Asylum | E.D

18

"You can run but you can't hide."

Jaylee

"Where do you think you're going?" My blood turned cold. Ice cold. I'm pretty sure my face is drained of colour right now.

I look at both Ethan and Jane and they both looked back at me. Our backs are turned from Lewis, the guard that brought Ethan and I to Dr Johnson the first time, and my heart is pounding wildly inside my chest.

The sound of the footsteps is getting loud, signalling that Lewis is about to walk up near us, "Is there anything the three of you need to tell us?" He chuckles devilishly."On the count of three, when I say run... run." Jane whispers but loud enough for both Ethan and I to hear. I look at Jane waiting for her go signal.

Lewis is evidently close to reaching our direction based on his footsteps. "One..." She starts to count. I prepared myself to run, and I'm afraid that my legs would fail me. I haven't actually practiced my running skills considering my situation.

"Two..." I can practically hear our nervous breaths, afraid that at any given moment, our plan would be a total fail.

"Three... run!"

As soon as those words leaves Jane's mouth, I find the three of us running towards the direction Jane is leading.
We rounded up a corner so fast my heart rate increased to a thousand time. I can hear Lewis following us behind, his keys on his pockets jingling.

"Jane... w-wait!" I call out, my lungs giving up from the activity, but I'm sure as hell that I couldn't stop running now. But I'm starting to slow down and I'm so scared and nervous.

"Jaylee, hurry!" Ethan instructs as he goes beside me helping me up after my left leg starts to fail running. I regain my composure immediately as we continue on running."Turn left!" Ethan instructs us and we turn on the left corner. Lewis is shouting something like stop but I'm too nervous and desperate and scared to even comprehend whatever he is saying.

"Are we close to the exit?" I ask Jane, panting. We come to a stop at the far end of the hallway we're in. All of us breathing heavily, my legs feels week.
Jane leans against the white wall, hands on her knees. She shakes his head still breathing heavily, "We lost the exit." She swallows.

"What?!" Ethan asks, quite in horror. "Keep running!" Jane says instead as she looks over our back. I look behind me and pretty sure Lewis is running after us. "Stop!" Lewis shouts behind us. We keep running until we reaches another dark section of the building. There aren't any lights in here unlike the previous one we were in.

I'm starting to feel dizzy and weak. I want to stop and take a rest but clearly, resting isn't exactly the safest option right now. "Are you okay?"Jane asks, turning at me while we're still running.

"I feel exhausted." I honestly answer. "I'm sorry," Jane apologies, "I didn't expect this to happen." she sighs. Ethan finds an open room and we all rush inside to get some rest and to serve as a hiding place too. When we're all inside, Ethan closes the door slightly still leaving a small slit where we can peek outside.

Jane gets the backpack from my back and pulls out a bottle of water handing it to me. "How did we lose the exit?" Ethan asks, quite frustrated.

"When Lewis found us, we started to run at the wrong corner. We should have gone for the other one, on the right side near two doors but I saw one door opening and obviously, we'd get busted if we proceed there. So I chose the wrong direction but the safest option." Jane explains.

Ethan sighs, sitting on the floor beside me and Jane. I hand Jane my bottle of water and she takes a swig on it. "So what's next?" I ask, asking the inevitable. My heart is still hammering in my chest from the adrenaline and nervousness. "We need to be careful." Ethan says.

"Yes, Ethan's right." Jane replies. "For all we know, Lewis could've called another guards and nurses to hunt us." she says. "What about you?" I ask Jane. "They'll know you're helping us." I tell her. "Then I'll be fired." Jane answers trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

"But at least I know I did the right thing. Which is getting you two out of here and protecting you." She smiles.
I feel sleepy, I want to go lay down and fall into a deep slumber. I want to wake up already outside of this place.

An hour ago, I am so sure and so excited that in just a few more hours I'd be finally out of this place. But all of that vanished the moment Lewis ruined the moment.

"Let's get moving." Jane announces as she peeks through the small slit of the slightly opened door. Ethan and I look at each other and then we stand up. It is dark outside when we stepped out of the room.

"I put a flashlight in each of your bags." Jane says, gesturing for us to get the flashlight. We start walking quite slowly, trying to be as alert as possible of any encounters. Ethan and I turns our flashlight on as we follow closely behind Jane. "Come on this way." Jane whispers, flashing the light on the other direction.

We walk towards a corner and continue being discreet and careful when all of a sudden there is a sound of a gun firing. All of us jumped at the commotion.We look behind us to see Lewis smiling evily at us, with his hands gripping a gun. He fires another shot and I screamed out of impulse.

It is a signal for the three of us to start running, and so we did. Lewis ran behind, following us. I run and grip Ethan on the arms. I'm afraid that if I don't hold onto someone I'd get left behind, lost. Ethan looks at me taking my hands on his squeezing it tight. I look over at him, beads of sweat starting to form on his forehead.

We continue to run, and run, and run. Lewis fires another shot again, and fortunately for us, he missed us. "Fuck." Ethan curses. "Just keep running." Jane instructs, getting all worn out too. There is a disadvantage and advantage in having a dark pathway. The advantage is Lewis misses his shot but the disadvantage is that it's hard to run in the dark.

I almost run into a wall if only Ethan didn't grabbed my arms onto the right direction. We hear another shot. "If I were you, I would stop running!" Lewis shouted as he finally lost sight of us. We all lean against the cold wall, panting and with hearts pounding frantically inside our chests. "Come, this way." Jane whispers as we hurriedly passes through another dark hall.

There's a light that's obviously broken, it keeps turning on and then off again. It smells of alcohol mixed with the normal sanitarium smell. "Stop hiding. We all know that I'm going to find you." His voice echoes.

We all looked at each other alarmed. I need water, but I don't want to open my bag any minute because that might cause any destructions once we run again. "You know, patients never gets out of this place. So stop aiming to. Stop dreaming." Lewis keeps on talking and talking as Ethan, Jane and I are all holding our breaths and being still behind an old abandoned cabinet.

His footsteps sounds nearer and nearer. We can't get out of our hiding place now or Lewis will catch us. I'm so shaken up by everything that's happening, I didn't even notice the few tears brimming from my eyes.

I wipe my face with my bare hands and tried to stop my sniffle. Any sounds might lead Lewis to our direction and I don't want that happening. "Oh come on! You can go come out now... You can't hide forever... what's that saying again? You can run but... ah yes... but you can't hide."

"We'll get out of here." Ethan whispers into my ear as he squeezes my hands tight. "Don't worry." I search for his eyes for an assurance and I found one. I look over at Jane and she is trying to force a reassuring smile at me. I closed my eyes and heaves out a huge breath and tried to believe that's it's all going to work.

"Come on, get out from where you're hiding. I won't bite you nor kill you. What's the fun in that?" Lewis says.
"Bullshit." Ethan lowly cussed. His footsteps grows distant until it completely vanished. The three of us all decided to sneak out of our hiding place carefully without a sound.

I let go of Ethan's grip in mine as we all start taking steps from behind the cabinet. But my eyes grew wide when I see Lewis standing in front of us with a devilish grin plastered across his face as his right hand holds a gun.

He whispered very slowly and painfully, "I told you. You can run, but you can't hide."