MidKnight: The Asylum [FINISHED]

Chapter 5: More Amnesia

Harold awoke back in his cell, feeling extremely hungover. His headache was especially intense, grogginess was overwhelming. It was morning, sun beaming through the skylight outside his cell, lighting the entirety of the East Wing. While sitting up, his neck and his limbs ached, everything was sore. He remembered being terrified the night before, but the last thing he remembered was talking to Danielle at her quarters.
    The electronic buzz went off and the other prisoners groaned in their cells. The loud springing sounds indicated they were all slowly rising off of their beds to participate in the oh so lovely "Mornin' Chow" bit of the morning.
    The cell doors unlocked and Harold, as well as the other patients, exited and joined along the railing to form a line down to the Mess Hall. He lined up behind Brian, who had an even messier head of hair than before. Brian rubbed his eyes, he leaned back and forth--probably dizzy.
    "Hey." Harold said, initiating the conversation. He planned to ask Brian if he ever woke up sore like this for no reason. He wanted to find out, if Brian had been here for 5 years, he had to have experienced this.
    "Hey, getting used to that shitty buzzer?" Brian asked, running his fingers through his hair, "fixing" it.
    "Not really, I was awake before it went off." Harold responded. The line started to move down to the Mess Hall.
    "Ahh, I see. Good thing about that buzz is it only goes off once a day. The guards and psychopaths and doctors wake you up for the rest of the day instead." Brian said, sounding like it'd happened far too many times to him during his stay here.
    "Yeah. Listen, I wanted to ask you something."
"Shoot."
"Okay, while you've been here, have you ever woken up extremely sore? Like, major amnesia and everything hurts?"
"Oh, definitely. I've had that happen about 10-15 times throughout the time I've been here. All at unexpected times, not night after night or anything. Why?"
"I'm feeling that right now, what is it?"
"Never figured it out. Couldn't ever remember. Only one thing ever came back when I concentrated hard enough. I always recalled a green syringe."
"Wait, yeah that is familiar." Harold said. He might be able to remember if it wasn't too late since whatever had happened did. They got to the Mess Hall, went through the long line for 10 minutes and sat at their table.
    "Did anybody else ever feel this?" Harold asked. He knew Brian didn't ever talk to many people because the majority were crazy, but he did say he'd talked to few, they'd just been shifty.
    "I only asked one person, that was 2 years ago. He's one of the patients with psychosis--extreme psychosis. He didn't use to be so creepy, but it definitely got there eventually. That's why I stopped talking to him."
    "Who was it?"
    "Name's Whitney Jansen. Why?"
    "I'm thinking maybe he can help me figure it out."
    "Ah, I'm afraid you're out of luck, dude. The creeps like him are locked up in a...special Wing of this place. Solitary."
    "And this place is an "asylum", not a prison."
    "I know, right? My shrink has said numerous times, "psychiatric hospital, Brian. Not an asylum." Bull. They're pretty much the same thing. Wouldn't make a difference otherwise."
    When breakfast was over, the 2 returned to their cells. Harold was going to wait for Danielle to stop by to ask if she could get this Whitney Jansen patient and him to talk. Also, he would ask her if she had any information of why he was so sore. She had to know something. For now, he was going to get additional rest.
    He woke up to Danielle's voice and the cell door opening. "Good morning, Harold." she said, setting the usual steel chair down.
"Good morning, Dan--er, Dr. Jeanette." he said, looking at her to make sure that was right. There were still guards around and that could cause trouble if eavesdropping on them being too comfortable around each other.
    She nodded, confirming they should still stay formal during sessions. "How are you today?" she asked, moving right on into it.
"Not great. I wanted to ask you about it."
"Okay. What is "it", exactly?"
"Well, earlier, I woke up and my entire body felt sore, especially the limbs. My neck hurt, as if something was jabbed into the sides. Do you know why that could be?" he stammered.
    She looked very confused as he explained. She started scribbing words fast on the back of one of the charts on her clipboard. "No, I don't know why that could be. We can get into it some other time, okay?" she said, holding up the paper which read: THAT OTHER TIME BEING AT MY QUARTERS LATER TODAY.
    "Okay, sure." he answered. It really annoyed him that he was unable to recall what had happened. He knew something went down, he remembered the syringe Brian had mentioned, he remembered being cold and angry. There were only a number of things that could've gone down with that combination of things, the problem was he couldn't remember.
    In the session, they both faked interest in the back-and-forth of a story about the arson and a make-believe backstory. They both knew it was fake, but they were surrounded by ears.
    When she left, Harold went back to sleep. He wanted things to by as fast as possible so he could get answers. He was having trouble falling back asleep, though. Worrying thoughts and fears plagued him. His mind couldn't get away from all the scary situations he could think of that could have happened the night before. He got bits and bits of memories from the night before, the majority being useless. There was the "gloved finger flicking a syringe" memory, the "leather strapping around a set of skin" memory. He refused to accept what that could mean. He eventually stopped thinking and his mind let him sleep.