Going through the schedule, Lila went around, checking on patients, getting their names, understanding why they're in the mental hospital.
One of the patients Lila oversaw, Trudy, suffered from bouts of depression while living in an abusive home, almost took her life because of it, and now resides at the mental hospital where she's monitored, but given resources that allowed her independence.
One of which's her treasured garden, she works on it daily until bedtime, she says it helps to take her mind off things, and she loved seeing her garden grow in time.
Hated it when people cumbersomely walked over it, that Neal ended up having a fence put around her garden, keeping people from making the same mistakes.
Neal's one of the doctors working in the mental hospital, and he thought having fencing around the garden would've helped improve Trudy's condition, knowing that her garden's not in any danger.
Out of curiosity, Lila asked about Trudy's garden, and she just about talked every bit of air out of her lungs, the way she described her garden in great details.
Every corner of the garden served a purpose and Trudy happily talked about how she carefully constructed her garden.
Certain species of plants couldn't coexist in the same spot, so Trudy planted them on opposite sides of the garden.
She used rounded stakes for plants sprouting vines, needing something to grab as they grew upright, green squiggly vines tightly wrapped themselves around the stakes.
One section's for her gourds, Trudy wanted to make birdhouses, and put them on the trees around the area for the birds.
Another section with vine's her squashes, they're not her favorite of vegetables, but Tommy likes them, so she's growing them for him.
Tommy's another patient, but not on Lila's roster.
"Been busy, I see," Lila noted the countless hours Trudy put work into her garden and the nineteen-year-old excitedly nodded as she answers that at first, she didn't understand anything about gardening, but came to like it after successfully growing pumpkins with some non-toasted seeds, a hole in the ground, and a squirt bottle full of water.
Trudy's mood slowly shifted as she began talking about her troubles, something's getting into her garden, eating the plant part of her tomatoes, roots and all. The fruit's untouched, lying on the ground, but the plant itself looked like something tore them from the stakes, and chewed on them.
For the first few times, the plants' completely gone, but the other day, Trudy saw bits of a steam heavy chewed lying nearby.
"Must be an animal," Lila reasoned that Trudy's tomato plants garnered an interest by one of the animals living in the forest nearby.
Most animals aren't known for paying attention while grazing, no doubt they made a mess of things trying to obtain one of the many tomatoes Trudy grew, but she said that her tomatoes remained untouched. Even looked like they're carefully put on the ground, some of her tomatoes hung about 3ft off the ground before the plant portion's tore out of the ground.
Hearing how something's eating the plant portion of the tomatoes, but not touching the tomatoes themselves, sounded peculiar to Lila, as they're in the nightshade family, and while the tomatoes weren't dangerous to humans, eating the actual plant risked poisoning, especially if the roots ended up eaten, too.
It further intrigued Lila when Trudy said that she noticed the same happening to her peppers. Like the tomatoes, the pepper plants saw heavy damage from something eating them, roots and all, but the peppers remained untouched.
None of it made any sense to the two, the plants dangerous with nightshade, but they're the only ones seeing damages, with their respected bounties remaining untouched.
Nothing else in the garden saw similar problems, the plants remained intact, the respected harvest untouched.
"Weird, anyone see anything?" Lila asks if anyone witnessed the animals responsible for the destruction of the plants, but Trudy says she's talked to the other patients and the doctors, but nobody knows anything.
The hospital's fully aware of the nightshade aspect of tomatoes and peppers, they regularly made sure nothing from the actual plants found their way inside the hospital, but eventually, they came to agree that it's the work of animals.
Trudy couldn't use the conventional means keeping animals away, poison and all that's against the rules, but the hospital set traps around the property, hoping to trap any animal that wandered too close in the garden, but nothing ever ended up in the traps.
The traps set to the specifications given by the authorities in the matter, but they haven't trapped anything, and the plants ended up eaten, regardless.
When asked, Trudy tells her that before she decided growing tomatoes and peppers, she didn't have any issues gardening. Everything remained untouched, strange, because she grew strawberries, the one fruit she expected most of the wildlife wanting a taste of them, but nothing ate them.
The moment she started growing the tomatoes and peppers, the problems started.
"That's weird, I've heard of picky eaters, but never something like that," Lila's baffled as much as Trudy was about the whole thing and she mentions that if this' the trend, she might as well dig up the remaining peppers and tomatoes plants, save her the trouble of losing her harvest because they aren't growing right if at all because of the visible damages to the roots.
It sounded bizarre hearing this, Lila knows a thing or two about vermin and the local wildlife making feasts out of her mom's garden, but this takes the cake.
Plants in the nightshade families becoming something's lunch, not even bothering eating the tomatoes and peppers, Lila doesn't know any animal off the tip of her tongue that ate those plants, willingly, roots and all.
While there's animals that have no problems eating them without issue, they wouldn't overlook opportunities going after the bountiful harvests.
Nothing insidious going on, someone in the hospital would've shown signs of nightshade poisoning by now, if Trudy's right, but curious, regardless.
Lila wanted to suggest Trudy talk to her doctors about investing in an indoor planter for her to try her tomatoes and peppers again, but due to the nightshade in the plants themselves, the hospital might've showed hesitance.
Low security or not, they're still bound by the rules and laws.
Even if they trusted the patients, they can't risk any incidents.
"Well, maybe you can get them to install one of those, uh, hanging planters for outside, maybe that'll help," Lila suggested Trudy that if she wanted to try her hands at it again, maybe having her plants in a hanging planter might've aided her chances, it'll be off the ground.
Trudy had similar thoughts, but she doesn't know where she'd put them, the back area of the hospital's for everyone there, and she couldn't take up too much of it, it wouldn't be fair for the others.
"Um, maybe have one of those little hanging ones near the undersides of the porch, up from the ground, not taking up any spaces, easier for you to water, and maybe it'll keep whatever's eating your plants away. They won't come near the building if it's by the windows and there's people moving around, right?" Lila gave Trudy another suggestion.
If she can't have the larger hanging planters, maybe she'll have better luck with the smaller planters that hang by hooks on the sides of porches.
They won't take up space in the back area, they're by the windows, that'll keep most animals from coming close because of constant movements from patients and doctors.
Nodding, her blond curly hair bouncing, Trudy responded that it's a good idea, there's tomato plants that hang down like vines, she'll be able to grow them without risking the plants breaking under their own weight.
Peppers, well, if they can't grow in the small hanging planters like the tomatoes, one little planter with a pole or two on the railing's a good compromise.
"See, you'll have a bountiful harvest, next year," Lila encouraged Trudy thinking out of the box and keeping her dreams of managing a garden alive.
Checking the time, Lila excused herself as she went and managed the rest of the schedule for the day, it wasn't bad at all, checking on the patients, shuffling paperwork, answering questions when possible, seeing Theodore in the hall way mor than once as he's doing his part. Almost like the library in some ways, without Hammond and Theodore having bouts of brotherly differences.
Next on her schedule, Lila's checking on a patient that doesn't come out of his room much, but keeps himself busied by making masks, he picked up on the craft since he was only a child, and when he became institutionalized due to a manic episode resulting in an officer slashed by the box knife he wielded, he picked it up again, as a therapeutic solution.
There's an annotation warning that he doesn't like people touching his masks without permission, duly noted, and Lila stood by the closed door with her clipboard in hand, waiting for her latest patient, Tommy, the aforementioned by Trudy.
The door opened on it's own, but Tommy wasn't standing in the doorway, and Lila opted for caution as she called out for him, but he didn't answer.
Chewing on her lip, Lila went inside his bedroom, immediately, she sees the completed masks on the four walls of his room.
Different masks from your classic vampires to something more intricate like a Madi Gras mask with glued multicolored studs taking the place of eyebrows.
Judging from the way they looked, Tommy made them within months of staying at the hospital.
Not bad, if Lila says so herself, much more detailed than the ones commonly sold in stores around Halloween time that's overpriced and have the shelf-life of a carnival goldfish in some instances.
Once Tommy gets out of the hospital, he ought to think about trying his hand at going professional with his masks, maybe he'll get his start selling custom masks or maybe even get work experience on movie sets.
Just a thought.
"Um, Mr… Mr… White?" Lila looked down at the clipboard, looking for Tommy's full name, trying to keep things cordial as she stood part of the bedroom.
Tommy's twin sized bed took one corner of the bedroom, probably moved it closer to the wall so he'd have room for his workbench that took up a considerable portion of his bedroom.
There's two doors on the left side of the bedroom, one's his closet, and the other his bathroom.
Having their own private areas' supposedly helped patients have their own safe spaces and autonomy.
Not to say the hospital doesn't conduct random searches every now and again for the sake of following the rules, but they do it in a fashion that their patients wouldn't have issues.
A mere small dresser towards the right side of the wall near the bed, the top cluttered with random knickknacks and a picture frame of Tommy and someone standing next to him, probably his sister.
"Mr. White?" Lila called out one more time as her chestnut eyes looked around the bedroom.
She hadn't seen the patient and from what it looked, he doesn't leave his room much unless it's for sessions with his doctor and when he's called for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Concerned, Lila stepped further into his room, trying to find him, and as she stepped closer to his workbench, cluttered with different fabrics, paints, everything needed for a mask, Lila felt a presence behind her.
When she turned around, she felt a jolt of adrenaline and nearly screamed like one of the famous scream queens of Hollywood.
She recoiled as the black beak moved and she felt her heart jump a couple of beats as she's looking at what's basically Death, with wings, in the face, in front of her.
She sees her reflection in those human green eyes while the rest looked like a sick twisted experiment.
George rushed in after hearing her scream, he was down the hall checking on a patient, when he stepped beside her, he immediately talked down to Tommy for scaring Lila.
"Take that off," George ordered him like a teacher would a student.
Pulling off the raven mask, Tommy's floppy dirty blond hair cascaded down his head as he looked at Lila with his quizzical green eyes.
Exhaling sharply, George turned his head towards Lila as he says that it's not uncommon for Tommy spooking people with his masks.
He's harmless, but his masks weren't when it came to frightening people.
Especially, when Tommy wanted to have fun at their expenses.
"Sorry," Tommy grumbled as he held his mask carefully, keeping the beak to the side as he held it with his free hand. "I was only testing it."
Looking at the mask in his hands, Lila sees the exposed black latex of the mask around the face, the beak looked like a mix of paper reinforced with whatever Tommy found, the rest covered with blackened fake feathers, oiled by paint.
"Y-you made that?" Lila stared at the mask as she noticed similarities to something that she sometimes had nightmares about, months after encountering it.
Nodding as he went and put it on the exposed hook on one of the walls, Tommy said he started the project some time ago, had a lot of failures, this one's one of his better attempts.
He's having problems with the weight of the beak, it's heavier than the rest of the mask, that he risks the beak coming off, tearing the mask in the process.
"W-well, it looks like it's staying on," Lila tells Tommy, uncomfortable looking at that mask.
If he's looking into becoming a professional costume maker on a set for a horror movie, he'll have awards to his name by the end of the project.
Seeing that mask, just brought up some bad memories for Lila, having witnessed something that kept up with her despite her running a marathon and finding her in the darkness of the UNIT building.
While it's been months since the incident and they haven't encountered anything like it again, it didn't leave Lila's mind so easily as one expected for something that was an one-off encounter.
She watched enough horror movies that she shouldn't have problems, but here she was, facing death in the face, her reflection appearing in those damn human eyes, and it played with her like a bored child. It knew it could've easily overtaken her, but it let her flee while it still kept up with her.
Hadn't Theodore saved her and the doors opening as they did, who knows what would've happened.
Hokey and illogical, Lila knows, she encountered Daleks and the like daily that it shouldn't affected her so much, but something about the whole thing, it just resonated with her the most.
"You all right, now?" George asks Lila if she's calmed down and she nodded, watching him leave Tommy's bedroom before telling him not to do it again, he wouldn't like if someone did it to him.
Once he left, Lila went over the clipboard, asking questions, checking on Tommy, and he gave his answers, that he's fine, and again, he's sorry about scaring her, but he really wanted to make sure this attempt worked out better.
"Oh, I'm sure it will," Lila coughed as she briefly looked at the mask with fear in her chestnut eyes.
There's some things she won't ever forget, those human eyes looking back at her in that inhuman body, one of them.