Constant Cosmos

by Gozen’s Love

Valentines Day. Not quite a day for visiting a haunted, Abandoned Asylum, yet I’ve ne’er been one to do things normally. Ashley, my fiance at the time, was at my mother’s house in Alabama with me, which is where we spent our first Valentine’s day. We did the usual lovey-dovey things that lovers do on that day, though later that night Ashley suggested we visit the asylum I’d told her about a time or two during the course of our relationship. See, Ashley had been with me and experienced unusual things. With me, she’d seen living shadows, people appearing and reappearing, psychic phenomena, and felt things most humans aren’t aware even exist. She was new to it all, howe’er. It’d been years since I’d stepped foot in that old, burned out asylum, yet at the time, I wasn’t aware what a part in my life that place would soon play.

Valentines night.

Ashley and I hopped in the car for the hour’s drive from Jasper to Tuscaloosa. Upon arriving at the entrance to the Asylum, Ash held my hand very tightly as she gazed down the dark, creepy trail leading to our destination. The trail was a long one, granted, lined with knarly old leafless trees. It was about 10 o’clock or so; maybe a lil before, like 9:45-ish on a very dark, cold February night.

She clenched my hand as if her life depended on it, for, as we neared the old haunt, she could see it spreading out from behind the trees to its full size and enormity. The white plantation home at its center gave way to large, three-story brick buildings to each of its sides. Ashley told me that she’d only thought places like this existed in horror movies. She went on to say how intimidating the building was. Feelings of foreboding and melancholy filled her. For reasons she couldn’t explain and didn’t want to explore, she felt misery radiating from the building as we stopped to stand at the end of the circular driveway across from the entrance. Ashley could go no further.

I wasn’t aware of it at the moment as I didn’t see the woman in plantation-style attire on first glancing. Ashley was transfixed on the woman, the two exchanging glances. What had my attention at this point, when Ashley came to a dead-halt in her tracks, was the building itself. I’d been there before, as stated, yet back then, it was all torn up and damaged… the front doors burned out and missing. This night with Ashley, howe’er, is another story…

All the windows were intact, the doors stood pearly-white in the moonlight—much like the rest of the center building—standing perfectly intact and with shiny glass as if new and polished. My first thoughts were that maybe after all this time, the city had decided to remodel it and perhaps prepare it for some kind of use. It was like a plantation home, which is what I have found to be the basis of the rest of the building which had been built on and around o’er time. That night though… Ashley and I had slipped back into the late 1800’s, early 1900’s. I have discussed this with Elias as in time to come, this building would later become like a friend to me.  In this moment, howe’er, there was no mistaking what both Ashley and I saw.

Before I could get a good look at the woman, once Ashley mentioned her, Ashley managed to free herself from her petrified fear and run. She gripped my hand determined not to let go, but to run. She was more fearful that the woman whom she later claimed was dead and ghoulish, would attack us in some way if we lingered too long. Ashley felt we weren’t wanted there and practically dragged me away with her. It’s funny as the more frightened Ashley grew, the more fascinated with the situation I became. I wanted to investigate and check it out, but Ash would not have it. She believed our lives were in danger—both of us. She wasn’t aware that this was the norm for me… stuff like this. She wasn’t recalling all my brushes with death and the unusual, or even those events she’d experienced with me. This was the most real and frightening thing she’d e’er felt or experienced in her life, she’d tell me on the drive home. In that moment of panic, all Ashley knew was that she was terrified and our lives could be potentially threatened. I attempted to bargain various options with her in how to handle her fear and need for distance twixt her and the building and my desire to explore, but to no success. She’d be haunted by the woman for days after that, fearing that somehow for some reason, she’d find us and torment us for being there. I did my best to assure her that was not the case. I explained all that I knew about these types of situations, yet that was not enough to pierce nor penetrate Ashley’s fear and the reality of the experience for her.

I would show Ashley pictures people took of the asylum that we found online. In the photos, the building was depicted as I remember it: all burned out and decaying, falling apart and dying. She found herself confused and frightened all the more as the photos were not what we saw. She was curious, though, if the building would be the same, or like they are in pictures, if we were to return. I was more than welcoming the idea of another trip back there, yet her fear proved greater than her curiosity…

It was around the same time I reconnected with my long-lost brother, who was also into these types of experiences. I’d told him I could show him things, and I thought after what Ashley and I experienced, this would be a great start to helping him find his own answers to the mysteries of life that he’d been seeking long before we reconnected. So, he and I got some modest, basic equipment together and revisited the asylum, Ashley deciding to stay behind. It is this very story that is the beginning of my brother and my adventures together…