damned_institute | Day 69: Intercom, Evening

Patients might hear the wind blowing outside as the intercom turned on and they were gradually moved from the courtyard or somewhere surrounding the Sun Room and back to their rooms. The wind made a howling noise, something that almost seemed to hint at what was to come when darkness hit and night began.

But for now, everything was as pleasant as it always was during the day, with the Head Doctor chiming in to explain what was on the menu this evening.

"I'm sure you all had a nice, relaxing day as you continue on your journey toward good health, but now it's time to head back to your rooms and have dinner with your roommate before lights out. Tonight we're serving some seasoned salmon with rice pilaf on the side, and for those of you who are vegetarians we have a black eyed pea soup along with a dinner roll.

"Whatever you're having tonight, eat up and get some rest! We'll be seeing you again tomorrow!"

The nurses didn't say much about the fact that some patients had roommates who had been missing for a few days now. Normally there would be someone to take their place, but that didn't seem to be the case for a few people. The mystery behind that was clearly one that was going to remain unanswered, but at least the patients had a hot plate of food waiting for them on their desks.

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Ghost snapped Sasuke's attention to his roommate more completely, an eyebrow lifting as his hands slowed over his food. Unavoidably, it brought to mind the burning girl he'd met in his first week here, the unearthly quality of her and the deliberate, pointed question she'd asked. He'd thought her gone, though; he hadn't seen her since.

"You met a ghost?" He asked, obviously probing for more. "What did it look like?"

For something to happen during the night shift and linger into the day was noteworthy, too, but then -- it wouldn't have been the first time in Landel's history. The discontinuity between night and day wasn't nearly as complete as the staff would have it, and Sasuke was reasonably certain that it was more deliberate than an oversight on Landel's part.

"Female. Lots of hair that it could move and use to grab people. A cat called its attention to us. There was lots of rage directed at us. Enough to choke on," Ed said. "Sound familiar?"

Hair and -- a cat -- huh. That definitely wasn't the spirit Sasuke had encountered, unless it was manifesting itself drastically differently on different occasions. He shook his head, turning the larger part of his attention back to his food.

"Not that one. Was it a normal cat?" Sasuke had yet to hear of an animal in the night-time that hadn't turned into one of the rotting abominations that Landel and his ilk treated like pets.

"It looked normal, but given that it called that thing..." Ed let trail off. He shook his head and worked on finishing the last of his food.

"There's never been an animal here that wasn't a threat at night," Sasuke said, and then amended: "That I have heard of."

And he was reasonably confident that if there had been no note of it made by now, there was no reason not to suspect everything that crossed their paths by night. "Sometimes patients are threats by night, too."

Ed turned to look at Sasuke. "This is the first I've heard of this. Why? People not getting along or something worse?"

"The Institute can control the mind and behaviour of patients, the same way it does the creatures here," Sasuke said, blinking, then thought back to their hurried conversation of the night prior and realized that no, they hadn't had enough time for the usual introduction of the Institute. Though --

"I thought you said there were others from your world here. Did they not inform you?"

"Lust told me everything she could think of which was a lot, but she and I both knew that she wasn't remembering everything. We also got interrupted while she was filling me in." Ed ran a hand through his hair.

"Wasn't remembering everything?" The implication of the phrasing, combined with the distant familiarity of the name, made Sasuke frown, suspecting and disbelieving all at once. "How long does she remember having been here?"

"It didn't really come up beyond that it's definitely been awhile, so I'm not really sure." Ed rubbed at the back of his neck. "There was other stuff being talked about besides that and we were basically trying to pack in a lot of stuff in a short period of time."

Day 69: Intercom, Evening

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