St. Peter's Asylum discussion

Lena bit her lip. "Seven years is a long time." She murmured. Seven years brought the worst abuse from her father for her. Seven years felt like 50, pain filled, heart breaking years.

"Seven years is a damn long time," Raven agreed with a sigh. He shook his head. "But there's really no use swelling on how shitty our lives were outside of here, is there? We should go back to enjoying the night."

((I am so sorry, I had a ton of stuff going on. My apologies!))

"No, I suppose your right," Lena shrugged. "Well, I best be going. Should probably get some sleep, I have an exciting day tomorrow." This was laden with heavy sarcasm.

Raven winked. "You could always make it more exciting, you know," he said, rather mysteriously, and then turned without another word and exited the file room on silent feet.

((Fade?))

((Fade.))

The old door at the end of the old hall intrigued little Ruby. Shadows were everywhere here--big and small, male and female, some threatening, some not. She recognized the shape of a another girl her age, holding what she knew to be a gun. A few feet away, two of the black shapes were fighting, rather viciously by the look of them, and Ruby shied away to the opposite wall to avoid going near. As she passed to the door, she heard a whispered voice: There are secrets in there. Tucking Dotty securely under one arm, the small girl crept around all the shadows and tried the knob. The door eased open on creaking hinges and she snuck into the room, glancing around the dark as she tried to find a light switch.

Timothy had been sitting on the floor of the file room, alone and loving it. The silence allowed him to gather his thoughts, while solitude always seemed to brush the demon away momentarily. Though his sketch book was out, and his left hand gripped around a stick of charcoal, there was nothing on the page; yet.

The boy jumped a little as the door opened, and gray eyes glanced up from his sketchpad to the little girl in the doorway.

Timothy placed a small smile on his face. "Hello."

Instinctively, Ruby sprang back with a quiet shriek in the doorway, one hand shooting out to grip the wall so that she wouldn't fall flat on her back. For a moment, she was frantic, and then realized that the voice had to come from a person and not from a shadow. "Hi," she breathed, relaxing and glancing again around the dark room. The light from the halls was dim; she still could barely see. "Where are you? I can't see."

"Here."

Timothy stood and gently walked over towards the girl, flipping on the light switch. A dim light flickered to life above.

He smiled at the young girl and offered his right hand, which was not stained in charcoal. "I'm Timothy."

"My name is Ruby." She took his hand tentatively and shook it a few times, as she had been taught. She nodded to Dotty under one arm. "And this is Dotty. He's my deer." She raised her eyes to glance about the now-lit room, looking for this tall boy's shadow. She found it just behind him, hunched over a the old, tarnishing cabinet in the corner. He was whispering to himself, but she couldn't hear. "What's in there?" she asked, pointing.

Smiling at the deer, Timothy turned with a little look of confusion on his face. His pale brows knit together as they landed upon the older cabinet, and he shrugged.

"I'm not quite sure," he murmured. "Shall we find out?"

Gray eyes turned to the girl, glimmering with a hint of mischief and a small smile.

Ruby smiled. "Yeah! Your shadow wants to know, too." She nodded to his black shape and trotted over to where it was standing, bending her head to peer into the drawer. "It's...um, it's folders. I think." Gingerly she reached down and plucked one of the vanilla things from the cabinet, turning and holding it out for Timothy to see. She couldn't read the name written on the top, but by the file's thickness it had to have been someone important. "What's this say?"

((what does it say? xD ))

((Big file--I don't know. Raven or Bennett or someone who causes trouble. XD))

Timothy gently took the file from the young girl, and he flipped the thick packet through his fingers.

Raven. He himself had been lucky enough to avoid an encounter with the fabled killer, but he certainly knew the name.

Timothy smirked a little. "It's Raven's," he said in answer to the girl. "Do you know him?"

"Mmm-mm." Ruby shook her head, sending her hair bouncing about her shoulders. "That's a funny name though," she said, eying the file. R-A-V-E-N. She was fairly sure that a raven was a bird, not a person, and she turned curiously to face Timothy. "I thought ravens were birds. Who would his mommy name him a bird's name?"

Timothy laughed a little. "It's not his real name. More of a nickname."

"Oh. Well, have you met him?" By the way he'd spoken the words, her new friend had made Raven sound like a bad person. She was curious now. "Is he bad, like the shadows?"

Timothy shook his head. "I haven't met him, I don't know. I'm just basing my opinion off of rumors."

With a gentle smirk, Timothy placed the file back. He wasn't one to sneak around.

"What's a rumor?" Ruby pushed the file cabinet closed so she could learn against the back. A glance was tossed to Timothy's shadow, and it took a moment before she heard the voice: Things that aren't true. The little girl frowned and turned her green gaze back to the older boy. "Is that when people lie about stuff?"

He nodded. "Right, basically." He kicked himself a little for forgetting how young she was, and how little she would actually know. Timothy made a note to try and simplify things.

"Why would people lie about...um, about Raven?" A slight frown tugged her lips down at the corners, and Ruby's light browns drew together. "Lying's not nice. My daddy says that you should never lie, except when you really, really have to. Why would people have to lie about the bird guy?"

Timothy chuckled a little. "Well, he's kind of someone you have to lie about. He's very scary."

"Really?" Ruby looked at him with wide eyes. "Why's he scary? What's he do?" Of course, Timothy could just as easily be toying with her--his laughter certainly didn't make him sound all that scared--but in any case, she was willing to listen. People tried to avoid talking about this place, especially the nurses; so if she could get some information out of another patient, she would.

"He... Hurts people, or so I've heard."

"How does he do that? All the nurse ladies tell me it's really really safe here." Ruby frowned and crossed her arms thoughtfully. "And there's no guns or anything, except on those big scary men that always glare at everybody." She didn't like the guards--they worried her, and their shadows were just as threatening (if not more threatening) than those of the patients. "How could he hurt anybody, Timothy?"

Timothy shrugged. "I don't really know. A lot of the high-security patients do, though. They find ways to get knives and weapons."

Ruby's eyes widened at this piece of news. "Really?" Her voice was hushed, as if she was worried one of those high-security patients was outside the door to the little room right now, listening, for their shadows certainly were. "Well..." she hesitated to ask the question, lest she found like a baby, "they don't...they don't hurt anybody here with them, do they?"

Sometimes Timothy wished he could be as naive as a child.

"They do, Ruby. Plenty if people get hurt by the high-security patients."

The little girl shuddered. "But my mommy said it would be safe here," she said softly, the slightest of tremors in her voice. "She said the shadows wouldn't hurt me no more." She stopped leaning on the cabinet and slid to the side of it, as if wishing to hide herself in the darkness. "Timothy, she said they wouldn't hurt me no more!" The words weren't shouted, but unshed tears had begun to glisten in Ruby's wide green eyes--from fear or something else, it wasn't easy to tell.

Timothy bent down next to the young girl, and he gently pulled her into a hug.
"Shh, it's okay. You'll be fine."

"I don't want them to hurt me!" She clung to the back of the older boy's shirt and leaned her head on his shoulder, knowing very well that she probably looked more like a baby than she ever had but having an incredibly hard time caring. "Don't let the hurt me," she whispered, and whether she was talking about the shadows or the patients now was unclear. "Don't let them hurt me, Timothy. Please."

"Don't you worry."

Timothy placed a hand under her chin, and lifted her head to face his. "Don't worry, Ruby. Nobody is going to hurt you." He gently brushed her tears away.

"Promise?" Her eyes were wide and scared when they landed on his. Ruby became aware of the fact that her lower lip was trembling, and with half-hearted anger she bit into it. She hated to act like such a baby around anyone, especially not someone older, but she couldn't help it now. It seemed that there were more than just shadows to be afraid of in this asylum.

"I promise."

((fade?))

((Fade.))

Quiet. That was what he needed. Silas was at the end of his rope these days, followed about and doted upon as he was by the nurses. If he heard one more person tell him about the fantastic success rates of St. Peter's, he thought he might scream. And so he had been wandering, for quite a while, with his only intention being to get away from the rest of the asylum. He'd ducked down the narrow hallway just a few minutes ago, had found the door, had slinked through the narrow opening it provided. Now he sat in the back of the room, his eyes having long since grown used to the dark, simply taking comfort in the peace in this tiny place.

Bennett, at first, didn't take notice of the man she had interrupted. With a rather annoyed glance behind her, Bennett entered the room without thinking, shutting the door rather quietly behind her. With an exasperated sigh, she turned around, and her watery gaze feel upon Silas.

A little squeak escaped her lips, as Bennett had not expected company. She placed her hand over her chest, expressing her shock.

"Sorry, sorry. I'll be out of your hair in just a moment," Bennett murmured as she began rummaging through filing cabinets.

And of course, someone had to appear and ruin the tranquility. A weary sigh escaped Silas as he turned to look at the younger girl. "Don't mind me. You inturrupt nothing but my thoughts." Well, at least this one didn't seem to be entirely unhinged--he wouldn't have to deal with some sort of meltdown should things take a bad turn. He arose on stiff legs, stretching each one in turn, and walked over to the cabinet to peer over Bennett's shoulder. He had seen the large set of the metal things when he'd come in, but hadn't until now thought that there might have been interesting things within them. "What are you looking for?"

"A file," was her blunt response. She had taken one before, to get the basics for a doll-- after someone named (enter name here ), and yet had forgotten a few of the little details. The doll-maker had come for a refresher, that was it.

Turning her head to glance at the boy behind her, Bennett murmured, "What about you? Why are you in here?"

"The quiet." Silas rolled his eyes. "I swear, every single time I turn there is a nurse behind me, babbling away. I had to get away from them, they were beginning to get me headaches." A slight shrug of slim shoulders came. "Why do you need a file, then? Out to destroy some innocent's reputation?" He wasn't one for humor, but a slight smirk curled at his lips when he spoke. He'd heard things like that happened often around here.

Bennett shook her head. "No. I, uh, make voodoo dolls, you could say."

She broke out into a little half-grin with a little chuckle. "And I feel you about the nurses."

"Dolls?" Silas's red brows knitted together, his eyes perhaps slightly confused. "You don't look like a child. Why on earth would you take any comfort out of playing with dolls?" The quirks of the people here, it seemed, knew no bounds.

"Voodoo dolls. You know, the ones that hurt people?"

Again, Bennett smirked, though her green gaze remained upon the filing cabinet, not turning to the boy beside her even once.

"Hmmm." The noise was a doubtful one, but Silas shrugged nonetheless and again peered over her shoulder into the rows of files. Just out of curiosity, he said, "Am I in there somewhere?" It would be interesting to see what kind of things the doctors were saying about him.

"Are you Low-Security?" The comment was made with almost a snotty tone, though it merely came as habitual sarcasm.

With a little smirk, Bennett pointed to the older cabinet in the corner. "High-security is over there, hon."

"Oh." Silas moved off to the other cabinet, sliding the drawer open and peeking inside. It took a few moments, but he found his file, flipped it open, and skimmed it over. "Not very informative," he said dryly. "I pity the fool who has to attempt to look after me using this as a guide."

"Not many of the higher securities are. People are too afraid to get to them."

Silas burst into toneless laughter. "That bad, are we? That's a shame. My sister is going to have to get the burden of all the staff's attention." And from what he'd seen, it was something of an awful thing, to have an assigned nurse. If they were anything like the ones that had been plaguing him for the past few weeks, then it would be a terrible thing indeed. At the thought, the boy grimaced and made a noise of disgust.

Bennett smirked. "Exactly. That's why it's best to lay low, and not let them know what you're up to."