Night 56: Main Hallway, 1-West

[freewill]

[From here.]

He had reached the meeting point in less than a few minutes and there was still not another patient to be seen. Castiel paused, standing near the wall as he moved his flashlight up and down the corridor. There was nothing, not the sound of a shadow slipping through the dark; not the whisper of something less than human.

The only sound was the static that periodically came from his radio. He couldn't seem to get it to let up, and he wondered if it was reacting to him or if he'd been given a faulty one.

He would have preferred the former option, but he had been knocked down too many notches when it came to the loss of his abilities, his divinity, the very things that made him him.

Castiel let out a breath that had been caught in his chest and then lowered his flashlight. He wondered how long this whole process would take, but he supposed that all depended on how well he did as a student. He fashioned himself a fast learner, but he had never been able to grasp things like popular culture.

He imagined he would do a bit better with lockpicking, though. Leaning himself against the wall, Castiel stood there quietly, waiting for Orihara to show himself.

[For Izaya.]

Comments

[zack-fair.livejournal.com]

[From here (http://damned.livejournal.com/1104269.html?thread=78027661#t78027661).]

The moment that they moved into the main hall, Zack took a moment to search for any sign of Tifa. She would most likely be coming down this way unless she decided to go out onto the field, so it was worth keeping an eye out. He didn't see her anywhere, though, which meant they were going to have to move closer to the female block.

Of course, the reason that Zack knew that area so well was because he'd come this way with Cloud once before, but it had been prior to his memory loss and they'd been looking for Aerith, not Tifa. Even though they'd searched all of the rooms in the block, they hadn't found her -- and that had been that.

Except for that one time when he'd seen her briefly after that. He almost forgot it had happened because they'd only exchanged a few words and he hadn't seen her again afterward. The whole thing was kind of bizarre, he had to admit -- at least Cloud had stuck around after coming back.

He just hoped that Aerith was all right, and that his silence wasn't standing out to Cloud.

[bigdamnzero.livejournal.com]

Zack had touched on something that Cloud was thinking about also as they moved on down the hall, that Tifa may have already gone off somewhere else. He couldn't really say where, though, not having had the chance to ask her in Doyleton or on the bus ride back what she had planned for the coming night.

Probably, she'd be looking for a weapon if she didn't have one already or -- remembering their conversation at the restaurant -- an escape route. She'd mentioned, too, that everyone else had been here before, that it was just the four of them left now. It made Cloud wonder who else had been here before, if it'd just been the rest of AVALANCHE or others as well.

As they stepped into the next, much larger corridor, he realized that they'd been walking in relative silence. He'd been too busy with his own musings to take proper notice of this before, but now that he had... well. A glance at Zack, who was quieter than normal. Cloud knew he himself wasn't much for talking, but for Zack, this silence had a something different about it.

Then again, it could be just the atmosphere of the situation they were in rather than something bothering his friend. Either way, Cloud didn't know whether he ought to ask about it or not. As they neared the middle of the hall, he finally settled for a quiet, "Something on your mind?"

[zack-fair.livejournal.com]

It seemed that Zack had gotten caught up in his thoughts for a little too long, seeing how Cloud had noticed. He could have passed it off as focusing on the task at hand, but it wasn't as if they were doing anything that dangerous at the moment. Cloud probably would have accepted that kind of answer nonetheless, but that was exactly why Zack didn't feel comfortable giving it. He couldn't lie to his best friend.

More than that, Cloud and Aerith had gotten to know each other after Zack's death, which meant that Cloud deserved to hear about this. "I was just thinking. Aerith was here, before, just like you were. When we hadn't seen her for a while, we went to the female rooms to search for her."

And while he was sure that Tifa was just fine -- she'd been a constant during his short stay here so far -- it was still similar enough to that night that it brought back all of his feelings from that time. He still had no idea where Aerith was, but the fact that Cloud had come back made him pretty confident that she was all right.

"We didn't know her room number, though, so it took most of the night," he went on to explain. He didn't know where he was going with this or how Cloud would even react, but this was part of the whole "catching up" plan that they made. Holding back a sigh, Zack turned right as they reached the fork.

[To here (http://damned.livejournal.com/1105943.html?thread=78244887#t78244887).]