damned_institute | Dayshift 46: Doctor's Office 1 (Dr. Yumeno) [fourth shift]

Entry tags:

daedalus,
kratos

Dayshift 46: Doctor's Office 1 (Dr. Yumeno) [fourth shift]

The weather rather suited Daedalus today. He’d spent a few minutes of his break on the patio, poised against the wall where the light rainfall couldn’t touch him. Rain, huh? It wasn’t the feel of droplets on his skin, or the smell of damp earth, or the breath of fresh air that he was interested in, but nevertheless, he took a moment to himself there, his slight frame hardly noticeable where he stood with shoulders slightly hunched.

Despite the apparent solitude, he didn’t believe he was any less under observation than he was in his proper abode. But any tampering had to be done a bit differently.

When it was time to begin his next session, the young doctor returned to his office, as prepared as ever to carry on the day’s work. Within his desk drawer, the Dolores Haze file had been moved to the bottom of the stack, the two belonging to the next patients sitting one over the other on top. It was the first day he’d had nothing but return visits.

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And it seemed Raine had quickly gotten back into the swing of things. Kratos felt like now asking after Sheena's health, but he knew that now that Raine's little episode had passed, their relationship would go back to how it usually was: non-speaking.

He allowed the nurse to show him into the doctor's office, ignoring her entirely as she waved cheerily goodbye to him before stepping outside and closing the door noiselessly behind her.

"Good afternoon." Kratos slid into the chair across from Dr.Yumeno and waited for the youth to begin his questions.

Ah, here was his first, and not a minute late. Daedalus encouraged the man with a welcoming smile.

This was one of the few patients to have carried on a more stimulating exchange, beyond hidden glances and tight-lipped words. Daedalus hadn’t forgotten. And with time, his answer hadn’t changed: he didn’t think of the man as an unknowable madman. The ones who spoke up about their charges poetically and ironically appeared more rational than those that didn’t, anyway.

Daedalus expected their time together would be more interesting than starting afresh with another apprehensive character.

“So we meet again,” said Daedalus, his own greeting. “It’s been a week since we last saw each other. How are you doing?”

Kratos had not forgotten last week's opening exchange either; it had left him with the impression that Dr. Yumeno was intelligent, which was more than could be said about most of the other doctors, judging from the responses to that one particular board post. If anything, that his doctor was capable of analytical thought only encouraged him to move beyond one-syllable words and blank stares; Kratos reserved the effort only for those that would appreciate it.

"I'm..." An idea suddenly bloomed in his mind. There was actually something that had happened this week that Kratos was quite sure any normal patient would still be having nightmares about, and although he could probably predict Dr. Yumeno's response to talk of near-death (or in Kratos's case, death) experiences, he was still interested in what he would say. After all, the doctor had not immediately written off his thoughts on the monsters at night.

"I'm fine now, but around three days ago, I had...hm. I'm not quite sure what it was. I experienced something like an intense hallucination in which I died - violently. The strange thing is that I was with some people at the time, and they too attested to seeing me suddenly collapse with blood leaking from my chest."

Daedalus was ready to confront the full force of patient resistance, like the sculptor who needed to approach his blank slab of marble and gradually chip it into the desired shape. Winding his way through conventions was dull, but easily done. But then the man hesitated, and Daedalus’s train of thought did, too. I’m…? The patient hadn’t struck him as the type who would stutter over a lie.

He was forever patient and intent. At the man’s first sound of thought, Daedalus tipped his head, awaiting the rest of what was to be said. And his wait was not without its fruit.

Exposure to tall tales had never been part of his development, and what oddities his usual patients spun for him, he almost always knew the cause and effect before the words were even said. It was like knowing the moral of the fairytale before hearing the story. Only a few unanswered questions that he’d encountered had made him want to know, had exceeded his bounds of experience and made him strive to understand what wasn’t understood. Re-l. Proxies. And though Landel’s had so little to do with him, this, too, was strange. He didn’t have the moral because he didn’t know the tale, and Daedalus didn’t have to fake the attentive lift of his brows, accentuating brown eyes already slightly widened.

Kratos was right--it was analytical thought that acted as Daedalus’s foundation. He had made it his own, and with it, he couldn’t cast the confession aside. That was too easy… and also against his persona. He recognized that these things weren’t being spoken to him without reason, as well. That made them worth more thought.

A patient’s welfare. The obligation created a concerned furrow just over his right eyes, one that stood apart from the amateurish look one took on when faced with regrettable patient illness. “Oh, really? I wasn’t aware of this.” He immediately sat back, putting a hand to his chin. “That’s quite worrisome. I wonder…” With barely a skipped beat, Daedalus was thinking ahead once more. “This happened during the day?”

Kratos had gotten what he considered a typical reaction, given the general even temper of his doctor: widened eyes, raised eyebrows, and a distinct lack of extreme emotion. While certainly expected, however, it gave him no indication of Daedalus's thoughts on the matter - but he had not written his words off immediately, which had to mean something.

"No, at night." He was willing to admit this, even if there were some follow-up questions that he could already imagine, such as why he was with other patients (the plurality was important) at night when he was meant to be in his room with none other save his roommate. "When I awoke the next day, there was no sign of any injury."

A thoughtful expression came over his mien, and he curled his hand into a loose fist to press to his mouth.

Mmm, night. As he’d thought. Somehow, there were particular generalities one could attribute to either day or night. The likelihood of such an episode being reported was much higher in the day time, too. And… night more of a curiosity, as this patient alone had demonstrated by all that he’d already told Daedalus. It wasn’t that the man even needed to believe in what he was saying--it was what he was saying, in seeking a reaction.

“That’s a very extreme event,” Daedalus eventually stated. For the patient, experiencing a violent death… But beyond that, it was also a fine detail of the sorts of happenings that Daedalus had only heard recounted in bits and pieces. He wasn’t the type to be satisfied with cobbling together mere fragments. Leaning back, he propped his elbow on the armrest, and met the man’s gaze. Because this was the second time he’d heard something suspect from this particular person, he had to take it more seriously, in turn. After a moment, he let his hand fall from his mouth, and said, “As I’ve said, I’d be remiss to discount this. Would you tell me more?”

This was the question that Kratos admittedly dreaded the most, for there was a fine line to this incident between recounting observational details for the purpose of clearing up the chain of events and giving away sensitive personal information. It was the same line he had tried his hardest not to cross with Hitsugaya and Sora two days ago; both times he had been successful, and now Kratos could only hope he had the same luck this third time.

"That night, there were some voices projecting over the intercom - not the head doctor's as usual - and shortly following them I experienced an intense pain in my chest. I had been run through by a sword around here." Kratos circled the approximate area with his finger. "It vanished shortly thereafter, but its effects, ah, did not."

Throughout his recitation of information, his voice remained at the same, smooth tone it was usually at - mostly, he knew, because he had not mentioned Anna.

For what must have been a disturbing experience, regardless, the man’s placidity certainly stood out more than an outburst of emotion, but at the moment, Daedalus only nodded his acknowledgment.

“Voices, you say. What set these voices apart?” Later, he would have to address what was said about the Head Doctor’s voice being a common occurrence… “And this wound, it didn’t appear to be caused by anything, like a person?”

The unfortunate part was that Kratos hardly realized how peculiar his serenity could come off as. He was a soldier; somewhere while interacting with him he expected people to come to that conclusion, that as such he could easily put any 'disturbing' experience into an objective light.

"They were jumbled together, similar to static," Kratos replied. "But it sounded like an immense mass of moaning and despair, which I highly doubt is healthful for unstable persons to hear." The last phrase was said with particular wryness; Kratos was occasionally capable of some form of humor.

"There didn't appear to be any factors pointing toward a person or some similar cause," he added. "Entry was through the front of my torso; although it was dark at the time, I'm sure I would have been able to make out some features if there had been an outside cause." There had actually indeed been a cause: a specter of himself or something of that nature. But how was he to explain that without revealing too much?

The corner of Daedalus’s mouth lifted briefly, a response to the man’s move to once again point out the irony of his own situation. Could madmen speak of phantom voices and phantom deaths, while at the same time so clinically interpreting the event like a meticulous surgeon dissecting dreams? Probably. Daedalus knew there was more to it than that, however. The patient might have still expected him to operate with the explanation of lunacy at his right hand, but that was an oversimplification.

“Many incomprehensible voices moaning…” he stated in the act of clarification, “and appearing to come from the intercom system. Not to mention an unexplainable wound…” There was no hint to what he thought of such things in his words. After a short pause, he said, “Is that all you remember, when you were still able? There was nothing else that stood out?”

Kratos went over the events once more, seeing if there was anything left to tell. Nothing was left, however, that did not include Anna, and so his tale was therefore concluded. "Yes, that's all I remember," he affirmed.

What next, then? He awaited Daedalus's conclusion.

_{[I… didn’t even get a notif for this, ahhhh, god. >|]}

“Well, I am hesitant to begin making assumptions so early,” Daedalus began. “I think that would be unwise. It is strange, as you said.”

Strange enough that Daedalus wouldn’t treat it lightly, as his demeanor plainly said. He felt that even if he were to ask, he’d be right in thinking this was no common thing, even from the perspective of the patient, who no doubt saw his temporary quarters in a far different light than Daedalus.

“More than strange, you describe a trauma.” The trauma for so many: the loss of life. He spoke the words calmly, but the weight of their repercussions was present. No one would walk away without being affected in some way, and the young doctor made it aware he was concerned about this without explicitly forcing the matter into the light.

[y u haet us so, LJ? :<]

"Mmm..." Kratos agreed with Daedalus wholly but was left unsure of how to respond. His doctor seemed to be still mulling this strange incident over in his mind, and Kratos did not wish to add any further personal remarks to smooth out the picture he had presented.

"There were others too," he finally said, "that 'died'. This was not limited to just me." He hadn't met anyone else who had openly admitted to sharing this experience, but the bulletin board had made it clear that many people had likewise died.

_{[LJ IS ONLY POINTING OUT MY FAIL OR SOMETHING. I SHOULD HAVE CHECKED. ugh, double-time, let's go!]}

Leaning back into his desk, Daedalus linked his fingers into a bridge and rested his chin upon it, levelling the man with his gaze. Daedalus was clever enough to work this discussion in whichever direction he desired, but what way would that be? Every decision he made had an effect on his image as a Landel’s doctor, as well as the charges he had under him.

The real interest lay not entirely with the immediate health of said patients, however. More the sources behind these sorts of accounts. But…

It was subtle, but Daedalus let his expression shift with his thoughts: he was not shocked by what Kratos revealed, but he did not appear to expect it. His persona and his true feelings were not so at odds on this--to the face he showed to the world, the news was disturbing, disquieting, and to Daedalus himself, it was indeed a curiosity. After all, what kind of person didn’t take the concept of death seriously? One would have to be quite blithe. Or of a power to manipulate such a thing.

“I’m surprised there hasn’t been more talk of this, a mass occurrence that includes those who saw what happened, but were not involved.” It was a neat way of concealing what he already knew about the last days’ happenings and the patient nightshifts in general without displaying total ignorance. A fine line to walk. “Tell me, if you’re able, what this sword was like. It wasn’t exactly the same thing that the others experienced, was it?”

[FFFFF now it is my turn for a late tag--]

Kratos shrugged. "Few people wish to talk about their own deaths or others', imaginary or not," he said. He had seen proof of this with Hitsugaya and Sora; neither had pushed him too hard to speak on his death the following day. Raine had, but that was because she could already surmise around seventy-five percent of what had happened and lacked the fear of the unknown that the others had possessed.

She also enjoyed poking into things that weren't her business.

Daedalus's question about the sword caught him somewhat off-guard. What was so important about its appearance? The Flamberge, of course, was a unique sword, but no one would be able to guess that from what he had said so far. "No, I believe the manner of death actually varied widely from person to person. As for the sword, there was nothing notable about it except that it was red and glowing, as if on fire."

“Yes, of course,” said Daedalus, and although the potential for banality was high in such words, it was not true of Daedalus. At least, not in any discernible way. His mien was at once complete and impenetrable: the empathic doctor he was meant to be. “But you would choose not to mention this to the regular day staff?” he continued.

It was true, too, that few people wished to talk, period, but that was not so strange. Patients talking with those employed under the hospital was even more difficult. For his part, Daedalus felt no need to begin circling the issue of the rift between resident and staff when discussing this, or anything else, however it seemed a chance to pose the question without sacrifice. That these “deaths” were unique to the individual was something he’d as much--it would be one thing for each person to experience the exact same phenomena. Run through by swords…

He made a sound of acknowledgment, and then after a moment asked, “Does that mean anything to you?”

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Dayshift 46: Doctor's Office 1 (Dr. Yumeno) [fourth shift]

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