The Asylum For The 'Insane'

Chapter 1: The Boy In The Room

This is it.

I'm stuck here. Stuck in this disgraceful excuse for a prison cell. To be honest - I don't really know where here is. All I have to look at in this claustrophobic, rotten room is some broken wooden drawers and an old mattress stuffed with hay. A blanket of filth is scattered across the floor and sometimes a little rat scuttles along the mouldy floorboards and out a tiny hole in the wall. The walls are peeling from the dampness that hangs in the air, suffocating me at every moment. It is so dark and dismal in here. I do have a window though, so some light gets in. However it is very little and doesn't open.

There isn't much to see out of the window apart from a huge oak tree, dazzled with an array of different colours of leaves: oranges and mauve's, reds and yellows, being agitated by the strong gale of wind battering the poor tree side to side; it is quite pretty in comparison to this dingy room. There are also a few things on the ground below. I can just make out an ancient, rusty wheelbarrow that looks as though it hasn't been used in a decade and a broken sign saying "... Para Los Locos". I'm not really sure what this was supposed to say - or what it means for that matter, but I think it might be German or Italian. But why would it be those languages, as I'm in England, aren't I?

I have been In this room for what feels like a millennia and barely get any human contact. About once a day some woman, I think, opens a small hatch at the bottom of my door and slides a bowl of porridge and a piece of stale bread through and shouts in some foreign accent. I don't know whether I'm losing my mind by understanding and forgetting my mother tongue or I am actually in a foreign country - I really hope it is the second option but I don't know as I can't remember how I even got to this place.

When I try and think about my past and how I got here, my head starts to pound and I feel as though everything around my starts spinning, my breath quickens and heartbeat heightens. I try not to think of it often as I don't want to become ill but my mind has a habit of wandering, especially when you are stuck in a rickety old room for 24 hours, 7 days a week. It gets really boring just sat day after day not knowing what to do with myself. I mean what is there to do, except stare out of the tiny window and watch the breeze sweep through the trees. Sometimes I try and make a mosaic pattern out of the strips of wall paper scattered across the floor but as soon as it starts to look like something presentable, a rat scrambles through it sending the pieces flying around the room.

I just give up at this point.

I sit staring out of the window when i hear a scraping noise behind me. As quick as a flash, I swivel around to see the door open and a Man stood there in a white lab coat and a face mask covering his mouth. I feel petrified. I haven't seen anything like this before. I didn't think anyone else was here except me and that woman who gives me food, and now he shows up with a pen in one hand and some sort of needle or injection in the other. I don't know what to do. Do I try and run? No. Maybe he is friendly - but he has a needle in his hand. I froze to the spot. Unable to move, my breath started to quicken as this intruder slowly paced towards me. I feel every footstep through the floorboards. As he gets increasingly closer, I really start to get terrified. Who is he? What does he want with me? Why is he holding that needle? Creeping closer he starts to hold out the needle pointing at my soul. The wind outside started to pick up again and battered the building. It must have been strong as some of the wallpaper scraps started to move inside the room and even started floating. The figure stopped as if he was also confused about the floating particulates dancing in the air, like ballerinas. He then charged at me. I feel a sharp pain in my arm. The particles of wall once dancing in the air floated back to the rotten floorboards. My head began to spin and my vision became a blur then...Darkness.