Night 66: F21-30 Hallway

[overlimit]

Finally, it was nighttime. Now Rita could actually get some work done.

This time, she was more prepared than ever - with her full outfit from home, and all the convenient pockets that came with it. She didn't bother with a backpack this time, opting instead to place her radio, talismans, notebook and a pen in the various pockets on her person. Between the smaller load and her recovery from the wounds of past nights, Rita felt ready to take on the world.

... Which was probably about as ready as she needed to be, if she wanted to be able to take down the Head Doctor without her full powers.

Having already decided where to go and what to do, Rita stepped out into the hallway, immediately making her way towards the main hall.

[to here]

Comments

F21

[no_dont_go]

Aigis watched her roommate leave in silence, wishing her safe travels in her mind and praying her wish would remain true. She hardly had anything else to offer in terms of kindness towards the other girl. It was all she had.

Wearily, Aigis slumped down into the bed and pulled up the covers. Wrapping an arm around her stuffed cat, Schrodinger-san, the once-android settled herself into the bed and closed her eyes. Her heartbeat murmured in her chest, but where once Aigis might have panicked she found herself staying relatively calm.

She would sleep. Rest. If she changed into a monster she hardly thought she would remember it, and if she slept at least she could tell herself it was only a nightmare. That would be her only salvation for this hideous event. And that was all it took to give her a brief moment of peace.

drive-by peeping, aw yeah!

[idolism]

_{[from here]}

At the end of the hall was Aigis' room--quiet, peaceful, untouched. Also, as it turned out, occupied by the very same girl who had said she would be staying in for the night.

Small favors.

Aidou didn't expect she was resting very deeply but she had earned whatever respite she could find. He made no move to disturb her, turning back on silent feet once he had taken a peek around the door. A look was enough. She was still herself, still human (or close to it).

When he spoke to Sasuke, he kept his voice low so it wouldn't carry. "No spontaneous transformations tonight, I should think. Just a slumbering girl."

peepers out

[firewhichrefines]

Sasuke had smelled the hallways as much as Aidou had, but there was something bizarre about seeing it in the same way. He'd long taken to travelling the Institute barefoot -- the easier to sense his path in the dark -- but the logic of the decision rarely defeated the moments of regret when the various byproducts of Landel's entertainment ended up on the soles of his feet. He'd been grateful to move beyond the putrid smell, surreptitiously pressing his feet a little harder across the tile floor to clean some of the scum off as they'd neared the female block.

Which had been fortunately cleaner and quieter. Sasuke merely nodded to agree with Aidou's inelegant observation, relieved more that their progress would continue unimpeded than that nothing had happened to Aigis. That she was sleeping could have been as much a side-effect of Landel as illness, but they had little time to determine it either way.

If it were the same as last time, then the disease would move at the same pace for everyone infected, but the different and bizarre nature of it put that in question. It was doubtless something worth further exploration, but for tonight --

"Very well," he said, and then with the voice of weary experience: "If she still sleeps now she will likely sleep through the night."

Landel had a way of keeping people awake or asleep quite against their wishes, after all. Without further preamble, Sasuke reached out a hand, found Aidou's shoulder (with ease, vision clearer already than the morning), and drove the other fist with its bauble into the wall.

[[to here]]