[CONTAINS SENSITIVE CONTENT! DO NOT READ IF TRIGGERED BY DEATH, SUFFERING, BLOOD, MURDER!!!!]


I. (Written May 31, 2024, just back posting to make my profile less empty :3)
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I was ripped from my dreamless sleep to enter into a nightmare.
The mangled, desperate scream clawed its way through the grate on the front of my padded door- bouncing off the white walls, contorting its way into my mind and body, playing a twisted solo in the harmony of suffering. The high pitched scraping noise and the chilling crunches forced their way through the floorboards and walls, infiltrating cells and preying on prisoners. Time warped as nothing seemed real anymore.
The scream muffled and subsided. I shut my eyes, the sound still echoing through my mind. I was not entirely sure how long it has stopped, nor of what I could and could not hear.
I wasn’t supposed to be in here anyway- I wasn’t insane. But suddenly I felt like I belonged in this place. I felt crazy. Unhinged. Deranged. The heavy sound of silence weighed down on me as I brought myself slowly to my feet and inched my way toward my cell door. My knees, weak with fear and a cold stiffness, buckled under me- sending me plummeting back to the padded floor. I clutched my abdomen as nausea flew up through my stomach, my dinner threatening to make an appearance.
It was quiet at first; the sickening crunches and whispers; more hallucinations from the repulsive silence? Something was coming closer. A man’s fragmented cries; distorted and childlike, echoed through the asylum’s walls. A low, deliberate ripping sounded right outside my cell door. I struggled against my straightjacket to free my arms. The constricting feeling made it hard to breathe as the panic and fear flooded my body. I rolled to the side and pressed the side of my head to the soft floor to try to drown out the noise. I couldn’t tell which noises were in my head, and which were real. Make it stop!

I began to lose all concept of time and the seconds felt like hours. Slowly, I shifted my position on the floor and allowed myself to breathe. My muscles burned with cramps and stiffness, like an engine roaring to life after sitting out on a harsh winter night. Pain flared through my numb arms and legs as the blood slowly made its way around my body once again.

A cold draft danced across my face, forcing my eyes open. I was brought face to face with something that words couldn’t describe. Pure terror manipulated my body, paralysing, forcing me to choke on the scream that was never able to leave my mouth. It looked like it was once human, but judging by the state of it; maybe never had been. The head was twisted unnaturally to the side and its cheekbones were exposed by the thin, peeling flesh and deep slices across its face. The sunken eye sockets were empty and the nose was non-existent, leaving the two holes for the nostrils open, and leaking blood. Dangling by shreds of muscle and skin was the jaw, ripped from the head. Blood and flesh painted the front of the cell where the creature had broken through the door. What used to be arms were now horrible twisted messes. The limbs were broken in most places, bent and cracked in horrific ways. The joints were all bent backwards, allowing the creature to have a four-legged stance over me. Thin, patchy clumps of oily black hair sparked a memory, bringing it back from the depths of the once-forgotten.

Suddenly I was back in the ghost-quiet hallway in Deadwood jail. The limp, cadaveric figure was propped up against the wall, his long legs adventuring out into the corridor along the cold tiled floor. He twitched and strained uncontrollably like he was struggling to get away from something slowly bearing down on him. The man’s mouth mumbled something, but no words came out. I slowly edged closer- instincts screaming to run. I had heard things about this inmate... strange, terrifying things... He was at the end of a domino of horrific deaths. There had been too many to count, each one all the same. Prior to the next death in the never-ending chain; the to-be victim had changed in a certain way; lost all concepts of time and their grasp on reality… Began to see what wasn’t there; before they had wound up dead in terrible ways. Their body mutilated beyond recognition. Each person who had fallen victim to the invisible killer repeated the same words, as if passing on the curse.

Should I call a guard? The feeling nagged at me. Something wasn’t right. I tugged on the sleeves of my orange prison jumpsuit and dread hung in the air, clinging to my clothes. “Hey, are you-..“
An invisible silence cut me off; the figure stopped twitching and his head snapped rigidly to the side to look at me- gluing me to the floor with crippling fear. His oily hair framed his face. “You’ve got the wrong person! It’s not me! Don’t kill me! You’ve got the wrong person! It wasn’t me! Don’t kill me!” His screaming was detached and distorted, like it wasn’t entirely directed at me, yet there was no one else here. I was a ghost- he looked right through me.

Something changed in me that day. I called the guards and watched the writhing man get taken away; an agony possessing his body as if being teared apart inside. The look in his eyes, as they locked onto mine, had me paralysed. I felt haunted. Suddenly, I was considered unpredictable and dangerous. Dangerous enough to have me moved and locked up in this hellish clinical penitentiary. Fractured from the world where I knew I should be. How did I go from petty burglary and a 14 year sentence to what felt like a lifetime in hell.

Another cold draft ripped me back to the present. The detached jaw dangled and swayed as the creature turned its head a full 180 degrees around, and sharp dagger-like teeth protruded from the top jaw. I know that part of me knew, deep down, what was going to happen the day I found that man; I was the next one in the chain. “You’ll pay for what you did to me...” A detached, voice growled. It’s voice laden with abhorrecy. Fear squeezed its cold, ruthless hands around my throat, choking me. “I’ll kill you for what you did.” It shrieked as the creature brought its teeth slowly down towards my neck.
“Y-You’ve got the wrong person,” I wailed, trying to put space between me and this creature, “It wasn’t me! Don’t kill me!” I felt the fiery pain of the tip of the teeth pushing into my neck, blood spurting from the wound, “Don’t kill-….”