Day 32: Intercom, Dawn
The sky was slightly cloudly as the sun began to rise into the sky, but not enough to put a damper on the Head Doctor's daytime mood. The sound of him humming the intercom jingle came on just as the jingle itself ended, and he paused as he realized his silly antics had been caught on the microphone
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John jolted awake, his heart pounding in his chest. The explosion had been so close. Where had it come from? He looked around, expecting to see his mother standing beside him, the same look of panic on her face before she masked it but she wasn't there. That panicked John even more.
“Mom?” he called, hating that his voice cracked as he said that. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to calm down. It was a bad dream. He'd had them before. It was some sort of weird Connor legacy that he'd be plagued with nightmares. This all had to be a bad dream.
"To get our minds off this horrible event, however, let me announce something very happy, and that is... you guessed it: the arrival of new patients!”
Horrible event? What horrible event? It wasn't time! They still had years before Judgment day! At least, he thought they did. Could that explosion have been something else? No, no, oh god. It couldn't be true. If it had happened there would be no talk of patients or anything. This would all be gone. Something else must have happened. The explosion must have alerted the police... Why didn't he remember?
“Mom!” he called louder, sliding out of what he realized was a bed. His normal clothing was gone and in their place was this horrible gray shirt with a sadistic looking smiley face. Some kids at school might have liked it as it was creepy enough to be 'cool' but it didn't give him a good impression about where he was. What sort of patient was he?
John tried to listen to the rest of the man's voice coming over the intercom but all he talked about was breakfast and once again mentioning the arrival of 'new patients' before clicking off. So he was a patient and judging by the room and the clothes and the way the beds were bolted to the floor it was a mental hospital. He shivered, remembering the last hospital he'd been in. He hadn't been a patient that time but he'd seen the wild look in his mother's eyes as they broke her out and it frightened him. John may have thought she was crazy once before but nothing compared to the way she was the moments after the mental hospital. They never talked about it much and it scared John to think that she could end up there again. He just never figured that he was in danger of landing in the same situation.
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But it didn't seem as if the nurse needed confirmation. Her smile turned a little sad as she looked down at the clipboard, clicking her tongue as she muttered something about the problem with the world today that kids do such horrible things. John wanted to ask what it was she meant but she looked up swiftly after making a small note on the clipboard with her pen and the bright smile was back, plastered on her face.
“Well, Mr. Connor, it seems as though you've arrived just in time for breakfast. I'm sure you're hungry. Why don't you come with me and I can show you to the cafeteria?”
John didn't see how he had much of a choice in the matter. Still, if this was a hospital, perhaps they'd let him call his Mom or at least find out where his Mom was being kept. If he was in the crazy house he didn't think it was much of a stretch that his Mother ended up in the same place. “I can make a phone call here, can't I?” he asked, following the nurse as she walked out of his room. But she didn't seem to hear him which made John frown. It was one thing to be called crazy, it was another thing to be completely ignored.
“Hey,” he shouted at her, needing to jog to keep up with her swift pace. “Hey! Look, if I can't make a phone call then at least tell me what happened to my Mom? Where...”
“Here we are,” the nurse said brightly, opening the doors to the cafeteria. “I have other patients to greet so why don't you go inside and grab a tray. It's Belgian waffle day.”
John scowled at her, opening his mouth to once again ask for information about his Mom but she had already turned and left, leaving him alone in front of the cafeteria. This was not turning out to be a very good day. “So much for cake and singing Happy Birthday,” he grumbled, walking through the doors. “I get a one way ticket to the crazy shack. Happy Birthday to me.”
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