The Girl in the Box (1)

Part One

            Rain pelted the city. Milo wore his face in a distinctly unhappy fashion as he walked down the street- his lips pressed together and frowning unpleasantly, his eyes narrow.

            Eventually Milo reached his destination- a tall building with the title of, ‘Psychiatric Ward’ plastered above its door.

            As Milo pushed open the glass door he forced his face into a grin. After setting his umbrella down and shaking some of the water off of his coat that came down to his knees, he approached the front counter and said in his most sugary British voice, “Hello ma’am. I am Doctor Sullivan, here to see a Miss Terio.”

            The woman’s eyes went wide, scared perhaps, at the mention of ‘a Miss Terio.’ She glanced down at some papers, then up at her computer, moved her mouse around a bit, clicked it, shuffled the papers some, then said most robotically, “They are expecting you in Miss Terio’s… room. It’s on this floor, that way,” she added, pointing.

           “Thank you,” Milo replied. As he left the counter he got the distinct impression that the lady was glad to be rid of him. 

            After several seconds Milo came across a door with the name, ‘Aryana Terio,’ where you would usually find the room-number. He tried to open the door. Finding it locked, he knocked.

            There was the sound of a beep, and a female voice asking, “Who’s there?”

            Milo replied to the door, “Doctor Sullivan. I’m here to visit Aryana.”

            There was some muttering, another beep, then the door opened.

             The face that welcomed him was familiar to Milo, “So glad you could make it Doctor!”

            “If we go around calling each other that things will get quite confusing won’t they?” Milo asked, “You can call me Milo, and I’ll call you…?”

            “Eliot,” he said, allowing Milo to enter the room.

            “Of course, of course, Doctor Eliot Phillips,” Milo had emailed the man for weeks, and met him in person once before.

            “I’m so glad you decided to come, Milo,” Eliot spoke, somewhat shakily, “We’re really quite worried about Aryana…”

            Just as her name was spoken Milo realized that within the room there was an enormous window. Behind the window there was a figure. She was small, covered in a black cloth, and crouched in front of a candle. Besides the candle, she seemed completely alone behind the window.

            Eliot must have noticed Milo’s shocked expression. “That’s how she likes it,” he explained, “you’ll see… once you talk to her.”

            Milo continued to observe the girl, “I see…”

            “And it’ll be perfectly safe- I promise,” he added, “there’s virtually no chance that you’ll be injured.”

            “Very well,” Milo nodded, turning to Eliot, “And, does she know… about me?”

            Eliot frowned, “Well, you see it’s sometimes difficult to communicate with her- she’s intelligent, but very stubborn- that’s one of the reasons we wanted to have you come and try talking to her… but we did tell her you were coming, we’re just not sure if she understood, or even if she was listening.”

            “And,” Milo asked, “You told her what I am?”

            “Yes, yes,” Eliot insisted, nodding.

            He sighed, sensing that this wasn’t completely true, “Very well…”

            Eliot gave him a concerned look, “Not that I was gifted with your abilities, Milo, but I get the impression that you would rather not be doing this…”

            “I thought I made it clear in my emails,” Milo spoke, somewhat bitterly, “that although I realize that my being here might be beneficial to the girl, in actuality people usually find my meddling in their affairs to be bothersome and an invasion of privacy. Considering that you are hoping to avoid any outbursts of rage from her, I hope you realize my communicating with her is… risky.”

            Eliot gazed at him steadily as he spoke, then said heavily, “Well, Milo, I’m afraid that we’ve gotten to the point where we’re willing to take that risk.”

            Milo returned his stare in silence for a few seconds, before saying, “Alright then,” he glanced at the window, then asked, “Where’s the door?”

            Eliot smiled, “Not so fast, Milo,” he gestured towards the corner of the room furthest from the door and the window. Milo hadn’t noticed to the two individuals before. One was a woman, tall and serious looking, the other a young man, who seemed, to Milo, to aspire to be nothing but as tall and serious as his colleague. The two were wearing matching dull brown uniforms with caps, and neither seemed to notice the two doctors. They just stared at the girl behind the window.

            Eliot led Milo to the corner, “First I’d like to introduce you to Officer Middleton,”

            The woman nodded to each of them, “Doctor. Doctor.”

            “And Officer Kessler,” Eliot added.

            “Doctor. Doctor,” he spoke, copying Middleton’s words and head motions.  

            “Officer,” Milo smiled at Kessler, “Officer,” he added, turning to Middleton, “nice to meet the two of you.”

            “The same to you, Doctor Sullivan,” Middleton said from behind her sunglasses.

             Milo looked over his shoulder at Aryana, frowning. She hadn’t moved since he entered the room. “She seems so alone…”

            “If you are ready to enter the chamber,” Middleton announced, “Please remove your coat.”

            Milo obeyed. Almost as soon as the coat was off, Kessler pulled out a spray bottle from nowhere, and began spritsing Milo’s clothes.

            “It’s just a flame-repellent,” Eliot explained.

            Milo grunted in understanding, finding the smell of the liquid repulsive.

            Middleton shoved a small, black, plastic disk with a blue button on it into Milo’s hand. “For emergencies,” she explained simply.

            He nodded, “Very well. May I go in now?”

            “Yes,” Eliot sounded anxious, and excited, “yes, just let me enter the code for you,” he approached a spot on the wall- a number pad Milo saw when he looked closer. Eliot typed in several numbers, and a glass rectangle the size of a door popped open near to the panel.

            The girl did not react to the opening of the door. Milo took a couple of steps towards her, but stopped, and asked the room at large, “Could we have a bit of privacy?”

            Eliot and Middleton exchanged a look for a moment; they both nodded, and Milo told them, “Thanks.”

            He entered the cell. Once Milo had closed the door behind him he heard a squeaking noise. Looking back, he saw that Kessler was pulling two huge curtains over the window.

            Dismissing this, Milo walked further into the room. “Hello,” he spoke, trying to sound somewhat cheery, “Uh- you’re Aryana, right?”

            The figure remained as she was- crouched over the candle, silent, unmoving. The black cloth she wore covered all but her face, which was in shadow under her hood.

            “They told me you might not be one for conversation…” Milo noted, still keeping his tone upbeat, “But that’s alright.” Milo sat, on the other side of the candle across from her, “I can talk enough to compensate for both of us.”

            To Milo’s delight and surprise, the girl lifted her head ever so slightly at this, just so that he could catch a glimpse of her face before she returned to her original position.

            “My name is Milo Sullivan. You may call me Milo, or whatever you like. I suppose you’ve had visitors before, and I know Doctor Phillips has been working with you, but I’m not like them… not exactly. Really, I’m more like you.”

            She sat there, still as ever, unimpressed.

            “Yes Aryana, I assure you, we are more alike then you could know…” he considered how best to proceed before continuing, “you see, we’re special. And I know you might hate it- sometimes I do too- but it’s a good thing, I promise.”

            Aryana’s head twitched again, not as purposefully as last time, but it encouraged Milo to press on.

            “Doctor Phillips was hoping this… uniqueness that we share could allow us to… talk?” he ended with a hopeful inflection.

            She made a small, “Hm,” noise, and lifted her head enough for Milo to see her nose and mouth. She hesitated further- swallowing, taking a deep breath, opening her mouth then closing it, shaking her head, then coming to a stand still for several seconds, her mouth slightly agape, before asking in a hoarse, quiet voice, “You can make fire too?”

            “Well… not exactly…” to his horror this answer made Aryana sink her head back into shadows. He continued quickly, “But I’m still different! I’m not like them,” he gestured towards the closed curtains, “I… have… a different ability…”

            Her head lifted maybe an inch.

            “I’m… a telepath,” he explained, sounding somewhat guilty.

            For once she looked right at him. In fact, her head snapped up so suddenly that the hood she wore slid off, revealing a thin face, and an utterly bald head, blotched with soot. Her eyes were daggers. “What does that mean?” she hissed.

            “Well- uh, it means- it’s, uh…” Milo stuttered, never having been so terrified of a prepubescent girl.

            “You’ve been reading my mind?” she asked, sounding as angry as she did scared.

            “No! No, just… just your emotions,” he explained consolingly.

            Her aggrieved look held for a couple of seconds, before it fell into a slightly relieved expression. She let out a grunt of disapproval.

            “I’m sorry… I can’t help it,” Milo said solemnly, “trust me- if I could turn it off I would… I had to train for years just to get to the point where the exact thoughts and feelings of every person near me didn’t get sucked into my head. It wasn’t until I was nineteen that I could walk down a busy street without getting such a bad headache I practically fainted…” he looked off, with a reminiscent frown for a few moments.

            “So you think you have it worse then me?” Aryana asked, curious.

            “No,” Milo answered quickly, turning back to her, “although…” he added thoughtfully looking away again, “but no, no,” he shook his head. He saw that the news that her predicament outweighed his own was no consolation to her. “The two cases are actually very similar, I think. With some practice, some training, some control…”

            “I have control,” she told him in a frank, measured voice, “just ask Doctor Philips; I haven’t had an incident in months.”

            “Yes,” Milo gave her an apologetic smile, “but, you’re holding back…”

            “That’s what control is. Holding back,” Aryana stated simply.

            He sighed, “I suppose so, but I’m afraid that forcing down your anger will, ultimately, cause more harm then good.

            She returned a cold gaze.

            Milo noticed for the first time that the flame between them had grown since he entered the room; it was now over twice the size of a flame produced by a regular candle. Barely aware of his actions Milo moved ever so slightly away from the candle.

            Aryana looked offended, “I’m not going to hurt you,” she muttered. All the same, she gave the flame a hard stare and it shrunk out of existence. “See? Control.” Milo could tell she was desperately hoping these words were true, “I was a little angry, but I controlled it, and now I’m fine.”

            Milo nodded, “That’s very good, Miss Terio; you’ve made enormous progress. I wouldn’t expect someone as young as you to be able to handle this situation so well,” the pleased look on her face made it hard for him to continue, “… however, I still don’t think choking down your anger is the best way to control it. In fact, I would much rather get hit with a few sparks now then everything build up inside you, and…”

            “And I burn the hospital down,” she finished for him. 

            “Or something like that,” Milo added with a shrug.

            She gave him a steady look. He sensed a great sadness rising up inside of her. This concerned him.

            “I guess you have reason to think that,” her voice remained even, “but, it wasn’t anger, you know. Not that time… I mean, I’d had some angry outbursts before that, but they were all little. I never hurt anyone… not badly at least. I just… was curious. I wanted to find out how much I could do… how far I could go…” the candle lit up. She stared at it intently, “I… guess I went too far…”

            Milo watched her, disturbed by the feelings of terror and hopelessness coming off of her, but engrossed. He caught images of walls of flame, the sound of screams and someone desperately crying no, no! Panting, running, the smell of smoke… something very heavy falls to the ground…

            Milo shook his head, letting out a moan, and feeling dizzy.

            When he was able to see straight he realized that Aryana was looking at him, her lips pursed, “You shouldn’t have looked…” she mumbled.

            “I’m sorry,” he took a deep breath, “and, you’re right, I shouldn’t have… some- sometimes when a person has a very strong, emotional memory it’s hard to block it out…”

            “I think maybe you’re the one that needs help with your control,” she spoke venomously, “Maybe then you could stay out of people’s heads.”

            Milo considered this for a moment. “Perhaps you’re right. However, I didn’t really come here to talk about this…”

            “Then why are you here?” she asked, suspicious.

            “I told you, Aryana, I just want to talk to you,” he said simply.

             She gave him a hard stare, as if she didn’t trust him, but Milo could sense her suspicion slipping away. “So. You want to talk?”

            “Absolutely,” he answered emphatically.

            Her expression relaxed into confusion, “What would we talk about?”

            Milo allowed himself a few moments to consider this. Just as he opened his mouth, about to answer, the glass door popped open. Dr. Phillips ducked under the curtain and through the door.

            “Milo, Aryana,” he said the two names jovially.

            At the sound of his voice she hid under her hood. Milo could tell that she felt a strong dislike for Eliot.

            “Oh, my dear,” he sighed, “I don’t bite!” he gazed down at the back of her head for a moment, then, seeming to give up, he turned to Milo instead, “So, did you two have a good talk?”

            Milo looked from the girl to Eliot, “Yes,” he stood up, then looked back at her, “and, I hope we can continue this conversation some time soon, Aryana.”

            As they both could’ve guessed, she did not respond.

            “Goodbye,” Milo added.

            Eliot led him to the other side of the glass. Once they had both come out from behind the curtain, and Eliot had locked the door, he spoke excitedly, “So, you’re coming back? I was hoping you’d want to! You see, Milo, it’s not as terrible as you thought.”

           “What can I say?” Milo shrugged, “she’s a very…” he paused momentarily, searching for the right word, “interesting girl.”