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SIPIYU + Chapter 3: Meeting the Terror

Chapter 3: Meeting the Terror

Lunch wasn’t much different from the other day. All the girls sat with one another in rows along the cafeteria tables. As Alice sipped her milk, her eyes drifted around the beige walls of the large room, the sound of chitchat fading away into the background. Light from large open windows dappled the other walls, forming dancing patterns across the walls’ textures. Despite the hum of giggling, the room felt rather peaceful to Alice.
Emily and Hannah finished their side conversation with a secret handshake as Alice brought herself back to reality. “And it’s done,” the blonde girl said. Hannah smiled and nodded in approval.
“…What?” Alice’s eyebrows rose in question until she almost flipped the milk out of her hand when Emily nabbed her other.
“You’re part of our family now, so this is the secret handshake.” Alice watched as Emily’s hand twisted and patted against hers in a whirlwind of movements until the thought struck Alice’s mind. She tugged her hand away.
“I have a family!” She frowned. “They just…”
“They let go of you.” Hannah finished as she took a sip of her chocolate milk. “They had to.”
Alice kept frowning, her eyes slowly watering as the events of that night ran through her head. “N-No… They just…” her mouth closed off in a small gulp.
Emily sighed and rubbed the back of her head before she slapped her empty milk carton down and stood from her seat. “It’s almost recess time. I say we get a head-start.” A grin formed on her lips as Hannah and Alice looked up to her.
Before long, all three girls were bolting down the hallway—Alice and Hannah stumbling as Emily, her hands clutching theirs, dragged them out to the playground behind the east asylum building. She let go of Hannah and Alice and took off in full sprint to the jungle gym. Hannah jogged after them laughing with her long, dark hair bouncing behind her.
Alice stood and watched them.
It was the first time she had been outside since she arrived at Lenor Asylum. The skies were a dull gray with a hint of blue, signaling the approach of winter. However, the open air greeted Alice, tugging at the strands of her dark hair. A hand raised and tucked the wild pieces back behind an ear. She breathed in; it felt good to breathe. The feeling of temporary freedom felt—
Alice paused and whirled around, feeling something touch at her back. Her dress settled back into place as she looked around to see who had passed her, but the other girls were still inside.
Who had touched her? There was nobody there. However, her eyes found themselves staring up at the lonely window up at the top of the asylum’s tower. It felt as if the mysterious darkness inside was never ending.

“Alice!”
The girl turned back around to Emily and Hannah as they motioned for her to come and join them. Somehow they relieved her thoughts from the unknown of the asylum. Alice was glad to have friends, even if they had to test her first. She was sure that they did that to anyone new who came to the asylum. Alice smiled and ran out to them, feet bouncing off the plush grass.

- - -

During the girls’ lunch hour, Katherine Morgan had set out to go find the chef some new cleavers for the kitchen. She found herself, instead, at a small coffee shop on the corner of 1st and Market. She sat on a stool beside a tall, round table, and sipped a cup of mocha—blended, with a small topping of whipped cream. Her eyes stared blankly out to the wet streets and the traffic that seldom passed by.
Lenor was a small town. The people residing in it were dull, laid back, and quite conservative. The mood always seemed mellow. Sometimes, to Katherine, it seemed as though the only sounds of children laughing came from the asylum. Luckily it was too far away from town for people to notice. Somehow the sound of laughter seemed foreign.
Everyone wore conservative colors. Fathers and young men wore black coats, usually, while mothers and young girls dressed themselves in unflattering colors. Children were dressed neatly and kept clean. There was no playing in the pond next to the gutter on the side of the street. There was no child running to the window of a candy store to greet the array of colorful treats. There was only the motion of their day, repeating, repeating, and repeating still.
Katherine Morgan concluded that life in Lenor was pretty dull as she sipped down the rest of her mocha before sampling the remaining whipped cream with her delicate finger.
A mother and her child walked into the coffee shop soon after. The mother gave a quick condescending glance at Katherine before she tugged her child away to a booth on the other end of the shop.
Maybe it’s these clothes, Katherine contemplated. She smiled a bit. The thought that she was deemed unruly and rebellious by the older women of the town fancied her thoughts. She felt she needed some kind of color, unlike them.
Finishing her cup of mocha and a small dab of whipped cream—which had been enjoyed to the fullest extent—called for Katherine to leave the coffee shop. She let down some change for a tip to the old and feeble manager and exited.
Some minutes of walking later, she found herself at the small hardware store a few blocks down. The owner of the store was Marty Lang, a tall and skinny man in his late 30’s. He and his wife, who both lived in the store together, were known to be very kind people. They knew Katherine well—first from Cecia baby-sitting her, and then when Marty had opened his business, Katherine was one of his first and faithful customers. She still was, and thanks to Chef Douglas, managed to bargain for good deals on produce and snacks for the girls.
“Well I‘ll be…” Marty started, his voice frail and shaky. “What can I help you with today, Katherine?”
“It’s a long story, actually,” responded Katherine, smiling. She wandered the cramped store before finally resting her hands onto the counter. “I’m in need of some new meat cleavers for Chef Douglas.”
“New ones? Again?” Marty laughed before he went into a back closet space to search through his stock of tools. “He lost the other ones I gave him nearly a month ago. He must be getting too old…”
Katherine chuckled and shook her head. “Not quite. I think there may be a cleaver thief!”
Marty paused and looked to Katherine with dull eyes. She glanced back, her expression telling him the rest of the story. He only nodded and fetched a new pair of meat knives for the chef and set them down on the counter. He rang her up and said, “Please be careful—for Cecia’s and my sake.“ 
Katherine bagged the cleavers for him and nodded.
“It gives us both bad vibes, Katherine,” he continued. “That asylum is old, and from what happened, we…”
“I will be fine,” she stated as she slipped the bag onto her arm. Marty Lang only watched as she turned, and without another word, left the store.
Cecia Lang came out from the back bedroom of the shop and turned to her husband, her hands protectively placed around her protruding belly. “Was that Katherine?”
“Yes.”
“What did she want?”
“A new pair of cleavers for Douglas.”
“Why?”
“Something’s wrong over there, Cecia.”
Cecia looked to her husband, who looked paler than usual. She finally outstretched one comforting hand and took his, holding it tightly.

- - -

Utensils clanged around in the kitchen as the chef tossed dishes aside left and right. “Damn it!” He cursed, his mustache twitching in anger. “I can’t find them! If I find out that one of the children…”
“Calm down.”
Chef Douglas snapped up to look at Katherine Morgan walking into the kitchen. “Ms. Morgan, you better have me some damn good knives!”
She smiled and set the bag down on the counter. “I’ve bought the best that Marty could give me, though I can’t guarantee you won’t lose those, either.” She laughed. Chef Douglas grunted in response and took the cleavers from the counter. Tugging them out of the wires and cardboard that held them together neatly, Chef Douglas couldn’t understand how they could get lost.
“The children don’t take them for toys, do they?!” He finally spoke up in frustration as he set the knives away in a drawer.
“I wouldn’t think so.” Ms. Morgan said, even though she knew different.
“Maybe Mr. Gale has them!”
“I doubt Alex would take them. And none of the boys, either.”
“Well, that only leaves—”
“You have what you want,” Ms. Morgan cut him off. “Right? I’ll just get more if you lose those.”
Chef Douglas eyed her angrily, and she only responded with a sullen look of her own. If she offered to replace them then he really had no reason to complain, but it was a waste of money to let the mongrel around Lenor Asylum to use what was meant just for the kitchen and Chef Douglas’ hands.
“Have a good day, Mr. Douglas.” Ms. Morgan bowed lightly and walked out of the kitchen.
The older man watched as the woman left before spinning around to reorganize his dishes. “That doesn’t excuse that fiend roaming this asylum. I wish they’d get a damn priest in this place and solve everyone’s problem.”
A shadow shifted across the wall behind the chef, coming to a stop before the counter. Dimly glowing red eyes watched from their obscured perspective as the shadow grinned, followed by dissolving back into the solid wall.
There will be no priests for me, old man.
“Who’s there?!” The Chef spun around, grabbing a kitchen-sized pitch fork.
The mongrel.
“You… you…!”
Shall I tear the flesh from your bones with your precious knives? They don’t deserve to be unsoiled with blood.
Chef Douglas reached for the cross necklace underneath his shirt. His hand, shaking, pulled it out and held it in front of him. “D-Don’t you dare come to me, wherever you are!”
Soon you will be thanking me, for I am the least of your worries.
A sudden crash came from the back of the kitchen. Chef Douglas jumped from his spot and turned to see if he could find the source of the ruckus. “Was that you!?”
Silence.
Unknown to the Chef, a tall, dark man paced down the hallway next to the kitchen, in one hand a meat cleaver with blood dripping down its jagged blade. In the other hand, a twisted and deformed beast, blood trailing behind it.

- - -

Hannah, Emily, and Alice were still at the park behind the asylum building when the rest of the girls from the dormitory joined them. Emily spun around on the miniature merry-go-round while Hannah and Alice swung side-by-side on the swing set.
“So Alice,” Hannah started, one hand moving to adjust her glasses. “What did your parents find out about you that made them send you here?”
Alice wasn’t sure she understood. “I…don’t know. I heard them the other night…crying, talking about some people knowing something about me.”
“They were probably crying because they knew they had to give you up. My parents were the same way,” Hannah said as her eyes softened. “Their little Hannah Bell had to go away, they told me. I was only four. One day, out of nowhere, I just started playing the grand piano in the family room. The music I made sounded beautiful, but…no child could ever do that at four. The neighbors were over at the time, so my parents had no choice but to report me to the city government. Next thing I knew, I was escorted here, and Ms. Morgan greeted me at the doorway with her warm smile.”
Alice smiled a bit and then looked away. “Yeah…My parents seemed sad the moment I told Mom about this man I saw in the tower window.”
“A man?” Hannah looked over to Alice, confused. “But the tower is on the girls’ side.”
“I know. Maybe they thought that was weird.” Alice sighed and pushed herself into another small sway on the swing. “I drew him in art class. They said something about the art teacher knowing, too.”
Hannah looked away and bowed her head, eyebrows drawn together in a puzzled look. “Maybe you saw the ghost.”
“…The ghost?” Alice blinked. “You mean Sipiyu?”
Some girls around them stopped and looked at Alice. Hannah looked back at them before she looked to Alice, a finger up on her lips to silence her. “Shh…don’t say that name around here. We’re not allowed.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. Ms. Morgan just told us we couldn’t say that name after the girl who was here before you disappeared. That girl used to talk about him a lot. We’re not allowed to, now.”
Emily ran over from the merry-go-round and stopped beside the swing set, leaning on the support bar. “We should just tell her the truth, Hannah. She’s going to be here for awhile.”

“The truth?” Alice asked.
Hannah gulped. “You tell her then, Emily.”
While Alice looked back and forth between the two girls, Emily huffed and grabbed Alice and Hannah to take them to a spot of grass a little ways from the playground. They were about halfway between the playground and the asylum, giving them a good amount of distance between either location.
All three sat down facing one another, and Emily leaned in. “The girl who was here before you…her name was Elizabeth. We told you she was shy like you, but…she was really, really shy. She acted like she was a zombie—dead, but walking around, you know?”
Alice nodded, gulping.
“Anyway,” Emily continued, “She hardly said anything to Hannah or me, or even to any of the other girls here. She didn’t even speak to the boys. She was sort of a loner, but she would stay up at night and talk about…” Emily looked around, then whispered, “that Sipiyu guy. She would whisper stuff about him like she was talking to someone else.”
Hannah gulped at the next part and shivered. Emily looked to her with an apologetic expression before looking back to Alice. “So what happened to her is what you’re going to ask, right? Well, the truth is, she was murdered. Hannah and me were taken out of the room before we could see. There was blood everywhere, some other girls said. We overheard Ms. Morgan being told about the big knife cuts on the girl’s body.”
Alice’s world paused. Knives? Sipiyu? Is this some coincidence? She gulped again as her throat went dry.
Hannah jumped in. “We…weren’t allowed back into the room, so they moved us to a different room while they cleaned that one. Surprisingly, she’s not the ghost around here. It’s that man you saw. Maybe that’s why your parents were so scared and sad to let you go.”
Alice lowered her head. It was because I saw the ghost of Lenor Asylum? But why did I see him? What’s so special about me?
Emily sat back and returned to normal speaking level. “So that’s the story, or so we heard.” Alice nodded in acknowledgement, so Emily continued. “I was brought here because I played boys’ football when I was five. I was really good, too. And really fast. I was better than most of the seven-or-eight-year-old boys. My parents didn’t like that, so they were glad to get rid of me.”
“Did Ms. Morgan go here?” Alice asked.
“You know…” Emily said, tilting her head. “I don’t know. Never did ask. Probably so. A lot of the people who work here have been here for a long time. Even the Council.”
“Council?”

“The people who make all of the decisions. They decide what we eat, how our routine goes, and all of that stuff. They’re a bunch of old men.” Hannah giggled at Emily’s dismissive description of the Council.
Soon, the girls were overshadowed by a seemingly tall figure—a boy whose hands were placed lazily on his hips. His outfit was much like theirs, only sleeveless. He also wore pants. A passing breeze flopped his blond hair to one side as he gazed down to ‘the new girl’ and her friends with narrowed eyes.
Emily looked up and shielded her eyes from the sun shining behind him. “Ian Gale,” she said.
“Emily Hutchings,” he responded, then looked to Hannah. “and Hannah Summers.” Ian then looked to Alice. “And you are…?”
Alice cowered back a bit, “Alice Cunningham.”
“Okay. Tell Emily to stop ruining our football team.” He then turned and headed back out to another part of the field around the park. Emily tugged her eyelid down and stuck her tongue out in disgust at the retreating boy.
“Tell me to my face next time, dorkwad!”
Before Alice could say anything, Hannah leaned in, giggling. “Ian Gale. Fifteen-years-old. Emily has a crush on him!” Soon, Hannah found herself rolling in the grass as Emily tried to pin her down.
“Shut it, Hannah!” Emily whined, turning pink in the face. “I would never like that idiot!”
Alice just watched and smiled. She was glad life was relatively normal here.

- - -

Later that day, after their bath, the girls retired for the night in their rooms. Emily and Hannah were sitting on the bottom bunk playing a custom version of chess. The board consisted of Crayola crayon drawings on a piece of cardboard with wadded up colored paper as the pieces. Emily’s favorite color was red, so she made the kings red. Hannah, jealous that Emily could pick the designated color for one of the more powerful chess pieces, chose white for the queens. Alice laid on her top bunk, staring ahead blankly as she mulled over the day‘s events.
In mid-game, Emily spoke up, her eyebrows furrowed, “Let’s go out again tonight. While everyone’s asleep.”
Hannah paused in moving her game piece, and Alice sat up, attentive. Both spoke, “What?”
“I’ve got a funny feeling this time. Our flashlights still have batteries, so we should be okay.”
Nodding, Hannah went and moved her piece. Alice tried to figure out a reason as to why Emily would suddenly suggest such a thing.
Later that night after everyone in the asylum went to bed by the ordered bed time, Emily, Hannah, and Alice all woke up to do some more roaming through the dark halls. Emily was first to get up. She shoved Hannah to wake her, but failed, so she climbed over and crawled up the ladder to Alice’s bunk. She shook Alice.
“Hn…?” Alice groggily rolled around before she pushed herself up to sit. Hannah was still entangled in the bed sheets below.
“It’s time,” said Emily as she climbed back down and hopped onto the floor. She grabbed the first flashlight she could find and waited at their door. Alice crawled down slowly after as Hannah rubbed her eyes and finally managed to slip out of the bottom bunk.
They gathered at the door and Emily turned the knob. Creaking, it opened slowly before they all slipped out into the darkness. Emily, the last to leave, closed the door behind her and flipped on the flashlight. Alice’s heart began to race when the dim light from the flashlight shined down the long hallway, only to reach blackness at the end. The doorways to the other rooms didn’t help with the ‘creepy’ effect much, either.
“So, Emily…” Hannah began.
“I know, I know.” Emily gripped the flashlight tightly and started down the hallway, Hannah and Alice in their place behind her. Emily maneuvered them through two hallways until they came upon a pair of double doors.
Hannah leaned forward, “Emily, I don’t think we’re allowed to go there…”
Emily snapped back. “Shush! We’re going to go.”
“But Emily…” Alice started in defense of Hannah. “Maybe we should just give up for the night. We can ask Ms. Morgan to walk us around.”
Emily huffed and opened one door, pausing every time it creaked loudly. The sound echoed down the hallway. “I’m going. You two can stay here.” And with that, she slipped into the darkness past the doorway. Hannah gasped.
“No! Emily!” And she darted after her, leaving Alice by herself. When Alice went to follow, the door slammed shut.
“…Hannah? Emily…?”
A sound behind Alice caught her attention. She turned around, her back pressing up against the double doors. Her heart thumped frantically in her chest.
Fingers clawed against the floor before her, the entire figure obscured by darkness. Alice’s eyes widened. Chipped nails dug into the floor as shredded skin tug against the surface, pulling the body forward towards Alice. The creature let loose a low gurgling growl as it advanced, seemingly dragging the darkness along with it. A mangled arm of nothing but skin and bones stretched out suddenly, causing Alice to shriek. She tried to bolt around it, but the figure jerked itself in her way, cutting her off. She moved to the other side, and it again slid in her path. The gurgling continued.
Suddenly the figure shot out from the darkness in a whirl of blue and gray and dove for Alice’s legs. She screamed and dashed around it, but tripped over the figure. Alice slammed against the floor and yelped out in pain. The disgusting thing slid and hit the closed double doors before it turned around. Just as it was about to lunge for the fallen girl, a knife shot from the darkness and imbedded itself into the monster’s forehead. Blood splattered from the impact and spotted the floor around it.
Alice covered her head with her hands and trembled in place, never moving, until a larger hand grabbed hers and tugged her out of the way. She tumbled across the floor, crying not only from fear, but pain as well. She looked up to see the same dark figure she had met the other night standing over her, one meat cleaver remaining in his hand.
“Sipiyu…” She choked out.
He only grunted in response. The ghoul in front of him reached up and tore the cleaver’s blade from its forehead, more blood spurting to the floor and the surrounding walls. It screeched in pain as it hurled the blade aside and lunged for the wraithlike man.
Sipiyu shifted down onto one knee. Alice’s eyes widened. His movement was just phenomenal now that she witnessed him in full form. He moved like a shadow; his image fading along in motion almost as if he were being slowed, but moving fast at the same time. The wispy shadows around him rose up like tendrils of mist that flowed with his movement as he lunged, arms outstretched, for the oncoming monster.
His hands caught the wild beast as it struggled and roared in his grasp. He clenched down and snapped its neck without any effort. The monster made a quick jerk, then completely stopped moving. Fresh blood began to pour from its mouth.
His other hand now held something white that, in one way or another, he had gotten out and Alice hadn‘t even noticed. What is that? She gasped as he tossed the item back to her, letting it slide along the floor until it reached her. She picked it up and examined it.
The overall design of the item was that of a dream catcher. Bones made up the sturdy frame while white hair made up the intricate designs in the middle. Alice’s eyes widened in amazement; she found such a thing to be fascinating, even if it were made of eerie bones and hair.
“Break the seal,” Sipiyu said. “Only then will it be gone from this place.”
“Break the seal…?” Alice repeated, confused.
“Tear the strings apart,” he explained. “Now!”
Alice made no effort to question his motives and grabbed at the string design in the middle. She suddenly pulled back and tore it completely apart.
White mist suddenly appeared from the dream catcher. It whirled out towards Sipiyu, spinning madly, before it completely separated around him and then dove for the monster in his grasp. The white mist, as if it were solid, pulled the monster from Sipiyu and began to turn it into mist itself. The ghoul and the white smoke dissipated into the air around them.
Alice blinked, and the bloody evidence from the battle was gone—as if it had never happened. Sipiyu, too, was gone.
She was left alone, now standing, to stare in awe at what had just transpired.

- - -

Emily and Hannah had better luck roaming the hallways. Although they were completely lost, they had their flashlight to protect them from the unknown in the dark surrounding them. 
“Where are we, Emily?” Hannah asked, scared as always. She clung to the blonde’s slouching shirt sleeve. Emily shrugged it up a bit and continued, shining the flashlight down another hallway.
“I don’t know, Hannah, but we’re going to end up somewhere with somebody. Don’t worry.” She was losing her will to be the clown or the jerk that she normally was. Since her best friend was frightened, Emily felt the need to protect her.
As the girls roamed they obviously brought about some odd sounds in the night. Emily continued hesitantly down the hallway, the flashlight beam jittering on the floor. Hannah clutched to the other girl, a bit glad that the moonlight coming in from the windows to the side was adding to the light that they had with them.
However, they failed to notice the approaching figure behind them. A frail hand suddenly fell onto Hannah’s shoulder, causing the young girl to scream. Emily screamed in tow, forcing the third figure to let out a startled shriek. Emily whipped around, placing herself between the figure and Hannah, and shined the flashlight onto the one who approached them. “Who are you?!”
The light hit Ms. Morgan’s eyes, causing her to groan. “Emily, Hannah…!”
Hannah grabbed Emily’s arm to yank the flashlight away. “Ms. Morgan…?!”
“I’m sorry for startling you two, but…why are you two out of bed?” She rubbed her eyes.
“We were just…hey, wait!” Emily started, “Why are you out of bed?”
Ms. Morgan’s eyebrow rose. “That’s none of your business young lady.” She stood there, staring at the two young girls, dressed in her white nightgown for the night.
Hannah reached over and tugged Ms. Morgan’s sleeve. “Did you find Alice? I think she’s lost.”
Paling, Ms. Morgan shook her head, “No…Alice was with you two? What happened?”
“I went ahead because those two were being scared-y-pants,” explained Emily. “And Hannah followed me, but Alice didn’t.”
“She closed the door on us,” Hannah added. “But Emily wanted to keep going. Maybe Alice went to bed.”
“She better not have told on us…” Emily growled, but Ms. Morgan shook her head.
“She didn’t. I was just out and about on my own. Now, why were you three wandering around past bedtime?”
“That’s none of your business,” Emily spat back with her cocky grin. It quickly faded when Ms. Morgan reached around to push her and Hannah down the hallway. “Hey!”
“You two, to bed, now!” Ms. Morgan demanded, guiding the two girls back to their bedroom. I hope that Alice made it back on her own. Being alone in this asylum is never a good thing…
A doorway and three hallways later, they all reached the girls’ room. Ms. Morgan entered and was pleased to find Alice asleep on her bunk.
Emily stared, as did Hannah.
“I suppose she did make it back on her own.” Ms. Morgan ushered the other two girls into the room and tucked them into the bottom bunk. “Now, promise me no more escapades at night.”
Emily pouted, but Hannah spoke forth, “I promise, Ms. Morgan!”
“Emily?”
“Yeah, yeah. I promise, too.”
Ms. Morgan smiled and kissed their foreheads, then pulled back to climb up to Alice’s top bunk. The woman leaned over and kissed the girl’s forehead also. When she pulled away, she noticed a small item clutched to Alice’s chest. What’s this…?
She tugged on Alice’s hand a bit and caught a glimpse of the white dream catcher. Her eyes widened with horror. She looked to Alice again to make sure she was unharmed. Good…
Satisfied for now, Ms. Morgan climbed back down and exited the room. She pressed her back to the wall and silently wept. What have you done? Why did you bring such an innocent little girl into your problems? How could you…?!

What have you done, Sipiyu…?

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