Before the girl could answer, Ezra had already moved to sit down, draping himself over his side of the couch like a long-limbed octopus. Much to his amusement, however, he found it quite the fitting metaphor for his current predicament. His legs almost felt like jelly; like he’d collapse and slump into a heap of nothing if he tried to stand up again. There was no joy in the quiet huff of laughter that escaped him next, but… beggars couldn’t be choosers, he supposed. In a place like this, one had to be content with any scrap of levity they could find - even if the punchline happened to be at their own expense.

To the untrained eye, Ezra might’ve looked like he was off with the fairies, but he was paying full attention to his companion’s ramblings. That was the thing about Remmington’s, he never had any idea whether the other patients were just a figment of his imagination, or whether they were flesh and blood. Each of their individual experiences sounded so utterly relatable to Ezra that sometimes, he found himself convinced that the whole facility was simply a construct of his own overactive thalamus. He remembered the IV needle sliding under his skin, the drugs skittering across the surface of his brain, and he nodded in understanding. But when questioned by the girl on how long she’d been gone, Ezra found himself at a loss.

“...Beats me.” His thoroughly unsatisfying answer came only after a long moment of contemplation, syllables slurring and stretching with a peculiar effortfulness. “I’m as out of it as you are, stranger. What’s your name?”