damned_institute | Day 32: Intercom, Evening

The intercom clicked on and the Head Doctor spoke with his usual fervor.

"Good evening, patients and staff! I am pleased to announce that the arrival of nearly all of our new patients will conclude this shift. In addition, we have a very delicious dinner in store for you: carved Turkey with a side of mashed potatoes and steamed, seasoned vegetables. For drinks, we have our usual assortment available, and as a dessert included with your dinner, we will be serving a slice of warm apple pie with each meal.

"I trust that those of you enjoying the company of new roommates will give them a warm Landel's welcome, and I also hope that those of you who participated in therapy today were able to find a productive time with their doctors.

"That's all for now! Enjoy dinner, everyone!"

The intercom clicked off again.

[ Please respond to this post with all dinner shift threads between roommate, putting your character's respective room in the subject line. While we have none scheduled for this shift at this time: all introduction posts for this shift's group of new characters should be made in response to this post; the introduction may then continue on to be a regular roommate thread. ]

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Though Anise still wasn't feeling her best, her talk with Kairi had left her in better shape than before. That girl was trying to cheer her up, wasn't she? Well, she hadn't done a bad job, so Anise couldn't complain.

She felt a little bad for not signing up for any work tonight, but she just didn't feel up to it. Emotionally, she had been a wreck earlier that day and was feeling pretty drained by now. Physically, that stupid pain in her chest was flaring up whenever she so much as breathed too hard. As she was now, she knew she wouldn't be any help to the Cooking Club.

Her nurse had thoughtfully left a couple painkillers with Anise's dinner. If the girl wasn't so intent on hating everyone associated with Landel's, she would have been incredibly grateful to the woman. Hopefully they would kick in by nightfall. In the meantime, Anise let her mind wander a bit as she started on her dinner.

Sync... What were they going to do about him? What could they do about him? Though Anise would never dare say it, the truth was that Sync scared her. Even though he was an enemy - and such a cruel, twisted one at that! - whenever he used that voice, that smile... Anise felt weak. Even though her Ion, the only one who really mattered, was here with her! She couldn't help it, and she hated herself for it. Somehow, she needed to find the courage to stand up to that faker, or else avoid him completely.

Ami woke up feeling groggy and disorientated. She was pretty sure she'd had the flu for the past couple of days, given her high temperature, aching muscles and shivering. She slowly sat up in bed, her muscles feeling like jelly, and flicked her hair out of her eyes.

Given the steaming meals sitting on the desks, Ami gathered it was dinner time. "Good evening Anise-san," she said, her voice slightly hoarse. "I hope I didn't keep you awake at night or inadvertently give you the flu." Ami tried not to think about the possibility that maybe it was something that Dr Landel had done to her. Using the bed for support, Ami made her way over to the food. Her stomach rumbled loudly and a faint blush swept across her cheeks. She gave Anise an embarrassed smile. "I must be hungrier than I thought," she said, sitting down. "Has anything of great importance happened in the past two days?"

It had been a few days since Anise last talked to her roommate. It was kind of a relief that it had just been a flu keeping Ami down... though she also really hoped she didn't catch it herself. "You got sick? That sucks. Maybe you should take it easy tonight." Anise wasn't sure what Ami normally did at night, but she was usually the first out the door, and whatever she kept hurrying off to do was probably pretty dangerous. Not like there was such a thing as a safe night-time activity around here.

Unlike Ami, Anise still didn't feel much like eating, even though she knew she had to. She prodded at the food with her fork, taking only the occasional bite.

Tons had happened as far as Anise was concerned, to the point that it was overwhelming, but those were things only affecting herself and her friends. "Nothing big!" she replied casually. "Just the same old boring days and the same old scary nights."

Ami nodded as she ate slowly. "It might have been brought on by one of the monsters I encountered a few nights ago," she replied in between mouthfuls. She avoided the turkey, going instead for the healthier vegetables. She smiled over at Anise, touched by her concern. "It's good advice, but I have to look out for one of my friends. I'll try to stay out of trouble though," she said with a half grin.

It didn't take her long to finish the plate -minus the turkey-, and Ami turned to the apple pie. It wasn't anywhere near as good as Makoto's, but Ami needed the energy from the sugary dessert.

She made a slighly resigned sound at Anise's comment. "And so life goes on in our psychological prison," she said wearily. "Have you noticed any more disappearences in the past couple days? Have there been any new people brought in?"

Looking out for her friend? Anise knew what that was like. Even though her usefulness as a Guardian was questionable, especially here where her abilities were reduced to flashy light shows, she still couldn't bring herself to leave Ion alone. If anything happened to him, and she wasn't there doing everything she could to help, Anise would never forgive herself! With a small sigh, she returned the slight grin. "If you say so. I'm not going to stop you."

Anise had picked through about a third of the contents of her plate, taking bits from every corner but not really finishing anything. She chewed on the empty end of her fork a bit while considering Ami's question. "Disappearances, huh..." It wasn't an easy subject to consider. There were some people she suspected could have vanished, but without being able to go check their rooms, she couldn't know for sure. Dist was definitely gone, wasn't he? Oh, not that she cared about him! It's not like they were friends or even allies or anything. Just... it kind of bothered her.

"I've got a few friends I haven't seen in a while," she answered quietly, tapping the fork on her tray uneasily. "We'll probably have to do another headcount soon..." The hesitation in her voice made it obvious she was dreading what might come of that.

"And they definitely brought in new people today," she went on, her tone abruptly changing to one of contempt. "Some total creep from home was with them."

Ami noticed Anise wasn't really eating. Maybe there was something on her mind. More than likely it's something to do with tonight, Ami mused silently.

Her forehead creased with worry when Anise confirmed her fears that more people had vanished. "A head count isn't a bad idea..." she trailed off, her mind working through all the facts. There was only one big area she hadn't been yet that other patients had mentioned - the basement. Perhaps there was something there that could shed some light on the disappearances. "Maybe we should post something on the bulletin board in the morning. If we're both still around...

Ami was disturbed to hear that even more people had been brought in, but couldn't help but be hopeful that one of the other, physically powerful senshi like Rei or Makoto had found their way here. She gritted her teeth, instantly regretting the thought. Don't be so selfish Ami!" she admonished herself. You would never want to put your friends in this kind of situation! The cold hard truth was that Ami and Usagi were stuck in here, and they would have to find their own way out.

"I'm sorry to hear that someone you don't like has arrived. Hopefully they won't cause you any trouble," Ami said, realising that she had remained quiet for some time. "What plans do you have for tonight?"

The bulletin board... Anise hadn't given it much more than a glance today, being preoccupied with other things. Was it even going to be safe to keep on using it, with Sync around? Any information she or her friends posted could end up being used against them! There were those 'Abyss Man' code names they could fall back on... The God-General wouldn't recognize something as silly as that, would he? She could only hope.

Finally deciding to give up on her dinner, Anise pushed the plate aside and instead picked at the slice of pie.

"Tonight? I don't really have any plans. I guess I'll meet up with Ion and go from there..." Realizing Ami probably wouldn't know who that was (even though any infant on Auldrant would have heard of him), she quickly added, "Um, Ion is like, my friend... and my boss, too." It was a little hard to find the right word. Besides, after what she did, did Anise even have the right to call herself his friend or his guard? Ever since the incident that morning, she found it hard not to doubt herself when it came to things like this.

Day 32: Intercom, Evening

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