1906 [h.s.]

five

He walked into the Male Ward again and I followed suit, just a few steps behind him. When we reached the crossroads, he took the other corridor. After a while, I realised that there was something strange. Despite the almost total absence of light, given by the storm outside and the peculiar shape of the building, an endless maze of big and small hallways interrupted by big rooms here and there, the asylum wasn't as dark as before. I couldn't tell if it was something real or if my eyes, adapted to the darkness, were tricking me.

I looked at the man in front of me. His file said he was born in 1883, yet he looked like he couldn't have been older than twenty-five. I rethought the other information that were displayed. He had disappeared in 1906, but how? Whatever had happened, it was something that defied all the possible laws of Time, and it had taken place into the asylum. Even if what I saw around me was destroyed by time, it was obvious that nobody could've ever run away from that place. I could only imagine the level of impenetrability of that place in the early 1900, if even when it was abandoned and falling apart, still managed to trap people inside. And then, the question came to me almost naturally. What had happened, that had let it happen? What had taken place inside those walls?

As we walked, I noticed that everything around me had an aseptic and rotten look at the same time. Everything, from the walls, to the doors and the eventual little tables and chairs, was white - the dirtiest, muskiest, falling apart white I had ever seen. More than a prison, the asylum had started to look like an hospital. I glanced into one of the rooms out of pure curiosity. There was a metallic bed, a dirty and half-destroyed mattress on it, with a dark stain of unknown nature, with... Were they restraints on it? I shuddered at the thought.

He opened a door and told me to walk inside. I hesitated, not really sure it would've been a good idea, since I didn't really know the man. But then again, I was trapped in an abandoned asylum with close to none possibilities to get out, it couldn't have possibly got worse. I walked in and so did he, shutting the door behind himself. Being there no windows, the complete darkness had enveloped us once again, and it allowed me, deprived of sight, to focus on the stale, musky smell in there. All of sudden I was aware of the proximity of his body to mine, slight warmth flowing to my cheeks. I took a step back and tripped over something that fell making a loud noise, and my back hit the wall harshly. I hissed at the cold sensation against my skin, covered only by the thin layers of my t-shirt and sweatshirt.

"It's only a broom" he whispered, replying to my silent question. "It's a storage room."

"What are we doing in here instead of trying to find a way out?" I whispered back, distancing from the wall and putting my hand in front of me to make sure I wouldn't have hit anything else. My finger brushed against something, his thigh maybe? I retracted my hand instantly, refusing the thought of touching him. I struggled with my phone a bit to turn on the flashlight, that lightened our faces from under, creating a strange game of shadows. I took a look around, the room couldn't be bigger than two square meters, and we had to stand really close to each other. On the floor at my feet, there was a disheveled broom.

"Turn it off" I heard his voice say, and I looked at him. His eyes were of a pale leaf green, his pupils so small because of the strong light.

"Why?" I asked him, determined to get answers.

"Midnight is coming" he simply replied.

I snorted, he was starting to get on my nerves. It looked as if it was all he could say, a continuous endless countdown to midnight, no explanation of why it was so important, or of what was going on, or what even meant all the things he said. Thinking about it, maybe he was crazy. He had been admitted into an asylum, after all. It would've just made sense. Which meant that I was basically wasting my time listening to a mad man's rave instead of doing something useful, like finding a way out. What was going on with him was nothing of my concern. I didn't care how he had come there, I wasn't responsible of him, and if something weird had taken place, it wasn't my fight to battle, because to me that battle had been over for over a hundred years. "I'm tired of this. You always say so much shit and you expect me to believe it, but why should I? You're literally some random man I found in an abandoned asylum, what even. I bet you don't even have a clue of what's going on. How can you even know the time? I don't see you having a clock or something like that, so how about you put an end to this bullshit and let me find a way home?"

"I'm counting."

I glared at him. "What?"

"The time. I'm counting the seconds."

"Woah thanks, now I have the confirmation that you really are crazy" I snapped at him.

"I suggest you stop being disrespectful" he replied, not losing his poised accent.

"And why?"

"If you don't, you'll feel like a goop really soon."

"Excuse me?"

"Turn it off now, it's a minute to midnight."

I sighed, turning it off.

In the darkness, I heard him shift closer to me. I shivered, wishing I'd put on something warmer than just a sweatshirt.

"Close your eyes" he said into my ear. "No more fighting, okay?"

"Why?"

"I know you don't know me, but you have to trust me this time. Will you?" He asked me.

"Are you gonna kill me or something like that?" I asked back.

"If I wanted to kill you, I would've left you in the main hallway of the Male Ward" he whispered. "Now do as I say. Come closer."

I reluctantly did as he said, not opposing to it as much as I probably should have because of the cold air that was surrounding us.

"Midnight" he whispered, as if it was a secret. "Keep your eyes closed." A few seconds passed before he spoke again. "You can open them."

I took a step back and opened my eyes, meeting the by now familiar darkness. "What was that?" I asked him, not understanding why he'd just made me do that. And also why we were into a storage room, in an abandoned place. And then, as my eyes adapted to the darkness, I realised that I could see him, barely. Which made no sense, because there was no source of light in there, since the room was in the depths of the asylum and it had no windows. I looked down, trying to find the source of light that was making it possible for me to see him, and I realised that I had got it all wrong. The darkness wasn't familiar, because there was something different. There was light coming in from the little crack between the door and the floor. I looked up at him as I heard the sound of steps and voices outside. "What..." I began to ask, but I stopped midway, my mind not being able to formulate the question. Not even sure of what to ask, or what to think.

"Welcome to 1906, pet."