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Asylum
Date: 16 June 2003, 1:04 AM
A trio of normal footsteps echoed down the marble floored hallway. Stagger footedly a man in a straightjacket followed, the darkened hallway a blue hue of the night. The lightning outside echoed through the hallways, and I remembered them. I struggled slightly against the straight jacket, hoping that somehow it would allow my escape, albeit that beyond escape from the straightjacket I don't know where I would go. The barred windows cast ominous reminders of my imprisonment as the lightning flashed outside. My odd footsteps were involuntary, the harness around my neck contributing much more than my own consent. Soon we stepped around a corner and into another hallway, just as long as the last one but dotted with rooms along the left and right sides of the hallway. At the end of the hallway a room, well lit, especially in contrast to the hallway I was in currently. I couldn't help but notice that every room along this hallway had bars in every window, just a reminder that we were prisoners. Everyone in this facility was insane, and I didn't know why I was here. They were real, I was not crazy. The three men continued to drag me into one of the open cells and throw me to the ground, slamming the door shut before I could stand up again. The crash of the door that condemned me echoed through the hallways, a portentous reminder of my future as an inmate. I slid to a wall and used it to stand. The padded walls of the asylum were soft but still remained cruel somehow. I stumbled across the room and into the small bed I was given. I dropped to the bed and bounced a few times, the flimsy wire like "springs". I was tired with an artificial sleep, the sedative coursing through my veins activating. I suppose that they knew I didn't think I was crazy and had planned ahead, and time that they gave me a chance to find a way to escape. My thoughts lazily drifted away as the sedative put me to sleep. The only noise, the hum of the imprisoning lights, soon faded.
I awoke on a metallic bed, my arms and legs spread to form the shape of an X. In the large room I could see only two windows, both showing a space even larger than the room of the ship I was in, space. The distant stars sparkled in the distance, untouched by the atmosphere of a planet. The beauty of space was only destroyed by a lone floating sphere, barely visible in the window that was even more beautiful than the distant dots of light. Lunar 4. I looked down at my home, unsure if this was a dream or another abduction. I did not want to be prisoner to this torture again. Suddenly a grey door at the other side of the chamber slid open, two of the larger blue aliens and three of the shorted orange ones pacing into the room, the floor gently cushioning their feet. The door slid shut behind them, the blinding light of the hallway subsiding. I noticed that to my left and right it appeared that there was two more humans, all strung over the metallic creation as I was. The shorter orange ones carried some tools, as I noticed, and the blue ones carried two objects that I could identify as rifles or pistols. The blue ones stopped around three meters from my position, the orange ones moving forward further. The three stopped in front of the man to my left. I peered to the left to watch. The orange aliens lifted a small surgical drill and activated it, the mechanical whir filling the room. The man, who was quite strong, struggled against his bindings for a moment as the aliens tried to halt his struggles. One of the bindings suddenly snapped, releasing his right leg, which he promptly swung upwards to kick one of the orange ones, the alien falling backwards and his drill landing atop him, quickly ripping into his chest cavity. He managed to kick another alien before three blue orbs hit him in the chest. He convulsed for a second before dying, his singed chest still sizzling as they lowered him from the rack, his body slumping to the floor. He dropped in a puddle of blue blood, one of the aliens still spurting blood as the drill was pulled from its chest. A drop of the blue blood flew to my chest. The blood burned my skin a little as the neon liquid rolled across my heart. The second aliens that he kicked lie on the ground, rubbing its chin and shrieking in an indiscernible dialect. The two soldiers walked to aide the others. I watched as suddenly I found myself in asylum again.
The padded ceiling looked down at me from 20 feet above, the serene fan in the ceiling spinning slowly behind a small metal grate. I sat in silence for a moment, remembering. I remembered the blood spatter and looked quickly at my chest. With the straight jacket on I couldn't see anything, but I knew that below the shirt there was alien blood. It burned me on the outside, an effect of the blood, and it burned me inside, knowing that I was locked up though the aliens that took me were real. An hour later the warden announced over the speakers in all of the cells that it was time to go to the day hall, and soon guards numbering at around a dozen began to escort us, one by one, to the room at the end of the hallway. I was one of the later residents to be moved, but found that as I reached the room they released my straightjacket. I walked to the far side of the room as the guards walked to free the next row of Asylum residents. I looked out the window into the storm. It was still raining from the night before, the torrent of rain showing no signs of letting up. The blurred window showed me little, but as far as I could tell there was a perimeter wall to this facility, guard towers and a large forest that extended as far as the eye can see. It was odd that the prison of hundreds of people, possibly as innocent as me were imprisoned in such a scenic place. The irony was almost overpowering. I pulled the neck of my shirt away from me and looked down at my chest to see a small splotch of neon blue blood, still glowing. I spun around to see that a group of residents was sitting watching TV. Bored, possibly lonely I walked to the horde and sat in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs. I sat next to a skinny man who was wearing a mask and gloves. As he looked at me I noticed his breathing accelerated and he began to panic, sliding a seat further away from me. Clearly, he was a hypochondriac. I ignored this and looked up at the TV. Cartoons about a mad scientist were on. This didn't interest me, and I began to look for someone that wasn't insane to talk to. I paced around the room, noticing that almost everyone has some mental instability until I stumbled upon a man sitting behind a chess board. His previous chess sparring partner had fallen to the floor shouting about "the aliens that were coming". I couldn't help but realize how crazy I must look. The guards quickly came into the room and fed the man a handful of pills before dragging him back to his cell. I sat in the chair opposite the other man expecting some crazed reaction, but the man merely moved the one altered piece back to its resting position, the fourth pawn.
"Care to play a game?" he asked. His calm voice stopped the shouts and screams in my head for a moment, and seeing nothing better to do I sat. He gestured for me to move, and following his orders I slid the fifth pawn in the row forward two spaces. I watched as his mind calculated a response. "What are you in for?"
"The aliens took me. They think I'm lying." I replied. He slid his third pawn to counter my move and gestured for me to counter.
I slid my right knight out of its position and into the center of the battlefield. "That's what they all say." He replied, continuing to move another piece. I dropped a pawn into the center of the square as I continued my speech, "Just wait until they take you. From what I can tell there is six different kinds of them. One that is scrawny that floats, another that is hairy like a monkey, a blue one that looks like a tank and another blue one that is about eight feet tall. There are also ones that look like birds and one that is short and has a large horn on its back."
"Yeah right. UFOs are fake."
"Well, how about this bloodstain!" I pulled open my shirt and looked at my heart. There was no blood. I slid my finger across the area and it was unusually wet though. I knew it was there earlier...
"What bloodstain?" he asked, chuckling. His cruel laughter seemed to relish my defeat and dismay. (Author's note: Sorry for any confusion here, but when a Grunt's blood is exposed to light most of it disappears until you shine the light away from it. Try it out.)
I slammed a fist down on the chessboard, snapping a corner of it off. The marble and wood chess board's corner clattered to the ground, and I looked to see what expression was on the man's face. He seemed somewhat angered, but if he was he wasn't showing it. His calm face stared at me, his chuckling almost returning. Suddenly a scream echoed through the hallway and the doors came flying open, the crazed former chess player shouting.
"YOU MUST ALL KNOW!!! There are six of them! Furry ones, short ones, tank like ones, flying ones, bird like ones, and tall and short ones! The Aliens are coming! They took me yesterday!"
"I told you! You bastard, now do you believe me?" I said to the other chess player.
"They're in league with the squirrels! They want our acorns and pineapples! We must rally our armies and-" Six guards suddenly tackled the man and dragged him back to his cell. I turned to the man again, who was now sinisterly chuckling.
"Do I look that crazy?"
He looked me in the eyes, "Worse." He looked at the shattered chessboard's pieces, scattered randomly across the floor, "You are a violent delusional" he gestured to man who was near chained to the wall in the corner of the rec room. He stood, a violent fire in his eyes, and he watched the happy creatures on the TV dance about. He struggled against his bindings rampantly. He was clearly near possessed. "Do you like being in the same caliber as him? Ever since you started your little fit less than a minute ago that camera over there has been tracking your every move." He waved to a security camera in the corner of the room, "Big brother's watching you.... Wave." I cocked my head at him, "Wave to the camera!" he shouted, standing. I was too slow, "WAVE TO THE CAMERA!!!" I turned and waved weakly. "Excellent... I am still in control of the situation. I need a paper bag... Breathe in, breath out, breath in, breath out..."
I chuckled, "Afraid of losing control?" He spun to me, terror and fear in his eyes.
"I have control!" he shouted while flipping over the chess table.
"You sure they weren't watching you?"
"I have control over everything! It is watching you!"
I turned and walked away from the hysterical man as I saw two guards with tranquilizers moved in to finish him. I sat in a chair next to the hypochondriac black man and watched him run for his life as I pretended to cough. If I was going to be stuck in here I might as well have some fun... I looked up at the TV, the cartoons were gone and now the serious face of CNN sat on the screen and the minds of the 20 or so residents watching it. The ticker desperately flashed across the screen talking about predictions of aliens. Suddenly I was as drawn to the TV as the rest of the residents.
"And we'll roll that clip one more time Dan, the new message from the race of aliens that is supposedly the harbingers of death to harvest, "The Covenant"."
The clip suddenly changed to show a large blue monster, one that was very familiar to me. "Your destruction is the will of the gods..." my breathing stopped, "And we... Are their instruments..."
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