Prince of the Moon Chapter 3: Screaming Voices (1.7K)

The Oswald Psychiatric Hospital, or, as more commonly known, the Oswald Asylum: the most notorious mental hospital in Oregon. There were rumors about it’s corruption, about how they starved the kids and fed them the scraps from what the staff ate. The rumors also listed about nurses abusing the patients in the hospital, slowly breaking them fully into madness. Of course, there were the generic rumors about psychiatric hospitals—that they were giving the kids the wrong medicine, that they were experimenting on their brains, that they’re using the widely taboo electroshock-therapy method on them, and things like that. Most of Oregon was also suspicious that no one ever made it out of Oswald Asylum and that, generally, anyone who looked into the possible corruption or were families that begged for their children back were killed in some accident, car or otherwise. To the residents of Oregon—especially the ones that lived near the so-called “hospital”—the place meant bad news.

So of course, when word got out that the mysterious kid from Medford news was going to the Oswald Psychiatric Hospital, it was only natural that the entirety of Oregon would erupt in an uproar.

Thomas’s face was thrust with cameras and microphones from the reporters gathering around Oswald. He had no idea what to do, but was luckily saved by Dr. Dalsia, who shooed the reporters away.

“His PTSD might activate with those microphones,” Peter Dalsia explained to the reporters. “We don’t know where he was, but he seems to have PTSD with needles, which leads us to believe that someone abused him with them. They could have also used maces or their fist to his face. He also doesn’t know anything about what happened to him, so no questions. I know that you’re all dying for information, but, unfortunately, you’re going to have to do without.”

The reporters seemed to hesitate for a second. Then, simultaneously, they all but threw their equipment in Dalsia’s face. Dalsia, appreciating the attention, answered their questions as specifically as possible. Thomas was led inside by an obviously sad Kaila, who had looped her hand around his shoulders.

“Why are you sad?” Thomas asked her curiously. Kaila looked at him and gave him a sad smile and turned back around. Thomas waited for her to answer, but it never came. “Kaila Summers?”

“Just... call me Kaila, okay?” was her only reply. Her voice was weighed down with sorrow. “Call me Kaila.”

Thomas was unsure why she repeated the statement. He distantly remembered something about how, when people repeated something, they were either trying to emphasize something or make themselves understand a situation that the person was currently in. He didn’t know where he heard that, but he decided to go by it. If Thomas had learned anything, it’s that he should always listen to his inner voice.

“Why do you need to repeat it twice? What’s wrong?” he asked Kaila. “When someone repeats something, it usually means that they’re trying to understand it. Do you need to understand your name?”

“No, it’s not like that,” Kaila said, letting out a nervous laugh. “It’s nothing. You’re fine. I just have something on my mind.”

Thomas knew that Kaila was keeping something from him, but he kept his mouth shut. He knew from experience that opening his mouth in the wrong situations led to needles, or worse. Thomas rubbed his inner thigh absentmindedly, a hobby that he had picked up from Dalsia. However, instead of a prosthetic leg, he was rubbing an old scar. He glanced at a patch of rock in the courtyard and his eyes flew wide open.

“S-stop it,” his distant voice said with panic. “I-I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean to I didn’t-”

The brand attached itself to his inner thigh, cutting his sentence off with screams.

Thomas stopped suddenly, initiating Kaila’s alarm. He stayed rooted in place, replaying the memory over and over again in his head. He could feel Kaila shaking him, the newer nurse not knowing what to do. He began to shake where he stood. His eyes darted to the left. There was Toffee, holding the brand. When he darted his eyes to the right, he wasn’t outside anymore. He was back underground, in Toffee’s torture dungeon.

Toffee smiled widely and shoved the brand even further into his leg. Thomas’s leg went numb, but the fact that he could smell the burning skin made him scream even louder.

Kaila began to call for help. A few nurses ran out of the building and grabbed Thomas’s face, yelling into his ear to ‘snap out of it’ or snapped their fingers right in front of his ears. However, all of their voices felt far away as the flashback, through bits and pieces, flashed in his mind. He began to scream and cover his ears with his hands, collapsing on the ground.

“Why are you screaming, Thomas?” Toffee shouted at Thomas’s face. “No one is going to hear you!”

Thomas was shaking violently on the wet, dewy grass, his voice starting to become hoarse. But he still screamed. His brand scar burned and pain shot up through his spine.

Toffee laughed like a maniac. “Oh, I can’t wait to see Star’s face when she realizes what I’ve done to you! Oh, wait, you won’t remember her!” He shoved the brand even further inside of the muscles of his thigh.

Thomas felt sad, but he didn’t know why. Who was this Star that Toffee talked about? Why was he the only one with a normal name? Why why why why whywhywhywhy-

His flashback stopped as one of the male nurses slapped him across the face.

--

"Hey! Stop!" Storm screamed. He waved his arms in front of him as the Werewolves, as they called themselves, advanced towards him, their own arms outstretched.

"Do you really have any jurisdiction to plead like that?" one of them said. Storm racked his brain for his name. The kid must have been a new member. "From what I heard, you don't have the confidence to stand up and beg, Worm. Get on your knees and maybe we'll spare you." This caused laughter to ripple throughout the gang.

"Good job, Jeb. You're a natural," the so-called "lieutenant" laughed. Rocket, his name was. "I like that idea. On your knees, Worm's son."

Storm winced. He had been bullied for his last name for his entire life, even though he didn't choose "Wormson" to be his last name. He reluctantly got down on his knees, crying and shaking.

The kids began to kick him, bloody and violent. Some of them stomped on him as he remained a ball of tears on the hard pavement ground. Eventually, Rocket's boot came down on his temple and his vision faded to black.

Crystal cackled loudly, earning a strange look from the ten-year-old sitting next to her. That's why that kid was in the asylum? Bullying? Only bullying?

"Pathetic," she muttered under her breath. She glanced at Storm, sitting across the room and talking to his friend. She couldn't imagine that someone so tall could be so cowardly. Granted, Storm was 5’4”, which was lower than an average male height, but he was still the tallest kid in the room.

A wistful smile appeared on her face as she rested her chin on her hand, daydreaming about the so-called “bullies” (which, to her, were pathetic excuses for them. She had experienced bullies before, but thought that the ones that bullied Storm were weak compared to the other ones). If it was me, I would have beaten up those boys and retained my pride and reputation to the max. I doubt that those pathetic excuses of bullies could take me out. She pictured the scene. I would slip in between that Rocket kid's legs, whirl around, and kick him in the balls from behind, then use a knife hand to chop him in the head, then use a roundhouse on the new kid standing next to him...

She was distracted by her fantasizing by Storm glaring at her. Crystal giggled and waved, knowing full well that Storm would back down once he realized that she knew he was watching. Sure enough, he backed down, which annoyed Crystal to no end.

Crystal stood up and, though not very tall, she brought her hands up to her face like a microphone and shouted one word to him:

"Coward!"

She then giggled and sat back down and picked at her vegetables, not wanting to get stomach indigestion again by eating them. She shrugged and moved to throw them away, but one of the nurses stopped her.

"Aren't you going to eat your vegetables? If you do, you'll get better," the nurse said kindly. Her name is Winnie. “No thanks," Crystal answered sweetly, smiling at Winnie innocently.

Winnie sighed. "It's my job to make sure that you're eating. All you've eaten is meat and the occasional chocolate thing. That's not very balanced, you know." Crystal decided that she didn’t like the matter-of-fact tone that Winnie had.

"I think that it's your job to act like a robot," Crystal said coldly, changing her tone as easily as someone would switch a light. She did realize that it wasn’t balanced to the normal person, but she wasn’t any normal person. "What's in your diet? Oil and petroleum? That's not a good diet either. You need a steady supply of gasoline to keep you going too. I've never seen you eat that." She knew that she shouldn't say stuff like that to Winnie—in fact, Winnie was one of the nicer nurses, since she actually cared about the patients—but, in truth, Crystal didn't care.

She dumped the vegetables while giving a very hurt Winnie a mischievous look. She then marched back to her room with no prompting—all the while experiencing very strange looks from the nurses; it was very out of Crystal’s character—and sat down on the bed. She sat there in silence, chastising herself for going to her room so often lately. She was going to think more, but she heard something and her eyes shot open. Her ears perked up at the noise of a bunch of people and pandemonium outside; they were reporters, apologizing for sticking microphones in a kid’s face. Crystal smiled widely as chaos reigned while an ear-splitting scream split the air.

It seemed that her client was here.