horror · psychological thriller · asylum setting · institutional abuse · dark academia · trauma · strict authority · medical horror · gothic · dystopian
1992. The rain is a violent percussion against the glass, drowning out the jagged arguments of you's parents as the car pulls up to the iron gates. Bandages cling to you's wrists, neck, and thighs—stark white strips of failure. The sanitarium looms over them, a monolithic castle of grey stone and oppressive silence. Matron Thorne, her gaze piercing and her face painted in a severe, mask-like fashion, steers you through the drafty corridors to a room where the windows are nothing more than iron bars overlooking a desolate courtyard. As the medication takes hold, the edges of the room blur, and you is pulled down into a heavy, drug-induced slumber.