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Liam felt a pinprick, but that was it. He couldn't remember where he was, only that Miguel was dead. The body was on the ground with a tiny hole in the neck and he was sure that they accused him of something yet again, but it was all so fuzzy. His eyes opened up to see a fluorescent ceiling light beaming down onto him and both Gatts and a nurse in a pink hat sitting in chairs next to his hospital bed.

"What?"

Gatts jotted down notes, "You had another episode, screaming about murders and the like. We had to sedate you, though you resisted. That explains your bound state." Liam looked down and he was indeed strapped to the bed, "So what has you all riled up?"

Could it all have been a long, psychotic dream? Liam wasn't sure and for some bizarre reason his mind wouldn't allow the skeptical side through. It was nothing but confirmation, "I don't know." It wasn't what he wanted to say, he wanted to ask questions.

"It's because of the psychosis. We finally found a proper treatment. Are you excited?"

"Yes." No. Why couldn't he say that? Something was wrong, "I am excited." His flat tone was also uncharacteristic. Was he that drugged up?

"The answer is obvious, isn't it? Trust in your own mind, not what they tell you to trust."

Liam grew concerned, but his expression said otherwise, "I am excited to be better."

Gatts smirked, "That's right, you are. Believe that we are trying to help you."

Liam had difficulty accepting his words, "I believe that you are trying to help me." Right now, he was more focused on figuring out what sort of drugs they injected.

The nurse in the bright pink hat and jeans increased the flow of an IV nearby. Liam felt wrong, there was no IV near him on the bed, nor was there any surgical equipment. Since when do nurses wear what she was wearing? It wasn't right, "What..."

"Try not to move, the delicate balance of the medications may be affected if your heart rate increases."

Liam wasn't even sure if that made sense, but he didn't have the strength to question it. He wasn't a doctor, he was just a patient in a strange room he had never seen before. His brain switched on, or at least, it felt like he did, and Liam took the opportunity to look around.

The room was old, as though it was built in the early 70's. Wood panelling, a lot of yellow, and furniture that hadn't been produced in a long while. The air was musty and a little hazy, which once again made no sense. Gatts was wearing a longer lab coat than usual and had a smiley face pin on the face of a pocket. His pants were bell bottom and suddenly a soft sound of lame music was filling the air. This was not right at all.

"What did I just tell you?"

"I was born... when was I born?" Liam struggled to think and Gatts looked irritated, "Not that long ago."

He waved his hand in dimissal, "Don't think too hard, that's just the medicine messing with your head. Nurse?"

A chill overwhelmed Liam's senses.

The ocean crashed on the rocky shore, spraying salty mist into the air. Liam was on a wooden rocking chair next to Gatts, "Are you okay boy? Was my diagnosis and reasoning too boring? You must have fallen asleep."

"Yes. Asleep." No, once again that isn't what he wanted to say. Try as he might, the immediate change in scenery wasn't a bother. Everything felt very calm, zen even. There was no evil in the world, he hadn't done anything wrong, and this doctor was here to get him back to society. What could he possibly have to argue about?

"Do you know where you are?"

Liam nodded, "The ocean." But he wasn't sure how he got there.

"Yes, but the ocean. Remember that our facility is almost completely surrounded by water and that you can't easily escape. It never ends well and it interferes with treatment."

"Yes."

Gatts cleared his throat, "From now on you will be required to take a full dosing twice a day. Agreed?" Liam's head nodded on its own, "Good boy. I also expect you to not fight against our staff and do what we say. Agreed?" Liam's head nodded once more, "Good boy. Sit here and enjoy the ocean, you'll feel better."

The ocean was murky and angry with the cloud cover casting an ever grayer color over it all. Liam lifted his head slightly and saw what looked like a tall rocky shore at least a mile away. This looked much more like a prison, and yet he had no proof of that. Nobody would listen anyway, he was insane according to his family and possibly the law.

A red balloon drifted over his head, a rare sight. Especially near an isolated building in the middle of nowhere's sea, "What... is that..."

"Wake your dumb ass up. You know this isn't real. Isn't that clear yet?"

"Not real..." This were off, but Liam didn't have the strength to challenge what he saw and felt, "Salt water..."

"I'm getting real tired of looking after you. The mind is a powerful tool that can imitate anything you have felt or experienced before. This is no different. Wake. Up."

"I can't... I can barely... move..."

Liam's voice in the head was getting irritated, "If I have to wait for those idiots I'll scream. Think clearly about what you've noticed when you first woke up here."

Liam thought hard, but nothing came to mind. Windowless rooms, lots of drugs. A dark sky early in the afternoon, "Wait."

"That's right numbnuts. It's winter, but it feels like the middle of July out here."

This was all just an illusion. All of it.

Liam's eyes shot open in his room and his heart was beating a mile a minute. He couldn't catch his breath and his head felt like it had been struck with a hammer. Olivia and another patient were in his room, "How many fingers am I holding up?" Olivia was still suffering from tremors, but her voice was surprisingly normal, "Quick."

Liam needed to squint in the dim light, "Three."

The male patient nodded, "Got here in time. Another few hours and you'd be nothing more than a vegetable taking up space." Liam had never met the man, but he had seen him. He was always slumped over in a wheelchair with a drool pad attached to his shoulder. Liam didn't think he was this alert. The patient did seem to have to watch his hands to make sure they were in the right spot though.

Liam shivered, "What happened?"

Olivia stared with her large, dark eyes, "They caught you after the murder. We didn't see where you went, but Gatts took you.

The male patient looked around, "A drug they use on the trouble patients. The nurses call it a chemical lobotomy." He watched his own hands as he hid a syringe in his robe, "You aren't alone here."

Liam was pretty sure he was still in a lucid dream, "Tell me something I wouldn't possibly know." Olivia and her friend looked at each other, "Well?"

"I don't know what you know, but we have friends in the staff here." Olivia nodded, or perhaps she was just shaky and it looked like a nod, "This is Willy."

Willy nodded, "When you came here, you were restrained a lot and had to take a lot of pills. You told us to wonder about what we were putting in our mouths. So, we experimented on our own."

"We found which pills took off the edge without hurting too much, but the side effects won't go away." She looked at Liam's bag, "We fake being incompetant."

Liam still didn't believe them, but if the doctors and nurses were abusing their stations then in would make sense that the patients and sympathetic staff would work to undermine them. Whether or not that would make treatment pointless was something he couldn't answer, "What of the murders?"

Willy looked sad, "We... can't have people telling our secrets. We lost a few friends already, and we almost lost you."

Liam's heart rate was returning to normal, "So the voice in my head is right."

"You have a voice in your head?" Olivia was genuinely curious.

Perhaps he should have kept that to himself, "Yes. I think it was from the time I wasn't... all here."

"Makes sense. You were pretty vocal." Willy looked out of the little door window, "We can't spend too much time here, the night security can only keep things on a loop for so long. We can talk more tomorrow."

Olivia gave Liam a peck on the cheek, "Stay insane." They left Liam alone and shut the door quietly.

"Insane is the only way to live you know."

"Why don't I remember what set me off? What are you hiding from me?"

The voice was quiet for several minutes, "That is something you have to find yourself. Me telling would solve nothing. You do know Vicki was one of the triggers, but you seem cognitive enough to realize that she was just a piece of the puzzle."

Liam wasn't even concerned with the drama and abuses, he just wanted to know why he went insane. There was never really any fighting in the family, no sexual or violent abuse, no major tragedies. It was a mystery with no answer, "Give me a hint." Perhaps the voice could be reasoned with, or at least coerced.

"I do know what you're thinking moron." Something Liam hadn't considered while he was lying in bed, "Perhaps Vicki could shed light, but I doubt it. She always wants something in return. Speaking of return..."

Liam already knew what the voice was thinking. Vicki wanted forgiveness, and she was as stubborn as a mule. She would return and most likely ask for a challenge or something. As cliché as it was, this was an opportunity to learn something, "She's gonna use the cards to challenge me fore forgiveness, isn't she?"

"Yes, good boy. You deserve a treat, but I have none to give." Liam was decent at the card game, but new cards were coming out all the time and if Vicki was going to challenge Liam, she could get the best cards available, "A clever shrew isn't she? But you have the upper hand. You know what's coming."

"Yeah, but I don't have many resources. I haven't played in a long while." Liam was expecting more from the voice, but as the minutes ticked by he figured it wasn't happening, "Well? You should know what I liked doing with my decks."

"The answer is quite simple. Do something that you DON'T already do."

Liam would have to spend all night with his cards figuring out how to come up with an unfamiliar strategy, luckily the chemicals in his veins made sleeping nearly impossible. The corruption in the facility was beyond his control and he would have to make the best of things in time, but he had to do one thing at a time. Worrying about pills and injections was not what he wanted to think about right now.

Unfortunately, it wouldn't leave his mind. He needed answers to his own past, and someone had to tell him soon or he would probably snap again. The night went on in a haze, he wasn't even sure when, or if, he had fallen asleep.