"Get out of the way!" the sharp words and the following sharp elbow nearly knocked Noah right over as he entered the dorms. A man with faded blond hair, scraggy and unkempt, glared at him with icy eyes. Noah flinched away, not willing to involve himself with the infamous Conner Shepard, a relatively new resident of Hearthome but one who had made his presence known with his rudeness, his aggressiveness, and the rumours that he had been a killer before his arrival, although Noah refused to believe that the staff would let a legitimate killer roam the halls freely. The few criminally insane residents were all locked in their actual cells in the basement of the dormitory. Sometimes in the middle of the night, you could hear screams or cries, muffled beneath the concrete floor.

Conner stomped off, throwing a finger at the next unfortunate resident to get in his way while heading for the administrative building.

"I feel for the poor doctor," a woman sat on a bench just inside the door, a slim book in her hands titled 'The Mind of a Madman' in glossy golden font. The woman herself was one of the few residents who spoke to Noah, Penelope, who stood out with the bandages peeking out from beneath her Hearthome slacks, at her ankles, wrists, and neck. "Hey Noah."

Noah raised a hand in wordless reply as he walked past. It wasn't an insult or a slight, he just found it particularly hard to speak with people that weren't sitting in an office. It took Robyn a long time to get any words out of him. Perhaps Penelope could be someone Noah would talk to, eventually, if he could convince himself that her words weren't fabricated. However, Noah only managed a few short steps from Penelope before they both turned at the voice down a nearby corridor.

"Stop it! You're hurting me!"

"And I'll hurt you more if you keep up the attitude."

"Someone will hear you!"

"So?"

"I'll-I'll scream!"

"…So?"

Noah peeked around the corner to find a resident and an orderly. The resident was on the floor, timid little Ollie Cox, or at least that was the usual persona, Noah had never bothered to learn the others as they often didn't appear in day-to-day life. He was cowering under the raised baton of one Imogen Banks, a stolid brick of a woman who was perhaps the most feared orderly around Hearthome. Her obnoxiously red lips were peeled back in a snarl, the curled black hair sticking to her forehead.

The hospital called them orderlies, but really they were nothing but guards, wearing that padded blue uniform, with a radio, cuffs, and a baton at their hips. They say the batons were show only, to discourage those that act out, but this was one of the reasons Noah was convinced this was a prison instead of a hospital – what kind of hospital had people carrying around weapons? Especially when those weapons were in the hands of someone like Banks.

"Poor boy," Penelope muttered from beside Noah, glancing down the corridor and immediately withdrawing back to her bench. Noah didn't blame her, he certainly wasn't going to step in. Getting on Banks' bad side just wasn't worth it. He had seen some of the patients who arrived at the infirmary. It was never pretty. And always explained away as self-defence. Not all the orderlies could get away with it, but Banks was backed by her daddy, one of the key financial support lines for the hospital.

On his way to the stairwell, Noah passed another guard who was rushing, their face twisted in concern. If Imogen Banks was the devil of Hearthome, then Finley Sullivan was the angel, although that might have been a strong word. He at least looked out for the residents. As Noah climbed the stairs, he could hear Finley's voice as the guard turned down the corridor where Banks was bullying Ollie.

"For Christ's sake, Banks, stop it right now."

"Come on Sullivan, leave me be. I'm just helping Ollie out with his attitude."

"I-I told you, he's not here-"

"Can it, kid. I don't care who you are, I just—"

"Imogen!"

Noah left the conflict behind him. It wasn't his place to get involved in things like that. He had no desire to and knew he couldn't do anything anyway. His days of involving himself in others' fates was long past. It only meant trauma and heartbreak.

Instead he arrived at what had been his home for the last seven years, a comfortable little room at the end of the hallway on the third floor. It was especially nice as for whatever reason his only neighbour's room was always closed. Noah had never seen anyone go in or out of that room in all his time at Hearthome, and that suited him nicely. Having neighbours could be a noisy business when it came to Hearthome.

It was a simple enough room, an echo of all the rest. A side-bathroom, a single bed, a bookshelf with books that Noah had never touched. The only way it differed structurally was that Noah got to have a second window being in the corner of the building. One window gave him a view towards the Rec-Zone, while the other looked out past a copse of trees until he could spot the white wall of Hearthome about a mile away. He didn't like looking out this window. It reminded him that he couldn't leave.

Noah looked to the left of the door to where a simple blank calendar stood, reading the current month and year. October. 2024. He used the attached marker pen to tick the box reading 14. He then sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over, slipping off one laceless shoe and then the other with the care of an artist, placing both at the foot of his bed, on the floor. He then stood up and stripped himself of his pale blue uniform, folding both the top and the bottom with precision, placing them above his shoes. Wearing only a white undershirt and his underwear, Noah sat on the edge of the bed again, starting from one hundred and counting his way slowly down. When he reached fifty, he swung himself on top of his covers and by the time he reached twenty, he was fast asleep.

The cold permeated his skin. Noah had been pulled from the water like a ragdoll and dumped on the grassy bank, where with no visible injury other than a small cut on his left thumb, he seemed mostly okay. In fact, he felt quite okay, really. He sat on the bank with his hands on his knees, watching as the emergency services rushed to rescue people from the half-submerged bus. Sirens swung back and forth over the road, but Noah didn't care. He just watched.

A few people swam up by themselves. Others were pulled up. Some of those that were pulled up weren't moving. One of these faces was familiar to Noah, the auburn hair wet and stuck on her face. Only minutes before Amelia had been comforting him, telling him that this was all okay, and Noah had agreed. Noah felt no particular grief as he watched the EMT desperately try to bring her back. When the EMT stopped, Noah still felt no grief or sadness at this death of his long-time friend. He just watched.

It wasn't only Amelia. There were others and Noah made sure to get a good look at them all. There was an old man whose head had split open like a grape. A young girl pale and lifeless. A boy with what looked like part of a snapped railing in his chest. Noah looked at each of these people and made a note of them. He made a note of the people who grieved over them. He just simply watched.

For Noah knew that none of this was real. This was a Vision, just like before. The first time, he had been so distraught and terrified that he barely remembered any of the information. When that girl showed up and told him of the List, and the rules of it, and how to help the people on it, it was ridiculous but eventually he realised the truth behind her words. He had saved himself from the List back then with that girl's help, and she had disappeared off into the wind like it was nothing.

This time Noah would take in all the information he could to help when he was brought back to reality. He would find those who were killed, the old man, the young girl, the boy… Amelia. He would help them all. He knew how it worked. Noah actually found a smile. He wondered if any other Visionaries were as smart as he was, to be able to take in this information without batting an eyelid.

"Hello, I've come to check on you," an EMT stood in front of Noah, blocking his view. "I wanted to make sure—"

"You're blocking the view," Noah said pleasantly.

"Excuse me?"

"The view. You're blocking it. I need to see what is going on."

"I think you might be in some kind of shock. Let me—"

"No point," Noah waved him off, laughing lightly. It wasn't a manic laugh, it was a laugh like any from a normal day-to-day joke. "I'll wake up on that bus in a second. I'll be able to stop it. I'll be able to save their lives. So let me witness what is happening, okay?"

Whatever the EMT had said Noah had ignored, shuffling himself on the bank to watch the remnants of the accident in front of him. The EMT had disappeared and come back with somebody else, and when Noah was pulled up from the bank he had struck out, catching the EMT in the jaw with an errant punch. He continued to fight back, kicking and biting where he could, to the point that the on-scene police had to get involved. Noah didn't remember much of what happened between then and ending up at Hearthome, but he could hear his own cries, echoed against his mind, permanently engraved.

"This is a Vision! I'll wake up! This is a Vision, I'm telling you, let me go! I'll wake up and this will have never happened! A Vision! Get your hands off me!"

Noah awoke in the morning, his own words of the past his alarm clock, just like every night he could remember. Sometimes the routine of it all blended days and weeks together. The seven years he had been at the Hearthome Hospital certainly didn't feel like it. Sometimes Noah would wake in the morning and be uncertain if the previous day had happened. Had he talked with Doctor Evans yesterday, or was that due today?

Noah glanced to the calendar on his wall, marked off up to the 14th. This was how he confirmed that a day had passed. This allowed him to believe he was still moving forward. At least, it helped. There was that voice in the back of his head that asked:

And what if I wake up and the seven years had never even happened. What if I wake up back on that bus, next to Amelia, and we can avoid all of this? What if you were right?