Despite feeling more than a little worried by the bad news, I was pretty hungry.  I quickly wolfed down my breakfast, keeping the crumpled note from Toki in my hand at all times as if scared it would dissolve if I dropped it, then went into the kitchen for snacks.

It was loaded with probably a months supply of food, so I grabbed a couple of bits and pieces to take away with me and some fruit and bottled water from the fridge.  I... Also noticed the same brand of beer I was used to there, so yeah, I grabbed a can of that too.

Checking over at the office, I saw a thick, heavy, lever arch folder and what gave me a bit of a surprise, a lanyard with some sort of ID already created for me...

Scooping everything up, I made my way back to the bedroom and dumped it on the bed, save for the beer, which I cracked open and slurped down in a rush.

I started looking through the binder.  Page 1 was a checklist that informed me of everything to review, highlighted were instructions to explicitly have my ID on me at all times to traverse common areas.

"Okay...  Fine"

I skimmed the rest, basically, strict government rules.  No leaving during your contracted stay, try no to do anything stupid, respect your superiors etc.

I then realised, I had no idea as to what was beyond the kitchen.  I went back to the checklist and scrolled down until I found it.  A map, no, three maps of the different levels of the facility available to me.  On the first sheet, in red pen was a circle around one of the rooms and an arrow that pointed to it with the words 'You are here'.  I think it was Akane's handwriting?

She had also circled the access points between levels, allowing me to better understand where everything was positioned.  She even used a yellow highlighter to indicate all the doors I had access to.  Pretty thoughtful of her.  She was probably okay after a-

'Damn it, I guess she can still-'

I paused, remembering some of the weird things Toki said to me.  And wasn't that the second time I was ready to think of her as okay?  My headache began somewhat to throb again, I felt like there was something I wasn't realising and it became worse still before I stopped myself.

"I want you to imagine a wall"

Should I?  Now I wasn't so sure...

It then became completely apparent that I had dropped the crumpled note beside the bed...  I completely forgot about it...  But...

More imagery of Toki's anxious features flashed before me as I picked it up and unfurled it.  What I saw was written in atrocious handwriting.  It looked like Toki couldn't write at all, but I knew from a couple of the documents he signed that this wasn't true.

Instead of his normal handwriting, it looked like he had opted for function over form with big block letters but it was like he had written everything with his mouth or something.  Droplets of blood scattered here and there across the page, ink and blood smudges and letters crossed out here and there and little stick figure diagrams with wiggly lines coming out of them littered the page.  It read the following:

"SEE FOR YOURSELF.  KIDS REC ZONE BEFORE MONDAY.  KIDS PSYCHIC POWERS.  YOU TOO.  EXPERIMENT.  ANOMALY IS CAUSE.

PROTECT MIND

DON'T TRUST TAKAHASHI"

I was shocked.  I couldn't believe it and yet this sinking feeling inside me was screaming that it was true.

Just my luck to become involved in something sick and twisted like this.  Either that, or Toki was completely mad...  No, well, it was crazy, but it explained my recent visions, and my weird nightmares, but I still needed just a bit more evidence before I lunge through the rabbit hole.

I started checking through the folder in front of me.  It listed short summaries of the different students I'd be working with.  I scooped them out with the maps and my ID and finished my second beer.  Psychic powers?  No.  No, that's... No.

I stood up, somewhat irritated at this point, shaking away the headache that tried to creep up on me and left the room, determined to find some answers.

Looking to the map in my hands, I stepped into what appeared to be the main hallway for this level '[SCA] - SCHOOL ADMIN'.  I began following it along, noting I was nearly directly opposite a much larger room titled 'MEDICAL [02]'.  Also the rooms 'PRINTING [04]' and 'TEACHER'S OFFICE [01]'.

Both my apartment and Medical were situated towards the middle of the floor.  The hallway down the middle was one of three, and from above, formed an H pattern.  Other areas were either completely blank, or marked as storage, cleaning supplies etc.  There appeared to be 3 elevators marked on the map, one on either end of the main hallway along with stairwell access beside each and what appeared to be a much larger service elevator by itself inside medical.

I scanned my ID on what would be the map's southern side and the elevator began to rise, also trying the stairwell scanner while I waited...  With a click, it allowed access.

Unfortunately what it revealed made my stomach churn.  The stairwell only appeared to descend down, but what was far worse was underneath the letters [SCA].  Though it had been painted over probably in the last year or so, there were still some traces of the indentations that made up the original characters for this level.

B7

My head felt light.  A feeling of doom pressed upon my chest and my head flashed again as I thought I could hear a low guttural growl down below.

I came to with a sudden DING from the elevator as I looked at my maps again; below my level was '[SC-G] SCHOOL - GENERAL' and '[SC-REC] SCHOOL - RECREATIONAL'.

The outside of the facility when I had arrived had looked to be no more than two stories high.  Shaking my head, it seemed only to confirm my fears.

"Fuck"

I took note of the available floors in the elevator.  It showed a total of 5 levels and the 3 I had access to were at the top of the list, colour coded in industrial yellow.  The 2 below were labelled 'DORM A' and 'DORM B' respectively and were colour coded in industrial blue.  In all likelihood, the only way above was probably through the service elevator, which on this level only appeared to be visible in medical.

I do NOT have access to medical.

"Ohhh, Shit"

With my head still spinning, I dropped to level 2 [SC-G] first, noting that there appeared to be a room allocated to pretty much every school subject, including what appeared to be a large workshop for mechanics and engineering.  Looking again at my maps, I realised this level was considerably larger than the floor I'd come from, the space between the two elevator shafts on this floor implied it was at least 3 times the size.

Hell, the workshop came with a... Oh, on inspection, I could see it was an early 90's industrial lathe and everything. I started looking about the equipment, sure enough all the big heavy equipment here was from about that time period.  I was totally bewildered at this point.

Yeah, I was certain of it now, from the buildings' layout, its security, its size and its multiple basement levels, this place without a doubt wasn't just some new facility built for troubled kids.  No, it's been around a lot longer than that and these 'classrooms' contained enough equipment that it could probably sustain a small community underground for years.

This wasn't just a facility, it was a decades old, high security, multi levelled underground bunker.

"You're smarter than I gave you credit for, Kai Fukami"

With that, I felt a chill running down my spine.