# Cycle

## Cycle by Evan Hunstad

Have you ever felt trapped?  
Ever felt like you're in something and there's no way out?  
Ever felt like the walls are pushing closer and closer everyday, in that one place that you can never get out of?

If you have, then welcome to the club, oh and I think you'll have a good idea of what it feels like, but to those of you reading this, who have never felt that before.  
Believe me, you are in for a treat.

And this will be my last day at Jefferson Asylum, the hell hole I've lived in ever since I set my parents house on fire.  
Yeah, you heard it right, my parents are dead and it's my fault, but it was an accident, I swear!

But that's not what my psycho uncle thought, he's a better candidate to be in here than myself.  
He was so mad at the death of his sister that he pulled this massive stunt on the police to convince them that I was taken over by evil, and now I’ve ended up here.

Jacksonville Asylum, a place notorious for its messed up and shady experiments they use on their patients; information only known by the people inside.  
The public just sees it as a cute, little hospital where they fix people who are a bit scrambled in the head.

## Page 1 of 6

4 a.m.  
I woke up to the sound of handbells ringing. I looked over at the door of my room to find what seemed to be a person, but it was so dark I couldn't tell who it was.  
“Hello?” I said, “is it already time to get up?” The sound of the bell kept getting louder like they were shaking it right next to the opening of my door.  
I sat and waited for something to happen, but nothing did. It felt like it went on for hours until the morning alarm went off.  
Everyone else in the asylum woke up and started flooding the halls.

## Page 2 of 6

7 a.m.  
I was stuck, couldn't move, couldn't talk, could barely even breathe. The air in the room started to get thick and hazy.  
I felt a grinding feeling coming up from my stomach and into my lungs. With that I started hyperventilating.  
The walls, the cold stone walls started moving closer... and closer... and closer, until my throat closed up.  
I couldn't feel anything. My lungs had just stopped. I was gasping so hard, waiting for the gift of air when the door swung open.  
It was Amanda. “Oh my gosh, Noah!” She yelled, grabbing the epipen from under my bed.  
I could smell her rose petal perfume from the moment she walked in the room.  
She was the only nurse who actually cared about me, or any of the kids for that matter.  
She injected the small needle into my thigh, piercing my skin, leaving the medicine to course through my veins.  
Within a few seconds I was back to breathing again, giving a gasp of relief from the both of us.  
“WHAT ON EARTH HAPPENED?” she asked, glimpsing at me like I was her own child.  
I sat there for a second trying to regain my strength when I felt something crunch under my pillow, with a few giggles lurking from outside the door.  
Amanda reached her hand under my pillow to find a handful of peanuts. Which I was deathly allergic to.  
“What kind of sick joke?” she turned to the hallway where the giggles still lurked. “JOSH, JOHN, IF THAT'S YOU, YOU’RE IN DEEP CRAP.”  
She ran to the door to find Josh and John, the two kids of the asylum that make it their life's work to make this place even more of a living hell than it already is.  
“I'll be right back, I've got to go chase down those little rats. I'll bring you some water on the way back. Are you alright now?”  
Amanda said with a smile that could make even the weakest feel complete.  
“a, I'm already feeling better. Thanks, I'm just going to lay down for a while and try to get some rest.” I said, laying my head down on the new pillow.

## Page 3 of 6

“Sounds good, Take your time.”

6:30 p.m.  
A kid strapped to the table, each limb fastened tightly with leather straps. He was in a dirty, old hospital gown with a second leather strap over his mouth and neck holding his head down.  
I turned over to where the shadowy figure was standing, but he was nowhere to be found.  
But that bell was still there.  
I turned back over to the window and the boy started to move.  
He began opening his eyes, realizing what's happening.  
He started shaking and squirming, then screaming, trying to get someone's attention.  
Two men walked up to the table. One with a long sharp rod in one hand, a mallet in the other.  
The boy saw what was going on and started moving even more.  
The man positioned the little metal rod on the inside of the boy's eyelid, causing him to breathe heavily.  
“NO!” I said, “HEY WAIT, NO, NO, NO, HEYYYY! NOOOOO!” I said, banging on the doors.  
The doctors didn't acknowledge me. It didn't even seem like they could hear me.  
The only one who could hear or acknowledge me was the boy on the table.  
“HEY WAIT!” I gripped the handles of the door, shaking them, begging for them to open, but they wouldn't budge.  
It was as if the door was welded shut.  
They raised the shiny metal mallet in the air before slamming it into the needle, puncturing into the boy's eye.  
The boy screamed in pain and his other eye stared right at me.  
I suddenly felt a sharp, cold pain increasing in the back of my eye.  
“OWWW!” I fell to the floor, holding my eye in the process.  
It felt as if someone took a metal screw and drove it into the inside of my eye, leaving me with a hole in the middle of my face.  
But no blood?  
I got back on my feet and returned to the grisly scene.  
The doctors looked as if something had gone wrong, but didn't show an ounce of panic.  
One of the doctors started to look as if they were going to be sick, and tried convincing the other that they should end the operation.  
Without hesitation he swung the mallet again, even harder this time.