“Empty,” he admitted. “I feel like I’m living in a loop with no purpose.”
Roger nodded as his pen scratched across the clinical notepad resting on his crossed legs. Gods how Brooks fucking hated that pen and pad.
“Have you been participating in any facility activities, Brooks?”
“Don’t say daydreaming about me. That will get you thrown in solitary.”
He could practically hear the smirk in her tone. It was a real battle to stop his eyes from disappearing to the back of his head.
“Yes. Every day.”
More nodding. More scratching.
“Do you understand why you’re in those activities, Brooks?”
“To bore me to death so you save money on medication?”
Roger stopped writing but didn’t look up.
“It’s to prepare your mind for reentry to the world.”
All functions ceased.
“What do you mean reentry?”
Roger looked back to Brooks and chuckled softly. “Did you think this a permanent residency, Brooks?”
“It sure fucking feels like it, yeah,” he said dumbfounded.
“This is merely an institution to help your mind heal so that you can be successful during reintegration into society. Have you thought about what you would do when you were well? Aspirations, perhaps?”
Brooks sat in silence as his brain shorted. He’d never thought leaving the asylum was an option. It was, after all, all he had ever known. All his broken mind could pull from his memories.
“I–” he stumbled. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I suggest you start thinking about it. There are books in the common room to guide your path. The world is full of possibilities. All you have to do is work with us to heal. Not against us.”
Brooks took a moment to stew on that information before Roger repositioned in the chair and pulled him back to the present.
“I’m going to show you some images now,” he said, his eyes never leaving his pad as his hand reached to a small table perched beside him. “I’d like you to tell me what you see. Remember, there is no right or wrong answer.”
“Seriously, Roger, not your fucking coffee stains again,” Brooks sighed, agitation flooding in like a tsunami.
“I’ve gotten reports from orderlies of increased discontent and aggression. I’d like to test you again. Are your auditory hallucinations increasing? Last we talked, you had one voice separate from your own.”
As Roger spoke, he shuffled through clinical notes and pulled ink blot images from a separate manilla folder.
“Sounds like you’ve got me all figured out bud. Did you scribble all that down? Got some good notes to take back to the suits?”
Roger raised his eyes from the papers to Brooks for one assessing stare, then scribbled once more on the pad.
“Way to go. Now he’s going to think you’re more paranoid.”
He sighed but wasn’t sure if it was irritation toward his Siren for being a pain in his ass or for being right. Roger always said that sarcasm masked the truth. If he didn’t reel it in, the psychologist would be quick to make assumptions.
“This is the part where you play along so they don’t make you black out for weeks like last time. Don’t let them take you from me, Brooks…”
The pang of guilt hit him hard but also tightened the anxiety in his chest. It was getting so fucking hard to determine reality from hallucination.
