Flynn couldn't come up with a response to Sylvia before she started talking to the other patients in the room. So, he didn't. She didn't know how much of a miracle it was that her attention turned away from him. It was like standing in the spotlight - a blinding glow searing into your eyes, a heat drawing the moisture out of your skin, and a thousand eyes that belonged to no faces staring at you from the darkness. He could barely talk to another person without using that kind of metaphor to describe the feeling.
God, I am fucked up, Flynn thought, the only rational thought he had all morning.
He had to keep it all on the surface. He couldn't start thinking about it too much because then it'll become real. He wanted nothing more than for the room to
shut the hell up until someone started talking about their newest novel or something stupid like that, so Flynn tuned it out as best he could. When Dr. Staple left, the pounding started again - as it always did.
The Golden Demon.
Demon, demon, demon.
"Hmmn," a low growl rose from his throat.
"Shut up."
His command was quiet but strained like he was suffering from a pounding headache. The marine rubbed his face and stared at the blabbering artist. His limbs were long and spindly like a spider - thin and easy to snap like a twig over his knee. He blinked once - a spindly, bony shadow stood in the place of Khada, with twitching red eyes staring back at Flynn, full of hatred and malice. A gurgling hiss crept into his ear, and the shadow flexed its bony fingers until a flickering flame emerged in its palm. Flynn blinked - involuntarily - and Khada was standing there again.
The marine flinched and then pressed his heel against the floor, standing upright with enough force to send his chair toppling over, landing with a loud metal bang. Flynn stumbled, turning away towards the door that the patients first entered through.
"I'm-" he breathed, and he blinked, looking at the door like it was his only way out. He shook his head.
"I'm going back to my room."
But then, Flynn couldn't go back. All eyes, including his, turned to the quiet tapping in the corner. It was Elijah.
Flynn hadn't interacted with Elijah all that much. He didn't interact with anyone. As far as anyone at Raven Hill Memorial knew, he and Elijah could have been opposites - the silent, brittle-boned man in the chair and the loud, pounding jarhead in the cell. Still, Flynn was as shocked as anyone to see the man stir from his stillness, like a statue coming to life.
He knew a few guys like that in Iraq. People react to trauma in wildly different ways - in the worst cases, the brain has no idea how to process it all. Everything locks up like a bad computer, and nothing works anymore. They're just stuck.
Flynn stood between the fallen chair and the door, staring over a dozen heads at Elijah, wondering what he'd do until the thought of his waiting room drew him back towards the door - assuming that no guards would try to stop him.
I'm not trying to escape, damn it, Flynn thought.
As it is now, he was more afraid of the outside world than the comfort of his empty cell.
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