Chapter 57
Lucky
The Asylum
“Watch it!” Finn shouted as I nearly tripped. He caught my arm as he held both a camera and flashlight, the beam burning my eyes. “This place is falling apart. You need to really watch where you step.” He helped me back to my feet. “And you really should’ve worn better shoes.” My brother chuckled.
I wiped the dust and dirt from my coat and pastel dress, cleaning the many frills, lace, and bows as I shot him a look. “There’s nothing wrong with my shoes,” I snapped.
Finn shot his light to my feet, illuminating my periwinkle Mary Jane platforms. “Sure.” He smiled.
I blew a stray curl from my face and rolled my eyes.
“Can we just move on? We’ve been traipsing around this condemned place for hours.
And the only thing we’ve found is cobwebs and dust.” I pulled my coat tighter.
The deeper we’d traveled in the old asylum, the colder the air got, making my bones ache.
Of course, it didn’t help that the weather had shifted during the night.
It was only a matter of time before we’d be stuck here, snowed in. We needed to hurry.
My brother pulled out the old faded map of the building and aimed his flashlight down at it.
“I don’t understand. Everything I’ve read about this place says there’s an experimentation room around here, but I can’t make sense of this map.
It’s like someone purposefully tried to cover it up.
” He fumbled with the page, nearly dropping his equipment.
“And where are the ghosts? I swear, if this turns out to be nothing more than a prank, I’m going to lose my shit.
” My brother continued to grumble and struggle, trying to make sense of everything as I wandered around.
“Hey, don’t go too far. The last thing either of us needs is one of us getting lost down here. ”
“Yeah, yeah,” I brushed him off, pulling my own flashlight out as I carefully walked away.
Finn wasn’t wrong. Despite investigating around this dump for hours, there had been no hint of anything paranormal, which was odd.
Normally, he had a good judgement of haunted locations.
I’d never ventured into a location and not found a ghost. So, to be here, in this godforsaken place, and not sense anything was, well, strange.
I continued to walk, hearing the sound of my platforms tap along the cold, concrete floor as water dripped in the distance. The cold only grew.
“If I were a ghost trapped in the asylum, where would I be?” I asked quietly.
Nothing really stuck out to me, and I just kept walking.
“Hello? Anybody there?” I stumbled into an odd hallway as an uneasiness slowly crept up on me.
“Hello?” I stopped and listened. The silence was deafening, and I began to sense something as my light hit the doors of a room at the end of the hall.
Oh? What have we here?
I proceeded with caution, stopping just outside the door to read the faded, weathered words. “Experimentation room.” I gasped. “Finn?” I called out. “Finn!”
Distant sounds and footsteps carried for a moment until my brother finally found me.
“There you are! What did I tell you about wandering off, Lucky?” His eyes met mine as I pointed up to the words and he repeated them aloud.
“You found it!” He smiled. My brother fumbled to situate himself and his equipment as I stood there and watched.
He was so eager, so filled with excitement and adventure, and yet, I felt something else.
“Come on!” He grabbed my hand and pushed through the doors.
The heavy metal doors squeaked as we ventured inside, and I was hit with a wall of cold, painful emotions. Finn, too eager to notice, kept moving while I remained still. The feeling kept me in its grasp, washing over me until I grabbed my locket and pushed it from my mind.
What the hell was that?
“I can’t believe you found it, Lucky!” Finn moved his flashlight around the room, taking it all in. “Do you realize how infamous this room is?” he chimed, and moved about. “I can’t believe we’re here!”
As my brother continued, I slowly stepped to the center of the room, fixated on the old, antique and rusty chair. I circled it, noticing leather straps where the hands and feet of a patient would be. “What was the purpose of this room?” I asked.
Finn’s light illuminated the chair as menacing shadows cast upon the dirty floor. I realized the tile was stained in a black liquid, one I had become way too familiar with. My stomach dropped. “It was used for experimenting on patients. For medical purposes.”
My hands trembled as I reached out and touched the chair.
Immediate pain and torment gripped my soul, flooding my nerves as screams filled my ears.
Flashes of endless experiments forced onto patients played behind my eyes as I watched them beg for mercy, crying out for help.
The sensation of peeling skin, ripping flesh, acid, freezing water, electricity, and more, hit me again and again.
I felt my mouth fill with a substance and steal my air as I grabbed at my throat.
A pain pierced my left eye, and I fell forward as their screams and pain consumed me until it was too much to bear.
“Lucky!” My brother rushed to my side and held me close.
His screams were barely heard as I had fallen into a pit of cold darkness.
A place where sound and light were almost too far to reach.
“Lucky! Lucky!” My brother’s frantic voice hit me like a surge of energy as I shot forward and gasped, inhaling the cold air. “Lucky! Oh, thank goodness.”
Finn clutched me close as I looked around with tears in my eyes. “What happened?” I asked in a quivering voice.
Finn pulled back and tucked the stray curl behind my ear.
“You passed out. You touched the chair and just fell over. I was worried you hit your head, but…Lucky? Your eye.” My brother pointed to my left eye.
I touched it with my finger and realized it wasn’t tears that filled it, but a black substance. “What happened? What did you see?”
I looked back at him and tried to keep my voice from trembling.
“This room…it wasn’t used for medical purposes.
Some far more sinister things took place here.
These patients endured the most horrific torture.
Things no human should ever experience. I felt them, Finn.
” I gripped his jacket. “I felt their pain! I know what he did to them. All of them!”
“Who?” Finn questioned.
I swallowed and stared back at my brother. “The scientist.”
No, not a scientist. The Devil. The horrors he orchestrated under the guise of medicine is absolutely sickening. And I felt them. All of them.
Just then, the sound of something falling made both our heads whirl around. Finn moved the beam of his light in the direction of the noise, searching for the cause. “Wait.” I grabbed his hand. “Be careful.” My brother smiled and stepped away as he carefully dropped my hand.
I sat still on the dirty floor, waiting as I watched my brother walk around the room.
His light revealed jars of old, deteriorated organs, sealed away in brown liquid as dust consumed them on shelves.
Rows and rows of what appeared to be books and journals lined one wall, with photos and notes covered the other.
I raised my own light and struggled to my feet, stumbling over to look closer at the notes as he bent over and picked something up.
I stepped closer, unable to read the faded words and scribbles.
Time had taken them prisoner, leaving nothing but faded strokes.
The photographs were no better, pinned along torn pages and sketches of the human anatomy.
It was unsettling to see the evidence of the torture so many patients endured.
But just along the corner of a faded page, I noticed the sketch of a woman.
Only this woman had one black eye and one white.
Wait.
“Lucky.” I froze as the ghostly whisper spoke my name. I felt as though I recognized the voice, but how?
Who said that?
I spun, as my flashlight scanned the shelf behind me and fell upon something that looked out of place.
Wedged between two dusty jars was a small box.
It was antique, made out of wood, and covered in what appeared to be hand-carved flowers.
It had a good weight to it, but despite how hard I tried, it wouldn’t open.
“Locked,” I whispered. I rotated the box,studying it closely to see a name etched align the bottom.
“Ophelia Grimshaw.” The sound of it in my mouth felt oddly comforting. As though I’d said it before.
What an unusual name.
I held the box close, as it almost fit into the palm of my hand, feeling a strange pull to keep it. It was beautiful and felt out of place here in the asylum.
“Lucky.” Finn’s voice startled me. I spun around, tucking the box into my bag as I found my brother holding something.
“What is that?” I asked as I raised my light.
He squinted, holding what appeared to be an old leather-bound journal.
I lowered my light and approached him as he opened to the first page.
“It looks like an old medical journal of some kind.” He flipped through the pages as they reflected similarly to what I’d seen pinned on the opposite wall.
“It’s hard to make out much, but it looks important. ”
“Grotesque is more like it.” He nodded in agreement. A cold breeze blew into the room as notes and photos scattered about. Something was brewing in the air, and I didn’t like it. “We should leave!” I shouted through the air at my brother. “The storm must have hit while I was out!”
Finn grabbed his equipment, handing me the old journal. I took it without thought, helping my brother as we exited the room. Together, we quickly found our way from the depths of the asylum and back to the entrance. Snow had piled up against the door, preventing us from leaving.
Fin dropped his equipment and tried to push the door open, but it didn’t budge.
He groaned and strained, using all his strength, but nothing worked.
“Come on!” he shouted through gritted teeth.
“Fucking open!” I watched in fear as my brother struggled for a good minute or two before the door finally budged.
“Yes!” He motioned for me to crawl through the limited space as snow trickled in. “Go on, Lucky.”
I took his hand and wiggled through the small gap, climbing the cold mountain of snow and out into the dimming sunlight.
The wind was howling, snow smacking my face and nipping at my nose.
I nearly fell over due to the intensity of the storm.
“Finn!” I shouted back to my brother. “We need to hurry! Give me your hand!” I reached out for him, but he was too far away.
“Finn!” My brother groaned, unable to squeeze through the constrained space.
He tried to wedge the door wider, but it wouldn’t budge. “Finn!”
The wind picked up, knocking me over as I hit my head on the door. “Lucky!” He looked up at me with wide eyes, and we sat there, realizing our situation. “You need to get back to the estate!”
I shook my head. “No. No, I’m not leaving you!”
He smiled. “I’ll be okay, I promise! It’s safer here than it is out there. Get back to the estate, Lucky! As soon as I can, I’ll make my way to you! Go!”
“No. No, I'm not leaving you!” I tried to crawl over to him, but the roof above the door made a noise, and we both watched as the metal snapped, falling between us. “Finn!”
“I’m okay!” I exhaled in relief. “Get to the estate!” I stood and looked in the direction of my brother. “I’ll come find you, I promise!”
I hated this, but I knew he was right. I needed to get back to the estate. And quick.
“You better not break your promise!” I shouted.
I tucked the journal into my coat and bundled it tight as I faced the storm. The sunlight was dwindling with each passing second, and I knew if I didn’t hurry, I’d never make it back in time.
The storm just hit, which means if I hurry, I can outrun it. I can make it to the estate.
I took a deep breath and ventured out from the asylum.
You better keep your fucking promise, Finn. Or I’ll find a way to haunt your ass.