A Few Days More - Sanders Sides

The Day We Checked In

"You've reached Sanders Junior Mental Hospital in Florida. The name's Remy, how can I help you?" An all too familiar voice rang through the speaker of my phone. All of us were in mine and Roman's room, huddled together in a circle. I read Roman's writing in my journal. When I brought this to his attention, we decided to tell everyone else that we were having very similar nightmares.

Turns out, Damion, Remus, Logan, and Patton have all had these dreams as well. They didn't tell anyone else because they were all embarrassed about what happened in them. The weirdly personal attacks that our 'friends' were giving us. Not to mention, the weird outfits and the connection between being entities in Warden Sanders' head.

"Hey, Remy. It's Virgil. Can we be patched through to Picani please?" I asked, hands slightly shaking. I hate making phone calls.

"Virgil? Uh, sure, right away. Everything going okay?" He questioned as he worked his magic through the other side of the phone.

"Yeah, just...wanna check-in," I said. Sooner or later the line went silent. Some crappy music played through the speaker as we waited to be sent to Picani's.

"What do you think he's gonna say?" Remus blurted. He looked nervous. I hate it when Remus is nervous. If he's nervous, then usually the situation is just as bad as I think it is.

"You don't think he'll think we'll need to go back to SJMH, do you?" Patton muttered, trying to swallow down his nervous sobs.

"Of course not," Logan assured him. "And if he does think that, we'll all be together. We have nothing to worry about."

"Logan's right! We're not going to be separated again. We'll be together!" Roman added. Suddenly the speaker lit up with a crackling type of noise. We all stared at the phone, listening to a small cough come from it.

"Thank you for calling Sanders Junior Mental Hospital! My name is Emile Picani, how can I help you?" He greeted. I took a breath, feeling a wave of nostalgia watching through me.

"Hey, Dr. Picani. It's Virgil," I mumbled.

"Virgil! Oh man, I'm so happy you called! I've been thinking about you and your friends recently! This place isn't the same without you guys but I'm so glad you guys have graduated! Anyway, what's up?"

"W-Well, I'm here with the others and...we-we want to ask you about something," I told him.

"Oh, okay. What's going on?"

"Well, you see doctor," Logan started. I placed the phone in the center of our huddle so we could all talk to Picani. "We've all experienced separate dreams about roughly the same things. We all recall each other looking similar while the plot of these dreams are every...personal."

"What do you mean by that?" Picani inquired while scribbling over the phone.

"Well, I had one about my old trust issues. While Virgil had one about us abandoning him," Roman explained. Picani went quiet, only sounds of paper could be heard from Picani's side.

"I do recall you talking to me about trust issue, Roman..." Picani began. "Have you talked to the others about this since all of you met?" Roman flashed red, bouncing between looking at all of us.

"Uh, no."

"And how about you, Virgil? Have you talked to your friends about abandonment?"

"No," I admitted.

"Well, I think I see that problem then," Picani said. "You all have been keeping secrets from each other whether you like it or not. Dreams are secret windows into secret desires and confessions. Condersiding all of you came from pretty dark and traumatizing pasts, it is rather likely that you've all been holding things back out of fear of rejection or hatred. Perhaps you all should take the time now to explain the dilemmas in your dreams and share them with each other."