It was TRUE. Being in this place had made her start to wonder whether she’d been the one in the WRONG all along. Whether she really HAD imagined all that had happened to her, and her foster father had done this as a KINDNESS, rather than as a way to get rid of the evidence.
No… she couldn’t believe that. She REFUSED to. No matter what happened in here, she wanted to stay herself. To not GIVE IN. It got more difficult each day, though.
And whatever had just happened made everything that much harder. Was it some kind of ATTACK..? Or something else? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she had to get OUT of here.
At his question, she nodded, BITING on her lower lip.
“I… I do. At least, I have SOME idea.
There’s these VENTS… i-if we can get
the covers off, I think… I think we can
CRAWL through–”
She paused, tilting her head as she tried to get a BETTER look at him.
“Wh.. what’s your NAME? M-mine’s
LIA.”
he gets it. her skepticism is not unearned. he’s not exactly prince charming or a shining white knight. not particularly STRONG or tall, not particularly handsome. probably doesn’t even look human right now. his eyes are dry and bloodshot after having been kept propped open by the asylum’s instruments, felt like they were bugging out of his skull, like they were going to fall out. and his throat is itchy, voice hoarse from all the screaming he did. there’s blood on his uniform that he can’t pinpoint to any one source. he knows what he looks like. it’s inevitable when the asylum played its sad song on his body, a song of DEATH, and agony, and greed.
“aam... um,” he struggles for a second, nose scrunching as he refocuses. right. waylon park, husband of lisa park, father of derek and milo park. depressed. anxious. obsessive-compulsive. a WHISTLEBLOWER.
he feels he’s not really strong enough to pull the covers off a vent, but telling her that would not be a good idea, so he fiddles with the sagging fabric of his jumper as he leads her a little ways down the hall. all around them there are screams and cries. the vents above them shake, and then RED oozes out through the cracks. it might be something he needs to worry about when his reaction is to side-step the puddle on the floor like it’s second nature. that’s something to worry about if he makes it out.
“we don’t usually keep female employees around,” he remarks, a little bit of curiosity in his voice. “employees an’ patients started gettin’ pregnant out of nowhere. phantom pregnancies, they called ‘em.” but lia wasn’t pregnant, now was she. “ye must’ve nae been here long, huh?”