Book of Asylum

His Butler, Investigating

"Disappearances at Hanwell Asylum.

We've probably all heard of Hanwell Asylum, home to the insane madmen that would otherwise roam around our city. And although we are of course grateful for their contribution to society, one does start to wonder what exactly happens at that government owned institution, since some of us do in fact have family members living there. After the annual inspection of this year, a shocking revelation was made by the police.
"It seems that various patients have gone unexplainably missing, their whereabouts are still unknown but we are currently doing all we can to find any leads", declared Lord Arthur Randall of the London's police in a press conference. It appears that all London can do is await any further information, however.."

Sebastian sat on his bed, the mattress still stiff because it was so new, surrounded by the smell of the unnaturally clean sheets reading that one article that changed his life forever. It was because of this little piece of paper that was cut out of the daily newspaper that he was sitting here right now, in a room that did not yet feel like home, feeling a soft breeze on his handsome face coming from the small window that he opened in the hopes of getting some fresh air. This article was written almost a year ago, but after that one press conference there was no new information made public, nothing that could drive away Sebastian's gut feeling telling him that the police simply left the case as it was, deciding a few lunatics was not worth their efforts. 

Though that was exactly what made this whole thing interesting enough for Sebastian to act upon it. The entirety of society saw this asylum as a place not worth their time, a place to hide away anyone with a problem that wasn't visible to the naked eye, where they could just rot away without troubling the rest of London. But if this was how the general public viewed this place, then why in god's name would anyone go through the trouble of kidnapping or possibly murdering patients? That could mean two things, and Sebastian wrote them down in a little black notebook:

1. The culprit is a complete madman too
2. The culprit is someone from the inside

But since 1. was kind of unlikely and difficult to investigate, he for now settled on the second one, which actually did quite narrow down his list of suspects. Now all he had to do was figure out who exactly disappeared and who had a motive, long story short, there was work to do.

Sebastian pulled on his own long doctor's coat (it felt a bit weird knowing this Doctor Macy dude had wore this when he killed himself, and Sebastian could even swear that he still smelled a faint whiff of blood as he got dressed) and left his room, the files under one arm, the hand of his other arm stuffed deeply into one of the pockets of his coat. Like that, he wandered through the abandoned hallways of the castle, on a search for the dining hall. Although the halls were indeed completely empty, that did not mean that there was no sound too. In fact, quite the opposite was true; from various directions Sebastian could hear screaming and crying, making him wonder what the hell was always going on in the mornings. All he knew was that the patients weren't allowed out of their cells before one in the afternoon and that Doctors weren't allowed in, so why were some patients distressed? Were they just plain mad?

After a scarily long walk through the castle Sebastian reached the dining hall, two guards standing at the entrances, giving Sebastian a dirty look as he walked past them through the doors. The black-haired man had no time to wonder what that was about before Doctor Wright wished him a warm good-morning, and invited him to join him at one of the dining tables. There were three more people sitting at the table, eating their breakfast while cheerfully chatting away as if they weren't working with lunatics every minute of the day.