It had all been going so well!

Seeing Cloud and Aerith(!) again had brought a now unfamiliar lightness to her shoulders. Work would be harder from here on out, but she wasn't on her own anymore. She was getting a second chance she'd never thought was possible. And then, then they'd trekked outside, totally ready to face the fog and the unknown (privately, the ninja had been a little worried; it couldn't happen again, it just couldn't, but what if it did?)—only to wake up. In their beds. As usual. Gaaaaaawd—!

"I just want you to know," Yuffie informed her nurse, grabbing her journal from the desk on her way out, "that your hair looks spectacularly god-awful today. What did you do, stick your tongue in a socket? I'm not exactly hip on fashion, too busy badass for that fluffy stuff, but—"

Plucky looked ready to plant her face in her hands. Or to plant her hands somewhere else. To her credit, and much to Yuffie's eternal disappointment, she did—tried to do—neither. "One of those days, is it?" the nurse sighed, disapproval incarnate. "Well. You're just going to have to behave; the new batches of patients are due today. We don't want to make a bad impression."

"I am feeling so completely convinced of my wrongdoing," Yuffie confided. They stepped into the cafeteria, practically empty as of yet. The chocolate cake last night had worked a treat, whetting her appetite. Honestly, she was getting sick of pecking at scraps like a runt Chocobo in the snow plains—but not literally, of course. Ew. She got more than enough of that on those damn buses once a week. Now that AVALANCHE really was dropping onto her lap—and remind her to get the hell out of dodge if Barret ever took his turn—she couldn't afford not to keep her strength up. For one, she'd be a liability. For two, she'd get her spine chewed out.

"Fruit," said Plucky, hovering as her charge picked out her choices for the day. Rolling her eyes, Yuffie grabbed an apple, slinging it onto the tray alongside an 'English' sandwich. "That'll do. I'll leave you to your breakfast, now." Somehow, that sounded about as comforting as 'My name is Don Corneo and I am raiding through your panty draw', and Yuffie was stopping that thought right there. Oh, god. Eurk. Bad, bad, bad! Bad, brain. Bad. That—yeah, no. Just, no. 'Sides, the guy was as dead as a doornail, splatted across Da Chao's feet. Dirtying them, really, but somehow Yuffie couldn't bring herself to be sorry about that.

(And it wasn't like the creep'd ever end up here, right? Right!)

She took to a seat, dropping her tray and her journal both onto the table. The book fell pages-down; Yuffie flipped it over, thumbing through to the middle as she worked through her apple. An almost finished map of Gaia stared back at her, neat as she could ever manage. Dots for major locations, squiggles for mountains. Stars for the materia caves, Chocobos for the tracks. All labelled in Wutaian. It was just a little piece of the home she absolutely had to get back to, 'cuz Leviathan knew what kind of trouble they'd be up to their necks in without her.

[For Donna]

For the second time, Rika found herself waking with a start. She blinked at the grey light streaming through the windows, and looked across the room. Anise was still asleep. So. I'm still here. Let me just check...

Rika put on her slippers and walked over to the desk, checking the drawer and breathing a light sigh of relief. Good, the knife was still there. She wasn't sure why it would be there - shouldn't they have confiscated the weapon? Either way, though, as much as she was reluctant to use it, she was glad to have it still there.

Just then, she heard the creak of the open door, and quickly closed the drawer. Her nurse peeked in, whispering, "Rachel? Time for breakfast. You should put on a sweatshirt, it's a bit chilly." Rika nodded, quickly adding the extra layer and following the nurse out into the hall and to the cafeteria.

She was used to a Japanese-style breakfast, so the idea of something sweet - which the nurse was avidly describing, with the waffles and fruit and syrup - was a bit odd. Once she walked in, though, she had to admit it smelled good. She filled her plate with waffles topped with blueberries, some sausage, and eggs, took a glass of orange juice, and took a seat. It seemed she was early, so she took a seat close to one of the windows and waited.

[For Ange.]

[from here]

Momo really hoped Senna was going to just stay inside her room. She didn't want to worry about her but she couldn't help it. Hopefully, Hokuto would keep her safe. She would just have to place her faith in Hokuto.

The shinigami headed out into the main hallway.

[to here]

The intercom's jingle signaled yet another announcement.

"And our excellent behavior continues! Well, I am extremely impressed indeed!

"In any case, it's time to stop our socializing, unfortunately, and for the patients to return to their quarters for dinner. Be aware that new roommates have been assigned due to our influx of new patients and discharged old ones, so please be hospitable should you find yourself with someone new!

"As for dinner itself: tonight, we'll be serving shrimp and vegetable tempura along with delicious chicken teriyaki. Yum, yum, yum! As sides, we will also be serving boiled, salted soybeans, rice, and of course the appropriate soy and tempura sauces. Our regular assorted drinks and vegetarian substitutes are also available.

"I hope you enjoy your meal!"

The intercom clicked off.

[ All room threads go in response to this post; please post your character's room number as the subject line of the initial post. Find new room assignments here. ]

Today was really trying to rain on her parade, wasn't it?

Well, it wasn't gonna work! Hanna was determined to stay strong and cheerful, in spite of Kenshin throwing a mega bitchfit and that the chick from the library being… Yeah. Her flightiness had been bad enough, but the half glossed-over memories had bordered on terrifying. Had she really been that far gone? It had to have been the meds. Just the meds. Yuffie was a douchey, semi-sociopathic klepto ninja thing, but even in that imagined world of hers, she hadn't gone around slashing people to ribbons for fun. Had she? Ugh, Hanna didn't even know anymore. Crazy people were capable of crazy stuff

Hanna's gut clenched just thinking about it, and she turned determinedly back to her lunch. The food wasn't exactly great, but it was better than some of the stuff she'd eaten. Like Stan's Deep fried Twinkie and mashed banana hot pot. Or, y'know, the normal stuff that teenage semi-runaways ate. Craptastic sandwiches and super economy potato chips, when she could get them, and whatever was in Tiffany's fridge when she couldn't. Dignity was dignity, and dignity was important, but being able to scratch a living from a rock was a handy life skill to have.

Stuffing another few chips in her mouth, Hanna did her best to ignore the door—and, by proxy, anybody who happened to come through it. Nostalgia trip aside, hadn't the Head Nurse said something about a whole new batch of crazycakes? Now she'd feel even more like a sardine than ever. Great.

[ For Cloud? :D ]

Even before he got sick, Sean had enjoyed reading. His teachers had always said that he read 'ahead of his age group', but he figured that was just because he read more than most kids his age did. He liked everything: fantasy, science fiction, biographies, journal articles... There was just something satisfying about holding a book--something someone poured a lot of effort into producing--to Sean.

Today, though, he didn't want to get into anything particularly heavy or involved. No psychology textbooks for him today--he was going to read something fictional. Pulling what looked like an interesting science fiction novel off the shelves, he cracked it open and began to read happily. Oliver would find him soon enough and no doubt interrupt him, so he'd just read as much as he could for now.

[For Badou]

Mori woke with a start. He lay on the bed for a moment, staring up at the ceiling and sighed quietly. Another day, another round of shifts and people and-- Wait a minute. Breathing in carefully, Mori's brow knit together as he realized that his ribs were no longer broken. After testing his collarbone, he found that it, too, was healing faster than it should have. Not that he was complaining, but there was something odd about broken bones setting so quickly. Pushing himself up out of bed, the teen shook his head, knowing that he'd have another day or two of the sling and then he'd be free from it.

But more important than that was finding out how Mitsukuni was doing. The last thing he remembered was the bathroom and gathering metal. Since they were together at the end of the night, Mori was certain that Mitsukuni would be fine, but...well, he still liked to confirm such things with his own eyes. With the twins gone and Tamaki still missing, Mori didn't want to take any chances anymore. Especially not with the strange announcements this morning.

As usual, his nurse came to collect him and helped him into his sling. Then he followed her quietly into the cafeteria, taking notice of the unusually empty bulletin board. They really were cracking down on it already. Weird. Even weirder? For once, he was the first into the room. Picking up a tray, he pointed out what he wanted, making sure to take double of the pancakes (asking to keep them away from the sausages for now), double of the strawberry jam and biscuits, and an extra helping of fruit. To top it off? Milk. It'd help his bones mend. Hopefully.

Going to a nearby seat, Mori took a look around the empty room and shivered. Kind of eerie in here without anyone else but the nurses. Someone was certain to come sooner or later though, right? He hoped so at least.

[for Chihaya]

That had been a very frustrating shower. For many reasons. At least Raine was going to at least look at Forte. Hopefully, she'll actually heal him. The showers had also succeeded in making the ninja feel like a pervert. A mild one, but still... It was as if Yukari had picked that spot in the showers because she knew the ninja could easily see her.

Ugh! Damn youkai.

Squirreling herself away in a corner of the cafeteria, Sheena finger combed her wet hair before pulling it back with the bright red ribbon. She so needed her own hair ribbon back. She was attempting to formulate her plan of acquisition - she was ninja after all - as people started trickling into the room. The plan was put on pause, though, when her stomach rumbled.

Food now - plan later.

[Closed to Haseo and Endrance]

[from here]

He really had beat the rush. Suzaku found a chair as close to the corner and as far from the bulletin as he could, and turned it to face the wall before curling up in it. His nurse frowned at him again, but she was still being cooperative, and frankly he didn't care what she had to say in the slightest. He didn't care even if he got sedated. All he cared about was finally having a few moments to himself, to sort out what Euphie's love meant and what the hell Lelouch's problem was.

It felt like he had all the pieces of a puzzle and was just too stupid to figure out how they fit together. What Lelouch had said about Shirley at breakfast and the tone he'd taken with Euphie on the board, Lelouch asking how Suzaku was, Lelouch dying. . . "All we can do is move forward and look out for the ones we care about." Euphie struggling to get out her last words, pain overtaking Suzaku's consciousness while he fought pathetically to carry out Lelouch's order. . . The last couple days, when he'd felt like he was finally figuring this out, seemed so far away now.

There were a couple things that were certain, at least: he hated what Lelouch had done, he always would. But he -- he didn't hate Lelouch, and he hadn't for a while now, and that wasn't going to change. And he didn't have much time, because everyone but Suzaku was terrifyingly mortal. And Lelouch was an idiot, but he still wasn't sure about the how and why of that one yet.

[for the Saucinator]

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]

[from here]

Harley had to let go of Porky's hand to open the door, but they otherwise stayed together as they entered the Coloring Room. The bright, cheerful room was anything but at night, so for a moment, she almost thought she'd walked into the wrong place.

Even though they'd kept moving that noise had only gotten louder now. At this point, she could finally figure out what it was: Something like a lot of people screaming or moaning or something. Those sounds weren't exactly new or foreign to her, but for some reason there was some kind of unsettling undertone to the whole thing that actually made her feel an itty bit nervous herself. Plus she still couldn't tell where it was coming from exactly, or why it had gotten louder once they got into the Artsy Room.

But before she started getting antsy, she needed to check up on Grandpa. He'd been clutching at her like a kid who'd had a nightmare and was looking for assurance. "Pretty sure he didn't see us go in here." She turned around and tried to get a good look at his face. "...You alright there, Pops? Yer lookin' kinda pale."

No, really. She meant that. It was kind of heard to tell by the tinted light the torch offered but...

[From here]

These two were just little Chatty Cathies, weren't they? Whatever. As long as they didn't start talking about how much their love could never be and got to kissing in front of her, they didn't have a problem here. Dahlia followed them as quietly as she could, doing a nice job of attempting to be stealthy and just looking ridiculously cute.

THWIP.

...Did she even want to know the source of that? "What's that noise...?!" she whispered, voice shaken and scared as she tried to hide herself behind the bodies in front of her. Fighting in the Sun Room? Maybe the extra meatshield was warranted after all.

[from here]

Finally, the Sun Room. Unlike the hallways, this one actually had some light in it. Specifically, moonlight coming from the big window on the ceiling. It did help to have some light, but the big, dark room washed in moonlight didn't exactly make the place look too inviting.

"Doesn't look like he's here yet," Loz said, finding a couch and sitting down in it. He'd mostly regained his strength from his run, and sitting down felt nice.

Loz whipped his head around when he thought he caught movement ou of the corner of his eye. Once again, nothing was there. What was going on here?

Hello! I.R.I.S. here once more to announce to you, our honored guests, that you have officially made it through a day of our typical Landel's treatment. Of course, it isn't quite over: we will now have you retire to our designated patient quarters with one of your agency partners to inspect their sleeping area and the tools that we provide them with for the true bulk of our behavioral testing. On an added note, we would like you to notice once again that the meals we provide to our subjects are of the highest quality.

For those of you feeling apprehensive about taking part in our more intensive methods, please be aware that we would never imagine putting all of you in any danger whatsoever. This last shift will be your last at our Institute; afterward, we will escort you to our Head Doctor's personal observation station to survey some of our test Next-Wave participants in the rigorous trials we put them through – all for their betterment, of course.

Once again, we hope that you are satisfied with what you find, and as always, direct any questions you may have to your console.

The nurses began to escort the patients to their rooms. They didn't even seem to be brought to awareness by words such as "testing" and "subjects."

[ All room threads go in response to this post; please post your character's room number as the subject line of the initial post. (Find all of the newly changed room assignments and shift introductions here.) If you are introducing your character during this shift, you may either choose for them character to wake up before their roommate gets back, or after. ]

[from here]

The streets hardly seemed to be a better alternative to the pet shop. In fact, it seemed like there were more zombies on the street than where they were originally. Sakura glanced around the town in a frenzy. Zombies were everywhere! Where were they supposed to find somewhere safe?

She picked up a rock and pitched it at a zombie approaching them from behind. "Fai-san, where do we go?" she asked, looking up at him once more.

And there went the pleasant atmosphere within a matter of seconds. Klavier hadn't really been paying attention to the time at all. He figured when it was time to go back, the nurses would corral everyone together as usual. Instead Klavier glanced up from his playing in time to see the store not full of patients or citizens or even workers closing up shop... but some kind of mutated mass that used to call themselves people.

In an instant they poured in, climbed over the counter, and seemed to be rushing straight for him. And with how small the store was, it didn't take more than a few moments to reach him.

"Ah... AaaaaaAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Screaming or yelling wasn't very becoming of him, but behavior and putting up an amiable facade were frankly the last things on his mind at the moment. For the first time in his life, he felt absolutely panicked.

What was--?! NO TIME!! They were grabbing at him. The horde had already snagged hold of his legs, the tattered jeans, his shirt, one of his forearms... they were closing in on him before he'd had so much as a chance to realize what was happening. He was completely surrounded by bloodstained mouths. There was no question.

Klavier flailed frantically, kicking his legs to get them OFF! In desperation, he reached his free hand to grab at something on the counter -- ANYTHING -- and managed to grab an exceedingly ugly desk lamp. He swung it hard, hitting one in the arm to drive it back. He'd never fought before. He never liked the idea of arming himself while here either. But such thoughts weren't even reaching his mind at the moment. Pure instinct. GET AWAY! GO AWAY! OFF! OFF!! GET OUT!!

Yes! Outside!! He needed to get outside!! It was a death trap in here!! He managed to get them off him, if just for a moment, and he used the opportunity to barrel into them, shoulder first. He knocked a few down (and almost tripped and fell himself) and simply pushed his way through, swinging the lamp in one hand and desperately clinging to the old guitar with the other. It felt like it took far too long to reach the front door but he managed. He swung it open immediately and ran outside.

[asdlkj, running out here]

The shift was familiar enough, in it's own way, but it came too soon. He wasn't sure if any of the others in the group aside from Stefan had been around long enough to witness this before, but he wanted to reassure them that this was just like the changes the institute underwent at night.

Except it wasn't, this time. Marcus could hear them before he could see them, clawing through the dirt, and paused with his mouth open, losing what he'd been about to say. Then the first hand popped out of the ground, much like the zombified followers of the Banished Pantheon often did. Marcus didn't wait for them to start pulling themselves out of the ground entirely before he spoke, loudly but clearly. "It's time to go. Stefan, Scourge and I will head to the Sheriff's office and secure it, you three get people in Magus Park and down South Street to go there, we'll have it cleared and safe to use as a rallying point. When that fills up we'll take the hardware store," He could hear the moans of the undead off in the distance.

"I suggest you only go halfway down South Street and then go up to Main Street to arm yourselves in the hardware store if you need it, that will also take you past the Sheriff's office so you can drop anyone off. I have extremely good hearing so if you shout loud enough I may be able to hear you if you get in trouble and need reinforcements," Marcus decided it was time to wrap things up when the undead were finally all the way up out of the ground. "Try not to get bogged down in too many fights if you can avoid it. Go!"

He didn't waste any time either, and took off at a brisk but not all-out pace for main street.

The temperature was starting to cool down, but that was okay with Akihiko. It wasn't that much different from winter evenings back home. He was feeling better, having been outside most of the day, but still. That niggling stress from the previous few days was still getting to him. He sighed, looking up at the darkening sky and thinking about it all.

Just need to focus. That's all.

[Adel? Boxing Club folks? SEES?]

Lunch at the Tasty Burger had been uneventful, but peaceful...and lonely, so to speak. She missed eating her usual bento boxes, but what she missed the most was eating with Shuji. Her heart ached everyday, knowing that he wasn't anywhere near here(whether that would be a good or a bad thing). But she had to move forward, for him and herself. It was just another obstacle she needed to get over.

Standing in the middle of the street, she decided to take a slow walk in her bulky clothes, memorizing the town's scenery.

[for Fai and Kuma-gane~]

Having gotten a sense of the town, Indy stopped to consider who was most likely to a) know something about the history of the area, and b) have the time and inclination to tell him about it. The best answer he could come up with, short of accosting townspeople at random on the street, was whoever was running that bookstore. He headed back down Main Street and found The Bookworm on the right-hand corner across from the park.

Field work might be what he was known for as an academic, but Indy had spent his fair share of time in the stacks, and the musty smell of used books was strangely heartening. He donned his glasses and started looking through the closely-packed shelves, hoping to find a local history section--or any history section, for that matter. He came up unexpectedly short. That's odd, he thought--but then again, the stock looked so thrown-together here that it'd be easy to miss. Time to speak to the person in charge here.

Indy readied his most affable smile and approached the counter.

[free, especially for anyone who wants to try to learn about local history]