damned_institute | Day 43: Chapel

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Day 43: Chapel

And just like that, the disorienting feeling of blacking out just to wake up in an unfamiliar bed came again. Alkaid had wondered if it would - everything about last night had been different, all the way from the zombies to the eerie emptiness of the Institute to the strange broadcast at the end of the night. Had the Head Doctor been shot? Damn, someone had gotten to it before her. And who was the voice at the end there? It was like she'd been allowed access to some kind of strange mystery that she could not understand, one that had been going on for a long time before she had arrived and would be going on for quite a while in the future, after she was gone. Had these strange sets of circumstances been bugs in this place's programming? Who could say?

The morning's intercom greeting was strange, as well. Federal training whatsit? It didn't seem like this happened very often, from the sound of it, but so much had happened since the last day she remembered that the former Demon Palace Emperor was ready to take pretty much anything at face value.

The room she woke up in was still empty. Wondering where to stick the half-cracked bat that she'd picked up last night, she shoved it under the mattress hastily when she heard footsteps in the hall.

The stupid nurse was the same as ever, though. Some things never changed. "Ahh, good morning, Eileen. It's so nice to see you awake."

Alkaid rolled her eyes at the nurse's chuckle, and shook her head. She didn't care that the NPC thought it was nice, she just wanted to see the rest of the institute already.. see what had changed! "Yeah, it's fantastic. Whatever! Just take me where I'm going and be done with it!"

It was just then that she realized that she was not wanting to devour the flesh of the nurse in front of her. And that the pain on her arm had kind of abated - she couldn't see through the thick bandages they had covered her arm with, but she wondered if her skin was still rotting off like a zombie. Had they somehow cured her infection overnight? Or was the nurse not human, like Alkaid had always thought?

There was only one thing for it: she had to go somewhere else.

"Chapel, sun room, or cafeteria, then?"

"Does it look like I care?"

The nurse sighed, then started walking Alkaid down the hall, up the stairs, and down another hall to the chapel. No one here yet, huh? That was weird. She couldn't imagine that no one else'd show up, but who could say? This place had been turned on its ass.

The chapel was empty so far, and kind of nondescript. She shooed the nurse away, and stood in the middle of the space between the pews, standing akimbo. What would happen today? What would she learn about herself... her situation? How long had she been sleeping? Was she really still going freaking undead, or had that been somehow taken care of?

All this would come to light really soon. She hoped. Geez, too many mysteries!!

[unwittingly awaiting Haseo]

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He'd done it. He'd almost told Soubi to go after Kio and leave him and Miku and Sousuke behind. He knew in his heart that Kio was important to Soubi because he was actually important, and that Ritsuka was merely his Sacrifice, but that didn't exactly make things any easier to say. Then, just before he could get the words out, the curtain descended and Ritsuka found himself waking up in the Institute again. The sound of dead moaning and the smell of burnt, rotting flesh - all of it was gone.

Now it was just silence. Eerie silence.

Ritsuka sat up in bed, staring down at his hands and then clenched them. The memories of the night before flooded back and he closed his eyes, hunching his knees to his chest as he tried to block the images out. Blackened bodies. Fire. Blood. Pain and death and so many rotten--

Photographs. Soubi had photographs. Miku had been scared. Sousuke was fishing about for things to use in their defense. There. He was calmer now.

Lowering his hands, Ritsuka took a deep breath and slid out of bed. He had apparently overslept because his roommate was gone and his nurse was at the door the moment his feet touched the ground, shuffling him out to 'greet the day' as she put it. Ritsuka felt sick and didn't want to do anything but find his friends. Unfortunately, he wasn't given that opportunity. Instead, he was herded upstairs and then taken into a chapel where his nurse promptly shoved him toward the front and told him to enjoy the morning.

Ritsuka didn't particularly feel like doing anything but sitting down, and so he did, not noticing that there was someone nearby until it was too late. The girl didn't seem much older than him, but he could tell she was a bit taller. And she was staring at the altar with a strange look in her eyes, one that reminded him far too much of his mother when she was hollowed out inside. "...hey, you alright?"

There was a lot to think about. The weird intercom conversation people were talking about, the talk about some infection the zombies were spreading, the disappearance of the Commandant... Anise was so wrapped up in it all that she didn't notice when somebody sat next to her.

The moment the boy spoke, she seemed to jolt back to life, whipping her head around to look. "I-I'm fine!" The words flew out of her mouth automatically in response to the question. It wasn't until after she answered that she saw who she was talking to: a young kid, maybe even younger than she was. But even if he was a kid, he probably wouldn't have found a jumpy response like that too convincing, she realized.

After a moment, the girl laughed awkwardly, and smiled at him. "Um, sorry. Guess I spaced out there, eheh." It was probably for the best that he interrupted her thoughts. She wasn't really getting anywhere with them. "It's pretty hard to be all right after what happened last night, but... I'm doing okay, all things considered!" Her smile brightened, but she paused for a few moments, looking the kid over thoughtfully. "What about you?"

The girl jumped and Ritsuka tried not to do the same when she whipped around to look at him. Her answer was definitely automatic and insincere, but he figured it was just because she had been startled. The laughter and the smile didn't help any though and Ritsuka didn't return the gesture, merely watching her with his usual detached expression. Spacing out was one thing, but she was definitely thinking on something. He didn't want to pry and he wasn't sure he should anyway, so he let the subject go.

Doing okay all things considered still said a lot and Ritsuka shrugged. "Yeah, guess so. I didn't get eaten." His arms still ached, but the wounds from two nights ago were healing up and by tonight or tomorrow he'd be fine. The bandages had been removed at least, leaving him with dark lines running up and down his arms where thin scabs were covering the cuts. More than that though was the worry about everyone. He'd seen that Kio was okay, but Miku wasn't - not with Sousuke gone. "...Relatively okay, I guess. Anyway, what's your name? Sorry that my nurses shoved me over here when you were busy thinking."

Relatively okay? Anise supposed that was about as good as anyone could hope to be, after a night like that. The kid was looking better than she expected for someone his age - assuming she was guessing his age right. It was pretty rare to see people who looked younger than she did. That was a good thing, though.

"It's Anise!" the girl replied cheerfully, turning her body to face the kid properly. "What's yours? Oh, and don't worry about that! I'd rather be chatting with someone than wasting the whole shift thinking about stuff that can't be changed." She said it rather bluntly, fully aware that what she had been doing was completely useless. Dwelling on recent events wasn't going to help anything. It was just hard to help it sometimes.

Anise. Interesting name, like the spice or the plant. He liked it, even if licorice and fennel didn't seem to suit this girl. She couldn't be much older than he was, but she certainly had a young personality. As she turned to face him, Ritsuka shifted in his seat slightly to do the same. "Ritsuka. Aoyagi Ritsuka."

He wished he could stop thinking about things that couldn't be changed. With Sousuke missing, Miku was alone again and that, he knew, wasn't going to settle well. He'd have to find her as the day wore on, and perhaps find a way to her when the night came. Even if Soubi wasn't with him, he would do what he could to protect her. She may have been older, but she seemed so fragile compared to Ritsuka. "I guess it's better not to dwell, but what were you thinking about so seriously anyway? Two heads can be better than one at least."

Another one of those weird backwards names. Maybe he was from Earth? Most people Anise knew with names like those were from there, so it seemed like a good bet.

"Um... everything, I guess," she replied with a somewhat sheepish grin. There were too many things on her mind to pick just one to focus on. "Like what happened last night, and all the things people are talking about on the bulletin, and that weird voice on the intercom this morning..." She stopped herself before she went on for too long, and sighed. "It kinda feels like a lot's suddenly changed here."

If something really had happened to the Head Doctor, then maybe whatever weird stuff happened was a good thing. But Anise knew they couldn't expect to be lucky enough to be rid of their one biggest enemy that easily. He was probably going to be back on the intercom later that day, laughing his stupid laugh and taunting everyone like the bastard he was.

[sorry for the delay! I was gone all day today. DX Would you like to backthread any or just leave it as is?]

Weird voice...? Ritsuka vaguely recalled not hearing the Doctor's voice over the intercom that morning, but he didn't remember any weird voice. He'd slept in though, so maybe that would explain it. But something definitely had happened and it seemed like he'd missed out. "Changed? Changed how?"

He hated not knowing and asking Anise would be faster than checking through the myriad of notes plastered helter-skelter over the bulletin. At the very least he'd have an idea of what to look for. Some days he just didn't feel like sifting through the seemingly millions of notes on there, looking for the one that might pertain to him. He liked reading, but even he had limits. "I heard people talking about something happening here last night, but I didn't hear what. Do you know?"

[I'm cool with wrapping things up a bit!]

"You don't know?" Anise looked surprised for a moment, then realized what a mess the bulletin was. It was probably hard to find the important messages among the sea of check-up posts. Anise tried to read everything on the board, but she supposed some people might skim past the good stuff by accident.

"There was a weird conversation on the intercom last night. Somebody posted a transcript of it on the board somewhere. It sounded like somebody confronted the Head Doctor... and maybe hurt him, too," she explained in a whisper. If it was true, then that was good news, probably. That bastard deserved whatever he got. "People are saying it was that radio man who did it. You know, the one who died?" She studied the kid's expression, wondering if he really did know. How long had he been at the institute, anyway? If he was a new patient, that bit would probably just fly over his head.

Anise sighed, crossing her arms as she thought hard about the events. "And then the Head Doctor didn't show up for morning announcements today... And the Head Nurse didn't do them, either. It's weird, right?"

As expected, Anise looked surprised to hear that Ritsuka didn't know. Ritsuka himself was pretty damn surprised about it, too. Turning his face away, he picked at the loose fabric of his sweatpants and shook his head. "I slept in this morning and missed the announcement."

At least she was willing to explain though. Ritsuka's hands stilled as Anise filled him in, giving him a better idea about what people were whispering about. Someone had hurt the Head Doctor? And it was the dead guy? Ritsuka was absolutely certain that man had died. People had talked about it, confirmed it all, and yet last night with the dead rising from their graves like they had been, why was it so impossible to believe that the radio man couldn't do it too? Furrowing his brow as he thought over this particular piece of information, Ritsuka had to wonder if the radio man didn't have something to do with the raising of the dead. What if it was his fault?

"Yeah...but if the radio man came back and got the Head Doctor, who's to say he didn't up and get the nurse, too?" Not the happiest of thoughts, but that was certainly a possibility. The Head Nurse transformed at night, too, just like everyone else. And if the radio man had gotten through to Martin Landel, then he'd probably gone through the lady to get to him. "...It's possible, at least."

"...Yeah, it's possible," Anise agreed after a pause. There was probably a lot that went on in the institute that didn't make it to the intercom broadcasts. There were some other possibilities, like that she was busy doing damage control, or that the whole thing was a lie. "But that new voice that did the announcements this morning was really weird. It sounded kind of unnatural, like..."

Hello, ! This is I.R.I.S. again, hoping that all of our guests are finding our facilities adequate during your tour...

The intercom came on as she was searching for the words to describe it, and with a glance up at a speaker, Anise just finished her thought with, "...like that."

Anise was sort of surprised to hear I.R.I.S. again. She half-expected the Head Doctor to be back by now. If there was anything she learned from fighting the Six God-Generals and the Commandant, it was that powerful enemies didn't die easily. And sometimes dying wasn't even enough to make them stop. She didn't have high hopes about Landel being gone.

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Day 43: Chapel

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