Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here

'I'm your new God. A better one. You will bow down and profess your undying love unto me, your Lord.'

'Lucifer will bring the Apocalypse.'

'We need to talk about a regime change.'

'My daddy shot your daddy in the head.'

'A great thief.'

'Dad's on a hunting trip and hasn't been home in a few days.'

The doctor took a deep breath as he climbed slowly out of his car in the parking lot, and he looked up at the building before him. A wind nipped at the back of his neck, sending a slight shiver ripple over his skin. It was cold for an October morning, though maybe part of that was apprehension. For not the first time that morning, he wondered if what he was doing was entirely sane. If not, he supposed he was in the right place, however sick the thought. He couldn't help casting a glance at the sign outside as he began the walk into the dark brick building.

Texas State Hospital for the Criminally Insane

He wondered if the staff knew that phrasing had gone out of use years ago.

It was nicer inside than out, he reflected, though not by much. Outside was dark, with small windows that looked like they hadn't been efficiently cleaned in a few years. Inside, however, was light and airy, thick carpet along the floor. Though it was still plain, the walls white and unpainted, as if to remind anyone stepping across the threshold exactly what the building really was. Wooden panelling lined the reception desk, just enough to give a sparse professionalism. At the sound of the door, and the doctor's soft steps towards the reception window, the woman behind the desk looked up, eyes bright, ever alert, as he imagined working in such a building would do to a person.

'Good morning.' She spoke lightly, her voice kept falsely soft. It was enough to throw anyone in such a building. 'Are you visiting, Mr…?'

'Doctor. Doctor Crowley MacLeod.' He stood at the desk, placing the briefcase on the floor before handing his identification papers through the slot at the bottom of the window. The woman took them, casting a glance over them before nodding.

'Ah, Doctor.' She smiled, the sight off-putting once more when contrasting to the setting. She passed the papers back through, along with a plastic visitors' badge, and stood from her chair, gesturing to the side where a guard stood beside a single door. 'If you could just make your way through there, we do have a strict security system, members of staff included, as is understandable.'

'Of course.'

She was waiting after the security screening, the most rigorous Crowley had encountered in his time as psychiatric doctor, and she smiled once more as she shook his hand firmly. She stood with her back straight, as though always ever so slightly on edge, though she relaxed slightly in the doctor's company.

'Doctor, I'm glad you're here. My name is Naomi, I'm one of the psychiatric unit's nurses, as well as assisting in the general administration and running of this secure hospital. Shall we walk?' She began along the narrow corridor anyway, despite his lack of response, forcing him to catch up with her. She maintained a strong determination in her stride, long and quick. Good qualities for such a place, really. 'I read your paper. The evolutionary prowess of religious fanaticism in mental disorder. It was very interesting.'

'I have a feeling it's why I'm here.' His English accent growled as they kept walking, passing various people in nurses' uniforms, as well as numerous security personnel.

'Do you have any idea what we deal with here?' She halted suddenly, turning to look him square in the face, their eyes level, making Crowley all too aware of the little height difference between them. She was incredibly clear on that already.

'I saw the sign on the way in. That's really all I know. I was asked to come in due to my psychiatry speciality.'

'Of course it is. In fairness, we haven't been the Texas State Hospital for the Criminally Insane for some time now. We specialise in cases of religious obsession and satanic fanaticism now, in relation to criminal cases. We take extreme cases on a federal level. Though apparently not extreme enough, the government pays very little attention to a place such as this.'

'You'd think somewhere with such a specialisation would entice more studies by psychiatrists and such.' They continued to walk again.

'You heard about the last Director, I assume?'

'He walked out and didn't return, that's all I heard.'

'That's all anyone knows. He used to run the unit rather tightly, until one day he simply left. No-one's heard anything from him since. Most leading psychologists are unwilling to take up such a position. The inmates scare them.' They stopped outside a thick oak door, a pale strip on the door where previously there had been a name plaque. 'So, Dr MacLeod, do you want to explore the office you'd receive if you took the position as Director, or meet the patients you'd be treating?'

'I'm a doctor of psychiatry, Ms Naomi, I think I know which one would be most beneficial.'

'I must warn you, before you do; the inmates here have a collective understanding of what this place is.' She cocked her head slightly, an unsettling smile still on her face, brightly illuminated. 'They call it Hell.'

'I'll take you first to see some of the female patients, before I leave you with another nurse to meet the male inmates.' They'd been walking in silence for a few minutes after he turned down the office tour. He remained silent, brooding almost, as she strode ahead, not even making a comment at the concept of the mixed-sex prison. Interesting. 'So, Dr MacLeod, what got you into such a peculiar branch of psychiatry?'

'Crowley. I much prefer Crowley. Less heritage in it. And it's hardly a peculiar branch at all; many schizophrenics and depressives take on some form of religious devotion if left untreated.'

'There's a difference between religious devotion and complete cult obsession.'

'My mother was a schizophrenic. She also believed she was a witch in league with the Devil.' He smiled, disguising any true feeling about the illness behind such an action. 'I was unknowingly studying her every day from a very young age. I realised I wanted to continue to study such afflictions.'

'To help?'

'God no. I'm not a saint. These people might be ill, but they're also violent criminals. Any help they receive will just send them into a high security federal prison. No. I study because this is a goldmine. So little is known about the human mind that all studies are welcome. Studies mean profit and reputation.' She raised an eyebrow as she listened to him, and he shrugged. 'Psychiatry is lucrative, but boring. Listening every day to depressed rich men and women complain about their money and cheating spouses? Nothing I'd hate more.'

'At least, nothing you think you'll hate more.' Naomi smirked before returning to a more professional tone once more. 'Though you're honest, and that has to be respected.'

'What sort of treatments do you offer here?' He fell into step with her, realising they were nearing the first lot of patients, and he needed to know, without asking as much, what he'd be faced with.

'We try anything we think might work. Especially with lack of Director, I'm afraid many of our treatments have fallen more into the…unorthodox category. The other medical staff and I are willing to try any new or old treatment with a positive success rate. Some have benefitted. Others less so…' She let herself trail off, before stopping outside a solid metal door. 'I never got around to asking, have you been in a secure psychiatric unit before, Dr Crowley?'

'Not in a while, I'm afraid. Though I encountered many when I was in training. I wanted as many studies as possible then.'

'I'll refresh the rules for you. You stand beside me at all times, in the middle of the corridor. Do not get too close to the glass, or to the wall, the patients will note any sort of fear or resentment towards them. You may talk to the patients, though I wouldn't recommend anything other than polite conversation, you don't want to agitate them. Do not pass anyone anything, not even so much as a pen. Are you clear?'

'Very much so.'

'Then I'd like to introduce you to the highest security female inmates of the Texas State Hospital.'

Blood sweet, ruby red on her wrist. Then a single drip onto the white sheet of her bed. It fascinated her, the way it started so small, and then grew so big against the clean cotton. She smiled, before bending her head to lick at the blood still on her wrist, seeping from the open wound she'd just made. Her ears pricked up. She heard footprints outside, echoing off the stone passage outside of the glass. A single pair of footsteps. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing interesting. She continued to scratch the pentagram into her already scarred skin, opening up an old scab as she did so. More blood. Then she stopped. Another pair of footsteps. Male. This was interesting. She looked up.

Crowley met the eyes of the first woman they passed; pale face surrounded by long, limp hair, once fiery red, now a meagre auburn in the artificial spotlights in the cell. She was scratching at her left wrist with painfully short nails.

'I can see your soul.' Her voice was no more than a hiss from disuse, yet there was something earthly about it, rather than the metallic rasp he'd expect. 'I can see your true face.'

'Her name's Anna Milton.' Naomi said, stood still besides Crowley as he continued to meet her gaze.

'Who is she?'

'She's a paranoid schizophrenic. She believes she is a fallen angel, and can look past a person's outside appearance to see their inner soul.' Anna remained sat still as Naomi spoke, giving no indication as to whether she could hear any of their conversation. 'She was a perfectly healthy young woman as up to two years ago. She was out walking in the street when she attacked a young mother, and snatched her baby. She smashed the child's head against a wall continuously until the baby resembled little more than a bloody pulp. Upon questioning, she claimed the baby was a monster. A demon.'

'No. Not a demon.' Anna was crawling along the length of her bed, coming closer to the glass. 'He was the Antichrist. The one who would damn us all. I saved everyone. I could see it. His soul. It was black. Horned. A monster. I saved us.'

'What has she done to her wrist?'

'I'm protecting myself.' She held up her wrist, the blood dripping down her arm, before she held her arm to her mouth, smearing the ruby liquid over her lips. 'Shall I protect you too?'

The next two inmates were quieter. The first sat in the corner of her cell, muttering obsessively to herself, short hair covering her eyes, as though she refused to let anyone close enough to her to try trim it back. She wanted to remain blind to the World. Like a child, if she couldn't see them, maybe no-one could see her.

'Jody Mills. She was brought in here nearly five years ago now. She was a local sheriff in her town, before she killed and cooked her own husband and fed him to their three year old son. She thought her son was dying, and the only way to save him was for him to consume human meat. Afterwards, she claimed to not remember what she did.'

'Her diagnosis?'

'We aren't entirely sure. We had one psychologist argue she could have been exposed to some sort of illegal drug prior to the incident, hence the hallucination and memory loss, though there's no evidence to either prove or disprove such a theory.'

'Her son?'

'Dead. He died a year or so after the event. Meningitis.'

'Does she know?'

'She knew before we told her.'

The third patient they passed sat with her back against the glass, hiding her face from the doctor as he looked into the cell. One hand lay outstretched to the side, her fingers mindlessly drawing on the cold floor, though without further observation, it was impossible to tell what the repetitive shape was.

'You're joining us in Hell then, I assume?' She had a crisp English accent, though she struggled to pronounce certain letters, as if there was something wrong with her lips.

'You really believe this is Hell?'

'You're English.' She turned at the recognition of someone from her home country, and it took everything in him not to take a step back as she took in why she struggled with her speech. Her face had been mauled. Long scars ran down her one side of her face, blinding her in one eye, and shredding her lips. The red scar tissue was vivid against the pale skin, so long having been kept away from any form of natural light.

'No. British, yes. I come from Scotland.'

'You have an English accent.'

'My mother was English, and I lived with her most my life.'

'Both of my parents were English. I lived there until I was ten years old before they brought me here. Daddy got a new, high powered job.' She smiled, gruesome on her deformed face, where he could imagine it once sat quite prettily. 'I lived with my parents here until I was eighteen years old. Then I killed them both while they slept. The demon told me to. He said it would be poetic justice for everything they'd done to me while I slept.'

'Do you really believe that?'

'He told me the price I would pay would be eternal damnation in Hell, but that the price would be worth the act. After their deaths, I was brought here, to rot. So yes, I do believe this is Hell, Doctor. And you are its King.' She turned back around after that, her back once more to the visitors, her finger drawing once more on the floor.

'Who is she?' He whispered to the nurse beside him, as his eyes continued to follow the patient's fingertip trail.

'Bela Talbot. That's a dog she's drawing on the floor, Doctor, in case you were curious. A hound. She calls it her Hellhound. Or she has done when questioned before,' Naomi hissed quietly, ensuring she could not be heard by the inmate. 'Her face was mauled by one of the police dogs brought out to find her when she went missing after the murders. The dog was immediately put down, and the surgeons did everything possible to help save her face. She insists it was her calling to Hell though, the dog sent by a demon to retrieve her very soul.'

Crowley reached the last inmate with some degree of apprehension. The last patient was sat on the bed in her cell, turning her head slowly as she heard the approaching footsteps. She cocked her head as she stared at the intruders to the space, before smiling.

'Alaina Abaddon.' Naomi said, her eyes never leaving the solitary figure in the cell. 'She was arrested eight years ago, and has never been moved from this cell. She killed nine nuns in a convent in Maryland, believing that such an action would break the final biblical seal and release the Devil from Hell. We believe her to have a Delusional disorder.'

'Not schizophrenia?'

'She's never heard voices, or suffered hallucinations. Rather, she truly believes that she can release Lucifer into the World. That is her reality.'

'Isn't it yours?' Abaddon asked, her voice soft, almost a mere breath. 'Can't you sense him? My father? Can't you feel him in the very air?'

'Do you see the Devil, Miss Abaddon?' Crowley asked.

'How can I see him when I failed to break the final seal? But he will be released. One day. I failed to release him before but he will rise again. My father will be released.' She rushed suddenly from her bed, to press herself against the glass, her chest rising and falling rapidly in sheer exhilaration. 'He'll rise again. He'll rise. And he will lead the World to greatness for those who truly worship him. HE'LL RISE. HE'LL RISE.'

Naomi retreated back along the corridor in which they came, leading Crowley back with her, past the four inmates once more. Bela turned as they passed, following the tread of their footsteps with a keen ear as her dead eye could see nothing but black. Jody continued to sob in the corner, her face still hidden as she covered her head with her hands. Anna was back on her bed, and crawled forward once more as Crowley passed the glass, and she began sniffing manically at the air.

'I know what you are. I can smell it on you. See it in you. Your soul is black. Darker than anything I've seen before. Monster. Demon.' She spat, before shouting louder. 'DEMON. DEMON. I CAN SEE YOUR SOUL.'

Abaddon continued to cackle behind it all.

Crowley sat in the office that would be his, and he breathed in the stale air with a pensive face. It was a well-furnished room, dark blue walls and a matching thick carpet. Dark oak furnishings completed the classy appearance of the interior decoration. Sitting in there, it was almost impossible to believe where the room was, and the type of people who lived within the bounds of the thick walls. Until gaze fell upon the heavy filing cabinets, securely locked, or the mass bundles of papers on the desk. The last Director really had left with no notice, something that shocked Crowley, given the nature of the establishment he left behind.

Naomi had left him in the room to recover himself. The time, she argued, would allow him to collect his thoughts, understand what he had observed so far, and decide as to whether he could benefit anyone by taking on the responsibility of leading such a place. There was another reason though, that she immediately halted the twisted tour she had been taking him on: she didn't want him carrying any sort of emotion forward into the male inmates. The female inmates were dangerous, destructive, but they were also responsive. They could engage. They knew where they were and what that meant.

But the males? They were…different.

There was no knock as warning when the office door was thrown open and a young woman walked in, dressed in one of the unit's nurse uniforms. Crowley looked up as she stopped in front of his desk, placing both of her hands on the wooden surface.

'Can I help you?' Crowley asked, remaining sat opposite her, and watched as she raised an eyebrow as though amused by how quickly he'd settled into the room she'd only been used to seeing empty.

'Meg Masters. Psychiatric nurse. I'm here to show you around, I believe. Give you a little tour,' she said, her voice emotionless, yet there was a degree of mocking to her face as he looked down on the doctor before her.

'Ah, so you're here to take me to meet the…'

'To meet the boys, yes.' She stood up straight, folding her arms across her badge strapped to the pocket on her chest. 'Follow me, doctor.'

She was different to Naomi in that she walked with him entirely in silence. He followed her down two flights of metal stairs, ones that would not look out of place in an old warehouse, both their footsteps echoing metallically. She carried herself differently, also. She slouched, as compared to Naomi's tall stance, and seemed to walk both briskly and slowly at the same time. In conclusion, he seemed entirely…indifferent to her whole surrounding. Disinterested. Bored. The silence wasn't really helping his opinion of her.

He decided to break it. 'Naomi, where is she?'

'Settling the inmates that you managed to stir up.' She didn't turn or slow down as she answered, continuing with her gaze straight ahead. 'Besides, she only deals with the female patients. I'm considered the main warden for the three you're going to meet.'

'You? Well, appearances can be deceptive…'

'You can stop with the crap right now.' She halted suddenly, and turned to him, a spark of agitation in her dark eyes. He was pleased to note some form of emotion from her. 'I don't like you. And don't even try laugh that off, I've met people like you before. With your doctorate, and your papers, looking at everything as an opportunity for your own personal advancement. Well, I'm going to warn you now; my boys are not your studies. They are patients in need of treatment, and that is how you should treat them.'

'Your boys?' He wanted to remain professional, but couldn't help smirking at the nurse's childlike notions. At the sight of the amusement on his face, Meg turned and began walking once more. 'You're aware these 'patients' are also convicted murderers suffering from extreme mental illnesses?'

'I never attempted to deny that. I'm well aware who these people are. But, they keep me in a job and I try to help them. Understand them. I don't study them for personal profit and I don't appreciate others trying to do so either.'

'You don't study them?'

'No. I need them to trust me so I can do my job, and they'll trust me more if I'm not trying to use them to further myself.'

'You're a poor excuse for a psychologist.'

'But a damn good nurse.' They stopped outside another heavy door, identical to the one Naomi led Crowley through earlier to enter the women's ward. Meg put a hand against it, as if the doctor could open the door anyway. 'I trust Naomi talked you through the security procedures when you met the inmates earlier. The protocol is the same, but these patients are different. Don't talk to them. Don't agitate them. They're my boys, like I said. You'll learn to leave them alone.'

Meg may have mentioned her patients were different to the earlier inmates, but she hadn't truly emphasised it enough. The female ward had reeked of desperation, of sweat and blood lurking beneath the clinical stench of cleaning fluid, but the male patients were different. The lighting was the same. The layout was the same. But it seemed different. The corridor was silent, no muttering or barely audible crying, only the tapping of the medical personnel's footsteps as they slowly passed the cells. The air seemed heavy, weighed down with a thick layer of delusion and depression.

The first cell they passed was black, the light switched off, nothing visible in the gloom, however hard Crowley tried to peer into it.

'Why isn't there…?'

'The inmate died about a month ago. Kevin Tran. Developed manic depression due to excessive pressures put on him at home from his school and his uptight mother. Eventually snapped. Killed her. He was suicidal after that, but we were hoping with the right treatment, he'd respond. He didn't. Strangled himself with the shoelace of one of the orderlies, who'd decided that assisting Tran's suicide would be the best option for him. Put him out of his misery, and all that. He's in prison himself now. Name of Gabriel, if you ever decide to look him up.'

The next cell was brightly lit, a contrast to the one before, though no change in the feeling of gloom that hung over it. A thin man was leaning against the narrow bed, his head resting on the thin mattress, staring directly at the ceiling. He was completely still, apart from his chest, though even that was barely moving as he breathed slowly in before releasing the air again softly. There was a clean, surgical bandage stuck to his neck.

'His name's Castiel. He suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder.' Meg's voice softened as she watched him, her gaze less cold. She actually likes this one, Crowley couldn't help noting with a smirk. 'Or, at least, that's what he's been diagnosed with. He has various differing states of identity, though he sees them all as Castiel, just alternate versions of himself.'

'Why's he here?'

'A few years ago, in one of his more dangerous identity states, he massacred the party of a representative candidate in Idaho. The candidate was running against equal rights for the LGBT community, something he had strong opinions about. He claimed to be God when he killed her. Afterwards, he had no memory of such action. Most of the time, he remains in his current identity, the one you see currently.'

'And that is?'

'Castiel, the angel.'

'Angel?' He questioned, turning to focus on the nurse as she continued to watch the inmate, who had turned his head to face the glass, though he didn't seem to see the two visitors. From his new position, the surgical bandage was more clearly visible. 'Suicidal angel? Do your inmates have a high rate of suicide, Miss Masters?'

'He didn't cut his throat in a suicide bid, doctor. Castiel believes he is an angel, but he doesn't believe he ought to be. Angels to him are good creatures, just and merciful. He may not remember killing those people, but with enough people telling him he did, he has accepted the responsibility.' She paused for a second. 'He cut his throat to try and remove his own Grace.'

As they passed the glass of the next cell, the inmate sat on the bed cowered back, his mouth moving rapidly as a jumble of foreign sounds came out, the only sound in the block. Meg watched Crowley frown with a sly smile.

'He's trying to exorcise me, doctor. He thinks I'm some sort of demon. He wants to think so, anyway. In reality he's just jealous because Castiel will interact with me, and he likes to think he's the only one Castiel will talk to,' she explained, as the Latin chanting from the cell grew louder. 'His name's Dean Smith. He lived with his father until the age of six, when his father went missing while on a hunting trip. He was found dead, neck broken after falling down a ditch in the hunting forest nearby. Afterwards, Dean moved in with his uncle Bobby. Bobby got sick though, a few years ago, and under the gold star policies of President Roman, he couldn't afford medical care. He died. Dean became an alcoholic depressive with an obsession for revenge on Mr Dick Roman. He became convinced he was some form of pre-biblical creation. Leviathan. He tried to kill the President because he thought he was a cannibalistic monster.'

The chanting had increased in speed and volume, Dean almost shouting the incantation through the glass, sweat building on his forehead. Crowley turned away. 'Does he do this often?'

'Keep quiet, big boy, I'm not going anywhere.' She almost laughed at Dean, who fell silent before moving to the corner, where he began whispering to the glass.

'What's he doing?'

'He's talking to the patient next to him, what did you think he was doing, doctor?' They kept on walking, until they were looking into the last cell, Dean's whispering still audible though incoherent. He received no answer, however. 'This is Sam Wesson.'

Sam Wesson, the youngest inmate at the Texas State Hospital, sat in the corner of his cell, his head leaning against the wall of his cell, his eyes dead ahead, staring blankly. Long, lank hair hung around his face, thick arms wrapped around the knees held against his chest. Dark circles under his eyes showed weeks of tortured sleep, the dead light within showed tortured consciousness also.

'He hasn't spoken since his arrest. Not to answer the cop questions, not to organise a defence, not to protest or complain. Nothing.'

'And prior to his arrest?'

'Lived a normal life. He was at university, studying law, like a good little boy. Had a girlfriend, soon to be wife. Perfectly apple pie,' she said, her voice a mixture of false brightness and dripping sarcasm. 'Then, out of the blue, he burns down his flat. Girlfriend locked inside. Comes out at the court case that his mommy died the same way when he was a six month old baby in the cradle.'

'So he re-enacts it twenty-two years later?' Crowley asked, his voice echoing in the heavy corridor, Sam's own dark state seeping through the glass into the air.

'Like I said, he hasn't said anything since. No-one entirely understands what's going through his head.'

'Then why is he here? There's nothing to suggest any form of religious fanaticism.'

'Except the pentagram they found on the ceiling of his burnt flat, no, you're right. No religious fanaticism. Oh, and the drawings of the Devil he found carved into the walls of his cell with his fingernails before we were forced to cut them,' she said plainly, her head cocked as she continued to look into the cell, before turning to Crowley. 'So, come on then, doctor, what's your opinion? You think these people here are tortured by Hellfire and brimstone and Lucifer riding their pretty little asses?'

Crowley stopped silent, just as Dean in the adjacent cell also stopped speaking. He looked straight ahead, watching Sam's eyes as he continued to stare straight ahead, through the glass cell, through the visitors. He wondered exactly what he was seeing through those eyes. Hellfire and brimstone? 'No. He sees pain and guilt and damnation. Eternal damnation.'