-Doc- Doctors, of the Good and the Mad

Everything you've read up to this point is true, at least as far as I remember. I did something pretty awful, and yeah, I regret it. If I'd been in control of my own faculties at that point, I certainly would have done anything but what I did. I realize that my apologies are pretty worthless, as those don't tend to undo trauma or prevent horrible nightmares. What kills me is that I know I was on the other end of this sort of deal once upon a time - maybe I didn't lose a limb or even a single digit, but I've endured abuses of my own while in the care of someone I expected to be able to trust. Putting myself where I was four years ago, if those doctors had apologized to me, I would've wanted to punch them in the gut. I can't even begin to imagine how Dr. Rivers must feel. On the bright side, if you could consider it that, I took his mangled leg, and aside from the bleeding obvious, I performed the procedure correctly despite my...condition at the time. I haven't spent a lot of time around him, I've let August examine him and give him medications under my orders. I hate to burden the poor kid, but having a middleman throughout the rest of this mess puts my mind at ease, and I'm sure it's less stressful for Dr. Rivers as well.

Ugh, I'm not going to get upset over that again. I just took a good hit, I don't need to foul up my mood now.

Yeah, I kinda fell off the wagon again after Hugh Jackman Steele gave me the heroin (it is, after all, a derivative of my beloved morphine), but I'd much rather have my addiction back than the alternative. In a way, it's like seeing an old friend who'd gone on vacation, returning to show off all the souvenirs of its travels. Not to mention, to let me know just how much it missed me. I missed you too, morphine. Maybe with you back, I can fucking relax a little.

-Todd- Recap

There once was a man named Todd

Who recently, has been feeling odd

When Spencer gets hurt

and Doc goes berserk

all he can do is smile and nod.

I feel like a waste. Again, the only reason I'm writing right now is because there's a small gap between insanity and... something sort of happened.

So, like I said in my last gripe of a post, I haven't been all here lately. I've felt as though I've been living in a half remembered dream, yadda yadda, but, buuuuuuuuuuuut

things changed about two weeks ago.

I really should have posted this earlier, but so to the circumstances, I've felt less of a need to document my time lost and how long I've been blacked out, let alone post on a blog which I thought was a bad idea in the first place. But I'm typing this out now like I promised myself I would.

So I was feeling like shit. Not much more intense than usual, but just for a lot longer. This may have been the same time as the story in Steele's post, but I don't think so. I was having trouble breathing, so I decide I'm gonna leave my room. Still having trouble breathing. Go down to the kitchen, choking by now. So I decide taking a quick step outside might do me some good.

Oh my god, did it do good. My head is clear, most of my pain is gone, for the first time I feel as though I could be happy if I wanted to. I take a brisk walk to the end of the street, feeling real air move across my face. I realize that for the first time this year, I've been outside. I've stayed indoors since mid December. But then when I turn around, I see the House, and I just know that I have to go back inside. It blocks the moon and with some strange force draws me in, and I just know that staying outside of the House is one of the worst things that could happen, despite all logic pointing in the opposite direction.

But with Doc messing around with dead things, and Spencer apparently seeing Mr. Tall right in him, being in the House doesn't seem to good an idea, either.

I'm fine, though. I can breathe. It just takes more force to inhale than usual. But it's fine. I've been trying to help around the house lately. Cleaning, moving things, even the occasional back massage. Well, I've made offers. Amanda and August are the only ones to accept, and not that often, really. Doc let me once when she was medicated.

So, if anyone reading this is stupid enough to want to make me feel better, I'm healthy enough to make deliveries. I like candlelit dinners and long walks on the beach. Will deliver to either men or women. Other services cost extra.

Hahahaha it hurts to laugh.

-Spencer- Background noise

There was a whole lot of that.

… I can see it now, this is going to be like pulling teeth. Not because it’s particularly disturbing or something, not because it’s gory or terrifying.

It. Hurt. It hurt so much that… fuck i dont want to think about this


I’ve dealt with pain for all my life. Since I left my home the cult and then when I left Writer. But this... was worse. Like a stabbing pain in my chest, like my body was being torn apart, then then, and then the whisper in the back of my head, telling me it could all just stop…

Sometimes being a stubborn idiot works out for me, for everyone. This time it didn’t.

I guess in the end I wanted to believe I could handle this all by myself, that I was like all of you, that I could fight it off. And I did, at least for a time, but I guess I… forgot. How thin a line I walk on, how close I am to the edge; well, this proved as the shittiest alarm clock in all of existence. I nearly killed my whole team and myself, all because I didn’t want to admit that maybe I was losing it.
and that was stupid.

Now, let’s get onto the main attraction.

I’m sure you’re all asking the same goddamn thing; what the hell fucking happened? Wasn’t there something about trees or some shit and then OH GOD SLENDER’S IN THE HOUSE FUCK FUCK and then there’s something about Steele whacking Lori with a severed leg and everyone freaks the fuck and they find the boss and everything’s good? What’s up with that?

Well everyone pull up a chair and get ready for storytime!

It all starts at a quaint little time known as thanksgiving 2011, when I put out this charmer. Not surprisingly, my assertions did little to hide the fact that everything was going utterly and totally bonkers. The House is a Loop, and seriously the only thing standing between us and proxies and… worse. Worse than proxies. And as much trouble it gives us me, it’s usually worth it to not look out the window and see His fucking ugly mug.


keyword: usually.


When the forest kid showed up, everything turned to hell. His Loop started invading mine, getting into the one conduit that usually tends to keep it under control. That, combined with all of us thinking Konaa had finally bit the fucking bullet and Elaine and her… shit, well, let’s just say the foundation was starting to crack, if by crack you mean getting bombarded with constant blasts of dynamite.


(Hahaha, it was fucking ironic in hindsight. Who would’ve thought that my own fucking design would come back to bite me in the ass? Karma and all that shit. I’d say it was funny, if it wasn’t so fucking infuriating. I don’t give a shit what happened in there; if it ever gets in my head again Writer’s going to fucking PAY.)

So the hellforest started invading The House. And like the blonde bimbo that goes into the dark creepy house alone instead of calling the police like the biggest idiot on earth, we all collectively decided to wait it out.

Now, we all had our reasons. I wanted to prove a point, Doc wasn’t exactly herself, August probably figured there wasn’t anywhere for us to go, Steele was waiting on Rivers, Amanda wasn’t going anywhere with her legs and Todd wasn’t going anywhere without Amanda, and Sam wasn’t moving her feet until we were all out the door or dead. Does that fix the fact that we all ignored branches growing through windows, walls shifting places, and the fact that our place of residence was steadily turning into some sort of circus funhouse on crack? No, but can you blame us?

… yeah, you probably can. Moving on.


Even as it was, we could’ve managed. I’ve got failsafes on this thing, procedures and little things I do to keep it running. And to be honest, we weren’t even close to a worst case scenario. I was close, so fucking close to fixing it, I just needed a little more time…

And then the grinning bastard showed up. Writer. Looking as smug and ugly as ever. I was just weak enough for him to use an exploit to get in and he… fuck, he jumped on it like a bad cold. He, fuck, he pinned me to a wall and forced what… oh god, it tasted like fucking tar and I felt all the pain in my head vanish and the fog fell over my thoughts again as I screamed out in my own head, trying to fight it off, fight off him and then the pain, oh god the pain…

the pain was fucking unimaginable, I remember pulling at my own hair, at the floor, it took my breath away, took my control away, wrenched everything from me…
before I knew it, i could feel him in the house


And that’s when everything got worse.


I never… saw Him. I didn’t. Everything I saw was a fevered delusion, hallucinations meant to make it oh so much worse. I don’t know much. I don’t know what happened, because everything I know comes from what the team has told me.

But I do know that I knew this was only going to get worse if I neglected it, if I gave in and gave up.
… so when I said I didn’t see Father, that’s not exactly true, is it?

Because I did. I saw Him, heard Him. Felt His touch burn my skin, felt his pull in my head. rejected Him. Praised him. It made no difference. When I dragged my broken body back to The Wing, there was only one thing on my mind.

I had to appease Him without joining Him.



So that’s how they all found me. In a white expanse, the White Room. Nothing for as far as the eye could see, a floor, smooth and cold like glass. A prison. Him and me, me being His fucking toy and everything else and suddenly voices, but that barely mattered at the time because there was just Him, standing over me as I scrambled backwards and begged for it to stop, and then I’m slamming into a wall, I could feel something crack, feel a fine mist of blood fly from my lips, hear it splatter on the ground. the silence built up to a roar, and I feel something… someone grab me, whispering, utterly and totally terrified

I thought I was dying.

But they got me out. I was raving, delusional, and half out of my mind with terror and pain, but I was alive. I had fixed The House by buying time, by giving myself up.

I still was seeing Him. I guess I thought I HAD died, that I was in some sort of hell…? Doesn’t matter. I ran, which left us here.

You all know what happened from there.



But now that I’m mostly healed up and since things have been quiet, I’m probably going to travel a bit. Last time I got some fresh air, I was almost brainwashed, and it might be nice to visit some of you guys while I get back to business, literally. As for The House? If I’m still alive, it’ll stay normal for now on. I’m not taking any more chances, no matter what that fucking means.

We’ll live. We’ll manage, because we’ve always managed. I’m not sure what exactly is going to happen from here, but we’re fine.

At least for now.

~Steele~ Heart of Darkness

I don't particularly want to talk about it anymore, but here I am. God knows I need to do something productive, ever since...that, I've been holed up in the garage, sleeping on a tattered mattress in the corner, keys in hand. Ready to go, but something always keeps me here. Some strange part of my mind, beyond the logic and the fear, a swirling pile of unexplainable emotions, motivations that I didn't know I had, hell, that I don't even know the name for. I suppose we all have them, that degree of uncertainty in the back of your mind. That part of you that makes you do things you never realised you had in you, that go against who you are, and leave you thinking, 'why?' Those shameful moments, the bursts of anger...No person puts themselves in a situation they don't enjoy, not willingly.

So why do we do it so fucking often? There's got to be some part of the mind that makes it so, some terrible, dark part of the mind that has desires which run entirely perpendicular to the pursuit of happiness. A part of us with alien desires, self-destructive patterns. Sigmund Freud theorized about the death drive, the wish to return to whence we came. Others gave it a name, called it 'thanatos', after the Greek mythological personification of Death. The part of us that makes us replay traumatic experiences over and over, magnifying them. We don't want to, but we do it anyway, an entirely internal unhappiness, despite us presumably being entirely in control of our thoughts.

Thanatos. That part of us that drives aggression against each other, for control of resources, for ideological reasons...the destruction of fellow man, for reasons we don't truly understand.

Thanatos, that part of us that stands on a bridge, looks down and feels strangely comforted.

It was called 'thanatos' at the turn of last century.

I wonder what we call Him now?

.   .   .

I looked down the stairs, fear and foreboding wrenching my mind in two. I didn't know what to expect, I couldn't know what to expect. The expected had been thrown out the window when the walls started to melt. The silence roared up from down below with an almost palpable ferocity, a rumbling, stagnant silence that hung in the air like mustard gas.

I reached down to my holster. There was no way I was heading down there without some sort of protection. Flicking the safety off, I took one step, two, down the creaking steps, and closed the door behind me, cutting off the last remaining light. I sat and waited for my purple vision to kick in; this was unfamiliar territory, the only way I'd be able to have any sort of advantage would be if I could see it better than the other bloke. I...at this point, I almost expected to see Spencer or Todd skulking around down here, so I decided to plan ahead, going through my pockets and pulling out a leather pouch, from which I took two syringes and a darkened spoon, before reaching back into the bag. In a Loop, you have all the time in the world for that.

Soon having my bearings, eyes adjusted to the dark I continued down. It was quiet...but not the oppressive silence of before, there was a buzzing in the air, an intermittent whine, which stopped for only a second before starting up again with renewed vigor. I walked with soft feet as the whine grew louder, resonating and vibrating upwards and outwards into a harsh scream, one filled with unimaginable pain, piercing, practically rattling the medical supplies which were rather strewn around the entire facility. I followed the sound for what seemed like an age, its intensity growing louder and louder...

I walked down a corridor and saw at the far end, a thick metal door with two small glass panes either side of it looking into the room beyond, with just a little light seeping through. Walking up to it as quietly as I could, I stayed low and to the shadows, not wanting to be seen...with a light hand on the door, I pulled myself up to the left window and peeked through.

The room was...well, it had clearly been designed to look like an operating theatre, but it had fallen into the position of storage room sometime during Doc's time down here with her little mad scientist routine. And what a storage room; the walls were lined with shelves of jars, some entirely opaque, some which clearly had things preserved in them. Small lizards, bugs...then at the creepier end of the spectrum, rodents, snakes, a single opossum with its lips curled back in a snarling grin...what looked very much like a human hand...

But even the jars weren't the worst part, strewn around the room were animals at varying stages of decomposition. Masticated coyotes with rotted flesh, birds strung up by their necks with ruffled feathers, and bones, so many bones, piled up almost as if there was a natural sort of order to it; it didn't look unclean, it was cool, methodical...surgical.

And in the centre of that room was Doc, leaning over a prone Matthew Rivers, his face contorted into a mask of pure agony, arms and legs strapped to the operating table...Except 'legs' wasn't quite correct, as one was sticking out of a steel bucket on the ground, a cut pant leg next to it with the unmistakable stain of blood. Lori's glasses reflected the light, coming from a single light in the centre of the room, the rest of the lights resolutely darkened. Her eyes were hidden, and she appeared to be concentrating particularly hard as she cut at the pants on his other leg with a pair of scissors, though every so often her lips would part in a slight giggle, almost nervous, and very quiet compared to the yelps which erupted from the psychologist's mouth as he struggled.

I slid back down from the window, nauseated, horrified...and desperately planning. Experimentally, I tried pulling the handle, and wasn't surprised at all to find the door locked. Oh well.

Time for plan B. I pulled out my gun and aimed it at the lock, before catching myself. "That only works in the movies, asshole," I muttered, before pointing at the window, looking away, and pulling the trigger.

Crash. So much for the element of surprise, I thought as I stuck my hand through the window and swiftly unlocked the door, as Lori recoiled backwards and snapped her head around to look at me, standing in front of the light, glasses no longer obscuring the sight of her glassy, severe eyes. Rivers whimpered. I gave her a quick grin, a part of me hoping I'd get one in return, hoping her gaze would soften and ask for me to politely not shoot her window...

Her eyes twinkled, and a vibrant laugh floated towards me as I breathed a sigh of relief.

Which was short-lived as she reached for a scalpel and laughed even harder, taking a few steps towards the door. I winced and, as an after-thought, reached for the lightswitch. My eyes were still adjusted to the dark, hers weren't. And I needed any chance I could get. The last thing I saw before we were plunged into pitch blackness was the cruel red glint of the scalpel blade.

Withdrawing my hand from the window, I pushed open the door and snuck in, staying low to the ground. The sudden lack of light shocked Lori, and she stumbled a little, swinging her scalpel around madly, her teeth involuntarily gnashing with each swing. That was my first order of business, disarming her; I crawled up, staying close to the floor as she swung in a rage...then all of a sudden she stopped, holding her scalpel in front of her face, and scanned the area slowly, her glasses cloudy in the low light. When she was looking the other way, I slid up closer, praying that Rivers would make some more noise to hide the sounds of me sneaking, but he had returned to a dull whimper and heavy breathing. Clearly not wanting to startle the one with the knife, which is an admirable venture...

She spun around with terrifying force and stared at the door, her glasses swaying just slightly with her head. I held my breath, and the room went dead silent. Lori didn't move, she just stood there, and Rivers...I didn't know what Rivers was doing, but his breathing had calmed. Fuck, he has to be alright...

I breathed out, and Lori struck at me like a cobra, slicing me across the forehead with a long slash as I fell back and grasped around behind me for something to defend myself with, until my hands grabbed something cold and muscly, which I brought out in front of my face just as Lori stabbed down, and something metal clanged behind me...

The scalpel stuck, and I pushed Lori back with renewed force, seeing my chance, feeling wetness soak into the back of my shirt. Her grip on it came loose, and she stumbled backwards as I got to my feet and swung my newfound weapon at her side, catching her under the arm and feeling something salty flick onto my face, a single drop getting in my eye...at which point, I realised what my weapon was and dropped it in horror; the severed leg tumbled to the ground unceremoniously as I resisted an oncoming wave of nausea, though not too well. I retched, and Lori smacked me across the face with an open palm, before lunging at my throat with her nails, knocking me backwards and winding me, landing spritely on my chest with a sweet smile on her face, glasses shimmering. Her fingers, moving with the practiced ease of a surgeon effortlessly found the carotid arteries on either side of my windpipe, which she pressed down on with a gleeful cackle; I felt my vision start to blur, and my head start to spin as her nails dug into the thin skin on my neck, completely ignoring my windpipe as all I could do was breathe, breathe...

And reach for the syringe in my pocket, which I stabbed into her cocked elbow, with the practiced ease of a self-confessed junkie, drawing blood in from the vein and injecting in two swift movements. Her glasses dropped off with a start as her thumbs relaxed, and she looked at me in the eyes...curiously. "...wha?"

"Let's call it a morphine milkshake." I commented with an all-too-gracious smile, as the good doctor began to quiver. I gently pried her limp hands from my neck and pushed her off me, without much resistance, as a broad, content smile grew on her face. I stood and went to turn on the lights, going through my pockets to find the second syringe as I walked over to Dr. Rivers, who looked at me with tears in his eyes and chapped, bloodied lips which he'd clearly torn to pieces with his own teeth. "Thank you." he said in a hoarse voice, as I gave him the opiate wordlessly, waiting a few minutes to make sure it had helped with the pain.

With that, I turned back to the good doctor lying on the ground and drew the gun again. Now things were sorted, there was a glaring issue here to take care of.

-   -   -

"You in there, Lori?" I said, sitting cross-legged next to the girl lying on the ground. Her gaze slowly swung in my direction. Vacant stare, and just a tiny bit of saliva on the corner of her mouth. Attractive look. "'ello, Steele." She got out eventually, with much difficulty enunciating. I decided to start off tactically. "We cool?"
"...uh?"
"You just cut off a man's leg and tried to kill me with a scalpel. Are we cool, or are you still feeling stabby?" ...well, tactically enough.
She blinked, and mumbled something inaudible, before speaking a little louder. "Marcus left. I don't need to do that anymore."
Marcus...her ex. Poor girl, she'd been through so much...but apparently she was going through a little bit more. "I don't know, I'm seeing a lot of Marcus in you sometimes. We're your friends, you know that. We'd never hurt you." I placed the gun softly next to her ear, and she turned to look at it, clearly puzzled. "But that person who attacked me, that wasn't you. That was someone else. Mind telling me who?"
Her gaze was oddly contemplative. "Marcus said I had to operate or he'd die."

Oh, lord.

"Marcus...don't listen to him. You remember last time you two met? He tried to hurt you?"
A nod. "Know it now...didn't know it...when..." She shuddered a little. I realised at this point that she was lying in the overturned bucket of Rivers' blood, so I put an arm under her back and picked her up into a sitting position; she wavered a little, so I kept my support behind her. "Kinda felt everything fade into the shadows...laughing, didn't know why..." She looked contemplatively at the blood on her hands.
"You okay, hun? You remember it all?" I asked, trying to sound comforting. She thought about that for a moment and went pale. "Oh god, is he...?" She stood and walked over to Rivers, it was all I could do to catch up and grab her. "He's fine. Are you fine to be checking on him? If anything else bad were to happen to him..." I flashed a warning glance at her, and immediately regretted it as the doctor cowered. "I just want to say...say I'm..." her eyes teared up a little from the guilt, and I relented. "He knows, love. Don't worry. We've got so much else to worry about right now."
"Like what?"
"The House has gone a little haywire. We need to find Spence." I said, moving away from the operating table to light a cigarette, as she processed this new information, before taking a few steps towards me, before an unmistakable crunch of glass emerged from under her foot. I was a little on edge, I'll admit: I dropped my match and spun around. Lori looked underneath her foot, to see the crushed remains of her glasses. She tried to put them on, and with an emphatic "Fuuuuuck," realised they were beyond repair. "Well, this sucks." She turned to me, broken glasses still on her face. "Shall we?"

I smiled. "Of course, love. You got another pair you can pick up before we go? That said, I don't know if you'd like what you'll see up top."

"Fuck it .  .  . Let's just go."

-Doc- An Explanation

I suppose someone should start talking about what happened in December. Is it really January? Have we truly come this far? I don't know if a lot of time or if little time has passed since we were freed from the jungle. I don't know if I want to know how long it's been.

I don't even remember how it started. But once I knew I was in it, it felt as though that's how things had always been. Terrified of everything, running from each shadow of nothing flickering in the dim light, slinking through the concrete corridors with a pile of rocks resting in my stomach. Burning. Alex and Dr. Rivers felt like distant memories, even as I continued to care for them in the little time I was willing to spend around them. I went into the infirmary as little as possible, as in that state, it frightened me. Not any more than any other room, and certainly less than the snaking, ever-changing hallways. But I felt that if I was on the move, at least I had a chance of finding some safety. Of course, this was foolish. Some distant glimmer of a hope - sometimes the mirage of daylight trickling through the crack in a door, sometimes an echo of the voice of one of my family - would tease at the edge of my senses. Ever obedient to my fear and tearful desperation, I would chase, only to find that, no. This is how things are. This is how they always shall be. Joy is a lie, and all I can hope for is to die quickly in this ever-growing forest of madness. No one can hear me cry and bang my fists against the walls until my knuckles are bloodied and scream as the walls begin to close in so I can see them in all their horrific splendor and artistry.

I couldn't stand it anymore. The walls are closing in. I wanted to die. The wolves are raising their hackles. I saw the scalpel. The final shreds of reality are ripped away by the wind. I was gone.

But I wouldn't turn the blade on myself. Not then. I don't want to talk about this anymore

-Spencer- Home

Pain.

Pain is an interesting thing; something we all seem to be carrying with us lately. All types of pain, all types of variances, pain that's just annoying and pain that makes you want to die. It does...weird things to you. Gets into your mind, makes you bleed, makes you cry; until you're not sure where your pain ends and your thoughts began.

Sorry. I... I'm back. Trying to explain this is hard because I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t… I couldn’t. I’ve felt pain before, I feel pain constantly, but this… oh god, it felt like it was consuming everything, I forgot how to eat, how to feel, how to breath. I… I thought this was it. I thought that I was going to die. I would’ve done anything to make it stop, and the worst part was i was half-aware through all of it. I knew that this time, what I was seeing, what I was feeling… it wasn’t real. Father wasn’t there. He was never there, but…

…

Pain. Christ, everyone knows pain. We all can relate to pain. When an animal gets hurt, it whimpers pathetically and runs home with its tail between its legs.
That’s what I did.



I ran home.
 


But I… it wasn’t exactly me. If it was, I wouldn’t have been missing for a day or two. You all call him Teller. You call ME Teller, we’ve been through this; it’s not an alternate personality, a Tyler Durden of proxism. It’s me. Just me being a giant dickhead, acting for the good of myself and myself only.

… and you all call it a significant change?

Regardless. It doesn’t fucking matter, does it? I… I went home. The home I shared with Writer for three years in Montreal. After what happened in the Wing, I can see why. That place… didn’t hurt. Couldn’t hurt, at least in my drug addled, pain-ridden brain.

So I stumbled there. Used the Path, probably made my injuries worse. Didn’t know where I was or why I was there and the pain wouldn’t godamn stop, just that I had to keep moving or He… fuck, it gets confusing, because He wasn’t there and I knew He wasn’t there but-


… Focus.
 

I guess I started to Craft, send out my feelers in an unconscious effort to protect myself despite being half-bonkers and utterly boned if someone else showed up.

And guess who was present for the party? Complete with murderous little entourage. I’d find it kind of hilarious that our collective villains are meeting for coffee and tea and probably go-karting if it wasn’t so fucking terrifying at the time.

I couldn’t remember who they were, of course. But I knew enough to be afraid. And… fuck, the… the world started pounding with my head, like some sort of… I don’t know. He… the bastard tried to trigger me and…

I saw Him. He wasn’t there, but I saw Him, and I ran, screaming and sobbing

fucking blurry, I can’t see, I couldn’t
 

and then he was there again with his stupid grin, right in front of me, taking advantage of the fact that I was barely anything at all and
 

trying to break me
 
trying to get his fucking Teller back
 

Glass breaking, and pain, so much fucking pain, ruining everything that I am, that I was, that I’m trying to be and then…
 
I felt something. Something weird and foreign within the Loop, something… breaking it, forcing in. A rib cracked, maybe two, a sharp bit of hurt in my chest, but it woke me up. A small figure broke in. Everyone stared.


Everyone… Even Writer. Even Rhodes. The look on their stupid faces was incredible. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen; better than the fucking Mona Lisa.
 
 
 
 


“LUCY, I’M HOME!”
 
 
 
 
 

He saved me.
 
He got me out of an impossible situation alive.
 
But that’s what he does, right? Beyond the impossible is just his thing.
 
We got out of the Loop that he broke into and had to walk to the House.
 
Which is where we’re both currently. Me, for a while. Him, probably not for long.
 
June Reynolds and I.
 
He’s alive.

-Sam- Happy new year

We celebrated the new year by doing absolutely nothing. August puked on the stroke of midnight, so that was a pretty good summary of 2011. I still can't believe we're all alive. Beat up and drugged, but alive.

Everyone is starting to feel better, thank God. Doc is a little less high. Todd is Todd most of the time. Dr. Rivers...is still pretty bad, but somebody else is gonna have to explain that. And Spencer finally started being kind of coherent yesterday. He got out of bed, said something about going for a walk, and left.

...Come to think of it, I haven't seen him since. I hope he's okay.

-Sam