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  • (intense ominous music)

  • - [Narrator] The doctor had never encountered

  • a patient like this one before.

  • While most of the patients in the asylum

  • heard voices whispering to them from the dark,

  • or saw imaginary of monsters and demons circling them,

  • this patient, Wallach,

  • he always appeared to be calm and collected.

  • A pen in hand, scribbling, keepin' to himself

  • never causin' any trouble for the nurses.

  • Of course, when Dr. Eccleston imagined Wallach's drawings,

  • it wasn't the prettiest sight to behold.

  • The man loved to draw, spiders, thousands of 'em,

  • crisscross and over each other, infesting the paper

  • their eight eyes gleaming, their fangs wet with venom,

  • their clawed legs, over and over

  • large and small

  • that's all Wallach drew.

  • But as long as the patient

  • didn't share his disturbing artwork with other patients,

  • Dr. Eccleston didn't see any harm in it.

  • Until today.

  • Today, when the doctor entered Wallach's room,

  • his mouth dropped in disbelief.

  • Every single inch of the room was covered in marker,

  • drawings of spiders were on the walls,

  • the floor, even the ceiling.

  • He had apparently been stealing and hoarding pens

  • from the nurse's station for weeks,

  • all so he could leave his mark on the asylum.

  • But, why?

  • The drawings reminded Dr. Eccleston of the old nursery rhyme

  • his mother used to sing him when he was just a child,

  • trailin' her fingertips up his arms, givin' him goosebumps,

  • she would softly sing

  • The itsy bitsy spider

  • Went up the water spout

  • Then at the next word, his mother would lower her voice

  • and grab him.

  • Down!

  • It always scared him,

  • it always made him jump.

  • Even now, he felt like he could hear her voice

  • reverberating in this patient's room,

  • feel her fingertips like the legs of spiders

  • crawling up his skin all theses years later.

  • The doctor felt an itch and looked down at his hand

  • he saw one, a spider,

  • and he yelped in terror slapping his wrist,

  • but it was just a black smudge of marker.

  • Huh, how had that gotten there?

  • No matter, Dr. Eccleston knew it was just a coincidence,

  • marker on the walls, marker on his skin.

  • His mother's old nursery rhyme couldn't hurt him now.

  • He would get to the bottom

  • of this patient's acts of vandalism.

  • After the nurses removed Wallach,

  • taking him to the ECT room for treatment,

  • the doctor examined the patient's room more closely.

  • At first, nothin' else seemed amiss,

  • but then the doctor felt it,

  • a prickling along the nape of his neck,

  • like he was being watched.

  • Every time the doctor turned his head,

  • it almost felt as if the spiders on the wall behind him

  • were moving, creeping, crawling.

  • But when the doctor spun around to catch them,

  • they were still.

  • Simply theses scribbles of a raving lunatic.

  • Heh, who's going mad now?

  • And then he noticed it.

  • The sketched spider right in front of him,

  • a tarantula from the hairy look of it,

  • appeared to be bleeding.

  • Dr. Eccleston squinted, stepping forward,

  • bringing a finger to the droplet of blood,

  • wondering if somehow Wallach had cut himself.

  • But as he touched the blood, the wall cracked open

  • and more blood began to drip down.

  • Down! (intense ominous music)

  • Again, he heard his mother's distant voice signing,

  • screeching that word

  • as the blood poured out the wall gushing.

  • The doctor backed away, horrified,

  • as the floor became covered with blood,

  • rising, developing his feet, then his trousers

  • up to his knees.

  • Soon, it would swallow him whole, he realized,

  • he would drown in the blood.

  • He opened his mouth to scream when...

  • "Dr. Eccleston, are you all right?"

  • He blinked, turning to see one of the nurses

  • looking at him funny in the doorway.

  • When he returned his gaze to the drawing of the tarantula,

  • the blood was gone, but how?

  • He wasn't insane, he wasn't!

  • No, Dr. Eccleston was the one who helped the insane

  • and this, this vision of blood, whatever it was,

  • must have just been his imagination

  • getting carried away, that's all.

  • "I'm fine."

  • Dr. Eccleston muttered, shaking it off.

  • "Is the patient ready?"

  • The nurse nodded.

  • It was time to see to Wallach for himself.

  • When he stepped into the ECT room,

  • he found Wallach on a gurney, his hands and feet bound,

  • his head already covered in wires,

  • prepared for the treatment.

  • He looked at the doctor, pale and pleading,

  • "I need a pen, doctor."

  • He said, "Please let me draw, I need to draw."

  • "I'm afraid not, Mr. Wallach."

  • The doctor said walking over to the machine

  • and making sure the levels were correct.

  • "We're going to administer electric shock therapy

  • "to calm your nerves."

  • Dr. Eccleston took the rubber bite block

  • and was about to force it inside Wallach's mouth

  • when he noticed the marker smudge on his hand again,

  • moving, withering on his skin.

  • Down!

  • His mother's voice screamed again.

  • The doctor jumped dropping the rubber bite block

  • he took a breath.

  • It was just a simple smudge, the song was just a memory.

  • "Are you all right, doctor?"

  • Wallach asked eyes wide.

  • He picked up the rubber bite block

  • and forced it inside the patient's mouth, silencing him.

  • Then he turned to the machine and slowly turned the knob

  • raising the voltage to a low level.

  • He never enjoyed this part, watching the hands spasm

  • the feet kick, the eyes pop out of their heads,

  • the muffled screaming. (Wallach screaming)

  • But he knew it would be worth it.

  • The patients always felt at peace afterward.

  • He turned the knob down

  • and removed the rubber bite block

  • allowing Wallach to pant and regain control

  • of his motor functions.

  • "Do you feel better, Mr. Wallach?"

  • "There's something on your coat."

  • Wallach said breathly,

  • pointing with his bond hand at Dr. Eccleston.

  • The doctor frowned and looked at his shoulder,

  • his heart nearly stopped at the sight,

  • a spider was crawling on him, a real spider this time.

  • He jumped and yelled and brushed it off his coat

  • as quickly as he could, then he looked at Wallach again,

  • his eyes were glassy and calm, a small smile on his lips.

  • "I'm starting to remember why I love to draw now, doctor."

  • "Why?"

  • The doctor said still a bit spooked,

  • twitching, trying to make sure

  • there weren't any other spiders crawling on him.

  • It felt like too great a coincidence,

  • finding a real spider on his coat

  • after seeing all those drawings, those visions,

  • hearing his mother's voice singing to him from he past,

  • but what else was he supposed to make of it?

  • "I draw the cycles."

  • The patient replied.

  • "I draw the same thing over and over

  • "to remind myself that everything repeats.

  • "What goes up, goes down.

  • "Once a healer, now the healed and so on.

  • "The same way you always sing that song."

  • The doctor frowned,

  • what the hell was Wallach talkin' about?

  • Clearly, he needed another jolt of electricity

  • from the machine,

  • but as he brought his hand to the knob again,

  • he saw another one,

  • a spider crawling from his shirt sleeve to his hand,

  • sinking its fangs into the skin of his palm.

  • The doctor shrieked, slapping it.

  • All that remained was a dollop of blood.

  • "You see it now don't you, doctor?"

  • Wallach asked.

  • "Why you've really brought me here."

  • "I don't see anything!"

  • Dr. Eccleston shouted, unable to control himself now.

  • "You're the one who sees things, you're the patient!

  • "Not...

  • "Not..."

  • The doctor felt like he was spinning out,

  • losing track of what was real, because the spiders

  • seemed to be materializing everywhere now,

  • from every corner of the room,

  • from every seam of his clothing,

  • from the patient's smiling mouth, all creeping towards him.

  • His mother's song began to grow louder and louder,

  • echoing, sounding off key and demonic now.

  • The itsy bitsy spider

  • Went up the water spout

  • "It's all right, Dr. Eccleston."

  • The patient said as he opened his fist,

  • revealing a massive tarantula, just like the one he'd drawn.

  • "I was where you are now when I was Dr. Wallach

  • "and you were the patient, don't you remember?"

  • Eccleston shook his head refusing the believe it,

  • but now the spiders were surrounding him,

  • crawling up his legs, too many to shake off, everywhere,

  • like his mother's fingernails all those years ago

  • sinking into him, making him bleed.

  • Her violence, the reason she was thrown into an asylum

  • and never heard from again.

  • "My drawings, your visions,

  • "they're simply a manifestation, Dr. Eccleston."

  • Wallach said calmly.

  • "A manifestation of the past repeating."

  • "It's not real!"

  • Eccleston cried out,

  • collapsing onto the second gurney besides Wallach's,

  • trying to fight off the swarms of arachnids

  • descending upon him, biting and crawling

  • and slipping into any orifice they could find.

  • "What is happening to me!?"

  • Wallach sat up, his hands and feet miraculously unbound.

  • He stepped over to a coat rack and put on a doctor's coat

  • grabbed a clipboard

  • and looked at Eccleston with genuine pity.

  • "Don't worry, Mr. Eccleston

  • "I'll finish the drawing this time.

  • "I will end the song."

  • The itsy bitsy

  • The drawing.

  • Spider

  • Dr. Wallach stood over him, watching,

  • holding his clipboard

  • as the patient, Eccleston,

  • kicked and screamed against his restraints.

  • He was the one tied down now.

  • He was the one with the wires attached to his head.

  • He was the one about to be electrocuted.

  • "I promise you'll feel more at peace after this."

  • Dr. Wallach said gently turning to the machine.

  • "Down!

  • "Down!"

  • Eccleston shouted, but as his mouth opened wide,

  • the spiders poured down it, filling his insides,

  • eating him from the inside out.

  • He could feel the ones all over his skin,

  • wrapping him in their web now,

  • until he was nothing but a cocoon

  • with only a mouth left to scream and eyes to see.

  • He saw Dr. Wallach turn the knob on the dial

  • and as his whole body spasmed and his brain went quiet,

  • he remembered, he so loved the sound of his mother's voice.

  • Dr. Wallach looked down at the patient completely unharmed,

  • not a single spider bite anywhere to be seen,

  • blinking up at him, humming a familiar tune

  • a nursery rhyme, the one about spiders,

  • the one that repeated over and over like madness itself.

  • No more, today Dr. Wallach was going to end this cycle.

  • He turned the voltage to its maximum point

  • and watched as the patient shook uncontrollably

  • a blur frying, his skin burning,

  • shrieking 'til at last he collapsed upon the bed

  • still, a smokin' husk,

  • never to be frightened by a delusion of a spider again.

  • With that, Dr. Wallach grabbed a pen,

  • gave it a double clicked and left the ECT room.

  • There was more work in the asylum to be done.

  • (ominous music)

(intense ominous music)

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