AN - Expirimental junk that I dreamt about. Abstract horror movie/Dream/Hallucination mix that doesn't make sense, even to me, and I wrote the damn thing.

Trigger warnings (Spoilers) - Graphic depictions of violence and death. Mentions of mental illness, and themes of suicide.

Major Characters: Renji, Ichigo. Minor character appearances are made.

(View extended/alternate ending on ao3.)

Kira's breath left him as his senpai's body fell to its knees, flopping forward, bloody face smashing into his retreating feet. He'd tried to shuffle back in time, but he'd still gotten his shoes soaked with blood and the heavy wet smack of a gruesomely slashed face against his feet.

He swallowed a scream that hadn't left him quickly enough, heart pounding so hard that he thought he would faint. He just stood there and stared for a moment as Hisagi's neck rolled to the side, almost completely severed from his torso. Huge ugly gashes decorated his limp body, dark blood oozing out like a gentle hot spring. All he could do was grab the skeleton key out of Hisagi's hand before stumbling back, trying not to vomit.

It was too late. There was no point in carrying him with him or sticking around. Hisagi was dead.

The creature snapped in the corner, its white face looming in the darkness. With a horrifying jolt, Izuru moved, and with strength he didn't know he had, he braced his back against one of the metal bars keeping them stuck in here with that thing. He'd have to leave his friend's body. There was no hope for him now. Carrying him would only slow him down, and he'd be killed too. Izuru's eyes stung with hot tears, but he knew this is what Shuuhei would've wanted.

Run, he had to run and get away. He had to live to another day.

Shuuhei had always been the one to take care of them in here, the one who knew what to do and who kept him calm, but now Kira didn't have someone to lead him around. He didn't have someone to pat him on the head and treat him like a lamb, not like that silver-guy had either. Hisagi had taken care of them, but now Izuru was alone. Now Izuru was alone and Shuuhei was being eaten by a white-face.

Kira shouted through gritted teeth as he got his foot against the other bar, squeezing and pressing as hard as he could to try to make a gap. He screamed, tensing up his entire body, using every ounce of muscle he could muster. All of a sudden, with a jolt, he fell through, as if he'd been thrown. This damn place confused him, but with enough effort, anything could be done – all except surviving, it seemed.

Izuru hit the brick wall hard and then fell to the ground, gritty broken glass and dust puffing up into his face and grinding against his shoulder and hip. He picked himself up unsteadily and then ran like the devil was on his tail. He swore he could hear and feel hot breath at his ear. His feet slapped against the dusty linoleum, flickering overhead lights darkening as he continued on and on, around corners, down stairwells, and finally, he was trapped in a small hallway.

At the end of it was a splintered grey door.

Kira swallowed hard, looking back into the darkness apprehensively, before opening the door and seeing a dimly lit skeleton staircase made of only planks and poles. Knowing that he had to keep moving but being so afraid, he just stood there at the top for a moment, holding his stomach. Then he took a deep breath, held it, and clasped his hands over his solar-plexus. He crept down one stair at a time, as slowly as he could to eliminate the creaking. The only sound was his own panicked breathing and frantic heartbeat.

It was dark, so dark in the basement, and all he could do when he reached the bottom was look around and try to let his eyes adjust. Now he could hear dripping, and he could smell blood. He couldn't see a thing, but if he looked out of his periphery, that which had better night vision, he thought he could just barely make out...

"Eep!" Izuru clapped his hands over his mouth, breathing hard as he heard a low scraping sound.

Something was there.

Izuru was so freaked out, he was going to be sick. No, no, bravery. Bravery. A warrior does not falter. A warrior does not beg for their life.

There was the low noise of a chain being dragged over the ground, and Izuru bolted back up the stairs, stumbling and holding on tight to the railing. It took all his strength to try to pick himself up, but he just couldn't make himself get off the ground. He was glued there; gravity was too powerful.

"Who's there?" he heard a timid voice say. "Come out!" they practically wailed, voice cracking from fear. Izuru blinked, physics unchaining him as he stood up, stumbling out into the darkness with his arms out.

"Yumichika?"

"Kira?" Yumichika replied, and Kira came over to him where he was chained in the corner by his ankle, unlocking him immediately. "Oh thank god," Yumichika gasped, throwing his arms around his leg for a moment. The man was shaking like a leaf, and Izuru wasn't much better as he helped him get up.

"Take this," Kira told him, pressing the key into his hand. Yumichika nodded, slipping it into his sneaker. They clung to each other in the dank basement, holding hands tightly as they crept around. Even now that it was just the two of them, they didn't feel quite as scared as they were alone. A light flickered in the far distance, illuminating the warehouse they found themselves in. High ceiling, industrial lights, spider-webs... a corpse strung from the ceiling. That was what was making the dripping sound. Blood was in a puddle far below it, and there was nothing but gaping holes where its eyes and mouth used to be. Yumichika jolted, eyes wide and pupils pinpricks as he took a breath to shriek, but Izuru clapped a hand over his mouth, holding his face to his chest.

"Shh," he hissed, petting the shaking man's back, not letting him look back to the body. Yumichika was hyperventilating, letting Izuru drag him towards the door in the far corner, past the countless pieces of machinery and piping. They barricaded themselves in the boiler room.

"There," Izuru panted, "Nothing can come from that way. We just have to take that elevator down and get out of here," he explained. Yumichika nodded, rocking in a ball on the floor, shakily standing up.

"Can you help me out? I'm a mess, man. I can't do this again, you've gotta' help me," Yumichika begged, body trembling. Izuru nodded, reared back, and slapped him as hard as he could. Yumichika grunted, head dropping as he rubbed his cheek. He was bleeding a little thanks to Kira's class ring, but he'd pulled himself together.

"Alright, let's go."

Weird place for an elevator, not to mention that it went down from the basement, but this place had never made sense anyone. Yumichika knew just who to blame for that. The rusted doors were slightly open, and the elevator car was halfway above the doorway, leaving Kira and he to climb down below it and take the ladder down the shaft.

Yumichika held on like his life depended on it, taking one step at a time, down, down, Kira above him. Eventually his foot hit the bottom of the shaft, and there were doors there, slightly open, easy to push ajar.

Just as Yumichika snuck out and looked back to Kira, he heard a loud scraping noise, screeching metal, and all of a sudden, there was a huge wham as the elevator car slid loose and fell with the speed of concrete, crushing Izuru alive. He'd made it just far out enough that Yumichika was graced with a gruesome view of his shattered skull and collapsed scalp, his hand and arm still intact where they'd been hurled out of the doorway.

Yumichika stood there for a moment, unable to close his eyes to it, watching the slow creep of blood and listening to the utter silence around him. Just... Just like that... dead. He bent over hard, hand clapped over his mouth as if he could keep himself from throwing up simply by sealing his lips. It didn't work, and he knelt in the grass and heaved, coughing and spitting, tears running from his eyes.

He couldn't do this again. He always had Ikkaku with him when this happened, but he didn't this time. He was all alone. He was going to die. He was going to die alone, where no one would see or hear, where no one would know.

Yumichika got up, bracing himself against a tree as he stared into the dark forest. He had to find Ikkaku. Izuru hadn't made it. Izuru hadn't said, but he always woke up here in a pair with Shuuhei, and if Shuuhei hadn't been with him, that meant that he was dead too. Yumichika dry-heaved a few more times, coughing up bile.

Kira and Hisagi hadn't made it, but Ikkaku had to be okay. Ikkaku always made it out of this thing, and Yumichika just had to find him and everything would be fine.

More importantly, he had to pass off this key. He couldn't hold onto it for too long or they were all toast.

He held himself tight as he crept through the woods. It was dark and quiet, but the silence was oppressive and buzzing in his ears. Something was lurking out there, the distant rattling of chains, far-off howls. Yumichika whipped around, breathing hard, swallowing as he though he saw a white ghostly face looming in the distance. Those masked monsters…

He hated this forest. He and Ikkaku had been lost here before in these dangerous trees, and they'd always had a plan. Ikkaku would take his lighter out of his pocket and hold it in the air until Yumichika found his way to him, even though it attracted all sorts of hungry beasts.

Chains clanged and clinked around him, and Yumichika had to screw his eyes shut and keep his head huddled down as he slinked through the heavy vines and the metal links. He could feel hanging legs bumping against his shoulders, but he refused to look, shuddering hard and breathing out of control.

"Yumichikaaa!" he finally heard, and he almost sobbed in relief. It was Ikkaku, somewhere on his right, maybe. He was okay. They were going to be okay.

"I'm here!" he called back, and he didn't like the sound of his own voice, so weak and helpless. He was shaking all over, hands fisting in his t-shirt in anxiety as he heard something moving around behind him, something big. He eeped and his body jolted, forcing him to speedwalk in the opposite direction as calmly as he could. He could hear chains dragging around in the darkness. Oh, he didn't like this at all.

"I'm here!" he called again, lip wobbling. God, he could hardly speak.

"Yumichika! Thank god! I've been callin' an' callin'! Get the fuck over here!" Yumichika laughed a little, and it sounded high pitched and crazy in his own ears. He could always count on his friend to never change, even in moments of high stress.

"I can't-" he gasped, stumbling over something soft, hiccupping and cringing away. A body. No, only half of a body. He held his stomach, breathing fast, "I can't see you! Where are you?!" he cried, so scared that he was an inch from breaking into tears.

"This way! I'm over here! Speed up that sack lunch, buddy!" Ikkaku hollered, and Yumichika nodded to himself, heading in the direction the voice seemed to be coming from.

More chains and deep growling sounded from behind him, and suddenly a light went on in the distance and Yumichika was scrambling for it as fast as he could go. It didn't seem to be illuminating much since Ikkaku was holding it high over his head, but it was enough for Yumichika to follow. It hadn't been exactly where he'd thought the voice was coming from, but he was so scared that his perception was surely off.

"Hurry up, I'm scared shitless, man!" Ikkaku begged, voice finally breaking, and Yumichika's mouth trembled. It was different tonight. He could feel it. Someone must have died with Ikkaku too. Yumichika had had to watch Yachiru cough and struggle in a chloroform tank.

"I'm-I'm coming!" Yumichika called, hands around his mouth as he continued feeling his way around in the dark, arms out in front of him. The light was closer now, motionless in Ikkaku's steady grip. Usually it was just a pinprick of a flame, but tonight it was glowing brighter.

"Yumichika, this way! What are you doing?!"

"I'm almost there," Yumichika said quietly, out of breath, hearing rattling from behind him as he went. He'd gotten a few heart-stopping glimpses of white bone, smooth white masks, but as soon as he got to Ikkaku, they'd be okay. They could hold hands and run for their lives. They had a safe place that they hadn't told anyone about. They could wait it out. They'd survive.

He had to pass Ikkaku the key before something bad happened.

"Yumichika, wait!"

He came to a very small clearing, looking up at the light in the air, eyes narrowing. Nothing was underneath it. Ikkaku should be right-

"Yumichika!... Answer me!"

Suddenly, chains were yanked taught, locking around his ankles, holding him utterly motionless, and Yumichika was given just a second's glimpse of teeth, a large smiling mouth, and the lure, moving down to glow near his face, lighting up the creature's horrible body. He gasped, taking a breath to scream, but never getting the chance as he was swallowed up and torn to pieces.

"YUMICHIKA, WHERE ARE YOU?!"

Renji hid in a lone bus-stop along a dusty abandoned road. The woods lay a short ways away, along with a ratty wooden shed. The chemical plant was on the other side of the road. The layout of this place never made sense to him, but Renji knew there weren't many places to stay that were safe for long.

Hearing panting and gasping and heavy footfalls, Renji picked his head up from where he was huddling, seeing his senpai come tearing into the glass enclosure and collapse on the ground with a breath that sounded suspiciously like a frustrated sob.

"Senpai," Renji said shakily, grabbing his arm and lifting his face. Ikkaku was a fucking mess. His eyes were red, and his teeth were gritted hard. "What happened?" he asked stoically, and Ikkaku looked at him for a minute, before his chest clenched up and he put a forearm over his eyes, bending over silently, convulsing with a sob that was desperately trying to escape but wasn't allowed exit. His body racked and seized for a few moments, but there was no sound other than choking. Renji had never wanted someone to start crying more in his life, but watching this just hurt.

Renji touched Ikkaku's fist where it was braced against the ground. Ikkaku jolted back, practically kicking him in the face as he scrambled away, holding the key close to his chest.

He had a hand clamped over his mouth and was trying to calm his breathing, eyes closing, no tears falling. Renji watched on silently, sick to his stomach. Ikkaku was fucking shaking.

"Where's Yumichika?" he suddenly asked, dread shooting up his back as the thought hit him all at once. Those two were always together in these fucking things.

"It's over. We're done. There's no way out of this madhouse," he answered, voice wrenched and scratchy. Ikkaku was an absolute wreck. "Yumichika's dead."

"No. How do you know that," Renji said immediately, in denial, shaking his head numbly. He couldn't do this again. He'd lost Rukia, and he wasn't losing another one of his friends in this hell.

"He was there and we were calling to each other, and he suddenly stopped answering. I found body parts," Ikkaku explained, voice finally hardened and furious as he pulled himself together, eyes going dry. Renji shook his head again.

"He could still be okay. Hope for the best. It might not have been him. There's a lot of junk in that woods, it doesn't mean that it was-"

"Look, you little fuck," Ikkaku snarled, eyes crazed, and Renji had to back away, holding his hands up in appeasement. "Whatever got him spat him out in chunks. I found his shoe on the ground-"

"He could've been running that fast that it came off!" Renji shouted desperately, even though he knew that was bullshit. Yumichika's shoes laced on really tight. They were not slip-ons. Even with those words leaving his mouth, Renji could feel hot emotion bubbling in his chest. Yumichika couldn't be gone too.

Ikkaku cut him off, growling in frustration. "It didn't slip off his foot, okay? His leg was still inside it! Yumichika is dead," he said, choking halfway through, turning green and letting his head fall back against the glass with a bang.

Renji sat there in a daze for a moment. 'Dead. Dead. Dead.'

Ikkaku opened his eyes when he couldn't stop seeing Rangiku's body on that pike, a bloody feather, Yumichika's converse lying in the woods, the skeleton key poking out of a large hole near the side of it where something had obviously bitten and torn. His mangled leg was still inside the shoe, his light grey jeans torn and soaked with blood. Ikkaku didn't need to bring the rest of the pieces to the glow of his lighter to realize whose body it was.

He'd taken the key where it was kept safely beneath his friend's foot. Yumichika had always liked to store money in his shoe instead of a wallet. It had driven Ikkaku nuts, but now…

Ikkaku coughed a couple times to get the tightness out of his throat, chest tensing up so hard with the force of his grief that he couldn't move for a moment. "What the hell is happening?" he snapped. He wanted vengeance for this. He would have revenge. He couldn't bring Yumichika back into the world, but he would sure as hell make the world sorry. "How the fuck did we get back here again?"

Renji was quiet for a long time. "Ichigo's having another nightmare," he finally said. Ikkaku punched the wall, the bulletproof glass rattling hard.

"Are you fucking kidding me?! I thought he said he figured out how to stop sucking us into this shit! I'm gonna' kill him when I get outta' here. Yumichika's dead!" he repeated, screaming it.

Renji swallowed, eyes dull and unseeing. "He doesn't mean for it to happen. He's gonna' wanna' kill himself."

"Maybe he fucking should! Why should we have to go through this?!"

"You don't mean that," Renji said, looking down at his lap. Ikkaku put his head in his hands, fist still gripping tightly around the precious key. Yumichika's final words to him kept playing in his mind. He'd sounded so scared, then so dazed, like… a moth drawn to the light.

"Fuck this," Ikkaku breathed.

He couldn't believe this shit was happening again. It had started out normally enough, having nightmares after watching one too many horror movies, and soon enough, he and Yumichika had realized they'd been having the same dreams about each other. It wasn't difficult, considering that they talked about any and everything together.

From there, they'd realized that they were actually there and that their other friends were actually there too, and it didn't take many more nights for the first casualty.

Renji gave a long breath, trying to calm himself down. He didn't know how long this had gone on, whether Ichigo's dreams had been influencing theirs for a long time and it was just that none of them had met up inside of them, because he'd seen a lot of messed up shit at night after Ichigo finished his Silent Hill game, but he'd never seen any of his friends there.

It wasn't until that train accident and all those people had died. Ichigo had come back with a broken arm, but Renji could tell that whatever he'd seen had fucked him up. Ichigo hadn't been able to sleep well for a long time, and when he finally had, the nightmares were out of control, and people started to get hurt in them.

They'd gotten progressively worse until the first death. By then, each of them had adapted somewhat to the surroundings and tried their damndest to stay awake in the first place. Ichigo's dreams made horrifying sense. They weren't weird and disjointed other than location-wise. They were rational and gruesome, and what happened remained when they awoke. Ichigo's imagination was killer. Hah.

Renji remembered what had happened to Rukia with a shudder.

Ikkaku words broke him out of his thoughts. He sounded so angry but so close to breaking into tears that Renji's heart ached. "I'm gonna' wake up and he's gonna' be dead," he said in a small but furious voice, eyes distant, "… strewn apart in our house."

'Dead, dead, dead,' It went over and over in Renji's mind. Rukia, Keigo, and now Yumichika too. Who knows how many other had died tonight.

Yumichika was gone. No more annoying advice telling Renji to find a lover. No more of him making him grab perfume samples when they were in the mall. No more of him picking all the olives off of everyone else's pizza. No more snarky attitude or hair-flipping or gut-busting elbow jabs. His friend was dead. Renji put a fist to his mouth, screwing his eyes shut. They had to get out of here, for his sake.

Ikkaku's voice broke a few times as he choked out, "He was in pieces-" Renji grabbed Ikkaku by the shoulders, hushing him up.

"Look, we gotta' find Ichigo. If he wakes up inside but not outside, it's over." Ikkaku nodded, wiping his nose with a sniff. "You take care of getting his body awake, and I'll get him awake in here."

"Okay," he said, eyes on the ground. Renji clapped him on the shoulder and they looked around the barren land. They had to get to that plant. Smoke was rising over there.

"He's up," Ikkaku said lowly, and Renji just dragged him along until they broke into a run. Renji couldn't let this happen again, not this time. They had to make it there. If only they could just get closer to that damn place. It seemed like they'd been running for a full ten minutes when they started to hear things from behind them, rocks breaking, grumbling, like the very earth was shaking beneath them.

They suddenly heard, 'Bad luck,' the voice growling so deep that it was almost below their threshold, and suddenly the ground cracked. Renji turned around, still running, watching as lava shot through the parched ground.

His eyes widened in horror as a massive elemental fist reached out of the ground and slammed down, sending Ikkaku flying. He crawled as fast as he could, teeth gritted, but was snagged by the leg and dragged backwards.

Renji turned and froze as the ground surged, a huge gaping maw falling open, red hot. Ikkaku was gone with a clap, his arm still reaching out with the key clasped there in his hand. The earth opened up once, revealing him half-crushed, with just enough strength to throw it to Renji, who caught it and immediately jammed it in his mouth, shoving it back down his throat. He gagged hard, bending over, and then watched in horror as Ikkaku sunk into the glop, strength suddenly returning as he writhed and shrieked, body melting in the lava as he was slowly consumed.

Renji screwed his eyes shut and turned to run, gasping and choking as his friend's pained screams continued and then stopped within a matter of moments. Renji's breath broke and shuddered, tears running down his face as the dusty ground made way for damp grass.

There had been no hope, he told himself, there had been no hope for Ikkaku. He'd had to leave him. It's what Ikkaku would've told him to do if he'd been able to speak anyway. He'd had to leave him, there had been no hope. Renji heaved once, but kept the bile down, stomach tight and queasy.

He scrambled up a hill and onto the porch of a creepy old house, immediately heading through the door and up the creaking staircase, not gratifying the surroundings with even a moment's chance to scare him more than he already was.

He could hear moaning from downstairs and turned for a moment, seeing a white mask, but he just sobbed once through gritted teeth. Two of his upperclassmen, two of his friends were dead in one night. Oh, why was this happening?

He opened a door and slammed it behind him, pleased and terrified when he was left in a very long hallway with no windows or doors. He began to feel claustrophobic as he went down it, and by halfway through, he knew there was someone behind him. He could feel it from the way the hair prickled on the back of his neck and the way his stomach seized up with sudden intense fear, the kind that made him want to ball up on the floor. Not turning to look, he took off running, breath practically screaming in his lungs as he sprinted for the door on the other side. He hammered on it for a second, yanking on the handle, before it opened and he got inside and slammed it behind him.

It was deathly silent. It was a morgue. Hah. Ha-ha. Ha. Making those bad jokes was the only way Renji could get through these things without having a mental breakdown. He swallowed hard, moving through the white room and the countless sheet-covered tables. He held his fists at his sides, tensing them anxiously before he braced himself against the wall, shoving his fingers down his throat.

He choked and coughed, bending over, giving himself a moment to breathe, saliva filling his mouth. He hacked once more, before shoving his hand back in his mouth, as far back as he could, and suddenly, he grabbed his gut and threw up, snatching up the key and spitting some of the bad taste out of his mouth. He braced a shaky arm against the filing-cabinet wall, standing up and holding his stomach.

'Kuchiki Rukia,' he read on the drawer, gasped, and hurled himself away.

He stopped dead as he heard rattling across the massive room; was one of the bodies moving around in their drawer? No, this wasn't from the wall, it was from...

Heading towards the noise apprehensively, Renji passed countless tables, all with crisp bleached sheets. Not one had a hand or arm hanging down from the table-surface, not one had blood spots on the blankets. They were just white cloth-covered bodies, and Renji felt the morbid impulse to see who was under one of them, but he shook himself out of that pretty quick.

There was a table up ahead, the only one in the room where the body's face was uncovered, and the person was thrashing around. Only, it wasn't a mortuary table, it was a bed, and the sheets weren't white, they were blue. It was Ichigo, asleep, and kicking violently.

'Don't wake him up.'

Renji swallowed carefully, taking a cautious step, the slimy key practically embedded in his fist. "Ichigo," he whispered. He had to wake him up.

'Don't awaken a dreaming man.'

Renji had to wake Ichigo up before he was killed in here. Before he knew it, these corpses might rise as zombies or something. He had to do something. For his friends. For Rukia, for Ikkaku and Yumichika, for… for Ichigo. Renji grit his teeth and stepped forward towards the steel table and the bed. "Ichigo," he called softly, reaching a hand out like he was trying to make himself touch fire.

With a sleepy moan, Ichigo rolled over, face scrunched up in what seemed to be agony. He kicked violently, the bed-sheets never seeming to come off no matter how hard he writhed.

"Hey, Ichigo, wake up," Renji said, touching the foot of the bed, and immediately, Ichigo sat straight up, startling Renji so bad that he fell back on his ass.

His heart jumped into his throat. Ichigo's eyes were open, and they were black. His irises were golden, and he was staring straight at him. Suddenly, a smile spread slowly across Ichigo's face and Renji nearly wet himself.

With a soft whimper through his gritted teeth, Ichigo convulsed, head falling back, blackness creeping up the side of his neck like there was ink in his veins. Renji watched in horror, breath pausing as Ichigo's skin color seemed to drain away. His body was turning white, seriously white, and the next time Ichigo's head rolled back to his, his seizing ceasing, his tongue was blue and his hair was white too.

"Ichigo?" Renji whispered into the silence, hardly daring to move.

"Who's that?" came a wild cackle.

Ichigo reached out to him then, quicker than Renji had expected to, and he screamed bloody murder, scrambling away as the white-face jumped for him and grabbed him one-handed around the throat. Renji tried to back up out of it, but it was right there with him, shoving him further until his back hit the wall, cutting off his air.

Renji shouted and kicked, but its strength was too much. "Ichigo," he coughed, hands wrapping tight around Ichigo's wrist, trying to pry him back, desperately, feeling nails digging into his neck. "Ichigo!" he yelled with as much air as he could muster, "Y- gotta' wake up," he choked out.

"It'll be bad enough- finding everyone else dead, but not me, not me-" he croaked, vision already beginning to fuzz, his head feeling warm and heavy from blood-loss, "Please, you'll hate yourself, it'll kill you insi-" His breath cut off as it squeezed hard, and all he could do was struggle against its grip.

The key fell to the floor with a clatter, and Renji could dimly hear it, trying desperately to look down to where it had fallen. No, no, he needed it! The key had fallen from his grasp! His friends had died for it, to give him a sliver of hope!

He tried to inhale, but there wasn't even a chance for it anymore. His vision was turning black and everything tingled as he scrabbled uselessly at Ichigo's hand. His lips and eyeballs were aching and feeling swollen from lack of blood. He could hear crazed laughter, and just as his eyes were drifting closed, he saw someone sitting around in the corner.

With a wild kick, he slid the key to the old man. Renji smiled, frothing at the mouth, neck popping as Ichigo's grip tightened further. The key inserted into the wall-socket and turned. The lights flickered on, and Renji's eyes opened just in time.

He clutched at his chest and coughed hard, gasping for air, kicking his blankets off his legs. He spent a few minutes shuddering and letting tears run from his eyes, shell-shocked and staring above him into the darkness.

He finally reached under his pillow and tapped frantically at his cell with shaking fingers, calling Ichigo's number, clutching the phone to his ear. No response. It went to answering machine after a little while. Renji called again, and the third time he tried, Ichigo picked up. He heard breathing, and a choked noise, crying sounds, and Renji just listened, breathing with him for a few minutes, swallowing hard as he heard the poor kid try to get out the words of an apology, as he tried to ask who had been...

Hisagi was Renji's roommate, and as Renji clutched the phone and stayed on the line with his crying best friend, light from their digital clock began to illuminate the room, and Renji could make out the blood dripping down from the mattress above and the arm hanging over the edge of the bed.

They could've coordinated their sleep schedules, they could've made sure that Ichigo never slept at the same time as any of them until they figured out how to stop this from happening, but they'd fucked up. Who knows how many people had died that time. Renji got up, wiping a drop of blood off his face and getting his jacket on, running out of his dorm and down to his car.

He swore he heard rattling in his ears as he told Ichigo to hold on and wait for him to get there. It clicked suddenly. Not chains. Pill bottles.

Renji swallowed and just hung onto the steering wheel, hearing the water running, a cupboard opening. "Ichigo."

Rattling, lids opening.

"Ichigo, please," Renji begged. "Just wait for me to get there." Silence… Had Ichigo just hung up? Shit! Renji frantically looked at his phone screen, swerving on the road. He'd passed a few ambulances already, but all he was concerned about was if his friend had hung up.

"Ichigo, are you there? C'mon, answer me, man." All he could hear was slow breathing, as if Ichigo had laid the phone on his shoulder and was lying on his back. "Ichigo," Renji urged, throwing his car into park and running towards the clinic, kicking the door in.

It was dark, but Renji went straight to the upstairs bathroom, almost falling on his face as he slipped on the stairs. The door was locked and the light was off inside. "Ichigo," he whispered. "Ichigo, let me in."

No answer. Renji knocked on the door, kicking it, wailing on it, trying to break it in, but the lock was solid - by then, Ichigo's family was awake and worried. Renji was frantic. Just as he was about to call one one nine, he heard a metal sliding noise and his heart stopped as something hit him in the knee.

The key.