

Dangerous Lunatics
by Alex Reynard


   FEATURING THE VOICE TALENTS OF:
        Halle Berry  -as-  Dr. Beatrix Beverley
        The Rock  -as-  Monsoon
        Jason Lee  -as-  Always-Jimmy-Never-James
        Ron White  -as-  Thurston Caercase
        Steve Buscemi  -as-  Clifford Markman
        Edward Norton  -as-  Alf
        Sir Anthony Hopkins  -as-  Dr. Jones
        Sarah Michelle Gellar  -as-  Kimberly
        Jodie Foster  -as-  Cora Maplewood



Author's Warning:
     I have personally spent time in three different psychiatric hospitals, on five separate occasions. So while quite a bit of what follows does incorporate semi-autobiographical details of one kind or another, the vast bulk is just stuff I made up. So don't even try to make the distinction.
     Also, if you don't know how to play Uno, run out and buy a deck right now and teach yourself. Trust me.



     "Madness is the gift that has been given to me."
          -Disturbed, "Down With The Sickness"



*****


BOOK ONE:
  ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES FROM REALITY


     -KAREN-

The clouds rolled on, fast and bulbous, racing across the sky like time-lapse photography. They provided an altogether surreal backdrop to the otherwise bland and unremarkable small suburban street. It was summer, and the sun peeked through the blue and glinted off the backs of every car and SUV in the neighborhood, all of them standing at attention like wheeled tin soldiers in their respective driveways. The air felt warm, but far-off sounds heralded rain. Thunder. Nevertheless, Karen Willard ran along behind her new playmate; on and on across the innumerable cloned front lawns.

"Come on! Hurry! It's just a few houses more!"

Karen was running as fast as she could, but was still having trouble keeping up with the new girl. She could see her up ahead; a ground squirrel, or some other kind of brown-furred rodent. She could see the white flash of panties every time the girl's dress flipped up in back. She had just moved in today, the new girl said. She had come here from far, far away, the new girl said. She wanted to show Karen the house they'd moved into, the new girl said.

The young raccoon's tail was frizzing up nonetheless. Karen was friends with no one, so she really didn't have much reference for situations like this. She felt out of place and uncomfortable in the face of her new playmate's loud eagerness.

"Karen! We're almost there! Come on!!"

Nearly-breathless, Karen continued to follow.

It was only then that she began to notice that there were no other people along the street. No one but her and the new girl. Not a single homeowner out mowing the lawn or backing out of the driveway to go get some groceries. No cars vrooming to and fro. The street was as empty as the ones you saw in car commercials.

Then again, it wasn't really all that strange. What with those clouds overhead. Karen was sure it was about to bust out raining any second now.

The new girl stopped abruptly in front of a relatively nondescript example of the many nice family homes up and down the street. The only thing that stood out about it was the newly painted shutters: dark red. And they stank. That horrible, nasty fresh paint smell.

"Here is is!" the new girl chirped. "Isn't it great?"

Karen nodded, but she really didn't think much about it one way or another.

"Come on, there's something I wanna show you inside!"

The new girl grabbed Karen's arm before she even had time to protest and dragged her in through the front door.

The inside was just as normal as the outside, save for the few unopened cardboard boxes still lying about. Otherwise, the place looked rather calm. The furniture was all nice and new. There was a grandfather clock in the hallway. Just as Karen glanced at it, it began to chime.

"It's downstairs. In the basement. The thing I want to show you."

The new girl flung open a stark beige door and beyond it lay blackness. Karen's throat closed up. She couldn't say a thing as she was pulled down into it.

The stairs creaked with every step the girls took. Smells of age and dampness invaded Karen's small black nose. Basementy smells. Somewhere in the darkness she could hear a washing machine thrumming relentlessly.

Her bare paws finally touched cold cement.

*grinka*

The new girl had turned on the light. Her paw held the end of a chain that ran up towards a bare, naked bulb.

She grinned wide and blazing. "It's right over here."

Karen wanted to say no, stop, she wanted to go back upstairs. This basement was creepy and she was supposed to be at home now doing... What? Doing what? She honestly couldn't remember what she'd been doing before the new girl showed up.

The new girl's paws were clasped tight around Karen's, tugging her with ferocious enthusiasm towards the laundry room. Her grin grew wider. The sound of the washing machine grew louder. Clothes rolling around in a spin-dry: athump-athump-athump-athump-athump.

Karen felt really, really uncomfortable now. She felt all her fur stand on end. She could see cobwebs hanging from the rafters above her.

The new girl stopped.

"This is it."

Karen's attention snapped to, but she couldn't tell what this all-important thing she was supposed to be seeing was. The new girl was just standing there in the center of the room, her arms held out akimbo. Karen opened her mouth to ask 'What?', but only air passed through her muzzle.

Then, peculiarly, she noticed that the cement in here was different than in the other room. Smoother, fresher. Newer.

"Do you see it?" the new girl asked eagerly.

Karen looked up, and her paws went straight to her mouth to stifle a shriek of horror.

The new girl's eyes were gone.

She looked at Karen, still grinning, with empty, hollow sockets. Tiny sprinkles of grey dust trickled out and down her cheeks like hourglass sand.

"This is where it happened."

The new girl's dress began to decay, changing from sunny yellow to curled, moldy and dark.

The washing machine was loud as a jackhammer now.

"This is where my daddy dragged me downstairs at night. This is where he cut off my head with the garden shears."

Karen wanted desperately to back away, to run, to scream, but she was frozen solid as ice.

The new girl's skin began to dry out and peel away from her brittle white bones.

"This is where he dug up the floor and put me in the hole and covered me up with cement."

Her face disintegrated, slipping off in ratty, moistureless chunks.

Still, she grinned.

"This is where Daddy buried me."


     ~~~


Karen sat straight up in her own bed, in her own house, screaming and screaming and screaming at the top of her lungs.

That final image of her dream, of the girl becoming a skeleton right before her eyes, burned into her brain and wouldn't go away no matter how hard she squeezed her eyes shut. She screamed and hollered and shrieked as if she were on fire.

The little raccoon girl's howls finally ebbed though. As they always eventually did. Her cries died out to a thin, hoarse whisper. Then there was only the sound of her breath.

She sat there in bed in her pajamas, her blanket clutched in ten little white knuckles, and waited.

Her parents were just down the hall.

Neither of them came to her aid.

Karen waited a little longer, then felt angry with herself for hoping. Of course they weren't coming. They never came anymore.

She remembered when she was little, how when she'd have a bad dream Mommy and Daddy would always rush in to save her, bringing hugs and kisses and a glass of milk.

Not anymore, though.

And the worst part was, she couldn't even really blame them. It's hard to give a shit about your kid's nightmares when she has them every single night.

Every Single Night. For almost eleven years.

Every time poor Karen's eyes closed and she laid herself down to sleep, visions of death surrounded her. Blood and bodies and gore would leap shriekingly out at her young mind. Sometimes the dream-dead pleaded for help, sometimes they yelled incoherent instructions at her. And sometimes they just stared back, silent and unblinking, into her small, haunted soul. Even when she had good dreams (and those were consistently few and far between), somehow death *always* managed to put in an appearance. The 'new friend turning out to be a corpse' scenario wasn't even worth mentioning anymore.

Yet for some reason, this one had been much worse than usual. Karen's dreams had always been vivid. And her nightly mind-movies had been growing gradually more and more realistic over the last few years. But this one had been light-years ahead of last night's. She'd never seen such a high level of detail in any of her dreams before. The red shutters, the green lawns, the grandfather clock, the cobwebs... It felt like she'd really been transported across time and space to some other furson's neighborhood, to a real house that actually existed out there somewhere.

And the sight of those little crumbs of concrete falling from the dead girl's eye sockets...

Karen shivered even though it was a warm summer night. She wrapped her arms hard around her chest. Her parents wouldn't give her any hugs anymore, so she'd just have to go ahead and do it herself.

She missed Mommy and Daddy. Her dumb old bad dreams had pretty much driven a wedge the size of the Titanic between her and them. Her parents still clothed her and fed her and told her to do her homework, of course. But they acted like Karen wasn't even alive anymore. As if she was just some piece of furniture that occasionally made very loud noises at night. They looked at her like a robot duplicate that had taken their real daughter's place.

And it was all her fault. Karen knew it. Not Mommy and Daddy's fault, all hers. All because she had to keep waking them up night after night after night after night because of some damn stupid scary dreams!

They'd tried pills. They'd tried changing her diet. They'd tried psychiatrists. They'd tried *yoga*, for crying out loud. Hell, they'd tried almost everything on Earth besides acupuncture. And Karen certainly would have let some little old Chinese guy put a million needles in her, so long as it would just stop the dreams.

But now... Now Mommy and Daddy were just giving up and getting rid of her.

The pamphlet had come in the mail, from her school. All sorts of information about a brand new psychiatric hospital just for children that had just opened up a few states away. They were pioneering some radical new therapies, and as part of their program they were taking in various chronic cases of mental illness from all around the country for an extended live-in examination, completely free of charge to the parents.

Needless to say, Mommy and Daddy had accepted the offer that very afternoon, before Karen had even gotten home from school.

Tomorrow they were going to take her there, drop her off, and she'd probably never even see them again.

Karen put her face in her small, dark-furred paws, and wept.

She loved her mommy and daddy. She didn't want them to get rid of her. To throw her away like trash.

But she knew it was all her fault.

The young raccoon cried and cried and kept herself awake, until finally the sun came up.


*****


     -BRAD-

At just eleven years old, Brad Maplewood was well on his way to becoming a stereotypical one-eyed, one-eared, battle-scarred old tomcat.

In fact, he was getting the living shit kicked out of him at that very moment.

"FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!" The playground kids all pumped their arms and chanted, gathered in a circle around the two combatants. They watched the slaughter with glee, their eyes wide and giddy with primal excitement. Like jungle natives witnessing a ritual bloodsport.

Brad took a hard right to the side of his face that knocked him straight down in the dirt.

The other boy, the one who had hit him, stared down with brute rage and flexed his fat, callused fingers.

Brad hauled himself liquidly to his feet. He wiped some mouth-blood off on his paw and brushed the dirt from his orange T-shirt and black jeans.

He smiled, his eyes sparkling with glee. "Hit me again, fatboy. Come on, pukestain! You punch like my grandmother!"

The other boy, a sixth-grade grizzly who weighed probably as much as any two of his other classmates combined, drew back his fist and pounded it into Brad's stomach so hard he actually launched his foe a few feet in the air.

Brad smacked into the ground again, this time so hard all the other kids on the playground heard it. There was a crunch like bones breaking, but still the wiry tomcat leaped to his feet again, putting up his dukes in an instant. He laughed wildly, as if this whole situation amused him greatly. "Whooo!" he panted. "Gettin' a little better now! Still not enough though, douchebag." He bounced on the balls of his feet like a boxer and waited for his opponent to come at him again.

The bear boy thundered forward like a freight train, his fists as thick as canned hams.

Brad never wavered an inch.

The bear's right fist shot out again, seeming to hang in the air in slow motion for a decade or so before it finally connected with Brad's jaw. The *THWACK* of the impact reached several dozen ears, and just as many jaws dropped when Brad's head went swiveling around like a barstool.

Not a single kid who witnessed it wouldn't have sworn, under oath, that Gary Pennington hadn't just snapped the new kid's neck like the stem of a champagne glass.

Brad fell to the dirt, unmoving.

Gary backed up a few steps, realizing what he'd done. Visions of himself spending the rest of his life behind bars for murder flashed at insane speeds through his mind.

Nobody said anything for a few moments. They all just stared at the dusty-striped grey catboy laying there in the recess yard dirt, his head nearly in a position to kiss his shoulder blades.

And then, Brad got up again.

The other kids all backed up simultaneously, eyes wide and deathly silent, like they were watching a zombie coming back from the dead. Brad whipped his head around and his neck made an absolutely skin-crawling *SKLUTCH* sound as it settled back into place. He rubbed his jaw a bit and stared at his opponent.

He laughed; high-pitched and crazy. "Dammit, you're gonna have to hit me a lot harder than *that*."

Gary just shook his head and started backing away. "Jesus... You're fucked up! To hell with you!!"

Brad grinned in triumph. His undefeated record remained spotless. No one had ever broken him before. No one. _Ever_.

...And then the principal's paws descended on the little cat's shoulders like an eagle's talons and dragged him snarlingly away.

"Aw shit," said Brad.


     ~~~


His mother would not stop crying.

"Mom? Mom...?" Brad spoke softly, hating to see her like this.

"Your FIRST _DAY_!!!" she shouted in his face.

Brad slunk back in his seat, his long skinny tail twitching nervously. They were in the car, parked outside the school. He hadn't even made it through the whole day without getting sent home. The principal had yelled at him for, like, twenty minutes and then he'd had to wait in the sickly-smelling outer office for half an hour while his mom drove over. Then she and the principal had taken a long 'meeting' in his office.

Brad looked down into his lap, not wanting to feel ashamed but feeling it anyway. "Mom... Come on. Please. I'm sorry."

"You're SORRY!" she bellowed. "If you were sorry you wouldn't have gotten into another goddam fight your First Fucking Day At Your New School!!" She punctuated each word of the sentence with a harsh slap in her son's general direction. Not to hurt him, mostly just to relieve the frustration inside her that was about three seconds away from making steam shoot out her ears.

Brad flinched under the powerless blows and felt them a lot harder on his heart than on his face and shoulders. "Aw, damn, Mom! Cut it out!"

"Why can't *you* cut it out, Brad? Why the hell can't you just STOP!? How many schools now? Tell me! How many?"

"You already know..." he grumbled.

She grabbed his muzzle in her paw and forced him to look in her eyes. "You _tell_ me. I want to hear it out of your own mouth."

Brad hesitated as long as he could, not even able to make eye contact with her. "...Seven," he finally said, weakly and shamefully.

His mother let go of him and slid back into her seat, staring daggers at her violent, untamed, uncontrollable son. She started to cry, but still kept her face a stone.

Brad stared down at the floor panels. "But... It's not like I didn't have a reason! I saw him take this other kid's lunch money. Honest! He pushed the kid into the fence and just kept hitting him until the kid threw some change at him and ran away, crying his fuckin' eyes out! How could I just stand there and let his fat ass get away with that!?"

His mother reached out and gently pulled her son into a soft and loving hug. She laid his head upon her shoulder and ran her fingers through his fur. "You've always got a reason, don't you?" she whispered in his ear.

"I... I just hate bullies, Mom. I can't help it," he whimpered.

"You can too help it, and you _know_ that," she said softly; firm and still angry, but letting him know that underneath all her fury she still loved him endlessly. "You could go tell a teacher, or... Or something! But, honey, Jesus Christ, do you *always* have to fight every last one of them?"

"The teachers don't give a shit, mom. They let it happen. Always. They always let the bullies get away with it. Who else is gonna stop 'em? And the other kids always call me a hero afterwards."

She sighed painfully. His reasoning made so damn much sense sometimes... "Brad, sweetie, superheroes are for comic books. You are a real live little boy and there are rules in this world about just beating up everyone you don't like. Hell, I hate a lot of my co-workers at the office. Most of them are backstabbing bitches who'd probably claw my eyes out in half a second just to get the last donut at a staff meeting. But that doesn't give me the right to beat the shit out of them."

Brad chuckled a little. He held her tighter. "I know, Mom, I know. But school is different."

He looked up into her endlessly patient face, saw the dark rings around her eyes, and hated himself for doing this to her time after time after time. But he just couldn't stop himself. Whenever he saw injustice, whenever he saw some big kid terrorizing a smaller one, he simply HAD to step in and put a stop to it. That was all there was to it. Even if it meant getting the living crap kicked out of him, it didn't matter. Besides, he'd always had a special gift for taking punches and hard knocks. His Dad hadn't used to call him 'Rubberband Man' for nothing.

Dad...

Geez. He hadn't thought about him in months now...

Brad shook himself out of his musings and turned back to his mother. He let out a deep sigh and gave her another big hug. "I'm sorry, Mom. Really. I just don't know how to stop. I don't want to hafta hurt you anymore, but I don't know how to stop."

She held him tenderly for several minutes. The afternoon sun beat down on their little brown car, warming their fur. Green tree leaves cast angled shadows across the windshield. The street was nearly silent save for some birdcalls and the occasional muffled noise from the school. The other kids wouldn't be getting out for at least another hour.

"Sweetheart... The principal and I had a talk while you were waiting," Mrs. Maplewood finally began. Her eyes had become unfocused. She stared down the street, not looking at her son, telling herself over and over that this didn't mean she was betraying him.

"I know," said Brad. "I could hear you guys a little bit. And the office smelled like antibacterial spray. I hate that shit."

She nodded. "I know. But we were in there so long because he was telling me about something very, very important. He really took a chance on you, Tiger. He knew all about your past suspensions and expulsions, and even those times you got arrested..."

Brad winced. His ears flattened out. He _hated_ having to remember that. Even more than he hated antibacterial spray.

"...But he let you enroll here anyway, he told me, because he was impressed with you."

Brad lifted his head a bit. "Really?"

"That IQ test you took last year? You remember? He saw that and thought a little genius like you deserved another chance. He knows you're smart, you just have problems with discipline and authority."

Brad nodded. "I'm smart but I act dumb, right?"

She ran her fingers through his soft, messy headfur. "I wouldn't say that, sweetie. You've just got a berserk chivalry gland or something."

He chuckled.

"The point is, he was willing to give you one chance. _One_. And you blew it, kiddo. You blew it big-time."

"Wish I'd known beforehand..."

"Would that have stopped you from getting into that fight today?" she asked pointedly.

Brad opened his mouth to lie, but he knew he couldn't. Mom deserved better than that. "...No."

She sighed. "Well, that's sort of what we were talking about in there. He said that, from your past history, he thought you had all the symptoms of some weird childhood syndrome I can't remember the name of. High intelligence, overactive imagination, abundant energy, lack of self-control, self-centeredness, and especially your high levels of aggression."

"You just described half the kids my age on the planet, Mom," Brad quipped.

She gave him a wry smile. "Don't get smart with me, mister. This is serious business." The laugh left her voice abruptly, and she stared out the window again. "Principal Gordon... He told me about a place that might be able to help you."

"What kind of place?" Brad asked warily. A bad feeling was starting to creep up the back of his neck.

His mother reached in her purse and pulled out a folded brochure. On the front was a picture of a great big boxy building with a multitude of narrow, dark windows set into the sides. The sun was shining in the picture and the building gleamed white like a giant square lightbulb. The caption read:

        King's Orchard Hospital For Troubled Youth
  'Giving your child the special help they need to grow up happy and healthy'

Brad felt like all his fur had gone white. "Oh _fuck_. Mom, you are not seriously thinking about shipping me off to some looney bin, are you!?"

Cora Maplewood looked down into her son's terrified eyes and a huge part of her heart just wanted to snatch the brochure away from him and tear it into tiny pieces right then and there. But a deeper, wiser part of her knew that things could not continue on like this. Seven schools. More detentions and suspensions than she could possibly count. Brad was a good boy, a kind boy, a smart boy. But he just could not keep his anger contained for more than a few seconds it seemed.

She pulled him close in another hug. "I don't want to, sweetie," she said, trying to hold back sobs. "I don't want to send you away. I love you, and I always will. But nothing else has helped! You *know* that. Nothing else has worked, and Principal Gordon said this place is brand new and state-of-the-art. They have three other facilities just like this one in other states and they've all gotten ridiculously good reviews from every single hospital magazine in the country. Their success rate is almost *double* that of all the other hospitals like them anyplace else. And this new one that's just opened, they've got a whole bunch of government funding and they've contacted a hundred schools all around the country, offering free treatment to all sorts of cases just like yours. Kids who have problems that nothing else has been able to solve. Honeypie, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! I'll *never* have enough money to send you to a place like this, not even if I saved up every penny I make and went without food for a month. They're giving this away *free*! And the papers I got with the brochure had your name right at the top. They can have a room and a bed all ready for you by *tomorrow* if we accept, and you can stay there as long as you need to and it won't cost me a single dime. Brad, sweetheart, this might really help you!"

Brad listened carefully to every word she said. He thought very long and very hard. The thought of having to spend even one day in a nuthouse was just about the most horrifying thing he could imagine. And he knew, of course, that they'd want to keep him there a hell of a lot longer than just a day. _Months_, probably. Months of tests and therapy and pills and shots and God knows what other things they'd do to him in a place like that.

But then he thought of his mom, and how much he loved her. And of how much he'd hurt her over the years.

He gave her a small, tender squeeze and felt tears forming warmly behind his eyelids.

"I'll go, Mom. I'll go."

She let out a loud, hard sob and cradled him even closer. "My sweet little troublemaker..." she crooned softly. "My naughty little angel."

Brad shivered as his sobs finally came, but he tried to be brave nonetheless. Accepting this meant that they'd take him away and he and his mom wouldn't see each other for who-the-heck knew how long. It meant fear in a new place. It meant doctors and their scary medications. It meant needles. It meant having to sleep in a hard bed with a thousand and one other little monsters all crammed into rooms on every side of him. It meant a living nightmare, he knew.

But it'd be worth it if his mom didn't have to cry like this anymore.

He patted her on the back. "I'm gonna miss you, Mom. But I'll be brave. And I'll try my best to get better."

She kissed him on the cheek. "I'm so proud of you, kiddo."

"Thanks. I love you, Mom."

"Love you too."

In the silence of the empty street, the two felines hugged for nearly half an hour.


*****


     -KAREN-

Karen's alarm clock woke her up from a thin, drowsy, not-quite-sleep at seven A.M. that morning. But today, she knew, it wasn't to go to school.

Quietly, displaying almost no emotion at all, she went about her daily routine. She slipped out of her pajamas and into a nice little pink-and-violet themed outfit she'd picked out herself at the store. All her clothes were rather girly-girly; the colors muted and unremarkable. But that was just what Karen liked. Karen was a timid girl, a delicate girl, and she liked things that were quiet and soft and fragile like her.

She went to the bathroom and peed, then brushed her fur in the mirror. She put two little magenta barrettes in her short-cut hair and thought she looked pretty much okay.

As Karen stared at her reflection, she couldn't help but also see the dead girl from last night's dream. Now, in the morning light, the girl didn't seem nearly as scary as before. They hardly ever did; the dead people. Most of them just seemed sad, or angry, or just as scared as she was. In the light of day, it always seemed to Karen that her nightmares didn't really *mean* to mess up her life so badly. They just did. They just _were_, like the sky and the trees and the water. They were what they were, no real harm intended.

Not to say they didn't cause plenty anyway.

Karen padded silently to the kitchen for breakfast. Silently was her trademark way of doing just about everything. As if being as quiet as possible all the rest of the day would somehow make up for her screaming her lungs out at ungodly hours every night of her life.

She got a box of Sugar Bonks from the cupboard and sat down to pour herself a bowl.

Her parents were already there. They glanced at her, but neither of them spoke a word.

Feeling very, very close to crying, Karen went and got the milk and juice. She made her breakfast swiftly and efficiently. She sat down to eat and buried her attention in the back of the cereal box where brightly-colored cartoon mascots were having a whole hell of a lot more fun than she was at the moment.

The only sounds in the kitchen were the rustle of Daddy's newspaper and of Mommy washing dishes in the sink. Karen even *ate* silently.

When she was finished, Karen held the bowl in her paws and daintily sipped up the milk. She licked her lips afterwards, then set about putting everything away and rinsing her bowl out.

Then she sat back down. Her mommy and daddy were both at the table with her, but nobody said a word.

Finally, unable to take the tension a second longer, Karen cleared her throat.

Her parents looked at her, their eyes cold. As if to say, 'What are YOU still doing here?'

"Um, how far is it? To the place?" Karen asked.

"I don't know," Mommy replied flatly, as if she couldn't possibly be expected to know such a foolish thing.

"Oh," said Karen. "I was just wondering how long it might take to get there. Should I bring a book or something?"

"You'll get carsick."

Karen shriveled in her seat and held her ringed, plush tail in her paws. It was soft, and it sometimes made her feel a little better in situations like this.

"Have you packed your bags like I told you to?" Mommy asked sharply.

Karen nodded. "Uh huh. I did it last night. And I folded up my clothes as neatly as I could so they won't get wrinkled."

Mommy sneered, wordlessly saying, 'Well, I'm sure I'll have to check on THAT for myself.'

Karen's mouth opened again before she could stop herself. "Wi-will you guys come and visit me sometimes?"

Mommy and Daddy cast hard, disappointed looks at her for even asking such a stupid question.

"Oh. Okay then." Karen got up from the table, pushed her chair in, then padded back to her room.

She laid down on her bed, on her tummy, keeping still so she would not wrinkle her nice clean dress. She would wait here, keeping quiet and being good, until her parents came to put her in the car.

She buried her face in her crossed arms and cried into her fur.

This mental hospital, she thought, might not be such a bad place after all.


*****


     -BRAD-

The drive was long and warm and silent.

Brad spent much of it staring out the car window, his head lying on his folded arms, his dust-bunny-grey ears flapping in the breeze. Just thinking.

He and Mom had not spoken much since the other day. But it was not out of animosity. They just couldn't think of any way to give voice to the things they felt inside. But Mom had ordered pizza, and had let Brad choose whatever toppings he wanted. She let him stay up way past his bedtime too.

Brad knew that being separated from his mother was going to be the worst part of his stay in the bughouse. By _far_.

They drove on and on until the bits of the freeway Brad had seen before all faded away and became strange new shapes. They were entering foreign territory; a city miles away that they'd never even heard of before. Brad kinda hoped that maybe they'd get lost and would be forced to just forget all this and go back home.

Mom did too.

And as the drive wore on, the young tomcat's thoughts grew steadily deeper inward.

Brad didn't know where it came from. The anger. He only knew that it was _real_. The same way a table leg or an aluminum baseball bat or a cinder block were real. His anger wasn't an emotion: it was a *liquid*. He felt sure of this. Otherwise, why else would it feel like his veins were about to burst and make his skin explode from the inside every time he saw some asshole being mean to someone smaller than them?

He didn't know where it came from, but he had a slim idea of when it had begun. It was his very first memory of being really, really pissed off. He'd been just three at the time. Dad had still been with them then and the whole family had been watching a video together one night. Little Brad had taken a special liking to the film's protagonist; a young kitty boy just like him. And when the evil sorcerer kidnapped the boy and was torturing him with lightning bolts from his magic wand, something inside Brad's mind recoiled in absolute abhorrence. He was seeing cruelty for the very first time. And he knew, even at that young age, that it was his version of antimatter. He did not want to exist in a universe where things like this happened, or were even portrayed. He wanted to lash out and destroy every last trace of it with a single mighty blow.

With tears in his eyes, and still in diapers, Brad had exploded out the most venomous words he could think of: "Stop that, you bad fucker!!!"

Mom had clapped her paw over her muzzle to avoid whooping with laughter (and later chastised herself for having uttered that word around her son). Dad had petted his son's fur and tried to calm him down. No dice though. Brad's anger would not settle until the very end of the movie, when the boy hero triumphed and the evil wizard ended up getting impaled on his own wand and exploding in a billion particles of light. Brad felt deep relief wash over him then. "Good," he'd said.

Mom had told that story at least a million times by now to everyone who would listen, and it had always given her a motherly chuckle. But Brad did not find it funny in the least. The emotion he had felt in that moment was _real_. He had _hated_ that wizard, fictional or not, with every last ounce of his small being. At three years old, he had felt hate for the very first time. And his tears were cried not just out of sympathy for the small boy on the screen, but because he somehow knew that there was not a single thing he could do to stop what he was seeing.

Even now, now that he knew the difference between real and make-believe, he still had moments like that. He'd be watching a TV show and some villainous character would just *get* to him, and he would simply not feel *right* again until he finally saw that character put to justice. He liked gritty, intense police procedural shows, even as a little tyke, because the bad guys, no matter how smart or ruthless they were, always got punished in the end. And when they got shot and died, Brad always felt a special happiness inside.

He'd realized quite a while ago that these types of feelings had the potential to severely fuck him up. He'd see homegrown terrorists and wide-eyed political radicals on the evening news who were so devoted to their causes that they thought nothing of murdering other people who happened to disagree with them. Brad most definitely did NOT want to become that type of furson. So he always forced himself to only go after the bad kids he was *certain* deserved it. Only if he saw stone-cold incontrovertible proof of wrongdoing would he hit another kid. Or, of course, if they struck first.

This wasn't to say he never started fights anyway. He had a knack for pissing people off the instant he met them, and often the bullies would do his 'scouting out' for him, and come right at him the second he opened his mouth. It was convenient. Though it also tended to kill any chance of real friendships.

Brad and Mom were past the freeway now, driving along through a bright, open area that was gosh-darn-nearly pastoral. This was some itty bitty little nowhere town they were in now. It made him wonder, why in the heck would anybody wanna build a mental hospital way out here?

By the time they reached their destination, the city had defined itself a bit more. Still, not by much. Brad was used to the density of a big city and this place was way too open for him. None of the buildings were any bigger than a single story.

Well, not exactly. There were two exceptions. Brad noticed a sprawling electric power plant where giant metal spires poked up out of the ground like those sparky things in Frankenstein movies. And next to the power plant was King's Orchard.

It looked just like the picture from the pamphlet, only Brad was nowhere near prepared for just how damn BIG it was in reality. This place was strictly for kooks, yet it still managed to be at least as large as City Receiving back home. It was not nearly as spread out as other hospitals he'd seen however; where the main buildings grew smaller specialty wings like warts. No, King's Orchard's size lay in it's cold, efficient height. It was like a monolithic marble cereal box with windows. 

There was a little curved driveway in front where you could pull up and drop someone off without having to go find a parking space. The hospital had called late last night and worked out all the details with Mom over the phone. The staff was ready the instant their car pulled up.

"Pop the trunk, ma'am," said a mountain.

Brad stared out the window in awe. The man standing outside was the biggest dude he had ever seen before in his entire life. Close to seven feet tall and four hundred pounds; and not an ounce of fat in any of it. His chiseled muscles strained at his white orderly's outfit. His fur and features were indistinct. You couldn't tell even staring straight at him what species he was. And his slightly exotic accent gave no real clue either. Other than that it was thick and dark, like chocolate honey.

Slightly startled, Mom popped the trunk.

The mountain went behind the car to get Brad's luggage, and that meant this was all really happening and soon his Mom would be driving away and he wouldn't get to see her again for who the fuck knew how long. Brad crushed himself to his mother in a trembling hug. "I'm scared," he admitted.

Her heart breaking, Cora Maplewood stroked her kitten's ears and nuzzled his face. "I know you are, sweetheart. You think I'm not? I'm petrified! I hate the thought that a bunch of strangers are gonna be taking care of you for the next few weeks or months or however long it'll be...

"But I'm hopeful too," she told him lovingly. "Because you're a good boy, and I know you can take care of yourself in a situation like this. And I know you'll be very cooperative and do everything the doctors tell you. Because deep down, I know you want to get better."

He nodded. "Mm hmm. I'll try, Mom. I really will. How 'bout I'll shoot for just one fight a week and we can work from there?"

She chuckled warmly. "How about *no* fights per week?"

"Aw, come on, Mom. Be serious," he kidded.

This time she laughed out loud, then peppered her son's forehead with kisses. "You rotten little..." she said with giggles.

*knock knock* on the windshield. "Ma'am?" It was the mountain again.

"What?" she hissed at him.

"Whenever you're ready," he said. Meaning, 'We have several other intakes today, so if you could just speed it up you'd be making my life a whole lot easier.'

Brad took in a deep breath, gathering his courage. "Okay, let's just get this over with then."

Mom nodded, admiring his maturity. She opened the car door. They stepped out into the tawny morning sunshine and quickly embraced again. One last time.

"I'll miss you, babykins," she husked, just barely spoken at all.

"Me too, Mom. And don't call me that."

She smiled. "You can't stop me; I'm your mother." She gave him one last squeeze and then pulled away, still holding onto his paws, looking straight into his eyes. "Be good, Brad. Try not to make any correct first impressions."

Brad blushed, knowing exactly what she was talking about. He had a gift for saying exactly the wrong thing to new people to piss them off without even meaning to. Case in point: one time he'd asked to tag along when his mother had gone out to an art gallery showing of one of her weirdo college friends' stuff. Brad had really gone above and beyond the call of duty to be on his best behavior that night. He'd nibbled the snacks they put out and kept silent, looking at all the admittedly nifty artworks. And then he had seen an elegant vixen who was completely bald all over her body. Smooth and pink; not a trace of fur left. Thinking it was some kind of artistic statement, and wanting to be polite, he mentioned to her how cool he thought she looked like that. After a brief, flurrious shitstorm, his mother had dragged him aside and explained to him what 'chemotherapy' was. Can we say 'Oops'?

Brad's mom snapped him out of the astronomically-embarrassing memory with more advice. "Be nice to the other kids, don't stare, try not to ask too many personal questions, and if some drug they give you is making you feel funny, you call me up right away and I'll raise hell, okay?"

He nodded. "Okay, Mom."

The female feline slowly got back in her car, her heart holding a thousand and one conflicting feelings. "Goodbye, Brad," she said softly.

"'Bye, Mom..."

He watched, silently, as she rolled up the window. The engine purred softly, and then she drove away. He could have sworn he'd heard her start to sob.

Then he turned around and the mountain was there, holding in one hand a suitcase he'd struggled with all his might just to lug downstairs.

"Uh... Hi," Brad said weakly.

"Hello, Brad."

"Shit! How do you know my name?" the boy burst out, a little frightened.

"They told me all about you at the front desk," the mountain said. His small, piercing eyes stared down intently at the boy. "I hear you like to fight."

Brad gulped, but tried to cover his nervousness with attitude. "That's right," he said boldly.

Grinning, leaning down, his titanic bulk casting a shadow over the little cat, the mountain said, "Does that mean you'd like to try fighting *me*?"

Brad blinked. Then he returned with a grin of his own, "Sure! Just name a time and place and I'll be there!"

The mountain smirked, impressed with the boy's fearlessness and the fact that he could be a smartass without also being a jerk. He laughed, deep as a kettledrum. "I think I like you."

"I freakin' hope so! I'd rather not have you step on me with those bigass feet of yours."

Brad was about to profusely apologize for saying that, but instead the mountain just laughed harder. He patted Brad on the back, guiding him towards the front doors. "Come on, short-stack. You've got plenty of guts. Just know when to use them and when not to and we'll get along fine."

"Sounds good to me."

The giant and the kitten walked together through the main entrance.

And that was how Brad met Monsoon.


*****


     -KAREN-

Karen's family lived farther away, so she ended up arriving much later than Brad, and would not meet him at all that day except for a brief glance in the hallway which only one of them would even remember later on when things started *really* getting interesting.

For the small raccoon cub, her journey was silent and cold. When her parents were ready to leave, they had come into her room and lifted her up off the bed, pulling her along between them by both arms. They knew she wouldn't be so stupid as to try running away at the last minute, but it never hurt to be overly cautious.

Karen crawled into the backseat and tried to make herself invisible. She curled up into a little ball of fur, her soft tail wrapped protectively around her, her face buried in the coarse, cool fabric of the carseat. For most of the drive, she only ever looked up out the windows when she started feeling a little carsick. It would not have been a good idea to barf all over the seats.

Eventually though, her pillbug-like configuration began to grow uncomfortable, and so she laid herself out lengthwise along the backseat, watching the clouds and tops of other cars whizzing by over her head. She could feel the vibrations of the rear wheels gliding over concrete through the side door's plastic armrest. It was actually quite soothing.

But Karen made a special effort not to let herself be lulled into sleep. Hell no. Not for anything in the world. The worst thing she thought she could possibly do right now was to lose herself in a nap and then wake up howling like an ambulance siren a few minutes later. Worse even than throwing up all over the seats. Her parents had even warned her *specifically* not to fall asleep back there, not under any circumstances.

That was okay though. Karen didn't like sleep anyway. Sleep was a mean, tricky bastard. She always imagined the sandman as this tall, bearded old creep in a long white robe who walked the Earth all night long. And when he found little children who hadn't fallen asleep yet, he'd bash them over the head with his trusty little bag of sand and they'd be out for the count until morning.

Then he would laugh at them, of course. His sandbag never left bruises; just nightmares. Wounds you could only see on the *inside*. Picture wounds. Karen could perfectly imagine his long, pointed mustache bouncing up and down as he laughed cruelly at the children he terrorized.

And he was always trying to sneak up on her; that was the worst part of all. Despite Karen's best efforts to avoid him, he always crept up behind her, sandbag in hand, always at the ready to club her into submission. She'd gotten oh so good at avoiding sleep, but in the end he always won. It didn't matter that in any given week she was able to force herself to stay awake all night long at least twice. There were still those other five nights when she failed. Her very best record was the time when she'd stayed up nearly an entire week. A whole six days in a row without a single dream! Oh boy, that sandbagging old bastard must have been plenty pissed at her! And he showed it too. Just after dinner on the seventh day, her concentration had faltered and she fell asleep right there at her desk with her head on her homework book. And her nightmares that evening were some of the most monstrous she had ever witnessed in her entire life.

He always won, the rotten bastard. She hated him. Hated what he'd done to her and Mommy and Daddy. How he'd made them not love her anymore.

But all her teachers and classmates and neighbors hated _her_. The people living on either side of their house never stayed there for long. They were always moving out after a few months of being woken up by thin, piercing screams in the night. The other kids at school all thought she was a freak. They threw things at her all the time and called her a zombie. Even the few decent teachers she'd had had gotten fed up pretty quick with her habit of nodding off in class almost every single day. Sometimes even twice a day. Her worst teacher ever, Mrs. Filchbaum, used to smack her with a plastic ruler whenever she got drowsy.

So that was why, when Karen finally felt the car come to a stop and she looked up and could see a tall white building looming above her, she began to feel a slight bit of hope.

Could this place finally cure her? Get inside her head and figure out what was the matter with her? Heck, maybe they'd just give her some drugs that'd zonk her out so dead she'd never be able to dream again. That'd be perfectly acceptable.

"Well hey there, little girl!" said a teddybear.

Karen tried to swivel her head around, couldn't quite, and had to resort to squirming herself up clumsily to look out the window she'd just been leaning against.

A great big chubby brown bear in an orderly's outfit was standing there, waiting to open the door for her. He was smiling like this was just the ding-dang happiest day in the history of the whole wide world.

The little 'coon blinked a bit, not sure what to think of him.

Her parents stepped out of the car and the bear opened Karen's door. A paw the size of a pancake enveloped hers and lifted her gently from her seat like a coachman escorting a princess. The bear smiled at her some more. He seemed nice enough, Karen thought, if a little bit dim.

"Uh, hi," she said softly, as always. "Who're you?"

"Me? Why, little sister, I'm Mister Thurston Caercase. Says so on my badge." He pointed out the little laminated ID card hanging from his pocket. "Sounds just like staircase, but with 'care' instead."

She giggled lightly. He'd said that last part in such a way that she was sure he'd told a million and a half new acquaintances the exact same thing.

Daddy started getting Karen's suitcases out of the trunk, moving as if he couldn't wait to jump back in the car and drive off as soon as possible. Which he couldn't. "Finally, peace and fucking quiet..." he mumbled under his breath.

Karen heard him anyway.

"Will there be any forms to sign?" Mommy asked Mr. Caercase crisply, stepping forward and tapping him on the arm.

"No, ma'am. All the paperwork's done though the mail. The phone call should've explained that."

Mommy nodded, glad for such an efficient policy. "Well then, I guess that's it."

Karen looked up to her mother. Her father was already back in the car. She opened her mouth and got a stinging glare back: 'Don't you dare expect us to say goodbye to you'.

Karen was well-acquainted with the feeling of having your heart ripped out and thrown on the ground and stomped to smithereens. She barely flinched this time.

She watched them drive off without another word.

Mr. Caercase stared at them as they departed, scratching his head in puzzlement. He glanced down at Karen. "That was awful rude, wasn't it?"

Not sure what he'd meant, Karen immediately apologized.

He looked even more shocked now. "Not *you*, little sister! _Them_! Drivin' off without even saying goodbye? Leaving a pretty girl like you looking so sad... Tsk, tsk, tsk. I dunno what's wrong with some people."

Karen was startled, to say the least. This stranger was standing up for her? Well, she guessed it wasn't all that unnatural. He didn't know anything about them, or her, after all. He'd never been woken up by her piercing screams of fear.

Thurston gathered up her luggage and extended his free paw to her. "Come along now. Time to go inside. I'll show you to your new room. It won't be at all what you'd expect, I promise. Lots better! We got real nice rooms for little girls and boys of all kinds."

Karen nodded. She accepted the big soft paw and toddled silently along beside him.

When they were almost to the door, a tall, female doctor emerged before them.

She was dressed all in white from her head to her toe. That included her fur as well. She was a rabbit, and an albino, just like the Easter Bunny. Her eyes were the same seashell pink as the insides of her long, vertical ears. Her dyed hair was honey-colored, flaring out around her head in a sophisticated halo. She had on big, wide glasses with thin rims, and was also carrying a clipboard. She stood with a graceful air of professionalism; the very portrait of someone who knows exactly what they're doing at all times. "You must be Karen!" she burst out, as if she couldn't possibly be more happy to see her.

The little raccoon was taken aback. "Uh-huh," she said softly. A greeting this enthusiastic made her wary.

The bunny doctor strode briskly forward and took Karen's paw in a firm shake before the girl even had time to react. "I'm Dr. Beatrix Beverley, and this is my hospital. I'm the head psychiatrist. So everyone here has to do what I say. Even Mr. Caercase."

The two grownups exchanged a friendly, knowing grin. "Ma'am," Thurston said to her, tipping an imaginary hat.

Karen relaxed a bit. "You seem nice, Dr. Beverley," she uttered.

"Oh, I *am* nice, sweetie!" the rabbit swiftly assured. "I always try to be kind to my patients. You're here to be helped, after all. And call me Dr. Beatrix instead. I just think it sounds better."

Karen nodded, and smiled a little. "Okay, Dr. Beatrix."

The tall, ivory head-shrinker gave Karen a soft pat between the ears. "We've got everything ready for you, Karen. A nice room and a nice new roommate too."

The three of them began to walk in step, coming finally inside the big hospital's lobby.

Karen was impressed. It didn't look like a hospital at all! It looked more like a hotel! There were lots of cozy, plush couches in round shapes that made them look like giant fruits and vegetables. There was a big aquarium filled with tiny living artworks. There was plenty of regular art on the walls too, mostly soothing landscapes and nature scenes. A big reception desk filled the back wall of the room, curving like the rings of Saturn. Three cheerful staffers sat behind the desk, answering phones like a chorus of songbirds. Karen even saw a few other children being whisked past. One of them, a small and fidgety skunkboy, she would come to know quite well in the coming days.

With Dr. Beatrix at the head of the parade and Thurston Caercase bringing up the rear with the luggage, Karen was led through two big swinging doors into the hospital proper. Now it looked a little bit more like a hospital should. White tiled floor, beige walls, florescent lights, etc.. A dim smell of medicine or cleaning chemicals floated listlessly in the air. P.A. announcements beckoned doctors like ghost voices from nowhere. The place was bustling. Lots of fursons, both staff and patients, ran purposefully to and fro.

"We've been studying your past history, Karen," Dr. Beatrix said as she strode onward, her high heels making little 'clip-clop' sounds on the tile, her powder-puff tail bouncing back and forth with every step. "We've already come up with a lot of good ideas on how to begin your treatment."

"Really?" Karen asked, quite interested.

The bunny nodded. "Oh yes. We're going to start you on medication immediately. It should make all your nights from now on a peaceful black lull. No more nasty dreams!"

"Oh," Karen said, a little confused and disappointed. "I thought you were gonna try and find out why I've been having the bad dreams in the first place."

Dr. Beatrix stopped abruptly.

She turned around, slowly, her body not so much bending as *coiling*. She looked straight into Karen's wide, dark eyes.

"Well, Karen... You're not a doctor, now are you?"

The young raccoon felt her blood grow cold. Dr. Beverley's tone was still the same; crisp and chipper as ever. And her smile never wavered either. But something in her eyes had gone steel-hard in a split second. Karen saw nothing in them. _Nothing_. Like a black void of eerie chill emptiness.

For years, Karen had unwittingly developed a very fine-tuned radar to people's true hearts. A single glance could tell her volumes. And now she realized suddenly that Dr. Beatrix Beverley was the kind of woman who could be the nicest furson in the world... Unless you questioned her. Unless you challenged her. Unless you disobeyed her.

Then she would suddenly become not very nice at all.

Not at _all_.

Dr. Beatrix, Karen realized, was very much like a white chocolate Easter bunny. Sweet and sugary outside, but with a completely hollow center.

Karen had known people like this before. And without needing to see any proof of it, she was instantly certain that this woman could, and would, make her life a living hell unless she did absolutely everything she was told.

Karen looked up at Mr. Caercase and saw that his own dimwit smile was still there, wide as ever. Yet it didn't seem nearly as cheerful, or dim-witted, anymore. Karen knew what he was inside too. Oh yes. He was the boss' right-hand man. Just the most jolly, gleeful, helpful fellow you could ever hope to meet. But if you ever thought you could trust him you were a colossal fool. This type of man would remember every single word that ever came out of your mouth, even ones said in strictest confidence, and would repeat them gleefully to his master the second your back was turned.

Karen forced her eyes not to betray the terror she felt inside, like a sudden cold streak of liquid nitrogen down her throat. How could she have ever possibly felt hopeful about this place?

"Of course not, Dr. Beatrix," the little raccoon said cooperatively. Scant seconds had passed between the doctor's words and hers, but they were enough to realize that these two grownups' smiles were merely painted on. And thinly. "I don't know anything about psychology stuff. I just wanna get better to make my Mommy and Daddy happy."

'That's it, lie and look timid,' she told herself. 'Don't let them know you can see their real faces.'

It seemed to work, though Karen had no real way to be sure. The coldness left Dr. Beatrix's eyes and she was back to being as sunny as ever. "Well, don't you worry! You *will* get better, Karen! Lots better! I promise!"

Karen nodded, trying to smile without thinking so it wouldn't look forced. She was scared out of her pants right now. She thought about what Dr. Beatrix had said about medication and wondered what in God's name they intended to put inside her.

"Hurry up now, little sister!" Thurston urged eagerly. "It's your first day here and there's all sorts of exciting things to see and do! Yessiree!"

Karen nodded, glad he couldn't see her face.

'Exciting' would not be the word to describe what she thought of this place now.

With fear and dismay, and fully appreciating the irony of it, Karen realized she wanted her mommy and daddy back, Right Now.


*****


     -BRAD-

With his paw held gently inside Monsoon's, Brad was led around through a long series of confusing, brightly-lit hallways, up elevators and through doors with round windows in them, to Ward F, where he would be staying from now on. The whole trip made him feel a little like a pinball.

All hospitals pretty much look the same, he thought. This one was no different. It actually looked even *more* hospital-y than usual, which was a weird way of putting it, but it was the best he could come up with. Had he been familiar with the word 'quintessential', he would have found it very useful just then. King's Orchard looked like the quintessential mental hospital.

As they passed sappy framed posters of kiddie cartoon characters proclaiming profoundly stupid morals about hope and perseverance, Brad and the mountain chatted a little.

Monsoon had originally been born on a small Pacific island, thousands of miles away in the middle of the ocean. He came to America as a young boy for reasons he said were personal to his family. Brad was polite enough not to press further. Though he did ask if 'Monsoon' was his real name.

The mountain chuckled and told Brad that he was a perceptive boy. His real name, he said, was very, very long, and almost no one he had ever met here in the states could pronounce it correctly. Rather than having to constantly listen to badly mangled mispronunciations of a name that meant much to him in terms of family honor and connection with his homeland, he'd simply picked up a nickname he'd been given in high school, by the members of an opposing football team he had once almost single-handedly crushed.

Brad thought that was cool. He thought a lot of stuff about Monsoon was cool. The way he talked was one of them. The big guy spoke clearly and concisely; never a word more than was needed to convey the whole picture effectively. And he didn't talk down to Brad either, like how some grownups thought everyone under four feet tall must have the IQ of cream cheese. Brad appreciated that, too.

As they came finally to the floor Brad would be staying on, they passed down a long, dim hallway. At the end of it was a small square space where two more corridors met in a T-intersection. There was also an elevator, and a very secure-looking silver door. Monsoon stopped the boy. Then he slapped his hand against a keypad set into the wall. A moment later it buzzed, and the silver door opened.

Now they were in a tiny white room. "Just like an airlock..." Brad muttered.

"Spread your arms, kid," Monsoon ordered softly.

"Huh?"

"Pat down. I gotta. It's part of the procedure."

Brad nodded, not taking offense. He knew the drill, especially after what the cops had done to him that time he... Well, no sense getting into that now.

The wiry little tomcat couldn't help an 'Eep!' of uncomfortable surprise as paws the size of his face quickly danced up and down his body in a practiced routine.

Monsoon came to a small bulge in the boy's jeans pocket and extracted it. It was a pocketknife.

He held it up and gave Brad a 'you didn't _honestly_ think you were going to get away with this, did you?' kind of look.

To his surprise, Brad didn't look embarrassed or pissed off (as was usually the case when he found contraband on patients), but terrified.

"Oh come ON!" the boy wailed. "Give it back! Please!! It was my granddad's; he used it during the war. It's all I have left of him!" he begged, not caring at all how pathetic he looked. "Besides, it's rusted shut anyway!"

Monsoon checked, and indeed it was. It was also very, very old. Even though he didn't know much about history, it certainly did appear to be military of some sort.

Brad did the 'pitiful kitten eyes' routine.

Monsoon growled and threw the harmless ovoid lump of metal back at Brad. He fixed him with a rigid 'I could get in SO much trouble for this, but you've been really cool so far, despite everything your report said, so I'm going to give you this tiny bit of trust' look. "If you use that as a weapon, you will never see it again," he said. Not a threat, but a simple, hard fact.

Brad nodded, then stuffed it deep down in his pants pocket.

The inner door opened. They were now in Ward F.

Brad's new home.


*****


     -KAREN-

"Here's your room, little sister."

Karen did not have a good feeling about this. Considering what a total nightmare this day had already turned out to be, her new roommate would probably end up being the kind that liked to pull wings off flies and smash jack-o-lanterns and stuff.

Thurston pushed the door open with a big paw and Karen stepped inside.

It was worse than she'd imagined.

It was a goth.

A plump preteen squirrel lolled on her bed in the far corner of the room. She was pretty darn fat for a kid her age. Her fur was grey, like nickels and dimes, and she'd traced all sorts of twisting henna-like designs into it with black mascara. She was wearing baggy cargo pants and a stretched black T-shirt with a red design on it that Karen couldn't quite make out. She was also immersed completely in the thick, adult-level hardback novel she was reading, which also served to hide her face for the moment.

The rest of the room wasn't too bad, Karen thought. Much bigger than she'd expected. Clean beige walls. Soft carpet of a warm brown color, like dark caramel. There was one writing desk and two dresser drawers, one on each side, both made of wood. Plenty of space to store her things.

"Holly?" Thurston called out.

"Buzz the fuck off," came the dispassionate reply.

'Not a very nice first impression,' Karen thought.

The big bear huffed. "You got a new roommate!" he hollered, then mumbled under his breath, "... you little bitch."

It was barely audible, but Karen had very good ears and a talent for picking up things like that. Things other people never meant anyone else to hear. Her opinion of the bear went even lower than it had been. Which was saying a lot.

Apparently disgusted, Thurston roughly tossed down Karen's bags and slammed the door, leaving the young raccoon on her own.

The book came down immediately. "Is he gone?" Holly snapped.

Karen made a small shriek and jumped back. Her new roommate's hair was bright flaming red! Like a candy apple or a classic convertible. She also had a nose ring.

Holly smiled, enjoying the reaction she'd gotten. "Aw, don't freak out. I'm not mean. I just like looking different." She narrowed her eyes a bit. "You don't have a problem with that, *do* you?"

Karen shook her head instantly. "No, no. You just... Startled me a little."

Holly's theatrically naughty expression softened when she realized just how fragile her new roommate really was. She enjoyed perplexing the assholes in her life, but not scaring little kids even younger than her.

The bed creaked a bit as she sat up. She slipped a bookmark in her novel and laid it aside. "What's your name? I'm Holly Thornbridge." She extended a paw.

Karen came a bit closer to shake the proffered paw, a bit surprised by this display of friendliness. "I'm Karen Willard. I just got here."

"What's your psychosis?" Holly asked casually, like asking someone what they did for a living.

Karen hesitated. But she thought she was a pretty good judge of character and she could sense a surprisingly calm heart inside her new roommate's strange exterior. The girls were only a few years apart in age, too. Not by nearly as much as Karen had thought at first. Holly just seemed to like looking more mature than she currently was.

"You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to..." the squirrel said slowly.

"Oh! Oh, um, no. Sorry. I was just..." Karen fidgeted. "Okay, I was staring at you, I guess. I'm sorry."

Holly shrugged. "It's okay. It was an 'I've never seen another kid like this before' stare, not a 'what a fat ugly freak loser' one. I don't mind those kind. The first one, I mean. Heck, I like 'em. I mean, it'd be kind of retarded of me to dress like this and then get mad at anyone who looks at me funny."

Karen chuckled. A good point. "I didn't think they allowed piercings in here," she said, indicating Holly's little brown nose with the upside-down gold 'U' poking through it.

Holly grinned immediately. "Oh, they don't. But I got to go home for a few days last week for my birthday and I ran off and got this with some money I'd saved up. I told everyone that the chick at the mall said it'd get infected if it didn't stay in for at least a month. So I kinda screwed everyone. Cool, huh?"

The girls shared a chuckle. Karen was finding herself surprisingly comfortable around this new furson. "And, um, what you said before, about why I'm here... I have bad dreams."

"Bad dreams? That's all? Heck, I have bad dreams."

Karen shook her head. "No, I mean, bad dreams Every Single Night. For years now. I see dead people. Lots of 'em. Every time I fall asleep. I wake up screaming all the time. So I hope you're a heavy sleeper and you won't hate me in a few days."

A deep, thoughtful, compassionate look came to Holly's eyes. She hoisted herself up off the bed, took a step forward, and held her arms out.

"C'mere," she said very gently.

Timidly, Karen did. Large furry arms closed around her. Being hugged by Holly was kind of like being swallowed by The Blob, but in a surprisingly nice way.

"They'd be so pissed at us if they saw this, you know," the goth squirrel said. "They hate any kind of touching here. Even just patting someone on the back can get you a time-out. Buncha jerks."

"So why are you hugging me now?"

"Just to let you know that I'm _not_ gonna hate you in a few days, no matter what. I mean, maybe if you started throwing up all over the place or if you tried to kill me. But just screaming doesn't sound so bad. Hell, I'll join you if you like. We can just sit there screaming in our beds and demand they bring us ice cream."

Karen laughed, the hug ended, and she went to sit down on the little wooden table beside Holly's bed. "You sound like you've been here a long time."

"Well, not *here*," Holly said, sitting back down too. "But I've been at their other hospital, the one in Tobin's Lake, for, like, a year now."

"A year!?"

Holly nodded. "They transferred me as soon as the building was complete. It smelled like paint at first. That was... lessee... three weeks ago? I'm not sure."

"But why? You seem like a nice furson," Karen said. "Not all psycho 'n stuff."

Holly shrugged. "I tried to kill myself," she admitted nonchalantly.

Karen's eyes got big.

"A _lot_." Holly lifted up her chin and brushed the fur on her neck around a bit. "See the dark spots? They're kinda faint."

Karen's face filled with sympathy. "But *why*!?" she said again.

Holly looked down at her feet; her pudgy little paws in their sandals. "I dunno. I guess I just thought it was a good idea at the time. Somethin' to do."

Karen wasn't buying that. "Oh, come on. I'm not stupid."

Holly sighed. "Alright, fine. My family is a bunch of dicks."

"Well, my Mommy and Daddy are... um ...mean to me sometimes. But I've never tried to kill myself."

Holly chuckled mirthlessly. "They ever beat the shit out of you for being too fat to ride the roller coaster at the state fair?"

Karen just stared in shocked silence.

There was a story behind that particular incident, but Holly didn't feel like getting into it just then. "My family's always been just bloody fucking rich. My parents know a lot of people. And I'm an embarrassment to them. Especially considering my sister Ivy's always been Little-Miss-Perfect-Fucking-Ballerina."

"'Holly' and 'Ivy'?" Karen asked.

"I told you; they're dicks. *Stupid* dicks. Stupid, uncreative dicks. Anyway..."

Karen bit down a giggle. She'd never met anyone quite as irreverent before. And she liked it.

Holly went on. "They tease me about my weight every second I'm awake, I swear to God. They've got a thousand and one nicknames for me. I'm not gonna say any of 'em, and if you ever use one by accident... I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to punch you in the face."

"That's fair, I guess," Karen said.

Holly smiled this time. Karen was really surprising her; she was actually _listening_. A miracle! "But I was born like this, you know? Fat from birth. I try to get as much exercise as I can, but if I have a choice I'd rather sit down and read something. And I'm usually pretty good about eating right and staying away from junk food. Most of the time. I guess God just decided I'm sposto be a butterball all my life."

Karen looked positively heartbroken. She'd seen bullies at school teasing fat kids before and was repulsed by their meanness. To think of the kid's own parents doing the same thing...

"So about three years ago, I just decided that everyone'd be happier if I wasn't there anymore. I took a whole bottle of sleeping pills and went to bed."

"What happened!?"

"Nothing!" Holly said, throwing up her hands. "I just pooped weird for a few days after that."

Karen bit the hell out of her lip.

"Oh, it's okay. You can laugh. It *is* funny."

Karen allowed a titter to sneak out. "Well, it's not funny you tried to kill yourself. But the way you told it..."

Holly smiled lopsidedly. "I know. I use humor to make things seem not so crappy. The only decent teacher I've ever had said that was how all the best comedians in the world started out. That made me feel a little better."

"What did your parents do? About the pills, I mean."

"Again: nothing!! They didn't even *notice*! I almost marched up to them at the dinner table and yelled it in their faces, the dumb shits. Instead, the next night I ran a bath, cut my wrists, and fell asleep again. I woke up in the hospital a little while later. They at least had the decency to call 911 when they found me. The doctors said I was lucky. The cuts were deep enough to do me in, but my blood clotted up and made scabs almost instantly. He said I had a 'remarkable bloodstream'. Seriously."

Holly looked down at her paws. "I didn't feel lucky though. I felt like a fat, ugly failure."

Karen felt something deep within her heart. She knew, bedrock-solid, that she liked Holly, wanted to make her feel better, and that maybe they could both have fun being roommates and helping each other get through this whole hospital thing.

"I don't think you're ugly," Karen said sincerely. To be fair, Holly wasn't really the sort of furson she could see herself talking to under any other conditions but this, but that didn't mean they still couldn't be friends now.

Holly smiled in quiet surprise. "You know, you're the first furson who's ever said that to me and I believed them?"

Karen smiled too.

Not caring a damn about the hospital staff, they hugged again. Silently this time.

Holly gave her new friend a soft, measurelessly grateful smile. To find someone so accepting and nice after so long wading through seas of bullies and liars and false friends was a really, really good feeling.

She suddenly got a mischievous glint in her eye. "Hey, wanna see something neat?" she whispered conspiratorially.

"What?" Karen asked.

Holly reached up, took hold of her nose ring, and yanked it right off.

Karen squeaked in surprise.

"It's a clip-on," she explained. "A really good one too. I paid a lot for it, but it was worth it." She slipped it back on, and you'd never be able to tell the difference from a real one.

Karen grinned dumbly at how perfect an illusion it was. "That's cool as heck."

"I know!" She grinned proudly. "Well, you can fool all of the people some of the time, so..."

The two girls degenerated into a giggle fit. One of many they would share in the days ahead as they grew closer and closer together.


*****


     -BRAD-

Brad actually grinned when he got his first look at the looney bin he'd soon be inhabiting. The place looked, surprisingly, kinda fun!

The decor was boring as hell, of course, but the *people*! All the kids looked like they were in approximately the same age bracket. No toddlers or towering teenagers (though he had seen some of both in the halls elsewhere). Here it was just like the recess yard at school, and it looked like someone above had reached into a big bag of 'slightly unusual' children and just flung them all over the place.

One kid was leaning back against the nurse's station, hitting himself on the head repeatedly and making car horn noises. Two boys smaller than him were having a heated discussion about some sci-fi show over by the phones (at least he *assumed* the spaceships they were talking about were fictional). One girl was hanging out by the water fountain, 'smoking' a bit of rolled-up notebook paper: you could tell by the blue lines. A great big fat kid was rolling a toy fire engine around and giggling like a madman.

From the entrance, Brad could see a long line of doors leading to the various semi-private rooms. There were more of them than he realized. To his left, an open door led into a room where a bunch of kids were sitting in a circle around some doctor-lookin'-guy. Probably group therapy or something. Farther down the hall he could see kids coming to and fro with juice boxes and plastic packets of graham crackers. Sweet. Gotta love snacks. The nurse's station was situated right in the middle to keep an eye on things. And the sound of a TV set came from somewhere, which came as a great relief to Brad. He just hoped they'd let him watch his favorite shows.

"What do you think?" Monsoon asked.

Brad shrugged. "A lot better than I'd pictured it," he appraised.

The mountain smiled. "Good. Come on over here, we need to check you out first."

"I thought you just did that."

"I mean your insides."

"Ohh..."

Inside a small room across from the nurse's station, Brad was thoroughly humiliated by two crotchety old ladies and a fresh 'n chipper female college student who acted as if she didn't have a brain in her big, airy head. They poked 'n prodded him and peeked in a few of his less disgusting orifices. They put one of those infernal little plastic hospital bracelets on him; the kind you can never, ever get off, not even with a welding torch. They made him pee in a cup. Then one of the old ladies, a prune-faced redhead with a voice like rusty door hinges, shoved two little pills at him and a glass of water.

"What's this stuff?" Brad asked, instantly worried.

"Cyanide," she deadpanned, looking like the last time she'd smiled might have been before he was born. "Drink up."

"Ha ha ha," said Brad.

Monsoon leaned down and whispered in his ear, "It's vitamins. Humor her."

Shrugging, Brad obeyed.

Once that was over with, the brainless young volunteer; a strawberry-blonde mouse named, of all things, Kimberly, went over Ward F protocol in the tone you would normally use to instruct a three-year-old (and at a pitch so high it could shatter marble). What she basically elucidated was: 'Do what we tell you, use common sense, lights-out at ten, and don't fuck around with the other nutballs'. Brad decided he did not like Kimberly, and would have fun devising cleverly passive-aggressive ways to torture her later on.

After he was all done being quantified, anesthetized, edified and martinized, Monsoon led him away again to finally see his room.

It ended up being near the middle of the hall. Just across from the shower room and the water fountain, which he supposed was a good thing.

His attention elsewhere, Brad accidentally bumped elbows with another kid coming up behind him. "Huh?"

"Watch it, fuckface!" a fierce, birdlike voice spat at him.

Brad turned to see a scruffy red fox walking away from him, looking back with a glare of intense anger in his eyes. Brad was actually mildly shaken. 'Geez, I thought *I* had a combative personality!' he thought.

Strangest of all though, he could have sworn he'd felt a brief but powerful wave of _heat_ surround him as the other boy passed.

"What an asshole!" Brad said, slightly in disbelief.

Monsoon got Brad's attention and shook his finger at him in a 'no-no' way. "That's Keith. It would not be a good idea to mess around with him."

Brad scowled. "Hey, I'm tough. I can take care of myself. I'm not worried about what a jerkwad like him could do to me."

"I didn't say he was tougher than you," Monsoon explained patiently. "I said it would Not Be A Good Idea to mess with him." He left the interpretation open, but let Brad infer that rattling Keith's cage would be a bad idea on a great many levels; not all of them on his end of it.

Brad just nodded and stored this information away for later. 'Keith = psycho'.

They reached the door of Brad's room. Monsoon rapped gently on the wood with the back of his knuckles. "Tyler? You in there? New roommate time!"

A squeaky, muffled voice yelled back, "I'm takin' a dump!!!"

'Not a very nice first impression,' Brad thought.

Monsoon rolled his eyes and let himself in. As he sat Brad's bags down, the tomcat strolled about his new digs. "Not bad," he said, mostly to himself. "Thought it'd be smaller."

"I should warn you about Tyler," Monsoon began. His tone was not 'he's dangerous' or 'he's creepy'. More like, 'he's annoying as everliving hell'.

Brad went uh-oh.

"He's a decent kid, he just-"

The bathroom door exploded open, colliding with the wall and making a hellacious noise. The being who was apparently Tyler let out a shriek.

Brad nearly giggled at the sight of him. Tyler was a shrimpy little grey mouse, and one look told you he was the kind of kid who was 90% mouth. His eyes were wide and slightly bonkers. His oddly-pale chestnut hair stuck up and out like it had a mind of its own. He was wearing an enormous blue sports jersey that seemed to be trying to swallow him, and his denim shorts were halfway down to his knees.

Tyler quickly re-pantsed himself, zipping up even as the sound of the toilet flushing could still be heard faintly in the background. "You can't put _him_ in here with me!!" he yelled at Monsoon.

"Why not?" the mountain asked.

Tyler made a gesture like, 'are you _insane_!?'. "He's a CAT!! He'll eat me in my sleep!"

Brad was a second away from rushing the shrimp and giving him a good old fashioned beat-down for that. Monsoon wisely restrained him, using only one paw. The mountain kept his eyes on the mouse. Anyone observing could tell he'd gone though shit like this more times than he cared to remember. "Settle down, Tyler. Do you need me to give you your medication?"

Tyler grinned obsequiously. "Sure! How 'bout some anti-being-eaten medication?"

Monsoon groaned. "_Tyler_."

That was it: The 'I am done fucking around with you' voice. Tyler knew it well. And, like all good smartasses who retain a desire to live beyond tomorrow, he always knew to shut his mouth upon hearing it. Though sometimes it popped back open nonetheless.

Today though, the mouse was lucky; his mouth stayed shut cooperatively. Monsoon rolled his eyes in weariness and went for the door. "You two have fun now. Brad; try really hard not to kill him. I'll understand if you can't help it."

*click* The door closed.

Brad had Tyler by the collar in half a second. "Just what the hell do you have against cats anyway, asshole?" he snarled in the younger boy's face.

Giggling madly, Tyler made all sorts of 'calm down' gestures with his hands. "Nothing! Nothing! I just like taking every possible opportunity to complain about stuff, okay?"

"Why?"

"A form of recreation, I guess. What the hell else is there to do in here?"

Brad looked at Tyler as if he wasn't sure they were both actually earthlings.

"Sorry. Bad start. My fault." He stuck out his paw. "Tyler Lorenzo. Are you a humorless dickball?"

"Um, no." Brad said, tentatively shaking Tyler's hand. He noticed that some part of Tyler's body seemed to be in constant motion at all times.

"Good. You wouldn't be able to stand living with me for more than three seconds otherwise. I've gone through four other roommates already!" he said, almost proudly. He abruptly yanked up his T-shirt, exposing his tummy. "One of them even tried to stab me! It was awesome!!"

Brad just stared at him.

"Not the actual stabbing, of course. He only just kinda poked me, but I do still have a red spot somewhere around in this area. No, the awesome part was how five or six security guys all materialized outta nowhere, like they'd been hiding up in the ceiling, and just went *Hiroshima* on his ass!! I've never seen *anyone* get beaten up like that before! Not even me!"

Brad took a step back. "You're really, actually crazy, aren't you?"

Tyler seemed to take a step back from himself as well. "No. Really. Wait. I'm sorry. I just always give bad first impressions. It's like I work against myself, tryin' to scare people away before I can even try to be friends with 'em." He smiled, awkwardly. "Really, I'm sorry. I'll try to calm down now." He went over and sat on his bed.

"Okay..." Brad said warily. He went over to his suitcases and plopped them both on the bed.

"Got any weed?" Tyler asked abruptly.

"NO!!" Brad thundered. "Of course not!"

Tyler fell on his back, giggling. "Dude, you're taking me seriously. First mistake."

Brad rolled his eyes (realizing he was probably gonna be doing a lot of that from now on), and began unpacking. "I can't tell yet whether I sort of like you or if I wanna strangle you."

"How 'bout both?" Tyler suggested pleasantly, reclining and kicking his little pink feet in the air.

"So, do you have one of those hyperactive disorder things or what?" Brad asked while realizing he'd forgotten to pack enough socks.

"I've got ADEFHD," Tyler replied.

"Never heard of it. Is that like ADHD?"

Tyler grinned. "Yeah; Attention Deficit Extremely Fucking Hyperactive Disorder."

Brad groaned, but laughed a little. Tyler was admittedly beginning to grow on him. Like mold spores. "I guess they should keep you away from the coffee then, huh?"

"Actually no," the mouse said sincerely. "My mom used to give me coffee to cool me *down* sometimes. Caffeine has the opposite effect on me. Nobody knows why, but when my mom wanted me to shut up she'd just sling a candy bar at me. Chocolate's loaded with caffeine."

Brad made a little 'that's interesting' sound while laying out his T-shirts.

"Hey... Um. Did you ever actually tell me your name?" Tyler realized.

Brad thought a bit. "I guess not. I'm Brad. Brad Maplewood."

Tyler slung himself across the bed on his back, head towards the floor, looking upside-downedly at his new roommate. "Okay then, Brad-Brad-Maplewood, can I get serious for a second?"

Brad grinned. "I dunno, *can* you?"

Tyler giggled. "Oooh, good one! I walked right into that!"

Brad put aside his unpacking for a moment and sat down on his bed too. "But yeah, okay. What'd you wanna tell me?"

The young mouse, inverted as he was, nevertheless looked hard and earnestly into the older boy's eyes. "I'm really a nice guy. At least I try to be. But I'm just so fucking wired all the time, y'know? Especially when I first meet someone. I can't help it. I really do try, though. And my last four roommates were assholes anyway. I think that's why the staff stuck them in with me in the first place. I didn't even bother trying to tone it down for them because I wanted them gone too. But you seem like an okay guy and I just... I kinda..."

"What?" Brad asked quietly.

Tyler's tone was as soft and calm as he could make it. "I'd like for us to at least *try* to be friends. And I hope you can deal with me constantly trying to fuck that up without realizing it."

Brad felt a strange, lopsided smile come across his face. That was the exact same thing he'd tried and failed to get across in the past, to people he thought might actually consider being nice to him if they could just survive the initial getting-to-know-you're-not-really-an-asshole part.

"Sounds cool to me," he finally said. "I've had the same problem a lot myself."

"Okay, great! Excellent!" An explosively happy smile blasted onto Tyler's face and Brad realized that, yeah, he did kinda like the manic little shrimp.

"So, what're ya in for?" Tyler asked. "I think you can pretty much tell with me."

The boys chuckled. "Yeah, you do kinda act like you've just eaten six bags of Halloween candy." More chuckles. "Actually, I'm here because I can't stop beating people up."

Tyler gulped. "Oh shit."

"No no, don't worry," Brad was quick to reassure. "Only bullies. Only people who're beggin' for it. My mom said last night I've got an 'overdeveloped superhero complex'. I guess that sounds about right."

"Ohhhh..." said Tyler, getting it. "So you fight for truth, justice and the Venusian way?"

Brad arched an eyebrow. "Venusian?"

"Sure! We're on Venus right now and nobody knows it," Tyler stated matter-of-factly. "The government's been sucking people up in big black spaceships and sending them to the outer planets for years. Earth blew up decades ago."

Brad just stared at him.

That patented Tyler grin reappeared. "You know, you're gonna have a whole lot less headaches living here if you'll just stop believing everything I say."

"I really should eat you," Brad snarled playfully.

"Speaking of snackfood..." Tyler leapt up from the bed in an impressive little backflip. "The pantry's gonna close in, like, ten minutes. Last chance for apple juice 'n crackers 'n shit!"

"The pantry?"

"Little tiny room down the hall. It's full of snacks. They keep it open for an hour or so in between meals and before lights out. I guess they figure if they feed us enough we'll get so fat we can't move and then they won't have to worry about us destroying the place anymore. Come on!"

Tyler was already up and at the door before Brad could even stand. "But wait... All my stuff," he said, pointing out his mostly-ununpacked suitcases.

The mouseboy waved his concerns away. "Nobody ever steals stuff here. You'd have to be dumber than turds. Monsoon'd catch you and use your head for a football if you tried anything like that. He's got eerie powers, man. Eyes in the back of his head."

"He seemed like a nice guy to me," Brad said, a little defensively.

"I know, that's the best part. Even though he looks all mean 'n stonefaced, he's always 100% fair. He'll treat you exactly the same as you treat him. I tease him constantly, but he's definitely the coolest guy working here. By far! You meet Dr. Beatrix yet?"

"Nope."

Tyler shivered. "Watch out for her, man. She's pure evil. Seriously. Never, ever, _ever_ fuckin' fuck with her."

Brad could tell the mouse's fear was real. Though how bad could someone named Dr. Beatrix be?

With that colossal misjudgment, Brad went off with Tyler to get some snacks.


*****


     -KAREN-

Karen and Holly had fun chatting and giggling and swapping secrets for almost an hour until it was finally lunchtime.

There came a knock at the door and a long brown snout entered the room. It said "Lunch," and just as quickly disappeared.

"Who was that?" Karen asked.

"Clifford... something," said Holly. "I don't know much about him. He seems nice enough, but kinda boring."

"So, they're gonna give us food now?"

"That is kinda the definition of lunch."

Karen giggled and got up. Her butt hurt a little from having sat on the edge of the table so long, but she barely noticed. She found herself re-RE-evaluating that maybe this place wouldn't be a hundred percent awful after all.

She and Holly went to the door and saw a flood of other kids out in the hall. "We gotta line up so they can count heads," Holly instructed.

Karen nodded and the two girls absorbed themselves into the line. Standing just behind Karen was a big-eyed kangaroo girl who looked a few years younger than her. "Um, hi," Karen said politely.

"I don't like raccoons," the girl said flatly.

"Oh." Karen felt like she'd been slapped.

The 'roo grinned crazily. "They look like they're made out of chocolate! But they're NOT!" She clamped her paws over her mouth and descended into a squirming fit of giggles.

Karen stared at her as if she was from another planet.

Holly tapped her arm. "Don't talk to her. She's not even in the same room with us right now."

Karen muttered a weak affirmative and felt uneasy. She was glad she'd found a friend to help point out the real loonies.

The snout, which was revealed to belong to a short, thin, thoroughly unremarkable-looking middle-aged rat, came bobbing down the line. Clifford Markman muttered numbers under his breath; "...thirty-one... thirty-two... thirty-three..."

When he made it to the head of the line and the number he'd counted to matched the one on his clipboard, he called out to the assembled patients, "Alright! I heard we got some new faces here today, so here's how it works: In the halls, you will not make any noise. You will not look at other patients. You will not talk to other patients. You will move in an orderly fashion downstairs to the cafeteria, eat your lunch, throw out your trash, then come back up here the same way you went down. Everybody clear?"

One kid near the back of the line shouted out, "Yooooo betcha!" in a funny voice.

Clifford displayed no reaction whatsoever. "Fine. Let's go."

The airlock doors opened, releasing the throng of underage nutters.


     ~~~


As the march progressed through the sterile white halls, Karen got to feeling like she was in boot camp, or in jail. All around the little group from Ward F, Karen could see the other patients. Some looked frightening, others sad. But all of them, strangely enough, had a foreign-ness to them. An otherworldly 'vibe'. As if they were somehow less real. Just pictures on a screen. She saw one boy staring at her and the others in line. Staring with all his might. She wondered if he thought they were less real too.

As they walked along together, Holly helpfully whispered several tips about mealtime when Clifford wasn't looking. Karen concentrated intently, doing her best to retain the information. 'Lunchline B is better than A. Never eat the meatloaf. The barbecue sauce is just mayo and ketchup mixed together and it tastes nasty. If you see a fox guy behind the counter, be nice to him: sometimes he gives out extra helpings.'

Emerging from the last stairwell and turning a corner, Karen got her first view of the cafeteria. It was pretty standard. It looked a lot like the one up at the high school where her class had gone once for a music assembly thing. There were two lunchlines, one with a big red laminated 'A' hanging above it, the other with a 'B'. Holly made a beeline for the latter, so Karen followed.

Holly picked up an orange plastic tray and glanced behind her to Karen. "They've both got the same food, but B's lunchladies are nicer. And everyone wants to get into A for whatever reason, so usually the good stuff doesn't get picked over as fast in this one."

Karen nodded like an attentive pupil.

Up ahead, doling out lumps of whatever-it-was with an enormous spoon, was the fox guy Holly had mentioned. Most of the other servers were middle-aged ladies who looked either bored or pissed off. Typical. But the fox looked kinda young. College-age. Karen wondered why he would possibly want to work in a place like this.

"Hi, Alf," Holly said to the fox.

"Hey, Holly!" Alf responded, sounding cheerful.

"What's good today?"

"Nothing. It's hospital food," he deadpanned.

Chuckling, Holly accepted her plateful of gunk. "This is Karen. She's new."

"Hi, Karen!" Alf said warmly.

"Hi!" Karen said back. She decided she liked him instantly. He didn't give off that 'fake nice' vibe that Thurston and Dr. Beatrix did. He seemed like the genuine article. He was trim and his fur was a really bright orange, like sweet potatoes. His ears were all bunched up under his hairnet. And his hair was dyed blue! Bright electric blue! How cool was that?

Alf gave her a nod and pointed with his spoon at the big metal tubs of foodstuffs. "We've got macaroni and cheese or bratwurst today. Which would you like?"

Karen wrinkled her nose at the mention of bratwurst. She wasn't sure what it was, but it sounded ugly and it looked like fat little internal organs. "Mac 'n cheese, please."

"Allrighty. You want green beans?"

"Sure." Two plops later, a pale styrofoam food-boat was handed to her, laden with nutrition. The macaroni was bright nuclear yellow and had breadcrumbs in it. Interesting.

Past the hot stuff was a self-service area where there were all sorts of snacks and side-dish type things. There were little plastic cups of jell-o, peaches and fruit cocktail, plus granola bars, 'energy' bars, pre-wrapped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, salty snacks, odd li'l fruit pie things, muffins, bagels, and some allegedly-fresh fruit that looked about as appetizing as the stuff your shower drain gets clogged with. Karen selected some syrup-drowned peaches and took a chance on the fruit pie thing. It looked like a palm-sized folded-over taco.

Reaching the end of the line, she was about to grab a milk carton when she noticed that there was a soda fountain around the corner. Impressed, she grabbed a cup and got some off-brand lemon lime stuff that fizzed a whole lot and spilled out onto her tray a bit.

A herd of tables reposed in a wide area that was dimly lit and surprisingly cozy. Making her way past all the other kids, Karen looked out through a long wall of windows into a pretty little courtyard with a small pond and lots of wildflowers. She thought it was lovely. What a nice view while one was eating!

Concentrating on the courtyard and not where she was going, Karen stumbled for a bit on a slick spot. She let out a tiny yelp and pitched forward.

Her mind's eye saw her tray falling in slow motion. It would splatter all over the floor and everyone would laugh at her. Could anything be more perfectly humiliating?

But then, from out of nowhere, paws shot out to steady the tray before it could tip over.

Karen regained her balance and looked down to meet the timid gaze of a young bunny girl with fur the color of dense honey.

"Thanks," Karen said.

The bunny looked uncomfortable. She darted off quickly without saying a word.

A second later, after the initial shock was gone, Karen couldn't even tell where she'd gone to.

The young raccoon shrugged. She was bound to keep on meeting weird people. This was a mental hospital, after all.

Across the room at the last table in the southeast corner, Holly was waving.

Keeping a more firm grip on her tray this time, Karen skittered off to join her.


*****


     -BRAD-

"Not bad, not bad," Brad assessed as he waddled back into his room. That bratwurst had hit his stomach like a cannonball, but it sure was good!

Tyler, going against type for a mouse, had also eschewed the macaroni and cheese in favor of the big sausage. "Surprising, huh? The food's actually pretty decent here. Maybe even better than the last place I was at. And remember, always get in the A line. It's a status thing. All the cool kids get in the A line."

Brad thought that was a little dumb, but didn't say anything. He was already well-versed in plenty of idiotic schoolyard rules from all his past encounters with public education. Most of which he disregarded immediately.

He went over to his bed to finish unpacking. Tyler was mostly quiet as he did this, occasionally piping up with a question, then going back to staring up at the ceiling and kicking his feet. Brad did notice that the mouse had been right; no one had so much as breathed on his stuff while he was gone.

Brad tucked everything away carefully in the big dresser drawers the room provided. (Despite his history of violent outbursts, he was actually rather neat and tidy at home.) There turned out to be way more space than he had stuff for. He ended up leaving the bottom two drawers completely empty.

"Are you done yet? Are you done!?" Tyler said, fidgeting like a cement agitator.

"_Yes_," Brad snarled roughly. "What are you waiting on me for?"

"The TV room! You haven't seen it yet! I wanted to show it to you."

"Oh," Brad said, a little ashamed to have snapped at him. It wasn't easy getting into the mindset that not everyone who spoke to him was trying to pick a fight. "Well, um, let's go then."

Tyler smiled blithely and hopped to his feet, not even noticing Brad's slipup. The feline followed along behind the mouse, thinking that maybe this could work out. If Tyler was too manic to notice him acting like a jerk in the first place...

Brad had expected the TV room to look like something out of an old folks' home, but again he found himself pleasantly surprised.

For one thing, it was the biggest room he'd seen outside of the cafeteria. One side of the room was the same brown carpeting from the hall, the rest was a very aesthetically-pleasing blue tile. There were not one, but *two* TVs blaring merrily along at the same time on the carpet side. One was tuned to some manic Japanese import cartoon, the other a dumb-looking game show. The televisions were in opposite corners from each other. Kids were clustered tightly around both sets on big couches and beanbag chairs. Nearby was an old Nintendo system with a basketful of games on the floor. Two other boys were currently trying to annihilate each other at Tetris.

The tiled side of the room was devoted to slightly more active activities. The familiar thwacks and sound effects of a ruthless air hockey game were adding to the general din. There was also a ping-pong table, but another group of kids was currently using it for a card game. A bat girl had the paddle and was trying to balance the ball on the edge of it, to no avail. Lying forlorn in a corner were the dusty skeletons of approximately ninety thousand outdated old jigsaw puzzles and board games, each with at least one integral piece missing.

The place was packed and loud and the sheer energy of all the kids having fun made the whole room feel more appealing.

"Not too shabby, huh?" Tyler said.

Brad shrugged. "It's not Disneyworld, but it's better than I expected."

Tyler headed straight for the Nintendo. "When you guys finish, can we take over?" he asked the two current gamers.

"Sure, soon as I kick his ass!" one of them, a young black lab, replied.

"No, I'm gonna kick YOUR ass!" the other, a beaver, retorted.

"No, YOUR ass!"

"No, YOUR ass!"

This went on for quite a while. Tyler watched with increasing amusement. Brad mostly looked around the room, trying to take in all the details.

There sure were some weird lookin' people here. True, some of the kids looked perfectly normal, but a slim majority definitely gave off the impression that they _belonged_ in a nuthouse. Brad noticed that dickhead fox kid off in the corner, the one who had called him a fuckface. He was watching the Japanese show and trying not to *look* like he was watching it. What was the deal with him anyway? He gave off a vibe like he hated the whole world...

"No, YOUR ass!"

"No, YOUR ass!"

They were practically singing it now. Tyler was getting increasingly more tempted to just yank the plug out of the wall and run like a madman. (Not out of frustration, but for the sake of comedy.)

Finally though, the beaver kid lost just enough concentration so that the long four-piece he'd been counting on stuck at the top instead of giving him a Tetris. A second later, the game made that annoying little buzzing noise and the dog boy leaped up in triumph. "YOUR ass, YOUR ass, YOUR ass!!" he chanted. The beaver boy slugged him in the arm and they both jumped up and started chasing each other up and down the halls.

"Well that was convenient," Tyler commented. He smacked Brad lightly on the shoulder. "Dude, wake up! Duck Hunt time!"

Brad rolled his eyes. He'd never been very good at that game. And he hated the damn dog that always laughed at him. But Tyler seemed really enthusiastic about it and was already plugging in the big clunky orange gun-things.

The mouseboy backed up and got a good grip on his piece. "You can go first, fish."

"Fish?" Brad said, confused. "Did you just call me *fish*!?"

"Well, yeah," Tyler said, as if it made all the sense in the world. "I saw it in a prison movie on TV a while ago. They call all the new guys fish for some reason."

"Don't call me fish," Brad said testily. "I *eat* fish. Besides, we're not in prison."

"Really?" Tyler looked at Brad as if he'd just said the sky was green and the grass was blue. "Okeydokey ...fish."

Brad held up his paw and snarled a bit. "Cats have claws. Really sharp claws. Remember that."

Tyler stared at Brad's claws, then abruptly both boys started laughing.

"I'm guessing most of the conversations we have are gonna be this weird," Brad predicted.

"Shut up and shoot ducks," Tyler returned.

The hateful brown dog arfed on the screen and leaped into the brush.

Brad backed up and held the gun at eye-level, concentrating intently. He didn't want to look like he completely sucked at this. The first duck popped up and Brad blasted away, missing by a mile. The second duck also flew off without a scratch and the evil bastard devil-dog giggled like an asshole. Brad growled fiercely, his tail twitching in frustration.

Tyler looked at him as if he were crazy. "That's not how you do it!!"

Brad could feel himself starting to get angry and tried desperately to convince himself it was just some dumb pixels on a screen. "I know. I stink at this. Let's play something else."

"No, no. I mean, you're holding the gun all wrong. Lemme show you the *correct* way." Tyler grinned madly. When the dog entered the brush again, the young mouse went charging up at the screen, holding his gun up sideways like he'd seen in some really kickass gangster movie a while back, and proceeded to pump both ducks full of lead with the barrel of his gun scant millimeters from the screen. All the while screaming, "Die, you motherfucking ducks!! Die!!!"

Brad stared in astonishment, then started laughing so hard he could barely stand up.

Tyler radiated a glow of victory. "See!? Now you try!"

Barely able to lift his gun at all from the aftereffects of a giggle fit, Brad also surged forth gleefully and slaughtered the shit out of the two unfortunate mallards. He even made sure to pull the trigger at the damn dog a few times. "Burn in hell, you laughing fuckmutt!!"

Chortling gleefully, Tyler gave Brad a double thumbs up. "Excellent! Now you've got it! I always play like this. It's more fun this way."

Brad had an epiphany. His eyes went blissfully blank for a moment as he realized: 'If a game is pissing you off, just cheat until you feel better'. It was like the words of angels on high. So simple, yet it had never occurred to him until now.

Ridiculously happy with this newfound wisdom, Brad suddenly seized his mousey chum in a death-grip bear hug, giggling the whole time.

"Hey! Cut that out! No touching!" Clifford called out, standing in the doorway.

Brad released his new friend and stuck his tongue out at the nosy rat. Tyler, a little shaken, did the same.

"Are we having fun yet?" Tyler wheezed.

"Yes!!" Brad exulted.


     ~~~


A little while later, Brad was drawn out of his ducky bloodbath by a wrinkled paw patting him on the shoulder. "Mr. Maplewood?"

The tomcat turned around. "Uh, yeah?" Standing there was just about the most doctor-y looking doctor he'd ever seen. He was an old otter with a big walruslike white mustache and equally pigmentless frizzy hair, in a style which could best be described as 'Einsteinesque'. He was wearing a long white lab coat and even had on little round black-rimmed spectacles. He looked like he'd stepped straight out of a cartoon.

"I'm Doctor Jones. Pleased to meet you." The otter took Brad's hand and gave it a leathery shake. "I don't mean to pry you away from whatever game you boys are playing, but I just wanted to do a quick little evaluation. It'll be over in a second."

Brad blinked. "Okay, that was a second. Are we done now?"

To his surprise, Dr. Jones chuckled good-naturedly (as opposed to most other grownups who just glared and called him a smartass). "Not quite, young lad. I should have said it'll be over 'in a little while'."

"Fair enough." Brad turned back to Tyler. "Guess I gotta go. Kill some more ducks for me while I'm gone."

Tyler nodded like a private accepting combat orders. "Yes sir! The ground shall flow red with their blood! Ha-HAA!!"

Dr. Jones looked at Tyler a little strangely, then motioned for Brad to please walk this way.

Brad was led down the hall past all the kids' rooms and realized that Ward F was actually shaped like a big upside-down 'L'. So far he'd only seen the long end of the hallway, and down here were a bunch of closed doors and what looked like a lonely arts and crafts room. It was quiet down here. _Really_ quiet. He could hear his footfalls on the carpet.

Dr. Jones opened the door to a dimly-lit little office that wasn't nearly as intimidating as Brad had expected. There was a big desk at one end with a comfy-looking black swivel chair in front of it. On the wall were various pictures of abstract art; mostly bright colors and sharp patterns. On a little low table sat a box of tissues and a dish of peppermints.

"Can I have one?" Brad asked immediately upon seeing the candy.

Dr. Jones waddled around him and got behind the desk. "Certainly! Take a few; it's what they're there for."

The young kitty grinned and seized a pawful. He swiftly unwrapped two of them and popped them in his mouth, juggling them on his tongue like Ben-Wa balls.

"Sit down, get comfy," Dr. Jones said welcomingly. He had a calming, amiable voice. Brad wasn't sure what he thought of the guy just yet, but he was sure it would become clear soon. He sat in the swivel chair and bounced a few times.

"All settled in? Good." The elderly otter picked up a large tan folder with many papers inside. He adjusted his glasses and skimmed them. "So then, why don't you tell me why you think you're here?"


*****


     -KAREN-

"Because I have bad dreams," she replied softly.

Dr. Jones nodded. "Well, yes, that is what the file says, but that's kind of an understatement, isn't it?" He tried to smile reassuringly at her.

Just trying worked fine, Karen thought. She was starting to think he might be a nice guy after all. She figured working in a place like this for a boss like *her*, that wouldn't be very likely.

"I know," she said. "It's every night. Every time I fall asleep. Sometimes it's in class. And usually I wake up screaming."

The squat otter shook his head sadly. "That's just terrible, little one. Did you notice the mints on the table behind you? You can have some if you like."

Karen turned around in the chair (and what kid didn't love a chair you could spin around in?) and spied the mints. She took only one and slipped it daintily in her mouth. The bowl had considerably less in it since Brad left several minutes ago.

"Now, the whole point of us taking care of you here is to stop these bad dreams, and hopefully, to be able to figure out what's making them happen," Dr. Jones told her.

Karen perked up. Wasn't that just what she'd said to Dr. Beatrix? Maybe these two weren't on the same page after all. She could hope!

"But what I'm curious to know is, why do *you* think they happen?"

Karen paused. She didn't really think much about why the dreams came to her. They just sort of did. "I don't know... For a long time, when I was little, I thought maybe it was because I was a bad girl and was being punished for something."

"But you don't think that now?" he queried.

The little raccoon nodded, beginning to knead her fluffy tail in her paws. "Yeah. I guess so. I mean, I'm *not* a bad girl. At least, I try not to be. I try to do everything Mommy and Daddy tell me to. I do all my chores. I don't bother them unless I have to. I try to do good at school. So, maybe... I dunno. Maybe the dreams are just random. Maybe it's just bad luck."

The doctor 'hmmm'ed. "That seems entirely possible. I think rather a lot of the sourer things in life 'just happen' like that. But after looking over your history, I doubt this is one of them. Just to be clear, I do believe, quite strongly, that it's not any kind of supernatural force punishing you for anything you've done. You strike me as a very polite and intelligent young girl. A very brave one, too."

Karen fidgeted a bit, not used to praise. "Thank you."

"I'm also not the type of psychiatrist who thinks every dream happens for a reason; that your subconscious is always sending you a message with each one. Last night, in fact, I dreamed I was eating a very large submarine sandwich on an airplane. That was it. Can you think of any earthshattering message that could possibly contain?"

She chuckled a little. "Probably not."

"Exactly. Most dreams, I think, are just the mind's way of doing a little spring cleaning. Dusting out old sounds and images. Sweeping everything into its proper place. But some dreams, yes, are very informative indeed. Sometimes they can warn you if you're sick. I often dream horrible, ghastly things whenever I get indigestion. So, yes, sometimes they can be warning signs. If that's true, then *your* dreams are very likely trying to tell you something *extremely* important."

Karen pondered this. She'd had this idea sometimes... But it was stupid. Ridiculous. People would laugh at her if they knew she'd thought that.

But Dr. Jones didn't seem like the type to laugh at her.

She sighed. "Um... Well, I have thought about this, and... I'm not saying I really do believe this but... It says in the file that I almost always dream about death, right?"

The doctor nodded.

Karen swiveled slowly back and forth, like a metronome. She stared down at the odd pattern in the carpet rather than meeting Dr. Jones' eyes. "So, sometimes I kinda wonder if... If maybe..."

"Go on, child. You can tell me," he said softly. "I'm not going to stick you in a straitjacket just for considering a possibility."

She liked hearing that. It made her feel a little more confident. She sighed and let it out. "...Sometimes I wonder if maybe it's really actual dead people telling me things. Like, ghosts whispering stuff to me when I'm asleep. Trying to tell me things."

He looked only partly surprised. He scribbled two words on his notepad, which Karen, perceptive girl that she was, recognized as, 'thought so'. She was angry for a moment. But then decided not to jump to any conclusions. It was possible he didn't think she was a loon. Maybe he just figured that it would be a natural thing to wonder about.

"So then, if that were true," he said, "then what do these dead people usually tell you to do? Hurt anyone?"

"Oh, gosh, no!!" Karen barked immediately. "It's not anything like that! None of my dreams have ever asked me to do bad stuff. Usually the dead people just yell at me, like they want something. But I'm not sure what. Sometimes they'll ask me questions, or want me to look at something, or go somewhere. But none of it makes any sense. Sometimes it'll seem like I'm having a normal dream and then some dead furson'll just show up."

"Do you think they're angry at you?" Dr. Jones asked.

She frowned. "Hey, I never said I really believed they were real!"

The otter held up his paws. "Of course, of course. Strictly metaphorical then. Like characters in a book. Do they *seem* to be angry at you?"

She thought a bit. "Sometimes, but that's usually real rare. Those kind don't seem like they're mad at *me* so much as they're just mad in general. Mostly, the dead people seem sad. Or lost. I don't think they realize how much they scare me."

"Maybe they think you can help them?"

"Yeah!" she said brightly. "That's just what it feels like! But why the heck would they come to me even *if* they weren't just dreams? Why me? I'm just a kid!"

Dr. Jones was silent for a moment. He scratched his mustache with the end of a pencil. "You know how I said that I don't usually think dreams mean anything?"

"Yeah."

"Notice I said *usually*. Karen, I talked to your parents on the phone last night-"

She gulped.

"Oh, don't worry; It's not that kind of 'talked to your parents'. It was just the usual intake questions. Insurance and things like that. Normally the secretaries handle that department, but I was rather interested in your case when I first heard about it and I sort of wanted to get a taste of your home life."

He sighed, sounding both sad and puzzled. "Your parents... Karen, your mother sounded about as emotional as a woman checking her bank balance. I reminded her that you'd be away from her for more than just a few days. It could even be a year or more. Not likely, but possible. I didn't get the slightest bit of reaction out of her. I found that troubling, to say the least."

Karen closed her eyes, drawing up into a small furry ball of shame. "You'd be glad to see me go too if I kept you from sleeping all the time."

"Karen... Be fair now."

"I know, I know. I shouldn't say bad things about them."

"Karen, I was talking about being fair to _yourself_."

She looked up, slightly perplexed.

He waggled his finger in the air like a pontificating college professor. "I've been in the child psychology business for many, many years, Karen. I've seen cases far worse than yours. FAR worse. Children who bite and kick. Children who scream in public, who throw horrible tantrums. Children who have ungodly visions and think demons are attacking them in the night. Children who make their parents' lives a living hell." He leaned severely over the desk at her. "And do you know what?"

She shook her head. "What?"

"That does not give their parents permission to hate them."

Karen stared at him, silent.

"A parent's responsibility when they bring a child into this world is to care for them to the best of their abilities. To give them love, to nurture them, to deal with whatever problems they may face. I have met with parents of children with advanced mental psychoses who still give their little ones hugs and kisses and tuck them into bed at night. I have seen parents of mentally retarded children who treat them like any other boy or girl, and whose patience and love is simply inexhaustible. And if you know anything at all about autism, then maybe you can imagine one millionth of what the mothers and fathers of children with that awful condition are forced by fate to go through.

"The point, Karen, is that these people love their children, problems and all, because that is what they are _supposed_ to do."

Karen felt as if she might cry at any second. She felt like her heart was being squeezed in a big fist.

"And to discipline a child, or act cruelly to them, because they can't magically fix a mental disorder that may take years of treatment and therapy and medication to cure... is unspeakable."

Karen finally did cry. Two large, fat tears rolled slowly down her dusky brown cheeks.

Dr. Jones' tone grew softer, and he eased back into his seat. "Have you ever considered, Karen, that your nightmares may be a manifestation of the unfair guilt your parents make you feel?"

"B-but that's not right," she whimpered. "The nightmares came first."

"True. But the problems may very well be feeding each other. The dreams make your home life worse, and your home life makes the dreams worse..." He made an 'itsy bitsy spider' with his hands to illustrate the point. "Does that ring true?"

Karen tried to speak, but couldn't.

Finally, she just got up, walked behind the desk, and hugged him.

Dr. Jones smiled a little and put his arms gently around her. He could feel her shake with tiny sobs. He whispered very softly in her ear. "I may not be right at all, Karen. But it might help you to consider the possibility. And remember, you cannot fix other people, only yourself. But it's not wrong to ask for help when you *do* try to fix yourself."

She nodded, and her tears made little dark drops on his white jacket.

He gave her shoulder a gentle pat. "I think that's enough for now, Karen. You can go. I'll see you sometime later. Maybe tomorrow."

"Okay, Dr. Jones," she said softly. She gave him a gentle squeeze, then walked away, remembering to throw her candy wrapper in the wastebasket as she left.


     ~~~


Holly looked up from her novel when her new roommate walked in crying. "Hey, what's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothin'," Karen sniffed. She crawled onto her bed on her tummy and thrust her face into the thin, unpleasant-smelling pillow the hospital had provided. "I'm just gonna lie down and think about stuff for a while."

Holly's heart went out to the younger girl. "Did someone say something mean to you?"

Karen shook her head. "No. Just the opposite, a'chally."

The squirrel nodded. "Y'wanna be alone?"

"If that's okay with you."

"Sure. The art room's usually quiet. I'll go in there and read for a while."

Karen nodded to her as she left. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Holly said, and closed the door carefully behind her.


*****


     -BRAD-

After dinner, it was time for group therapy.

Brad had had a rather interesting discussion with Doctor Jones. His immediate first impulse, of course, was to ask if the guy's first name was Indiana. But he kept his mouth shut instead, figuring the doc probably got that seventeen million times a day and would be sick to death of it by now. The otter had indeed heard every single Indiana Jones joke ever conceived and was quick to point out, without Brad having to ask, that his full name was Dr. Artemis Phinneas Jones, Ph.D.. Brad was duly impressed.

Their chat was a lot more friendly than Brad could've possibly hoped for. He figured any psychiatrists in this place would probably wanna pick him and poke him apart and condemn him for his 'violent, anti-social behavior'. Instead, the good doctor mostly sat back and let Brad tell his own side of things, occasionally asking wise questions that made the young tomcat think even harder.

The session was only fifteen minutes long. Afterwards, Dr. Jones shook the boy's hand firmly and said they'd be having meetings like this every other day or so as long as he stayed. Brad took another candy as he left and felt surprisingly good. He felt listened to. Really listened to. It was a strange and altogether interesting feeling.

Brad decided he liked the guy.

On returning to the TV room, he found Tyler standing amid a crowd of other kids, all taking turns executing pixelated waterfowl. The mouse commented on Brad's minty-fresh breath.

They played video games and watched TV and chatted with a few other patients for quite some time until Clifford came around again to round them up for supper. Brad marched down to the cafeteria a second time. He got in the A line with Tyler and a bespectacled foxboy named Benjamin the mouse had met earlier. There were lots more brats for the evening meal, and the only alternative was some really grody-looking casserole. So, naturally, both cat and mouse had more sausage.

Brad's stomach had borbled and groaned in thoroughly satisfied misery all the way back upstairs. He hoped it'd calm down later. The food here was pretty damned heavy, he realized.

Once upstairs, he'd planned to go back to his room and lounge on his bed and talk with Tyler some more. Instead, Clifford weeded out a select chunk of children specified on his trusty clipboard and herded them into the conference-type room near the start of the hallway. A bunch of plastic chairs were all set up in a circle. Kimberly, the airheaded mouse nurse, was already there and smiling vapidly.

Brad groaned. He picked a chair next to Tyler and some bat girl and prepared to be bored.

That changed abruptly when Keith walked into the room and took a chair directly across from him.

The fox was attired completely in black. Not in a goth style, or even a heavy metal one. He just looked like the type of furson who didn't even consider wearing other colors an option. His face was set in a grim, feral scowl. He looked half-wild. And he was staring at Brad like he wanted to eat him.

Brad felt unnerved for a moment. Then angry at himself. He'd spent his whole life not being intimidated by jerks like this and he wasn't about to start now. The young tom glared right back at the fox. His grey tail frizzed up and flicked warningly.

Keith's eyes drew into a narrow, piercing stare. They looked bright yellow from across the room.

Again, Brad felt a wave of heat. Like he was sitting on top of a furnace vent. He wondered a little if he was going cuckoo.

"Allright, kids! Is everybody here? I'm eager to get started!" Kimberly gushed. She was fresh from college and passionately believed that her textbooks had taught her all there was to know about treating mental illness. Unfortunately for her, her experience in dealing with real-life crazy people was severely limited.

She looked around the room at everyone. "Who wants to start today? Hm?"

Nobody said anything. A few kids shuffled their feet. Some stared at the floor. One picked his nose.

Kimberly pouted. "Come on, guys! We're all here to help each other out. We all wanna get better, don't we?"

Silence.

Her smile fell flat, and her tone grew just the slightest bit menacing. "I said: We All Want To Get Better, Don't We?"

A few mumbled 'yes'es here and there.

Kimberly checked her clipboard. Like Clifford, she was helpless without it. "I see we have two new patients today. Victor? Brad? Would either of you like to say something to the group?"

'Victor'? Brad looked around and saw the mouse nurse's gaze falling on an extremely nervous-looking young skunk who was tiny all over except for his bushy tail and blue-green eyes.

Before the skunkboy finally succumbed to standing up and embarrassing himself, there was a knock at the door. Everyone looked around.

The door eased open and Monsoon ducked into the room. He was leading someone by the paw and, just from their size, everyone at first assumed it was another grownup.

Then several kids gasped.

Stepping gingerly into the room was a young tigress. She carried herself like a toddler, looking about in every direction with worried curiosity. She nibbled nervously on her index claw. As if wearing a sign around her neck, everyone in the room could tell at a glance she was retarded. It was her eyes, mostly. Shiny and swirling. Not all there.

But that wasn't why there had been gasps. The tiger girl was just a kid like them, yet her muscles were as grotesquely overdeveloped as a lifetime steroid user. Her arms bulged wider than telephone books. Her girlish green dress stretched tight over chest muscles that could clearly be seen through the fabric. Her legs looked like orange-upholstered sides of beef. Even her tail looked freakishly strong.

Monsoon stared hard into the confused and repelled gazes of the other children. His voice came out loud and firm as concrete. "This is Rubiella. She's from downstairs. She's going to be staying up here in Ward F for a while."

Kimberly's eyebrows drew down in puzzlement. "But, my clipboard... No one told me anything about a new group member..."

Monsoon shrugged. "Dr. Jones thought it'd be a good idea for her to start participating. He stopped me in the hall before supper and told me to bring her up."

The mousette did not look happy. In general, she did not like things that weren't pre-scheduled.

Rubiella regarded the other boys and girls. Despite looking like she could probably squash them all between her palms, she seemed almost afraid of them. "Hel-lo," she said shyly.

Monsoon looked the other children over too, seeing confusion, revulsion and cruel judgements in their eyes. He addressed them sternly. "Rubiella is different from you; no sense in denying it. But that's Not Her Fault. If anyone makes fun of her, I will punish you in ways you'd never dream were legal." His arched eyebrow asked them all, 'Are we clear?'

Unspoken, they agreed.

The mountain turned back to the tigress and gave her a soft pat on the paw. "I'll see you later, Ruby."

"Okay, Moosoo," she said. "Give kiss."

The mountain grinned and bent over. Ruby kissed him on his cheek and laughed happily.

Monsoon left the room and Rubiella walked over to the group. The other kids shied back from her as if whatever she had was contagious. There was only one chair left. Ruby examined it with confusion. It looked like a scale model beside her. Furrowing her brow, the massive young tiger backed up and, gently as she could, tried to sit.

The chair buckled audibly under her weight.

Tyler let out a tiny laugh, and Brad immediately slugged him in the arm for it. The boys looked at each other. The snarl on Brad's face perfectly said, 'Dude, that's not cool!' Realization hit the young mouse and he nodded, feeling ashamed and a little shocked that he'd been so callous.

Once Ruby was relatively sure the chair wasn't about to flatten like a wet cardboard box, she settled in and smiled at everyone, trying to be brave. She wasn't used to the company of other children. She had a few friends at the special school she'd gone to (before Mommy and Daddy said she needed to come here because of a letter they'd gotten), but most of the normal kids she met treated her like Frankenstein's monster. Rubiella knew she wasn't smart, but her intelligence was not nearly as dim as most other fursons assumed. She understood emotions perfectly well. Insults too.

"Well, um, hello, Rubiella," Kimberly said. She was as flustered as anyone else in the room, and not hiding it very well. Her textbooks had never said anything about a furson like this. This was beyond her limited scope of understandable situations, and things she could not easily categorize made her uncomfortable. "W-welcome to group."

"Hello," the tigress said again, waving to everyone with just her palm. "You can ca' me Ruby if you wanna. Like the stone. My mommy has one on a ring."

"That's right. Rubies are red stones," Kimberly said. "Good for you."

Ruby smiled and nodded. "But I'm not a stone. I am a tiger," she said, carefully enunciating every word.

Some of the kids chuckled a bit, and Ruby looked worried for a moment. Seeing though that their laughter was not hostile, she smiled and laughed too. Ruby had taught herself to be wary, yes, but she also had an almost innate yearning to trust others that was hard to ever put away completely.

"Would you, um, like to tell us a little bit about yourself?" Kimberly asked.

Ruby nodded vigorously. She sat up straight in her chair, and it creaked. "My name is Rubiella Dunston. I live on 'leven forty th'ee Pine Street. My Mommy works at the poft office and my Daddy is a chef. We have a pet bird. I named him Sam." She spoke as if reciting lines in a play.

Kimberly crossed her legs. Her xenophobia was giving way slowly to fascination. "How long have you been here?"

Ruby looked mildly confused. "Here? Doc'or Jones said I could come up here this affernoon."

"No, I meant _here_. At King's Orchard."

"Ohhhhh." Ruby got it now. "I'm not sure. Maybe few weeks."

"Have you ever been in a hospital before?"

"Uh huh. Not like here; a head-hospible, but once when I broke my arm. They put it in a cast and it hurt."

"How'd you break an arm that big anyway?" Keith muttered dryly. "Truck hit you?"

Brad was up out of his seat in half a second. "Hey!"

Everyone looked at him.

"You shut up, okay!?" Brad growled venomously at the fox.

Keith looked disgusted. "Just kidding. Jesus..."

Brad snarled. "You don't joke about someone like her. It's mean."

Ruby stared wonderingly at the tomcat. She didn't quite understand what he was saying about her.

Keith's eyes grew wide with outrage. "Oh, I'm _mean_!? Eat shit and die, you nosy prick!"

Kimberly finally spoke up. "Hey now, let's all calm down. Name-calling is wrong. We're supposed to be all in this together, right?"

The fox's head spun around to glare at her. "Fuck that!" he shouted. His rage was growing sharply. You could practically see his fur getting redder.

"Keith! That's no way to talk! You're headed for a time-out, mister!" Kimberly scolded, trying to sound stern and failing.

"I just made a dumb little joke, and this dick wants to act like I'm some kind of criminal!?" He looked at Brad again. "You wanna be a policeman when you grow up, huh? They don't take psychos!"

Brad took a step forward. His bully-radar was going off full-blast and he was having a hard time keeping his paws from becoming fists.

Several of the smaller children began scooting their chairs back.

"Sit down right now, Keith!" Kimberly barked. "I am not going to give you another warning!"

He sneered brazenly at her. "I'll sit down as soon as this little fairy sits down."

"Who're you calling a fairy!?" Brad burst out. "You look more like a faggot than I do!"

Keith _snapped_. His eyes went dead as two burnt lightbulbs. You could practically hear his brain switch off. Without a word of warning, he turned on Brad and lunged like a rabid beast, fists flying blindly.

Brad put his hands up, but could only block a fraction of the blows. Keith was like a hurricane, his punches coming so fast and erratic they were impossible to track. Brad felt little pain-flowers blossom all along his chest and arms. Trying to even the odds, he kicked out at the crazy canine's shin and dropped him to the floor. A second later, Brad was on top of him, slugging away.

Kimberly shrieked out orders to stop, but neither of them heard or cared. The boys had lost all contact with reality. There was only anger and pain now. Neither tried to block the other's blows. Their muzzles were curled up into sneers of pure hate and they could both taste hot blood in their throats. Their worlds had shrunk to a tiny red point of focus. Nothing else existed.

...Until two giant orange paws ripped them apart and held them up in the air like squirming fish.

"STOP IT!!!" Rubiella bellowed. "Fighting is bad! Fighting is wrong! No fighting, no fighting, no fighting!!"

Both Keith and Brad continued to hurl punches at empty air for a few seconds before realizing there was nothing there to hit. The cloud of rage lifted from their eyes and they both stared in dumbstruck awe as their brains tried to deal with the fact that they were both being dangled off the ground like dirty socks. And by a *girl*!

"Ruby..." Kimberly said cautiously, easing forward. "Put them down now, honey..." Her eyes were frightened now. Two squabbling boys she could understand, but she had no idea what this soft-headed, thick-muscled child-thing would do next. Not knowing things scared her.

The tiger had begun to cry. "No fighting. No fighting," she chanted.

"Put them down!"

The tiger's eyes were scrunched shut, looking like she was in pain. "no fighting no fighting no fighting no-"

Kimberly lost her cool. "Ruby!! Dammit, put them down right now! You hear me!? Put them down RIGHT NOW!!" She raised her hand and barely restrained herself in time from smacking the tigress.

Tears streaming like rain down her cheeks, Rubiella abruptly dropped the two boys like potato sacks and ran off to the corner of the room, stumbling to the floor and sobbing like a wounded animal. Her great, huge whooping cries pierced the souls of every furson present.

Thunderous footsteps came pounding down the hall.

The door exploded open and Monsoon was there, his face twisted up in a rictus of unbounded anger. He quickly scanned the room, taking in the sight of the poor, gentle, different little girl who had captured his heart when he'd first met her; now crying like her whole life had been destroyed. He saw Kimberly, looking as lost and devoid of control as an infant. He saw the two boys lying rumpled on the floor, their eyes wide in shock.

"YOU," Monsoon roared, pointing a thick finger at Brad. He did not have to say how disappointed he was. Did not have to say he expected better from the boy he'd met just this morning. That one word said it all.

Brad got shakily to his feet, barely comprehending how things had gone so wrong so fast. He was shaking like a leaf, and he felt like he had failed himself. "I... I..."

"It's all my fault."

Brad looked down and saw Keith getting to his feet too. The dark fox had tears in his eyes. He looked shattered, as if coming out of a nightmare and realizing reality was worse. He wiped some blood from his lip off on his paw. "My fault. All mine. I'm sorry..." He looked at Ruby, but she could not see him. "I'm sorry..."

Brad was shaken with a wave of unreality. The asshole was... apologizing? That didn't make any sense!

Monsoon's anger slowly ebbed as he let the boy's expressions tell all the story he needed. Still scowling though, and severely disappointed, he walked over and clasped iron hands on both boys' shoulders. "Come on. An hour-long time out is only the first thing you two have to worry about."

Brad walked away shamefully. He hung his head. His tail dragged limp behind him. His heart was thumping like a piston and he barely knew what to think or feel about any of what had just happened.

Monsoon paused for a moment to place his paw on the shuddering, balled-up form of Rubiella. He whispered something comforting in her ear. She looked up, nodded to him, and walked out the door. The other children could see her stumble down the hall, headed for her room.

Brad watched her run away and felt like the biggest piece of shit in the world.

Just before the mountain shoved them both through the doorway into the hall, Brad looked up and Keith was staring at him again.

But this time the fox's expression looked so lost, it was haunting.

Monsoon shut the door behind him with a loud, uncaring bang.

No one in the room said a word.

Kimberly looked as if she'd just been through a war. She sat back down, visibly shaken, and repositioned her clipboard on her lap. She had no idea what to do now and it showed.

Tyler, feeling slightly dizzy and dreamlike, spoke up. "You know, I think we've made a lot of progress here today."

Nobody laughed.


     ~~~


Brad was pushed into a tiny pastel-blue room with a mattress on the cold tile floor and nothing else.

Monsoon did not say a word to him.

After the door shut, he watched Monsoon through the inset window and assumed Keith would soon be finding himself in a similar room next door.

Moving slowly, Brad went over to the mattress and laid down.

He put his hands behind his head, staring up at the harsh circle of fluorescent light above, and tried to figure out what in the hell had just happened back there.

He also noticed that the mattress he was lying on now was actually a lot softer than the one in his room.

Without realizing it, he soon fell asleep.


*****


     -RUBY-

Though she weighed over two hundred pounds and was nearly five feet tall, Rubiella Dunston was only eight years old.

She did not have progeria, the aging disease, for anyone could see in her face that she was still a little girl. Rather, she had a unique and baffling muscular condition that no doctor in the country had ever come up with an explanation for. They couldn't even figure out *how* it was happening, much less why.

Simply put, her muscles developed themselves. Without need of exercise, drugs or protein shakes, her muscles grew and grew and grew. And nobody had any idea if they'd ever stop.

As a baby, she had sent her mother to the emergency room once when she was startled during breast-feeding and bit down with all her strength. As an infant, she had destroyed seventeen cribs in rapid succession. At three, she'd thrown a tantrum at the supermarket and bent a shopping cart almost in half. At four, she'd jumped up on daddy's lap and gave his femur a hairline fracture.

At five, in preschool, a boy had pushed her in the mud and she had lashed out, unintentionally shattering his ribcage and sending him to the hospital for six months.

Her parents, though they were often worried and sometimes even frightened of their daughter, nonetheless did everything they could for her. The family nearly went broke sending her to doctors and specialists and anyone else they thought might be able to help. Once it was established that there was no way to ebb her muscle growth (short of continuous, invasive surgical procedures), they tried to focus on helping her psychologically. They knew their little Ruby had a kind, generous heart and never meant to cause any trouble. She never meant to break her toys, or smash dishes, or crack the toilet bowl, or yank their sedan's door out of alignment. Like any young child, she was just clumsy sometimes.

Rubiella had always been retarded, but she was not stupid. As her daddy had explained to her one day, there was a lot of difference between those two things. Being retarded, he said, meant she couldn't think as fast or as well as most other people. There were some things she simply could not do, and would probably never be able to do. This meant she needed to be brave and accept that, and to do the best she could to use every little bit of her brain that she could. Because that was what stupid meant: having intelligence but choosing not to use it out of laziness. That was bad, Daddy said. And Ruby agreed. She promised Daddy she would never, ever be stupid.

Young Ruby did everything possible to keep that promise. At the special school she later attended, it would be nearly impossible to find another pupil who tried harder to do their very best at everything they attempted. Ruby's progress reports were exemplary. She was polite and friendly to everyone she met. She sometimes took on challenges that even *she* knew were beyond her. She did her best not to be discouraged when she failed, but on the rare occasions when she succeeded, despite the impediment fate had seen fit to place inside her brain, she felt like the smartest little tiger in the whole wide world.

But one thing she never understood, no matter how hard she tried, was why so many other fursons looked at her as if she were something filthy and diseased. They flinched from her. Backed nervously away when she'd try to say hello. It made her sad. Sure, she'd figured out by now that her muscles were a lot bigger than most other peoples' around her. But it seemed like her mental state was what they feared even more. The other kids in her special school never seemed to mind how she looked or acted. Why should everyone else?

It was at five when her parents had tried the experiment of letting her attend a public preschool. That soon proved disastrous. They understood Ruby's tears of sorrow and confusion when they came to pick her up that day. They knew she hadn't meant to hurt the other boy. She said she only wanted to swat him, like a fly, to make him go away and stop teasing her. But the mud over her eyes had blinded her, and her paw had shot out reflexively, and it was a miracle she hadn't killed him.

Ruby's mother had held her daughter an inch from her face and said, in tones so arresting they sounded like the eleventh commandment: "NO FIGHTING." Ruby remembered this every single day of her life.

Thus began her long history with mental health care facilities.

Her parents found an outpatient facility for children with mental disorders. It was like a daycare. Ruby would spend the morning playing with other children like her (mentally, if not physically) until mommy came to pick her up and they could all have supper together. Ruby did her very best to be a good girl at the facility. She only broke furniture once a week on average. And _always_ by accident. The doctors even commented on how careful she was to control her impossible strength.

For a while, things went fairly well. Then one day Ruby's parents received a letter from the facility, telling about a brand-new children's mental health hospital and how they were offering the opportunity of a lifetime...

Since then, Ruby had been a resident of King's Orchard. Down in Ward B. It was pleasant enough, but boring. The staff didn't let her have much contact with the other children, and she began to get the impression that Ward B was for children who were considered dangerous. Ruby didn't like knowing they thought of her that way.

There was one bright spot though. Every day, a very nice man came to cheer her up. He had been there when her parents had dropped her off, and he was the only furson Ruby had ever met that made her look small in comparison. It tickled her pink. She'd mispronounced his name the first time he'd said it and, even though she could say it perfectly well if she chose to, it stuck nevertheless. Moosoo was his new name. And he told her he didn't mind a bit.

Dr. Jones was nice too. He talked to her every few days. He was struck by how outgoing and friendly a child she was, especially for one being kept in Ward B. This was where the bad apples were kept. Bullies, thieves and lawbreakers. Children without consciences. That didn't fit poor Ruby at all. Despite Dr. Beverley's stubbornness on the subject, he had lobbied again and again for Rubiella's removal to a less hostile environment. And finally today, mostly because she was just sick of hearing his protests, she gave in.

Now, on her first day with the normal kids, she had been bad.

She still wasn't completely clear on what had happened. Sometimes remembering was like fishing for letters in alphabet soup; they just kept darting away from her spoon. The fox boy had said something, then the cat boy got mad and he seemed to be defending her. At least she thought so. Then they were hitting each other and Ruby knew that was bad. So she went over and stopped them. But the mouse lady had looked so terrified of her, she *must* have done something bad. And for the life of her, Ruby couldn't figure out what.

Monsoon came into her room several minutes later to see how she was doing. He found her on her bed, clutching her pillow and still sniffling.

He sat with her and talked softly with his thick arm around her shoulders. He asked her what had happened, and she did her very best to tell him. He was surprised by some of it, but not all. His anger at Brad faded some. And his disappointment in Keith grew. Sometimes he thought Keith deserved to be sent back down to Ward B. Other times he knew better than that.

Either way, he dearly hoped Dr. Beatrix would not see this as validation of her doubts about Rubiella. He'd fight for her if he had to. She'd only been trying to help, he would say, and she hadn't hurt anyone.

He told Ruby she was a good girl, and that made her finally smile.

Once she had calmed down, he went off to talk to Keith.


*****


     -KEITH-

*knock knock*

The door eased open a crack.

"Go away!" a young voice screeched, sounding as if it were in pain.

Monsoon peeked into the quiet room anyway. "Keith..."

The young fox was lying down on the room's lone, bare mattress. Tears had soaked his cheekfur. He was trembling like a coffee fiend or an earthquake survivor. He looked small and utterly powerless.

Monsoon took a step forward. "You know I'm disappointed in you."

The fox jolted up, staring with wild eyes at the mountain. "You think I'm not!?" he howled.

"Calm down, Keith."

"It got away from me again!!" the boy wailed defensively. "I can't stop it! It's inside me, like a virus. Like hot lava! Like some kinda demon! It's in my head, and it gets hot, and it just grows and grows and then it just fuckin' *rips* my mouth open and comes out!!"

Silently, Monsoon walked over to Keith, sat down, and gave the boy a hug.

Keith buried his head in the mountain's shirt, shaking with sobs. He clutched handfuls of white fabric and wept. "I hate myself. I wanna die."

"You don't want to die, Keith."

"I do too, goddammit! No one listens to me! All they do is give me more fuckin' drugs, and none of them work! I try to control it! I try and I try and I try and nothing works! Whatever's in my head wants to destroy everything it sees!"

Monsoon put a paw on the boy's head. He gently rubbed the small, soft ears. "I listen. I know you're trying. Does that help?"

"Yeah, it does..." the fox admitted softly. "I'm sorry for yelling at you."

"Yell all you want. Sometimes it makes you feel better."

The fox nodded.

"In fact, when I leave, I want you to scream your head off. Seriously. It's called the quiet room for a reason. Totally soundproofed. So let it out, Keith. I've seen anger myself, and the worst thing you can do is try to keep it inside. When it wants out, it needs to be let out. Or else it'll stay inside you and hurt you."

Keith nodded again.

"Scream till you're hoarse. I'll bring you some water when your hour's up."

"Okay, Monsoon. Thanks for not, you know, getting all pissed at me," he said meekly.

The mountain got up and walked to the door. "Everyone has things that are more difficult for them to do than other people," he said simply.

He closed the door.

Keith sat quietly for a while, thinking.

Then he took in the deepest breath he could, opened his jaws so wide they hurt, and...


*****


     -BRAD-

A hand was shaking his shoulder. "Hey."

Brad blinked, startled. For a second there, he had no idea where in the hell he was. The light bit his eyes like a swarm of gnats. He shut his eyes tight and rolled over, squirming out of the hand's grip.

"Brad. Wake up. Now. You were supposed to sit in here and think, not sleep."

The young tomcat groaned and blearily sat up, and only then realized the mountain was standing over him.

Monsoon looked down on the boy with an expression that was stern, but no longer angry. "Why'd you do that? Why'd you have to go and do something stupid like that?"

Brad felt a tremble run through him. He wrapped his arms around himself and felt cold inside. "I don't know. I have no idea. It was stupid, I know that. He just made a joke about her and I got so pissed off and all of a sudden he was hitting me and I was hitting him back. I should've just... I dunno. Done something else."

Monsoon shook his head. "You're right; it wasn't very smart. But you are feeling sorry about it, and that's a start. I think Keith feels even worse. Didn't I tell you not to mess with him?" He sighed hard. "Dammit, no one ever listens to me..."

Brad got up slowly. His muscles ached from the odd, stiff position he'd been sleeping in for an hour. "What time is it?" he asked. His sense of time was way off. He felt like he'd been out for a whole night.

"Almost seven." Monsoon patted Brad on the shoulder. "Come on; Dr. Beatrix wants to have a word with you."

That did not sound good. Brad gulped, but cooperated, following Monsoon out of the tiny room and down the hall towards the elevators.


     ~~~


She got up from her desk the moment he walked in the door.

"Sorry to meet under circumstances like this, Bradley. I'm Dr. Beatrix."

The tall white rabbit offered him her paw. He shook it, still feeling disoriented. All the lights seemed way too bright all of a sudden. "Please don't call me Bradley. I hate that."

"Fine then. Just sit down, please."

Brad took in his surroundings. It was an office easily twice the size of Dr. Jones'. Maybe three times. There was a huge oak desk and lots of framed papers on the walls. There were no posters or art. Nothing at all that wasn't functional. There was a big, wide wall-sized window just beyond the desk. You couldn't see anything through it but your reflection.

The stinging yellow light made Dr. Beatrix's fur seem to glow.

Her steps were precise, machinelike. She sat down briskly in the burgundy leather chair behind her desk. She leaned over it, steepling her fingertips.

Something about the way she was watching him made Brad nervous. Her eyes... Her pink eyes. There was something creepy about them. Not just their color, but the expression in them. It seemed somehow otherworldly. Like she wasn't even a real furson inside. Brad had thought earlier that there was nothing to fear from some lady named Beatrix. He was beginning to reassess that.

He sat down quietly in the little metal chair in front of the rabbit's desk. He felt extremely small.

Dr. Beatrix regarded him for a moment, gazing at him carefully as if reading his thoughts like a book. "How do you like King's Orchard so far?" she asked softly.

Brad fidgeted a bit in his seat. He would've rather she just come right out and get his punishment over with. "It's okay. The food's good. I like the TV room. And my roommate's a cool guy. Dr. Jones seems cool too."

"Good, good!" Dr. Beatrix clapped her paws lightly. "So, you don't think you'd mind staying here for a while? Say, a few weeks?"

"Well, I dunno... That depends on whether or not I'm getting any better. Like my mom said, it's not supposed to be a resort hotel."

The rabbit nodded sagely. "Do you think you'll miss your mother?"

"Of course!" Brad replied instantly. "I mean, maybe not right this _second_, but I'm sure I will in a few days. She's the whole reason I agreed to come here in the first place."

Behind her pleasant facade, a careful observer might notice how alert Dr. Beatrix's eyes were. She was storing his every word for later use. Sucking him up like a sponge. His inflection, his body language, the way he sat. Everything. "So then, you want to do better to make your mother happy? To make her proud of you?"

He nodded. "Yeah. And, well, for myself too. Obviously."

"Of course, but... if you want to do better, then shouldn't you take steps to *try* to do better?"

He looked at her with a puzzled expression. "Huh?"

"I've been told you got in a fight earlier in group therapy."

Brad nodded."I'm sorry. It was dumb."

"Being sorry doesn't excuse you from punishment, young man," she said crisply.

"Aw, come on!" he said pleadingly. "I know it was wrong! It's only my first day. Gimme another chance!"

Dr. Beatrix shook her head. "Fighting is not tolerated here. That's the rule, and I'm not about to break my own rule for you or anyone else."

Brad sank back in the chair. He was pissed, though he knew he had only himself to blame. "It was totally that Keith kid's fault though," he said, mostly out of spite.

"That may be true, but Keith is different from you and I. Sometimes he can't control himself."

"Then what makes you think I had any control over *my*self!?" he retorted.

She laughed at him; a snobbish 'ha ha ha' like someone sipping wine at a country club. "Don't even try that with me, Bradley. I'm not stupid."

The young tom's teeth grit. He'd told her NOT to call him that!

The rabbitfemme sighed dramatically, but her eyes were lively and playful. And cruel. "Oh Bradley. I've read all your files. I know everything there is to know about you. And you know what? I don't think you even want to get better."

He stiffened in anger. "That's not true!!"

She flicked him a dismissive sneer. "Really now? Look at your track record, young man. Over and over and over again you get into fights with other children. I'm sure you must tell your mother all the time that you'll stop. But you never do. What a selfish boy you are."

Brad's cheeks were getting hot. His paws were clutching the arms of the chair hard enough to hurt.

"Honestly, Bradley, all you really need is for someone to smack some sense into you and get you to grow up. You're not a little kitten who can get away with things like this anymore. You're a young man, and it's high time you stopped acting out your silly little cartoon hero fantasies. This is the real world, Bradley, in case you didn't know."

"I only beat up kids who deserve it," he growled out low in his throat.

Her smile only grew wider. "And who are you to decide who *deserves* to be beaten up, Bradley? Are you God? Are you Superman? No, you are not. You are an angry little boy. Nothing more. You need to stop believing that you're better than everyone else, Bradley."

"I never said I was!!" he exploded. His jaw was trembling with fury. His breath was coming in hot and difficult. She was just baiting him now and they both knew it. Brad realized he was terrified of this woman. The gleam in her eyes was unspeakable. She was *enjoying* this!

Her grin was like a shark's. He was doing absolutely everything she wanted, just like a little puppet. "Don't delude yourself, young man. You must think you're better than other children because you believe you have the right to pass judgement over them."

"I don't think I'm better than anyone!" Brad protested. "I just get angry when I see some kid the size of a truck pushing some littler kid in the mud, or stealing their lunch money. Or making jokes about a retarded girl!"

"And your only option is to use your fists, hm? There's nothing else you could possibly do in a situation like that? You couldn't tell an adult, or politely ask these 'bullies' to stop? Or, heaven forbid, walk away; since it's really none of your business in the first place?"

Brad hated her smile. He wanted to punch it till it didn't exist anymore. "Tell an adult? HAH! What world do you live in, lady? The grownups never care! The teachers never do anything! I *have* tried telling them! All that happened was they told me to shut up and mind my own business, just like you! But I CAN'T just stand there and watch something like that happen! It's not right!!"

The first rule of manipulating an argument is that whenever your enemy makes a good point you immediately change the subject. "What's wrong or right is irrelevant, Bradley. You broke the rules, and now I have to call your mother and give her the bad news that you couldn't even last one full day here without getting into trouble."

Brad's heart fell to the floor and shattered like a clay vase. "Oh shit. No! Please, no! Don't tell her!"

Beatrix shook her head blamelessly. "I have to. It's hospital policy. We have to inform parents when their children have been in a fight. There's nothing I can do."

Brad felt like crying again. He felt guilt bash him upside the head like a two-ton hammer. The whole point in coming here was to get better so he wouldn't have to hurt his mom anymore. He'd failed her spectacularly this time. His emotions were twisted up so tight he wanted to just dig his claws into his skin and tear and tear until there was nothing left.

"You're also going to be punished, Bradley," Dr. Beatrix said brightly. "Tomorrow, you are not allowed to leave your room, except for meals, until dinnertime."

"WHAT!?" he howled, nearly falling forward out of the chair.

"Say one more word and it's the whole day."

"But..."

"I warned you! Full day it is." Dr. Beatrix smiled at him, looking petty and satisfied and boundlessly happy with herself.

Brad actually bit the inside of his mouth to keep from screaming at her. He wanted to leap across the desk and just claw her horrible pink eyes out. The bitch! The fucking bitch tricked him! A whole fucking day stuck in his room! He'd go crazy!

Dr. Beatrix stood up, smiling that innocent, soulless, 'I won' smile of hers. She felt positively delicious. "Time for you to go, Bradley. Back to your room. I hope you'll think twice before causing any more trouble."

He stared into those hollow eyes, hating her with all his strength, wanting to kill her with the sheer power of his thoughts. She'd played him every step of the way like a fish on a hook. Tyler was right about her.

Dr. Beatrix pressed a button on her desk. "Mr. Takeyikeyliwy, you can come in now."

Monsoon entered presently, scowling. She'd mangled his last name. Again. He was certain now she was doing it on purpose, like a game.

"Mr. Maplewood is not to leave his room except for meals until Thursday morning. If you catch him trying to sneak out, bring him straight to me. I'll come up with something to make him behave."

Monsoon nodded. He reached out a paw to Brad, and the boy took it silently. With one more emotionless glance at his employer, the mountain led Brad from the room.

When the door clicked shut, Dr. Beatrix sat back down at her desk, giggled, and began to masturbate.


     ~~~


The elevator hummed softly as the mountain and the boy descended.

Monsoon glanced down at the young tom. Brad was almost crying. He looked like someone had just kicked the stuffing out of him.

"I don't like her either," Monsoon very quietly whispered.

Brad let out a stiff sob and held the mountain's paw tighter.


     ~~~


Tyler was waiting for Brad when he came back.

Monsoon opened the door and he and Brad shared a short, understanding glance before they parted.

'I have to keep you in here. It's my job.'

'I know. I'm not mad at you at all.'

The door closed and Brad, looking like a train had run over him a few times, slumped over to the bed, his back to his roommate.

Cautiously, Tyler got up from his own bed. He moved slowly, knowing he was terrible at making anyone else feel better. "Uh... I dunno what just happened, but I thought what you did, standing up for that new girl, I thought it was kinda brave."

Brad rolled over, his face a mess of tears and fury. "SHUT UP!! Just shut the hell up, okay!?"

Tyler jumped back as if a rattlesnake had hissed at him.

Brad caught himself only after he'd acted like a jerk for the umpteenth time that day. He buried his face in his paws. "No, Tyler, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I'm a fuckup. I'm sorry."

The skinny mouse took a step forward, a lopsided smile coming to his face. "Hey. No problem."

Brad unrolled himself and lay staring up at the ceiling tiles. "I fucked up so bad. My mom's gonna hate me. Keith's probably gonna kill me the next time he sees me. And on top of all that, I can't leave my room at all tomorrow or I'll get in even MORE trouble!"

Tyler looked aghast. "You're kidding! That bad? On your first day? What sadistic piece of-" He stopped mid-sentence. "Dr. Beatrix?"

"Dr. Beatrix," Brad nodded.

"That bitch," Tyler spat, looking more serious than Brad had seen him all day. "I hate her. I want her to die."

Brad was a little shaken by how totally not-kidding he sounded. "Jesus, what'd she do to you?"

"It's not just me. Everyone who's been here long enough has horror stories. She finds whatever you care about most and just stomps on it." Tyler started pacing about in a tight little circle. "I had a Game Boy when I came in here. Gone! She grabbed it right outta my hands and told me later she threw it out in one of the dumpsters out back. When I told her she couldn't do that, that it was stealing and that my parents paid a lot of money for it, she just said that she's the head psychiatrist and she can do whatever she wants. Then she took away my TV privileges for a week for daring to talk back to Her Royal Highness!"

Brad seethed.

Tyler stopped and stared dead into Brad's eyes. "Best thing to do if you ever get called to her office again? Whatever she wants. Seriously. Give up all your dignity. Beg like a baby. Get down on your knees and cry. Humiliation is worth a lot less than what she'll do to you otherwise."

"She's a monster," Brad uttered.

"No, she's a sociopath. For real. I saw it on TV once. She's got all the signs. It doesn't mean you go around chainsawing people in half; it means you treat everyone else in the world like they don't even exist. We're just a bunch of toys to her. Isn't that fuckin' funny? They put a sociopath in charge of a mental hospital!" He let out a thin screech of absolutely humorless laughter.

Brad drew in a deep breath and wished, with all his heart, that his mom had never gotten that damned brochure from school.

"Hey, if you're gonna be stuck in here..." Tyler said, much softer.

"Yeah?"

"I got a whole shitload of comic books. They're yours to root through if you like."

Brad turned to Tyler and gave him a very, very warm smile. At least this nightmare had one shining spot.

The two friends sat together and quietly talked about stuff until bedtime.


     ~~~


Lights-out was at ten. Some bobcat nurse Brad hadn't seen before came around to all the rooms around nine-thirty and reminded everyone. She was also handing out medication.

Checking it off on her clipboard, she gave a paper cup each to Tyler and Brad, and would not leave until they swallowed what was inside.

Brad looked at the little red pill with grave uncertainty. "What is this?"

"How should I know?" the nurse returned with a shrug. "I just hand the stuff out. Now c'mon, swallow it."

Brad felt a little sick. This could be anything. He didn't like the idea of taking some drug and having no idea what it was.

The nurse glowered at him, looking impatient. "I ain't got all night."

Tyler had already taken his. "They're not gonna poison us. They'd have too much trouble disposing of all the bodies," he said reassuringly.

Brad shrugged, popped the pills, took a drink of water, and swallowed.

*GULP*


*****


     -KAREN-

"Goodnight, Holly."

"'Night, Karen."

"Goodnight both of you," said the rude nurse, and clicked off the light.

The room didn't exactly go pitch black. There was still a narrow strip of yellowness seeping in, since the door had not been closed all the way.

Karen started to get up. "She forgot to shut the door."

"No!" Holly warned her. "They do that on purpose."

"Why?"

"I dunno. I hate it, but I guess they wanna be able to check in on us during the night. Just to make sure we're not strangling each other or, you know, making out."

Karen giggled. An image of her and Holly both in the same bed popped into her mind for a split-second. And, surprisingly, it didn't gross her out all that much.

"The door's always shut when I wake up in the morning, so I guess they close it after they're sure we're really asleep," Holly added.

Karen got back into bed and squirmed beneath the uncomfortable sheets. They were too slidey and felt like plastic. "That's kinda creepy. I don't like the idea of them looking in on me all the time."

Holly shrugged, though Karen could only hear the slight rustle of pajamas. "Them's the rules."

Karen nodded. She laid her head on the pillow, looking up into the darkness. She pulled the covers up to her chin. The mattress was uncomfortably hard. There weren't even any box springs below it, just a wooden base. That was actually kind of a good thing, once she thought about it. If it was hard to get to sleep, it'd be that much longer before she started dreaming.

Though, strangely, after that talk with Dr. Jones earlier, she thought she almost *wanted* to dream. Just out of curiosity...

Holly was silent in the next bed. After a while, Karen was pretty sure she could hear her lightly snoring.

Karen didn't think she could relax enough to sleep. So much had happened today. So many scary, strange, unexpected things. She had no idea what this place was going to do to her, and she didn't really feel much hope at all.

Still, there was Doctor Jones. And there was Holly.

Karen's thoughts grew stringy and loose, and eventually her eyes closed.


*****


     -BRAD-

Halfway through the night, somewhere in the wee hours, some strange noise woke Brad up.

He thought at first it was his stomach again. As if he hadn't already had enough horrible shit happen to him in one day, barely five minutes after he'd laid down to sleep he'd suddenly jumped up and ran to the little attached bathroom and plunged his head in the toilet bowl. Bratwurst remnants flowed out of him like Niagara Falls. His whole body shuddered as the horrible-tasting stuff came up. To make it even worse, a few moments later Tyler was pushing him aside so he could barf too.

The two miserable little boys sat there in their pajamas on the dirty blue-and-white tile floor, vomit dripping from their chinfur. They looked at each other, then began to weakly laugh. What else could you possibly do in a situation like that?

As it turned out, a whole lot of other kids got the oopsies that night too. Every few minutes the night nurse had to get up to dole out cupfuls of Pink Shit (as everyone in the world calls the stuff) to groaning youngsters. It seemed to work for Tyler, but Brad ended up running to the potty twice more that night. Though the third time was just dry heaves. *Hard* dry heaves, the kind that made his ribs hurt.

Finally, exhausted and disgusted, he'd crawled back into bed and managed to hold onto a few precious hours of sleep.

Something, though, had woken him up now.

Since he was awake anyway, he decided to take a leak. He padded past Tyler's bed to the bathroom... then stopped abruptly at the door.

Tyler had been mouth-breathing quite loudly through most of the night.

Now he was silent.

Starting to feel panic, Brad rushed over to check his friend's breathing. All sorts of awful scenarios popped into his head. And, oh God, what if they blamed *him*!?

"Tyler? Tyler!?"

If the mouse was breathing, Brad could see no sign of it.

Like a shot, Brad was out the door and bolting for the nurse's station. They saw him coming and were about to call for security. Brad waved his arms frantically to signal an emergency.

"Hey! HEY!! I think my roommate's dead! Honestly, I never even touched him!!"

The night nurse's eyes shot open. "Ohshit!" She started dialing the downstairs trauma unit right away. Then she abruptly stopped, and hung up the phone.

"What The Fuck Are You Doing!?" Brad hissed frantically. "Did you not hear me!? Dead Kid In My Room!"

The night nurse just sighed in annoyance. "You're bunking with Tyler, aren't you?"

Brad's tail had frizzed up to the size of a watermelon. "Yeah, so? What, he *deserves* to die!?"

"Go back to bed. Tyler just does this sometimes. He'll be fine."

"WHAT!?"

"Jesus kid, keep it down!" The fatigued bobcat leaned over and tried to inject a little sympathy into her expression. "Tyler's been here since this place opened, not even a month ago. Since then, he's 'died' at least thirty times. It just happens to him. He'll conk out sometimes during lunch. Face down in his food; I've seen it happen."

Brad's panic was ebbing, but his confusion was not. "That's... uh, pretty weird."

"Not really. He's probably just got some heavy case of narcolepsy. You ever heard of that?"

Brad was taking deep breaths now, trying to calm down. "Yeah, yeah. My grandma had that for a few years."

The nurse smiled a little. "Go back to sleep, kid. Actually, no. Check Tyler for a pulse first, just to be safe. He's probably fine, but it can't hurt to be too careful."

Brad nodded. "Yes, ma'am. Okay. I will."

"Goodnight then."

"Goodnight."

"And try not to puke any more!"

Brad managed a chuckle. "I'll try!"

When he got back to his room, Tyler was once again breathing up a storm. He could hear it before he'd even got through the doorway. Sighing in total relief, Brad eased the door shut behind him and flung himself back in bed.

"What a weird fuckin' day..." he murmured into his pillow.


     ~~~


Brad had no idea how lucky he was.

Neither he, nor Tyler, nor the nurse realized that Brad (and many other kids) had puked up their medication along with the evil bratwurst that night. Had this not occurred, events might have happened very differently in the coming days. Certainly, they would have been much less exciting.

What nobody but Dr. Beatrix knew, was that Brad's pill had nothing to do with his head.

It was an incredibly powerful prescription drug, made to stiffen up the muscles of recovering coma patients.

It had not been given to him by mistake.


*****


     -KAREN-

Karen had not eaten the bratwurst, so neither she nor Holly experienced any tummy unpleasantness that night.

However, the pill that Karen was forced to swallow was stymied in its purpose too.

It was meant to knock her out for the night, and hard. Anyone else taking the drug wouldn't have experienced a single dream all night long.

That was Dr. Beatrix's biggest mistake. And it would eventually be her downfall.

She didn't know that Karen hadn't had a _dream_ in almost a decade...


     ~~~


She was outside.

It was past midnight, and it was bitterly cold. Karen was standing on a streetcorner in some unfamiliar town. Everything was blue with moonlight except for the patch of yellow she was standing in. She found herself in her pajamas under a streetlamp. She could see the asylum off in the near distance.

The building looked much different at night. Pitch black instead of white, with tiny yellow-orange spots where lights were still on. She could see a big one on the very top floor and somehow, without ever having been there herself, knew that was where Dr. Beatrix's office was.

This dream was different from all the rest; she could tell that already. She felt more like herself this time. She remembered everything that had happened to her throughout the day. She knew exactly who she was and what was going on. It almost scared her. This was the first time she had ever started a dream *knowing* it was a dream. Heck, it was also the first time she could clearly remember a dream *starting*.

A chill breeze blew right through her wispy purple pajamas. She clutched them tighter around her. Even with fur, her little black paws were cold. That was another thing that told her this dream was different. She had certainly experienced vivid sensations before, but they almost always came one at a time. A sharp sound, a feeling, a taste, a touch. Sight was the only constant, with illusions of her other senses only making occasional cameo appearances.

But now she could feel everything. The wind on her fur, the smell of the night, the buzz and crackle of the streetlamp... This was lucidity squared. And the details! Visually, this dream trumped all the others she'd ever had. If she hadn't known better, she'd have sworn she was really outside, on a street several blocks from where her body slept. She could see leaves swishing by, tumbled about by the wind. She could see the tall, spooky spires of the electric plant next door to the asylum. She was standing near a mailbox and, experimentally, she reached out to open it. The door had weight in her paw, and creaked just like a real one did.

Karen felt certain that she was having some kind of breakthrough. She felt oddly exhilarated. Instead of being at the mercy of her dream, this time she was ready. She knew something scary was probably waiting to jump out at her any minute now, but at least this time she could steel herself for it.

The little raccoon looked all around, and bravely waited.

Dreams have no time, and Karen did not know how long it was until the old lady showed up.

She just seemed to *be* there all of a sudden; a grizzled, wrinkled old she-cat with fur the color of dust under beds. She came limping up the street, pushing a walker before her. Karen felt a little sad for her at first, but kept her nerves ready. She saw the little girl squirrel's eyeless skull in her mind and remembered that in her dreamworld, people had a way of changing.

The cat lady finally came close enough to notice Karen standing there. "Hello?" she called out feebly.

Karen realized this woman was a lot older than she'd thought at first. She looked sick too. Bad sick. Like cancer.

"Little girl, what are you doing out so late?"

"I think I'm waiting for somebody," Karen replied. 'Maybe you,' she added internally.

"Oh," the old lady said. "I'm looking for my grandson. Have you seen him?" Her voice was wavery and dry, like yellowed paper.

"I don't know. Maybe. What's he look like?"

She smiled in fond remembrance. "He's about your age. Grey fur, with stripes. He's a good boy, if a little rough at times. His name is Brad."

Karen thought hard. "I might have seen a kid like that earlier, in the hallway or the cafeteria or something, but I'm not sure."

The old lady sighed sadly. "I've been looking for him for quite a long time now. If you see him, will you tell him I miss him? Will you tell him how sorry I am I missed his performance?"

"Performance?"

"Yes, he got a part in the school play. Something about dragons, I think the title was. He was going to be the dashing knight in shining armor." She chuckled warmly, thinking how apt that was. "We were all so proud of him."

Karen did her best to burn everything the woman had said into her memory. Maybe this was a test. To see if her dreams really did have some kind of meaning after all.

The cat lady stared off into space. "I wanted so badly to get up out of bed and go see him up there on stage. I remember looking at the clock and knowing that the show was going on right at that very moment, and that I wasn't there to see it...

"And then I died..."

Karen's fur stood on end. She said nothing.

The old woman shook her head, her expression changing to deep regret. "If you see him, tell him how sorry I am those old bones weren't strong enough to be there for him. Will you?"

Karen felt a lump in her throat. "I will. I promise."

The feline smiled at her. "You're a good girl. Thank you." She turned and began walking away down the sidewalk, off into the night. "I'm going to keep looking nonetheless. I'm so sure he's around here somewhere..."

Karen watched her slowly melt away into the night. The shadows grew thick about her like cobwebs, until she eventually winked out of sight completely.

The young raccoon stood there in perfect silence.

This dream *was* different. She'd felt scared, oh yes, and she thought she'd known all along the old lady was dead, but this time she had felt in control. She had made the choice to stay and listen instead of running away. She felt brave.

She smiled, feeling proud of herself.

A cigarette lighter clicked.

Karen swiveled around. Across the street, another streetlamp came on. There was a boy there, leaning against the pole. A teenager actually. He looked like a high-schooler.

He was a wolf with fur as black as onyx. He was wearing a bulky dark leather jacket and blue jeans that were nearly white from years of use.

He cupped his hands to his mouth and brought the flame from his lighter to the thin white tube between his lips. A few puffs, and then a thin stream of silver rose in the air.

He looked up, as if he'd known exactly where Karen was the whole time. "Holy Jesus, have I been waiting for you forever," he said.

Karen backed up a bit. This furson scared her.

"Thank god I had my fuckin' smokes on me when that bitch killed me, huh?" he said conversationally, puffing away on the little cancer-stick. "The pack never empties either. Always seven left. Just as many as were in there the night it happened. They say seven's a lucky number, you know?"

Karen was beginning to tremble. It was the way he was staring right at her. It made her uncomfortable. "Who are you?"

"Always-Jimmy-Never-James." He pronounced it as a single word.

"What?"

"Always. Jimmy. Never. James. My nickname. I said that so damn much, that's what my friends started calling me. I liked it, and it stuck."

"Oh."

The black wolf started suddenly to walk towards her. His eyes never left hers. The red tip of the cigarette glowed like a tiny stoplight.

Karen began walking backwards.

"Don't run away," he said flatly.

She stopped cold.

"I need you, little girl. I fuckin' need you worse than these," he said, patting his right jacket pocket where he kept his smokes.

Karen felt suddenly sure she was about to be raped.

The black wolf came closer. He stepped into the light of Karen's streetlamp and she saw how crazy his eyes looked. He was unquestionably a madman.

Her terror froze her like a statue. She wanted to move, scream, run away, anything. But her feet might as well have been made of concrete.

He grinned at her as if she were a winning lottery ticket. "We figured it out too late. We didn't have time to prepare an attack. But you just got here today! *You* have a chance! Open your eyes and fight back!!"

"Wuh-what are you talking about!?"

"The goddamn asylum!!" he roared. "Why the hell do you *think* you're here!? You think the government would really send out all those fuckin' letters to schools and pick and choose all sorts of messed up little kids like you and me just out of the kindness of their motherfuckin' HEARTS!?"

Karen backed up another step, but found herself pressed up against a brick wall. And the wolf was coming closer.

He got right up in her face. The scent of cigarette smoke was overpowering. "Don't you see? They *know*! They know about you, about him, about that fat roommate of yours, about Every Last Goddamned One Of You!!!"

"Stop it! You're scaring me!!"

His paws shot out and roughly grabbed her shoulders. "No! Goddamit, you have to LISTEN to me!!"

"NO!!! Please, stop! I'm scared!!"

"Little girl, this is more IMPORTANT than you being scared!!!"

"STOP! LET GO! PLEASE! STOP! PLEASE!! ST


     ~~~


OP!! LET GO OF ME!!! STOP!!!"

Holly was at her side, shaking her. "Karen, Karen! What happened!?"

The young raccoon looked up, and could see in the dim hallway light that she was still in her own bed at the hospital. She could see her new friend's bright red hair. With tears already streaming down her face, she hugged herself tight to the squirrel and shook with sobs.

The night nurse came in a second later. The sliver of light became a harsh, bright rectangle. "What the hell's going on in- Hey! No touching, you two!"

Holly fixed her with a fierce, disgusted sneer. "Go screw yourself! She's terrified!"

The bobcat fidgeted a bit. The fat squirrel was right; the little raccoon was shaking like a leaf and crying like she'd just seen a roomful of ghosts. "Aw, hell." She stepped into the room and went over to sit on Karen's bed too, giving the poor girl a pat on the back. "There there, honey. Shh. Shhhh."

Karen's whole body quaked. She'd thought she had control. Thought she was brave. Thought she was ready for whatever the dream could throw at her. She was wrong, wrong, wrong...

The dream had been more real than ever, and so *he* had been more real. She could still smell his cigarette smoke. She was frankly surprised she hadn't wet the bed from sheer fright. She thought for certain he was going to kill her, or worse. And what the hell had he been saying? About the asylum? About being killed? What?

Holly was holding her in her lap, running her paw through the smaller girl's dark hair. The nurse was speaking soft, comforting words.

And Karen found that not all her tears were being shed from fright. Oh, how *good* it felt to finally be comforted after a nightmare! How she'd missed this feeling!

She hugged Holly tight. "Thank you so much."

"No problem," she whispered. "Though if I have to keep doing this every night, it might get a little annoying."

Karen managed a weak chuckle that was really half a sob.

"Hey, um," the nurse said. "I'll go get you a glass of water. Everything's okay now. It was all just a dream."

But Karen felt quite certain now that it was most definitely _not_ just a dream.

The nurse went off to fetch a glass of water, hoping this would be the last weirdness of the night. She didn't realize that a few minutes later she would have a hysterical grey tomcat on her hands.

Karen drank the water and talked with Holly a little and generally did her best to calm down.

But for the rest of the night, she did not dare close her eyes.

And it was a very, very long night.


*****


END OF BOOK ONE


