You know in gym class when you have to do a chin-up but can't get yourself above the bar because you're too short and have the upper arm strength of parchment paper so the teacher takes pity on you and gives you a time of 0.01 seconds? Yeah, me neither.

Anyway, to continue my last post, I tried pulling myself up by the clouds. As soon as I got my chin above the goop surrounding me, I blacked out, just like in gym class, which is why I made the comparison. When I opened my eyes again I was surrounded by something like warm. Like that cornstarch and water mixture that is solid when you punch it but liquid when you stick your fingers in. It was dark and I was (understandably) terrified. So I slowly pulled myself out of the stuff.

When I finally got myself out, I took a look around. I had been laying in a barrel full of the aforementioned stuff. All around there were other barrels, I can only assume were full of the gunk as well.

To my left I saw a door, so I got up, trailing footprints behind me. When I opened the door, I there was a familiar sight. The PsyHigh cafeteria kitchen. Back a couple months ago, before I was trapped, I had gone here to get food sometimes, although I can't remember what I ate or when. As I wandered around trying to remember where the exit was, I heard some raspy noises. Like someone was breathing through a kazoo behind a closed door. Naturally, I decided to look for the thing emitting those funky tunes.

I searched the ovens, the sinks, under the sinks, under the spider eggs under the sinks, under the goop that made my hands swell when I touched it that seemed to be coming from the spider eggs under the sinks, but no dice. Even if there were dice, I couldn't roll them with all the swelling :o(.

Finally, I saw a little doggy door in the wall. It was like at stores where there's plastic strips employees walk under to get to the back, but very small. My time has come. At last, a benefit to being short! All those books I couldn't reach, bars I couldn't get my chin over...

In short, I crawled through the door.

Inside I found something startling. There were hundreds, probably thousands, of students there. But they weren't really students. They were small and had blue hair and red backpacks. I remember a rumor that was going around a while back about the PsyHigh cafeteria that @Ms. Hazeltine rebutted. They use vegetable babies that look like students in the meat surprise, except they're all 5'3" with blue hair and red backpacks. Except, these "vegetable" babies didn't look like vegetables. They were moving around!! The noise I had heard was the sound of them playing music. It was pretty good. Many of them looked injured. I went up to the nearest one. Here is what I remember of our conversation.

"Hi there, can I ask what this place is?" I asked one with cyan hair.

"You aren't from around here, are you? How did you get in?" The "vegetable" student was looking at my decidedly not-blue hair and lack of a red backpack.

"I'm Annie. I woke up in a vat of goop for probably unrelated reasons and heard the music. I climbed through the door and found you guys. I'm probably a student here."

"We'll need to seal up that door, if a human could get in. Do you know any first aid?" The cyan-haired kid adjusted their backpack.

"I don't remember much, but I think I know a little. And I did garden a bit, I remember that." What? I don't tell my journal every little thing.

"Then you're in. You can stay here and help us, or you can stay here as a prisoner. Either way, you can't go blabbing to your school about us. So, you gonna help or go?" This was a hard choice. On one hand, I could probably escape somehow. On the other, I felt bad for these people and wanted to help. I don't remember much about PsyHigh, but I remember the past few months, and I have a feeling if I go back my life will be like that forever.

I stayed. I'm a nurse now, and I like it here. I get to help people all day and these vegetable people are very interesting. I feel like I'm in Golden Girls all the time. I might leave eventually, when I'm ready. But for now I'm happy.

Oh, and don't go looking for that door. We sealed it up already.

I'm going to poke around and see what I can find out about why these vegetables are here, but I feel like the faculty won't like what I find out...

So today has been fun so far.

I woke up in my friend Cornelia's home as usual. I'm living with them now until I can be trusted to not run away from the city. I don't mind, they're wonderful. They're also a nurse, so we go to work together. After work we explore the city and goof around in the walls of the school.

When you live in a secret room adjacent to the cafeteria of a high school for psychic people, non-entities, and others, you eventually learn how to travel through the walls. I don't want to paint with a broad brush, but I'm pretty sure everyone here has at least heard of someone finding shortcuts to their Transdimensional Geocaching elective in the walls, if not actually slithering down the pipes themselves.

Now, when you're traveling by wall, you have to be careful. For one, you don't know where these walls have been. I mean, you'd assume they'd stay in one place, but that's kind of wallist. Walls have lives of their own that don't rely on others y'know.

Another reason to be careful is that it's very easy to get lost. If the iron supporting the buildings doesn't like you, I hear you can end up somewhere in the Paris catacombs. So you have to be nice to them. Leave the walls in better condition than they were in when you got there. Cornelia always brings a backpack with various cleaning and repair supplies. It's not just about keeping in their good books; the walls have feelings too.

I don't really like to think about this, but the last reason I can remember that makes it dangerous to travel by wall is that you don't know who else is in there too. It creeps me out to think about it, but the walls don't transport bad people to the catacombs or other annoying places to end up. They transport people they don't like to those places. It has nothing to do with character. So if you're travelling in the walls, you have to be alert. If you hear a sound you don't recognize, you go the other way. I'm all for making new friends, and I'm not saying beings or nonbeings that emit unfamiliar noises can't be wonderful, but when you're in the walls, better safe than sorry.

Anyway, today was a day off for us, so Cornelia decided to bring me to a lecture. They're bugging me to get off their phone so we can go. They won't tell me who or what it's on, but I have a feeling we'll be needing the mortar and pestle. Bon voyage!

More tomfoolery today.

I've been working very hard all week, treating vegetable babies. I do home visits now, too. The longer I work the more things I see, the better I get at treating all sorts of things.

For example, yesterday I tried to make a home visit. Now, when I get a call to visit, they usually leave a message with what's wrong and their location. Scratch that, not usually, always. You have to. The machine that answers asks for it, then it sends me a notification on my pager thing so I can gather any supplies I might need.

But yesterday, when my pager buzzed, the only thing under the "Reason for call" column was screaming. And when I say screaming, I don't mean like a like of letter A's, like "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA". I mean somebody psychically charged the message so that the screams reverberated in my head. But it wasn't just a loud scream either. The scream was charged with so much sad-pain. Emotional. I cried for a few minutes after. It was trippy.

I'm usually patient with my... patients. That was unintended. Anyway, I'm usually patient, because they are probably in a lot of pain and/or distress. They can't help screaming in my face. But this was crossing a line, in my opinion. You can't just mess around in my brain without my permission. Privacy, people.

The location the screamer put down was Room 6̶̧̢͖̮̈́̅̓͛͋̆̿̉̚̕̕7̴̨̺̣̱͈̜̮̬̖̈́̑̂̇̃͝͠ͅ5̸̢̛͙̘̅̕͝8̵̨̨̛͓̞̣̭̯̳͚̝̰͇̯͑̆̇͗̽̈͆̋̓̌̅́9̴̛͇̝̣͓̀̊͆̍̄̂͠͠7̵̢̪͍̰̫̮̲͈͈̍̿̆̔̀͌̈́͐̿̐͗̏̈́͝6̵̧̘̝̫̰̗̰̫̺͖̹͖͉̈̒̀̏́͑̌̓̈̍́̇ͅ5̶̡̘̤̃͂͗ͅ4̵͎̺̓3̸̯̤̆́͗̊̿́ across campus. That in itself was weird, since most of my patients are from the city in the walls by the cafeteria. I've had a few outside calls, though, so I just grabbed my wall adventure bag I made last Friday and got moving.

I entered the walls. I won't say how, because then anyone could try it, and that would mean more traffic. It's not just for my benefit; the walls are very dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. So there I am, travelling the walls, when all of a sudden, a grate falls from beneath me, and I land in a bed of grass.

I try to get up. The grass moves around me. It's like a huge beanbag chair that flows around me as I try to move. So. TL;DR: I'm stuck here and can't get up. I called Cornelia but they're busy at work. They'll come get me after their shift, which ends in about an hour. My phone is going to die soon. I just hope my patient will be alright.

I've been researching a bit but haven't found anything helpful about why someone would psychic scream at me from across campus. But that's the end of anything interesting. Bye.

I have to get better about updating this. Problem is, whenever I set an alarm for anything on my phone, it doesn't go off. I think that's because I have my phone muted to avoid things like calls and alarms. If someone calls me without texting first, I don't want to talk to them. And alarms get annoying after a few minutes of procrastinating. I set myself up for failure constantly in my personal life. I'm also trying to get better at not doing that.

So, last time I updated I was stuck in a bed of grass that behaved like a waterbed or beanbag chair. I ended up getting out thanks to Cornelia. They wouldn't let me hear the end of it. Action movies every night this week. I could write an essay on how problematic those movies are, especially the old ones. But if I did I would probably die from boredom halfway through.

Anyway, as you may recall, the whole reason I was stuck there was because one of my patients contacted me by screaming into my brain via a psychic message, which was rude on so many levels. So when I got back into the vent (Cornelia threw a rope down which I tied around my waist and they pulled me up. I would've climbed but I can't support my own weight.) I was even more ticked off. The vents had even changed while I was down there. So now it would take longer to get to the patient. Cornelia offered to come with me, but I said no. I wouldn't wish meeting whoever had the gall to psychically scream at a medical professional onto my worst enemy, Gave.

It took 13 minutes to climb through the walls to the screaming patient. I was ready to cry when I got there. Maybe a bit before too. Maybe I did cry in the vents. I was having a bad day, okay? Anywho, I got there in one physical piece, but my resolve was shattered. I dropped down the vent next to the classroom door. It smelled damp. Like damp wood, or The Outdoors after it rained. As I knocked on the door, I heard a loud sigh from inside. "Hello? This is the Plant People Fighting Diseases representative you called for." I said warily.

I heard a cough. "Yes, yes, come in. Took you long enough." I jiggled the knob, but the door was locked.

"Excuse me, the door is locked. Would you unlock it for me, please?"

The voice sounded exasperated, like they were talking to a baby who couldn't understand. "No, of course not. Why would I unlock the door? Just come in through the window." Then, under their breath, "Entitled brat... come in through the door..." then something about me not being the queen.

Now, I was REALLY ticked off. If they didn't want to bother opening the door, fine. Maybe where they grew up that was normal. But they berated me for even asking? So I may have jiggled the window pane a bit harder than I should've. It didn't break or anything, but it made a lot of noise. Sure enough it came loose, and I took it out and dropped it on the ground next to the door.

"I'm coming in." I said as I reached my leg over the door to hop in through the window. When I got in, I couldn't see the patient at first. The whole room looked like a terrarium. I think it was a lecture hall, but I could barely see the chairs under a thick layer of moss and dirt. The floor was covered in mushrooms. Hanging from the ceiling was some kind of purple vine, seemingly extending from the large light in the center. Don't even get me started on the humidity. My hair will probably never be the same again.

"You waiting for an invitation? Get over here!" Yelled the voice. I ran over to the back of the room, where the whiteboard should have been. Sitting there at a desk was a humanoid figure with little white hairs poking out here and there. Upon further examination, the hairs were actually fungus. Their skin was a nice brown color, and seemed to have a pattern like tree bark. Where on a human there would be hair, there were sheets of moss running down into a sort of pageboy "hair"do. Some sticky white stuff that looked like cobwebs were scattered along their skin.

"How can I help you?" I asked in my best customer service voice.

"Fix me." They said back grumpily.

"Uhh," I stammered, "what do you want me to fix?"

"Isn't it OBVIOUS?" They hollered.

"I'm new at this job." That's not exactly a lie. Not exactly a truth either.

I heard them grumbling under their breath. Then, to me, "Well, I don't want a newbie fixing me up. Bring me to someone better."

I decided not to argue. I didn't particularly want to fix them up either. So I said alright, and I called a replacement. In a few minutes a team arrived and carried the grumbling figure away. But something didn't sit right. The scream I heard was so... powerful. I have elected to ignore this discrepancy. I was really tired at the time. Maybe some other day I'll investigate, but for now, I'm really busy.

That's all this week folks. Tune in next week to... uh... see what I get up to? Yeah that's manageable. Bon voyage.

Last week, I discovered Long Furby and was immediately obsessed. I had to get back to work eventually, but I couldn't really concentrate on the patients. All I could think of was constructing a horrible creature of the flesh. Self care.

Anyway, Cornelia was very worried about me, I assume. Or maybe they were just tired of me spending all of my waking hours not at work hiding in our living room under a pile of blankets looking at Furby content. The fact that I hadn't taken a shower since April probably also had a big factor in their decision to get me out of the house. To quote them directly: "Get out and don't come back till you're ready to stop being a crusty-musty goblin and stop stinking up my whole house, I haven't had company over because if I did all my friends would say their grandmothers suddenly fell ill and politely leave and never return. Go to therapy or some mental equivalent, you apple-headed crustacean, and don't come back till you smell like flowers and not farms in spring." Now, that hurt my feelings. I kinda knew it was true though. So I set off.

I didn't really know where to go, however. I'm still fairly new here. I've been to work, the library, and travelled the walls, but that's pretty much it. As I was thinking about where to go, I saw a sign. Literally. For a greeting card store. I don't know how they stay in business, but I think it was what I needed.

As I went inside, I was met by an employee giving me a dirty look. "Can I," insert pause where the employee slowly pushed their hair (which looked suspiciously like grass), out of their eyes to get a better look at me, "heeelp you?"

"Yeah, could I get a get-well-soon card?" I asked, approaching the counter behind which they were standing.

"Yeah... sure, they're over there." They looked at me like my question confused them, even though this was a greeting card store and that is probably one of their bestsellers. They shook their head, pushing the grass hair back into their eyes again and ending this conversation.

I approached the aisle. From the front, this store looked pretty small, but the aisle seemed to go down forever. I couldn't see the end. There was a plaque on the wall next to the first shelf with a guide, and one of those horizontal escalators you see in airports going down in middle. I tried to find the card I wanted on the plaque, and noticed that this whole aisle was just get-well-soon cards for different situations. I decided on "Sorry I (an emergency responder) inadvertently annoyed you when you called me for help, but I'm not that sorry since you were quite annoying on the phone and you seem like the kind of person to send food back if it has capers on it even though the menu said the dish had capers and you'd probably also yell at the waitstaff for putting capers on your food even though they're just trying to get through school and are very underpaid." It didn't fit perfectly, but it was fine.

The plaque said the card would be found at the third green sign with a square on it, so I got on the conveyor thing to go find it. But when I got on the conveyor, I was pushed backwards. It was a one-way conveyor, going towards me. I didn't want to walk all the way there, so I went back to the employee.

"Hi, the escalator seems to be going towards the door, is there any way to reverse it so I can go grab a card?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Doesn't do that. Not supposed to."
"Then how am I supposed to get a card?"
They shrugged. "Nobody's ever wanted a card before."
I was kind of annoyed at this point. "But this is a greeting card store. How can you never have sold a card before?!?" I may have said that a tad louder than I intended to. Sorry to the employee, I know you probably don't want to be there either.
"Well, we're not a very good store, are we? You can get a card or you can leave." They tossed their hair so it nearly grazed my nose. I stepped back and left the store.

So, I didn't end up go visiting the person I found a couple weeks ago, but I did forget about Long Furby for long enough to have an interaction, so that's something. I think tomorrow I'll go visit the patient, but for now I'm just going to take a shower so I can go back inside. Toodles.

POOP I DONT KNOW IF THIS IS A CULT