damned_institute | Nightshift 36: F31-40 Hallway

That hadn't taken long at all. Hanyuu wasn't sure whether to be glad or anxious for that, although it was safe to say anxiety was winning. She couldn't help but remember the last time she'd gone to Arlene's room; that had been a very bad night... Surely tonight couldn't be anything like that.

The spirit hugged herself and took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves. It wouldn't do any good to get riled up before she even heard what Arlene had to say. And it didn't seem she had long to wait for that, as someone was waiting outside of Arlene's room. The dark made it difficult to make out who it was, but given how early it still was, Hanyuu felt sure it was either Arlene or her roommate.

"Arlene?" she called quietly, hoping she wasn't mistaking the figure. "I-is that you?"

The flashlight swung in Hanyuu's direction upon her speaking and the Bride quickly lowered it so as to not blind the girl.

"Hanyuu," she said, breathing out a small sigh of relief. She issued a heavy smile. "I'm glad you made it here safely." She glanced back at her room, knowing Maki was in there waiting for whomever was coming by, but not wanting to talk about this out in the hallway. She was torn.

"Let's go just inside my room. Maki has someone coming to visit her for the night, so we can't stay long, but I don't want to be out in the hallway too long."

Hanyuu relaxed slightly once she saw it really was Arlene. Finding the woman had been the easy part, now came the more difficult part, at least in Hanyuu's mind.

Hanyuu nodded and managed a small smile. If it wasn't going to take too long, then maybe it wasn't anything too bad. Maybe it'd be okay, or at least as okay as things could be in this place. The spirit really didn't believe things would be that easy, but trying to have a little optimism couldn't hurt.

"If it's too much trouble, then... W-well, I mean, you've waited all day to tell me, so..." Now she was just stalling. Even if a part of her was trying to be optimistic about it, Hanyuu was almost afraid to find out what Arlene wanted to talk about. "...I don't want Maki to be mad." Again, she added silently, since she wasn't sure how the other woman felt after their last meeting.

Beatrix's expression turned to one of concern and she knelt down to be at Hanyuu's height so she wasn't towering over the girl. A hand went to rub the little one's shoulder.

"It's okay, honey. As long as Maki's friend isn't here yet, and he's not, it'll be okay."

"Oh. Then, good. Okay." Hanyuu nodded again and forced another quick smile. That hadn't worked as she'd hoped it would, and unless she wanted Arlene to figure out what she was up do, it was probably better if she simply went along. She didn't want to risk making Arlene upset with her.

"I guess we should talk before he does get here, huh?" That, and they probably needed to get out of the hall before the monsters started coming out.

She had the feeling Hanyuu had been trying to stall for some reason, but Beatrix didn't say anything. In the end, the girl had agreed and that's all that mattered. She ushered her just inside the room, the door still open, and knelt down again.

A quick glances was sent Maki's direction, and she talked quietly, returning her attention to the girl before her. "Hanyuu... honey... Mion and I went to find Rena last night. I'm sorry, but she's gone. I confirmed it with the nurses this morning; she's been 'discharged'."

It was clear on her face how much this news bothered the Bride. She had liked Rena and, in a way, she felt like she'd failed the red-head. She'd told the girls she would get them back to Hinamizawa and yet, she'd lost one. The 'discharged' part angered her that the staff would pretend that the girl had simply 'gotten better'. One more reason to kill Martin Landel.

Gone. Hanyuu inhaled sharply at that word, her eyes widening. No... Arlene had to be wrong--it had to be a mistake! Rena couldn't be gone, she couldn't be... like Rika...

But, no... it wasn't a mistake, was it? Hanyuu trusted Arlene enough to believe that she would say something like that only if she had checked and knew it to be true. And if even the nurses confirmed it...

"I-I see... Rena's..." She drew in a shuddering breath and dug her nails into her arms. Even now, after all this time, she couldn't bring herself to say the word aloud. "She shouldn't have... I... I didn't want..."

The spirit bowed her head. She'd known this was going to happen; once she finally accepted that Rika had disappeared, she knew it was only a matter of time before the others followed, but... That did little to ease the pain.

This time she felt it was okay. This time she didn't feel like she'd be treating Hanyuu as a child younger than she really was. And this time... she kind of wanted a hug too. Beatrix reached out to gently Hanyuu into a hug. She wasn't going to force it, so the girl could easily shrug the Bride's hands off her shoulders if she wanted to.

"I'm sorry... I couldn't protect her," she whispered. "I'm so sorry..."

The sound of an unfamiliar voice was what woke Ayumu from a sleep she didn't remember entering, and before the last strange crackling noise faded she was out of the bed and trying to determine the situation. The last thing she recalled was speaking to Tetsunosuke on her way out of the compound, and then - nothing. And now here she was in an unfamiliar, dark room, with no idea of how she'd arrived there or even where it was.

Not-knowing was something that made her very, very uncomfortable.

Her normal clothing was gone, replaced by something odd and Western in style, and accordingly none of her usual equipment was still on her person. Even her fingernails had been trimmed, she was rather displeased to discover, as well as disturbed that someone had gone to that much trouble when they'd presumably imprisoned her here. However that had happened, and whoever had done it.

One might think she would have remembered it if she'd been caught and captured by the Choushuu, but stranger things could happen, she supposed. Right now, though, the immediate problem wasn't how she got there but what she was going to do now.

The place was dark, but Ayumu would hardly be a credit to her training if she couldn't deal with that. She found the door first, somewhat surprised to find it unlocked, though outside was only more darkness and the faint sounds of voices too indistinct to be made out. It seemed calm for the moment, at least, so she had time to examine her current surroundings.

A search of the room revealed identical beds, desks, and closets on either side, with a chest of drawers in between. Several of the items she found she left where they were, unable to identify some and uninterested in others, but the bundle of sticks made of strange material she pulled from a desk drawer and kept. After distributing several of them in various places under her clothing, she donned the oversized coast found in one of the closets to hide the annoying bulges some of them left. This clothing, whatever it was, was certainly not suitable at all.

Now prepared as best as she could be, Ayumu slipped out the door and down the hall, careful to stay silent as she headed in the direction of where she could hear other people. This place certainly didn't seem like any part of Kyoto she had ever seen before, but where and what it was, she intended to find out.

[going here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/486080.html?thread=39683776#t39683776)]

Hanyuu didn't resist, she accepted the embrace and returned it. It was still surprising how something so simply could bring even a little bit of comfort, but she wasn't going to try questioning that right now. At the moment, she was trying to keep her emotions in check, not wanting to repeat what had happened during the visit into town again so soon.

Hearing Arlene apologize was painful in its own way too. There wasn't really anything she could've done to stop it, and it certainly wasn't her fault that they'd gotten mixed up in this game with Fate.

"Please don't... Arlene, it... Y-you didn't do anything wrong. No one could've stopped it. There's nothing... anyone can do..." The odds had never been in their favor--even in Hinamizawa--but here that was even more obvious. "It was going to happen, s-so please... Don't blame yourself."

It was going to happen again, too. Hanyuu didn't know who would be the next to go, or when it would happen, but it had already started. The cycle was finally coming to an end, and nobody could do anything to stop it.

Beatrix held Hanyuu tight, a part of her wishing she was holding her daughter instead but glad she could give Hanyuu some comfort, as little as it was, and receive some back. The girl's words, though, were troubling. Hanyuu sounded so... dejected. Like she was giving up.

The Bride could not let that happen and she was not going to let Hanyuu absolve her from any responsibility. She pulled back, keeping the girl at arms length and met the girl's eyes, her own a little misty. "No, Hanyuu. There had to have been something I could have done. There's always something that could be done. We can't give up, honey," she said. "Giving up means that Martin Landel wins. We can't let him win."

It was the same routine that she'd practiced numerous times before; she knew it frontwards and backwards, and yet tonight it was proving to be much more difficult. Kimberly knew what the reason for that was--she'd been doing nothing but training and fighting lately, after all. Even athletes needed breaks now and then, but she was determined to perfect this routine. It wasn't as though she could tell Coach Schmidt the reason she'd needed to run out in the middle of practice, so she needed to show him that she was serious about her training.

Unfortunately, as she quickly discovered, having the determination and drive to do something didn't always mean it would work. Kimberly fought to regain her balance, but she was just too tired. Her reflexes weren't as quick as they'd normally be and almost before she could comprehend the fact that she was falling, everything went black.

The Pink Ranger wasn't sure how much time had passed, but it was a pounding headache that woke her up. With a groan, she reached up to rub her head and it was only after a few minutes that she managed to open her eyes.

Opening her eyes didn’t make much of a difference, though; the room was pitch black. That certainly wasn’t right... Kimberly frowned as she sat up, ignoring the headache as she tried to look at her surroundings.

She could already tell she wasn’t at the Youth Center anymore; the fact that she’d woken up on a bed rather than the mats told her that much. It was possible that Tommy or Ernie had come back to check on her, but then where were they? And that still didn’t answer where she was.

Well, if all else failed, ask Zordon.

“Hey, Zor...” The name trailed off as Kimberly realized her communicator was missing. As if things weren’t strange enough... She wasted no time in throwing back the covers and searching the bed for the small device. When that failed to turn up anything other than a flashlight, she checked under the bed then sighed when that failed too.

Great... She was in an unknown place, armed only with a flashlight, and her communicator was missing. Well, she doubted she’d learn anything just standing around. If Rita and Zedd were somehow behind this, then she needed to find a way to contact the rest of the team.

Moving to the door, she was surprised to find it unlocked. It opened into a hallway so, after taking a moment to prepare herself, the Pink Ranger slipped outside and moved down the hall.

If anyone were to ask, Mitsuru would have to tell them that she was probably ready to face most things that came her way. Already, she had she had lost several people in her life, and faced monsters more terrible than any that most of the world knew of. She led a team of her fellow students against those monsters, and anyone would have called them crazy if they knew how they fought them.

She knew that there were still things that she was unprepared for, and simple things that she was unfamiliar with given her upbringing. However, nothing could prepare her for waking in a strange bed to a crackle of static and a voice over what sounded like an intercom, and Mitsuru fought down the panic that rose within her as she tried to figure out just what was going on. She had been on vacation. She'd been in Kyoto with the rest of her school, sleeping in the hotel with all the others. She had been with the rest of S.E.E.S., save for Amada and Koromaru, and none of them were in the room with her. So where was she now, how had she gotten here, and where was everybody else?

It couldn't be Strega. They wouldn't dare try another kidnapping plot while everyone was together, and she doubted that they even knew or cared that S.E.E.S. was on vacation. Besides, the last time they had attempted a kidnapping, it had let to S.E.E.S.' own capture of Chidori. If she thought about it carefully, it was almost as though this were another Shadow's attempts to deceive them, but again she was forced to wonder why this had occurred during the Kyoto trip. Besides, they had defeated all the powerful shadows, so it was unlikely. Then there was the matter of the voice over the intercom...

Everything added up to equal nothing.

Either way, she wouldn't figure out anything lying in bed, wondering just who would come through the door. It sounded as though the door had unlocked, but the room still appeared empty for the time being, even though there were two beds, so it would be worth her while to take advantage of that. Without another moment's hesitation, Mitsuru was out of bed and taking another look around. She initially noted with slight disgust that the outfit she was wearing was far from something she would normally wear, but at least 'they' (whoever they were) had thought enough to give her clothing, so she couldn't really complain.

In addition, the room had the look of a hospital. Not a normal hospital, though, a specialty kind of some sort. The lack of equipment told her that it wasn't an emergency of some sort, and the layout seemed more like something suited to a rehabilitation clinic. They certainly hadn't had anything like this in Kyoto, to her knowledge. Did the company even know she was here?

She looked quickly through the desk, taking the journal and one of the pens before heading to the door and opening it. Mitsuru hadn't expected it to be just as dark as the room. It seemed almost like...

...Almost like Tartarus and the Dark Hour.

But if that were the case, the intercom should not have been working unless it had been modified specifically for this purpose. And if that were the case, then it would be dangerous to leave, even though she needed to in order to discover just where she was. Not to mention, those few dots of light that she saw floating about wouldn't be working. Flashlights wouldn't work at all during the--

Wait, this couldn't be the Dark Hour, could it? Not if flashlights were working. For that matter, where had the flashlights come from? If this was a rehabilitation clinic of any sort, would they really have provided them, just in case? Doubtful, but people had them, regardless. Otherwise, these were just shadows, and she refused to accept that she was suddenly back on Port Island or that the shadows had extended their reach.

Suddenly, things seemed a bit less dangerous to Mitsuru, and she turned back to her room. After several long moments of searching, she finally pulled the flashlight out from under her pillow victoriously and flicked it on before heading out into the hall.

They had taken her weapon and Evoker, but she could hit things with her flashlight, kick, or even stab with the pen if she really needed to. But she needed more information, and thought it well worth the potential risk. She simply had to figure out what was going on.

Elle was fumbling with her sling, trying to put it back on, when night fell. As soon as she'd managed to get it back in place, she generated a ball of electricity to see by and headed for the door. Her hand fell on the doorknob, and she sent some of the electricity into the metal, warming it up as much as she could. A nasty little surprise for Lia, when she decided to leave, and one that she could pass off as an accident later.

She slammed the door hard on her way out, because she needed to take her frustration out, and Daddy would be upset if she took it out on a person.

[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/486650.html?thread=39708154#t39708154)]

The silence was excruciating. She liked silence, and sterility; the impregnable exactitude of a moment without beginning, without ending, alone with her thoughts and a neat, organized array of bones. But this silence was impossible to bear. Of course, it ended. It must have ended. She remembered the feel of the wires in her hands and the way every breath tore at her lungs, the smell of three thousand dollar perfume, and that ridiculous belt buckle Booth had been wearing yesterday practically burned into her retinas (although she couldn’t think why that was the one image she recalled). But all those things were gone now.

Such anomalous sensations, but it’s strange what you think about right before you die.

And then the silence too was gone, and she was reaching up, like moving through solid rock, scrambling against gravity and straining upwards to find his hand. Maybe (just maybe) Hodgins was right. Maybe she had faith in Booth, but more likely she’d simply analyzed the facts and come to the logical conclusion that he’d be there, waiting.

But he wasn’t. Her hand never found his.

Brennan sat bolt upright, gasping for air, every breath still searing as her erythrocytes struggled to make the gas exchange between carbon dioxide and oxygen. The endotracheal surface must be scored with dust particles, which was why it was so difficult to breathe.

Oxygen. There was so much oxygen. She wasn’t in the car any longer. Impossible. How could she not remember anything after setting off her makeshift bomb? Retrograde amnesia was a common symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, but she’d been in highly stressful situations (as stressful as being buried alive?) and had never experienced memory loss.

Easy, Brennan. Think. You’re not in the car, so where are you? It was a bed; that was certain. And she was clean and wearing what felt like pajamas. A hospital bed? No, the room was pitch black. Hospitals always kept a light on. Groping around, Brennan quickly discovered a flashlight lying under her pillow.

This definitely wasn't a hospital, she decided, shining the flashlight around. No heart rate monitor, no oxygen tanks, no nurses, no…

No Booth.

Admit it, you expected to find him here, waiting next to you for you to wake up, she thought. Obviously, something was wrong, because she knew her partner. He was the kind of guy who would beat a whole platoon of doctors up rather than let her wake up alone in a strange room after an ordeal. He was irrational like that.

So not a hospital. A prison? No, those were equipped only with the barest necessities. This room not only had a bed, but a nightstand, desk, chair, and closet as well.

A quick test of motor functions proved that she was quite healthy. Possibly too healthy for someone who had just spent thirteen hours underground, but she wasn’t about to look an equus caballus in the mouth if it meant she could get up and examine her surroundings more carefully.

An examination of the furniture turned up a journal, a set of pens, an empty key ring, and two pairs of batteries. And more of the same grey pajamas she was wearing were hung up in the closet. One set of slippers, one set of what she could only describe as… outdoor slippers. A painfully imprecise term of which she did not approve, but she couldn’t think of any other way to evaluate the shoes.

What did all these things add up to? They wanted her to write in the journal, obviously, but for what purpose? Anthropologically speaking, journal keeping was a way to record the present and preserve the past. Journals could also be utilized in the comprehension of voluminous data in a formal setting, but Brennan suspected she hadn’t been brought here to be lectured.

As for the outfits: forcing someone to wear a uniform was generally a way of suppressing individuality, either as a method of crushing the spirit or simply keeping rowdy children in line. In the case of prisons, they gave everyone generic clothes to aid in identification should an inmate escape, and hospitals provided gowns for comfort and easy access. Since she wasn’t wearing a hospital gown, had never heard of a prison that put smiley faces on its uniforms, and was no longer in grade school, she was leaning towards the “suppress individuality as a method of crushing the spirit” explanation. A fake prison, then. An unsanctioned one, or one sanctioned by an incredibly corrupt government.

The flashlight could indicate a desire on her captor’s apart (no, not captors – that was jumping to a conclusion, this could be some kind of… specialized hospital…) that she leave the room after dark without the supervision of someone with their own light. Or they expected her to write in her journal after dark, but there were no floor or desk lamps, so that seemed unlikely.

Well, might as well see where the door led. Bracing herself in case an attack came, Brennan opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.

Once the dinner trays had been taken away, Michiru gathered the borrowed pipe and her flashlight, placing them next to her on the bed. It was a little risky to have them out so early, but she wanted to be ready to go as soon as the doors opened. If a nurse happened by, she could easily shove both items under the pillow. There had been none that stopped by after the trays were taken on the previous night, though.

And much to Michiru's relief, there were none that came by this time. Once the doors were unlocked, the senshi grabbed her items and bid her roommate goodbye as she hurried out the door.

The hallway was dark like before, but Michiru resisted the urge to turn on her flashlight. They only lasted so long, and from what she could tell on the bulletin board, it was a pain to find more batteries. For the moment, she was only following the corridor to its end. She wouldn't need it until later, if she and Seiya ran into something unpleasant.

[To here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/486080.html?thread=39801280#t39801280).]

In retrospect, the heat of the doorknob should probably have been evident before Lia touched it. She wasn't anticipating it, wasn't paying attention to such minute cues, and so she'd grasped it before she noticed. She hissed a soft Nehelese curse and jerked her hand back, waving it as though to cool her singed fingers as she glared at the door. And wished it was a person. After a few seconds thought, she lit upon a solution to the small problem, and wrapped the tail of her coat around the knob to open the door and let herself out into the hall.

If this had happened earlier, Hanyuu might've felt guilty about saying what she had, but she was becoming tired. Having to watch her words and pretend that things were okay even when they weren't, it was a difficult facade to keep up. And, since things were coming to their inevitable end, perhaps it was something that others finally deserved to know.

"He's already won! Dr. Landel, the gods, Fate--they've all already won. Rika and Rena are already gone and pretty soon you, me, Archer, and everyone else in this place are going to follow. I... I don't know when or how, but it's already been decided." The spirit shook her head and looked away, unable to continue looking at the woman. "There isn't any point to continue fighting for a future we will never have."

Before she realized it, The Bride grabbed Hanyuu's chin firmly to force the girl to look at her. "He has not won yet. You still breathe - I still breathe. We still bleed," she hissed. "Why are you condemning us to death? Fate means nothing - the future is not set in stone."

[Oh, this is going to get ugly. I apologize now.]

Nightshift 36: F31-40 Hallway

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In F33 now

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F34

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