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Info: So I recently watched some walk-throughs of both Outlast and Whistleblower. I thought they were fantastic and I really wanted to just write a little on Waylon post-asylum. So this is it!
I’m fairly certain I swap tenses often, so sorry about that. I’m bad at sticking to past or present tense. Also I scanned over this but there’s a high probability that things might be spelled wrong or sentences may not make sense.
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The entire hospital incident lasted less than two days. From the second he’d woken up to the moment he’d staggered out the front doors and busted the jeep through the barred gates, perhaps close to twenty four hours passed. What happened in that building still replays vividly in his nightmares and sometimes he feels as though he’ll turn a corner during the day and find himself in a damp, dark hallway, the silence only broken by frantic nonsensical babbling from patients. Despite his narrow escape, he feels as though he’s still trapped in the clawed confines of his former prison.
His therapist tells him it’s only reasonable that he’ll be unable to forget things quickly. Trauma, she says, sometimes stays with a person forever. He doesn’t like the sound of that. All he wants is to be able to enjoy what’s left of his life quietly.
It’s not much of a life any longer though. Everyday he’s watched by the very people who helped spread his story, classified as a living, breathing company secret. He’s top priority, they’ve told him. Not only did he record the ground breaking video to put Mount Massive between a rock and a hard place, but he worked for the enemy for a short time and knows enough to at least fix program errors for advanced technology that links to dreams. To the mind. To nanotechnology. They’re honestly giving him too much credit. He doesn’t like being top priority. It’s lonely and suffocating.
Lisa—he wishes she were still here with him—left to another facility with the kids. She said he’s too unstable now, too dangerous. She said she couldn’t even recognize him anymore. He’s different, broken and twisted. She wants her happy husband back and he just can’t give him to her. Not yet. And so one particularly bad argument later she’d vanished, protected by the same company that protected him just away from him. He hasn’t received an update on them in a few days. He’ll need to ask soon.
There’s no way to explain to the woman he loves how a crazy eyed, blood splattered man with a scraggly beard tried to saw into him and pull his organs out like hidden candy. How he’d shoved him into a furnace and tried to cook him, hysterically yelling claim on his body. Or perhaps the nude twins whose whispers had caressed his ears, venomous and promising mutilation. The deformed, chained giant who’d pursued him through the chaotic halls, floors slick with too much blood and peppered with body parts. And then…Gluskin.
The images his mind remembers in vivid detail are there every time he closes his eyes, every second he blinks. He can smell the cloying copper scent he feared he’d choke on when he’d been forced to crawl along the floors or hide in small enclosed spaces. It’s not just sights. It’s sounds and smells and touches. Unexpected small things trigger a knee-jerk response of fight or flight in him, yank out the terrified, trembling survivor who’d seen too much too fast. And then he’s not Waylon Park, husband-near-ex-husband of Lisa Park, father of two children and tech consultant. Instead he’s Waylon Park, prisoner and patient, victim of unfortunate circumstances and near death experiences.
When first adjusting back to civilian life he’d thought that perhaps he’d be fine. Shaken, but relatively normal. For a few days he hadn’t been wrong. Apparently that had just been the shock slowly wearing off. And then, three days later, it’d begun with the smallest incident. He’d burnt his index finger on the frying pan. All of a sudden he was back in that person-sized oven, palms burning on scalding metal and body shrieking in pain as the heat engulfs him from all sides. Lisa found him running his hands under the sink water, sagging against the wet counter and crying. It’d taken nearly a half an hour to calm him down from his spiking panic and his sons had the misfortune of seeing him in this state.
The second time he’d heard what sounded like chains rattling together and he’d flinched so violently he’d nearly popped one of his children in the face. Both he and his son were visibly shaken and he’d pulled him close into a tight hug so that he wouldn’t have to see the startled tears trickling down his boy’s cheeks. Later Lisa demanded to know what he did to spook their child so badly. He couldn’t find the correct words to explain why he’d reacted the way he did and they’d gone to bed tense and unhappy.
The third time his wife was laughing and shooing the kids to their room and then turned to him with the most genuine, beautiful smile he’d seen in a long time. It’d made his heart ache because of how much he loved her.
“Darling”, she’d said, gesturing for him to come closer.
The air in his throat had caught violently while his entire body stopped. He was coming for him, he knew it. Nothing could shake that man—he was impossible, crazed and obsessed, and everywhere he tried to turn to escape had him waiting on the other side.
“You don’t have to be alone.”
“Let me fill you up.”
He was in a basement, tied to a rickety board, stripped naked and shivering in terror, near convulsing with the need to get away. Before he knew what he was doing, the buzz of the saw screaming in his ears and the slide of a stranger’s fingers on his skin, he shoved his wife away so hard she’d fallen over.
Lisa broke her wrist from the unexpected fall, snapping the bone on the coffee table. At the time he hadn’t even realized she was hurt. He’d instead stumbled away, sliding down the nearest wall and huddling in on himself, unresponsive until a company worker came to Lisa’s aid and found him wide eyed, pupils blown to near pinpricks. There’d been no saving words for that either. He refused to let Lisa see the tape, to know what he’s suffered through and who exactly she’d reminded him of in that instance.
His therapist said it’d help them work through his trauma if she were allowed to see everything. He refused still. A few months later Lisa was gone.
Progress seems like some far off dream now and he keeps suffering relapses. Every day feels impossible to drag himself through. Still he’s kept under constant surveillance and provided with some of the most highly regarded professionals to help him to the best of their abilities. But it doesn’t seem to matter. He has near nothing left. The hospital left its mark on him, whether he wants it or not. And there will be no erasing the scars that are left.