Not Wrong; Just Different

[Charlie— like any child— was scared of the dark when she was young. But then she turned 7 and she made herself get over it. And get over it she did, as quick as the snap of her fingers. So many of her fears, she managed to simply brush off like pesky, hungered flies. So the dark didn’t bother her any; she knew what was out there, and if something took her by surprise, she’d handle it.]

[The darkness consumes the walls now, and it looms in the shadows of flickering orange and writhes like angry laughter. He glares at the formations that move over his head and under his feet and though he does not fear them, they fall, fall, fall out of their encapsulation of cement and stone and into the fingers and hairlines of those around him.

[Another sigh.] Well that certainly makes me feel better. [Her eyebrows raise with his second answer. Didn’t she know she’d run into people like that? And was it really that much worse than the things she had done?] Well. Any specific reason? [Her eyes flinch away again, before aiming to meet his.]

[Yes. One reason, quite specific, though no one believed him.] She was going to kill my parents.

So you’re used to people and to shadows and to questions but you don’t like them? And why do you think you “make people uncomfortable”?

Well, they're blatant discomfort is usually my first clue.

[She doesn’t know how long the average stay here is. She knows it’ll likely be long enough that people outside give up on her. Not that they’d want to associate with someone like her. A crazy. Cooped up for who knows how long.] Months. I can see why you wouldn’t. [She pulled herself back up in her mind and smiled slightly.] What brought you here?

[He shrugs slightly] I'm new, in comparison to most. 

[She doesn’t know why she’s acting like this. She’s away from her vices, away from her home, and they’re supposed to help her get better. She’s just tired. Tired and alone again.] How long have you been here?

[The wind seems to have left her. She is hollow without it and she stares at him with eyes wide like puddles.]

[She turns away from the bookcase and opens her arms wide, her voice raising.] I’m fucking here now, dad? Happy at last? Fucking happy? [She throws back her head and groans, folding in her arms again. Bringing her head back to look around the room, she notices the boy watching her.] Enjoying the show?

[She's talking to the room as if its listening. As if the walls care or decipher her cries. She's angry.

[Emilia’s hands run up and down her forearms, gently touching the sewn up and puckered lines along them. She doesn’t remember much of the hospital before this place, but she hasn’t yet decided if she’s okay with this place. Her footsteps take her to the rec room and she looks at the books available.] Wow. Even the book selection is inadequate.

[Her words seem like a distraction to herself, things like pages in spines and words on pages to distract from stitches and stitches and skin.

[How poetic. 

[Irritation. Impatience fighting patience. An urge for a drink, perhaps.] 

[Jasmine can’t quite tell if the boy is annoyed, angry or frightened at her sudden movement closer to him. She regrets her placement already] I just realized that you had been looking at that wall for a long time now. I just..know that thoughts can get really heavy here sometimes. I’m sorry if I’m bothering you..I’m Jasmine, by the way. [Jasmine manages a small but tentative smile] 

[He shakes his head] You're not bothering me. [It's not precisely true, but it's not personal.] People bother me. But that's my problem, not yours. 

[The patient just looks at him for a long while and wow he takes like, a year to get out a sentence. Wes fights the temptation to roll his eyes as he waits, frowning. When he finally does speak, it’s not much better than the silence was, to be honest.] 

[He looks impatient. He looks tired and like he's veiling it with sarcasm. Benji wonders what else that sarcasm veils.

[Benji hasn’t moved from the couch in over half an hour. He’s sitting arms folded across his chest, staring at the whiteness of the walls—but they are moving. It is they that are moving and they have been moving lots, recently. Frequently, constantly, moving in the silence of the halls that has taken over the institute. He likes silence, usually, but this silence is eerie and that is probably because it has been sudden. It’s chill might also come from the fact that washed-grey walls which once has lives of white are churning with blacks and shadows and he wonders. Wonders.]

[Jasmine had been sitting in the far corner of the room, eyes scanning the pages of a book read over twenty times. There was another figure that had been in the Rec room just as long as she had but he doesn’t do much besides stare. She wonders if he’s okay - the same curiosity bubbling up inside of her that had gotten her into trouble many times here. She ignores that slight nagging voice that tells her to mind her own business, now moving to a chair closer to the couch] Are you alright?

[She hovers and watches and he can tell but he doesn't look her way. She watches like a bird in a tree and when she floats over it is as if she is hopping from one branch to the other, in careful pops, keeping watch for danger, not wanting to startle or draw too much attention. She is a bird and she is a feather and she is upon him.

[Benji hasn’t moved from the couch in over half an hour. He’s sitting arms folded across his chest, staring at the whiteness of the walls—but they are moving. It is they that are moving and they have been moving lots, recently. Frequently, constantly, moving in the silence of the halls that has taken over the institute. He likes silence, usually, but this silence is eerie and that is probably because it has been sudden. It’s chill might also come from the fact that washed-grey walls which once has lives of white are churning with blacks and shadows and he wonders. Wonders.]

[He’s never spoken to him before, but he’s seen him around the past few weeks—funnily enough, he’s always doing the same damn. fucking. thing. Staring. Just staring, into the abyss of nothingness, but more often than that even, into a wall as if it were the final episode of M.A.S.H. 

[Benji's head tilts in the direction of the voice. It is odd because his eyes follow afterwards, an almost afterthought. He has seen this man before. He was the one with a bright bounce and dark dreads on Halloween. He was drunk. Or pretending to be. Benji couldn't be sure, as he isn't good at things like pretending. 

[She scooches to the farthest edge of the bench in tandem with the bend in his knees. He’s sitting, and the seat suddenly feels so much tinier than she previously figured. Her flesh prickles just behind the curve of her ear— one of her most sensitive areas. She gives him a sideways glance. He’s rigid, they both are— probably for different reasons— one is mechanical metal, the other is frozen water.]

[She's far away, remains far away and it doesn't bother him. He prefers it, almost, but more than that he is apathetic to her proximity. He fins himself less than so about her company though, almost fond of it, and this fact still startles him.

[She scooches to the farthest edge of the bench in tandem with the bend in his knees. He’s sitting, and the seat suddenly feels so much tinier than she previously figured. Her flesh prickles just behind the curve of her ear— one of her most sensitive areas. She gives him a sideways glance. He’s rigid, they both are— probably for different reasons— one is mechanical metal, the other is frozen water.]

[He grins, and it is soft and brief like the breeze that whips the courtyard] I'll remember that for when I feel like being a 'heinous asshat'.