Welcome to the Asylum

Abby drew in a deep exhale, wincing as air filled her lungs. Her eyes shot open, pupils darting wildly around her surroundings. One moment she had been at the temple with her girlfriend. Then… nothing. The memory fractured there.

She found herself inside a musty old tent. Outside, the sounds of the night hummed softly… crickets chirping, an owl calling somewhere in the darkness. It was dim, the air thick and stale.

The place looked strangely familiar to her… but she couldn’t quite put her finger on why.

The monk did not waste time. She pulled open the flap of the tent and stepped out into the cool night air. A vast meadow stretched before her. On one side, a dense tree line rose like a dark wall, bushes and towering pines alive with the sounds of night.. crickets chirping, an owl hooting somewhere deep within the woods. On the other side stood something far more unsettling.

A building. Dark. Hulking. Wrong.

Even in the faint moonlight Abby could see the crooked silhouette of an old asylum looming across the meadow. The stone walls were stained and weathered, scarred by years of abandonment. Windows lined the upper floors like hollow eyes, many shattered, others blacked out completely. Rusted iron bars clung to a few of them, bent and twisted as if something had once tried desperately to escape. The roof sagged in jagged angles against the sky, and thick ivy crawled up the walls, choking the structure as if the earth itself had tried to swallow it whole.

Abby wiped her eyes and tried to focus, but the moment her gaze settled on the asylum a wave of nausea rolled through her stomach. Had she been here before? She dug into the darkest corners of her mind, grasping for memories that refused to come together. The place was familiar, painfully so, but she couldn’t put the pieces together. Her eyes fixed on the towering asylum again, and the longer she stared the stronger the pull became. Before she could think rationally, her body moved on its own. One step turned into two, and soon she found herself jogging across the meadow, the tall grass brushing her legs as the massive building grew larger with every stride. Something inside her screamed that this was wrong.

But she couldn’t stop.

The asylum was calling her.

Abby stood at the base of the building, her head tilting back as she traced the jagged mouths of shattered windows above. The silence here wasn’t empty.. it was waiting.

Then she heard it… faint, warped screams, like something broken trying to be remembered.

They bled through the walls like ghosts clawing their way back into the world. Their echoes of agony trapped in stone. Abby flinched, her breath catching as the sound coiled around her chest. She didn’t recognize the voices, but they knew her. It felt like a sickening familiarity settling deep in her bones.

“You do not remember.”

The voice did not come from the asylum. It came from within.

Abby staggered back a step, her eyes darting across the broken entrance. The darkness inside seemed to shift, stretching toward her. Watching. Waiting.

Then the air behind her cracked. Abby would whip herself around.

A massive form loomed in the storm-lit field, towering and divine. Lightning crawled across its body like living veins, each pulse illuminating scales the color of storm clouds. Thunder rumbled low, answering its presence.

“Akunda…?” Abby’s voice came out small, uncertain.

The great thunder lizard regarded her, eyes glowing with ancient calm.

“Yes, my child.”

Rain began to fall, slow at first. Cool droplets kissed her skin, sliding down her face like tears she didn’t remember crying. Another flash of lightning split the sky, followed by a deep, rolling crack of thunder.

Abby stood frozen, her thoughts unraveling. This place. The voices. Him. None of it made sense… yet all of it did.

“The storm washes away sorrow,” Akunda said, his voice carrying through the rain like distant thunder. “When you came to my temple, years ago… I took that burden from you.”

Abby swallowed hard. Her gaze drifted back to the asylum.

The doors stood open now. Waiting.

“You once walked those halls,” Akunda continued. “Your friends were taken. Broken.”

The word hit her like a blow.

“Tortured.” The rain fell harder.

“You saved some…” His voice softened, but the storm did not. “But not all.”

Something inside Abby cracked.

A flicker. A scream. Blood on her hands that wasn’t hers.

She staggered, gripping her head as the first fragment of memory forced its way through the darkness.

The first memory didn’t come gently, it tore through the monk. A cold, metallic room took shape around her, the air thick with something sharp and chemical. Dresindra thrashed against restraints, her screams raw and breaking as shadowed figures leaned over her with cruel, jagged tools that hummed with sick energy. This was no ordinary procedure, they were digging, peeling something unseen out of her piece by piece. The void inside her fought back, writhing, but the instruments bit deeper, tearing it free while taking parts of her with it. Abby felt every cut, every pull, her breath hitching as if it were her own body on that table.

The vision shattered and reformed, smaller, darker. Tenalyia lay trembling on the stone, a whelpling barely able to move, her wings pinned beneath her. Barbed wire had been twisted tight around her snout, weaving through her scales, forcing her mouth shut. Every small movement dragged the barbs deeper, slicing and catching, fresh lines of blood trailing beneath her. A muffled cry slipped through the gaps, weak and broken. She tried to move again.. she shouldn’t have. The wire pulled tighter, cutting deeper. Abby reached for her, desperate, but her hands passed through her like smoke.

Then came the last memory, slow, heavy, final. Yolira lay motionless on a stone slab etched with symbols that pulsed with a dark, hungry light. Her armor was shattered, her body still, blood dried in dark streaks across her skin. This wasn’t torture. This was a ritual. Figures circled her, chanting low and rhythmic as the air itself seemed to bend toward the slab, feeding whatever they were trying to awaken. Yolira’s eyes were open, empty, whatever strength once filled them long gone. She had already died, had already been used. The key. The sacrifice. The power they needed.

And through it all, Abby felt it again… that pull from the asylum, stronger now, wrapping around her chest, dragging her forward as the past refused to stay buried.

Abby staggered, breath ragged, barely able to steady herself as the visions released their grip. She had lost control, but if only for a moment. Her arm twisted unnaturally, dark tendrils of sha coiling beneath her skin, seeping outward like ink in water. It pulsed with her emotions: anger, doubt, despair. All of them hungry, waiting.

Her hand found the cold handle of the asylum door.

Behind her, she could feel Akunda’s gaze.

“I am sorry,” his voice rumbled softly, threaded with distant thunder. “I did not wish for you to carry this burden again. But this nightmare is… twisted. You are beyond my reach here.”

Abby swallowed hard, her voice catching as she fought to steady it. “It’s okay, Akunda. I know you were trying to protect me.” Her grip tightened. “But… I have to wake up.”

A low rumble answered her… not quite thunder this time.

“There are others trapped within this hellscape,” Akunda said. “As you are.”

Abby fell silent. The sha crept further up her arm, whispering, urging, just begging to be unleashed, to tear and rage and break everything in its path.

Back then, it would have.

Not now.

Her jaw set. Her breathing slowed. She had faced this place before. She had broken here before, but she wasn’t the same person anymore.

“Then this time…” she said, her voice steady, resolute, “I won’t fail.”

The sha surged.

With a sharp, guttural exhale, Abby ripped the door free from its hinges. Metal screamed as it tore loose, the wood splintering under her grip. She hurled it aside with violent force, the door crashing into the stone wall with a thunderous crack that echoed through the hollow halls beyond.

Darkness waited inside.

Abby stepped forward anyway.