Restore (Sequel to Purge: Larry au)

Chapter 24

A week later

"Okay, Louis," Taylor says, sitting across from him. "I have some good news?"

"Yeah?" Louis asks. 

"I was able to get your perscription for the meds I want you to take," Taylor announces, smiling. "I'll give you the paperwork and stuff at the end of the appointment, and I'll email it to you as well. You can go pick them up as soon as possible."

Louis smiles a little. "That's good."

"It is," Taylor agrees. "They'll help with the nightmares and flashbacks so you don't have to turn to alcohol or smoking to relax anymore."

Louis nods. "Great, that's great."

Taylor smiles at him, then says, "Alright, let's get into it, yeah? I have a few things I want to do this session, but I'll let you chose in what order you want to do them."

"Lay it on me," Louis shrugs. 

Taylor chuckles a little. "I'd like to talk about some exercises and techniques you can use before bed to decrease the chance of nightmares. Then I'd like to talk about some coping strategies for flashbacks, panic attacks, and outbursts of anger or aggression. And I'd also like you to spend some time telling me about the camp and some of the things you experienced." When Louis opens his mouth to protests, she holds up her hand. "I know you don't like talking about it, Louis, but you'll never get better if you don't confront what happened. Bottling it up and ignoring is only making the problem worse."

Louis sighs. "Fine."

"Do you have a preference for which we do first?" Taylor asks. 

Louis takes a deep breath and fidgets with his wedding band, like he often does when he's nervous. "Can we talk about the camps first? Just to get it out of the way."

Taylor smiles softly. "I think that's a wonderful idea."

Louis doesn't say anything. He doesn't know what to say.

Taylor seems to sense his unease because she leans forward and says, "How about this. Can you describe for me what a day in the camp was like? Just start from when you woke up to when you went back to sleep. What happened on a normal day there?"

Louis nods. He can do that. 

"Well," he starts, "they'd wake us up every morning by banging on the cell bars with their rifles. They'd send us down to the mess hall where we'd be served disgusting bowls of porridge, but it was only really half a normal portion. We had ten minutes to eat, and then we were taken out to the courtyard. Every day, they'd chose someone to shoot, to 'make space for new prisoners'."

Louis shudders as he says that, remembering the pure sense of dread and terror he felt every morning, standing in line with his head down. 

"I couldn't do anything to stop them. I tried to fight them on it my first few days there, but interfering just earned me a seventy-lash whipping. I watched so many innocent people die just because they happened to catch the troopers' attention. Often, it was women or children that they'd kill; the people they thought were weaker and less effective workers."

He looks up to see Taylor watching him, concentrated and frowning, but with a soft, open expression on her face. It's reassuring to see that she doesn't seem frightened by what he's saying, so he takes a deep breath and continues. 

"After they'd killed someone, they'd chose the two people standing on either side of the... the victim... to take their body to the crematorium. Everyone else had to go to the yard where they had us working on factory machines under the sun, forging weapons and making gunpowder for the war.