My Supervisor's glasses glinted menacingly in the bright light.
"Maddison...."
With a huff, I slouched further into the softness of the chair, doing my best to ignore the way his eye twitched in suppressed irritation.
"What?"
With any luck, the furniture might swallow me whole...
"Seriously?" He asked, his calm smile stiffly frozen on his face.
Maybe it was the fact he was dressed far more formally than I was used to...but I couldn't help but be painfully aware of the fact that this was the man in charge of my future right now.
Not just some Zen therapy guy who let me vent and offered friendly advice.
"Shut up." I crossed my arms, my gaze shifting to the side as I quickly lost my nerve.
How can he be even scarier at my size than he was when he was able to crush me in one hand.
My Supervisor loomed intimidatingly, refusing to take his seat across from me in the small office.
"Fine." Any pretence of a smile fell when it became obvious I wasn't going to be much for conversation. "If you don't want to talk, then let me tell the story from my perspective."
It took a lot of stubborn will and bad attitude habits not to cringe.
This ought to be good
My Supervisor crossed his arms to match my own, the material of his grey suit jacket barely creasing with the movement.
"I sit back down at my desk after visiting you at your school, take one calming breath, then my phone rings. I answer, only to be informed that you have been suspended not even four hours after I left you alone!"
He wasn't yelling, didn't even frown, but I still felt the urge to crawl into some dark corner of the universe and cry.
From the moment he had stormed into the room, My Supervisor's icy blue eyes held an intensity I had never seen from the laid back man before..... He stared at me like he wanted to strangle an explanation out of me.
I hunch my shoulders inward, lowering my gaze to the floor.
For once in your life, be tactful Maddison... Even the friendliest of people can be driven to homicide...
"Well... Did I at least break the record or something?" I said, glancing up nervously to watch his reaction.
The look that crossed my Supervisor's face probably would have been funny under different circumstances.
As it was, the uncontrollable twitching of facial nerves was likely caused by a stressed induced aneurysm, and I was about to have a dead supervisor on my hands
Despite having waited an entire week before coming to see me, I could tell that it hadn't been nearly enough time for my Supervisor to overcome his... frustration.
Disappointment.
Which just goes to show how badly I had screwed up if a breezy guy like Mr Supervisor here was regretting ever having met me.
I'd probably blown his chances of putting a stop to the school too, one of the reasons he had risked letting me stay there in the first place.
It was stupid... To feel so relieved he had come at all.
Glaring down at the white uniform I wore... the one that all the patients at the Shrink Program were forced to wear... I prepared myself to face the brunt of my Supervisor's wrath.
I could get angry. Lash out. But he didn't deserve that... and I knew it.
Having been a trouble maker my entire life... I knew how to swallow my pride and take a scolding if I had truly earned one.
Only, instead of ripping me to shreds and painting the walls with my blood like he obviously wanted too... my Supervisor sighed.
All the tension in his body left with that one breath, his expression pinched with regret as he fell to sit heavily into his own chair.
"I honestly don't know what to do with you, Maddison." He said, covering his tired expression with a hand.
My heart fluttered with fragile surprise.
As angry as he might be, you either had to be missing a heart or a brain to yell at someone so obviously sorry.
There hadn't been many adults in my life who valued my feelings over their own professional obligation.
More than respect... It made me like him... Though only just a little.
I was still rebelling against the unjust system, after all.
Though the danger had seemed to have passed, I couldn't help but shift nervously in my seat, searching for something to say...
Something that wouldn't get me killed.
"You don't really have to do anything... I'll just stay...here..." Even I flinched at how uncharacteristically meek those words sounded on my tongue.
... Defeated.
My Supervisor raised his head enough to send me a wary look.
Even if he recognised my depression, the older man was smart enough to tiptoe around the issue for now.
Or at least be indirect about his prodding.
"Speaking of which... How has your stay at the Facility been so far?" He asked, settling more comfortably into his chair.
I struggled to keep from squirming.
"Fine, I guess," I said, looking at everything in the room but him. "I made a macaroni necklace in Arts and Crafts yesterday. I figured I'd need it if they didn't start serving actual food here soon."
Not a lie.
"... I heard that you got into a fight..." My Supervisor hedged carefully, and I couldn't help a small guilty flinch.
"Fights actually. Plural." I admitted with a shrug. "Most of the kids here have found themselves on the bad side of the law, after all. Not criminals really, just people like me..."
Violent brats who need a wake-up call.
"No to worry, though." I finally met My Supervisor's eyes with an encouragingly, bright smile. "Compared to the fights I'm used to, these are like mild exercise. Besides..."
My expression soured slightly, and I found my arms crossing again
"... the Supervisors here break them up before they can get good anyway...."
Thinking of the giant supervisors made upset little butterflies hop in my chest. Can't say I'm exactly a fan of the whole 'Constantly being monitored' thing.
Despite best efforts to ignore the issue, I couldn't help but send a glance to the glass wall that stood between me and the outside world.
Beyond the glass was a huge white room, bare of furniture, but full of giant people. Supervisors.
People who, like my own Supervisor, were responsible for the safety and rehabilitation of every shrunken teenager here.
In a way, the Facility was very much like Apollo's dollhouse.
The Rehabilitation Facility itself really was only a small part of the Shrink Program building. A single room, in fact.
But built into the four walls of this room was a complicated network of rooms, ranging in size and purpose.
No sooner had I looked out the window, a shadow fell over our small office, the outside light blocked as a pair of giant ice blue eyes bent to peer in.
"If I don't think about it too hard, it's kinda cool... like I'm playing some sort of sci-fi horror game." I murmured half to myself, not looking away from the giant eyes still watching us from the other side of the glass.
"You know those ones where you're trapped in one of those science-lab looking places and monsters come and kill everyone? Alex would have loved it. "
A passion for creepy games was Alex's darkest secret, something he had made me swear not to tell his brother when I caught him playing Slender Man on his phone.
... Technology and horror. Not a combination I could handle
From the corner of my eye, I saw my Supervisor's give me a confused look, opening his mouth to speak.... only to be interrupted by the intercom blaring to life.
"Mr Green, I'm afraid you've run out of time. Please say your goodbyes and make your way to the Exit room."
It had been explained to me when I first got here that supervisors were able to connect to individual rooms. They could talk to us using speakers in the room, and hearing us through the headset they wore.
I knew it wasn't really as simple as that but went along with it... Just like all the other weird technical stuff I saw going on here...
My Supervisor sent a glance towards the eyes, giving the gaze a relaxed smile.
"I'll be right out Mattie."
The giant eyes twitched in obvious irritation and pulled away from the glass.
"Don't call me Mattie." The voice muttered through the speaker, dropping all pretence of formality.
The words felt automatic like the man had said it many times before."It's Matthew. Better yet, be professional for once and call me Mr Folics, you incomprehensible moron."
"I don't know Mattie... Mr Folics You Incomprehensible Moron seems like a bit of a mouthful to me."
"Get. Out. Here." Mr Folics growled, pulling away from the window completely and retreating towards a door on the other side of the giant room.
Now that he wasn't so close, I could see that Mr Folics was a tall, lean man, whose white-blond hair and neat grey suit radiated sensibility and professionalism.
It was only when I saw his clothes that I realised that he wasn't one of the Facility's regular Supervisors.
Those guys all dressed in white lab coats.
"Who is he?" I asked curiously, sending my own Supervisor a questioning look.
"Mattie? He's an old friend of mine. Was my roommate at Uni and everything." My Supervisor gave an almost bashful smile. "He's a legal representative for the Shrink program, and is pretty high up in the system, so I got him to pull a few strings so that I could come to visit you... as brief as that visit was."
I bit my lip guilty. It hadn't really occurred to me that My Supervisor wasn't allowed to visit whenever he wanted.
Still focused on his friend, My Supervisor grinned proudly. "He's a good guy... Though he does come across as a stuck up, cold-hearted, unfeeling rock sometimes... Most times..."
"If you're going to gossip about me Green, kindly give me a chance to disconnect my audio before you do so." A pissed off voice hissed from the speaker.
"Whoops. Sorry, Mattie.
"It's Matthew!"
Blaming others when he's the one eavesdropping....impressive.
With an actual snicker, My Supervisor stood, smiling down at me.
"Sorry Maddison, I'm afraid that that's my cue to leave." He reached down, his face turning serious as he placed a hand on my shoulder. "Just hang on for a little while longer, I promise that we'll figure this out soon."
I stared down at the hand on my shoulder.
It felt like it had been a long time...
My chest tightened, but all I did was give a small shrug.
"Sure, what's the worst that can happen?"