Four days before Cartman flung himself into Bechdel-Holtz, Kyle Broflovski stood up from his work computer, walked away from everything the company was asking of him, and stared down from a window. It wasn't his window - Kyle didn't have a window. (He did have a succulent, though. He liked to call it "Gerald," named for his deranged father. Kyle didn't like his father, but he liked his plant. It put a smile on his face, despite the drudgery of his job and the mounting evidence of corruption in the asylum.)

The window.

Lately, Kyle became distracted so easily. His thoughts wandered away from work and from family and instead off into the woods and down trails that had no visible end. His work slowed. Not that it mattered - Kyle had typed up an email and sent it to every journalist's inbox he could find. He would expose this hellhole. It would burn just as it deserved to.

Right, the window. He opened it. Kyle needed the air. With the email finally sent, it was high-time Kyle took a moment to breathe. He propped his elbows up on the windowsill. It was a nice place to get some air; Kyle's cubicle was in a suffocating room with no windows and by far too many silent workers, but this quiet game room, while intended for patients, was empty today. It usually was. So Kyle took his lunch break in this room, as he did on many days. He really… he needed the quiet.

He wouldn't be getting that today, though. The door to the lounge swung open, followed by a couple of suits and a handful of lab coats entering. Kyle stood bolt upright.

"Mr. Broflovski?" one of the men asked.

Kyle met his eyes: hard, cold, blue - this man's soul was as dark as his black suit. Kyle responded, "That's me."

Kyle had wondered if they would come. If they knew what he was doing all along. If they were watching. Now, it looked as though Kyle's suspicion was being confirmed.

"You've been reported to be unwell lately. The company would like you to be formally evaluated - for safety concerns." The man smiled as he spoke, the kind of smile that's supposed to be warm but only belies the coldness of a person's heart.

"Oh," Kyle said, "I see. Would you like me to set up a time for this evaluation? Tomorrow, perhaps?"

The group smiled. "No," the man said. "Right now would be best."

Kyle knew he had no choice. He went with the doctors.

He was weighed, his height measured, was asked questions. His medical history. Childhood development. It took nearly two hours, if Kyle estimated correctly. The room Kyle sat in was simple. White walls, a sink, a counter, a stool (with wheels), one armchair with a cushion that slowly released air as Kyle sat on it, and one of those doctor's office kind of almost-beds that people insisted on calling an examination "table." A simple examination room. No posters. The small room didn't even have a window.

The nurse sat on the stool, Kyle in the armchair. There was no noise as the air slowly let out of the cushion. Kyle did scowl, slightly, though he had more reasons than sitting in a cheap armchair for him to scowl over.

Kyle wondered why the nurse had to ask all these questions. He was certain that the asylum would have collected information on him prior to hiring. But perhaps, what if they hadn't?

Or maybe they just wanted to watch Kyle's reactions, his personal answers, not just the facts given in his file.

The nurse hunched slightly, a trait which became more obvious when he sat. The man took notes by hand, leaning over a clipboard while tapping his foot against one of the wheels of his stool. Tap tap tap. Tap tap. Tap tap. Then, he would ask another question. "Did you get along with authority?" he would ask.

"For the most part, yes." Kyle would answer.

"Did you get sick often as a child?"

"More than other kids, but not too often."

The nurse would nod, his dark curls bobbing up and down over his ears. He would jot down some notes (tap tap tap), then ask more questions.

"Do you still get sick more often than your peers?" Kyle had met the nurse's eyes then. They were soft and dark; steady and kind. This was a man who thought he was doing his job honestly. This was a man living unaware of the inhumane testing, the experiments, the abuse, the torture, the lies and deceit and blood running through the halls of this asylum, the very one this man worked for. It was for the best. If he knew, then maybe he would be sitting in an uncomfortable armchair, fear in his kind, dark eyes, being questioned on his history. Would he go quietly? Would he fight? Would he scream and kick and run? Kyle sat. Motionless.

"I suppose," Kyle answered after a moment. There was no need to get into his own head, to see some emotion or kindness in a stranger's eyes. Kyle didn't know this nurse. He didn't know what all this man knew, what he lived with. Kyle was only pretending. Projecting. He was imagining what he wanted to see in a stranger right now - kindness, innocence.

Eventually, the nurse left, and Kyle sat alone in the room.

The lightbulb buzzed - a small, tinny noise that sounded almost like the ringing Kyle got in his ears so often. It sounded so damn annoying.

The room. Kyle scanned his eyes across it for the hundredth time since being led in by the group of doctors and executives, but it was his first time taking in the room without anyone watching him. Perhaps there was camera surveillance. Kyle couldn't see anything on the ceiling aside from a sprinkler, a fire alarm, and a smoke detector. It didn't mean the room was camera-free, but Kyle was willing to assume he wasn't being watched.

Under the sink and counter were cabinets and drawers, and more cabinets were on the wall above the counter. Kyle stood, in order to search the drawers, when the door opened.

The nurse had returned, a weak smile across his copper-toned face and some folded clothes in his arms. "Sorry, I almost forgot. Please change into these. A doctor will be in to see you soon." The nurse deposited the clothes into Kyle's arms, which Kyle held out stiffly. And then the man shuffled out again. The door clicked, and then the buzzing was all that remained.

After a full second of rigid silence, Kyle turned his gaze down to the clothes. They were neatly folded. He could imagine them in some closet, full of baggy gowns and cotton pants and sleeveless shirts, each oversized to compensate for body diversity. Kyle toed off his slip-on dress shoes and pulled off his black socks. He placed both on the armchair, where they sat without causing the cushion to lose air. Then his belt, draping it over the back of the chair; his pants, folding them, setting them on the chair, pulling on the white cotton pants. The waistband was stretchy and itched around his hips, too tight from not being stretched enough, and the pant legs were creased down the side from being folded for so long. Next his shirt, unbuttoning it, unrushed. It sat on the chair as well. The pile looked so neat - light green shirt, black slacks, black shoes, simple black belt, and black socks, all carefully folded and placed on the armchair. Kyle pulled on the cotton shirt. It was a sleeveless v-neck style and too baggy for Kyle's slim frame. He wondered what he looked like, but there were no mirrors in the room. No slippers, either, though Kyle rationalized that the floors must be cleaned thoroughly and regularly.

Then again, considering the rest of the corruption, they might not be cleaned very well or very often.

But considering how many employees worked here every day as if things were normal, completely ignorant to the grand corruption of the asylum, they would clean as they would at any other mental hospital. That's what Kyle rationalized, at least. Reality was an unknown, too far off, and not worth investigating too far anymore.

Kyle sat right on the edge of the examination table, let his feet hang, and waited for the doctor to open the door and decide which step into Hell Kyle would take next.

He waited.

Kyle had no watch - his had broken the week before and was still waiting to buy a replacement. He also didn't have his phone - he'd left it on his desk.

He pondered the fate of his things at his desk: that everything could be thrown away or given to other employees, employees who wouldn't know Kyle. They who wouldn't recognize that succulent as the very succulent belonging to the ginger communications assistant who suddenly stopped working for Bechdel-Holtz. The one who went insane, who had to be committed for the safety of others. His desk suddenly empty, the game lounge he so often ate lunch in left permanently empty, the window left open so that only the ghost of Kyle Broflovski could stare out at the gates. Kyle Broflovski won't have windows anymore, just the small window on his cell door, with only other cells to gaze at.

His wallet was in his pants pocket, but he figured it didn't matter much anymore. If he tried to keep it on him, a doctor or nurse would likely take it from him. As for his clothes, sitting neatly on the armchair, Kyle supposed they would be disposed of. Even if his clothes and things were stored, he didn't expect to get them back.

In sending that email, Kyle has signed his own death warrant. Whatever lay ahead, he had already given in to it. Whatever they did to him, Kyle had, hopefully-God, hopefully-caused the first domino to fall. Reporters would come, police would come, and maybe Kyle would still be alive and sane when they came. He might be free.

He groaned. Kyle was getting bored. And depressed. The more he thought about his potential fate here, the more hollow he felt. And the goddamn buzzing of the all-too-bright light bulb wasn't helping his mood. The walls reflected the light too well, making everything just slightly too bright to look at. Kyle felt himself squinting. He was getting a headache. The longer he was left alone in the tiny room, the more Kyle imagined he might really go insane.

It felt like it'd been forever since his nurse left. So Kyle decided "fuck it" and started rifling through the drawers and cabinets. He found disposable gloves, popsicle sticks, cotton swabs, Petri dishes, tissues, and other things, but nothing immediately useful. Kyle wished his pants had pockets so that he could at least take some of these things for later.

Kyle huffed and sat back on the examination table. After another unknowable amount of time, he lay down across the table. It was more like a bed, anyway. It was beginning to feel like forever had passed. Technically, the door was unlocked. Kyle could just open it up and see if anyone was around. But he figured they might just abuse him if he did that. God and Kyle both knew these people treated normal patients like that, why not their prisoner-patient as well?

The longer he lay on the table, the closer to sleep Kyle drifted. Eventually, Kyle felt himself slipping in and out of dreams. They were vague; a claustrophobic forest with distant figures running like the shadows of birds, too fast and indistinct to follow. The shadowy figures ran and laughed and screamed and howled. Kyle would blink and see the white walls of the room, but then be back in the forest. The room seemed to dim, it's white walls cast with the shadows of tree trunks. Beyond the walls and through the trees, the figures ran and yelled through the darkness. His eyes would slip shut and the forest would take over almost completely, but each time Kyle opened his eyes and returned to the room, it dimmed and grew more trees. When Kyle closed them again, the forest seemed to move from the dead of night and into twilight. Kyle could almost make out the figures who screamed among the trees, wearing white coats and blue scrubs, yelling and screaming and shrieking. The forest buzzed. The sound seemed so familiar. The buzzing blended with the howls and laughter of the figures until it became a cacophony of buzzing cackles, like cicadas in summer. Kyle lay on the forest floor and listened and watched, waiting for the figures to run in his direction. They never did. They couldn't reach him nor see him; his door was locked and he had no windows.

Kyle had no idea how long he spent in his half-sleep, but eventually, he opened his eyes all the way and focused on the walls of his blank room. He kept trying to blink away the dream, but somehow he could still hear the cackling laughter and the screams and the howls.

As Kyle woke up fully, he realized that the screams weren't limited to his dreams. They echoed as if underwater, blocked from entering his room by the closed door. Kyle slid off the bed. He stood at the door, listening. While in this same room, Kyle had begun to make his peace with death, with insanity, with torture and experiments and small white rooms with cots and only himself to listen to. Kyle listened to the echoes, to the buzzing light bulb, and opened the unlocked door.

This chapter felt a bit weird to write, so I hope it turned out okay. Feedback is always welcome, btw! :D Thanks so much for reading!