The Asylum

My name is Kay Winters. I was born on August 20th 1991. And apparently I'm crazy. But that's not the whole story.

The cold grey building loomed over me like a dark omen as I was led into St. Joseph's Mental Institution on a warm, humid night in October. The huge barred windows stared at me judgingly, and I wanted so much to run the opposite direction. If it hadn't been for the orderly's strong grip on my bicep keeping me moving forward. We moved through the heavy metal front doors and instantly the world was bright white. The halogen lamps ahead cast a harsh white light everywhere, bouncing off the equally luminescent white walls and floor. The only color was the odd looking blue counter where multiple nurses were sifting through patient files. The dull tapping on computer keyboards nearly lulled me to sleep.

"Winters. Kay Winters." A pudgy nurse who looked to be in her mid-forties stared at me impatiently. My first reaction was wanting to spit in her face. I didn't belong in a nut house, and I hated that this woman was judging me based on a folder of paper sent to her by a horny judge. But the fact of the matter was, I was locked up, and the only way to get out was to play the game.

"Yes." I nodded at her slightly, and the orderly's grip loosened.

"Follow me." The nurse turned on her heel and began strutting down the corridor to my right. I followed, like a good little dog.

"This will be your home for the next 6 months. You are expected to take your medication every day and obey all rules set forth by the institution."

While the nurse droned on about hospital rules, I took the opportunity to survey my surroundings. Most of the doors were closed, but the occasional room would be open, usually showing empty. Until we reached the door at the end of the hallway. I was shocked when I looked inside and immediately stopped dead in my tracks. The room contained a huge wooden desk, a couple chairs in front, but the walls were completely covered in shelves filled with books up to the ceiling. My eyes started on the shelves but immediately shot to behind the desk when I sensed somebody watching me. Behind the desk sat a man, looking to be in his mid- to late-thirties, with a grey suit and white lab coat. He looked to be an average build, handsome man, but it wasn't his looks that caught me in a trance. It was his eyes. His eyes seemed to trap me in a way I had never before experienced. I felt uncomfortable, as if all my secrets lay bare in front of him and I couldn't hide them. Then I was free, the nurse quickly shooting in front of me and closing the door, muttering an apology to the man at the desk. Once closed, she shot the orderly a quick glare and I felt a grip once again on my arm, tighter than ever, forcing me to nearly jog down the hall.

We finally stopped at another doorway as the nurse was entering into what looked to be a large sterile bathroom. The orderly let go of my arm and nudged me into the room, and I didn't fight it. The door shut closed behind me and I was left alone with the now irritate nurse.

"Take off all your clothes and put them in this bag." She handed me a thick plastic bag and I started undressing. I had never been shy about being naked, regardless of whether I felt I was a bit less toned than I should be. Once all the clothes were in the bag, I threw the bag roughly to her feet, causing a glare, which I quickly shrugged off.

The cold water of the shower quickly changed my tired, don't-give-a-fuck attitude to alert and wide-eyed. The nurse handed me a pair of white cloth underwear and dull blue starchy dress that fell down to my knees and was the opposite of fitted. I felt like a toddler in their dad's t-shirt. My long red hair fell limply down the back, leaving a wet trail on the dress and my pale skin looked washed out. I'm sure my bitch mother would have told me it "wasn't my color". That's if she took any interest in me at all.

Once again I was led down the bright corridor with a bruising grip on my arm to a door with a big 23 on the door. Home Sweet Home. The room was dull and white, the bed being your typical metal-painted-white frame with a thin mattress and a folded white blanket that looked scratchy and cheap. The nurse closed the door as soon as I stepped in, informing me that it would be lights out in 20 minutes.

The bed creaked when I sat on it, easily feeling the springs in the mattress. I was surprised when I found that there wasn't any other beds in the room, and wondered if it was at the request of my mother or if they thought I was too dangerous to put with another human being. I laughed at the second idea. At my sentencing, the judge told me I was a danger to society and needed to be monitored for homicidal tendencies. I wasn't sure how throwing a lamp at my crazy mother made me homicidal, or insane, but you can't exactly object to a judge. I wasn't wanting to kill my mother on the night of our fight. I just wanted her to get out of my face for once. I wanted to get away from her mood swings and constant demands that I be a plastic Barbie doll and marry a rich geezer like her. She also never liked me to talk about my visions, mostly because she wanted me to be normal, but also because it scared her.

I was a relatively easy kid to live with growing up. I wanted the approval of my parents, and I loved my father more than life itself. When he died in a fatal car crash, my life fell apart completely, which caused me to cope in self-destructive ways. I started to drink, being the tender age of 16, which lead to light drugs. At 23, after rehab, I changed and made sure that I would never go back to that place, but my mother never forgot. She remarried to a rich 60 year old businessman who was never around and stopped paying attention to me unless I did something wrong. I went to college and tried to stay as clean as possible, but the visions still wracked me at night and she insisted that I was crazy because of it. That night she had had enough, and when I woke up screaming, she came into my room and told me she was going to have me committed to a mental institution. I told her she was a crazy bitch that is going to die in a fire (a vision of mine from 4 years earlier) and threw my bedside lamp at her direction, which shattered against the wall. That night I was dragged to jail, with my mother fake crying to get attention from the police officer.

The lights abruptly shutting off brought me back to the present and I laid down on the bed, hesitantly covering myself with the scratchy fabric. Then I saw something. In the corner of my room, near the ceiling, a faint red blinking light. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I was able to make out a small circular shape, the shape of a lens. Oh great, the get to watch me sleep. I thought. I decided to just ignore it and rolled over to face the wall, away from the direction of the camera. It surprisingly didn't take long for me to fall asleep.

I was in a dark room that smelled like stale water and rot. It looked like it was underground, the walls made of either brick or earth. The mattress I was lying on was stained and smelled like mold. There was a door to my right and I immediately ran to try and open it, only to find it locked. But there was a hole in one side by the lock, clearly rotting away. I peeked through it but couldn't see much. It looked like it was outside, faintly being able to make out possibly some stars. My first thought was that maybe if I got outside, I could find out where I was and get back home. My first attempt to ram the door met with pain straight to my shoulder, causing me to cry out in pain. For my second try, I backed up all the way to the far wall of the room and ran straight for the door. But at the last second, the door opened and I ran straight into something equally hard, but not wooden. Flesh. I fell to the floor on my butt and winced from the pain. When I looked up, the shadow of a tall man blocked the doorway. He reached down to grab me and I instantly started fighting. I felt him on top of me, not hurting me, but pushing me to the ground. I flailed my arms and tried to hit him, to push him off me. My legs were caught and somehow bound to the floor, but I still tried to knee him. Then my arms were being held down, but not by him.

Suddenly the man wasn't on me, but instead I was in my bed at the asylum, and I was fighting 3 male orderlies trying to bind me to my bed. I still fought them, even after realizing I was having a nightmare. I didn't want to be touched. I wanted to be left alone.

"Get off me asshole!" I screamed at the man holding down my arms and spit in his face.

Then I felt a slight prick in my left arm and the hands were suddenly gone. I looked up to find the man from the room with all the books. The man with that demanding stare looking into my eyes and I felt myself losing control of my limbs and my vision faded to black.