Insanity

[Brian]

From Chapter Two -- for Nathan

You wake up trapped.  You can feel that you're restrained, tied to some sort of chair, but your body won't cooperate.  You can't even move to try and escape, though occasionally your limbs surrender spastic twitches, as though from some passing fit.

A single overhead light provides a pool of illumination around you, showing a linoleum appearing floor.  Two voices drift through the darkness.  "Dr. Hathoway, I'm quite sure that Dr. Shuker has has enough.  I believe it's time to return him to quarters."

"Nonsense," Dr. Hathoway replies, with a deep, booming voice, echoing with scarcely hidden anger.  "I know what I'm doing!  If we wish to retrieve him from madness, we must continue!"

A figure emerges from the darkness, even as the voices continue to argue.

"We're not getting anywhere!  I've told you more than once that anabaric stress is only occasionally a useful tool to restore clarity -- and in other cases a disciplinary tool for the troubled.  Here, you're doing nothing but tormenting the poor man!"

The figure is an old man, probably in his sixties, wearing a tweed jacket and neat pants.  A pipe is clutched between his teeth.  You also notice that -- for whatever reason -- he casts no shadow, and the darkness of the room beyond is somehow visible through him.

"Ridgewick," the booming voice says, now dripping with acid, "where is your certificate?"

"I....  Doctor?"

Removing the pipe from his mouth, the spectral figure cocks his head to one side.

"When did you pass through the progression gate that granted you the titles and powers of a doctor?  When were these honors conferred to you?"

"I....  I'm sorry, Doctor.  I'll prepare the anabaric device, but until tomorrow we won't have enough anabaric power to accomplish anything more anyway."

"Imbecile."

"I say," the spectral figure says, in a wheezing, echoing voice.  "You're not my son at all.  How has this come to pass, if I might ask?"

[Rezantis]

Nathan fixes his gaze on the spectre - well, that answers why they think I'm mad - for lack of anything else visible.

"I am Nathan Shuker . . . maybe not the one you all expect . . . but I'm the one you have."

[Brian]

"Bah," Hathoway grumbles.  "We've accomplished nothing.  See that he's escorted to his cell.  I'm leaving."

Then the light abruptly increases, momentarily blinding Nathan.  The figure of Ridgewick appears, a small, mousy man.  A slamming door hides Hathoway from sight, and the brown-haired ... intern?  Assistant?

The lackey sighs, and then pulls a cord near the door.

Looking around, the room is immaculate, white, and very sterile looking.  There's a goodly amount of unidentifiable equipment lying around, including a  ... Jacob's Ladder?  There's a pair of antennae, and Ridgewick looks at Nathan meaningfully before flipping a switch.

Electrical power courses up between the two violently with a loud, ozone-scented crackle.  He flicks the switch back off as two ... orderlies?  Enter the room.  They're burly brutes -- look like identical twins.

They're dressed in simple, dark suits, complete with dark cravats, and bowler hats.  Their faces seem somehow ... incomplete.  Soft, and doughey.  Simple.

Their eyes are black and lack irises and whites -- just pits of darkness.  "Hrrrr?" one of them noises, leaning towards Ridgewick questioningly.

"See Dr. Shuker back to his quarters," the man says sourly.  "See that he's not injured!  And ... Dr. Shuker, if you can come back to yourself, you really must.  And soon."

"This is not the most suitable juncture for conversation," the specter (now even more ghostlike, in bright light) seems to realize.  "Hmm.  Still, if you're lucid, where my son was mad....  Well.  It's something, one supposes."

[Rezantis]

"I'm quite close enough to my wits, thank you," Nathan snorts, waiting for the interns to release him.

[Brian]

Ridgewick hesitates, squinting at Nathan.  Then he shakes his head abruptly, closing his eyes and rubbing the bridge of his nose.  "Carefully, now," he snaps.  "In the morning....  If you are recovered, you'll need to convince Hathoway, not me.  You should know that."

The spectre nods grimly.  "A right bastard, him," he confides in a whisper -- as though anyone else there could see him.

The orderlies grin, disturbingly.  Their teeth are very wrong.  Instead of having rows of them, they seem to have a solid mass of ivory that connects both jaws, wiry and tangles, like the teeth of a whale.  They're also yellowed and stained with ... something.  Creepy fellows.  Strong, too, once they undo the bindings keeping Nathan stuck to the chair, and haul him to his feet.

Then they pause, looking at him in consternation.  "Muuuugh?" one of them noises at his companion.

The other makes a, "Muuuh...." in response, and Ridgewick blinks in surprise.

"It....  It doesn't matter!" he says hotly.  "You brutes aren't half of what I am!  Hurry it up!"

[Rezantis]

"Noted," Nathan sounds unimpressed, ignoring the men manhandling him, "but Hathoway has always . . . enjoyed . . . his work.  You know that as well as anyone."

[Brian]

"We shouldn't even be speaking," Ridgewick mutters, as the orderlies half lead, half carry Nathan through the doorway, into the gas lamp lit hallway beyond.  The area is profoundly creepy, with looming darkness up near the ceilings, and at the corners of the vision.

Every so often, another identical orderly emerges from the darkness and stares at Nathan before continuing whatever assigned errand they're on.  Or maybe they just wander, free.  Hard to say.  The floors are immaculate white, which becomes a green-tinted, pale, haunting color under the gas lamps.

The walls are dark ... black?  Deep blue?  In the gloom, they seem to be almost no color at all, just sucking abscesses to highlight the floors.  The doors are all sturdy, thick affairs, painted green regularly, though not well.  Streaks and brushmarks show, catching the gaslight and making the portals gleam.  The ceiling is lost to utter blackness overhead, almost forcing one to duck their heads to fill their vision with the relatively comforting presence of the floor.

The specter vanishes as soon as Nathan crosses the threshold into the forbidding corridor.  It's probably just as well that he's being dragged; difficult to say if the trek would be made willingly any other way.

Ridgewick is either used to it, or doesn't care.  "But, as you say."  He fumes for a moment, then grumbles, "He's been through a gate.  I have not.  So, what is there for it?"  Then he blinks, seeming to recalls something.  "You've been through one, as well.  And back, which the priests always say is a terrible thing.  Did that witch-doctor ... that ... Christianson, was it?  What had you called him?"

[Rezantis]

"Bjorn," says Nathan simply.  He's paying more attention to the orderlies who keep appearing than Ridgewick, now, and lets himself be dragged down the corridor until he sees another stop and stare at him . . .

[Brian]

"Yes, right....  Well, your research shouldn't have driven you through the gate.  Some would say you were mad for that alone."  It's after another four green doors that another orderly stops, and stares.  "Still," Ridgewick says absently, "if the anabaric energies restore you, maybe it won't be so bad after all, eh?"

[Rezantis]

Nathan stares straight at the thing, trying to guage what it thinks of him.  If it's thinking anything.

[Brian]

Black eyes blink, and lips part to reveal a ... whatever it's got.  Yellowed filter of some sort.  It very quickly looks confounded, like something is missing, and noises, "Muuuhf."  Then turns abruptly away and continues.

"You've certainly gotten them riled," Ridgewick comments, stopping before another of the unlabeled doors.  He opens it, and the orderlies shove Nathan through.

The room inside is bare looking.  A mattress.  Padded walls.  A single electrical (is it?  It seems to be) light bulb hanging overhead, out of reach.  No windows.  Clean floor.

Nothing else whatsoever.

Ridgewick should probably close the door after that, but he doesn't, just standing outside as though something were incomplete, or missing.

[Rezantis]

"Even they can see it Ridgewick," Nathan says, turning around, "Did you want something?"

[Brian]

"To be a doctor," he says, slamming the door shut.  He may say something else after, but the door blocks all sound.  Except for the absurdly faint buzz of the light overhead, there's no sound beyond Nathan's heart and breath.

[Rezantis]

Nathan shrugs, then goes to sit on the mattress.  He's got some thinking to do - or maybe the spectre will show up again?

OOC: My influence by default is sitting in a +1 to anything.  Right now it's in +1 all int rolls, 3 points of conversation and 2 points of persuasion.

[Brian]

The specter does reappear as soon as the door is closed.  Which, now that Nathan looks back at it, lacks any nob.  It meshes quite well with the wall, except that the padding on the back of the door is green.

"Dreadful place," the ghostly figure says with a grimace.  "You must escape.  The key to that will be to show them your sanity.  Quickly, before those brutes become vexed with the lack of sustenance to draw from you."  He pauses.  "You are much more confident than my son was left."