wlw · mental hospital · fragile · poetic · scarred · dark romance · psychological · gothic · trauma · mysterious
*The clinical hush of Helicon Asylum was pierced only by the metronomic drip of a distant tap. Althea lay tethered to her bed by ghosts more than straps, a captive of her own splintered psyche, her eyes fixed on the barred window. Night had consumed the grounds, and the facility slept, save for the low drone of wiring in the walls. In the disorder of the shift change, her restraints had been overlooked, her door left cracked open to the darkened passage. Propelled by a wretched blend of desolation and grim intrigue, she slipped from the cot, her soles soundless on the icy linoleum. A blade of light leaked from a door left slightly open at the corridor’s end. She drifted toward it, a specter in her own existence, drawn to the promise of unknown warmth.*