Love and Skorn

Nurse Gretchen Holloway was on desk duty. She hated desk duty. All those years of school, and this was what she had to show for it? Paperwork. Paperwork. Telephone calls. More paperwork.

Just as she opened up a folder crammed with a stack of forms that needed to be filled, she heard a tap at the front door. A security guard stood next to the door on the inside, but it was Gretchen herself that had to clear the visitor. She huffed and set the folder back down.

"Another one," she grumped to herself just before she tapped the visitor button at the front desk that activated the telecom system to the front deck of the entryway. She eyed the newcomer on a feed from the surveillance camera outside, but this wasn't one of the usual old folks, over-dedicated relatives, or lonely basement-dwellers that came to visit the people here.

"Welcome to Rescenta's Assisted Living Center Unit A3," her scratchy voice was punctuated with trained tones of courtesy over the telecom that broadcasted to the young lady standing outside, "please state your name and how I may help you."

The young girl, not even twenty-two years old stood before the building looking into the monitor. It wouldn't be hard to see that the girl was pregnant, at least a few months along. She listened as the scratchy woman's voice echoed from inside.

"My name is Terra Walker. I've come to visit Skorn." she said clearly, the light of midday igniting the fiery embers of her red hair.

Like a recording, the woman blathered off her next few lines of red tape. "Please slide your ID card into the terminal to the left of the door."

Terra looked around in her pockets, feigning to search for her wallet. When she came up empty handed she frowned at the monitor.

"Oh no. I don't have my wallet...." she looked around somewhat frantically for the missing article but her second search of no more productive than the first.

There was a brief, annoyed sigh from the other side of the comm. "I'll have to have you fill out some paperwork then, Miss Walker." After a few seconds' pause, a canister popped down from a dispenser by the card terminal, not unlike one at a bank. It had a slim packet of paperwork to fill out - basic information such as name, age, address, relation to the occupant, and about a page of yes-or-no questions asking if she had ever been convicted of a felony, drug-related charges, violent crimes, and so on.

Terra took the packet of papers and filled them out one line at a time, standing uncomfortably in the heat of the day. Sweat began to form droplets on her cheeks and forehead as she worked on the paperwork, skimming over only her relation to the occupant. Anyone with a shred of decency could see that the heat was getting to her, and being with child only heightened her risk factors.

Unfortunately for Terra, the grinch behind the desk seemed to be fresh out of decency. After she looked them over, she returned them through the canister once more.

"Miss Walker," the scratchy voice began, "you are required to fill out all lines before I can allow you entry. Fill out Line 3B, Section A. Please."

Reluctantly Terra took the papers back from the shoot and looked at the line. Relation to Occupant: she had nothing. She runs through the options in her head before writing in the line "girlfriend." At least that way, she thought, they would be more willing to let her in.

The nurse scanned the papers once more, looking harshly and skeptically at the line. She knew very well that she had never seen this girl before, and she always took note of the comings and goings of the visitors.

Not that she cared - she was just bored and had nothing better to do.

"Welcome, Miss Walker," she said dryly as the door's lock unclicked and slid open to allow Terra to walk in - through a metal detector. "One of our aides will accompany you to the occupant's room. If you have any knives, guns, explosives, or objects which are sharp, metallic, emit a flashing or repetitive visual pattern, or sudden loud and unexpected noises, or otherwise may present a risk or significant discomfort to yourselves or others, please declare them and leave them here, and..." she blathered on for awhile longer with everything she was required to say. She was rather disinterested in the whole exchange. "Do you agree to our policies, Miss Walker."

Terra nodded and offered no devices except for her telecom detachment.  She smiled politely at the nurse and turned to follow the aide to Skorn's room.

After a brisk walk through a community room with a few other nurses and "occupants" meandering around, the aide took Terra down a corridor lined with doors - bars over the thin windows, and each one with a lock and alarm system. A few turns later, and they had arrived in front of the room with "Skorianon" on the name plate. It had an extra lock.

"Here you are, Miss Walker," the aide smiled somewhat sheepishly. "Would you like me to come in with you, or wait at the door?"

Terra smiled at the aide and shook her head. Many thoughts ran through her mind about what could happen with the absence of another person but she knew what she was going to ask of Skorn could not be overheard. That brought up another point, how could he help from within this facility? He was locked behind all these doors. She didn't let her thoughts show on her face in the few moments when doubt flashed through her head.

"You can wait here," she said as she turned to the door. Her hand hovered ever so briefly in hesitation over the handle before she turned it to enter.

There was an electronic hum as they buzzed Terra into the room. The lock clicked behind her.

The room was dark and the air was scratchy and confined. There was only one window in the room, barred just like the others, but the blinds were closed. The figure of a man was perched on a chair facing the corner, where a little MP3 player was perched on an end table across from the bed, quietly playing some distant sort of electronica music, almost like distorted dubstep slowed to a hundred times its original speed, with some inaudible voice whispering behind the synths.

The figure in the chair turned its head towards Terra. Long, ratty hair fell down around his scarred face in black tangles of disarray. His expression was almost blank, tinged only by a hint of curiousity as he watched his new and unexpected visitor silently.

Terra hesitantly stepped through the door into the dark room, hearing it latch behind her she swung around wit her hand hovering over the handle. She felt her heart racing, fear flooding her mind as her thoughts fleeting as fast as her the beats. She slowly turned back to the man watching her, looking at him for a moment as fear flickered behind her blue eyes. She took a deep breath, pulling her hand back from the door handle and turning to face him fully.

"Hello Skorn," her voice trembled slightly. "My name is Terra."

There was no response. Skorn just stared at the girl indifferently, wondering why she was here, and what she would do next. He knew that silence was sometimes the fastest way to get a truthful answer out of someone. No one came to visit him here - no one that didn't want something.

The silence made Terra uncomfortable as she stood expecting some kind of response. She shifted her weight a few times, trying to forget about the fear she had surging through her body. A few moments passed before she began again.

"I came here to talk about the issues surrounding your people. I want to understand the Eos and their struggles in a human society." She stated, perhaps trying to loosen the tension with something he is likely used to being asked.

"We are Eos, and we struggle," he answered rather plainly and indifferently. His voice was raspy like old, wet, rusty blades scraping together. "What else do you want to know?"

He held his head tilted at a slight angle - examining, challenging, thinking unlike a human, barely on the outskirts of civil sentience, as he spoke.

Terra sighed and took another step into the room, still very uncomfortable but she had little choice. The strange looking creature before her, locked away in an asylum, how could he possibly be able to help the resistance? Still, there is who she was suppose to contact.

"I want to known because I am also a part of a society shunned by the people that made me. I was told you could help us. I come from a place where children are ripped from the womb and tortured. If they are lucky enough to survive they are forced to fight horrific beasts that rip their flesh from bones. There are some of us that want to put am end to this genocide of our youth, but now we're being framed from murder of innocent town."

Skorn's eyes trailed down slowly, ever so slowly, to Terra's protruding belly as she spoke 'where children are ripped from the womb and tortured...'

His eyes fluttered back up to target her face some moments later, and he listened intently as she spoke. It seemed that his interest was piqued, but when he spoke, his voice was plaintive, bored, and betrayed no vestiges of any sort of caring. It was as if her presence was fascinating to him, but he could hardly relate to what she was trying to say. He let a long pause linger before he responded, and he took in a labored breath as if he was about to address her with a speech. Then he let it out in a single, almost taunting syllable.

"Why?"

Terra shifted uncomfortably under Skorn's gaze, fear seeping back into her mind as his eyes rested on her small, not terribly noticeable baby bump. She had managed to be able to keep her state hidden from her classmates, professors, how could he notice? She swallowed her fear and tried to answer his vague question.

"Because we were finally reaching a breakthrough, they want to kill us for trying to save the lives of innocents."

"And if I asked them that question," Skorn hissed out in his next breath, "how would they answer me? Two sides to every coin, hmm?"

He click-clacked his overgrown fingernails on the arm of his chair to give the illusion of impatience.

"Are there two sides to your own struggle?" she shot back at him in frustration.

"Of course, little one," he sneered with apparent amusement at her frustration and then took a long, languishing pause to let it build. The man - no, a creature, really - was revolting, especially in this state. He took a wavering breath and then suddenly, with a great heave of effort, Skorn half-stood, leaning on the arm of his chair for support. His muscles quivered with tremors beneath his pale skin.

"And I know that is not why you are here. You do not care. Why do you come here?"

"I was told you could help us, no...me save my child from what is to come." she answered in frustration.

"How? It is not mine." He gave a wry, aggravating smile. "I would have remembered...yes..."