Did they think, even for a moment, they could escape? The horrors that haunt them here are no different than those that follow them out there. On the outside. Its all in their heads. The flames, the screams, the pretty little voices that tell them to do very bad things on impulse, and they listen to their own personal hell, thinking it’s contained within the stone walls. They think that if they could get away, it would stop.

I get up, signaling for the guards and doctor to follow. We begin to take the long walk down the length of the corridor. Moans echo from several cells. The sound of singing in drifts out of another. They I pass, I will be back for them some other day. But right now is what commands my attention. A child. No more that fifteen years, is huddled in a corner flinching away from the light. Filthy rags barely cover scars that riddle his bone white flesh: the result of insane fits. His eyes are lolling in his skull; the voices must be driving him crazy. I laugh at my own joke. He trembles and jerks sporadically, whispering frantically in a language I do not speak. I open the cell door, solid steel. He does not see us. He is somewhere else. Slowly I walk up to him, holding the straitjacket like a blanket. His breathing intensifies to a horrible rasping panic. He is an animal. Then I choose my moment, I pounce, tackling the poor boy. He writhes and screams, shards of breaking glass, causing the other “patients” to fall silent. The horrid animal sound of his struggle is all that echoes through the stone and steel skeleton of the asylum. In the end, it takes four guards a distressed doctor, and two shots of morphine to control him.

He rises from the foggy drug induced stupor as we near the green door. Eye's bulging, he begins to kick and scream, he pushes away from that door, clawing at us. But they cannot escape. They never do. Because it’s all in their heads. We manage to shove him – still screaming hoarsely- into the doorway. I step away now. My job is done. But he clutches to the front of my white lab coat, ripping and holding fast.My pristine plastic name tag falls to the floor. MR. BLAITHE it reads. The guards brace beefy hands against his skeletal shoulders. Spittle laces his lips, dribbling down his chin. Maybe I imagined it, but his hungry eyes focus on mine for a split second, and a deep hatred pours out, red and seething. I feel myself tremble as a cold hand clutches my insides. But soon that split second is over, and he is roughly dragged in, silent, save for the screeching of overgrown nails on steel. The sound makes my skin crawl with ants. The door slams shut: a resounding boom. I hear the bars put back in place behind it. I shake myself to rid the feeling of familiarity in his eyes. To further calm my nerves, I pick up the clip board hanging next to the green door to read over the “patient’s” information. The words TERMINAL: ELEC. CHAIR scream form the page, in bloody red ink. My hands shake. I breathe deeply. calm. calm. Eyes move on to the name. I feel the blood drain from my face. My gut wrenches. Sweat pools on my hands and lips,drips slither down my back. I raise my head in horror to the green door before me. The clipboard clatters to the floor. The name DANIEL BLAITHE stares blankly at the ceiling; my own raspy breath fills the hallway. What had I done? I have to get away… I have to get out…. I need to escape… out of these walls...where the newfound voices cannot catch me.