A/N: Oh, hello. I'm back again. And I realized that I totally failed on the last chapter - I switched tenses accidentally. Poop. However, I still can't be bothered to go through and check that I'm okay on this chapter, because I have homework. (IT'S FRIDAY, UGH.) I think that's all I had to say...umm..hmm...I only have through chapter 11 written, so I'm going to try and do some of that this weekend. That's not important. I'll shut up. Enjoy!

Do you live, do you die, do you bleed
For the fantasy
In your mind, through your eyes, do you see
It's the fantasy

Say it, say it, say what you believe
Say it, say it, to me

Do you live, do you die, do you bleed
For the fantasy
Automatic, I imagine, I believe

Do you live
Do you die
Do you bleed
For the fantasy

30 Seconds to Mars – The Fantasy

Chapter Seven: The Second Killing

I phase through several walls until I find my way back to the room from yesterday. I reach inside the wall and pluck the Death Note from it. I rip out a page, sneak a pen from the nurse's station, then return to Quinn.

"Her name is Cathy Dawe," Quinn says, tapping the pen against her chin. "Pyre called her Cathy, and she introduced herself as Cathy Dawe the first day I came here. See? I don't need the eyes of a God of Death to be awesome." I bare my teeth behind my mask as she leans over the page and scribbles down the name. She stuffs the page in her shoe, hiding it under her pants leg. "For safekeeping," she explains. Then she sits down on her bed again, and we both time the forty seconds in our head.

When we get to thirty-five, Cathy Dawe walks into the room again.

Quinn sits bolt upright, looking panicked.

"Oh," I say with interest. "I guess we get to watch."

Quinn's face is definitely saying I don't want to watch!

The nurse is carrying a towel, probably to clean up the mess that Quinn spat everywhere. Cathy Dawe glances at Quinn, but doesn't seem to think much of her expression. She leans down to wipe the floor with the towel, then –

Her hand clutches at her heart in a claw, like she's scratching into her torso as trying to figure out what's going on within her. She collapses on her side, then rolls to her back. And with a final, unappetizing gurgle, she quiets. Quinn is kneeling on the bed, looking horrified. Then she starts screaming, long piercing shrieks that actually stop me in my tracks, rendering me unable to appreciate the nurse's death.

Immediately, orderlies are in the room. They seize Quinn's arms after getting a look at the corpse on the floor. Quinn kicks her legs and the Death Note paper flies out and lands beside me. The orderlies don't notice as they pin her down. Her face is pressed onto the mattress, and she's sobbing in pain as her arms are twisted. I panic and grab the Death Note page.

After rapid deliberation, I stuff the paper in my mouth, causing it to disappear to the human's eyes.

It is a lucky thing that I do not have saliva.

Quinn is wearing a paper dress, and lying down, strapped to a hospital bed. She's out cold. They gave her some kind of tranquilizer. I still have the paper in my mouth because I haven't had a chance to leave the room and spit it out.

What was her problem? She didn't freak out when she killed her old shrink. And then she goes and screams like she's being dragged into Hell itself. My ears are still ringing, and I can't contain the rage inside of me for her stranding us in the isolated ward.

And I'm bored. It's already nighttime. We've been here all day.

I see her stirring and prepare to start shouting, albeit with my mouth full. Her eyes slowly crack open, revealing the watered down grey color I despise. She pulls weakly at her restraints before her eyes wander down to try and figure out what is going on in her drug induced state. Her gaze settles on the straps around her arms and her face immediately drops into fright.

"Get them off me," she rasps quietly. Her bulging eyes are darting around, looking at each restraint. Something makes me think that she's not talking to me. It just doesn't sound right.

"Get. Them. Off," she says again, more forcefully. Suddenly, she starts tossing fitfully, screaming.

"GET THEM OFF ME! GET THEM OFF. THEY'RE EATING ME!"

I stare at her, shocked. I don't have an urge to laugh, even though what she's saying is ridiculous.

She looks positively beside herself with terror. Her eyes are rolling with panicked madness and her limbs are taut, straining against the straps. She manages to yank her arm out of one of them, and immediately throws herself onto the other. Her fingers scrabble at her wrist and underside of her arm. She rips her nails down the soft skin there, leaving ragged red welts. She's screaming all the while.

"GET THEM OFF IT HURTS! THEY'RE BITING ME!" she screeches, tears rolling down her face. The door slams open and a nurse and orderlies rush in. I leap out of their way, even though they'd just run right through me, stunned. They wrestle her back down and she's stung with a syringe. She gradually slips back down onto the bed and they fix her restraints. They add another set of straps onto her upper arms as well. Then they leave, and it's quiet again.

I stand there for a moment, feeling torn apart. I wheel around and exit the building through the wall, dropping two stories into the street. I throw the paper to the side and it bounces off the pavement, safely hidden in a bush. Then I unfurl my wings, and with a powerful surge, I'm lifted into the inky night sky.

I can't believe that I'm hesitant. I watched that entire development with an emotion frighteningly like horror. I shouldn't care. I hate Quinn. Why can't I control my own thoughts? What is going on? I don't understand it. I loathe everything in the human world. I despise Quinn. I hate humans. I hate the mental hospital. I hate the little rats within it. I hate the bald doctor with the smug smile. So why am I not enjoying watching Quinn suffer? The disreputable humans who care for no one but themselves. They're the monsters. That's what Quinn should be seeing in front of her, not anything else. She shouldn't have us locked up in a place like this because she can't discern fantasy from reality.

I feel myself melding into the velvet blackness of the night as I rise higher and higher, leaving the specked lights of the city behind me. This is where I should be. In a place with naught to be seen. It is not fantasy nor reality. Godlike. Perfect. Beautiful.

69 Days Left

I arrive back at the hospital as the night washes to blue. I hadn't realized how long it'd been since I saw a color other than black or white. The brightness is despicable to my slit eyes. I sneer at the bush hiding the Death Note page. If Quinn wants her secret kept, then she can just suck it up and fix her mind and come and get it herself.

I jump up and through the wall into the room. Quinn is awake. They've allowed her to sit up. Her hair is in turbulent knots and her neck creaks chillingly as she turns to face me. Her eyes are rimmed with red - dull and glassy but they focus on me. I narrow my eyes at her.

"You left me," she whispers. I stare at her apathetically.

"I was never on your side."

Her lips part in confusion, but then her eyes widen and she looks past me. She tenses up and starts breathing heavily. She doesn't scream, like her attacks yesterday.

"What is that, Anathema? What is that in the corner?" she breathes, struggling to stay calm. Her thin chest is heaving as she tries to control herself. I turn around and look where she is looking. There's nothing there. In fact, it's just as white as the rest of the room. "It's staring at me. It looks like…" she trails off, working her fingers like claws, kneading the bedsheets. She mumbles something.

"What?" I ask, leaning closer.

"I don't know," she says.

"I think you're crazy," I say coldly. "Why don't you just shut up and focus on getting out of here?" I start to sweep out of the room, but I hear her behind me.

"Don't leave! Don't leave me, Anathema! Please! It's there! It's coming!"

I stop and allow her words to run through my thoughts. I hear her breathing hitch for a moment, like she's certain she's convinced me. But no. I am simply allowing her pleas to envelope me, inside and out. I really consider the pathetic noises.

It is more satisfying when I continue to walk.

I phase through the door, hearing her screams echo down the hallways around me.

When I return to Quinn's room several hours later (after doing nothing but sitting in a supply closet) I am rather surprised to see that she's not asleep again. She is lying down, sure, but her eyes are open. Thinking that's suspicious, I raise my eyes to her name and lifespan. No, she's not dead. Which means whatever this thing she was ranting about hadn't "gotten her."

Shame.

"Wasssuuuppp," I say, being in a strangely social mood since I spent the entire day in a tiny confined space because I didn't want to do anything else. She's just staring at the ceiling. "Fine." I say. "I didn't want to talk to you anyway. How'd the Corner-Man go?"

She twitches then, and looks at me. I see that I've struck a nerve. Her insanity seems to tighten these. So I pull my mask down, hold up my hands in surrender and smile blandly. She doesn't seem to forgive me right away, but she lies back down.

43 Days Left

She is in the isolated Red Ward for nearly a month. Around the second week, though, she came out of whatever fits she had been having and was coherent. It's probably better that she stayed the way she was, since I wasn't a very hospitable roommate. I told her that I'd hidden the page from the staff, which was true enough. I didn't feel like mentioning the fact that it was outside now, right by the sidewalk. As fun as it would've been to make her mad, I wasn't in the mood to be yelled at.

Not to mention that the nurse's would never have let her leave if she began yelling at the air.

At the end of the first month, it came as a surprise to me when a nurse came by to take her back to the Yellow Ward. My jaw sat on the floor while Quinn was helped into the white clothing that wasn't a paper dress with no back. Then they escorted her out of the room. I reached down and grabbed my jaw and brought it with me as I followed them.

We enter the recreation lobby that feels like it should be covered to top to bottom with cobwebs. I may be immortal and live for an eternity, but locked up like that…that was horrifyingly disorienting. I feel like it's been years. But it's just as bright and clean as always. The furniture is still nailed to the ground and there's still an unidentifiable stain on the back of the sofa. Pyre would say something like: It's good to be home!

She's an idiot. I have mixed feelings about returning to the social aspect of the psych ward, and her. But, admittedly, the bitterness had faded as we left the Red Ward. At least it was more entertaining here.

The nurse takes her hand off of Quinn's arm and I can't help but imagine she's unlocking handcuffs from her wrists.

"They're at dinner," the nurse nods to Quinn. Quinn shuffles toward the cafeteria doors. Upon seeing the evaluating looks the other nurses are giving her, she manages to pick up her feet. She's undoubtedly remembering the "Points System" that Pyre told her about shortly before she killed Cathy. I imagine she's somewhere around the 0 mark, as they had let her out. I suppose they reset with each ward. Negatives are easier to obtain, of course.

Quinn is about to push the doors open when they suddenly fly outwards. One of them hits her, and she's knocked flat on her butt. The other actually hits me because I'm too surprised to do anything. It hits me, swings backward, and nails Pyre right in the face. She falls back onto her butt too. Pyre curses, then rolls around holding her head yelling something about how she's fatally wounded and she wants all of her "toys" to go to a guy named Fenoli. I recover enough to be angry. She smashed several maggots and now they're pasted to my forehead. I scrape at them then flip them off. They fade into the air.

"Oh my gosh!" Pyre yells. She crawls over to Quinn and pokes her forehead, the point of impact that took the blunt force of the door. "IT'S A BABY UNICORN!" she screams, and I see that there is a large lump there. Once again, my jaw hits the floor. I think it's defective. I'll need to get that looked at. Somehow. Maybe it's just degenerated with my time in the Human World.

Quinn grunts and boosts herself onto her elbows, smacking Pyre's hand away. She rubs the knot on her forehead. Anna runs over from the nurse's station and helps her up the rest of the way. Pyre stands up on her own.

"Thompson is going to be so happy!" she says. "He thought you were abducted by aliens. I think he's got a sweet spot for you. But I'll fight him for it."

Once Quinn is reintroduced to the table (Pyre insists on a formal induction. The nurses won't give her a saber so she can "knight" Quinn, so she just uses her leg instead. That girl is flexible. I was impressed.), it is established that Thompson was only concerned for the wellbeing of the Earth. Her disappearance was an early warning sign of alien invasion. Pyre lovingly points out Quinn's noteworthy black eye bags to Aidan who looks at her a little longer than necessary with his own black eyes.

All in all, Quinn looks uncomfortable throughout, so I'm appeased.

The nurses are keeping a careful watch on Quinn, so I'm not able to play Scrabble with them in the evening. That's okay. I am too busy fuming over the evening group session I attended with Quinn. I still want him dead, but I don't want to be locked up in the Red Ward for another month because Quinn is a pansy. He wasn't as annoying as he could have been, since the nurses probably instructed him to tone it down on Quinn for the time being. Waiting for the death of someone you hate is not an easy task.

Quinn is rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet in front of the Scrabble board with her arms around her knees.

"Just ask already," I say harshly. Pyre is lying on the ground chewing on a match and spelling out some ridiculously long word. Quinn shoots me a glare and opens her mouth to ask.

"You want to know what happened to Cathy," Pyre says flatly around the match. Quinn shuts her mouth and nods. Pyre flicks the match to the side of her mouth. "They said it was a heart attack. Funeral services were a couple weeks ago. They don't blame you, you know. But for now on, you should probably take your meds without any kind of resistance."

"Of course they wouldn't," I scoff. "They can't trace a heart attack."

"I don't know why they were so harsh on you, though," Pyre said, shrugging. "Anyone would freak out if someone died right in front of them."

Quinn stares fixedly at the Scrabble board. The door to the room opens and Anna sticks her head in.

"Lights out, girls," she says. "Get in bed."

"Would you like to join me?" Pyre says winningly. The match has disappeared so she's able to grin at Anna. Needless to say, Pyre ends up climbing into bed alone, sighing heavily.

"Why do the nurses let you get away with that?" Quinn asks from her bed.

Pyre rolls over in the darkness.

"They love me," she laughs quietly. "The only attention they get all day is from a bunch of crazy mental patients. They'd rather it be me than some demented addict nudist. Nurses literally spend all day cleaning up shit. Sometimes the orderlies help, but they've got to clean bedpans and bathe old guys…it's not a very glamorous job."

Quinn says, "Hmm."

The bed creaks and I make out Pyre tiptoeing across the room. Quinn's back is still turned. I clamp my mouth shut, putting my hand over my mask so I wouldn't be tempted to make a sound. I hear the tap tapping of Pyre's bare feet on the tile, and then she jumps. She's suspending in the air over Quinn's bed for a moment, then she belly flops down onto Quinn's relaxed form.

"OW!" Quinn says, but is quickly cut off as Pyre claps a hand over her mouth.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to rape you," Pyre whispers. "I just wanted to do that. My other roommate hated it." Then she jumps off of her and walks past me back to her own bed. I snort.

"Why didn't you warn me, Anathema?" Quinn mutters, just loud enough for me to hear.

"It wasn't my problem. Shut up and go to sleep. I don't want to listen to you anymore."

So she relaxes again. But a half hour later, as I'm fading in and out of sleep, she speaks again. I open my eyes irritably.

"What?"

"I said…I think the Corner-Man is real."

"I just named him that to make fun of you."

"I know you did. But as soon as you said it, I think it became his name. And I think it made him real." She shivers under the sheets and turns over. "He's not here now, though."

"So why does it matter?" I drone, wishing she'd shut up so I don't have to sit through the entire night.

"Because I'm scared. What if he comes back?"

"Then I guess you'll just get killed," I say, shrugging. I don't mention the fact that he's a figment of her sickness riddled imagination.

A/N: Yay. Quinn's so crazy. I like her.

Thanks for reading, (feel free to) review or Pyre will get you.