Master's Story - Segment 1

The facility was placed like somebody had tried to hide it. Like the creator was one of those eccentric millionaires from the early twentieth century who had been driven mad by some combination of blood on their conscience and lead in their water supply. High in the remotest stretch of the countryside, amid rolling forested hills covered by a thick cold layer of fog. Not the middle of nowhere, the bleak, forgotten outskirts on the edge of nowhere.

Jack sat miserably in the back seat of his limousine. Shaking despite the car's heat turned up to the maximum, sweating despite his shakes. He was farther away from home than he maybe ever had been in his life. There was nothing around them for miles. The nearest gas station was probably a ten minute drive at least, the nearest town more than half an hour down backroads and the occasional dirt path. Just this part of the drive, ignoring the flight out the day before and the driving after the flight to their hotel, just this part had been six hours.

As for the facility itself, it was nice. Nowhere near as nice as what he had back home, but fairly nice in its own right. Not everybody could be a multi-billionaire or the son of one.

The car pulled up outside the front gate and clicked off. They were let in after a moment and rolled up to the front of the facility. The main building was a grand, winged wooden lodge in the shape of an elongated x. Surrounded by grassy hillocks and lawns at the shore of a large lake. The main building looked old, with real wood exteriors and a high sloping pine-green roof. Dotted along the grounds were far newer-looking cabins and villas, either where the guests stayed or where the help lived. A couple large chimneys poked up along the sides. 'Rustic' if you were being nice. 'Likely lacking in proper air conditioning' if you were being realistic.

Waiting outside as his car door opened, on the other hand, was a stylishly and modernly dressed woman. She was olive-skinned with black hair that had a couple stray flecks of gray. She was in good shape, her skin was clear and she was still wiry and toned whatever her age was. He also couldn't help but notice how tall she was when standing next to her. Probably a decent amount over six feet. Probably closer to six and a half. She seemed like she got a lot of sun, despite the mist around them, and she looked like the kind of woman who both had a very short makeup routine and who was very quick to brag about how short it was. Her outfit was all simple things that still were likely very expensive, a draping white shirt with a flat collar, deep neckline, and stiff cuffs that she had rolled up to her elbows. Then a pair of black dress pants and a bright green cravat, both starched to the point of looking stiff. And finally, perhaps most tellingly, a pair of hoop earrings suspending little red jasper crystals. To either side she had a helper waiting, each dressed in simple, white body-length tunics. It was hard to tell if he found her look more Cult Leader or Mindfulness Guru. Judging by the size of the facility, it was more likely the first.

"Mr. Madsen, so wonderful to finally make your acquaintance." Her voice was dusky, almost masculine. It sounded almost like she was intentionally lowering it when she spoke, but she talked with an easy confidence and in such a level meter that he had to assume that was actually just how she sounded. Not robotic, manicured.

"Call me Jack," He looked up from behind his sunglasses and did his best to give her a smile. He shook her hand.

"Face to the camera, will you?" She put her arm around his shoulder and pulled him against her, then turned him to the left. He didn't really have time to wipe the disingenuous smile from his face before the flash fired off.

A moment later, she released him from her surprisingly firm grip. He did his best to straighten his shirt and wipe his face, albeit too late to make a difference. Around the time he stopped, one of the cult-garbed aides handed the tall woman a polaroid. She looked at it for a moment, grinned, and handed it to Jack.

She probably did this for everyone who came in. The contrast of the two of them was just too strong to not make a point. Standing next to her, he looked short, out of shape, oily and unkempt. His knotty carrot-blonde hair looked like it was fighting a losing battle with his forehead and making a steady retreat, and his patchy non-beard was marching to similar orders, as if his nose was slowly pushing further and further forward out from his actual face over time. His skin was blotchy, red and flaky where it wasn't pale. His sunglasses hid his bloodshot eyes, but he was still visibly sweaty, his grin nervous. Even dressed in designer clothes and platforms, it was like a Hollywood starlet and her surprisingly below her league producer boyfriend. He cringed at the picture, but he'd also cringed at every picture taken of him for the past year or five.

"My name is Janna," The tall woman bent and shook his hand again. "I'm the head of this facility."

"Head what?" Jack tried to be casual. "Headmistress? Head therapist?"

"A little bit of both, when the demand is there." Janna replied with a smile.

"Sounds like you're a real Jim Jones," Jack slid his hands into his pockets. One of her aides was taking his luggage out of the trunk. He was pretty sure they were going to find the stashes he was trying to sneak in, but he had to at least try.

"I understand your trepidation entering rehab, especially at the age you are." Janna didn't dignify his comment with a response. "Most of the residents who join us are in their thirties. You won't be our youngest resident, but you will be on the younger side."

"I'm twenty-seven," Jack grumbled.

"Yes, and as somebody who didn't arrange his own visit, I can imagine that causes some discomfort." Janna's intonation made it impossible to really read any malice into the comment. "But I assure you, the trust has your best interests at heart."

"The trust couldn't care less if I was chained up in somebody's basement, just so long as I'm alive." Jack spat back. "They get to keep their jobs slowly paying out my dad's money so long as I'm not dead."

"And yet, they let you live independently in your father's mansion instead of chaining you up in somebody's basement." Janna gestured inside, Jack followed her. "At least, up until your substance abuse problems caused enough concern to send you into our hands. If they truly didn't care about you at all, there were far cheaper options, you know."

"If they'd sent me somewhere cheap, I would have tied them up in enough legal fees to ruin the trust for everyone." Jack shuffled along behind her, looking around nervously. He was starting to sweat worse. Perhaps it was the realization this was all really happening setting in.

"That hardly seems productive for either party," Janna shrugged. "But perhaps money means something different to me than to you. I wasn't born rich. Neither was Ginger."

"Ginger?" Jack perked up. "What does she have to do with it?"

"Jack," She rolled his name around on her tongue for a moment before laughing. "Don't tell me you didn't read any of the material we sent you?"

"I didn't," Jack admitted.

"Let me guess, you were hoping you could come in here, lay low and tough it out until we declare you reformed, then go back to your life as it was?" Janna looked at him with the exact same, slightly smug smile he was getting used to her flashing him at every opportunity.

"You got me," Jack put his hands up, trying to play it off. "I'm probably not the first."

"Of course not," Janna patted him on the shoulder. "But you would be the first to succeed."

She turned and went back to walking for a moment. The decoration of the lobby was old-fashioned, certainly, though perhaps missing the animal heads and wooden furniture he might have expected. Lots of bland grey in the decorations. Large throw rugs with the texture and pizazz of an office cubicle carpet. Framed paintings and woodcuttings with generic slogans of both the mindfulness and 'live laugh love' variety. The floors were all well-polished wood, likely the original the house had been made with back in the twenties or whenever it had been made, just varnished to the point of artificiality. Painted over and preserved until nothing but the epoxy remained. How fitting.

"You see, this facility of ours is in Ginger's name. She's our main benefactor. Technically, she owns it. Though she trusts me enough that she's something of an absentee owner." Janna lectured. "I understand you're a fan of hers?"

"Was that something the trust told you?" Jack asked.

"No, but you made it easy to guess as much when I brought up her name." Janna gave the same, almost artificial laugh. "If you're hoping to meet her, I should probably disappoint you now. Better than leading you on. The last time she made her way out to our neck of the woods was... well, at least a president ago."

Jack gave an affirmatory noise and followed behind Janna in silence for a moment. The cogs weren't exactly turning at full steam, but his brain slowly sorted a couple things out as she took him up to what seemed like a registration desk and helped him fill out a couple forms. Her name had been familiar, and it wasn't all that common. Plus, with her connection to Ginger - however weak - he realized he had heard it somewhere before.

Janna was, if he was thinking of the right person, the kind of behind-the-scenes figure talked about in fairly ominous tones. Their relationship certainly attracted a lot of negative attention for Ginger, at the very least. She had a reputation as a control freak; a health and wellness guru who got involved in her client's business until she exerted a nearly authoritarian control over them. He was surprised to see her here, but perhaps this was a good spot to pick up new victims.

At the same time, he'd also only ever heard her name attached to famous women. He admittedly wasn't all that hip to the gossip. And it was also easy for these kinds of things to get overblown in Hollywood. Some people simply played a different game than others, and it was probably just as likely that Janna wasn't kissing the right asses. Well, maybe not just as likely.

When the paperwork was done - mostly signing things that the trust had already approved, so he probably wasn't at risk of signing anything important away - Janna gave him another pat on the shoulder and gestured him down the hall. As they were moving, a pair of young, fancily-dressed women came shuffling past him in the direction of the front door. A moment later, a woman in the same bland aides robes came rushing to catch up. The facility was remote enough they probably didn't get that many runaways, Jack wasn't sure if he was seeing one of the rare ones, but a moment later he could hear helicopter blades in the distance coming closer.

"Two of our clients who have completed their stay here," Janna gestured with her hand. "And behind them is their guardian. Are you at all familiar with the concept of a sponsor in alcoholics anonymous?"

"Broadly," Jack shrugged. He kept watching the women.

They were wearing elaborate, almost doll-like dresses, complete with stockings and high heels. Even if they were celebrating checking out of rehab, it was a little excessive. At the same time, they were heavily made up to the point where their faces were almost surreal, alien, androgynous. Neither was particularly voluptuous, but Jack gave them a grin and a nod anyway, blowing a quick kiss. They both gave each other sheepish looks, then hurried past him.

"Well, the concept is not entirely the same," Janna didn't seem to notice his flirting, or at least didn't care. "After all, a sponsor is another recovering addict, while none of our staff have had serious substance issues in the past. However, part of the reason we're so expensive is that our process involves something of a personal assistant. That's why we call them guardians."

"What, somebody's going to slap me if they see me trying to get high?" Jack sneered.

"If that's what it takes," Janna flashed him the same smile as usual. He couldn't help feeling condescended to, he was probably going to have to get used to it. "But I wouldn't expect such a situation to come up. Most of the time, your guardian will work as your personal trainer, religious guide, scheduler, and confidant. Of course, some guardians are better at one than another, so it will largely come down to the areas where you need the most help. Think of your guardian like a friend with your best interests at heart. A guiding light in these coming weeks or months."

"So what, my guardian is going to cook and clean for me?" Jack responded flippantly.

"No, you'll eat with everybody else, after a period of adjustment on your own. As for cleaning, your private space is allowed to be as disorderly as you want it to be, but I think you'll come to appreciate the value of a clean living space." Janna took a sudden sharp turn toward the outside.

"When do I meet my guardian?" He asked.

"You have," Janna gave him another smile. "Normally, I don't work with clients myself. But you're something of a special case."

"It's because of the money," Jack snorted.

"It's because of how high-profile you are, how important your family name is," Janna retorted, then grinned. "So yes, it is about the money."

They walked out of the lobby onto the great main lawn by the lake, where the perfectly-manicured grass rolled down toward the shore. There was enough space between to fit at least the majority of a football field, if not the whole thing. Along the way there were a handful of campfires, scattered croquet hoops and mallets, badminton racquets and nets left in higgledy-piggledy piles. To his left, further along the lake shore, he could see what looked like the edge of a small golf course. To the right, up next to the building, was a set of covered clay tennis courts next to an outdoor gym. There was also a basketball court, a large swimming pool, what looked like a polo course and a hedge maze. It was all very nice. The ones at his place were still nicer.

"I'll show you to your room shortly here, but first, I'd like to introduce you to some of our staff members. Of course, if you need something, you can always ask myself or a lower-level employee for assistance, but I did mention that some of us were more specialized than some others. Somewhere around here..." Janna craned her neck in a rare showing of actual human uncertainty, ".. we'll find the main trainer of the facility. She'll want to meet you, I'm sure."

"I suppose I wouldn't mind getting in shape," Jack mused.

"Well, your diet will be carefully observed and maintained regardless of your intent." Janna nodded without really agreeing to anything. "As for exercise, we believe that both cardiovascular health and a certain chakral purity are important to full recovery. Our group workouts will mostly focus on yoga and light calisthenics. Tara's work is more for those who wish to pursue something more intensive."

As she spoke, the woman she seemed to be looking for came wandering from among the gym equipment. She perked up when she saw Janna, perked up more when she saw her with a client, and came trotting over. She was tall - taller than Janna, not just Jack - and had a lot more build to show for it. Bulky shoulders and well-muscled limbs extending from her compression top and sweatpants. Her jaw was tight, her cheeks high, her eyes sharp. She had a short, cop-like blonde haircut. Between the muscles and the strength of her features, she looked cut out of a propaganda poster. It wasn't that she was unattractive, but Jack certainly found her a bit... intimidating. Likely an appearance she was courting.

"Howdy," She greeted Janna and extended her hand to Jack. She had a voice like a kitten, but her grip strength brought Jack right back down to earth. "Don't think we've met before."

"Yes, this is our newest intake," Janna gave her a quick look. "Jack, this is Tara. As well as being our best trainer, she's also a trained rehab specialist. So if you injure yourself under her care, she's likely also going to be the one helping you get back up to speed. Tara, this is Mr. Madsen himself."

"You look more like a bodyguard than a trainer," Jack wasn't sure how to make small talk without flirting, and he didn't have a strong urge to flirt with somebody who radiated an aura like she could tear him in half without much strain.

"Well, I was," Tara admitted with a fake air of humility. "That's how I paid my way through medical school. It's been a lifelong pursuit of finding ways to get paid to work out - ideally without having to undress while I do it."

"You don't see a lot of lady security guards," Jack commented idly. He more meant that he'd never hired one.

"Don't I know it." Tara grimaced. "Plenty of people willing to try shit they wouldn't with a guy doing it. That's why I also offer martial arts courses if you're interested. Probably don't need self-defense help in your position, but nobody I've met regrets taking the time to learn."

Another rehabber approached and started asking Tara about something he was trying to do. Jack tried to clock if it was some celebrity or another, but couldn't make them out if they were. Janna took the opportunity to bid Tara farewell and continue the tour.

They approached the row of villas and Jack caught sight of a wide, low building that had been hidden by the trees. It was the same, newer and blander style as the villas themselves. A blocky glass and metal exterior that showed a wide, empty room with faux-wooden floors. When the sun came up over the lake, the view from inside was probably quite nice.

"This is our yoga and meditation studio," Janna gestured. "There's a mandatory session lead by myself each morning, though you're welcome to use it whenever you want, of course. There are also sauna and massage facilities in the back, for if you want a greater detoxification."

"Detoxification through massage?" Jack gave her a slightly kooky look.

"In certain circumstances, yes. Though most people are only used to massage in the context of pain relief or relaxation." If Janna saw the smug expression he flashed in regards to the other, unspoken context, she didn't acknowledge it. "Yoga, meditation, sauna bathing, and massage are all means by which to unblock one chakra or multiple, and an awakened kundalini will facilitate the healing process far more than any prescription."

"Tell people who need antipsychotics that," Jack muttered.

"I am not in the business of clinical psychology," Janna scoffed. "Nor are any of our clients in need of it. If you think you are-"

"It was a joke," Jack put his hands up.

"Addiction can be a mental problem, certainly," Janna stuck her nose up. "But far more often, it is a spiritual one. Here, we treat the physical and the mental with the spiritual, and the spiritual with the physical and mental. Yoga awakens the pranic energies, meditation focuses them. Sauna time can flush clogged chakras, and massage can recover damaged ones. The one treatment we do not offer is chemical. Though there is a doctor present should emergencies arise."

"How often do those happen?" Jack asked disinterestedly.

"Almost every client has one when they first come in. Withdrawal is vicious." Janna opened the door to the yoga studio for him. "If you make it through the first week without any sort of incident, you'll be in rarefied air."

"I feel fine," Jack shrugged.

"And right now, you are still full of junk," Janna gave him a knowing look.

Jack ducked his head sheepishly to keep from returning her look. She couldn't have known, but she probably could tell.

Janna didn't press the issue, instead leading him deeper into the building where another woman was working behind a desk. When she saw them enter, she stood up and bobbed her head nervously with a slightly shaky smile. She was frumpy, probably not much older or younger than Janna but visibly not in the same kind of shape or with the same kind of maintenance. Pudgy around the middle, matronly curves, brunette hair with a round face. Notably, she was actually about Jack's same height, which was a first for the staff here. He could recognize on her face the same overworked, past-her-prime woman that had come through on his cleaning staff in the hopes to lay low for a paycheck and put off sleep and relaxation for a later day. To balance it out, she was girly to the max. Wearing a pink sweater with floral patterns, a skirt with smiling suns on it. If she'd never tried teaching kindergarten, she had probably missed her true calling in life. He couldn't recall ever seeing somebody that legitimately, cartoonishly harmless before.

"Hello Jack, my name is Audrey," She greeted him in the kind of cloying voice that suggested she absolutely had been a kindergarten teacher at some point.

"Audrey is our best masseuse, and she leads the meditations whenever I'm not around to do so." Janna smiled. "She's also the closest thing we have to a second-in-command, should I be absent at any point."

"I'm not much for training or... most other stuff," Audrey seemed to wince a little at the implication that she was to be relied upon.

"It's not really a hierarchy of power that we have," Janna pointed out. "Her spot as my fill-in is spiritual. I allow nobody else to give me advice in that regard."

"You flatterer," Adurey gave a too-loud laugh that suggested she wasn't comfortable with any of this. "Most of the time, I'll just be the masseuse, okay? I can help you deal with the worst symptoms of withdrawal, and make you feel good enough to forget the minor ones. Also, I'm always here as a shoulder to cry on!"

Jack looked at her slightly sideways. She was too fluffy and too soft to actually feel any kind of ill-will toward, but people like her would probably never be Jack's cup of tea. He was almost certain that every single one of them had some internal voice they were only barely restraining which would cause them to flip one day and seek out a kitchen knife and those who had wronged them. And the softer they came across, the more they actually had to fight the voice. His evidence for this was nothing, but he'd also not been stabbed yet.

As if to demonstrate just how hard she was fighting the voices in her head, Aubrey stepped over and gave him a shockingly warm and forceful but just as shockingly nice hug. His head was buried in her furnace of a bosom, surrounded by a shadowy pink expanse of cartoon flowers. He gave an unenthusiastic squeeze back until she finally let him go. Janna excused them out.

"Well, wasn't she a ray of sunshine?" Jack grunted when they were out of the building.

"Audrey's form of friendliness can certainly be a bit much," Janna chuckled. "But you're unlikely to find many kind people around here for the initial leg of your stay."

"Why? Are people embarrassed to be seen here? Don't want to be seen with the others?" Jack sneered.

"The problem won't be with them, it will be with you." Janna responded casually. "Right now, your energy is extremely impure. Borderline poisonous to those with the eyes to see it. You'll be in a sort of seclusion for at least the first week, until the worst of your withdrawals are over and your body can be coaxed into healing itself. You will eat apart from the rest, you will exercise and meditate apart from them, your socialization will be limited. It will be unpleasant, but you will get through it and be better for it."

Jack glanced again at the little jasper crystals hanging suspended in her hoop earrings, which swayed as they walked and occasionally caught little arcs of the weak sunlight. From the way she dressed to the way she smelled, Jack immediately clocked her for the kind of essential oil and half-remembered orientalism guru that easily charmed suburban moms and wealthy celebrities with the mind of suburban moms. That she had made it this far up in the world, running an ostensibly credible foundation which attracted the kind of clientele that it did either said a tremendous amount about her will to power or the world around her. Perhaps both. Ironically, for a rehab manager, he wouldn't have been shocked if she smoked a tremendous amount of pot in her free time. They were usually the type. But then, they would also insist that one was non-addictive.

They walked back from the little hamlet offshoot to the main building, and even the slight hill had Jack huffing and puffing to his own surprise by the time they were back on the rear steps. Re-entering the building - which had felt cold before - was suddenly like walking into a sauna. Some unseen furnace, possibly a literal wood fire - was working overtime to keep the building at only a few degrees warmer than the outside. It was late September and it was already like this, so the place probably got brutally cold in the winter. The Pacific Northwest was a harsh, green mistress.

"Next I want to introduce you to Kitty, our head chef," Janna slowed down to let him catch up as they moved down the hall.

"Aren't we doing this a bit out of order?" Jack tried to hide how out of breath he was. "Shouldn't we have started with everybody in the main building and then gone out?"

"We're out of order, but not in the way you think," Janna chuckled. "Your daily schedule will start with a trip out to the yoga studio for meditation and awakening, then will move on to a brief group exercise with Tara. Both of these will be done before you eat, every day without exception. I merely wanted to give you some semblance of the structure we'd follow. We firmly believe that minimizing sitting is one of the best things you can do for your own body, so we want to start each day on an active note to make it easier to continue on one. Waking up and spending a half-hour laying in bed reading or checking your phone is poor preparation for the day."

"You know some people aren't meant to keep tight schedules, right?" He winced.

"Oh, absolutely," Janna patted him on the shoulder, less condescending than he would have thought. "Some people are natural night owls and will slide back to that schedule no matter how much they try to squeeze and torture themselves to be otherwise. But everybody can keep to a schedule even if it isn't natural, and sometimes the unnatural is healthier than the natural. Even the most unmovable of night owls still needs Vitamin D."

They arrived at a large auditorium with rows of benches like a school or a prison, they had a strange tendency to be designed the same way. Jack supposed it was part of the game - both the fun of it for the staff and the sale of it to potential clients - to treat the wealthy and famous like this. Rehabilitating them one part through lovey-dovey hugging and talking about each other's feelings, but also one part humiliation. An illusion of tough love that was only ever craved by those who didn't have to actually deal with it. It also made him question the nature of the building originally. It looked like a loggers' lodge or some other kind of antique workman's building that had been bought at some point by an old-money robber baron and used for several years before falling into the hands of Janna and her merry band of rehabbers. They probably had all kinds of stories they were just begging people to ask that would involve lore and lineages. He wasn't going to ask.

Kitty, it was hard to mistake her because she was the one that everybody else in the kitchen moved out of the way of, was wire-thin and had a harrowed look in her eyes that suggested she'd seen hell. Though, when one of her co-chefs stopped her to ask a question, she gave a polite, seemingly humorous answer. Then a second later went back to giving sharp orders and working on multiple things at once. This was probably, realistically, a low-stress job so far as running a large kitchen went. She probably still smoked like a chimney. Jack wondered if there was a single person working here who didn't have one addiction or another. Her hair was mostly grey, but little patches of carrot blonde that were indistinguishable from ginger remained.

"Jack, this is Kitty," Janna spoke more brusquely than usual, clearly not wanting to waste Kitty's time. "Kitty, this is Jack."

"Afternoon," Kitty greeted Jack without really looking at him. Not offering a hand or embrace of any kind.

"Your real name isn't Kitty, is it?" Jack asked.

"We don't-" Janna started, but Kitty shot Jack a sharp but angerless look before responding.

"If it's what I call myself, and it's what other people call me, that's what my name is." Kitty shrugged, her voice was gruff but laid-back. "Anything else is dissent."

Without waiting for a response from Jack, Kitty went back to the kitchen where she leaned over another worker's shoulder and started giving short, curt instructions. Janna gave her an apologetic look, then gave Jack one of his own.

"Kitty isn't trained for any kind of interpersonal care, she can't lead yoga or meditation, she will not be a shoulder to cry on, and she will not be of any help for you if you need matters of your treatment discussed." Janna explained. "However, she has had more Michelin stars attached to her name than you could count on all of your fingers and toes combined. She is allowed to run this aspect of the facility with very little oversight, so if you have a question or complaint regarding your food, take it up with her and not one of the other staff members."

"Perhaps not 'any' complaints?" Jack joked.

"Rest assured, despite what you may think, she is ultimately here to serve, as are the rest of the staff and the facilities. If you have allergies, intolerances, or even personal tastes that you would prefer met, it is her job to listen." Janna seemed to wince.

"So I actually get a say in what I eat?" Jack perked up.

"You get some say," Janna lead him out of the dining hall. "We aren't going to serve mass-produced food here, each dish is made for each resident. However, there are restrictions. Alcohol has to be kept out of the kitchen, for one. The menu is mostly vegan, for another."

"Anything I want so long as it isn't anything I want, got it." Jack sneered.

"It would be an insult to Kitty to insinuate that she cannot make food you would like, even if it does not match your usual diet." Janna responded sharply. "Sulk, if you will, but I will not humor that line of complaint."

Jack put his hands up in suggestive surrender, Janna didn't press the issue. They moved down a series of halls, each the same creaking wood that suggested they were all remnants of the first wave of construction, wide enough to suggest they really had been meant for a working crew. Eventually, Janna stopped at one of the doors - seemingly at random, none of them were marked or adorned by anything - and pushed it open to reveal a library with a high vaulted ceiling. One of the walls appeared to have been sacrificed to make a grand suite of modern windows, and the result was almost like seeing a traffic camera on a marble statue. Still, the room remained cosy in the pale white light. Rows of shelves with books of all stripes, great expanses of soft carpeting, classic furniture more seamlessly intermingled with beanbags and technology-bearing modern desks. Though the newest computer still looked like it had a floppy port somewhere. Blocks of bulky wires running from the monitors and peripherals into sleek purpose-built holes that looked overstuffed like a rat king crammed into a sewer pipe. As the sun passed through the windy treetops outside, shadows lengthened and shortened. The room seemed to breathe.

And on feet as silent as a cat's, the librarian came up behind Jack and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. He jumped and yelped, but she chuckled instead of shushing him. Janna's expression was amused, but she quickly controlled herself.

"Jack, this is Francesca," Janna introduced. "She's one of our best therapists and counselors."

"But this is the work I prefer to do," Francesca added.

She was an excessively, almost shockingly pale woman, likely in her mid-thirties. Visibly younger than most of the staff in that there was no gray in her brunette bun, but she had bedazzled horned glasses that looked so flagrantly unhip they could only have been an intentional ask. Her body was plump, curvy in a more alluring way than Audrey's, but she would likely be headed toward the same look in a decade's time. If Jack had been at all into chubbier, mousier girls, Francesca was probably an utter smokeshow. She was almost concerningly tall though, taller even than Janna and likely more than Tara. It was less like she moved between the towering shelves around her and more like she leaned into one, then the other with swaying steps. Like some matronly minotaur.

"Addiction can be quite an emotionally intense thing, so most of us have some training in therapy and counseling," Janna gestured to herself inclusively, "But Francesca is a true expert. She's also here to help you set up post-rehab goals, she can get you in touch with support communities-"

"But since my skills aren't unique, I've had to diversify, like the rest of us." Despite her appearance, Francesca didn't seem at all like she was shy or reserved. She spoke every sentence slowly and enunciated excessively, more like she was trying her best to be understood than that she had any doubt about the intelligence of those around her. "Of course, learning is one of the best ways to grapple with what you do know and prepare for what you don't."

Jack was already over it. He didn't have any interest in therapy, in psychoanalyzing his condition and figuring out why he did what he did. When he partied, he did so because it was fun. It didn't take college to figure out why people became addicts, but people gave each other degrees in explaining it anyway. It felt a bit like making a cottage industry for disaster analysts who only investigated buildings made of paper.

At the very least, the library was pretty well-stocked with things other than self-help books and biographies of the famous. Jack could see sections of what appeared to be genre fiction, romance, westerns and even some comics. He couldn't have guessed the last time he actually sat down and read a book from start to finish. Hell, he probably couldn't have guessed the last time he even read a book from start to middle. Still, if the facility was strongly against screen time and other ways to keep from dying of boredom, at least his only reading options weren't going to be so dry they put him to sleep.

As they moved on from the library, they passed a small group of residents who nodded or smiled at Janna, but the ones who saw him practically recoiled away. Jack felt a pang of self-consciousness. He didn't buy that his 'energy' was bad enough to actually be visible, no matter how many crystals you crushed up and snorted, but he probably looked like absolute hell. All of the guys looked much more like they were recovering well. Better shape, more upright and well-washed. If nothing else, being here would probably make him more presentable. He understood the why of it when Ginger or other celebrities didn't take the invite to his party - no matter how rich he was, most of them were full of Z-listers and people looking for a quick fix - so there was an element of playing the game he could probably learn from being here. Especially if Ginger was... well... the same 'type' of person as Janna. He'd thought better of her.

"It seems like most of your clients are guys," Jack noted. "I've seen a pair of girls, but everybody else was a dude."

"I'd say it's three men to every one woman," Janna responded. "Part of that is down to the cost of our services, but even if it were completely even, you wouldn't see many women anyway. We keep male and female clients separate. Interaction is extremely limited. Male staff members aren't even allowed to clean the quarters of female residents."

"That seems oddly regressive for someone so enlightened," Jack smirked.

"It's pragmatic." Janna's voice was humorless. "You must understand some of the people here are dealing with sex addiction alongside any other vices. We believe very strongly that sex is a beautiful and even healing thing, but you have to purge the vice fully before you can humor reintroduction in healthy increments."

Jack listened with a hint of disappointment. Not that he had a tremendous amount of pull with women at the best of times, but this was certainly the one situation where things would have been... easier than usual. He wouldn't have used the phrase fish in a barrel, but it would have at least been close. Though, as he walked, he glanced at one of the large rooms they passed and noticed a distinctly feminine maid with her face buried in her work. Her outfit slightly performative, more than a little slutty for it to be actually practical. Either they had something of a double standard with female staff members in male areas, or some of the male sex addicts had worked something out with the staff. Maybe some hybrid of the two? Maybe what little cleaning staff they had on the premises was simply overworked and undermanned. Whatever it was, Jack didn't bring it up. Janna already seemed a little annoyed with him.

They came to the end of the long hall, where it turned at a right angle into a thinner wing with several individual doors that suggested they were at the dorms. Instead, Janna turned the opposite way and led him into a room with a door that his eyes had missed. He realized as he followed her that it was a speakeasy - so it probably had been meant to be missed. Bar counter, floor and walls several different colors of polished wood while the the corners had earthy pillars the rough, furry texture of real bark. All of the glassware was shining brass, a black lattice mat extended out from behind the bar with a woman slowly rocking on it and polishing one of the glasses. A kitschy, cherry-stained wooden table sat on an antique rug surrounded by balloon canopy chairs of lacquered black wood upholstered in forest green. A splintering wagon wheel sat suspended from the ceiling like a fan, and the actual sink and works of the bar looked like it had been gutted and replaced by a far less efficient, more showy version of itself. All exposed pipes and higgledy-piggledy angles like somebody meant the process of bartending to look like ancient alchemy.

"This is the lounge-" Janna got out before Jack sidled up to the bar and cleared his throat.

"I'd like a beer, whatever tap is closest," Jack joked.

The bartender gave him a slightly condescending smile and poured him a glass of water in a tall brass mug. Jack gave her a long look, there was something incredibly familiar about her face, but he couldn't place it. She was like somebody he hadn't seen in several years, but knew for certainly he had seen.

"It used to be a bar," Janna continued like she hadn't been interrupted. "We found that the atmosphere was comforting to most of our residents, so we've turned it into something of a non-alcoholic lounge. Jack, this is Kendra."

Kendra nodded and flashed Jack a smile, which let him place where he'd seen her. Kendra was a rising young actress, probably a year or two younger than him if his math was right, who had just sort of stopped being in anything he was seeing. It wasn't as though she'd torn up her career or made any powerful enemies either. She had simply chosen to stop appearing, and now Jack knew where she had been, though not why. The 'it' girl who had given up on being one.

She still looked for all the world like a starlet, despite her attempts to the contrary. Her penny-brown skin was perfectly preserved and flawless, her features girlish and cute enough that her actual age was ambiguous. It looked like she was still in red-carpet shape, wearing a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows and suit trousers with men's dress shoes. Her long black locs were pulled together in the back by a golden hoop big and fine enough to look like jewelry for a queen. Perfect white teeth flashed in another smile from between plump lips. If she was wearing any makeup, it wasn't much. She might have actually just looked this good naturally. What in god's name was she doing in a place like this?

"Kendra," Jack forced out, "I recognize you."

"Oh? Big fan?" She asked teasingly.

"Not really, but-" Jack started.

Kendra gave a performative frown and started to talk to Janna, as if she'd moved on from him entirely. He couldn't help feeling a pang of embarrassment. Janna seemed amused by it, answering a series of fairly inane procedural questions before patting Jack on the shoulder.

"Shall we keep going, or would you like to finish your drink first?" Janna asked with a smirk.

Jack would have liked to stay and talk to Kendra, either to flirt or just to ask her why she was here, but he thought better of it when she gave him a look equal parts playful and cold. The actress in her background probably gave her a good advantage at keeping things close to the chest, Jack genuinely couldn't tell if he'd given the wrong answer to the one question she'd asked him. He quickly nodded farewell and stood up as she took his brass cup and dumped it out. As soon as they were out of the speakeasy, he felt a full-body shudder. He felt like she was scowling at his back, but he was pretty sure he was imagining it.

They walked away from the dorms a short while back toward the center of the lodge, then ducked into one of the large rooms in the main building. It looked like another mess hall or maybe some manner of workshop that had been repurposed. Folding chairs were piled in the corners facing a raised platform like a highschool auditorium. Pushing past it to one of the spare rooms. Inside was a narrow labyrinth of mannequins, mesh, and lace. Jack recognized at least two costumes from movies he had seen before. Tucked somewhere in the midst of them, a loud grunt popped toward them. Janna pushed one of the dresses aside.

The woman was older, Jack didn't want to say old - especially not to her face - but probably closer to sixty than forty. Well gray up top, with skin turning the color of bread crust. She was surprisingly unwrinkled anywhere but her eyes, which were narrow and surrounded by rings of ridges. Her jaw was as stiff as her neck, skin pulled taut in a permanent grimace. She was thin as a post but she reached out and shook Jack's hand with enough force to make him wince. Wearing a baggy, paint-stained t-shirt and a pair of loose jeans, she immediately looked far removed from anybody else working in the place. As soon as she spoke, Jack wasn't in any doubt that she had her vices. Her voice was like a brillo pad with a smug, keening, valley-girl inflection.

"You an actor?" She asked good-naturedly. Her voice boomed, making him jump. Maybe her hearing was going, maybe she just sounded like that.

"I'd love to be-" Jack started.

"Jack, meet Lisa," Janna cut him off. "Lisa, this is Jack. Mr. Madsen."

"Billionaire kid," Lisa phrased it as a question but said it as a statement. "No reason you can't act. Some billionaires play real people."

"You may not recognize Lisa, but you've certainly seen something that she's worked on." Janna did the diplomacy for her. "She's done hair and makeup, choreography, costume design-"

"Every special effect except the ones that take a computer," Lisa added.

"Seems like this is slumming it for you," Jack joked.

"Since a good number of actors-" Janna started.

"And failed actors," Lisa added rudely.

"-end up here eventually, Lisa is good to have around." Janna continued like she hadn't been interrupted. "Many of our guests need to make semi-public appearances even while undergoing treatment. Either to hide that that's what they're doing, or to make a show of how well they're progressing. Lisa here can make them look presentable, coach them up for uncomfortable questions. The majority of the staff doesn't share her industry skill."

"We do shows sometimes," Lisa said it like an invitation. "Help workout both the wannabes and the ones who had their skills go to shit."

"I wouldn't mind," Jack admitted. Though he felt a little insecure about the idea of acting across from somebody who actually did it for a living.

"Get the worst out your system, then we'll talk." Lisa snorted. "You're still shaky."

Jack looked down at his hand inadvertently. He didn't see much of a shake, though the more he strained to look for one, perhaps the more he was making himself shake. Lisa snorted again, and creaked back into the menagerie of costumes. As Jack and Janna brushed past them on the way back out, he could smell cigarette smoke thick on one of them like perfume. He'd never smoked one in his life, but he was suddenly craving one. Maybe his body knew what was coming.

"Is the tour about over?" Jack asked. He didn't want to admit his feet were getting tired, but it was the truth.

"Well, there are a few more staff members I could introduce you to if I wanted to, but I suppose there are only two major ones that you really need to know right now." Janna mused. "Anybody else and we can cross that bridge when we get to it."

"Please," Jack nodded.

Janna reversed their course and went to the other end of the main building, opening a door near where the wing addition started and nudging her way in. They were in a low, wide infirmary that - like the library - had offered up one of its walls in sacrifice to the window gods. There were about a dozen cots, all of which were simple metal-framed twin beds with thin papery sheets, placed next to metal nightstands with single lamps on them and surrounded on three sides by what looked like shower curtains hung from racks that could enclose the bed. During the morning, the windows would face the sunrise and likely make the place as blinding as a desert, but at this point short shadows and patches of overcast gloom made the place look almost haunted. The polished tile floors absorbed what little light there was without reflecting a shred back. Sitting behind a small steel desk near the entryway was a woman in a white lab coat so dark-skinned that Jack did a double-take, thinking the light was playing tricks on him.

Glancing up from her work, she saw Janna and stood to shake both their hands. She looked like an ice statue carved out of frozen coffee, her face gaunt and skeletal. Her mouth dominated her features, large lips pulling back to reveal blinding white teeth as she showed a smile that was... wrong. The bony look of her head - only accentuated by her nearly hairless scalp - appeared to make her smile stretch far into her cheeks around the sides of her face, without ever reaching the eyes or eyebrows. Whenever she moved in such a way as to let her lab coat flutter or fall open, she revealed a surprisingly stacked body squeezed into a deep purple turtleneck and pencil skirt. She was several heads taller than Jack, even taller than Janna.

"Jack, this is Ohemaa," Janna gestured. "She's our on-site general practitioner."

"Hopefully, we don't spend much time together" Ohemaa's voice was warm and soft, lightly accented but carefully spoken. Her bedside manner was probably immaculate, and she likely read a mean bedtime story, but Jack kept noticing how none of her smiles made it all the way up. None seemed especially genuine. Her almond eyes were completely flat. "This room is best when it's boring."

"We don't have a tremendous number of emergencies, but they do happen." Janna filled in for her. "Otherwise, Ohemaa will check in semi-regularly with our longer-tenured guests. Of course, if you have any allergies or need treatment for anything pre-existing, she'll be the one to talk to. Assuming you don't need any pharmaceuticals, that is. We have a fairly strict no-pill policy with few exceptions."

"No painkillers?" Jack asked.

"Some natural pain reducers, but no opioids." Ohemaa answered. "Most of the pills I have in my cabinet are strictly for emergencies or quality of life. Antihistamines, diuretics, antiepileptics, emetics and antiemetics."

"Though even most of those, if there is a healthier alternative, we prefer it." Janna added. "Ginger for the stomach, zinc for the immune system."

"What if there's a real emergency? Like somebody's appendix exploding or something?" Jack frowned.

"We have not yet needed to perform any invasive surgery," Janna answered for Ohemaa. "If such a thing were to come up, there is a hospital about an hour's flight away. Your chances are probably better than if you were to have the same thing happen while out hiking, though worse than if it happened in your home."

"If it were truly an emergency, you would probably be better in my hands than waiting," Ohemaa added with a slightly creepy grin. "Probably."

Her eyes stayed trained on Jack as he leaned over and looked about the room, watching how he responded to what was probably her idea of a joke. Then she leaned in and talked to Janna. She had the kind of quietly intense gaze that, combined with her soft spoken but forceful voice, made him feel like he was being pinned to the wall behind him. He couldn't tell for a second if she thought he was the scum of the earth or if she wanted to cut him open and see what made the little parts work together. Though the two probably didn't need to be mutually exclusive. When Janna finally tapped him on the shoulder after exchanging a few words of small talk with her, it came as a sort of mercy. It wasn't until he was out of her office - and out of her eyeshot - that Jack realized he had tensed up like a coiled spring.

"She's... intense..." Jack finally found a diplomatic way to put it.

"The incredibly intelligent usually are," Janna responded in a way that suggested Ohemaa made her uncomfortable as well. "But make no mistake about it, I would trust her with my own life the same way I trust her with all of yours."

"Have you?" Jack prodded.

"Most things are not so serious as to need her care," Janna deflected. "My prana is clear and healthy and I can heal or prevent most everything which comes upon it."

"Your prawns even prevent food poisoning and stubbed toes?" Jack sneered.

"My diet prevents food poisoning," Janna smirked. "And a stubbed toe rarely calls for a doctor's visit. I get semi-frequent checkups from Ohemaa, but they are often little more than checking my vitals and affirming that my health is as good as I know it to be. One day, you too may be able to know just from feeling."

She took him upstairs, past an overgrowing fern plant sitting on the sill of a badly-transplanted bay window on the landing, a small crystal chandelier hanging overhead that painted the stairs in weird pinkish light. For the most part, the second floor looked like it was dedicated to staff offices and storage. There was far less foot traffic, the doors were name tagged, and decorations littered stands and shelves along the walls. More overflowing green plants, shining multicolored displays of stones and gems - all shaggy crystalline structures and none particularly valuable-looking. The rugs were sparser, more of the varnished wooden floor exposed to creak under their steps. Up here felt old in a way that the rest of the place hadn't. No late-addition windows, no modernist furniture or color palettes. It was a simple and honest melange of wood and homey, new-agey decoration.

"Sandra's not in her classroom right now, I'm pretty sure of that," Janna explained. "I'd prefer if she were, I don't like to bring the guests up here."

"This is where you hide the good stuff?" Jack was honestly getting tired of playing this game with Janna, but the alternative was following her in awkward silence.

"While we're here to serve you, make no mistake, the staff are also people who deserve - and occasionally need - their own privacy." Janna explained. "It's not that you're forbidden up here, but we maintain a very specific schedule so that no more than a few of the staff members are doing paperwork or lounging at a time. Another side effect is that, should there be an emergency, we don't have to worry about crowds up here slowing our response down."

"Unless everybody comes upstairs to report the emergency at once," Jack mumbled.

"Believe it or not, that very thing happened once before. A fire scare." Janna shrugged. "But in that case, it was in the middle of the night, so things were already bound to be a mess. At a certain point, you can only build a system to prevent an emergency, not to fix it. You can't build planes to survive crashes, you must build them not to crash."

"Hold on," Something popped into Jack's mind. "Don't you all sleep in the villas outside? If those aren't for you or the guests, what are they for?"

"An astute observation," Janna stopped at one of the doors and rested her hand between his shoulder blades. "Those are isolation cabins for severe or frequent misbehaviors. We prefer the carrot to the stick whenever possible, but one has to at least prepare for negative situations."

She opened the door before he could respond. Jack wasn't sure that staying in a nice villa by the lakeside would be all that much of a punishment, but he had also heard that solitary confinement in a prison - even when the alternative was nasty fellow inmates - was near enough to torture after a while. Being locked up alone for days on end would probably get to him eventually. He was dumb, but not dumb enough to think he was stronger than torture.

Sitting inside the office was an almost surprisingly conventionally attractive woman compared to the rest of the staff. She couldn't have been much older than her mid-thirties, her face young and her jaw sharp - accentuated by a neck tattoo which ran down into the collar of her dress shirt. She had a dark pixie bob and fully rimmed circular black glasses. Her cheeks were blushed, her lips painted dark. And her earrings were joined with a pierced septum and an eyebrow ring. It looked almost like she was looking permanently down her nose at Jack, and her curves strained against the masculine navy suit she was wearing. Jack felt a twitch of... something. He wouldn't have gone as far as excitement. She had too much ink and too much metal to really, properly be his type. But compared to the convent of wine aunts around her...

"Sandra, this is Jack," Janna introduced him. "He's going to be staying in Room Nineteen for the next few months."

"Hello, Jack," Sandra's voice was almost too friendly. A sultry purr that seemed too good to be true. She didn't offer her hand, didn't even stand up.

"Sandra handles education and runs our workshops." Janna stepped over and took a pamphlet from the desk next to Sandra, then handed it to Jack. It looked like the kind of thing she probably should have given out before the tour. "There will be mandatory group conversations and long-term projects, then optional team-building exercises and networking opportunities."

"People network in rehab?" He gawped.

"Most of the best wind up here," Sandra smirked. "More than networking, what we want to do is present opportunities to both mentally deal with what we're going through, as well as how to express what we'll need from other people. The social aspect of healing from addiction is far more crucial than the actual physical process of stopping using and resisting temptation."

"That's... not how I pictured it," Jack tried to make small talk in part so he could keep staring.

"Oh yeah," Sandra seemed to notice and not care that his eyes were on her, "You won't be in a lot of situations where there's some of your vice sitting on a table in front of you, and you wish for the life of you that you'd been better trained to just say no. Relapses are almost always caused by social situations or life events. If something bad happens after treatment has finished, you need to be able to deal with it without turning back to your old methods of numbing the pain. If you find yourself at a party with people and they want you to use, you need to have the social skills to both communicate how they need to act to keep you safe, and to feel comfortable exiting the situation if they won't listen."

Despite how warm and even flirtatious her voice was, Jack got the impression that Sandra actually belonged doing rehab. She was teacher-y, if you were talking about that one teacher who tanked your grade because you couldn't focus. At the very least, she was a good break from the hippy-dippy aura and hugs talk most of them were bringing to the table. And she didn't make him feel like he was being looked at under a microscope. He wasn't exactly excited to sit around in a circle and talk to people about his feelings for hours at a time, but it was probably an easier pill to swallow than some of the others they'd be giving him.

"Now, then," Janna sighed as they reentered the hall and she closed the door behind her, "Let's show you to your room."

"Please," Jack felt more exhausted than he would have expected.

Janna walked back down the stairs and to the edge of the main building before turning down one of the wings. The doors were fairly spaced out, but it was still a long hallway of rooms like a hotel, the doors numbered with little black stone plaques inset with white, sharp letters. They finally reached Room Nineteen and Janna pushed that door open before handing him a key. He was at the very end of the hall, his door right next to a large, lancet window that reached up from the floor nearly to the ceiling like a slit carved into the side of the wing. It was almost libidinal, in that Georgia O'Keefe kind of way.

"You will be allowed a certain amount of privacy. We're not worried about you sneaking things in behind closed doors, but I will have a copy of your room key." Janna jingled her key in demonstration. "I'll come in to wake you up each morning, but other than that, I will respect a locked door if I find one."

Jack stepped in and immediately wilted. It was a drab, grey cube. Not quite concrete, nothing so sharp or so unpleasant, but it was (likely intentionally) as featureless and dull as they could make it. Along the wall about halfway up there was a stepback that wrapped around the room, giving both a large shelf and a sense that the room was bigger up around the head than it was the feet. On the shelf were dozens of crystals, little cacti and other low-maintenance plants, and various kinetic sculptures, desk baubles, mindfulness toys straight from a CEO's desk. The lights were all inset, mostly low and pointed up. Casting the hanging leaves and trinkets as long shadows on the ceiling. In the center, in a niche in the floor like a pit, was Jack's bed. Sitting atop it were his suitcases, all visibly rooted-through. There was a small partition with a sliding glass door, behind which Jack could see a plain white bathroom with a closet-sized shower.

"I'll admit, you packed a bit more than we're used to." Janna strode over to the bed and picked up a manilla folder off of his suitcase. "Most days, you'll wear a uniform, though you are allowed to wear your own clothes during your free time. This isn't a vacation, you realize?"

"Yeah, I..." Jack peeked over Janna's shoulder. She was reading the entry form that he'd filled out in the car on the way over. The problem, he was realizing, was that he barely remembered filling it out. "I'm not sure what I was thinking when I got packed. I was probably... well..."

"I'm sure," Janna kept leafing through it.

Jack winced. From what little of the documents he could see, he had made a mess of them. Things were signed illegibly, filled out where they weren't meant to be, at least one column he could see contained outright wrong information. Janna caught his gaze as he kept reading.

"Seeing some problems on your entry forms?" She asked somewhat teasingly.

"They're uh..." He started.

"I assure you, they're not the first inadmissible forms we've taken. What kind of business do you think we're running here?" Janna chuckled. "They won't hold up in a court of law, that's the main thing, so try not to have any serious accidents before we can get you to re-do them. As for the treatment information on them, we'll feel things out as we care for you. Figure out which parts of this to take seriously as we go. Then, after a few days, we'll give you a new copy to fill out. If you notice us avoiding certain things we have no reason to, assume it over-caution on our part."

"Sure," Jack mumbled. "Shouldn't we do that now, though?"

One of the staff came in with another suitcase, dropping it on the bed before heading back into the hallway. Then they came back in with a small potted plant and handed it to Jack expectantly.

"Should we hand them to you now, I expect we would get something just as unusable, though in regards to retracting honest details instead of adding dishonest ones. We'll wait for you to settle in, then compare your two entries with the one provided to us by your trust." Janna tucked the documents under her arm and took the plant from Jack, setting it on the shelf by his bed. "This will be your totem, or rather, your first totem."

"Meaning?" Jack couldn't hide that he was impatient for the whole tour to be over. The sun was visibly fading outside, making the already dim exterior corridor darker. His room was windowless - though he couldn't have imagined they had many escape attempts. Perhaps it was just more encouragement not to stay here, to get out around his fellow rehabees.

"A totem is an item which, like you, will change over your time here." Janna explained diplomatically. "Plants make for ideal first totems, while your body is still impure enough that a crystal would be damaged. Each morning, you will start your routine by watering it. Each night, you'll conclude the day by watering it again. Any other care - trimming it, speaking to it - those are entirely up to you."

"And I guess you'll measure me by how well it's doing?" Jack scoffed.

"Not quite. After all, every plant grows differently. However, should it die, you will be punished. It's a small responsibility, but we insist that you handle at least that, even from the very start of your stay. The better care you take of it - even if it doesn't grow that much visibly - will reflect on how well you are starting to take care of yourself. Eventually, we will trust you with something bigger." Janna headed to the door and stood in it for a second, as if she wanted to say more, but closed the door behind her.

Jack sighed and moved the suitcases off of his bed. He checked them to see if anything had gotten through, but the staff had been thorough. Even the little hidden compartments he had thought might have a chance had been raided. When the bed was clear, he settled onto it for a moment. It wasn't nearly as nice as the one he had back home. Stiffer, the sheets thinner. Everything felt papery. Like the frame was bamboo and the furnishings were leaves. Still, he was tired. He shuffled up to his nightstand and found a little watering can next to the plant. He considered actually watering it tonight, but didn't figure he was in the mood. One night was probably not going to be make or break for the little thing's life.

Instead, he laid atop the papery sheets and closed his eyes, falling into a less than easy sleep.