Spiderweb - 147 Gates

Juan’s head jerked backward and her hands clenched as they laid on the ground. The shudders ran down her spine in waves, rushing over her body like electric shocks. She was trembling. Her eyes ran to the back of her eyes and back forward as her lips quivered.

“I swear people like you are hard of hearing,” Mrs. Cloud sighed.

She shoved Juan to the side, flicking off the few pieces of hair on her hand that she had ripped off from her hair. Slowly she walked to where Juan laid on the ground, shuddering. She inched away a bit from Mrs. Cloud as she walked closer.

It was pure silence at that moment, decorated by the shallow gasps of air by Juan as Mrs. Cloud drew closer, her steps on the ground close to silent. Mrs. Cloud stood directly in front of Juan for a moment and then squatted, an attempt to reach her eye-contact level near the ground.

There was pure fear in Juan’s eyes when Mrs. Cloud looked into them. Mrs. Cloud stared at them for a quick second before letting out a deep sigh. She didn’t really know what she was looking at, and neither did she really want to stay in its presence.

She turned back and looked at Juan as she laid on the ground. Did she really want to ruin that woman’s entire mind? Before she even got the chance to leave and pursue the things that were the reason she tried to escape in the first place. Should she spare her? Let her leave just this once to try and save things?

Mrs. Cloud laughed at herself and her thoughts. ‘How useless that would be,’ Mrs. Cloud thought to herself. ‘She’ll just end up coming back afterall.’

Mrs. Cloud knew very well what was over these gates. As much as these asylum walls were cages, they were also protectors. Like how zoos keep endangered species in special places to look over them, she kept the people, the prisoners, the sinners, locked in the building, looking after them.

Outside the gate was the scariest thing one could ever see. The most disheartening feeling, one that bite’s down at one’s hard and never leaves. One that makes the person regret their choice and one that puts their lives in danger.

It was not a land of an uncovered area, but rather something that everyone had experienced. A huge wall in everyone’s mind that crushed them without any thought. Outside those gates were the greatest enemy to humanity. An enemy that constantly reigned the world even when people constantly try to push it away.

One that eats at the lives of many.

Nothing. The concept of absolute nothing was what awaited those that left the asylum.

It was to make sure the kickback felt extremely painful.

It was the feeling of being trapped inside something that you didn’t even know what the outside of looked like. Building this expectation of what the outside would look like, filling your head with thoughts of escaping the walls and meeting the world right after. Making you all the more motivated to get out, riling up emotions, and stirring insanity. Creating their self-reflection on them without any excess action. A self-trigger.

It pushed people to want to escape, to want to leave, to want to see the things they never got to see in their stay in the asylum. Yet constantly reminding them of how they were stuck in this place that would never let them see the world again until the time their sentences were over. The emotions would build over themselves, making them excited for the day that they’d finally get their release, for the day that they’d be able to see their family and loved ones.

The feeling was even greater for those who got to escape by themselves. Having that self-accomplishment flow through you when you escape from something you thought would forever have a hold on you. That uplifting moment where they get to the tall walls and pull the doors open to the like of ecstasy they had been missing out on. Their eyes sparkled as they locked sight onto the first thing that they saw.

Nothing. There was absolutely nothing in front of them but low withering grass waving in the scorching sun. There was nothing in sight. No birds, no flowers, no bushes. Just nothing.

The dreams of that person being quashed to absolutely nothing as they looked at the nothingness around them, eyes running up and down through the heath wondering if they’d find something out of the ordinary, something that would have made it all the more worth it.

There was never anything staring back at them.

The slow breaking of their heart could be heard as they wonder what they were fighting for, what their head been holding on for, what they had been wishing for their entire time behind bars. It crushed their spirits, diminishing them to the sand on the ground completely and filling their head with fears.

Then came the feeling of helplessness, knowing that something you did simply wasn’t worth it. Something that you did, something that you wished for outside of jail was not going to meet you with a bright hello. It was a slap to the face by reality, destroying their expectations before they actually stepped into the real world again.

They would walk out the gates with their heads low and their eyes blank, the nothingness surrounding them in fear and nothing but cold in the winter. Spiraling, freezing, blistering, and killing, and in the summer, a blaze of heat that tanned people faster than one would wish.

That was the reason why this place was known as hell, that was the reason why it was dreaded to be in these walls.

Not because of the bad treatment since there was none, it wasn’t about the people or the rooms they got to live in. It wasn’t about the person that ran the place or how their family, consisting of a serial killer with a death count in the hundreds, and one son that didn’t really seem to be in touch with the surface of the world that all but his family saw.

It was about the disappointment that awaited one the moment they looked past the gate.

Mrs. Cloud pitied her. She wondered what type of facial expression Juan would make after she was tossed out there.

Mrs. Cloud pursed her lips. The more she told Juan about her mother and their plans, then the more Juan’s breakdown would be when she leaves the gate.

Her lips were itching to spread into a bigger smile. She wanted to say it, so badly that words were already on the tips of her tongue, ready to be spat out. She looked down on Juan as she trembled.

‘It was funny how such a big woman, with that large of a body, really came up to me and asked for a fight,’ Mrs. Cloud chuckled, looking at the Juan that trembled just for a single moment she wasn’t to say. ‘Is that the same woman that’s laying the ground right now? Shuddering with tears in her eyes all from hearing a few facts about her in-law family.

She raised her leg and slowly tapped Juan’s leg. “I know you’re down and all, but frankly, I do not care about whenever trembling show you are putting up right now because I actually have places to be and you have severely messed me up.

“T-tell me the story later…” Juan muttered, her eyes completely blank and a small smile appeared on her face. It was dark, devoid of all movement and all emotions on her at that moment. “I don’t want to know more. I don’t want to know about her, about my hubby and neither do I want to leave this place either.”

“What?” Ms. Cloud asked, completely dumbfounded by Juan’s comment. She crossed her arms and stared at Juan with an amused expression. ‘She said what now?’ “Mind repeating what you said for me love?” Mrs. Cloud asked.

“I said, fuck everything. I just want to go back inside, to sleep, to rest,” Juan answered. She turned to Mrs. Cloud with black eyes, “I’m still allowed to do that right? I can just go back to my fucking jail and serve my time.”

Mrs. Cloud cocked her head to the side, a right smile appearing on her face again. “How cute…”

“What is?” Juan replied.

“How you think I’m going to let you stay with us.”