Flyleaf

3

The door was thrown back with a vengeance, and a short, gray-haired woman stood before me. Her face had so much resemblance towards a frog, it was alarming, and kind of amusing

"Is the Superintendent in?" asked the officer to my right, faintly. 

"Yes, he's in; he's busy, so go to the back parlor and wait," answered the frog look a like, in a loud and annoyed voice, without one change in her peculiarly wrinkled face.


We followed these not over kind or polite instructions and found ourselves in a dark, uncomfortable back-parlor. There we awaited the arrival of whoever we were suppose to meet. Twenty minutes later, a slender man, clad in pain, entered and stopped before the officers, ejaculated inquiringly,

"Well?"

"Are you Superintendent McNaughton ?" The officer asked sounding fairly uncomfortable.

"Yes..." he said staring expectantly at them.

"She is in your hands now, sign this these forms and we will be on our way" the officer stated, who haven't said a word during this whole trip.

"Alright, thank you. We will take it from here" he replied, after he signed the forms and handed them back.



The officers nodded and both of them turned and left hurriedly. Left me here with these strangers. I herd someone screaming and saw 3 people dressed in white coats trying to restrain him. Thats when it clicked, This was a mental hospital, it all made sense now. Tried to convince myself everything was going to be alright but for some reason I couldn’t believe myself.

"Why am I?" I said, barely audible.

I waited for a response that didn't come, not sure if he was just ignoring me flat out or didn't hear me at all. The man stood there and stared at me. Studying me slowly, from head to toe, I felt like a piece of meat about to be butcherd. Frog face handed him a file and I could make out my name on it. Alice Pleasance Liddell, Ive always hated my middle name. That bastard for a father chose it because it belonged to his favourite aunt.

Two men came through a door, interrupting my thoughts. They were no older then me. The superintendent flipped through the file slowly studying it in detail.

"Miss Lorie, will give you a tour of the premises. These are my nephews" He said pointing at the two look a like neanderthals, who were obviously twins.

"Phil and Fred will be escorting you. Now follow Miss Lorie and I will look over your file in the mean time."

He mumbled as he walked away.

I studied my surroundings as we started walking. I completely tuned out while frog face was mumbling in her ever impatient voice. The building itself looked big, sprawling and Gothic. The building boasted elaborate, almost church like architecture, with high peaks and stone carvings. Wrought iron gates enclosed small gardens and old doorways here and there.



"This is block A. The building is divided into block A and block B. A is for the psychopaths, and extremely hard to handle patients such as comatose and those who are catatonic, Block b are for those less insane" The frog of a lady said. The idea that I would be near people like this sent a shiver through my spine.

Each block was built around a large open quadrangle decorated with stone paths and enormous, century-old trees. We were going toward the b block, which had rooms that sort of looked like bedrooms on the one side, while the communal area and offices sat opposite. Farther to the west around the ancient looking building was space, space, and more space.


We were after all, miles away from any real city. The air felt cool in my lungs and smelled of pine and wet, decaying leaves. Overgrown forests ringed the perimeters of the Asylum, and when the light was just right I could see the clouds rolling over the mountains in the distance.