Even now, as I think back on that night, there is a strange sense of unrest that fills me—a heinous dread that consumes me. I remember it all so very plainly...

My palms began to sweat. My knees felt as if they might give out beneath me. I took another step forward, through the foggy night.

And then I saw it, looming in front of me like a haunting spirit. The sight of its gray, crumpled walls made my heart thunder. I could hear the blood-curdling screams that pierced the air, and the more quieter moans of hopeless voices. I forced my eyes to read the words written in the stone above the doorway: Northside Insane Asylum.

I wanted to turn—run away from the horrid sounds of mindless bodies! But some nagging voice in my head urged me forward. You're lost. You don't know how to get home, and if there is someone sane in this place, maybe they can help you!

Home. Even the thought of it drove away some of the madness I was feeling. I had to try for the dim chance that they could help me. I had to.

Moving forward, I made my way up the cracked stone steps that lead to the door. The screams got louder—more urgent, and somehow very frightening. And then the door eased open, very slowly...

I backed up a step, gripping the metal banister—clinging to it so tightly that my knuckles turned white.

The woman before me just stared, as if she were not really looking at me at all. Then she smiled, tucking a matted lock behind her ear. “Yes?” She sounded sane enough. But that look in her eyes...

“My name is Ella Jenkynns,” my words shook with tremor, “and I can't seem to find my way out of here.” I paused and mustered a smile. “Could you, perhaps, point me in the right direction?”

She blinked at me, swatting a fly away from her papery skin. Then she reached out and grabbed my jacket, pulling me towards her, whispering to me in a hoarse voice, “Won't you come in? I have been so looking forward to seeing you! My gracious, it's been nearly two weeks since you came and visited me!”

I jerked back, nearly falling down those cracked steps, but that pale hand remained clutched to my jacket—unwilling to let go of me. “Please! I just need to get home!”

But she wouldn't listen. She just kept pulling me in, talking to me as if I were an old friend, pulling me into the asylum, talking to me, pulling me in, pulling me in!

I slipped out of the jacket, and ran back down the stairs through the fog. I heard her crying after me, but I just kept running, oblivious to her words.

Finally, I stopped running. I looked down the many paths that led away from the asylum, squinting through the fog. “I must get home...” The words carried into the gray air, settling to an uncanny silence that crept along my spine. I couldn't stand the silence—it was driving me mad!

So I kept whispering that to myself. “I must got home. I must get home...” over and over and over again as I walked the forested path. I don't know exactly how long I walked, but not long later I found myself in a clearing, and the fog that had enveloped the earth before was now lifted. I looked up—hoping to see something familiar—grasping for the desperate hope that I was safe.

My world rocked back and forth before me. All I could see were those horrid words carved in the stone...

I was back at the asylum. Somehow, I was back. I don't know how or why, but it didn't matter how many paths I took that night, or how many short cuts I made, I always ended up right at the foot of those steps—looking up into those frightening words. Northside Insane Asylum. Northside Insane Asylum...

It kept boring into my brain until I thought, perhaps, that I was going mad too.

Leaning against the metal banister, I looked up at the building. Surly I was making a wrong turn. Every time I tried to leave, somehow, I was doing something wrong. I couldn't figure out what, but it was the only explanation—wasn't it? People weren't just drawn back to a certain place by some sort of unexplainable force—so quietly that they don't even know they are being led astray. There had to be an explanation...

But what I hadn't realized, was from that point on, there were no explanations. There would be no answers to my questions, no reasoning, no reality. From the moment I started back up those steps for the second time, my life was to plunge into the darkest pit of madness that I had ever known.

<><><><><>

I stood there, staring up at the door, trying to gain enough courage to knock again. There had to be someone inside that could help me—someone decent and normal.

The door opened for the second time, and a large frame filled the doorway.

“Sir,” I nearly choked over the word, “I can't get out of here!” The tears that had clogged my throat now erupted into a sob, but he only stood there watching me as I cried, his face giving away no sense of emotion. “All the paths lead me back here, and I don't know what to do! Isn't there anyway out?” I was sure I saw a thought pull his brow upward; his face changed only slightly. Was there some tiny brain left within his head? Did he—perhaps—understand a little of what I was saying?

He grunted, and crossed his arms over his massive chest. His voice was a coarse whisper, as if he hadn't spoken in years. “You tried the courtyard?”

I stepped closer to him, daring to let myself hope—daring to believe that I was nearly free of this cursed nightmare. “Where is this courtyard? Please, you must tell me!”

He pushed the door open farther. “Come with me.”

I looked past him, into the darkness of that rickety old asylum. I had to go. It was the only way...

But was I brave enough to follow this man into the household of lunatics—to throw myself at their mercy—to be vulnerable against their insanity?

I swallowed hard and moved forward. The door slammed behind me, and I felt his large hand resting on my shoulder.

“Just through here,” he said, his voice a calm whisper.

I clenched my fist to my side and prayed with a fierceness as I proceeded through the dark corridor.

<><><><><>

There were walls surrounding me on every side of the courtyard. I stopped to look up at them, but the man pushed me forward towards the tall black gate.

He leaned over and opened it—and the sound of its dull squeaking moaned throughout the air, blending with the melancholy groans of those locked inside the asylum.

I stepped through the gates, turning back once on the other side. “Thank you,” I whispered, but I couldn't see him anymore. Perhaps he had gone back inside, or maybe he remained standing there, hidden by the blackness of the night. Whatever the case, I walked away from the place—from the terror—from the fear that loomed in those horrible walls. I was finally going home, finally almost free...

From the corner of my mind I saw a movement. I jerked my head around, panic pushing through my veins.

There was someone there...

Watching me...

Enclosed in the shadows of the night, waiting for his chance to attack me...

I started running, pushing my legs harder and harder—whisking through the trees. I turned back once to look at my assailant, but all I could see was a faint shadow that was so vague I might have missed him. But he was there, and he was searching for me. And there was no escape.

<><><><><>

I fell on my face, letting a weak scream burst forth from my lips. The shadow was upon me, and all I could see were his white, demon eyes.

I caught my breath, closed my eyes against the horrendous face.

His finger, cold and damp, caressed the side of my cheek, and then there was a very soft, gentle voice, “Oh, how I've longed for you, Laura. So very long I have yearned to touch you...” His arms reached under me, pulling me up against his chest as he stood. “Oh, Laura!” he breathed in my ear. “You've finally come back!”

I couldn't stop trembling. He was crazy—there was no telling what he would do to me. I tried to break free, but his grip only increased as he started carrying me through the woods. “I'm never going to let you go, Laura. Not this time.”

I closed my eyes—tried to block out his enigmatic words. Finally the sound of heavy gates screeching caught my attention. I looked up as the Northside Insane Asylum drew ever nearer to us. I'd been so frightened of this place—of the mindless animals that were caged within its gray walls. But now I could only stare up, not feeling fear, not feeling anything at all. Somehow—for some terrifying reason beyond the earth's knowledge—I was doomed to remain here. I was prisoner to its insanity. I was condemned within its faraway world, so different from my own.

The man sets me to my feet in the courtyard. I look down, and for the first time I notice the rickety old coffin laying on the ground, with its lid propped back as if awaiting its body.

“Who is suppose to be in there?” I whispered. Only I knew. It was my coffin, waiting for me to die, waiting to take me away from this terrifying place.

The shadowy man behind me picked me up once more, and laid me gently in the coffin. He arranged my hair as if I had already died—crossed my hands over my chest and placed a wilted rose within my fingers. I heard him whisper something—something very soft that was probably meant for the woman he thought I was. Then he closed the lid of that coffin, and very slowly I felt the life pumping out of me. Colors danced in front of my eyes—voices from the past echoed in the closed box. Then I felt myself slipping away into a world of blackness.

The last thing I heard was a scream from inside the asylum...

<><><><><>

I open my eyes, and for a moment all I can see are colors fading in and out. Slowly, they all drown away to the immaculate color of white—a pure and stainless white like the glistening snow on a frozen pond. And then there is a face—a pale, wrinkled face with eyes that are so gray that they appear to be no color at all.

The man leans forward in his white robe, sliding the spectacles up his long, thin nose, and stares at me for a long minute.

I hear a scream—a distant, familiar, startling scream that causes all of the memories to flood back to me. “Where am I?” I whisper, my voice quivering in the white room.

The doctor smiles at me, and for the first time I notice my wrinkled skin. And then I know. I hadn't really escaped that place—death had only taken me on a short ride through the pages of time. That same numbness consumes my body, and again all emotion leaves me as the doctor answers me in his monotone voice, “You're in the Northside Insane Asylum.”