So this is the first story ever on this website, so hopefully it will be good. Constructive criticism is appreciated if you have it. Hope you enjoy it. PM me with any questions you feel like need answered.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything affiliated with the MCU or anything in relation to it, despite how much I wish I did.
Athens Asylum for the Insane
Athens, Ohio
1952
It had been eight months since Laura Byers was dragged through double wide doors and into the pristine white interior of the mental institution that would act as her home for the indefinite future. The strength of the two orderlies was enough to overpower her as she was pulled through the hallway, her feet unable to properly hold her weight due to exhaustion from fighting them. The patients she passed and called out for help to either just stared or ignored her completely.
"Laura Byers, psychic or psychotic?" The newspaper headline read and she soon became the phenomenon of Athens after the public heard of why she was admitted. The story goes she had a psychotic break after seeing her grandmother suffer a fatal aneurysm, followed by Laura screaming, cursing, and attacking her mother. The police arrived and within an hour and a half she was processed and carted off to the asylum. It wasn't until she was locked in a room on the third ward that she was informed her grandmother was perfectly fine and had never suffered an aneurysm in the first place.
The psychiatrist labeled her with acute psychosis as well as heavy delusions which would make her stay indefinite until they were able to 'cure' her. However, Laura's parents were adamant that she remain institutionalized until she was truly fixed because God forbid her mental health interfere with her parents partying with the social elite.
So here she stayed, and here she would most likely rot.
"Up and at 'em ladies!" A bang from the metal door across the room knocked Laura out of her reprieve though she continued to stare up at the ceiling. A lock was turned and the heavy door swung open to reveal one of the four orderlies that patrolled the third ward she and 100 other women resided in. He had an ugly smile on his face and the blue uniform that he was sanctioned to wear was now wrinkled and covered in stains. She hoped it was just bodily fluid and not blood like it was once.
"Byers, your check up with the doc was moved up. He wants to see you know." He walked over to where she lay next to her appointed bedmate whose legs were twitching sporadically. After eight months, Laura learned to ignore the spasms coming from the woman who suffered from palsy.
"Now you're gonna behave right? 'Cause last time I escorted you, ya had an episode and bit into my hand. Had to get seven stitches." He held up the back of his right hand to her and she saw the now healing injury she caused last month. She remained silent and shifted her gaze to look him in the eye watching as he just huffed and pulled a set of keys from his pockets.
He walked down to the end of the cot and unlocked her left ankle that was cuffed to the bed rail. All the patients were required them to make sure everyone stayed in bed through the night, despite how much it caused them pain. Though, what were a few broken ankles to the people who got to go home and sleep in their fluffy beds with warm blankets?
The orderlie dragged Laura up and pushed her through the door before allowing the other three men standing in the hall to enter and unhandcuff the rest of the room. It was then they would make the trek down the third ward, turn right to go downstairs to the first ward, passing by the trash exit and a door that led to a small sitting area outside that said FACULTY ONLY in bold letters.
She had paid attention to every single escape exit since she arrived into the facility, the trash exit and faculty door being the only possible ones she'd be able to make it to, however she never had the actually courage to try and leave. They passed by the doors and arrived at an oak one that had become very familiar to her during her stay.
Dr. Daniel Jones the plaque on the door read that quickly opened and revealed the man himself. His salt and pepper colored hair gelled nicely as was his mustache. His suit was pressed and so was the small, red pocket square tucked in neatly to complete his ensemble.
"Thank you, Peter, for escorting her down, but I don't think she'll cause us any trouble down here. Isn't that right, Laura?" He gently smiled down at her, revealing a row of pearly whites. Laura nodded slowly, glancing out of the corner of her eye as she watched Peter stiffly turn to make his way back to his rounds.
Dr. Jones gestured to the armchair in front of his desk which she gingerly sat in and tucked her feet up underneath her. It was quiet for the next few minutes as Dr. Jones dug through his file cabinets and produced a black folder along with a worn notepad, then quickly set up the magnetic tape recorder that rested on the desk. After everything was organized how he liked it, he pressed record and started the session.
"It is April twenty-seventh, nineteen fifty-two and the time is eleven on the dot. This is session number nine. I am sitting here with Laura Byers, age twenty-four, admittance into Athens Mental Institution, August sixteenth of the year nineteen fifty-one. Now Laura, four months ago you had a breakdown after you said you saw the head nurse, Patty, fall from the second floor stairwell. However she was and still is fine. Have you had anymore experiences like this?"
"No sir." That's a lie. Laura had just gotten better at masking her screams and cries from the staff so they never suspected anything. In truth she had experienced a vivid scene last week of one of the patients being found dead in a storage closet. In order to be able to leave the asylum she had to remain episode free for at least five months and she already lost one when she attacked Peter.
"That's very good. So the medication has been helping I see." He scribbled something down on the notepad. "Laura, a young girl growing up in your family situation, she may have a tendency to rebel. You have taken to lying about what you truly see in order to get attention and that's not a good habit to develop. It's going to be very difficult for you to find a husband, you're twenty-four and you don't even have a steady boy." Dr. Jones laced his hands together on the desk as he spoke to her like she was a three year old.
It's kind of hard to find someone while you're trapped within the walls of a madhouse. Laura thought, focusing intently on the polished wood of the desk in front of her as the doctor once again went through the same routine he always did at their sessions.
"Laura are you listening?" He asked and she snapped her head up to look at Dr. Jones, her eyes widening when she saw a large, red hole with torn skin and clotting blood in the middle of his forehead. However, it didn't seem to faze Dr. Jones at all as he kept looking questionably at Laura who tried to keep in the scream that threatened to tear through her throat. A small trickle of blood escaped from the wound and slowly trailed down the bridge of his nose, past the corner of his mouth before dripping onto his red pocket hankie.
"Laura?" The doctor asked again and her gray eyes clouded with a foggy haze before everything around her turned back to normal. No hole was in the doctor's head and no blood was on his pristine suit. "You know Laura, I think our session is done for the day. Why don't you go down to the hall for breakfast before you start your chores and I'll see you again next week, yeah?"
She nodded slowly and slipped out of the chair, quickly heading toward the door, wanting to leave and forget about the episode she just had. Leaving Dr. Jones's office, she walked at a quick pace, bunching her hands further down into the pockets of the brown cardigan that covered her sanctioned blue hospital gown.
Taking a right, she arrived at the dinning hall and took a seat at one of the long tables next to Dotty Parks, a woman she had become friends with during their forced institution despite the six year age difference. Dotty was admitted in on hysteria after receiving news that her husband had died over in Korea.
Gray and inedible looking food was placed in front of her which she quickly choked down then was escorted to the linen room where she would wash clothes and bedsheets for the next few hours, return for dinner and time in the activity room, then be herded up to bed with the other patients.
The lights were blown out which turned the hospital into a pitch black mass. The windows on the third ward were shattered and bodies of patients and faculty littered the hallways with bullet holes covering their bodies. A dark figure with a large frame, a man, stalked around the debris and carnage as he looked in each room, assessing them before moving on to the next. A large rifle hung in his right hand while the left swung with each step. There was only one room left unchecked with its door remaining shut, until the man lifted up his boot and slammed it into the door, breaking it off its hinges and letting it crash to the floor.
The man made his way over to the first bed which held a small woman with shedding dark brown hair and her hands tightly curled around her ears and another one with lost stare and unfocused eyes. Without a second thought, he lifted the rifle into place and fired a round into each before moving on. He treated the next three beds the same way before approaching the last one where a blonde haired woman with twitching legs had tears streaming down her cheeks. Another gunshot went off. When he turned to the next girl, she wasn't in the bed like she was suppose to be, the handcuff hanging in the open air instead of attached to her ankle.
Where was the target? He thought to himself, knowing the intel he was given shouldn't have been wrong. Suddenly he heard an inhuman shriek, causing the blood in his ears to drum, from level above him.
The target.
With a determined glint in his eyes, the man stalked out of the room and made for the upper floor.
Laura quickly woke from her awful nightmare and proceeded to let out a scream that was just as inhuman as the one in her dream. Curses were heard from outside the door and the lock turned before four male orderlies poured into the room and proceeded to remove her from her bed and drag her out to the hallway.
Peter stood in the dim lighting, heavy bags under his eyes, "Take her up to the treatment room. We're dealing with this once and for all," he ordered and turned to make his way to inform Dr. Jones. Two of the men pulled her by the arms and the other two carried flashlights as they went upstairs and onto the fourth ward, heading straight for the last door at the end of the long hallway. It was the 'treatment room' as it was labeled but it was anything but helpful to the patients and their conditions.
Once inside the room, they threw Laura down onto a padded table and began to cuff her wrist and ankles to it while setting up a machine that was across from her. They began to prep her, putting a cold gel on her temples while one of the men stood behind her with electrodes grasped tightly in his hands
The door to the room opened and in walked Dr. Jones, a robe covering his sleepwear and a lit pipe in his right hand. He slowly walked over to where she lay, watching silently as the orderlies finished preparing the electroconvulsive treatment.
"Laura, Laura, Laura," the doctor chastised, leaning in close to her face to where he could feel the struggling puffs of breaths she released. "I thought you were getting better, but here you are, waking up the patients and making them frightful again. You're just a trouble maker aren't you? Don't you want to be cured?"
His question was only met with silence, but he continued nonetheless.
"And here I was thinking of letting you be released back into the world in the next couple months, but I can see now I was wrong. Do you have anything to say for yourself?" Dr. Jones lifted his left hand and gently stroked her face and action which made her flinch away from the cold contact, but leveled him with her strong gaze and in a somber voice stated:
"You're all going to die."
A stern look appeared on the doctor's face and with a simple nod to the nurse, he walked over and watched as a thick rubber strip was placed between Laura's teeth before turning the knob on the control panel to 150v. Electricity quickly flowed through her body and her muffled screams filled the air.