New Perspective

Tate's eyes shot open the moment a loud scream echoed through the air. He looked around the room, his heart racing scared of what he might find. Fortunately for him there was nothing, and no one. The walls were solid white and padded, and the floors were made of shiny white tiles. Tate was laying on a the ground, his body sore, and he felt like he has been laying there for a long time. Several thoughts and questions flooded his throbbing head. Where am I? He thought to himself as he painfully rose to his feet. Several voices echoed through his mind, voices that were clearly not his. The voices told him to sit back down, to be still, to take it easy, but he ignored them all.

"Shut up..." he mumbled under his breath as he staggered towards the padded door. His hand gripped the cold metal doorknob and he pushed it open. His body felt heavy, and drugged. He ignored the feeling, and pushed his way through the pain that was searing through his head. He opened the door and saw a long hallway ahead of him, the walls were not like the ones in the padded room. These walls were dull, and grey, and there was an occasional dark smear on the wall that looked a little bit like blood. Tate took a moment to collect his thoughts, and for his body to wake up before he started to venture down the long hallway. When his mind cleared, and the aching and throbbing died down he continued on, confused as to where he was, and why he was there. He ventured the long dark eerie hallway in search of clues. He came across several rooms that looked like the one he was in, he tried to open the doors to those rooms but they were all locked. He peeked through one of the windows on one of the doors and he saw a skinny girl curled up in the corner of the room, she was rocking back and forth, and hair covered her face. Tate also noticed that there were scratch marks all over the walls, and that the girl was in a straight jacket. Tate let out an annoyed sigh as he ran his fingers through his dirty blonde hair. His grey eyes observing the the scenery around him, trying to put the pieces together. He figured from the rooms that he was in an Insane Asylum, but he still couldn't remember why he was there, or even how he got there. The throbbing in his head came back, and images started to flash before his eyes like visions, they were of men in white suits, wearing masks, and they were grabbing at him. Tate grabbed the knife that one of the men held, and he cautiously backed up against the wall. The men came closer, and closer not backing off. They were mumbling words, but Tate couldn't understand anything they said. The biggest man tried to tackle Tate, and get the knife from him, but Tate plunged the steel knife into the guy's chest. Tate blinked a few times and they were gone, the men in white, the blood, the knife, the dead body. All of it was gone.

"What is happening to me?" Tate muttered under his breath, and he kept walking forward, and then after a few moments the vision came back. The men in white, the blood, the knife, it was back again. Tate fought his way through the men in white, scared that if he didn't do anything they would hurt him first. After all of the men in white were in a bloody pile on the ground Tate fell to his, his head hurting worse than ever, and then he was consumed by a black abyss.

When Tate woke up once again, he was somewhere else. He was strapped down onto a metal table. All sorts of things were attached to his body. He struggled against the restraints, but they were too strong. A tall skinny man entered the room, the man had long black greasy hair, and he was rather bony. He gave Tate a crooked, smile that showed his yellow rotten teeth.

"You have caused quite a fuss the past few days Mr. Tate..." The man said, and Tate struggled trying to break free once again, and the man just sighed.

"Where am I?" Tate hissed, and the strange man chuckled.

"All in good time Mr. Tate, all in good time...until then, feel free to sleep, and rest. You will need your strength," the man turning his back towards Tate and walking towards the door.

"You can't do this to me! It is against the law, I haven't done anything wrong!" Tate shouted, and the bony man in white stopped cold in his tracks. He slowly turned around, the corners of his mouth curling into a cold smile.

"I wouldn't be so certain of that Mr. Tate..." The man said taking slow steps over to Tate's bedside.

"What do you mean? I am a good man with a well paying job, a wife, and kids, who are probably worried sick!" Tate snapped, and the man simple stared at him in amusement.

"You don't...you don't remember, do you?" The man questioned Tate, raising an eyebrow, and Tate just stared at him with a confused expression.

"What do you mean? What don't I remember?" Tate fumed, his body tense, and once again struggling against the restraints, but the leather restraints held firm, and wouldn't give.

"Perhaps I shall bring in the tapes and show you exactly what had happened, as well as the news reports..." The man said leaving the room, leaving Tate alone with his thoughts which were roaring, and yelling at him. A few moments passed and then the creepy man came back in, this time with two women wearing knee length white dresses tailing him and pushing a small cart that had a small box Tv on it. The girls plugged the Tv into the wall, and slipped a tape inside of it and hit the play. Tate watched the recording, and his eyes widened with fear, it was obviously him in the recording, but he had no recollection of ever doing that. In the recording Tate was standing in the Asylum hallway, and several workers approached him, one of them was tightly gripping a knife. The workers tried to get Tate to come calmly, but that didn't work out too well, and Tate ended up killing six workers, and then he passed out in the hallway.

"N-no...that can't be me...I...that never happened," Tate stuttered, his voice filled with both fear and rage as he stared at his own face on the Tv screen.

"Tate, you have been living in this Insane Asylum for four years now, you are in here because you had a mental break down and you brutally murdered your wife, and your two daughters. I saved you, they were going to have you hanged, but I brought you here. I've been studying you, examining you, watching you." The man said, there was fascination, amazement, and even a little fear mixed into the look on his smug face.

"No...that can't be, I just saw them yesterday!" Tate hissed, and the man just laughed.

"No Tate, that was four years ago, your mind put a block up. When you killed six of my best workers your mind wasn't allowing you to see thim, instead they looked like visions, so your mind had no idea what your body was doing," the man said, seemingly more annoyed, "we've tried everything to cure your...delusions, except one thing..." the man said with a devilish smirk, that could only mean one thing; trouble. Tate was afraid to ask what they haven't tried, and before he could ask the guy gave it away.

"We have yet to try shock therapy, if this doesn't work then...well...nothing will, and you will either die, or be stuck here for the rest of your life," the man said walking over to a lever as the two women wheeled the Tv out of the room.

"Are you sure I am the one with a mental illness?" Tate questioned raising his eyebrow, and the mane rolled his eyes and shoved a ball of cloth in Tate's mouth, and then he flipped the switch. Just as he flipped the switch, the door bursted open, and a man who was out of breath entered the room and he flipped the switch off.

"What are you doing? He's not the one who killed his daughters!" The man shouted, and there was silence for a few seconds, before he spoke again. "His wife was found guilty for manipulating him, she left a note that was found next to here body that hung from the ceiling," the new man said between gasps. The man with the greasy black hair thought about this news, and after a few minutes he let out a sigh.

"He is still guilty of the murders of his two daughters, he has shown signs of mental illness, and he has murdered six of my best workers," he said, and then he flipped the switch on again.
Pain flooded Tate's body, and images of his wife's ocean blue eyes, and golden blonde hair, as well as his two adorable daughters raced through his mind. He missed them, he missed them so much. As the pain roared through his body like an angry monsoon he couldn't help but think of all of the times he went wrong, all of the times he wasn't there for them when they needed him most. The monitor that was hooked up to his body to measure his heart beats started beating faster and faster with every bolt of electricity that surged through him. A few tears escaped his eyes and slid down his cheeks and onto the bed. The monitor began to speed up, faster and faster and faster, and then nothing. The line went flat, and Tate was gone, his final dying thought was of his beautiful wife to whom he would never be able to apologize to, as well as his two adorable daughters who were only five and ten, their lives robbed from them by the person they should have been able to trust, by the person who should have been their first ever prince charming, but instead turned out to be the villain of the entire story. As Tate died, he thought about how not every story ends with a happily ever after, some are just lucky enough to end.