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damned_institute2007-07-15 05:47 am
damned-intercom.livejournal.com) wrote in damned_institute2007-07-15 05:47 am
Night 25: Intercom, Early Night
With a crackle, the intercom came back on, and with a boom, the Head Doctor began to laugh into the microphone, his mouth so close that his breath rasped out of the speakers. Finally, he spoke, with one word that seemed to mean more than he let on.
"Doyleton."
Another chuckle, this time only slightly more sane as Doctor Martin Landel seemed to fall into the plush chair of his office.
"It's a place nearby, and you might be seeing it soon, though I'm not sure if you want to." He sighed, and one could almost picture him running his hand through hair that was usually tidy. "A field trip, you could call it, to one of the last heavens left on this Earth, as artificial as it might be. Yes, this Earth, not your Gaia, Expel, Ivalice, Auldrant, Radiant Garden, or--God, whatever the hell else you people call your ridiculous playtime lands.
"In any case, this is all you know now, and this is all you will know, and perhaps, in a month or so, it will be all that you have known."
A pause.
"Heh. Our first group of patients to be introduced tonight seems to have finally arrived. We'll see what they think of your personal hell. Who knows? Maybe they'll try to exploit you for information under the guise of making friends. But no matter. This will all be over, someday."
With another rasp and a sharp crackle, the intercom slowly died to silence once more.
"Doyleton."
Another chuckle, this time only slightly more sane as Doctor Martin Landel seemed to fall into the plush chair of his office.
"It's a place nearby, and you might be seeing it soon, though I'm not sure if you want to." He sighed, and one could almost picture him running his hand through hair that was usually tidy. "A field trip, you could call it, to one of the last heavens left on this Earth, as artificial as it might be. Yes, this Earth, not your Gaia, Expel, Ivalice, Auldrant, Radiant Garden, or--God, whatever the hell else you people call your ridiculous playtime lands.
"In any case, this is all you know now, and this is all you will know, and perhaps, in a month or so, it will be all that you have known."
A pause.
"Heh. Our first group of patients to be introduced tonight seems to have finally arrived. We'll see what they think of your personal hell. Who knows? Maybe they'll try to exploit you for information under the guise of making friends. But no matter. This will all be over, someday."
With another rasp and a sharp crackle, the intercom slowly died to silence once more.
no subject
I'm alive.
As she lay in her bed, wide-eyed and astonished at her own aliveness, she became aware of her cheek buried in a pillow, her hair falling around her face and neck, the warmth of bedcovers. The sterile, milk-white hospital surroundings cloaked in night's darkness. Her mind racing with possible explanations.
And then, an immense melancholy seeping into her chest.
Noir....
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
She put her hand to her chest, fingers searching for the texture of a bandage under her shirt (why a shirt instead of a hospital gown?, she wondered fleetingly). She could vividly remember the sheer physical pain and shock of the fork breaking her skin, severing veins, scraping against her ribs, and piercing her heart. Not to mention how she felt to see the person most dear to her wielding it. The nerves in her fingers tingled with sorrow.
So when she found nothing at all, she was completely taken aback.
Quickly she sat up and looked down her shirt, holding the neckline away from her with one hand and prodding with the other. No, there really wasn’t anything. Not the bandage she had assumed would be there. No stitches or scar. From what she could see in the darkness, not even a discolored mark on her skin. It was completely unblemished, as if nothing had ever happened. She put her hands back down. How-
Her fingertips, poking slightly under the pillow, felt something hard that took her away from her thoughts. She slid her hand towards it and brought it out from under the pillow.
A flashlight.
?
no subject
Room M75
Blue eyes snapped open, casting the wall Cloud Strife was facing in an eerie blue glow for a moment before the illumination settled normally again. His golden eyebrows drew together in confusion as the vision before him contrasted vastly with what he thought should have been.
I died… Aeris sent me back….
Slowly pushing himself up on his elbow, he looked around the room that he was stationed in. The room was completely foreign to him, and he noted quickly that his normal attire was gone and replaced. His First Tsurugi was missing as well. In fact, all of his normal possessions were absent, which helped to cast the feeling of wrongness on his senses.
He touched his face to make certain that at least one aspect was the same. His fingers moved over his features slowly before rising, and he was at least certain of his appearance if his hair was any measure of rightness. At least he could be confident in one aspect of wherever he had been placed.
Sitting up, he scratched the back of his head and looked around his room. There was another bed, a desk at the end of both and what appeared to be a shared dresser. His clothing appeared to be starkly gray, and it reminded him terribly of boot camp.
This had better not be Boot Camp again.
no subject
Kyon's eyes opened half expecting to see some sort of blinding light flood in. He sat up when he realised this was not the case. Everything was pitch black, so, it wasn't morning?
Scratching the back of his head some Kyon looked around. This was deffinatly not his room. Not far from him, there sat another, albiet empty, bed. If anything it reminded him of some sort of wacked hotel room, but he was pretty sure that he wasn't traveling, or that hotel rooms had the sort of decor of an asylum, from what he was able to make out in the dark.
Dammit, something had pissed off Haruhi.
If this was another demented closed space he was going to scream.
After the intercom had clicked off Kyon threw his head back on his pillow. Something made a soft 'thuck!' with his head. "Dammit!!" He shouted as he stuck his hand under the crappily thin pillow. Pulling out a flashlight, Kyon almost laughed.
Looking towards the doors, he saw that they were open. Well, wasn't that nice?
M62
He had so much to do today, he remembered, as he rolled over, hugging his pillow and unwittingly pushing the flashlight on the floor beside him, causing a crash that didn't make him think twice as he buried his head in the pillow. Saphir had just been captured, and Peony was gonna go see if he could bug Jade into staying in town another day so they could - .. wait, wait a second.
..There was a serious lack of rappig in this room. And it was way too dark, besides. The little nightlight he kept for cute Saphir had been turned off, and someone had stopped the waterfall, and..
Huh, this wasn't his room at all.
Well, that was weird. Where could they have gone? Swinging his legs out onto the floor, he kicked some round cylindrical thing, sending it rolling smack into the dresser. He leaned down and picked it up, feeling it all the way around. Some kinda weird new fontech?
He pressed a button on it, idly hoping it wasn't a fonbomb or something. It wasn't, thankfully, and light spilled all over the tiny little room. There was a lump on the bed across from him, but it sure wasn't rappig-shaped, so he didn't really pay it any mind.
So the Emperor went through the dresser, pulling out clothes and items left and right. Nope. No rappigs in the dresser. No rappigs in the closet either. By the time he was finished going through the room, it looked like a disaster area. He'd always done this without noticing or really caring. Sesemann kept saying it was a miracle that the throne room hadn't been decimated by now, but did Peony care? Nope.
So, flashlight in hand, he found his slippers, put them on, and opened the door to the hallway. What a weird place this was!
Room M2
The sound of an unfamiliar voice echoing around him, the instantaneous knowledge that he was in an unknown place in an unknown bed had golden eyes snapping open, sleek, muscled form trained to both seduction and violence (and sometimes both simultaneously) jerking in an uncommon lack of inherent grace.
Daemon sat up, waiting for eyes to adjust to the blackness around him, listening to the voice continue to speak words that made no sense. Words about heavens, paradise, and different earths. Was the man mad? There was no heaven, no paradise, except what one made of the realm of Hell before slipping back into the Darkness. And what were these different earths he spoke of? He didn’t recognize any of them, and not once was Kaeleer or Terreille mentioned.
Then the voice carried on, pausing to inject a taunting note about knowledge before mentioning patients - patients? Was that how he’d ended up here? But how…? - arriving, before there was a click and Daemon was left in silence and blackness.
Eyes having adjusted only enough to show him vague shapes in the darkness, Daemon sought to call in witchlight, find a nearby candle or torch to flare to life with Craft, but there was… nothing.
Puzzled, he tried again, with the same result. He called for his jewels, feeling his familiar ring missing from his finger, and again had no response. Quickly stifling a flare of panic at this unimaginable shock, he felt around him, clever fingers sliding along the bedsheets for anything familiar, and finally brushing against something solid and cool to the touch. Fingers curling around the cylindrical object, he studied it in bewilderment for a moment, fumbling along it’s smooth sides before he found a knob of some sort and suddenly light shot from one end of it.
Daemon was so startled he nearly dropped it, but at least that solved his problem of being unable to see. Pointing the shining length around the room, he took in his surroundings, instantly spotting a bed across the room from his with another young man asleep in it.
Warily, he rose and approached, reaching out and shaking the man’s shoulder, but getting no response. Whoever the stranger was, he was in a deep sleep, and though Daemon tried several times, he couldn’t wake him.
So that left him no better off than before. Frowning, unease curling like a cold knot in his stomach at the unfamiliar surroundings, Daemon turned towards the door he’d illuminated briefly and moved towards it.
He needed to find out where he was and how he’d gotten here. And then find out how to get back to the Hall…
Re: Room M2
M11
There was a voice on an intercom speaking, but Ichigo ignored it. They weren't saying anything that made sense to him, and it didn't matter anyway. This sudden shift in reality only meant one thing.
Aizen had used his zanpakutou and he was currently under hypnosis.
He stood up again and checked his person. No injuries from his previous battle, a good thing, but he was missing something vital. Zangetsu's familiar weight was missing from his back and that suggested he was back in his human body, or at least being led to believe he was in his own body again. Ichigo lacked his tablet that would allow him to escape his body, so it looked like he was stuck.
"Damnit. I don't have time for this crap." He griped while he tugged on his hair in annoyance. "Gotta find Inoue." Ichigo paced around the room once to see if there was anything around of value. Nothing seemed like it would be useful in this situation; really what could help him while he was under hypnosis?
The room was dark, though, and he needed a light before he could leave. Unless the hallway was lit? He walked over to the door and opened it to take a look and found it just as dark. No good. Maybe there was a light somewhere in the room.
While he searched, he wondered just how bored Aizen had to be to think up something like this. Ichigo searched the bed he had landed on earlier and was surprised to find a flashlight. Clicking it on, he felt immediately better. At least he would see where he was running off too.
The problem of vision solved, Ichigo ran like a fool right out the door and into the hallway.
Re: M11
M80
Or perhaps the longing of the feel of his hand mixed with that warm, fresh blood, oozing from Serph's bowels?
Vritra had been waiting in the installation, waiting for his former comrades to show up. The enemy of Indra, crouched in a hole, waiting to spring with serpentine limbs. Waiting. Waiting for Sera -
Sera.
Red eyes opened to a white room, unchecked by blood - old, or new. The smell of bleach pervaded his senses; a large contrast from the mechanized EGG Installation.
In a show of animality, Heat rolled from the bed, crouching down to the ground, looking around him with a scowl. There was an empty bed behind him and one in front of him, and yet there wasn't another body in the room with him.
It was good, too. Because the only thing that flashed through his mind wasn't confusion or sadness, or even anger. He was hungry. Thirsty. It wasn't his normal, demonic hunger. The body of Vritra demanded more than his usual diet, and even then Agni had almost constantly been consuming. He had eaten Serph. He'd been waiting for Sera. The only one who could satisfy him at last.
Looking to his left, he saw that the door had swung open, allowing the darkness outside to invade the room. He took no time in looking through the room, checking his situation. Heat lifted to two legs in a mock show of humanity, sprinting through the door into the darkness. He could smell something. Alive, with a beating heart.
It wouldn't matter now whether it was demonic or not.
no subject
But Expel doesn't have anything like that! he realized with a sudden jolt, and he quickly sat up in bed, half-expecting some sort of emergency to be waiting for him. But all that greeted him was a dimly-lit room, a couple of beds, and--
Where was he?
The last thing he remembered was going to sleep in a small inn, which wasn't here. Granted, Claude wasn't a stranger to waking up in strange places, but this had to take the cake for being the most bizarre occurrence. After all, it wasn't like he'd been inspecting any strange, alien-made devices recently. And it was pretty sure Expel hadn't collided with anything while he'd been sleeping.
...He sure hoped not, anyway.
"Hello?" he called, but he received no answer. Frowning to himself and growing a little uneasy, he climbed out of bed and took to inspecting his room. As far as he knew, he was the only person in here, so there wasn't anyone to answer any of his questions. But he did find a flashlight, a bunch of pens, and a radio, among a few other not-so-helpful things. The flashlight itself was nice to have, though Claude took that and the radio as a clue that he probably wasn't on Expel anymore, as underdeveloped as it was.
To his surprise, he found that the door leading out of his room was actually unlocked. With that discovered, he didn't hesitate to push the door open and step outside, shining his light down the hallway.
After all, there was only one way to find out where he was...
M88
Looking back on it later, maybe that was what should have tipped him off.
Keman could feel soft cloth against his equally soft skin, and knew without even opening his eyes that he’d shifted to his two-legger form. Probably the halfblood, because that was the one he used most often (especially around the Citadel), and the one he was most comfortable in.
And he was very comfortable now. Groggy, even. He couldn’t remember shifting before going to sleep, but he must have, to be in a bed this soft. His claws would have shredded it otherwise.
Keman muttered incoherently at the voice rumbling somewhere in the background. He knew that it was dawn (hadn’t they planned to leave by then?), and that people would be around soon enough to roust him out of bed.
They had a long journey ahead of them that day.
But for right now, he was still going to feign sleep. While the other Wizards and their draconic counterparts had celebrated their victory over the elves with liberal amounts of beer and ale brewed in the heart of the old Citadel, and while Mero and Shana went off to honor Valyn’s sacrifice properly, he had curled up in the sleeping area, alone, and started to mourn their friend in his own way. He had been up until the small hours of the morning, longer even than the drunken revelers and the two young halfbloods that had helped make all of this possible, just…thinking. Thinking about how he had lived in close quarters with Valyn for months, and yet never really known him, and thinking about how he’d never get the chance to exchange words with the young elven lord again. Even after their time in the forest, or with that witch Triana, the only one who could really claim to have been close to him was his Shadow.
And then, sleep had finally overtaken him.
(Well, he must have shifted and stumbled to a two-legger sleeping pallet before becoming dead to the world, but he still held no memory of it.)
The voice (or another one; his sleep-addled mind couldn’t tell the difference) started to speak again, and the young dragon pulled the blanket over his head to try to muffle the sounds. Like all adolescent creatures, human or elven or otherwise, Keman wanted to delay getting up as long as physically possible.
“Mmph,” he muttered into his pillow. ’s not light yet. ‘s just the pre-glow.” And that seemed true enough. There wasn’t any light pressing against his stubbornly closed eyelids. “Gimme ‘nother quarter-hour…”
But it was no use. He was already awake enough now that it would be impossible to get back to sleep, and he knew that Shana would never willingly let him sleep in, especially not when they were overdue to begin their self-imposed exile.
In fact, that they were so obviously running behind schedule probably should have worried him. Shana should be here by now, jumping on the bed and making a nuisance of herself.
Actually listening to the voice ended up answering most of his questions.
Too bad that it left him with different ones.
M66
A nightmare?
It was one of Zoisite's piano performances. Chopin Etude Opus 10, Number 3, he called it...a quieter tune than normal...more somber than usual...
He's dead.
There was a pierce into his flesh...a sharp bellow, more like a roar, as pain surged through his abdomen.
Kunzite woke with the scream still in his throat, breathless, covered in sweat...just as he had arranged it.
There was one tiny problem, however.
He was not where he had felled himself.
Kunzite felt the surface beneath him, noting quietly that it did not feel like the grassy floor of the forest dale where he had performed his ritual. Indeed, the surface was soft and springy, as if it were a mattress of some sort. He looked about, straining his vision in this decidedly evil darkness; he could not make out the trees that surrounded him as he fell, sword in his abdomen, hoping to remove the curse upon his soul. His dress, too, was unusual; instead of the ornate uniform, flowing cape, and knee-high boots suited for one of the Shitennou, Kunzite found himself in a flimsy pull-down shirt and undignified pants, and at the side of his bed, slippers to adorn his feet.
What has happened, he thought to himself. Have I been...has someone had the audacity to capture ME while I was unconscious? In frustration he stood and swung his arm across his body.
Nothing happened. Perplexed, Kunzite performed the motion again, but only managed to push a small bug out of his path. His frustration growing further, he held his hand forward, hoping to bring forth an evil fire to illuminate his surroundings. Rather than simply calling forth the flames, however, Kunzite found himself struggling to cause even a match-sized flame to fill between his open fingers.
My powers, his mind raged, my magicks have been tampered, squelched. Nevertheless, the small flare was sufficient, as he noticed a pillow tossed aside, revealing a small device that would normally be hidden underneath. Walking over, he picked up the object and recognized it to be a flashlight. A switch was pressed, and artificial illumination gave him a greater view of his surroundings. Kunzite turned on his bare heels; across from his bed laid another, inhabited by a small individual who slept soundly into the night. There was a dresser at the back of the room between the two beds; in the bottom drawer, two more pairs of slippers, and above that, two sweaters. Worthless.
Kunzite moved to the front of the room, and stood between a desk and a closet. The closet contained a large, trench-like coat, which he slipped onto his shoulders, as well as more shirts and pants. In the desk, a small journal, some batteries, a key ring, and some pens bound in a rubberband. The man acted quickly, stowing the batteries in his coat pocket and removing the rubberband from the pens. He tied his (thankfully) still-long black hair in a manner reproducing his original hair style - not perfect, but it would have to do. Performing a final, cursory investigation of his room, he clicked his tongue angrily.
It's not here, he thought to himself. He placed the slippers on his feet, and as if on cue, the door to his room swung open. The faint glow of other flashlights danced along the opposite wall. It seems we're not alone, my friend, Kunzite thought quietly, as if speaking to his roommate. Perfect.
"I shall need a sword," he finally spoke, and wandered out into the hallway (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/152147.html).
F25!
--The blonde general looked around, surprised. Where was she? Her clothing had been switched to some sort of cheap, peasant's clothing. Scratch that, peasants wore better clothing. What was this fabric? This face? It looked like one of the ridiculous scribbles that Kefka would occasionally put on his order notes.
Thrice-cursed Clown.
A cursory examination of her room revealed a... kind of Figaro torch, some sort of writing utensils (what Celes wouldn't give for a good fountain pen) bound in a band, a blank book. A weird item with dials and knobs, she brought with her once it began spewing voices.
A sword singing? The ex-general sighed and left her room. Someone was going to give her answers, right now.
M83
He opened his eyes to find himself lying on a bed in a darkened room. He reached under the pillow, and grasped the object. In the darkness, he could barely see anything, but it felt like an old Earth-style flashlight. Pressing the button on the side cast a beam of light at the wall next to him, confirming his suspicions.
Zakharov began examining the room, the weight of the flashlight steadying his hand. The bed on the other side of the room was occupied by a man with unnaturally white hair. The room itself was fairly nondescript, with two sets of simple furniture. As more of a formality than anything else, Zakharov searched his half of the room. The journal and pens were worthless; anything he wrote down would be completely accessible to Miriam. The radio had probably been the source of the static he'd heard, and might be useful for spare parts, and the keyring would be convenient if he found any keys. The batteries and flashlight would be useful in any case.
Assuming, of course, that Miriam's simulation was anything approaching realistic, which wasn't a guarantee.
Zakharov turned the flashlight on himself. He seemed unchanged, though his clothes were institutional grey, with a smiley face on the front. It would probably be brainwashing, then. "I was under the impression that you were more vindictive than this," he remarked, apparently to nobody. Well, there was nothing he could do to escape; the best he could do was hold out as long as he could.
Strangely, the door was unlocked. Taking the flashlight, keyring, and radio, Zakharov decided to explore.
M85
Truth be told, Keigo knew, to an extent. He had felt his heart sink into his gut when he realized that his knowledge was the same as what Ichigo was trying to hide from Tatsuki. Gods of Death and Hollows and Arrancar were things he had found out through a combination of eavesdropping and his own experiences, but for whatever reason, Ichigo didn't want them to know.
He wanted them to stop caring and not concern themselves with him? It wasn't happening. Keigo cared too much and he knew Tatsuki and Mizuiro were the same, no matter what. That's when they planned it after Ichigo had left; they would follow him and see what it was he was so desperately trying to hide. It was easy enough to get to Urahara Shoten--the door was suspiciously unlocked, as well--but witnessing something so unreal, even if Keigo should have been used to things of that nature by then, certainly took a lot out of them. It was then that Urahara-san had said Ichigo had been overly-cold that day on purpose. And Keigo didn't like it one bit.
Mixed in the memories that continuously filtered through, the face of a hollow pushed its way to the forefront, its deafening screech and gaping, hungry mouth causing Keigo to twitch and groan uncomfortably in the bed.
He left Urahara-san's, and there was a hollow and then...
It was chasing him, reaching, grabbing and pulling for his soul. Keigo was running, but his legs felt too heavy, as though they were made of lead. It was catching up! It was going to kill him!
Doyleton.
The crackling noise of the intercom was integrated too well with the dream-turned-nightmare and Keigo yelled aloud, flailing and tumbling out of his bed and onto the smooth, cold floor, tangled in a knot of blankets.
"Wha--?!" He rubbed his face groggily, feeling over himself to check for any missing limbs. All important body parts accounted for, Keigo pushed himself up from the floor and stared blankly ahead. This.. wasn't Karakura. Was it hell? Soul Society? Had that hollow killed him?!
"S-shit.." Keigo rarely swore aloud, but this was an instance that called for it. Untangling himself from the blankets, a loud, hollow clatter rang out, startling him further. A glance on the floor and he could see the outline of a ... flashlight? Squinting, he stooped down to pick it up, flicking it on. "..." Well, at least now he could actually see. Maybe he could figure out what was going on if he explored a little...