damned_institute | NIGHT 64: MEDICAL WING HALL

"It's also not really worth your while," Loki offered, glancing over his shoulder. "Someone's already been. Sora and some new friend of his, I think. They took whatever was in that room and scampered, though I did try to stop them doing that."

The illusions stayed where they were, waiting to see what the mortals would do. Unfortunately, there was little Loki could do if the mortals decided to just attempt to batter their way through; he could only be in one place at a time. But he could certainly provide a distraction.

Sora…? Anise recognized the name from the bulletin, but she didn’t know him personally. At least that left them with a Plan B if they couldn’t get through: they could find Sora instead.

The way that clone-guy talked about him made it sound like he was acquainted with Sora, though. That wouldn’t make much sense, unless… oh. He had to be a special counseling patient. And all the other ‘hims’ had to be the product of a weird technique, or something. Probably.

“He could be lying,” Anise pointed out, not moving from her hostile stance. “We won’t know until we see for ourselves.” Which meant charging through. Having experienced special counseling herself, Anise was a little sympathetic towards the guy standing in their way, but sympathy wasn’t enough to make her stop fighting for her life, or Claude's. If he got hurt, then that was too bad for him.

The people who came in before them had gone farther down the main hallway… The x-ray room had to be somewhere around there.

Anise looked to her companions with a quick nod, then broke into a run, holding her mallet out, prepared to swing at any obstacle in her path. "Come on, move already!" she shouted at the lookalikes.

Claude had to admit, the idea that they were wasting their time wasn't an appealing one. It wasn't such a leap to think that maybe one of the patients had grabbed whatever their allies had left for them. He'd been burned one too many times with empty riddles and zero prizes to show for their troubles, but that didn't mean he was going to turn back. That only meant he needed to brace himself for the possibility of disappointment.

Consequently, he was on board with Anise's plan of charging through. Gritting his teeth, he sent a quick glance toward Guy and darted after their friend. He'd need to provide her cover in case one of these clones tried to attack Anise. For all they knew, they were rushing right into trouble. Claude had enough experience with people undergoing Special Counseling to understand that these encounters could be incredibly unpredictable.

But, faced with the prospect of turning into monsters, they didn't have any other choice.

It would be pretty frustrating if this stranger really was telling the truth and they were too late, but Guy wasn't convinced either. While this sort of strategy wasn't one he'd come across before, it made sense that the person who had been posted as a guard here would try to dissuade them. Besides, if two other patients had made it through, then that was just a sign that they could do the same with some effort.

Anise and Claude didn't falter much in light of that either, which he was glad to see. As both of them took off, Guy was fast on their heels. Really, he would have preferred to be at the front of this charge, seeing how he was the only healthy one in their group, but there was no fixing that now.

As he passed some of the duplicates that were posted around, he slashed out at them with his sword as he ran by, hoping to either do damage or to eliminate the illusions until they were left with the person who was really behind this whole thing.

"The doors are labeled!" he called out to Anise up ahead. "Keep an eye out!" They weren't going to be able to search around that easily when they were also in the middle of a fight, but with any luck they'd stumble across the room they needed to find.

The illusion shattered as Guy sliced at it. It annoyed Loki, but he had other things occupying his time at the moment, and he could unfortunately only be one place at the time.

Farther down the hall, in the dark, something roared. It sounded very, very hungry.

"You might want to watch out for that," Loki commented idly. "Seemed a bit cranky. Someone poked at it."

The others charged along with Anise, and the lookalikes didn't appear to be doing much to stop them. But there was no sign of the x-ray room yet. To her left, she passed a plaque indicating the doctors' offices, and to the right, she saw a row of doors that appeared to lead to the operating rooms.

"It's not here," she called back to the others, "It has to be farther in!"

Looking back, she caught a glimpse of one of the men vanishing upon being struck by Guy's sword. What did that mean? Were they not real in the first place...?

A roar from ahead caused Anise to snap her head back to face forward, but she couldn't see anything besides more clones. Was it a monster...? Anise hoped it wasn't a patient who came too late for a cure. The girl waited a moment for her friends to catch up - if there really was a monster on the loose, it was best to stick together so they could watch each other's backs - then started pressing forward again.

This would be a hell of a lot easier without these weird look-alikes complicating their night, Claude inwardly grumbled as he tried to stick close to Anise while searching for their destination. With no sign of the X-Ray room, though, they had no other options except to keep pressing ahead. At least they didn't have to deal with a million hallways branching left and right, even if these clones were obnoxious in their own way.

Claude had half a mind to take a page out of Guy's book and start slashing at them, but he knew he wasn't in any condition to waste his strength unless he was going to make it count.

Suddenly, a vicious roar echoed through the med wing, and Claude realized he might have to give it his all sooner rather than later. Once he'd closed the gap between him and Anise, he waited alongside her for Guy to reach them, and they moved ahead.

If Landel thought some monster was going to scare him, he had another thing coming!

So these duplicates went down as easily as if they were made out of paper. That was a good thing to keep in mind, because the threat really wasn't as bad as it had seemed at first glance. Guy held onto that thought, but the downside was that this X-Ray room was proving harder to find than expected. The medical wing luckily wasn't designed in a way that was too confusing, at the least.

The roar of what sounded like some sort of large, angry monster would have been enough to give anyone pause, but they had already come this far. Was this Special Counseling patient the kind that could summon creatures to do his biding for him? If so, then they'd only just hit the tip of this iceberg.

Guy caught up with Claude and Anise, but the second they'd regrouped he moved forward with them, not interested in wasting any time. They passed more operating rooms on the left-hand side, and there was no sign of a monster yet, though eventually they reached another hall stretching down to the left. "Let's check this way!" he yelled to the others as he quickly rerouted. If any more of those clones showed up, he was ready to slice into them with his sword.

There was shouting from up ahead, and another angry roar, a flash of something that might have been fire.

Another shout and someone - a woman with dark hair, wearing the Landel's uniform - ran down the hall toward the group. Blood ran liberally down one side of her face.

"Don't!" she shouted! "He turned into a monster! He turned--"

What appeared to be the coil of a massive snake - or perhaps the tail of something large and unfriendly - curled around her ankle and jerked her out of sight. There was a piercing, despairing scream that cut off suddenly, followed by a distinctive crunching of bone.

When Guy ducked into the nearest hallway, Anise followed, giving the main hall a quick scan with her flashlight to make sure nothing was chasing them from that direction.

They didn’t get far before encountering another patient, who frantically shouted a warning to them, then suddenly slipped away into the darkness and…

Anise cringed at the sickening crunch that followed. Seeing people die wasn’t anything new to her, but this just made her nauseous. Someone already transformed, and he killed his companions? The same thing could easily happen to Anise’s group. Sure, they were trying to be careful, but who knew when or how it would happen…?

It was hard to think about moving on after what they just saw, but they had to keep moving if they didn’t want to be next. Anise took a slow, shaky step back, ready to move back into the main hall. But as she turned, her flashlight passed over the sign on the nearest door, briefly illuminating a pair of words that prompted her to check it a second time. X-Ray Storage.

“This… it’s the x-ray hall,” she whispered to the others. “We have to get through here.” And past that monster. Were they going to have to kill it, even though it used to be human? Maybe that was the right thing to do.

As soon as he heard the gruesome sound of bones crunching, Claude thought he forgot how to breathe for a moment. Did that patient really just die? His blood ran cold. How could they have let things get out of hand so quickly?

Even if that monster used to be a patient, Claude knew they couldn't just give it free reign in the hallways. That didn't mean they had to kill it, either, though.

Licking his lips, he glanced toward Guy and Anise. "Okay," he said with a nod. "Maybe we can just disable the monster -- you know, in case it's really..."

One of us, was the unspoken thought. The idea that he or Anise could wind up like that made his skin crawl.

When a girl raced toward them out of the dark, Guy was so startled by her panic and the blood running down her face that he could barely react. While his mind started to formulate ideas, about how they could get her to safety and deal with whatever had done this to her, all of that was snuffed out when something reached out and stole her back.

And just like that, she was dead.

Guy gasped, staring at his two companions for a moment as he tried to figure out what to do. It was only Anise's words that dragged him out of his shock, because while death was common here, it usually didn't happen that suddenly. Landel seemed more like the type who wanted to draw things out, and that was certainly how Guy's death had gone.

He caught his breath and nodded as the others discussed how to proceed. While he didn't really want to show much mercy to something that had just killed an innocent person, he realized that it could be another patient who literally couldn't control themselves at the moment. What if it had been Anise or Claude? He definitely would have taken care with it then.

Once he'd steeled himself, Guy started down the hallway, taking the lead as he held his sword at the ready. Whatever that monster was, it wasn't going to be easy to fight, and he didn't want to get caught by surprise if he could help it.

There was another roar, blood spraying wetly through the air to decorate the wall. The wavering lights caught something massive, scaly, painted liberally with blood. It kept in constant, surging movement, form uncertain.

But it had something head-shaped, something that might have one been human but was now decidedly misshapen, overgrown and serpentine. And here and there, a few shreds of the familiar Landel's clung to its skin, the smily face pasted on with a coating of blood to one side.

It slurped down a leg, another crunch filling the air, and then it disappeared into one of the doors further down the hall, leaving on the sound of dripping in its wake.

Disable it... and then what? Maybe Claude was just trying to keep their morale up, but Anise couldn't be that optimistic. Even if there was a cure for the infection, there was no guarantee that someone who already transformed could ever turn back. And even if they could... could this guy live with himself if he knew what he just did?

Those ominous thoughts in her head only grew darker as they advanced on the creature, their flashlights finally revealing its sickening serpentine form, surrounded with blood and shredded clothing.

Anise couldn't believe what she was seeing. That thing in its mouth... It was a piece of the woman they just saw. A piece. Anise stiffened, making her best effort to keep from crying out in horror. "How... can this happen?" she choked out, turning her head away.

The nausea was worse than ever, but there was no way they could take a break now. Any time wasted, and she or Claude could end up like that. It was too horrible. She'd rather die.

Claude had seen a lot of gruesome things both inside and outside of Landel's, but even he couldn't have been prepared for the sight of that monster swallowing a human limb. He fell into a heavy silence, any thoughts of trying to subdue the creature lost as he struggled to swallow the bile threatening to rise at the back of his throat.

Not trusting himself to speak, his grip tightened on his sword. As horrifying as that was, they couldn't afford to just stand around. What if he or Anise turned into...that? The thought scared him more than he wanted to admit. One of them could easily hurt other patients, like Guy, and--

Letting himself spiral into that train of thought wasn't going to do him any favors, he reminded himself.

"I...don't know," he hoarsely answered Anise after a moment, "but we can't let it happen to anyone else."

The monster that had once been a patient turned out to be something snakelike. It was larger than Guy would have expected, and he tried not to think about how painful that transformation would have been. It took him a second to realize what the creature had just eaten, but once it sunk in that it was that girl's leg Guy felt like he'd been hit with a sack of bricks.

He thought back to that moment when he'd been five years old, the limbs of all those maids and of his sister reaching out over him to keep him safe, and almost felt like he was going to lose his footing for a moment. Claude and Anise's voices reached him, but as if they were calling to him from across a chasm.

Guy clenched his jaw, and swallowed, and shook his head to clear it. "I guess it had its fill," he said quietly as he took a few more tentative steps forward. They reached another door that was simply labeled "X-Ray," and Guy turned towards the others, nodding to it. "Looks like this is it." They'd made it, and yet he was too shocked by what they'd just seen to feel much of anything about it.

Anise wanted to believe that they could stop those horrible transformations for good, but her optimism had just about run out. She met Claude's eyes in response, but couldn't quite bring herself to say anything.

Fortunately, Guy announced their arrival moments later, and sure enough, she could see the sign confirming that they had the right place. Witnessing that tragedy had sucked away a lot of their motivation, but there was nowhere to go but forward now. Just a few more steps, and maybe they'd have some answers.

Anise drew close to the door, her legs wobbling slightly with each step. Between the illness and what just happened, she was feeling fatigued, both emotionally and physically. She hoped she'd get to take a break once they found the clue. If they found the clue.

"I hope this is worth it..." she mumbled as she reached for the door, gently pushing it open. Once it appeared that no monsters were going to pounce on them in the doorway, she went on inside.

[to here]

NIGHT 64: MEDICAL WING HALL

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