I squat next to the unconscious caretaker as he continued to lay limp on the bathroom floor. In my hands, I opened a bundle of cloth and miscellany. I had concocted a somewhat cruel strategy to incapacitate the guard, but it was either that or get found out in mere hours. The cloth that comprised much of the bundle was a spare outfit for a patient, and amid it all was an empty needle and a vial of medicine. It took me a bit of time to find the storage room where they kept the spare clothes and the pharmaceutical room, but it would be worth it.

I sat the clothes down on the small bench they were supposed to sit. They helped the case that he was simply a patient, and they helped me carry the other items with little suspicion aroused.

Next, I uncorked the vial and began filling the needle. I made sure to be conservative, as I didn’t want to kill the poor man and I had no clue what the dosage should be. All he needed was to be but slightly affected, then the real caretakers would handle it from there. Who would believe a drugged half-naked man talking about being hit in the head with a bucket?

Surely, the caretaker would not stay a patient forever. Eventually, they will find out that a worker never clocked in or out, and eventually they would realize they have one patient too many, but this strategy turned a few hours of freedom into a few days.

After making sure the minuscule amount of medicine was properly held in the vial, I pierced into his arm and administered the drug. Dr. Prescott had performed the exact same procedure on myself so many times that I was quite proficient in recreating it.

I took the vial and needle, leaving the bathhouse. There was a window in the hall to the lounge that I was able to throw the evidence out of. Again, it would surely be found in a few days, but that was all the time I needed. The growing shadow in the corner of my eye continued to claim more territory in my vision. Soon, I would not be able to ignore whatever crept there.

With that, I changed back into my garb as a patient. Luckily, the hallway from the bathhouse to the lounge was a mostly untread one, and I would have no problem getting back unnoticed. I hid my disguise in a far closet under several dusty cleaning utensils, hoping none would find it. In the night, I would be able to transfer it to a permanent hiding place in my room, but until then that would have to suffice.

I left the bathhouse and went back to the lounge. It seemed I was just in time as the dinner bell rang.

Dinner was uneventful. Since I had made my face known as a guard, I had to stay as discrete as I could. I mostly stuck to my seat in the corner and made myself and unnoticeable as possible.

My meal was a slice of moldy bread and multiple slivers of some pale and sickly meat. Due to missing lunch with my disguised antics and needing to keep my strength up, I downed all that was on my plate.

People began to put their plates in a pile and line up at the door, awaiting the guard to usher them to their rooms. I joined the crowd whilst keeping my eye on Bradley. His mannerisms were the same as usual, if but a small bit confused and disoriented. It seemed like beyond helping him find lucidity, all I needed was a way to properly communicate with him.

Along with Bradley, I saw the man who was previously our caregiver being led to a room by two others. They whispered among one another about the state they found him in and keeping such things secret in order to keep themselves from losing their positions.

With a sigh of relief, I got myself in line and prepared to wait until deep in the night.

One by one, we were brought into our rooms. I knew that I needed to recover my disguise as a worker sometime, but I believed that due to how near the bath was, it would not take long at all.

After I was let into my room, I simply sat on the bed. There would be no sleep for me, but I was used to such things.

The guards would eventually stop their patrolling late in the night and leave the halls free to roam for the quiet, but I did not know exactly when they indeed left their posts. Instead, I would play it safe and simply wait until the absolute deepest part of the night. The kind of time in the evening where the world felt different. The moon would shine bright and every room you stepped into felt so immensely large and foreign. The dead hour of the night. The time where everything becomes a liminal space. A time where the veil over your senses loosen and you can feel the presence of the air, the sound of your own heartbeat, and you could peer into the endless black eternity in the shadows.

Rain began to patter against my window as the nightly thunderstorms stirred, interrupting me from my thoughts.

I decided I had had enough of musing on and on. I needed to formulate a plan, not just for returning Bradley to an independent state, but finding my way to his room. The guards would not be a problem so late in the night, but worse things were lurking in the halls.

It had been a few nights since I had seen that shambling horror of dragging entrails and melded faces, but I knew I had not seen the last of it. It was tethered by its own intestines to the asylum somewhere, and if I were brought to guess, I would assume it was connected to that stone pathway I had discovered earlier in the day.

That was something to figure out at another time though. I had not seen it since I roamed with my stashed candle, and I would just have to hope that the firelight and my intuition would keep me from harm’s way. I needed to help the others before I pursued any other avenue, such as the mystery of the horror or the secrets of Dr. Prescott’s journal.

All that was left for me to do was wait, and that I had grown somewhat proficient in. I knew little about the formalities of meditation, but at the very least I had figured out how to focus my breathing, clear all thoughts, and make hours seem like minutes.

That was what I did, and in no time the rain tapping against my window turned to static. In what felt like no time at all, my opportunity to escape had arisen.

I crept out of my room and into the shadowy hall. Using candlelight to illuminate my path, I traversed to the bathhouse first and foremost. The trip through the lounge went according to my predictions, which was, luckily, uneventful.

After collecting the caretaker uniform I had hidden earlier, I snuck back to my room. Like everything I wanted to keep safe, I stowed the clothing under my mattress.

Once that was completed, the only task left was to find Bradley.

I knew there were no guard patrols at night, but it was still important to keep quiet as to not rouse the other patients from their slumber.

After tip-toeing across the creaky floorboards, I made it to Bradley’s room. With a little bit of effort, I broke his lock and proceeded inside.

Of course, that had awoken Bradley and startled him. Luckily, he still recognized me, and his demeanor immediately switched to curiosity once I entered the room. His mouth opened, and he began to loudly chant in whatever strange tongue he kept speaking in.

Before more than a single syllable left his lips, I rushed to him and put a hand over his mouth. We could not risk being so loud.

Luckily, Bradley was already somewhat sober from the medicine administered in the mornings, meaning he was able to understand that talking would not work as he intended.

After removing my hand, I cautiously sat down next to Bradley. We simply stared at each other for minutes, each of us contemplating strategies at solving our communication issues.

Speaking was of no use. Writing was of no use. There was one other aspect of his debilitation that I wanted to know. “Do you understand me?” I spoke rhetorically, hoping for a specific response.

Bradley looked at me strangely for a moment, thinking. After a moment, he simply shook his head.

Excellent. He at the very least still had gestures memorized. Now, if only we had the ability to communicate through gestures. Some sort of sign language wouldn’t work since neither of us knew any, and we did not have the time or coordination to formulate our own.

There had to be another way to communicate that did not rely on sound or symbol. Something more unconventional…

That was when a memory arose to the top of my mind. Bradley and I were both financially unwell, and we would continually move from job to job to have any modicum of wealth to stay afloat. We were everything from chimney sweeps to postmen. Nothing lasted for long, but we would often accumulate skills associated with these professions, such as when we worked the telegrams.

With the faintest amount of hope, I grabbed Bradley’s hand. If I was correct, then I would have figured out a way of communicating without sound or visual cues.

I positioned his palm upright, which he kept when I let go. With hope, I tapped his palm with my index finger. Four times short, stop, once short, stop, once short, once long, and thrice short, the same again, and finally three long taps. H-E-L-L-O.

Bradley was very confused at first, then he finally understood what I was doing. He still remembered morse code.

Excited, he tapped his fingers against his bedframe, replying in code, “Hello.”

After so much time contemplating how I was going to communicate with Bradley, and I had finally figured it out. I tapped against his hand once more, asking “Are you ok?”

He tapped back. “Shitty.”

I grinned. The very blunt friend I had lost was returned, at least somewhat.

Slowly, I explained to Bradley all I knew, then we began trying to work on speaking English once more. I began by seeing if he could understand the code when I made a sound against the bed frame instead of hitting his hand. He reacted like the sounds were foreign, but he was smart enough to see what I was doing and manually make out the words with concentration. Soon enough, we were able to communicate through sound. English, though, would be a much more difficult beast to conquer.

I hadn’t the time to give Bradley a refresher on the entire language, so I decided I needed to leave him with a guide to study. He was a grade-A student in a prominent university before his ticks got him expelled. I had confidence he would be able to teach himself if I gave him something to learn from.

Using the bent ink pen I always kept on hand, I etched the alphabet in the wood bed frame under his mattress. Below each letter, I wrote down the corresponding code in Morse. It would be difficult, and it would not help him with speaking, but at the very least it could enable him to read.

After the arduous process of carving that into his bedframe, I thought it best to return to my room. I had waited a bit too long to leave, and the sun had already begun to peak past the horizon, and I needed no accidents before I went to find Price in the medical wing. Giving Bradley a nod, I began to exit.

Before I could fully leave, though, I heard him knock. “Good luck.”

Knowing what happened to people in the medical wing, I feared I would need that luck more than I knew…