Who: Daniel, Lennon, Jack & OPEN When: 9:21 a.m. Where: fourth floor hallway, to start
Daniel lay in the warmth of the porcelain tub, soaking in sunlight from the open blinds and heat from the water that surrounded him. His eyes had barely opened since he had awakened; he was tired, still sleeping poorly from the cold to which he was entirely unaccustomed. Small sounds, like muffled thumping and the quiet susurration of distant voices, drifted to him as he lay there, but for a while he paid them no mind. He was too content to slip deeper into the tub, so far the thick suds lapped at his chin and dampened the hair at his nape. He stretched out one leg, turning the hot water back on with a press of his foot. The sounds retreated even farther, and for a moment, he could almost forget he heard them at all.
But as time passed and the water was turned off again the sounds increased in frequency and intensity. His jaw tightened, and he slid up from his slumped posture in the bath. He mumbled a curse under his breath. Then the sounds came again, and the mirror propped against the wall across from him jumped, and shuddered in its frame. He squinted, staring, then opened his eyes wide. He had to be dreaming, he thought, but another moment passed and it happened again. He pinched his thigh beneath the waterline, so hard his nails dug into flesh. He was awake, and the sharp jolt happened again. More troubling still, he did not see himself in the mirror. Instead there was a dark room, claustrophobic and padded and deeply unwelcoming. And inside that room was a man he had not seen before: a tall, dark man intensely troubled, and for what appeared to be good reason. His palms struck the glass; the cause, Daniel quickly saw, of the mirror's shaking.
Daniel rose from his bath. He was chilled enough as it was; he barely felt the cold air across his naked skin. He stepped out onto the towels he had spread out on the tile, making a small, slightly warm path for himself. The man in the mirror did not appear to see Daniel, even when Daniel circled the tub and stopped directly in front of him. Daniel raised a hand and rapped his knuckles against the glass. "Hey," he said, quiet at first. Then, louder, and feeling foolish all the while: "Hey." The man's face twitched slightly, his eyes darting to the corner of the mirror where Daniel had touched. But he said nothing, leaving Daniel feeling all the more ridiculous. "Bet Georgie slipped me something," Daniel mumbled, knowing even as he said it that it couldn't have been true. He reached for a towel and wrapped it loose around his waist. There was only one way to know if he was hallucinating, and he intended to make use of it.
Dripping onto tile, then hardwood, then carpet, Daniel stuck his head out his bedroom door and called out, loudly enough for anyone to hear.