: 2 :

When he arrived minutes before dinner that night, he noticed the tension in the mansion as soon as he walked in. The First Floor nurses looked at him uncomfortably, but none were willing to make eye contact with him. He didn't bother settling in. He headed straight for the Second Floor, where the air was considerably thicker with tension. He looked over the table to see that all of them were in their chairs, but Dr Hina was standing with a rigid posture, glaring at the kitchen staff as they prepared the table with noticeable agitation.

"What happened?" he asked as Dr Hina turned to look at him.

"I have written out the reports necessary for you to look over. You might as well over dinner," she added bitterly. She turned to glare at one patient in particular.

That was when Dr Smoker realized that Luffy was wearing the heavier vest, looking upset. Penguin was still looking at that same spot on the wall, eyes moving from side to side. Ussop looked exhausted, counting out loud as he made the necessary taps he needed to get through the meal. Ace was glaring down the table once more, more peeved than he was earlier. Law looked smug, sitting primly in his chair, knees pressed against the table edge. Zoro looked as if he were minutes away from falling asleep, head jerking upward, eyelids heavy. Sanji was too busy looking at the plates being set out to give any indication to the stress the others were feeling.

He sighed.

Dr Hina turned and marched out of the dining room without another word, night shift exchanging their positions with the day crew. One of the nurses from downstairs was there, swiftly handing Dr Smoker the papers that Dr Hina had mentioned, and then she scurried away.

He sat down as everyone waited for the word, and once he gave it, he started reading. After he was finished, he looked back at the spot of the wall with a controlled frown. Reading what Dr Hina had given him goosebumps, and a sickening feeling in his gut. He looked down the table at the men eating – well, most, considering that Penguin was still staring at the shadows, and Sanji was eying his fork with a critical eye – and decided that tonight was going to be one of those nights.

: :

An hour before it was time to retire to their rooms, most of the patients were sitting in the break room, doing their best to 'calm their minds' for the night. Luffy was on his twenty minute jogging exercise with the weighted vest, and he spoke excitedly about the things they saw earlier that day in the fenced in yard. In an effort to combat his hyperactivity, he was forced to wear the heavy weighted vest throughout the night. It had been designed to slow him down, but Dr Smoker noticed that he seemed to be getting used to the activity – even growing physically stronger because of it.

Ussop was sprawled with a tired expression as he contributed to the conversation. Zoro was nearly ready to fall asleep on his feet, leaning against the far wall near one of the barred windows – the three by two slot was too small for any of them to fit if they found reason to try and escape that route, the iron bars outside preventing even a limb from emerging if the glass were broken. But even that was sectioned off by mesh wiring, just in case these same patients decided to use glass as a weapon – or tool.

Penguin was seated stiffly in one of the heavy chairs – it took two men to lift the thing, preventing any of the patients from using it as a weapon – and staring sightlessly at the floor. Walking the length of the room, Sanji grumpily muttered about being denied a cigarette, occasionally contributing to the younger boys' conversation when prompted. Law sat in the other chair, leg crossed primly, observing everything with nothing more than a bored expression. Dr Smoker watched him from the corner of his eye, looking for any sign that the man would soon provoke any of them into any conversation.

Upon Dr Hina's investigation, they had found the rotted head of Apoo sitting in the crawl space above the dining room area. The workers of the asylum were under investigation for that – the day the man died, his body had been intact. Suffering from intense delusions, unable to react to social cues or even prone to fits if slighted by some mysterious thing, Apoo had been one of the more difficult patients to reach. Dr Smoker had a hard time even trying to diagnose the man's psychosis, finding that the spectrum of antisocial reaction too broad to start pinpointing his mental state.

Dr Smoker remembered that day Apoo had died vividly; they had been seated in the break room, much as they were right now. He remembered spotting Law bent at the knees, saying something low to Apoo that the man reacted to with a stiff action. Before anyone could intervene, Apoo stood up from the floor, and began screaming in a wordless, piercing manner. His fit took three of the largest male nurses to secure, thrashing so wildly that sedatives were called for.

"I only asked if he were a 'good boy'," Law had protested. But he started laughing at the fit that caused Zoro to twitch and complain, for Luffy to panic, for Ussop to tap repeatedly on his way out from the break room to gain safe distance from the taller man.

Dr Smoker had ordered him to be confined while Apoo was dealt with – what should have made him suspicious was Law's easiness to go along with the prompting. Apoo seemed to calm himself before the sedatives arrived. Twenty minutes later, he sat on the floor and stared at the wall, scratching himself, mumbling incoherently. He then excused himself to the lavatory – at the time, there had been a door in place. Ten minutes later, the orderlies were dismayed when Apoo emerged from the bathroom, having covered himself with his own feces.

He was also in the act of eating it, smearing goop over everything he could touch, blabbing about being a 'good boy'. The other patients fled the area to avoid being touched. The orderlies veered away from him until protective gear could be located. Zoro threw a fit once the smell reached him, and started to rage. From his room, Law laughed loudly as Apoo's voice started to rise.

The worst part started when Apoo managed to lock himself in the bathroom. One of the nurses had then realized that a key was missing from his belt. The horrendous screams started up then, and, due to the heaviness of the door, no one could get it open in time. By the time one of the women from downstairs made it up with an extra key at Dr Smoker's shouts, the damage was done.

The other patients were herded into their rooms at this point, but they were all looking through the mesh wiring windows, watching as the orderlies reacted with horror and spastic retching as the door was opened. After seeing what he had, Dr Smoker couldn't look, anymore. Apoo died slowly, mumbling about being a 'good boy', and Law was in hysterics.

The reports indicated that Apoo had died from self-suffocation, and the coroner was paid to 'adjust' some of the details. They couldn't let word get out about his true manner of death – no one would trust the institution into further care of its patients. After Law was confined to solitary, the other patients made up their own version of events to explain what had happened. A couple of weeks later, Zoro told them all what Apoo did, because 'Kuina' had seen it happen.

"Wrapped himself in his own coils," he'd said with a grave nod. "Tightened it to keep the bugs out. He was a 'good boy'."

"What the fuck gets a guy to do that?" Sanji had asked, unable to picture the scene.

"Kuina said that Apoo can only make himself better if he cleaned the shit out. The beam of light made him crazy. It can't be helped."

"Hopefully that light stays out of my room," Luffy had said.

"Law was only being helpful."

"I don't think that was 'being helpful'," Ussop had muttered, shaking. "That was not being helpful at all."

"The apples didn't help, but he looked at them anyway. The other eyes did, too. There were too many eyes watching him."

"Shit," Sanji had said, crossing his arms stiffly, rocking himself on his heels before shifting from side to side. "Well, that's too bad."

"Literally shit," Zoro had agreed with a nod. "His own shit coils."

"It's humanly impossible to do that, right?" Ussop had asked Dr Smoker, looking for reassurance.

But Dr Smoker couldn't get the sight of his head, and couldn't answer fast enough, so Ussop made his own confirmation. Most patients that died at the asylum were either returned to their families, or buried in the nearby island's cemetery, in unmarked graves. Apoo had been buried at this location, having been 'unclaimed'. Buried intact. It didn't make sense for his head to remain at the institution – Dr Smoker suspected foul play within the staff, but he trusted Dr Hina to get to the bottom of it.

He had to admit, Law wasn't that far from his suspicions. The day Apoo died, his body had been stored in the basement until the funeral director could remove it, three days later. Law had been confined in solitary at that time – Dr Smoker considered looking over the records himself to see who had been on duty, then. Staff could be corrupted if the money and influence was right.

But upon that thought, how had the head gotten into the crawlspace?

Based on Law's crimes, the man wasn't secretive – he loved to brag about his exploits. As a child, he'd stolen off with people's pets and dismembered them in his own back yard before returning them to their owner's porches. Later, he moved onto humans; prostitutes and homeless – people who were easily missed. He was only caught because he'd bragged about personal details to a man closely associated with the justice system. Without actual evidence to pin him to the deaths, the judge couldn't convict him to those crimes; his family had too much money to corrupt the case. He got away with at least seven known murders with similar methods of operation, and Dr Smoker suspected that there were more. Law's personality was dangerously charismatic, depending on what he was looking for. So far, he regarded the other patients as 'playthings', and he tested them regularly – Dr Hina was a threat. He openly defied and provoked her, but she refused to back down from him. He displayed cruelty to animals and agitated the others if he managed to get a hold of one. His outside visits were often limited because of this.

He was not a treatable person – he displayed too much cruelty and apathy towards other human beings. Dr Smoker was able to catch his lies, which frustrated Law – the man could convince anyone that he was remorseful for his actions, but it only took a small catch to upset him. Dr Smoker knew how to use that to trip him. It was to his fortune, Dr Smoker supposed, that he had a few more years of working with such patients that Law could be contained – otherwise, he feared for the public's safety.

He read the reports to be caught up with the day's activities. With them in mind, he leaned against the nearby shelves, where few books sat. He glared at the blank-faced man watching the others, suspecting that his hands had been recently dirtied.

That night, after their doors were locked, staff reduced the lights. Dr Smoker took to the office closest to the bedrooms, and looked over the reports again. Luffy's latest accident involved climbing one of the trees on the property, Ace yelling at him to get down. Luffy had jumped instead, but his casted leg caught on a limb on the way down, and he'd crashed face first into the dirt. As staff treated him, Law laughed hysterically, which drew Ace's attention, and Ace would've gotten away with a physical confrontation if the orderlies hadn't intervened quickly.

In the midst of that, a bee had alighted in Zoro's proximity, causing him to freak out – drawing insects towards him with violent dancing to escape the insect. He'd tripped over Sanji, who was napping in the grass, causing the man to kick him as he reacted aggressively. Both of them started to fight, which caused the guards to abandon Ace and Law's confrontation, and Ace managed to get in close enough to hit Law before Dr Hina intervened. There was some inappropriate comment made, which caused Dr Hina to react with her binding technique – an arm twisted hard to the back – to which Law gave no reaction. It was the lack of reaction that caused concern to most staff – it unsettled Dr Hina to have him confined for an hour to think about what he'd caused, and he'd taken the punishment without a fuss.

It was always the quiet before the storm that made most of the staff nervous when it came to Law. After he was released, he was as 'normal' as could be with the other patients, disregarding the entire incident, but he did stare at Dr Hina with enough weight that the doctor was nervous. Which explained her behavior upon Dr Smoker's arrival.

He figured he'd have a talk with him before he left his shift in the morning, just to see if he could diffuse the situation.

As he sat there making notes, he became aware of a sound in the hallway. A slow shuffle that sounded as if someone were dragging their feet on the wooden floor. He tensed, then rose up from his desk. Peering out from his doorway, he searched the dark hallway for anyone walking it. There was a guard near the stairway that was looking over, as well, and their eye contact was brief. None of the patients made any reacting noises, so Dr Smoker figured that perhaps someone was moving around in their room. With exasperation, he left the office and headed straight for Sanji's room, thinking he was up exercising again.

But when he peered through the small window of his door, he saw that the man was facing the doorway, sleeping deeply. The shuffling noise continued, and Dr Smoker looked down the hallway once more, the single guard joining him. He had a candle lit, and the flame casted caught nobody there. Together, they quietly checked the rooms of the other patients. Law was sound asleep, Ace snoring heavily with his feet pointed towards them. Luffy and Ussop were motionless as well; Zoro was seated upright in his bed, but his arms were crossed tightly, head down.

That left only Penguin's room. Once they looked there, they caught sight of the man waddling between bed and door, moving without aim.

"Go to sleep, Penguin," Dr Smoker ordered gruffly, the guard giving a single exhale of relief. He had to elbow him to remain professional, but he watched as Penguin obeyed the command and sat down onto his bed, flopping back first on the mattress. Dr Smoker watched him for a few more moments, then pushed away from the door.

The moment he resettled in his chair, that shuffling sound happened again. With a low growl of impatience, Dr Smoker headed back towards the room, hearing the shuffling grow nosier the closer he ventured to the door. Looking into the room, though, showed him that Penguin was still in the same spot he'd left him in. The shuffling noise continued off to his right, so he squinted into the darkness, whispering for the guard to rejoin him. Once he did, the candlelight illuminating the darkness at the end of the hall, they saw nothing.

But the sound continued, and the more he listened to it, the more Dr Smoker was aware of the noise's direction. It was coming from up above his head. In unison, both he and the guard looked up at the ceiling, hearing the shuffling grow nearer to them, then retreat.

"Send someone up there to check it out," Dr Smoker told the guard irritably. When he left, Dr Smoker returned to his office. He sat down to concentrate on his paperwork, mindful of the shuffling noises. He did hear a few of the guards approach the locked attic corridor just off of the main staircase, and tried to tune them out. He was reading over Zoro's daily charts and the one on one session with Dr Hina when he realized he heard nothing at all. He lifted his head, removing his glasses as he listened for something indicative of the group's activity just above him. He was pretty sure he'd heard them walk up the narrow staircase to access the attic, their footsteps ringing out overhead as they access the attic space, but now there was only a strange silence.

The shuffling had even stopped.

He waited for a few moments, straining his ears to hear any shift of weight, or even the telltale voices of those men overhead, and heard absolutely nothing. It bugged him that the trio wasn't doing their job correctly, and curiosity got the best of him. He locked his office behind him and headed for the staircase. There was an orderly standing there at the bottom, looking vaguely interested as he held a candle in hand. He was waiting on the men's return, and he looked as puzzled as Dr Smoker did. Both of them then walked up the narrow staircase to the attic.

It smelled of mothballs, dust and a strange oil. He'd seen the attic before – it stored some of the previous owner's abandoned junk, and the sanatorium's own collection of extra furniture, supplies that they kept on hand. It creaked noisily when someone walked about, and caused dust to fall onto the floor below. He figured that perhaps something of interest had caught that group's eye, and they were only lingering around it to examine it. As he stepped out onto the attic floor, he caught sight of the candles that they'd used to guide their way, sitting on various flat surfaces. The orderly hurriedly excused himself to go back downstairs, and Dr Smoker scoffed at his retreat.

He ventured towards the candleholder nearest him, and picked it up, holding it ahead of him to see where the others were. His weight made a loud creaking noise as he walked the narrow trail through stacked furniture throughout the attic space – although he saw these items, he didn't see anyone else. The candles left behind were either sat down atop of a flat surface, or on the floor.

Bewildered, he walked to the next one and looked around himself. Then to the other side of the attic, scanning for any sign of the individuals that had come up. He was certain he did not hear them retreat back to the first floor. Something about the scene made his skin ripple with unease. As he stood there, he heard the shuffling sound start up, again. It was coming from the other side of the attic, and it sounded as if something were moving over the floor in a slow crawl.

He scanned that side with a skeptical expression, then marched in that direction. As he did so, shadows separated and built, shifting away from his intended destination to re-gather in another part of the attic. It was almost as if someone, moving about on their knees, had taken a quick route away from him to stay within the line of shadows. The possibility that it was one of the patients playing tricks on him hit him – he was more angry than upset about it. He ventured in that direction, nearly stumbling over end tables, a chair, and banging off the edge of a table. That shadow suddenly drew back into the wall, and the shuffling stopped. Once he reached that point, he was surprised to see that nothing was there. He touched the wall with one hand, feeling for a doorway, a trick panel.

The sound of someone coming up the stairs caught his attention, and he looked over, expecting to see a guard, or that orderly. But whomever it was wasn't carrying a candle, and the footsteps slowed near the doorway, then stopped completely. After seconds passed, Dr Smoker grew impatient.

"Who's there?" he demanded, marching in that direction. When he didn't get a reply, he gave a curse of impatience. Everyone was going to have their asses handed to him once he found the missing guards and confronted this joker. As he neared the doorway, the door slammed shut. All the candles blew out in that moment in a wisp of smoke. Being enveloped within the sudden darkness had him banging off something large and heavy, and he cursed, tripping over something that caught his foot in mid-lift. He managed to catch himself, but as he did so, he heard the door lock.

Furious, he set his candleholder aside and began feeling his way out. But as he shuffled through the narrow trails between stacked items around him, he grew aware of something following after him. The shuffling sound that brought his attention to the attic turned into wide, heavy steps, and things crashed to the floor.

He wasn't easily afraid, but there was something about this sound that rattled him. It was the sound of someone breathing through a clogged nose, a whistling that sounded familiar. Etched with it was a voice uttering sounds formed to make a word – too low and guttural to be human, devilishly made.

Dr Smoker instantly thought of Apoo – he had made that odd noise whenever he was at the height of a tantrum, when sucking wind required harsh effort. Things crashed to the floor, rattled over the wood, and that sound grew closer still. His skin crawled, and the hairs on his arms and neck rose. He found the door, tried the lock – even as he'd heard it fall into place earlier. That breathing grew louder, and suddenly he smelled it – that putrid shit smell that Apoo had reeked of, that made him retch.

After that was a loud explosion, a blast of horrific power and force that left his face feeling loose and wet. That sound disappeared, intense darkness settling around him with suffocating force. The attic rumbled with a low roll of moving sound that pushed away from him, rattling everything in its path before resettling.

The candles flickered back to life, allowing him to see the vague shape of a man lighting them. But there was something wrong with his vision. The sight began to physically pull away from him, blurring into something of a shape, an ear piercing ringing building in volume the further the colors grew. The ringing grew louder, and louder, until it ceased into absolute nothingness.