Effie's back was stinging. She had just finished being punished yet again. Effie broke all the dishes in the kitchen while she was cleaning them. One of the kitchen ladies caught all the dishes falling down around her. They were at first shocked that nothing touched Effie. She didn't even have a scratch on her, but then they were furious.
They began to whip her repeatedly. It wasn't until Miss Murphey came into the room that they stopped. Effie glared at Miss Murphey's smugged face. Miss Murphey then grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the building and back towards the graveyard.
There were two new bodies. Fresh and ready to be buried. Effie wondered to herself if their families will ever know that they died.
Miss Murphey pushed her towards the graves and told her to start burying them. She turned on her heel and left. Effie watched her leave before turning to the dead bodies. She grabbed a shovel and started to dig. She knew from the last time how deep they have to be so it didn' take her as long this time. She pushed the bodies into the holes and wiped the sweat off of her brow. Looking up at the sky, she noticed that it was past noon and her stomach was growling.
I wonder how they're going to feed everyone, Effie thought to herself victoriously.
"I wouldn't be so smug if I were you," Patricia's voice warned from behind her.
Effie turned around to look at her. "Why not?"
"There are about three other girls in this asylum with you," Patricia told her. "The others had either died or was sent to another hospital. So the odds that this place would freak out by not having dishes for four girls, is very slim."
"So, what I did was for nothing?" Effie asked amazed. "The punishment I took was for nothing?"
Patricia sadly nodded. "Yes, I'm sorry." She paused. "You're a target, Effie. They're going to watch you closely now and if they don't like what you did, you're going to be punished with no second thought."
Effie shrugged. "I don't care."
"Don't you want to live?"
Effie shrugged again.
Patricia sighed. "Oh, Effie. That's not the attitude I expected you to have."
Effie shook her head. "Why do you care? If you don't remember, you were the one who told me that I would be suffering the same fate you did and look where you are now. You're dead! You have no room to talk to me about this! Just get away from me!" Effie turned back around and leaned against the shovel.
Miss Murphey came back to where she was standing and crossed her arms. "Who were you talking to?"
Effie turned around to where Patricia was standing to see her not there anymore. Figures, she thought to herself. "No one," she grumbled to Miss Murphey. Her stomach grumbled and she glared at it. Looking back up, she saw a smirk on Miss Murphey's face that she wanted to slap off.
"Sure you were, loony," she jeered. "Also, you're going to be locked in your room this evening. You're not going to get anything to eat after your little stunt this morning."
Effie gawked at her. She hadn't eaten for the past two and a half days! Her stomach felt like it was eating itself from the inside out.
Miss Murphey roughly grabbed her arm and pulled her back into the building. She took her up the stairs and into her room. Pushing her in, she locked the door and left Effie in her own thoughts.
Effie walked around her room and thought about what she could break to help get herself out of here. She laid a hand on her stomach when it grumbled aloud again. She gave up pacing around the room and climbed into her bed. She closed her eyes and soon drifted off to sleep anticipating the darkness with gratitude.
She was suddenly jolted awake when she felt something being pressed down on her face. She opened her eyes to see nothing but darkness. Whatever was being placed over her nose and mouth felt like a pillow.
The sudden realization came to her. She was being suffocated. She tried reaching out and grabbing at whoever was doing this to her, but her hands were grabbed by someone else and pinned down. So were her legs. Her lungs were aching for oxygen, but none came. She tried to breathe through the pillow, but she was received with none. Effie couldn't figure out how long it took her to die, but she was eventually still and no more.
Effie Richmond had died and there was no coming back.