A Prison of the Mind

I call out to see if anyone is around and am greeted only by silence. My stomach growls and I'm reminded that i'm in a kitchen (if in name only, a kitchen still). I begin to look in the tossed about pots and pans, most are just left with some crusted on material, like they haven't ever been washed. I may be desperate, but I'll retain some standard as to what I ingest. There is a small, wooden hatch that leads to what I would assume to be the pantry embedded into the corner of the room's floor. A small light switch next to it.

I open the hatch and look down, gazing at absolutely nothing besides the pitch-black walk down the cracked stone steps. I hurriedly flip the switch and see sparks fly below, illuminating the small room for a brief second. The lights immediately die. "Something around here has to work." I mutter and walk to the oven, the pilot light is in bad shape, but will still burn. "Good.", I think to myself and walk outside. I just need a small branch or a twig, I take my choice of the branches that I fell into and bring it back inside.

"Hopefully, this will work". I turn the pilot light back on and light the end of the stick, waiting for the flame to spread a little . I pull it back out and have a makeshift torch. Then I proceed down to the pantry and see a lantern hanging from a post and quickly light it, lest my torch die out. It is a small room with wooden beams supporting it, nothing fancy at all. The only thing really down here is a few cupboards and shelves with some canned food and some imported liquor (I assume it's imported because I can't read the label, it appears to be written in another language.).

Greedily, I take a can of beans and a bottle back up and pry it open. This improved my mood significantly, whether it was the the end of the tremors in my gut, or the effects of the alcohol, I couldn't tell you but the truth is, I really couldn't care either way. I know my limits, so I only drank a small amount and re-corked the bottle, after all, I still don't know where I am. With slightly renewed hope, I go to the next room, a large, musty-smelling room with folded tables and chairs scattered about. Why does this entire place look like it was hit by a tornado?

I quickly decide that there is nothing in here for me and keep moving. Next is a small hallway with some burgundy wallpaper that has definitely seen better days...rips along the corners and creepy picture frames containing "art" that only the painter could love, they all bear a distorted view of what is in the pictures, one is of a boy, gleefully playing with a ball. Then, I find the lobby and must be at the front, there is a desk, another door off to the side, and a spiral staircase on the other end of the room.

There is a clipboard on the desk, I go to inspect it. It reads in large print "Crawford Asylum". Beneath it is a list of occupants...My name is marked down among several others, also written incoherently, the signatures are all in faded ink, save for my own which is quite fresh.