AN: I get the feeling that Doctor Crane's office wallpaper looks like the rug in The Shining.
SwordStitcher-Never, if I'm careful. And I'm always careful. Rubbish. Broken glass. Aside from that. There was that time that you weren't looking where you were going and walked into a door. I AM ALWAYS CAREFUL. Sure, love. Sure.
Emma-One great reaction and they never let you forget it. Don't complain, at least they remember. Still. What about the time one of them impaled himself on a candlestick? God, that was a bloody mess...
Just-Me-and-My-Brain-DON'T. EVEN. GO. THERE. I was wondering, too... I knew you were faking. You did? Yes. You got there in record time. Long legs. He panicked. I did not! Yes, you did. I'm touched.
Cookie VanDeKamp-Well, that isn't difficult. FEAR ME! Was that really necessary? Yes. Really? Don't judge me! Oh, I'm judging. Fine. No wonder they call me a lunatic... You are. I blame you.
Nobody came into the room for the next day and a half. No food, no water, no nothing. There wasn't even any sounds outside. The only sound was the soft skreee…skreee… that had been going on ever since he'd found that fingernail.
He tried talking to himself to drown it out, but eventually his voice got hoarse and he couldn't do it anymore.
Where was Crane? Why hadn't he come back?
He didn't want to rip his own tongue out, but even Crane was better than that horrible skreee…skreee…
God, he was hungry. Hungry and hot and more than a little afraid. What was making that goddamn noise? WHAT WAS MAKING THAT GODDAMN NOISE?
Never mind. It didn't matter. He would go to sleep and hope-like he'd hoped every night since he'd been brought here-that he would wake up and find that all of this had been a horrible nightmare.
He woke when the heat grew too much to bear. God, what was going on? Why was it so damn hot in this room?
He cracked his eyes open and spotted a bowl of soup. It was too hot for soup, far too hot.
His stomach growled and he grabbed for the bowl anyone. Food…at last.
It was curiously salty and he wondered if he was being sentenced to a slow death by dehydration. Who cared? Food.
He finished it in minutes and curled up on the couch again, tasting salt in his mouth. Hot. Too hot.
He swallowed hard and closed his eyes. Sweat was dripping down his face.
Ugh…
He stripped completely and lay there, gasping and wishing he had a glass of ice water. Ice water…lemonade, maybe…iced tea…
Stop it, Mark!
He could almost taste it.
He fell asleep to the memory of air conditioning and ice cream.
He woke again when it was dark outside, the rain hammering the glass. The scraping sound had not stopped.
Wait.
Maybe it was the heat making him see things, but he would swear that the walls were moving. It looked like they were…melting. Like a bowl of ice cream left out in the sun.
No way.
He rubbed his face against a pillow on the couch and looked again. No. The walls were melting. Just sinking down, down into a little mound of hexagonal wallpaper.
Was that a light behind the walls?
"Let me out!" He scrambled up and staggered to the door. "Let me out! Fire!"
The door was burning. Nobody came.
He had to get out. Had to.
Had to.
He dug his nails into the wood and scraped.
