“Why am I in here again?” Lucy asks as she glances wildly around the office, eyes slightly glazed, not seeming to see her surroundings. “He knows I’m in here. He’ll come soon.”
Doctor Numan leans in towards Lucy and takes her hands. Speaking softly, trying to calm her down, she asks. “Who is coming Lucy? Who is he, who knows you are here?”
Lucy stops looking around and leans in, focusing all of her attention to the doctor. Suddenly she reaches out and grabs the doctor’s wrists tightly, her eyes become clear and intense as she responds. “Him. The Overseer. He will be here soon. You are not safe.”
“How does he know you are here Lucy?”
Lucy’s lips draw back and she smiles. Doctor Numan fights to suppress a sudden shiver that runs up her spine, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up at attention. “He is already on his way. You are not safe here. I suggest you run!” The last word said with such force that it is almost a scream. Lucy releases her hold on Doctor Numan and slumps over onto the arm of the overstuffed chair she is sitting in; her long, dark, auburn hair falling over the side. She almost looks like a kid sitting in daddy’s chair, but Doctor Numan knew it was an optical illusion as she was almost the same size as her patient. She had found that using two large chairs, instead of the “traditional” couch, put her patients at ease by making them think it was more of a one on one conversation as opposed to her examining them and they could still curl up or stretch out if they needed to.
Doctor Numan leans back in her own chair absently rubbing at her sore wrists as she watches her patient for any sign that she might have more to say. She can feel the bruises beginning to form and she is glad that her dark complexion will hide most, if not all, of the visible marks. Beyond her name, which was all she had been willing to say when she had first arrived, there wasn’t much Doctor Numan knew about this woman. No one had been able to find any family yet and she wasn’t from the area. Lucy wasn’t alone, though. Four other women had shown up a couple of months before her in the same catatonic state. After a few minutes Doctor Numan sighs and reaches behind her depressing a little white button on the side of her desk. The office door opens and two men in teal scrub walk in.
“Rodger, Scott, Please escort Ms. Taylor back to her room.”
The men nod and one leaves returning a moment later with a wheelchair. They lift Lucy up and place her into the wheelchair, then wheel her out of the room. After they are gone, Doctor Numan stands up and heads out of her office. As she steps into the hall, she turns to her left and opens the door to a smaller room where six people sit talking to each other softly. Multiple chairs are lined up in two rows facing a large pane of glass looking into Doctor Numan’s office. The room itself is bare aside from the chairs and a speaker box directly below the glass. Doctor Numan waits until the conversations stop and all are looking at her.
“As you can see ladies and gentlemen Lucy Taylor, like the other four, has shown no significant signs of improvement in the past six months. I would like to petition the board for permission to start electroconvulsive therapy on all of them as a means of reducing the cationic episodes.”
They all look at each other and nod. One of them, an older gentleman dressed in a gray pinstrip business suit with gray beginning in the temples of his black hair, stands up and addresses the doctor. “We feel that it is too soon to start such a radical treatment. None of the ladies have been here for more than a year and they are not posing a danger to themselves or others. At this time we are recommending continued one on one therapy combined with medication. We will reevaluate in four months’ time.” As the rest of the board members stand to leave Doctor Numan steps to the side to allow them to pass. After the last one exits, she turns returns to her office.