1906 [h.s.]

two

The building was dark, and completely silent. The only source of light was the faint silvery ray of the moon, that struggled to pass through the glass of the door and enlightened the mid-air frozen dust. I moved some hesitant steps down the long hallway in front of me. From the big windows that opened on one side, I could see plants, arranged in what in the past probably was an artistic design. In the distance, I could see a tall white wall. I walked closer to them, hoping that I could've opened them, but stopped as soon as I realised that there was no handle on any. They were made to be eternally shut.

All of sudden I heard a splashing sound. I looked down, there was water on the floor, coming from nobody knows where. Even though my first instinct was to stay next to the main door, I knew I had to move forward and find a way to get out of there. Nobody would've come to save me. On the right, I saw a half closed door. The tag next to it, hung on the wall, was way too faded for me to make out anything. I walked in, and was struck by what I saw.

That place wasn't empty. I found myself in what I guessed was a welcoming office. It didn't look like the office of a director, as the rusty metallic chair behind the desk gave away. The room was small, and there was no window. Against one of the walls there was a library, with what looked like books, folders and binders on it, seemingly arranged following an alphabetical order, considering the letters written on every shelf. The chair behind the desk was turned a bit to the side, just as if the room had just been left, but the spider webs all over it told another story. On the desk, there were a bunch of fountain pens, and random ink bottles.

I walked closer to it, and saw a paper completely covered in dust. I blew on it carefully, and the dust went flying in the air. Just standing close to it, I could smell the scent of the yellowish paper. The top of it said "Eastmount Psychiatric Hospital" in all caps. Right under, there was a list of what was said to be the reasons for the admission, but someone had cancelled it with ink, making it completely unreadable. In the corner, there was a single date, followed by a handwritten sentence.

"December 31st 1909 - the Hospital will be left due to technical difficulties."

I looked at it confusedly. Had they forgotten the sheet out there by mistake, or was it there for a reason?

I resisted the urge to feed my curiosity by checking the binders, knowing that I had to find a way to get out of there. I had never believed in what wasn't strongly based on reason, but there was something in that place, frozen but not frozen in time, that just gave me an unsettling feeling. Just as if there was more to it than what we thought there was, that kind of more that should never be uncovered.

I left the room and walked down the hallway, careful not to slip on the water. At the end, it met another corridor, that was directed towards the left, with no windows at all. I turned on my phone to use the flashlight to check around, and my heart dropped when I realised that there was no connection in that place. I was completely isolated.

The corridor was long, and on its right there were a lot of similar but smaller offices to the one I had already seen. What surprised me the most was that, despite the name, the place didn't really look like an asylum. Or at least, like the idea I had of an asylum. At the end of the corridor I saw a metallic gate. It seemed closed, but I pushed on it and the corroded hinges gave way as it opened with a creak. I walked through and all of sudden I realised what the gate was there for. I found myself in a big hall, with enough tables and chairs for a hundred people. It was clear to me that I had just entered the patients' area.

Dust and cobwebs were everywhere, and they gave me an unnatural feeling. From where I was standing I could see four doors, each of them "closed" by a gate similar to the one I had just seen. In a corner, there was a little office with walls of metallic bars and glass, that allowed whoever was in there to look at the hall from a safe place. To guard the patients, maybe?

I chose one of the gates, reading the tag next to it to see where it would've lead me.

Male Ward.

On the other side, I found another hallway, way larger than the one I had come out of. On the right, close to the gate, there was another office, in which there were many sets of rusty keys. I ignored them, and walked to the gate in front of me, just to realise that there were many. Way too many. The whole hallway was blocked by a series of gates, each at around five meters of distance from the other. A cold shiver ran down my spine as I realised that the level of security was way too elevated for it to be a normal asylum. Whoever they used to keep in there was clearly dangerous.

I checked my phone to see how much battery I had left, and turned on the flashlight again. The floor of the hallway - and the walls, were ruined, pieces of paper, lichens and falling paint all over. On both sides, there was a long set of doors, that seemed really heavy and metallic, and had a little square window on top. Everything seemed to be of a stained, dirty white. Curiously, I opened one. Once again, the little room gave me an uncomfortable feeling.

The battered metallic bed was right in front of me, the headboard right against the end wall. The blanket, that had surely seen better days and that now looked like a shapeless cluster, was half falling off of it, a blackish stain of nobody knows what on the floor. The room seemed really small, it couldn't have been bigger than three square meters. Pointing the flashlight at the walls, I saw many marks were on them, lines in groups of five, of a dark reddish colour. Had someone scratched their nails on it until they bled? I shook the thought away, and left the room just as fast as I had entered it.

I reached the end of the hallway not daring to enter any other room. There, the corridor divided in two. I took the one on the left, which brought to a bigger hallway. There were big windows again, and outside I could see something that looked like a cloister, but it was hard to tell, because of how much all the plants had grown. It looked like it was one of the main corridors of the Male Ward, and it probably was. I saw a door on the right side, and I opened it. There was a rotten chaise lounge, with holes and what looked like fleas crawling all over it, and once again, there was no window. There was a desk, with some papers on it, and I turned on the flashlight to read them. The one at the top said

"EASTMOUNT PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL

Patient n. 153
Name: R. J. T."

and it went on with a series of personal information about the patient. At the bottom, I read the voice "Additional Information", that had been filled in with three single letters.

"P. B. W."

I moved that paper to the side and checked what was under. I saw a folder, with the name of the patient on it, as well as the name of the hospital, of course, typed on in a dark ink. I opened it, thinking that, since it was from 1900, it wouldn't have counted as a violation of his privacy. Inside, there was the form of admission of the patient, a long set of daily reports, notes from the doctors and, at the end, a certificate of death. I closed it again and went out.

I walked on, and I spotted a corridor on the right. I took it, hoping that it would've taken me outside. But the more I walked, I realised that I was only entering more and more the intricate maze of the asylum.
After a while, I saw a large, white metallic door, and I went to open it. But, as soon as I touched the handle, a voice stopped me.

"You shouldn't open that door."