The Torment

Six

"Are you sure about this?" Clinton asked. I glanced into the corridor on floor fourth, then turned to nod at him.

"Believe me, I know what I'm doing" I assured him and then took a step into the hallway, glancing at the room numbers. Clinton stood by the entrance, momentarily looking behind himself.

Upon discovering room ten, I showed Clinton a thumbs up and then peeked into the room. A woman sat by the bars of the window with her back to me. The only source of light was a candle beside her, taking its last breaths. I couldn't make out her face but I remembered the curls of her hair. She was the woman taken to floor fourth on the day I first met Clinton.

"Close the door, child" She spoke and I felt goosebumps all over my body. Her voice was low and hoarse, as if she'd scratched her throat by screaming. Hesitantly, I closed the door behind myself and slowly stalked towards her.

"My name's Muriel, I'm here to help you" I informed, eyes widened with fear. The woman sat quite for a while which made me wonder if she was even listening.

"Help" She chuckled in a low voice as I walked in front of her. A scream almost left my mouth at the sight of her and my head felt dizzy. Her left eye was gouged out, leaving stains of fresh blood on her face and her other eye was wide with fear. I noticed a broken bone in place of a finger on her hand and blood staining her neck from where her ear lobe was cut off. 

"What have they done to you?" I asked, almost on the brink of collapsing. Her features softened and a tear slipped out of her eye. She didn't answer.

"Why are you here?" She asked, turning her face away from me.

"I was brought here for an attempted murder and my father, he's been a victim to these lunatics" I explained. "My uncle's here to help me, we're working to expose this"

"If you're expecting me to help, kid, then you can see I'm visibly useless" She said.

"I don't need you to help me in any hard way, just tell me if you can explain the situation to the cops?" I asked.

"The cops" She laughed hoarsely, the sound increasing my heart rate. "No cop has ever caught them. A few measly words and these men would be proven as innocent as a newborn" Her words didn't offer any hope, only grew more and more desperate.

"So we just sit like that? We let them tear us from limb to limb and call it fate?" I questioned and she faced me. "Why must this torment only befall us?" I spoke a little loudly this time. Phoebe stared at me like I'd grown a set of horns.

"Foolish child, going against them is self-slaughter" She stated in a stern tone.

"Well, then I'd rather die fighting for my freedom than being vulnerable. So tell me, are you doing this?" I queried. The woman stared at me blankly for a while before sighing deeply and then gesturing to the candle behind me.

"You see that, child? That candle marks the end of me" She smiled and I felt bile rise in my throat. Standing up from my place, I slowly walked towards the door when her voice stopped me again.

"I can see him too," She added. I turned to look at her and found her looking over her shoulder at me with a smile that I knew would haunt my dreams. "Let him guide you" She said. I left the room and stumbled on my way to Clinton.

"Successful?" He asked. I shook my head and felt warm tears slide down my face. We came back to my room and locked the door.

"They don't need saving!" I half-shouted, thinking about Phoebe and her bloody eye. "Tell me, how do I help someone who doesn't need help?. They like being vulnerable, they've all given up" I explained. Clinton only looked at me with a frown.

"Then I guess we'll have to do this by ourselves" He sighed, standing up from his place. There was a short knock on my door before I opened it to reveal Patrick.

"I just got the news, we're getting double the patients from South Coast city because apparently the asylum there was crushed during the civil war." He informed me.

"This is our only opportunity, we can blend with the crowd" I added.

"Except, there's going to be more staff, which means the occasional tours of the asylum are going to be prohibited" He sighed, sitting on my bed with a huff.

"You can do the work on my behalf-"

"It gets worse, they've ordered more torture tools. Everything that the doctors did behind the curtains, is now exposed to the public, or at least to all the patients" He finished.

"I- can we talk about this later, I've got a lot on my mind right now" I spoke, taking a place on my bed. Clinton and Patrick stared at me for a while.

"Ofcourse" Patrick nodded, leaving the room, followed by Clinton. I let myself rest for a while, contemplating all the horrors that were to come. I caught a hold of one of the newspapers and then proceeded to read about Hattersley. He was the only victim who came to light over the past twenty years. His father died shortly after him, replaced with the current duke.

The article was all about Joan Hattersley, his contributions to human right campaigns and his death. At the end of the article, was a tribute to the deceased viscount, address. 

If I wanted to throw off the doctors, I needed help from Hattersley's family, because they were by far the only people who'd want their voices raised. After reading a couple of articles, all I came up with was that Hattersley had two older siblings, Theodore and Alice Hattersley. His mother had passed away in his infancy, leaving him to live with his father and siblings.

According to my calculations, Alice would be forty-eight and Theodore fifty-three by now, so it wasn't too late.

I leapt into action as hope sparked in me again. Patrick was patrolling the cafe by the time I found him and we met again in his office. His office wasn't huge, just a small congested space with a computer in the middle. We searched up Theodore first and found that he was only a few hours away followed by Alice who'd moved to another state.

"I'll visit Theodore tomorrow and you should lie down low for the while. I don't like the rumours circulating this place, they're all calling you delusional and the nurses are wondering if the sedatives even worked. So unless you want them to put you in an induced coma, the best thing would be to stay hidden" he finished in one breath and I nodded.

There was a loud noise before the cafe filled with noise. I could see patients, wrapped in white cloth, being pushed into the cafe by soldiers with guns. There were dozens of them, and in a few minutes, the cafe felt smaller so they were all dragged into the hallways, mercilessly beaten up.

"I'm not insane!" A young girl cried, her brown hair tied in a rough braid, she looked a few years younger than me. Between the havoc, her eyes landed on me and I could see fear plastered over her face, just like the first time I got here. I made my way through the crowd and her eyes grew wider.

"Hey, I'm not going to harm you," I assured. A tear left her eye and she looked around. I took her to my room and we talked generally for a while before she revealed that her name was Quinn and she was dragged into the asylum against her will only because she fought one of the soldiers.

"I've heard about this place, the rumours, I don't want to die" She cried. It gave me flashbacks from the time I first told Clinton that I didn't want to die and I pulled her into a hug.

"It's all gonna end very soon" I told her and she pulled back, staring at me, horrified. "The torture" I completed and she smiled sadly. I let her rest on my bed and grabbed the newspapers, thankful that she didn't see them and rushed to the library. The library had been reopened for the new staff and the crowd was enough of a distraction for me to go unnoticed. I placed the papers on the table and another one caught my eye.

 This one with the headline question 'The Mysterious Death Of Viscount Joan Hattersley: Natural Causes? or Is There Another Side To The Story?'.

But that wasn't what caught my attention at all.

Beneath the headline, was a picture of the Viscount. I felt the air leaving my lungs, my vision blurring and my grip around the newspaper tightening as the familiar set of eyes stared back at me.