Chapter Text
The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly above the tiled hallway, washing everything in a pale blue glow. The linoleum floors were freshly waxed, reflecting the white silhouettes of slow-shuffling patients and the quiet hustle of staff in sterile uniforms.
At precisely 6:30 a.m., the metal handrails lining the east wing halls clinked softly as Elliot made his way down the corridor, right hand gripping the cool steel. His steps were shaky but familiar—measured like the slow ticking of a grandfather clock.
Nurse Noob walked behind him with a clipboard that was slightly too big for their hands. “You doing okay, Dr. Elliot? Want me to, like, hold your arm or something?”
“I’m fine,” Elliot replied, voice light but firm. “Just… checking the morning air quality of hallway C again. It’s important.”
Noob blinked. “We’re indoors.”
"Yes," Elliot said. "Tragically."
He paused at the corner where the hallway branched into the patient ward and leaned on the rail, catching his breath. From one of the nearby rooms, a loud CLANG erupted—followed by a furious screech of chair legs. Coolkidd, of course.
Noob perked up. “Uhh—gonna check on that!”
“You might want backup,” Elliot called. “He’s probably rebelling against the hospital gown again.”
Inside Room 304, Coolkidd was indeed shirtless—again—his white pants slightly crumpled, and his IV line dangerously tangled.
“I told y’all,” he barked, “I’m not wearing that stupid dress! You want me to die looking like a frosted cake?!”
From the doorway,Guest 1337 pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s not a dress. It’s a gown. And you’re literally in diabetic ketoacidosis, you can’t just untether your fluids.”
“I LOOK STUPID!!”
“I’m gonna look stupid if you crash and I have to explain it to Dusekkar,” Guest muttered.
Noob peeked in, holding a juice box. “Apple?”
Coolkidd stared at him. Took it.
“Don’t think this means I’m cooperating,” he grumbled.
Down the hall, Taph sat on a bench beneath a hospital mural: the kind made of overlapping handprints. A whiteboard sat in his lap, with the sentence:
"The coffee machine is broken again."
Builderman, leaning against the wall nearby, read it and sighed. “That explains why iTrapped was perched on top of the vending machine earlier.”
Taph wiped the board clean, then scribbled again:
"He said the machine was 'taunting' him."
Builderman chuckled softly, the kind of laugh that held tiredness. He looked to the hallway just in time to see iTrapped actually crawl through the ceiling panel from above—landing on the nurse station desk with a dull thud.
“I need hazard pay,” iTrapped grunted, flicking whiteboard dust from his shoulder.
“Good morning to you too,” Builderman replied, deadpan.
At the west wing’s observation deck, Two Time sat cross-legged on their bed, white shirt wrinkled, fingers covered in faded ink from yesterday’s “ritual.” Around them, three arranged stones—stolen from a potted plant in the waiting area—formed a makeshift triangle.
they murmured to themselves, eyes wide, watching shadows move where there were none.
From the doorway, Dusekkar observed quietly, jotting notes in a small leather-bound book.
“You're not going to stop them?" Jane Doe asked from beside him, arms folded.
“they are not harming anyone,” Dusekkar said calmly. “And frankly, they are the quietest patient in this hall today.”
Behind them, a crash.
"...was."
In Room 210, Chance sat up, breath shallow but smiling faintly as they laid out tarot cards on the edge of his blanket. Across from him sat 1x4, legs dangling off a chair, arms folded tightly.
"You don’t actually believe this stuff works, do you?” 1x4 mumbled, eyes narrowed.
“I don’t need to believe it,” Chance replied, brushing their fingers over the next card. “I just need to distract myself from how much my back hurts.”
He drew a card—The Tower.
“Oof. Want me to draw again?” he offered.
1x4 rolled their eyes. “You're bad at this.”
"You're not wrong," Chance agreed. "But at least I’m not shedding like your dad’s hairline."
1x4 almost smirked.
In the hallway, Shedletsky leaned on the nurses' station, scribbling something on a post-it.
“What do you get when you cross a patient with an IV pole?”
Brighteyes, seated beside him, raised a brow. “Please don’t.”
“A drip-off-the-old-block!”
A deep silence. Even the beeping machines hesitated.
Brighteyes sighed. “You’re lucky you’re kind of charming.”
Behind them, iTrapped passed with a mutter: “He’s lucky HR doesn’t work weekends.”
Guest 666 sat alone in the recovery garden, white shirt stained with faint dots of red, wrists bandaged, his IV pole just casually standing close to him. He stared at his hands like they weren’t his, expression unreadable.
Beside him on the bench was a paper crane.
He didn’t remember how it got there.
He didn't remember anything, really.
But he stared at the crane a long time.
Then tucked it into his pocket.
The door to Room 130 was slightly ajar, as always. Not from neglect, but caution.
Azure sat on the floor, not the bed—bare feet pressed against the cold tile, knees to chest. The white shirt they wore was perfectly clean, but the collar had been stretched and twisted into unnatural curls. Their hands were clenched into tight fists, and every few seconds, one eye twitched as if reacting to something no one else could see.
“Do you see it, too?” Azure whispered, not looking at anyone in particular.
Two Time, in the room next door, muttered nonsense under their breath.
But Azure wasn’t listening to them. Azure was watching the sunlight on the floor shift like something was crawling through it. They pulled their knees closer.
“They keep moving underneath. Like—roots. But wet. You know?”
Nobody was in the room. Not really. Just the soft beep of the heart monitor.
Except…
A small origami crane, maybe the one Chance made earlier, sat by the doorway. Azure didn’t see who placed it there.
They just stared at it.
And slowly, uncurled one fist.
Across the hall, Jason was wide awake—but said nothing.
The walls of Room 140 had deep scratch marks low to the floor, and the chair in the corner was turned completely backward. Jason sat in that chair, his face turned toward the wall, whispering softly to the darkness in the corner.
“I didn’t do it,” he said calmly. “He did.”
A pause.
“No. We didn’t do it.”
A longer pause.
“...Maybe.”
He blinked once. Then looked at his hand, tilting it like he expected something to drip from his fingertips.
There was nothing.
But Jason’s pupils dilated anyway.
Behind the observation window, Dusekkar stood with arms folded, watching. His pen tapped against his clipboard, unmoving.
“Patient 140 has now been awake for seventy-two hours,” he mumbled into his voice recorder. “Continues to show signs of identity fracture. No violent outbursts today.”
He watched Jason lower his hand… then laugh.
“Yet.”
On the opposite end of the ward, in Room 215, there was near silence—except for the steady sound of machines doing what John Doe’s brain no longer could.
Coma. Deep, unmoving. Breathing only because of the ventilator. His white uniform shirt had been neatly tucked in by a nurse earlier, though his hands twitched occasionally—like he was dreaming about flying and never landing.
Jane Doe sat by his side, reading aloud from a book. Not because he could hear her, but because she couldn’t bear the silence.
“And then the boy stepped into the lake, and the stars blinked at him like old friends.”
She looked up. “I think you'd like this part.”
His eyes didn’t move.
She placed a paper crane beside his IV bag.
He didn’t know what it meant.
But she did.
As the sun crept in through the hallway windows, golden light spilled across the walls. Elliot sat in a chair near the staff lounge, legs curled beneath him, sipping lukewarm tea. His lab coat draped across his lap like a weighted blanket.
iTrapped stood nearby, silently fixing the ceiling tile he'd fallen from earlier.
After a pause, Elliot looked up. “You don’t have to keep fixing things.”
iTrapped didn’t turn. “If I don’t, they stay broken.”
“You say that like that’s a bad thing.”
This time, iTrapped did turn—just a little—and for a flicker of a second, he softened.
“…You’d be annoying even if you weren’t dying, you know that?”
Elliot gave a sleepy smile. “Thank you.”
Down in the corridor, a nurse's cart squeaked.
A laugh echoed from Two Time’s room.
And in the corner, 1x4 carefully unfolded a paper crane, and tucked it into their pillow.
Just another day.
In the most broken, brilliant, busy hospital in the world.