Narrative: Day Two Post-Abduction Who: Puck, Sam, Dr. Monroe (NPC), other NPCs When: February 22 Where: ??? What: Puck starts "therapy"
Puck wanted to get going with this therapy bullshit as soon as possible, but the man who'd spoken with him, and refused to give a name, told Puck that he needed another night of rest to recover from his injuries before he could start something like therapy. Puck set the bedsheets on fire. The next thing he knew, he was waking up to a breakfast tray, delivered by a male nurse this time.
A while later, a man wearing a white lab coat came into the room (the door was locked; Puck had checked despite the stupid IV in his arm). He was balding a little, but otherwise had thick white hair and a salt-and-pepper beard. "Hello, Noah. I'm Doctor Monroe. I'm a psychiatrist and I have more experience teaching people like ourselves how to control their powers than anyone else in the world, as far as I know."
Puck gave a sort of grimacing smile and nodded, "Good for you, dude."
"Yes, well," the doctor replied, giving him a tight-lipped smile and sitting in the chair next to Puck's hospital bed. "The general idea behind the work we're going to be doing is giving you mental pathways that you can use to focus and harness your power."
"So I won't accidentally kill anyone anymore?" Puck asked.
"Exactly. Now," Dr. Monroe crossed his legs and sat back in his chair, "you'll notice that we've drugged you and that you'll be unable to use your power until the drug wears off."
"What the hell?" Puck frowned, crossing his arms over his chest. No wonder he felt weird since waking up. He supposed he could see where they were coming from with wanting to keep him from destroying the place, but still. "What did you give me?"
The doctor shrugged. "Valium. We find it keeps the brain from working up to the excited state required in order to actualize supernatural effects. Don't worry. It's very safe." After sighing and readjusting himself in his seat, Dr. Monroe said, "Noah, I want you to tell me what was going through your mind when you started the library fire."
Puck really wanted out of this place, or even just out of this one room, so he tried to think back, but all he got was panicked voices and images of books on fire. "I don't know."
"Think, Noah. You do know."
"I guess," Puck sighed, scratching the bed sheets with one the nails of one hand, since he couldn't seem to do much else, "I noticed some books that Sarah likes and that made me think about why she was in the hospital."
Looking up from his clipboard, Dr. Monroe said, "She's there because of you."
"You don't think I fucking know that?" Puck hissed, really wishing he could feel mad or sad or guilty or something, but the drugs they had him on were fucking with all of that.
"Yes, well, we're here to teach your brain how to follow more ... productive lines of thought," the doctor replied and Puck though that sounded like a bunch of BS, but figured if he wanted to get out of here anytime before he was old and wrinkled, he had to play along. "I want to try some visualization exercises, now. Meditation, if you will. Give your brain an image to focus on so you can always come back to that calm, serene state."
"Meditation," Puck nodded. "Great. Awesome."
~~**~~
Sometime later, as the Valium was wearing off and Puck was getting pretty good at visualizing that candle burning and then going out, Dr. Monroe let him get dressed in scrubs instead of a hospital gown, and start walking around.
"You'll be limited to this floor," the male nurse told him as he was taking the bag off his IV and capping it off with a little piece of plastic, even though Puck kept willing him to take it out entirely, "because we've got safety measures in place here, in case you lose control."
Puck didn't care to ask what safety measures they had in place, but he hoped they didn't involve tasers. Getting zapped by one of those things fucking sucked.
He wandered around, limping through the really empty hallways, past closed doors and one open one that led to a lounge with a Foosball table and a bookcase with a few worn books. He wondered what these people had told his nana about where he was or if they were just letting her think he'd run out, like his old man. They'd taken his cell phone, or he'd lost it while getting beat up or something, but there weren't any other phones around, so it wasn't like he could call her.
After playing a sad round of Foosball with himself and poking at the books for a few minutes, Puck decided he was tired and made his way back toward his bed. Getting the crap kicked out of you, getting kidnapped and drugged, and then spending the whole morning "meditating" was exhausting. And not in the good way.
He was almost back to his room when he passed a door that was open and saw the occupant of the bed lying there, presumably asleep. "Sam?"
A lady doctor (or a woman wearing a lab coat anyway) told Puck, "He's been having some issues controlling his new power. We brought him in a few hours ago and he's still ... adjusting."
"New power?" Puck asked. It was weird enough that most of the kids in town now had superpowers, but now there were new powers to think about? "I call invincibility."
The doctor rolled her eyes and asked him pointedly, "Isn't there a bed somewhere on this floor that's calling your name?"
Yawning, Puck agreed, shuffling two doors down to his room. He was here, Sam was here, and Puck wondered who else of his friends were going to end up stuck underground because their powers were a "menace to society."