227 Asylum

My heart still palpitated in my chest with no signs of slowing down at all as my warm blood pulsed throughout my body. I breathed heavily, gasping for air as I finally allowed my body to take in air once we were in a safe situation. Even after the man had left us, my mind could not truly relax. By the look of the man's muscular and bulky physical build, one can sense immense power in his one good arm. He is definitely capable of causing plenty of damage to us if we were to confront him head on, so it is only wise to avoid a confrontation even though we have ten people present. Besides, if that man has planned something, then it will only be stupid to try and confront him.

"Is he gone?" I heard Zaksus softly whisper to me.

"Yeah," I muttered back as I got on my knees and peeked out the window down the dark hallway that the man had disappeared in.

"This place probably won't stay safe for long," Mura observed.

"But we should still rest up a bit here," Loyd said. "We just sprinted like hell down the hallway while we're lacking on sleep."

"Yeah," Mura nodded. "Let's do that."

"Noah," Luna's voice called over to the boy. "Can you read what this says?"

I looked over at Luna and saw that she was flipping through a book of some sort. When I walked over as well and inspected the layout of the pages, I assume that it is some sort of journal of sorts as on each entry, there were a date written.

"It's some kind of journal," Noah said on first glance, confirming my suspicion.

The others soon gathered around the desk in the center of the room as Noah tried to translate for us. However, he was reading the entries first to himself in his mind, probably to first understand the meaning of them. As he flipped through the journal, our eyes were trained on his face where we observed a somewhat disturbed countenance be born.

"This journal probably belonged to the man in charge of this place seventy years ago," Noah explained. "And...according to what it says, this place is an asylum to treat the mentally crippled."

"An insane asylum?" Irina asked.

"They call it that on paper," Noah sighed, "but I wouldn't say that it is so."

"It's one of those fake establishments the Jorzan's used to conduct human experiments using Vilhemians?" Alvelyn asked.

Noah nodded in response. "Here it says," he flipped to the first page of the old and dusty journal. "The patients were all sent in through military 'medical' vehicles and that they were all mentally ill in some way or the other. Based on the quick criteria listed for what is defined as mentally ill...basically if you're not Jorzan then you are mentally ill."

He paused and then flipped to the next page.

"So after that first entry, the owner of this journal started writing about the different treatments the Jorzan's used." Noah took a deep breath before he continued. "Here's what it says.

"Pain Therapy: done on selected individuals from the first batch of patients. Our hypothesis is that by causing physical pain, the patients may have their brain activity restored to normal. The process includes whipping the body, stabbing and cutting the body, carving meat off of bones, and severing limbs (after seeing that severing limbs did not work, we tried to reconnect the limb by sewing them back, freezing them together, fusing them together using molten metal). However, it was to no avail. Therefore, we tried shoving rods up the nostrils of patients to conduct surgery on the brain without incision. Many patients died from brain trauma, but there were a few who survived. It would appear that they have lost all brain activity. Due to the food shortage, we have no choice but to use the deceased patients as well as those that are brain dead as a food source for the other inmates."

Upon hearing this, I felt a sense of uneasiness in my stomach. Based on the expression on everyone's faces, they seemed to be having the same disgusted feeling as well.

"Brain Surgery: done on selected individuals. We would remove the skin on the top of the head, carve away the flesh, and then carefully chip away the upper part of the skull and remove it to gain access to the brain underneath. Then, we would try and correct the brain right there. We tried everything, from using tools like knifes and even animals like ants and mice. Still, no solution and many inmates died. Side note, since anesthesia is scarce, the surgery is conducted without it. We had to chain down the patients and insert a piece of cloth into their mouths to muffle their screams to allow the surgeon to operate."

"What the fuck?" Loyd muttered in anger and disbelief.

"Sleep Deprivation: done on a large number of patients. We would prevent them from sleeping by having an shock collar shock the patients whenever their heart rates would drop to the level of the early stages of sleep. Patients are each kept in an isolated chamber, half a meter by half a meter in size with no light and any stimulus. They are fed through IV chords to eliminate any external stimulus. This treatment is a time consuming one, spanning the length of two weeks. All patients seemed to have their conditions worsened, resorting to pulling out their own hair, eating their own fingers, and banging their heads on the walls. To prevent suicide, we would use a sedative gas to tranquilize them. Many perished."

Noah paused and looked up at us with a guilty look on his face, probably from his realization that it was him translating the diary that had fouled everyone's moods. However, since everyone had their head down in a depressed state of mind, no one was able to tell him to stop. So after pausing for many seconds, he finally gave up and let out a sigh.

"I think I shouldn't read anymore," Noah said. "It only gets worse from this entry on. What I have just read out loud...it's nothing compared to what those bastards have in store later on."

"God damn it!" Loyd yelled in a muffled voice. He was obviously doing his best to contain his anger, causing his countenance to be twisted with anger.

"That's...horrible," Irina muttered while covering her face with both hands in shock. There seemed to be tears in her eyes after hearing about the treatment that Vilheim citizens had endured in this asylum seventy years ago.

Not everyone spoke. Instead, they all breathed deeply, as if trying to meditate and calm their minds after hearing news of such tragedy.

"I thought what they taught us at school was already bad enough," Zaksus commented, referencing the mandatory history lessons that everyone had to take on the Great War and Vilheim's Era of Humiliation. "It's nothing like the real thing..."

"Something useful I did get out of this journal is that the radio room is on the third floor," Noah said. "So we know where we have to go now."

"..." Everyone else remained silent.

"If the radio doesn't work," Noah continued, obviously trying to distract us from the earlier subject so as to improve our moods. "We'll just burn down this whole damn place. They'll have to see a fire this big."

"Yeah," Mura nodded.

Noah frowned, effected by the depressed and frustrated atmosphere everyone was exhibiting in this silence that made me question whether or not I had gone deaf. He let out a sigh of frustration and then remained silent as he waited for the rest of us to recover. I could tell that this was a difficult task for him as well despite the fact that he is an angel.

"Let's get going," I finally said out loud, breaking the silent spell. "The sooner we leave this place the better."

"Yeah," Muria nodded and agreed with me.

Looking over, she seemed to be rather uncomfortable ever since we had found that Jorzan flag lying on the ground near the entrance. However, I can understand this sense of discomfort as I am also experiencing something similar. Maybe the others are also feeling that as well. Whatever the case maybe, I know for sure that none of us want to stay here for any longer than necessary.

After leaving the room and stepping foot back on the dark hallway, we continued in the direction that we were originally headed in search of stairs up to the second floor. According to Noah, the stairs should be located in the opposite side of the building from the entrance. Therefore, we walked in that direction in silence. After walking for the longest ten minutes of my life, the stairs were finally in sight. They were just up ahead, leading up to the second floor.

"There it is," Loyd pointed it out to us first as he shined his flashlight onto the old, wooden stairs. "Let's go."

Upon seeing the stairs, we all seemed to have relaxed a bit, breaking free from the positioning that we had taken on earlier while we were more tense and on guard. This momentary lapse in caution wouldn't usually be a problem, but I am not sure if it was deliberate or just by chance, a problem did occur.

Zaksus had walked past me as he desperately wanted to head to the third floor and get this all over with. That then left Muria and I walking at the tail end of the group. In addition, our group was stretched out a bit as more people had rushed to the stairs. That is when the problem occurred.

My ears twitched slightly when I heard a faint sound coming from upstairs almost directly above my head. I paused in my steps and looked up, staring into the darkness as I tried to pinpoint the Noise. The noise...it sounded like wood and concrete cracking. Immediately, my face went pale as I realized what it was, and after quickly pinpointing the exact source of the noise, I quickly turned my body and looked underneath the location. Muria was walking just underneath that spot, and based on the increasing loudness of the sound, there isn't much time left until the floor overhead collapsed down on Muria.

Without any hesitation, I dived towards Muria with my arms out in front of me to grab her and pull her away from the danger zone. Time itself seemed to have slowed down when I left my feet in my dive. On Muria's face, a look of surprise was born as she must not have understood my actions. However, that all changed when I tackled her and knocked her back and down onto the floor just in time to dodge the collapsed ceiling.

"What happened?" Mura quickly called over to us just after the loud noise of the crash.

Dust floated about in the air, obscuring our vision, and since I was down on the ground with Muria safely underneath my arm, we were greeted with the worst part of the dust rising up into the air from the impact. The dust entering my eyes caused it to water, and the dust entering my mouth made me cough.

When the dust finally settled, Muria and I got up. I quickly brought my arm away from her, allowing her to rise slowly to her feet. On her face, there appeared to be a look of silent frustration and defeat as she looked longingly in the direction of her sister. However, they won't be able to be reunited this early as the collapsed sealing had crashed right through the floor and down into what appeared to be the basement, leaving a large gap that is impossible to jump across.

"We'll find another way up," I said out loud to the others on the other end of the abyss.

"Just go past the entrance and down the other way," Noah explained to me. "That hallway should also lead to these stairs, but from that side." He stepped to the side and pointed in the direction opposite of the one we had walked from.

"Got it," I nodded.

"Should we wait for them?" Erith asked.

"No," I answered. "Just head towards the radio room. We'll meet you guys there."

"But—" Loyd was about to protest my decision but was quickly interrupted by Alvelyn, who understood my intent being the female version of me.

"What Alevian wants is for us to get help as soon as possible," she explained to the others.

"That's the more reasonable thing to do," Noah frowned.

"But still..." Loyd clenched his hands tightly into a fist, using so much strength that his arm trembled.

"Don't worry," I smiled and said. "With only two people, it'll actually be safer for us. We'll be able to hide from that 'thing' easier."

"Stay safe," Mura said with a worried expression on her face. She seemed to be holding in tears as her defeated countenance did its best to contain them.

Muria simply nodded to her older sister's prayers, probably still a little shocked from what had happened. I observed her, looking up and down her body and checked for any wounds that she might have possibly suffered from me tackling her out of the way. By the looks of it, there doesn't seem to be anything major.

"We'll see you guys in the radio room," I said to them, leaving them with that final message before I turned around and started walking. I paused after taking a few steps and looked over my shoulders at Muria who was still frozen in place. "Muria, let's go."

"R-right."

My voice seemed to have woken Muria from her trance-like state, bringing her senses back online. She looked longingly at Mura as she slowly turned her back towards them to continue with me to reach the stairs by going all the way around the building.