With a last mournful glance at the stuffed animal Petty brought himself back to his feet, leaving the toy where it had probably laid for a long time and set off down to the stairs at the end of the corridor.

A stifled sob, tittered across the walls and up the stairs to assail Karli's ears, causing her to shiver. If this intruder who seemed so willing accepted by the spirits cause them any form of grief, she'd have no choice but to ask him to leave. The seemed well content to keep to themselves and very rarely though still disturbingly rarely, the spirits had made themselves visible to Karli in the hopes of gaining some attention once they realized she had once walked amongst them.

The hollow steps of the man, mixed with the hollow gossip of the fiends within the walls, peeked Karli's awareness to the point that she felt each hair on her head slowly stand on end. Catching glimpse of some specter in the corner of her eye, she didn't care to speculate what it was and turned her eyes towards it at sloth speed, narrowing them as she did.

The piteous wraith frame of the mad man garbed only in his hospital gown, grinned at her as his eyes seemed to roll back into his head and he dissolved into the air. Turning her attention back to the stairs, she continued to wait.

Petty continued his walk down the corridor, his footsteps slowly turning softer and softer as he slowed, carefully viewing each cell as he passed. Few things disturbed Petty, but he disliked this place, it brought back a few memories.

I have my memories to remember, what of these occupants which lived in these cells? Do they have someone to remember, to feel their pains, joys, hopes, fears? Each cell a story, untold, unheard, but are they?

Petty was certain he could almost hear each cell screaming for a story to be told, not a happy story but a story nether the less.

What occupants would be here? Children? Adults? Infirm? Old? Why? An Asylum..but I know that doesn’t make all mad who walk the walls, not at first anyway…..People sent away, people unwanted, uncared for, problem people who people have abandoned, unable to sort out the problems themselves and place in such a place as this…….what happened here?

Petty felt sorrow and anger, he hated incarceration, being one who had suffered its undignifying clasp. He had escaped, it had been hard, but he had done it yet still he couldn’t shake concerns of the people who once were here. If not in body, now their spirit must live on, he felt for them so a spirit must have been around.

I can’t care for you more than I have…….I have to live on, to the future not stuck in the past………sorry

Composing himself, Petty quickened his step, reaching the stairwell he started to ascend; Uncaring for a presence he felt near by, a new calm enveloped him.

"Some say." Karli began, receding into the surrounding shadows. "That the first few decades of this world were ruled by the immortals and the mistakes that they made." Cautiously she shifted positions, keeping her unseen self from being pin pointed to one location.

"There's many pretty stories on how all creatures came to be... but where did the gods send their rejects? What happened to those creatures, people and souls that didn't quite equal those races we have today?" she inquired of the stranger as they reached the landing within full sight.

"Could it be that the gods possessed perhaps too much compassion? Too much compassion to destroy their own failures and so instead of erasing their mistakes, they simply locked them away from sight, from view?

"Now, ages past, who's to say the mad men aren't right? Who's to say the god's in their absence haven't forgotten about this place? The carpet they swept this place beneath has been tred thin. Perhaps that's the only reason we find ourselves here..?"

Concealing her weapons, Karli stepped from the shadows and nodded. "Look all you want, disturb nothing and explore at your own risk. Just stay outta my room," she warned him, before walking down the stairs, back to the main level to collect her wolf.

Without even turning to watch the creature leave, Petty carried on his walk, thoughts hanging heavy in his mind.

I’ve been called different by my masters, not like other drows….abnormal, a freak! I always took it as cruelty, perhaps they are correct, perhaps I am a freak, then being here could been fate? Always was going to happen from the day I was born…. Only right to see what I can see, hear what I can hear, perhaps learn some of the story, listen to some of the tale…….

Petty stopped dead as stretched out before him a room of cells, each one seeming identical to the last, only a small window to allow light to enter, dust and grim filled them now.

Petty groaned, he didn’t want to see more cells just yet. Walking past each, he sighed a sigh of relief as to his left he noticed a set of stairs. Slowly he climbed them to escape the cells for now.