Blondie B. Happy: Time passed by so fast that I forgot to write the new chapter. I'm so sorry! I hope you enjoy it!

ChildOfWisdom: This chapter is definitely worth the wait! I hope you call enjoy it!

Chapter 7: Of Insomnia and Plastic Forks

Sleep is really a beautiful thing.

And I'm not trying to rip off those cheesy NyQuil commercials. That night, I actually fell asleep with no problem. That was probably because I'd hadn't actually slept well since I was back in my apartment. After I'd finished writing in my journal and contemplating over what to do with the Percy Jackson situation, I'd fallen right asleep.

After seeing dead people and talking to crazies, you would've thought I'd have nightmares. But I slept soundly without a single dream. It felt great, really, being able to sleep. I ignored the draft and the music from Rachel's room. The only things in the world were me, my notebook, and my pillow.

When I woke up, however, it was only around three AM, and I was fully rested. I tossed and turned, trying to fall asleep again, but that wasn't going to happen. I looked outside at the window and saw the moon still in the sky and the stars still shining. I yawned loudly and stretched my arms over my head. When I closed my eyes, it was hard to remember that I was in an asylum, but when I opened them, the window and the plain walls reminded me of everything.

The window…

My first night here, I could've sworn I'd seen Percy's face in my window, watching me like he knew that I wasn't crazy. Maybe the other people were rubbing off on me. Maybe I was actually getting schizophrenia, which freaked me out.

And then last night, Percy had somehow come into my room and left without me noticing. The only thing that had been open was the window. That couldn't be a coincidence. Thinking about it sent shivers down my back, so I decided not to look at the window.

But considering I have the epitome of boring rooms, I found myself looking up at the blank ceiling.

Yeah, that didn't exactly do it for me.

I closed my eyes and listened to the song that was playing in Rachel's room. "Sweet dreams are made of this. Who am I to disagree? I travel the world and the seven seas. Everybody's looking for something."

I knew the song. It was an oldie from the 1980's that came on the radio a lot, though this version was a cover of it. Before it was a pop song, but now, the voice singing it made it sound haunting, like that little kid from your nightmares that holds the knife over your face before going, "Die bitch!" If being in a mental hospital wasn't bad enough, now I was thinking terrible things that only people a bit mad would.

However, when the next part of the song came on, it freaked me out just a bit.

Some of them want to use you

Some of them want to get used by you

Some of them want to abuse you

Some of them want to be abused

Well, my nerves were officially shot. I wasn't going to be able to go to sleep for a while, and now that I was wide awake, I had a few hours to kill. I thought about writing in my journal a little, but what was I supposed to write about. Scary songs and blank rooms. I'd already come to conclusion with everything else that was happening. Right now, I needed something insane to happen.

That shouldn't take too long.

I thought about writing down profiles of the people I'd met so far but decided against it. I needed to get up and take a walk, just loosen up a bit. So I jumped out of bed and started to pace, which got old very quickly.

My gaze turned to the door, and I gulped.

The last time I had left my room in the middle of the night, I had stumbled across that terrible little story and had found a girl hanged from the ceiling, dead. I could still feel her eyes watching me, glassed over. My time so far in this hospital hadn't been so great, and I didn't want a repeat of the Katie Incident.

But then again, I was a journalist. Doing things like this was in the job description… loosely. I needed to keep my job and I needed to explore the entire place. Today, I would have classes, work, and services to attend. It would give me a chance to become accustomed to the work the people had to do, but not really a chance to visit new parts of the institution without worrying about someone catching me.

I glanced at the window once again, at the stars and the deep early morning sky. Oh, what the hell?

I changed into my daytime clothing, pulled on some shoes, brushed my hair back, and snatched up my journal, because you never know when something might be worth recording. After making sure that everything in my room was secure, I promptly left.

As soon as my feet stepped into the hallway, I was met with giant, sobs, like I had on the first night. Only this time they were louder and the girl was speaking through them too. I could barely make out her words. "Please… PLEASE! P-P-Please make this stop. It hurts…STOP! I can't take it anymore! Make it STOP!" After that, she let out a horrid scream that caused me to bite down on the inside of my cheek, and soon, all that was left were a bunch of sobs.

What were they doing to this poor girl? What if she ended up just like Katie?

I stopped in front of her room. The crying seemed uncontrollable, as if she were never going to stop. Maybe every night she just cried because there was no one there to watch her. When I had been younger living in San Francisco, I used to do that.

For a second, I hadn't even realized that my hand was outstretched to her doorway. I wanted to reach out and open the door, to go inside and comfort the girl I didn't even know. I wanted to ask her questions about her time in this place so that I could record them in my journal. I wanted to do something, but I wasn't sure what to do.

So I slowly backed away as lightly as I could against the old flooring and left. Maybe I would come back some other time and try to talk to the girl, whoever she was. But right now, I just needed a walk.

Where to go to? The institution was huge, but I had a feeling some people would be watching for runaway crazies in the middle of the night. I couldn't just go to any random place.

As I neared the staircase, I watched as two people I was unfamiliar with strolled around. They were heading towards the library. I groaned. There went that idea.

I decided to go outside. I was pretty sure people wouldn't be roaming the outdoors. They would stay inside.

I crept down the staircase and through the hallways as quietly as possible, barely making any sounds. Thankfully, I didn't see anyone else keeping an eye out for escapees like me, so I got outside without a problem.

Immediately, the cool nighttime air made me feel loads better. It soothed my sore muscles and made the stress lines in my face relax. I shut the door softly and walked around outside. The garden was bigger than I remember and I seemed to get lost in it. No one would ever be able to find me. The foliage was so thick that it was as if I was going through a maze.

I wouldn't be bothered much by getting lost. It'd be sort of like an adventure. My hands dusted the long hanging leaves of a Weeping Willow tree, my feet moving lightly across the ground. It must've rained while I was asleep, because the ground was wet and there were little puddles everywhere.

I looked up at the sky and saw small clouds here and there, but then a giant storm moving away from the Institution out towards the city, back to the ocean. A soft breeze rustled my clothes and blew back my hair. The air felt thick and now that I thought about it, I did smell the moisture in the atmosphere.

When I heard the soft voices speaking, I stopped moving.

Actually, I think I stopped breathing too.

Who else was out here? Oh, shit was hitting the fan, big time. If Clarisse was out here, how was I supposed to explain my situation to her? If I said sleep walking, she'd be suspicious, but it wouldn't be the craziest thing to ever happen.

But the voices… they were male. And I knew both of them.

One was Percy, definitely. Even though I barely knew him, I could already place his voice anywhere. The other one seemed super familiar. I think it was the guy that I met in the church. Now, Percy seemed pretty normal, besides the temper tantrums and weird escape methods, but the other one was crazy. I knew it. I remember how he'd kicked things in anger and blended in with the shadows.

They were on the other side of the hedge next to me. Thankfully it was thick so that they probably couldn't see through. I stopped walking and listened, hoping for something interesting to happen. Also, i didn't want to get caught. What would they do to me?

"Perce, they keep giving me these pills, and they aren't working. Everything just keeps getting worse. They change my dosage almost every day, but I still…" He trailed off and took a deep, shaky breath, like he was fighting something. "I can't make it stop, and when it happens, I don't know how to control it. And I want to control it."

"I know you do, Nico," Percy said. So the guys name was Nico. "They just don't understand. They think they know what we go through, but they've never been in our shoes before. We just need to stand up for what we think is right. Don't take the medicine if it's making it all worse. Spit it out when they aren't looking."

"What have they done for you?" he asked.

"They've sedated me a few times," he sighed. "I think La Rue wants to give me a lobotomy."

I sucked in a sharp breath and immediately regretted it, but I couldn't help it. Lobotomies were barbaric to me. That's why people took antipsychotic medication. Hardly anyone got them anymore, and once you did, things were never the same. I'd watched enough medical dramas to know about that. Lobotomies make a person peaceful, almost brain dead. It takes away a person's will. It's inhumane.

They were even illegal in some countries.

But also, a part of brain was thinking about Nico. Though he had acted off his rocker a few days ago, he just seemed scared and confused now. Obviously, he trusted Percy. They probably had similar diagnoses. But I wanted to find out what they were. It seemed like some sort of depression.

Apparently, Nico didn't notice my breathing. "They can't do that to you. That's so wrong on so many levels. They have to be trained specifically in that field, and no one here is fit to do that. Sure, they can't give you some drugs, but brain surgery? That's the pure definition of insane."

I was starting to like this Nico dude. He wasn't acting crazy. In fact, he seemed sort of intelligent.

"I know. And if they decide to, trust me, I'm going to make their lives living hell before I go down. I'm going to get out of this place someday. I've been here for too long as it is for the wrong reasons. This place needs to be shut down. La Rue needs the lobotomy. We don't need soothing music and work and a fucking farm. We need an actual hospital with trained doctors who actually care enough to take care of us properly."

Nico made a sound of agreement.

"Oh, we're not alone," Percy added. "There's someone behind the bush."

Well, damn, there went my cover up. I stepped out from behind the hedge and walked over to them. Nico was dressed in dark clothes and had circles under his eyes as if he never got any sleep. His clothes were wrinkled and his hair seemed way too long. He stared at me with hard eyes, his fingers clenching and unclenching. I gulped.

Also, in one hand, he had a plastic fork, and there was a small hole next to where he was sitting. Maybe he was trying to dig his way out of the institution, or maybe it was a way to take out his anger. However, as he stared at me, he bent the fork in half. Yeah, it was plastic, but still.

Percy still looked perfect. His green eyes shown and his hair swept over his forehead. He shook his head when he saw that it was me. Though Nico looked mad, he looked more amused than anything. "I should've guessed. You been eavesdropping on us, Annabeth? Or are you still just talking to the moon?"

I'd never told him my name. My eyes narrowed.

But then, any remark or crazy thing I had to say, was silenced, because Nico rushed at me.

Leaping off the ground, his hands were outstretched to my throat. He moved impossibly fast, and before I could react, he had pushed me to the ground. All air in my lungs just left and I struggled to breathe, but then Nico was on top of me, that stupid little plastic fork up against my neck, the teeth of the utensil cutting into my skin.

I kicked at him, but he weighed more than he looked. There was this look of pure rage in his eyes, like he wanted me dead. "You think you can just listen in on our conversations?" he nearly screamed at me. I recoiled as much as I could, which wasn't a lot. "You'll have me killed. You'll kill all of us!"

In that moment, I was pretty sure that Nico was going to kill me. I didn't think eavesdropping was worthy of death, but apparently he did. That fork was causing the worst kind of pain, more than I had thought was possible, and then his hands closed around me, choking me. I struggled for the air that would not, and my movements got slower, less deliberate.

"You make a mockery of us all. You think we don't know who you are?" He squeezed tighter. "Huh? You have no idea what we go through. You're a witch. You're terrible. You'll kill us!" It was like he too knew that I was just a fake. I wanted to explain it all to him, but I couldn't speak. I couldn't do much of anything.

And then Nico was sailing backwards through the air.

Sitting up slowly, I saw Percy holding Nico down, talking in a hushed voice. "Calm down, Nico. I mean it."

"That bitch is going to—"

"Nico!" Percy thundered. He looked so pissed, like back on my first day at the institution with the nurses. He wasn't hurting Nico, but he made sure that he wasn't going to be able to get back up. "If you don't shut up, you'll have us all killed or worse. Now, drop it. I mean it." His tone left no room for discussion.

He finally stopped struggling against Percy. When Percy let him up, he sent me a murderous glare, and then he ran away through the garden, blending in with the nighttime shadows and disappearing into the plants. I had no idea where he was going, but I was glad it wasn't back towards me.

Percy sent me this look, and I think it was full of compassion and understanding. "I'm sorry about Nico. He gets like that sometimes and just needs to be calmed down. We both do. It's nothing really against you. He tries to hold all this anger inside of him, and one thing can just set him off. He'll get better. Now, he might apologize, but…"

I nodded. What else was I supposed to do? My brain was too foggy to even comprehend most of this, and I was too freaked out to even try and act like a mental case. "What… disorder do you both have?"

"Antisocial Personality Disorder," Percy clarified. Interesting.

All of a sudden, he was in front of me, and we were face to face. His fingers pressed against my neck for a second, and once again, I was unable to move. He was touching me, and I was afraid if I said anything, he would turn on me like Nico had. So I stayed as still as a statue.

He gazed into my eyes, giving me the oddest of looks. I wanted to take a step back, but he was mesmerizing. "Why'd you come out here?" he asked.

"I couldn't sleep."

"Well, next time when you want to learn something, don't snoop around, because you may feel like James Bond while you're doing it, but once you get caught, it's all over, especially in this place. I've been in your position before, and it's not a fun place to be in. If you want to learn something, just ask."

What did he mean, he'd been in my position? Had Mr. D hired him too? He seemed so normal, so innocent. I understood the outbursts now. With Antisocial Personality Disorder, you don't have that much of a tolerance to people you annoy you or get on your nerves. I imagined everyone annoyed him here. He took a shaky breath, and for some reason, a question bubbled up.

"Why do they want to give you a lobotomy?"

And then Percy pulled back, inspecting his fingers that had been pressed against my neck. Even in the dark sky, I could see my blood staining his skin. I couldn't feel the wound now, but I wasn't sure how I'd be able to cover that up. I needed to stop the blood flow. I needed to keep my cover up. But when I was near Percy, all my defenses seemed to crumble.

He scratched his jaw and gave me the saddest of stares, but still a knowing one. With my disguise down, he could see right through me. "Because of who I am."

And then he left, and I was all alone, wondering who this man really was.

Thanks for nominating this story for the FanFiction Choice Awards by Lightning-at-221b. Go check it out to vote and whatnot. Review? :D