Sincerely, Jennifer x

Personal Log – Staff Nurse Terry Thomas – 23rd January 2079 

Another boring shift today. Nothing going on, as usual, but still, money is money and every hour I’m here puts twenty quid in my bank account. 

Will this diary ease the boredom? Probably not, but it’s better for my mind than scrolling through social media brain rot. Right? 

It sounds exciting to people, when I tell them that I work in an asylum, but it isn’t like the films. There are no spooky serial killers or shadows in the dark, just sick people who need support. 

They got rid of all the asylums over a century ago, but you know governments… everything that was old will become new again, and so, here I am, in the newly opened Ribbonvale Asylum for the Insane and Unfortunate. I think the name could do with some work, but I’m not high enough up to argue. 

It’s all about incarceration with this government. One of my cousins works at HMP Celestia, and it blows my mind a little… I mean… a prison on the moon. Mental. I suppose these things are good for voters. They like to see action being taken, so here we are, taking action. 

It’s all about saving money too, of course. I’m one of only two human nurses in the whole place. The rest of the nursing staff is nursebots, of course. Nursing is a dying profession, especially for us male nurses, and sometimes, I think about reskilling, but I’ve been doing it all my life. What else could I do?

This place is on the same site as another Asylum, actually, which is quite interesting. Apparently it was closed down after a sickness bug went through the place and killed most of the staff and residents. Must have been some bug, huh! St Michael’s or something, I think. Horrible stuff. Hopefully the same thing doesn’t happen here, because I’d really rather not die. 

It’s got a spooky history, but this place isn’t so bad–well, not normally, but lately, there’s been a weird vibe. I don’t know. I’m probably overthinking it. Nothing has actually happened, but… there is this new patient, and I don’t know, she just gives me the creeps. 

She’s no different to our other patients, I suppose. With a little work, we can figure out how best to support her, and everything will be fine, but… she’s just strange. 

Violence in patients is hardly new or surprising, but she’s a bit of a different case. She’s very pleasant to talk to, and spend time with, but the mere mention of seagulls sets her right off. I don’t know what it is about them, but they send her into a frenzy. 

That’s why she’s here, actually. She went on a rampage through the town, slapping every seagull she saw, and I don’t just mean light taps or anything, she was full on wallopping them. It was awful to witness, and she was arrested, and swiftly sent over to us. 

It isn’t a new thing, like I said. We get violent patients all the time, but there’s something freaky about her that I can’t quite put my finger on. 

It’s probably nothing, because like I said, I’m overthinking it. She’ll be just like every other patient in this place, and we’ll help her get the support she needs. She’ll be on her way soon, and I’ll feel like an idiot for worrying. 

Better go though, because while the shift is boring, there are still a few bits to get done before it’s over! 

-x-

Personal Log – Staff Nurse Terry Thomas – 24th January 2079

Something strange happened, and I’m really not sure how to feel about it. 

I was accompanying the new patient, Jade, to her assessment, and things got…weird. 

She barely said a word today, and that didn’t change as we walked down to her appointment with Doctor Turnips. As we arrived, she turned to me, her big, empty eyes swallowing me. I felt a shiver start in my fingertips, running up my arms and making a home in my head as she stared, silently raising her left hand, a sinister smile spreading across her face. 

“You alright Jade?” I whispered, unable to take my eyes from her as I slowly gestured to her, raising my shaking thumb with a forced smile. Her smile grew, her stare cemented upon me as she slowly hid each of her fingers behind her palm, until only the littlest finger remained. 

“Did you know that every seagull has a name?” She finally spoke, not taking her eyes off me for a second as she pushed her pinkie finger closer to my face. I stumbled back, my hand hovering over the panic alarm on the wall as she continued. “I like butchering their names.” My fingers began to tingle, shaking as they inched closer to the alarm and she advanced on me. “And their bodies.” My fingers brushed against the alarm, and my blood chilled as she smiled widely, her eyes narrowing as she grabbed Doctor Turnips’s door handle and strode inside. Her smile seemed to brighten, and for the whole visit, she was chatty, personable and… well, almost normal. It was like she didn’t need to be here at all. 

Doctor Turnips was baffled when we talked about it later. He couldn’t understand how she could have committed the crimes she was accused of… thought she was a lovely girl, but I don’t know. I’m not judging, but… well, she gives me the creeps, if I’m honest. 

I’m trying to forget about what happened, and I didn’t bring it up to Doctor Turnips, but all afternoon, she’s just been staring at me from across the day room. Always staring, with that one little finger up, and a strange, unsettling smile. 

I don’t know what it means, and I’m trying to tell myself that I’m just imagining it, but there’s something not right about that girl, and I’m not sure that we’ll be any help to her here. 

-x-

Personal Log – Staff Nurse Terry Thomas – 25th January 2079

I’ve got to talk to someone about Jade, but honestly, I’m worried they’ll lock me up in this place alongside her if I do. I feel like I’m losing it. She’s everywhere I look. All day long now, she follows me round the place, from the second my shift starts until it ends. 

As I went out to my car to head home last night, she was pressed up against the window of the day room, tapping her little finger against the glass with a grin, and when I got back in this morning, she was waiting in reception. 

I’m not sure how she got there, because it’s out of bounds to patients, but she was perched on the desk, waving her pinkie at me and smirking, while everyone around us seemed to ignore her presence. 

I marched her back to her room, scolding the nursebots for letting her into a restricted area, but they swear that they didn’t. The nursebots might be job stealing hunks of metal, but they are honest. There isn’t any capacity in their programming for lying, so she must have got out another way. 

She followed me around again for most of my shift. I’ve gone off sight for my dinner break, and I think this peaceful hour is the first time all day I haven’t had her staring up at me with that creepy smile, and her ever present pinkie finger. 

There is one other thing, and this is the part where I think people might think I’m cracking up, but I swear on everything that I’m telling the truth. 

Seagulls are following me. 

It started last night, they were circling my car as I unlocked it. I shooed them away, not thinking about it too much, but when I think about it, I’ve been seeing them everywhere too. 

There was a crowd of them outside my window all night, circling and squawking, and when I woke up this morning, I found feathers on my pillow. 

It’s her. I know it is. 

There’s something not right about that girl. Something that goes beyond medicine and talk therapy. I feel like an idiot for thinking about it, but… I think there’s something evil about her. Something that frightens me, and as much as I want to, and even promise myself I’ll talk to someone about it, I know I won’t. They won’t believe me, so why bother? 

At least I’ve got a day off tomorrow, and the day after, I’m on nights, so I won’t have to see her too much. 

Better get back to work, I suppose. Wish I didn’t have to, but I really need the money. 

-x-

Personal Log – Staff Nurse Terry Thomas – 27th January 2079

She was at my flat. 

Nobody believes me, of course, but I know what I saw. 

She did something to me… I’ve tried to tell myself it was a dream. That’s what Doctor Turnips said when I tried to explain what’s been going on, but I really can’t be sure anymore. It felt so real, and I can’t get it out of my head. I can’t free my body from how it felt at that moment. 

Was it real? I don’t know anymore. She’s messing with my head, and I can’t take much more of it. 

I was taking a nap after a walk down at the beach, and as I awoke, there was a storm outside. My eyes slowly opened and I could see the sky was lost to lightning and the room was shrouded in shadows. 

I could hear squawking, sinking into the symphony of thunder strikes, and behind me, I could feel the weight of someone else in the bed. 

I froze, my breath caught in my throat as fingers tapped gently on my back, and a voice spoke. 

“I was born of a great but terrible King.” My skin itched, up by my neck and down to my shoulder blades as the fingers continued their rhythm. It was Jade, unmistakably. “Balam commeth forth with three heads, and all of their eyes are watching you Terry.” I tried to move, but fear rooted my body in place, as she continued. The sensation burrowed deeper, as if something under my skin was shifting, pushing outward. “All his legions shall belong to me, and the birds will bow to my horrid hand, including you.” With those words, I felt the weight of her body lift from the bed, and she was gone. 

I stayed for a moment or two, silent and still, my heart pounding as the storm raged on. It was the pain that made me move. It began shooting down my neck and through my spine. 

Falling from my bed, I crawled to my feet, clattering quickly into the ensuite door. I managed to steady myself for a moment, making it into the bathroom, and falling against the mirror. 

A horrible sight met my eyes, and I stared, breathlessly at my reflection. 

Feathers. Small, pale grey ones, sprouting like weeds from the ridges of my back. My breath hitched, and I stumbled, trying to reach behind me to pull them out. They wouldn’t budge. The skin around them felt alien, taut, as though I was wearing someone else’s body.

Panic churned in my stomach. It wasn’t real, I told myself. It couldn’t be real. Just a dream, or a nightmare. I gripped the sink to steady myself, and my fingers looked…wrong. My nails were harder, thicker, yellowed, curving unnaturally. I clenched them into fists, willing them to return to normal, but it only made my wrists ache as the bones beneath shifted with a grinding sensation that made my head spin.

I tried calling for help, but my voice cracked into something sharp and shrill, a sound I didn’t recognise as human. The world outside my window felt farther away, the walls of my tiny flat closing in as the transformation crept forward.

I knew what I was becoming, but it felt so impossible. 

My feet were next. Oh God, my feet. I ripped my socks off, and there they were—gnarled and scaled, the beginnings of webbing forming between my toes. The sight was grotesque, but worse than the sight was the feeling. A hollow, restless energy filled my chest, and with it came the overwhelming urge to leave. To go up.

I stumbled back towards my bedroom window, throwing it open despite the biting winter wind. The scent of salt and seaweed hit me like a punch, and a part of me—a new part—found it exhilarating. My stomach churned again, but this time it wasn’t nausea. It was hunger, a deep, insatiable craving for things I’d never wanted before. Fish. Bread crusts. Whatever scraps I could find.

“No,” I whispered—or tried to. The word came out as a rasping squawk, high and unrecognisable. My hands shook as I braced myself against the window frame. My reflection in the glass stared back at me, eyes too dark, too sharp. My jaw ached, and when I touched my lips, I could feel my nose lengthening, merging, hardening into a beak.

I wanted to scream, and believe me, I tried, but stronger than that, itching and aching within me was the urge to fly.

The breeze tugged at my growing feathers, coaxing me forward, and for a fleeting moment, the fear was replaced by something else—something primal and wild. 

Across the road from my flat, I saw her, standing with a nonchalant smirk as the wind and rain whipped around her, waving her pinkie. 

Pain shot through my body, and I collapsed, falling to the floor and blacking out, surrounded by the cacophony of squawking and thunder. 

I woke up, hours late for work and rushed to get ready. I tried not to think about what happened, unsure of whether it was a dream, or not. I went to the asylum on autopilot, and tried to get by, but I couldn’t get what happened out of my head. 

I found feathers in my trouser pockets, and in the coffee pot when I took a quick break. 

Jade was in bed, like all the other residents, at least for the beginning of my shift, but within a few hours, she was back on my trail. 

I saw her watching as I did my rounds, sometimes from her bed, and sometimes round corners and in the shadows. Always waving with her pinkie and smiling with such menace. 

I spoke to Doctor Turnips, like I said, but he’s convinced it was just a dream. Maybe he’s right, but I don’t know. I wish I could understand what was happening, but I’m too overwhelmed to even think about it too much. 

As I was leaving this morning, grateful that my night shift was at an end, I saw her in the car park. I couldn’t believe it, frozen in place as seagulls flocked from the sky and flooded my car. She smirked, waving her pinkie as the wind nipped at my trembling hands. 

I couldn’t get closer. I knew I should, but I couldn’t face it. 

She watched me, slapping seagulls against the windshield, gleefully smearing the blood against the glass. 

I shuddered, bolting for the bus stop, and leaving my car, the birds and Jade behind me. 

I know I need to pick up my car at some point, and I have another shift tomorrow night, but… I can’t. I really can’t. 

She’s waiting for me, I just know it, and she will be the end of me.

-x-

2nd February 2079

Internal Memo – Ribbonvale Asylum for the Insane and Unfortunate 

Subject: Staff Reassignments and Patient Transfer

Dear Team,

Please be advised that Nursebot Zab will be covering the shifts previously assigned to Staff Nurse Terry Thomas until further notice. Please ensure to add Nursebot Zab to the charging schedule. This adjustment is necessary as Staff Nurse Thomas has been placed on administrative leave.

Regrettably, we do not yet have a timeline for his return, as he is currently undergoing treatment for erratic behaviour and a decline in mental stability. On the 31st of January, he was apprehended following an incident involving the attack of multiple seagulls and claims concerning a “Demon King’s daughter.” 

Staff Nurse Thomas is now receiving care at our sister facility, Hollowridge Asylum for the Insane and Unfortunate. We remain hopeful for his swift recovery and eventual return to duty.

We trust everyone will join us in wishing him well during this challenging time. We would also like to remind each of you of your duties to patient confidentiality. If approached by the media, you should not divulge any information about Staff Nurse Thomas, or the incident that took place. 

Additionally, please be informed that patient Jade Balam is scheduled for transfer to Hollowridge Asylum tomorrow morning. In preparation for this, Nursebot Meg must be activated and set to transportation mode by 9:00 AM. To ensure a smooth process, please ensure Nursebot Meg is fully charged overnight.

Thank you for your continued dedication and hard work. If you require any assistance or support during these transitions, do not hesitate to reach out.

Sincerely,

Dr Harry Turnips

Director, Ribbonvale Asylum for the Insane and Unfortunate