DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN BLEACH, KUBO TITE DOES.

I stare at the door to my new room with a raised eyebrow. "It's not locked?"

"Nope, and it shouldn't be unless you've done something bad enough to deserve being locked in your room," the nurse explains as she smiles at me.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. Is there anything else I can do for you. Like get you some clothes for example."

I look down at what I'm wearing, which is a white t-shirt and red plait pajama bottoms. "I have clothes, I just don't like them," I explain.

"Then would you like me to get you some more pajamas?" She asks me, still smiling.

I think for a moment. "I guess."

"OK. I'll be back in a flash. Feel free to roam." She runs out of the room, leaving me a little confused. It's not every day that you see someone as happy-go-lucky as her working in a madhouse.

Well, she said I could roam, so I guess I'll do just that. I exit my room and pause in the hall right in front of my door. "Which way should I go- AH!"A girl with short brown hair slams into me and bounces backwards onto the floor. A fight to regain my balance, but after pinwheeling my arms for about thirty seconds, I too fall.

"Ow. Ow. Ow," she says as she looks up at me with her huge green eyes. I raise an eyebrow at her features. She doesn't look Japanese.

"Watch where you're going, kid," I say, a little bit annoyed with her.

"I'm not a kid! I'm twenty-one!" She yells at me.

"Are you sure? You look around fourteen to me."

Her shoulders slump. "I knew you were going to say that…" She looks back up and just stares at me.

"Um…"

"It's no use; I can't remember who you are."

"Remember me? We just met." This girl is a bit strange, but then again, this is an asylum. I think I'd be even more shocked if she wasn't.

"Really? Well then, my name is Pitt Alex. What's yours?" She asks me, her eyes twinkling.

"Kurosaki Ichigo. Your name, are you a foreigner or something?" I ask her.

"Yep! Well… Kind of. My parents are from America, but I was born here in Japan," she explains.

"Oh, I get it. So why are you here?"

"Short-term memory loss. You see, unless I know something really well, I'll forget it within a couple hours. What about you?" She asks me.

"Paranoid schizophrenia and explosive intermittent disorder," I say.

"I'm not gonna lie, I don't know what either of those are."

I sigh. "To put it simply, I hear voices in my head and I'll blow up for absolutely no reason."

Alex stares at me for a minute without blinking. I probably just scared her. Great…

"That's not so bad," she says, smiling at me. I raise my eyebrows in confusion.

"Didn't you just hear what I said?"

"Yes. Like I just said, it's not that bad. You see things-"

"I don't see things, I hear things," I correct her despite how much I hate admitting that I hear voices.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same difference."

"Hearing something and seeing something are two completely different things."

"Not really. Well, I hope I remember you later, I've got to go. Bye!" She yells as she takes off like a rocket down the hallway.

I sigh before standing and turning on my heel heading down the hall. Near the stairs, which are closed off by a metal gate, I see a little girl crying. Considering the fact that she's covered in blood and has a chain on her chest, I take it that she's a ghost. I crouch down in front of her and try to smile. "What's wrong?"

"M-m-my mommy can't see me anymore," she tells me, still crying.

I nod in understanding. "That makes sense. Not many people can see ghosts."

"I know… Wait, you can see me?" She asks me.

"Yeah." I wipe the tears from her cheeks with the pad of my thumb. "You know, if you were to cross over into the afterlife, everyone could see you. You wouldn't be so lonely anymore."

"No! I don't wanna! I like it here!" She yells.

"Huh? But weren't you just crying because nobody can see you?" I'm a little confused now.

"No, I was just sad because mommy can't," she explains. "There are lots of people here who can see me, like Avril-chan."

"Then you shouldn't be crying. I mean, I know it must be pretty upsetting that your mom can't see you, but I'm pretty sure your friend Avril would be sad if she saw you crying, right? So cheer up a bit, OK?" I say as I stand.

"Ok… I'll try not to cry anymore." The little girl vanishes from view.

"The hell have you been talking to over here?" Someone asks me from behind.

I turn around to see a young man, probably around the same age as me. "None of your business."

"Hmm…" The dude looks me up and down while making a strange expression. "I don't believe I've seen you here before."

"I just got here."

"Oh… I'm Hiro, what's your name?"

"…Ichigo."

"Ichigo? Isn't that a girl's name-"

"It's not a girl's name!" I snap at him.

"Really?"

"Yes," I say as I walk past him. Talking to this idiot is only a waste of my time.

"H-hey, wait up," He calls out as he falls in step beside me. "Where are you going?"

"Anywhere but here," I reply, annoyance in my voice.

"There's a really cute nurse in the art room right now, we can go there," he suggests.

"No, I want someplace quiet," I say, hoping he'll get the hint and leave me the hell alone.

"Then we should go to the garden."

The eyebrow begins to twitch. "Isn't there someone else you annoy other than me!?" I'm tired of trying to be nice to this guy.

"Do you have an anger problem? You're kind of snappy-"

"I'm not snappy!" He flinches and I try to focus on my breathing. The last thing I need to do is kill the guy. "Listen, I don't exactly like people, so I suggest that you trying to be all buddy-buddy with me.

"S-sorry, it's just that I thought you'd want someone to hang out with due to you not knowing anyone here," he says.

"I don't need any friends; they're not good for anything but hurting you! Now get the hell away from me before you make me do something that's going to get me thrown back in isolation!" I yell at him.

"Eep!" He quickly turns around and runs in the opposite direction.

"He's scary," a woman mutters from behind me.

"Yeah. We' better stay away from him," says another.

I whip around to face them and they visibly stiffen before they too run off. Good, I hope they warn others to stay away from me and save me the trouble of having to intimidate everyone on my own.

"Here you go," the nurse says as she hands me the bag of pajamas.

"Thanks, but where'd you get these?" I ask her.

"From the store."

"Wait, you bought these with you own money?" I ask, feeling a little guilty.

"Yea, I found 10,000 yen in a little box under my bed a couple days ago and I figured spending it on the patients would be the best thing I could possibly do with it." Is this woman a frigging saint or something!? "Well, I have other patients to tend to. I'll see you later, Ichigo."

I stare at the door a couple of minutes after she leaves and I realize that I don't know her name. Oh well, I guess I'll have to ask her later.

I bet she's just pretending to be nice.

Shut up.

She's just waiting for you to warm up to her and then, when you least expect it, she's gonna poison you.

Why the fuck would she do that!?

Because she's evil.

"And how the hell would you know that!?" I yell out loud before slapping a hand over my mouth. "Damn…"

Knock-Knock.

"Is everything alright in here?" A blond nurse asks me as she steps in the room and looks around. "Who were you yelling at?"

"None of your fucking business," I hiss at her. She stares at me for a moment before quickly backing out and closing the door.

"Damn voices, look what you caused," I mutter as I flop onto my new bed. I sigh as I stare at the ceiling. It's a different building, but the color scheme is exactly the same; white.

It's strange, I've been given permission to leave my room, but out of everything I could be doing, I choose to stare at my ceiling. I guess this just proves how hard it is to break old habits. I start to hum a song my dad had taught me as I child and I try to remember the name of it but fail.

"That sounds really pretty."

I look up to see the ghost girl from before standing in the middle of my room. "Yeah, it does, doesn't it?" I sit up. "I'm sorry but I don't know your name."

"I'm Sakura. What's your name?"

"Ichigo." I take in her appearance. She looks like she's around seven and it seems like most of the blood on her has originated from a wound her head. "What happened to you?"

"Mommy and I were visiting a friend of hers and I tripped and fell down the stairs. I busted my head open and bleed to death," she explains. I nod in understanding. It's very rare that I meet a ghost who didn't die in kind of freak accident.

I lean forward, resting my arms on my legs. "So, Sakura, do you know someplace I can have some fun?"

"You could paint in the art room," she suggests.

"Sounds good enough for me. Could you please show me the way?"

"Uh-Huh!" She runs through my door and I calmly follow after her. She so happy right now, I'm finding it hard to believe this is the same little girl who was bawling her eyes out a little less than an hour ago.

We turn into a huge room with double doors and my eyes widen. The room is pure chaos. There's paper and paint everywhere and a janitor is having a hell of a time cleaning it up. "Damn," I mutter, laughing in slight amusement as he lets out a string of creative curses as he tries to scrub a hot pink blob off the wall.

"Looks like Yuffie was here. Well, no use trying to come in 'til the old fart cleans it all up," A guy says as walks up beside me, almost running over Sakura. "I'm Kaito, nice to meet you." He holds out his right hand for me to shake but I just glare at him. "I'm here for split personality, so you might want to be polite and introduce yourself before my evil half comes out."

My glare turns into a wide-eyed stare. I'm not exactly sure that I want to associate myself with someone who has a demonic side ready to jump out and attack at any given moment. "Uh, no…"

"Come on! That's not fair! I told you about me so you have to me about you!" He whines, flailing his arms around like a two year old who just got told they couldn't have a cookie.

I groan. "Fine! I'm Ichigo."

"And…?"

I groan a second time. "And I have paranoid schizophrenia and explosive intermittent disorder." I cross my arms, heavily annoyed by the fact that this idiot made me explain my mental problems to him.

"Oh, I get it, you're one of those people who hear voices and are afraid of random objects." He looks at my pajama bottoms. "Like jeans for example."

"I'M NOT AFRAID OF JEANS!" I yell at him.

He jumps a bit from my outburst. "It was a joke, man."

"…" I blush.

"Wait, don't tell you really are-"

"I'm not, so drop it," I tell him, embarrassed by the fact that he now knows of my unnatural fear.

I see Sakura staring at me. "Why are you afraid of jeans?"

"I'd rather not talk about it, OK?" I tell her, my blush deepening. "Why don't you go play with your friend Avril or something?"

"O-OK…" She fades from my sight.

"Who?" Kaito asks me.

"I wasn't talking to you."

"Were you talking to a voice, then?" He asks me, a little too cherry for my liking.

"No, I was talking to a ghost," I snap at him.

"A ghost? Nice excuse…"

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't pound the shit outta you," I hiss.

"Because, um, my evil side might come out?" A bead of sweat rolls down the side of his face.

"Not intimidated in the slightest. In fact, I'm actually a little curious over whether or not your dark side can actually take me in a fight," I tell him, an evil grin making its way across my face.

"I-I-I-I…" He runs away. So much for his dark side. I grin at his retreating form.

I make my way across the room towards what appears to be to only table left untouched by the so called 'Yuffie.' I grab a pencil off the floor along with a blank sheet of paper from a nearby shelf and I start to doodle.

"You're quite the artist," Alex says in a sing song voice, startling me.

"Mmmm…"

She sits beside me and pouts. "I complement you and all I get is a 'Mmmm?'"

"S-sorry…" I tell her.

"Ah! I wasn't being serious, so there's need to feel apologetic about it!" She yells as she frantically waves her arms in front of herself. I laugh lightly at this before pushing the paper towards her and setting the pencil down beside it. "Hmm?"

"I'm already bored of drawing," I tell her.

"Short attention span much?" She asks me while laughing nervously. She picks the pencil up and draws a bunch of stick animals in the lower right corner.

"That, um…" I pause for a moment, trying to burst out laughing. "Looks pretty."

"Save the false complements for someone else. I know I suck at drawing so you don't have to force yourself to be polite. In fact, I won't even remember this in a little while, so you can be a complete and total ass if you want," she tells me, grinning.

I sweat-drop. "Why do you feel the need to suggest such a horrible thing?"

"I'm glad to see the two of you are getting along," a woman says, scaring the shit out of me. I jump out of my chair and run around the table. She sighs at this.

"Oh, Fumiyama-san, what's up?" Alex nonchalantly asks her.

"Nothing much, just checking up on Ichigo. I've heard from his previous doctor that he doesn't exactly play well with others." She glares at me and I give her a half lidded stare. "In fact, Ichigo, I've caught wind that you've already started shit with multiple patients in the little while you've been here."

I walk closer to her and confirm what I'd been thinking this entire time, her expression is nothing more than a mask she puts on to make herself seem tougher than she really is. I wonder how many games I'll have to play to get her to show her true self…

"What's with that look? I don't like it," she says, her eyebrows furrowing.

"Oh, nothing, I was just thinking about how much I'm looking forward to talking with you," I say, a devious smile spreading across my face.

"You'd better not be planning one of those games I've heard so much about, because if you are, I'll have you thrown straight into isolation. In fact, I was told to place you there to begin with, but I figured I would give you a chance to interact with others if you can behave," she tells me as she pushes her glasses up her nose.

"Trusting me around others isn't exactly the best idea in the world," I tell her. Don't get me wrong, I like being able to roam around, but I wouldn't a single yen that I'll be able to control myself if some idiot pisses me off.

"I hope that's not the case, so do me a favor and act like a civilized human, not like Godzilla rampaging through Tokyo." She turns and walks away; her three inch heels clicking on the paint splattered tiles.

"Well that was an epic failure," I mutter as I sit back down.

"What do you mean by that?" Alex asks me, confused.

"In the past, I've been able to piss my doctors off in a matter of minutes, but this one…" I chuckle. "This one is going to be harder than I thought."

"You enjoy tormenting doctors, don't you?" She asks me.

"I enjoy tormenting nurses and guards, too," I say, smirking.

"No offense, Ichigo, but you're one creepy dude," she tells me.

I turn to face her. "You know, I think I'd like you better if you were a little bit more paranoid of me."

"Huh? Why?"

"Well… I can get pretty violent, even with the people I thought I'd never try to hurt. Back in Karakura, I kicked my first doctor a little too hard when I got pissed at him and he had to be hospitalized for a week. And there was also a guard by the name of Hideki… He was trying to calm me down due to the awful tantrum I was throwing and I permanently damaged his left arm." I pause for a moment and take a deep breath. "My point is that he's going to have to suffer for the rest of his life from an injury I inflicted upon him and I don't want to add you to the long list of people I'll never be able to forgive myself for hurting."

I quickly stand and leave without saying anything else to her. I'm hoping that she'll somehow remember the conversation later a keep her distance from me from here on out.

"I think I heard that wrong, could you please repeat that?" I ask Ginko, a ghost who floated into my room ten minutes ago. I fall onto my back and grin. I like how the world looks upside down.

He sighs, most likely feed up with repeating himself so many times. "The reason I was here when I was alive was because I tried to rob a fast-food joint with a toilet plunger while wearing nothing but a thong. Those jerks laughed their asses off and refused to give me a single cheeseburger even after I started swinging the plunger at their fat heads! Then, out of nowhere, a bunch of heavy dudes came, shoved me into a straightjacket, and dragged me to this madhouse! I don't get why, though. I'm perfectly sane, I tell you. I'M PERFECTLY SANE!" he screams, flinging his body around, causing his ten foot chain to wrap around his legs and send him crashing to the floor.

"So I did hear it right the first people call me crazy." I begin to laugh loudly.

Knock-Knock. Click.

"Ichigo, do you mind telling me who you've been talking to for the past couple of minutes?" Fumiyama asks as she walks into my room.

"Ginko."

"Ginko?"

"I died way before she started working here, so I highly doubt that she knows who I am," Ginko say, as he tries to untangle himself from his unnaturally long chain.

"How many years have you been dead again?" I ask him.

"Thirty."

"And you still have an ass of links left. I won't be shocked if you somehow manage to outlive me," I say, chuckling.

"Ichigo!" Fumiyama yells, causing me to jump and turn my head towards her. "Who the hell are you talking to?"

"I've already told you that I'm talking to Ginko. But now that I think about it, you probably can't see him because he's a ghost- GAH! Why the hell am I even telling you this!? It's not like you're going to believe me!" I yell in frustration as I hurriedly sit up.

Fumiyama sighs. "Would you please calm down?"

I glare at her. "I hate to break it to you, Miss Fake, but this is as calm as I get," I hiss at her through my teeth.

"Ichigo-" Her beeper goes off and she hurriedly pulls it out of her lab coat. "Sorry, but I've got to go. Behave yourself," she warns before rushing out.

"I hope she falls down the stairs," I mutter under my breath as I cross my arms.

Ginko sticks his head through the wall. "I don't think that's going to happen, she's taking the elevator."

"Go bug someone else, you old fart!" I yell at him before throwing my pillow at him.

"No need to get violent-Ah!" This time I throw a book at his head. "OK, I'm going!" He yells before charging through my wall.

"Good riddance!

Being cruel isn't going to get you anywhere.

I slam both hands over my ears in a feeble attempt to block the voice out.

Aw, he's trying to ignore us.

You must be really stupid if you think that's really going to work.

"Go away," I mumble. All I want is to be left alone. By people, ghosts, and the voices that have tormented me every day since Katamura died. But I know that'll never happen, at least, not until I'm dead and in the ground…

ME: Sorry for not updating in so long. Please forgive me! .

ICHIGO: You guys can mob her if you want, I won't object.

ME: But if you do then you won't be able to-

ICHIGO: *Covers my mouth with his hand* SHHH! You'll spoil the next chapter, you idiot!

ME: *Licks Ichi's hand*

ICHIGO: Ew! Gross!

ME: Don't put you DARE put your hands over my mouth, I know EXACTLY where you've been!

ICHIGO: -_-

TOGETHER: Review!