Somewhere within a small English town, a young man walks into a bar; asking about a girl he had known and trying to find answers as to where she might be.
"Excuse me," He says to the bartender, "I'm looking for a girl..."
"Arn't we all," Replies the pasty bartender, polishing glasses, laughing slightly at his own joke, "What does she look like? Perhaps i know her. Better yet, what does she kiss like? That's the way i tend to remember women! Either way, I tell nothing if you don't buy a scotch. This is a business, you know!"
"Well, i'm afraid i'm not one for scotch," The man said.
"Rum, bourbon; it does not matter. NOt as long as you buy a drink." The young gentleman sits reluctantly at the bar. He gingerly grabs his wallet from his front pocket, and takes out two bills, throwing them down on the table.
"There. Now tell me, have you seen my Alice?"
"Alice is her name, eh? And what, exactly, does this Alice look like?"
"Long, brown, hair that curls at the ends and fades to a lighter shade ever so slightly towards the bottom; With huge brown eyes that you could get lost in for ages. With lips so soft-"
"This Alice must be something to have you all wound up like this. Never seen a man so in love in all my years. Perhaps, I have seen this Alice of yours, up by the old... Institution. Lives there, I believe. If that's the case... good luck mate."
Why would i need luck? The man thought, if she's simply living at an institution? The young man yet to understand what the bartender meant.
...
'Wellard Mental Institution for the Mentally Ill,' the sign read. No, he thought, this can't be true. Please let this be a mistake. Please.
"Sir. Sir. I must find someone institutionalized here," he had to force the word out. Institutionalized. "Please Sir, her name is Alice!" The urgency in this young mans voice was the only thing to grapple the attention of the worker all day.
"Alice, you say? That can't be. There is only one Alice treated here, and no one has visited that poor girl in the 5 years shes been here. Now if you would, please go. Your upsetting out patients."
"5 years?" was the only thing that broke through the broken man's lips. His voice was weak, even for the breathless whisper of this mans agonized voice. You could hear his heart break in that whisper, and as the young man stood their silent, all his hope was lost.
5 years ago he had left her.
5 years. she had been here for 5 years and... it was his fault.
The worker saw his devastated face, and he knew. This was him. the one she had waited for all these years. The worker's name was Theodore, and he was especially close to Alice. No one had believed her. They called her crazy. Insane. But never Theodore. No, never Theodore. He knew what she had said was true. She spoke of another world, adventures there... and a man. A young gentleman whom she had fallen in love with and how he was taken away from her. He could see it in her eyes, it was true. Perhaps not how they met or what he was, but he believed her when she said she had fallen in love. And the sorrow in her eyes was undeniable. She had lost him. Theodore would take Alice to all of her treatments, as if it was some consolation for the pain she was about to Indore. He hated what they did to her, and he hated the fact that he couldn't stop it.
"Follow me," was all Theodore said, and lead the way for the very important man who followed.
...
"Alice?" nothing had prepared him for what he saw. He had always feared what happened to Alice. The scenarios that ran though his head during a late night still haunted him, though the worst he had ever thought possible was death.
He was wrong.
The shell of a girl sat shrivelled in the corner, scared, alone, begging for it to all go away. This isn't Alice, was the only thought that he could muster, And it's my fault.