She survived...if you can call it that, her mind is scattered and fractured. She is conscious but unaware of most things around her. Partially due to the heavy medication, partially the trauma.
3 Months Earlier
She awoke to someone placing something in her arm, and she reacted, violently. "Gahaaaaa!" she ripped it out and brandished it like a blade, slashing at the poor nurse. He attempted to dodge, but she caught him entirely by surprise, if not for her weakened state lasting damage would've happened to his leg.
"ORDERLY!", he shouted clamping a hand to his bleeding thigh. Several burly men came into the room and surrounded her. Eyes wide with confusion and fear she backed into a corner screaming incoherently. As she twisted trying to keep everyone in her line of sight, she ripped the stitches in her stomach, pain causing her to release the needle. The orderlies took action tackling the paling woman to the ground striving to limit damage inflicted to her already taxed frame. Hannah fainted, from fear or blood loss only a doctor could say, but it made placing the IV and closing her stitches much easier.
Four more times she woke and attacked, four more times she had to be strapped back to the bed.
Doctor Thaddeus Monroe maintained a hectic schedule ever since the alien attack a month ago, many didn't survive, those who did had permanent damage either physical or mental. Hannah Everest was one of the few with both, the shot she received would have been fatal if it were from an Earthly weapon. Due to the extraterrestrial nature, it was a clean wound in and out, her biggest threat: head trauma and her apparent unstable mental state.
He studied her medical file and shook his head. It was no wonder she reacted in the way she did with what the Manila folder revealed. Even so, she had consistently proved a danger to herself and others, and he felt he had no choice but to recommend she be transferred to a mental facility for a thorough mental evaluation. He sighed and shook his head, drafting a final report on the young woman who survived so much only to end up broken, perhaps beyond repair.
She sits on the thin sheets covering an even thinner mattress. Her days are spent in a daze only deepened by her stay at the institute she currently called home. The door opened with a metallic click, her head never moving from staring at the wall.
"Greetings Hannah. How are we today?", a voice filled with honey; to outsiders it was pleasant, calming even, but to the many patients it addresses it only adds to their anxiety. "Not speaking still? Tsk, you can at least attempt to glance my way." the voice continues. Hannah still doesn't react, not out of spite, she merely wasn't there.
A primitive slab in the middle of a shadowy arena, the floor is covered in various colored stains. Movement can be seen at the edges of the darkness, mechanical and ridged, definitely not human, too tall, too thin. They swarmed at the fringe, unwilling...or perhaps unable to break free, toward the illuminated raised slab.
From a floor level stairway, a creature of a different caliber entered, arena-bound. With its appearance the swarm stilled and a quiet clicking could be heard. Too many fingers on humanoid hands were crossed across its chest. The skin dusky indigo and covered in an elaborate cloak, its face is partially obscured by the cowl, a gold cage enveloped its mouth without hindering its ability to speak.
"Hello Jotunn..." the voice rasped, as if it was rarely used, it addressed a figure struggling on the slab. "Enough of that calm yourself or I will do it for you...", the figure continued to thrash. A cruel smile appeared as if pleased with the defiance and it raised its hand, in it was a wicked looking device that glowed white before being placed on the forehead of the man. "AUGHHHHHH!"
Something grips Hannah's arm and she slowly turns her vacant eyes to the offending hand. "So, you still respond to physical stimuli. That's...good." The voice again, if she heard it, Doctor Andrews wouldn't be able to tell, her face remains placid. His mouth turns down in a frown noticing that once again her hair is in an unacceptable state. "James?' he calls out to the nearest orderly.
"Yessir?" a deep voice answers.
"Why have you not kept her head shaven as per my request?" Dr. Andrews says a smile on his pointed face pulls flesh taunt, it distracts from the dangerous glint in his brown eyes. James audibly gulps and rushes off. "Now...Hannah," he utters her name akin to savoring a particularly good piece of meat, "we are going to take care of that disgusting rat's nest, don't you worry." he coos. Her gaze remains locked on his boney hand, noticing it he gives a squeeze...slowly increasing pressure while monitoring her face. No reaction to the bruising pressure being placed on her arm.
Hmm. before he can contemplate more James returns with a worn pair of clippers, he pauses at the doorway catching his breath and waiting for permission. Dr. Andrews rolls his eyes at the incompetence of his staff. "Come in, come in James." motioning to hand him the clippers, Dr. Andrews rises from the bed, springs groaning in protest.
James nears Hannah's prone figure and prepares to grab her shoulders, he is painfully familiar with her outbursts and sports a scar or two from past encounters.
Dr. Andrews entered the examination room, its walls painted beige in an effort to calm nerves. A young woman is strapped to the bed, her blue eyes wild and searching, her arms flexed anxiously in her restraints. "Hannah, my name is Dr. Andrews. Do you know where you are?"
Hannah's eyes snapped in his direction, her mouth working wordlessly. He grinned and several burly attendees slid into the room behind him. She paled momentarily before her breathing took on a ragged quality, she was panicking and her eyes became unfocused. What does she see in this moment? he mused before continuing with the evaluation. "I'll take that as a no. Now then, can you tell me why you think you're here?" no response his smile faltered. He snapped his fingers in a futile attempt at gaining her attention, a small flinch in the corner of her eye was rewarding enough for the smile to return. Testing the limits of this reaction he slammed his binder closed with a loud crack.
Hannah's eyes began to roll, searching the room for whatever ghosts she perceived. In her panicked thrashing, she draws blood where skin meets restraints. A few orderlies approach, a bad decision on their part as a blood-slicked hand lashed out and claws sank into exposed flesh. "AUGHH" James clutched his arm fleeing to seek treatment. Dr. Andrews slunk across the room "That's enough now." a syringe to her neck and Hannah complies, going limp.
James shakes the memories away and focuses on Hannah, she is calm seemingly uninterested or unaware of what is taking place. Dr. Andrews has moved away to observe from the corner. Always watching and always taking notes, his obsessive nature lends itself well to the field he has chosen to work in. James and his fellow orderlies carefully restrain her, muscles taut in preparation for the smallest sign of a fit. Hannah seems to allow them this, her head lolling to one side as they complete their task.
Jotting one last note in his file, Dr. Andrews strolls boldly forward, "Time for your pills, Hannah. Open wide like a good girl." an orderly shifts in place, not entirely comfortable with the tone of voice being used. Nonetheless, she allows the pills and water to pass her lips and even swallows them without much fight. After checking her mouth and finding the pills are indeed gone, Dr. Andrews nods and the orderlies leave. After the last burly frame abandons the doorway, a subtle shift in atmosphere takes place, a gloomy room becomes more desolate; seemingly oblivious, Hannah shifts closer to the wall.
After taking a moment to clean his glasses, Dr. Andrews strides over to the bed and places a large hand upon bald scalp. "Hannah, you have made such progress." he is, of course, referring to the pliable state she was constantly in due to medication. He slowly begins to stroke her head, smile growing wider, taking his other hand he brings it close to her ear and snaps. Hannah's eyes widen but no other reaction can be seen. "Hmn..." the hand is removed and he walks to the door. "Dinner will arrive in ten minutes."
After Dr. Andrews leaves she seems to collapse inside herself, seemingly more confused than before her external vision fading from memory like most of her day to day interactions. Underneath her thin hospital clothes her skin is littered with mystery bruises and marks varying in size and stages of healing, Hannah doesn't remember getting them and her mind files the strange situation away as unimportant. Her mind...it was healing, or so it seemed, thanks to the copious pills shoved in her mouth several times a day, what was once a frightening existence is now a numb, hazy paradise. Except those fucking hallucinations during one of her more lucid moments she had decided that they were merely caused by the pills, never mind the fact they happened before she even started being medicated, it was the safest explanation she could come up with.
A loud knock sends her back into her body and she balefully looks at James with the tray. He flinches away as she lurches for the food, her medicine making her uncoordinated and jerky. A raised sleeve exposes several yellow and green handprints.
A moonless night cast everything into shadow as the sun set completely, the weak starlight barely piercing the veil of gloom in Hannah's room. In the safety of the dark, she huddled deeper in her small blanket, the unfamiliar room caused her anxiety to teeter on the edge of complete panic. "I can't be here..." she muttered, stressed almost to breaking after the third time of refusing pills. "They are so much stronger here... so much more frequent. I can't stand it." her whimpers grew in volume as thudding footsteps halted at her door. "Nononononono..." hinges opened silently and a blinding shaft of light cut the stifling darkness, while seemingly wave after wave of orderlies came in. multiple hands to a limb with vice-like pressure. Hannah screamed and thrashed, more hands were added to the fray, soon all she could do was moan in anguish as Dr. Andrews entered the room. "Hello, Hannah." his tone made her skin crawl and the look in his eye made it worse, in his right hand a small paper cup, in his left a medieval-looking device.
"Stay the FUCK AWAY!" she renewed her attempt at escape and was thwarted as the pressure increased painfully. He strode forward his signature smile widening as he fit the metal device between her lips, levering her jaws apart he stared directly into her eyes as he deposited the medication with a sick satisfaction. After she was forced to swallow or suffocate, Andrews procured a tranquilizer filled syringe to finish the deed. Her last thought before darkness descended was of absolute hatred for Dr. Andrews.
Hannah remembers none of it, the pills do their job and as a side-effect keep her mind from remembering. She finishes her meal, turning back towards her usual spot, time slipping unnoticed, twilight approaching the only indicator of its passage; at this moment a small part of her mind fights against the drugs keeping her placid. A plan is hatched and set into motion, and Hannah smiles into space.