When Sakon woke up, he felt nauseous. His head was also hurting very badly, throbbing in pain. He had thought that the effects would have worn off by now but they hadn't. There seemed to be a pinging in his ears that wouldn't go away. He sat up, trying to remember where he was.

He quickly remembered he wasn't at home. In fact, home was not anywhere that he was going to go soon. His mind played through his mind the thought that he might never get to go home. Or, when he finally got to go home, he wouldn't remember any more.

Sakon lifted his right hand and flexed it, going back and forth. An ache filled his hart as he thought of his old friend. Another fear filled his heart about being able to still perform puppetry or would he need to relearn everything that he had come to know.

He also feared his friends coming to see him here because he hadn't a clue how he would act around anyone. Considering how he had reacted to the doctor and the doctor's response to him, he was quite sure a visit from them wouldn't be a good thing and didn't want to repeat the situation, even with the doctor, as he liked the man.

The room was quite stale to him , with its sterile smell. He saw all around him white walls and cold metal steel. He saw a window with moonlight coming through dimly. He then saw that the door was ajar. He blinked a couple of times, remembering what Dr. Ikimono had promised him. Something was amiss.

Sakon then stood up, pushing the stark sheets away. His whole vision wobbled as he moved, causing him to clap a hand to his forehead and use the other to steady himself. He then went to investigate the open door.

His whole body was wobbly and he rocked on his heels a bit. His eyes felt like they were going to roll back into his head. He was however stubborn and got out into the hallway some how. A table blocked the hallway going one way, so he headed down the other way.

Why he was following the hallway, he hadn't a clue, other then he had the urge to do so, which he felt could very easily be the result of whatever drug he had been put on. His body was telling him that it was alright to go down the hallway, but his mind kept telling him that something was very, very wrong.

At the very end of the hallway, he found the fire exit ajar too, which brought curiosity to his mind, overriding his felling of dread. Sometimes Ukon was right about his interest in figuring things out… that he had a morbid sense of it. There was no way that the drugs were helping the stability of his mind in making a sound judgment at this point.

He pushed the door ajar and stepped outside, smelling the fresh air. However, his nose wrinkled as he caught a whiff of something smelling like iron or some other metal. He then heard the door click behind him, causing him to suddenly turn, causing him to lose his balance.

He fell forward to his right side, landing on something large and squishy. He also felt something warm and sticky against his right hand. He blinked a couple of times, trying to figure out what was going on.

The smell of iron and the stickiness suddenly clicked in his head, slower then it should have. The realization caused him to push away and back peddle away from what he fell on top of. He didn't stop until he felt his back to a metal trash can, flat. He began to wipe his right hand across his forehead, but as soon as the stickiness touched his forehead, he stopped and yanked his hand away.

He then pulled his knees up to him, not being able to figure out what to do next as his head was spinning and unable to think things through straight. He vomited to his left and then began to breathe hard, hyperventilating as his body tried to cope with the shock and the drugs in his system. He then began to rock back and forth trying to calm himself down while his vision swam in front of his eyes.

M

Dr. Ikimono had planned on going and checking up on the Tachibana child at least once per day, even if he didn't work. He opened the door to the teenager's room, only to din that the boy wasn't there, causing his jaw to drop. Worry began to fill his mind and he went to go see the nurse.

"Where is Tachibana?" he asked the woman. He frowned as she shuffled through her papers, acting like everything was actually all right even though he knew it wasn't. He cleared his throat to get her attention. "The new kid?"

"He should be in his room," the nurse said, still not realizing the gravity of the situation. Not until he snapped his clipboard on the front desk.

"Do you think I would ask where he was if he was in his room?"

The nurse's face turned pale. "He isn't your patient… why would you go look in on the boy."

"I've taken a liking to the boy… you would to if you met him,"

"I'll call the police, you get the rest of the staff to start looking," she said, picking up the phone.

He went from room to room looking for the boy and telling the rest of the staff to begin looking as he found them. There were only a few places really that he could check inside the building and he was running out. That was when an orderly came hurrying up to him.

"What ever is the matter?" he asked the man.

"I found a dead body while taking out the trash," he said, his face extremely pale.

"Please tell me it isn't Tachibana," the doctor asked, his face frowning to show he hoped it wasn't.

"No, but he's out there too, blood on him… the boy's got a blank stare on him. Don't tell Dr. Frost this, but I think he's over medicated the kid,"

Dr. Ikimono didn't respond as he had already thought that when he had seen Sakon the other day. He instead quickly followed the orderly outside to where he had found the body, not to mention Sakon. He ignored the body and first went to remove his lab coat and put it over Sakon's shoulders, as the boy had been out here awhile.

He then removed a pair of gloves from the pocket of the lab coat and pulled them on. He then went over to the body, which was a big, fat woman and shook his head. Using his gloved hand, he felt for a pulse and when he found none, he shook his head again. He then backed off removing the gloves.

He noticed that the woman had been stabbed from in the front by someone who was right handed or had used the knife right hand dominantly to stab her. That would hopefully rule out Sakon as a suspect… that and there was no way for Sakon to have gotten the knife in the first place.

He then heard the siren approaching and went to the front of the alley and motioned for the two cops to come over. A cop got out and came, quickly followed by his partner. "Have you found the Tachibana kid?"

"Not to mention a dead body," the doctor commented.

"Did you touch anything?" the cop asked, going over to look at the crime scene.

"I only felt for a pulse and put my lab coat over the boy… I think he's been out here sometime after she was killed…" the man said.

Ikimono watched as the cop walked over and knelt in front of Sakon. He noticed that his eyes were quite glazed over. "Shit… his aunt is going to kill me.

"Sorry… I don't follow,"

"His aunt… cough… is a member of the police force and … well, I'm the one who decided to follow that doctors orders and put Sakon in here…"