St. Peter's Asylum discussion

This is the dorm that Astrid and Yellow share.

Everything in the room had rounded edges. Well, nearly everything. From the desk to the poster on the wall, the room gave off a 'you can't hurt yourself' vibe. In Astrid's opinion, it was a waste of time and money. It wasn't as if she or Yellow would hurt themselves. Astrid just sat on the cold, linoleum floor, and stared at a quirk on the wall: a bright green amoeba-shaped stain lay there.

Dorm 639. That was the room they'd told Sam she'd be in. He wondered if he was allowed in, then doubted that, but proceeded to knock on the door. He, of course, hadn't bothered to check from what time to what time they were allowed out.

"Astrid," he hissed, praying that she would recognize his voice. He also prayed he would be able to recognize her.

If Astrid heard her her own name, she made no visible effort to open up the door. She took her time to continue to stare at the stain, and after a while, she silently got up. She heard her name being called once more, which snapped her out of her dreamy mood. It was such a familiar voice, wasn't it? She then proceeded to open up the door as if she were going through a vat of maple syrup.

"Oh my God," Sam muttered as the door opened at last, revealing a rather confusing sit indeed. Astrid had changed. Her hair had grown out and she wasn't wearing the smile he remembered. "Astrid...?" His tone was uncertain this time, as if he were suddenly wary of the slightly familiar face.

"Hello, Sam. I would have thought that you remembered who I was. People usually change, don't they? But, I guess that that saying doesn't apply to you." There he was, looking almost exactly like she remembered him. He just seemed like he had been streched out. With no expression on her face and longer hair, she guessed that it would be harder for him to remember her.

When she was younger, she had hung out with him and the other boys, had worn boy clothes, and had even had a short pixie cut. She had usually been mistaken for a boy in the past. Now, her hair was very long and slightly mussed, as the patients only got haircuts every so often. She wore a knee-length sleeveless paisley dress, which served a double purpose: the nurses could tell if she had done anything to herself much easier.

Sam blinked several times. "Uh, yeah, they do. And I didn't say I forgot," he protested. "I just thought... that um..." He trailed off there, uncertain as to how to finish his sentence. God, she actually looked like a girl now--albeit, a rather sad girl, but still a girl.

"So um, how're you?" He slapped himself internally at the utter lameness of his question. Smart, Sam. It was too late to take it back, anyways.

[XD Ivi, you make me laugh.]

"So, the stuttering and the pausing are your way of remembering? I would've thought the opposite." The dry humor was a small sign that all was not lost. She could still make a joke. Astrid didn't realize that he was probably stunned by her change in appearance, so she just continued as she would have.

"Weelll," she drawled out "I suppose I'm not fine, if that's the answer that you thought that you would get. I'm in an asylum; I'm not in Disneyland." Her voice cracked slightly as she uttered the last word; it was yet another sign that she hadn't completely turned into a mummy.

((x3 yei~))
"Sorry," Sam muttered apologetically. At least she still had a sense of humor. "How long have you been here?" He hadn't checked the date; he had seen her name, but hadn't checked to see how long she'd been there. He also hadn't imagined what seeing her again would be like after God-knows-how-many years. In fact, he hadn't thought about it at all. He'd just wanted to see her again, wanted to find out what really happened at the carnival when they were kids.

"I don't exactly know the amount of days, but I've been here since I was nine. I guess that's about six years, then. After the incident, I was passed back and forth, like a hot potato, to different relatives, for about a year. Of course, they got tired of me, and then they sent me here." Astrid didn't stay angry at her realtives for their decision, though. Looking at the situation from a different point of view made her forgive them.

Now that she had given a bit of her life story otu, she wanted answers. After all, noting in life was free, despite whatever people preached on and on about. "What brought you here? You aren't crazy." She uttered this in a matter-of-fact tone.

Sam nodded slightly. Six years? If anything, she could have gone insane from just being stuck in something that resembled a prison. "I came here because I was trying to find you," he admitted, a bit sheepishly. It wasn't exactly the best way to say it; after all, there were several ways it could be interpreted. "There were a lot of rumors about. . . y'know, and I kind of got sick of them. So I went to go and try to find out what happened."

"You were trying to find me?" Astrid's eyebrows rose in disbelief, which broke her mask of emotions. He had tried to find her? The insouciant little, well, not so little anymore, surfer had done that?

"Well, rumors are rumors. If everyone believed rumors, then everyone's reputation would have been tarnished a while ago. Here I am." She was ready for his questions.

"Yeah... Anyways, what happened at the carnival?" Sam asked slowly, dreading the answer. He had been trying to find her--and had found her--but she most likely misinterpreted it. Just as he'd thought she would. Wonderful.

There had been several rumors as to why the sweet little Astrid had left and had, for whatever reason, killed all those people.

"I went with Quinn, you know, my younger brother, my mom, and my dad to the carnival. My parents let me wander on my own, with the condition that I would take care of him. I failed my job." Astrid was rather hesitant to let everything spill all at once, so little by little, she would give information out.

((<3))
"And then what happened?" Sam prompted. The dread only increased. He remembered the freak that got out. It was all over the news. His parents made him go back into the car with them. To protect him, they'd said. From the freak.

The impassive look was back, this time firmly secured on Astrid's face. "I saw the people fleeing, but I couldn't get away. My family was still there. I decided to hide in the safari-themed carousel that was next to the corn dog stand." Just an excerpt. Just one excerpt at a time. It was too hard to remember everything at the same time.

Just a nod passed over Sam. He leaned against the door frame. It made sense so far. Maybe she wasn't as crazy as everyone made her out to be. Then again she was in an asylum. "And then?" He was just getting the slightest bit impatient; the whole place made him uneasy.

"I heard utter silence. It was just like in that Christmas poem 'Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse'. I got out after staying there for almost an hour. I didn't see any living people. I was frightened; I decided to turn on the carousel, and then I started to ride it. Five minutes later, gravel started to crunch, and then I heard the raspy breath of someone behind me." Had it not been for her voice, anyone would have thought that Astrid had fallen asleep with her eyes open.

"Wait, they were dead before you came out?" Sam asked, his thoughts turning to confusion. They'd said that she'd killed everyone, no one else. And then he noticed her fatigued-looking expressiong. "Er . . . maybe we should sit down." He didn't want her fainting, or something. How would he explain that?

She sat down on the slate gray bench that was drilled to the floor and offered him a seat. "Yes. They were." A bit of ire had crept into her voice. She couldn't believe that he was starting to sound like the nurses already.

"As I was saying, the breathing continued, and then the man, it was a man, grabbed me. I-I can't go further."

He sat beside, and again he nodded, not wishing to push her further. But it confused him. She might've been lying, but she didn't seem to be. "All right, Astrid." Okay, so maybe she's just a /little/ off... Sam looked around the room, finally taking in his surroundings. It was a rather depressing place, from the two wooden beds, to the bench they were sitting on.

"Who else lives here?"

"Jill is my dormmate, but she prefers to be called Yellow. She's seven years old; she's a little sweetheart." Astrid didn't mention the fact that Yellow spoke about herself in third person. In her eyes, it was rather cute, but to someone else, it might have been a little... unusual.

[Yay! Yellow reference!]

Sam nodded. He didn't bother to ask why she was there in the first place; he could only assume. "I see," he muttered. He looked about the rather depressing room once more. How could she have possibly survived living in there for six years? He could hardly stand to sit in there, even with Astrid beside him.

"Enough about me. What about you? I know that you're still surfing." No doubt, no hesitation there. The tan was prominent on his body, and he had slight muscles. The tang of the briny sea permeated the room; it was a familiar smell to Astrid.

"What about me?" Sam repeated. "I haven't really changed. Yeah, I'm still surfing, but that's nothing new." He really didn't have anything else to talk about. He was average in school (though sometimes, below average), he still hung out with the same friends. He still surfed, he still lived with his mom in the same house he had for as long as he could remember.

For some unexplicable reason, this didn't surprise Astrid. It only made sense that he would remain a constant, while she would be the ever-changing variable. "Do you still live in the same little house? Do you still go to the same school?" Curiosity was starting to build up; she rarely had visitors, let alone visitors her own age.

"Yeah, everything's been the same," Sam replied with a simple shrug of his shoulders. They'd moved on from the little carnival incident, returned to their normal lives without her. Well, as normal as could be without a handful of loved ones gone.

"Did... did your mom survive?" As soon as the phrase escaped her lips, Astrid wanted to take it back. That wasn't the type of question that normal people asked other normal people. What if she hadn't? It would become really, really awkward.

"Yeah, yeah she did. She saw me off at the train station," Sam replied hastily. Thankfully, she had. He knew of a few who hadn't. Which brought him back to the question of why Astrid couldn't remember killing them.

"I have another question for you." Although she assumed that he probably didn't want to answer anymore questions, she still wanted to hear about the things that no one bothered to tell her about. "How did you find out that I was at this asylum. There are more asylums in this state than you think. For all you know, I could have just been transferred here today."

"I asked your parents about it a couple weeks ago. I mean, I finally dug up the guts to. They told me they sent you here, so then I looked up the address online and asked my mom if I could go." Of course, it was an over-simplification of what had really happened. He did ask her parents, who had be quite stubborn when he had questioned them and so he spent a rather strenuous amount of time searching the Internet after they had finally told him where to look. And then he had to convince his mom to let him go, and that alone was hard enough to do.

"How are they?" Her voice mellowed, but her face still din't betray her emotions. Just like most little kids, Astrid had yearned to be reunited with her parents, and she still thought of them frequently. She didn't think that they would forget Quinn.

"They're just fine," Sam assured her. He hadn't a clue what else to say about them. He had hardly got a chance to talk to them, seeing as how they hadn't invited him in on any occasion.

That short response wasn't very reassuring. But, Astrid wasn't going to try to focus in on that right now. "Has anything major happened... since the carnival?" The answer was probably no, but it didn't hurt to ask.

Sam shook his head. "No. Nothing." Thankfully. If anything like that happened again--even something vaguely similar--there was no telling what the little town would do.

[What's the name of their little town? Perdido Beach ]

Astrid gave off a small breath of relief. She didn't think that the twon would have been able to handle anything else. It was a small town that was probably still recovering from that event, even though it occured years ago.

((xD Do you want me to go look up coast towns? 'Cause I know a few that aren't too well known.))

"So what's life been like for you?" Sam continued, hating the silence between them. Well, he hated silence in general. After all, there was sound for a reason.

[Sure. I've never lived in California, so I woouldn't know.]

"That depends. Do you want the truth, or do you want to hear what everyone really wants to hear and pretends that happens?" She didn't know if he was like the others, the ones who didn't care. A lifetime ago, at least that's what it seemed like, Astrid and Sam had been close. It was so cliche, but it was true. A little redhead tomboy had always hung out with a little blonde surfer.

((xD We could have it be in a lesser part of Newport Beach or something like that. Newport's a nice town, and it's got a Ferris wheel and a carousel in one of its shopping centers))

"The truth," Sam replied almost immediately. He still cared about her, even after all those years separated. Even after the incident. It was a wary sort of care, but it was care all the same. "If I wanted the other answer, I would have stayed home."

[Sure. Newport it is.]

"I'm miserable here. It's a wonder that I haven't slit my throat or my wrists. Most of the people here are complete lunatics. My great-aunt visited just one. Once she did that, I guess my entire family checked it off on their to-do list, and never visited again. The nurses here think I'm crazy, despite the fact that I have never cut myself, nor hurt anyone here. I don't even talk to myself." Astrid surprised herself. She rarely showed any passion in her conversations anymore, and here she was, talking vehemently.

"Then why won't they let you go?" He was curious more than anything; she seemed fine now, not like how everyone back home had described her. She seemed normal at the moment. She didn't seem to be a complete freak like a lot of the others he had seen on his way up here.

"Well, according to police reports, I killed a man. No matter how my behavior is, they aren't going to release me for a while. All the doctor and psychologists say that I need to stay here at least two more years. They say that that is the average stay here, and they want to keep it that way." Astrid couldn't protest, because they would probably extend the time. It was so unfair.

"That makes no sense. If you're fine, then they shouldn't keep you here. I mean, it's one thing if you were unstable, but you're obviously not, since you have sane thoughts." Sam, of course, didn't understand why they couldn't examine her to see if she still deserved to be cooped up in a depressing hole in the wall, or if she was back to normal.

"In a perfect world, I probably would have been gone a while ago or something. Keep in mind that this is California's second largest asylum. There are a lot of people here. Too many people. The nurses and volunteers pay more attention to the louder patients, not me. So, it's rather hard for them to even notice how I'm doing." Astrid was rather ignored here by the security and most of the adults; she wasn't a trooublemaker. She was one of the 'quiet ones'.

I'll go talk to them. He thought that time before speaking. Who would listen to a fifteen-year-old boy? They'd think he wanted her out because of a poor broken heart. Sam shuddered at the thought. "Yeah. I guess you're right."

"You see, I just have to figuratively and literally keep my nose clean. I can't get into fights, like the others. I can't draw attention to myself. I can't do freaky things like cutting myself or becoming bulimic. Once the two years are up, then I'll be out of here. That's my plan A." Astrid was hoping that it wouldn't come down to plan B.

"And your plan B? Two years is a long time, y'know," Sam reminded. Then once again he mentally slapped himself. Of course she knew that. You idiot.

"Well, if I mess up, then it'll screw up my plan. And yes, I know that it's a long time. But, my plan B is to run away. It's eve worse. I has a lower chance of working out." Astrid couldn't firgure what was worse: to wait or to attempt to escape.

Sam nodded. "It'd be safer to just wait," he commented. "And avoid a bunch of bad media." He would hate it if she had her picture in the newspaper for another negative reason.