A/N: Thank you all for the wonderful feedback! I feel as though I need to clear a little something up before you continue. I have received a few comments about how elements in this fic are like the movie "Silence of the Lambs". My hands are clean in this matter because I -awkward cough- have never seen it. I'm not uncultured I swear ;) ! I just never got a chance to see it - and all I know is that is has Anthony Hopkins in it as a creepy old man who eats people 0.0 My condolences if any unintended similarities bother you. And now since that is out of the way, onwards we venture!
Chapter 4
"That's all he said to you?" Morton inquires the next day.
Sophie is surprised at herself for willingly going back to this place. She had not planned on doing so, but somehow had summoned the strength to force herself into her car this morning. She nods at her superior gravely. Doctor Carter is there as well, and looks on with what appears to be animation, uneasy animation, but a lively sentiment nonetheless.
"How do you feel about this, Doc?"
Carter turns his attention to Morton, "To be frank, I think it's wonderful." Back to Sophie he goes. "Did you know, Miss Scott, that he hasn't spoken a single word in over a year? That is until yesterday."
Sophie shakes her head in perplexity, "No, sir I didn't. Why is that?"
"Multiple reasons. He is normally very...involved in his own efforts to stay on top form and ignores anyone who comes near the cell. Other times he simply acknowledges a presence with his eyes. Solitude can shape a person in immense ways. By now he is used to silence we have given him, and so silence is expected from him in return."
"Why did he talk to me, then?"
"I regret to say that I'm unsure. But this is very good, Miss Scott. Very good. You are doing well. Just continue showing up at the same time every day with his food and we'll keep on monitoring you."
Sophie's face harbors a sheepish expression. "This has become very hard for me a bit quicker then I thought. It's my third day - I wasn't expecting this." She then wants to take it back. She should not be complaining so with the salary she takes home from this. "I'm...I'm sorry I just feel a little overwhelmed."
Stop being so dramatic...her inner voice tells her curtly, This isn't a soap opera. It's life. It just got real - deal with it...
Doctor Carter is indulgent, "That is completely understandable. I'd be intimidated too if it wasn't my profession to handle being around madmen." Morton silently concurs with him as he excuses himself to attend to other matters, but with him, it doesn't make as much sense. Sophie shrugs lightly and Carter chuckles, sobering when he says, "Today you'll be taking him two things along with his food."
Judging by the lack of things in the cell, Sophie wants to comment that it should be more then just two things, but her mixed feelings on the matter keep her quiet. "What?"
"One is a pair of small canisters filled with a matter our friend needs to survive."
Her brow creases as she tries to comprehend what Carter could be referring to.
He answers her unvoiced questions a beat later, "They're for the mask he wears," Carter clarifies, and Sophie becomes more bemused. "You didn't think he wears that apparatus just to look threatening did you?"
"Well - uh..." she trails off, blushing furiously at her stupidity.
"That's alright," the doctor smiles at her warmly, "a lot of people make the same mistake. But the mask is what keeps him alive, and if we did not supply him with the substance he needs every month, he would succumb to his own pain very quickly."
"What's in these things I need to give him?"
"A drug that deadens his ability to feel his own muscles. I was told that it was an injury from a long time ago."
Sophie wonders, Exactly how old is this guy anyway...? But she dares not ask. "And the second thing I have to deliver?"
"Much more simply explained: a book."
"A book? That's it?"
"Yes. He's never been provided with reading material before, and I believe that you taking these two objects to him will further help us judge his responses to your being here."
Sophie stands from her chair in unison with Carter, who escorts her as far as the stairs. He is a really nice guy, she muses, a little too intelligent for her tastes, but easy on the eyes and a genuinely caring individual. She only wishes that he wasn't so interested in her for her role in his experiment - she feels as if it puts a lot of unnecessary weight on her shoulders, having to gratify him with her daily tasks. She regards him with mixed emotions for a brief moment, then absents herself to go take care of business.
...
...
...
The book and two, small cylindrical objects are sitting on the tray with the food when she arrives in the kitchen to get them. She takes one of the life-giving canisters in her hand and examines in. It is very light, making her assume that it is a vapor that resides within. She places it back down onto the tray and then picks up the book. "The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoevsky - a monster of a piece of literary work she would never pick up in her life.
He must be an intellectual if they're giving him something like this to spend his time on...Sophie thinks, the heaviness of the book appalling as she sits it down. She lifts the tray up with steady arms, aggravated when she discovers how burdensome the it actually is today with the added weight. Taking a deep breath, she exits the kitchen and makes her way to the cell with a racing heart, terrified that he might address her again. Thank God he doesn't know my name...
When she gets to the cell she checks to see what he is doing before she gives him his dispersals. He is exercising this time, his body rising and falling on the floor by way of his arms. Sophie guesses he must have to do such things all the time, and quietly - shaking the smallest amount with fright - gives him his new tray, the old one blissfully light in her hands. She is thankful that he is so caught up in what he is doing that she can slip away without being noticed, and cannot deny the relieved sigh that escapes her mouth. She goes off to take on her cleaning assignment for the day.
Until five o'clock.
...
...
...
When she returns, he's seated on the bench reading. Sophie tries to be quiet and unobtrusive again but it is infinitely more difficult. Reading can only distract one so much...
In seconds he has his attention on her. She refuses to look at him as she takes the morning's tray out. The food is untouched - she is not surprised by this any longer, even after only three days - but what is more peculiar is the fact that neither are the pair of canisters. She ponders on this and raises her stare to meet the terrorist's in a moment of skewed bravery from her place near the door.
When he speaks this time, she is not taken unawares and knows to back away.
"This is a wonderful book," he remarks with that oddly garbled voice of his. "I find the viewpoints of the author to be stimulating, wrong though he is."
Sophie keeps her mouth shut, putting on a fearless face she knows he could see right through even if it was pitch black in the hallway.
"I should think you would constrain yourself to be more accustomed to this routine by this point. It has been three days. Yet I see that you still shudder." What Sophie finds most disconcerting is that he makes no move to approach her. Perhaps he is jaded, tired of putting forth effort to make someone uncomfortable. "I'm afraid that this nonsense will have to stop. I am in need of your help."
Very slowly, Sophie signals her refusal.
"Very well then. Get me one of the men here. You seem to have developed a camaraderie with Doctor Carter - go and fetch him!"
Against everything she was told, Sophie whispers a barely audible and extremely timorous, "Why?" but he hears it satisfactorily enough.
"The canisters - I cannot replace them on my own. Were you not informed?" No reply. "Ah, well now is the time to gain this gem of edification. Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance, and you have been very ignorant."
Again, just as quietly, her lips barely moving as not to be seen by the cameras, "How?"
"You see what you wish." And that is all he says on the matter. Sophie was expecting a bit more amplification. He looks back down at his book, flipping the page, "Find the psychologist."
He doesn't have to say it again.
A/N: Thanks for the continued support! It won't be too much longer before things start to pick up from the established schedule. The quote about knowledge belongs to Confucius...because I could never come up with something as profound like that man could.
Anyway: is there anything you want to see happen? I like to hear from you!
Have a wonderful day/night wherever you are in the world :D
