Just as Nik recommended Nell found a new therapist. That day would be the first session she had with him and hopefully it wouldn't turn out to be a bad session. As with every other time that she had gone to see a new therapist she sat in the waiting room with her knee bouncing up and down in worry.
By the time her name was called and she was walked into a large office filled with mahogany furniture and decorated in soft, soothing colours her breath had evened out and her shaking had calmed some. When she was offered a seat on a soft couch she immediately took a perch and looked to the older male who would be taking over as her therapist.
"So Elenor why don't we begin by you telling me why you're here." The doctor began.
"I wake up at night and I can't move. I'm paralysed, sleep paralysis is what my last doctor called it" Nell begins.
"Okay and do you ever see anything when you wake up and you can't move?" The doctor asks leaning towards her slightly.
"I see her... she was there last time. Bent neck lady." Nell grunts out, just talking about her bringing terror.
"Bent neck lady?" The doctor asks confused.
"I've been seeing her since I was a child... since my family lived in Hill house. She wears this long dress, her hair shields her face like a greasy curtain, her skin is decaying, her mouth open so wide that it's like her jaw is unhinged and her neck.... her neck is bent to one side like it's been snapped." Nell explains tears gathering in her eyes.
"Does she ever do anything? Say anything?" The doctor asks her.
"She can't talk. But she moans and she grunts like she's scared or in pain." Nell describes as the doctor hands her a tissue to wipe her tears away with.
"And you said it started at hill house? Why don't you tell me a bit about your time there?" Dr Jackson asks.
"I was six when my family moved there. We were happy, excited even. We were supposed to stay there for eight weeks while my family flipped it and then we were supposed to move on to mama's dream house. But that house... it was dark. Evil. At night I heard things, I could feel things watching me, I could see things" Nell explains becoming quite hysteric.
"Okay. Okay, why don't we pause there and we can talk about it some more at our next appointment, I can see it's quite distressing to you." The doctor stops her "lets circle back to when you have a sleep paralysis episode shall we? How do you come out of it?"
"My husband. He's a light sleeper so he wakes up when he hears me struggling. The last time it happened was the first time in a long time and so he pulled me into his arms and forced my attention away from bent neck lady. He told me to just look at him. He turned the lamp on and then helped me move my hand. He was patient and calm and when I could move again he went and got my anxiety pills and sleeping pills then he held me, all night through to morning when I woke again" Nell tells him, a small smile making an appearance on her lips. Though the ordeal was traumatic she knew that it would have been much much worse without Nik there.
"It sounds like everything was done right. Let's talk a bit about your husband, you sound very much in love with him." Doctor Jackson encourages.
"I am. We'd only known each other a few months when he proposed but I just knew. I knew he was the person I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with" Nell smiles.
"And what is it he does?" Dr Jackson asks keeping onto this topic seeing it is a much more comfortable one for her and not wanting to push her too far in their first session.
"He's an artist, not like a broke and starving artist though. He has a painting hanging in the Louvre" Nell smiles proud.
"And you? What do you do?" Dr Jackson asks.
"I'm a photographer. A war photographer." Nell tells him her smile dropping at the thought of all that she had seen.
"That sounds to be a challenging job Elenor. Why is it that you wanted to do that?" The doctor asks some concern seeping into his voice.
"I suppose it all circles back to my childhood and everything that happened. Nobody believed me, people heard the story and called me crazy or called it my imagination. I wanted to give these people trapped in war zones a voice, a story. To show that their suffering is real, to show that their suffering is there and not something to be scoffed at. It's terrifying and traumatic but at the end of all of that I get to come home to my family, to my husband, to my comfortable life. They have to stay there, loosing their homes, their loved ones, their own lives." Nell passionately explains.
"It sounds like a very noble cause Eleanor and you are an extraordinary young woman." Doctor Jackson praises.
"Thankyou." She responds before glancing to the clock and seeing that their hour is up so with a sigh she places the tissue still in her grasp into the bin next to her and she stands up adjusting her clothing.
"Well it would seem we're out of time today. But I will see you next week, same day, same time okay?" Dr Jackson asks.
"Sounds good doctor" Nell tells him before leaving the room.
YOU ARE READING
STEADY SILENCE || KLAUS MIKAELSON ¹
Fanfiction"SILENCE LAY STEADILY AGAINST THE WOOD AND STONE OF HILL HOUSE, AND WHATEVER WALKED THERE, WALKED ALONE." or IN WHICH a girl with a traumatising past that left her feeling weak falls in love with a man that finally makes her feel strong. INSPIRED...
