Insanity ➳ Ashton Irwin

Chaper 1 | Pennhurst

Chapter 1 | Pennhurst

1968

Ashton Irwin

Pennhurst was a place for the insane. Criminally, mentally, physically, and no doubt in my head said there were also the framed. At least, that's what I heard the inmates call the people who didn't actually do anything. You never know who those are though. The sky blue outfits kind of just blend everyone together.

There are some that stand in the common room and shake like a small dog. You can look at them and easily know that they are insane. 

Others rock themselves back and forth in a corner. You can also tell they are insane.

But the ones that are the most dangerous are the ones that will come up to me, as a worker, smile and wave and sometimes even talk to me. Those are the ones that are the psychopaths. They know what they did to end up in this place, yet they can still laugh and smile. They can do this because they think what they did was good. That they're doing it for the good of people.

That's how you know someone is insane from someone who is not. The insane ones know what they did, but they aren't affected by it. They feel no remorse, no regret.

"Hey, Wendy," I say going into the room for my shift. I work in the room with her, and she talks to the patients to figure out their progress in insanity. She's only a year or two older than me. The poor girl is sitting in the seat in front of her desk, looking through a patients file. I only feel bad for her because she has been working here for going on seven years now and it's taking a huge toll on her. She's been taking care of the insane for so long that she's going right down with them.

She turns around and smiles at me. A piece of strawberry blonde hair falls out of her tight bun and she quickly puts it back. "Ashton, hi."

"Are you okay?" I know that no, of course she's not, but I have to ask.

"Yeah, of course." She smiles to encourage me and I pretend that I buy it, and she changes the subject. "There's a returnee today."

A returnee in Pennhurst term is someone who was here once before and is back. It hardly ever happens, but it's not crazy that it does. "Really? Who?"

"Lacey Valentine."

"Who's that?" I ask, sitting down on a chair next to her. I've only been here for five months, and I've only learned the names of the patients Wendy has been able to work with.

"First time she came for cutting her bosses hand off. She got out three years after because she showed no signs of being insane at all, but recently she just killed her boyfriend. She's been deemed insane, so she's back."

"Shouldn't she just be in jail?" I can't help but wonder. "Killing someone normally isn't insane, it's murder."

"But after the knowledge of her being here once, they knew she was insane."

There's a knock at the door and Wendy then smiles weakly. "Here she is." She tells me before calling out, "Come in!"

"Let go of me, you pieces of meat!" Was the first I heard out of Lacey Valentine's mouth. I looked up to meet her eyes, and I was shocked at what looked back at me.

She looked so young. Eighteen, twenty at the most. Her wavy blonde hair reached down to her chest, and her pale blue eyes were wide in frustration. She looked so innocent, but then again, that probably was her intention. A sociopath, right in the room with me.

"I can sit in the seat by myself!" She screams, thrashing her arms out of the grasp of the two guards who were holding onto her wrists and walking her in. It's normal for two guards to be with an inmate the first day they come, for no one exactly knows what they're capable of.