Warning: This work has been rated 16+.
The Great Escape
My plan to escape from the asylum wasn’t supposed to be as complicated as it was turning out to be:
Put pillows under the blanket to make it look like I was sleeping: check!
Hide in the washroom until the lights go out, and then slip into the sewers through the hole I made in the floor: Not Check!
Something’s terribly wrong. The lights should have been turned off ages ago but for some reason weren’t.
Did my captors figure out I’m trying to escape?
A horrible feeling is starting to creep over me as the possibly sets in. It’s the same feeling I got when my mom caught me stark naked in my bedroom on top of the girl who lives up the street. I knew I was about to get a good hiding, which I did. What was I thinking daring to escape? I’m definitely going to get caught and receive a hiding, but instead of my mom smacking my bum with a wooden spoon; it’s going to be a bunch of security guards breaking my bones with batons.
I can't see a thing from my hide-out between the washing machine and the wall. I can’t hear a thing either. No footsteps no voices, nothing! It’s too quiet. I’m going to have to take a peep to see what’s going on. I slowly pop my head out for a quick inspection but see no one in the washroom or in the hallway outside. I’m still pretty much alone. It seems like a good time to move the washing machine away from the hole in the floor and slip away quietly (It's how I hid the hole from others). But I am not convinced. I ponder over the decision but it’s hard to think when your tummy is growling like a hungry lion and your brain is functioning at a snail’s pace. Maybe I should postpone this. Today doesn’t feel right. Something’s up. After rolling the thought over in my head for a while longer I decide to return to my room. I'm going to act normal, like nothing happened, and try this some other time. I just need to find a way to overcome the paralyzing fear that’s got my feet glued to the spot.
“Oh no!” I blurt out just then a little louder than I had expected. So I slap my mouth and listen quietly for boots rushing towards me. Nothing but silence. I need to be more careful. I had just remembered that the door to my cell is already closed. Returning to it is impossible. In any case, it would have taken a miracle for me to bypass any detection on my way back. Someone would have seen me; if not a guard a nurse, and I certainly would have had my brains zapped with the electric shock machine. It was the punishment for just about everything in here. Talk out of turn when being addressed by any staff, you’re getting a zapping, backtalk to them, you get zapped extra thoroughly, not sleeping on time, it’s a zapping for you too. On second thought I will just stay put.
They called it Martin’s Peak. I had no idea how long I’ve been here. Could have been weeks even months. It was hard to know because they took away my watch and threw me in a windowless cell so that I wouldn’t be able to keep track of time.
On the day they hauled me into Martin’s Peak like a dirty dog from the street they told me to forget about life outside its walls.
“There’s no getting out of here. You’re stuck here mister.” A burly nurse with a mean stare told me as two of her henchmen dragged me in, kicking and screaming. It was hard to disagree with her as I looked around and noticed the guards at every corner, the barred windows high up on the walls, and the steel doors that were controlled by intercom. I was so terrified of the possibility of never savoring another bite of pizza (my favorite dish), of never seeing the sun in the clear blue sky or even my little sister’s annoying face that I began to bawl at the top of my lungs. Usually, I would be too ashamed to cry publicly but at that moment I was too depressed to care about what others would say or think.
Phew! It’s starting to get really cold in here. I look at my goose-bump covered arms in the little light entering my hideout. They are shaking like leafs. Funny how I never noticed how cold the washing room was before. I guess I didn’t notice before because I was too busy working like a slave. Doing the laundry let alone the laundry of a hundred people would have freaked me out in the past, but when all you did all day, all week, all month was stare at a blank white wall, it didn’t seem like punishment at all.
End of chapter
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139,603 Literary Works • 672,615 Reviews
Hey there Roundsquare. I found your story floating in the wrf forum. It's just lizzy dropping by real quick, so without a further ado, let the reviewing begin.
A lot of your content has been pretty well picked through but there's a few things that I'd like to talk about. One, all I saw when I pulled up this piece was walls and walls of text with nothing else to go in between. There's absolutely no dialogue (which I sort of understand concerning the situation but bear with me), not even in the form of the main character talking to themselves. I noticed one small place where you marked a thought but I was thinking since this is like a master escape going on, there'd be more things on the table.
And then I read on further and found things that sounded like the character talking to them self but it wasn't marked that way so it confused me. The whole story really confuses me because it's just a bit too info dumpy for my tastes. You start to mention that there's this whole big escape process going on, then the character goes back to yet another recollection of how bad life was. That's all they seem to be thinking about, rather than how to make it out alive. Perhaps this idea of the escape thought process is just something I'm drawing from movies but the first concern of the character doesn't seem like it should be 'omg they drugged me so often'.
So the flashback to the last night the character sort of remembers is nice as like a movement to edge them along. Also leaves the reader puzzling about what you're going to say next which actually leaves a good taste in my mouth. The last line is a bit plain, not really that much of a cliff hanger so take that into account.
That's really all I've got for now. If you have any questions about this review, feel free to drop me a line.
Have a nice day.
~Lady Lizz
Lieutenant Knight of the Green Room
I'm hooked.
I want to know if he is really crazy. I want to know what he knows, or thinks he knows.
And I don't care if he is crazy or not, I want him to get out!!!!
I absolutely love this title. "Cracked", period. Nice...
Right now, I really, really hate you for that last cliffhanger.
Only one thing, though. I don't know if you ever got to visit an asylum. I did. Admittedly, it was back home in France and asylums might be much scarier in the States but it's not that bad. Mental hospitals aren't really like prisons. You generally have multiple wards meant to host patients of different dangerosity and madness. A lot of people don't have to be watched at all because they come in out of their own will - sometimes, because they are battling depression and, at other times, because they have a hard time kicking an addiction.
As for putting together a regimen designed to drive a sane man to madness...I can't really imagine it. In France, we have doctor and nurses ratios per patient. Even if part of the medical personnel went bad, they couldn't mistreat the patients for very long before there was a whistleblower or a hierarchical sanction.
But listen, you write horror and I get it, you need a 'scary' asylum. I just hope that you get to a plausible explanation in the later chapters.
All of luck to you.
Thought I would leave a review on this quite long. I don't know if it is a story or a chapter or anything so you might want to clarify that.
You said either but their is no second option. Also what is quoted could be a sentence by itself that way you can add another option. Adding another option to this sentence would make it way to long.
Wow it is so captivating and mysterious so far.
It is not a rule but very good idea to use italics when you show the man's thoughts. Maybe not when you are explaining stuff but definetly in the situation.
I really didn't see many problems with anything other than what is above and also I LOVED this. I am guessing it is a chapter or a Prologue. If so then I can't wait to read the next chapter. Keep up the amazing work. -Elikia
Wow, I've only read down about halfway through but this is insanely good. I do have one problem with it though: is this the first chapter or prologue or what?
haha, reading this I get the sense that we share the same kind of humor (and from what I gather that must be a rarer type to be imbued with).
" I'd expected there to be more air down here but I was wrong, I was also expecting it to be a little more spacious, on that count too I was wrong." - This is definitely a run on. I would make a full period stop after wrong. And then I would put a colon or a dash after spacious. Fix it however you like, but at any rate this has been the only line that wasn't smooth to this point in my viewing.
"My body was being compressed from everywhere, I felt like I was crawling through a rabbit hole which only got tighter the further in I got." - Haha sounds like claustrophobia, but maybe it is literally happening. It's so dark down there I feeel blind too. This sentence is a run on as well. You know what to do
buoyed by memories of her pretty smile, " - You're gonna use buoyed, but then you're gonna leave that smile at just... pretty? You Can do better than that and anyone reading this can tell!!
"both agreed it would be foolish to expose ourselves so publicly but our minds and bodies " - put a comma before your but.
"It was the nastiest thing I had ever tasted, not even the rotten shit they fed us in the asylum came close. I spat out the very last tang of sewage and wiped my tongue with the sleeves of my shirt." - Sentence one is a run-on. Both are freaking incredible descriptions of taste and texture. The two sentences following these are also run-ons.
I possessed dangerous knowledge, the sort of knowledge that made the rich and powerful shake in their boots." - I wonder what kind of knowledge this will be!
I just escaped from the asylum. I had to for the sake of my sanity, and for the sake of my sweet revenge." - This is a great Opening LIne. However by the time I get to the end of your chapter, I find myself subtly disappointed. Because he's not out yet: he's in their bowels!
Hey, this is a really great idea, and I have to say not at all cliche. I love the voice you're able to inject into this. Make this guy get out safely. At least to get a taste of freedom and not pooped on anymore or recaptured too soon!