PFM #'What if' snippet - Laurent x MC, academy for fives

A woman dressed in white medical garb holds you down on the examination couch. The large device to which you are connected by a myriad of cords beep beep beeps out of tune with your rapid pulse. Another machine rumbles like static.

The odor of chemicals is calming, though it burns your already red from crying eyes. Your mouth tastes chalky from the pills they have you chew on. Your enhanced sense of smell that had been driving you crazy barely works now.

The doctor’s demeanor is mellow, but her fingers dig into the meat of your shoulders like ten thick needles. The pressure warns you off from running away.

“Level four. Level five.” The attendant is nicer, dressed in blues with puppy-patterned pants peeking from under the hem of her coat. She flashes you a smile as she counts the waves displayed on the screen. “Level four. Level five. Level four. Stop.”

“The child is a four,” the doctor finally states, releasing you so abruptly that your small, tense body free-falls forward. It’s thanks to the attendant that you don’t rip off the cords glued all over your head.

Due to the sudden rush, and the conversations echoing from the corridor, it’s difficult for you to hear, least of all understand, what’s going on. Between the continuous parping of the nearby machinery, whatever the attendant says makes the doctor pause with her pen raised over a document file with your name on it.

“Why? The *EEG is just slightly above the norm. It’ll settle.”

The noise from the corridor becomes louder as more people arrive. The sorting facility was overcrowded to begin with, but the longer you stay here, the more congested it gets.

“The awakening was violent,” the attendant mumbles under her breath, wincing apologetically when you lift your head.

“It happens,” the doctor brushes the concern off, indifferently leafing through your file. “We’re doing a rough assessment anyway. If the tier settles on the higher level, the initial facility will redirect [them].”

“[They are] nervous. Let’s check again.”

“All the more reason to just move [them] along.” The doctor sighs, but she doesn’t begin to write, twirling the pen between her fingers before addressing you. “Where are your parents? They didn’t come here with you?”

“N-no,” you gulp at the same time as the attendant points at your file.

The doctor reads it more thoroughly this time, making low, humming noises as she goes. When she’s done, an expression you can’t decode passes over her face. “...Temporary guardian,” she mutters, closing the file.

“Yes.”

“All right. Let’s check again.”

When the doctor turns to you again, you ensure that you’re sitting as still as you can. It works because she doesn’t touch you more than to re-attach the loose cords. You have a hunch that if not for the cables being already connected, she’d have dismissed the attendant’s idea.

“Good catch,” she mutters after a while. “Juveniles’ brain activity is usually...” she pauses, making a high wave with her hand. “But here, you can tell that the level is much higher.”

“What does that mean?” you ask, curling into yourself when two pairs of eyes zero on you. There’s a twin look of pity caused by, as you assume, the fact that you’re one of the very few children who are here alone. Or maybe you just seem scared shitless.

“You’re a five,” the attendant says, her smile frozen and a bit contrived. “It’s a good thing. Congratulations.”

“Yes, yes,” the doctor reiterates, waving at the attendant who begins to free you from the cords. After scribbling something in your file, she focuses on the documents lying on a table, only to be stopped by the attendant mid-choice.

“How about this one?” she points at a particular paper next to the stack the doctor was inspecting. “They have a space left.”

“It’s private...” the doctor muses, but eventually she does pick up the document. “Then again, for a five... The government will accommodate [them].”

The attendant jumps up at the decision, running out of the room before the doctor can finish. “I’ll call the guardian!”

“Do that,” the doctor capitulates, wrapping up the file and pressing a stamp. The ink is red. As red as your hands were before the attendant washed them for you.

While you wait for the guardian, the doctor scrubs the remnants of the adhesive bandages from your forehead and temples. She helps you dress in your outerwear, ties your shoes. She even shows you a picture of the place you’ll be staying at - a towering cube-shaped complex surrounded by a dense forest.

“It looks like an asylum,” she says with a snick, grimacing to herself. “But they have a qualified personnel and modern equipment. You’ll— He’s here.”

The guardian waiting on you outside is tall, with a broad torso shaped like a triangle. The lower half of his face is disguised by a black mask. Most of the upper half is shrouded by a baseball cap pulled low and large sunglasses.

He takes the documents from the doctor, puts them behind his black vest without taking even a glance. They exchange words, then the guardian leads you out of the building and towards the parking lot.

He doesn’t speak much, just, “Sit in the back. Fasten your seat belt,” and off you go.

You drive for a long, long time. The guardian makes frequent stops at gas stations along the way, feeding you with fast food while he chugs his coffee. When you throw up your juice, he wipes you down with wet tissues, giving you the pink package to hold should you need it later. You clutch it in your hands until the thin plastic crumples.

***

It takes hours, but you arrive at your destination. The facility is smaller in person, much smaller than other places you saw printed on the documents. The forest is as huge as you imagined it, though. There’s no wall, no fence, just miles and miles of trees.

Once you’re led inside, you never see the guardian again, but you get closely acquainted with the instructors.

The interior of the building looks like a hospital hall. Your quarters are sizable but bare, with pale walls and a glassed door. One bed, two windows, an adjoined bathroom, a table, a chair, a wardrobe, and a shelf. A one-size-fits-all uniform lying on the mattress, still in a plastic package. Only the slippers are your actual number.

“Don’t worry. We’ll get you fitted,” the instructor says, ushering you inside. They are more welcoming than the doctor has been. “Feel free to visit the common rooms today. Make yourself at home.”

You do, whether you want it or not.

***

Within the first year, the beginners’ training, and the final assessment, your tier is confirmed, and you’re delegated to the dorm area of the building. It’s not at all homely, still hospital-like, with a row of vending machines in the lobby. There’s a cafeteria, gym, and indoor pool. Your new room is identical to your previous one, but you’re allowed to customize it.

The bedroom to your right is empty. The boy who lives on the left seems to be asleep every time you pass him by. When he does wake, it’s in the middle of the night to thrash around and scream. Most days, he doesn't wake at all. He’s in and out of the hospital wing, and you can count on the fingers of your one palm how often you see him in the cafeteria, mechanically shoveling his meal.

His absence is not the only thing that makes him stand out. His uniform is always clean and meticulously buttoned up. He sprouts a regular cut, brushing his hair back, uncovering his haunted blue eyes. When he speaks, it’s very formal, voice rough from disuse.

“There are more like him,” the instructor says when asked. “Though not in our academy. It’s normal for his affliction. Dream Shaping takes a toll on his mind.”

It makes you glad to be an Allurer, even if the stench of emotion still makes you nauseous.

The instructors give you emotion blockers, supervising the dosages until you learn to block the smell naturally. They teach you how to modulate your voice, how to make sure an order doesn’t slip, that your words carry no weight.

***

You don’t think much about the boy save to compare your situation with his. He’s roughly your age, but that doesn’t matter. After the first year, the classes are sorted by skill, not age, and you only see him in glimpses when you pass by his room.

Until one night, nearly four years into your training. You’re standing just outside of your room, staring through the window at the cars pulling out of the driveway.

Those who passed their tests are allowed to leave the facility for the duration of the holidays.  Those who passed and have a family to return to. You’re not one of them.

The facility houses roughly a hundred students, including those in-waiting, and out of the permanent residents, you’re the second person who never leaves the dorm.

The Boy On The Left, dubbed as the Sleeping Prince, spends his holidays in a coma, bound to the hospital wing or his own bed. In his case, however, he’s not abandoned.

Though anyone apart from the staff isn’t allowed inside the dorm area, there’s a pale-haired man you grew to remember. His skin has a healthy hue to it, with a dash of freckles, but his piercing eyes are so familiar that when you saw him for the first time, you immediately knew who he was visiting.

Today as well, he strides into the hallway like he owns this place. From the rumors your classmates spread, it might not be far off from the truth.

“Good morning.”

Something in the way he’s dressed - sharply, like an instructor - and the way he carries himself makes you greet him by habit. The man nods at you, seemingly just as reflexively, but he pays you no mind, entering the room on the left.

He spends precisely a quarter of an hour every time, then leaves. Usually, it’s to be expected. Now, though, right after the man makes his exit, the boy sits up, wide awake.

Your eyes meet through the glass door. It’s an accident, and though you are curious, you know it’s none of your business. But when he gestures at you to enter, as imperious as his father, something in you compels you to go.

“Close the door.” It’s the first thing he’s ever said to you, as far as you can remember. His way of speaking is more like that of a teacher, not a student, authoritative but dull.

Since he didn’t bother with a greeting, you don’t, either, pushing the door closed with your back. “Why are you pretending to sleep?”

His lips press into a thin line as he debates internally whether to answer or not. He seems to think that sharing with you will stop you from selling him out. “Otherwise what? Do you think I want to sit here and listen to how I am wasting my potential? It’s better if he comes and goes.”

“Is that your dad?” You’re only making sure, but their expressions are identical, even if their features are slightly off.

The boy nods, then looks towards the window. From the widening of his eyes, you guess he only just noticed the snow. “It’s a holiday?” he mutters, then answers his own question with, “Of course it is. Why would he come if it wasn’t.”

There’s an acrid, salty smell billowing in the air, but you can’t say if it’s the medicine or emotion. It could be fresh or aged, too. Maybe it came from the man who’d just left.

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready to be picked up?” the boy asks, watching the landscape. “It’s that time, isn’t it?”

“I am not getting picked up.”

“You didn’t pass the test?” The boy curls himself into a more comfortable position, freeing some space on his mattress for you to sit down if you please. “Don’t worry, they’ll—”

“I did. I passed.”

His frown deepens, but then it dawns on him, and his whole face slacks. Instead of looming, he looks awkward, more his age than before. “Are your parents dissatisfied with your progress? Or your affliction?”

“I wouldn’t know.” You shrug, pressing yourself flatter against the cold glass. “I haven’t seen them since I came here. ”

The boy blinks. Instead of the pity you’ve come to expect, his visage sets in understanding. “Your parents are not-afflicted? Or low tier?” When you nod, he continues. “They are scared.”

“I know,” you say, almost rolling your eyes. You were scared, too. And you didn’t ask for it.

The boy clears his throat. Despite what you thought earlier, he’s not as emotionless. Even without your sense of smell, he’s easy to read. “What’s your affliction?”

“Allure.”

“Useful,” he says, exactly the same thing as your instructors. “You won’t be able to complain about the lack of job offers once you’re out. Good prospects, too.”

You haven’t thought much about your career yet, but you nod in agreement for lack of better things to do.

“How about you?” You play-trade the queries just for the sake of being polite.

“Me? Oh, I am half-crazy.” If he knows that you’re aware of all the rumors surrounding him, he doesn’t mention it. “If I ever get out of here—”

The sound of footsteps makes you both startle. As students, you’re not allowed in each other’s room without supervision. Not without dire consequences.

You don’t need his, “Go,” to know what to do. Shooting out of the room and into the corridor, you evade the staff before they can spot your transgression.

***

Despite your close proximity, it’s weeks before you speak again, months before he sits at your table, and though you share your first few lunches in silence, somehow you grew close.

Nowadays, you often walk to the lobby after classes. He scrunches his face at the smell of coffee while you stuff yourself with the snack from the vending machine.

The government provides you with all you need, the tuition, the pocket change. The vending machine is the only place in the facility you can spend it on, though.

“I am not getting better,” Laurent says after a burst of silence. He refuses your snacks, but picks up your styrofoam cup to warm his hands with.

“Do you want to get better?” Because sometimes you feel like he doesn’t, completely out of spite.

Laurent laughs. It sounds more like a cough. “I don’t want to die in my bed if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I think you’re scared of the—” What was it that he said when you talked about career opportunities? “—prospects. Or having none.”

“My father wants me to go into drug control.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Does it matter?”

“Why wouldn’t it? Once you leave here, they can’t force you to do anything.”

Laurent mulls your words over. Changes the topic. “What about you? What do you want to do?”

“Whatever pays best.” That’s what your instructor suggested. It seems as good a response as any. “I’ll decide later.”

“If anything fails, there’s the SPD.”

“SPD,” you laugh, nearly choking on a fish-shaped cracker. “It’s a death trap.” Ever since the government made it mandatory for fives to serve around twenty years ago, all the ‘leftovers’ go to the SPD. Cannon fodder division, they call it here. “What’s wrong with drug control?”

“My mother is there.”

Ah. You know it’s not the favoritism that worries him, but the prospect of living under his parents’ thumb. It’s just like you, forever living with a shadow of yours.

“We could always aim for liaison.”

Laurent smiles, amused. When he does, he looks nothing like his father. “Aiming so low?”

“Aiming for stability, Mister Fancypants. Good cash, an assigned house, a car. We could request a shared one, it’d be fancier— What?”

“Nothing,” he mutters quickly, taking a large sip of your drink and grimacing. “So you want to... work a normal job. Live together...”

“Yeah. Normal life doesn’t sound bad, right?”

“Right.”

The bell rings. All that modern equipment and they can’t install one that won’t deafen the poor students to death.

“As I was— Make-up exams, shit!” Grabbing Laurent’s hands, you wash down the snacks with the rest of your drink, leaving the now-empty cup in his grasp just to make him huff.

You exchange your, “See you later. Gotta run!” for his formal “Goodbye,” dashing in the direction of your class, all but forgetting about the conversation in favor of memorizing the stupid formulas.

***

The next morning, Laurent wakes up without the help of another Dream Shaper. In days, it becomes a norm.

*electroencephalogram, measures brain activity (usage tweaked for the sake of the setting)