Before the entrance of the sane...
Ashy said:
The tall, elegant beauty spoke softly, her gaze drifting to the window and the tranquil scene beyond. "Doctor, doctor, doctor. Wither dost thou call? Wither, Whether, Whither. I haven't a call at all... No moon aloft, no hawk-in hand, so why does thou call me hither? Please I ask the Doctor - Doctor, Doctor Whither!" She ends her child-like, sing-song rhyme with a slight giggle, but something outside catches her attention and she speaks no more...
"Hush child, Dr. Randolf will think you've backslid again and kidnap you for more experimental treatments," Dr. Whitherspoon said in not-quite mock rebuke, his eyes flicking to the nurse and back. She politely ignores the exchange.
After the arrival of the sane...
Dr. Ashe said:
"Eugene," Adon speaks softly. "Its me, Adon. How are you, old friend?" Adon smiles sadly at the elderly figure across from him.
"Ah, Adon old friend. I am doing rather well for the first time in a long time. And Daisy, how good to finally meet you," Eugene says, clasping Adon's hand, and rising to give Daisy an embrace. "Arthur, I am very glad you could come. I very much wanted all of you to hear what I have discovered about myself. Ah, Nurse Taylor, would you mind terribly if I spoke with them in private?" he asks diffidently to the nurse.
"Very well Dr. Whitherspoon. Agatha, best behavior now," she says, stabbing a warning glance at the redhead. Taking her book with her, she turns to leave the room.
"Oh, I'm terribly sorry, this is Agatha O'Reilly, a fellow patient here. Agatha, this is Dr. Adon Ashe, of Miskatonic University, Detective Llewellyn, recently of Scotland Yard, and Daisy Velmont, my long-lost grand niece. Do sit down all, I have some... things to relate to you."
*Once all have made any introductions they care to, and are finally sitting, Dr. Whitherspoon begins his tale.*
"Some of you know why I was put in here, and some of you don't, so forgive me if I re-state the obvious. This building was not always Arkahm Asylum. There was a much older building, a rather intimidating-looking place, set further north, deeper in the woods. I was often called there to assist the psychologists in unravelling the secrets of their patients' minds. My background in cults helped me decipher their mindsets and gave them clues on how to proceed. Dr. Willson was very pleased with their progress. However, I began to notice that the patients I would speak with began to disappear. At first I thought they had been discharged, but when I looked into their records, I could find nothing of the sort. It was if they had vanished from the face of the earth.
"I spoke to the police about my suspicions, and there was an investigation, but they found nothing irregular. I began to suspect Dr. Willson of wrong-doing, but did not bring my concerns forth again. Having been dismissed once, and as a bit of an 'old coot,' I did not wish to suffer the scorn of the police needlessly. Becoming the boy who cried wolf was not something I wished to do. I began to investigate myself, using my authority as a 'consultant' to go where I needed to within the asylum. Dr. Willson was still ignorant, to my knowledge, that
I had been behind the police investigation.
"The nurses and orderlies could tell me nothing of substance, and most of the patients were very damaged and not particularly coherant. The place was old, and had rooms that were no longer used, rooms accidentally closed up, or which stood behind linen closets. I found my way to an unused wing and began searching in the unused rooms. I found... a horror. An operating table, with evidence that it had been used to discet something. And from the amount of blood, I became convinced that the person had been
alive when this had occured.
"I lost my head and don't quite remember everything after that. I believe I fled, and somehow ended up in the basement. I only remember fragments, flashes of things that sometimes I only remember in my nightmares. Bodies of patients, hidden records that hinted at cruel experimentation, and other things for which I had no name. I eventually fainted, and found myself in one of the wards, being tended to by one of the nurses. She told me I had collapsed and had me brought here to be tended to until I had awakened. When I began babbling about the room and the basement, she insisted that the basement was closed up, and that wing hadn't been used in over a decade. When I drug her along with me to see the room where the blood was, it was no longer there. The room was spotless and dust-covered, just as if it never had been used, just as she said.
"I began to doubt my own sanity, and finally demanded answers from Dr. Willson. He had me in his office, offered me tea, and listened to my hysterical ravings. He attempted to calm things, and began to describe my actions as a particularly vivid hallucination after hitting my head. When I began to persist, listing small details, he just began to grin at me. His grin was... terrible, like that I've seen on some of the most disturbed manmen. And his teeth... were sharp, terribly sharp. I was overcome with hatred and revulsion, and became certain in that instant that Dr. Willson was not human, indeed that he was some kind of fiend. I snatched a letter opener from his desk and stabbed him in what passed for a heart. I swear, I thought his blood was black, and it seemed to push me over the edge.
"I smoked a pipe, and I had matches with me. I lit one and began to set fire to the curtains and papers. The fire spread quickly, but the nurses and orderlies were quick to get the patients out. The entire place burned to the ground, and I was arrested on suspicion of arson. I confessed, telling them everything, hysterical that someone believe me. Alas, once the new asylum was ready, I was placed in here as a permenant resident. It has taken me years to look at those horrible events rationally, clinically. But finally I was able to face them, after a fashion. It is why I called all of you here.
"I want to ask you to do a great favor for me. The old asylum still stands, though it was condemned. No one could bear to go back, not since Dr. Willson died inside it. I want to ask you to investigate the old asylum, to see if truly I am a madman, or if there was any kind of substance to my ravings. I know I ask much of you, for you all have jobs and things to do, but I
must know if I am truly mad, if I killed a man in cold blood, or if I saw a terrible crime and punished a murderer.
"I can help you a little. I have had little use for my pension money while I was in here, and have amassed a decent little nest egg. I can compensate you for your effort, and give you a reward for helping this old man find out the truth of his mind. Agatha, I know the doctors were going to start letting you go out again, and if you were in the company of such respectible citizens, they might let you roam a bit. I know you can help them, and perhaps you can pick up clues a more rational mind might miss. Please, all of you, would you concent to help me?" Dr. Whitherspoon finishes, his face showing lines of exhaustion and pain as he completes his plea.
