Personal notes of Superintendent Okabe, recovered by Armacham after the incident.

Subject: Child Aggression

I know children have vivid imaginations, but this is getting ridiculous! Nearly half of the children here claim to have some imaginary friend of some kind. Someone with pale eyes. This friend must not be such a great influence, either. I've seen more students sent to the timeout corner this semester than I have during my twelve years working at this orphanage! This must be due to the lack of sleep that the children have been having these past few years, but why are they having the same dreams and imaginary friends?

I'm starting to feel tired myself.

Tomoe trudged through the halls, head lowered and teeth gritted. It was wrong. It had all gone wrong. A few years ago, he'd been king of this joint. Everyone had been afraid to look him in the eye. He was first in line at the cafeteria, first to pick which toy to use at recess, and first to strike terror in the hearts of all the other children. Now, it had all fallen apart. People were too tired to be afraid of him. His friends were so weary that they hardly recognized him. Sometimes, he'd look around the class and hardly recognize it.

All he wanted was to sleep, but everytime he closed his eyes for longer than a blink, he'd see those infernal yellow eyes, always staring. And whenever he did sleep, he would end up in the same place. A distorted, rotting world that mimicked the one he knew. He'd wander through the decaying halls of the orphanage, or the dead fields out back. He would see these pale shades. They never spoke, at least not tangibly, but somehow Tomoe knew that these were other orphans, walking through this desolate universe that Alma had made.

Now here he was, trudging through the halls like some braindead zombie. He looked out the windows, considering getting some fresh air, when he saw them: Alma and Lucy. The two of them were heading out to the woods together. He glared after them. Where were they going? There was a nearby door, and Tomoe did not hesitate to go through it. He wanted to know what was happening, and more importantly, he wanted to see if he could find a way to get back at them. These were not complete thoughts, but incomplete feelings bogged down by a young brain that had not received enough sleep. His motives were all felt through a haze, which would make it difficult for any telepath to make out a coherent thought.

As he watched, he saw Lucy and Alma going further into the woods, before pausing to look around. Alma then pointed in a direction, and the two of them headed over toward that direction. Then Lucy bent down, and picked up a small dog. Tomoo's eyes widened. Alma and Lucy had a pet? How could those freaks even be capable of having affection for something. This...this could be big.

Tomoo trudged back inside, not really planning on heading anywhere. All he needed to do was stay awake, and to do that he needed to keep moving. So he walked aimlessly down the halls, trying his best to think. Lucy and Alma had something they cared about besides themselves. Being the school bully, Tomoo knew that when you went after what people value, you put them in their place. Whether it's a favorite toy, a spot on the bench, or in this case, a secret pet.

It took a surprising amount of effort, but Tomoo finally managed to grin. This was how he would regain his mind. No more nightmares. He would sleep at last.

"What's on your mind, sir?"

"Hm?" Harlan looked over at the man who had spoken to him. He was a squat fellow with a bald head, and large ears, as if to make up for the lack of hair. Harlan couldn't remember his official job title, but felt fairly certain that his name was Horace.

"Is there something you needed, Horace?"

Horace cocked an eyebrow at the question, but continued speaking, "Just wondering what my ever so mindful colleague might have to say about our latest shenanigans in service of Armacham?"

Harlan couldn't remember Horace being so snide, but wasn't in the mood to argue manners. "I'm just reviewing our progress with Alma. Her spate of good behavior is...concerning."

"Concerning? You kidding me? This is a big break, Harl!" (Harlan actually cringed at the nickname.) "That psychotic tot has killed plenty of our workers, but give her a change of living quarters, and she throws us a bone! We get a well behaved psionic, and some valuable data on her abilities. It's a win-win."

"I like my wins one at a time, Horace. That's much more convenient."

"Ever the glass half empty, Harl. We travel around the world for the sake of leaving no trace, buy up a frickin' orphanage, and surround her with a bunch of brats. I mean, I know it's difficult to placate a child, especially a child capable of melting your face, but what's next? Five star hotels?"

"This isn't a game," said Harlan, with an edge in his voice, "We are dealing with a highly dangerous individual. Her mind is still in the early stages of development. Once she's fully matured, she'll no doubt be easily capable of causing casual genocide. We need to keep her placated, while maintaining a firm grip."

"That's a tender balance, Harl."

"I'm aware of that. Why do you think my mind has been so preoccupied this whole time while we've been studying her? Do you know how long it's been since I've seen my family?!"

Horace gave his colleague another cocked eyebrow, and Harlan flapped a contemptuous hand, "You know what I mean!"

"Sure," chuckled Horace, "But don't get me wrong. We're on a lucky streak right now, but that could change real fast. How much longer until Alma's no longer content to stay in a cramped orphanage? She could burn every kid in that building."

"We have a containment team on standby."

"Better make it two."

"Your input is ever appreciated."

Horace took a moment to think before speaking again. "What, uh, what about the other oddity?"

"You mean Lucy?"

"Who else?"

"...There was an incident some time ago involving one of the other children. It's concerning."

"You mean when she tipped over a chair with her mind alone?"

"Yes, that."

"I thought that was chalked up to Alma's doing."

"Since when has Alma's telekinetic abilities ever extended that far?"

"You're the one who keeps going off on how she's holding back."

"That doesn't seem like the case, this time. Alma was distracted by that dog while Lucy was having her confrontation."

"So, what's our next plan, then?"

"What we've been instructed. We'll continue watching Alma, and studying her behavior."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

Horace gave a rueful chuckle, "Well, if it blows back, at least I know that it won't be on me. I'm gonna go get some coffee, Harl."

That was the last straw for "Harl." He turned and glared at Horace's retreating back. "Horace, my name is Harlan, not Harl!"

At the door, his colleague turned back to give Harlan a grin that nearly bordered onto a leer. "And my name is Boris, not Horace."

Children come in various shapes and sizes, and so the beds at the orphanage, while nowhere near king size, were still fairly large for most children. Lucy lay down on one end of the bed, while Alma sat on the other. The two were doing what they often did. Sitting alone, talking to themselves. It had been months since they'd made plans to one day leave this place and set out on their own.

"Where will we go first, Alma? America?"

"No. Too many bad memories there."

"But that was just in Fairport."

"It's still America."

"So…...somewhere in Japan?"

"That sounds better. Do you think we should go to Tokyo? There's a lot to see in cities."

"Ooh! Do you think we could see all of those bright billboards and screens that they have up on buildings?"

"That would be awesome."

"We could also go someplace more quiet. Like the countryside! What if we lived on a farm with so many animals? I've always wanted to ride a horse!"

"Or a beach."

Lucy turned toward Alma in curiosity. "The beach?"

"I've never seen the ocean before. From what I'm told, it's like a vast stretch of blue, farther than the eye can ever hope to see. Kind of like the sky, except it's on the ground. It sounded really weird, so it might be worth seeing."

"The sky on the ground?" asked Lucy, "That would be an interesting thing to see."

"But how close is the nearest-"

"Hey, freaks."

Lucy and Alma had been so absorbed in their conversations that neither girl had noticed when a small group of boys had entered the bedroom. It was Tomoo and his young cronies, but they didn't look immediately recognizable. With the dark circles under their eyes, evident due to a lack of sleep, they looked older than their actual age. Still, this hadn't stopped them from glaring down the two girls. Lucy saw that one of them had something wrapped in a bag.

"It's all your fault!" Tomoo jeered, pointing an adamant finger at Alma, "Ever since you showed up, I haven't been able to sleep. I close my eyes and I show up at this...this twisted world. Everything's rotted! I live in a nightmare! You two...you're not human!"

Lucy and Alma gave Tomoo a curious look, neither sure how to respond.

"It's over, now," said Tomoo, "I-I beat you guys! I know your weakness! I win! We win!"

He gestured toward his friend with the bag, who stepped forward, and dumped the contents onto the floor. It fell out of the bag and landed with a soft thud. Lucy and Alma stared in mute horror at the dead body of their beloved dog, its neck twisted at an unnatural angle, its glazed eyes staring at nothing.

"You...you…" Lucy tried to speak, to form some sort of words, but couldn't. Something in her was stirring. A bloody queen with many different arms. Alma didn't notice this. She didn't detect the dark thoughts in her best friend. The dark antics of Tomoo had earned her undivided attention. She got down from the bed and walked slowly toward the boys, knowing what she needed to do. Her mind began to channel the heat of the rage she felt, the anger and anguish boiling from her mind and out her body to roas-

The boy who'd dumped the dog had his head instantly pop off his shoulders in a great red geyser of blood. His corpse tumbled to the floor as his blood painted the walls. All of the boys stared at the body of their friend in open-mouthed shock. Alma was shocked as well. She hadn't done this, had she?

"You animals." That hadn't been from Tomoo. Alma looked behind her at Lucy. Her best friend was glaring at Tomoo and his boys with dark loathing. The voice she spoke with was completely alien to the American. "The ones who aren't human...the ones who aren't human...ARE YOU!"

Alma suddenly felt something suddenly whip past her hair, like wind with teeth and claws. First another boy was torn in half, his torso briefly hanging from midair as it continued to pour blood from where his legs should've been, before dropping onto the floor. Another kid was split in half from the shoulders down the belly, and his innards spilled to the ground in a great steaming heap. Finally Tomoo, in a complete panic, tried to flee the room, only to slip and fall onto his friends fallen organs with a loud squelch. He barely had any time to move before he was shredded to pieces. There wasn't anything left to recognize him when it was over.

Alma stared in shock at the corpses of her tormentors. "Lucy...Did you…?"

Alma scanned her friend's thoughts for any knowledge of what may have occurred, but could only detect panic in her thoughts and face. Lucy had no idea what had happened. That much was clear. Also, they were both in serious trouble. That was clearer.

"WOAH!"

Boris had initially been watching the monitors with the same amount of enthusiasm that he'd shown since arriving in this country. He was on his third cup of coffee and still barely managing to stay awake. Something about seeing a bunch of sleepy children didn't help him feel so alert, either. He'd figured it'd be another dull, boring day of playing long-range babysitter, but was surprised when a bunch of boys came out of the forest with a bag, and went up to confront Lucy and Alma.

This should be interesting, he'd initially thought, and interesting it was. Maybe a little too interesting.

"HARLAN!" he barked, "WE GOT A FREAKING EMERGENCY!"

Soon, the video of the bloodbath was displayed on the main screens of the monitoring room. Harlan took one look and swore heavily.

"Send in the strike teams!" he shouted, "I want Alma contained immediately!"

"Well, what do we tell the staff?!"

"Trigger the fire alarms! Evacuate the building!"

"Right, right! On it!"

It was only a matter of time, Harlan thought. He was still acting under the assumption that Alma had been the one to murder those boys. He, nor any of the staff at Armacham, had yet to make a connection between the dead kids and Alma's friend. At that instant, every security camera shut off.

Okabe was in her office when the alarm blared, speaking with a student, a young girl named Akari. The reason had been the same one as the last child's visit, and the one before that, and the one before that: trouble sleeping, aggressive behavior, and so on and so forth. Okabe had been doing her best with these cases, but had no idea what to do. She'd tried everything from rescinding toy privileges to sleeping pills, and she was quickly running out of ideas. Nothing seemed to work. She'd been so pent-up with these problems that she'd actually shrieked when the fire alarm sounded. Akari had winced at the sudden amount of noise, but had, perhaps because she was too tired, managed to remain in her chair, shoulders hunched. She did reach up to cover her ears, though.

Okabe went to the door, and was reaching for the handle before the alarm cut-off as inexplicably and suddenly as it had come on. It had been less than half a minute since it blared, which was strange. As far as she knew, the building's power had to be completely shut down in order to turn off the alarm, and the lights hadn't even so much as flickered. She didn't notice Akari take a pen from the desk, but she did turn to look at her when she spoke.

"I can hear her in my head," murmured the little girl.

"Akari, it's fine," reassured Okabe. She went over to the girl and got down on one knee beside her, "The noise is gone now."

Akari turned to look at her, and for the first time realized how pale Akari looked. The child looked at her with a blank expression.

"The noise never stops, Ms. Okabe," she said, then promptly punched a hole in the superintendent's throat with the sharp end of the pen. Okabe stumbled back, clutching her throat with an expression of outright shock, still trying to process what hd just happened. She turned back toward the door, but slipped on the blood that was spilling from in between her fingers and pooling onto the floor. She fell to the ground, her mouth open in a silent scream as she continued to bleed out. She looked up to see Akari standing above her, watching her bleed out with a calm expression.

"Her voice is all the noise," she said, and stabbed her again.

And again.

And again.

The strike force arrived on the ground in a matter of minutes. A half-dozen different men, all heavily armored and sporting tranquilizer rifles. Jack boots padded down the halls as the soldiers headed toward the dormitories, where Alma was currently residing. No children or staff had been spotted so far. The fire alarms had done the trick, it seemed, and were now shut off, so as not to distract the soldiers while they completed there mission.

"Lima Team, do you read?" crackled a voice in the soldier's earpiece.

"10-4," replied the squad leader.

"Security cameras have just been cut out all over the facility. Alma knows you're coming."

"Roger," Armacham didn't just hire any eager gunmen for their strike teams. These people were the elite. Battle hardened veterans trained to act under intense pressure. None of them felt particularly worried about having to deal with a little kid. That Armacham kept their soldiers on a need-to-know basis went a great deal into keeping the unit calm as well. Their target was a young girl, and she was dangerous. That was the only intel their superiors had deemed relevant, and like the good little soldiers they are, they didn't ask questions. They simply marched down toward the dormitories, air rifles raised. The air rifles were equipped with light anesthetic darts, as too heavy a sedative might kill the child.

Waving an arm, the squad leader directed his men down the left side. The dorm room was the last door on the right. The door was ajar, and the red substance pooling out was most likely not Kool-Aid. The soldiers all raised there rifles up, and pressed themselves against the wall, a neat line outside of the door. The squad leader unclipped a flash bang from his belt, pulled out the pin, and tossed the object into the room without looking inside. At first, there was only the faint clatter of the metal casing bouncing on the wooden floor. Then there was a loud bang, and the soldiers averted there eyes as a great light briefly flashed out from the room.

"Move! Move!" barked Squad Leader. The soldiers rushed into the room, rifles raised in all directions. What greeted them was a sight that only a battle-hardened soldier could stomach. It was difficult to tell how many people had been slaughtered here, but the torn limbs and parts were all too little to have been violently ended. Blood was puddled on the floor, running down the walls, and dripping from the ceiling. The soldiers briefly scanned the room, before Squad Leader put a finger to the mike on his ear.

"This is Lima Team. No sign of target."

Instead of the orderly reply from Command, the mike filled his ear with static. "...search for...tranq…"

"Command, can you repeat?"

"...targ…...per…" That was all the team could hear before the channel went completely dead.

The whole team, now standing in the room, looked around at each other, unsure of what to do, or where to search. One of the men spots an open window, most certainly the target's point of escape, and hurries up to it, hoping to spot his fleeing quarry. He looks out at the playground, all still and empty under the hot summer sun. Wait, empty? Where were all of the children? They should've gone outside when the fire alarm sounded.

"Everyone on me!" The leader's command caused everyone in the room to turn to him, where he pointed outside into the hall. A shadow stretched out across the floor, indicating that someone was coming this very way. They could all hear the soft footsteps coming from outside. The men raised their rifles as one, waiting to ambush the target. The footsteps got louder as the shadow grew. Then, they stopped. The leader was about to order his men to advance when the sound of more footsteps could be heard, with more shadows to complement it. A crowd was forming outside, but the soldiers still couldn't see who they were, or how many.

"I don't know how many of you are out there," barked the leader in solid Japanese, "but you better show yourself! Now!"

It was a very poor choice of words.

The footsteps picked back up again, and there were no slow solemn walks this time, but the loud sudden footsteps of people charging forth. Lima Team felt there adrenaline spike as a large group of children rushed into the room. They might have once been the orphans who'd lived in this place, but they hardly resembled their former selves. They didn't even look human anymore. There skin was chalk pale, as if having been drained of all blood, yet they still had blood on them, painted on there white skin in strange symbols and letters. There eyes were of a similar red, as though every vessel in them had burst. And their expressions held no look of innocence, of the stereotypical purity that some shows might portray an orphan. There was only an animalistic craze. An urge to rip, shred, and destroy.

The soldiers raised there guns and immediately opened fire. The darts struck several of the children, but didn't slow them down anymore than tiny bug bites. The children advanced and overwhelmed the soldiers. They were climbing over each other to bring the men down, overpowering and dominating them all, dozens of pairs of little fists beating down upon them. It took no time before the whole of Lima Team were on the ground, and still the children kept coming. It seemed like the entirety of the orphanage was crowding into one room, all to serve the dark will of Alma Wade.

The men yelled and struggled, or attempted to at least, but the pale monsters that had once been children were too many too firm. The armor on the men gave the children fewer areas to rip open. They could reach under the edges of their body armor to pull out their intestines, and remove their helmets to tear off their faces. What was made to protect them only ended up drawing out the agony, and when death finally came, they were all grateful. The children all stood there, looking down at their grisly deeds. Clutching their grisly trophies of torn flesh, they cast their red gaze at the open window, where their young mistress had fled.

Alma wasn't thinking about Armacham, or of covering her flank. She and Lucy stood at the base of the tree where they had first met the dog. While an army of brainwashed children had been tearing open a bunch of soldiers, the two girls had been busy digging a small grave for their late canine. Now they stood before the tiny mound of earth, heads bowed and fists clenched.

"So...we buried him," sniffed Lucy sadly, "Now what?"

"We go around and say what we liked about him," said Alma, trying her best to be strong for her friend. She wiped the dirt from her hands off on her dress, and looked at the grave with a mournful expression, "I liked that he was never afraid. That he always enjoyed being around us. He'd often run up to us in advance, remember? Because he was so happy to see us."

"That's right," said Lucy, and Alma saw the tears stream down her face as she smiled in fond reminiscence, "He never had anything against my horns, or your eyes. He just wanted to be our friend...to spend time with us. That's what I liked about him."

She put a hand over her mouth as she began to sob. Finally looking away from the grave, Alma went over and pulled her best friend into a much-needed hug. Lucy clung to Alma like she was a lifeline, and buried her face into her friend's shoulder. Like Lucy, Alma also felt sad, but she felt anxious, too. It was only a matter of time before her father sent reinforcements after her. They needed to move, and soon.

"Lucy," Alma spoke softly, "The people who brought me here…they'll be coming for me. We need to go."

Lucy slowly lifted her head from Alma's shoulder, and stared at her with wide, confused eyes. "Wha-what?"

"Lucy, you know we can't stay here. We have to move, now!"

Lucy was still dazed with grief, but she nodded her head regardless. Alma grabbed her friend by the hand and pulled her into the woods. The two went forth into the trees, walking for a few minutes before they approached a large fence. Alma knew it was the fence that blanketed the entire orphanage, and got ready to melt it with her mind. Before she could heat things up though, Lucy stepped forth, and Alma's yellow eyes widened as the fence was torn apart like tin foil.

"Come on," said Lucy without looking back. Her voice sounded hollow, "Let's keep moving."

Alma knew that now wasn't the time for questions. She fled with her friend further into the woods, The dead leaves crunching beneath their shoes. Her mind and her heart racing. This was it. All the times she'd dreamed of escaping Armacham, of being free, were becoming more of a reality with each step they took away from the orphanage. And now she had a best friend to always be with her, a best friend who seemed to have special abilities of her own.

What could go wrong?