Jessymyn curled on her side on the cot, trying to get comfortable enough to sleep. It was morning - or at least some time of the day - but she hadn’t slept in almost three days. Not since she’d attacked the guard. She was still unclear as to what exactly happened that night. At lights out -- which was nothing more than a dimming of the usual fluorescent brightness that flooded her room -- the guard had strapped her to the bed and dosed her with Haldol. Sleep had quickly overtaken her but she had rested fitfully, bombarded with shadowy memories of her father. It was always the same, her father coming into her room at night and softly calling to her, whispering in the dark. As she opened her eyes, he became one of them; those that chased her from the shadows. He crept closer as she lay paralyzed on the bed and just as he reached out to touch her, she would awaken, bathed in a sheen of sweat.

Three nights ago, though, she had awoken to find that she was no longer strapped to the bed and her room had been thrown into shadows. When she’d sat up, shards of glass had fallen with a tinkle to the floor...then the whispers had come.

"Jessy," the gravel-edged voice slid into her like a knife. She had crept to the safety of the corner, crouching low to the ground and silencing her breathing. She listened to the footsteps echo through her room as he walked in search of her. Tap-tap-tap. Turn. Tap-tap-tap. The slow staccato had caused her heart to race in anticipation, brought fear to bring its metallic coating to her throat. Then the door had opened again.

"Oh, God, there’s two," she had thought to herself, silent tears slipping unnoticed down her cheeks. She remembered hearing the sound of flesh sliding along the wall and the sound of her name being called again. It had only taken her a moment to react; she no longer had her knife, but she would die fighting them lest they captured her. That thought was too frightening to linger on.

Jessymyn slid out of the corner, listened for that dry glide of skin on plaster, and launched herself at him. She remembered feeling her hand close around his throat, shutting off his oxygen, felt his heart pounding as the realization hit him that this was his last night playing the game. Her initial attack had knocked him to the wall, but how quickly his strength had given out and he had fallen to his knees; she had thrown herself into him so that she had been able to get on top of him and use her weight as more leverage on his windpipe. His body had begun to stop struggling, to go limp, then she’d felt the needle pierce her thigh.

"No, please, no," she’d cried to herself. The sedative had begun to work almost immediately and she lost her grip on her attacker. Fear seized onto her again when she fell limply to side and rested so that she was facing the open door, light causing momentary blindness as her eyes adjusted to the brightness. The laugh had come to her again, a shadowy figure passing behind the man on the floor and escaping into the lit corridor.

"Please, they’re here. They found me," she tried to scream, but her voice had been silenced to a mere whisper. Then everything had gone dark again. She remembered being lifted and carried, then being dropped carelessly on the bed, but sleep had quickly overtaken her that night.

Patrick had talked to her the next day during her session with Dr. Kanardo, her psychiatrist. The guard had given a brief description of how he had noticed the lighting malfunction in her cell and had left his station to investigate, then had been subsequently attacked upon entrance. The bruises had been proof enough that he’d been attacked the previous night, but Jessymyn had had a difficult time understanding how she could have confused the guard with one of her pursuers. She recognized Patrick, he was one of the nicer guards and she tried to give him problems only when she needed to be taken back to her sanctuary. He seemed to be disbelieving of her apologies, but she’d felt better for making them.

That had been two days ago, and she’d yet to see the guard again. Jessymyn could only hope that she hadn’t made yet another enemy here. Angry guards could make the already intolerable situation here utterly unlivable if they wanted to. She didn’t need any more trouble than she already had.

Eighteen long months she’d lived at St. Hobbins; and for eighteen months she’d felt almost safe for the first time she could remember. They knew where she’d been hidden away - it hardly seemed like hiding since they somehow always knew where she was - but it seemed that they couldn’t get to her in the isolation tanks. Jessymyn had felt an odd sort of freedom when she was locked away in her cell because while there, the nightly hunts ceased. Each time she was released, she’d hear the whispers, or that maddening tap-tap-tap and launch herself at the nearest person, only to be dragged back to sanctity. Or so she’d thought.

Jessymyn drew in a deep breath of sterile air. She still didn’t understand why she was still able to breath. It was obvious to her that her pursuers had smashed out the lighting in her cell, as well as released her from her bonds. Why hadn’t they just taken her? How could they possibly not have known where she was in the room when they had set her free? This was something she’d been mulling over since yesterday, and it still had her puzzled. She sighed as another thought entered, one that had haunted her since childhood. Who was trying to get to her and why was she so goddamn important?

Her eyes started to drift closed as one unlikely plot after another plodded through her mind. "A nap, just a short nap," she whispered to herself as she slid into sleep. Her breathing slowed, her body went limp, and exhaustion claimed her.

And as her first nightmare played in her dreams, the long shadow of the person peering through the observation window stretched across the floor and up her cot to darken her face. Then it was gone.