[Click. Static hums for a moment. A soft, steady breath is heard.]
This is Detective Florentine. Entry one. The date is October 12th. I am currently standing at the front gates of the Bundy Manor. It is roughly four in the afternoon, but the fog is so thick you would think it was midnight. The air smells like wet dirt and old metal.
I am here to look into the cold case of 1974. Most people in town call it the "Bundy Massacre," but the files are mostly empty. No one likes to talk about it. The locals just tell stories to scare their children.
They sing a rhyme. It goes: "Roses are red, violets are head, now we're dead." It sounds like nonsense, but in this job, nonsense usually hides a very ugly truth.
[Sound of heavy iron gates creaking open. Footsteps on gravel.]
The house is huge. It sits on top of a hill, looking down at the town like a hawk. Dr. Victor Bundy lived here. He was a famous neurologist. That is a fancy word for a brain doctor. He did not just study how the brain works; he wanted to change how it felt.
People say he was a genius. Others say he was a madman. I am looking at the front door now. The wood is rotting. It looks like a mouth with missing teeth. I am going inside.
[Sound of a door being pushed open. It groans loudly.]
I am in the main hall. It is freezing. Dust is everywhere. It covers the floor like gray snow. There are paintings on the walls, but the faces have been scratched out. That is a bad sign. It means someone was very angry or very crazy.
I am walking toward the back of the house. This is where the doctor kept his private office. I have a flashlight, but the light looks like it gets swallowed by the shadows. The floorboards are screaming under my boots.
Let's talk about the rhyme again. Violets. Why violets? I did some reading before I came here. The "Violet Ward" was the name of the room in the basement. It was not for flowers. It was for the patients he kept here.
Dr. Bundy was obsessed with the frontal lobe. That is the part of your brain right behind your forehead. It is the part that makes you feel fear, or love, or anger. It makes you "you." He thought if he could cut that part out, he could make a world where no one was ever sad or mean again. He called it "the cure."
[Footsteps stop. A drawer is heard opening.]
I found some papers in the office. They are yellow and damp. The handwriting is very neat.
It says: "Patient 402is too loud. She cries about her mother. I will perform the procedure tomorrow. I will use the ice pick method. It is faster. It goes in through the eye socket. You hit it with a hammer, break the bone, and wiggle the metal. It cuts the wires. Then, the crying stops. The person stays, but the soul goes away."
This is what a lobotomy is. It is a simple tool for a disturbing job. It makes people into dolls. They can walk and eat, but they are empty. I am moving toward the basement door now. The smell is getting worse. It smells like chemicals. Like bleach mixed with something sweet and rotting.
[Sound of a door opening. A long, slow walk down stairs.]
I am in the basement. The walls are white tile, but they are stained brown now. There are jars on the shelves. Dozens of them. I am going to look closer.
[Pause]
Oh, shit. They are not empty. There are parts of brains in here. Small pieces, floating in liquid. Each jar has a name. "Violet One," "Violet Two," "Violet Three."
Wait. I see something else. There is a chair in the middle of the room. It has leather straps for the arms and legs. There is a small tray next to it. On the tray is a long, thin piece of metal. It looks like a needle used for knitting, but it has a wooden handle. It is the ice pick. It is still shiny. Someone has been cleaning it.
I feel like I am being watched. The air is very heavy. I am a detective. I have seen many dead bodies. I have seen blood and bones. But this is different. This is a house of quiet screams. Dr. Bundy did not just kill these people. He took their minds and left their bodies to wander.
The legend says that on the night of the massacre, the patients woke up. They were not "cured." They were broken. They did not have feelings, so they did not have mercy. They killed the doctor and his family. But the bodies were never found. Not one.
[A loud thud is heard in the distance.]
Who's there?
[Silence for five seconds.]
I heard a sound. It came from the back of the ward. I am moving toward it. I have my gun out, but my hand is shaking. I should be professional. I am Detective Florentine. I am here for the truth.
I am in a room with a row of small beds. They are tiny. These were children. The "Violets" were children? That is why the rhyme is a playground song. "Violets are head." It does not mean the flower. It means the heads of the children. He was taking the heads? No, he was taking the brains from the heads.
I see a mirror on the wall. It is cracked. I am looking at myself. My face looks pale. I look... different. I have been having these headaches lately. That is why I took this case. I wanted to know more about the brain. I thought maybe I could find a way to stop the pain in my own head.
[Sound of paper rustling.]
I found a final folder. It is on the last bed. It says "Violet Final." I am opening it.
There is a photo inside. It is a little girl. She has blonde hair and blue eyes. She looks like she is five years old. She is smiling.
Under the photo, it says: "Experiment successful. Memory wiped. Subject placed in foster care. Subject will grow up normal, but she will always be drawn back to the source. The brain wants what was taken from it."
[The detective's voice becomes very flat and low.]
The girl in the photo. She has a small scar. It is right above her left eye. It is very small, like a tiny white line.
I am looking in the mirror--
[A long silence.]
I have the scar--
I didn't come here because I was curious. I came here because I was called. My name is Florentine. But my file says I am Violet. I am the one who lived.
But if I am here, and the doctor is dead... who cleaned the ice pick?
[A soft, dragging sound is heard on the tile floor.]
There is someone behind me. He is very tall. He is wearing a white coat, but it is covered in old, black blood. He is holding a hammer. His face is gone. It is just a smooth mask of skin. He has no eyes, no nose, no mouth. He is what happens when you cut too much away.
"Hello, Violet," a voice says. It is not coming from his mouth. It is coming from the walls.
"The roses are red," the voice whispers.
I cannot move. My legs feel like lead. I am a det-- I should shoot. I should run. But I am not a detect-- I am a do-- I am his doll. He is reaching for the ice pick on the tray. He is moving very slowly, like he is underwater.
"The violets are head," he continues.
He is standing in front of me now. I can smell the bleach on his breath. He doesn't have a mouth, but I can hear him breathing. It sounds like a wind blowing through a graveyard. He is lifting the metal rod. He is touching the scar above my eye. It doesn't hurt. It feels cold. It feels like coming home.
"Now we're dead,"I whisper.
I am not afraid. That is the problem. He took the part of me that knows how to be afraid twenty years ago. I am just a body. I am just a container for a brain that has been sliced and diced.
He is raising the hammer. He looks happy. I can feel it. He wants to finish the poem. He wants to make the world quiet again. He wants to take the last piece of "me" away so I can be perfect.
I am looking at the recorder. If anyone finds this, do not come here. Do not look for the truth. Some things are broken for a reason. Some doors should stay closed. The brain is a garden, and the doctor is the gardener. He is just pulling the weeds.
[Sound of a sharp, metallic 'clink' against bone.]
He is tapping the metal. It is resting against my eye. The cold is spreading through my skull. It is almost beautiful. The fog is coming inside my head now. It is white and soft.
Roses are red...
Violets are...
[A loud, wet thud. The sound of something heavy falling to the floor.]
[Static increases.]
[A new voice, deep and raspy, speaks into the recorder.]
"Entry 405. The subject has returned. The procedure is complete. The ward is full again. We are all very quiet now. We are all very good. The world is finally silent."
[The sound of a hammer hitting metal one last time.]
[Click. Silence.]