Rebecca
[no.? : the library]

Finley's fingers aimlessly skimmed the fluttering pages of a book, eyes dragging across ancient black letters, curled perfectly in a isoquant symmetry. They let their head drop against the wall. It weighed a thousand pounds on their neck, dark circles framing their blue eyes, stark against their pale complexion. Blue veins studded the inner wrists, dotted with a somewhat masculine cologne.

*The Picture of Dorian Gray,* A novel they were long since familiar with. They'd read it countless times. The tale of corrupting youth and art, hedonism, and, above all, horrendously and devastatingly personable. Finley loved Basil, the character who watched Dorian deteriorate, and deteriorate further. A finger slid down the page, across a line they liked in particular.

 *"Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing lost be upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing."*

They pulled out a highlighter from their pocket, popping off the cap with their teeth. Finley held the book in one hand and the highlighter in the other, and traced the bright yellow ink over the lettering. Live!, cried Oscar Wilde. Live, and let nothing stop you - Finley hadn't lived enough. Surely, they hadn't. Seventeen years, and what had they done? Multiple felony counts of arson and destruction, a nearly dodged attempted murder charge. 

But they were here now. For better, for worse, they were here. Newton's Cradle had caught them in between. Had this been how Basil felt? In the in between, the spellbound suspense of everything and nothing be wholly and utterly terrifying.

 Everything was terrifying - the overwhelming amount of life left to live, life not yet lived, life not lived at all, the expectations of themself, the ones upon which they placed on others, the ones they placed on themself. 
Nothing was terrifying - the whole and unending void only mere molucles away from consuming the galaxy as they knew it, the way the Sun could explode and they'd be none the wiser for eight entire minutes. Nothing was terrifying, but only in the way of which nothing existed - a nihilistic approach to the dread that crawled up into their throat at night and slowly strangled them from the inside.

Finley threw themself back onto the carpet, the book falling from their fingertips to the floor. A deep sigh billowed from their chest into the air. There had to be more. Maybe that was why they combed the depths of Newton's Cradle for something, anything - Annika lingered in their mind, every once in a while, she and her sisters. They wanted to reach out to Graham, see if he knew anything. But somehow, they thought, they wouldn't get much out of him.

Existencialism tingled the nerves in their hands, and a theory blossomed somewhere in the back of their mind. There had to be more here. There had to be more to this school, they thought. The Deans were shady as hell. The professionals hardly said anything to anyone about anything important. If nothing here was important - why couldn't they leave? Why couldn't they use the internet freely? If they were just so-so, these criminals, what were they supposed to be doing? Apart from a few instances, it felt like they had no purpose in the Cradle. And yet, they could not leave.

An emotional Purgatory, of sorts.
Joel
June had been up wandering around the facility for a while. Their nerves were restless and their mind spun. They couldn't figure out what was bothering them, but something was missing. Turning a corner, June took a sip of the energy drink they had grabbed before they left. The toxic tasting battery acid stung the back of their throat as it trickled down. They were rather unaffected by caffeine, and had quite honestly started drinking it for the sugary sweet taste. June's feet softly padded along the floor as they weaved their way through the long halls. They could admit they weren't *Entirely* Present. At least June was self aware?

As June continued to walk through the endless corridors, a part of them hoped they would run into Owen. *A familiar face would be nice.* A small twang of grief festered in their chest. They were so far away from home, and had gone so long without a fresh interaction. They really missed the adrenaline rush of conversation. The way their words would boom through jokes and across crowds. A feeling matched by nothing else in the world. 

Finally something, a single thread, grabbed June and yanked them out of their head. They stopped right in their tracks, their deep dark eyes fixated in front of them. June could not tell what part of this specific room seemed so intriguing, but they could think of that later. They took their hands, grabbed the handle and swung open the door. Not bothering to cushion it as it fell back into place. The study room was larger than they thought, but still quaint. June never really participated in work so this room was of no use to them, but they could at least explore. *What else was there to do?* With another sip of the corrosive tasting drink, June was distracted from the problems that found comfort under their skin. Curiosity had an iron grip on them. It sat front row and centre in their brain and fed them ideas most would deem stupid. They couldn't care less, it was fun.
_ _

After a couple seconds, June's attention had been captivated by something new. *Someone new.* Their small brows raised slightly, and their lips twisted into a smile. What a pleasant surprise. A stranger, someone they had never seen before was laying on the floor of this study room. A despondent look on their features, and a book resting half open beside them. Their blond hair was eye catching, and June didn't bother to stop themselves as they walked over to the kid. 

June stopped a couple inches away from the person. Their tall and arguably intimidating figure leaned over them, their weight bounced back onto their heels. Strawberry pink strands of hair fell down into their face as they leaned their head down. With a tilt of their neck, they let their smile linger. 

"Having a rough night?"

They let out a small squeak of a giggle. Their voice strung together with eccentric syllables, each word bouncing through feminine leaning sounds. Their free hand folded behind their back, as they continued to lean over the stranger. The same tantalizing smile on their features. The homesickness remained in their brain, eating away at them. But as always, a smile was their armour, and they wouldn't let anyone see the cracks underneath. So for now, they were confident. Thats all the stranger needed to know.
Rebecca
At the sound of their voice, Finley's eyes blinked open, flickering across June's image in their line of sight. Tall, broad, androgynous, and colorful, they stood out like a sparkler among the drab backdrop of stuffed faux-leather and fabric chairs, bursting at the seams from too-little too-much use. They took a moment to analyze June, Finley did, and the words they delivered.

Rough night - Rough night, rough day, rough week, wasn't it a terrible excuse they all were guilty of? It was just one bad day. One bad month. One bad year, a single blemish on an otherwise perfect life, a carved line crisscrossing the angles of seasonal depression, loneliness, the way a concrete building burned like a hollowed out shell, flames licking the borders of the atmosphere in some kind of anger. Finley leaned on the excuse like a crutch after they had first burned their school's theatre to the ground. It wasn't *That* Bad. It was *Only* The theatre. People hadn't been *That* Badly hurt.

Nadia had nearly been trampled to death by the panicking mob. 

They sat up at once, listening to the canter of June's voice, eyeing the smile smoothing across their expression. They were, Finley assumed, another student. Someone else pictured perfect among the rosters, frozen in amber like a bug, limbs still fighting to twitch as the immobility set in. Dear God, Finley thought, would that be them? Trapped, a silent scream ripping through the effervescent doctrine peddled by people they hardly knew, neither trusted. 

But oh, they supposed, it already was.

"I suppose," Finley conceded, the image of an ant, frozen stockstill, flashing behind their eyes. They realized they had not looked back to June. They did, then, biting the side of their finger and picking at the skin. Bad habit. "Not entirely unheard of by you, I'd assume. It's terribly late, and yet, here you stand."
They tilted their head to the right, looking almost like a cat, something with a thousand yard stare, perched in the sunshine, picking through the flaws of everything presented before it. Skepticism was a nasty plague, soaking the mind and the heart, distrust blooming like a poisonous flower.

They stood, Oscar Wilde's most quoted work still dangling between a set of boney, frigid fingers. A free hand extended towards the stranger.

An energy drink accompanied their guest. Fin had never quite gotten the taste for those. They were always so bitter, so harsh on the body. Coffee suited them well enough, sipped over a journal, slugged in a lukewarm Thermos in the second-to-last row of a lecture, discontent at the taste and unable to fix it. 

"Finley Carlisle," They said, by way of introduction. "I'm sure we've met online."