Peter

Quasi and I waited outside Alice's door a few hours after lights out, both tense and excited at once with the prospect of our mission and what it might entail. Alice slipped out of her door to join us and the three of us crept over to Hornsby's office, carefully avoiding the few security guards along the way. Alice and I had both used our pillows and clothes to create dummies under the blankets on our beds, so that if anyone peeked into our rooms they'd think we were innocently sleeping. As long as we weren't seen out and about, we were safe.

We got to the office door and Alice and Quasi both kept an eye out while I picked the lock as quietly as I could. Eventually the door popped open under my touch, and Alice and I left Quasi to stand guard while we hurried into the office and shut the door after ourselves. Alice stood by while I searched for the lantern and lit it with a match that I'd swiped from Tiana in the kitchen. (Tiana knows when I steal tiny things like that but she lets me get away with it. Maybe she has a soft spot for me?) The office was immediately lighted with a faint yellow glow, throwing long black shadows around the room. Alice twitched as the coat rack next to her jumped into her vision, looking deceptively like a person prowling in the corner. I smirked in spite of my own uneasiness and the two of us set to work searching the place. I had to pick a few more locks in the drawers of the desk and cabinets, which gave us access to all the confidential files. Alice curiously flipped through a few folders from the desk while I scoured the cabinets for files on the patients being kept upstairs.

I heard a shuffling behind me and turned to see Alice pulling her diary out of her robe. I raised my eyebrows and asked, "What's that for?"

"I want to document what's in here. Since we can't very well take it with us." She explained.

"Why would you want to document this stuff?"

Alice's face fell a little before she turned away from me. "So that I can remember it..."

I didn't speak for a moment, suddenly feeling sad for her. That was another thing that the drugs did to you over time, and Alice had recently been prescribed a more concentrated dose.

I shook my head. "I don't think it's a good idea to take notes. What if someone reads your diary?"

Alice turned to me with a very serious expression. "No one's going to be reading it. I've found a place in my room to hide it from prying eyes."

I was doubtful of this, and very tempted to make her put the diary away. But I also knew that there were few things to keep a person calm in this place, and for Alice, it was her writing. I nodded in assent and turned back to the drawer I was currently rifling through. Then, I pulled out the bundle of files we were looking for. "A-ha! Here we go..." I walked over to join Alice at the desk and placed the files in front of her. "The dangerous patients' secrets revealed."

Alice bit her lip as she looked them over, and I worried that now she was hesitating. Then, she asked, "Which one should we open first?"

I smirked and lifted up the first file. I squinted at the name on the label. "How about...Cinderella?"

Alice bounced a little where she stood while I laid the file back on the desk and flipped it open. The first thing we saw was a photograph, presumably taken on Cinderella's first day in this place. She was a young woman, and remarkably pretty. I immediately recognized her from upstairs; She was in one of the rooms at the very end of the hall, which I figured meant that she was one of the most unstable patients. I wasn't sure how long she'd been here, but the girl I saw last night looked like a ghostly shell compared to the girl in this photo.

As Alice and I scanned the papers in the file, she rapidly scribbled down the tidbits that jumped out at her. Every once in awhile, Alice would quietly gasp or tsk at the material.

"This poor girl..." Alice shook her head in a mix of pity and anger. "Do you think they're all like this?"

"They must be, to be locked up like they are." I muttered, my brow furrowed by the troubling content of Cinderella's file.

"As if locking them up and sedating them is actually any help... It just isn't fair."

"Do you wanna keep reading?" I asked, turning to her.

Alice kept her head ducked, still scrawling lop-sided notes in her journal. "We've come all this way. We might as well." Though she was obviously uncomfortable, she wasn't willing to give up.

I nodded and waited for her to finish her notes on Cinderella before closing the file and placing it back in its drawer. Then we moved on to the next file. Seeing the name on this one made both mine and Alice's eyebrows pop up.

"Eric?" Alice asked, staring at the label as if she were hoping the letters would change. "What's his file doing in here? He's not one of the dangerous patients. I don't believe he would hurt a fly!"

I sighed as the realization came over me. It had been so many years, I'd actually forgotten the circumstances of Eric's arrival to the asylum. "Not necessarily a danger to others, but to himself..." I ignored the look of disbelief Alice gave me. I wasn't expecting to have to address this tonight; Eric was my friend, and I wasn't one to pry, and Alice was still unaware of his...affliction. Why was his file even in this drawer? Were they worried about a relapse?

"Is Eric a...a masochist?" Alice asked me quietly, in an almost hopeful tone. "Because, although unideal, that's not necessarily an illness. There's no need to keep him here."

"No, it's not like that..."

"Then what's it like?"

"It's complicated." I tried to put Eric's file back in the drawer, but Alice grabbed my arm to stop me.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"We don't need to see this..."

"You don't need to because you already know about it, but I don't!"

"Alice, you don't need to-"

"He's my friend, too, Peter. Don't I deserve to know?"

"It's Eric's business!"

"That you all know about! What are you hiding from me?" She demanded, her voice climbing in volume.

"Shh! " I hissed, placing a hand over her mouth. She gaped up at me, astounded by my brazen action. I was surprised at myself. Normally I wouldn't go out of my way to put a hand on someone to quiet them, but with Alice I did it automatically and unnecessarily. We stared at each other for a moment before I pulled my hand away and shoved it into my pocket. "Sorry."

"It's alright." She whispered, still stunned.

I looked at her for a moment, still clutching Eric's file in my free hand. Then, I sighed and tossed it back onto the desk. Alice looked confused for a moment. I gestured toward the file and said, "Go ahead and take a look. Quickly, please."

She gave me a small, grateful smile before diving into the file.

I turned away for a few seconds, then turned back to anxiously watch her expression as she dug into Eric's past. How much would learning the truth change her opinion of him? She hadn't known Eric as long as I had; It was easy for her to call him a friend when she was only familiar with the mask he kept on all the time. What if she got through the file and decided she couldn't stand to be around him any more? And what if Eric found out that I'd betrayed him?

Alice's pensive expression shifted into one of disbelief and sadness. Her lips parted slowly into an "o" shape as her blue eyes hungrily scanned the first page. She shook her head pityingly, her gaze drifting over to the photo clipped to the inside of the file. "Poor Eric..." She regarded his beaming visage. "He looks so happy here... His parents must have taken this photo." She looked up briefly to see my guarded expression, only half visible in our limited lighting. Half of me was still cast in shadow. She ducked her head and slapped the folder shut, held it out to me. I carefully took it from her and turned to place it back in the drawer of the cabinet. My back remained to her for a moment as I gazed down at Eric's name written on the paper tab.

"I won't say a word to him about it." Alice quietly promised me, her tiny voice both sweet and convicted.

I turned to see the surprisingly somber look on her face and gratefully nodded at her, coming back to myself. I wasn't one to let my guard down and let people see me feeling troubled or worried. What was it about this girl that made me so...honest?

Alice gave me a tiny smile before plucking up the next file and flipping it open. I climbed up onto the desk and perched on the corner of it so I could look upon the pages as well. I'm pretty good at reading things upside-down. Not sure where I picked that up from. Alice giggled quietly at the sight of me crouching on Hornsby's desk before going back to reading, though she continued to smirk and shook her head in amusement. I was pretty smug about my ability to make her laugh. Then we just read for a while, occasionally gawking at the information and quietly commenting from time-to-time. All throughout, Alice scribbled down her crooked lines of notes in her diary. I had half a mind to glance over at her writing, but decided not to intrude. We were both reading the same material, after all. It just would have been interesting to see how she was putting it in her own words.

Eventually, I grew weary of reading the depressing stories of our secluded housemates. I walked away and snooped around the rest of Helena's office, perfectly content to let Alice read to herself and then give me the summary. It was silent for awhile aside from the constant hissing of Alice's pen on the parchment pages of her little book, and her occasional recap of some poor soul's sad tale. I wasn't expecting myself to be the squeamish one between the two of us, but we'd barely gotten through half the files before I needed to find a distraction. So much disturbing history laid behind the people who slept right above us.

I eventually became aware of Alice's eyes boring into the back of my head. I turned to find her staring at me unabashedly, and was put off by her refusal to look away, like most people would after being caught like this.

"What?" I demanded, sounding more irked than I really felt in an effort to make her just stop staring.

She narrowed her eyes at me, then shrugged and looked back down at the folder currently in her hands. "I was just wondering... If I decided to take a peek in your file, what I would find."

I stated at her for a moment, appalled. Where had this come from?

"I already told you, we have the same thing." I muttered, turning away again.

"That's not your whole story, though."

"There is no story. I've been here since I was a kid."

"How old?"

"I'm not sure... Eight or nine, I think."

"What happened before then? How did you wind up here?"

"I don't remember."

"Well, you must remember something. Or else they wouldn't feel the need to suppress your dreams with those pills."

I turned to glare at her.

She smirked. "We have the same thing, remember?"

I shook my head and turned around again, fiddling with another cabinet. "It's been years since I started taking my meds. Years since the last time I dreamt. I really don't remember anything. And it's not important, any way. I'm an orphan. Helena told me the police found me in the streets and brought me here because I was acting strangely and had amnesia. That's all."

"But they've not cured you."

"So?"

"So, maybe there was never anything wrong with you in the first place."

I shrugged. "Or maybe there's just no hope for me. Maybe there's no hope for any of us. I'll either age out of this place or... Or wind up on the second floor with the rest of them."

"That's a very bleak mindset... Strange."

"Of course I'm strange. My only home is a sanitarium."

"Not you. These other notes scattered about Ms. Hornsby's desk... I hadn't noticed them before..."

I turned to see Alice shuffling through some loose papers that had been stacked neatly in the left corner of the desk. I'd noticed them when we first came in, but hadn't paid them any mind. Now Alice was frowning at whatever was written on them.

"Do you know a... Ra- Rapunzel?" She asked me, squinting at the pages.

I furrowed my brow in confusion. "No. Never heard of her. Why?"

"Helena's been writing about another patient named Rapunzel... She must be here now, because these reports are recent... Helena's been keeping track of her condition. Apparently, it's not good... You really don't know her?"

I shook my head and walked over to join her. "Never met her. I mean, I don't think so... And I've never heard anyone else mention her."

"She can't be one of the ones upstairs. I've been through all their files, officially matched names to faces and all..." Alice rifled through the papers, then looked over the desk again. She sighed in frustration. "There's no picture of her or anything. No mention of her location. These notes are all quite vague... Rapunzel's case must be very hush-hush." Alice sharply inhaled. "And apparently Belle's her tutor!"

"We'll have to look into it later. A guard will be coming around this way soon. Put those papers back exactly as you found them, okay?"

Alice nodded and quickly re-sorted the pages. She tapped the edges against the top of the desk to neatly realign them and carefully placed them back where they originally were. I placed all the patients' folders in their original order and went to put them back in their drawer. As I reached one hand behind the files to keep them from falling backward, my fingers brushed against another folder that was stuck in the back of the cabinet drawer. I frowned and grasped the hidden folder, having to use some force to remove it from where it was wedged in the back. I worked slowly to ensure that it wouldn't be damaged. I finally got it loose and carefully pulled it out. I turned back to Alice, who was starting to stow her journal and pen back in her robe.

"Hang on. There's one we missed before." I said.

"What?" Alice frowned, coming toward me.

"Yeah, uh..." I looked at the label of the folder to read the name that was neatly written on it. I froze, and blinked a few times, utterly confused and refusing to believe what was right in front of me. It just didn't make sense.

"What's wrong? Whose file is it?" Alice queried impatiently, starting to hover by my elbow.

"I don't think you want to-"

But Alice had already read the same name as me, and her mouth fell open. We both stood in silence, standing together and reading and re-reading the name because it just couldn't be true. Then, even though I knew I shouldn't have, I opened the file to give myself and Alice a peek at the contents. What we read inside filled us both with horror.

"H-How could this be? Why is this here?" Alice asked, voicing the thoughts we were both having.

"I... I don't know." I replied dumbly. How could I possibly answer with anything else?

"It's just not possible, Peter!"

"It has tomorrow's date on it..." I realized aloud. I quickly turned and jammed the folder back into the back of the drawer, behind all the other files. I slid the drawer closed, my mind racing so fast I barely heard the lock click. I turned back to the alarmed Alice and said, "Which means what's in there isn't real. Not yet, at least. We can still do something about it."