Insanity by Cameron Jace
Publication date: December 20th 2013
Genres: Fantasy, New Adult, Paranormal
Synopsis:
After accidentally killing everyone in her class, Alice Wonder is now
a patient in the Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum. No one doubts her
insanity. Only a hookah-smoking professor believes otherwise; that he
can prove her sanity by decoding Lewis Carroll’s paintings, photographs,
and find Wonderland’s real whereabouts. Professor Caterpillar persuades
the asylum that Alice can save lives and catch the wonderland monsters
now reincarnated in modern day criminals. In order to do so, Alice leads
a double life: an Oxford university student by day, a mad girl in
an asylum by night. The line between sanity and insanity thins when
she meets Jack Diamond, an arrogant college student who believes
that nonsense is an actual science.
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Excerpt
from chapter 1
The writing on the wall
says it's January 14th. I am not sure what year. I haven't been sure
of many things lately, but I’m wondering if it’s my handwriting I’m looking at.
There is an strange key
drawn underneath the date. It's carved with a sharp object, probably a broken
mirror. I couldn’t have written this. I'm terrified of mirrors. They love to
call it Catoptrophobia around here.
Unlike regular patients in
the asylum, my room is windowless, stripped down to a single mattress in the
middle, a sink, and bucket for peeing--or puking--when necessary. The tiles on
the floor are black-and-white squares, like a chessboard. I never step on
black. Always white. Again, I'm not sure why.
The walls are smeared with
a greasy pale green everywhere. I wonder if it's the previous patient's brains
spattered all over from shock therapy. In the Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum,
politely known as the Warneford hospital, the doctors have a sweet spot for
shock therapy. They love watching patients with bulging eyes and shivering
limbs begging for relief from the electricity. It makes me question who is
really mad in here.
It's been a while since I
was sent to shock therapy myself. Dr. Tom Truckle, my supervising physician,
said I don't need it anymore, particularly after I stopped mentioning
Wonderland. He told me that I used to talk about it all the time; a dangerous
place I claim I have been whisked away to when my elder sister lost me at the
age of seven.
Truth is, I don't remember
this Wonderland they are talking about. I don't even know why I am here. My
oldest vivid memory is from a week ago. Before that, it's all a purple haze.
I have only one friend in
this asylum. It's not a doctor or a nurse. And it's not a human. It doesn't
hate, envy, or point a finger at you. My friend is an orange flower I keep in a
pot; a Tiger Lily I can't live without. I keep it safe next to a small crack in
the wall where a single sun ray sneaks through for only ten minutes a day. It
might not be enough light to grow a flower, but my Tiger Lily is a tough girl.
Each day, I save half of
the water they give me for my flower. As for me, better thirsty than mad.
My orange flower is also
my personal rain check for my sanity. If I talk to her and she doesn't reply, I
know I am not hallucinating. If it talks back to me, all kinds of nonsense
starts to happen. Insanity prevails. There must be a reason why I am here. It
doesn’t mean I will easily give in to such a fate.
"Alice Pleasance
Wonder. Are you ready?" the nurse knocks with her electric prod on my
steel door. Her name is Waltraud Wagner. She is German. Everything she says
sounds like a threat and smells like smoke. My fellow mad people say she is a
Nazi; that she used to kill her own patients back in Germany. "Get avay vrom za dor. I an coming
in," she demands.
Listening to the rattling
of her large keychain, my heart pounds in my chest. The turn of the key makes
me want to swallow. When the door opens, all I can think of is choking her
before she begins to hurt me. Sadly, her neck is too thick for my nimble hands.
I stare at her almost-square figure for a moment. Everything about her is four
sizes too big, all except her feet, which are as small as mine. My sympathies,
little feet.
"Time for your daily
ten-minute break," she approaches me with a straitjacket, a devilish grin
on her face. I never get out. My ward is underground, and I take my break in
another empty ward upstairs, where patients love to play soccer with a
hedgehog’s head.
A big muscled warden
stands behind Watlraud. Thomas Ogier. He is bald, has an angry-red face and a
silver tooth he likes to flash whenever he sees me. His biceps are the size of
my head. I have a hard time believing he has ever been a 4-pound baby.
"Slide your arms into
the jacket," Waltraud demands in her German accent, a cigarette puckered
between her lips. "Slow and easy, Alice," she nods at warden Ogier,
in case I misbehave.
I comply obediently and
stretch out my arms for her to do whatever she wants. Waltraud twists my right
arm slightly and checks the tattoo on my arm. It’s the only tattoo I have. It’s
a handwritten sentence that looks like a thin arm band from afar. Waltraud
feels the need to read it allowed, “’I can't go back to yesterday because I was
a different person then.’” I was told I have written it myself while still
believing in Wonderland. “That Alice in Wonderland has really messed with your
head.” She puffs smoke into my face as she mocks me.
The tattoo and Waltraud’s
mocking is the least of my concerns right now. I let her tie me, and while she
does, I close my eyes. I imagine I am a sixteenth century princess, some kind
of a lucky Cinderella, being squeezed into a corset by my chain smoking servant
in a fairy tale castle above ground, just about to go meet my Prince Charming.
Such imagery always helps me breathe. I once heard that it was hope that saves
the day, not sanity. I need to cool down before I begin my grand escape.
AUTHOR
BIO
Wonderlander,
Neverlander, Unicorn-chaser, enchanter, musician, survived a coma, &
totally awesome. Sometimes I tell stories. Always luv the little
monsters I write young adult paranormal romance,
urban fantasy, and science fiction mostly. The Grimm Diaries series is a
seven book saga that deals with retellings of fairy tales from a
young adult POV - it connects most of the fairy tales together and
claims to be the truth about fairy tales. I live in
San Fransisco and seriously think circles are way cooler than triangles.
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