Day 64: Intercom, Evening

[damned_intercom]

When the cheery jingle sounded over the speakers, the Head Doctor could be heard humming a song that suspiciously sounded like pieces of "Superstar" from today's movie. Then, as if realizing people were listening, he abruptly cleared his throat.

"Good evening, patients!" he greeted after a quick recovery. "I do hope everyone had a pleasant day. And what better way to end things than with a scrumptious steak dinner? We'll be including fries on the side, as well as offering our usual assortment of water, milk, and juices. Of course, we also carry vegetarian options for those of you who don't eat meat. Enjoy!"

The intercom turned off, leaving the nurses to escort patients to their rooms.

((Please make all dinner threads under this post with your character's room number in the subject line. For updated roommate assignments, refer to the latest Lounge Post. Thanks!))

Comments

[dualistic]

It was definitely a contract, seeing how Murphy was shoveling his food down like he hadn't eaten in days (and it was possible he hadn't, Harvey realized), whereas he was staring at the meal like it was some epic challenge. It was frustrating that something as simple as getting his body fuel had become a serious task, but that was only one way in which his accident had affected his life.

All things considered, Murphy was pretty laidback, already making jokes and sampling the food. A lot of patients would have been more reserved or more paranoid, to the point that the way Murphy was adapting seemed to stand out in its own way.

Harvey wasn't going to make any judgments just yet, but he was keeping an eye on the man. "Yeah, except for when the military was here," he replied as he started to slowly unwrap the bandages covering the burned part of his face. He'd thought about warning Murphy, but this would be a good way to test what the man was really made of. "Food seems to be the one thing this place can get right, though."

He continued to unravel the bandages, since having his face exposed would make it a little bit easier to eat. Before long burnt flesh and exposed bone was revealed, but he said nothing, instead picking up a french fry as he tried not to think about what the salt it was coated with would do to an open wound.

[stop_the_rain]

"Military?"

Murphy couldn't remember hearing much of anything about that. Then again, Harvey was the only person he'd talked to that seemed to have been here longer than a day or two. That...was weird. He couldn't begin to say he even started to understand this place, but from what he'd heard, the military hanging around didn't mesh with his understanding of things. Unless they were trying to destroy it or something.

But the ex-con only had his own limited world view to work with, and the military was some vague concept to him. It existed somehow apart from everyday people and everyday things - even extremely bizarre ones. It was hard to think that they'd have anything to do with any place he ended up.

Of course those thoughts got a bit derailed when Harvey started undoing those bandages of his. He wasn't the kind of guy to speculate about that sort of thing, but he hadn't quite expected what was uncovered. It reminded him, almost painfully, of some of the charity case kids at the monastery. Burn victims were pretty common.

He wondered if it had happened here, at night. It'd probably be rude to ask. But it raised a serious question about the facade this place went with during the day. Shouldn't a nurse be unwrapping it and treating it with something? It looked...well...'bad' was an understatement.

"Uh...I don't want to be a prick, but shouldn't a nurse be giving you a hand? That's their job, isn't it?"

[dualistic]

At least Harvey had known from the start that the moment he mentioned the military, there were going to be questions. He'd prepared for that, and so he didn't mind explaining. First, though, he dipped a french fry into some ketchup, hoping that would temper the salt slightly, and then placed it into his mouth on the uninjured side. It went better than expected.

"For a while the military came in and took over here," he said once he'd swallowed his food. "They're the ones funding this whole thing, and they decided they didn't like the way Landel was handling things. They sacked him and ran the show themselves for a while, but Landel ended up regaining control." The reasons behind all that were a bit more complicated, but at this point Murphy probably only needed to know the basics.

Of course, his face came up -- how couldn't it? -- but the question Murphy asked was actually a first. Most people wanted to know where the wound itself had come from, but Murphy was questioning the staff. At least it was a change of pace.

"Maybe," he said with a shrug, "but I don't want them anywhere near me, so I'm fine with it this way." He didn't need anyone fussing over him like they had back in the Gotham General when he'd first come to. It was true that the wound didn't seem to be healing this way, but that hadn't been Harvey's aim in the first place.

[stop_the_rain]

"If you're sure."

All the obvious questions came to Murphy's mind - was this some Robin Cook novel he'd stumbled into? didn't that hurt? - he kept his mouth pretty well shut. He had a hard time believing the other guy was honestly 'fine' with his face like that, but the ex-con knew better than to push. Harvey had helped him out and now they were roommates, those were two big reasons Murphy didn't want to piss him off.

"The US Military?" he decided to ask. Again, that didn't match up with what Murphy thought of as the government. He'd never been one to buy into any of that conspiracy theory bullshit, and while he was pretty sure that the US government abused its military power....

This was all sounding more and more far fetched. It was a sad state his life had come to, when he considered a supernaturally haunted and empty asylum existing in another stage of reality was a more reasonable explanation than 'something the military did'.

[dualistic]

Yes, he was damn sure, but Harvey bit it down, realizing that Murphy was only asking because he was worried. There were plenty of patients here who made it their business to worry about everyone else, and it wasn't something Harvey could understand. He had a hard enough taking care of himself here, let alone getting invested in someone else.

Sure, some people he'd worked with had disappeared, and he couldn't say that hadn't affected him. But he wasn't going to let it get to him so much that he couldn't keep functioning on some level.

He tried another fry and then sighed as he considered Murphy's question. "It's hard to say. Seeing how we're definitely in the States, that's the obvious assumption. But their uniforms were nondescript and nothing was ever confirmed, so it's anyone's guess."

That was more or less a pattern in this place, though, and Murphy would do good to learn that. "You'll get used to their being more questions than answers in this place," he said after a pause.

[stop_the_rain]

"Well that's nothing new," Murphy snorted, shaking his head. "More questions than answers, I mean."

Now, back in this little room with the door locked, he started to feel like he was in prison again. It was at both times comforting and infuriating. He felt the walls were pressing in on him, as stupidly cliche as he knew that was. There wasn't even a window. And weirdly enough, the lack of bars made him nervous. He couldn't see what was going on in the hall, he couldn't hear what was happening in the other cells....

This must have been what solitary was like. Except, thank God, he wasn't actually alone. He realized he'd been clenching his fork so hard his knuckles were white, and his breathing had picked up. He swallowed hard and set down the utensil.

"How long until we get to roam the blood splattered nightmare version of this place?"

[dualistic]

Nothing new? Harvey had seen it as pretty new -- in fact, he still wasn't used to it. Every time that another cryptic clue came along compliments of their crazy Head Doctor, he found himself pissed off that they were being strung along like they were players in some sort of game. Once again, he was struck by the fact that Murphy almost seemed too comfortable with their situation.

Well, until he noticed the way that Murphy was gripping onto his fork like it was some kind of lifeline. That wasn't normal behavior, but considering the circumstances, "normal" was more abnormal than this.

The question caused him to tilt his head, and he would have smirked if his mouth, half-burnt, would have let him. He tried it on his good side. "You almost sound eager. It shouldn't be too much longer, but you might want to get your supplies together now. The lights'll go out in here, too." And it wasn't fun stumbling around in the dark in search of your flashlight.

[stop_the_rain]

"I don't like being cooped up."

The dark part didn't bother him much, either. He'd lost his flashlight in Silent Hill more times than he could remember, leaving him with nothing but an occasional flash of lightning through boarded windows to see by. But it didn't hurt to be prepared. He wouldn't bother with the radio tonight, it had proved mostly useless as far as he could tell. No warnings and no hep cat DJ with way too much information taunting him or haunting him with garbled dedications. He could only carry so much, after all.

Of course...what was he going to do once the lights went out? Just wander around, lugging a chair and hope he stumbled onto something important? No wonder the town had practically had to grab him by the shoulders and steer him in the right direction: on his own, he was pretty adrift. At least since he knew escape was by no means easy or even possibly achievable.

He finished off his steak and pushed the now-empty plate away from him. "Any advice on where I ought to be heading once I get out of here?"

[dualistic]

Harvey didn't think most people liked being cooped up, and it was clear just from all the other patients that when given a choice between that and facing off monsters, most people picked the latter, himself included. So he couldn't judge Murphy for his restlessness too much when it came down to it.

He couldn't help but notice that his new roommate was already done with his dinner while he had barely started, and so he got a few more fries down before he went about answering Murphy's question. It was a strange thing for someone to ask, but if the man really was that new, then it made sense that he was at a loss so far.

"It really depends on what your goals are," he said after a pause. "When it comes to looking for clues or a way out, it's really anyone's guess. If you need a weapon, there are a few places you could look. And if you want to go outside, that's a whole other story." Getting outside didn't mean escaping, obviously, but people could have their reasons for wanting to see the surrounding area despite that.

[stop_the_rain]

"I've already got a weapon." Murphy nodded his head towards his desk chair. Sure it was a little unwieldy, but a good solid chair had never let him down in the past. And these chairs were solid.

"I guess I'm most interested in getting out of here. So, I'll look for clues. I can do that." He wished he had that UV light. It'd probably come in real handy around here. Maybe he just had to pay better attention to the intercom, write things down and pick them apart piece by piece. But he wasn't a remarkably smart man, he knew that. He wasn't well traveled or well read, he'd never understood intangible schools of thought, and he certainly wasn't some sort of puzzle master.

And he had realized that he wasn't getting any help here. This wasn't his hell anymore.

"I do appreciate you putting up with me," he went on, offering Harvey a half smile. "I know I'm really chewing on your ear today."

[dualistic]

A chair? Really? Well, Harvey had seen plenty of patients running around with things that were even more ridiculous than that, so he wasn't about to question it. Murphy was a pretty built guy, so he probably had a lot of bulk to throw around. Maybe a chair would work just fine for him, at least against some of the more common monsters.

So long as he didn't have to share his gun or ammunition, Harvey didn't care too much either way.

"It's fine," Harvey said, waving Murphy off when he thanked him once again. While it made it clear that his new roommate was a good guy who actually used his brain every once in a while, there was a point where it didn't need to be said anymore. He wasn't completely heartless, and giving someone else advice wasn't any skin off his back anyway.

"Anyway, if you want a way out, there's all kinds of directions you can go. The newest place that's opened up is the medical wing..."

Though halfway between his sentence, the intercom came on with Landel's normal, "pleasant" voice talking about the movie they'd shown and the incident yesterday with the buses. That meant night was about to come, and at that point Murphy would be on his own.