Young Writers Society

PROLOGUE

I didn’t know what I was expecting upon my arrival here.

Well, alright, maybe I kind of did. When people think of a madhouse, they think of crazy people running around with knives to stab their friends because they were bored. Or maybe that was just me. I honestly didn’t really know.

“Kaya Dewinter?” the plump lady with the deep red lipstick called in a voice that was way too cheerful than what she was paid for.

I looked at the lady and realized I was biting my nails, a bad habit I’ve been developing whenever I got bored.

She mistook my boredom as nervousness, chuckling mildly to herself. “Oh, sweetie, it’s perfectly okay to be nervous,” she said.

Even though I wasn’t really nervous, I didn’t say anything to her.

“Follow me, sweetie pie. I’ll show you where to go.” She headed out to the heavily secured metal door after door until, finally, we were walking down long, white corridors that contrasted greatly from the colorful waiting longue I was previously in.

The lights were blinking. The walls were a pale shade of ghostly white. Our footsteps echoed down the hallway: thump, thump, thump.

I squinted to see that there were three other people waiting for me at the end of the dim, worn-out hallway that connected the colorful lounge to this papery, fading place. When we walked close enough to see them, I saw that one was a slightly older, taller, bulkier guy, and the other two were a boy and girl that looked around my age.

The three of them wore plain white gowns, and standing next to the red-lipsticked lady who wore a bright red parka and mismatching blue bottoms, I already felt out of place here.

The lady whirled towards me and offered a crinkly, worn-out smile. “Deary, Andre here is the oldest one in the kids’ ward and volunteered to help all new people like you, so he will guide you from here on out, mm’kay?”

She didn’t even wait for my answer as she trotted back down the hallway. I could almost hear her hurried footsteps’ secret message: “Get me out of here; this place is crazy!”

Andre, the taller and bulkier one of the three people in front of me, looked at me intently. I stared at him back, almost challenging him to challenge me.

“Hey, new kid,” he finally said, breaking off the silence. As he said this, I tried to look deep into his gray eyes but failed as I realized that they were as hard and blocking as cement, a skill he must have developed after many years of being in this place. “I don’t know what you did—killed someone or beat the living daylights out of ‘em—but it’s all the same in this madhouse. We all did that and that’s why we’re here, so you don't want to make one of us pissed unless you wanna die.” He frowned as the word die hung sourly in the air, creating a blanket of tension around the room. “But hey," he said slowly, nudging my arm with his elbow. "Welcome to Dementis Asylum."

- END OF PROLOGUE -

----------------------------------------------

My name is Kaya Dewinter, but people used to frequently call me Kay. I’m fifteen years old, and I now officially reside in Dementis Asylum. Every day, breakfast is served between 7:00-9:00am, lunch at 11:00-1:00pm, and dinner at 5:30-7:30pm. I take my medication everyday at precisely 10:30 in the morning by a burly doctor whose name tag says FRANCO ALFREDI. I wear the same white gown every patient is wearing, sleep in a white room exactly like every patient sleeps in, and am considered insane just like every patient residing in this building. The officials along with my parents signed the lease form to send me here just like everyone else in the kids’ ward. I have no friends here, no familiar territory.

But boy, do I get a lot of space.

Dementis is huge. Although the long corridors were bland and boring and white and smelled like sterile things and doctor offices, I would do cartwheel after cartwheel down the hallway nonstop until my hands started to show signs of blisters. I would sprint down the hall, jog back to starting position, and then sprint again.

Then, when I got bored of doing that, I would explore the building and scour around looking for unique marks of territory. I usually find little things like secret notes between the kids’ and adult ward in the trash can, or sometimes hidden messages saying “this place stinks” or “I hate this place” written or engraved on the bathroom walls.

I’ve only seen a few rarities such as an abandoned closet at the end of the girls’ hall that used to be a room. It was the only room in the wall that didn’t have bright, shiny white walls. Maybe it did once upon a time, but after years of neglect, it became yellow, papery, and had angry inscribed words all around. I didn’t bother reading it all since it only had five repeating words: “LEAVE ME ALONE AND DIE. LEAVE ME ALONE AND DIE.” There was also another interesting artifact on the staircase leading between the kids’ and adult ward. Someone engraved many cross hatches on the wall, and after there were too many to count, it read, “WHEN AM I NEXT?” in grainy, rushed marks.

This was my schedule for the last two days: sprinting, jogging, doing cartwheels, and exploring—and I liked it that way. I sit far away from everyone else when eating, and I try my best not to be seen. I was never much of a social person to begin with, and now that I’m stuck with a bunch of people who are considered crazy in the head, I would very much rather be alone.

So as I fumbled my way to breakfast one lazy morning, I was caught off guard when the girl who was with Andre when he welcomed me sat down on the chair next to me. “Hi, Kaya!” she said way too cheerfully. “How’s it going? You’re not going to run away like last time, right?”

I played with the mush that they considered food on my plate. “Splendid,” I said in the blandest and blankest tone I could muster, ignoring her last statement.

“That’s good to hear.” She pushed back her fluffy platinum blonde hair back and showed off her biggest and fakest pearly smile then, and I couldn’t tell whether she understood my sarcastic statement or not. “My name is Claire, in case you don’t remember.”

Which I didn’t.

“Kaya,” I said back after a long pause. “But you already know that.”

I did not look at her when I said that, but instead stared down into my grubby food while speaking in the most monotone voice I could assemble. Claire forced another smile on her face, but when she realized that I didn’t want to talk, she stopped attempting to play nice and silently ate herself.

I was fine with that; I didn’t want to talk to her or anybody else in this building. This was, after all, a madhouse, and even if I am considered mad in society, I did not want to associate with crazy people.

For a few minutes, there was silence between the two of us. Around the room were light chattering, the sound of forks scraping the plate, the smell of overcooked potatoes and raw carrots, the occasional howl of a laughter after someone told a disturbing joke. Claire and I sat at the end of a long table by ourselves, and she kept on looking back at what must be a group of friends a couple tables back.

I waited for her to get up and move. She didn’t.

“Hi,” a boy said while sitting next to Claire and me as if we were already the best of friends. “Did I miss anything?” He offered a light and nervous smile that I wanted to smugly wipe out of his face.

“Hey, Marcel,” Claire replied back with obvious relief that he came and saved her from any more boredom and awkwardness. “I was just talking to Kaya.”

I looked up at the two of them when they were waiting for me to say something, but I only crinkled my lips as a greeting, not giving them anything more.

“Well…,” the boy, Marcel, said, “she looks happy to see me again.”

I wanted to throw my food at him.

Claire lightly smiled and finally spilled the bottled up conversation that she concealed inside of her. “So, Marcel, what’s new with you? Dmitri woke me up today, and I’m just feeling really icky…”

I tuned her out, trying to think instead. This girl and boy, they were with Andre when I first came in here two days ago. Yes. Yes, I remember now. “Claire and Marcel will help you get settled,” Andre said to me before he left. “If you have any questions, ask them. They’ll tell you everything.” And so they showed me to my room, but after that, I broke away from them. I remember Claire being awfully clingy, and I didn’t like that, so I just fled to explore the place.

I’m sure they saw me at previous breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, but they haven’t made any moves until recently. A little weird, especially for a way too bubbly person like Claire, but I shouldn’t ever be surprised in a place made for the insane.

“I’m sure Dmitri would like Kaya,” Claire suddenly said, bringing me back to reality. “Everyone likes him.”

“Not everyone…,” Marcel murmured, but Claire gave him a daggering glare. “I mean,” he started to correct himself, “he’s just popular here, that’s all.”

“Look, here he comes right now.”

I looked down at my almost empty plate again, waiting for the person to sit down nearby.

“Dmitri, you look lovely today!” Claire piped up. “Did you eat? Oh, no, don’t say that. I know the food isn’t terribly good, but you need energy.”

What?

“Yes, I agree that their breakfast food is better than the dinner food, but what can we do about it?”

But…no one sat next to her.

“Sneak food? Oh, no, you know how that went before.”

There was nothing there. Who was she talking to?

“I don’t know, Dmitri. It’s not a wise idea.”

Was she that mad?

“I know, I know, we talk about it a lot.”

There was nothing there!

“Yes, I remember when Andre said—“

“Claire,” I finally sputtered out in disbelief. “Who are you talking to?”

She looked at me in wide eyes full of warning. “I’m…I’m talking to Dmitri, of course!” She motioned to her side. “He’s right there, don’t you see?”

But all that was next to her was air. A blank space. A nonexistent thing. Nothingness.