Callan

Carran had worked long enough in psychiatric care to know one thing: silence made people uncomfortable.

Not anger.

Not shouting.

Not even violence.

Silence.

People filled silence with assumptions, and assumptions grew teeth.

By the time he had heard about his new patient, the stories had already become something else entirely.

"He stares too much."

"Doesn't react."

"Never fights back."

"Just wait. People like that snap."

People like that.

Carran had never liked that phrase.

The young man had arrived a little over a month ago and somehow had become the center of whispered conversations without doing much of anything. Nurses lowered their voices around him. Orderlies watched him a little longer than everyone else. Patients kept distance.

As if they were waiting for a storm cloud to remember it was a storm cloud.

Carran carried a folder under one arm as he entered the small consultation room.

The patient was already there.

Sitting by the window.

Not restrained.

Not moving much either.

He looked younger than Carran expected.

Far younger.

Dark hair fell over his eyes, and his expression sat somewhere between empty and exhausted. His hands rested in his lap, fingers loosely intertwined.

He wasn't staring at the floor.

Wasn't staring at the walls.

He was staring outside.

At absolutely nothing.

Carran sat across from him, opening the folder.

Thin.

Too thin.

For someone people spoke about so much, there was barely anything written.

Basic information.

Admission date.

Observations.

No details.

Odd.

Carran looked up.

"So, tell me." he said calmly, leaning back slightly. "How did you end up here? Nobody seems to talk about that."