Jealous Much? – Chapter 4
It was done, I was convicted and by the love of my life at that. I watched Maria Rodden walk away with her two children. It’s a special kind of pain when you are betrayed by the ones you love. My heart felt like it had gained a thousand pounds. Maria had left the court room now and agent Hannah had taken centre stage.
“Your honour”, She began to speak again “as you can see the accused is clearly mentally ill and in need of serious medical attention, I would propose that he is sent to the brim-wood asylum for intensive care”.
“Does the accused have anything to say?” The judge asked as he turned to face me.
“No, your honor”, the words jumped out of my mouth without much thought.
“It’s settled then, the accused will be admitted into the asylum in brim-wood with agent Hannah as his assigned officer”.
I was waiting for agent Hannah to object but she just sat there quietly looking directly at me. It sent a certain chill down my spine. I could feel that she had some sort of secondary agenda.
My trial was over and judgement had been passed, I was to be transferred to the asylum with agent Hannah as the officer in charge of me. The worst part wasn’t the fact that the asylum held many insane people, it was the fact that agent Hannah had been looking at me in short glances and smiling softly each time. I was led out of the court room and back into the van. The same set of soldiers followed her into the van with me. And the doors were closed. As the van began to pull away, one of the soldiers looked at me and said, “You’d be better off dead”.
I had heard stories about the asylum before, it stood on an island off the coast of brim-wood town. There was only one way in and one way out. I had heard tales of patients who tried to escape and were shot dead in the water. Nobody goes into that asylum and ever comes out. This was my fate; I had lost the love of my life and now this. I felt as though my heart was about to fall out of my chest. I wasn’t afraid though, it wasn’t fear I felt; it was just sadness. My life no longer had purpose. The only reason I did anything and everything for the past seven years, had turned on me.
We arrived at the docks and it was time to boat it to the island. On the boat, the two soldiers couldn’t stop talking about a certain person in the asylum “the woman” they called her. Apparently, nobody knew the identity of this person but “the woman” had virtually half of the patients under her command. They all did things and when asked they would refer to the woman as the person who made them do it. Yet when asked to describe her, they would all seem to forget what she looked like.
…
The asylum gates were opened by two bald men on either side as agent Hannah walked me to the front door with the two soldiers behind her.
The asylum was every bit as big as I had imagined it to be. There were guards everywhere armed with special rifles that shot incapacitating bolts of electricity. The rifles had biometric scanners on the triggers so only the owner of a rifle could use it. This was all high-end stuff, the kind of thing you’d expect from a bigger town, brim-wood wasn’t even among the names of towns listed on the phone directories. Yet the asylum had this kind of gear.
I had been checked in and taken through the usual procedure, I was taken to a special wing of the asylum where they kept “my kind” of patients, the violent ones. I was now wearing the red matching shirt and pants that all patients were to wear. This wing wasn’t like the others that we had passed, this one was no different from the prison cells, except everything was high end. The bars were made of some form of energy beam that I could only assume would cut through anything that touched it. The floors and walls inside each cell were made of a very soft yet durable material. Kind of like a bullet-proof mattress. I was checked one last time thoroughly before being thrown into my cell.
The whole cell was basically a bed so there was no bed in here. Just an elevated portion of the floor which you could sleep on. The cell didn’t have the usual cubical shape, it was more spherical, like being in a giant ball. It was comfortable though, I had to give them that. There was a toilet and sink made with the same material. They seemed to value the safety of all patients here. But if I wanted to kill myself it would be as easy as walking into the energy beams that formed cell gates. My interest now shifted towards the beams, I wanted to be sure exactly what it was. It wasn’t making the cell hot even though it looked like solid bars of fire. I decided to see what it would feel like. I started to push my hand slowly toward the beams, my hand stopped right in front of the beams and couldn’t go further, and there was some kind of invisible barrier between the beams and me. These guys meant business.
I decided to fall back onto the bed. My thoughts immediately shifted back to Maria. Ungrateful as she was, I couldn’t help but feel for her. After-all in her defence, I killed her husband. But she should have understood that he didn’t love her as much as I did. Why can’t she see that everything I do is for her? Her husband wouldn’t have killed anyone for her and I’ve killed quite a few. A burning anger began to grow inside me, a certain hatred I began to feel for Maria. If I can’t have her, nobody deserves to have her. My thoughts were interrupted by someone tapping on the cell barrier.
Agent Hannah stood in front of the barrier tapping it quietly, anyone standing outside would not have known that she was tapping the barrier. She covered her hands with her bloated police jacket. To anyone watching her outside it would seem like she was just leaning on the barrier. She looked inside and when she saw that she had my attention, she pressed a tiny note against the barrier. It read “11pm”. I looked up at her and gestured “what does that mean?” She just wrapped up the paper in her palm and walked away as if nothing just happened.
“11pm”, what could she have meant? Did she want me to meet her by 11pm? Whatever it was, I had to be prepared for anything, there was no way I was making any weapon out of the soft features of this cell. Everything was just so safe. A bell went off and almost immediately, the barriers shut down and patients flooded the corridors of the cell block. One particularly big guy with his smaller companion stood at the entrance of my cell. They stood there as if to say “you aren’t coming out of here”. I decided to ignore their presence and just walk on out but the big guy shoved me right back into the cell. I landed on the floor quite comfortably, it made the push feel more like a game than anything serious. I was about to get on my feet when the big guy placed his large foot on my torso.
“This will be your only chance to tell us the truth”, the smaller man said in a tone that contradicted his small stature.
“What did the agent tell you?” He asked, picking each word of the sentence to create more emphasis.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about”, I replied.
The smaller man began to laugh and then ended his laughter with, “well you had your chance, let’s go Bo”. The big guy lifted his foot off my torso and they both turned to walk out. The smaller man looked back and said, “I’ll see you at 11”. They both walked out into the crowded hall.
There it was again, 11pm. It seemed to be a time for something serious in this place. I could only wonder what would happen at 11. I decided to join the other patients for the meals that were being served. The meals were all in bowls and there was no cutlery. All the patients were to drink from the bowls. These guys sure didn’t want anyone getting hold of anything that could be used as a weapon. The room was rowdy and there was a long line of patients leading up to the kitchen stand. Bo and his friend were close to the front of the line and behind the kitchen stand was agent Hannah. She had her eyes fixed on me.
I finally got to the front of the line and got a bowl from the stack of bowls. I moved to the man serving the food and he filled my bowl with a spoonful of the nasty looking food. It didn’t smell too bad though. I was about to pass the stand then agent Hannah stepped in and blocked me she motioned for me to put the food down and then for me to raise my hands. I obeyed and she began patting me down as if searching for something. When she was done, she asked me to go.
I got to my seat and I could feel something poking at me from inside my pants. She must have planted something on me. It was too risky to start looking for it now, so I just sat and ate.
