Chapter 1
Questions, but no answers
Silence... Silence was the only thing that fell upon the small dark cell. My restraints burned against my soft skin. This asylum has been my home for two months now, how did I get here you ask? Let me tell you the tale. I used to be a renowned scientist at the top of her career. I was perfecting my theory on how to defy the invisible laws of gravity. People called me mad, insane, crazy and untrustworthy. But what is madness? What is insanity? What is the emotion of craziness but only a figment of the human mind? I ask these questions to you so that you may hold them to be answered at the end of this terrible memoir.
I suppose it began on the fifth of December in 1929 when my husband, the only person I ever loved, ever trusted passed away of lung cancer. This event sent me into my downward spirals that would soon lead to my deathly fate. My name is Dr. Cindy Harrison, I have been a scientist since the age of seventeen, I started my career was started when my parents died of cholera in the winter of 1921. My sister Taylor could not take the pain of their deaths and couldn't bear to stay in this country and moved to London with her two children, I however stayed in Ireland and got myself institutionalized. I guess I brought this on myself after I pulled nearly killed everyone at the National Science Convention during my second outburst. But I fear that is all I can tell you for now, I am about to be sedated moved to another room.
I winced as the large needle pierced my raw skin. Soon all my memories transformed to blackness pulled me into its embrace. All I could make out were the vague whispers of the nurses and they unstrapped my weary limbs and wheeled me to the examination room. They sedated their patients because the procedures they preformed were usually quite painful and took many long, dreadful hours. They did not close your eyelids so that you may behold their horrific doings. These are only stories I have heard from my cellmates. They preformed these exams apparently for some sort of alien research, that I why my dear friends, I must escape soon otherwise I fear my soul will leave me and my body will be left to be devoured by grave-worms and underground pestilence. Oh great woe is me! I cannot be left to rot! I have to much to give the world I am not mad just deeply saddened by the past events of my life! I scream this as I come out of the sedation but they do not listen they only put me in a straightjacket and place me onto this horrible bed as if it were a grave. Well that is all I can bear to explain they threatened to increase my medication if I do not cease to speak to myself as if there was no one there. But my friends, you have faith in my sanity you believe me am I correct? Yes I am I knew I was thank-you for allowing me to vent this tale upon you. They have now locked me in my cell and restricted me from leaving. Their footsteps grow more distant, I can continue I presume. What more shall I tell you? My husband's grave is now mourned by no one. I have been nearly forgotten here in this horrible place. No one ever comes near me anymore as if I were some sort of wild beast that threatened to destroy any person's innocence. Again as you may already know, the only company I have are the nurses that come to send me further into this depression that began when I was orphaned at the age of thirteen years. I married at the age of twenty but only for protection and some means of funding for my research and lifestyle. I have no children to carry on my name. I was planning to have a child before my husband fell ill.
But what can I accomplish from here? I have no money, no home, no children only this cage that I hope to break free from soon. The rest of this gripping story is about how my partner who will for now remain nameless and I shall remain alone, escaped from this place. What I can tell you now is that my partner was also a scientist before he was admitted here. Oh woe once again I must be taken from this place! I am in constant pain. My depression only worsens with my lack of human interaction and constant drugging. Oh! If I could at least have a cellmate to share this with. Wait, the door, it creaks open! A nurse, no the sound is not of footsteps, but of wheels? Could it be an examination table, maybe they once again need to test me like a lab-rat once again. No that seems impossible. Tables do not scream or laugh and scream " how dare you question my sanity". I look at the table covered in a white bed-sheet with what looked like a man curled up near the top of it with his hands balled up into fists. He had blue eyes that looked like they could see right through you like an X-ray.
"Cindy Harrison? This is your new cellmate Chorus Johnson". The nurse said placing the makeshift bed against the wall and applying restraints that looked one hundred times stronger than mine. Chorus, I believe he was called just laid there still in his ball watching me and the nurse wide-eyed. He mumbled something that I could not understand and then banged his head against the table, his breathing was labored because they had a muzzle over his face, the reason why was obvious his frail body was covered in what seemed to be teeth marks. The nurse poked him with a needle and left the room " w-who are you? How did I-I get here"? He questioned toward me as if he thought that I held the answers
"My name is Cindy Harrison, you were brought here by nurses. And in case you didn't remember your name is Chorus".
"Oh yes I know a man by such a name, fine fellow he is". Chorus replied as his eyes began to close as they became heavy with sleep. I only wished that I could continue my conversation with my new cell-mate. But instead I looked around the windowless room for a means of entertainment but nothing silenced my want. Chorus tossed in his restraints and continued to mumble completely uninterpretable phrases. All that was left to do was plan our escape. I believed with every fiber of my being that neither of us deserved to be here for any length of time. I heard a faint patter, that sounded of raindrops falling on a tin roof. A rat most likely but if it was in fact such rodent there would have been a squeal. I froze and just laid there motionless as I listened intently to the increasing sound. I looked over near Chorus' resting place to find his body gone. The sound I earlier described was transformed into the heavy breathing of someone maybe about to do some horrible deed that he was forced to do against his will by some invisible force. " Lucy, Lucy where are you"? I heard him whimper softly as he ran his hand over my bedsheets. I snapped upwards and he flinched away " Who is Lucy? My name is Cindy you know that". I replied as I tried to rise from the position I was sitting in but it was prevented by these horrible restraints. Chorus looked at me with wide eyes and began to talk like some foreign creature that had never laid eyes on a human. He inched closer to me, at first hesitantly but he became faster as he started to recognized me. He held out his hand for me to take and I couldn't reach because of the said restraints. He knew I wasn't going to touch him so he began to cry almost uncontrollably, the nurses came in and placed him roughly onto the table again nearly cracking open his skull. The nurses tightened his arms in his straightjacket before leaving the room. They did not say one word to me as if I were only a piece of furniture. I laid back down and the cold metal stung my bare neck. More questions swirled around in my head. Who was Lucy? Was she his wife? Why does he need to be muzzled? What causes him to talk like an alien creature? Why did he mistake me for her? These questions swirled in my head as I fell into an uneasy sleep.
When I awoke the next morning I thought I heard my husband's voice. I found myself walking through a narrow winding corridor following the voice. When I reached the supposed end of it, it branched out into many doors numbered with roman numerals from one to a thousand. I opened one but the room was empty. I continued this cycle of opening doors and finding empty rooms until I opened the door that I interpreted to be about three hundred. I found my husband in this room which seemed to be a library books were stacked almost to the ceiling, a large fire burned in the fireplace with two stone lion statues on either side with their paws held out as if to embrace the flame. My husband was sitting in one of two armchairs staring at me with a grin. He motioned for me to sit next to him. When I walked over he tried to say something but it reached my ears as the terrifying constant beeping of some sort of fire alarm. My husband reached for me but I felt myself being ripped away from him and watched him disappear. I jolted awake and looked around my cell, and realized that I had only been dreaming. I heard blood curdling yells and muffled screeches from what I thought was my cellmate. I soon saw that he was being wheeled away from me and placed into another cell. Soon I heard his screams fade away and I was again alone. My face grew hot as tears filled my eyes as I thought that my reunion with my husband was cut short by the stealing away of my acquaintance. I began to sob softly into the rolled up blanket I was using as a pillow. But this did not extinguish the fiery pain that I felt within my soul. But it merely put a cloth over the flame. I soon felt extreme rage that I could not suppress. I began to claw wildly at this sarcophagus that was placed upon me by the asylum staff. I discovered the weak spot of one of them and it broke with the touch of my fingers. Slowly it broke and I had a free hand almost, but the broken rope only revealed more and more layers until I had finally stopped trying to break free. I breathed heavily and allowed my mind to wander to my husbands radiant face, his green eyes were beautiful pools of light. His smile was so white it was almost blinding but then I realized that I would never see it ever again which only increased my terrible pain. I had scratched my arm so greatly to the point where I had drawn blood, it was only a small cut so I did not think much of it. It was then close to midnight, I could tell by the nearly inaudible chirping of the nightingales outside the institution. I soon took a deep breath and fell asleep again, alone in my room once again. Lonely, so terribly lonely not another soul to talk to. It was a crushing horrible loneliness so horrible that it would make a person suicidal but I myself am above that mentality but I fear that I will soon not be. Until tomorrow my comrades.