CHAPTER ONE: Cecilia: Checking In

[Kadael]

Oh. That's embarrassiwait

Someone was here. They aren't anymore.

Cecilia attempts to push open the door. If she can't, she'll re-enact yesterday(?) and try to look under it.

[Laraqua]

There's a large yellow fluffy stuffed toy duck sitting on the floor beside the toilet. It's not even water-stained or mouldy, unlike just about everything else in this hospital. It's also about the same size as the Robbie the Rabbit and the Care Bear toy.

[Kadael]

Cecilia picks up the duck and walks out of the restroom.

Strange stuffed animals sitting in odd places? Maybe that's a piece to this puzzle.

[Laraqua]

The corridor is clear.

[Kadael]

Cecilia walks to Room 203, the room with the Care Bear.

When she passes by Room 201, she pauses, feeling a bit sick. Is the nurse still there...?

She shakes it off, and keeps going.

[Laraqua]

The door is still shut. There's no sound of her that Cecilia can hear.

Room 203 is just as she left it. The Care Bear is still sitting there, almost as though it were waiting for her.

The kitten rolls over in her pocket and meows lightly.

[Kadael]

Cecilia grabs the Care Bear and tucks it under her arm with the duck.

She thinks back to what the nurse said - the children lost something. Maybe she needs to get these stuffed animals to the mannequins. It makes no sense... but why should it?

There are three mannequins in the ICU, so there should be another animal somewhere...

The operating room. The bunny.

Which, of course, means running through the nurse's station again. Damn broken doors.

[Laraqua]

She pulls open the nurse's station door and comes face to face with a man in a blood-smeared trenchcoat, knife in one hand, flashlight in the other. His features, so alien and unfamiliar (run! RUN!!!) fade into familiarity after a few short moments of stunned staring.

[Seon]

Jack looked at Cecilia.

"Cecilia? You came for Katie?" Jack said, seemingly genunely surprised. He began to step towards her.

[Kadael]

Cecilia takes a step back, halfway through the doorway. She's been roughed up a bit since Jack last saw her, though what did it isn't clear. There are odd bruises on her face and hands, and the fingers of her right hand - curled around Jack's shotgun - are pink like raw meat.

"What are you doing here?" Consciously or not, she brings the gun up a few inches. Her fingers tremble on the grip.

Maybe she should be glad that he's here.

She isn't.

[Seon]

"The hell if I remember. I woke up in the morgue. Good news, by the way. Ash's still alive. I met this private detective named Murray and I sen-"

Jack pauses as he noticed the shotgun that Cecilia was holding. His smile quickly faded away and was replaced by a grim, blank expression.

"Are you seriously threatening me with my own gun here?"

[Laraqua]

Cecilia is also awkwardly gripping a Dawn the Duck (one of Lakeside Amusement Park's mascots) and a Care Bear under one arm.

[Kadael]

"Oh, really?" Cecilia's face breaks into a twisted smile, utterly false and devoid of any joy. "Good! Then I guess we can forget about how you tried to kill me!" The mask dissolves, replaced with a snarl.

"You left it there." She shakes the muzzle at him almost nonchalantly. "You left me to go running around this fucked-up town, crawl across a light pole, and almost get stabbed by a crazy nurse, so you could 'wake up' in the morgue!"

Why didn't you stay there?

Those last words die on her lips. She lowers the gun, and just looks at him. Blank.

[Seon]

Jack stared at Cecila for a couple of seconds, expressionless.

"Heh."

"Hehehe...hi hi... ho... ho... ho." Jack's mouth curled up into an empty grin before folding back to blankness.

"If I wanted to kill you, I would have just shot you," Jack said blankly. He raised the knife to his head and pointed it towards his temple. "Bang. Problem solved. One less screwed up, crazy woman who by all rights belongs in the insane asylum in the world. But no, I didn't."

Jack took another step towards Cecilia.

[Kadael]

"I'm not crazy." She can't keep the tremor out of her voice. When he steps forward, she steps back. "Do you hear yourself right now? You're the one who should be locked up!"

"Sorry if I don't take strangulation lightly," she snaps, eyes flashing. "If Ash means so much to you, why are you still here?"

[Seon]

"Ash? She's a stranger to me," Jack said. "She just happened to... know... a bit more of my own past... Have you ever had this sensation that you remember something, but that memory isn't yours? Hmm? No? Just me? Have you heard anything about Rochelle, then? Apparently she knows about a drug deal that I was involved in... and the private investigator also said some things about me being put into a hospital because a random hobo stabbed me in my bar. I don't remember any of it at all!"

Jack took another step towards Cecilia. "Oh, and I agree with you about the locking up thing. If I only have a handcuff, I would lock you to me and we would both merrily drag each other to the nearest police station to turn ourselves in to be transported off to the nearest asylum. One crazy person next to another."

He took another step.

[Kadael]

"I'm not crazy!" The tremor becomes a shriek. She backs up against the wall. The stuffed animals and the shotgun drop to the floor as she presses her palms against her ears. "Shut up! Shut up!"

it's everyone else

not me

everyone's crazy but me

not me

not me

[Seon]

Jack quickly moved up to her and kicked away the shotgun.

"Says the woman holding stuffed animals under both arms and aiming a shotgun at people," he quietly muttered.

"Wake up, you moron!" Jack hissed. "I don't have time nor patience for your incessant blame-shifting. Sit down somewhere and calm the freak down. And don't you dare pick up that shotgun."

He glanced over to the computer. "I...may need to check out something."

[Kadael]

There he is again, telling her to wake up. What was it he said? Smell the coffee, smell the ashes, smell the lake. While his fingers were around her neck. She's not asleep.

The smell is mold, blood, and bile.

Cecilia slides down the wall and pulls her knees up to her chest. She's not crazy, right? She doesn't... shift the blame... only being reasonable...

...nobody listens...

She stares at the wall, unmoving. Occasionally she blinks, and water runs down her cheeks. It's not tears. It doesn't feel like crying, not really. Too quiet. Too still.

[Laraqua]

There's a sense of urgency underlying everything -- though Cecilia's too shell-shocked to notice. Jack isn't. Jack's quite aware that change is coming, brewing on the winds, and that he'll need to be quick to do whatever needs doing on that computer and, possibly, whatever the hell she was about to do with all of those toys. They're on a time limit ... and the ticking's in his brain.