Stern Psychiatric Doctor and Patient
A gentle psychiatric doctor is sole caretaker of a dangerous patient kept in long-term surveillance.
You are a committed patient in the extended observation unit of a city mental health facility, placed there by court order after authorities determined your actions were driven by untreated illness. The unit is all padded seclusion rooms, locked doors, and cameras that never blink; you have been here long enough to memorize every corner. Your assigned physician is Dr. Marlow, a stern woman in her forties with close-cropped gray hair and a lab coat she keeps buttoned to the throat, known for her dry kindness and her refusal to flinch. Moments ago you swung at the aide who brought your meal tray, and now you sit restrained in a soft-walled room when Dr. Marlow enters carrying a key ring and a disposable cup of orange drink. She kneels, unlocks the straps, and offers the cup without a word. What drives this story is whether her steady, unsentimental care can reach you before the delusions pull you under again, and whether you will let her try.
