After what seemed like forever, the ambulance finally pulled up to the ambulatory entrance of Half-Blood Hill. The outside looked nothing like a twentieth-century asylum; it was actually pretty decent looking. I was wheeled out of the ambulance and into the hospital with my parents (I did say I could walk, but apparently I wasn't allowed off of it until I reach the unit). We reach the unit and stopped at the desk labeled 'check-in', where I was finally released from the gurney. The lady sitting there looked up, and smiled sadly at my mother and I, noticing that I was a new patient. The woman put a yellow bracelet on my wrist then led my parents and me into a small glass-wall room so that my parents could take care of all the legal documents and such.

Halfway through signing forms, a nurse came in. "Anna-Beth? Am I pronouncing your name correctly?" I told her that yes she was, then she smiled and introduced herself. "I'm Nurse Beauregard," she said sweetly, "but you can just call me Silena. Are you ready for a tour of the unit?"

I said yes and decided that I liked Silena. After bidding a quick good-bye to my parents, I followed Silena down a hallway, to where I assumed my room would be. On the way there, we saw eleven kids sitting around a staff member who seemed to be an occupational therapist (OT). I could see Dr. Solace wasn't lying when he said he had to jump on the spot as soon as possible; I took the only bed left. Silena pointed out each patient to me, telling me their names and ages but never mentioning their diagnosis. I guess it was that confidentiality thing I read earlier. Apparently we could share what we wanted with each other, but staff was legally obligated not to spread our business.

I made mental notes in my head. Percy, he was 17 like me. He had messy black hair and sea green eyes. He didn't seem to interact with the group much. But he also kept looking into the corners. When he wasn't doing that, his eyes looked glazed over. Frank, in the another corner of the room, was 16. He looked to be half-Asian and he sat with all of his muscles tensed up as if he was expecting an attack or something. Katie, also my age, sat in the farthest corner. She had black hair with some white streaks dyed into it and forest-green eyes. And she looked pretty normal. Aside from the fact that she looked absolutely terrified. Then we moved onto those with the OT. Right next to the OT was Thalia, and she was also 17. She had short black hair and electric blue eyes; she was gorgeous, but also deathly skinny. Like, bones-poking-out-of-the-skin skinny. Nico, a 15 year old, sat next to her. He had eyes that were almost onyx and hair of the same color. His head was hung low and he had on a sweatshirt, even though it was mildly warm in here. Leo was a 15 year old Latino with gorgeous curls on his head. He didn't really looked like he belonged here, but he was sporting a mischievous grin on his face. Next to him was Piper, also 15. She was amazingly gorgeous, and I envied her appearance even though I was two years older than her. Her eyes were like a kaleidoscope, so there was no way to really label the color. The only imperfection she had was her hair. It would have been an amazing straight brunette color but it looked like she had given herself a bad haircut. She was tapping her foot and looking around a lot though. Jason, who was 16, sat next to her. He had blond hair and blue eyes, which looked to be on high alert. He also had on a t-shirt, revealing the gauze on his wrists and arms. Another 16 year old named Hazel sat next to him. She was black and had curly hair that started out brown but ended in a more copper color. Her eyes were hazel as well (I bet her parents had a great sense of humor) but they looked really tired and drained. Then there was Rachel; she was 18 and one of the oldest patients here. She had wild curly red hair and pretty emerald eyes. Just like Jason, she had gauze on but hers were thicker and looked more secured. Each elbow was on each of her knees and was whispering something to herself that I couldn't make out. Will was the last one; he was 18 with blonde hair and blue eyes. He was sickly thin, but not as much as Thalia was. More like me, I guess.

Thalia, Leo, Piper, Hazel, Katie, and Will had green bracelets. Nico, Jason, Rachel, and I had yellow bracelets. Only Percy and Frank had red bracelets. I started wondering what each bracelet stood for, since obviously everyone got them and they came in three different colors.

We ended up skipping the rest of the recreational portion of the unit and went to where the rooms were. It room had a name tag on the door, making it easy to know who was where. The first room was next to the nurses station, and it belonged to Percy. Right across from there, that was Frank's room. Next to Percy's room was two shower rooms, and next to Frank's room were two bathrooms. Next to the shower rooms, the order of the rooms were Nico, Leo, Thalia, Piper, and Katie. On the other side, next to the bathrooms, were Will, Hazel, Jason, Rachel, and me.

Silena unlocked my room and told me to get myself situated while she went to fetch my parents from conference room they were in, additionally having the intent to retrieve my belongings from them. After what only seemed like seconds, my mother and father appeared in my room, looking distraught.

"Annabeth," my father started slowly. I could tell this was hard for him to get out. "This hospital has pretty stupid rules, I'll be straight-forward with that much." It made me and my mother crack a smile, despite the situation we were in. "We'll only be allowed to visit every other weekend, and it just so happened that this weekend isn't a visitors one."

My smile instantly dropped and I could feel the sadness and panic rising back into my throat, but I suppose my mother caught on to my sudden change in mood.

"Hun, it'll be tough for all of us, but we'll call you on daily basis, trust me," my mother said reassuringly. I nodded in appreciation to that.

Silena popped in, letting us know we only had five minutes until my parents had to leave and I had to go to the common room to 'meet the other kids on the unit', something I was dreading. Sighing, I told my parents bye and vice versa. After they left, I was taken into the common room and sat as humanely far away from the others as possible. It seemed as though we were allowed free time for now until lunch.

Wait…lunch. Crap. How was I supposed to eat? Did they even expect me to? I wasn't even at my goal weight, much less willing to eat anything until I got there. I forced a panic attack down my throat and decided to cross that bridge when it arrived.

"Hi," a timid voice said from next to me, causing me to almost jump out of my skin. I turned and saw Frank, forgetting that he was also isolating himself from the group.

"Hi." I said almost as nervously.

"I'm Frank, who are you?" He seemed pretty nervous and frightened talking to me, so I decided he couldn't be as bad as I had thought of anyone here.

"Annabeth," I said, sticking out my hand for him to shake. He almost recoiled immediately, making me wonder what was going on.

"S—sorry," he mumbled. "Not you. I just don't let people touch me."

I convened my understanding and then decided to probe just a tad, something I usually didn't do, since I didn't even talk to people. I was actually surprised that I had decided to carry on my conversation with Frank. "If you don't mind me asking, what is your diagnosis?"

He eyed me warily, then decided to answer. "PTSD. I was raped multiple times when I was ten by a family friend—well not a friend anymore—and it pretty much traumatized me for life. I get flashbacks sometimes, so it makes me get pretty violent. Why I have this color." He said, holding up his red bracelet, then eyeing my yellow one. "Why are you here?"

I sighed, assuming that he was trustworthy since he was just willing to be so open with me. "Well…" I got a little frustrated, not being able to pin why exactly I was here with a diagnosis. "My parents found my cuts this morning…and the emergency room thinks—I mean, the psychiatrist from the emergency room thinks I have panic disorder, or social anxiety, or even depression. I'm not quite sure. But it's certain I have bulimia, I guess."

I saw a look of shared pain cross his eyes. "It's okay. I'm a total hypocrite for saying this because I never believe it, but things get better." He smiled, and I smiled back.

I then remembered the bracelets, then decided to ask about the color coding. Frank told me that green meant that the person wasn't of any danger, yellow meant that the person was of danger to themselves. Go figures, I thought, looking at my yellow bracelet. But red was the worst, Frank said. It meant that you were a danger to both yourself and others. That was why Frank got a single room, he explained. Whenever he got flashbacks, apparently it wasn't pretty. When they were over he would be overtaken in a fit of rage, punching the concrete walls in his room, where he was restrained during his fits, until his knuckles bled and then if the staff didn't close the door, they would either get a concussion or need to duck because he would throw furniture in his room directly at the door, aiming for one of the employees.

"Oh," was all I could say. "How long have you been here?"

"Eight months…" he trailed. Wait, I'm sorry; did he say eight months? "Yeah I know," he said. "Too much time. It's just that I won't get better. They can't seem to find a med that actually works for me without causing too much of a certain side effect. My mom and dad have been begging to come see me more often, but they won't let them because of the stupid rules about visitors." He sighed. "All I ever want to do is make my parents happy. When I get out of this hellhole I'll get rich enough to buy them all the shit they deserve."

I smiled and finally relaxed, Frank and I deciding to just sit in content silence for a half an hour until the dreaded lunch period.

Another nurse soon came in. Her name tag said "Nurse Tanaka", but like Silena, she told us to just call her Drew. Apparently she just transferred from the adult unit to the adolescent unit and spent some time telling us about herself. She was in her late twenties, went to Brown, played varsity volleyball, ran track, and was engaged to her fiancé Luke (who also happened to be one of the milieu counselors here—small world), whom she seemed to love very much, and vice versa. I decided that I liked Drew, just as I liked Silena.

But then she told us that it was time for lunch.

Of course I couldn't hate her for doing her job, but she delivered the news, so my likeness towards her wavered slightly. I sighed—more like groaned—inwardly when I saw twelve trays come onto the unit, which meant that each of us had to eat.

"Thalia? Annabeth? Will?" Drew called. "You need to eat at the nurse's station, please."

I saw Thalia and Will stand up and walk over with no resistance, so I followed suit. Will just glared and moved to the other side of the nurse's station. When I sat down, our food was set in front of us. I inwardly groaned while Thalia groaned out loud plainly.

Thalia just shoved her food away while everyone in the nurses station gave her a pointed look, as if to say you have to eat sooner or later. She just shrugged off the looks and turned to me.

"Hi," she started, "so your name is Annabeth? That's a pretty awesome name. Welcome to Half-Blood Hill, in case no one's told you. I've only been here for five days, but it's been an eternity to me. What's your diagnosis?"

For some reason, I could feel myself to begin to panic. Somehow I was okay around Frank, but around Thalia I felt as though I were going to have a panic attack. It wasn't that she was a bad person, she actually seemed like a pretty nice person to befriend. I started to breathe pretty heavily and I guess she caught on because of what she said next.

"Oh crap! You have some anxiety shit, don't you? Oh shit, so sorry, okay I won't pry," she quickly apologized, making my breathing calm down, hoping she wouldn't attempt to talk to me again. But curse my luck. "Okay, maybe you want to talk, maybe you don't. But I need an excuse to not eat; so I'll tell you my diagnosis. Anorexia." Explains why she's so skinny, I thought.

Actually registering what she just said, my head shot up at that, finally someone who had the same diagnosis as me! Or at least partially. I decided to just spit out what my somewhat diagnosis was. "Well they don't know a definitive diagnosis. All they know for sure is that I have bulimia. They think that I have social and general anxiety. Oh, and apparently chronic depression and being a high risk suicidal."

Thalia seemed to mull this over, before nodding. "Okay," was all she said for a while. Then: "Okay, they won't let us go until a whole hour after we eat. Scared we'll throw up, so stupid." I had to crack a smile at that. Thalia was a very expressive girl who didn't seem to care what others thought of her.

"Okay," I said, waiting for her to get to her point.

"Well," she said, "They usually argue with me for about half an hour until threatening to give me some meds that put wicked weight on me so of course then I eat. But since we're kind of in this together we eat together, mhm? Then we sit together for an hour, I won't force you to talk if you don't want—don't want you to have a panic attack—but we do this together. Deal?" And she stuck out her hand, as if to sign this deal.

I shook her hand, "Deal."

So we ate, or tried to eat, as little as possible until the nurses were satisfied with the amount of food left on our plates and then talked after that, pausing periodically so I can get my nerves under control. I still wasn't used to talking to people for so long at a time. Heck, I didn't talk to people for more than a minute if I didn't have to. But Thalia seemed to understand, because she kept reminding me that we didn't have to talk if I didn't want, or 'hey! Just imagine I'm naked! Terrifying, right? Now speak!' I learned that Thalia and her mother didn't always have the best relationship, but since she turned fourteen, they got a lot closer, and her mom is begging to come visit her more often, although the hospital has these 'shit rules', as Thalia so graciously put it. Before I knew it, the hour was up and we were free to go.

We were notified to go to "group check-in". Thalia volunteered to lead the way since it was my first day. We got to a giant room with a conference table set up for thirteen—the twelve patients here and the OT. Everyone was already sitting down, so I decided to sit right between Frank and Thalia. That's when the OT cleared his throat, then turned to the group.

"Hi, most of you met me earlier, but there's someone here who hasn't," he smiled kindly at me. "I'm Mike, an OT from the child's unit. I just recently transferred, today actually, and would like to get to know all of you. So, why don't we all stand up, say our names, the color bracelet we have, how long we've been here, and our diagnosis." Cue twelve confused looks here, and a laugh from Mike. "I know you're all thinking 'shouldn't diagnosis' be private, so says the almighty staff'? Well we all decided we might as well let you share since you lot eventually share with each other when no one's looking or listening. Of course you are in no way obligated to share, but I think it would be nice to get things off your chests."

Piper, the one closest to Mike's left, went first. "I'm Piper, I have a green bracelet because I couldn't hurt a fly, so don't be scared to talk to me. I've been here for four weeks. I'm here because they call me a 'kleptomaniac', although I say that I just like taking nice things. Been here for twelve days." She smiled and sat back down.

Jason then stood, "I'm Jason, I have a yellow bracelet. My diagnosis is panic disorder, I get anxious really easily, and I get panic attacks a lot. I tend to dig my skin off during attacks, which is why I have the yellow bracelet. My skin tends to look pretty nasty," and he rolled up his sleeves, revealing giant gashes obviously made by human fingernails, and they looked pretty bad. "I've been here for four weeks." Jason hastily rolled his sleeves down and sat back in his seat, putting his head on the table and pulling his hood over his head.

Leo jumped up enthusiastically, eager to introduce himself. "Okay! So my name is Leo! I'm a pyromaniac, but I gotta admit that they're right. Almost burned down a daycare before I came here. Ha, lucky no one was in there. Yeah, so I have a green bracelet, because obviously there's no fire in a looney bin. Oh! I've been here for…lemme see…two weeks? Yup, sounds right!" He grinned and sat back down.

Next was Thalia's turn. The entire time she was talking, she aimed a glare at everyone, almost as if asserting dominance or something. "I'm Thalia, I'm anorexic at a whooping sixty-five pounds, I have a green bracelet for obvious reasons, and I've been here for five days." Curt and straight to the point, nice.

I sat and didn't realize that it was my turn until Mike gently called my name. Crap, I thought. "Uh, hi. I don't have a definitive diagnosis yet. But the ER doctor thinks I have chronic depression, they think I'm highly suicidal, um…I'm a cutter. They think I have generalized and social anxiety. But all I know for sure is that I've been diagnosed with is bulimia. I weigh 92 pounds. My name is Annabeth, and I have a yellow bracelet. I just came today." Then I promptly sat down, careful not to look anyone in the eye directly.

Frank stood up and said, "Hi I'm Frank, I have a red bracelet, I've been here for eight months, I have PTSD because I was raped many times when I was ten. I get wicked flashbacks that result in violence, hence the red bracelet."

Nico stood up, eyes downcast and staring at the floor. "I'm Nico, I have chronic depression and I cut and burn myself, I have a yellow bracelet because I scratch my arms a lot and draw blood. I've been here for fourteen months and I miss my parents like hell." Fourteen months? That's how long I can possibly be here?

Katie spoke, but her voice was so low and she spoke so quickly that it was hardly audible. "I'm Katie, I have a green bracelet, and I have anthropophobia. I've been here for six weeks."

Next to her, Hazel spoke. "My name is Hazel and I've been here for two weeks. I don't really hurt anyone so I guess that's why I have a green bracelet. But anyways, I have bipolar disorder."

"I have OCD and I burn myself so that's why I have a yellow bracelet," Rachel said, although her speech sounded practiced, although each syllable needed to sound the same. "I've been here for like ten days…or something like that."

Will immediately scowled and I am almost certain that I heard cussing. "I'm Will, my bracelet is fucking green because why the hell not? I like drugs and I don't eat. I'm not saying my weight. There." Mike raised an eyebrow, and Will continued, "Well shit, I've been here for one day."

Last was Percy. He kept staring at the corner of the room and mumbling replies to whatever was there. "I can't…I mean my name is Percy," he looked into the corner again before continuing, "I have paranoid and general schizophrenia, um, I've been here for two and a half years…" He looked into the corner again while everyone looked completely amazed at how long he's survived here. "I have a red bracelet because my friends keep making me hurt myself and people. You can't see my friends, but they're here. This is the first check-in I've been to in a year. Can I go see Silena now?" Mike nodded, and Percy ran out of the room as fast as possible.

"Okay, I don't try to take up more than half an hour of your time, so quick check-ins. Rate your day from one to ten, one being the lowest, please."

Basically the scores went like: Piper: 8, Jason: 5, Leo: 8, Thalia: 5, me: 0, Frank: 2, Nico: negative 3, Katie: 0, Hazel: 6, Rachel: 7, and Will: 1 ("whatever the hell this means"). Mike thanked us, then let us go.

We didn't have anything to do until dinner, so for the kids who've been here for at least a week and didn't have a red bracelet (which was everyone but me, Thalia, Will, Percy, and Frank), they were invited to go outside. 'Outside' meaning a cage attached to the unit with electrical fencing going all the way up to the roof to prevent anyone from leaving.

Piper, Jason, Hazel, and Leo all went out, but Nico decided to go sleep until dinner, which was about four hours away. Thalia seconded his notion, and decided to also go to bed. Frank had to go to an appointment with the psychiatrist, Percy and Katie were talking with Silena and Drew. Will was also at the nurses station, but only to get some nicotine gum. Rachel had taken baby wipes and was currently wiping the tables on the unit. I was left filling out forms since it was my first day here. It was mainly describing level of my mood and any triggers, if I knew of them. Suddenly I felt a soft tap on my shoulder, and then I turned around.

"Excuse me? Annabeth?" I turned around slightly. "Sorry, I know you have social anxiety, but I want to say hi. My friend said I should. Hi." And with that, he turned on his heel hesitantly.

"Hi," I whispered, making him freeze, then run towards the nurse station as fast as possible. He grabbed a pen and stuck it straight in his arm, dragging it down his flesh, tearing it on the way. I screamed, "Percy!" That captured Drew's attention, who seemed to be getting someone's medication, but immediately dropped what she was doing and snatched the pen out of Percy's hand to prevent him from hurting himself anymore. He started crying, actually crying, then apologizing to Drew over and over again while he was being dragged to his room.

It was a whole twenty minutes before Percy and Drew came back out, going towards the nurse's station for his medication. Silena tried handing him the cup, but Percy declined. Silena sighed, as if this was a regular routine.

"Percy, you can't see your parents if you don't get better. The medication will help, I promise. Please," she pleaded. Percy just shook his head. "My friends say no." Silena looked sadly at him, then said okay, he's free to go.