Day 30: Staff, Morning

[damned-nurses.livejournal.com]

Burly orderlies and agile Calm Effect nurses flooded the cafeteria from the Courtyard while regular hall nurses filed in from the Sun Room and ushered out those not involved in the rebellion. It indeed seemed as if Landel was sending out all the cavalry, and an effective cavalry they were: The riot didn't continue for much longer after the alarm sounded, though it seemed strange just how quickly all of the mutinous patients fell, even the ones who hadn't been injected with anything.

The hall nurses were quick to escort their well-behaved charges back to their rooms, praising those who hadn't joined in and chiding those who muttered under their breath in response. There were some exceptions, of course: One nice young man had even defended one of the nurses from the violent patients! Now, wasn't that exemplary behavior? Dr. Landel would be so proud to hear about it...

Within half an hour, all of the so-called "loyal" patients had been safely deposited in their rooms, and it was then that the alarm finally stopped and the true difficulty of the situation was tackled. There certainly weren't enough rooms in solitary to accommodate such rampant disobedience, and yet measures would have to be taken to ensure proper consequences for each and every patient involved. After all, something like this couldn't be allowed to happen again!

Different options were considered. Perhaps they should make an example out of the girl who had sparked the riot, but then again, perhaps not. This certainly wasn't the first case of patients attacking nurses or their peers in a crowded area, but what had been different this time was the sheer support that the other patients had shown for her. Should the staff then make examples of all those who had tried to "protect" her from the well-meaning nurses? No, there were too many for that...

In the end, it was decided that the best immediate solution would be to treat the rebellious patients in the Medical Wing while they were unconscious and then move them back to their rooms to await punishment. To ensure the safety of both their roommates and the patients themselves, however, the staff decided to securely fasten their limbs to their beds and keep them heavily drugged. Such a sad sight they were to see, but... it was necessary.

Finally, when each and every patient had been escorted back to their respective rooms, the staff hurried off to an emergency meeting upstairs. Strangely, Head Nurse Lydia was the one taking care of the proceedings in the Head Doctor's stead. She calmly told them that he was preoccupied with more urgent matters, and as she began to speak to the crowd, the staff could only wonder what could possibly be more important than an unprecedented patient riot...

[ Comment to this post with separate threads for each patient room, and please put your character's room number in the subject line. Thank you! ]

Comments

[his-singer.livejournal.com]

“Oh, uh,” Bella started, frowning as she tried to get all her thoughts together, “if there’s anything you want to know, I can tell you, maybe. I’ve been here for … four days, I think?”

Had it really been that long? Bella couldn’t help but wonder if anyone knew that she and Edward were missing yet. Alice seemed like a hopeful person to know, but then again, this place was pretty strange, so there was a chance that she wouldn’t.

Sierra’s return to the topic of looks caused Bella’s heart to pick up speed, and in an act of trying to look like she didn’t care, she shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, just someone from my … uh, home. I guess. He was really pale too, had red eyes, white hair …” after a pause yet again, she frowned, trying not to think about Caius all that hard. The Volturi had a rather bad effect on her – the fear slowly began to creep, even though she knew that there wasn’t a chance that they would be able to get her.

[amaidendamnit.livejournal.com]

Just the outstanding points of her appearance? And on a man, at that? Disappointing. From Bella's reaction she'd expected something a little deeper. On the other hand, the description gave her a different reason to be interested. The skin and hair were common enough, but... "Red eyes?" she asked, some of the airiness dropping out of her voice. "What's he like?"

She just wasn't going to be interested in the institute until it dawned on her that her suddenly unresponsive magic wasn't a temporary problem.

[his-singer.livejournal.com]

What was Caius like? Bella swallowed, trying to remember her first meeting with the Volturi. “W-well, I didn’t really … I mean, our meeting was …” It was at this point that she looked back up at her new roommate, taking in the girl’s appearance once again.

Red eyes, white hair, pale skin, inhuman beauty.

It wasn’t possible, was it?

“He was … well, I didn’t really speak to him personally. At the time I was with my boyfriend and his sister, and when we went to meet him and his brothers, and he was … well. Someone you don’t want to mess with, I’ll say that.” She couldn’t tell this new girl about the vampires. She hadn’t told anyone about them in the first place, and she wasn’t going to start now. “I mean, he was pretty … mean and everything. I’ve only met him once though. I’m kind of hoping I never have to see him ever again.”

[amaidendamnit.livejournal.com]

So much for that. It sounded like Bella's aversion to this twin of hers was purely for reasons of poor personality, which in her mind left them with nothing in common. It still seemed strange to Sierra that her appearance continued to affect the girl, but humans did a lot of things that seemed strange to her.

"Well, I'm nothing like that," she assured her roommate. It was apparently her final word on the matter, because she backed off to more or less the center of the room and taking another look around before raising a hand to her mouth to cover another yawn.

She normally wasn't a stickler for decor as long as a room was easy for her to sleep in, but the place really was drab. It made her feel (even more) tired just looking at it.

[his-singer.livejournal.com]

The reassurance that she was nothing like Caius made Bella smile, and she nodded her head. “I’m glad for that. Thanks.”

After a few moments of silence between the two, Bella grabbed at her pillow and held it to her chest, a frown crossing her lips as she began to think. The girl seemed tired, but she was a bit curious as to her background and the like. Cyrille had been from somewhere random and unheard of, so she couldn't help but wonder where this strangely beautiful girl came from.

“So,” she began after a few more moments of silence, her eyes looking towards Sierra. “Where are you from?”

[amaidendamnit.livejournal.com]

Sierra took a few seconds to respond, though whether she was actually engaged with some private thought or was just delaying for aloofness' sake wasn't clear.

"Nowhere," she finally said, turning back to her roommate. "I travel." She stayed in some places longer than others, but she didn't consider any proper homes. It wasn't the most helpful answer, but it was the truth.

[his-singer.livejournal.com]

“Oh,” came Bella’s dull reply once again, a frown crossing her lips. Well, there went that conversation. Now what could she think of? “Was it your … uh, job or something? Or did you just like to travel?”

Things were taking a turn for the worst. Here was this new girl who had no idea about anything, and yet she didn’t even seem all that interested in finding anything out! Bella chewed on her bottom lip, clutching the pillow closer to her chest as she finally took in a deep breath and released it into a sigh.

Might as well ask the question she was curious about. “Are you from … uh, Earth?”

[amaidendamnit.livejournal.com]

"I started for my job," said Sierra, whose actual work experience totaled the length of her short stint with the Army of Dunan. 'Task' or 'obligation' would have been more precise words. "But I've come to like it." She couldn't do much else, if she didn't want to return to the solitude of her world before Rean.

The second question more or less stumped Sierra. It was simple enough, and from the buildup Sierra assumed it was important, but... she had no idea what the girl actually meant by it. That probably meant her answer would be 'no', but...

When in doubt, go on the offensive. "What do you mean by that?" she asked, annoyance showing on her face.

[his-singer.livejournal.com]

“Traveling around does seem kind of nice,” Bella agreed, nodding her head as she looked up at Sierra once again at her second comment.

Uh oh.

The teenager could see the annoyance flash past the girl’s face, and all at once Bella blushed, embarrassment and nervousness filling the pit of her stomach. “I-I didn’t mean it in a rude way or anything! It’s just that my last roommate was from … well, somewhere I had never heard of, and then she told me she was from a completely different place than I was from …” a pause, and she continued. “A lot of the people here are from different … worlds, I guess you could say. So I was just curious …”

Great. They had only just met and she was on the girl’s bad side. Bella frowned.

[amaidendamnit.livejournal.com]

Well, the apology was decent, but the rest of Bella's explanation wasn't really helping to mollify Sierra. If one person had been from a place she didn't know, why should she expect anyone else to be? It had been a stupid question to ask.

...or so she was thinking until the girl got to the part about different worlds.

"Different worlds?" she stalked back across the room to Bella's bed. She was familiar with the concept... but to her, other worlds weren't places people came from. At best there were things that looked like humans, like Yuber. If there was mass summoning going on here, this operation wasn't anywhere near as small-time as she'd thought.

[his-singer.livejournal.com]

She still seemed annoyed with her. Sighing, Bella watched as the girl moved back towards her side of the room, and she tucked her legs underneath her before she once again continued to speak.

“Yeah. My old roommate was from a different world completely. She had never heard of the United States, or Forks – where I’m from. Things were really different where she was … she knew a boy that lived in the mountains, and she also knew how to do magic. But I guess she’s … gone now.” A frightening thought.

Pausing, Bella soon continued again, a smile crossing her lips. “But I’m sure if you’re curious about it you can ask the bulletin board. A lot of people will probably respond to you.”

[amaidendamnit.livejournal.com]

Sierra stopped, obviously considering this piece of evidence.

"It sounds like you're the one from a different world," she finally said. And that was what it sounded like... she'd never heard of a United States either and there was nothing rare or otherworldly about magic. But the whole idea was ridiculous. The people here really were all strange...

"What's the bulletin board?" she asked. If everyone else was like this girl it'd probably give her a headache, but she was starting to feel like maybe talking to a few more people would be worthwhile. Taking out the boss and leaving was still her biggest priority, but if something big was going on here she should probably figure out exactly what it was before she wrecked it.

[his-singer.livejournal.com]

“As I said,” Bella started, a soft sigh escaping her lips, “There are a lot of people here from all around.”

Just then the door clicked open, and a nurse filed in with a sickly sweet smile. Turning towards Sierra, she quickly tried to explain what exactly the bulletin board was, and what it was for. “It’s in the Sun Room. It’s covered in notices and paper, and you put up a notice of your own if you want to ask something —” the nurse was moving towards her now, and Bella was forced to stand up. “Just put up a notice and people will respond to you.”

Before she could say anything else, she was nearly dragged out the door by the nurse and into the next round of shifts.