A/N: I tried doing things slightly differently than I normally do, and I think the style that I opened this with is unique. Did it work or is it an Epic fail? Do you love the story? Do you hate it? Review please and help me to be a better writer. Always remember - "what goes around comes around"
~Alpha
Wellmirth Metal Institution has stood in the same concrete plot on Shaver Drive since before the second world war. It has admitted many patients from the raving mad to the casually almost functional mentally handicapped. The building itself is plain, masking it's turbulent insides. White wash walls entrap the institution's inhabitants and give few windows to offer solace. There are no flowers in front, just often full parking spaces. This is not because there are many visitors, quite to the contrary as many of the patients don't have family that will claim them, but because there are so many people who work there, doctors, nurses and security, that the maroon or lilac scrubs, black uniforms or light blue doctors' coats nearly outnumber the patients.
There are three main categories for the people inside – medicated, temporary, or helpless.
There are some, such as Harold Smith, who are medicated. They take pills every day, often a dozen or so, that keep whatever disease that plagues them largely at bay. Harold, a sixty-three year old Korean Veteran has a sever case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and since has seen ghosts of the people he was stationed with. Mr. Smith has been determined to be almost fully capable of being taken care of himself on his own. Almost. The ghosts he sees try to convince him to do strange things, such as leaving all the doors and windows open before leaving the house, never draining sinks or bath tubs, often recluse for days at a time to the dark and slightly damp crawlspace under the bedroom or inviting random strangers to come back to base with him. Doctors have suggested, for his health, that he be admitted into Wellmirth for fear of him creating a stink-hole of rotten food, dirty water, improper air conditions and possibly the threat of having the police called by some strange person who didn't understand Mr. Smith's condition.
Other people are temporary. These people often have made some mistake in their life, equating them to "mentally unhealthy" such as Debra Goldbloom. Ms. Goldbloom was admitted when she was twelve and is currently sixteen. The courts say that one night she woke up, walked to the bedroom of her parents and took the hand-gun from the bedside drawer, shooting them both seven times. After that, again, according to police, she left the room and found her elder brother with a baseball bat, unaware of what exactly had happened, and she shot him as well, three times. She claimed not to have known what was going on, but felt like she was in a trace-like state. The dreams told her to do so. It was fairly convincing, and she had a decent attorney, though no one knew quiet how. She pleaded insanity and the judge gave her five years in Wellmirth.
Then there are the helpless. Generally, the staff don't call them that around them, but the helpless are the people that no medication invented, no psychotherapy treatment discovered, could ever cure. These types of patients only began arriving in the 1950's. They include, among others, brother and sister Miranda and Steven Jennis. They were admitted together on the premises that they always spoke either together, or completed each other's sentences. When one was sick, the other was. Miranda always drew pictures on Steven's back, often six or seven in a single sitting. Steven could move things, like telekinesis. They both arrived at eight, when their well-bred mother and father both decided it was too harmful to their reputations to have them when they had another two perfect children. The first things the doctors did with the two was try to drug up Miranda, in order to end the hallucinations, and run lab-mouse tests on Steven. They couldn't handle being apart, and Steven, in effect, through so many chairs and tables and computers that he broke down two walls until he arrived in the same room as his sister, where she was squirming in the guards hands, kicking, biting and screaming nonsense about the place being a death trap. They are helpless because of the simple fact that every time a staff member tries to give them medication, either the staff receives it instead, or they manage to destroy half the building in an attempt to avoid the sedatives.
A/N: So, my main reason in posting this is to see if anyone would be willing to beta-read this story for me. I you would like to, send me a pm, not really a "review". Anyways, please and thank you. If you're not up to it, that's fine. Enjoy this and please be patient while I get the rest finished.
Please Review
I don't mean any harm if these character are similar to any other form of fiction, or real life.
Also, updates will be slow, as I'm trying to get another fic up.
~Alpha