Mental Asylum

“Calm down Annabelle, you’re safe. It’s all okay. We are only here to help…” Carly whispered, rubbing the girl’s cold fingers. Annabelle’s head was forced back, her eyes wide and full of terror. She was in a chair, her biceps and hands restrained. Carly had only just been able to be so close. The girl had kicked one of the guards and he hips were strapped back so she didn’t move or struggle so much. She was completely immobilized here.

The doctor had the syringe ready and was slowly coming toward Annabelle. The girls shriek was piercing, her body struggling to move but held down to the point of agony. Tears left trails down her cheeks. Why was she here? She wasn’t insane!! The doctor easily slipped the syringe beneath her skin, but it was always painful for Annabelle. She whimpered but she was soon relaxed, completely asleep from the morphine. Carly moved quickly and then Annabelle was being carried back to her room with her arms swaying limply...

Carly sighed, wondering what the hell went on in Annabelle’s head, and Annabelle had been put here not even a year ago because the courts found her mentally insane. The girl had almost wounded her sister because the voices told her too. Carly smoothed down her skirt as she went to prepare the pill bottles. Annabelle was the only patient.

~

“Carly, do you have a cigarette?” Janie asked, lifting her lighter which was also empty. She adjusted the white apron over her nursing dress, looking at Carly hopefully. Carly lifted a full lighter and handed Janie the cigarette, lifting the lighter and careful not to put the flame too high. “You owe me a cigarette and a shift. Annabelle almost kicked me in the face!” She said, winkling her lip but still careful not to ruin her carefully applied lipstick.

“Oh, like that one time she bit me? Are the voices getting worse, you think?” Janie asked, watching her friend with a smile. “I don’t know and I also don’t know why they didn’t go along with the electroshock therapy.” She said, blowing a kiss to her friend as she walked out the door. Janie sighed, going inside and immediately turning down a corridor, making her way toward the therapy wing. She grabbed her chart, looking down at the task for the hour and then going toward room 29A, one of the many rooms used with electroshock therapy. She set up the chair in the middle of the room, taking the sterilized equipment from its set place and putting the tray down where it was meant to be. She hummed quietly to herself as she pulled out the machine and rolled it towards the chair. Janie continued to hum quietly as she exited the room in search of her patient. She had a young, frail widow, who was currently strapped to her bed. Janie sang quietly as she rolled the bed into the hallway and into the room. The woman caught sight of the machine, though, and began to scream, frantically pulling against the leather straps holding her to the bed. Janie quickly backed out of the room, calling over a doctor who looked at the room in irritation before waving over a guard. The big brute waltzed into the room, yanking out a big….stick? A nightstick? Janie couldn’t remember the name and she was struck cold as the guard brought the object down on the woman’s knee. Janie flinched as the sound of the bone caving in echoed through the room, then turned and bolted to the woman’s restroom, disappearing in a stale with barely enough time to violently up turn her stomachs contents into the toilet. She retched, gripping the bars on the walls of the stall and then continuing to dry heave for what seemed like forever. She never got over what the guards did to the patients when ordered too. These people deserved the electroshock but not abuse. They were confined to beds, comas, therapy but break their bones was such unnecessary cruelty. Why? Why was it like this?

Why was she asking?

There was nothing she could do except go back and continuing with the therapy. She went to the sink first, drinking from the faucet and swishing it in her mouth before spitting it into the sink. She stood, steeling herself as she stared in the mirror, needing to be normal again, be humane and fine again. She had never seen beating work on patients, not one in all the time she had worked here. She walked out and back into the room, her eyes immediately landing on the woman’s knee which was now facing the wrong way. She was so disgusted she almost had to leave again but then the doctor came in and shut the door behind him. She had to stay and follow through with the therapy. Janie took out a syringe, measuring the required amount of muscle relaxer before injecting it into the woman’s arm. Janie then picked up the two pieces and pressed them to the woman’s temples. Right on time she watched the doctor reach out and correctly adjust the dials before charging it up and pressing the button. The woman jolted beneath the electricity before slowly relaxing again. Janie would have to continue this until the doctor deemed that it was enough for the day. It was the woman’s 2nd round of this therapy and Janie sighed, feeling this would last much longer…

~

Annabelle looked over sleepily and tried to move her arms but they were immobilized and she was in such a cushiony room. She didn’t like the feel, because she couldn’t see a door or a window and nothing but this room and she looked down with wild eyes, pulling her arms but they were caught in a jacket. She started to scream, hitting a wall that was too soft so she couldn’t bash her head in. She whipped her body side to side, trying to flail, frantic and trapped. She wasn’t quite sure why she was here…maybe she had gone insane.
Why was she laughing, being yanked up and slammed into the concrete ground where a rough gasp escaped which was soon followed by a growl. The man was moving his mouth as if to speak but she didn’t understand what he was saying, she couldn’t even really hear him. Annabelle’s eyes narrowed as she went to kick his legs and she did.

A sickening crack through her calf and then a shrill, mind-shattering scream of agony ripped from her lips and into the air to make the guards and everyone within hearing range flinch. Annabelle struggled in their arms, the restraints holding her back from ripping them to shreds. She wanted her hands soaked in their blood.
Annabelle was pulled back to her sense, the voices bombarding her mind with awful screams an whispers, urging her to rip out their throats. Annabelle kicked, fighting the threats in her head because they wouldn’t bury her alive, this was her body. She was thrown into a hard, metal chair and everything was frantically tied down and secured. Her eyes caught the needle that would force her to sleep and she struggled again. Why was she here when it was the voices fault!? The people said they’d make them go away! Did they lie to her? Of course they did! Her own mother had as well! She said she’d help her, not make her hurt. She heard screaming, her own probably, and also strings of curse words coming from herself. Then –