smash and the water to fill and the roses Thomas had to remind him of me scattered onto the floor.The white flowers to represent how pure I was.The strongest doctors came into the room and ripped me out if Thomas's safe warm arms. I kicked and flailed my legs and swung my arms trying to escape the grasps of the doctors. Thomas was being held back by two doctors struggling, his suit jacket being grabbed and ripped my arms becoming red from the scripting trying to keep hold of me. I opened my mouth wide and latched my teeth onto the doctor's arm and dug my teeth in so deep and I heard him scream out in pain as I kept kicking and wrestling my way out .After struggling I finally broke free and ran into Thomas's arms. We embraced each other for a few seconds. I Kissed him but the kiss wasn't normal it was full of pain. The pain that I would never see him again. The pain he might get arrested. The pain of what was to happen to me. The doctor finally ripped me out of his arm. She was bleeding from where I had Sunk my teeth into his fatty flesh. He shoved me down to the ground kneeling over me removing my ability to move. He punched me so hard he almost broke my jaw and with this action I heard Thomas screaming fighting to get free screaming for him to stop until the doctors starting punching Thomas. The doctor on top of me grabbed my jaw living my face so I could see Thomas getting tortured because of me. The doctor on top of me managed to get me into a straight jacket and he tied my legs together to stop me kicking him in the face. She kept pushing my head back and every time I saw the sight it was worse and worse. Thomas was covered in blood, dripping down his face, covering his now ripped suit. One of the doctors picked up a glass and smashed it picking up the largest piece and cutting Thomas's face. I screamed for them to stop but I got kicked in the face. My jaw was throbbing from the pain. I turned on my side coughing and spitting blood out. I was no doctor but I knew spitting and coughing up blood was a bad sign. The doctor who cut Thomas walked over to me and stood over me as the doctor formally on top of me moved. He got down to my level and put his face in my. in a mocking tone he whispered into my ear " This is what happens when the DOCTOR falls in love with the PHSYCO!". I Spat what blood I had gathered in my mouth into his face and started snarling and snapping at him like a rabid beast. I almost bit him but he moved up and crushed my fragile body under his foot breaking one of my ribs causing me to scream out in pain. Thomas had fallen next to me. He was barely moving or breathing. I was so close to him. His blood entangled with my hair causing my hair to go a crimson shade. The dicot who crushed me pushed my face down and rubbed it into his blood. It was at this point I was almost on the verge of tears. They could cause more physical pain and I wouldn't shed a tear for them but to see Thomas my childhood best friend in this state hurt too much. There was so much blood I couldn't feel who's was who's. was it Mine. Was it the Doctors. Or was it Thomas's. The scattered roses were once white and pure now drenched blood red. The flowers really were a representation of me. Something tat was once pure and an image of perfection now miserable and damaged, and blood covered. It haunts me how something so beautiful can become so damaged because of one event leading to another. The doctor saw me looking over at them and decided to destroy them by stomping on the crushing the petals into a miserable mess just laying there in a pool of mixed blood. I began to laugh at the doctor and he looked confused and asked me the dumbest question I had ever heard. "What's so funny". I replied wincing through the pain " You think I'm crazy, I am mad, I am less of a human. What is humanity ? Is it what makes us humans? Maby I'm not the crazy one many I'm the sane one and you are the Lunatic. You stick needles in us fry our brain torture us, Give us steam baths burning us punching us beating us tying us up. You enjoy causing us pain, you learn from our suffering. Do you want to know why we do the things we do, Why our brains work he way they do? You have so many questions that you want the answers to. The real question is not what is wrong with us, the insane ones but rather what is wrong with you? You treat us like we are less than you but before I was diagnosed as insane I was much higher in society than you. Before any of us ManiaCS were here we had lives a family, jobs, friends, hobbies, we were more than your little lab experiments. We were people in society. Before all this I was looking for a husband so I could start a family, take over my father's business, Have a stroke in the garden when wish. Look what you have made me, You think you have made me weak by kicking me, beating me, probing me, torturing me physically and emotionally. You have never been so wrong. You have made me stronger. You ripped me away from all I love, You tear away who I am but who I am You will never be taken from me. I am Edilla Longfellow and you will never take that away from me no matter how many pills you force down my throat. I will always be Edila Longfellow who loved Edward Cansdale , who's favorite flowers were roses, who one day wanted a family of 2 sons and one daughter. No amount of drugs and torture will take that away you can tie me in your straight jacket and tie my feet and torture the man I love but you will never make me weak you will juts make me stronger. A stronger version of me that you will never be. To you I am crazy, a lunatic, insane, a maniac, a psychycopath, screwed up in the head but to self I am strong. I am beautiful even covered in blood, I am pure, I am loved no matter what. You, you are just a sad Doctor who will never be loved, You tortured me and Thomas because you know you will never have what we have. You will always be alone and loneliness leads to insanity."
The Doctor leaned Began punching the walls and smashing things screaming at me. He knew what I said was true and he knew he would never find love. He was lonely. He picked me up and ripped the straight jacket ooff me and untied my feet and used me as a punching bag. Every time he punched me I just screamed in his face the words he feared most in this world. " you will never be loved!" He Punched me,again and again he broke things. I was on the floor spitting out blood while the other 2 doctors pulled him away and with one last kick to the side I feel to the ground. I forced myself to keep living for a bit. They left the room, two of the doctors pulling the other doctor away.
Thomas was awake, I used what little strength I had left and reached out my hand as did Thomas. For the last time we held hands, We looked into each others eyes. The last thing I ever saw was The shine of his emerald green eyes. The shone with the tears. We both knew we were not leaving that room no matter what. I moved closer to him so we would be together. Thomas rolled over picking up The least destroyed rose and passed me it. The rose was covered in blood like him and damaged beyond repair but still remained beautiful. Thomas was still the most beautiful thing to me. We both held heads with the rose in the middle. The rose pricked us both but the pain we were in it felt like nothing. We shuffled closer to each other. We knew this was the end for both of us. We leaned in our blood covered lips touching. The taste of iron so strong. The moment we kissed the pain, the suffering, the knowing that the end was now, it didn't matter. We pulled away from each other. I used what little strength I had left And chocked through the blood. " I love you forever and always Edward Cansdale." He looked at me and replied so quietly that I almost didn't hear " I will love you forever and always Edilla Longfellow and I'm sorry for getting you put in here." Our eyes met and then we knew it was time. We both took our last breath and with that the pain we felt, everything was done, everything turned into Blackness.
