It was dark; my wrist was chilled from the coldness of the hand cuffs. My knees were weak and bloody from being pushed and held down.
"How did he get out? Who is he? When did he arrive?" Questions being passed down the halls like children spreading rumors.
"Name." A tall man asked, "Name!" He demanded.
"Searing. Michael Searing," I said with no emotion.
Being asked to go undercover to find out what exactly goes on in the Black Gate Asylum was a hard thing to say yes to, but having the biggest exposure piece of any paper in New York was worth it. I was to sneak onto the property and pretend to be a patient who has feelings for another man. My boss gave me the journal and camera in my bag hidden beneath the clothing I packed. He wanted solid proof that the rumors of the people running Black Gate were true. I heard numerous rumors; from doctors cutting open the heads of patients to use the brains for experiments, to the asylum being a slaughterhouse for people with "serious" conditions. Most people think of it as a place rejects and people who are not wanted left. I want to prove that theory wrong.
After giving my name, I was sent to a large wooden door with a nun. She didn't say a word, and looked as if she had nothing inside of her. She opened the door and I was put in a room with vomit green wallpaper ripped in random spots. The wooden floors looked to be rotting. A large glass window overlooked a lake and a field of grass.
Nine people were staring at me. Each had a number on their outfit .There seemed to be no order to their outfit numbers. Were they admitted at different times, or labeled in order of how dangerous to society they were? A woman in her early twenties came up to me.
"My name is Beth. I am number 8. I was admitted by my husband They says I killed my son, but I know it couldn’t have been me...the voice, it took over my body...told me it was okay" she said while a giggle slowly developed into a cackle of sorts.
I asked if she had seen a bag be brought in. I needed to record this for the article. She told me all bags are placed in the corner of the room piled collecting dust. I scrambled through the discoloured, ratted bags, found mine, and took my journal out. I started to take notes about Beth, the environment, and the numbers on the patients.
The door opened. Two nuns, the man who asked for my name, and a man in white came into the room.
"33, 12, and 5, come with us. Oh, Judas, put a number on that boy so we can identify him before he tries to escape again,"
The man, in white gave the directions calmly. The man I now knew as Judas slapped a 79 on my back.
"The rest of you lights out," he said.
The nuns pulled ripped and patched pieces of cloth across the giant window, and shut the door. The remaining six patients stayed huddled together thanking God for not choosing them. [make it clear that you are referring to the selection earlier. It took me a minute]
A young boy and girl approached me.
"Why did you take out that book? We aren't allowed to have books in here," the girl said.
"I'm telling the nuns when they come back," the boy teased.
"Margaret, Jacob, go play over there and leave the nice man alone," Beth said.
She saved me from being killed.
"You better hide that book and camera, you should have left it in your bag under your clothes they won't look in there...And you never told me why you are here and more importantly who you are," Beth said.
I confessed that I was posing as a patient who was gay to secretly expose the truth of Black Gate.
"I need to look around now. Can you get me out of here?" I asked.
She nodded. "Follow me," she said.
She opened the door and looked around. She pulled out a crayon map of the building.
"Use this. I made it a few months ago, when I was assigned to watch Margaret and Jacob. For some reason, it feels like they changed since the night they were called down. The one room I request you go to is the library on the 1st floor. It's the big metal door as soon as you walk into the asylum. None of us are allowed in," Beth said.
She gave me a hug and shut the door. I heard a click, so I know she locked it.
Did she set me up to die? Is she a spy for the asylum to make sure no information gets out?
I started on the third floor where I was being kept. I heard noises from about three doors down. An eerie glow came from the crack of the door. I opened the door slightly to see a dim light above an older man. He was possibly in his 40s, and bald, with stitching all over his body. making him look like a creation or zombie, sitting in a chair tied to it. He was laughing.
"They're going to get you next. They want the soul, he needs it, but he can't have mine, it's not ripe enough. I want out! I want out! Free me," he screamed.
I took a photo and moved on. I came to a spiral staircase leading to the second floor.
As I got to the bottom, I heard footsteps. I ran into a nearby closet, and I saw a white figure from between the cracks in the rotting wood door. It looked like a nun but I couldn't tell. I crept out of the closet slowly, and a hand grabbed me and spun me around. It was Beth.
"You need to go back," she said.
"No, I'm finding great stuff so far," I told her.
She gave me the stare of death.
"You need to go now! It's starting," she said.
I looked into her eyes. All I saw was emptiness.
"I'm not going back till I get to the library," I said.
She looked at me and I walked away. As I turned around to tell her one last thing, she had vanished. I continued to walk down the dark hallway. I got to the main entrance: a grand foyer. A large chandelier hung high up with no lights. They were 30 high and counting, covered in a cheap red velvet styled carpet. It looked fake. I looked down from my perch, and saw the nun in white staring at me. She looked different from the rest; she looked like she had a white mask on with black beady eyes. Black streams of some type of goo trailed down her cheeks. She looked at me, walked to the left toward the metal door.
She phased right through it.
I ran to the door. I opened it with all my might. It seemed like it was a vault guarding something valuable that no one could see.
I walked in and saw a blue-green light flooding from an open door. I quietly walked in and saw what seemed like the Lazarus pit. I saw the man who was labeled number 5 being held over the pit by chains. The chains flayed him horizontally, making it seem like he was flying.
A flash of light appeared in the form of a twister. He begged not to be used. His pleading made him glow. A silver orb emerged from his chest.
That's when I realized the pit killed people and manifested their souls.
I ran back to the room and started to write notes down frantically.
The next morning, I couldn't find Beth. No one knew who or where she was.
Three of the five patients came back into the room smiling, showing no emotions but happiness.
Is this what happens when your soul is taken away? Do you become a mindless zombie?
I realized I had a bigger job than reporting the information; I had to stop the asylum from whatever they were doing to these people before they could do it to me.
