I woke up with the sunlight beaming down onto my tired face. "Where was I?" I wondered as I looked at the creepy shadow of a tree on the wall next to my bed. I looked down and noticed a newspaper lying on a platter on the table next to my bed. I picked it up and read the headline on the front page: "Killings Continue to Haunt Local Asylums." Just as I was starting to feel scared, a call from the other side of the room totally freaked me out.
"Hey! You're awake1 Sorry to scare you like that." The voice came from a boy about my age sitting up in the bed on the other side of the room.
"Oh, that's okay," I mumbled. "What is this place and why am I here?" I inquired.
"Welcome to The Berkeley Asylum for Today's Troubled Youth or BATTY for short. My name's Pete."
"Oh, hi. I'm Luke. Do you know why I'm here? I can't seem to remember why I would have ended up in a place like this."
"I have no idea, bro. Hey! Why don't I show you around the place and maybe we can ask somebody," suggested Pete.
"Sure," I responded. "That sounds great!"
So Pete and I left our room and took a walk around the asylum grounds. He showed me the place where the meals are served and the t.v. room and the place where they give out the medications. However, all these things didn't really interest me very much. I tried to be nice to Pete and seem like I was enjoying myself, but I was really just focused on thinking of a way to get out of the place. I didn't even see a single telephone or an actual exit to the outside world. Just then, Pete started to wave his arms frantically. I thought he was having an episode or something, but it turned out that he was just trying to flag down a friend of his.
"Kate! Kate! Over here!" Pete yelled.
Soon Pete's friend came over and he introduced her to me. She was a couple of years younger than us, but seemed like she had been at the asylum for a long time since she knew so much about the place.
"Did you read about the killings at the other asylum?" Kate asked. She almost seemed excited about them in a way.
"Yeah," I answered, breaking the awkward silence. "I saw it in the newspaper this morning.
"Have you met Allie yet?" Kate asked me.
"No. Just you two," I responded. My answer created an immediate chain reaction of her yelling across the room to her friend, Allie, who was in the middle of a conversation with what appeared to be herself?
"Hey guys!" Allie shouted as she ran (and skipped) over to where we were standing. She gave Kate and Pete a huge hug and looked at me like I was her long lost relative.
"What's going on? My name's Allie, and you must be the new kid they brought in last night."
"Uhm, yeah," I answered, confused. "I...uhm...guess so. How did you know I was brought here last night?"
Allie laughed and said, "I saw them carrying you in to your room. You were tied to a gurney and yelling about how you wanted to kill the earth.
"Yeah, that was weird, dude. No offense!" added Pete who looked noticeably concerned.
Just then, our conversation was interrupted by one of the staff members who wore a white shirt, white tie, white pants, white socks and white shoes.
"Hey guys! Have you been to the counter yet?" the friendly man asked us.
"No. we were just heading over there now," informed Kate.
"Okie doke," the man replied as he strolled off down a corridor.
"What's the counter?" I asked not knowing what to expect.
"Oh, it's just over here. Come on!" Allie shrieked as she grabbed my hand and ran with me into the next room.
Luke and Kate caught up with us a couple minutes later as Allie and I joined a short line of people in front of an open glass window, which kind of looked like a doctor's office. When it was our turn to approach the "counter," each of us were given a tiny cup that contained two bright green capsules. Then I followed the group as each person walked up to one of three water coolers and added water to the pill cup and then drank the contents.
"What are these things?" I asked Pete.
"Oh, the pills? They're harmless! It's just to help us sleep. That's all." Pete assured me. Pete, Kate and Allie watched as I stood there holding my cup, wondering if I should take the pills or not. I didn't want to be stared at all night so I ended up taking the pills. Then we all went back to our rooms. It turned out that Allie and Kate had rooms in the same hallway as Pete and me, except they weren't roommates. As Pete was in the bathroom, I lay in bed waiting to fall asleep, I thought about my first day at the asylum. It was a fairly normal day, as far as asylums go, I guess.
As I lay in the bathtub trying to fall asleep, I thought about my new roommate, Luke. I felt sorry for lying to him about the pills, telling him that they were just harmless sleeping pills. I also hoped that Luke was asleep now and not wondering why I was spending so much time in the bathroom. Ever since I came to this ugly place, I made the decision to sleep in the bathroom's bathtub at night. It's the only room in the asylum that has a locking door, aside from the laboratory and the rubber room. Just as I was about to fall asleep to the soothing sound of the dripping water tap, a scream shook me. At this place, people scream all the time, night and day, but this scream was different and it gave me the shivers. Even though I was scared out of my mind, I had to find out about that scream. I got out of the tub and opened the bathroom door slowly. Down the hall, there was a light on in room number 6. That was Kate's room! I quickly and silently crept over to her door. Just then, another scream rang out from Kate's room. My heart felt like it was going to explode it was beating so fast. The scream sounded just like Kate's. I wanted to open the door and check on her, but my hands were shaking so much that I couldn't even make a fist. Then I heard one more of Kate's screams, but this one sounded slightly muffled, almost like she was underwater. I felt nauseous and ran back to the bathroom to throw up. On the way back I noticed that the door to Allie's room was open and Allie was not in her bed. I thought that was really weird, but I really couldn't concern myself with that right now as I had other problems to deal with.
This morning I woke up with a stiff neck. I looked around the room. No sun today. No shadow of a creepy tree on the wall. No newspaper on a platter. Pete wasn't even in his bed.
'Yo, Luke!" I literally jump out of my bed to Pete's voice as he called to me from the doorway. "There's been a murder."
Pete looked visibly shaken and his skin was as pale as a vampire's.
"There's been a what?" I exclaimed.
"It's...it's Kate!" he said, slightly crying. "She's...she's d-dead."
I was more shocked than anything. I mean I didn't really know the girl that well, and part of me wanted to believe that it was just a prank or something.
"Also, there's something else you should know." Pete said with seriousness in his voice. I got the sense that this was definitely not a prank. He motioned for me to follow him. We both walked a short distance down the corridor and came to the door of Kate's room.
"Brace yourself!" Pete said as he slowly opened the door.
I almost puked on the spot as I witnessed the gruesome sight before me. Kate's blood-soaked body was dangling off the bed. I turned away in disgust, but something on the wall caught my attention. Written in blood, was my name in big letters.
"That's what I was talking about." said Pete as he pointed to my name on the wall.