nadine mckinnon had a prosthetic right foot, a bandage she never took off her left wrist, and a permanent residence in pennhurst mental hospital
[ stranger things season four ]
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ONE! the great escape
HER NAILS AND CUTICLES were bitten raw, Nadine noticed as she stared down at her hands instead of meeting the gaze of the doctor opposite her. And she needed to change the bandage around her wrist- she made a mental note to do that later as she gently plucked st the slightly frayed edges.
"Nadine?" Dr Locke prompted from behind his desk, and the girl finally looked up to meet his gaze with an uninterested one of her own.
Dr Locke was a scrawny man, with wired glasses perched on the edge of his unusually small nose, and a greying, wispy, moustache covering his top lip. He used big words that Nadine never fully understood, and he looked at her as though she was a kicked puppy dropped off outside his front door. Nadine didn't like Dr Locke much at all.
"Hm?" Nadine asked, having zoned out approximately seven minutes prior. Her bitten nails were more entertaining than whatever drivel was coming out of his mouth.
Dr Locke's office was a rather spacious room, showing off the man's obvious status within Pennhurst. His large desk was a shiny mahogany, with a plaque of his name glinting back at Nadine in a pale gold. Towering shelves covered most of the wall space, books with worn spines and faded covers lining most of the space, aside from the occasional knick-knack (a small globe, a telescope, a skull Nadine hoped was fake).
Dr Locke raised a bushy eyebrow, "I asked if you've still been having the nightmares."
"Oh," she swallowed thickly, "Uh, I guess."
"Are you seeing the same things?"
Nadine paused. She had been having the similar sorts of nightmares for around four years now- slimy vines that seemed to pulsate with life, a constant swirling grey ash, and streaks of red lighting illuminating an otherwise inky sky.
"Kind of," her eyebrows furrowed for a moment before she continued, "Lately I've been seeing a... man. I think."
She didn't know what the figure she kept on seeing was, but it had hollow eyes, and tendrils like an octopus that would hold it levitating in the air.
Dr Locke didn't ask any more questions, instead jotting something down and sending her a small smile, "I'll up your meds a bit then, yeah? Help you sleep better."
Nadine just stared at him, letting out a small breath of defeat. She was already on doses of various medications so high that her everyday life felt like a dreary blur, days bleeding into each other like a ruined watercolour.
