My computer Blue Screen of Deathed this morning. That's just what I want to deal with at nine in the morning.

Solstice placed her hand on the scanner outside of room 7-013 and the door slid open. She barely made it ten steps before collapsing on the first bed, passed out cold. Equinox stumbled in behind her and the door glided shut.

"If you start talking in your sleep . . ." Equinox muttered. She knew that there was only one way to get peaceful sleep, and that was to fall asleep first. Solstice talked nonsense, sang, repeated whole conversations, and screamed in her sleep.

Equinox laid down on the other bed and fell asleep quickly.

Equinox's POV

Solstice is talking in her freaking sleep, again. Which I don't mind as much as her singing; she can sing fine, I guess, but all she sings is scary stuff and in the middle of the night, that's not what I want to hear.

"But it only matters if the swing set mischief-makers couldn't relate to the laws of gravity," Solstice mumbled, talking animatedly with her hands. "The voices in the walls are what I hate."

"Shut up, shut up, shut up," I said, hoping she could hear me in her twisted dreamland.

"I don't see the color of blue because an old- OW!" Solstice rolled off the edge of the bed and fell on the floor.

"Serves you right," I said angrily. "All I want to do is sleep and you over there will not shut your air hole."

Surprisingly, my comment was not met with a snarky reply, but with a snore, and then another. Was Solstice actually going to sleep?

I rolled over and pulled the sheet over my head; sleep came quickly and was not interrupted the rest of the night.

At five in the morning, the girl's Blackboxes went off. Equinox fumbled with the cover in the dark until she opened it. She read the message on the screen and got up.

"Wake up, Solstice," Equinox said with a yawn. She shook her friend's shoulder and Solstice's hand grabbed her wrist in an iron like grip. Solstice looked straight ahead with a glassy-staring-without-seeing look.

"Don't make me go back," Solstice said, clutching the sheets with her other hand.

Equinox blinked in surprise. "I won't. Solstice it's me. Snap out of it!"

"They're going to kill me and Equinox," Solstice said, a note of fear creeping into her voice. "I heard it!"

Equinox ripped her arm from Solstice's grasp and shook Solstice by her shoulders. "Snap out of it! I'm right here and we're at school, remember?"

"School?" Solstice echoed quietly.

"That's right, school. Think of lunch yesterday, that was kind of fun," Equinox said, nodding.

Solstice shook her head. "No, no, no. We don't go to school. The tutors came but they disappeared. I'm never fed lunch."

"Wake up!" Equinox shouted, punctuating her sentence with a slap across Solstice's face. Solstice jumped up, standing on top of her bed. The light was back in her eyes, but it was a frightened one.

Solstice stood starting at her friend and Equinox stared back.

"I'm-" Solstice began.

"Don't say it," Equinox interrupted. "If the next words out of your mouth are 'I'm sorry', I'm going to give you something to be sorry about. It's not your fault that you have nightmares."

Solstice stepped down and looked at the floor. "I wish I didn't have to be like this. I'm a wreck."

"You're not a wreck and this isn't your fault. This is the labs and you know it," Equinox countered.

"I threw a student across the accommodation block for whispering!" Solstice shouted. "No normal person would ever do that! I'm a violent mess with no hope of a decent life. I'm better off dead!"

Equinox felt her blood pressure rise a notch. "DON'T YOU EVER SAY THAT AGAIN!"

"Why not?! It's true!" Solstice shouted back.

Someone from the opposite side knocked on the wall. "Could you two keep it down? People are trying to sleep here!"

Solstice walked over to the wall and punched a hole through it. She grabbed the student's neck and shook him fiercely.

"Shut up!" she shouted, not hearing Equinox's pleas to stop.

Equinox finally got a hold of Solstice and dragged her away from the wall. She twisted Solstice's arms behind her back and used her free hand to hit a point in Solstice's shoulder. Solstice fell like puppet with her strings cut.

"Are you okay?" Equinox asked the student on the opposite side of the wall.

"Yeah," the student replied, rubbing his neck. "Good thing I'm here by myself. My roommate's in the infirmary."

"Was that the one she threw across the block?" Equinox asked.

The student nodded. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone about this."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I know what it's like to go a little crazy sometimes. This will stay between us," the student said. "I'll report the hole as an accident."

"Thanks," Equinox said, picking up Solstice bridal style. "Looks like I'm headed to the infirmary as well."