Kid from the Asylum

Chapter Eight

My chapter :)

Nico's POV

I narrowed my eyes at the mantis-like woman. "Who are you?"

The woman smiled, as twisted and cruel as a smile could get, her dark eyes glinting maliciously. "I'm madam Preston. I own this asylum, and many others across the United States. I hear you've grown attached to one of my subjects, hm?"

"He's not a subject," I snapped, glaring at her as I strode with a hostile, defensive position towards the desk that she stood behind.

"Oh, why of course he is! Just like everyone else in this asylum is. Even you." She tilted her head to the side. "You've proven to be quite peculiar. Helping our most prized subject escape from us without any real reason..." she studied me cautiously, like determining whether I had a disease or not. "Of course, since you've gotten rid of one of my subjects, you'll have to replace him, won't you? You are gay, based on what's been collected for data from you, and that's mental enough of a disease to allow..." she trailed off, clicking a pen that had somehow appeared in his hand. "Experiments to be placed upon you. Of course, you signed all the paperwork allowing me to do so." She held up the packet that I had filled out in order to take Percy out of the asylum, making me scowl.

"Fine print," she tutted, clicking her tongue. "Christy, secure him."

Without my realization, Christy had snuck up behind me. On command, she grabbed my hands and forced them behind my back, binding them together tight enough to make me grimace in pain through my desperate struggle to get out from the ropes that were getting tighter and tighter around my wrists. I tried to kick Christy, but since I couldn't see her she avoided me easily.

"The twine is infused with metal. Makes it stronger. Plus, if people try to break out of it, it simply cuts their flesh. Wire can be potent enough to cut bone, under the right circumstances, so I wouldn't bother trying to escape." Madam Preston or whatever turned and headed for the heavy iron doors to the left of the room, but ended up turning and going for the back, where I had never been before.

She unlocked a high secured iron door as he Christy shoved my forward, making me grunt as I was forced in front of the doorway. There was a set of old wooden steps leading down below the main floor that didn't seem like they'd even support my weight, but the mantis lady stepped down in front of us and headed down the steps, her heels clicking somehow threateningly against the rotting wood as she headed downstairs. "Christy-"

"Shut up," she snapped, jerking my bound arms in one direction, making an odd popping noise as I groaned in pain. That was probably dislocated. Great. I shut up after that.

We descended into the dark for a while before we reached even ground with cracked cement flooring and Preston began talking. "See, Nico... People who belong in mental facility treatments are... Abominations to mankind. It's always something wrong with our brain, our most vital organ. However, there are several ways that we can attempt to fix these mistakes." As we walked down the hall, a noise started to get louder.

Muffled screams. Groans of pain. Crying. She turned and unlocked another iron door that I hadn't seen before and pushing it open. As soon as she did that, all the noises were amplified by ten, overwhelming me with a heavy sense of dread and misery. "See, Nico, our brain often obtains these illnesses through trauma. So, why can't we fix it with trauma? Along the walls I could start to see the outline of cell bars. Coughing, crying, all of the miserable noises you could imagine were muffling all my senses. Suddenly, there were bodies pressed against the cells. Several of them, reaching out through the cell bars with desperate screams or cries for help.

Their bodies were covered in dirt and blood, their hair long and crazed. Every cell we went by, people reached out, pleading and crying for help. Preston ignored them like they weren't even there. Some people just sat in the back of their cells, looking too miserable to even move, catching my eyes with such a pained look in his that I had to look away.