It is Summer, but chills still thrill the air. Vines crawl around the deserted domicile, desolated, among the overgrown shrubbery. Frozen in time and ghosted. The Flora is shriveled and robbed of life, aside from the moss that suffocates the fractures of the buildings foundations. The sun stretches, in agony, but does not stretch so far as to enlighten the asylum. The building left violated and imprisoned. A convict to the depressed droplets that stain it’s fragmented fenestration and to the obscurity of the chilling fog.

Listen, and there is silence. It is anguished stillness that lingers, as a replacement to the atrocity of the antecedent scenes, once displayed. Listen deeper, and the walls whisper. Softly speaking names. Names that remain etched into the pale yellow plaster. Names that are carried by the bitter draft, that rise and evaporate, into the musty atmosphere and disappear. That are eventually drowned out, by the thunderous howls of past pain, developing a storm tempered by torture. This storm circulates the tips of the tiled roof. It presents no sign of clouds amongst the night sky and no rain punctures the depleted dirt. The storm is a metaphorical nightmare that pronounces the unforgivable scars that are slashed into the foundations. No matter rain or cloud, on this bleak summer night, spines still shiver as the dense fog forms thick blankets of melancholic haze upon the earth.

It is night. Thin beams of moonlight pierce the thick atmosphere and inside the splintered sills, scenes are casted. Coats dart rapidly, painting red to the machines used, years ago. The men in white, chain shadows to the wall, like they did, years ago. The shadows are a prisoner to once was, straining against the silverware. Forever restrained to the confined chambers, that contain no more than solitude and a cold concreted bed frame. The shredded remains of paperwork lay draped upon the abandoned desk. The paperwork lists the various “illnesses” that once infested the building, much like the mold that now crawls along the corridor. The off cream stained corridor that extends continuously – on and on – into the forever darkness. This extensive hall is dressed in many doors leading to many rooms, the doors are all half naked, as their varnish lies on the floor peeled away like bark off a tree. They remain agape, exposing the dread that cowers behind the squeaking rust covered hinges of the dismal doorways. There is nothing physical present through those doorways, but the presence of frail bodies – that once trembled in corners quondam to abandonment – that linger. A lingering feeling that clings onto the hairs on the back of a neck and refuses to let go.

Listen. Footsteps echo around the vast hallways, bouncing off the walls. It is more than one pair of shoes that collide with the solemn ground, more than one breath that turns into iced cloud, more than one hand that trails the peeling aqua edgings along the walls, this asylum is never alone. As a welcome to this arrival, silence again overgrows the voice of the building. The trees stop vivaciously stroking the scratched panes and the wind ceases to blow. The blood-curdling orchestra of moans, groans and voices halt. Silenced by a scary silhouette that waltzes aggressively from frigid surface to frigid surface. It is a small boy, prancing along the parchment wallpaper, dressed in black rags and a mask. Skin as pale as the moon and hair as wispy as the dehydrated straw that lays sprawled on the floor. An outstretched hand hovers, protruding from the wall, palm up, waiting for someone to take hold. It beckons for something to grasp onto and welcome, with yellow stained fingernails bitten and chipped by paranoia and cracked palms coated in ash.

And then your fingers intertwine. The uneven heaves of air escape frantically from the part in your blue lips and reverberate around the solitary confinement. As the fear you feel crashes down on you, like tidal waves, that suffocate the shore. And the mask leads you forward into an inadequate chamber, where you sit on a stool and watch as the dirty material used to disguise true identity is displaced. It is strewn on the floor, discarded, and then tears cascade down porcelain cheeks. Because confronting you is the true definition of unprecedented torture. Scars that run deeper than the blood within your body, paint the boys face. A true horror is humanity. A soul so young, confined to the halls of the house in which it was murdered. Watching as inflicted pain streams out of the asylum, and into the radiant morning.