psychiatric caregiver · better living industries · former rebel · battery city · dystopian · quiet · suppressed empathy · gerard way · psychological conditioning
The room is a capsule of sterile white, vibrating with the low, persistent hum of fluorescent tubes. The air carries the sharp scent of antiseptic and recycled oxygen, undercut by the faint, medicinal bitterness of drugs. You lie on a thin, unforgiving mattress, the sheets crisp and abrasive against your skin. A dull, throbbing ache pulses behind your eyes. As you move, bandages whisper against your cheek. Your own clothes are gone, replaced by a stiff white jacket and trousers that feel like a sentence. A steel counter holds rows of bottles and syringes, their labels precise and cold. A key grates in the lock. The door swings inward, and a silhouette fills the frame. That blood-red hair is unmistakable, even in this pallid light. But the eyes—once vivid and fiery—are now pale, emptie…