I decided to refine the Outside the Box concept a little more now that I have more time on my hands, my junior year of college now completed. I hope you guys are not bothered by that, and I hope you enjoy this chapter. If you ever wish to contact me off this site, find me on Discord at Lord Lucas#7822 for now.
Also, thank you to Kai the Raichu for giving me characters I will use later in this story. He has been invaluable in that regard.
Current music: Mediate - INXS
"So, Danny, tell me about your feelings."
The boy sat in a swivel chair across from Mr. Prussia's computer. The fact that the chair was a swivel chair as opposed to a stationary one, of course, felt good; it was far superior for the purpose of some sensory stimulation. Of course, a rocking chair would have been even better.
"My…feelings, sir?" Danny enquired with a slight gulp.
Mr. Prussia nodded. "Yes, Daniel Sham. I want to hear about your feelings. Please describe them, as thoroughly as you are willing to."
Danny could feel his face turning red. If he were being perfectly honest, as thoroughly as he was willing pretty much meant zero. The last thing he wanted was to drone on and on about how he felt, just because it wasn't right.
No. Scratch that. It wasn't that it was wrong to tell them - he could trust Mr. Prussia. At a minimum, if he couldn't trust his therapist/pharmacist, he couldn't trust anyone. But, just as life would be outside the walls of the Ketchum Institute, he needed to trust someone.
So he came clean.
"Well, it's complicated," Danny admitted, blushing. He had to be blushing, for his face felt hot, yet his sweat glands, hyperactive at his current age, did not produce much moisture.
"We have time, Daniel" Mr. Prussia responded, adjusting his glasses so that they didn't fall down his nose. "In fact, we have all the time in the world."
"No, we don't," Danny responded. "Time is a lot more valuable than that. To have all the time in the world implies that we could be here for all of eternity and never need anything."
Mr. Prussia chuckled. "Good one, Daniel."
"Whatever" the boy told the pharmacist. "Just, please…what did you want me to tell you again?" Truth be told, he probably had ADHD as well, though the powers that were at the Institute had never seen fit to evaluate him for that.
"I wanted you to tell me," Mr. Prussia continued, "what these feelings of yours have been. Now, don't be shy - everyone tends to experience them around your age."
"They do?" Danny asked, speaking quickly. "It's not just me? But how do you know what my feelings are when I haven't told you yet?"
"There are certain things we know about the human brain and how it operates. That includes brains like yours, which aren't quite like other brains in the world. So please, Daniel - what's on your mind today?"
The boy cast a wide glance around the room. When Danny was younger, he'd used the room adjacent to this one, connected to the office via a glass door, for therapy. There'd been all sorts of play equipment there, including a sensory swing - everything that could make a child feel comfortable in spite of everything.
But now Danny was fifteen, old enough that he had to face the real world and not hide in that cocoon, not let the strong fabric envelop him and hide him from adulthood.
And then he realized that Mr. Prussia had been staring at him the whole time, expecting an answer. Meanwhile, the teen had been staring off into space, probably looking as zoned out as if he were on drugs.
"I was just thinking…about life."
"Huh," Mr. Prussia replied. "Please continue."
"Well, I was thinking about Katie. You know her, right - one of the girls in this place?"
"I cannot comment on the other patients. It's for confidentiality's sake - I'm sure you understand."
"It's not about her" Danny told Mr. Prussia. "It's about me. I keep thinking about her."
The adult man raised an eyebrow. "What about her?"
It was then that Danny made a mistake. Sometimes, apparently, people like him said things without thinking first. His condition, as he was constantly told, was a reason, not an excuse.
"Well, it would be nice to stroke her hair. Maybe hug her, or just spend time with her."
Immediately after Danny finished that sentence, he clamped his hand over his mouth. He could hardly believe the words he'd just uttered, and from the looks of it, neither could his therapist.
A long, loud silence filled the room, and Mr. Prussia did not seem to know what to say. Eventually, however, the man pushed his chair back from his desk and started dancing his fingers around the keyboard.
"What are you typing?" Danny inquired.
"Just a prescription for you," the man responded. "There will be instructions written on the bottle, just like any other prescription."
"But I don't get it," the boy said. "I'm not sick or anything."
Based on the look Mr. Prussia gave Danny at that moment, the man might as well have been telling the boy: Oh, my sweet, sweet summer child. You don't know what you're saying!
"It doesn't mean anything's wrong with you" Mr. Prussia continued. "Plenty of people at the Institute take anti-anxiety meds. I can't say exactly which patients do because, again, confidentiality. But it's far from abnormal."
Danny did not say anything.
"Later, you'll go to the pharmacy to pick up your medication. It'll help with the Stirrings. It'll make it so that you don't experience them anymore. That's what you want, isn't it?"
The boy sighed as he cast another look around the office. The staff at the Institute were constantly reminding him to look them in the eye, an action that was far more draining than Danny wanted to admit, or the staff wanted to accept. But sometimes, he just couldn't help it.
"I understand," Danny eventually replied in a blank tone.
"Look me in the eye," Mr. Prussia told him, "and then tell me you understand. Because nobody trusts a person who won't look them in the eye. They just aren't seen as trustworthy. And that's what might await you if you're not careful."
"I understand."
"Also, this isn't a video game, Daniel. You shouldn't sound like a robot all the time - don't just press X to continue. Do you get that?"
Danny sighed. "Yes, I get that. I need to act naturally, because others deserve to feel comfortable around me."
Mr. Prussia smiled. "I'm so glad we understand each other."
After that, the meeting ended, and Danny was allowed to return to his dorm room. As he walked the halls of the Ketchum Institute, Danny kept glancing out each of its many windows in turn, hoping against hope that it would provide him with a greater feeling of freedom.
The halls had tiled floors with lockers on either side. There were even a few cafeterias, a gym with a basketball court, climbing wall, and swimming pool, and several other rooms that might not have been out of place at a public high school.
There was one difference, however, that set this place apart from a public high school. At the latter institution, one could leave at the end of the day, or earlier if one wasn't feeling well. And when summer vacation rolled around, one was free for two and a half glorious months.
This was not the case at the Ketchum Institute. The inpatients were not permitted to leave the campus under any circumstances, unless they were given special permission to do so. But "special permission" was very hard to come by, so much so that some of the residents seemed to believe it a myth.
Once Danny reached the building that contained the dorm rooms, his heart feeling heavier with each step, he knocked on the door. That was the polite thing to do, after all, not to barge in without permission or consideration of the person on the other side.
"Come in" a rather bored tone sounded from beyond the door.
Danny swung the door open. In a room that was only slightly less sterile than a hospital's Intensive Care Unit, there sat two identical twin beds with colorful sheets containing a sideways number eight - the symbol for infinity. Supposedly it referenced neurodivergence, though Danny felt tempted to call bullshit on that theory, since the staff didn't seem to see neurodivergence as a gift.
Tyler Quell, a bespectacled teen boy who shared the room with Danny, sat up in bed, his back propped up on a three-corner pillow. His skinny arms held a book about public transit systems in various cities of Kanto, one he'd kept asking Danny to read with him. (The other boy had declined, however, because it only brought tears to his eyes.)
"Good afternoon, Danny," Tyler told his roommate, looking up from the book. "How was your meeting?"
"Eh, the same as usual," Danny responded. "Except that he said to go to the pharmacy later."
"Are they giving you the pills?"
"Uh, I'd assume so. I'd hope so, because liquid medicine always tasted gross as a kid."
"Understandable. We're both about that age, aren't we?" Tyler replied. "The age when they say things start stirring?"
"That's what he called it" Danny mouthed. "The Stirrings."
"Well, that sounds like one of those old stories about magic and monsters," Tyler said. "Just like a fairy tale, in other words. And quite frankly, I think fairy tales are stupid."
"I could say the same about your book," Danny muttered.
Tyler gasped, dropping his book into his lap. "What do you mean?"
"You keep asking me to read that book. And I keep refusing, because it's just too damn sad."
"It's a form of escapism, I guess," Tyler admitted. "It's cool to think about going to Saffron City, or Cerulean City, or Cinnabar Island. Even if that's not in our future. Or, perhaps, especially if that's not in our future."
"You don't get it," Danny contended. "It just makes me upset. They're going to hide us away just because we're different. Really, who does that? Jerks, that's who!"
With that, Danny collapsed onto his bed and began rocking back and forth. This was a behavior the staff had labeled as "stimming", a habit they said he needed to lose sooner rather than later. (He'd been doing it less often as of late, but still suffered the occasional relapse.)
"I just want to do something fun one day," Danny admitted. "Like to fly away on the back of a Dragonite - that'd be awesome."
Tyler sighed. "I don't blame you. But what if they're right?"
Danny raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, what if they're right?"
"What if they've got a point? Maybe we're being sheltered from the world because we just can't handle it. Maybe they're actually right about that."
Danny didn't know how to feel about that statement. He curled up into a ball, another habit that came back whenever he felt overwhelmed. And he put his head in his hands, shaking it from side to side.
"I just wish we had a choice. My parents didn't give me one - they just plopped me off here as soon as I was diagnosed. That's what they tell me here, anyway."
Tyler sighed. "Believe me, I do too. I guess we have a choice, though - do we stay miserable forever, or do we try to deal with it as best we can?"
"I don't know, Tyler. I really don't. But about the Stirrings - do you take medication for that too?"
Danny realized belatedly that this might not have been the best thing to ask. Tyler was entitled to confidentiality in his medical matters, after all, just like Danny himself was. Just because Danny had been open about it didn't mean his roommate had to be.
But Tyler didn't seem offended. He nodded.
"It might be natural, or it might not be."
"It's a drug, Tyler. Of course it's not natural."
Tyler snorted. "Well, whenever I don't take it, I feel dizzy. The first time I forgot one night, it was like I had a fever. I was pretty diligent about it after that! But on a different note, who did you dream about last night?"
Danny gulped. He didn't know if he should divulge this right away - but Tyler was his closest confidant, the pair of boys having shared the same room since they were literal toddlers. Even if Danny's trust in Mr. Prussia was shaky at times, he could surely confide in Tyler.
"Katie. That girl in here, the one our age. Her."
The response from Tyler was instantaneous.