Location: Mount Massive Asylum
Lake City, Colorado
18th September, 2013
"I told you, little Sam: I know my way around this place."
Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!
That was the only word that kept going through my head, as if it was on a loop. Dawn's grip on my neck was getting tighter by the second and I was finding it hard to breathe, let alone scream through the hand she had on my mouth.
With her two firm hands on my neck, she tossed me to the wall with a mighty roar. My back collided with the wall and I hit the ground hard, landing on my left arm. In addition to being a head taller than me, she was also physically stronger. She picked me up as if I had weighed a feather.
She then grabbed the top of my head and drove it into the wall, holding back her strength. She did not want to kill me. Not yet. She just wanted to incapacitate me. It was working; I felt my vision getting a little cloudy. I attempted to get to my knees, but even that was proving to be a challenge. I remained on the floor, groaning in pain.
"You and I-" I heard her clearly speak. "We're gonna have a little talk, dear," That was when I felt her cold hands wrap around my right ankle, and she put all her effort into dragging me across the hallway. "Now, if you'll follow me this way…"
I did not get to hear any more of her words – Blackness started to block my sight entirely.
Though it felt like the hardest task in the world, I crack open my eyes. There was a stinging pain at the back of my head which I winced at. I felt something trickle down my neck; it was warm and sticky – blood. Probably from when Dawn decided to introduce my head to the wall.
Dawn.
It was then that I realized that my hands and legs were bound to a… wheelchair. The ropes were so tight that I could feel the blood flow to my limbs stopping entirely. I was in a room filled with beds; some were overturned, some were just plain destroyed. A ward, perhaps? The tiles on the floor were broken and dirtied. There were 2 large wooden double doors on the other side of the room and by the looks of them, they were ready to fall apart at any second.
How far into the asylum had she taken me? What was going on? Why was Dawn doing this to me?
"Good morning, sunshine. Welcome to the Female Ward of Mount Massive Asylum."
I discontinued my actions of thrashing and writhing in an attempt to somehow break free of the bounds, as soon as Dawn's joyful, yet sultry greeting reached my ears. She was somewhere behind me. I turned my head to try to see her, but she decided to save me the trouble by making her way to my front. The crazy woman took a seat on the bed that she put me in front of.
"My goodness. You look absolutely, positively petrified, dear! Calm yourself! We're just having a little chat!"
How was I going to calm my beating heart if she was going to continue waving that knife around?
"Let's start off by you telling me more about that fiancée of yours."
"W-what?" Did I hear that right?
"Your fiancée," Dawn repeated calmly. "Tell me more about him. Miles. That's was the name you gave me, right? He wouldn't happen to be like, 6 feet tall? Short hair, brown jacket?"
Oh God. The brown jacket. The one he loved so much. "H-how do you know that? You can't know that."
"Yeeeeeeah, I saw your man running around the female ward a couple of hours ago," She confessed, sucking her teeth. "With all that's going on here, if he's not dead already, he will be." She told me coolly, as if it was no big deal.
I tried to ignore that statement. I really tried. I could not let myself believe her words. "Dawn…"
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"Why are you doing this?" I emphasized my question with tugs against the rope that strapped me to the wheelchair. "I didn't do anything to you!"
"Ohhh, but you did, little Sam," That was when I witnessed rage pouring into her icy blue eyes. "In fact, you've pissed the hell outta me."
"Dawn, I don't even know you to have done anything!"
"Then allow me to introduce myself," She leaned forward, seemingly ready to tell me who she was. "The name's Dawn Lambert. I'd like to think I'm a little famous."
Dawn Lambert? Wait a minute. Her name did sound a little familiar. One of my colleagues had done a story on that name. That's right, I helped her proof-read it! There was something about-
Oh no.
Serial killings.
"The look on your face says it all, dear," She flashed a devilish smile at me. "You know who I am. Or at least, you have an idea."
Of all the things I could have faced in this asylum, I came face-to-face with a serial killer.
"Let me just start off by saying that people have this notion about true love," Dawn then said, crossing one leg over the other as she began her speech. "The thing is, it doesn't exist. Two people pledge their love for one other. Make promises that they swear they're gonna keep, sometimes for the rest of their lives. But then what happens? You get lazy. You get bored. And you just… give up! You break those promises! You leave your partner in the lurch! That sure as hell isn't true love now, is it?" She then leaned back, propping herself up using her elbows. "I can't stand all you happy couples. Makes my stomach churn. Makes me wanna puke."
"But…" I shuddered to even say the words. "But I read that you… you cut…"
She nodded at me understandingly. "It's really more of a symbolic thing, you know – cutting out their hearts," She sat up to address me. "That was what Brandon did to me… it felt like he cut my chest open with a rusted knife, pulled it right out, and stomped all over it..." Dawn was gripping the handle of that hardy slicer so tightly that her knuckles were turning white. "I gave him everything. I gave him my entire being and he just-!" I winced when she thrust that knife into the mattress; I was grateful that that mattress was not me. "He just decides that I'm not good enough for his ass and dumps me! Two days before our wedding! For my best friend whom he's been cheating on me with for months! For fuck's SAKE!"
"What a douche…" The words slipped out of my mouth. I didn't even mean for it to happen; Dawn's story had my full attention, to the point where I had stopped struggling against the bounds.
"YOU agree with me! You see it my way! Thank you!" She beamed brighter than the Sun ever will as she reached forward to cup my cheeks. "Oh, I hope you didn't call him a douche just to win my favour. You're still gonna die." So declaring, she sat back down.
Oh dear God. How am I going to escape this psycho? "W-what are you going to do to me?"
Dawn cocked her head to the side, almost amusingly. "Don't you know what I do, sweetie? What my style is, how I get things done?"
"N-not entirely."
"Alright, alright," She sighed softly, keeping her wicked smile and gentle tone. "I'll tell you. If there's a couple that's dumb enough to get in my way and flaunt their love in my face, I stalk them. Wait until it's the perfect time to get them both alone. The men are usually the bigger threat so I take them out first. There's nothing much you can do after a slit throat. The women? They either run, or I make them run. Chasing them down is half the fun. Because my favourite part is cutting out both of their hearts. They get to understand and suffer like how I've suffered. It's a game! They treat love as a game, so I'll treat their lives as a game…"
Dawn delivered that last sentence with such detestation. She had, very clearly, lost her mind. I could only stare at her in awe.
"I know!" She jumped to her feet, seemingly without a care in the world. "I'm fuckin' nuts."
Then, a thought hit me. "I read that you were supposed to be put away for life."
"I was being transported to the Denver Women's Correctional Facility. Faked an illness, took out the guards, and found my way here. There was next to no security here: at the female ward. I stole a gun and a pair of shear cutters from the transport vehicle so I made a nice hole in the fence to enter. Been hanging out here ever since. I honestly don't know how long it's been…" She said wistfully, starting up at the decaying ceilings.
Then, her blue eyes fell to me, followed by her entire head. "I want you to know all this. To know why you're in this predicament. To know the person who's about to put you in the ground," She reached forward with her hardy slicer, making me shut my eyes in pure fear, as I knew the end the coming.
However, I instead felt the ropes on my hands come undone. This was followed by the bounds at my feet.
"You've got a 10 second head start, little Sam. I'd run if I were you."
She was making good on her promise. She was going to kill me in the same way she killed the others.
"10…"
I shot up from the wheelchair faster than humanly possible and bolted for the double doors.
A/N: I hope you've enjoyed this chapter! :)