The Fearful Institute

I Love You

Aleks POV-

The Ice bath is one of the many treatments that know how to do something to my back. My neck is in the worst position because they've covered me with a cloth that wraps around my neck, it feels like someone is constantly strangling me, squeezing my neck until my end. The feeling of frostbite is killing me, but I know i'm not close to getting it, there are two other guys in the room with me and they make me very uncomfortable. One's looking at me like he's about to cut his way out of the cloth covered bath and come get me, the other just feels like i'm a piece of art that needs to be stared at 24/7.

"So are you and Eddie a...thing?" He giggles as if it's illegal to talk about relationships. Should I tell him? Is it really any of his business? Do I even know, for God's sake? My eyes look down at the cloth and the guy who's been silent cuts open the cloth with a nail file he found in one of the nurse's rooms. He stands up, butt naked and walks to the small bared up window that shows the front of the asylum. I squeeze my eyes shut and ignore the fact that I'm locked in a room with two physicopaths that can kill me any second. What the hell am I thinking? Yesterday I wasn't afraid of anything, I didn't care about anything, I was fucking depressed beyond belief. He wraps a towel around his waist and walks over to me, I struggle and wiggle around in my bath in fear, but he holds his hand out telling me that he's not going to do anything. He stabs the nail file into the cloth and rips it off the bath tub.

"It's not really your business Alfie, besides I'm sure Eddie zipped his mouth shut so that no one knows he has an actual heart." He laughs, the kind of laugh that can be misjudged as sarcasm, but maybe it is sarcasm. I take the towel from beside the tub and wrap it around my waist, walking to the other side of the  shower and tightening my grip around the bars.

"I really miss going outside, it was one of the constant activities I did, and they fucking took it away from me." He says and stabs the file into the wooden window pane, slowly carving letters in it. Half naked and talking about what we miss, how...normal. He looks at me with his doe blue eyes, he's pretty pale with a good body structure, he looks like he works out a lot, but his veins look starved and tired. He pierces his lips out and hears a nun opening the door, he throws the file under Alfie's tub and he crosses his arms looking at the nun.

"What are you two boys doing out of the Ice baths?" She asks.

"Lady, it's fucking cold in that bath, I'm not willing to freeze my balls off to feel "sane" again." He says.

"Robert, do we need to take you back to special treatment again, or are you willing to behave?" She talks to him like he's a child, a five year old kid in a grown man's body. I look at him waiting for him to say something else and the nun orders all of us to lunch.

Everything is quiet as usual in the cafeteria, no one really talk to each other, and some just can't talk at all. It's a shame that no one has taught them how to speak or feed themselves yet. My fingers run through my hair and every looks blurry, like figures that are just my imagination. That's the most comfusing thing about losing your mind, you don't know what's real or not. Robert is right behind me and Alfie is right beside me still keeping an eye on me like a starving hawk. My eyes wander around and they catch Eddie sitting at one of the corner tables, staring at his food like he's lost, like he's not here, he's hear physically just not mentally.

I walk over to him and sit next to him, poking his stomach so he looks up at me.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"You." He says

"Why?" I ask

" You're different from before...you're distant." He explains.

"Does it matter?"

"Yes"

"Why?" I ask once again.

"Because I love You..." And my eyes open in shock, we just sit at one of the cafeteria tables and he looks down at his food, as I look down at him.