Luna approached slowly and quietly before stopping beside me and releasing a small puff of air from her lungs. I turned my head slightly to the right to see her; she had a grimace on her face as she stared up towards the dark, navy blue sky. "So, we're really going to see him; you promise me this isn't a joke?" She asked with a soft, gentle yet intimidating tone, "I promise, we'll see Chris and the asylum" I replied, "Now come on it is getting dark, we should go now". Luna replied with a light nod of her head and we turned to the left and began our decent towards the forest at the bottom the hill, where the asylum laid waiting for us.
A few minutes of trudging through dark, damp, empty streets later and we had arrived in the street where Luna and I had first encountered one another; shattered glass still littered the street everywhere as the street lamps stabbed the shadows surrounding with the beautiful display of light that the collage of broking bottles and smashed dreams emitted. To my left near a dark alley, that I was all too familiar with was a clearing in the glassy marsh; it was the outline created by Luna and me from when she 'introduced' herself to me; to be fair the outline made it look as if she had mounted me and we had… "No! You can't allow yourself to think like that" I thought to myself. But there was no denying it now, Luna was an attractive girl and I had feelings for her, but she lacked interest in me. In Luna's eyes I was a non-sexual, non-emotional entity: like a lamp shade, or a school sweater.
I slowly approached the small patch of asphalt where the outline lay; memories of my first encounter with Luna flowed through my mind. "An intriguing first encounter, wasn't it?" I whispered quietly as I began to chuckle. My chuckling died down and I fell silent as I realised Luna was glaring at me, she had heard me. She sighed and walked towards me, stopping to my right, "Yeah, it really was." She retorted.
I turned swiftly to the right and jogged past Luna, stopping a few meters away before turning my head and calling for her, "Alright come on, we don't have all evening". Luna jogged to catch up with me before matching my pace and following my path, descending closer and closer to the forest, "It's not far now" I told her, as we approached a wall of greens and browns. "The forest…" Luna mumbled under her breath, "First time being here?" I asked her, she replied with a brief nod. "All right then, let's go." I said as I pushed my way through the low hanging branches and into the forest ahead of me.
Luna followed closely behind me for a majority of the journey, stopping occasionally to avoid a recoiling branch or to inspect a strange plant or insect. "It's strange in here" she said, "reminds me of a documentary but it isn't quite as beautiful, it doesn't have the same lighting or anything." She continued. I stopped briefly and turned to her, inspecting her body from top to bottom, "what are you doing?" she asked as she noticed my eye's movements. I remained silent and took a step closer to her before swiping a large spider off of her shoulder. "What the…" she retorted in shock before releasing a gasp upon seeing the size of the insect, "Oh God, was that on me?" She asked, seemingly frightened, "Yes, it was" I replied. She looked at me for a while, in awe before saying, "That's so fucking hard-core". I chuckled lightly and continued walking towards the asylum, "Yeah, I guess so" I replied.
A few minutes later and we had arrived at a large, seemingly familiar wall, but there were some differences in its apparel to the one I could remember: However, the biggest change was the rose, it had withered drastically since the last time I had saw it. "Wow, that rose is pretty screwed… What's it doing all the way out here?" Luna asked as it came into her view, "I'm not sure, but last time I was here it was in full bloom, unscathed by the rest of the crumbling asylum" I replied, a tone of distaste in my voice. "Come on" I ordered, a tone of aggression hinting in my voice, I was angry and I couldn't tell why… Was it the flower? Or was it my relationship with Luna? No, it couldn't be either of them, or could it be both… I soon bypassed the thought and followed the wall in the direction of the gate, Luna following me closely and cautiously.
As we approached the gates I heard the speaker again, but this time it made no attempts to welcome me or communicate; in fact it didn't even try to make sense, it was simply a variety of sounds, mainly white noise but amongst it all I managed to make it a few low-pitched shrieks, like the sound of a man being tortured brutally. After passing the speaker box I noticed that the gates were wide open, and there were three sets of large tire tracks entering the court-yard, I gasped in shock and slammed myself and Luna up against the wall, trying to stay out of view, I edged around the corner and peeked into the courtyard, but to my surprise the courtyard was empty.
I turned to Luna and apologized to Luna for acting so quickly, she nodded and accepted my apology, "It's alright, and I understand you are worried" she said. I nodded in acknowledgment and walked into the courtyard and made my way to the fountain in the centre; finally, something that seemed normal, by the asylum's standards. The black liquid was still flowing and the eyeball still bobbed about in it, "That's so bad-ass!" Luna called out from behind me, "yeah it is, but you need to be quite, we're not alone here" I replied.
Luna acknowledged my request by holding her finger to her lips and saying, "shhhh". I shook my head mockingly and smirked at her before walking on towards the front entrance.
"Oh God…" I whispered to myself as I saw the entrance, I fell to my knees and stared blankly up at the front of the asylum: Shattered glass littered the ground around the front of the building and scorch marks were visible on the wooden door and window frames, it was a disastrous site that could only be caused by one thing, arson.