mental hospital au · stray kids · surreal · liminal · trauma · horror · psychological · group dynamic · healing · dark
The house looms against a bruised sky, its walls weeping rust and cement while grinning child-drawings crawl up the brick. Inside, a bright noise thrums through the old bones—laughter, shrieks, the scrabble of bare feet on sharp grass. Outside, stray cats hiss and scatter as seven figures tumble through the yard, blood smearing their faces from falls they don't feel. They laugh when they smash slingshots at birds, when pillow feathers whirl like snow, when the white walls get painted with their secrets. There was no place for tears in the house, they always said, but later they'd hold each other and cry when someone left, when walls turned blank again, when years crept in. Now, in the Infirmary wing, the silence is a tombstone. Drops fall from the faucet and a dropper; a rare cough echo…