There's a big doll-shaped hole in my memory. I don't remember much between calling my mom and coming to my senses again in @Dr Krimsborg, DPM's mud & grub bath. It's all like a dolly fever dream.

The flu hit me hard. I ignored the first symptoms, like obsessively rearranging things in my room ("nesting" Dr. Krimsborg calls it), and insisting to be carried everywhere. But then all at once it seemed my skin and joints hardened up and it was all I could do to call my mom, @Slimming Lemon Mint.

Ok but--the scariest part of it all? From the hazy bits I can scrape together, I *liked* being a doll. The camaraderie, the sense of higher purpose. When I looked at the other dolls there was this kind of bond... like we all could see the perfect future ahead, and knew we could depend on each other to get us there... that we were all special, and equal, and loved each other in a way that no one else could.

So waking up in a tub full of sloshy warm mud and bug exoskeletons and worms and mulch and god knows what was a rough way to leave the dream. It was like digging myself out of a shallow grave. Mom wants to pull me out of school immediately, but the doctor says I need to remain under observation for awhile.

I suppose they’re running out of room in the emergency mobile doll house classrooms, because they’re letting the infected students wander everywhere now. The halls are super eerie—you have to watch where you walk because the dolls are so short, and mostly silent, shuffling from class to class. We (the students who haven’t caught it yet) have to help them up into the desks and get the little paper and pencils out for them.

I’m especially bummed because I got paired with one as a lab partner for Preformative Alchemy, and I’m sure I’ll have to do all the work because she can’t reach the table and she’ll drop the test tubes if she tries to grab one, since her fingers don’t really move. If this affects my grade I’m totally going to complain.

Oh god all of Lemniscate Hall is in lockdown because of the quarantine. Head Nurse says nobody in or out till the Doll Flu has run its course, but I have a presentation for Preformative Alchemy that I can’t miss. The halls are full of students in those little doll beds—their eyes shut automatically when you lay them on their backs—but I think I can make my way through them and get to the subliminal exit. If I don’t have any symptoms now I think I should be fine. I’ll just slip out for my presentation and get back before anybody notices. My grade is at stake!!!

Who let the dolls in? I was up all night listening to them hack and cough. They set up camp in the common room on my floor in Lemniscate Hall. They must be @Becky Wren's friends, and somebody let them in because you need the esoteric 64 character code to open the dorm doors. I mean, we all let our friends in, but you should at least keep them in your room. And now the whole hall is full of doll germs. Somebody should tell the RA but I'm late for class!