"Your case is a special one, Little Lady." A old man spoke to a 14 year-old girl with brown hair and wearing round glasses. They walked down a grey hallway, passing by some metal doors with bars attached to it.
"Why's that?" She asked, adjusting her glasses. They walked down the endless hall, passing by nurses and men in straight jackets. "This is just a simple patient, right?"
"No." He said, making a right turn. "This is probably the hardest task in the entire asylum." They walked down a spiral of stairs. "The patient is Allen Liddell."
"The boy from the newspaper?"
"Yes. You probably know about the fire that killed his family." He said, stepping off the stairs and started walking down another hallway. "We sent nurses and doctors in. He doesn't respond to them, nor does he care to speak." They stopped and turned to a door on the wall. 'Allen Liddell.' It read.
"Here we are." He said, pulling out a key from his lab coat and unlocked the door.
In the room, was a simple bed and chair. On the bed, laid a 7 year-old boy. He had short black hair, pale skin, and green emerald eyes. He was devoid of emotion, staring at the ceiling and barley blinking. In his arms was a huge rabbit doll that was tightly pressed against him.
"Good day, Mr Liddell." The doctor said, walking into the room. The girl followed in behind him. Allen didn't spare a look at them. "This is
Elizabeth Dipy. She is going to take care of you from now on." He turned to Elizabeth. "You know what to do. But your going to have to feed him, since he refuses to feed himself." He said, walking out the door and shutting it behind him.
"Let's see," Elizabeth said walking up beside Allen. "What's your name?" No response. "Mine is Elizabeth Dipy. But you can call me Dipy." She said, pulling the chair to the bed. "What do you like? Chocolate, toys, any girls you fancy?" She put humor in her question, But still no response. "So a non-responsive patient, isolated and alone, refuses to speak or interact at all. It doesn't take a genius to figure this out." She said, rubbing her head.
They didn't take her seriously. A female doctor in training was never taken seriously. She worked day and night, putting blood, sweat and tears into her work. And yet they didn't take her seriously.
"Let's see." She said again, scanning Allen for anything useful. "Do you like rabbits?" Allen shifted his eyes to meet hers. Face still emotionless. "That's heavy eye contact." She pointed out, pulling out a clipboard and started to write it down. "Let's see, can you understand me?" His eyes barley moved. "Take that as a yes." She wrote down more.
"So Allen, I can call you Allen, right?" She asked. Still no response. "All right. It says here you had a cat. Do you like cats too?" She asked. Allen glanced at her clipboard. "Yes it is then." She wrote on her clipboard again. When she looked up at Allen, he was staring at the corner of the room behind her. She looked behind herself, but saw nothing in the dark corner. "You don't mind if I continue asking questions, do you?" Allen stayed silent. "Of course not. Alright, let's continue."
And so Dipy continued asking Allen questions. Allen wouldn't respond with words or body movement, making the task difficult. But as she asked him questions, he would take glances at the dark corner behind her.
And he would see a devilish smile and yellow eyes looking right back at him.
