' I never thought i would end up like this...'

The drones buzzed through the air loudly.

'...If you'd told me it would happen a week ago I would have referred you to the best doctors at the asylum...'

The twigs and leaves crunched under her feet as she ran.

' I'd always felt something was wrong, like there was something more to it...'

Her panting grew louder, more frequent, more desperate. A will to survive.

' But I was never one to act on my impulses...'

A hit to her legs caused a fall, just as she sighted the beach.

' Maybe if I was... It would have saved me all those countless times...'

*Beep* " We got her "

"Bring her to my office"

*Beep*

'Maybe it would have saved me... even now'

Her vision darkened... And her hope of escaping the island... Darkened with it.

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                                                                  Episode 1

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[1 week ago]

*beep* "Su Lynn?"

"Su lynn Yes! Yes that's me I'm here"

"Yes okay, we have reviewed your application and we would like you to start by Monday"

"Really? Oh okay thank you so so much"

"Yes… Sure"

*beep*

* Sigh*

It's been a while since mom and dad died…

"Momo where are you?"

It's been just us since then… My sister and I…

"Oh my God would you stop screaming? Jeez! I'm literally only a room away don't break our glass with your screeching voice"

"And what's that supposed to mean huh? Missy?"

She was adopted and I a biological child so we were like strangers for a while…

"I told you NOT to call me that!"

"But I thought you liked the name… Missy"

But we got around it…

"I did NOT okay, the orphanage kids already Traumatized me with that name Su and you know that!"

"Miss Missy of Mississippi is yelling at her people? What for I wonder?"

"UGH!!"

"Alright, alright jokes aside, I actually got a new job today"

"REally?"

"Yeah, So at least now we don't have to keep living off mom and dad's savings since we don't have that much left to pay bills anymore"

" Oh okay, that's cool"

She says it that way because in my record I don't keep jobs very well.

"Momo it's your turn to do dishes, get back here!"

That was how we were.

[Monday]

*Front desk

"Good morning, Umm I'm Su Lynn coming in for the position of psychiatric Nurse. I was called on Saturday and told to start today"

" Oh You're the new Nurse, Okay right this way please"

I was led down the dark eerie hall to a rickety Office with an old desk and chair, it looked like it'd been abandoned for quite a while. It had barely any windows and a weird smell that seemed to come from the vents.

" This is going to be your office"

"Uh…"

"Sorry, I know it looks very…umm… disgusting, but the last Nurse couldn't take it and she messed up the place, Since then we've been awfully busy covering for her so we couldn't clean it up And we weren't even sure you'd show up but now that you're here we'll be sure to get it cleaned up for you.

I stared across the small box that was to be my new office. There was a little hospital bed on its far right corner. 'Our Bathroom at the house is bigger than this office' I thought. Some big organization it is.

"Oh uhh o-okay" I said, slipping past what I assumed was a moldy sandwich on the floor to check the rest of the place out. There were mushrooms growing out of the hospital bed with a particularly decomposed rat skeleton on the other end.

"That's Vomit" She told me when I stared at the mushrooms wondering how they could grow through the thin foam and metal.

"Uh -huh.. yeah umm how long has there been no one here again?"

Now that I think about it she had quite a cold kick to her voice… ["Yes her name is Su Lynn"]

"O-kay?…"

"I'll just be back at the front desk if you need me"

…Like a cold insanity hiding itself underneath the soft warmth of human flesh…["Put her there"]

"Sure_ thanks."

I walked towards the desk noticing a not-so-old camera that sat in the top right corner from where she stood. Beside the filthy chair. ["Quite a beauty she is…"] It's new white, shiny exterior was not befitting of the ancient, rusty, moldy, Bio-hazardous nature of the rest of the room.["…I might just give her… you know.]"

It's almost… ["Nurse su?"]

Like I'm in…["Miss Su?"]

Like I'm in a…["Nurse Su"]

…Dream.

-Present day-

"Nurse su

 I can see your eyes twitching, I know you're not unconscious"

 Letting out a long silent sigh her eyes blinked open, darting around as if to take in the sudden change of location.

 'How long was I out?' she thought

Her eyes roamed into focus on the large shadowy figure speaking, His eyes having a strange inexplicable eerie glow, even though his eyes were a calm gold. Or was that just her illusion.

"Wh-who are you?" she stuttered

"Me? Why I'm Mr. Mikado, Owner and founder of the Asylum and currently your kidnapper"

 Struggling to catch her breath from the memory that brought her here she looked at him dead in the eyes "I have to get out of here"

Watching her struggle to crawl across the room he smiled

"i need to get out of here"

"I wouldn't do that if I were you :) You've been injected with a powerful substance that puts your muscle in a frozen state. If you so much as move an inch too much, your muscles will rip apart inside of you. I suggest you stay put until it washes itself out of your system"

 She froze in her spot, trying to process the information thrown at her.' A drug that puts your muscles in a frozen like state? That's impossible! If that happens, wouldn't my blood and other organs be affected?, I mean it is actually hard to move, and yes I'm struggling to breathe properly- i assumed i was still in a state of shock- but that's impossible they can't possibly do that . but then again, If they can do that to a child...[Please, Save me... miss...su... Please Help...] Then there's no telling what they can do. Her breathing slowed down to a more calm state, trying to make sense of the situation. " What are you going to do with me?" She questioned, slowly getting into a sitting position. "i don't know, you tell me, clearly you've seen that the mental hospital is just a facade" he strolled to his desk "Well... not entirely" "I- don't know what you're talking about" " Su darling, don't play games with me dear, i play very dirty you know" "I don't know what you're talking about!" "Really? Then why were you running?" "I just forgot something i urgently needed and was going to get it from my car" "come on now woman you should know how to lie better, No one who just forgot something runs like that, Except, you know, life and death situations" "the patient needed something and i was going to go get it from my car"

"And what was that hmm?" Upon finishing his sentence his eyes widened and a small gasp escaped his lips, a smile creeping up his face, his brow raised.

"You don't really have a tell when you lie, seems like you're not new to the game"

" Well when you have two dead parents and one little sister who keeps the neighborhood on their toes you'll have to learn to tell the principal that you were unaware that the child menace menace you're taking care of couldn't possibly set up another student after accidentally planting sleeping drugs in the teachers coffee under the excuse of she looked sleep deprived so she can't assume you're bad at taking care of her and call the cops on you or shame you claiming you're a bad influence and your parents can't possibly rest in peace knowing that their daughter is in hands like mine forgetting the fact that I am also their daughter so …yeah"

"ah, what a lovely story with a gloriously beautiful ending, but we both know you're still lying." He sat on the edge of his desk staring down at her where she sat on the floor, that wide smile nowhere to be found.

Su scoffed.

"Su Lynn, age 27, Graduated valedictorian in psychology YALE university at the age of 26 with a PHD in psychology. Both parents died in a car crash in the fourth year of her university education. Owns a house left by her parents, sold the car a year after their death. There was no car to run to, Miss Su what car were you running to again?"

By then, Su's eyes had widened, her stone face façade as she stared at Mr. Mikado in horror 'I-Am I going to die?'

Mr. Mikado smiled, but it seemed more nerve racking than genuine.

" I'll admit Miss Su, you are quite overqualified for this job, PHD?That could get you a spot as a top doctor in a real hospital establishment. Not that- you'll ever get to leave of course" he chuckled, not breaking eye contact. Su remained still, the strange cold , gripping feeling in her body reminded her about whatever crap they'd pumped into her body. she didn't even know what it was, or what dosage was given.

" Speaking of free…" he held up his hand checking his watch-he wore three- "Sample Ic3 should be leaving your system right about now"

She stared in fear, contemplating if this was some sick joke to him. That is, until the pain started in her chest and she began screaming.

"Ah there we go, I almost thought It wasn't working" he said. Ignoring her screams of pain. He dialed a number on his desk phone. It made a short beep.

"Leo, what was the timer for sample ic3?"

*Sample ic3 = Substance that puts muscles of a living organism in a frozen or semi frozen state"

"Oh, uh this is for that girl, su was it? Well for the dosage we gave her it would last about an hour" She coughed continuously, choking on something. A blue liquid poured out of her mouth, she kept coughing, the liquid pumping out of her lungs .

" There we go darling, now I can take a good look at you without ripping you to shreds" With a swift hand he grabbed her by the neck, lifting her already weak body off the floor.

"cre-ep" her last remaining air already running out on her

"Now that is no way to treat me you little RAT!" he tossed her to the floor

" Do you not understand how lucky you are?" he grabbed her by the hair, taking a few quick steps slamming her head against his table.

"Anyone else would be dead by now…" After kicking her on emphasis, he took a step back, catching his breath "thank your lucky stars that you caught my interest"

" I don't believe in luck"

"getting cocky now aren't you? Well you can thank whatever you believe in"

Mikado strode over to the book shelf. Pulling back a few fake books with numbers on them 1,2,5,9 in order, the shelf receded, slipping into the walls on wither end to reveal a wall of drawers labeled A-Z and an extra written ＃. he opened the extra, pulling from it a weird bracelet of some sort, murmuring to himself if it would fit or not. Finally he paced over to his desk, the shelves moved back into their places, the numbered books had their numbers turned red and them off like there was never anything there. Keeping the band on a small black mat on the table which was connected to his laptop and after some clicking he got up again walking to where su lay on the floor looking winded, staring at the ceiling holding onto her neck.

 Without another word, he grabs her arm, placing the band onto her wrist, the band beeped, lighting up to a bunch of numbers. 229019.

"What is this?"

"Your official code"

"What?"

"You'll need it to eat since, you're going to be here a while"

"No" A dread in her voice as she struggled to remove it, but it only grew tighter around her wrist.

"The more you try to remove it, the more it tightens around your wrist until it eventually snaps your hand off"

She sighed, defeated. Eyes wide as she looked up at him, who only nodded affirming his words were true.

You may leave now Miss su, A child will meet you in the hallway to show you where to go, I have a feeling you'll like what I've done with him"

 Shocked. "A child" . Scared. "what I've done with him" She replayed his words in her head. Standing up, now aware of the sudden looseness and warmth in her muscles, acknowledging that whatever blue liquid she'd coughed up earlier must have been the 'substance' or 'Sample ic3' as he'd referred to it on the phone. She walked out of his office, into the semi-busy hallway looking at the view over the edge of the floor. They were at the highest floor of the building.

"Welcome to the asylum, Miss Su" he said, giving her a smile that sent chills down her spine as the automatic door closed between them. She turned around, taking in the view. She stood a while, trying to estimate the amount of people here when a little boy walked up to her, dark skin and an arm full of scales, gills lined on the bridge of his neck, his face having scattered scales forming patterns, his skin a pale comparison to what it used to be. He was holding a piece of paper, one he tried to read from.

"Excuse me, please, are you Miss s-su li-lieh-lynn?" The boy looked up, just in time for su to recognize him,[ Save me, Please, Save me... miss...su... Please Help...] as the boy she saw this morning, before she ran. And he seemed to recognize her too.

"Miss Su?"

After the clean up team had cleared up the bio hazard of an office it finally looked like something a person could actually work in. It seemed much better even, the desk and all the furniture had been replaced. The place almost looked brand new, but there was a little stench of stale blood and some other thing I couldn't put my finger on coming from the vents. My first task of the day was a patient who I would describe as badly disfigured mentally. He thought he was a 7 year old girl which was… weird 'cause he's like 10 times that age but when you work in an asylum or a psychiatric hospital everyday is freakin weird. I once had a patient who had PTSD and in turn was schizophrenic. He was convinced he could see his dead mother following him around. Apparently she blamed him for the car crash they were in that led to her demise and two of his limbs being fractured. Sometimes you would catch him banging his head on the wall screaming "I didn't kill you, I didn't know, it wasn't my fault, I'm sorry"

So we had to chain his hands to his bed so he wouldn't kill himself. He was in recovery when I got fired because my new boss, who is practically a spoiled brat, fired me on the spot because I didn't get her coffee right and I was 'five minutes late to work' . I'm a specialist. I clock in an hour after everyone else. I was almost an hour early! Now I tried explaining this to her but she insisted that I was being arrogant and ridiculous and needed to leave the premises immediately. That job paid so well, just my luck that after that it was like she left me some sort of horrible review at a meeting of hospital owners or something because after that any other psychiatric hospital establishment refused to take me in, the ones that answered why said “I'm highly mentally unstable”, that the last person that hired me told them I was unpunctual, clocking in almost an hour late and I was unreliable and arrogant. The only mental illness I have been diagnosed with is bipolar disorder of which has a relatively far interval of switching in the first place but I still take my medications regularly such that in recent days I haven't had much switching at all.

 Since then, I was forced to do lesser and lesser jobs until I found this place and applied. I feel I'm definitely too overqualified to be a nurse, but it's a start. I was done doing checks and giving my current patient his drugs when my subordinate called me, snapping me out of my thought process.

"Su, could you help me out over here?"

"uhh, Sure, I'll be right out"

I could never figure out why they seemed to have a lot of children at the hospital, I never pictured the place as one built for kids who have mental issues and every so once in a while I'd hear screams which I winced at almost every time. None of the kids made proper eye-contact but they all seemed to flock around me a lot. I've always had it good with children but this time felt like there was an underlying traumatic response behind it but then again, this is a place for people like that to be so that is okay I suppose. But there was something quite off about them. "I'm sorry but the kids seem so inclined to you an-"I couldn't pinpoint it…"No no no it-it's fine I was just rounding up here anyway"

Now that I think about it, the adults had it too. And I know deep down that something is off, I'm sure.

"oh thanks so much" or maybe , maybe I'm just being paranoid.

The woman who called me needed help with a boy named Nico. He looked about 7, seemed tired and panting like he'd been running, his head darting around at every noise while his body jerked up in response. ‘Obvious PTSD' I thought quietly. The moment his green eyes met mine they were practically screaming for help, he was dead quiet, that is, until I mentioned him taking his medicine. He snapped. Before then I was almost convinced he was a mute.

"No! NO, Go away!"

"Nico you need to take your medicine" the other nurse chimed in.

"No! No, I want to see Robbie!"

"who's Robbie?" I asked.

"she was his childhood friend that died during a fight between gangs"

" That's not true! You killed Robbie! The drugs killed Ro-" he suddenly went silent like he saw something behind me that frightened the name off his lips. I turned around. Nothing. Just the other nurse picking the tablets- supplements- they called them.

The boy swallowed hard, his cries left, with only a whimper in their place.

"what?" the nurse asked, looking confused.

After calming the boy down, I was a bit uneasy, the weight of what he just said dawning on me "You killed Robbie!" What was that all about? That could be the response of PTSD. It only took me a few minutes to notice the fresh blood stains on his clothes and fresh cuts and bruises all over his body, some looking older than others. Infected. The other nurse said he constantly practiced self harm which would explain the bruises. But judging by his sudden quiet demeanor it's either he has a severe mental disorder or there's something not quite right about Miss Emily.

***

The next few days I moved with caution, suddenly aware of everything around me. I noticed some of the kids seemed to disappear for a few hours at a time and the concept that some come back and some don't made the fact that on the occasion they were pronounced dead I was neither allowed to near the corpse nor was I given the autopsy report any less eerie than it was. ["220919?"] I was only ever told that they died. ["220919 report to cafeteria"] nothing… ["M-misssu?"] Nico?… Nothing more.

["miss Su please get up"] N-Nico? [Please miss Su I will be punished if you don't go now"]

"Nico?"

"Yes?"

I woke up with a jolt. This isn't my room, who's Nico, what's that smell? Oh, wait-

"Miss Su please let's hurry or I'll be punished"

"Oh…right" I say getting up, still foggy from another nightmarish dream, No- memory more like, haunting my sleep. They've been becoming more frequent recently.

Three blows to the door remind me I need to get down stairs. "220919 get out of the room now!"

I groaned. That was probably the voice that woke me up.

 It's been 2 days since I got here. The boy I saw the morning I ended up here- who I later recognized as Nico- led me through the elevator as I followed him closely. Not wanting to get lost in this literal maze. I have since wondered how they managed to hide this massive building from the public as the trees across the water barely cover it. That is, until I found out The Asylum practically owns the government. And that was one of the things that shattered and completely annihilated my plan to escape and report to the police. I also found out that 'ASYLUM’' is the name of the asylum which just got me asking, like "who the hell came up with that?"

 When we got to the cafeteria, the floor embedded in the rock of the island the Medieval-like structure was situated upon, all the other kids were already eating. A few of them I recognized as the kids that disappeared from the little show back on the mainland I thought to be a real mental institution. Even though my gut had always said otherwise. Some kids spared me a few glances, others were too focused on what they were eating or talking about to even bother noticing someone walk by. From the time I stood on the edge of the fifth floor, (and I say edge because there aren't any railings, just a few close to the pillars but that's it) till now I realize the majority of the population here are under 24. They all refer to Mr. Mikado as Mikado when he's not around, and unfortunately, given the circumstance I am referred to as Mikado's whore by the older kids, and just Miss Su by the younger. I don't even have the time to worry about that one because when I'm not drowning in the pain of whatever new substance is pumped into my blood stream, plagued by nightmares-memories- or just eating I'm being tortured by Mikado. Being assaulted is a better way to put it.

"You are contributing to the big dream miss Su"

"This will further our plans with project NEXTGEN" what a load of crap.