You finish licking up the chocolate pudding.
You hear a quiet beep and the sound of vibration and Becky takes her hand off of your back.
"Alright, you seem to be done, we'll need to go for a little walk now. Want me to hold your hand to guide you?"
(Should I try to follow her blindly just based on hearing her steps? That sounds kind of scary so I suppose I'll say yes even if it's a bit embarrassing.)
"Yeah, that's probably a good idea."
She grabs your left hand and starts carefully leading you through the building.
Eventually she opens and lead you through a door and you can hear a woman talking "... will be fine." But she stops as soon as you come close.
"Good, you've arrived. Take a seat and we can begin." (What seat? Doesn't she realize I can't see? Anyway who is she and begin what?)
"Uhm, what's going on?"
"She's Jenny, and that's... Lucy, anyway they're from a nearby university and are helping us with some things and in exhange we've agreed to help them with their research, I'm not too clear on the details but Ruth said to just do whatever Jenny wants us to do."
(Hmm, did I agree to this? It was probably somewhere in the paper Anna made me sign but I suppose I'll see how this goes before pointlessly worrying about things. Also apparently we don't need to do whatever Lucy, who presumably is here somewhere, tells us to do. Why is that? )
"Indeed, now please do take a seat and we can get started."
Somewhat hesitantly Becky starts pulling you forward and leads you to a seat. You sit down, it seems like a hard plastic chair. Becky continues to hold your hand while standing next to you.
"Now hold still."
You feel your helmet being poked and pushed for a while and once it stops it feels heavier than before and on moving your head around it feels like there are string or wires connecting it to something
"Alright, that should do it, now you need to just sit there for a while but there are some other things I'd like you to do while we're here."
"First a word association game, I'll say a word and you'll say the first thing that word makes you think of, got it?"
"Yeah." (Doesn't sound too bad.)
"Star." "Bright."
"Green. " "Forest."
"Test. " "Stress."
"Girl. " "Pretty."
"Dream. " "Sleep."
"Lipstick. " "Makeup."
"Freedom. " "Sky."
"Child. " "Parent."
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"Happiness. " "Love."
"Beautiful. " "Eyes."
"Fun. " "Game."
"Unknown. " "Location."
"Safety. " "Home."
"Learning. " "Lesson."
"Boy. " "Man."
"Disgust. " "Unnecessary."
"Strength. " "Will."
"Trust. " "Care."
"Women. " "... Breasts."
"Love. " "Kindness."
"Clothes. " "Worn."
"Modesty. " "Shy."
"Unnecessary. " "Burden."
"Doubt. " "Anxiety."
"Alarm " "Clock."
"Door " "Open."
"Bed. " "Rest. "
"Massage. " "Relaxing."
The game continues for so long that your throat starts feeling dry.
"N..."
"Sorry, could I get some water or something."
"Oh, I suppose you can take a small break to refresh yourself before you need to continue."
You hear someone start moving around while Becky squeezes your hand reassuringly, you hand is sweaty from being held for so long.
"I think this has gone on long enough, are you sure he must continue?" (Hmm, I don't really mind but I suppose I shouldn't stress my vocal cords too much.)
"Well, I suppose not there another thing we can move on to that shouldn't tire him at all."
"... Good." (I hope whatever we move onto isn't anything unpleasant, anyway Becky standing up for me even though we were told to do whatever Jenny wants is nice.)
No one says anything until you hear someone move closer to you and hear Nina say
"Here, a glass of water, be careful not to spill it."
And you feel the edge of a glass pressed against your lips and slowly being tilted so you can drink the water. After several gulps you raise your right hand to indicate that you've had enough and the glass is pulled away. (Right, I probably could have used my hand to hold the glass and drink on my own but this way worked fine this time so it doesn't really matter.)
"Now let's check your sense of touch, just hold still until I'm done."
Jenny steps closer to you and soon you feel something barely noticeable touch a point in your knee and start moving around, it tickles a little but not enough to cause a reaction from you. After moving all across your leg the sensation switches to your other leg and repeats and after that your hands, making Becky temporarily let go of your hand, and then even your face is touched in the same way. (I wonder what the point of this is. She isn't asking me to say anything about how I'm feeling and unless she's trying to get me to involuntarily react in some way I don't really see what the purpose of this could be. But she's the expert or whatever so I'm sure she knows what she's doing so I shouldn't say anything and even if she doesn't it's not really my problem.)
She moves away from you.
"Hmm hmm... Right, I'm done now. Unless you want to continue with the word association game all I need you to do is for you to sit there for... the next 30 minutes. Other than that I don't care what you do."
Sounds like she sits down and starts using a computer or something.
(So, what now? Do I just sit here doing nothing besides have Becky holding my hand?)
Someone moves to stand on your right side and takes your free hand into theirs.
"Uhm, I'm not sure what we should do now but I suppose we could just talk or something."
(I guess she's holding my hand just because Becky is making it seem like a thing to do by continuing to still hold onto it.)
Awkward silence falls as no one says anything and you try to think of something to say.