March 31, 2023
Having finished touring C-Ward, we entered the long forgotten miniature Theatre Room. We phased through a barricaded door and massive pile of torn up chairs to enter, meaning this area of the asylum was inaccessible to the living due to the massive destruction present. Half the room's upper walls and ceilings were caved in, leaving room for the moonlight to shine inside.
As we began to creep around the burnt projectors and faded chairs, I finished telling Kaylee about our last few days among the living. When I finished the story, she shot me a look suggesting she wanted to tell me and Blake something, but she held her tongue.
We sat down and let Kaylee take in the room. Far across the room was another spirit. He wore a torn up uniform, one the patients of the asylum wore back when it was in operation. As we sat for a moment, the spirit of the patient looked back at us with a faded, blank expression and drool dripping down his chin. I could tell he wasn't all there, and he hardly even acknowledged us, almost looking past us, but not at us. After only a few seconds, he returned his stare to the moon.
"Who's that?" Kaylee asked.
I answered, "We don't know. Most of the spirits here don't acknowledge or understand us at all. They just keep to themselves, lost in their minds and thoughts."
"That's depressing."
"It matches the scenery," Blake joked, shuffling in his seat next to Kaylee.
Just as Blake finished his quip, three spirits suddenly appeared in chairs in front of us. All three had distorted features, and some limbs weren't even visible at all. They all wore torn up uniforms given to the former patients of the asylum back when it was in operation. These spirits were amongst the large quantity of crazies to die in this place.
Crash!
A noise echoed in the room, but didn't at the same time. The crash came from these spirits, only it came from their timeline; kind of like if a movie had a loud crash in its audio. The crash in the movie happened, just not in reality. Such was the case in this situation.
As if on cue from the crash, the spirits wailed and began to attack each other. Biting with rotten teeth and clawing with jagged, uncut nails, these spirit fought before fading into nothing.
All three of us glared at each other. "What the--? What was that?" Kaylee shouted.
After coming out of my trance, I responded, "We see things like this sometimes. They aren't the same kinds of spirits as you, me, and Blake. We can interact with objects and continue to experience things in the world's present timeline. What you saw is what paranormal investigators call residual spirits, like memories. They show up unaware of us or anything around us and play back a memory, like a recording."
"What happened to the real versions of them, then?"
"Long dead." Blake chuckled.
"No, I mean, where did their spirits go?"
"You're asking questions we don't know the answers to," Blake responded. "It's simple; they're memories, and we aren't."
"And just what are we, really?!" Kaylee shouted, standing up. "All you guys have been doing is giving me a tour of this place, but you haven't once mentioned what we are? Why we are?"
I stood up next to her and patted her on the shoulder. "No need to get angry or anything. We ourselves don't really know. We walk around and just engage with whatever we feel like to kill time."
Kaylee sighed and wiped a tear from her eye. "Whatever. Just show me the rest of the place already."
I could tell she was having a hard time accepting everything.
As she wished, Blake and I led her out of the theatre, through the pile of chairs and barricaded door, and back into the main hallway. Passing a few other spirits along the way, we turned into B-Ward. Inside the new hallway, I stopped at a door. Unlike the rest, it was completely intact. The sign on the door read, "Room B-04."
"Why did we stop here?" Kaylee asked.
"Just watch," Blake answered.
"Hello!" I shouted at the door.
"Go away, Troy! You are not ready!" the raspy voice of an elderly woman shouted from the other side of the door.
Blake and I laughed.
"I don't get it," Kaylee said, with a shrug.
"She always says that to Troy when he tries to talk to her. We just find it funny." Blake chuckled.
"And she's one of the few spirits to actually respond to us," I added.
"Who is she?" Kaylee asked.
"We don't know. Watch." I reached out my hand and touched the door, unable to phase through it. "See? Every time Blake and I try to phase through this door, or even the walls, we can't. It's strange."
Kaylee reached out her hand and tried to go through but was also unsuccessful. "Hello!" she shouted to the old lady.
"Go away, Kaylee! You don't belong here!" she shouted back.
Her face went white for a second. She turned to me.
"How does she know my name?"
Suddenly, I got goosebumps. I hadn't noticed that either. She'd always known our names, in spite of us never telling her them. I just shrugged in response.
Kaylee knocked on the door. "What do you mean, ma'am?"
"The answer is not meant for your ears!" she shouted.
Kaylee stood there for a moment, contemplating what to do next. After a few moments, Blake grabbed her shoulder and led her on.
"Come on. Let's just leave this crazy lady to herself."
Each of us was a bit spooked and wanted to leave that experience behind us. In a short moment of silence, we proceeded down the wards, passing the fading spirits of old, malnourished patients. Most ignored us, but some shot nightmarish glares at us, begging for help through their eyes, though they were long past the time for being saved. Every time I saw those ghosts of the past, I couldn't help pitying what they went through. From the looks of them, they were in hell. Unfortunately, nothing was ever done to save those poor cast-outs from society.
Soon after we entered A-Ward, Blake jumped up with excitement.
"Hey. It's Chuck!"
He fisted the air in excitement. Hearing Blake, Chuck stopped poking the ghost he was annoying. Across his puffy, round face sprouted a joyful smile that extended from ear to ear. His overly round belly seemed to pop out even more as he stretched his bulky arms.
"Chuck. How's Project Annoy Everything going?"
"Ugh… ahits ah strouga. Ah I trya tah ahdd hym tah thah lahst, ba hay ahunt rayahten."
Chuck shrugged off his defeat. I could never make any sense of the words he spoke. Blake, on the other hand, was part of a Big Brother program back in high school. He used to help a teenager with Down Syndrome, so he was more used to slurred speech than I was.
As Blake and Chuck chatted some more, Kaylee whispered to me, "Why does he slur his words like that?"
"When he was a patient here, they cut out part of his tongue to punish him."
"For what?"
"Bothering one too many patients and employees. He always tried to turn his crappy situation into a better one. Even now, he still finds ways."
"He doesn't seem like a head-case. Why was he here?"
"He never told us. Not even Blake, who's become good friends with him over the past few days. Chuck likes to talk about pro basketball back in his days of watching, and Blake will tell him about the modern league and players. It's something both of them can enjoy in our boring lives as spirits."
"That's kind of sad."
"It's our life now." I shrugged.
"But does it have to be? I mean, there has to be a way to leave… to move on. I can't live like this forever." She sobbed.
I led her into the room next to us and sat her down, letting her sob on my shoulder. "We tried everything we could think of. Nothing came of it."
She didn't stop sobbing; if anything, the tears came harder. It lasted for a few minutes, and to be honest, I got more and more uncomfortable.
"AHHH!" a new voice screamed from behind us.
"Jesus, f--!" I nearly fell over Kaylee as she screamed her lungs out of her throat.
We panted, trying to inhale air back into our lungs as we stared at another spirit that had just appeared before us, fidgeting and sniffing the air. She was unaware of us, mumbling words.
"In the night they come, in the night they go." She repeated the phrase several more times as we caught our breath. "Down the tunnels you wander, down the tunnels, down the tunnels-- AHHHH!" she screamed again.
This time, we were prepared for it. "Tunnels? What tunnels?" Kaylee asked me.
With all the exploring Blake and I had done, we never came across any tunnels.
"She's probably just crazy."
Kaylee's eyes went big, and I looked back over my shoulder. I nearly choked on my own fear as I stared into the eyes of the residual spirit. Cross-eyed, she grinned.
"The treatment is six-six-six." Her eyes locked on mine before she faded away.
I was a stone-faced statue, staring at the now empty room. "I-I've never seen a residual spirit interact with anyone ever," I said, voicing my inner thoughts.
Kaylee jolted up. "Treatment? Do you think she was talking about medicine?"
"There's only two places in the asylum where they give out treatments: The Treatment Center and the Medical Ward."
"Troy, come on! Let's go! The spirit said treatment. It must mean the Treatment Center."
Kaylee pulled me up and tugged me toward the door, but I wouldn't budge.
"But the Treatment Center connects to part of the Employee Ward."
"And? Let's just go. What's the big deal?"
"He's there," I mumbled.
"He who? Come on." She kept tugging.
"Kaylee, stop. There's an evil spirit, a very powerful one, who lives in the Employee Ward. If... if he catches us in there, he'll eat us."
My arm fell back to my side as Kaylee let go. Her arms shook, and her hands quivered. She stared at the floor, clearly riled.
"No! We have to go! I don't give a damn if the devil himself is in that place. I cannot, cannot live like this forever! We must move on!" Her eyes had a fire behind them, and something about it lit a fire in me, too.
I gave in. "Fine. But we need to tell Blake. That way, he can act as our distraction and–"
"What?!" she interrupted.
"No, no. I was just joking. You know what? Never mind. It was a bad joke. Forget it." I half-laughed, trying to shrug off my terrible attempt at humor.
She just shook her head at me, mocking me with a smile. She then grew more serious, even sad looking.
"Troy, I need to get something off my chest."
"What is it?" I asked.
"I knew you once before, back in the land of the living."
"I thought I recognized you, but I couldn't… no, I still can't place where," I said.
"Cindy Martin. You must remember her?"
"Of course."
"I was her best friend. And I was the one who told her you were a weirdo. I made her avoid you. And now, you'll never have the chance because of me," she cried.
I embraced her again. "Hey, hey. It's no big deal. It's the past now."
"But maybe if I hadn't-- Maybe you never would have died."
"You don't know that. Please, don't put that on yourself." I chuckled in an effort to lighten the mood. "I mean, you're making me feel guilty."
Kaylee let out a wry laugh and stopped crying. I could see her brightening up. I nodded to see if she was all good. She nodded back.
And that was the start of a new journey.