Psych Testing (phan)

April 3

Phil, still upset from Dan, marched into Linder's office all frowns and clenched fists. Linder sat, childlike almost, with a mug of coffee and his money across the table. Spread out like a Chinese fan. He had a boyish grin accompanied by old eyes, tired and worn that gave him away.

"How can I be of service?" Linder hadn't looked up, he still sat with crossed legs staring at the money with a smirk. "How are we supposed to feed the patients? They're not responsive," Phil urged. And Linder glanced up at this, a small frown replacing his boyish grin.

"It's simple," he leaned forward intimidatingly, "we don't." Phil ground his teeth together silently, he fumed. "Won't they die?" Linder shook his head with a wave of his hand accompanying it.

"Nonsense, we can go almost two weeks without food, you know." Phil couldn't believe what he was hearing.  "And what happens after two weeks?" He decided Linder wouldn't help and instead went straight to Layla. She was a thin scientist who seemed to flirt with everyone.

She sat in the circular room adding adjustments to the torture device. When she noticed Phil her almond eyes glinted, a perfect row of white teeth joined him.

"Hey Phil, what's up?" Phil fidgeted, shifting from left to right and vise versa. "I was wondering, if the patients were ever to get out of that state, how'd they do it?" Her smile dissipated and she answered, "just use the machine a second time, why?"

"Just wondering," Phil rushed to answer, "I wanted to learn how to work it." Such a good cover, Phil. Nice one. She instantly brightened again, "finally getting tired of being a dumb old nurse?"

That's when a chipper male assistant made his entrance and closed the metal door. Right in his face.

On the other hand, Dan battled these traumas with reality. As a corpse mother reached her hand out to her son he slapped it with a rushed, "you're dead!"

As the echoes got louder his lips twitched! He mouthed Phil's name over and over again. The drool bubbling from his breaths he made a sound.

"Phil," he whispered in a slur,

And yet again, no nurse or staff noticed. Linda sat beside him, having long lost the battle against her screams. Her eyes were rolled back into her head. But she heard Dan, for some reason in her head, not in an echo, she heard Dan.

The floors groaned in protest again him, stay put is what they said. But Dan would not listen.

He would not become like everyone else. He would prove to Linder he could sign himself out.

He would prove he is not insane and would never return to the shabby hospital he was in.

He loathed this place, the drool dripping on his chin, and the demons that taunted him. But he couldn't sit still, he couldn't. In his head the colors were still there, flashing. Taunting him!

Linder's clacking of footsteps reach right in front of Dan. He doesn't move. Dan doesn't dare move. He is slightly conscious, mistaking reality for his traumas but he knows this is real.

"Maybe we should give this one a lobotomy," he hums to Layla. She smiles in response and nods to Linder. He shrugs, boyish grin replaced, "I don't know, I just feel in my stomach like this one still has some fight."

"We can get rid of that, but he'll be in a vegetative state," she informs. Layla has a sickly tongue, one too sweet and serpent like. A round face that screams tyrant. The walls lean in once more, shocked at the words they hear. Because they, as well as Dan, knows.

There's no way of recovering from a lobotomy.