The iron door shut behind her with a muted thud, leaving the echo to ripple through the long corridor until it dissolved into silence. Dr. Green’s calm hand rested lightly against her back, guiding her into the hospital’s common room - a place meant for rest, though its stillness felt heavy, like a stage where fragile minds performed in endless repetition. The light overhead was pale and uneven, spilling across the room in broken patches, and for a moment she felt the weight of every shadow.

Near the far wall, Edward II was locked in his own world. His body swayed as he argued with voices only he could hear, his hands carving shapes into the air with feverish precision, as though he were debating with unseen judges. His words rose and fell, fragments of sentences stitched together into something both frantic and lyrical, and there was a strange authority in the madness of his tone.

By the shelves, Ray was bent over the books, his eyes scanning their spines with restless intensity. He arranged them not by author or subject but by color, shifting one, then another, until the gradient pleased him. His movements were careful, ritualistic, each gesture designed to hold back the anxiety that threatened to consume him. He muttered under his breath, not to anyone in particular, but to the silent demand for order that ruled his mind.

Across the room, in a deep armchair, sat Lester. His body seemed to sink into the cushions as though he were being pulled down by invisible chains. He stared upward at the ceiling, unblinking, as if searching for something written in the cracks of the plaster. His face held no anger, no joy, only the still weight of exhaustion that had hollowed him from the inside. Time itself seemed slower around him, the air thicker, his silence louder than the others’ voices.

And then there was Jack. In the open space by the windows, his body moved with electric energy, every muscle alive with the fever of mania. He bent, stretched, and jumped with the force of someone who had not slept in days and did not need to. His breath was sharp, his grin wide, and his eyes burned with an intensity that refused to rest. In his presence, the room seemed smaller, every corner vibrating with his excess.

Dr. Green stood beside her with the stillness of someone long accustomed to the storm. His expression was calm, his voice even as he said:"Your new home"sounded like a sentence. Around her, the air carried both the weariness of confinement and the hum of minds caught between reality and their own prisons. She felt suddenly as though she had stepped not into a hospital, but into a strange theatre, where each soul played its role without pause, and she, the newcomer, was about to take her place among them.

Jack practically vibrated toward her, his manic grin stretching too wide, too bright. His pupils were pinpricks."Oh, you’re new!"His fingers twitched like he wanted to grab her shoulders but settled for clutching his own shirt instead."I can show you everything—the best window to sneak cigarettes through, where Nurse Patel hides the good meds, how to chew through restraints if you—"

Dr. Green cleared his throat, a sound like a steel door sliding shut. **(This is going to require sedation before lunch)* He stepped smoothly between Jack and her, his white coat a deliberate barrier. "Let's start with introductions that don’t involve felony charges, yes?" His pen tapped against his clipboard—once, twice—a metronome of control. "Would you like to sit down?" His smile didn’t reach his eyes. Behind him, Edward mimed stabbing the air with an invisible knife, whispering to the wall.