Ruby Elizabeth Anderson

Ruby Elizabeth Anderson [ROUGH DRAFT]

Please ignore any grammatical errors and keep in mind that I haven't started to edit this. I'm still writing the story. 

The year was 1954. A tall plain building with barred windows stood in what seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. Grassy plains surrounded the building and to its left side was a forest that had trees that seemed to touch the sky. Approaching the building, there was only a single flight of stairs that lead to a rusty old door with a faded bronze nameplate that read, "Still Hope Medical Asylum."

Inside sat a surly man by the name of Dr. Frank Dickinson. Dickinson sat hunched over in his chair, reading over a previous patient's file. He was a tall, lanky man, with mousy brown hair and swampy green eyes. Dickinson was an average middle-aged man who worked as a doctor. He lived in a fairly large house that he kept all to himself. Because the Asylum is so far out, they often cut it off from society. The doctor's boss never paid much mind to what Dickinson was doing, and focused on other duties he viewed as more important.

The thing was, Dickinson had a nasty habit of performing dangerous experiments on patients that often resulted in their death. His most recent victim was Ruby Elizabeth Anderson. Dickinson couldn't care less about the death of an orphan. No one would be around to miss little Ruby. To him, she wasn't that much of a loss.

...

A few months prior to the Orphan's death, in the hallway, a small girl lay awake. She was bony and small for her age. The girl had honey-blonde hair with wild curls that were heavily matted. Near her pupils were a muddy brown that then faded into a blue that resembled the sea. She looked starved and exhausted, heavy eye bags rested below her eyes. Her skin was pale, and light freckles were dotted along her cheeks.

She stared up at the ceiling as the out-of-order memories flew around her brain. It was nauseating. Ruby's head weighed like a brick. She felt her headache come in waves of severe pain as she sat up on the cold, hard floor. Around her were walls that were painted white and towered over her. Patients were scattered around the narrow hallway. The air was musty and thick. The hallway was filled with a sense of melancholy. Screams of agony and fright could be heard from around her. Although muffled, they never failed to reach her ears and keep her, and the other patients, awake at night.

Ruby's mind was a murky mist that couldn't seem to fade. Her memories are scattered around like an out-of-order photo album. Some pictures were missing, details that she couldn't quite catch. Her memories were a movie that Ruby could watch from above, fading in and out of good and bad quality.

Ruby felt as though she were an insect trapped in a spider's web, stuck. Of course, every patient at this asylum felt this way. It was a prison for the innocent. Ruby wasn't the only one who had undergone the brutal tortures there, and she wouldn't be the last.

The girl looked around the dull room and at the other patients. Some were lying awake, mumbling to themselves, others were fast asleep. Ruby watched as a fly landed on the floor. She studied its behavior. She always found herself lost in a cloud of complex thinking, always asking questions that start with, "why," and "how?"

Ruby often faded in and out of reality. Everything was happening in a blur, and she didn't feel connected to herself. A sense of hollowness constantly surrounded her. Ruby paid attention to small things like the clump of paint on a wall, and how one bar in front of the window was farther away than the other, but for the big picture, Ruby was at a loss. It was like watching a movie in the first person, but it was constantly on fast forward.

Later on, Ruby stood in the overcrowded dining hall. A sense of misery hung in the air as the other patients, who were mainly elders, squeezed onto the tables. The room was large, with barred windows and white wallpaper. Even though tables filled the room, there still weren't enough seats or food for Ruby. She glanced at the nurses, who had roughly slammed a struggling patient against the wall. They then carried him out as the patient cried.

Ruby's stomach boiled with rage at the way the patient was being treated. She knew he would likely be tied down to his bed for hours until he calmed down. She had terrible meltdowns before and they often resulted in being restrained by a device of some sort, or they tied her down to a bed. Ruby despised the staff here and their carelessness.

After breakfast, the nurses said it was time for treatment. Ruby and some other patients lined up in front of a bed in a large room. Ruby and the other girls were seated against the wall. Surrounding the bed were wires that were hooked up to screens. Two nurses and a doctor. Stood as the first patient, a grown woman walked up and hesitantly laid down.

Ruby vaguely recognized this scene but couldn't put her finger on it. The patient had wires hooked up to pads pressed to her head from temple to temple. Pressed in her mouth was a rubber mouth guard. A few moments later and the girl was jerking wildly as the nurses held her down and a doctor was taking notes.

The patients and Ruby watched, horrified, as the girl seized. Screams were heard, and many gasped and cried. Ruby's heart hammered in her chest as she watched. Her head was swarming with thoughts, and she couldn't think straight. Ruby shakily got up and ran. She panted. The sudden exercise after not eating for so long made her sick.

A firm hand wrapped around Ruby's arm, and another on her other arm. She lashed around and screamed as the staff dragged her to the table that was now empty. Ruby was hysterical. All she knew was that she had to get out of there. She couldn't think straight. She was tied down by leather bounds and two pads were pressed to her temples the same way they were used on the other woman. Ruby had only a second to prepare herself before she jerked wildly and an electrical current coursing through her veins and blacked out.

In a foggy haze, Ruby recalled a fuzzy memory. She was a poorly, malnourished toddler with blonde curly hair who sat on the floor. Thanks to years of neglect, her hair was heavily matted. Sweat dripped down her forehead. It was a hot summer day in her mother's house, and they had no air conditioner. Ruby, who had no recollection of her father, lived in a small and very poor area with just her and her mother. The house was small and messy. Littered on the floor were old moldy food, needles from her mother's longtime drug use, and empty liquor bottles. The house smelled of stale smoke and alcohol.

Hoping to catch a cool breeze, her mother had opened the window. Ruby's mother sat on the couch. She was an attractive woman in her early twenties, who had stringy blonde hair and dark eyes. Ruby's mother got up abruptly and wobbled over to the door before swinging it wide open and leaving the house.

The toddler tilted her head and waddled up in front of the door as the sun shined brightly upon her face. The memory grew clouded and more and more details went missing. Soon, the memory faded. Trying to remember what happened after that was like trying to hold water with your hand. The details were slipping through the cracks of Ruby's fingers.

Her vision blurred and shifted to another foggy memory. There was a loud slam of a door with unintelligible mumbling following. The details sprinkled into focus. A tiny faint figure could be seen curled up into a ball, her knees pressed against her chest and her arms wrapped tightly around them. If light were to have been shone, one would notice the fresh burns on her arms that were in a perfect circle. It was clear a cigarette had been the one to produce these burns. 

To be continued.