adjusting [open]

Everything was white. The walls, the ceiling, even the sheets. Even the threadbare blanket he lay on top of had, at one point in its life, been white. The incessant flickering of the fluorescent light irritated him; it seemed to be getting brighter and brighter the longer he lay there, feeling paler and paler. Under this light his pale skin looked sickly, sort of ashen and dry. It felt, to him, like the longer he laid on that hard-mattressed, too-small bed, the stronger the room got at his expense. His bare feet dangled off one end of the bed and the crook of his thin neck rested on the other. There's no way I can sleep on this thing. I'll have to curl up, like a little kid. Maybe I'll just use the floor. But that was never really going to happen, and he knew it. For one they'd assume it was some new form of psychosis manifesting: have you seen that schizo kid, the one that sleeps on the floor? Weird. But really, he was too bony; he'd never get comfortable without at least a little bit of cushion.

Amos sat up slowly, his arms coming forward to pull his feet up until he was sitting cross legged. Now that he wasn't looking at the light above him it had started to hum, as if it refused to be ignored or forgotten. The hum undulated, then became constant. Slowly it began to rise in pitch until he didn't know if the hum was really from the light or from inside his own head. It was like the hum of a TV, not the words but that high, squealing ring that happens just from the electricity needed to turn the thing on.

He pulled his knees up, turning to rest his back against the wall. The hum was making him sweat, his ears ringing and the thoughts that had been so clear a moment ago giving way to static, which slowly began to resolve into an image. He could see skin, so much soft skin and he closed his eyes, trying to make the picture clearer. There was something, something there, something about the way the skin looked. He could see the fine dusting of pale blonde hair, but there was more. Amos pressed his head between his knees and clenched his fists, trying to understand. Maybe it was the light, maybe...

Then there was the smell, and he understood. The skin, he knew that was a sensual image, he got it. It might not give him any pleasure personally, but he knew it got other people off. But the smell changed everything. It was a mixture of sour sweat and the way a room starts to smell if you smoke too many cigarettes in it, stale and decayed. And underneath it... copper. Copper and salt. Blood. Once he finally waded through the rest of the information to arrive at the blood, it was all he could smell.

Amos tried to pull back. The humming made it hard to form his own thoughts, every time he tried it was like starting a sentence and then hearing someone else say something simultaneously; once you've sorted out who says what first the words have been forgotten. He didn't want to touch this mind anymore, he didn't want anything to do with it. He didn't care what ever screwed up fantasy the guy next door was having, he wanted no part of it. Unable to drive the images out, he lifted his head up groggily and snapped it back against the wall. Three sharp bangs later his mind was clear.

I wonder what its like, wanting something like that so much. It just seems... pointless. No, more like sad. Sad? What a dumb word. A little shaken despite himself, Amos stood up and stretched. The thin white tank top he wore hung low on his chest, showing the delicate structure of his ribcage through the skin. He was tall, sure, but he was skinny like a prepubescent girl. His collarbones looked like bird's bones and his wrists were the width of three of his long, slender fingers. There was nothing about him that looked or felt strong, but he wasn't one to lose himself in somebody else. Whatever crazy lived next door better keep his thoughts to himself, or he's start to think about seeing if he could force other people to feel things the way he did.

Ambling to the door, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his black jeans, he leaned against the frame and peered into the hallway. He was in a minimal security ward, secured by his good behavior up in the Salem institute he had recently come from. Escaping was pretty low on his list of priorities; where would he go if he wasn't here? Something flickered at the edge of his vision and he blinked, hoping it would leave, but it stayed. A constant glimmer and flash, like something was always darting away just as he looked. Trying to ignore it, he padded across the narrow hall to one of the barred windows and leaned next to it, staring at the sky. The picture from earlier was still an afterimage behind his eyes and a sheen of sweat sat cooling beneath the blonde curls on his forehead, but he ignored them both.

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