damned_institute | Nightshift 34: West Wing, South Hall 2-B

[From here]

Allelujah turned up the next corridor along and quickly shone his flashlight along it to give him an idea of it's length. Straight ahead then and he walked quickly along it, not wanting to attract any unwanted attention that he could avoid if possible. He passed one door, hands brushing over it in the darkness, and he comitted it to memory. He tried it, and it shuddered a little, but didn't open. He could break it, but he wanted to see how far he could get first before he started breaking doors. Hard on the shoulders and all.

He reached the end of the corridor, blocked by another badly locked door and he stopped there, frowning. Grudgingly, he turned on the flashlight that he was carrying and took a closer look at the door. Shouldn't take too much and this looked like the end of the line. He wavered for a moment, a little concerned about the noise, before a mental nudge from Hallelujah made the descision for him.

Allelujah pulled back from the door and then practically threw himself at it, feeling it shudder beneath his weight. He pulled back again and a hard kick did it and Allelujah winced as it hit against the wall. Sighing softly, Allelujah stepped through.

[To here]

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Turning into the next hall, MOMO couldn't help but be reminded of a scavenger hunt. Jill offered her riddled clues, and patients tried to decipher them before searching for the hidden items. It reminded her of when they'd chased that droid all over Second Miltia and the Foundation, following his clues until they finally caught up with him. That had been time consuming, but worth it in the end.

The realian grinned at the memory before glancing back to her two companions. "So, how have you two been?" As long as they were able to hold a conversation while walking at the same time, she didn't see a reason why they couldn't talk along the way.

While Sora had noticed the way Kaiji had looked back, he had figured the man had thought he'd heard something and didn't think much of it beyond that. Besides, they needed to keep moving, didn't they? MOMO seemed willing to lead the way, and while Sora would rather he was taking point, he knew that he needed to hold back on that protective tendency of his. Besides, he was making sure to stay just a half-step behind her.

He tried to focus on the fact that they were almost there, already crossing his fingers that they would encounter good fortune. It was going to be dangerous no matter what, he was sure, but hopefully they would get something out of it.

He was relieved when MOMO started up a conversation, since he didn't like the idea of wandering around in complete silence. It was around this area that he had once been yelled at for talking too loudly, though, so he was mindful to keep his voice down. "I've been all right, I guess," he responded. "I got to check up on a couple of friends today, so that was good. How about you?" He figured he could leave it to Kaiji to explain that he was brand new to all of this if he wanted.

Kaiji kept to the back and side of the other two as much as possible, having little concept of the layout of the institute. He held tightly on to his flashlight but it had been turned off for a while: there wasn't much of a point in using it if those he was traveling with had theirs turned on. Besides, Sora and MOMO were both short enough for Kaiji to see over them without considerable difficulty.

Small talk. While it was good that the eerie quiet of the hall was being broken by normal sounding voices saying normal sounding things, Kaiji was never good at carrying on casual conversations like this. He was typically completely honest and found that honesty is often not what people want to hear in these contexts. Noise was beneficial - asking how his day was, not so much.

"Awful," Kaiji hissed in response. He knew that he had pretty much gone out of a frying pan and into a fire when he woke up here this morning. More like out of one fire and into another: for the life of him Kaiji couldn't seem to catch a break. He elaborated in a low, irritated tone, "I haven't even been here for a day and I'm more than ready to get the hell out." He wasn't entirely sure about that. The life that awaited him wasn't a pleasant one either, so unless there was some amazing prize to be won from this whole ordeal it was a lose-lose situation.

Even if Kaiji did get a chance to escape, he could never bring himself to do it without doing something about the Head Doctor and freeing the others. Could he? He could, he couldn't, he could, he couldn't, thinking about it before the actual opportunity came up was about as helpful and informative as plucking flower petals.

MOMO was happy to hear that Sora had been fine, but her smile faded once Kaiji gave his own response. The 'awful' would have been bad enough to hear, but it was made worse by learning that he was new to Landel's. Spending any amount of time in this place was horrible, but the first night still seemed the most difficult. Then again, MOMO's opinion on that matter was based on the fact that she'd seen a Special Counseling patient during her first night. Not having known about that program before then had made that scary enough, but considering it had been Junior, of all people, made it that much worse.

Hopefully nothing like that would happen tonight, although the chances for something happening were high given the type of place this was.

"Oh... I'm sorry," the Prototype said at length, feeling guilty for having asked in the first place. "I didn't know... Um... I-I'm sure we'll get out soon. That seems to be what a lot of people are aiming for, so it's bound to be only a matter of time before someone figures a way to get everyone back to their respective homes."

She wasn't sure what else to say in regards to that, and she didn't want to ignore what Sora had asked, so she continued after a pause. "But, um, I've been as fine as one can imagine. I was able to confirm that a friend of mine was okay too, so... Yeah, I'm fine. And I'm really glad that you two are okay, all things considered."

It was hard to hear that Kaiji was having such a tough time, but on the other hand, who didn't have an awful day when they first woke up in this place? Kaiji just happened to be a lot more vocal about it than some of the others. Sora wasn't sure that what MOMO said about them getting out soon was entirely true, but he wasn't about to say anything. After all, there was the off chance that some group of patients would get lucky and find something. They couldn't just stay here forever. That was ridiculous!

Though at this point, it seemed more likely that they would get out of here through brainwashing than through finding a real way to escape. Still, Sora knew better than to get caught up in thoughts like that, so he continued with the conversation despite it all.

"Yeah, it can be kind of rough here, but... We're all stuck in this together, so complaining isn't going to help, you know? We just have to keep working at it and eventually something has to go our way." The odds were against them, but Sora wasn't one to give up easily.

It was about then that they reached the door into the next hall, and Sora couldn't help but take the lead for the moment, turning the knob and stepping through.

[To here.]

[ from here ]

Nothing in this hallway, either, besides a group of kids. The sight of them got him thinking – there were a lot of young people being kept here. He knew they might actually be decades older than they appeared, but if he stuck to the current theory that Martin had intercepted the best-deserving souls, that could mean they truly were as innocent as they looked. It disgusted him to think that yesterday, he had no idea this was happening. What kind of coward set up their base in Limbo? In a place where the LSA was officially out of contact?

An intelligent coward, obviously.

"It's locked," he announced blankly, releasing the first door handle and moving on to the next one. "... This door's locked, too." He slipped past the other souls as his flashlight revealed yet another door further down, pausing briefly on the way to ensure Meche hadn't vanished on him. "... So's this one!" he exclaimed, gazing incredulously at it. "Híjole, I can see why I'm gonna need this," he muttered to himself, rubbing his thumb over the key ring in his pocket. Fairly resigned now, he tried the last door...

"... Heeey!" He smiled widely when it clicked open, shining his light into the next hallway to check if the coast was clear. "Fourth time lucky," he said brightly, stepping to the side and motioning for Meche to enter first.

Meche's breath caught at the sounds of the children's voices, until she realized that of course she was being ridiculous. The kids in the hall with them were way too old to be Pugsy and Bibi--in fact, right around the age at which the two angelitos probably wouldn't interest them much at all. At least it was a good sign that there were children here.

More like a very bad sign, she corrected herself. Monsters or not, kids were even less entitled to end up in this kind of hell than adult souls were.

Trying to push those thoughts out of her mind, Meche nodded to Manny and stepped through the open door.

[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/435353.html#comments)]

Nightshift 34: West Wing, South Hall 2-B

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