Thanks for reading so far! No Larry-san in this chapter. Just more OC development. Hey, if you like my style and luuuurve Saw, I would like to request you join my roleplay. I need three more players. Link to thread: h ttp :// role-playe r. net/ foru m/sho wthrea d. php?t =2636 (minus spaces)
The attendant's eyes meet mine and she knows...How does she know me this well? She gently takes me by the shoulders and steers me away from Lawrence's room.
"So did everything go well?" she asks loudly, obviously for show, "Why don't you tell me all about it later?" As expected, no one pays us any attention. The girl brings me to the room I have been confined to during my recovery and closes the door tightly behind us. She becomes more serious, folding her arms across her chest.
"What's wrong? I know you're not catatonic anymore so talk to me." I must admit I am surprised by her sudden change in demeanor. But not too surprised to respond.
"I need to know how long I was...gone. And how long I was trapped in that shithole." The attendant studies me, her greenish blue eyes sharp as knives.
"They assigned me to you the day after they brought you in and fixed up your shoulder," she began, "That was about two weeks ago." That cold feeling fills me once again. Two weeks...Two weeks in that horrible place...I begin to feel lightheaded and slightly sick to my stomach.
"Oh god," I gag, sitting myself on the edge of the bed, bringing a hand to my mouth in case my body decides to spew. The attendant is next to me in two quick strides.
"Are you all right?" I don't answer but she seems to know. She touches my shoulder, the good one.
"Hey, it's gonna be okay," she says, "You're out of there and you're healing. Today was a big jump." I stare emptily into space, something I fear I've done all too often in the past fortnight.
"I'm sorry," I mumble, still feeling queasy, "You've been here helping me and I don't even know your name." The girl smiles.
"Alexis," she answers, "And I don't mind looking after you. This is a volunteer job after all." Waste of time...dealing with a dirtbag like me...I release a sigh, tired but not physically.
"I should have died in there." The fragility of my voice frightens me but I believe what I say.
"No you shouldn't have," Alexis argues, "You lived because you wanted to. You're very brave, Mr. Faulkner. Probably the bravest person I know." I abruptly stand, turning my back to her. My voice quivers with emotion as I try to prove my point to her.
"You're wrong. I'm hollow. Afraid. I've been too scared to live my life so I watched others. Documented them. And when anyone tried to get close to me I treated them like shit, too fucking scared to own up and be normal." There is a mirror in this room. I stalk over to it, Jigsaw's words vivid in my memory, "What do voyeurs see when they look into the mirror?" I hardly recognize the deathlike face I see. Paler than I've ever been, large purple shadows appear under my eyes like I've been punched by a weightlifter on both sides, my dark bangs overgrown, close to my eyebrows now, and an aura of illness seems about in the yellowish white pallor of my cheeks. I'm sure I lost a lot of weight; being starved for two weeks with no light and barely any water certainly did a number on me physically.
"Know what I see, you sick bastard?" I growl as if talking to the man who imprisoned me, "A goddamn corpse." Disgusted by myself I tear my gaze away, moving to the other side of the room.
"That kind of attitude won't help your recovery, Mr. Faulkner," Alexis says flatly but before she can say more I aggressively interrupt her with,
"Don't! call me 'mister'. It's one name or the other. Pick one." I have taken up pacing, anxiously biting at my thumbnail.
"Fine. If you want to get better you're going to have to realize you are much stronger than you give yourself credit for and that people do care about you." I turn to face her and snap,
"Who? Who the hell gives a shit about a dumb fuck like me?"
"Dr. Gordon!" she retaliates sharply, "And me!"
"Don't drag Lawrence into this. He only felt bad for me. And you...I don't even know who the fuck you are!" Alexis crosses to me and gets right up in my face.
"I'm your friend in this, Adam. Don't you dare lump me in with your paranoid accusations." We glare at each other for a good long time, green-blue to black-brown, both trying to prove one point or another somehow. Finally Alexis breaks the silence, whipping around so fast her blonde ponytail almost bitchslaps me.
"My time with you is done for today," she says with the pinpricks of annoyance, "Let's see if you can manage sleeping tonight without your bedtime story." Before she makes it to the door I realize my fault in the argument.
"Alexis!" I call out. Hand on the door handle she looks back, unamused. I stare after her pleadingly. "Please...don't leave me alone." I'm afraid to be alone...among other things otherwise "normal".
"You're independent again, Adam," she replies simply, "You don't need me anymore and since I obviously don't care about you..." I avert my eyes, embarrassed.
"I'm sorry," I apologize, "I didn't mean to hurt you...just myself..." Alexis sighs and her hand falls from the door handle.
"We have a lot of work to do," she grumbles. I feel like smiling for the first time in what seems like an eternity but I seem to have forgotten how.