Adueria-Sothis: To answer your question: Blaise arrived just after the rest of the psychics left Blackthorn. The other psychics stayed outside the government compound for awhile, planning, and since the travel time for them and the travel time for Blaise was the same, it is sensible that he arrived when he did. I never said that the two events, namely the beginning of the confrontation with Karayan and the killing of the two doctors at Blackthorn, occurred simultaneously, so Blaise did not get back to the compound ‘in two seconds’.

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Amanda Nelson walked into the South Wing of the hospital for the first time, early one Monday morning. She had been transferred from the ICU the last Friday to the South Wing of the hospital. It was infamous for driving doctors and nurses alike to early retirement or transfer. The South Wing of the hospital was the most notorious part of the psych ward, where patients who were the most difficult or violent were housed.

There were four psychiatrists on staff, six doctors, and a handful of nurses. Amanda Nelson had just joined that handful of nurses in the part of the ward that housed less than twenty patients but was said to be one of the most difficult jobs at the hospital. She hadn’t asked for the transfer; she’d liked ICU just fine. Still, it wasn’t her place to complain about it. She became a nurse to help people, and she knew she’d damn well try, even here where so many of the patients were declared beyond help.

Amanda immediately sought out the head doctor on the ward, a man by the name of Carson Golding. Golding had held his position in the South Wing for eight years, longer than any other member of the staff on ward. He was legendary for being some sort of madman, and the other nurses always gossiped that he had to be in order to stay on such a difficult ward for so long. Amanda had never met the man before, so she had no idea if the rumors were true.

Amanda made her way down the hall to Doctor Golding’s office, getting a look from some of the nurses she passed. She had a feeling they were gauging how long she could last in the South Ward. Amanda herself wasn’t sure yet.

Once she had reached the doctor’s door, Amanda knocked. “Come in,” I pleasant voice called, and Amanda did after a small hesitation. The door opened to reveal a pleasant-looking man in his mid-forties, with graying hair, squarish rimless glasses, and a thin mouth, which broke into a smile upon seeing her. He stood to greet her, holding out his hand.

“You must be Amanda Nelson,” he said as he shook her had, his smile remaining fixed on his face. “It’s a relief to finally have you here. We’ve been short one nurse for nearly a week, and some of the nurses have been forced to deal with more than their usual patient load. I speak for all of the staff when I say we’re glad to have you on board.”

Amanda lowered her head. “Thank you,” she told the doctor, and he came around from behind his desk, steering her toward the door.

“Let’s get started right away, shall we?” he asked rhetorically. “I want to show you the patients you’ll be overseeing. You’ll be assigned to three patients, which may not seem like a lot, but trust me when I say some of them can be quite troublesome. After I’ve introduced you to the patients, you can have some time to get settled in and meet the other nurses, as well as learn at length about your patients’ care.”

Amanda nodded, trying to take it all in. Things were often fast-paced in a hospital, though, so one had to learn to take in a lot of information very quickly. She let Doctor Golding lead her down the hall to where the patients were before stopping in front of the door, pulling out the chart from the pocket on the door. Amanda looked through the small window at the patient to see a man of about thirty in a straightjacket, staring blankly at the wall and mumbling something to himself.

“This is Allan Dixon,” Doctor Golding told her after a moment. “Schizophrenic. He’s usually not too troublesome, but he can get violent at times, as he did earlier today. That, of course, explains the straightjacket. He can be very pleasant at times, though, so don’t be fooled by his psychoses. He can even be rational sometimes, though you’ve caught him on a bad day. Come on in; I’ll introduce you.”

Amanda was about to protest about the futility of introducing herself to someone who was talking to a wall, but she supposed that the doctor, after working there for so long, knew best. She followed him as he opened the door, walking inside the white room.

“Hello Allan,” the doctor said pleasantly as he walked in. “How are you doing today?” The man turned his head to look at them blankly, then turned back to the wall again, but Doctor Golding seemed unperturbed. “I’d like to introduce you to your new nurse, Amanda.”

Allan still didn’t turn, but Doctor Golding looked at Amanda expectantly. “Hello, Allan,” she said after a second. “I hear that you’re very pleasant.”

Allan swung his head around again, regarding her piercingly. “Shh!” he chastised immediately. “There are microphones in the walls. They can hear you.”

“No, Allan, I promise, we’ve gotten rid of all the microphones. Nobody’s listening,” Doctor Golding said sincerely, and Amanda was surprised by how easily he was able to adjust to the man’s delusions. It came from working so long with patients like that, she supposed.

“Liar! I can hear them in my head! The walls are buzzing!” Allan exclaimed, struggling against his jacket.

Doctor Golding nodded. “How about this, Allan? I’ll go talk to the other doctors and see if we can do something about getting rid of those microphones, all right?”

Allan nodded emphatically, and Doctor Golding motioned for Amanda to leave the room with him. “He’s really quite agreeable if you know how to talk to him,” the doctor explained, replacing the patient’s chart and leading her down the hall again.

He stopped a minute later, outside another door. This one had a larger window in the side of the room with which she could see the patient. He looked to be no older than eighteen, with long, wavy blond hair and blue eyes. It struck her how sad it was that someone so young would be in a place like this.

“Ciaran Doyle,” the doctor said after a moment, pulling her out of her reverie. “Eighteen years old. Paranoid delusions, schizoaffective disorder, and PTSD. He’s attempted suicide twice since he was brought here four months ago. We won’t go inside, because he screams whenever anyone gets to close to him, so we try to avoid it as much as possible, except when bringing him food, though it has proven difficult to get him to eat. When we need to talk to him, we have this.”

Doctor Golding motioned to a microphone outside the large window. There was a speaker next to it, and when the doctor switched it on, they could hear Ciaran inside, mumbling, “They’re all dead. All dead.”

Nodding, Doctor Golding turned it off. “It’s quite sad, really. He’s convinced that he’s partially responsible for the deaths of some of his friends, though we’ve been unable to pinpoint exactly who these friends are. He went on for a long time about a Doctor Matheson, and we got out of Ciaran that his first name was Tristan, so we looked the man up, hoping that if he was alive he could give Ciaran here some peace of mind. It seems that Ciaran made the man up, though, because there’s no record of such a man ever existing, a doctor or otherwise.”

“Are those his delusions?” Amanda asked after a moment, and the doctor shook his head.

“That’s only the start. It’s the usual things, of course: the government being against us, watching him, that sort of thing. He says they killed his friends. I’d almost believe it, considering when he was brought in here, he was covered in blood and grime and was pretty badly injured. The man who brought him in disappeared before he could tell us where he found Ciaran, though.”

He replaced the chart with a sigh before his smile returned. “I think you’ll like your third patient. She has multiple personality disorder, and some of her personalities are actually quite a delight. There’s one who’s a schoolteacher named Marisa…”

Amanda cast one last sad glance at Ciaran before following Doctor Golding down the hallway.

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Agent Richards walked into the upper-level lab at Blackthorn Manor, a man trailing behind him. “This,” he began, motioning to the lab around him, “is the other lab here at Blackthorn. As you can see, it’s quite comprehensive, so I’m sure you’ll not have trouble finding anything you’ll need while you’re here. So what do you think, Doctor Carlan?”

The other man was in his mid thirties and had medium brown hair, cropped close to his head. His blue eyes regarded the room thoroughly before nodding. “You have quite an impressive facility here, Agent Richards,” the doctor commented. “I must confess that the idea of psychic ability has always interested me, and to be able to work with, train, and study people of such ability is an amazing opportunity for me.”

Agent Richards tipped his head in acknowledgement. “Of course, Doctor, but you are most qualified for the job. You’ve opened up this opportunity for yourself. You should be quite proud of your accomplishments.”

Doctor Carlan nodded. “Thank you,” he replied. “So when is it that the psychics will be arriving? And the other doctors?”

Agent Richards smiled. “Well, one psychic will be arriving later tonight. She was formerly a resident here, but has been residing elsewhere while we’ve gotten all the paperwork done out after the unfortunate…departure of our previous doctors. Her name is Marie and she’s eleven. She’s a healer. I think you’ll be quite impressed by her abilities, considering her age.

“You will, of course, be in charge of this facility and all the doctors working in it. We have two other doctors lined up for jobs here, but there’s still corporate mumbo-jumbo to get though, so I’ll have to ask you to be patient. It will just be you and Marie here for awhile, but we may have a girl with clairaudience joining you soon.”

Doctor Carlan nodded again, taking it all in. “I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to show me the facility yourself,” he told the agent. Agent Richards smiled thinly.

“Of course.”

“However, there is one more thing I’d like to ask you,” the doctor said after a moment. Agent Richards inclined his head, to indicate that he was listening. “There have been some rumors about the…incident at your facility four months ago. Is it true that your own head psychic is…shall we say…incapacitated?”

Agent Richards raised an eyebrow at the question but did not get angry. “I’m surprised that, hearing the rumors, you’d still want to work here,” he commented offhandedly.

Doctor Carlan shrugged. “I’m not afraid, and I’m certainly not as thick as your Doctor Matheson. Putting a psychic in charge of a facility such as this seems like a risky move to me, anyway. I don’t see your logic. But about your psychic…”

“Ah, yes…Karayan is currently hospitalized. His recovery is still questionable,” Agent Richards replied flatly. “However, if he does recover, I’d venture to say that he would be one of our most prominent success stories.”

Doctor Carlan looked at him and smiled.

FIN

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A/N: To find out more about Karayan's fate, I invite you to check out the companion piece, Mercurial, which I hope I'll be able to continue work on now that this is complete.