I Live in a Mad World

The year is 1998. I'm writing this not as a tale, but to inform others of the horror I have seen. Strange things have gone down around me recently, and frankly, I intend to tell you everything. Someone has to know. I worked as a psychologist, in a small psychiatric hospital. I can't tell you the exact location, for I fear that, out of sheer curiosity, you will venture here, and will not return. It's was an open unit, and the job payed fairly well, but I want someone to know of the tragedy that I have endured. That's why I'm writing this here. I had been doing psycho therapy for 8 years, and at the age of 35, I was sick of it. But I couldn't leave, I had patients relying on me. However, even though we had great staff, and great techniques, we had multiple patient suicides. Some were saying that the patients were overdosing on their medication, but I knew better. We weren't allowed to leave the patients with their medication, for that very reason. A few members of the staff, including myself, tried investigating deeper into these suicides, but many would leave it alone. We only ever discovered one cause of death, which seemed to be that the patient bashed his skull against his locked cell bars. We came to the conclusion that the patient was not happy with the way he was being secluded. He had always been dangerous, to himself and others, so we had him moved to a locked cell. One of my closest friends, Drew, had discovered the body. Drew was that patients psychologist, and believed that the patient was close to being cured. He was healing mentally, and almost fully healed. He wanted to leave. Something was wrong.

We didn't have many suicides after that, But we still had some. One of my colleagues was found dead a month ago, and that was when I started to snap. I couldn't handle all this death. I went to his house shortly after his death was discovered to see what had happened. Someone had told me he was taking antidepressants and had overdosed. I was suspicious, because I knew him well, and he was one of the happiest people knew. I wanted to investigate, and I was going to look in the house, but I was cut off by police. I went to his funeral a week ago, and realized something I probably should've realized when I was at the house. I was told the cause of death, not by any detective of sorts, but by one of the other psychologists. At that moment, I realized that they had been at odds lately, the two doctors, and after the funeral, I looked around for the doctor that told me the cause of death.

He wasn't at the funeral, but one of his previous patients was. I asked him about the psychologist, but most of his answers seemed vague. I asked him about his previous experiences with the doctor, who's name was revealed by him to be Claus Metzger. He told me that he wasn't allowed to answer any personal questions about Claus, though, and left in a hurry. But as he rushed past me he bumped into me. There was a clear path out, so this was strange. I later noticed he had slipped a note into my pocket. It read:

"can't talk, he'll know. He has done things you wouldn't imagine. Things that are unspeakable. We can't alert a higher power, because they put him up to this. You need to leave while you can"

For a moment, I thought he was crazy, but he had been cured of his illnesses. I searched for patient records, specifically those of the deceased, and found but one file that was filled with past suicides. I looked for similarities between all of the dead patients, and found nothing. But I DID find similarities between the doctors. All of them had been doctors that were either close friends with higher-ups in the institute, or were higher-ups. I couldn't do anything but laugh. Laugh and laugh I did, but inside, I knew what was happening. As I left the institute to go home and continue my investigation, I had seen several watchful eyes. All doctors. Esteemed ones. I quickened my pace, and drove straight home. After a few short hours of investigating the institutes higher-ups on my computer, I received a skype message. It was from my friend, Drew.

"Buddy, I'm sorry, but it had to end like this. I had no other choice. "They" made me do it."

As I read in horror, I heard the loud, piercing sound of sirens, not too far off from my house. I looked out the window and froze. The Institute had been set ablaze. It was burning like hell, with all of the town able to see it. We had so many good patients. So many! And all of it squandered. I looked back at my computer, and burst into a laughing fit. I was going insane. These doctors were murdering their patients. Using them as an excuse to kill. I had snapped, but was determined to find out why these people were being murdered. I got it. All of the patients had been cleverly murdered to make it look like suicide, And I finally found the similarity. All of these men were American soldiers, war veterans, that were active during world war two. I was done. I couldn't be bothered to convince myself that this was a coincidence. I looked up common German names, and was unable to find Claus, but I did find Metzger. It means "Butcher". I stared for maybe 10 minutes, thinking about the signs, and eventually looked back at the institute. I saw nothing. Not a single person left that building. None surived. But I'm sure those bastards left the institute before they burned it down. I'm sure.

That was 3 hours ago. It is exactly 8:37 pm right now. I can see people crowded around the burnt down building through my window. But my mind is focused on the 2 men standing outside my house right now, staring into the window.

Just staring.

help.

Epilogue
On may 16th, 1998, a psychiatric institute in, _____, USA, burned down in a fiery blaze. According to The police and fire department of ____, nobody was seen escaping from the building. All occupants went down with the building. Only one doctor that worked at the institute survived the blaze. We believe he wasn't in the institute at the time. However, he was found dead in his house. Overdosed on some anti-depressants. The boss wants me to check this out, and investigate the crime scene. Hopefully we'll figure out something -Detective Connor