GHOST IN THE MACHINE || detroit become human

ONE || session

Elodie shrugged when couldn't remember, trying to mask her frustration with a cough.

"I'm not entirely sure. I believe so."

"Does the noise elicit any physical responses? Does it instil in you ... A feeling of alertness?"

Elodie pulled herself up from the chaise then, ruffling a hand through her dark hair. She swivelled herself on the couch to face Cyrus. 

She had been seeing the psychiatrist since the accident, at the insistence of her brother. Cyrus was in his 50s, and had very masculine features, such as a sharp square jaw, high hairline and a low heavy brow. His lips pulled thin above teeth with prominent canines when he smiled, which did not seem to come to him naturally, and his eyes were small and beady. Despite all of these things, Elodie  had never found him particularly intimidating. Maybe it was because of his voice, which meandered low and furtive to the floor, or the way he would let her rest in long silences without much question. Either way, it was never Cyrus himself who bothered her, but simply the blade of his questions.

Everyone always seemed perturbed by Elodie's stagnated silences, and she had learned that certain people would react very exasperated if she let a question linger in the air for too long. Her parents, for one, and Lex, on occasion. Apart from Cyrus, Elijah was the only person in her life who seemed to have patience for them, but this was not surprising. Elijah had always understood her implicitly, in a way she had never felt from another person.

She shrugged. "I tend to ignore what my body does."

"Because of the episodes." It isn't a question but a statement. Elodie nodded anyway. Cyrus noted this. "How frequent have they been recently?"

The answer was frequent, certainly more so than they had been a month ago. The episodes were a mystery to everyone, including her doctors, who she had long ago stopped complaining to. The triggers for her episodes were seemingly at random, the episodes themselves causing her to freeze in place, her muscles tensing so hard she was sure they had calcified hard as stone. All the hairs on her body would stand on end, and she would feel a pulse through the centre of her body, as though she'd stepped on a live wire and a current was rippling throughout her body.

The episodes never used to last for more than a minute, as terrifying as they were, but recently they had begun to linger. Usually she would be able to brush them off, even mask them from others, but the effort was becoming harder.

"Same frequency, just ... A little longer."

Cyrus nodded. "Have you tried the breathing exercises I gave to you last session?"

She had, and they had done nothing. She'd tried too, truly. She sometimes felt herself resistant to the things others told her to do, but she'd really done her best this time. It was only a matter of time until an episode happened in such a way to undermine her at work, and Elodie dreaded this thought. There was little else in life she cared for in the way she did about her job.

"Yes," she replied, "they slow my heart rate and make me a little dizzy, but not much else."

Cyrus nodded concisely. Elodie caught him glancing at the time on his watch, dark eyes flickering for a moment to appraise its digital face. She herself wondered how much more time she owed him. She remained baffled at how much time could be dedicated to talking about herself.

"And how is your relationship? With your current boyfriend?"

"It's good." Elodie murmured, shrugging her slim shoulders. On the bridge of her nose, she readjusted her glasses. "He's very ... I suppose, he's very sweet? He took me to a carnival on the riverfront on the weekend."