Page 8 of Writhe (Wellard Asylum)

T he patient thrashes, body convulsing in a blind panic as the orderlies drag him down the corridor, his bare heels scraping against the cold, filth-streaked floor.

His screams are raw, high-pitched, feral.

Like an animal being led to slaughter. The sound bounces off the cracked tiles and I let it wash over me, the trembling resonance settling deep in my bones.

Stockton and Raines remain unmoved. Their grips are vise-like, their expressions as vacant as a butcher at the chopping block. Efficient. Unfeeling. As they should be.

I follow at a leisurely pace, clipboard in hand, documenting every detail with meticulous precision. The patient’s resistance is remarkable. Most are too broken by this point to put up much of a fight. His terror fuels him, muscles quivering with the desperate strength of a cornered beast.

But will is brittle. And brittle things snap .

The metal door groans as Stockton wrenches it open.

A thick, putrid heat slithers up from the basement, wrapping around us in humid, rotting tendrils.

The stench is unbearable to the uninitiated.

Full of mildew, urine, and the festering decay of what was once living.

But there’s something deeper beneath it, something that clings to the walls, the air, to my very skin.

Something very much alive.

The patient’s breaths come in frantic gasps, his eyes darting between us and the yawning darkness below. “No, no, please. Please , God.”

They always beg. As if that will change anything. Stockton and Raines don’t need instructions, they know the procedure. They hurl him forward, and he collapses onto his knees with a ragged sob. Snot and saliva webbing between his lips as he pleads.

Pathetic.

Raines drives a boot into the back of his ankle, pressing down until something pops. The shriek that follows is nearly inhuman.

I check my watch. “Forty minutes of resistance. Not bad—log that.”

Stockton grunts in acknowledgment, moving to the far wall where the rusted crank sits embedded in the stone. With a deep, rattling clatter, the floor gives way beneath us.

The pit gapes wide and the patient’s breath stutters. He stares at the edge, barely a foot away. From below, a sound stirs—claws against metal. Wet, eager chittering.

I crouch beside him, tilting my head. “Do you believe in God, Mr. Alden?”

His frantic nodding almost makes me smile.

“And do you believe He’s listening?”

His lips part, but nothing comes out. Just a wet, broken breath.

Stockton grips the back of his collar and he releases a strangled cry.

Then he’s falling.

The impact is wet. Not the sharp crack of bones breaking, but a sickening sloshing sound as his body sinks into the filth below. He flounders, kicking his limbs. The pit is deep enough to discourage climbing but shallow enough to keep him from drowning too quickly.

I step to the edge, peering down. The dim light catches on the shifting mass below. Beady, black eyes. Twitching whiskers. Clawing feet.

The rats move in a single, undulating tide.

His screams rise—a wretched, throat-tearing thing.

I reach into my coat pocket and pull out the recorder. Click.

“Subject three-two-seven has been introduced to the pit,” I say evenly. “Initial reaction: extreme panic, pleading, hyperventilation. He has begun to struggle against the substrate, but movement will only accelerate the process.”

The first bite is hesitant, a testing nip at the ankle.

He shrieks.

Another.

Then another.

Then they descend.

I watch, fascinated, as they burrow into him, tiny claws raking at his skin, sharp little teeth carving out ribbons of flesh.

They go for the soft parts first—the lips, the fingers, the eyelids.

He thrashes violently, but that only excites them.

His agony makes them frantic, their tiny bodies writhing over him in a seething wave.

He slaps wildly, crushing one against his cheek. Another scrambles up his chest and plunges its teeth into the soft flesh of his throat. A deep, wet tearing sound. Blood spurts into an arc, staining the stagnant tile below.

I exhale slowly.

Beautiful.

The rats are inside him now. I can hear them gnawing, burrowing, squelching through his meat. His body jerks in sharp, involuntary spasms. His voice is nearly gone, reduced to bubbling, garbled gasps as blood and bile flood his mouth. His fingers twitch, curling inward.

I check my watch and Raines squats near the edge, watching with mild interest. “What’s the point of this one? ”

“Testing limits,” I say, clicking my pen. “Pain tolerance. Psychological resilience. The effects of extreme stress on cognitive function.”

“And?”

I gesture to the pit.

The patient’s eyes are rolling back. His mouth opens and closes in weak, shuddering gulps. One of the rats is halfway inside his stomach cavity, wriggling, devouring him from the inside out.

I press stop on the recorder. “A success.”

His body goes still. The rats do not. Stockton and Raines glance at me, awaiting orders. I take one last look at the ruined thing in the pit. The twitching mass of meat and vermin; the wide, staring eyes now are nothing but hollow sockets.

I turn away. “Clean it up.”

There’s hesitation. A new orderly has been watching in the corner. He’s young, trembling. He looks pale and sick—his breath stutters in his throat.

Weak.

I meet his gaze. “Unless you’d like to join him?”

His face drains of color. He swallows hard and nods, stepping forward on shaking legs. I watch him for a moment, then turn toward the hallway, already considering the next patient, the next experiment. There’s always more work to be done.

THEO

Rina sits across from Eliza in the rec room, talking incessantly, her words spilling over themselves in frantic waves.

She’s smaller than Eliza, with bird-bone wrists and wild blonde hair that she never bothers to brush.

Her eyes—too large for her face—dart around as she speaks, never quite meeting anyone’s gaze.

Like she’s waiting for something to come lunging out of the shadows.

She has the kind of energy that’s exhausting to watch.

A wind-up doll cranked too tight, desperate to be heard, to be acknowledged, to prove she exists.

Eliza, on the other hand, is the opposite.

Still. Contained. She is my perfect little doll.

She stares at her book, fingers curled tight around the edges, but she isn’t reading.

I know because I’ve been watching her—I always watch her.

She hasn’t turned a page in ten minutes, she’s just pretending, trying to disappear inside of it. Trying to disappear from the world.

It won’t work.

I don’t just see her, I feel her. Like a pulse in the air, a current under my skin.

A wound I can’t stop pressing my fingers against, an itch deep inside my skull that I will never be able to scratch.

I want to split her open and crawl inside—wear her like a second skin.

Make her mine in a way that can never be undone.

“Are you even listening?” Rina’s voice snaps.

Eliza blinks, dragged back to the surface. “Mm.”

“Mm,” Rina mimics, rolling her eyes. “You’re so full of conversation today. ”

Eliza offers a ghost of a smirk, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. It never does.

A sharp, wet sound cuts through the low murmur of the room—a sob.

The patient strapped to the chair near the far wall is shaking, his thin frame wracked with desperation. His wrists are bound, ankles strapped down, body curled forward as much as the restraints allow. His voice is raw from pleading.

“Please,” he gasps. “Please, I have to go.”

Eliza stiffens, her grip on the book tightens. One of the orderlies, a thick-necked man with a permanent sneer, leans down, resting a heavy hand on the patient’s trembling shoulder.

“What’s that?” he mocks. “You gotta take a piss?”

The patient jerks his head in a frantic nod. “Please, I?—”

A slap, hard and sudden, rocking his head to the side. He whimpers, blood pooling at the corner of his mouth. Rina winces but doesn’t look away—no one does. This is the kind of place where looking away is worse. It marks you as weak. As next.

The orderlies laugh. One of them, a woman—tall and gaunt, with eyes like a bird of prey—crosses her arms, smirking. “Then go.”

The patient freezes. “What?”

“Go,” she repeats, feigning innocence. “Ain’t stoppin’ you.”

His gaze flicks downward to the straps holding him in place. His throat bobs. “Please,” he tries again, quieter now—thick with the weight of realization. “I just. I just need?—”

A hand fists in his hair, yanking his head back.

“You think this is a hotel?” The inevitable comes slowly, but it comes.

The dark stain spreads, pooling beneath him, the acrid scent of piss filling the room.

The orderlies howl with laughter and the woman takes a dramatic step back. “Jesus, that’s disgusting.”

“Poor bastard,” another snickers. “Guess he really had to go.”

Thick-Neck slaps the man’s damp cheek, wiping his hand off on his shirt with exaggerated disgust. “Clean yourself up.” More laughter. More mocking. The patient doesn’t respond, doesn’t fight. Doesn’t move. He’s already gone somewhere else.

Eliza makes a small sound, barely audible, but I hear it. I see the way her jaw clenches, the way her fingers twitch against the pages. She wants to move, to do something. But she won’t—-she knows better.

Rina exhales sharply, looking away. “Fucking assholes.”

Eliza says nothing, just stares down at her book—eyes burning holes through the pages—until the orderlies get bored and leave, still laughing. The air is thick with the stink of piss and humiliation.

The patient doesn’t move. Then, slow and shaking, he lifts his head.

His eyes sweep across the room, searching, pleading.

They land on Eliza and she flinches. A tiny movement—barely there—but he sees it.

I see it. She curls in on herself, shoulders hunching like she can disappear completely.

Like if she ignores him—ignores all of it—it’ll go away. It won’t. It never does.