Fiction: Group 3
Pearl River: Asylum
The British International School Shanghai, Puxi Campus, Chen, Jade - 13,
Fiction: Group 3
Macau, March 1968
ight crept in soundlessly, engulfing all that stood in its way.
The Pearl River Asylum stared down upon me, a giant awakening at the dead of the night.
But everything was so sombre and quiet, as if I was blind and deaf, a vulnerable feeling I
would never forget.
“Miss Heong, the front door is this way.” A dark figure appeared in front of my face, silent and soulless.
“Yes, thank you.” I answered, trying to cover my agitation.
The nurse lead me through a maze of rooms. The Asylum was full of antique, mahogany furniture, old and
obsolete.
‘It’s okay, only a few days.’ But that’s what I’d thought.
The hallways, the floors, all groaning with each step I took to my room. Room 414, a demonic number in
Macau.
I woke up on a cloudless morning the next day feeling forlorn, and I knew the torture, and the grief, were
still to come. Below my window, lay the Pearl River Delta, but people here call it the River of Sin because
of the deaths it was responsible for in the early 1800s. 414 of them. People in this tragedy were all mentally
ill. They jumped into the river as if it was a safe haven, for the insane.
So that’s why they built this Asylum beside the river.
***
I had spent time in this asylum, and it felt like eternity.
Here, it’s a simple schedule; eat, sleep, therapy, eat again and sleep.
Strolling down this hallway was something I’d learnt to abhor on my first day here; thin strips of paint,
peeling its way off like rows of ants determined to make its way down, and lights flickering, dying, making
the ceiling a deep, black hole. It smells dead here, lifeless, a scent that brings unlimited chill down your
spine.
Places where patients were forbidden to go were the mortuary and the library. I think both places hold
secrets of the unknown.
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