Stars Dance

Asylum

I walked til I couldn't feel my legs. It was all robotic movement now. My feet retracing the same path I took every night when sleep couldn't find me. Maybe because you're running from it. A voice whispered. Which only made me walk faster. I swerved around a cornner and almost ran into someone. "Sorry ma'm." i said curtly steping out of her way and lettign her pass. She stared up at me in awe. She couldn't have been more than nineteen years old. Wearing a tight black dress, she was flanked by two other girls with similar attire. I looked up at the blinking neon sign of the Night Club and looked back down. She was looking at me the way every girl did. Like i was some sort of god. I hurried past her and heard her friends giggle and tease her saying she should go ask for my number. Not that i had a phone.

I took a quick turn down a quieter street i hadn't been down before and kept walking shoving my hands into my pocket. I wasn't afraid of alleyways like most people. In fact I used to get beat up in them a lot. So alleways were like my second home. Plus i've never been afraid of getting jumped, even back when i was scrawny and puny. I had this sort of pride about me. I felt invicible even though i clearly wasn't. Broken on the inside, nearly indestructible on the outside. I ground my teeth and turned another corner. I was faced with blinding sunlight. Grimacing I took out my hand shielding my eyes from the sunlight. Sunlight? Already? Had I been out that long? I always lost track of time when I was out like this. Once I walked for a whole day in the same path and didn't even realize it. It was only called to my attention when a cop stopped me for "suspicious behavior". Apparently I had scared some of the shop owners in the area with my constantly walking past their stores like a stakeout. I had been wearing a scowl on my face the whole time too so I suppose that didn't help my case.

I frown and begin to clear my mind trying to focus on what street I was on. I zero in on the closest sign. Hadley View? I've never heard of that street. I dropped my hand and walked closer to it just to make sure I was reading it right. A couple times I've hallucinated things; Astella appearing, street signs with wrong names, friends long dead. I grit my teeth and checked the sign again. It definitely read Hadley View. I ran a hand through my blonde hair and turned on my heel one way and then another. Nothing looked familiar. not yet anyways. I suppose if i just kept walking one way i could figure out where to go or i would just go deeper into New York City. I should ask for directions. I looked around for any signs of life. Nobody yet. Maybe it's still early. I could find my way if i just keep walking. I take a glance at the builings. They're all whitewashed and dingy. Peeling paint here and there, water stains on the roof. I must be in a bad part of the nieghboorhood.

One building sticks out like a sore thumb. It's made of red brick and mortar. It looks no better than the rest. In fact it looks like it's about to collapse. Some of the bricks are even missing. The sign states in bold letter Abigal's Institution for the Clinically Insane. Just prettier words for the word Asylum. I'm so wrapped up in staring up at the building that somethign slams into me or i slam into them. Either way I'm almost knocked off my feet.

"Can you hear it!" the person shouts. A girl. I can tell by the soun of her voice. "Can you Captain?" she asks. I freeze. Captain. She called me Captain. She knows. how coudl she know. I stare at her. She looks almsot.. Familiar. Long dark hair a tangled mess knotted with leaves and matted with something else. She must be from the Asylum. Maybe she escaped. "The stars!" she cries out gestuering wildly out toward the sky. "The stars! They dance!" She begins to sway moving her arms back and forth in time with her body to music only she can hear. There's something in the tone of her vocie that has me confused. She stops suddenly and straightens up. She's staring at the wall of the Asylum blankly. Then she proceds to make a series of clicking and hissing noises that i know I've heard before. She stops as if listening for a reply.

With a gasp she drops to her knees. "What!" she chokes out scratching the sides of her dirty gown. "NO!" she screams banging her hands against an invisible force. "You promised! We had a deal!" she screams again scratching at her skin as if it burns. Then SNAP! She straightens up and turns back to face me. Her eyes are glazed over but she resumes a stance. Arms folded over her chest hip out, tapping her foot. "I'm not hitting you." she sounds so sassy and arrogant i don't know how i missed it before.