Hours passed. Aspen was bored enough to take a nap on River’s shoulder, who just let him. In the meantime, the easterner tried to think about the situation, listened to Amber’s rare reports and waited.
Just once, around an hour after they had been locked up, something odd happened. Two nurses stopped near the door, conversing for a while – audibly, enough that you’d be able to listen in on their words if only you could understand their language.
River made a mental note of the time and the sleeping patient.
There was a bit of a ruckus whenever a patient was taken away for treatment and returned. Finally, when night started to break, everything became more quiet and their patient started to wake up.
River noticed him stir and gently pushed Aspen. “Wake up.”
Aspen groaned and grumbled, making various amusing noises. He shifted, blinking his tired eyes, and yawned loudly. Stretching, he groaned again.
“Stuff happening?”
“Our patient is waking up.”
“How late is it?”
“Around eight.”
The dizzy patient pulled himself into a sitting position. He shook his head to clear away the haze, then sat for several minutes motionlessly looking down at his hands.
He knocked against the wall next to his bed.
Nothing happened.
Head hung low, the patient paced up and down his room, prompting the two players sitting on the ground to quickly hide in a corner.
“What’s he doing?”
“Making a decision, probably. He got out somehow, so that means he must have broken out of his room.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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He took a deep breath and pushed it open in one swing, managing to keep it from creaking any further.
River was still watching with great interest when Aspen pulled him outside. It hurt his shoulder but he didn’t complain – the patient of course closed the door behind himself to avoid his break-out becoming too obvious, which meant he’d have been stuck inside if he had kept on observing stupidly.
Aspen shot him a toothy grin in return to his thankful nod.
“You guys are out?” There was no need to, but Amber had adjusted her voice to a whisper now that it was dark. Since there were only a small amount of windows, the hallway was uncomfortably dark.
Amber was wrapping her arms around herself and sticking to the walls, failing to hide the shivering of her body. She didn’t know if something might pop out at any second, but it sure felt like it.
“Yes.”
It was the atmosphere that made all of them whisper and sneak behind the Actor. Only soft, tense breathing was audible – in, out, in, out.
Don’t make any noise.
Don’t let anyone see you.
They were close enough to hear the small, shocked hiccup that escaped the patient when the shine of a flashlight appeared at the other end of the corridor. A security guard was making his rounds, moving silently like the shadow he was.
The patient had no time. In his panic, he hurried towards the one room that he was most familiar with other than his cell.
The treatment rooms.
There was only a single bed and chair inside the room, but it was surrounded by various different stations. There were enough things inside that the patient could hide well in one of the dark corners, cowering with his head turned towards the light shining under the gap below the door.
“What is all this?” Aspen’s voice was a breathless whisper, somewhere in the middle between tension and curiosity.
River shook his head.
Next to the bed – covered in belts like anything on this floor – were dirty trays. Scissors and used syringes, likely never once cleaned before. Scalpels and clamps, reeking cloth, needle, string.
There were other tools with uses that you’d neither know nor want to ever find out.
They were discolored from rust or blood or both, reused and not maintained properly.
Upon spotting something that was scarily similar to an icepick and a small hammer, Aspen decided to stay right next to River for warmth. He didn’t care about these being used on others, but the thought that he, who was also stuck in a facility, had to go through these was terrifying.
River used the darkness that hid his movements to check out a strange apparatus. Just judging from its parts and pieces it could be used for electro therapies, possibly.
In a corner of the room was a metal chair that was prepared to fixate a person from head to toe.
None of the things inside the room were anything even remotely humane when it came to treatment. Rather, they were closer to…
…Experiments.
“You don’t survive this.” River had his conclusion after looking at everything in the dim light. “Putting aside the treatment itself, just these tools? You won’t survive this. The hygiene in this place isn’t severely lacking, it’s non-existent.”
“But who’d come here on their own volition? Who’d let something like this be done to them?” Aspen asked the question before thinking. After getting a raised eyebrow from River, he pulled his head between his shoulders. “Okay, not done voluntarily. Makes sense.”
“If my guess is right, the people downstairs are either those with more unproblematic symptoms, rich people, or ones with loving families. The ones up here might have been discarded by their family or they never had one in the first place. This can only be done if no one is interested in checking up on them.”
“So drastic?”
As someone who hadn’t been fully left behind even with his personality, Aspen had to imagine what kind of people would be brought here.
River knew what Aspen was thinking about. “That’s how it was back then. It didn’t even have to be a mental illness like depression. It could have been that you had epilepsy, which is actually a neurological disorder, or tics from neurodevelopmental disorders. Not to mention that even homosexuality was viewed as a sickness.”
“Wow.” An exclamation of surprise slipped out from Amber. In her eyes, River – while weird – had the aura of a professor. “Are you interested in medical history?”
River shrugged. Rather than that, he just learned whatever, as long as it helped pass his time.
“The history of how treatments for mental illnesses developed is quite fascinating. It was completely non-existent for a long time. You just helped your own family, or they’d land in prison or some facility. Maybe you’d get exorcized because you were cursed. Or maybe you weren’t religious enough, or one of your ancestors committed a grave wrong.” River pointed his finger at the ceiling, to put attention back to the asylum you were in. “Humans will say everyone is equal, but then treat one like a patient and the other like a useless piece of waste. Once you are too different and have no one to protect you, you will be at the mercy of the more powerful.”
Just like how those who were left behind by their families could quietly vanish to the third floor.
…And from there, most likely, at some point to the graveyard behind the building.
It was impossible to guess how much time passed inside the darkness. Without paying attention, even River got lost in the tension and silence until the light outside vanished.
The patient inhaled deeply and slipped out again.
As someone who had been brought up here somehow, he must have roughly known the path. Even if he was blindfolded, he might remember the position, considering the hallway was only so long. He directly approached the door to the small room that led downstairs and fiddled with it. It was locked, unlike during the afternoon.
His little wires weren’t ideal, but they could be used. His breathing was labored and quick from fear, with soft whispers that could have been curses escaping him.
As the door opened, there was an audible, much too loud noise.
For half a second, the world froze.
They heard the sharp inhale of the patient, who jumped up and pushed the door open to rush downstairs.
River whipped his head around, but even before he could say a single thing, he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Go down”, Aspen shouted, rushing past him to one of the patient rooms and rattling at the door. The patient inside woke up with a startle, immediately shouting, and the guard ran around the corner.
River trusted Aspen enough to keep the guard distracted for at least a while. He pulled the stunned Amber into the room and closed the door behind them.
Thanks for the chapter ! The atmosphere is so tense…
I usually read the chapters by 2 at this point, because of the thematic. It’s quite dark and sometime makes me uncomfortable. Because it’s well done XD So I need 2 chapters to not stay focused on only 1 happening. But I still love this novel, you have real talent ! The plot is not only interesting, but you also manage to transmit the feelings and atmosphere, such that even if it makes me uncomfortable I want to continue reading !
GG is by far the darkest story I’ve ever written with its overall thematic, so I’m pleased if it comes across well xD It is an uncomfortable situation for the main characters after all
I like how he pointed out “even homosexuality”. The other didn’t react, it’s a shame X). Is Aspen made into a pet for River XD? He’s just adorable, warm up and give us firewood X3.
Just the guys had what in the brain? It’s obvious that your experiment will never succeed if you push rust into someone, that’s asking for tetanus =_=. Or maybe they wanted to observe the symptoms?… Yeah that’s stupid, even for the time.
The next chapter is going to be intense!
Thank you so much for this chapter again! See you next week~
A ton of people died in old aslyums because the hygiene was lacking. I guess they just didn’t care, as long as they were paid…
Fun fact: Neither River nor Aspen think of themselves as gay. They don’t think about their own sexuality at all!
Indeed, some do not care about the consequences. Kind of like the drop of water teacher, his reputation and money are worth more than his student’s safety and future… It’s disgusting.
Otherwise,
Ooh~ Can I expect them to think about it later then –? No I don’t want an answer to this question, I would be surprised eheh.