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"Crap," Ace murmured, rolling unto his stomach without opening his eyes. His mouth was dry and there was a bitter aftertaste stuck to his throat. He swallowed and felt a wave of nausea hit him like a slap to the face. He stretched his long legs, wincing when his left heel hit cold metal and quickly amended by pulling them up.

"Owww."

Ace rubbed his face with one hand. There was a dull, rhythmic pounding at the base of his skull and the more he focused on it, the louder it became. What did I do...last night... His eyes shot open and he began to sit up, but for some reason it occurred to him that doing so might be a bad idea...why?

The pain slammed into him from above, below, everywhere. His spine snapped rigid and every bone in his body became stone. The whining buzz in his ears increased exponentially into a deafening roar. A star burst of pure light exploded between his eyes and a ragged sound tore out from his throat as he lost all muscle control and hit the bed with a dull thwack!

Dammit, breathe!

All Ace could do was suck in air and expel it as slowly and as deeply as possible. He threw his entire consciousness into that simple act, knowing instinctively that anything else, allowing himself to think of the other thing would bring the world of pain crashing back unto himself. Amidst the panic and confusion came the thought that he shouldn't have struggled after all. Struggled over what? When he thought he could bear it, he began counting backwards. 100...98...92...90...By the time he got to 86 his eyes had stopped watering and he could remember his name. 64...62...60... He rolled over to his side, legs dangling uselessly over the edge of the bed, eyes fixed unto the gray wall opposite the bed.

By the time Ace had counted to 22, the pain had reduced to a point where other basic mental functions could return. The bed was too low to be his...what happened to his KISS posters? He grit his teeth and defied the hardwired instinct of self preservation by sitting back upright...the pain didn't come back but he was too distracted by another distressing development to consider that.

"Where the hell am I?"

As Thorn had retracted her hand back in after shaking Charlie's hand, the other girl had quite a point that also got Thorn's mind turning.......and her head throbbing again. How long HAD it been?!

Thorn began to pace back in forth in her cell, leaving the hole in hte wall, trying to think while at the same time holding her head in pain. It was weird; every time she tried to think of what happened between her waking up with her stuff packed and now was impossible to recall. They could've been here between as little a few hours to as long as a month for all they knew!

"Cmon Thorn! Think about it......" The lady mumbled to herself, forgetting all about unpacking her things at the moment. She shut her eyes and concentrated.

And suddenly got the most disturbing first-person past sounds, which involved Thorn's own screaming of extreme and a evil laughter that was chilly to the bone. She knew this was no teasing of the mind; it was real. It had happened..........what had happened to her?

Whimpering now and clutching her head with a hand, she went to one of the boxes and shoved posters and stuff aside, picking up a small doll amid a blanket to hide it's details, so the red blanket looked like a pillow. After all, how weak would she look if she held on to a little dolly? Sitting on the bed, she held the 'pillow' to herself, taking a moment to rock back and forth. D*mn it all; when did she become this weak and scared?

She could hear another's voice, but was both to annoyed at the situation and too scared of it to answer. She needed to recollect herself first, and that question remained unanswered for a moment.

Finally forcing herself up with a shaky sigh, she went back to the hole and tried to comfort Charlie, leaving the blanket on the bed. "Don't fret too much; we probably haven't been here too long. Maybe if the punk in charge shows up we can ask him; it couldn't hurt to try." she said, trying to keep Charlie from thinking too deep and perhaps getting the same sounds that Thorn had recollected...

"Darn, headaches and eye-aches get to me a bit..." she added, playing down her own pain for this girl's sake.

Alice turned to look through the hole at Jack; she saw his golden eyes staring back at her, his faded anguish deep within.
“No, it will get better and easier to control, I promise.” Alice said, even though she had just met Jack, she already had a connection to him. There was just something about him that drew her to him. Jack must have felt this, because his expression softened as the pain faded away completely, and was replaced with something Alice couldn’t quite distinguish. Trust?
Jack looked away and placed his head in his hands. Alice could tell he was scared, even if he wouldn’t admit it directly. She felt the need to comfort him. She stuck her finger through the small hole and wiggled it, the removed it. She heard Jack snort and stick his finger through and do the same. Alice grabbed his finger and gave it a squeeze,
“Chin up, things will get better ok?” Jack pulled away from her and sighed.
“I hope your right Alice….”
A silence passed between the two, until Jack finally asked the question that seemed to be pulling at his mind.
“Alice…why did you react that way? When I mentioned why I was here?” Alice didn’t respond at first, but when she did her voice was soft and distant, like she was remembering something.
“I just don’t like people using drugs.” Jack wanted to press for more information, he could tell there was more to the story. But he decided that now wasn’t the time.
Another silence passed between the two, and Alice dozed off. Her nap was quite and dreamless, like it usually was after an injection, when she heard the intercom come on. Down in solitary the intercom can still be heard, but is hard to make out.
“What was that?” Jack asked; Alice stood from her corner, stretching her legs.
“We are leaving.”
“How can you tell?”
“I heard the intercom ask that all students meet on the second floor dining hall”
“You understood that?” Jack asked incredulously, Alice nodded then remembered he couldn’t see her.
“Yes, you’ll get used to it.” Then as if on cue the guards came in and first unlocked Jack’s cell, the Alice’s. Alice walked out and saw Jack properly. She had to admit he was good looking, but his previous confession about drugs sent a chill down her spine. Alice turned away from his gaze and continued down the hall until they reached the elevator.

Charlie was spared responding to Thorn by a squawk from the loudspeaker in the corner of the room that she hadn't noticed. At first, she couldn't quite discern what was said, but then the message repeated itself coherently enough to be mostly understood:

"Once again, *Crackle* students please repor*squawk* to the second floor dining hall. I will meet you there shortly."

Charlie's head snapped up, curious.
"I guess that means us, huh?" Charlie said to Thorn. She carefully stood up, not willing to ignite the fire behind her eyes again with another head rush. Charlie turned to the door, which emitted a loud buzzing sound which she could only assume meant that the door was unlocked. She gingerly turned the handle, which gave quite easily, and opened the door.

Outside, she saw several other kids step out of their rooms, including Thorn. Charlie surveyed the corridor, and saw that it was lined with doors like the one she had stepped out of. What she also saw were several guards, waiting to escort them all to what looked like an elevator at the other end of the hall.

Jack raised an eyebrow at the sight of Alice. “Not bad, Wonderland,” he muttered behind her, and she turned to scowl at him. He laughed and shrugged his shoulders as the two were escorted out of the elevator and down yet another hallway. “Is this place just a punch of cells and hallways?” He asked, scanning the walls with distaste.
“Yeah, pretty much,” Alice said, falling in step with Jack. The two walked in silence the rest of the way. Jack didn’t much appreciate being herded like an animal, but he didn’t believe what Alice said about the guards being all talk, so he kept his mouth shut.
The guard walking in front stopped at a pair of large iron double-doors. He pushed one open and Alice ushered Jack through. On the other end was a huge dinning hall that looked like a prison lunchroom. It wasn’t a comforting sight.
“Uhh…Alice…what’s going on?”

----

Dawn wanted to feint when a second person saw and spoke to her. She nodded at her words and managed to peel the hand away from her face. She whispered a quiet “Thank-you” before the girl disappeared again.
Dawn turned back to the pink-hair intimidating girl, managing to keep her hands still and away from her face. “Would you like to…walk with me?”

A groan. It sounded rather like the groan from that one movie with the famous groan... you know which one. Lance wanted whoever the hell was doing to just die, but they wouldn't stop. Oh well, there were more pressing matters at hand. Like why the hell his head was splitting in half. Lance tried to sit up and heard the groan become louder as he felt as if someone poured white-hot lead throughout his body. Okay, apparently Lance wanted himself dead. Lance finished sitting up and swung his legs off the end of what seemed to be a cot. Joy. Lance just sat for a moment, recovering from the pain. He heard a loudspeaker go off and heard someone say something about going to the dining room on the second floor. Huh? Lance gingerly stood up, and got a look around. Okay, so he wasn't at his place. Or prison. Or the hospital. Or... could he already be at White Ridge? Lance went to the door and opened it. He looked both ways, only to see an empty hall. He began roaming halls until he found a flight of stairs, which he walked up and began roaming around halls again. He found a door, which he went in, to find other people. Including some older guy. Lance figured he found the place so he sat down and listened to the old guy. Meh, what the hell, he had nothing better to do.

The sensation that his nose was bleeding awoke him, and he immediately put his hand up to his nostril to stem the flow of blood. The blood kept coming. Soon he realized that it wasn't just his nose that was bleeding; his clothes, so unfamiliar, were saturated in blood. He felt his face... his eyes, his ears, they were gushing blood! He tried to cry out, but his voice failed him. When he tried to sit up, he became so nautious and light-headed that he started to lose consciousness. Swaying back and forth and side to side. Agony. He tried as hard as he could to fight it, but he was too weak; his limp body tumbled over the side of the bed, or whatever it was that he was on, and onto the floor, making a sickening smack when it hit. Blackness overcame him.
Some time later it seemed that he had regained consciousness, but something was different... he looked around, it was the same room he was in before, but from a different perspective. As he continued to scan the room, his gaze fell upon a body, HIS body. He couldn't believe what he saw. Where was he? The only thing that was visible was the metal platform he had been on, which was lit by a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. The rest of the room was shrouded in darkness. His mind began to race; what happened? how did I get here? Then he sensed a presence behind him. He turned quickly to face it, and what he saw paralyzed him; a pair of piercing eyes, stark against the black, and a mouth full of pearly white teeth. The apparition moved towards him, revealing the outline of a human form. Then it spoke, "Welcome, Damien." Shear terror gripped him, and he heard himself screaming.
His body shuddered, and he opened his eyes. The lightbulb was all he saw. He was laying on the cold metal platform again. It was all a dream, more like a terrible nightmare. He sat up and felt an intense throbbing in his head. Indeed this was the same room from his dream. Perhaps it was a vision, he thought. It was not uncommon for Damien to have such visions. He sighed and cleared his mind, "Where the hell am I?" he thought to himself. Struggling through the pain, he finally remembered; it was that 'school'. He groaned at the thought, Damien hated being confined. "All because of that girl..." he wispered.
A beam of light caught his eye, it was coming from a square window; assumably the window of a door. Sure enough a figure appeared in the square. "Awake already?" came a voice. "You weren't due for another 15 hours. No mind... as long as you're awake you'd better get some food in you. Join the other students in the dining hall."