[from here]

While the door was still open, enough moonlight permeated the small area as to make a few things clear very quickly. For one, it was incredibly clean -- which said little, she thought. Most areas she'd seen had been some variation of sterile and spotless. Two, it was otherwise dark. Three, there was only one other door -- obviously the next destination. This area didn't look particularly promising. It looked like a somewhat smaller version of where she'd gotten her two out-of-room meals that day. Colors were hard to determine, washed out by moonlight, but aside from some dishes, some counters, other odds and ends...

Maybe coming to the second floor had been a mistake. For everything they'd checked so far, nothing had given the girl any sort of answer -- what this place was, why she was here, what had happened to her memory... just books she couldn't understand , and an outdoors she wasn't sure she recognized. Other than that, nothing.

And Edgar had made it sound like it was dangerous.

The flashlight hung loose from her hand, and she turned to look over her shoulder when her companion followed. As uneventful as the journey had been, they still needed to stick together. No, she thought; she preferred being with someone who knew what things were when they encountered them, even if he didn't fully understand them. She'd probably still be trying to find something useful in the library now, if she'd come alone -- if she'd managed to get into the room in the first place.

[ from here ]

The rush of air that came with the opening door was not cold enough to be called biting, but was certainly cold enough to be a shock. Sesshoumaru's eyes widened in surprise at the smell of it - it smelled like the wind and snow, clean and cold and stripped of the harsh chemical scent that pervaded the facility so completely that the very smell of it had started to fade. He blinked before moving forwards again, out of the doorway, and into the moonlight.

The world was white.

Sesshoumaru's eyes flicked over the snow, which shone eerily in the moonlight. The muted light reflected dimly off of the white blanket, a few ice crystals that reflected the light a bit more strongly fading in and out of shadow, as clouds passed over the moon.

It was full tonight, or nearly full, Sesshoumaru reflected absently as he looked at it. The symbol of his house. And here, in the moonlit snow, he finally looked as though he might belong. The paleness of his skin, the silver blue cast of his hair - he seemed to be a creature of coldness, of the night. A few moments later he looked back down, taking in the scene. There were trees and what appeared to be benches covered lightly in snow, a small shed, a path that had been kept slightly clearer than the rest of the immediate landscape. And surrounding the grounds, there was a wall.

At last he turned his attention to the balcony that they were standing on. There were pathetic looking tables and chairs, poles coated in fabric raising high above them - some kind of umbrella, perhaps, as the fabric did seem designed to fold out, and Sesshoumaru could think of little else that it might be. There seemed little else in this place, between the rail and the wall - though the walls did hold two new doors.

He wondered where they might lead.

[from here]

The room he walked into was larger than he'd expected, but it wasn't hard to guess its purpose, not with the very deliberate arrangement of long red pews. A chapel. Stefan's grip on his knife still didn't relax as he wandered further inside. He'd been in a few churches in his time — what faith in God he'd possessed as a child had waned with too many decades of undead existence, but... call him cliché, he liked Gothic architecture. In his worst moments, he'd enjoyed hunting for victims in church, for the spice of ironic pleasure in knowing they believed themselves to be in a safe house, protected by all those popular fiction vampire deterrents. Save for wooden stakes, fire and the sun, they were all myths. Not that there were any crosses he could see from his cursory glance from the door, or even...

Holy water.

In the dark, the liquid burble of the fountain could've been confused for normal water — or, to the least, one of the less threatening noises in the hospital. You could even convince yourself that the sinister shape rising out of the water was something else from this distance, but Stefan, being able to see in the dark, had no such luxury. Still, the demonic face of the statue barely registered to his mind as he came closer to the fountain. He walked slowly, circling around it, unaware of what he was doing. All of his attention was fixed on the liquid churning in the fountain. Black, blacker than water should've been in the darkness. A deep red flooded the whites of Stefan's eyes. His gums itched. The scent of blood — human blood — hung so heavily in the air around him, he could hardly breathe.

Of course he could tell. Damon might joke that his taste buds had shriveled up after so many years of his diet, but it might as well have been the difference between white wine and vinegar. Human blood and animal blood. And it hadn't been so long either since the last time he'd had a taste of the former, fresh from the vein...

...but he couldn't do it again. Never, no matter how desperate he was. He was starving, yes, four nights and counting, but if he started it up now, under these conditions... There was no guarantee he could reclaim himself again. And he thought of his brother, trying to scheme his way out for all of them, and of Elena, putting on a brave face for their sakes, and of adding another burden on their shoulders. Stefan slapped a hand over his nose and mouth, which helped just enough to let him turn his face away.

Keep fighting.

Stefan spun around, almost faster than humanly possible, and ran.

[to here]

[from here]

Following Soma into the medical wing, Kratos closed the door quietly behind them. The lobby area looked as much as it had the previous night, although he did not stop again to draw comparisons between it and the Elemental Research Academy. His awe and curiosity had both been satisfied, so now it was simply business as usual. This part of the wing had already been mapped clearly in his head; it was time to find out what other kinds of "surprises" lay in wait.

He turned to Soma and then pointed to the open door to their right. "We entered that room over there. It's some kind of lounge area; there was nothing of interest. Which way did you go last night?" Maybe this was a good time to pause and consolidate their findings, seeing as both of them had been in the medical wing already. And Soma had sounded as if she had managed to go through a fair amount of rooms.

[ from here ]

At first glance, there seemed little different in this room than there had been in the last one, especially in the dim light cast through the open door, and Sesshoumaru nearly growled in frustration. He felt weak, he felt drained, and if had all been for nothing once again....

But, he saw a moment later, this room was different. It remained to be seen if there was anything useful in the drawers and cupboards that lined the surfaces, but perhaps. After all, the area still smelled of the food that had apparently been prepared here - when he focused the light headache he was beginning to carry began to intensify, but he could nonetheless smell raw ingredients that had been used here - meat, eggs, spices.

Perhaps there would be something useful here after all.

After the radio had been completely silent the night before, it might have come as a surprise when it came on fairly early this time around. The only thing that could be heard at first was someone gasping for air.

A few seconds passed with that pattern continuing, and then someone started to speak between breaths.

Finally. Do you know what this is like, having to deal with him constantly?

It was Marc's voice that spoke and unlike the other times that he'd commiserated with the patients, his tone was full of frustration, weariness, and defeat. It wasn't the sort of image he'd likely been hoping to portray to those relying on him, but that clearly wasn't a consideration at the moment.

Well, here's a fun fact for you: Landel does sleep. It only took -- what, two days? But he finally passed out.

That's not what this broadcast is about, though. No, it's about the fact that a good friend of mine was killed last night and one of you -- maybe a few of you -- is responsible.

Now his voice held more than just frustration; it was anger, plain and simple, that was embedded in every word.

I know I can't blame you, not really. But keep this in mind, each and every one of you. What Aguilar is doing, the way he's forcing you to do his little errands? Some of that is affecting me and the people helping me. I know you probably have no choice, but...

I've got my own problems with Landel and you've got yours with Aguilar. If we can just figure out a way to deal with both of them, find those weak points and strike...

Here he trailed off, letting out a tired sigh.

But I'm sure you've all thought about that already. I just... I'm not sure what to try next. I'm out here, in this shell of a town that was stripped down probably years ago, and I have to admit I'm fighting to figure out what the next step should be. I hope you guys have a plan, and if not, I hope I can find some of you and we can work at this.

Because losing? Is not an option.

And then the transmission abruptly ended.

As patients traveled through the dark halls, their movements marked by flashlight beams and hushed voices, most were likely unaware of the difficulties in store for tonight.

Even as the radio announcement ended, the intercom remained oddly silent. Instead, slight traces of white gas hissed through the building's entire ventilation system, seeping into every room. The tendrils curled in on themselves and harmlessly dispersed into the air.

A trick of the mind, a small accident, the prelude to something more sinister – regardless of what it was, the incident proved quick enough to miss entirely, though strange enough for some patients to catch a glimpse from the corner of their eye.