Day 59: Cafeteria (noon)

[immortale]

By the time lunch rolled around, things still weren't getting any better. The voices hadn't gone away; instead, Firo was pretty sure they were getting more frequent. Ennis had been silent since last night, but Czes's voice had been an insistent buzz in his ear all morning

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[human_sponge]

Coincidence? Peter didn't know how strange effects could be mistaken for anything but that, but he was going to give Firo the benefit of the doubt here. There was a whole lot about Landel's that was confusing; in fact, their captors seemed pretty intent on always presenting them with questions and mysteries. It wasn't so shocking that even something like a drug could generate that kind of response.

It was kind of hard to help Firo sort through any of it when the kid wasn't being quite as straight-forward as he could have been. Peter knew better than to force him to spit it out, but he figured it'd probably just take some more subtle coaxing.

"Yeah, well, either we're seeing things or you are, but I guess there's enough of a divide that it'll be impossible to tell." In the end, all it meant was that those who were seeing the food as rotten couldn't eat and those who couldn't see it had to decide who they trusted: themselves or the people advising them to stay away from the stuff.

"It looks like that's affecting a lot of us, though," he continued. "Has there been anything else...?"

[immortale]

Unfortunately, sounding crazy looked like just about the only option. He could definitely blame the drug (whether or not it was actually to blame), but even so... For Firo Prochainezo, a proud member of the Martillo Family, to be hearing voices? It was ridiculous. If anyone from other Families heard about it, he'd be a laughingstock. The Martillos would be a laughingstock.

...But then again, Peter was a nurse. Perhaps he could say whether the drug could even be responsible for the voices in the first place.

A long moment of silence passed before Firo finally said, "You can't tell anyone, alright?" He paused, fixing Peter a hard look-it wasn't exactly a threatening one, but it would make sure Peter knew he meant business. "I've been... hearing things since last night. Voices." He suddenly broke off the stare, and shook his head with a scoffing laugh. "I was even convinced that someone I knew was here, but she's not."

[human_sponge]

Being sworn to secrecy wasn't too surprising, considering the circumstances. Honestly, Peter thought that most of the other patients here would probably understand what Firo was going through and even be sympathetic, but he was still going to honor the younger man's request. It was only fair, and that was probably the only way he could get him to open up. For that reason, he responded to Firo's stare with a firm nod.

As it turned out, Firo seemed to be dealing with some kind of auditory hallucination. Honestly, it could have been worse, but Peter also understood why the other man was bothered by it. It all sort of depended on who was talking and what was being said, but it sounded like at least some of the voices belonged to people Firo knew from home.

"What sort of things are they saying? Are they trying to encourage you to do things?" That was the typical thing everyone thought of when it came to hearing voices. Peter pictured someone who had gone through a psychotic break telling the men in white coats that the voices in their heads had told them to. That didn't seem to be what Firo was going through, so now Peter was just curious.

[immortale]

"No, nothing like that," Firo answered with half a laugh, relieved that Peter seemed to at least be taking this seriously. But with some people seeing the food differently than others... maybe it wasn't hard to be taken seriously around here.

"They've just been... talking. Mostly it's been them telling me things I already know myself," he said, carefully avoiding saying what exactly the criticisms they'd been spouting were. "The thing is, every voice I've heard belongs to someone I know. People I'm close to, even."

It was who the voices belonged to that bothered him the most, he thought. Voices he didn't recognize would be one thing, but every time he heard another familiar voice, he had to stop himself from looking around to make sure that the latest speaker wasn't really there. If Ennis or Maiza or any of the others really had wound up here too, and he ignored them because he thought he was imagining things...

Firo did a quick count and added, "If it matters, there have been four of them, so far." He wondered who might be next. Maybe Luck?

[human_sponge]

So it was as Peter had figured, and the voices were from people Firo knew, rather than being strange random whispers that were encouraging him to hurt others or himself. It wasn't as if Firo seemed like the sort of person who was mentally unstable enough for that to even bother him, so maybe hearing the voices of loved ones was more detrimental.

Peter had to admit that would have probably thrown him from a loop, too. Hearing Nathan's voice -- or even his mother's -- from out of nowhere like that would have definitely at least been a large distraction.

"I can't say I've heard of anything like that before," he admitted, "but with any luck it'll fade away pretty soon." Most of the things at Landel's didn't last forever. The idea of Firo having to hear that constantly from now on was a worrying one, since that would be a way to push someone over the edge.

"For now you've just got to try and bear it, all right? Ignoring what they say is probably the best method." Easier said than done, of course, but Peter was hoping that the fact that Firo was talking to someone -- someone who was really there -- was a help.

[immortale]

Firo felt surprisingly relieved at Peter's response. He would have thought that Peter not having heard of something like what he was currently experiencing would be more troubling, but instead, it felt as though a weight had been lifted. Hearing voices couldn't be any better than seeing things (and either one seemed like a symptom of insanity, if you asked him), so for a nurse to think it wasn't too much of a problem... Maybe it wasn't as serious a problem as he'd been thinking it was.

Still, the prospect of enduring the voices' ridicules without being able to do anything about it wasn't exactly cheering. At least Peter seemed to think there was a chance it would end on its own soon; since he knew more about both medicine and this place than Firo did, he was willing to take Peter's word unless something changed for the worse.

"I've been, er... trying not to respond to them," he said, a faint flush returning to his cheeks. He'd done a poor job of it thus far... He'd already said something in reply to Berga just before Peter had joined him; even if he kept his mouth shut from here on out, it would be difficult not to react at all. "But I'll ignore them entirely from here on out."

"That's impossible for you," Ennis commented.

[human_sponge]

It was weirdly nice for someone to just take his word for something like this. Granted, Peter was just a nurse, and mental health wasn't his area of expertise. Not even close. This wasn't exactly a health problem in the first place, anyway; it was more something that the institute had forced on Firo because that was how this place worked. Still, the fact that he was able to calm someone down because he was considered knowledgeable was comforting on its own.

"Yeah, I can see how it would be tough to not reply, but it's not going to do you any good." If anything, Firo would end up with fellow patients and the staff thinking he was out of his mind when that was hardly the case. "Don't give them the satisfaction." By "them," he meant the staff; Peter didn't realize that it might easily be interpreted as him talking about the voices themselves.

"Good luck with it, all right?" Peter frowned at the younger man, wishing that he could do more. Some reassurance was probably all he could manage, though, and he'd just have to remember to keep an eye out for Firo in the next few days to check and see if it really did go away on its own.

The intercom sounded soon after that, meaning that they were already being cut off. At least they hadn't been interrupted in the middle of that.