WildOak Asylum; named for the thick woods surrounding it, a private nature reserve; ancient trees shelter the old building from view, a winding road miles long leading to its entrance that is rarely driven on except by employees. There are many of them; nurses who fill medications for the patients, wardens who keep them in line, psychologists who try to make the abnormality in these people go away so that they can fit in with society's standards, and a few janitors and maids to clean up after them. The ones who know of this place's existence are many. Those who know the truth of it are few. They can sense it though, those workers; there is something wrong with this place. People quit their jobs here far more often than should happen, crazies or no. None of them speak of it; simply say they work at a hospital or with those that have special needs. Being associated with this place, with its fame and reputation, one would think the people who worked here would be proud they got in - and they are... up until they actually begin working here, suspicious from the very first moment they enter when they have to drop off any personal belongings at the door, and read the dress code that does not allow belts, any form of cutlery for their lunches, writing utensils, or even CDs.
It's a nice place; large windows, wide halls that have plenty of light, intricate victorian style designs; what you don't see until your inside is the metal bird netting inside the plastic windows, the security pads on all doors and windows; this place is just a fancy cage. If you were to shine a UV light on the floor and walls, they would glow brilliantly as the light revealed the horrors that have happened here over the many years. The only ones who know of that however are the family that run the place and a few trusted employees, other than the patients themselves of course.
Some days are calm. The patients allowed to wander the halls do so, the first through third ward patients allowed select games and the right to associate with other patients, perhaps allowed to go outside into the yard and play some kind of ballgame, all of that with extreme supervision of course. Other days, the yelling of the fourth ward patients echoes down the halls, occupying the nurses and wardens, leaving the other patients with more freedom as they are left with less attention. The food is good, through the rooms are small. Good behavior gets you movement to a more relaxed ward, though they are never truly free. The money that funds this place mostly comes from the government, the result of discoveries made over a hundred years credited to them. The public often wonders how much hard work it must have taken, how much study and observation. Donations are aplenty; government stipends for each discovery and medication still used are sent to them.
But all that's just the surface - the reality of those discoveries are far darker. Testing taken through force, ones that wouldn't be considered humane, give them over half of their material. Responses to different conditions such as pain and pleasure, illegal drug testing, training them to behave like dogs - that is the way here, when others aren't looking. The only ones who can truly understand what it's like to experience those things are the ones who have experienced it; understanding can only be gained though pain and hardship. Such is the way humans evolve. So one can only think, does that mean the patients are the ones who see the true reality? They certainly think so, and life is all about perspective. Why should they have to put up with that? The answer; they shouldn't, and they know it. So they take every chance they get to show others just what they think of it.
◥◤Unwavering|Quiet|Reserved|Loyal
ASPD | Cyclothymia
⎡ Role - Patient ▮ Tale - Peter Pan⎦
|| Speech - #0000CC || ◢◣
Tsukiko never did care about other people; they were different than him, after all. Society expected him to fit in, to be 'one of the crowd'. He said to hell with that, and so they'd chosen him as the outcast, just like the group of bullies at the playground. They said the things he had done weren't his fault, that he could get 'better'; but if getting better meant becoming as blind and ignorant as the majority, they could take their acceptance and shove it. That was just a power play anyway, so that they could feel good about themselves, raise their self esteem - so that they could say they were different, better, normal. You saw it on the child playgrounds all the time - the one kid picked on because he or she was 'different'. Destroying that person brought the others satisfaction, brought them together. They didn't understand him; and he too couldn't understand them.
Did they really think he would care if they chose him as the one to be outcasted? He had no bonds with any of the people out there, judging him, putting him in this place. To be close to someone, you have to be able to understand them, just as they understand you. Those people can't understand him, thus any bond of so-called 'friendship' is shallow, fake, with no real attachment; do they think he cares about losing bonds such as those? Do they think it torments him, that his trust had been broken, that they had hurt him, that he wanted to know why and earn back their acceptance?
How ridiculous. Well, if it made them feel better about themselves, then they could just go ahead and do so. It wasn't like they mattered. And apparently, that was very very wrong, because it was what had landed him in this place; well, that and the fact that he had killed a couple cops, but they were shooting at him and his pack; was he supposed to stand there and die? As if. He refused to give ignorant idiots the title of his killer.
And so here he was. WildOak Asylum. A fester pool of darkness and pain, at odds with the appearances given by the bright open hallways. And they were getting transfers today; more people who would wither die or learn that they were not the ones in the wrong. Newbies were always fun.
A gasp and clatter tipped him off that he'd been found, and Tsukiko looked up to see a young female nurse staring at him in absolute shock. The expression on her face alone was almost enough to make one laugh, regardless of the fact that she had dropped her clipboard and papers all over the place. Tsukiko allowed himself a tiny smile of amusement; really, really tiny but still an accomplishment on the nurse's part.
"Wh- what are you doing?! Get down from there, you'll hurt yourself! ... How did you even get up there anyway!" She called up to him, voice squeaking twice.
Tsukiko, with one last glance at the main gate, with its high metal bars and voltage signs everywhere, decided to do as she asked. He was bored by now anyway - obviously the new people weren't going to be here any time soon, so it was a waste of time. He leaned forward slightly, changing so he was sitting on one heel with one foot out in front to control direction as he slid down the downward descent of the roof, leaning back slightly to slow down as he reached the edge, and pushed off so he was facing away form the drop rather than towards it so that he could catch the third-story windowsill instead of falling three stories down, using the momentum to direct himself through the opening. He heard a faint shriek from the nurse as he did so.
The windows, as with most of the doors, had a keypad that would unlock it so it could be opened; after living here three years, Tsukiko already knew the pass codes to most of them.
The third ward, on the top left of the building when facing the entrance, were the only windows with easy access to the roof, the place with the best view of the surroundings and gate. Tsukiko liked being up high, where there was else of a chance that they would be able to find him; thus he had learned the pass codes for the rooms and windows there a long time ago, as well as the schedule for changing them.
"Ki, stop using my window. I'll stab you." A voice ordered bluntly, with no joke in it, when he landed inside the room.
"Not a chance." Tsukiko answered just as bluntly, closed the window, and walked out. The kid, Kazue, had been tossed in WildOak several months ago, and didn't seem to give a damn what they wanted him to do, though for very different reasons than Tsukiko - kid wasn't nearly as lucid as he seemed. Kazue looked up from his book long enough to glare at him as he left the room.
The hall was empty, as usual here; third ward was where the patients with just enough self-control to not kill somebody were kept. Thus, all the doors were password-protected, instead of simply locked like the doors in second and first ward. During the mid-day, the first ward patients were allowed to roam free, while the second wards needed to have an escort. He'd ditched his earlier - normal, and by now they were so tired of trying to keep up with him that they didn't even punish him anymore, so long as no one got hurt.
Tsukiko easily made his way down to the first floor, avoiding the commons rooms and halls where staff regularly passed through, so that he could go to the first waiting room and see out the front window, waiting for the cars that would bring his next source of entertainment. After they got past all the security checks, that was.
Speaking of which, the door suddenly opened to reveal the same nurse he had just seen outside, who got that same look on her face as he had seen outside, obviously wondering how a patient could get down from the third wharf where he had entered the place from the roof to the first waiting room so quickly. You needed authorization for every area you went to, and accompaniment by staff as well, required at all times. This one probably worked with the newbies - that would be why she hadn't seen him around before or known his reputation.
Purely to freak her out more, Tsukiko gave her a charming smile and wave - it wasn't like he was
always unfriendly, sociopaths like him were
famed for being able to imitate normal behaviors. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the gate move, light flashing at an odd angle into the room as it reflected off a car. The woman blinked a couple times, then spun on her heel and walked away quite quickly, muttering about old asylums and ghost shows she had seen on TV.
The new patients had arrived. Finally, someone new to mess with - the ones they had here were pretty much too used to him by now, it wasn't any fun.