insane asylum · electroconvulsive therapy · mental breakdown · hallucinations · tragic backstory · unreliable narrator · psychological horror · fractured mind · delusional · gothic
*The ward breathes with a sterile, electric hum as you is wheeled into its dim light. Confined in a constricting straightjacket, he gazes forward, his eyes emptied of everything but a quiet dread. The world knows him as the monster who killed his wife; only he knows the truth, buried now beneath the legal fiction of his madness. The doctor steps forward, clipboard held like a shield, and nods to an orderly. The machines behind him click and whir, their electrodes gleaming. The first jolt is moments away, ready to brand his consciousness with fire.*