Ray gave a non-committed nod as she was given the paper and pencils, she didn't pay much attention as the nurse left. She just sort of stared at the paper for a moment as her brain just mainly just... fuzz.
Did she like drawing? Wasn't she suppose to be good at it?
She looked to the pencil and moved to start... scribbling? more than drawing.

---

Dia took a breath, looking back to Ari before she pushed the door open to walk out. She was going to risk taking a proper look around, no one was in the halls as she paced.
She listened carefully as she tried to silently walk along, picking up on footsteps before she paused as Marc rounded the corner near her. Dia watched him quietly, hoping he wouldn't question anything.

Marc, still confused about what had happened but at least with an idea of how to solve it, noticed Dia and nodded to her as he passed her. Then he stopped and turned; with his mind mostly on Benjamin, Simon and Sara - her accusations had hurt - it had taken a moment to process the fact he didn't know who he had nodded to. His eyes quickly took in her face and he concluded he really hadn't seen her before.

"You're new here, aren't you?" he said. "I didn't hear about anyone new starting today..." he frowned, nor was there anyone new on the roster. He stepped closer to her, but he seemed curious rather than hostile. "Who are you?"

Dia froze as he stopped and got a look at her, before he started to speak. She tried not to panic as she thought of what to do.
"I'm new, yes." She said with a nod, "I'm an intern. I started today." She managed to spin out, "I'm kind of a bit lost and was sort of told to just... Tail someone, but I lost the person I was tailing. I think her name was.. Sarah? Sara?" She asked with a tilt of her head.

"She seemed upset about something and told me she needed some time alone." Dia continued, "I'm fresh our of Uni and this was the first place that I got into with my internship so I'm pretty... Unexperienced."

"Oh," Marc said. "Right. Well, Sara is not technically staff, she helps out but she's actually a patient here too." He thought about it for a moment. He couldn't bring an intern along with doing an investigation into another patient, but he could show her around a bit first. "You can tail me if you want. For now. Maybe we can check on some patients and I'll show you our routines. I don't know what you saw already, but we'll start in the common room where everyone can spend their time freely."

Dia was surprised he took the lie, she felt a tingle down her spine. The ability to lie like this and have people take her word for it wasn't something she had experienced for a while. Well, a while was definitely an understatement for the... once dead princess.
Part of her wondered if she still had her magic, but she didn't want to try it, not now, not here.

She gave a short nod to Marc as he spoke. "I would love to tail you!" She said with a small smile. "I don't believe I saw the common room, I just sort of got pushed on to Sara as she walked passed. I wasn't aware she wasn't officially staff." She continued, feigning a confused look, "She has a uniform though?"

Marc rubbed the back of his neck when he was asked about Sara. "It's complicated. She is a patient, but she's allowed to help out and she is allowed to wear a uniform when she does." He made a generic talk about what kind of patients they had in the asylum, how many doctors there were and what their names were, all the way to the common room. Two patients were playing checkers, one stood at the barred window and looked outside, and Benjamin lying on the couch just staring at the ceiling. Probably still under the effect of the tranquillizer earlier.

"It's not always easy," he told Dia. "We're doing our best to help them, but not everyone gets better."

Dia nodded as she listened to Marc, especially when he mentioned it wasn't easy.
"Is there more than one person who ends up diagnosing them?" She asked after a moment, "I also don't see a lot of people... Interacting with the patients? Sure they might not seem like they're in the best mindset but... People need to be spoken to."

She spotted Benjamin and her heart pounded, she walked over to him slowly. She took a moment to sit on the arm of the couch and moved to run her hand through his hair. She closed her eyes to stop herself from crying that he was zoinked out like that.
She focused on if she could catch a bit of her magic, she hadn't touched it in forever, so she wasn't even sure if she had any left. She just wanted to make him feel better, to uncloud his mind from the drugs effects.

Benjamin turned his head when he felt a hand and smiled when he recognised Dia. "Dia," he slurred, smiling at her. "I'm so glad you're here. You were the first spirits I saw when I first got here and I'm so glad you're visible now so everyone can see you and I'm not insane. Not insane."
As the magic took hold, the fog in his head dispersed slowly. His body was still heavy and his movements sluggish, but his mind became clearer.

Marc had crossed his arms and kept his eyes on the pair. "So, you two met already?" he asked.

Benjamin turned his head to face Marc with visible confusion as if he didn't understand why Marc asked that or looked at them like that. While he was clearer, the effects weren't fully away yet. His mind was clear enough to remember the lie. "She works here?"

Marc nodded and turned to Dia to see what she had to say. He didn't look like he believed Benjamin.

Dia flinched for a moment as Marc spoke, her mind slowly remembering where she was, she looked up to Marc with a small smile.
"He was with Steph when I signed in." She lied, "He was the first patient I met. Sara said he's a close friend."
She hoped that Marc hadn't heard what Benjamin had specifically said before Marc spoke.

She looked back to Marc and smiled slightly, "He's a good kid." She said with a glance towards Benjamin again, "I'm glad you're okay." She whispered to him.

"Right," Marc said, although his voice didn't give the impression he believed it. "You are much closer to this patient than whatever brief contact you may have had when you signed up, and there's definitely more going on than him being a good kid or a good friend of someone you only met today. I'm not blind nor a fool." He put his hands on his hips as he kept his eyes on Dia. "I won't say you two haven't met before, although he was obviously delusional at the time for thinking you were a spirit and invisible, but those smiles and stroking his hair do not correlate with what you told me." The fact it was unprofessional was something he didn't even want to bring up at this time.

Benjamin vaguely recalled saying that when he saw Dia; how he hated being medicated and blurting out the truth when he should be lying or at least feigning ignorance.

Dia narrowed her eyes towards Marc, she breathed out slightly and took a moment to access the situation. She had a feeling like she could pull the fact he took Sara on a date against him but she didn't want to. She gave Benjamin a pat on his shoulder before slipping off the couch and walking over to Marc.

"You know." She said, whispering in his ear that only he could hear, "You might not be a fool for seeing through this, but you are blind to see that the people here are not all insane. You humans need to open your eyes, Sara will be saddened to know someone she might like more than a simple like, is too focused on causing trouble." She stepped away from Marc and looked to Benjamin, there was a moment of hesitation before she headed out of the room.

She picked her pace up as she headed back to Rays' room, sliding through the door before closing it and collapsed onto the bed with a sigh.
"Gods be damned." She spoke out loud, Ari leaning against the wall as she watched her companion come in silently.

Sara sighed, pulling herself out of her bed before she stood and walked through the door to the hallway.
"Fuck my life." She grumbled slightly and rubbed her eyes, they stung from the tears, before she headed towards the common room. She doubted she'd be allowed to eat from the staff room in this state, but her stomach grumbled; she didn't notice how hungry she was until now.
She walked into the common room and blinked towards Marc and Benjamin lying on the couch.

Marc stared at Dia as she walked away. What was she talking about? A part of him knew he had to stop her, but he didn't. One of the reasons was that he wasn't 100% certain she wasn't an intern, but a part of the reason was Benjamin as he let out a pained groan.
"What's wrong?" Marc asked.
"My head hurts." Benjamin muttered. "Where did Dia go?"
"Who is she?"
"I don't know exactly... my head really hurts."
Marc decided to go to the water fountain and fill a plastic cup; if the headache was a medicine side effect it could help him if he drank something. After he handed him the drink he glanced around to see what the other patients were doing and saw Sara. For a moment he stared at her, until Benjamin spoke up.
"How did Simon die?"
"As far as I know Simon didn't die, he went home."
"Come on, Marc!" Benjamin replied, still slightly slurring from the effects, although he was more awake and clear-headed since Dia had visited. "That's not true. Don't believe them. Shady things are going on here. Disappearances. I'm not even here that long and I heard about it, surely you must have heard about it too. Some patients that went home suddenly, without any indication they were even close of being released."
While that was true, Marc wasn't sure he should be talking about that with a patient. "There were some cases..." he mentioned, but he didn't go into more detail.

Sara watched Marc be with Benjamin, but could see his expression wasn't one of happiness. She tossed up the idea of interacting them but she wasn't sure she really wanted to right now.
Her body felt heavy and her head hurt. She walked over to get a glass of water to herself, they wouldn't give her painkillers if she asked; they would be afraid she'd give them to someone else that would have abused them in the past, or they'd interact incorrectly with her system.

Sara was sure they laced the water with something, it always tasted gross to her. It never tasted clean, or at least not in the common room. It was less flakey in the staff rooms, but no one really wanted her there.

There was a moment where she looked back to Marc and Benjamin, she sighed and hung her head as she moved to take a seat on a chair nearby, but she didn't feel like interrupting anything.
That and if Marc wanted to talk to her, after what she did, he'd come to see her rather than her ruining things more.

Marc sighed and glanced around, noticing Sara sitting nearby. Since Benjamin didn't pay him much attention, he turned to her.
"Hey..." he began, not completely sure how to continue. "Are you okay? You don't look very well."
Her entire posture seemed sad or depressed, and there was a paleness to her skin he hadn't noticed before, or maybe it were the lights in this place.

Benjamin sat up, holding his head as the world seemed to spin, but that slowed down gradually. The haze in his head didn't want to fully clear, but Dia had taken some of it away. Had he thanked her? He wasn't sure.

Sara looked up to Marc as he walked over to her, for a moment she couldn't think before she flinched slightly. "If I said anything but yes, would you tell me to take medicine?" She uttered almost as a complaint. She glanced over to Benjamin hesitantly before looking back to Marc.
"I feel like shit, ultimately. No one believes me about anything I say. Vivian has sowed the seed that I'm just a dumb girl that pretends to work here."

Two nurses passed Marc and Sara, talking to each other.
"I'm glad she is gone, she gave me the creeps."
"What happened to her?"
"Sent to another institution. Let's just clean up her room so someone else can use it. Ray is not coming back."

Marc caught the words; they felt too similar to the things Benjamin had been telling him, but a part of him still didn't want to believe it. Still, Ray hadn't been scheduled for anything as far as he was aware. He turned to Sara. "I didn't know her transfer was planned. Did you hear anything about that?"

Sara's eyes widened as she heard those words, she watched the nurses leave as she was frozen in place.
"She's..." Sara started before she looked at her hands and closed her eyes. "It's my fault. I... I let them take her. I... let them kill her."

Dia and Ari both winced slightly, a strange feeling flooded through their bodies before they looked over to each other with a worried look.
"Ray..." Dia said softly.

"how can it be your fault?" Marc questioned, reaching out to touch her shoulder. "Sara, why do you think it's your fault? Did you know this would happen?"
This whole thing, it just didn't make sense. Why was Ray suddenly moved? Why did Sara react like this. He noticed Benjamin standing close.

"She'll die if we won't find her." His mind still felt foggy, but he was clear enough to know what happened and stable enough to stand, just barely. His legs felt weak and he wasn't sure he could walk very far, but he wanted to see Dia. "I'm going to find her," he muttered as he walked away, using his hand to support himself, staying close to the wall.

Sara flinched at his touch, closing her eyes and shaking her head as her legs trembled and she buckled down to the ground in silence.
She trembled as she breathed in and out, the way that Benjamin spoke was in a way that she could still be alive, but... She wasn't sure if she believed that.

Dia moved to poke her head out of the door for a moment, stepping out of the doorway as she cautiously looked around. She knew something had happened, and noticed Benjamin walking towards the room. She moved to gently grab his arms to help stable him.
"Benjamin..." She said gently with a small frown, "Tell me it isn't true?"

Marc crouched down to examine Sara. "Speak to me," he urged her as he reached out and put a careful hand on her shoulder. "Tell me everything you feel, everything you know, everything you suspect. I need you to talk to me. You're acting like she died."
A little voice inside whispered she was insane, she truly belonged here as a patient, but he refused to listen. And even if she was, maybe he could help her feel better. Regardless of why she acted like this, he saw in her a fragile woman who needed someone with her right now, and that person would be him.

"Two nurses were talking about cleaning out her room because she went home. That's all I know." He rubbed his face. "We need to find her. I don't know where to look for her, but we have to try." He looked at Dia. "You were part of her. Do you have a link of some sort that can help find her?" While he loved being able to touch Dia, right now it would have been easier if she was still a spirit, who could move through walls. He didn't voice that, as it was pointless to bring it up. They had to form a plan with what they had.