Sam and Colby: The Asylum

Chapter 40

"What the fuck is it? What did he touch?" asked Sam.

"It's fucking arsenate hogweed mercury! We need to get the fuck out, if it's open, it's in the air, get the fuck out, everyone, right now!" I screamed. Everyone sprinted out of the room, Corey holding his hoodie. I ripped it out of his hands and threw it back into the room before slamming the door. We all stood there for a second, catching our breaths from the adrenaline.

"What's arsenate whatever the fuck?" asked Jake.

"It kills people. They probably injected it into patients they didn't want to treat anymore. If it's silver, it's mercury for sure. If it said hogweed on the bottle, it's hogweed. But plain hogweed doesn't go in a bottle. Hogweed shouldn't go anywhere. Hogweed is a plant, and if it's in a bottle, it's the sap. Mercury shouldn't be mixed with that. The arsenic was mixed in to kill you faster," I said.

"What the fuck! How do I know if I got any on me!" yelled Corey.

"Arsenic on your skin won't kill you and neither will Mercury. It's not good, but it won't hurt you," I said.

"Okay, and hogweed sap?" Corey asked.

"Yeah, that'll hurt you. Bad. That shit can fucking blind you," I said.

"WHAT?" screamed Corey.

"But he didn't get it in his eyes, right?" asked Sam.

"Right, no, he won't go blind, but did you get it on your hand? At all? Did your sleeve press against your skin with it on there?" I asked Corey.

"No, I don't think so. I didn't feel anything wet, it didn't get on me. It wasn't spilling out, there was just dried silver stuff on the outside of the bottle," Corey said. "It wasn't sealed, though."

"Oh my fuck," I said, putting my hand on my heart and leaning back against the wall. I let out a deep breath. "Sam, did you bring any sunscreen?"

"Yeah," he said.

"Corey, use that shit like hand lotion all fucking night. We won't really be able to tell if it touched you until sunlight hits your skin," I said. "Hogweed sap and UV rays from the sun fuck with each other. You can get, like, third degree burns by just walking outside. And inhaling any form of mercury and arsenic is potentially life threatening, but if we'd inhaled it enough or if it was fresh, we would know. Oh my god," I said.

"How would we know? If we inhaled it, I mean?" asked Colby.

"Get dizzy, pass out, forget how to breathe, whatever. You guys are all okay?" I asked.

"Freaked the fuck out but fine," said Jake.

"Dude, I owe you my fucking life," said Corey. "Like, literally. Thank you Vanessa." I shook my head. Fuck. 

That was not Corey's fault. None of that was. That was my fault. 

They didn't know what that stuff was. They had no fucking clue. But I did. I knew exactly what that stuff was and exactly what it did. I'm the one who saw the ice pick and the teeth on that tray. I'm the one who jumped away from it, which could have caused the bottle to not be correctly sealed like Corey said. I'm the one who didn't look at everything on that tray before letting everyone walk over to it and pick things up.

I wasn't there to control what they did or tell them how to act, but I was there to do my best to keep them safe like Colby said. I knew all of the dangerous medications that those doctors would use, and I was fully aware that the guys had no fucking clue what those medications were. Instead of being rational and not screaming like a stupid little bitch, I let Corey literally almost seriously injure or even kill himself. If that bottle was all the way open or that stuff was even just the slightest bit newer, he would have died from inhaling it. We all would have. And if I had kept my fucking cool, I would have gotten all of us out of there way earlier and eliminated almost that entire risk.

That was my fault. That entire situation.

I realized that I was still shaking my head, and everyone was staring at me, waiting for me to answer. I would not say 'you're welcome' to Corey. Because he should not have thanked me. I should have gotten all of them out sooner. I walked up to the tray right when we got in there. And while I didn't look at it until we'd all been in there for at least two minutes, seeing that bottle right there literally could have been the difference between life and death. That stuff could have been more potent. We could have died within those two minutes. All of us. And we also could have died in three minutes, or four, or five, or however long the strength of that specific bottle of poison would take to kill us. If we walked back in there right now and stood there for another ten minutes, it is completely possible that we would die, alone, in an abandoned asylum basement that no one even knew existed.

They brought me with them, and I didn't do what I was supposed to. I didn't keep them as safe as I could have. I know that it would have been worse if I wasn't there, but I was, and I let it happen right in front of me. They wouldn't have found that basement if I wasn't there. They wouldn't have gone looking for or gone into that room if I didn't tell them that it had to exist. They wouldn't have gone over to that tray if I hadn't screamed and jumped away from it.

I opened my mouth to answer Corey, but no sound came out. Instead, tears did. They welled up in my waterline and started falling without me even blinking. They kept flowing out, tears running down my face and onto my neck. I put my hands over my mouth, closed my eyes, and silently let myself cry, my body jerking with each exhalation and shaking with each inhalation.

"Oh, angel," Colby said. "Come here," he whispered. I didn't move. He walked over to me and wrapped me into a big hug. I didn't hug him back, I didn't open my eyes, I didn't do anything. I stood there and cried, completely silent, my eyes squeezed shut as tightly as they could be and my hands pressed hard against my mouth.