(Please Note: this is my first time trying to write fiction so bear with me, I would love to hear any comments and constructive criticism, feedback is greatly appreciated! I will try to update new chapters frequently! Thank you for reading! UPDATE 7/13: I have gone through and done some much-needed editing, and have posted a brand new chapter! Chapter 4 is currently in the works.)

Chapter 1: Admitted

My mother filed out of the back seat after me, her face wore the somber mask of someone in mourning. My sister Cynthia and father stayed at home, unable or unwilling to face the disgrace of taking the trip from Biloxi to the Mississippi State Insane Asylum in Jackson. When I looked at my mother's small mousy face, tears began to well up in my eyes. They told me this was only temporary, she kept saying that I need some rest, but I knew her real intentions. I had seen them the second that my parents made the decision to admit me. But intentions aside, she seemed genuinely convinced that this place would help me. I looked away from her before she noticed my tears, she was always against dramatic shows of emotion, believing that women should appear content and poised at all times. Despite my disagreement with her ideas on the subject, I contained my crying as I didn't want to upset her in the last moments that I would see her.

"Mother" I half-whispered breaking the silence as we walked up the red clay path to the outer gates of the asylum

"Mary please." She said in a shaky clipped tone

"It wasn't me" my quiet voice was almost a plea, my last attempt to ask her to believe me, I needed someone to believe me. But her answering silence said what I knew all along, and that was the painful fact that no one would believe me. I would forever be credited with the fire that killed an entire family, a fire that killed people I loved.

The visions of red-orange flames blinded me, my body was paralyzed as I tried to struggle away from the inferno. My fight was useless and I stood like a pillar of stone while thick black smoke billowed from all around me. Suddenly I could see someone running from the living room, her body was engulfed and her screams pierced to the very depths of me. It was Magdalene! My beautiful energetic best friend, that was when I realized where I was. In the blink of an eye, my paralyzed legs were standing in the blackened and collapsed remains of a home that held so many fond memories, this place where I spent summer nights dreaming about the future with my childhood friend. This place that was always like a second home, filled with the people who I considered to be my family, burnt to cinders. A place that used to smell like her mom's peach cobbler now thick with the smell of smoke.

With a gasp of air, the vision was complete, and a feeling of dread filled me to the core. The memory of that vision which repeated in my thoughts for 2 months was now nothing more than a painful horrific reminder of what I couldn't change. Seeing glimpses of the future was a curse. When I was very young I learned that it was best never to mention them to anyone, no one would believe me anyway. But when hellish images of my friend's last moments began to interrupt my days, I could not allow myself to pretend that I didn't know… I had to tell someone. So, I did, I tried to tell Magdalene, and she screamed at me. She told me that she wanted nothing to do with me and that I was evil for playing such games. I tried to tell my family, I begged them to listen, but when no one did I tried to prevent it by myself.

I watched Madeline's house from my window each night, a method we used to use in order to plan secret trips to speakeasies and dances. One night I recognized the glow of a fire, I could see it in the kitchen engulfing everything in its path. A petrified sound choked from my chest as I scrambled out of my window and down the lattice siding. By the time I reached her home the screams which were familiar by now since I had heard them countless times in my visions were echoing throughout the house as her family struggled to find a way out. I banged on the windows and doors and yelled for someone to help until my voice gave out and my face was drenched in tears and sweat. There was nothing to break the windows with, and my small hands were useless, sobbing I collapsed into the grass a few yards away from her front door.

"Mary? Mary Alice Brandon?" An unfamiliar kind voice broke through my thoughts and brought me to the present. A tall slender red-haired woman in a white nurse uniform was speaking through the massive wrought-iron gate that enclosed the asylum. "I'm nurse Sarah, I am going to get you checked in, ok?" her tone was similar to the one you would use to pacify a child on the verge of throwing a fit.

"Please call me Alice" I replied, a little annoyed at the patronizing tone

"Ok, dear right this way please"

I glanced at my mom who nodded and placed my bag on the ground before turning and walking unceremoniously towards the car. I swallowed the lump in my throat and walked with the nurse.

I noticed the two imposing men who walked a good distance behind us, both men were brawny and muscular under their full white uniforms, and did not match the smile or enthusiasm emitting from nurse Sarah. Instead, their intimidating appearance seemed to match the massive white building that came into view just beyond the gate.

The entryway was held up by four enormous pillars. The sheer size of the place was hidden behind countless old growth oak trees dripping with gray Spanish moss. Eight slightly smaller pillars held up the elegantly designed porches which stretched out to the left and the right of the entry way. The front of the building could pass as an old mansion home from the days before the civil war, but the stench of chemicals and clinical looking interior which waited just beyond the heavy wooden double doors immediately gave me a sense of foreboding. Nurse Sarah walked to the desk area which was the only item of furniture in the foyer, she sat down and stated in a firm and no longer kind voice

"The orderlies will take you from here"

The large men grabbed me by either arm and dragged me through another set of double doors, and then through a locked set of metal doors, I did not try to resist them as I was sure it would do no good. My build was very slight, and despite the many tasks around the house that my mother had me do daily, I never really put on the muscles that her and my sister got from doing the same tasks.

A long corridor stretched endlessly before me, hundreds of solid doors with tiny horizontal windows near the top lined each wall. A sign declaring this as the women's ward was hung above a small placard on the wall next to a door which said "Dr. Portson". The men pushed me into the door and slammed it behind me.

"Brutes aren't they," a silky voice said from behind me.

I jumped and spun around to see a stalky man with salt and pepper hair and a pretentious looking face walk away from a bookcase near the door towards his large mahogany desk in the center of the room.

"I – I suppose so" I stammered

"Well it can be necessary you see; some people here are real monsters"I didn't respond, his suave overly confident demeanor put me on edge. "Sit down," he commanded

"I'd rather stand thanks."

"Mary, you can either do what I want you to do, or I will make you do it. I'm sure that you would agree that it would be easier for everyone if you would just do as I say" he said this rather ominous statement in an inviting and almost sickeningly kind tone, which sent fearful shivers up my spine.

"Please I would rather you call me Alice, " I said, resigned as I took a seat in the brown leather chair in front of him.

He didn't respond, instead, he began to shuffle through a yellow file folder on his desk. When he finally came to the paper he was looking for, he began to read and a range of emotions flitted across his face until finally settling into an impassive mask.

"So, you see visions of the future?"

I sat silently, understanding that he wanted me to confirm what he had already decided. That I was crazy. As my silence stretched on, his impatience became apparent.

"Listen, Mary, I am trying to help you, don't you want to see your family again?"

"yes," I said simply

"of course, you do, and the only way that I can figure out how to treat you is for you to tell me what I need to know. Do you understand?" he said with a fake smile

"I see visions of the future" I repeated his words back to him, realizing that this was something I never in my life imagined that I would admit out loud.

"now that wasn't hard, was it?" he said as a menacing smile spread across his face. He rang a bell on his desk which summoned the orderlies. "You see, this place is on the cutting edge of psychiatric research, you should consider yourself lucky," he said to me before turning to the orderlies and saying, "DST tomorrow morning"

The orderlies both replied with a curt "yes sir" and dragged me off into one of the many rooms lining the hall. They shoved me into the small windowless room and locked the door as they left. One of their voices commanded me through the door to remove my clothes and push them through the narrow opening near the bottom. I did and they slipped a sheath made of a rough brown fabric back through. I put the meager piece of clothing on and sobbed as I fell asleep on the flat hard cot.