St. Lucy

Prologue

Today was a day like usual. Get up in the mornings wondering why you were alive. Get ready for a job you hate but need to survive. All to please the great machine... But I suppose there are greater evils in this world.

Looking out the window next to my bed proved quite the task every morning I have been here. Seeing a huge hulking structure like that gave me shivers.

The St. Lucy's Institution for Mental Healt and Orphanage for Abandoned Children... In other words the creepiest asylum I have seen in my life. It was huge, easy seventeen square miles of land, conquered by this building that was built hundreds of years ago. There was the main section, built with five gigantic floors and a bell tower right in the middle. On either side were two three story wings meant to house normal patients. It was the main section that was what worried me. The third and fourth floors houses the worst of the worst. From what I heard already, despite having not yet set foot inside myself, it was in... Severe dire straits. They were understaffed and over populated with more and more patients coming in every week.

Killers, rapists, thieves, just all around the spectrum of evil one could imagine.

Even worse. A cathedral meant to house over two hundred people sat dangerously close to the asylum itself. Only the nuns, myself, and the children were meant to use it.

And that was why I was here in the first place. The only psychiatrist in a thousand mile radius. Or so I was told...

At least my dormitory building was nice on the inside. My room looked like a hotel room, a giant king sized bed with plain but satin grey sheets and a white comforter sat on the opposite side of the twenty foot squared room. A fireplace was nestled not too far away next to three satin red couches. The color schemes of the walls were grey and white. A plain wooden cross sat above my bed. Typical for a convent member who had no business being here.

This place still bothered me. It was so dark and cold here all the time. Even now as I stand and attempt to look outside, my hands are shivering, even with the coffee cup clasped tightly in my fingers. Fog shrouded the windows every day of the week. Every hour. Every minute. The sight of it was maddening. Watching it cling to my dormitory windows as I tried to see past the bars only served to irritate me more. I know there was a forest just a hundred yards from my window. And a mountain unnamed lay in the far off distance.

Its only been a week and I am already tired of seeing nothing and feeling nothing.

Doctor Kouyou Takashima. I thought it had a ring to it at first. It was exciting to finally leave after I don't even know how many years of being in the psychology department and receiving my PH.d in Psychiatric disorders and Mental disabilities. I've been doing this since I was nineteen... Its been close to eight years I believe.

Not to mention I was already a clergy member for three years. A fully certified priest of the Catholic church mean to serve God... Kind of hypocritical of me I think. Its been a while since I believed in anything other than life or death. Maybe I joined hoping to rekindle my beliefs from childhood. So far though, nothing has happened aside from false hope and many useless blessings in houses and on objects.

Was this where I imagined myself to be so long ago? I doubt it. I'm sure if my kid self knew he would be stick in a giant asylum for the next two years he would desperately throw a fit. There wasn't even cell service here. Just a landline that was, at best, static and white noise.

"Excuse me? Father are you in there?"

A muffled female voice chirped at me from behind the giant wooden door to my room. A nurse I am guessing, or one of the nuns that worked as caretakers for the children's wing.

What did they want now?

"Come in dear," I answer and sit at the desk next to my bed, opening the laptop that sat there gathering dust. The door opens and I hear soft footsteps as the woman comes inside and closed the door. "What Do you need?"

This woman was young. Far too young to be so set in this life, in my opinion. She appeared to be only twenty or twenty one years of age if my intuition was correct. A nurse's outfit was snug around her as a nun's habit cradled her head as long black hair cascaded down her back.

"Father," she begins quietly, timidly even. "Mass is in half an hour. Would you like to be escorted to the main hall to meet the children? The rest of your schedule also needs to be situated with the Pastor as well."

Well... I suppose actively meeting with them could help lift my spirits...

"Well," I started with a sigh. "Its better than moping around here all day. Why not?"

She smiled at me and bowed her head.

"Very good, Father. I will allow you to get dressed first and we can get going."

Without another word she leaves, leaving me to my own devices yet again. Oh well. I wasn't sure I could handle looking at nothing for much longer. The old laptop barely boots to life before I have to close it again.

"Father... Sounds weird even now."

I just wish that it didn't make me feel so guilty.