Last night...did not quite sit well with him. Seishin remembered that one of the buses had crashed into a tree on the way back to the institute, and he recalled the last rays of the sun disappearing behind the trees as night fell while the bus was still being repaired. He remembered being horrified at the nurses' transformations into things unspeakable, his stomach twisting when he saw the last traces of their humanity disappear, replaced by monstrous and nightmarish features.

And the next thing the novelist knew was the white ceiling of his room. It had already become a familiar sight in the mornings during the past week, without ever knowing how he had returned to his room. Now was hardly an exception, but the fact that he could not recall what had happened after the nurses had transformed...it worried him.

But Seishin was not allowed any time to ponder the issue when a nurse entered his room. "Rise and shine, Mr. Watanabe!" she commented cheerfully, "You've already slept through half of the day, but you really need to get up now. You wouldn't want to be late for your doctor's appointment, would you?"

A few corridors later, Seishin found himself entering the office of a Dr. James Wilson -- or so the name upon the door told him. One might have thought he had plenty of experience with doctors, once having been a best friend of one, but he wasn't quite sure what exactly was expected of him -- or what he should be expecting of this 'therapy' in a place like this. Discussing personal things with what was essentially a stranger would have seemed awkward and uncomfortable under normal circumstances, but the current one could hardly be defined as such.

Hesitantly, he remained standing at the door until he was told otherwise.