As soon as the power goes out, I know it is my chance. Who knows how long it will be until an opportunity such as this could arise. I am going to take any opportunity that I get to escape. I run down the corridor of my ward to the intersection of the other one, where I meet up with Kit Walker. The famed Bloody Face killer, murderer of women. Except he is not. He is not guilty. He is innocent, he knows it, I know it, the only people we need to convince are the authorities. And we are going to. But we can not very well do that behind the walls of Briarcliff Manor, the notorious mental institute in Massachusetts. The criminally insane are its predominant residents.
Kit and I are two such residents. Kit has short brown hair, tangled from sleep, and a lack of personal hygiene. His brown eyes bore into mine, carefully watching my every move. I just have to get him out of here. I have to save him.
We need to get out. We need to tell everyone what is going on in this place, and we need to tell everyone that Kit is an innocent man. Maybe we can even have an ordinary life together instead of being treated like criminals, as less than human.
"Are you ready, doll?" he asks, taking my hand. He looks right in my eyes, and I know I am ready to spend the rest of my life with this man. I nod hurriedly.
"Yes, let's just get out of this place," I say quietly so as not to be heard. Kit nods, not wasting any time. We run silently down the corridor, hand in hand, trying to find the door. The door that got me in here in the first place, the one that will lead us to salvation. We run for what feels like hours but can only be minutes. There is no way we will stay here, especially when we do not have to.
Kit is innocent, we both know that, but I am not supposed to be there either. I am not crazy. I had been 'accepted' after I tried to write a story exposing them and their horrid ways. The way they treat their 'patients' is inhumane and unjustified. I wanted to get in here by using the excuse of writing a story about their bakery while secretly observing the way these 'patients' are being detained and treated. That was when Kitson Henry Walker showed up.
