Day 44: breakfast

[thatdamnedninja.livejournal.com]

Yuffie had died.

No, really. Seriously. She had actually died. Bleeding all over the place, making a horrid, sticky mess and scaring the hell out of Suzaku; she remembered it clearly. Kind of. Sort of. Through the blood loss, the pain, and the visions. Through Aerith's voice whispering in her ear, Cloud's stricken eyes, and her own panic. As bad nights went, it had been Bad, capital B and all the trimmings, and oh, god. She sat, trembling on the edge of her bed, eyes closed and hands pressed hard over her racing heart. The by-play between Landel—Landel!—and Lydia barely even sunk in. There was nothing in the whole world, any world, that could prepare you for something like…

Had it all been some kind of hallucination?

Had she imagined the whole thing?

No… She didn't think so. Nightmarish or not, Yuffie knew reality. But if it had been real, how was she alive now? That kind of pain wasn't something you could just cook up, was it? She thought about it all the way to the cafeteria, drifting behind her nurse without focus or intent. Maybe if she tried to stay clinical, tried to step back… But she'd never been good at that when things got personal. And every time she closed her eyes or blinked, she swore that the scenes played back to her, like an overused commercial on a crappy channel on a crappy TV, in a run-down dump of an inn that smelled like mothballs and yesterday's breakfast.

The scent of blood and damp, rotted wood clogged her nose. Disgusted, Yuffie shoved her bowl of cereal—handed to her by a clucking Plucky—off to the side so that she could melt into her chair, palm heels scrubbing against her eyes. Too much. This was… Too much. She couldn't even paste a plastic smile on her face to make herself feel better. Her usual shield, the white noise of inane babble that could filter out almost any crisis, was in tatters all around her. Five minutes, she gave herself.

Five minutes (not) to think, five minutes to get her act together, because there was no way she could let herself shatter here. No way…

[Closed to Sheena]

Comments

[whiny-egomaniac.livejournal.com]

So, the doctor had returned.

From the sounds of the intercom message - murky as they were as Starscream's processors slowly booted up for the day's activities - Landel seemed distraught over the... interruptions from the past few days (no doubt referring at least to that mechanical voice that took over the previous night, among other things). More than that, however... judging from the alarm in the voice of the female flesh-creature, he was injured, and perhaps seriously. Doubtless he would recover, of course, but it meant that he wasn't invincible. There was at least SOMETHING in this place, this world, that could bring him down. And Starscream was all the more eager to find out what that was.

Sliding down the front of the fuel serving windows, he groaned internally at the selection before him; those puffy pieces of processed flour, served with powdered sugar and processed sap from one of their "maple" trees. Starscream ignored the entrée in favor of some of the sides; he took a few servings of bacon and ham, plus some strawberries and blueberries and a couple of bottles of water. This time, he chose a seat relatively close to the other patients, intending to hear if any of them might know of what happened to the doctor. Sadly, the din from multiple conversations made eavesdropping particularly difficult, so he resigned himself to writing in his notebook, jotting down the events of the previous night as he ate.

[hailmegatron.livejournal.com]

Lugnut had fallen into a fitful, unsettled recharge, too tired to go out as he had intended, too distracted to rest properly.

Blitzwing was...

Lugnut didn't know what Blitzwing was, except his wingmate, except someone who would not leave if Lugnut was not at his side. But Blitzwing was... gone. Offline, probably, and though death did not chill Lugnut, the loss of Bli-- a wingmate was not something he was exactly happy about.

In fact, he looked downright morose as he trudged behind a nurse to breakfast, blankly accepting a tray and standing dully still for a moment before moving to sit at a tab--

Starscream. The traitor.

He growled, a spark of anger in his eyes, and stalked over to Starscream, dropping his tray at the end of the table so both his hands were free when he loomed behind the bot and growled, "Traitor."

Killing the blasphemer would make him feel much, much better, but he could settle for terrifying him.

[icy-demise.livejournal.com]

[Free, limit two]

It wasn't much of a stretch to say that SubZero was always ready to kill someone. That was just part of being a warrior of the Lin Kuei. This was one of the rare occasions when he woke up wanting to murder someone, though. He was still absolutely furious after the previous night. If it wouldn't have required an even worse delay to the mission, SubZero would've informed Arlene and HK that he had a score to settle.

In a much worse mood than usual, SubZero made his way into the cafeteria. HK was sitting by himself, but SubZero wasn't in the mood to put up with his complaining. Arlene looked like she was already going after one of the sources of their problems last night. Lockdown probably deserved whatever she did to him.

SubZero took a seat by himself and took out a little redirected anger on his breakfast. Maybe they would get lucky and the institute would decide to brainwash Venom and throw him in their path.

[number-crunch.livejournal.com]

Sho was in a foul mood when his nurse dragged him out of bed and to the cafeteria. Not only had he failed to crunch that attoliter psychic punk in a "duel", but he'd gotten his asymptote kicked by the masked monomial who interrupted them. So it was with a slam that he set down his heaping tray of food at the first empty spot he could find that wasn't directly adjacent to any small children. He was sick of small children, especially since he now had listings for Nanobrats 1 through 3.

Angrily stuffing French toast in his mouth, it wasn't until the mathematician tilted his head at an upwards angle to drink his juice that he even noticed the other person across from him and that they seemed only nominally less disgruntled than he felt. Gulping noisily, he swallowed his food before talking - a small mercy that was only by coincidence, not any form of learned manners.

"What's got your linear equations in a knot?" he asked with a surly look on his face, clearly upset that anyone in his immediate radius had the nerve to be angry when he was obviously far more wronged than them.

[tsunagari.livejournal.com]

Sai didn't hear the announcement, didn't hear his nurse as she shook him to wake him. He moved mechanically, rolling to the side to view his roommate's bed, free of blood and with no sign of his fellow ninja. He stood and followed his nurse without a word, not responding to her increasingly worried questions and stopping only in the sun room to check the bulletin.

Shikamaru might still be alive, Kakashi told him, and Sai regained some sense of himself - realized where he was and what he'd been doing. He asked the nurse for breakfast and she was at once all smiles. How tired he must have been, she said, for him to only be waking up now.

He took a while to find his seat once he had a tray, scanning the area for familiar faces. For one familiar face in particular. The ninja knew he couldn't continue to be this way.

[for Shikamaru]

[toobothersome.livejournal.com]

[sorry he's all hiding in a corner and such.]

Later, much later, Shikamaru would realize how strange it was that he didn't wake up with a start. Instead, awareness came slowly, so slowly that he might have have found it painful if everything hadn't felt so numb. After burying himself under the blanket he curled up, arms around his body and knees to his forehead, eyes closed. His body protested, muscle memory claiming that he was better at unfolding than folding, but he had no other option. Beneath the numbness but not quite an emotion, something close to panic forced him to hold himself as closely as possible. Hold on to anything he could. He barely recognized himself before a voice broke the necessary silence.

"Rise and shine!" Familiar. He knotted the blanket's fabric between his fingers, and when she tried to pull it away, he clung to it with as much strength as he could summon.

"I need more time," he said, though he managed to blink a few times. Through woven cotton the light was filtered white, sun behind an overcast sky. It was a good description: overcast. So many clouds that none were distinct, worse than a barren blue. Shikamaru wasn't sure if he had a headache. He wasn't sure about much.

"It's high time you got out of bed," she said, and with a more forceful yank, the blanket was jerked away. He covered his head and went through the pleas he'd used as a child: not yet, too sick, just a few more minutes. Reality was coming back slowly, and an irrational fear told him that if he moved too far or too quickly, the rest of himself might not find him.

So that was what dying felt like. And this was what life felt like, if one hadn't had sixteen years to adjust to it. It wasn't until she tried to pull on his arm that he sat up of his own volition, but the disorientation didn't pass. "You'll feel better once you get some food in you," she said. The idea of eating made him nauseous.

When she finally got him into the cafeteria and loaded a plate with food, Shikamaru sat as far away from the others as possible, eyes on the ground ahead of him. As much as he wanted to bury his head in his arms, he knew the nurse would protest. Instead, he pretended to focus on the food, pushing the syrup around with a plastic fork until he realized that his hands were trembling too much to properly hold any kind of utensil. Great. Just what a ninja needed. The lights were too bright and everything inside him was dull and unfinished, grey. Distantly, he knew that he should be glad to be alive, but he couldn't summon the energy to be glad about anything.

[bprd-fishman.livejournal.com]

Abe woke up with his hands curled around his stomach. It was her death, Abe was sure of it. He'd felt the knife, he'd felt Prince Nuada's rage and betrayal and the cracking of their bond for the first time in his/her life, he'd seen the blood and his own face and felt his hand pressed to his/her hand. All that he would have deserved for failing her and forcing her to free herself--and to save Hellboy, to save the world, to save a pathetic icthyo sapien who wasn't worthy of her love--the only way she could.

But the burst in his mind at the end, the fireworks and the warmth, the pain and the longing, the love which had no words in even the most ancient of languages because humanity could not experience anything as pure and hot as what passed between their minds in their final moments had made his heart surge with joy even as his hallucinated blood spilled out onto the bed. The seeing-feeling-knowing was beautiful beyond compare...it helped, a little, to know she had felt this before she died. Perhaps she had been happy.

I love you. I love you. I'm so sorry, princess.

Abe turned on his side and felt strange wetness at the edge of his eyes. For the second time in his life he was crying, feeling a horrifically powerful rush of emotion force its way through his chest through him like nothing ever had, overwhelming him until he was curled up tight with his hands pressed to his face and shaking with harsh sobs. He did not envy Demyx now...better that he could suffer, that someone would remember her and ache for her when no one else had. Abe would rather spend his whole life crying than forget how much he loved her.

The psychic was still wiping the ever-flowing tears from his eyes when the nurse came to bring him to breakfast.

"I'm not hungry. I feel sick," he said, rolling over and curling up righter. The nurse smiled patronizingly at him.

"Then some juice should help you perk right up, Mr. Caul. Come along now."

Abe rubbed his face into the sheets and dried it as best he could before unfolding and standing up again. "All right."

[For Kio]

HEY I FAIL :(

[stalksperverts.livejournal.com]

Plonk. Right into bed and waking up to the sound of Landel's... wait a minute. Landel? What the hell? He remembered the roof blowing to bits and now the Head Doctor was back? Well. He would see about this. Kio's hand automatically reached for his pocket, where the cigarette rested. He hastily jumped out of bed, only to see that Lockon was gone. Well, so much the better, it would only postpone the awkwardness of last night. He hid the cigarette in the drawer before waiting for his nurse to come and pick him up.

Had he really been here so long? A week? More than that? Really? The cafeteria was full, but he took a tray anyway and waited to see where he could find an empty space. There. The tall man looked so sad, it reminded Kio of Soubi. It radiated off him in waves, making him look aloof. Kio liked aloof.

"May I sit down?" He didn't dare assume anything. He'd seen nothing of the Bulletin and could not even begin to guess at what was actually happening. Or what had transpired for some during the long night.

[girlsandgadgets]

In bad news, it seemed that everyone had been rendered unconscious somehow and returned to their chambers when the morning came: Edgar didn't remember how- surely it was a sleeping spell of some sort. He couldn't, wouldn't put it past Kefka or any other maniacal sort of creature to use such trickery. It certainly did make it easier to transport unruly prisoners.

In good news, it seemed he'd somehow made it back with his new treasures- he found them in his closet upon waking. Allowing prisoners to keep their equipment was fairly charitable.

A woman had entered his room, and after a moment of ignoring his advances, she led him to the dining hall of the prison. The place had a very different atmosphere during the day: it was almost more suffocating than at night, as the nursemaids seemed to be watching from every corner, keeping tabs on all actions and conversations. The one escorting the machinist led him to an empty table (disappointing, as there were several ladies sitting alone at other tables), placing a tray of food before his seat and assuring she'd find him some company.

It seemed during the day, the man behind this place held all the cards.

[Free]

[madeinthehrl]

[can has an Edgar?]

The smell of blood was still in Soma's nostrils when she awoke, the acid coppery tang still clinging to the back of her throat. She tasted it every time she inhaled, but instead of hunger she only felt an overwhelming nausea. The bite was almost invisible on her skin now, and she clamped her hand over it, ignoring her protesting ribs.

What had happened last night was her fault, regardless of what she knew Senna and Meche would say. She should have known better than to approach them; she should have known better than to stay in the same room for that long. It hadn't just been the predator that had been howling for a fight last night. She knew that much. And now that she knew the effects of the bite would last, that they would return every night...

The duty of a soldier was to protect civilians. That was what the colonel had said. But he wasn't here to tell her what ought to happen if a soldier failed in her duties, because they had taken him, too, and she'd been powerless to stop it. She'd even considered leaving him here, assumed he might be happy living a false life under a false name. And she'd believed that, believed she could change and live a life she couldn't have and he didn't want. And even if she could have it, she didn't deserve it anymore.

It wasn't just her friends she'd failed yesterday.

When the nurse arrived, she followed silently. She accepted her tray expressionlessly and automatically set it aside, staring off into the distance, unaware of her surroundings.

[tostepforward.livejournal.com]

The night before had seemed too short, for the way it had been cut off before they'd managed to get very far in the detour - but at the same time had felt quite long, longer than night should have any right to be, after Okita had all but dragged her away from Himura and his friend. The revelations of the day before were still very much on her mind as she made her way to breakfast, but a brief stop at the bulletin board gave her a welcome puzzle with which to distract herself.

People had died last night, but returned? Judging from some of the responses on the board, it wasn't merely a figurative statement, either, which left her highly intrigued. Something like that simply wasn't possible, but this place seemed to fairly delight in making the impossible happen.

This would bear some looking into - as would the fact that Himura and her roommate were apparently going to be having lunch together. The topic of that conversation likely wouldn't be a good one for her, so she'd have to be on her guard come dinner. How delightful.

Still, despite the events of the night previous, she kept her "Sen" persona firmly in place as she entered the cafteria and scanned the room for familiar faces. (Were there more distraught-looking people than usual today? Unlikely, since that was a common state of being come morning, here.) Homura was fortunately occupied, as were most of the others already present.

Ayumu allowed the nurse to select some food for her, as usual, then made her way over to an empty seat with a good view of the rest of the room -- most especially the door -- and settled down to pick at her breakfast with a look of mild confusion at the strange food. There were still some she needed to account for, but otherwise her main plan for this shift was simply to watch and listen.

[free]

[promisedawhale.livejournal.com]

Brook was used to dreams. He had them frequently, especially when he went to sleep thinking on his companions of old. He couldn't recall having gone to bed - the noise of the intercom had left him a bit too scared to either head out for the night or hit the sack - however he must have done so. How else would he have relieved that fateful day when the Rumbar Pirates had met their end?

It had all felt so real, even down to the poison circulating further and further through his system until the life just couldn't stay with him anymore, but he'd awoken just as he always did, to find himself alone. He was no longer on the ship, of course, but the feeling was just the same as the years he'd spent there. Only now he had breakfast waiting, and he couldn't afford to let such things as dreams get to him!

With a cheerful laugh and a farewell greeting to his nurse, Brook scooped up his breakfast and looked around for anyone who looked either lonely or in need of cheering up! There was a particularly lonely looking woman sitting all to herself that caught his eye quickly, and Brook strolled right on over to her with, naturally, the best of intentions.

"Yohohohoho! Good morning young lady! Would you mind if I joined you this fine morning?!" he requested, giving a proper bow as he, surprisingly, awaited her response before setting his items down.

[runner-up-robot.livejournal.com]

Morning. Again. And again, he'd forgotten his injuries and tried to sit up. He wasn't sure if he was just deterred by the pain or if there was really something wrong with the muscles in his back, or front, or sides or whatever - it didn't matter, though, because soon the nurse came with a chair to roll him around like an exhibit. It was getting annoying being dependant on someone else to even move, or talk on the bulletin.

The last thing he remembered was being wheeled to his room the day before, but he'd been strangely tired - he took it as a sign that his body was healing, that it was using energy to repair itself, even though he had no idea if that was how that worked.

As he made his way to the cafeteria, he realized that he was leaving a different hallway than before. He asked his nurse to make a post on the board before breakfast, and also badgered her with questions.

"That's not the same room I usually wake up in. Why aren't I in 98?"

"Oh, someone else was moved into that room while you were recovering from your injuries. You're in M109 now."

"What about... the other guy... Harry?"

"Don't worry, he was released the same time you were injured, so the room was empty. Isn't that nice for him?"

Forte doubted that Harry had actually been 'released' but didn't argue. Finally, he reached the cafeteria. He refused to let her spoon-feed him like the day before, but she brought him a large cup of some kind of liquid. It was large enough to hold with his injured hand, and with an exasperated explanation, she told him how to drink it with a straw.

When she finally left, it was time to wait for someone to try to talk to him... hopefully, Sechs would find him.

[sixth-attack.livejournal.com]

It was just a monster... It wasn't supposed to be him. His nearly broken identity was still intact. Nothing to worry about... What a satisfying victory that was!

And yet... Why did Sechs still feel so damn awful?

The Replica got his answer as soon as his amber eyes fluttered open to find that he was once again back in his bed. Ah dammit... I'm still stuck in this stupid hell hole! And we didn't even get to look for Trunks... He figured there would have been enough time in the night for him and Kibitoshin to continue their search after the fight in the bathroom. Yet he couldn't recall leaving the bloody bathroom in the first place... This was really screwed up...

As Sechs gathered his thoughts and memories from the night before, his perplexed and tired brain was suddenly greeted by a rush of pain. His right arm was throbbing even more now but it was nothing compared to the wound in his right thigh. Despite feeling the texture of medical gauze wrapped around his leg, the torn muscles still pulsed with intense pain. Was he even going to be able to walk now?

Barely able to repress his pained grunts, Sechs struggled to sit himself up against the head board, only to find his battered arm and leg to be too stiff and painful to move much. Undeterred by this inconvenience, Sechs rolled himself off the bed and landed upon the floor in a tangle of bed sheets with a dull thud. After that it took what felt like hours for Sechs to painfully heave himself up to his feet and store his somewhat clean axe into the closet.

It wasn't long before a nurse carrying a pair of crutches entered the room and it took even less time for Sechs to start his usual snarling and yelling at his unlucky nurse.

"I don't need no STINK'EN crutches!!"

"But Mr. Sasaki! The injury you got by accident yesterday must still make walking for your difficult! You don't want to tear the stitches--"

"Accident?!" Sechs barged in with a scoff "no one just gets a BIG ASS piece of glass shoved in their leg while they're sleeping! How 'bout that explosion last night too?! Or that Landel guy? Did he come back from the dead as some zombie or something?!"

"Mr. Sasaki! You must have been dreaming!" The nurse admonished him, "there wasn't any sort of explosion last night! Dr. Landel and everything else is just fine! Perhaps you should talk about that dream to your therapist tomorrow-"

"Ah FORGET YOU!" Sechs snarled with a frustrated wave of his arms. "Geeze! I can walk on my own! Just gimme food and some pain killers!" With a growl Sechs turned his back to his nurse and began his painful limp down the hallway as he added, "and STOP calling me that DAMN name!"

By the time Sechs had dragged himself into the cafeteria and gathered his food, he was already scouring the area for any signs of purple hair. Whether it was Trunks or this Frank person, Sechs would pick out the first one he spotted. He wasn't in the grandest mood and wanted to sit down and take the weight off his leg as soon as possible.

Then he spotted a bandaged-up youth with long purple hair sitting in a wheelchair. Sechs limped towards the stranger so fast that his drink nearly toppled off his tray. He was real curious about this "Frank" but he was also anxious to sit down; his leg was killing him!

"You Frank?" Sechs brusquely asked once he had placed his tray on the table and heavily dropped himself onto his chair across from the stranger.

[heraldric.livejournal.com]

The usual weariness was still upon Leon in the morning, and he was lead like a zombie (ugh, unpleasant thought) toward the cafeteria by his nurse. Thankfully, he had enough sense about him not to allow her to just pile whatever onto his plate as she had a tendency to do. (Honestly, he wasn't exactly a big person. Stuffing him like that was going to make him "grow" in all the wrong ways.) He was hungry, but he was also picky. French toast was good, but fruit was also the way to go - along with two glasses of orange juice and some water.

His nurse carried to load to an empty table for him where he took a seat, heavily. He didn't know what had happened with the others last night. Hopefully Haseo had picked up his weapon, but if he hadn't that just meant it should still be in his room somewhere. He'd ask on the bulletin once he felt up to it. Right now there was nothing else to do but chow down.

[free]

[otnemememento.livejournal.com]

The nurse led Leonard into the Cafeteria, collecting some food for him on a tray as he read through his journal. Another day here- how long has it been? My notes are disorganized. I really need to sit down and go through everything. Put it in some sort of order.

He took a quick glance around the room, trying to spy any of the people from his photographs. He returned them to his pockets as the nurse handed him the tray, leading him toward an empty seat.

Once alone at the table, Leonard spread his notes and photographs before him, trying to make more sense of everything he'd written.

[Awaiting Joshua]

[4lulzngiggles.livejournal.com]

That was... a really, really difficult series of events to properly think through. Joshua remembered it all so vividly, with such crystal clarity that he could barely believe what had happened. So that was what Neku had felt when he'd finally realized everything that had happened to him. That was what it was like to die from an unexpected quarter... that was what Joshua looked like, when he was enacting one of his schemes.

Chilling, to see it from another person's eyes. And while the wounds were all gone now, he still felt the pain of that bullet ripping into him. The betrayal of it, the sudden shock, the pain... if he were a lesser person, Joshua could very well have been paralyzed by what he'd discovered.

But he wasn't. Instead of wasting time thinking about what had happened, he would focus on what he had to do. Time waited for no one, not even himself; that meant he had to work on his connections quickly. One such connection was Leonard Shelby, which Joshua walked up to with a quiet smile. The poor man looked terribly confused... understandably so, if what he claimed was true. "It looks like you've got quite the mess on your hands," he casually offered, "what did you have in mind with all of that?"

[remnantsofflame.livejournal.com]

Asch sat up and looked around. Visions of Van were finally fading. Of course Van hadn't been here last night. He hadn't been at the institute for days now. Asch knew that, but still, it had been...

The intercom came on, interrupting his thoughts. Was that the head doctor? So he wasn't dead. Of course he wasn't. Weird things had been going on, maybe outside of Landel's control, but the man himself was still there somewhere. He sounded a bit out of it, though. Something had obviously happened, but Asch had no idea what that something really could be.

The nurse inevitably came, inevitably called him Luke, and inevitably led him to the cafeteria. The routing was predictable for now, and Asch decided to live with that. He wasn't sure he liked the choice of food, but the nurse put some stuff on his plate and he took it. Mostly, he just wanted to get away from her; she got on his nerves pretty good.

He sat down at a table and poked at his food before taking a bite. Could have been worse, that was for sure.

[For Skuld]

[innovator-skuld.livejournal.com]

Skuld woke up curled in a ball under her blankets; she was really scared, and she wasn't even sure why. She could hear the intercom, but... she sat straight up when she remembered Landel hadn't been heard in a while, and they'd heard something like him being killed. Damn it all--why couldn't he at least have stayed dead?

She had no desire to get out of bed, but after some coaxing from her nurse, she went along. Not because of anything the woman said, but because she had things to do. Most importantly, talk to a few of the club leaders.

Problem was, she couldn't find any of them, since she only knew Hitsugaya... sighing, she took her tray and just sat down in the nearest open spot. Out of habit, she murmured, "Good morning."

[dualistic]

In the end, it had been a successful night. Extension cord might not work as well as rope, but it was going to have to as far as Harvey was concerned. (The real problem was that it wasn't as satisfying as tying someone up the old-fashioned way, but that was another story.) The man found himself waking up with the lengths of cord in his hands, and he was forced to hide those, his gun, and his metal pipe before a nurse came in or his roommate woke up.

It was only after those immediate concerns had been dealt with that Harvey realized that Rachel's voice was gone. He shouldn't have been so surprised, and yet part of him had been wondering if it was his own waning sanity that had been the cause of that, rather than anything the institute was doing. None of the people he had interacted with last night had showed any signs of similar problems.

He would get to the bottom of it. He was about at the end of his rope (no relevance to his current other project intended) and he needed to get some answers about what the hell the institute was doing and how. Humans coming back from the dead and taking bites out of people, hallucinations and mutated animals -- all of that he could at least handle to an extent.

But making him relive Rachel's death? He wasn't interested in playing nice anymore.

Not that he had been from the start, but Harvey felt himself holding on hard to his anger as his nurse led him toward the cafeteria for breakfast. He forced the woman to allow him to post something on the bulletin. He was sick of observing at this point, so he finally gave in and appealed to the rest of the patient body for information.

Then, into the cafeteria. At least last night's events had suppressed his appetite for now. He couldn't even think about eating at the moment.

It hadn't escaped his notice that Landel was back. Whether or not the man was behind that I.R.I.S. nonsense, he was still the one who had brought them here, and for that he was going to pay. Harvey's first priority was still to get out of this place, but he was starting to nurse a real grudge for the Head Doctor and whoever else was putting him through this hell.

He got a plate of food, not intending to eat it but figuring that it would keep the nurse from pestering him, and then took an empty seat, practically smoldering as he glanced over the other patients in the room.

[Free, no limits!]

[tightsofmight]

[This okay? :D]

He was...not...

It was difficult to think. Process it. His head was still fuzzy. It could have been an after effect of the needles, whatever chemicals or voodoo they had pumped into his brain after he'd been dragged upstairs last night. Or it could have been living out Harry's death. The first one. Getting his skull smashed in by the invisible Green Goblin. Feeling his nose crack, getting his whole head punched in. Like a wrecking ball to the face.

He flicked an eye over to Brainy's bed. The other boy was gone, as usual. He'd been then when it happened. He probably thought he was dead. Peter shivered. That made the second time he'd had to watch someone die. Clark was barely in the ground and now Peter had gone too. Or he should have been.

Why wasn't he dead?

Fuck. He hated this place. He hated it. He should be dead. Probably deserved it too, after what he'd done to the guys arm and beating up all those people. God, Kurt and Kitty. Everyone. Treating it like a damn joke, flipping around and punching innocent people, throwing them into walls and furniture, trashing the place. Dying was his cosmic punishment. Seeing first hand how it felt to be pummeled by someone much stronger than you, much faster, how it felt when the bones snapped and everything just -

Peter choked on the memory, turning his face into the wall and taking deep breaths. They weren't going to get him that way. If that's what this was, another game to get him back on his knees and sobbing like a girl, then they could forget it. He wasn't cheap entertainment. He wasn't. Even if he wanted to be sick right now, because everything about last night was twice as screwed up as the one before.

"Tyler, breakfast is waiting for you," The nurse called out, drawing back the sheets. "Up and at 'em."

Peter didn't turn to face her. "So. You guys learn anything?"

She froze at his tone, and he could feel her gaze on his back. "I beg your pardon?"

"Special Counseling," Peter spat. He rolled over and propped himself up on his elbows, glaring at her with a hatred reserved for people like Osborn and Octavius. "I was the guinea pig last night, remember? So what did you learn?"

"Tyler, that is not up for dis-"

"What did you learn?" he repeated. "Tell me. It must have been important, or you and your pals wouldn't have dragged me out of here with fifty gajillion sedatives on hand."

"Tyler-"

"Tell me!!" he shouted. "Why the fuck would you fucking brainwash me?! Why did you make me attack them, huh? What was so important about watching me beat the crap out of my friends that you-"

"That is enough!" She snatched him by the wrists, holding them high and far apart so it was impossible to wrench them away without hurting himself. Peter fought with her anyway. "Tyler, if you don't start acting your age this second, I will have you sedated. Is that clear? I won't tolerate any tantrums from you."

Infuriated as he was, Peter stilled, trying to breathe evenly through his nose. Willed himself not to hit her. He wanted to. There was nothing he would have liked more than to hit her, show her what they'd made him do to everyone that night, let her see what her and her doctors and their experiments were all about. Send her flying across the room.

He said nothing.

"Come on," She gave his arms a tug. "Up." He stood. "And I'm going to be keeping an eye on you all day long. No more of your shenanigans, or any of this brainwashing nonsense. I've been lenient with you so far, but I've had it up to here with your dramatics. You're not above solitary, young man. I will put you there if I have to. Do you understand?"

Peter gritted his teeth, but nodded.

"Good. Now come along and eat your breakfast. All of it."

"Yes ma'am," he growled. She shot him a look, but led him to the cafeteria, dumping as much food as she could fit on his tray and abandoning him to a table with an older man.

The bandages guy, Peter noted idly. He'd seen him around, he was hard to miss with his face half covered like that. But he had absolutely nothing to say to him. Peter stabbed his toast, pointedly ignoring the other man as he took a sour bite.

[host-club-honey.livejournal.com]

While some things last night had gone as planned; no one had been injured for instance, there was a lot that bothered him. The voices on the intercom were getting weirder every time he heard them, not to mention the overpowering scent of death that'd been almost everywhere last night. It made it really difficult to enjoy cake. Even Takashi had been rattled.

Honey put his things away before the nurse arrived and followed her tiredly to breakfast. It never felt like he got enough sleep here. Since there weren't any pancakes today, he just made sure to insist on plenty of syrup for his french toast and lots of strawberries to go on top. It wasn't cake, not by a long shot, but there was little use in getting upset at the nice nurses over that.

[Closed to Alfred]

[thebatbutler.livejournal.com]

Once he'd found the promised glitter Alfred prepared himself for the journey back to his assigned room. He'd opened the door leading back to the sun room... only to wake up back in his bed.

It was still rather disconcerting to suddenly find that he'd apparently been sleeping, but Alfred put on his slippers and slid two of the glitter jars into his pockets. He made sure that the thread and other glitter where out of sight when the nurse cheerfully burst into the room without so much as as knock.

"Well, good morning, Mr. Quartermain. I see that you've gotten yourself all ready for breakfast. Come along now."

Alfred followed her, silently contemplating the events of the previous night. The two bodies that he'd found in the arts and crafts room...

And then his nurse was shoving a tray filled with french toast and fruit into his arms and propelling him out into the cafeteria, urging him to make new friends. Alfred raised an eyebrow at her encouraging look before turning his attention to the people sitting at the tables. He was supposed to find someone named "Honey", who was probably a little girl, based on the description that had been given. Blond... with a pink rabbit.

Alfred started walking through the tables when he noticed a blond boy with a pink, stuffed rabbit sitting in his lap. "Excuse me, young sir?" Alfred set his tray down across from the boy. "Would you happen to be 'Honey'? I believe we spoke on the bulletin the other day."

[straydoghowl.livejournal.com]

[from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/721658.html?thread=58957306#t58957306)]

Haine followed behind his nurse, not knowing what else to do. He stayed a good few feet away from her, of course, not wanting to be too close. He was still highly on edge, and he felt like his nerves were on fire. What the fuck was this? How had he gotten here? And more importantly, how was he going to get out? He could probably just attack the nurse and get out.

But then he'd have to touch her. So that wasn't something he was itching to do. There were people here, apparently crazy people, and he didn't really want to hurt them without reason. Starting with the nurse might trigger something he'd be unable to fully control. The risk wasn't worth it yet. For now, he'd just have to go along with it. There'd be a chance, and he'd take it.

The nurse piled French toast on his plate and handed it to him. He stared at her across the tray, but made no move to take it from her. Not only did he not want to touch her, he didn't want to eat. Who the hell knew what kind of shit they put in that food?

Her plastic smile faded a little and she gave him some crap about needing to eat. He finally reached out and took the very corner of the tray. She let go almost immediately, and the tray wobbled. He caught it before the food could be all over the floor, although it was tempting just to let it fall and see what happened. The nurse seemed not to notice, of course, and her smile returned. She pointed to a nearby table and Haine turned toward it. Maybe she'd leave him alone if he went and sat down.

"Oh, Alex, that's right!" she said, just as he turned away from her. He looked back over his shoulder and noticed she was holding something. His sunglasses! What, how had she...?

He turned far enough for her to set them on the tray, though he was only half listening to her explanation about how his eyes were sensitive. Yeah, whatever, sure, long as he had his sunglasses, he could deal with that.

He finally sat down, and put the sunglasses on his face. They dimmed the lights enough that he could make his eyes focus better, and hopefully he'd avoid the headache that could come from sitting around in bright lights. The nurse seemed to fade into the background somewhere. At least she was gone.

Haine relaxed very slightly and looked down at his food. He poked it with his fork, but he sure as hell didn't have any intention of actually eating. Not until he knew for sure that nothing funny was going on, anyway.

[free, limit one plz]

[kagurazuki.livejournal.com]

Kagura was feeling a lot better after last night, though from the dismal atmosphere at breakfast, she might've been one of the only ones. The messages on the intercom had been strange, but the doctor was back to his usual antics come morning. She sighed. At least Bridget had seemed to be in better spirits.

The nurse led her to breakfast and helped her along. She couldn't understand why they seemed to eat so much bacon and sausage here. It smelled pretty good, but it was hard to stomach. Couldn't they ever have a normal breakfast here?

After picking up her tray, the nurse led her to a table, intending to make her play nice with strangers again apparently. She gave her nurse a worried look, but sat shyly at the table. This one didn't seem friendly at all! He was even wearing sunglasses first thing in the morning indoors! It was like a huge blinking sign that said 'stay the hell away.' Kagura swallowed nervously.

"Ruth, this is Alex. He's new here, so please be nice to him and help him make some friends, alright?"

Kagura nodded and waited for the nurse to leave before even attempting eye contact. When she spoke, it was hardly more than a whisper. "I... a-ah... My name is Kagura actually. I um.... it's very nice to meet you."

[thecamellia.livejournal.com]

_{[free, if any of the girls need a bathroom break]}

The morning went on without Tsubaki, who woke up wide-eyed and shuddering, donned in the soft greys of the Landel’s uniform with her hair feathered around her. Like it’d all been a dream. A terrible, terrible dream.

But it hadn’t been, and in a daze, she was led through the usual routine, a passenger in her own body. She hadn’t even thought to draw her hair up as she did every morning, and it stayed in a tumble around her shoulders as she stepped up to the bulletin board. There would be notes, she’d thought. There were every day. Maybe some thoughts, some explanations, maybe some word from her friends. Tsubaki scanned each message, absorbing everything, but with a numbness between her head and her heart that wouldn’t let her feel what she was reading. Not yet.

So people had experienced something, too, something that’d set off the furious tone on the board…

Died, because of…?

Tsubaki felt fine, no wounds, no voices or moans in her ears, no visions that danced in front of her eyes. She hadn’t died. She was perfectly healthy, warm again, and everything around her was noise and sunlight, standing in stark opposition to cold, slick darkness and the smell of camellias…

“Excuse me… I have to go to the bathroom,” she said weakly, and backed out of the cafeteria, back through the double doors, back through the Sun Room. She mumbled more ‘excuse me’s in cutting through throngs of prisoners, head down, until she was finally inside the bathroom and was pressing her back to the door. Silence greeted her. There was no one there but her.

Then she broke.

Whooping for breath like she hadn’t breathed in a million years, Tsubaki stumbled to a sink, clutching the counter with white-knuckled fingers. In the mirror, she was fine. A smiley face sat where before blood had been gushing from a fatal stab wound, not from the katana as she knew it, but from a ninja blade. She knew how deep the knife had went, how final a blow it had been, because she’d put it there herself--she’d felt it--but now there was nothing. Her brother’s image chased away like every other nocturnal menace.

Tears choked her, forcing a pathetic noise from her throat. Putting her hand to her mouth, Tsubaki bent over the sink, tears rising hot in her eyes and slipping down her cheeks to patter in the basin. It was the breaking point. She’d held back so much over a week, and now it rose up in a suffocating wave, rolling over her like the ocean’s surf. Nii-san, why? Why had that happened? Why did these memories keep being pushed to the surface, and the dead along with them? Was that what happened when prisoners disappeared so suddenly? And for those that hadn’t, those like her brother who had died in peace somewhere else, were their essences being dragged into the same nightmare and tortured? His death, she’d felt it…

Tsubaki was bent so far over her forehead nearly touched the counter, but as the muffled sobs began, she stumbled back and made for one of the bathroom stalls. No one deserved to see her like this, not one of the nurses, not a fellow prisoner. The grief felt endless. If no one came looking for, she would be thankful.

[akarusa.livejournal.com]

The first thing Hokuto heard when she entered the bathroom was someone sobbing; she looked into the stall discreetly to see if it was anyone she knew, and seeing that it wasn't, for the moment she went into a stall herself. Since the girl was in here, she probably wanted privacy, and she might just be taking a minute to compose herself.

When the girl was still crying alone after Hokuto had finished in there, she hesitated at the sink. She doesn't know me... but I didn't really know Falis either when she found me in here. While she dried her hands, she took a moment to think of what to say; even if the girl didn't want comfort, she might need it.

Going over to her, she knocked on the partition to get her attention. "Hey," she said gently. "Rough night?"

[lighthearted]

Sora woke up in such a panic that he was out of bed and on his feet before he'd really even properly opened his eyes. Kratos! Sora had no idea of what had happened, except that one moment they'd all been fighting the brainwashed patient in that weird pink not-hallway, and the next second the older red-headed man who reminded him a tiny bit of Renji had been bleeding badly.

The boy realized that the brainwashed patient could have done it somehow, but he hadn't even seen any signs of an attack coming from the man. It had all just happened so quickly, and he'd barely even had a moment to react before night had ended.

A nurse walked in to find him shaken up, and she quickly rushed over to try and calm him. "Now, now, Matthew, it's all right. You just had a bad dream..."

If only that were true! But Sora nodded and pulled himself together, even as his heart continued to pound in worry on his way to the cafeteria. He ran off to check the bulletin and found some notes that made him wonder if there really was something weird going on. It looked like a lot of people had gotten sudden unexplainable injuries last night, but... most of them were okay now! That might meant that Kratos was okay, too! The boy scribbled a quick note to him and then headed into the cafeteria.

It was only after he'd gotten his plate of french toast that Sora remembered that he had a meet-up planned for this morning. Someone on the bulletin (Scott, right?) had wanted to talk to him about his world. Sora wasn't sure what would have stood out to someone about the islands, but he was curious to see what that was all about. Scott had said that he would find him, and so the Keyblade Master took a seat near the entrance, where he would be easy to spot.

He wasn't that surprised to hear that Mr. Landel was back. Some people had thought he was gone, but after being here so long, the boy found it hard to believe that the man would die that easily.

[Scott Pilgrim, strict reserve!]

[vstheworld]

At the end of the night, Scott woke up in bed again, the same as he had on arrival in the game. Building. World. Whatever. Though he couldn't remember falling asleep or dreaming, he still felt as groggy as he ever was after waking.

Oh crap, I gotta get up. What if I missed half of my own birthday party? he thought, hoping that if he sat up fast enough, the vision of the white room around him would disappear back into the familiar sight of Ramona's apartment. No such luck. No matter which way he walked or moved his head, he couldn't get away from it.

The 24-year-old felt a nervous lump forming in his throat. "What the heck is going on?" As he checked around the room, Scott let himself really feel things like the sheets, desk, and walls for the first time. Everything felt so much more cool and concrete than it had the previous day. He squeezed his hands together several times, trying to make himself feel a controller there, but only felt his own palms.

Out of curiosity, he opened the closet door. "Ack!" It was immediately shut again in a brief panic. Not only was the hanger bar back in place, as though Scott had never removed it, but just barely hidden behind the gray clothes was the pile of stuff he had grabbed from the supply closet. If this really were real, then he was not about to let the equally real nurses catch him with all that.

After being taken to breakfast, he gazed around the room. Most of the patients looked unfamiliar to him, but several were faces he recognized, though he couldn't immediately place all of them. His brain just didn't want to let this compute. Okay, lemme get this straight. Fictional characters + fake institute + far-fetched monsters and ghost-type things = totally real? And not a game or a dream or whatever? The stuff he had read on the board the other day about people being dragged in from multiple worlds had been right after all. Had he even read that, or was he just remembering weird things again? That idea still felt too weird to think about, though, even moreso than subspace corridors and having to fight seven evil ex-boyfriends just to date one girl.

Speaking of other worlds, Scott caught another familiar face after grabbing a plate of french toast. Well, no, that was a lie. He had caught the boy's hair before even thinking about his face. He's really here, thought Scott in a strange mix of awe and discomfort as he walked over. Managing a weak smile, he waved to the boy he had fought hard with through multiple worlds and bosses and achieved victory over Ansem and the Heartless with. "Hey, mind if I sit? I'm Scott."

[not-rly-fai.livejournal.com]

Whatever had happened last night, when he woke in the morning, it'd been nothing more than a dream. No broken bones, no snapped wrist or crushed skull. Not a drop of blood. Sure, there was bruising and scrapes that he didn't quite remember; some things that looked suspiciously like burn marks along his arms and legs, but nothing from his vivid dreams of last night.

Maybe they were just clumsy, self-inflicted scrapes. Despite the pain though, in the end, it'd been a pleasant dream. Hearing Fai's voice again... hearing him say those things. Of course, it could only have been a dream.

He pushed his tired body out of bed, noticing the necklace still tangled around his wrist. While he waited for the nurse, he carefully fixed the knots, patiently untangling the mess before opening the locket again. The same woman's face, unfamiliar as before. Why this picture? It wasn't even placed firmly into the slot. As if it'd simply been pushed messily in as an afterthought.

Yuuhi's brow knit in concentration as he forced a corner up on the photo with his fingernail. It came easily enough, and he pulled back the picture.

The back of the locket was stained with blood. Not more than a few days old. He felt sick and snapped it shut just as quickly. He had to stop himself before he threw the thing across the room. Who's blood? How many? How many more would die before he could get out of this place and help Aaron? Why couldn't he just forget everything and be Robin?

The nurse walked in moments later, smiling brightly and going about the morning business. She too caught sight of the locket, and offered to help him put it on, being careful not to mention how strange it seemed for a man to wear one. Compared to the other patients here, it was hardly out of ordinary, she supposed.

What would Robin do? A moment of panic went through him and he could only nod as he offered the necklace to her. She fixed the clasp behind his neck and Yuuhi was quick to tuck the locket under his shirt.

He wasn't at all hungry when the nurse led him to breakfast, he was far too worried over how many days it would be before he saw Aaron again, and whether or not they'd let him go home. At least he'd slept the whole night last night. Hadn't he?

The nurse filled his tray and led him to an empty seat. He sipped at his juice, hoping it would appease her, but didn't do much more than push the rest of it around on his plate.

[Touya]

[guardiancomplex.livejournal.com]

Touya couldn't say that he'd awoken feeling refreshed. On the contrary, he was even more annoyed than he thought it possible to be upon waking up. Strange times caused strange things to happen, he supposed.

The intercom messages, the explosion towards the end of the night, and (most prominently) Sakura's visitor had all put him in a bad mood. Why did the night have to start out so good, and then suck so hard towards the end?

Apparently, though, according to his nurse today was going to be a 'beautiful day filled with opportunities and healing'. Weird, Touya just thought it was shower day.

The prospect of food put him in a slightly better mood, though seeing Yuki would clinch it for sure. He looked around the cafeteria, hoping to catch sight of him, but he supposed Yuki was just still asleep. Instead, his gaze fell on that guy Yue'd been talking to last week. The one Touya had interrupted and completely ignored, and who'd protected Sakura during the zombie-thing. Touya knew when he was being stubborn, and when thanks were due--now was one of those times.

"Hey," he said, sliding into a seat across from Fai. "I just wanted to thank you. For protecting my sister in town. I really appreciate it."

[no-ones-son.livejournal.com]

[Free, no limit]

He was getting better at dealing with the mornings here or at least was less disorientated to be waking up back in his bed again. If everything had gone as normal then Two-Face should still have everything he'd picked up last night. It had been a more productive night than almost any other he'd had so far. That knowledge would be a lot more annoying if he were actively looking for a way out of here. Since he wasn't he could live with it.

Jason grabbed the machete from where they'd dumped it on the bed beside him to see if he'd stab himself before he woke up, stowing it away safely in the wardrobe. His other supplies including the duct tape, were all still there. He smirked lazily as he considered everything. There was only one thing left to get ready for tonight and that he'd take care of soon. He'd make this work and he was going to savour every damn minute of it.

After shoving the maps away in the desk drawer, Jason had been planning to change into a fresh pair of pants since there cookie crumbs in the pockets of these, but the nurse interrupted at that moment. Insisting he could change later after he'd showered, she dragged him out to the cafeteria.

Fine. He needed to find Bruce. There was no sign of him yet but Jason wasn't going to be put off. He'd find the bastard today, Bruce wasn't going to be able to avoid him forever.

While he waited for Bruce to be brought in he took his tray to an isolated seat, watching people trickle into the room. A lot more looked like shit than usual, like there had been something going on besides the screaming and crap over the intercom. He'd check the board later if he was really curious but it wasn't as important.

[idontregret.livejournal.com]

"What the hell??" Heat had a feeling he was going to be saying that a lot in this place. While he'd been pretty damn certain he'd been out in the hall just a moment before, he was now back in his bed in this same room again - and back in that shirt, no less! The covers were thrown off as he got to his feet and the shirt followed after. He just had to find Gale again, that was all.

What he didn't expect was for a very small woman to come into his room with a bright chipper smile as though nothing was out of the ordinary. She flipped on the light and he squinted, blinking, as they readjusted. "Good morning, Mr. O'Brien!"

"...Huh?" was his ever-so-eloquent response to the familiar name he hadn't expected to hear any time soon, or ever again.

"Put your shirt back on! You can't go to breakfast like that!"

"Look, I need to know... hey!" The woman was already fussing over him, trying to force the shirt over his head despite his protests. He grabbed it out of her hands and mimicked the actions of Gale from the night before, turning the article of clothing inside out before putting it back on. "There. I'm wearing it. Now you start explaining--"

But the nurse just 'tsk'ed and pulled him up by the arm. She was so small, friendly, and unassuming that Heat wasn't really sure what to do. Trying to get forceful with her just seemed wrong somehow, and Seraph wouldn't have approved. So he let her lead him out of the room. What else was he supposed to do with such a frail little human being? And perhaps, just perhaps, she might lead him to answers.

...Or a bulletin board.

He pulled her to a stop on the way to wherever she was leading, and she allowed him to leave a large message. (How gracious of her.) After that, she tugged him back along with the crowd of patients heading in the same direction. If everyone was heading this way, then it might not be so bad after all. He'd just need to locate the others once he got into the room.

She didn't seem to want to give him the opportunity for this, however. Even as they walked through the line, her prattling on and filling his tray, he was glancing over the unfamiliar faces. He protested when she started leading him toward an already occupied table, but he figured he could keep watching from there as easy as anywhere.

"Who are you?" he grumbled at his tablemate, ignoring the food he'd been given even as his stomach growled.

[kingside]

Consciousness was slow to return for Lelouch-- slower than usual, that was, and accompanied by an even worse sense of disorientation than he was normally gifted with at these early hours. The softness of the bed he was lying in and the warm blanket over him only made it worse. He could have sworn he was supposed to be lying on something colder and harder, and although there had been some warmth, it was--

"Shirley!"

He sat bolt upright and ripped aside the covers, half-expecting them to stick to his body with slowly cooling blood and choking back a small sob when they came away dry. He hadn't-- of course he hadn't, but Shirley had-- had that been what it had felt like? But she'd had the hope-- no, the total blind faith that when she was reborn, they could-- Shirley...

His hands clenched into fists on the clean white sheets, and with little hope that it might actually work, he squeezed his eyes as tightly shut as he could and tried to calm himself, as if there were any way he could-- oh god, and Euphy had been there to see it all. She must think-- and she must have been so scared to see him like that. As if he hadn't done enough to her, she had had to live through that without understanding why it had happened and try to comfort him. She hadn't deserved to experience that, and since there was no way she wouldn't forget this in the same way his Geass had ensured that she would forget the SAZ, it was....

The familiar sound of his nurse approaching the door made Lelouch's eyes snap open, and a little less quickly, he released his death grip on his blanket and forced his breathing back into a rhythm that almost seemed normal. The look his nurse gave him once she finally opened the door and stepped inside said quite plainly that she wasn't buying it for a second, though, and averting his gaze so that he wouldn't have to see the pity in hers, he unsteadily rose to his feet and allowed himself to be led to the cafeteria.

At least now he would be able to try and find some way to save Nunnally, he mused, making one last effort to rub the sleep before entering the slowly filling room. He couldn't bear the alternative anymore, not after seeing her yesterday and dying with the thought that he could no longer do anything to help her. The decision he had made on his second night here had been the most practical one, but-- he couldn't do it. There had to be another way.

It was only after his nurse gave him a small nudge that he realized he had been led to the food, and after seeing him stare at it blankly for several seconds, she began filling up a plate for him, that awful pitying look returning full force as she worked. It didn't go away even after she'd finished, and he was forced to endure it as she went with him to find a seat, set the plate down before him, and stood just behind him while he sat and, after realizing what she was waiting for, took a single bite out of his french toast.

Apparently satisfied, she left, and the instant her back was turned, he picked up his napkin and spat the mouthful of food into it.

[For Rolo.]

[timeseal.livejournal.com]

When Rolo awoke that morning, he was almost certain that what he experienced that night had to be some weird dream. It accounted for that strange blending of the knowns and unknowns in his life. Teresa ending up as a Geass contractor who knew his brother, hearing that Euphemia was alive, being attacked by a ghost, the blob, the fountain – right, it was all a dream.

That's what he thought, until Rolo felt something in his grip. Something... he looked down, eyes widening in surprise when he realized it was the baseball bat he grabbed last night. Wait, but didn't he dream that? Then, that meant … last night really happened? Thankfully, Rolo had enough sense to realize that this was contraband and hastily stuffed it underneath the mattress, managing to fit it in so it wasn't... too obvious. He sighed a bit, hoping no one came in to clean the room too throughly.

His roommate was already gone (or hadn't come back), and the door was locked so Rolo had nothing else to do except... wait. He sat on the bed, restless gaze bouncing all over the place until it landed on the desk, where something that wasn't there last night lay.

“That's...”

---

“Oh, your family asked us to return that to you, Spike. They said it was very important to you, but we didn't get the memo when we first moved you in. Now, what do you want for breakfast?”

The nurse was trying to be cheerful, urging Rolo to eat once she lead him to the cafeteria, but Rolo was ignoring her in favor of the locket he held in his hands. It was the one Lelouch had given to him for his (Nunnally's, but – no, they were celebrating his, not hers) birthday. It sparkled just a bit in the light, calming Rolo as he remembered what he had to do. Right, he had to find his brother, and then get out of here. Things like Teresa and how he ended up in his room last night could wait until he found his brother.

As the nurse continued to pile things onto his plate, and as he continued to ignore her, Rolo scanned the room over. It was filling up by the minute, more people trudging in. Quite a few looked upset, though Rolo assumed this was normal. No one was probably here because they wanted to be, though it was their fault if they weren't strong enough to get out on their own. Rolo wasn't going to let this bother him, as he continued his search.

And he knew it was over when his eyes rested on the right person.

“Brother!” Rolo was already out of his seat, making his way over to the only person in this place who mattered. Lelouch! He really was here! To Teresa's credit, she hadn't lied, but... He knew, it was just a matter of time! The teen was quick to claim a seat right next to Lelouch, not even bothering to ask. Why would he? Lelouch would be happy to see him.

“You're alright! I was so worried, I didn't know if you managed to get away from the Britannians! You're alright, aren't you? It's OK, I'm here, so we can escape now!”

[byname-bynature.livejournal.com]

Artemis sat in front of his french toast and fruit, notebook open, pondering what new information he'd received last night via the intercom. He had to admit, glumly, it wasn't much. Perhaps it would make more sense once more people had replied to various reports on the bulletin, but for now Artemis was both disappointed he hadn't been in the hallways to witness what was happening... and very glad indeed.

Between the explosions, the hallucinations, and the screaming over the intercom, Artemis had spent most of his night both taking notes and huddling close to Haku. The night where the walls had begun to pour blood had been enough to tell him that the patient rooms were not safe anymore. He wasn't sure if this hypothesis still held true or not, but it was one he didn't particularly want to test.

But this morning, the head doctor was back, or so it seemed. And tired or injured. By this IRIS system? Artemis' suspicion of the AI was growing, and he was not pleased by this fact. If IRIS was an enemy of the head doctor, it certainly wasn't a friend to the patients either, or so it sounded. If anything, Artemis was now convinced that this... battle between forces had caught the prisoners of the institute in the middle. Most likely, it had never been about them--only about the two sides, and neither seemed innocent anymore.

Not that Artemis had ever believed in dichotomies.

[Surprisingly free! Get him while you can, no limit! ♥]

[mitase.livejournal.com]

For all of his worries, the night had passed...well, relatively uneventfully. All the talk from the History Club had left Hanatarou convinced that something dangerous was going to happen, but all they'd done was meet up in a hallway and then take a detour that apparently took a lot longer than he'd expected, since the night had ended before they got anywhere.

It didn't make him feel all that much better, though, since if they hadn't done whatever was intended to happen (he was fairly certain wandering the hallways wasn't the goal) Homura was probably going to want them to try it again. Which meant he'd have to make his excuses to Hitsugaya again, unless he somehow managed to avoid the captain for the entire day. Well, unless they decided he really wouldn't be helpful on the errand after all, which wouldn't surprise him in the slightest.

His thoughts distracted him enough that he barely paid attention to his nurse guiding him to breakfast, and allowed her to put some food on his tray and lead him over to a table without really paying attention. He dropped heavily into the seat, staring distractedly at his breakfast before realizing there was someone else there as well. Not only that, but it was someone he actually knew.

Hanatarou blinked up at Artemis, then glanced around uncertainly. "Er. S-sorry, Fowl-san. I...can move, if you didn't want company?"

[unmocked-lawr.livejournal.com]

So Landel was alive after all--or, at the very least, someone who sounded like him was. It wouldn't do to display excessive paranoia; Javert would, for the moment, assume the man on the intercom was Landel until proven otherwise.

He hadn't been sure what to expect this morning--perhaps another announcement from the thing that called itself I.R.I.S.--but he couldn't say he was entirely surprised by what he did hear. This, at least, was something unaffected by the technology barrier and entirely understandable, and it was something that warranted further investigation on his part.

He filled his tray and found an empty seat near the doors as usual, watching for a familiar face.

[herr-inspektor.livejournal.com]

A moment to consider the previous night- minus monster attacks.

Attempts had been made to break into the Institute’s programming under the name of Martin Landel, attempts which had culminated in a breakthrough early on in the night. Consequently, patients had witnessed hallways ‘flickering’ and appearing throughout the night. It was too early to say yet but if the bulletin board was an adequate form of evidence, certain patients had apparently experienced something else, too: a faux death. Now, against all odds, Martin Landel was back in the driving seat in what he could not help but feel was a genuinely surprising turn of events for the staff. Nurse Lydia, had she been called? He would have to look into her.

There was, Lunge conceded, one possible explanation for the happenings. The trouble was that it was so completely and utterly bizarre that he wasn’t entirely sure if he had convinced himself of the possibility that it even existed, never mind it being true.

Well. This was only his second day. He had no reason to jump to conclusions, especially not when he had several meetings to conduct today. Maintaining that attitude, however, proved to be far more difficult in practise than it had seemed in theory. Straight away, Lunge was hit by the sudden, solemn sweep of quiet discomfort washing across the cafeteria. Furthermore it was beginning to look as though Mr. Edgeworth was no exception to the rule, curling himself around the man next to him (a friend? No, more likely to be a lover) in a moment of acute, shared pain.

Lunge surveyed the situation, eyes glassy and blank as he considered his options, before finally making his decision and taking up a strident walk towards the pair. Business as usua-

“Mr. Jung?” The sudden chirp of his supposedly real name stopped the man dead in his tracks. He could just picture the pained smile aimed at his back. “I know how eager you must be to make friends, but I don’t think Mr. Pierce would appreciate any more company right now.”

…

… hmph. If that was how it was going to be, fine. Without a word of protest he allowed himself to be directed to a sufficiently distant seat. On the upside, he wasn't going to go without a familiar face to talk to. Offering Javert the barest shred of a smile, he asked, "Good night?"

There. A nice, meaningless question to begin with. He could be harmless, too, if he wanted.

[kindalikedit]

It wasn't supposed to be Sam.

Everything was in a fog. Dean registered there were voices, Hello Nurse herding him out of the room, but they were just distractions, like Bobby back in that shack. Just words. Dean grunted a "yeah", left it at that, and didn't even bother touching the breakfast in front of him. He stared down at his bandaged hands.

Sam wasn't supposed to get torn up. He wasn't supposed to die. The deal was, it was Dean, it'd always be him, and he'd have enough time to make sure Sammy could live without him. That bitch had made it such a point that she was always keeping her promises and that he was the lying scumbag, but where the hell was she now? Dean stared blankly at the plate before him. All he could think about was Sam lying there, dead again, only it was worse than before 'cause he'd been torn to shreds, not just ganked in the back. Try as he might, Dean couldn't figure out what he did wrong. He hadn't breathed a word about the deal, and even if he did, the Crossroads Demon hadn't said he couldn't mention it - only that he couldn't try to get outta it, and he'd had no intentions to try to save himself. He wasn't stupid. Sam would drop dead, only he'd just dropped dead last night, and Dean still couldn't figure out what he did to go back on the deal.

He still remembered what it felt like to have Sam's blood on his hands, glistening red just like any other civvie, quickly washing away thanks to the sprinklers. Sam's eyes. Just staring up all glassy-like. Just like the hundreds of corpses he'd seen before in too many morgues too count, only it was Sam.

Dean knew he should check the morgue tonight. There were still hunts out there.

But with Sam gone, he couldn't be assed to care.

All he knew for sure was that big old blank pit was growing and he just plain didn't care anymore. Didn't care if his year was up today or maybe never now. Other people bit the dust? Yeah, well, he couldn't save everyone and he was plain goddamn tired of this job. Maybe Sam was right. Running away to a normal life was probably the smartest thing a Winchester could ever try to do. Dean just wished Sam had run further than Stanford, covered his tracks so good he wouldn't have been able to track him down two years ago.

At least he'd still be alive.

[Reserved]

[boyking]

There was a difference between waking up after you lost consciousness and waking up after you died, and Sam wasn't going to dwell too long on the fact that this was not a difference most people were supposed to know. But even before his brain really caught up with recent events, Sam was pretty damn sure he hadn't simply been injured last night.

He sat up with a start, hand flying to his chest, a ghost of pain still there. His memories weren't as fuzzy as the last time; he remembered, clearly, getting torn up, like someone had set a pack of wolves on him. And he remembered Dean. Yeah, he definitely remembered that.

But he was obviously alive now, no injuries anywhere except for what he'd accumulated before that—the zombie bite, remnants of bruises here and there. Did that—he'd died last night. What the hell was going on? Why was he alive again? This was too familiar, hit too close to home with what'd happened the first time he'd died, and...Christ, but there was no way Dean made another deal. Dean wouldn't...what was there even left to deal? The year-long term?

Shit.

Dean wouldn't. He wouldn't. Except he would. Sam didn't trust his brother not to sell everything he had, even when everything he had was nothing. Then again, last night hadn't...the way it'd happened, it hadn't been the hellhounds, not really. If it had, Sam wouldn't be here right now. He understood too well that when hell got its hands on a soul, it wasn't so willing to give it up. And if it'd gone after him so deliberately like that, there was no way Dean would've succeeded in making another trade. Not when Lilith was the one who held all of the contracts.

No, this was different. It had to be.

Either way, he needed to find Dean, if only to let his brother know that he was still alive before Dean went off and did another stupid thing. Unless all this had been a nightmare, in which case, it'd be nice to find that out, too.

Sam was out the door before his nurse even set foot inside and he didn't care that he left her behind, an indignant, Excuse me, trailing after him as she stalked down the hall. He didn't touch the food, didn't do anything but scan the cafeteria for Dean. Any notion of last night being a nightmare or illusion stopped the second he saw his brother—Dean wasn't even looking at the food in front of him.

He weaved his way through the crowd, bumped shoulders with people he didn't stop to apologize to. He knew he'd scare the crap out of Dean popping up like this, but there was no subtle way to announce to someone, Yeah, looks like I didn't die for real.

He reached out and grasped his brother by the shoulder. "Dean," was all he trusted himself to say because if he went on any further, he'd never be able to help himself, would start demanding to know what the hell Dean did, if Dean had made anymore goddamn deals. He couldn't ask that. He wasn't supposed to know about the first deal at all.

[adorkabledragon.livejournal.com]

Keman felt like he was sleepwalking. He vaguely remembered waking up, his left arm in a hard plaster cast. The nurse showed up with a sling and a cup of pills. He remembered taking the sling and refusing the pills, even giving her a polite smile.

But inside he just felt numb. Like there was nothing there.

Somehow he got to the sun room, saw the messages from someone who claimed to be Ryuuzaki on the bulletin board, and the numbness gave way to anger.

No one. No one had the right to impersonate a dead man. He and Ryuuzaki had only just met, hadn't even been close, but Keman had watched him die. He'd felt for the pulse, seen those blank, staring eyes.

That wasn't going to leave him. Ever.

The nurse moved him into the cafeteria before he could respond further. Seeing how distressed "Calvin" was, she made sure she was hovering nearby. The boy seemed like a good kid, but he had anger problems. If something had him upset, it was only a matter of time before she would need a syringe and a pair of orderlies. This time, maybe she could be there to prevent it.

[for L!]

[ryuuzaki]

[Indy's joining them, too! :D ]

As L padded into the cafeteria, the bottoms of his slippers scuffing against the floor, his movements were careful.

The day before, there had been an ease about his loping gait: even if his situation caused a roil of emotion, anger and curiosity and disbelief and a number of other responses, he had not, for the most part, had the feeling that he was in immediate and pervasive physical danger. Now, that ease was gone, replaced by the kind of vigilance common in people who have been traumatized.

He'd awoken with a gasp a few minutes before the announcement on the intercom. His mind was blank for a moment, after which the nightmare came back, vivid from several viewpoints, first causing him to wonder if help had reached him in time after all. The revelation that he didn't seem to have any injuries was followed by a hasty rush of futile hope that Watari might appear with a mug of hot, sweet coffee and a few eclairs.

When this didn't happen, he rested miserably against his pillows, staring at the ceiling. There was a lump under his head, and a glance at the radio on his desk suggested that he would find the flashlight there if he looked for it. How did they get there? He had dropped them at some point, he thought, but couldn't recall when.

He had no memory of coming back to his room to go to bed. There might have been something in his food at dinner; he'd eaten two slices of pie and a lot of fried chips. But he couldn't recall ever even feeling drugged... only a sense of intense agony a little before waking up.

He'd met Howell, Keman had joined them, they'd proceeded to the Sun Room and had a violent confrontation with someone. After that, they'd made it into the Arts and Crafts room, where things had turned worse.

Up until he saw his mother, it seemed that he and at least one of the others had seen and heard the same things: the flashes that changed the walls, the unsettling intercom announcement, the mess of a corpse on the floor. He'd lied to them about the binary code -- It is the question of ghosts -- and no one else had seen her. It would be necessary to devote some of the day to hard thought about what his real experience had been.

The intercom pinged to life, and L heard, for the first time, the voice of Martin Landel. No medical wing, plenty of fruit. How much of this was his fault? He found himself feeling helpless, defeated, and seething with fury, and he rolled slowly out of bed, wondering if his lungs were going to fill with blood again.

-- Nothing. More than anything, he was grateful to be alive and unharmed.

He allowed the nurse to take him to the Sun Room, which looked like new. Could it have been a dream? But a few minutes spent at the bulletin board (interrupted by a bathroom trip) caused him to discard his nightmare theory: Keman had both a broken arm and the conviction that L had died.

His shuffle through the breakfast line was slow and tentative, though he took as much french toast and fruit as he was able to. After getting a glass of juice, he approached the table where Keman sat, setting his tray down next to him.

All in all, it was a much more delicate performance than the one of the day before, when he'd wanted to catch Amane off-guard.

He gave Keman a long, serious stare before speaking. "I am not dead, but I am not sure why I am not dead.

"It felt real enough while it was happening."

[chainsaw-royal.livejournal.com]

Hime had been about to comment on Kagura's understandable reluctance to go down the mysterious hole with a ladder in the walk-in fridge when a strange thing happened.

She opened her eyes.

The event was not strange in and of itself, but the fact that they had not been closed before hand made the need to open them a little odd. Stranger still was that she was now back in the bed she had awoken in, listening to a strange announcement by the infamous Dr. Landel, a voice she had yet to hear in her short stay here. Her knife was gone. In fact, there was no evidence last night had ever even happened, though this new announcement and the lack of I.R.I.S. suggested the passage of time, so at least there was that.

And then a nurse bustled in, telling her to rise and shine and get ready for another fun-filled day at Landel's. So that was how it was going to be. Giving a small "Hmph", Hime went over to her closet to put on her slippers and was pleasantly surprised to find her knife waiting for her. There was the temptation to put it to immediate use, but without a plan in mind, it seemed fruitless. Instead she hid it under a pile of shirts and slipped on the footwear before obediently following the nurse out, though her attitude was anything but deferential.

In the cafeteria, Hime accepted the french toast dubiously before some slices of melon and a glass of grape juice to her tray. She looked about for Kagura, curious if the girl got to keep her ice cream - for all the good it would do her, unless the girl had an icebox stashed in her room - but saw no sign of the kicking midget. Seeing no one of note, Hime sat down at the nearest open table, not particularly isolated but not particularly close to anyone. For now she wished to remain inconspicuous.

[For Kagura the Exorcist]

[cursed-exorcist.livejournal.com]

Kagura had been dead... or at least that's what she had thought until she woke up in her bed, all snug and comfortable, physically anyways. Mentally was a whole different game.

She nearly ripped off her shirt to examine her stomach, where only smooth, creamy flesh lay. This was way too weird. Kagura could have sword she had been stabbed by... her, well, younger self. Freaky... Had last night been some sort of nightmare? No, Kagura refused to believe that because that meant Yomi was...

More than her physical wound, Kagura was still distressed about Yomi pushing her away. She knew that Yomi was right, but that only made the world seem more screwed up and worthless in her eyes. No, she had to banish such thoughts. There were plenty of things in the world worth living for; Kagura just couldn't name them right now.

The nurse ushered Kagura to the cafeteria, got her a tray, and set her up with another patient. Kagura hardly in a state to put up a fight.

"Oh, Ms. Kingston. Would you be a dear and look after Sara? She's a new arrival like you, and she's had a rough time adjusting," said the nurse, who left without waiting for a reply.

Kagura emerged from her internal musings and noticed the blonde sitting across from her. There was something predatory in the other girl's eyes, like a finely-honed katana, and Kagura couldn't help but feel something otherworldly about "Kingston."

"Um, hello. I'm Kagura," she said somewhat numbly. Her mind wasn't fully there yet, but manners that had been ingrained into her very being automatically responded for her.

[moral-liberty.livejournal.com]

The night had been comparatively kind to Kaworu. Still, he was relieved that upon waking up, the noises that had permeated the halls were gone. Sadly, so was Luffy and his very intense smile.

Kaworu was able to smile at the nurse that took him to breakfast, although he found conversing slightly more difficult than normal. She was patient, however, and did not ask him to talk more than he wished to. The only thing that was still weighing on him was what had happened the day before. Without any distractions, Shinji seemed to have stolen all of his words.

Kaworu went through the food line without truly registering his actions. Eventually, he was sitting at a table with his breakfast, taking more interest in staring at the hand that had been holding Shinji's so recently. He had hurt directly afterward, and there was still a pain deep inside of him, but it felt gentler. Kaworu could appreciate it as proof that Shinji had been so close to him again.

[For Otacon!]

[141-12.livejournal.com]

Otacon woke up, despite being dead.

His fingers searched out the mortal wound on his stomach, which wasn't there — not simply not there, but without even a scar or a bandage to mark its presence. He let his shirt drop, then began to yank at the sheets, looking for the traces of the blood which he'd seen with his own eyes, but there was nothing. As if he'd imagined the night.

When the nurse came to retrieve him, Otacon got up without a word, moving as though he were still in a daze. He remembered how it had felt, in her last moments, like she'd been fading out of reality...

He shut his eyes. Emma's death had been years ago. Meanwhile, he'd left his friend severely injured last night. The nurse pushed a breakfast tray into his hands, and Otacon looked around for Snake or Fox — hell, at this point, he'd take Big Boss. There were several people already settled at the tables, but no one from his world. Otacon took a deep breath, trying to quiet the worry that threatened to overwhelm his thoughts. It was still early. There was plenty of time for them to come.

He noticed Kaworu Nagisa sitting near the door, and made his way over to the young man. "Good morning," Otacon greeted, in what he hoped was a steady voice. "Uh... is there something wrong with your hand?"

[human-sponge.livejournal.com]

All things considered, Peter should have been used to waking up from death by now. For the fourth time in about as many months, he found himself gasping awake, his head clouded and buzzing as his body came to life again. He ran his hand over his chest, where the gunshot wounds had been, and found nothing, not even dried blood or tears in his shirt from the "bullets."

Peter sat up slowly, continuing to check himself over. He felt fine, and that was what had bothered him. He had definitely died last night, as had Claire; had her power kicked in at the last minute to save them both?

He realized he should be grateful, but he was busier feeling guilty over Simone. He hadn't been willing to die the way she had if it had meant leaving his brother to deal with things on his own.

Nathan. Nathan and Claire. Peter needed to let them know that he was all right, and he focused on that as he pulled himself to his feet. Sam was still sleeping, but Peter was relieved to see that his roommate seemed to be fine. There was no way of telling if Sam had been through something similar last night, since even if he had, it wouldn't show now. Peter would just have to ask him about this later, since he had to wonder if other people had been affected...

Stopping by the bulletin to let his relatives know that he was all right answered that question for him pretty quickly. There were way more notes up than usual that just consisted of people checking in on each other, and even a few that outright said that people had died -- no, relived deaths.

Peter had long ago been convinced of the fact that Landel had unbelievable amounts of power (like him, like Sylar, he must have had a way of collecting abilities in large amounts), and he wished that they didn't have to be reminded of that every night. Then again, maybe it wasn't so much that the Head Doctor wanted to prove a point, but rather that he wanted to see him suffer for the hell of it. That seemed too simple, though, and Peter was too worn out to think much more on it.

He did realize, though, that it might not be the Head Doctor at all who had caused last night's events. The man had been missing, replaced by a computer program. It was pretty creepy when he thought too hard about it.

There was no sign of Nathan or Claire when he entered the cafeteria, so Peter just got himself some breakfast and took a seat by himself. He wasn't quite ready to socialize, and he found himself continuing to rub his hand over his chest as he stared down at his French toast.

[givemeoblivion.livejournal.com]

So apparently, Landel didn't want her getting anywhere at night. This was starting to become a major irritation. If he was going to be that way, he could at least just come right out and tell her so that she could stop trying.

Okay, so it was doubtful she'd actually stop, but at least then she'd have a better idea of his intentions.

It looked like she'd just need to start out solo again. She always got the furthest that way. Any time she tried to stop and talk to some random passerby, she got screwed over. Wasn't it wrong of the head doctor to keep a poor girl from her fun?

Breakfast was the same old thing. She'd eat it because it was there. The company didn't seem all that interesting either, and there was no sign of the man she'd come across the night before. A pity. He'd been a source of entertainment, at least. For now, she sat herself down across from someone who looked rather familiar, but not familiar enough. Someone who'd spent a fair amount of time in the Institute, in other words.

"Good morning. Something bothering you? I'd love to hear about it." If it was interesting, which it probably wouldn't be. She could always tune out the crap and the whining.