AN: Yeah, this is basically all about OCs, but I'm okay with that if you are. Anyway, this is actually based off of an actual island. It's called Poveglia Island and it's off the cost of Italy. The Island of Terror or Island of Madness, which it's also called, was basically a quarantine island where anyone with plague was taken during the Roman Eras. So many people were burned there (some alive) that the soil is mixed in with human ash and no matter where you walk, you're walking on human remains. The doctors wore masks that were white and covered their entire faces, shaped like birds with long, slightly curved beaks. In 1922, a mad doctor decided to establish an insane asylum on the island. As soon as it was opened, the patients started saying they could see and hear the spirits of the dead, however none of the staff believed them. The mad doctor would sometimes take patients up to the bell tower and perform lobotomies on them using hand saws or hammers and chisels. Then the doctor also started seeing the spirits. One day a nurse saw him either jump or get pushed from the top of the bell tower. However, that isn't what killed him. She says that a mist came out of the ground and strangled him. Now no one is allowed on the island and the asylum there has been shut down. It's said that the island is still haunted. I think I've got my facts there correct, anyway. So, there you go. I think it makes this story just a bit scarier.
Screams echoed down the dark hallways. Calls of "The dead, the dead! The dead are coming to get me!" haunted the dreams of all who heard them. The tolling of a bell woke people in the middle of the night, along with the insane laughter they all had grown so accustomed to. Not that the patients could sleep anyway, what with dreadful, phantom wailing echoing through the entire island. One of these patients, however, sat upright in bed, covering his ears and rocking back and forth to calm himself. "I'm not crazy." His words were whispers. "I don't deserve to be here. They made a mistake, a horrible, horrible mistake!" He ran his hands quickly through his reddish-brown hair and sobbed at another phantom wail. Bryn Morgen had always seen and communicated with spirits and so being stuck on an island that was infected with ghosts down to its very core was like torture. Not to mention the fact that he was stuck in a mental institution when he had no mental disorders and functioned like every other human. Except that he wasn't human. He was a country. The country of Wales to be precise. So why was he stuck in a mental institution?
It was said earlier that he has always seen ghosts and has had the ability to talk to them. He had been caught on a normal day in London, visiting his brother, conversing with a rather angry spirit in the middle of a street. This somehow ended with him being locked in a mental institution on a haunted island. Where he and all the others were unwanted. Another scream along with the phantom smell of burning skin broke the silence, making Bryn shiver and sob quietly into his knees. "Arthur…Connor…Ali…Why aren't you coming for me…?" He remained silent for a moment, breathing deeply. "Ali, please…"
It was still night, past the time for the lights to be out, when there was a soft knocking at his door, which then opened and revealed a tall man in a long, white doctor's coat that was covered in bloodstains. However, it was the mask on his face that made Bryn's brown eyes go wide with fright. The mask was white, with bloodstains all over it and shaped like a bird with a long, slightly curved beak. He let out one shrill scream before he was taken out of the room, flailing wildly against the doctor's hold. "Alistair!"
"Where is he? Where's my brother?" A tall redhead ran into the asylum, his eyes wild with anger as he yelled. "I know he's here somewhere! Just tell me so I can get him and leave this fucked up island!"
"Calm down, sir. Tell us your brother's name and we'll let you see him. Just please, calm down." A pretty, young nurse with long brown hair cascading down her back in soft waves touched the man's arm, instantly calming him. "We may even be allowed to let you take him home."
The redhead sighed and looked down at her. "Bryn. Bryn Kirkland. I'm his older brother Alistair. And I need to take him home, as soon as possible. He's not crazy and being in a place like this, on an island like this, is hurting him. I know it." He looked past the nurse and down one of the hallways. "I need to at least make sure he's alright."
The nurse smiled up at Alistair and turned to another nurse, her voice soft and gentle as it always had been. "Would you please go tell Mr. Kirkland that he has a visitor? Anyway, Mr. Kirkland…" She turned back to the redhead. "You sound as though you're really close to your brother. It must be nice. My name is Caprina, by the way. Caprina Costa."
"Nice to meet you Miss Costa. And yeah, Bryn and I have always been close. He means everything to me. Which is why I'm getting him off this damn island!"
"Bryn Kirkland isn't in his room." The other nurse came back, a slightly worried expression on her face. "Either he escaped or…"
"Or?"
Caprina's brown eyes widened as she turned to the other nurse. "The bell tower…"
"Bell tower?" Alistair took one look at her panicked expression and flipped, his short temper going off as he turned to Veronica, his emerald eyes wide. "What the hell is the big deal about a bell tower?"
"If he was taken to the bell tower…he's going to be experimented on until he dies!"
"Alistair! Alistair!" Bryn felt his throat burn as he continuously screamed his brother's name, fighting against the restraints holding him to the wooden table underneath him. He flung his head every which way until his face was covered in his red-brown hair. His screams grew louder as each side of his face was grabbed and his head held steady under the doctor's unyielding glare. "Alistair!"
The door to the bell tower flew open at this point, and Bryn gasped as the doctor glanced up, releasing his face. He continued screaming, however, until he heard an all-too familiar voice. "Touch my brother again and I will rip your fucking head off with my bare hands!" Insane laughter filled the room as the doctor and Bryn turned to face Alistair, who was staring at the anger with anger on his face. "So I suggest you back the fuck off."
Bryn fought once again against the restraints, even though he knew it was futile. "I'm not letting him out of my grasp. Not until I see what makes him tick." Bryn let out another shrill scream as the doctor got thrown to the wall by a glaring Alistair. "I want to see what makes him crazy!"
"Bryn is not fucking crazy!" Alistair let the doctor go and quickly undid Bryn's restraints, holding the boy to his chest. "It's alright now. I've got you, so it's okay." The redhead picked his brother up and started to leave the room, only to stop when the brunette looked to the doorway and screamed. "Bryn! What's there? What are you seeing?"
"Wh-What the hell is that?" Alistair spun towards the doctor's voice. He was backed against the wall, his eyes wide with fear. "What the hell is that thing?"
"Bryn?" Alistair looked back down to his younger brother, worry on his face.
Bryn moved a bit in his brother's arms and turned to the door. "Hey…if you let me and my brother leave, we'll leave the island as soon as possible and never come back. And we'll even make sure this island remains uninhabited." There was a pause when Alistair knew Bryn was listening to the spirit. "Okay, thank you. Alistair, let's get out of here." Alistair nodded and ran out of the tower, towards where Caprina was waiting. "Miss Costa! We need to get out of here! Everyone!"
Caprina screamed as the doctor was suddenly flung out of the tower and was hurdling towards the ground. Bryn flinched when he hit and lied on the ground, writhing in pain until a mist came out of the ground around him and surrounding his head until he stopped moving, then going back into the ground and disappearing. "I say we get off this island now…" Bryn nodded softly at his brother's words, hiding his face in the older boy's chest. "What about you, Miss Costa? What will you do?"
Turning brown eyes up to the two brothers, smiling softly. "I want to stay here with the patients until the institution gets shut down. They need me, so I can't just leave."
"You're a good girl, Caprina." Alistair smiled, glancing from the nurse's face to his brother's. "You remind me so much of Bryn. Maybe that's why you calmed me down so easily."
"Ha, like you're calm around me." Bryn chuckled. "You're constantly losing your temper."
"Yeah, well, that's for reasons you wouldn't understand. Anyway, See ya, Caprina. I'm gonna get Bryn out of this place. It was nice to meet you." Alistair smiled down at Caprina again and walked off towards the boat that would take them far away from what truly was the Island of Madness.