Personal Narrative Essay: Working After School

It’s a Friday,” says my mom. She asked me to go to with her to work this Friday to help out with the staff after school. I roll my eyes, annoyed by even the idea of going to that old boring mental institution. I sigh. I don’t have a choice when it comes to me and my mother. “It sounds like so much fun,” I say sarcastically. “Sarah, you’ll be fine,” replys my mom. I ignore her and go to school. After school, I walk towards the parking lot and already I see my mom waiting for me in her car. I walk towards the white car noticing that she is wearing her uniform.

Again, I roll my eyes as I get in the car. My mom glances over at me and doesn’t say a word. Then she drives off. Eventually, we approach a median size building with about 8 floors in total. The building look about several years old. As we walk in we are immediately checked by security to make sure we don’t have any items that can be used to possibly harm a person. They then take our belongings and put them into single lockers that are kept locked 24/7. After they game me a sticker that read my name, Sarah Newman, in red ink. My mom first makes me put on a uniform.

She then makes me clean the patient’s restroom, close curtains, empty trash cans, and my least favorite of all is giving the patients some company (that includes having conversations). I hate talking to them. They always make me feel scared and uncomfortable, so I always try to keep busy. So far it’s been 4 hours and I’m starving. I still have several rooms left. I enter my mom’s office and see her checking through some files. I look around her room and notice over 10 filing cabinets. She was in charge of the patient files. These files include their whole background.

Not until I clear my throat does she notice that in inside her office. “I really need to use the restroom,” | lie. Then slip out before she has a chance to even answer There’s signs in the hallways that direct you to where you need to go. After walking for a while I finally approach two ors that read CAFETERIA. As I open the door I see a large amount of employees. I make my way through the line and see spaghetti. I immediately serve myself and my my way to an empty table. As I’m sitting I notice a lighter on the table so i carelessly pick it up and shove it into my pocket.

I also notice an employee just throw a banana peel on the ground, not giving a care in the world. That irated me very much. Afterall, i’m the person who’s cleaning all this mess up anyways. All of a sudden i hear an earpiercing noise. An alarm. An employee runs in through the cafeteria doors screaming, “Patient 314 has escaped,” after those words the cafeteria became a mad house. People were pushing and running trying to evacuate the building. As i’m trying to get out of the cafeteria, I slip on a banana peel on head straight towards the ground.

After that everything went black. I wake up with a burning sensation coming from my head. i must have bang my head hard against the ground. I grab my head and notice that I’m bleeding from the side. As I get up | realize that I’m the only person in sight. I sit down for a minute trying to make sense of everything that has happened. I remember that the patient 314 has escaped. I also remember the shouting and the running. Scared from that memory, I focus on how I’m suppose to get out this abandoned mental institution.

I head for the hallway and walk towards a huge map n a T. V. that directs you to the only available exit opened in this event. It read GARAGE. So i had to make a plan. Since I was on the 7th floor and I needed to get to the garage which was located under the 1st floor. I headed to the elevators, but seemed to be shut off so I had no other choice but to take the stairs. As I’m walking down I start thinking about patient 314 and why everybody was so startled that he escaped and what did he do that was so bad that they had to evacuate the building. I scared myself thinking about it.

I finally approached a door that said 1st floor. As I walk out I hear a loud thumping noise. I try to be as quiet as I can and peek around the corner and see patient 314 banging his head against the hard cement floor. He was bbanging it so hard that blood was dripping from the side of his head and ears. I gasp. He suddenly stops and turns to look at me. He then slowly smiles. My blood runs cold after that. He slowly walked towards me. My body freezes and I’m unable to move a single muscle. We were face to face with each other and I could smell the fresh scent of blood.

As he reached to touch my face, my ability to move came back and I punch him in the face and run as fast as I can. I remember my mom’s office was on this floor just around the corner. So I run towards it and lock the door. As I sit there, I glance over at the filing cabinets. I quickly get up and search for patient 314. After a couple of minutes | finally find his file. This name is Charlie Johnson. He murdered his whole family because they use to abuse him by drowning him in a bathtub. It also says that he has a phobia of water and that gave me an idea.

As I continue to read I hear his footsteps getting closer and I make a run for it. As I’m running I can hear him following me. I quickly enter the garage and already I can see the exit. So I quickly throw the lighter, I stuck into my pocket earlier, upwards to activate the fire sprinklers. As soon as the water hit the floor he freezes in terror. I ran as fast as I could, already so close to the exit. As soon as i come out I’m surrounded by police officers and paramedics that ask me millions of questions, but all I can think about is patient 314.