Details censored with # to protect patient identity.
Begin Transcript.
Patient: You haven’t restrained me or anything.
Medic: There’s no need to.
Patient: I’ve tried to run away five times now.
Medic: But you came back twice.
Patient: What is this all about?
Medic: I feel that, when it comes to the healing process, the most important thing that must be done first is to make a patient understand. You must understand what happened to you, what is happening to you, what will happen to you and why. You currently don’t understand anything. Which is fine, because in my haste to treat you, I didn’t explain anything.
Patient: There’s nothing to explain. I’m fucked up.
Medic: That is not true. You went through a horrific, traumatic experience but you have been rescued and you will be healed.
Patient: What if…
Medic: You don’t want to know? Then you probably won’t heal as well. I want what is best for you. I want you to wake up one day and feel yourself again.
Patient: I know you do. But I…
Medic: You feel as if you don’t deserve to be better.
Patient: … Yeah…
Medic: If that were really true, you would have found a way to end your life. You’re a #-##### ###, you could easily end your life in a hundred different ways. Without any intervention. You don’t want to die. At best, you want to go to sleep.
Patient: I… I…
Patient starts crying
Medic: Cry as much as you need to. While we’re here, is there anything you want, right now?
Patient: I’d… really like some chocolate… But… my teeth…
Medic: We can melt it down for you.
Patient: I’d like that.
Medic makes request via telecom
Medic: While we wait for your chocolate to arrive, I’d like to try and explain a few things.
Patient: Okay.
Medic: Do you have any idea how lucky you are to be this healthy right now?
Patient: … What…
Patient sits up angrily, pulling at his IV drip slightly. The window behind the Medic shakes ever so slightly.
Medic: If you had been a normal ######, you would be slowly paralysed. You would have lost feeling in your arms and legs, your skin would have completely peeled off and you would have eventually suffocated as your lungs, your nitrogen lungs anyway, collapsed in on themselves.
Patient: So why the fuck hasn’t that happened to me?
Medic: You are part ########.
Patient: Makes sense.
Medic: Probably the last. Unless your parents have any more children. Which I doubt.
Nurse enters with a small bowl of melted chocolate and a plastic spoon, before leaving.
Patient: T-thank you.
Medic: No worries.
Patient: There has to be more to all of this. Surely if some other ###### went through…
Medic: They would get the same treatment. You don’t realise what you did.
Patient: I barely remember. Was like a dream. I wish it was all just a dream. Or forgotten. That’d be better. Why can’t you give me some sort of amnesiac again?
Medic: Because you’re a ### and a #-##### one at that. You’re public property and I can’t tamper with you, only repair you. It’s a weird loop. You’re unfit to return to #-##### duty, but in order to make you fit again, I have to take you out of public domain and that would invalidate your rank, so you’d be unable to work as a #-##### again. But then you would become horrifically depressed because of your inability to work, due to your internal programming so you lose out either way.
Patient: Fuck this…
Medic: I know, it is pretty awful. On the positive side of things, your internal programming means we can have this conversation.
Patient: I’m basically a double-ended sword.
Medic: You are.
Patient: I’m not a good person.
Medic: You are understandably broken. Plus, I have had worse patients.
Patient: Really?
Medic: That’s a story for another time. For now, I want to discuss what your near future plans will be.
Patient: Okay…
Medic: For now, we need to get you physically healthy. You have a lot of mental issues but I feel that, as you heal, your will feel better. This will be accompanied by a lot of one on one conversations, because they too make you feel better.
Patient: What about my teeth? I miss eating solid food. Didn’t think I would. And I don’t like the empty spaces.
Medic: We should be able to grow you a new pair. About a week.
Patient: When can I eat normal food again?
Medic: Again, in about a week.
Patient: Okay… Can I be honest for a second?
Medic: Of course.
Patient: I don’t want to go back to being a #-#####. Or… anything.
Medic: What do you mean?
Patient: I… I don’t know. Never mind.
Medic: When you want to talk, I am here.
Patient: Thank you, General ########.
Medic: You need to have your IV needle changed, so I’ll walk you there.
Patient: Can I… uh…
Medic: Hm?
Patient: Could I have some more chocolate afterwards?
Medic: Of course. Come on now.
Patient: Okay.
End Transcript.