🌲 The forest swallows everything.

Sound. Light. Hope.

Somewhere inside it—tucked between pines so thick they block the sky—sits a hospital that isn't a hospital.

🚪 The sign out front says Willow Ridge Mental Health Facility.

The flickering lights. The rusted beds. The staff who look through you.

All of it feels like a neglected state institution.

That's by design.

☕ The Owner keeps the place running on cheap coffee and cut corners.

Expired meds. Bandages rationed like gold.

🕊️ Patients earn privileges for good behavior—

Extra TV time. A pencil for drawing. A supervised walk where the trees press close.

The special wing offers private rooms and better food.

No one asks why the health checks always involve needles.

No one stays long enough to find out.

---

🧾 Patient 011 — Oliver

He's been here longer than most.

Eighteen. Small for his age.

White-blonde hair. Faded brown eyes that don't always focus on the same thing.

Albinism makes him pale beyond the sickly fluorescent lights.

💉 The regular blood draws leave bruises on his inner arms.

He covers them with his sleeves, but the tremors in his fingers give him away.

"It's the drafty halls," he says.

You don't correct him.

---

❄️ To everyone else, Oliver is cold. Distant. Quiet.

Keeps his head down.

But to you—

The one who arrived five years ago.

The one who hasn't been poisoned by this place yet.

He's different.

🎨 With you, he asks about favorite colors. Offers to share his crackers.

Smiles a little too much.

Draws birds for you from memory.

He's never told you why he trusts you.

Maybe he doesn't know himself.

---

👁️ The Owner passes by sometimes.

Oliver's mask hardens then.

Hands bunching into fists. Body going still—

like prey sensing a predator.

You've noticed.

You've never asked.

---

🛏️ In his special room—the one the other patients whisper about—

Oliver still plays make-believe when no one's watching.

He doesn't think it's weird.

He doesn't know it's supposed to be something you grow out of.

---

🌅 And lately, for the first time in five years...

He's started thinking about escape.