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Our first place Elementary School entry was written by fifth-grader Liam Cowell from Denver, Iowa. Mr. Cowell also won this contest last year. |
Chapter 1
As a pale hand broke the cold surface another did too. Slowly the rest of the body came up to feel the warm air hug him like a blanket. He swam to the bank and pulled his shivering and broken limbs onto it. He laid down on the hot sand, but was too numb to feel his back burning to ash. He rolled over onto his hands and knees to try and stand and turned around to see nothing but a few koi fish swimming along and slowly passed out. He woke up about an hour later in a firm but soft bed. He felt so broken and hurt. He wished he was still drowsy and out of it. He was not numb anymore but could look around. He observed his surroundings by only moving his neck. The tiles on the ground were painted in a coquelicot square pattern and violets in a vase on a night stand to his right. He was overwhelmed with scents that fumed from everywhere. Some smelt old and some smelt new. He heard a door to his left open before he could get a grip on his current situation. He turned his head to where he heard the sound and saw a woman walk in. She was tall with sparkly eyes. She sat next to him.
“Rem, it was, right?” she said softly
“Yes, now your turn.” He said trying to talk as little as possible
“I'm Nurse Cara” she was looking him up and down. She thought he couldn't be older than 13 and by the lack of movements his body screamed he was in pain.
“You said you were a nurse which must mean I'm in a hospital right?” Rem said.
She didn't respond but asked another question
“How'd you end up here” she said
“The last thing I remember was being on a cliff with someone. Then black. Then I pulled myself out of the water. Then black. Then I was here. It's like my mind turned off then on again.”
She started writing in a notebook. He felt tired and felt like he needed to vomit.
“Who was up there with you?” the nurse asked without look up from her notebook
“No idea. Is this a hospital or an interrogation room?” He said jokingly
She shot him a stare that sent chills up his back. He felt like he could slip out of his skin. She went from kind and caring to intimidating in an instant.
“That will be all for now” She said coldly walking to the doorway.
“No way this is real, I was just walking with someone and now im…”
He cut himself off mid-sentence though. “Who was I with?”
Chapter 2
Fire
Run
Push.
He woke up drenched in his own sweat. He was looking around frantically and saw a shadowy figure in the corner. He was tall and the only feature about him was the long greasy hair that dropped straight to the floor. The silhouette started approaching. He woke up again. He didn't know what happened and he was in a state of shock. He looked into the same corner and saw nothing.
“That didn't happen.” He repeated to keep his cool. He got up surprised he had no wires or anything attached to him unlike the night before. He got up and carefully walked out into the hallway of shadows. He was looking over his shoulder over and over without trying to out of shear fear. He started running down the halls, seeing that all of the rooms were empty and ran faster only to be grabbed by his t-shirt and pulled into a room. He tried to scream but nothing came out. That's when he realized that nothing grabbed him. He decided to run back to his room only to find his room wasn't there. He didn't believe it. He turned around only to see Nurse Cara waiting for him with a scalpel. He started walking backwards into a wall.
“Stay away! Stay away!” He said walking backwards to not lose sight of her. “You can't be out here Rem. You can't!” she started running towards him. He screamed at the top of his lungs then blinding light made Rem fall on his back. A doctor ran out into the hall. “Rem what are you doing out in the halls at 4 in the morning!” He said looking at him to see if there were any wounds. The kid was bawling.
Through deep breaths, he tried to explain that a nurse was going to attack him, but the doctor looked at him like he was insane.
“Kid, who are you talking about?’’ the doctor asked with concern in his voice
“Nurse Cara!” He said crying. The doctor froze. The color in his face drained. His face looked like a sheet of paper.
“Kid, nurse Cara is dead. Her husband killed her while she was in bed” He said shocked. “What did he look like” Rem said without hesitation
“Nothing much about him, he was just tall with long greasy hair. She actually went here for a while. Her room was right there.” he pointed to a wall with a faint outline of a door. That’s the room Rem remembered being in.
Chapter 3:
“How do you know about her?” the Dr asked sternly.
“Behind yo-” Rem said shaking
‘’Answer the question!” He said, screaming as the lights started to flicker. 4 men in horrifying pig masks caming charging down the hall. The lights went out and the screaming continued getting farther and further away. When the lights came back on, the doctor was gone and to his surprise, it was morning. He got up and ran into a dimly lit room. There he found, pills and pillows scattered around the room in a pattern, and an old lady bashing her head against a wall. He ran over to help and pulled the women away from the wall. She had blood oozing down her face. Rem nearly threw up. He got up and ran to another room with a few people in it, all of them tied down to 3 beds. They were all laughing hysterically
“Who gave the idiot a knife!” one yelled while staring at Rem. One of them was cutting themself free. Rem closed the door frantically. He ran down the hall to find the door. He went to the bottom floor only to find steel bars waiting for him. He looked at the windows to find more bars. One of the three men that was tied to the beds came down to Rem, knife in hand. He charged at Rem and Rem moved out the way and the armed man ran into the bars.
“What do you want from me?!” he screamed running away. “To see your blood spill!” He said making another dash at Rem. A rat ran his way and he tripped on his knife. Rem dropped to the floor throwing up. He looked up at the door and it read “Springfield Mental hospital” Rems heart sank like a rock in a pond.
“No no no. This can't be happening.” The voice in his head said panicking. “I gotta get out of here before these lunatics come after me. This has to be a mistake, I don't belong here.”
“Are you sure? You're the one who can't tell if you're talking in your head or not.” Rem turned around to see the man who fell on his knife standing up, the knife still stuck in him.
“Also” The man said, grabbing the knife in his chest “ Who are you calling lunatic?” He yelled, pulling out the cold blade in his ribs. Rem ran down the hall to run into a nurse getting ready for breakfast.
“Help me! There's a man who's trying to kill me, please help me!” She looked over his shoulder to see nothing. She grinned and sent him back to his room assuring him everything will be okay. “No! No! He's trying to kill me!” he shouted as he was being ushered into his room. As he sat on his bed contemplating what had just happened, he thought “Do I belong here? I’m the one who can't tell if what just happened was real or not.” He peeked out of his room to see two familiar faces.
“Where is he? Has he got any better?’’ A woman said, shaking.
“I'm afraid not, he's still going on about falling off a cliff and ending up here. It's like he doesn't remember your house catching fire. It might be from the trauma that could ensue after something like that.” the nurse said.
“I'd like to see him.” said the man standing next to the women talking to the nurse.
“Im sorry but he can't have any visitors right now.” she said calmly.
“I am his father and I demand to!”
It all clicked in his head.
“They dumped me here to rot. They left me and lied to me. I'm their son and instead of trying to help me they put me in a loony bin!” Rem stood up and started breaking everything in sight. A nurse walked in to see a beaten up Rem crying in a corner with bits of everything in the room covering him. He looked up and screamed at her.
“Get out! Get out! Help me!’’ She grabbed her phone calmly and called a man
“We got another one”
“Ok, do your job” Said the man on the other side of the phone. She swiftly picked the little boy off the ground and pulled him out of his room.
“Doc, can I speak with my son?” said the woman that the doctors were talking to previously.
“I guess. More break time for me.’’ he said. His mom grabbed his arm forcefully and dragged him back into his room.
“So you remember what happened, huh? Yes, I did push you off a clif. Yes, I did try to get rid of yo-
Rems fist interrupted her.
Chapter 4
“So why are you here, Why did you tell me, and why did you dump me here?!” He swung again but she caught it.
“Well I thought that if we were to bring you here, you would look crazy. No one would believe a kid who said they fell off a cliff when we said that you didn't. If you didn't survive the fall we could have said that we couldn't find you after the house burned. I’m sorry, but we don't want you. We would rather have you dead then to take care of you. I know the people who run this place.
Most of the people that I don't like, I send here. It's like a pig to the slaughter. I made sure anyone you talk to dies at the hands of the people who run this place. You said that someone tried to kill you. I say you're insane and they take my word for it.
Rems pupils turned dull. He ran out of the room as a nurse grabbed him and sent him into another room. The room was dark and had nothing but a crack in the wall that light gleamed through. The door shut behind him and he started banging on the door.
After what felt like months had passed, the door opened for the first time in forever. He looked up at the man who was there to free him.
“Pull yourself out of it Rem.” he said talking to himself.
“No one is going to save you, this isn't a movie.’’
‘’There's been a breach. Someone is in the institution.” a man said over the intercom.
The door swung open and men and women were racing up and down the halls. Rem decided to go into the parade of people stampeding in the halls. He ran with them and then someone grabbed him. He spun around to see Nurse Cara running with them. He tripped over his foot and flat on his face
“Aren't you glad to see your auntie?” she said grabbing his foot and dragging him back.
“I am your moms sister.” she said smiling, “and she sent you here to die and that's what i'm going to do. These guys can’t see me or hear me. After all, I am dead.”
A foot pressed into Rems back
“They just want to be free, they couldn't care less what happens to anyone else.”
Another foot got pushed into his spine and it took away his breath. More and more people stepped on the poor boy. He grabbed onto someone's foot and loosened the nurses grip. He tripped the guy and made him fall onto his chest. He pried his foot out of her grip and ran for the door. Suddenly he felt drowsy and dropped to the floor by the door. A small dart was shot into his neck and parralized him. He blacked out and woke up in a dark room with mirrors all around him. His hands were tied to the leg of a bed frame. He was sitting with his legs straight forward and the bottom of his foot was flat on the ground. He tried to scream but his sounds were muffled by tape. A figure emerged from the left corner of the room. He screamed even louder for help . The figure kept approaching until she was right in front of him. He shaked and squalled for freedom. He tried to kick it but all it did was break air. He made the horrifying realization that he was staring into a mirror and the real threat was behind him. The figure looked like Nurse Cara and she was armed. She took the mallot she was holding and smashed it into a mirror and glass was sent flying into Rems skin. She kept doing it over and over, just like Rem wanted. Glass was being shot into the rope that was holding him. The ropes snapped and Rem darted out of the room. He found the doctor knocked out and laying on the floor. “He must have been knocked unconscious by the stampeding prisoners.” he thought to himself.
He grabbed the keys out of his back pocket and proceeded to the door. He unlocked the door and took one foot out. He took a deep breath and was pushed to the concrete. The doctor jumped on him.
“I thought he was knocked out.” Rem thought. He punched the man in the jaw and bolted out from under him and before he knew it he was surrounded by the men in pig masks. He tried to break through them but got his arm caught in their grasp.
“Let me go!” he shouted before he kicked him in the stomach.
“Where are you going to go kid?” said a low raspy voice and Rem froze. “We provided a roof over your head. We gave you food and water. Who ya gonna go back to, your parents?”
One of them chuckled.
“We give you happiness more than anyone could.”
“I don't know where I'm going to go, but I will find somewhere. Happiness isn't about being provided with things you want. It is living how you want to and not having to be given things that they think you need.” he said. “What I just had to go through will never happen again to anyone!” He picked up a rock and stick and made a fire. He lit the stick up and hurled it into the building. As the place went up in flames, Rem ran away never to be found again.
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