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A Frightening Journey
by Ángel Alberto Potenciano Pascual (2008-09, 5ºA)
It was almost midnight when she could see in the distance the blur and massive shape of the mental hospital. The unreliable indications of the villagers, the twisted and muddy dirt tracks and the unceasing and annoying mist made her get lost several times, finding it hard to locate it.
While she approached, she could observe with more clearness the worrying scene that stood up before her eyes. Dominating a vast moorland, burnt by the icy clime, the lunatic asylum was a huge, dreary and austere building of grey stone, crowned by a black slate roof. Five horizontal lines of wide and barred windows give the building a bigger appearance of symmetry and austerity. Its state of forlornness was evident. Dark stains which started from the base of the windows formed extended and wavy silhouettes on the façade. The cold wind was the only guest of that isolated place, coming in and out as it pleases through the broken glasses of the windows. A cordon of dying cypresses surrounded the pile, like a group of sentinels which try to protect the memories of the abuses and atrocities committed behind those thick walls. Their slim bodies were shaken by the sharp wind while their playful shadows performed a sinister dance on the surface of the façade. The stillness of the place was only interrupted by the banging of the heavy wooden door of the main entrance.
Inside, the stink was unbearable. Rubbish, medicines, clothes, excrements and medical equipment mixed each other on the floor throughout the building. In that moment, came to her mind the testimonies about the methods used in the mental hospital. Tortures, beatings, vexations, electric discharges, used to form part of the treatments in order to "heal” the patients of their disease. A frightening legend speaks about the case of a middle-aged woman. She was one the most troubled patients in the asylum. All the methods seemed ineffective with her. The medical team decided to subject her to an intensive treatment. During three endless days and nights she was tortured, beaten and raped ceaselessly. Her piercing screams reached every corner of the hospital. At the end of the third day, her body lost the unequal battle against so inhuman a punishment and she died. Her body was never buried. It disappeared from the morgue the very night of her death.
The memory of that disturbing story made her get tremendously nervous. Her heart began to beat violently inside her chest. The stink of that place made her feel nauseated. She decided to go back to the main entrance. The fresh air of the exterior would make her feel better. While she went through the interminable corridors, the howl of the frozen wind reminded her of the screams of the woman. The dancing shadows of the cypresses penetrated through the windows, simulating the wandering pace of patients. Her steps were quick and long. However, the speed of her steps was getting higher and higher till become a desperate running, even a muffled scream escaped from her mouth.
Her breath stopped when she reached the heavy wooden door of the main entrance. It was locked. An icy shiver went over her back when she listened to the following words at her back:
" Do you want to know what happened during those three days and nights?. Yes?. Don't worry. I'm going to explain you word by word…….step by step……..hit by hit……..vexation by vexation……"