damned_institute | Day 72: Sun Room (2nd shift)

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Day 72: Sun Room (2nd shift)

After eating breakfast, Lloyd gathered up his journal and pencil and followed his nurse out of the cafeteria. He made a quick stop at the bulletin to leave a note for Lee, then let her lead him on to take his shower with the rest of the adult men. Not sure how old Lee was, Lloyd kept his eyes peeled for him just in case, but again he didn't catch even a glimpse of his friend's shiny black bowl-cut hair. Okay, no worries. Maybe he was with the kids in Arts and Crafts.

Cleaning up quickly, Lloyd grabbed a towel and dried himself off, then got dressed and headed back to the Sun Room to wait out the rest of the shift. His nurse hovered at his side until he'd situated himself at a table, then she backed up and withdrew to the edge of the room to keep an eye on him from there. He was fine with that. Of course, it would have been better if she left the room completely, but at least she was far enough back that it felt like he had at least some privacy.

While he waited, trying to catch sight of Lee, he pulled his journal back out. As far as he knew, no one else had been to the third floor before. There weren't any maps yet. That was something he could fix. Picking up where he'd left off, the teen went back to his work on the sketch.

[For Tsurugi.]

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"I don't know for certain, but that seems to be the case," Kyousuke nodded. They hadn't confirmed it, but it looked like a safe bet it was them. Sora had thought so, too. He was a little surprised to hear Lloyd's whole group got notes, too, though. Somehow he hadn't quite expected that many people to be getting them. "... Maybe," he thought out loud. "Or at least, my whole group did."

As for Farwell... "A friend of mine ended up waking up there, and was able to make his way back here," he responded quietly, making sure the staff couldn't hear him. "I don't know the way, but he should. But they already know what's happening here, and they're doing what they can." Like with the radios, and the information on the third floor.

No death or disappearance announcements. Hell, there were hardly any announcements. Scar silently scanned the board, making sure. He looked closer upon noticing Lloyd's message. It was far from subtle, yet somehow it had avoided being taken down.

Did the nurses truly buy into the idea that three quarters of the board was actually about people dreaming?

"It seems somebody expanded on our discovery last night."

"A bit of both," Al said to his brother.

He looked over at Lloyd's note as well, raising an eyebrow at how blatant it was. "Looks like." He grabbed for some paper to copy it down--messy and slightly disorganized it certainly was, but it was still useful information.

Ed looks around the both of them to look at the note. "How long do you figure the nurses will let that thing stay up?"

"Not long. Do not let them see you copying that, Alphonse." Scar gave the paper one last discrete look before thumbing through the rest of the board. He continued to eye the doors, both to the hall and to the cafeteria.

"No countermeasure for the hallucinations, though... Not even a mention of them." What did that mean?

Al nodded and glanced around, making sure the paper and what he's writing down couldn't be seen as he made a quick sketch.

"Maybe they managed to avoid that? I thought I saw something on the book itself before I lost it." Al grimaced. "It's kind of hard to remember since it was so dark, but we can pull the book off the shelf with a tool or something, see if that avoids it."

"So basically Al got to be the lucky victim for the night last night. Great." Ed winced at the memory of the previous night. He really wasn't looking forwards to a repeat.

"I guess we'll add to the map tonight, assuming nothing happens to hang us up," he added as he made a mental note of what Al was drawing. "I don't like the mention of that trap. While it's all well and good for him to take off anything metal to avoid getting shocked..."

"I will remove the book tonight. And yes, we need to find a way of doing so without directly touching it." Scar shot both boys a pointed look. He wasn't having any arguments in that department. There was no reason that either of them should have to go through that again.

"I have never heard of brainwashed patients appearing two nights in a row. We may have a better shot tonight. As far as the trap is concerned..." He looked at the map Alphonse had drawn. "We will see how it is set up when we get there. If you cannot get through-" Scar looked to Edward. "-then we find another route."

Al frowned, shaking his head. "If you go crazy like I did, it'll be harder for Brother and I to handle you. I'll do it again, or Brother can."

He tucked the map deep into his pocket, glancing around again to make sure the nurses weren't keeping an exceptionally close eye on him as he did. "We might be able to disable it, if it's a mechanical thing. If it specifically targets metal, though, whatever's beyond there has to be important."

Ed contemplated trying to stop Scar if it was him that got hit by a hallucination instead and grimaced. He did not look forwards to that possibility. "I certainly hope we can take that thing out. Otherwise, things will really suck for me."

"Then transmute me to the floor if you need to. Neither of you is going through that again." Scar spoke firmly. This, he felt, was a perfectly rational thing to become stubborn about.

The trap, he was less worried about. The boys could destroy whatever they pleased, as long as they were aware of its makeup.

"That's...!" Al bit his lip and looked down, not able to come up with a real retort. It had hurt, far too much, but he didn't want Scar to go through that, either. His past was even more painful than theirs, when it came to it. How would he react if Scar thought he saw his brother?

Ed frowned. "How about for the sake of everyone's blood pressure, we assume that won't happen again and that something else unpleasant is going to happen tonight instead?"

"Think about the nights you have spent here, Edward. How often does something go according to plan?" He only shot the older Elric a brief look before returning to thumbing through the bulletin board, as if something else would have been added to it in the past few minutes.

Obviously, there was nothing.

Scar leaned against the wall, folding his arms.

"We will do what is necessary to advance."

That caught Lloyd attention. "You mean he escaped? How?" His brow furrowed. "Why would he come back? Isn't it hard enough just to get out of this place?" It didn't make sense. Unless... Unless getting out once meant that Tsurugi's friend knew he could get out again. In fact, thinking about it more, Lloyd would probably do the exact same thing. "Did he come back to help get other people out?"

Obviously, the rebels hadn't successfully stopped what was going on here yet, but the fact that someone else was out there fighting to help them was a comforting one. People weren't just sitting back and letting this place get away with doing such horrible things. "What's your friend's name?" Maybe Lloyd could talk to him and find out a little bit more.

"The only plan that seem to work is me getting on the bad side of every monster," Al grumbled, crossing his arms.

He looked at Ed, then. "C'mon, Brother, let's go ask the nurses for something for our burns."

Ed frowned. "I'm fine. It's not that bad."

He's lying, but what else is new. Oh, and did we mention stubborn?

Kyousuke hesitated when Lloyd asked how Sora ended up in Farwell; that wasn't something he was prepared to talk about. It just didn't feel right coming out and saying that he died. Kyousuke got the feeling Sora wouldn't mind if he told someone, but that didn't mean he wanted to. The situation may have resolved itself, but in the end, it was still something of a sore spot for Kyousuke.

"... He didn't escape, exactly," Kyousuke explained. "There were certain circumstances, and he ended up waking up there." That was a little vague, but it wasn't a lie, either, which was the best he could manage. "He said they found him there, and then he made his way back to make sure everyone knew he was okay. ... But I'm not sure just getting there really counts as leaving. Even if you're there, we still have to find a way to get home." That meant staying here and finding that archive on the third floor, or at least, that what his note had said.

"His name's Sora. I can try to introduce you, if you want," he offered. If he could, at least. He wasn't sure sure when Sora might be leaving again.

"Go treat your burns," Scar growled to Edward. He could play the stubborn game, too, and he could win. "You aren't doing yourself or anyone any good by pretending to not need bandages."

Scar was hardly one to talk, but that didn't matter right now.

He frowned at the explanation, mulling it over in his head. How could someone escape but not escape? How could Tsurugi's friend just wake up there? Maybe it was something he'd have to ask the guy himself. It could be Tsurugi just didn't know.

As for the point he'd just made... "I didn't think about it like that. If the way back home is somewhere in here, you're right. We'd have to come back to find it." That was a somewhat discouraging thought. It meant that trying to escape from the building wouldn't be as useful as he'd thought. Not unless he could find something on the outside that would help him when he made it back inside. "Still, if I find a chance to escape, I'll take it. There's got to be something we can do out there."

The offer made him smile. He nodded, appreciating it for what it was. "If a chance comes up, I'd like that." Lloyd knew as well as Tsurugi did that things like that weren't always easy to arrange with the strict eye the nurses kept on their patients. "Sora, huh..." He mentally made note of the name.

Al nodded in agreement with Scar and reached over to poke Ed's flesh arm hard, to prove the point.

Honestly, you'd think the older sibling would be a bit more responsible.

Ed sucked in his breath with a hiss and glared at Al. That hurt! Not that he's going to admit it anymore than he just involuntarily did.

This was getting ridiculous.

"Now." He pointed in the direction of a nurse standing by the doorway. His patience was running thin today.

"C'mon, Brother," Al said, taking Ed's right arm this time and dragging him along to get some medicine.

Ed was very crankily dragged along by his brother. He still swears it isn't that bad.

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Day 72: Sun Room (2nd shift)

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