Mississippi State Insane Asylum
May, 1917
The bus ride to the asylum was torture.
It was taking so long that Mary Alice began to believe she would never make it.
Memories of her father's harsh words replayed in her mind on a loop. Her sister's crying face as she was dragged away.
The visions her father claimed were fake continued to assault her. Majority of them revolved around her sister's bright future.
However, her own future was much more bleek.
Looking around, she saw a variety of people. All of them had no clue what they were headed towards.
She envied them.
"Can you hurry the hell up, mister? I'm starving back here."
"Shut it, Brussard. We'll get there when we get there," the guard hissed.
The girl turned to glare at him, straight blonde hair billowing behind her.
"Who the fuck do you think you're talking to," she growled in a thick, Cajun accent.
"Don't ever tell me to shut up. I can have you fired, you low class swine!"
The guard scoffed, rolling his eyes at her.
"You'll be mopping up piss if you speak to me that way again!"
Mary Alice shrunk back into her seat as the two began to argue back and forth.
"That's Adelaide."
She flinched and turned around to find a chubby girl peeking over her seat. The grotesque scar on the girl's face caused her to avert her eyes.
"She's crazy," the girl, chuckled.
Mary Alice frowned.
"Aren't we all crazy?"
Silence.
"Oh...yeah. I guess that's true," she muttered, twisting a strand of her greasy hair. "But she's, like, a psychopath. I heard she tried to kill someone. She's been here like fifteen times."
Mary Alice frowned, watching Adelaide continue to berate the guard. Her features and her voice were innocent, but her words were anything but.
An outstretched hand blocked her view of the blonde.
"I'm Angela, by the way. What's your name?"
She took it, grimacing at how sticky it was.
"Mary Alice."
After hours of being processed into the facility, Mary Alice was exhausted. By the time she was assigned a room, she was beginning to fall asleep on her feet.
"You're in room 126."
It looked more like a two man cell.
The windows were blocked by thick bars, making it impossible to escape. The white walls had specks and splatters, but she refused to imagine what the substance was.
Her bed looked more like a cot.
The mattress was extremely uncomfortable, ragged, and riddled with stains. The bedding she recieved was tattered and her pillow might as well have been nonexistent.
Mary Alice sighed, wondering how she got here.
The rattling of keys against the door made her flinch violently and stand up.
When the door opened, she froze.
"Mary Alice Brandon," the guard said, glancing down at his clipboard.
She nodded distractedly as the girl beside him stared at her with vivid green eyes.
Vivid, but...empty.
"You will be sharing a room with Adelaide," he said, gesturing to his left. "If she bothers you-"
Adelaide scoffed, pushing past him.
"George, I never bother anyone unless they bother me and you know it."
Already accustomed to her antics, he ignored her.
"Don't be afraid to tell someone if you want to be moved, girl," he said in a serious tone.
Mary Alice nodded, feeling eyes on her.
George left, closing the door behind him. The clatter of metal as the door locked echoed in the tiny room.
Adelaide dropped her bedding and collapsed onto her bed, never taking her eyes off the shorter girl.
She looked afraid and completely out of place here. Curiosity took over.
"This is your first time, ain't it," Adelaide asked with a small smirk.
Mary Alice nodded once, not looking her in the eye. She was difficult to look at.
"So what are you here for? You a whore? A chronic masurabator? A lesbian? Did you talk back to your daddy?"
Mary Alice fidgeted uncomfortably.
"I don't want to talk about it."
Adelaide's brows rose and she sat up. A grin formed on her face slowly.
"Now you really have to tell me," she laughed. "If we're going to be roommates we need to know each other. I insist."
Mary Alice sighed, giving in.
"I have...visions of the future," she said, blushing.
She expected the other girl to laugh at her or ridicule her like everyone else did. Everyone except for her sister, Cynthia.
"How often do they come true," Adelaide asked, leaning forward.
Surprised by her lack of a reaction, Mary Alice smiled hesitantly.
"Every time."
Adelaide leaned forward.
"That must be amazing."
Her smile faded then, remembering what led her to be here in the first place.
"Not exactly," she muttered. "My father didn't take it as well as you are."
Adelaide remained silent, seeing the wheels turning in the shorter girl's mind.
"I had a vision that he was planning to...get rid of my mother," she said quietly, picking at her fingernails.
"I told my mother and my sister, and they believed me at first. But when my mother confronted him, he convinced her that I was crazy. There was nothing I could do to save her."
Adelaide noticed the tears welling in her eyes, but she didn't speak.
"He killed her, and set the house on fire while we were away at school. The same way I saw it happen," she said, closing her eyes. "All for the insurance pay out. I didn't even get to say goodbye."
Adelaide solemnly nodded.
"There are alot of people that deserve to be here, but I'm not sure you do."
Without saying another word, she lie down and turned to face the wall.
Mary Alice did the same.
She felt lighter after explaining her situation.
"Adelaide," she whispered.
"Yes?"
"Do you deserve to be here?"
The blonde merely chuckled in the dark.
Mary Alice Brandon didn't enjoy living in an asylum.
In fact, she hated it.
The only thing she hated more than being in this neglectful, abusive environment, was being here, in group therapy, when she knew she was far from insane.
Or a lunatic, as they called her.
Well, she hated it unless Adelaide Brussard was present, in all of her beautiful, charismatic glory.
Her eccentric, murderous roommate.
"Have y'all heard about the brain research they did recently," Adelaide asked in her monotone voice.
All of the other patients shook their heads.
"I have," the psychotherapist, Mrs. Gertrude, said, smiling. "But please enlighten the group, Adelaide."
The teenager smirked.
"There are scientists that study the brain and recently they found that humans are wired a certain way," she said, leaning forward in her seat.
Mary Alice found herself leaning forward as well.
"Our minds are very um...malleable, they say. Which means that stuff we experience can affect the chemistry...the wiring of our brains and make us lunatics."
Adelaide placed her hand on her chin and leaned back into her chair.
Mary Alice waited with bated breath.
For, she knew, this was something Adelaide did when she was about to delve into her deepest ponderings.
"It seems as though this resonates with you," Mrs. Gertrude said thoughtfully.
The teen nodded as she caressed the fresh abrasions on her knuckles. The ones she recieved after attacking the nurses for making her take medication.
"Of all the wires...It was the wires for empathy. That we love beyond all the others," she said, tilting her head.
"It was these wires that my brain erased."
The entire therapy group stared at her silently, intently listening to her every word.
The drop of a pin could be heard.
"I wonder why those wires don't exist in people like me," she finished, staring off into space.
"People like you?"
"Psychos or socios or whatever."
Mrs. Gertrude nodded slowly, thinking.
"Your brain, like many people present today, has experienced trauma. In an effort to protect you, it eroded aspects of your personality."
Adelaide pursed her lips.
"What if I feel nothing? What if I don't feel like a victim? What if I don't view my experiences as trauma?"
"That means your brain protected you successfully."
Mary Alice chewed on her thumb, trying and failing to keep her curiosity at bay.
Adelaide had yet to tell her what she was in here for and why. Even though Alice told her everything.
"What was your brain protecting you from," she asked hesitantly.
The sound of a pin dropping could have been heard as everyone else stared at Alice in disbelief. She rarely spoke and yet she chose to ask the most volatile patient a question.
Adelaide turned to stare at her with those vacant, unblinking green eyes, but her mouth pulled into a grin.
"My daddy."
Mary Alice knew that if she were anyone else Adelaide would hurl insults or outright ignore her as if she were no one at all.
However, by some stroke of luck, they had become closer than that over the past few months.
A fact that no one else knew.
"The fat fuck liked touching little girls, especially his own kin," Adelaide said, smirking to herself.
"So, one fine day, I castrated him. Balls and all. You should've seen the look on his face. He had the gall to be shocked."
Mrs. Gertrude jolted forward.
"That is quite enough!"
"What? It's true. He bled so much that he almost died. Now, he has to live without a cock," she said, thoroughly amused.
"Should have kept it in his trousers."
"How can you speak about such a gruesome act without an ounce of remorse," Mrs. Gertrude said, lip curled in disgust. "You've shown no progress in the past two years."
Adelaide rose a brow.
"You say it's gruesome, I say it's justice. You say I lack empathy and I'm a psychopath, but my crime was committed to save my little sisters, not myself," she said, shrugging.
"It's all about perspective, Mrs. Gertrude. Perspective."
Mary Alice looked away, feeling sick to her stomach as she thought about her friend's trauma and her crime.
The other patients chattered amongst themselves in outrage.
Adelaide laughed, slapping her knee.
"Bet you wish you didn't ask, huh, Mary Alice?"
For the life of her, Adelaide could not find Mary Alice anywhere.
She'd woken up that morning to find an empty bed beside her, and she immediately imagined the worst case scenario.
The only option was to find her.
"Hey! What are you doing, patient?"
She ignored George, the annoying orderly, and continued her search.
There was only one thing on her mind.
If Mary Alice was being harmed, she needed to save her. Whether that meant maiming someone or killing them.
Either way, she would do what it took to keep her safe. She made a promise, and in here, all she had was her word.
"Adelaide, you're supposed to be in group therapy. Mrs. Gertrude will file a complaint. Do you want to go to the hole again?"
When he grabbed her arm, she erupted.
"Don't fucking touch me," Adelaide growled, shoving him away. "Where is Alice? Are they shocking her again? Do not lie to me."
George looked away.
"She'll be back this evening."
"You didn't answer my question."
He stepped back when she moved towards him with murder in her eyes.
George always thought her diagnosis was bullshit, until now. He could see the void in her eyes. The utter lack of disregard for any other being. Except Mary Alice.
Sweet Mary Alice.
He wondered how that came to be.
"Take me to Mary Alice or I'll rip out your tongue and feed it to you lightly sautéed," Adelaide whispered in his ear, as if she were offering him a sexual favor.
George had never been more afraid in his life.
Thankfully, the commotion the two stirred up caught the attention of several other orderlies.
Adelaide screamed as they tackled her.
"Mary Alice," she called, kicking at her captures. "Don't hurt her! She didn't do nothin'! I know she can see the future. She ain't crazy like the rest of these idoits!"
Adelaide flinched as the sharp sting of a needle pierced her shoulder. Even as the thick liquid coursed into her veins, she continued to fight.
"It's alright, Ada. Just relax," George said shakily. "Please calm down."
The lethargy came quickly.
The way that sleep sneaks up on the fatigued mind. The way death takes over a sickly body.
"Alice," she gasped. "It's gonna be okay, Alice. I promise. I swear..."
The orderlies, George especially, sympathized with the girl. As they all knew just as well as she, that Mary Alice was not okay.
Nor would she ever be.
Not in Mississippi State Insane Asylum.
The next day, Adelaide finally woke up from her drug indused sleep and was released from her confinement.
Immediately, she searched for Alice.
"Don't you walk away from me, Brussard."
Adelaide strode into their room without any regard for the irate orderly behind her and slammed the door.
"You have to take your medication."
Adelaide ignored him as she flopped onto her bed. She grinned at the shorter girl, happy to see that she was okay.
"How's it hangin', Alice?"
"It's not," she giggled. "And you?"
Adelaide laughed raucously.
"Much the same."
The orderly threw his hands up and trudged away. There was no use in trying to force the girl to do anything. The more he tried, the more she would push back.
As if Adelaide had just been given horrific news, her smile disappeared. One moment it was there. The next, it was gone.
Dust in the wind.
"I hate him," she whispered, staring after him.
"Didn't I tell you he asked me to go in the mop closet with him?"
Mary Alice grimaced.
"Yes and you did."
"Of course I did, Alice! George may be bothersome, but he is handsome and he's in love with me. Do you know how useful that is for us?"
Mary Alice sighed.
"Perhaps I can use him to escape," Adelaide muttered, staring at her friend.
"Would you come with me? Live with me?"
Mary Alice's jaw dropped.
"Ada, we can't escape! We would be fugitives. Once they caught us, we would be locked away in a prison," she ranted.
"Much worse than this place. I heard they beat you for the slightest mistake. They don't even take you to see a doctor."
Adelaide chuckled and moved over to sit beside her friend on the bed. She wrapped an arm around the smaller girl, feeling her breathing heavily.
"You see the future, don't you? Wouldn't you know if we were in trouble," she whispered. "You wouldn't let us be caught, would you?"
Mary Alice shivered as her breath tickled against her ear. Her heart thumped fast in her chest.
"I can, but it just happens. I can't control it. I would be useless."
The blonde clenched her jaw.
"Don't ever say that, Alice. You are not useless. What you are is my best friend, and I won't let these people turn you into a mannequin like that girl, Llewellyn Moss. I can't. I will not let them do that to you," she said, her tone stern.
Mary Alice cringed internally.
Just the mention of the girl's name made her feel sick to her stomach.
"They fried her brain with that electricity and now she can't even walk or talk or do anything! Do you want to end up like her? Because you will unless you decide to escape with me."
Her eyes welled up with tears.
Adelaide was right.
Every month the shock therapy got worse and worse. After every session, it took all of her willpower to remember details about herself, and that terrified her.
If this continued, she would end up just like poor little Llewellyn Moss.
However, the consequences of escaping and the idea that perhaps her best friend, a clinically diagnosed psychopath, would leave her once they got out scared her more than anything.
"Why do you want me to go with you," she asked, throwing up her hands. "You're a psychopath. Aren't you supposed to be selfish? Why not leave me behind?"
Adelaide shook her head slowly.
"Don't you get it? You're the only friend I've ever had. No one has ever treated me like a normal person. Not like you do," she said quietly.
"So, I don't care if I have to drag you out of here. I don't care if I have to kill every orderly in this facility. We are getting the hell out of this place. I owe you that, at least."
Mary Alice frowned.
"You don't owe me anything, Ade."
"Just come away with me, Mary Alice," Adelaide whispered.
Her smile didn't reach her eyes.
It never had.
But Mary Alice knew, with her, it wasn't for lack of trying.
"Or pretty soon, I'll just be another burning memory."
That night, Mary Alice tossed and turned in her bed. Nightmares of being shocked and thrown into a dark, barren room terrorized her. Arms and legs tied down to a bed with only the sound of distant screams to accompany her.
The feeling of her bed jostling caused her to awaken, gasping for air.
"It's just me, Alice."
Adelaide hesitantly wrapped an arm around her waist and coaxed her to lie down. She exhaled slowly, relaxing into the blonde's embrace.
"Was it the same dream?"
Mary Alice nodded as tears rolled gently down her face. She didn't want to talk about it and the blonde knew it.
"Don't worry, I'll keep you safe," Adelaide said, pausing.
"Well...as long as you promise not to wake me up again."
And Mary Alice believed her.
With all her heart.