I honestly forgot how deep the shit I was going to be in was until I got back to my room. Ohhh boy did it ever come back in a very fuckin swift hurry.

You wouldn't believe the welcome comittee I got when I came through the door. The shrink, Yulling and Jerrim, some of the guys who were with me when I checked in...Even some lanky Human all wrapped up tight in a suit that looked like it was squeezing all the air outta her body. It was tight and baggy in all the wrong places. The suit, I mean. Made her look like she wanted to be a man. Maybe she did. Who was I to know, anyway? Hadn't hit me the hospital would be run by Humans. Rulerists though, who the hell knew. I mean, you can say you're pro-Rulerism, but actually being pro-Rulerism is another thing. It's like people in countless wars who'd SAY they were on some side, just so they didn't get trounced by em. In anycase, monkey man-girl and all the others were looking pretty pissed off at me. The best I could come up with at the time was to act innocent. I guess I'm not as good at that as I think, huh?

Turns out in my bleary blurry good fucking morning lope out the door to work duty, rolling up the flask, music and journal in my blankets weren't enough. No, really dumbass? Didn't I already say I knew they changed my sheets? Chalk up another to the blurred and twisted version of a hangover world. Damnit.

I seem to be running out of paper. Hmm. Did I mention that they took my journal? Think I did. So guess where I'm writing now? The sign out sheet. Right through all those little boxes, plowin through em and across em like they're not there at all. And when I'm done, I keep taking the sheet back to my room. It pisses the hell out of em, and I know it. Hey, you can't stop a writer from writing. Lotta old movies prove that, ya know? And besides that, I'm your typical 'unstable teen,' right? So whatever I do is just another eccentricity for them to poke and prod and smoke pipes in musty studies and write novels about Hekshanian nature over. God damn I love fucking with the heads of these people.

Let's see if there's free space on the next sheet...

One interesting thing about this too is that they probobly keep losing records of who signed out where. But I know. Hell, by the time I'm done writing, there's no way I can't keep glancing at the names times and places. So I know who left and who went where and with who and why. It's like I'm sucking up this information into my own personal little well, and if they want it they've got to come stick a faucet on my brain and drain it out, like sap from trees for syrup. I'm pretty sure I'll get in trouble for this too, but I'm already in as far as I think I can get. They found the knife when they'd been in there too, that's why they were all standing around like dummies. Standing around, waiting for me to come back, tapping their feet like they were all parents or something. But they weren't. The Human was the oldest out of them, the others were my age or younger. It's kind of hard to respect someone your age acting that stiff and uptight. It's like that annoying kid in class who had their nose so far up the teachers asses you couldn't tell where one of them stopped and the other started. You know deep down inside they're just faking it all, and they really should be like you, and it pisses you off. You wanna shake em and wake em up and shout "HELLO! You're just like me, you ain't special! Stop playing the game like you know the rules!"

Oooo I love being a little information bank and taking up all the paper here. The receptionist keeps telling me to stop writing, to go someplace else, and people signing out keep telling me to get out of the way and just scribble in their names on the next line down from my stuff. I just stand there while they write and look like they're taking up my valulable time. The best thing in the world is when I keep hold of the pencil and they ask for it and I pretend to get all pissed off when I give it to them like they're asking me to hand over something they should obviously have themselves. Damn this is fun.

Where was I? Oh yeah, everyone in my room. Well, it wasn't exactly a 'welcome back from your first work duty' party. They took this coddling tone again like I was a toddler who did something bad, and went about it sort of circular, like maybe I would deny it. "We found um...a few items in your room...you wouldn't happen to know anything about them, would you?"

NO I wouldn't have a CLUE seeing as I roomed alone here and all. Or maybe the malicious little insanity fairies had planted these horriable incriminating objects here. Hell, I didn't even know what they found, but I was apathetic. Whatever it was, I wouldn't get off as easily as I had when the first guy had been here. So I did the best thing I figured I could do in the situation. I got cynical. I said prettymuch the same lines I did at the start of this paragraph. They all got these expressions like...well let's just say if burnt toast had a face, they made it. Pretty funny stuff, and I started laughing. Three cheers for the twenty-four hours it takes alcohol to get out of the blood stream! In any case what came next was...mmm...less than fun. I got to sit on the edge of my bed while the room was tossed. They were pretty thorough too, found the knife that I'd lost the night before. Apparently I'd left it in the bathroom by the sink. Weehee. I reflect on it now and I find it was actually pretty intelligent of them. Not the search, but giving me a bathroom. Cutters don't neccisarily want to die, ya know. Just feel a little pain. So the bathroom wasn't a threat of suicide...Hell, for me? What could I really do in there? Besides be paranoid of cameras to the point where I was almost ready to rig a tent over myself to piss.

So many tangents, so little paper. NEW SHEET!

Says here that someone was taken down to the hydro-therapy room named Zara, from intensive. Jerrim was with them. And Yulling was with some guy named Juudai. Took him to some sort of group therapy session. Well, at least I don't have to go to those. Those would suck...

Okay, I only have like...three more lines so I'll have to sum up I guess. Basicly if you moved during this search, it was counted as hostile, and people freaked out. Damn, I never had anyone get so excited over my getting up to take a leak. It was almost flattering. And in the end, all my stuff was taken, and they're currently discussing amoungst themselves what 'actions should be taken.' Right then.

Craika, I just realized they have the other flask now. And I can already feel my insides tightening up for a drink too. Wow, I think I'm screwed. This should be fun. I hereby claim these papers in the name of Damurai.

He knew the lyrics in the back of his head. A friend had showed him the song a while ago, it was one of the songs on the CDs they'd taken from him. It was the kind of song that slowly lead you in and dragged you around for the ride, leaving you wanting more. That was what the song was supposed to do. It was pure genius, just the way it was put together. Kyotoshi muttered the lyrics, his voice distorted by the way his throat was stretched over the back of the chair. "Cause it makes me feel like I'm a man and when I put a spike into my vein and I tell you things just ain't the same..." Damn. He could hear the song starting to play inside his head already, and he knew for a fact it wasn't going to go away. Just like the itching inside his skull that wouldn't let up for a few minutes and give him a rest, the song would be there too.

That damn scratching. It'd been going on ever since the room search, more and more. He was starting to get a headache from it, which was bad enough. Like claws on the inside of his head, dragging down and across the sides of his skull. An animal that lived inside his head, demanding to either be shut up or break out. It had scratched through all he had, it was scraping raw bone now and the pain was begining to come from that. It was like a squealing out of tune instrument that whoever was playing just didn't get the fact that they couldn't control the sound coming out. Sighing and flopping his ears limply again, Kyo realized he'd been playing with the authority since he got here. He could have trusted his own instincts and re-hid the flask and knife someplace else, but he'd prefered to ignore it and go on with life. Well, now he was screwed, and in a fun little therapy session with a bunch of the other patients. Probobly one to deal with those who self medicated...maybe that was what he did. He didn't know. He didn't care, frankly, for all the good two weeks here would do him. He doubted they could make everything better with a few hollow words.

"W-w-well..." One of the patients was stuttering to tell her story to the group, but Kyotoshi wasn't listening. He knew the stories anyway, they all were essentially the same. War brought this down on people, didn't they get it? The yellow furred Hekshanian folded his arms over his chest and blinked up at the florecent ceiling lights, the stucco ceiling itself where a bee bumped along cautiously. Didn't it know where the ceiling was, why did it have to keep bouncing off it? An abrupt and metalic buzzing sound cut through the air like a jet plane's wing and jolted everyone in the room to a near military attention. Down the hall, where the singing had been coming from, two metal doors which remained electronicly locked had just blared and swung open. Two orderlies brushed through and flanked out across the hall, one giving a nod to the therapist leading the group. Kyotoshi blinked as he craned his neck further backwards to get an accurate if not upside down view of the reason the orderlies were so uptight.

Even from his vantage point upside down, Kyotoshi realized the Hekshanian being lead towards them was short for his age. Brown fur brindled with black, his eyes were a careful iced blue. Moving forward with steps that seemed almost in time to the music in Kyotoshi's head, the Hekshanian's hands were clasped together at the wrist by what looked like a pair of cuffs, but his head was held high. The white sleeves of his hospital shirt were rolled up to his shoulders, exposing dark arms where the brindled marks had been dyed into a bizzare pattern of black runes and swirls. Over his shoulders flowed brown hair so long it could have belonged to any female, but there was nothing to hold it from hanging into the Hekshanian's eyes. A careless toss of his head and the brown hair went drifting through the hair like it weighed nothing. The newcomer moved like a serpent, bringing his body around to face one of the orderlies. Kyotoshi blinked and pulled his head forward to face the group again, grabbing the sides momentarily to ward off the vertigo. The sounds of his chair scraping its legs against the tile to face the scene unfolding sent some of the patients into the group to copying, and the therapist into a snapping angry fit. But Kyotoshi didn't pay any attention.

The newcomer was so close to the first orderly that the second had started to move towards him. Weaving to the side fluidly and half closing his eyes, the brindled Hekshanian's ears drifted backwards as his tail moved behind like a wake in water. Kyotoshi couldn't hear what the short kid said, but the expression on the orderly's face and the way she jerked her head and moved her lips told him it was hardly something friendly. For a moment, the brindle moved serpentine again, but the facade of grace dropped away. Throwing himself violently at the guard, screaming curses, the cuffed Hekshanian slammed his wrists against the side of the orderly's head, his shoulders knocking the other alien off balance. Springing forward the unaccousted orderly jumped in and tried to pull the brindle off his companion, but the smaller Hekshanian moved with speed and desperation despite his restraints. Kyotoshi's eyebrow went up as the therapist brushed past them into the hallway. It was pretty obvious from his point of view, Kyotoshi thought pressing his thumb against his chin and regarding the fight, that even with three people there was no way they were holding this newcomer down. The best way to get him away from the fight would be...to give him someone he would see as an ally and follow. Well, three docs sure as hell weren't that.

Even with the scratching in his mind, even with everything weighing down on him, Kyotoshi was faster than the hospital employees. On his feet carefully, their backs were still turned as the blonde Hekshanian stretched before sprinting into the fight. Shoving one of the orderlies aside and pulling the brindle off the other with a rough sideways jerk of his arm, Kyotoshi glared down the hospital's control force. "Why the hell you keeping him cuffed anyway, he ain't an animal!" With any luck, he could get this fight strictly verbal. Kyotoshi hated seeing war, even little wars, and knew what hate could do to two beings. If the brindle let his rage boil on the hospital and the patients, he'd never get out. Kyotoshi mentally slapped himself for protecting the kid as well..it meant harsher treatment for him. Hell, fuck what he wanted and needed. He'd sacrifice it for the kid, he had nothing better to do for two weeks. The brindle had pulled free of Kyotoshi's grip and stood, his cuffed hands up and curled at his chest like a praying mantis, daring anyone to come at him again.

The therapist was trying to calm Kyotoshi down. Good luck to him, the Hekshanian thought, Considering I wasn't bent out of shape to begin with. Just damn good at faking it. Kyotoshi moved between the orderlies and the scrawny long haired brindle, hoping the kid wouldn't do something idiotic and run but rather stand still. If one of the orderlies, or the therapist tried to grab the cuffed alien they'd have to go through Kyotoshi first. He was out of practice...but no way was the yellow Hekshanian in any case the weaker of the four of them. The therapist was moving his hands like fish in waves, over one another in a flowing pattern, probobly completely aware he was doing it too. Kyotoshi ignored the hands and locked eyes. "You saw what happened, Kyotoshi, you know the attack was unprovoked-"

"No," Kyotoshi lowered his voice into the tones parents used when they were frustrated with their children. He dragged out the end of the word. "Noooo, I don't know that. Your buddy here said something to him." Kyo jerked a thumb towards the female orderly who was regaining her footing with the help of her companion, a paw to the side of her face where the cuffs had bashed her. The area around her left eye was swollen and tight, and the thinest trickle of blood dripped from her nostril. She was breathing hard. Kyotoshi winced mentally again. Yeah, she said something, but it was back at whatever he said. Craika, I'm defending a losing battle here. A glance behind him showed the brindle was still there, eyes slitted like the almond shaped bodies of minnows, blue irises nearly eclipsed by the angry black pupils as he glared. Well, that's nothing new...

The therapist raked a paw through his hair and sighed in exhaustion, obviously not in the mood to argue with one of his patients. He even sounded tired. "Kyotoshi, can we please return to the meeting?"

Return to staring blankly at the ceiling, you mean? But this is just so much more interesting. Kyotoshi tried not to let the cynicism inside spill into his voice. "Sure thing, doc," he grinned at the therapist, flashing his tiny white teeth. Turning to the Hekshanian behind, he waved a paw. "See ya later, kid." Hope he doesn't feel like such an outsider now.

Turning his back with a sigh, claws clicked on tile as the therapist walked back into the room with the other patients, who had by now begun to talk amoungst themselves. "You're not parting ways, Kyotoshi. Tyron, Bunoa, I think I can handle it for the meeting. Go to the nurses' station and get that eye and nose looked at," Flashing a glance over his shoulder at Kyotoshi, the therapist's dark grey pupils shimmered. "Take your little friend along, you're in the same session."

Blinking and looking down at the brindle, Kyotoshi saw the minty blue eyes returning the stare. Giving a shrug, he motioned with his paw towards the circle. They moved down the hallway with a slowness that made Kyotoshi's body want to rebel and scream, throwing itself to the ground twitching without reason. His ears pricked up when he heard the muttered whisper of the brindle.

"I don't hear a sound, silent faces in the ground. Quiet screams, but I refuse to listen. If there is a Hell, I'm sure this is how it smells..." Shaking his head and bringing the cuffs up to his ear, the brindle brushed back the soft hair stirred loose from the fight.

Cobalt eyes locked on the short Hekshanian as Kyotoshi blinked. "That was you," he whispered back quickly. "That was you singing before. How d'you know that song, it's been banned and it's in English-"

Claws clicked as the brindle shuffled closer, speaking through the side of his mouth to Kyotoshi. "Friend on the outside showed me a while ago, a Stim friend-"

"Kammi," Kyotoshi muttered back, slightly louder than he'd intended.

"Yeah, that's her. You know her too? Far out..." The short Hekshanian's eyes flicked on Kyotoshi for just a second before darting away. "So what're you here for?"

Kyotoshi wanted to bang his head on the wall every time someone asked, every time he heard someone ask or every time he asked that question himself. This was like jail, jail for the sane in a time where the insane ran around free. But he had to answer, or else they would assume it worse than it was. "Social worker caught me cutting myself up," he whispered quickly.

"On purpose?" Another quick glance, this time the brindle actually turned his head for a moment before looking back towards the approuching room. "Criaka, didn't that hurt?"

Shaking his head just so slightly, Kyotoshi sighed. "You don't feel it. What about you?"

"Social worker thought I was lashing out at society too much, some sort of mood disorder. They tried pills. Guess where that went." Kyotoshi could feel the cuffed Hekshanian's grin spreading.

Stiffling his own laugh, Kyotoshi felt his eyes water as the hysteria wanted to break out. "Don't you love how that works? They give you the solution and then get mad when you make it one your own way."

"Smart way of putting it man," Kyotoshi could feel tendrils of hair dusting against the whites of his own cloths, hair that refused to be constrained. The brindle didn't notice. "So, here I am, the big badass who needed treatment to 'get better.'"

Quick shake of the head, "Ain't no 'better' here, man." But I guess he knows that.

The brindle was silent for a moment, but the whisper following was consice. "How long?"

"Just a few days."

"Seems like longer."

"You two, hurry up, quit wasting session time. NOW." The bark of the therepist made the two Hekshanians pick up their pace. Paws into the room now, Kyotoshi could hear a strange strangled buzzing sound from above. The brindle nudged the yellow Hekshanian's arm with his cuffs as he broke away. "Juudai," he whispered.

"Kyotoshi," he replied quickly, taking his seat. He avoided Juudai's eyes to see the reaction, he didn't think he wanted to. Instantly, the sounds of the room evaporated as Kyotoshi stared at the stucco ceiling again, ignoring it to the point of an art form. The strangled buzzing was infrequent, but Kyotoshi was able to locate its sound. Trapped in the plastic casing of the florecent lights the bee from before bobbed about franticly for a source of escape. More bees had entered the room through some unseen source since he had left his attention to Juudai, and two more were now poking around the edges of the light. Were they trying to rescue their compatriat, Kyotoshi wondered. Or were they just going to get trapped on their own.