Chapter 47: In Babylon
"Vlad, let's get you out of here."
The young man – a good day, not even a headache, he'd spent yesterday in the library and had been planning to work on his studies this afternoon – blinked at the nurse, who should have been bringing him lunch – and obviously hadn't.
Ziad looked determined, a critical eye on his patient, his closed hands on his hips.
Not the kind of determined where you could argue with the person, either. The older man didn't even look like an argument was feasible or something he considered.
Vlad wasn't sure of where they were even supposed to go, considering the clinic – and the rest of the organization's building – stood in the middle of the woods, with no other human constructions visible through the windows.
"...Let's go where?"
"To the communal area, for lunch. You've been holed up here for years, if we don't count the library, and I agree with the director that those outings have done you good, but you haven't made any progress in almost a month. I don't know what it is, but something... something got you apathetic, I hear you haven't been talking with the translators quite the same way too and they are worried about you. So I'm dragging you out of this room and to the communal area. You need to see people, to do something different."
"I..."
Something twisted in Vlad's guts people victims of ghosts victims of things with no care for human fragility of things like him things responsible for hurt and pain and it must have shown on his face, because Ziad shook his head.
"Vlad. You cannot stay cooped up here. One day you will walk out of this clinic, and the world will be more than just your bedroom, bathroom and a library. You've already been here much too long, you have to try and reacclimate yourself. The communal area is for people who are almost out, who can stand on their own two feet and socialize. You need that."
Vlad didn't say that he was far from "almost out".
He could at least function, now now that the transformation was complete now that he knew now that he could work on his powers. Maybe some days weren't good, maybe there were times he couldn't go out – but it was nothing like the first year.
the agony was done now
there was only death left to get used to
Vlad didn't have a valid argument only lies and truths he could not share only the inhumanity of what he'd become to counter Ziad's points, and he knew it.
At best, he didn't think himself ready deserving to see the other patients, and even if he said that...
Well. When would he ever feel ready? Ziad would know exactly what to say to that, and he wouldn't even be wrong. You could wait forever, trapped in your own little world, to be ready for anything, if you never made the decision to walk out and try.
It didn't mean he thought it to be a good idea, but.
Vlad stood up slowly, tugged on his clothes to get rid of the wrinkles.
He didn't have a better idea.
"Just lunch."
The nurse smiled at him.
"Of course, just lunch. If you want to stay longer, then we'll see, but for now..."
Vlad didn't think he'd ever want to, but Ziad was still right: he would need to get used to other people all over again, at some point. He might not... He wasn't sure he'd ever be healthy enough to be considered "cured" curing death what a laugh but maybe, one day... Maybe the clinic would deem him well enough alive enough to manage.
He'd go back home, try to find some little job that didn't call for precise hours. He could... ask Bianco if that offer for work, researching or working on the books, was still open, something he could do when he wasn't feeling badly. Live with his parents, perhaps. There would be hard days, and he wouldn't be good, but...
He guessed it would still be better than remaining in the clinic until the end of his life.
could he even die anymore?
after all
he was already dead
When they arrived in the communal area, a dozen or so people were already sitting there, all with a lunch plate in front of them. Vlad eyed a table with only one woman for half a moment before turning around in search of food, but Ziad pushed him gently on the shoulder.
"Go, sit. I'll get you your plate today."
Vlad hesitated – took note of where the nurse went to pick up a lunch plate – but finally wandered uneasily towards the almost empty table.
Some of the other patients eyed him weirdly do they know could they tell as he passed by their seats, but no one said anything, soon focusing back on their own food or on the conversations they'd been holding before his arrival.
Vlad tried to ignore the rashes, dark circles under the eyes or yellowish bruises. One man – large, tall, probably intimidating when you met him in a dark alley – had a broken arm with a plaster on.
Vlad, today, didn't look worse for wear. Tired, probably, but not overly so. Too thin, without any muscle left, too.
That was nothing. These people had never seen the necrosed hands, the ectoplasmic pimples.
The ghostly traits that used to remain stubbornly on his human body.
The woman sitting alone didn't even look up at him, pointedly not reacting to his intrusion except for a short pause. There was probably a reason why she was sitting alone to begin with.
It was for the best, really. If she ignored him, then Vlad... Vlad wouldn't have to try and make small talk. He wouldn't have to pretend he was alright with all this, that he could do it.
He sat down two seats left of the woman and looked ahead – at nothing, at no one, and certainly not at any of the victims of ghost attacks – until Ziad came back with the lunch plate.
The nurse gave him a look – but Vlad had sat down at a table with someone, he was there. He just wasn't... trying his best. But he was trying. Maybe he wouldn't get used to talking to people again quite yet – he'd never been the best at that, anyway – but he could work on getting used to their presence, at least.
Ziad put the food down in front of his patient and shook his head.
"Eat. I'll go and do a round of my other patients, and I'll pick you back up in, let's say, forty-five minutes. Try and make the most of it, please."
Vlad's answering smile was, perhaps, slightly forced.
His time eating was spent in silence, doing his best not to categorize everyone's injuries or wonder what they thought of him if there was something too obvious to hide something they picked up on if they knew.
It didn't work very well.
The communal area, in truth, was rather quiet. You could hear the slight buzz of conversation, but most spoke low, and no one laughed uproariously at anything. Some of the patients didn't look well, either – well enough to get up and come, but not necessarily better than Vlad himself – and perhaps they didn't feel up to much talking.
Perhaps Vlad did pass here. Perhaps, despite the truth and the lies and the things he kept to himself, he didn't look much different from what was normal here.
Unhealthy.
But it didn't change the fact that they were all victims – and not him. He was the monster.
The broken arm was from a ghost throwing its owner around, most likely. The older woman trembling at the slightest sound? The teenager who kept scratching at a red rash on his neck?
The woman sitting at his right, with her short choppy hair – like it had been shaved in a rush for emergency care, and then cut to make the shaving less obvious – and a large bandage across her left shoulder, visible even under her t-shirt. She was more muscular than he'd first thought, about his age, and Vlad wondered if she, too, was an agent – on leave because of a field injury, obviously.
They were all here because a ghost had hurt them.
Vlad stared back at his lunch plate. Still twenty minutes to go, and Ziad would be back. Not that Vlad needed the nurse to get back to his room, he knew the way, but three quarters of an hour was a reasonable time and they'd agreed that he'd wait for the older man.
As far as everyone else knew, Vlad had never moved through the clinic alone – that one time he'd fallen through the floor didn't really count, and he'd been escorted back to his room then. There was always an agent leading him to the library, even if he knew the way now.
And apart from that, well. Vlad just didn't leave his bedroom, so.
A glance at the clock up on the wall.
Eighteen minutes left.
"Aren't you the guy from Room 12?"
Vlad jumped in his chair a bit.
The woman with the choppy hair was squinting at him, now – and if she was truly an agent, not only a civilian who'd been caught up in ghostly business and didn't know anything about Bianco's organization, then she might know more, then she might have heard about him already.
about the patient who wouldn't leave about the one who'd been possessed by a ghost about the two years and a half spent in a clinic where no one stayed for more than a month
Vlad didn't get out of his room, except to go to the library. He'd never spoken to any of the other patients, had barely crossed paths with a handful of them. There was no reason for anyone to know about the guy from Room 12 – except for the obvious.
the freak who wouldn't die
He couldn't do this.
Someone else would tell Ziad he'd left.