Stasis: The state of equilibrium or inactivity caused by opposing equal forces.

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File II: Wonder & Malice

Part III: White Rabbit

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Location: Lockbridge Psychiatric Hospital, London, England (UK) . . .

Date: August, Day II . . .

Time: 8:00 a.m. . . .

Oliver Davis observed the building's structural floor-plan with no spark of development as he analysed the areas in which Mai had been dragged yesterday afternoon.

From Mai's dream, only more questions arose and fewer answers were made clear. Not to say that the case was stalled, but it was intriguing. How thick did the mystery deepen? A ghost with an identical description of Alice, but whose personality was duplicitous, a missing patient, Mai being dragged the hall, along with other cases of such activity, and the fact that both Mai and himself had been declared characters.

What did it mean?

Why did this haunting happen so abruptly? If Alice had never been a problem more than a few weeks ago… Where was the catalyst? If Alicia Gardener had been the first one to see Alice, was it merely coincidence they had similar appearances? He hardly believed in coincidences. Not in his line of work. Leave one piece of the mystery alone and the entire explanation can become misconstrued later on. Better to check than to leave it alone.

Solving conundrums was his specialty, but without the proper research and evidence and even he was left without a clue. A basis of fact was the sole method of determining a solution. And within a few minutes, Yasu and Madoka would be arriving with news on their individual research projects.

Yesterday morning, he'd sent Madoka off to search for details on their missing patient's family after a receiving the paperwork to allow the team access into Lockbridge's inner workings. He'd also gotten approval for Yasu to leaf through hospital archives for any information relevant to the case. That'd been yesterday afternoon. But due to several annoying inconveniences throughout the course of the evening, their team meeting had been stalled to the following morning.

Sparing a glance at the clock, he mentally counted down the seconds before his team's entry. Such calculations were of simple means. Their patterns had become predictable two years ago, and he doubted it had changed since.

Three.

Two.

One.

"Ugh, you know, I doubt I'll ever get used to a regular English-styled breakfast," Takigawa groaned, the door to Base opening as a trail of members followed in his wake. "Give me my Japanese food back!"

Mai came in a second later, smiling and laughing. Somehow the image interested him. Peaked his senses. As if her presence made a difference. But why? How? Ever since she'd arrived in England, he'd had a strange sensation emerge in his stomach whenever he saw her. Again questions rose in the air. Even this morning, something in him had shifted.

Perhaps Mai herself and not the bond would be another conundrum in his life to decipher.

"I have to say I agree," Mai admitted. "But it's still really good!"

"True…," Takigawa amended.

"Ah, Naru!" Mai redirected, prancing up to his side. "Hey! Did you even eat breakfast other than the tea I made four hours ago?" A frown of discontent marred her lips, as if prepared to fully berate him if he hadn't.

"I ate," he said simply. Then added, "But I hardly see how that's any concern of yours."

A spark of hurt and indignation flittered across the bond. Perhaps that'd been the wrong thing to say.

"Not my concern?" she repeated slowly, as if echoing it to herself. "Of course it's my concern, Naru! You're my partner!"

Somehow he found that wasn't what he'd wanted her to say. His chest twisted. Why?

"Be that as it may," he found himself saying, "I'm a grown adult, Mai. The last thing you need to be concerned about his my health. I believe we covered that this morning."

"And I believe we covered my response to that as well." A solidary brow rose in the air, daring him to deny it.

Naru pursed his lips. Mai had made her point clear months ago whilst in the midst of perhaps one of the biggest breakthroughs that the parapsychological community had ever experienced. While they'd stood amongst the future. What deviousness. Declaring her feelings for him while set amongst a place of unforetold peril. He was still identifying the details of the experience for his newest thesis. Nevertheless, the scientific portion of that event was hardly of relevance for their current state of affairs.

Truth be told, he was still reeling with the revelation that Mai loved him.

Love.

What an indescribable notion. Another conundrum in his life to dissect. Although he understood the science and anatomy of it, the emotional, mental aspects continued to elude him. It had only been in those final moments spent in the future had the concept-solely driven by the bond's interference and effects-become relatively conceivable.

Not only that.

But loved him. Not Gene.

No. Apparently, it had never been Gene.

It had been Naru all along.

And why did that… Make him… Appeased? Was that what he felt? Appeasement… No…

Something else…

Why?

And what?

"Earth to Naru~!" Mai sang merrily, waving a hand in front of his face. "Earth to the Narcissist~! Helloooo~"

Naru blinked, effectively torn from his thoughts. He frowned. "Stop that." But Mai was grinning, again keeping him from progressing in his work, or really, any form of professionalism.

Why? he thought in a hiss.

"As much as I love for your character to develop in this exceedingly slow-paced love story, I'm afraid we have a case to finish first, Big Boss." Now that, that halted whatever confusing thoughts misconstrued his intellect.

So he faced his research assistant and former mentor from the head of the room, and inexpressibly queried, "What do you have?"

Yasu smiled, and it was that smile. The one that meant he knew more than he was letting on, before gesturing to Madoka. "Ladies first."

"Such a gentleman, Yasu," his former mentor appraised slyly. Their fake flirting always induced the desire to roll his eyes. The two never ceased to be suspicious in both their actions and motives, as if constantly hatching underhanded schemes beneath everyone's noses. He knew to be wary of them both.

Then the two researchers settled down to business.

"I'm sure you were all wondering why I wasn't here yesterday," Madoka began, "but that was because Noll neglected to inform you that he'd sent me off to London's local archives to locate the family of our missing patient." She sent him an unimpressed glower, to which he duly ignored. "You see, there aren't actual family members that the hospital has on record, nor any relatives to contact. Anyway, the patient's name is Peter Balts, a Latvian-Englishman, I suppose you can say. His family moved here several generations ago and their main occupation was in a local workshop for clocks. In essence, they were clockworkers. His family was small to begin with, but after a string of events, every last member of his family died. They all died of natural and explainable causes, but Peter himself was diagnosed with an extreme case of Bipolar disorder when he was sixteen. More specifically, the issue was his aggression and as such, was arrested four years ago for assault.

"Having been at Lockbridge for several years now, the severity of his condition has decreased and he's apparently become, for lack of a better word, nice. Normal, almost. That's when Alice appeared, and everything became much worse. To go around the complex terminology, I'll just say that exhibited signs of lessening sanity, and became rather odd. Between abrupt flashes of unexpected aggression, being locked in the ward for the more violent patients, muttering incoherently about Alice and time and clocks and Wonderland, he became a whole other person. Then three weeks ago, he disappeared without a trace. There was no evidence of tampering with his room or any signs of departure. To say the least, it's a perfect disappearance. In this regard, I'd like to entertain the idea that perhaps what we're dealing with is similar to Urado."

At the mention of Urado, there was no trickle of fear down the bond, rather there was only contemplation and intensity. Hmm...

"If that's the case, then I still don't think Alice is our main issue here," Mai said, specifically addressing Naru, but there was a crease in her brows that voiced minor fringes of doubt.

"Intuition?" he questioned.

She hesitated. "I… I-I… I'm not sure. It's kind of mixed up at the moment, but if you think about the strangeness of my dream and what Alicia Gardener experienced, it makes some sense."

"Wait!" Ayako said. "You had a dream, Mai?"

His partner then presumed to explain her dream from last night. How she'd taken on the perspective of who she assumed was Alice, and that Alice herself confirmed Naru was the fictionalized Knave of Spades.

When she was done, he distastefully tested, "And you don't remember this girl's exact thoughts, Mai?" They'd gone over this earlier in the morning, but he wanted to reiterate. Finite details were the tailends of future prospects and the more information the better.

She tapped her chin in thought, gaze absently following the angles of the walls. "Oh, yeah!" she burst, startling the majority of their team with her sudden outburst. Naru went unperturbed. "She was thinking along the lines of, 'I know how this is going to end. I know how I'm going to die. I've seen it.' Then she thought, 'I should be considered a miracle, instead I'm thought to be a curse...' It was strange," Mai added as afterthought. "And it wasn't like she was guessing that she was going to live there for the rest of her life, but it's like she was certain of her death and how exactly she was going to die…"

A cord struck deep in Naru's mind, a sonorous clang of massive proportions. Eyes widening, he stalled completely, frozen in the revelation.

"She was a precognitive psychic," Naru murmured.

But does it mean anything? If the girl from Mai's dream was our spirit, then could her being psychic lead her to her demise? Lead to her demise…Suddenly a mass of questions spilled as the answers collided and possibilities arose. Could her being psychic be the cause or reason behind her death? As if she'd been killed because of it… Does this go beyond one spirit? No evidence has been found to prove as much, but the possibility is open. We don't have the whole story.

"Naru, you're a genius!" Mai exclaimed, but he was too caught up in his thoughts to notice the compliment, let alone elaborate on his intelligence as he snapped back to Yasu.

"Did any of your research pertain to this?"

Their secondary researcher grinned at the mention. "You're in luck, Big Boss. In that dirty old basement full of half-written archives and undusted shelves, I actually managed to find several people who could possibly be our spirit. The people I found were under your conditions: from post-1865 and were under twenty. Unfortunately I was unable to locate pictures of these patients, but their ages and diagnoses were documented in relative detail. In total, we have a compilation of ten names, but one in particular stands out. The name Alysse Wild sound interesting to you all? And now that you mentioned Mai's dream, Alysse Wild's file states she was brought to Lockbridge in 1867 due to her parent's decision, because she was said to have strange 'visions' where she'd black out and wake up hours later muttering incomprehensibly for some time before returning to a normal state of awareness."

Alysse Wild then...

"Does her file say when she died?" Mai asked, to which Yasu shook his head.

"The notes on her treatment stopped abruptly in May of 1868, but there isn't any documentation of her death or any type of release papers. It's as if she dropped off the face of the Earth."

"Well, that's certainly suspicious," Miss Matsuzaki mentioned snidely.

Miss Hara added in, "If you consider the time-period and lack of proactive mental health facilities like we have today, it's not too hard to believe, but given the facts of the case, it's possible that something went wrong."

"Wrong as in died," Takigawa stated ominously, the group falling into a hush.

Naru crossed his arms amid the silence. "The questions now are how she died, and why she's still here." And if there isn't any mention of a split-personality anywhere in her file, why does her personality change? Earlier... Mai said that the White Rabbit would appear soon. What does that mean? What's the reasoning behind dragging people down halls? Is there meaning in it?

"Well, if you consider the timeperiod," John mused, "it's possible she was mistreated during her time here. And given the facts of Mai's dream, it seems highly probable."

Yasu repositioned his glasses. "While dragging people down halls is rather harmful and most certainly rude, Alice doesn't seem to have directly hurt anyone though. It's more like she's using scare tactics."

"As if to warn people?" Mai asked, incredulous. "The one Alicia Gardener saw and the one from my dream were nice enough, but the other one? She's dragging people down halls out of her own twisted amusement. She even said she'd come back for me."

"Then there's Peter Balts, who also disappeared rather abruptly," Miss Hara reiterated quietly.

Takigawa intercepted, "Yeah, what's with that? I mean it's not rare for disappearances to occur when it comes to a haunting, but where's the connection to Alice? Is there a certain demographic he falls into for him to have gone missing? Everything seems kinda random right now."

There was only one demographic that would make sense at the moment, but until proven was pointless to mention.

"A possession is plausible, or maybe even physical immobilization," Mai speculated, shrugging her shoulders. "He could've wandered off all on his own like in the Urado case and been taken by whatever else haunts these halls. Like Masako and I stated before, something else is here, hiding in the background. I get the feeling that Alice is only the beginning of a much darker story…"

"Whatever the fact is, won't hinder us from finding it," Naru declared with his ever-monotonous dispassion. "In the meantime, we need to get back to work. The rest of you may walk around the hospital to try and locate our entity in the areas which've had the most significant drop or rise in temperature in the last twelve hours. Use whatever method you see fit to employ, but make sure none of you are ever alone. Madoka, Yasu, I want you two to do in depth research of the Lockbridge staff and peers as well as Alysse Wild's personal history from birth to the timing of her disappearance. Mai and Lin, you're with me. We're going to speak with Director Morgenstern."

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9:24 A.M.

After receiving permission from Dr. Morgenstern, Mai, Naru, and Lin were sent to see a patient whose sudden, current obsession with Alice and Wonderland was far from healthy. His abrupt change had also transpired within the course of a twenty-four hour time period. Apparently, his name was Cedric Quill, and up until their arrival, had been on the road to release and was mostly recovered from a case of severe depression. What was more, was that he was locked inside a padded room. With a strait jacket. To say that Mai was unaffected would be a lie.

What could possibly go wrong?

Right? Right…?

Already her instincts burned with unsuppressed anxiety as they waited to enter the room. Luckily, a doctor and a series of guards were going to be inside with them when they interviewed the client.

"Hey, Naru-"

"This is as far as we'll be requiring your services," Naru stated tonelessly. Okay, maybe not…

He was addressing the small crowd of hospital workers and security at their back. When they tried to argue that it was against hospital policy, Naru added, "Director Morgenstern has allowed me full access to the building, which includes its staff and patients when deemed necessary to the investigation. You a