If there's one thing I appriciate about music and booze together, it's the total sense of peaceful oblivion. People like to say "things'll look better in the morning." But why the hell should I have to wait for morning? Will I ever see morning? If things are bad now, they should be made better now, for me or for anyone. Waiting only makes it worse, or takes it down in your eyes, so you dont care anymore. You gotta keep the insentive but wash the stress. And I'm pretty sure if they walked in on my now, I wouldn't hear them. There's something to be said for a good set of headphones. They just shut the entire world up. It's like holding up the invisable hand and going "I'm sorry, I'm with someone much more fuckin important at the moment. Mind taking a number?"

After I got back from my freakish walk, I was dazed, thinkin about her. She's pretty, I'll say that much, hell yes. But that isn't what's making me loose my head here. There's something about her that I know is only there because she's thinking too. If we're all bees without a queen, maybe she was trying to be queen. She's screaming for em all to listen to her and let her do her own thing and shut up and work for her, but they're all intent on stingin her and makin her go crazy. Speaking of the bee...Where is that thing? By the window again. Huh, I'll be fucked if the little bastard isn't eating the sealant around the edges here. Is he trying to get in, or what? Workin on gettin in...I dunno. Another use for knives besides cuttin, which they don't realize half the time, is the use as a tool. Cutters dont just keep knives to cut, they keep em for every day use. I think helpin the bee from the inside here, peeling away the sealant...I think it's a good use of the knife.

I'm movin around while I write now, obviously. Takin me a while to chip the bee in. Just make a little dent.

Anyway. When I came back in I musta looked spaced to shit. Guess that's suspicious. Cause I got dragged into my room by Jerrim and told to strip down. Noooooow...In any other circumstance...this might have been acceptable. But Jerrim's like a particularly masculine man caught in a woman's body. You get the impression of a big sweaty space-frieghter pilot with wide arms and greasy hair gruntin at you when she talks. Scary scary shit to be told to strip by Jerrim. And I don't think my telling her that I would if she would helped. I didn't know she was allowed to hit patients. Hell, least she didn't hit hard. I wound up running away from her around the room though. Funny funny shit now that I look back on it, because my laughing and yellin "Fuck! Craika!" brought Yulling in. Then I REALLY got it. Stripping means your dignity gets stripped too. But when you do it yourself, at least you feel a little better. Being held down by Yulling why Jerrim stripped me was a reaaaaal break in dignity. These two don't act like they look. It's freaky.

I think they were looking for cuts all over my body or something. Cause they poked at the serpent a while and twisted LOVE around so they could see how it was healing. I really gotta say, they don't give me no respect. What do they think, I can't care for my own fucking injuries? Damn. I guess the stripping shoulda seriously bothered me, but it didn't. It's more the loss of dignity that pisses me off, but I ain't really mortified. I find it a little fuckin immature to strip a patient, but if that's policy, whatever the hell, ya know?

If Kammi was here she'd tell me to beat the shit out of em, but it ain't my style to do that. Why should I sink down to their level and make myself get all tough and shit? I ain't pissed at them, I ain't at war with them. Hell, I ain't even at war with the Humans, and they did all this.

Sometimes...you just sit here..and you feel nothin. You know? Like I sit here, bee in a corner of a crazy hive, I sit here on the edge of the bed and I drink. I'm trying to get her out of my head. Trying to unsee what I saw. Trying to un chip the hole I started chipping in the window. But you sit here...and you can feel nothing. I can empty this and I'll feel nothing. The scratching inside my skull will be gone, but that's all. A little artificial flash of warmth with each shot, a little redirection of the world. But the thing is...My brain just won't let go. It won't give up control to nothingness. It's makin me make somethin right by feelin nothin. There's not a thing in this world more depressing than knowing you should feel something, something inside you...and...

and just feeling nothin...at all.

I can see places and people inside my head outside these walls. My old life, where I felt somethin, and I wanna go back there. Like nothing else. I'm scared here, I'm freaked out. Things are taken away from me that I knew, and stuff I don't want to know is forced in my face. They're pickin on me, and I don't know why. A grand cosmic sceme to have this place close in its walls around me. And why the hell does this room smell funny?

I wonder how many people were here before me, and if they were crazy or not. Is that smell piss in a corner? Who knows, I sure as hell don't sniff piss. I feel like a younger version of myself. Like I got all this to care about and for and nobody's gonna let me, cause instead of bein too young this time, I'm too crazy.

You can practicly taste the death in alcohol sometimes. Death and posion, and you know that's what they are. But there's something there that's a comfort. It's like the insanely perfected version of peace suicidal people get. So peaceful inside, just nothin matters. It's gonna be okay, like in Japanese. It's the only earth langauge I know. Kitto Okay. It's gonna be okay. But it's not. But you don't care. Takin posion into yourself, and you feel your entire body cringe and try to get it out. But once its in it's all good. And you don't have to feel alive anymore.

Music thunders in my ears like it's a whole seperate entity. Like an animal around my shoulder, like polin on a bee. It's what I'm bringing back to my hive, but nobody but me is looking at it and enjoying it. It's like...It's... I dunno.

Something inside me is telling me to open the window. Something inside me says the lock isn't really there. But whenever I listen to that and stand up to let the bee in and myself out, the window clinks when I push on it. It's really locked. In this reality anyway.

Maybe what's inside me is saying there's another way to open the window. But for now...I just wanna lie on my back and look up.

I wanna look up. I wanna look up at the ceiling and feel nothing. I wanna stare up, feel nothing, letting the tears run through my fur. But I don't have anything to cry for.

I wonder if I'm trying to die with posion, or if I'm trying to live.

"Work Duty!"

The voice hammered down the hallways, catty and rough and impossiable to block out. It slithered through doorways only to pounce on the people behind them, there was no way not to hear it. It dopplered in sound away and towards rooms, the person screaming as they moved up and down the hall, opening doors and dragging patients out. "Work duty!"

Kyotoshi was sleeping facedown in his pillow, his journal open to one side and his spare silver flask out in plain view. He jerked up his head, awake now, but his eyes were slow opening and his mind was still bleary. What the hell..? The voice kept screaming and Kyo just shook his head and flopped downwards again, burrying his face in the course white fabric of the pillowcase. Perhaps sleep wasn't the right term for what he'd done. Maybe passed out was more like it. But he wasn't ready to get up again, at any rate. He didn't give a damn if the hospital was on fire or what. And work? Hell if he was getting up for that.

The door to his room rattled as whoever it was unlocked it. The clacking brought Kyotoshi up and awake again, his mind only half awake but knowing what was going on. He had to hide...journal flask...shit, where was the knife? Kyo scrambled to his knees and rolled the book and flask into the wrinkles of his sheets, and pawed across the bed franticly for the knife. What had he done with it, where had he put it, what the hell had he done with it? No time no time, the door was open.

"WORK DUTY!" Kyotoshi stopped searching and slapped his hands over his ears as the Hekshanian at the door bellowed. Shit, she had a deep voice. Stocky with jet black fur, she strode into the room with such an air of authority...why did all the people here have to walk like that, carry like that? Kyotoshi lowered his hands from his ears and hoped the pounding in his head would subside. Hangover. Great. Screaming people and he had a hangover. What the hell today, was the world laughing at him? The black orderly came halfway into the room and stood, snapping her fingers. "Get a move on, you have work duty."

Kyotoshi sat on the edge of the bed and stretched his arms above his head, intertwining the fingers and pulling against one another as he shut his eyes. Opening one eye, he sounded exactly what he was- tired and hungover. "Th'fucksa work duty?"

She didn't seem to hear him at all, and waved her hand towards the door, indicating he should be getting up and moving out into the hall at this point. Kyotoshi scratched his head, fingers raking through the uneven yellow hair, and pretended he didn't see at all. They were going to explain this time before he did something. He was tired of playing trial and error. And it was what now? His second day? Not even a week down and he was already having authority problems.

With a disgusted snort, the orderly swung her short hair over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. She looked as if she'd never done a day of real work in her life, and was only here because she had to be. She looked like she liked having others do things for her. She looked like someone Kyotoshi would have made paint walls or something just for kicks. He smirked despite himself as she finally explained exactly what she was screaming about. He was supposed to go to the kitchens, now, that was his work duty today and this week. Wash dishes for the other patients, and all that jazz. Kyotoshi grinned and hopped off the bed, hooking his thumbs into the waistband of his white hospital cloths.

"Sounds fun. Lead the way, sister." He smiled at her and she glared back at him, but walked him out of the room and most of the way to the cafeteria. He noticed he wasn't the only one being hurried off, it was just that not everyone was going to the cafeteria. When the black Hekshanian pushed open one of the thick double doors with a sniff of aloofness, Kyotoshi's nose was asulted by a smell of something that could only be labeled...default food. Wrinkling his nose up and snorting through it to try to clear the scent, he nodded thanks to the orderly and smiled as she rolled her eyes and left muttering to herself. Kyotoshi surpressed the urge to make fun of her attitude...it would have been too easy. Just a little gesture with his hands to form the Uni "W" and one word in Uni and she would have been sufficently teased. But he didn't. He was feeling a little nicer than that today.

Grey tiles that looked like they were giving off the smell in and of themselves moved in a smooth pattern from wall to wall. They looked like old, overcooked meat, and Kyotoshi squeezed shut his eyes as his stomach did a slight jump. Goody goody...he was having that damn type of hangover where smells were augmented. This would be real fun then at the rate it was going. Shaking his head and muttering that he didn't know to nobody in particular, Kyotoshi moved around the tray line and behind the counter, wondering if he was going to get any direction in how exactly to do all this, or if he was just going to be left to his own.

"New guy...aren't you." Wheeling around, Kyotoshi felt dizzy and had to catch himself on the edge of the counter before being able to properly identify the speaker. Another wave of dizziness swept over him when he was able to focus again. Dark eyes staring through dirty bangs framed on a face of light fur, tinted nearly blue. Blinking and taking a few steps backwards, Kyotoshi checked himself. No, he didn't feel anywhere near as messed up as he'd need to be in order to hallucinate. It was really the girl. He grinned sheepishly and shook his head, trying to clear it. Get a grip, Lypha. You want everyone to know you're hiding booze? Then keep right on acting like you're drunk and get yourself a blood test and get busted then. Craika, what's up with me?

With a flick of her tail, her arms were folded precariously against her breasts. She was checking him. Guaging him. Kyotoshi realized he was being evaluated and dropped into his own defence mechanism against it. He felt his spine straighten and a joking smile come onto his face as his own arms folded. He looked up and off to the side as he spoke, projecting self confidence. "I learn fast enough that I won't be for long," He smirked and cast her a glance. "Or're you gonna keep me here talkin?"

Dark eyes moved into slits as she tightened the muscles in her arms, pressing them harder against her body. Her tail twitched spontaniously in agitation. "Drop the facade."

"Drop the analyzation," he countered and shrugged, his normal stance returning. "We're both here to work, aren't we? I don't got no desire to get poked and prodded for bein 'too withdrawn' to work, so we better do that."

With a flick of her ears, she moved away from him and into the kitchen area, her tail snaking behind in the air. Unfolding his arms, he hooked his thumbs back into the waist of his pants and followed. More patients were working through the entirity of the kitchen, putting away food or taking other food out...at least trying to. Some of them seemed more interested in throwing spoons at eachother screeching. A yellow Hekshanian and a red furred Rakwulf ran between Kyotoshi and the girl, howling nonsense at the top of their lungs. Across the kitchen a purple-tinted Hekshanian had climbed onto the counter and was laughing to herself, constantly repeating "Cornbread" inbetween nonsense cries of "Warg warg!!" Two orderlies were trying to pull her down as Kyotoshi watched, distracted.

Something rough hit him in the shin and he yelped and hopped onto one foot, grabbing at his leg. Glaring around for what had hit him, he only saw the girl. She'd kicked him! Fully ready to say something to get back at her, she interupted and nodded her head curtly towards the silver machine hulking in the corner, probobly designed for washing dishes. "Don't watch. Just work. It's what you wanted to do, isn't it?"

Rubbing his shin, Kyotoshi put his leg down gingerly and gave her a mock injured expression. She remained cold and stiff, like a block of ice. "Okay, okay...Don't need to get violent though," She lowered her head at this and glared. Kyotoshi decided not to follow that tangent. "Um...oookay then...I'll rinse, you dry?"

With a shrug, the light blue Hekshanian brushed past him roughly and leaned against the side of the machine, her fist slamming against two buttons at once as it growled to life. Kyotoshi mentally kicked himself as he saw exactly how many dishes the ward had accumilated and took two quick steps to the sink, picking up the hose that was attached to the sink nozzle. Probobly to get more power for blasting off stuck-on food-bits, Kyotoshi realized. Glancing at the other Hekshanian, he saw her smirk. "Careful," Her voice was that of sadistic amusment. "The rim around the nozzle gets hot."

"Thanks for the warning," He shook his head and focused the hose on the first of the dishes, a spurt of water blasting food bits in all directions. Kyotoshi jumped away from the spray and felt the nozzle burn his hand, but welcomed it. Every little bit of pain was a punishment for anything he'd ever done, right? Why reject it? He smirked and winked at her. "Too bad I'm fine with a little burn."

Ears back and eyes narrowed, she wasn't glaring now. He could tell she was thinking. After a moment, she spoke, but the accusing edge was gone from her voice. "Just send the first load through the machine."

Saluting with the hose, Kyotoshi returned to working. The machine rumbled and they washed dishes, but in silence. Still...When he would glance at her, she would glance back. He found himself doing likewise as well. There was the unspoken desire to question, to communicate, but neither one of them wanted to start. Kyotoshi had the feeling neither one of them knew how. And so it went, in silence, tensed.

Surprisingly, it was one of the other patients who broke the silence. The one who'd been up on the counter a moment ago came running up so suddenly she startled Kyo, and he dropped one of the plates he'd been washing. It shattered to peices on the tile floor, but the lightly lavender Hekshanian didn't seem to notice at all. Her wide eyes trembled as if they wanted to leap out of their sockets and she barely seemed able to keep from grabbing and shaking Kyotoshi. "Duu yoo have peasent feeeet?"

Understandably, Kyotoshi blinked in confusion. "Huh?"

"ARE YOUR TOES LONG OR SHORT!" She demanded franticly. Kyotoshi glanced around for an orderly, but saw no one. Crap, he was stuck. The girl he'd been working with stopped stacking dishes and watched, a slight smile on her face.

"I dunno what-"

"Just tell her," The girl said calmly. "She'll leave you alone afterwards."

"Et ees for reeeesearch reasoons." The lavender one lifted onto the tips of her hindclaws, seeming to hover in the air. Every word out of her mouth was mangled in some parody of its actual pronunciation. Kyotoshi blinked and leaned backwards as the girl leaned further into his face and tried to think of an answer.

"Uh...long?"

Instantly, the lavender girl leapt into the air and landed against Kyo's chest, knocking him to the ground. Some of the plate shards dug into his back and Kyotoshi cried out, but the girl didn't seem to hear him. She was too busy shaking his shoulders franticly. "CURSE YOOO! THE ARISTOCRATS ARE WINNING!"

"Sheena!" Light blue hands closed around the lavender girl's shoulders and pulled her off, swinging her around. Kyotoshi scrambled to his feet and brushed at his back, feeling chips of pottery fall back to the floor. The light blue girl held Sheena at arms length for a moment before turning her in another direction and giving her a light push that way. Fur fluffed in excitement, the lavender girl raced off in that direction at top speed. Wherever she went now, she at least wouldn't be attacking him.

"Thanks," Kyotoshi looked at the shattered shards on the floor and stooped to scrape them up. The light blue girl leaned against the machine and shrugged, arms folded. As he stood again, Kyotoshi's eyes fell to the stove. Line up neatly in a row above the burners were cooking knives, out of reach of patients. Patients who couldn't figure out how to make a ladder out of an overturned trashcan, anyway. Kyotoshi wondered if anyone would notice...

Breaking through his thoughts came the light blue girl's voice again. "They count them every day, don't even bother. They know who the cutters and suicidals are." Kyotoshi looked at her, the girl with her eyes shut, knowing what he was thinking without even having to watch him any longer. He dropped the plate shards into the machine with a clatter, not really caring if it washed them or broke itself trying. She opened one eye as he stared at her and lifted the ear nearest him slightly. "So which one are you?"

Fighting the urge to drop into a defensive frame of mind, Kyotoshi moved closer. "Cutter," He said quietly. His voice betrayed his amazment. "How do you know this?"

The girl shrugged and unfolded her arms for just a second. In the light white fur, it was easy to see where the blood had stuck together against her. Letters and names...Kyotoshi felt the world slam into the side of his head as the reality of it hit him. He wasn't alone like this, he'd always known it but he'd never had real proof. Her eyes were steely, and she folded her arms tightly again. "I am too."

Orderlies were coming in now, taking patients by the arms and pulling them out. Kyotoshi and the girl were two of the last, and Kyotoshi could see the black Hekshanian approuching now. "What's your name?" He asked quickly.

"Come see me and I'll tell you."

Two Hekshanians took her by the arms and she struggled slightly, but allowed herself to be pulled away. Kyotoshi backed his ears and glanced first towards his own approuching guide and then back to the gurgling machine. Some shards had not fallen inside...They weren't knives. But who knew...His hand snapped like a lizard and closed around one of the broken peices, fingers unfolded but the muscles on the insides of his hands taut. Thieving skills told him to act calmly as he walked towards his own orderly and smiled. The smile felt horrificly out of place.