He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
~Friedrich Nietzsche
Auxilium Despravi

“Is this serenity?” I thought to myself. “Just sitting here day after day with that incessant tapping noise; the immortal drumming of fingers on the walls” I looked around the room, not very cozy, but with one mattress, a chair, and table all embedded in the floor, what else could you expect from an asylum? No, sorry what was it they called it: “Mental Help Facility.” Hah! Like I need that. The drumming continues, driving me to a point of anger. Why can’t I stop? Why is it so repetitive? My fingers are sore now, they always hurt when I sit still for long periods of time.

Then a noise, a tap, not of my creation entered the void of my room. My blood began to boil: No one changes my pattern!

“Do you wanna’ die?”

Another rap abused the organized placidity of my personal expanse, infuriating me beyond comprehension.

“Who dares deny me peace!?” I yelled aloud.

Jumping to my feet, I marched towards the door at an uneven pace. Just realizing I’d been unconscious for several days, I put up with the slamming for a moment while I leaned on the door to regain the strength in my body. Looking through the doors’ single translucent window I could see two figures. one was throwing himself into the door repeatedly in a stagnant manner, looking closer I noticed he was already beaten, bloodied, and bruised, partially from his escapades to come into my room and from the steel studs on the outer shell of the external side of the door. The other stood off a bit and watched the idiot go brain dead against the steel door that he would never get open from there. slowly I reached for the door handle, twisted it ever so gently and, when I heard the click, ripped it open and grabbed the front of John Doe’s shirt. I yanked him inside slamming him effortlessly into the wall across from me and slipped out the door and closed it as far as I could, jamming my foot between the frame and the door.

Glancing over at the haggard figure I saw before, this time taking notice of his deep brown hair and aquamarine eyes, with his medium length hair and trimmed beard he had the look of a strange sci-fi serial killer lumberjack.

“Hey, you!”

The scruffy man stood there for several moments before I grew tired of his silence, while the man in the room ran at the door before I shoved on it and slammed it into him before bringing it back to a stop.

“Hello?”

He dazedly looked at me and said, “What is it that you ask of us?”

Whistling slowly, I gave this stranger a wide-eyed look. “Hmm, I see why you’re in here.”

“For what reason did you request our attention?” he responded.
“We should take care of-”
I was cut off by the noise of the man inside the cell singing Justin Bieber at the top of his lungs.

“I agree,” He said his face slowly contorting, then he slammed me back and ran past me into the doorway, and grabbed the trapped man by his throat. squeezing tight to cut off his air, he slammed against the table. With a quick movement of his other arm, he grabbed the man’s jaw and popped it out of the socket. The man tried very hard to scream, but the assaulter’s right hand was closing around his jugular. He then placed one foot onto the choking one’s chest, holding him down, grabbed his lower jaw, and ripped it clean from his mouth. Blood began spurting and streaming from his mouth and I could hear him crying aloud, begging to be left alone.

“That’s what you get!” He screamed at him wildly, “When you do what is forbidden!”
I watched as the clearly wrong man ripped the trachea from the injured man, watching as the blood flowed from the wound and across his hand I was utterly speechless and my mouth felt like the man on the floors. he then shoved it through his jawless mouth, forcing the limp tongue down his esophagus on the way down. I focused on the angry kneeling man who was now staring knives into the cold, dead corpse, then he wheeled around and looked at me.

“You were saying?” he said calmly.

“So, you’re now joining m- well our team to get out of here,”

“We will accept your offer,” He finally told me, “We are Seth, and we expect a great success from our alliance”

That thought rang in my ears: “We?” Oh, what have I done? Then I looked him in the eyes “Okay then, I am Justin” I said holding my hands up as if to show that I meant him no harm when I was interrupted, the intercom on the wall made a loud beeping noise drawing our attention, and a light voice spoke, “Um, you gentlemen wouldn’t happen to be capable of self-thought would you?”

I looked around before turning back to the device, “Well, I certainly hope so.”

She spoke again, “Okay, well, I seem to be trapped in this room. If you were to get me out of here, I would be most grateful. I might even be able to help you escape.”

Just then the obnoxious squeal erupted from the prisoner still trapped in the cell. popping my neck, the sound reminded me of my Marine days back when I was strong mentally, the sound of the scream reminded me of the cracking and tearing of a heilo and the tank beside my squad collided and the explosion decimating all of them, even my brother Steven, I still remember him throwing his body in front of me and taking a flying propeller blade straight through his chest, dying within seconds uttering only the words “She took my heart man” laughing as his eyes glazed over and he stopped all movement. I turned on my heels and motioned to the others for one minute and waltzed into the room, Patient A as I called him was in a corner, covered in blood, and howling in pain. Nearly slipping across the floor I reached him, set my palms against his temples and twisted hard. The scream stopped and caused me to want to get out of there, turning once again I left, blood smeared across my limbs.

“You were saying?”

“You’ll have to split up, though,” she said, trying to ignore what she had just seen, “The security room to access the shield doors separating us is on the opposite side of the building from me.”

“Okay, I’ll go get her, and you open the doors,” Seth told me.

“Actually, I would prefer if Seth went to the security room instead,” she said quickly.

I glanced over at Seth and shrugged before nodding in agreement.

“So you head over to the security office to get the shield doors open and I’ll get Doctor Looney” I told him before turning completely around and walking briskly in the direction of the doctors office. I quickly looked back before I watched him disappear behind the far hallway corner.
The grand hall in expanse before me made second guessing myself easy. My mind then wandered to Seth, would he have the same?

Glancing in a cell as I passed and had to look again after seeing them wearing aprons and pretending to cook and clean. A figure flashed into my path, the form before me was quite grotesque to say the least, with his white jumpsuit dyed red - in what I could only assume was blood - cut and worn in the form of a dress. This confused me so much I stood there with my mouth hanging open at the atrocity before me. He...or she, I couldn’t tell really, but his face was smeared with dirt and blood to imitate make up but came out more like a freaky nightmare clown and his hands resting on his hips.

“Hey there, big boy,” he said giving me a grin.

“Umm, what is this?” I asked slowly.
“Welcome to our humble home.”
“Well I really can’t stay.” I said quickly.

Two very large men in aprons came up behind me like an appearing wall, blocking all possible retreat. He then walked slowly and seductively towards me before stroking my face and walking away. I threw up on the floor and heaved for a few minutes before standing again. When I did, the decision crossing my mind whether or not to kill this “thing” was confirmed as a definite yes.
“Are you okay, hun?” He said walking closer.
“Yes please come here so I can see you better,” I said while pretending to seem interested only momentarily.
“Of course, dear,” He shuffled over to me.

When he finally reached me I grabbed him and whispered, “Die!”

I ripped a sleeve off my jumpsuit, punched him in the stomach and wrapped it tightly around his neck, shoving him into a wall, I chained the sleeve high up before kicking his feet out from under him and effectively strangling him and shocking all of the others.

“If any of you follows me you’ll get the same treatment!” I screamed both getting my point across and hoarsening my voice simultaneously. I then walked farther down the hallway quickly not looking to see if they actually did follow me.

Fast-walking down the hallway still took longer than I thought, before I knew it I was standing still, my thoughts astray and a mattress set ablaze before me, the smell of burnt cotton entered my nostrils and I snapped back to reality. Quickly I smashed the glass on the fire extinguisher case, grabbed it and unleashed the foamy force across the flame, ending it.
“NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!”

I looked all around before I finally notice the man standing in the cell. His clothes were ashy and burned, reduced to nothing but the torso and upper thighs.

“Was it you who started that?” my voice whined from the previous strain and the thickened smoke still settling in the hall. Even so his reply confirmed my questions.

“It was beautiful!” He yelled at me.

“Why would you do that?”

“That was my work of art!”

“You call that art?”

“I’ll extinguish you!” he yelled, kicking the mattress aside he lunged at me, grabbing at the collar of my shirt and throwing me heavily at the wall. Advancing this time I was expecting it and as he closed in my knee connected with his crotch and he doubled over in pain, again bringing my knee up it smacked hard against his face and sent vibrations throughout my leg, as he lay there I walked close and kicked him a few times before spitting and mumbling

“Come after me again, I won't let you live!”

Glancing around I regained my bearings and pressed further down the hall. The angry screeching sound of internal anguish sent the thought through my head that this was Not over, he wouldn’t give up until one of us was dead.

My ear kept ringing from the bat-like object that came out of nowhere only moments before while I was running.

“Gotcha!” the assailant cheered at me.

“Ow! what was that for?” I protested.

“You shall be sacrificed for the sake of my getting into heaven!”

“What?” I stood up quickly not letting him get anywhere near me for fear he would bludgeon me with the large warped stick in his hands.

“If I want to go to heaven then I have to sacrifice you to God as an offering” he told me nonchalantly.

“Well, actually I’m not going to be sacrificed to God, thanks anyway” I scooted towards his side and in the forward direction before he stuck out the club and stopped me.

“Oh no you don’t, I will get into heaven!” He pushed towards me and leaned tightly on his club. I would have to take care of him before I could continue.
“Okay then let’s go” I put on my best disappointed face to make him believe me.

“Good now move” he stepped back

“First can I know your name?” I asked carefully

“Christian,” he revealed in all seriousness.

I nodded and followed him for a moment before I grabbed his club arm, brought my foot up and connected it hard with the elbow, easily splintering it and sending Christian straight to the ground. He screamed for several seconds before I stomped hard on the side of his face, pointed at the ceiling, over and over shredding his cranium and succeeded in spraying his crimson blood across the hallway.

My mind wandered to the thought of his minions and that they might be looking for him soon. Peeking into the slick halls I stood there for a minute, listening for the faint patter of footsteps, but thankfully I heard none. Stepping out slowly I glanced inside some of the enroute cells and continued walking before a flash of pink caught my eye, backstepping I entered the front of a room where a young woman sat and sipped tea in her bright pink dress, all lady like and it appalled me how comfortable she was just sitting there, enjoying herself, that’s when she started twitching and shaking, at first I assumed it was a seizure or something of the nature, but then when she stopped she was standing and at military level attention and still as a statue, right until she noticed she was wearing the pink dress and freaked out and started tearing it apart chunks at a time. This is when I thought it was time to leave and hurried to the hall corner, still hearing angry yells from the disturbing woman in the cell
The door i’d been looking for this whole time then stood right in front of me, the monitor by the door clicked on and a disheveled Professor Looney looked utterly relieved to see me.

“Thank god it’s you”

“Of course!” I laughed remembering I was covered in both dried and still drying blood, my jumpsuit was crimson as well as my hair due to the not showering and continuous angry killing of insane dufusses.

“Well any second now Joshua will release the security lock down on this half of the facility and I can let you inside and we can wait for him here”
“Sounds like a plan”
The sound of drumming and clanging echoed through the halls, shaking smacking and cracking on every reachable object, I heard the “March of the crazies” erupting like a volcano full of instruments falling from the sky, I then realized I was still in harms way and if I didn’t fix that soon that I wasn’t gonna hear the outro.
“Oh god here they come” she started biting her nails nervously and messing with the computer on her desk.
“Is there anything you can do?” I yelled through the monitor
“I’m trying!”
“Well you’d best hurry, or my bones will be their drumsticks!” I eyed slowly into the comm system on the wall
“I got it!” she cheered as - on either sides of me - two wall protruded and extended their way across the hall until they firmly kissed the walls where the hall once snaked around.
“Thank you” relieved I lean on the wall and calmed my nerves
“it’s not over yet”
“What do you mean?” I said, my stress levels rising like a thermometer in an open furnace.
“the second he opens this door, those others will as well” so unless someone kills them all or distracts them enough to find a way, we’re screwed!”
The door skirted open and she walked out, a pink flash caught my eye and when I looked over at the monitor I saw a girl in a torn pink dress jumping around killing the cell mates around her, as soon as she was there she was gone and I was thinking about saying thank you she appeared out of the vent behind me and shook my hand.
“Falcon the name, are you both okay?”
“Yeah we’re fine” the professor
“Wait, I recognize you! You were in the cell before and drinking tea.”
“No, that couldn’t be me”
“I saw you”

The pink dressed hero then started shaking and twitching shortly then fell over, when we helped her up I noticed her violet colored eyes and remembered something about a patient with multiple personality disorder who had violet eyes. Then she stood and looked at the dress and started muttering about wearing girls clothes, Josh entered the room quite nonchalantly and looked at “hawk” for a moment then nodded towards Dr. Looney before she spoke

“Glad to see that we all made it here safely. The police should be here soon ,” Then, pointing at the short hallway in front of us, “Those doors at the end of this hallway are our way out. I told the cops that two or three of the guards survived so all you have to do is change into these uniforms.”

She handed each of us a guard’s uniform and we quickly changed into them. As soon as we had changed, we headed out the front doors to meet the police.

“Hello,” said one of the policeman, “Would you be willing to recount your experiences of the asylum to the Police?”

“Hello,” Josh said, “We- well, I am Joshua, and I would be perfectly fine detailing the events of that terrible place for you. It is my civil duty, after all.”