Chapter 4

Saint Judy’s Psychiatric Asylum — the most infamous madhouse in all of Austin.

Sunlight never touched this place. There was only the perpetual stench of disinfectant, mold-eaten walls, and bone-chilling screams echoing long after dark.

White walls, white bedsheets, hollow-eyed people clad in white patient gowns.

Every day, some wept, some laughed, and others rambled to thin air.

And I was the only “lunatic” here who remained perfectly sane.

Any act of resistance earned you either hosing with high-pressure water or brutal electroshock. I quickly learned the rules for survival: obey.

I swallowed the mind-numbing sedatives on schedule, only to spit them into the toilet the second the nurses turned their backs. I learned to wear a vacant smile toward the walls, and recite “I am a guilty sufferer of delusional disorder” every time doctors made their rounds.

Through half a year of crushing suppression and quiet lying low, my mental power underwent a strange, profound transformation forged in unending agony.

I discovered the threads I saw were no longer merely illusory projections.

It happened one afternoon during outdoor recreation hours. The asylum’s vicious head orderly swung his nightstick, beating a patient who’d hidden a crust of bread.

I stood hidden in a shadowed corner, watching him coldly. Above his head stretched a thick green thread — the cord linking his inner sadism and hunger for power.

Without knowing why, my fingers twitched.

Almost against my will, I stretched out my hand. From dozens of feet away, I made a light plucking motion toward that green thread.

A miracle unfolded.

I could feel faint resistance against my fingertips, exactly like plucking a taut guitar string.

The green thread shuddered violently beneath my touch!

The next second, the head orderly let loose a savage, beastlike roar. He lost all trace of reason. Instead of stopping his beating, he spun around and crashed his nightstick straight into the deputy director who’d stepped forward to intervene.

Chaos erupted instantly. Alarms wailed, and constables burst inside to tackle the fully deranged orderly to the ground.

I stood in the corner, staring down at my own hands, my heart hammering wildly.

I did not merely see these threads. I could touch them. By plucking the threads, I could amplify, twist, even detonate people’s deepest desires and emotions!

The realization set every drop of blood in my body ablaze.

From that day onward, I ran secret experiments within the asylum’s walls. 

I started my secret experiments in the cafeteria. Two burly patients—Brutus and Vance—had appointed themselves the ward's tyrants, notorious for tormenting the weaker inmates and stealing their meager meals. 

One afternoon, they cornered a frail new arrival, snatching away his single, stale digestive biscuit. Hovering just above Brutus’s thick neck, I spotted a sickly yellow thread: the dormant hum of raw greed and dominance. 

Standing in the shadows of the doorway, I raised two fingers, pinched the empty air, and gave that invisible yellow cord a vicious snap.

Brutus’s eyes suddenly dilated, filling with a feral, predatory glint. He rounded on his own partner. 

With a guttural snarl, Brutus lunged at Vance, sinking his fists and teeth into the man to claim the pathetic crumbs entirely for himself. 

Blood spattered the pristine white tiles as the two bullies tore at each other like starved, rabid dogs, completely forgetting their original victim. The frail patient scrambled to safety. I watched the chaos unfold, my pulse steady, a chillingly calm smile hidden behind my usual vacant mask. 

Then, I escalated my trials to the staff. 

Officer Miller was a hulking, arrogant brute of a guard who loved the sound his heavy boots made and the crack of his stun baton against patients' ribs. I waited until the dead of night, when the asylum corridors were cloaked in suffocating shadows and flickering fluorescent light. 

As Miller swaggered past my cell door on his midnight patrol, I focused on a thin, vibrating sliver of dark buried deep beneath his bravado—his thread of primal, subconscious fear. 

I reached my hand through the rusted iron bars and strummed that thread like a heavy cello string. 

Miller froze mid-step. The color drained from his face as if he had been plunged into freezing water. His heavy stun baton clattered loudly against the linoleum floor. 

The hulking brute’s knees buckled, and he collapsed against the cold wall. He curled into a fetal position, clutching his head, and began to sob uncontrollably—weeping and begging the empty darkness for mercy against phantoms only his suddenly amplified terror could see.

I had fully mastered this power held at my fingertips.

I could manipulate the threads. I could shape human emotion.

One year later, I passed every psychological evaluation with flawless, unbreakable performances.

I played the part to perfection.

A healed young girl, filled with remorse for her past and brimming with hope for the future.

I walked away holding Saint Judy’s official discharge certificate confirming my recovery.

As the asylum’s heavy iron gate rumbled shut behind me, Austin’s sunlight stung my eyes.

I drew a deep breath of unchained, free air.

Father. Aunt Celia. Your reaper has returned.