Violent Bliss

The Place had always been there, sat up on the hill, looking down upon the city. The local people could not remember when it was built, or who had asked for it to be constructed. Some said it had been there long before the city had, but most said it was best not to ask those sorts of questions, unless you wanted to be invited into its doors. It was the sort of place children would dare each other to touch the gate of, but nobody really knew what went on inside, only that they didn't want to find out. Every so often someone would tell the story of a colleague or a distant relative on their wife's side, that had to be taken there. It had become known through such tales as the place people went when there was nowhere left to go.