Anise woke up feeling lucky to be alive. She still felt a bit waterlogged, even though her skin, hair, and clothes were completely dry. During last night's adventures, she'd swallowed a lot of water, and it still felt heavy and disgusting in her stomach. Her arms and legs were tired from treading water. Lying still in her bed, she still kind of felt like she was floating and bobbing in the water.

But she was alive.

Knowing how close she came to death last night, and remembering the lengths her friends had gone to in order to save her, there was no way Anise could let a little discomfort get her down. She had to be at her best today so she wouldn't seem ungrateful to Guy and Claude. On that note, she had to remember to thank them properly, now that she was better able to express herself.

While getting ready, Anise was surprised to actually run into Claude that morning. He came to her room asking for the notebook he stored there (or maybe it was an excuse to see her cute face again), so Anise happily located it and handed it over. She was pretty tired, but the big smile she gave him was genuine. Who wouldn't be happy to see her savior so soon after a dramatic rescue?

After he left, Anise finished re-tying her pigtails into a low position so the military beret would fit on her head, and then she was ready! Even though her stomach wasn't feeling that great, she figured sitting down to a decent meal would help normalize it. And luckily for her, she was among the few who had the privilege of eating such a meal. Anise filled a plate with french toast topped with syrup and fruit, accompanied by small portions of each of the available side dishes.

It looked like she was early, which meant there weren't a lot of people around. That was okay, though. Anise could get a good head start on her meal before any company came around. She sat down at a table by herself and started on her sausage first.

[for Tolten!]

When the familiar crackle came on from overhead, Claire had paused, then continued about his business, sorting through the few possessions he had in his box and setting them into seemingly random positions on his desk, looking as listlessly bored as he'd been just prior to the announcement. But he was quiet, quite aware of what this Aguilar man was saying. Ah, so he'd been right about his nurse after all -- it had been a play, hadn't it? He himself hadn't received any visit or letter from one of these supposed "loved ones" today, but all the same, it was a terrible trick to play, wasn't it?

Still, there was a sort of liking he took in this Eagle. The man was straightforward and he said things clearly. Simple truths, just like that. There were none of the stories that Martin Landel had come up with in his words, though those stories had been interesting in their own right. But Aguilar shared that same, self-righteously entitled attitude as Landel. Who was he to trespass on other people's worlds? Claire's world? That wasn't allowed. Claire couldn't allow that.

As the voice continued on, Claire finished sorting through all his belongings, then replaced all but a few back into the metal box, closing the lid with a snap. His dinner lay untouched, pushed to one side of his desk, but aside from that, the only loose items on the table top were the flashlight, the handheld radio, and the gun.

The gun. He picked it up, weighing it in one hand. The voice droned onward as he ejected the magazine, counted the bullets -- one, two only -- then slipped the magazine back into place. He raised his arm straight before him, the one with the lightning burn, and took aim down the barrel at an invisible target on the blank wall before him. As the message ended, his finger jerked slightly on the trigger, but came up against resistance. The safety was still on. No worries.

What was worrisome was the fact that it was almost as if someone at the top had just made a gift of this weapon, as if telling him, here, let me provide with a way to kill your enemy. Which felt an awful lot like someone was baiting him -- do this, you know you want to. And that wouldn't do at all. The problem with the entire Institute here wasn't that they were telling lies to all the inhabitants and keeping them locked in one place -- it was that the people who ran this place acted as if they could control these people, as if these lives were theirs to control in the first place. The gall of that assumption! Everything Claire was hearing now about that new Medical Wing was positively charged with it. It was... annoying. Yes, annoying was the right word to use here.

He really had been in that medical ward for too long, he decided. He needed to get out and do something.

The click of the unlocking door was his signal to leave. Claire twirled the gun expertly around his finger with practiced ease, smoothly slipping it into his pocket. Really, if they were going to be so generous as to give him a gun, they might as well have provided a holster with it. Not that it mattered too much, though. He grabbed the radio and flashlight, then headed for the door.

With a wave over his shoulder to his new roommate, Vino left the room.

[to here]

By some stroke of luck, Harvey hadn't been bothered while he'd been in the library, allowing him to lose himself in a random book for at least a little while. Even so, he'd gone through all of his possible options for who might be visiting, from Gordon (in which case he'd probably end up sedated by the end of it) to his mother to Bruce Wayne to even the Joker.

He knew the latter couldn't be possible, not when he had to be rotting in a cell of his own by now. He'd better be, anyway. If Batman was going to be making a nuisance of himself, the least he could do was get the insane clown behind bars.

In other words, the book hadn't completely prevented him from working himself up about this whole visitor thing. It was the last thing he wanted, but as the shift ended and a soldier came to collect him, it became clear that resistance would not be tolerated.

And so he was shoved into one of the rooms, watching as the patients from the previous shift exited out, some looking relieved and others looking crushed. It only made the knot in his stomach pull tighter, but Harvey forced himself to breathe and calm down. No one he recognized was here yet, so he'd have a moment to compose himself at least.

Taking a seat off in the corner, Harvey considered grabbing one of the outdated magazines to read over while he waited, but he couldn't relax quite that much. Instead, he pulled up one leg to rest on the opposite thigh and made subtle glances towards the door every few seconds.

Edgar's charming company had raised Anise's spirits enough that not even the Head Doctor's voice could bring them back down. Besides, she was feeling pretty sure that Landel wasn't actually around. To begin with, it wouldn't make sense, and secondly, his announcements sounded suspiciously like ones she'd already heard before. While Anise wasn't very familiar with Earth technology, she'd seen the little devices in the Music Room that could play recordings of people's voices. This had to be something like that.

It wasn't long before Anise was escorted to the Cafeteria, and then to the section where edible food was being served. As she filled her plate with waffles, fruit, and sausages, she looked to the other side of the counter with a look of sympathy. It was hard to enjoy her own meals while knowing what the other patients had to suffer through.

She wasn't about to refuse her meals just out of guilt, though. Anise needed her strength for tonight. There was still a bit of a nervous twist in her stomach whenever she thought about what could happen down in the basement... but she wasn't going to back down. Not after promising her friends they'd go together.

With her tray in hand, Anise seated herself at an empty table in the middle of the room. She preferred to have company while eating, but it looked like she was one of the first patients there, so there was no one to sit with. Maybe if she minded her manners and tried to look her cutest, she'd attract someone handsome! Holding her utensils delicately, she began to cut her waffles into smaller pieces.

[For Battler.]

Anise was actually sleeping well for once. When morning came, she was curled up on her side, her arms tightly hugging her pillow in the same way they would usually hold Tokunaga.

All was peaceful... until she was awakened by a hateful voice.

Her eyes snapped open, and she jolted up into a sitting position. The Head Doctor... that bastard Landel was back! Those were her first thoughts, but as the haze of sleep gradually left her mind, she began to question whether that was actually true. There was something weird about the intercom announcement. She couldn't put her finger on it exactly, but... wasn't it a bit too much like another announcement she'd heard before?

"Did you sleep well, Dolores?" a nurse asked as she let herself into the room. No... she wasn't a nurse. It was that woman from yesterday - a soldier. Anise didn't want to start any trouble with her, so she merely answered with a nod as she pulled herself out of bed.

Wait a second... this wasn't her uniform. Well, it was, but it wasn't the one she was wearing last night. It looked like Anise was dressed in those gross-looking gray rags again, with only one noticeable difference: a pair of star-shaped stickers on the front, just above the smiley face on the left side. What was that for? And did this mean they weren't going to be treated like soldiers anymore?

Anise didn't have much time to wonder, as the "nurse" urged her to quickly finish getting ready, and to choose a place to go. As usual, Anise chose the Chapel. There was a bittersweet familiarity about the place. It reminded her of home, but it also reminded her of how far she was from home.

Once she was left alone, Anise sat down on an empty pew. She didn't feel much like praying today, and she still wasn't sure it would do any good, besides. Instead, she occupied herself by looking around at the decor and the staff, and then by picking up a hymnal and glancing through it. She really wanted to know what was going on... but it didn't seem like any clear answers were going to come right away.

[Edgar!]

Claire (the second) had turned out to be a nice and interesting person. Sora wished that he'd had some more time to chat with her, but the failing light and the urging from the staff had made it clear before long that their trip was coming to an end, meaning that he'd had to rush to make his purchases. That was how Sora ended up walking back to the buses with a coconut under each arm and a jewelry box tucked into his pocket. Even then he still hadn't used all his money, but he'd done his best and gotten some interesting things.

However, as he reached the idling buses he saw the the nurses and orderlies were waiting there to search everyone and take away their items. Sora didn't get what the point of giving them money was if they were just going to take it all away, but then it was explained that they would be given everything back at dinner. Well, that wasn't so bad then!

He still didn't know where Kairi was, but he wanted to pre-arrange the moment when he handed over his gifts anyway. Reluctantly, Sora allowed himself to be searched, doing his best not to squirm even though the orderly who was doing it was being uncomfortably thorough.

"You're good to go," the man said once all of Sora's purchases had been taken away from him. With a defeated sigh of relief, the boy got onto the first bus.

Still, excepting what he'd just been through the trip had been nice. He'd made a snowman with Tsubaki and had met interesting people like Wally, Gilbert, and Claire -- not to mention that he was really excited about the gifts he'd gotten for Kairi. He was already anticipating what her reaction might be. For the meantime, though, he simply stared out the window, giving the snowy town one last took as he waited for the buses to start.

[For Ruby.]

"Hold on a second. I want to check something."

Lunge paused in front of the book store, frowning a little. He'd looked in the little shop a couple of times, just to get a better sense of Doyleton as a whole, but had yet to explore inside properly- understanding Doyleton hadn't especially been high on his list of priorities, but after their conversation last night he found himself curious about a few details here and there. It didn't seem that L had any plans for the rest of the day, so there wouldn't be any harm in stopping in to chase up his hunches.

'Artificial'. What did that mean, precisely? Precision, that was what they needed now, hard evidence instead of aimless, endless stabbing and theorising. It was also exactly what they were lacking. What constituted evidence in a place where everything experienced around you seemed to fall to the whims of one man and his computer?

Ah. Not quite one man. Aguilar apparently had at least one man under him to do the less notable jobs, like working the intercom back at the Institute. At any rate, it was likely that their reality was just so easily moulded as it had been before. It would be interesting to see how far that applied to Doyleton, if they peeled back the corners and took a good, hard look at what lay beneath the obvious. Details, details; the people seemed genuine enough at a glance, but what about after an interview? And the books? He hadn't yet found a town that didn't pride itself on the single non-fiction novel written about it, its heritage. But did this town even have a heritage? Or was it purely the invention of two men, Landel and the man it was potentially named for?

A gust of wind ripped past his cheeks, chilling the Inspector to the core even through his heavy coat. He hadn't felt especially bad leaving Edgar at the Twin Pines- he'd lived through his own session, after all, and they weren't ever fatal- but even so he couldn't help but think that the cold would hardly be what the man needed.

Pushing the door open, he held it aside for L to head in before him. Silently, he wondered if they were thinking the same thing- they were generally on the same page for the most part, but occasionally it felt as though he were somehow working lightyears ahead of him, consuming and digesting information at an unthinkable rate. Most of the time, though, it was clear that the man was just as in the dark as he was.

[TEAM LARS VS HARRISON FORD THE FIRST, GET]

It looked like the day was nearing its end, and Anise still had plenty of money to spend. The way the sky darkened well before the end of the trip was a bit unnerving. Did the monsters come out at sundown, or did they come out at a specific time chosen by the institute staff...? Whatever the case was, she supposed she ought to stay on her guard.

She carried a light shopping bag with the few tools she found at the hardware store, and looking around the street, the best place she could think of to go and spend her remaining dollars was the grocery store. Hey, maybe they even had gels! If Anise could buy a few of those, she'd be extra prepared the next time she or her friends got hurt. Excited by this realization, she hurried to the store.

Anise received a strange look from the clerk when she asked "Do you have any apple gels?" She ended up having to describe them to him, something she never imagined she'd have to do. Could it be that Earth didn't even have gels?

"Oh, uh... do you mean those gummy candies?" the man at the counter asked, a slightly dubious look on his face. "Try the snack section. There should be a couple up here by the counter, too." He motioned to a small candy display just by the counter, and then to an aisle which appeared to be filled with candy, chocolate, crackers and other snacks. Anise followed his direction and entered the aisle, looking over the rows of bags, boxes, and plastic containers. There were a lot of things to choose from, and unlike the other stores she visited that day, most of it was affordable!

But before she would allow herself to get sidetracked by whatever looked tasty and cheap, she had to find those gels first.

[Natalia!]

Having spent almost the entire morning in the cold, Edgar finally decided it was time to address his groaning middle. It was hard enough to focus as he thumbed through the coupon book without his stomach doing flips: he was shivering, but still felt tremendous heat radiating from within him. The attempt at a nap on a park bench hadn't helped his fever, it seemed. Perhaps some food would.

That was granted that he was primarily hungry and not nauseated- after a while, they began to feel exactly the same. He had to assume it was mostly the former at this point, given how he'd eaten like a bird the day before- with what was on the menu at the institute as of late, it was easy to lose one's appetite. He'd been looking forward to the Doyleton trip for one last chance at a decent meal before a week of the pink slop; it was unfortunate he'd spent most of the day feeling as though he couldn't hold down anything he ate.

The restaurant looked pleasant enough from the inside- it was only a moment before one of the waitresses showed Edgar to a lone table and asked him what he'd like to drink. He sent her for water, not even bothering to attempt his usual flirtations (alas, a surefire sign he wasn't feeling like himself). As soon as she'd left, he pulled his sweater over his head; his brow was already feeling damp again. He put his elbows on the table, burying his eyes in his palms. He ached all over, worn from the oppressive blaze and the accompanying frustration. Who even knew if he'd live long enough to gain the magic that supposedly came with all the sickness?

No, he'd survive. Edgar took a deep breath- it rattled through him, the cold air of the day having not soothed his scorched throat in the least. While this was possibly the most ill he'd ever been, it wasn't the worst situation he'd faced. The feverish shakes and physical discomfort would go away eventually. What was truly worrying were the after effects: the promise of fire magic, introduced into him in a way that had left at least one notable person with shattered sanity. Even if his mind was intact and the sweltering suffering hadn't driven him mad- yet, anyway- the thought of magic presented in such a way left him uneasy. Fire was an immensely destructive force, and if it turned out it was beyond his control...

Edgar sighed, his hands cupping to cover the front of his face as he fought away another wave of queasiness. He closed his eyes- he could worry until he'd thought a hole in the ground, and it wouldn't do him any good. There were no other options: if he was truly going to be a magic-wielder again- or a Magitek Knight, as the doctor had put it- he'd learn to handle it. He wasn't certain of what would happen, but he knew he couldn't let them get the best of him.

[Lunge and L]

Peter didn't know if he and Firo had left on the best terms, if only because the younger man was still so confused about what was going on in this place. The change in time period had a lot to do with it, but it had also sounded like he'd had a lot going on in his life before ending up here. Then again, who hadn't? Peter had just exploded before his arrival.

It was hard to think back to that night, to the way he'd stood in Kirby Plaza while burning up with nuclear overload, when he was in this quaint snow-covered town. This was the sort of image you'd see on the Christmas card; it wasn't supposed to exist.

Still, his walk with Firo had been rather long all things considered, and so Peter finally decided to leave the teen to his devices and go warm up somewhere. The best way to do that would be by putting some hot food in his stomach, and so he ended up backtracking to the Tasty Burger. He could have gone ahead to the Twin Pines, since the food was obviously better quality there, but the walk was longer and his face was starting to get numb.

Letting out a small sigh of relief as he stepped into the lively fast food place, Peter fished the proper coupon out of his pocket and went to stand in line, eyeing the two young girls at the counter as he waited for it to be his turn. Once he'd eaten, he could really start searching the shops for what to buy.

[Claire Bennet.]

Getting to check up on Neku had been good (even though Sora realized that he was the one who'd been approached, rather than doing the approaching), but when the buses finally made their way through the snow and into the town, the boy was completely distracted by the view that followed. It really did remind him of Christmastown. There were no lights up and he wasn't going to stumble on Santa's factory anytime soon, but it was still beautiful and he couldn't wait to get out into it.

So, the moment that the bus came to a halt, Sora waved a goodbye to Neku, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder for a moment as reassurance before he made his way down the aisle and eventually out the door and into the cold weather.

Sucking in a breath, he spun in a slow circle and grinned to himself. It was so pretty out here! And there was a whole thick layer of untouched snow that was just asking to be played in. Sora realized that his priority should have been finding a place where he could spend the twenty-five dollars he'd been given, he figured he'd have all day to work that out. Right now, he wanted to make the best of this weather, since he doubted it was going to be like this next week.

And so without delay he headed across the street and right into Magus Park. It also occurred to him that he'd finally broken his pattern of being injured whenever he came to town, which meant he had all the freedom to play around as he wanted.

The first order of business was making one of those snow angels that he'd learned about; it would be way easier than trying to make a snowman, he was guessing. Making use of the winter clothes he'd been given, the boy threw himself on the ground and started to fan out his arms and legs.

Maybe he was the leader of the Arts and Crafts club and maybe he'd fought against the Heartless and almost all of the Organization members during his journeys, but sometimes Sora just felt the need to be a kid again.

[For Tsubaki.]

Rita awakened in a cold sweat that morning. What the hell was that all about!? It had to be a trick, like the moving shadows from the other night... It just couldn't be real.

In the end, no progress had been made. How much longer was Rita going to be trapped in this dump?

Speaking of dump, that was about the moment when a male nurse entered the room, carrying a pile of worn clothes that looked like they came right out of the trash. He dumped them unceremoniously on her bed, and with an unfriendly glance, ordered her, "Put these on."

"Would it kill you to ask nicely?" Rita sneered, pulling herself out from under the covers and crawling over to where she could look through the pile. There was a dark blue knee-length skirt, a pair of purple stockings that came up to about the knees, a pink blouse, blue jacket, and a pink scarf. This was for that 'field trip', then? Well, whatever. They didn't look as stuffy as the military uniform, so Rita put them on.

Once she was finished, she found herself being led outside to some large machines - no, vehicles? - which several other patients were being made to board. Rita had heard very little about the Doyleton trip, other than the fact that they were apparently going to visit some Earth town. There was something intriguing about that - being able to see something that perhaps no one else from her world would ever see - but it was also a distraction that was going to further delay her escape, and that was irritating.

The vehicle that Rita was brought to was empty at the moment, so she sat herself down by a window and started looking through the various items she had been handed upon boarding. The money card was especially curious, and she wondered how much the allowance would allow her to buy. She assumed very little, but she hoped ten dollars were at least worth more than ten gald.

[Free!]

[from here]

Once inside, Battler couldn't help but feel a little cramped. The room itself wasn't small, but the filing cabinets certainly made it seem that way, and with three people in the room, it was easy to feel a little boxed in. It wasn't a problem, exactly, but he still wanted to get to leave as soon as they found they came for.

He made his way to the cabinet marked with a 'k', trying to pull it open but finding that it too, was locked. .... That was seriously annoying. They'd be easy enough to break into between the axe and the pipe the other two were carrying, but instead of consulting them for help, Battler smirked slightly, setting down his flashlight and stubbornly pulling at it even harder. It definitely took some work on his part, but as it turned out, the cabinets themselves were either poorly constructed, or just made with cheap materials. The force eventually caused the bar on the inside to bend just enough that he could get it open on his own. Not bad at all...! It was true that he never could have pulled that off with solid steel, but he couldn't help but feel a little self-satisfied anyway.

Now that it was open, he quietly thumbed his way over the files, skimming the names there, but.... Nothing. That fake name he'd been given was nowhere to be found. To make things worse, he had a funny feeling he knew exactly where the missing file was, or rather, who it was with. ... Ahhh, dammit, that was seriously irritating. He could ask for it, sure, but he didn't have much doubt that she was going to be a pain about it.

Well, maybe things were going better for Klavier and Claire. After shutting the cabinet and picking his flashlight back up, he turned them curiously. "Any luck?"

[From here.]

Even with the change in staff, the Entry Room looked the same as it did during his first nighttime visit, save for the lack of Mele and her conjured fire. Oh, thinking about her brought back a twinge of guilt- knowing how the town was at night, she surely wouldn't approve of his heading there, even if he was in good company. Well, he couldn't sit in his room forever, and there was no guarantee the rooms were safe- after all, that was where the nurses collected people for the Sleep Studies. Besides that, he'd not been outside of the Institute's walls at night on his own volition. It was high time he changed that.

He frowned to himself in the darkness. Now that he had his body, what would he do with his time at night? He was still no closer to rescuing Dorothy or any of his friends from Wizard Landel's brainwashing, and the General had hinted that things would only get harder from there on out. He knew they had to be stopped, but how? And what could he do? He wasn't a fighter like Depth Charge, or a witch like Mele; he was not a doctor or professional or even someone with a working brain. The fact that he was seemingly useless was what grated on him the most. However, if there was anything the Scarecrow knew, it was that he couldn't give in. Even if it took him forever, he'd think of something. He had to!

The Scarecrow swept the room with his light before heading in, trailing along the wall for safety's sake. "So you've been to town at night?" he asked. "Aside from the time we were left there?" There was also the time the doors were enchanted, but there was a chance not everyone had ended up there that night.

[from here]

Wally yelped as his powers propelled him into the next hallway and, as it would turn out, a wall. He hit it with a thump loud enough to rattle his teeth and make his head throb as he slowly pulled himself back up to his feet.

"I'm okay," he announced for the benefit of what turned out to be an empty hall. Which was fine by him because he really didn't need people seeing the Flash running into solid objects like that. It'd raise some questions about why his control was so off and he really didn't want to get into those right now. At least he'd stopped in the next hallway and not the other side of the institute, so that was something. Backtracking would have been even more embarrassing.

"Well, I guess that's just another reason not to do any running just yet," he muttered to himself and headed towards the sun room. Get through that and then he'd hit the cafeteria and, after that, the kitchens and a better chance at finding something to eat.

[to here]

In the end, the owner of the other box never arrived. Firo spent dinner giving glances at the door while he ate, wondering if there was some delay or if he didn't have a roommate after all. By the time that Firo had finished eating and was then debating whether he should change clothes (it was nice to have something familiar here, but did he want to risk the clothes getting damage if the monsters were real?), he could hear the faint sound of the speaker in the room turning on, but no sound came from it.

He waited a few minutes, and then started looking around the room instead, opening drawers and rifling through the closet. Peter had said there should be a flashlight somewhere in here...

Firo didn't find the flashlight until he'd given up looking for it: he'd flopped onto the bed after testing the door—locked—and could feel something hard underneath the pillow. When he'd pulled said pillow away, a flashlight was laying underneath. That was one more point to Peter, but at the rate things were going, it didn't look like he'd have a chance to get out of this room after all, short of breaking down the door.

And then the static started. It started off low, easily ignorable, but then grew enough that Firo reached up to cover his ears in an attempt to block the incessant noise out.

"Cut that out!" he snapped irritably at the speaker, directing a glare at it as well—and then paused. Was he really trying to threaten an object...? Whoever was on the other end of it would be a more appropriate target, but whoever it was couldn't even hear him from here. Breaking the speaker would have been more effective.

A minute or two later, the static finally cleared, and a man began to speak. His words were direct (though Firo had no idea what he was talking about), and it wasn't long before he'd said his piece and the speaker turned off. In the silence that followed, Firo moved towards the door. He'd heard a click when the announcement had ended, but that could have just been the speaker, not the door... He reached out to test it once more.

The door opened. Warily, Firo poked his head out into the hall.

It was dark, but even so, he couldn't make out anything particularly guard-shaped in the immediate area. Peter had been right about the door, about the flashlight, and (according to hearsay) about the monsters. He wouldn't be satisfied if he just stayed in his room and passed up a chance to see it all for himself, though—and besides, he wasn't feeling tired at all now.

Firo pulled back into the room and turned towards the metal box. He had debated sparing his clothes earlier, but now that there really was a chance to go out... If he was going to have a look around, he'd be much more comfortable in his suit than in this stuffy uniform. Off went the beret, followed by the shirt and belt and trousers, and a few minutes later he was dressed in his own clothes, adjusting his jacket. He reached for his hat, but stopped himself just before his fingers would have touched it.

He didn't mind risking damage to his clothes tonight, but his hat... It was too important to take right now. If he were planning on escaping that would have been another matter—he wouldn't have even considered leaving it behind—but he was only thinking about having a look around and sneaking back in before morning... And if he was lucky, maybe he could even find a knife, in case the 'monsters' proved to be everything people had said they were.

Leaving the hat where it lay and picking up the flashlight instead, Firo headed out the door and started down the hall.

[From M9 to here]

[From here.]

All righty. First one here. Surprise surprise.

Peter took a thin breath and took up a post across from the hall, where he could watch both entrances for the gang. His arms crossed and he leaned against the wall. The whole thing was rather broody-looking, to be honest. Not the kind of chipper attitude you expected from a guy dressed like a cast member of Cirque du Soleil.

He was allowed to have bad moods. They happened. He hadn't started the night in one, but he'd tripped into it easily enough on his own. That sort of thing happened when your life sucked this much, okay. There was no sanctuary from the suckage. He sighed yet again. It'd be easier to perk up once somebody else showed up. Then he could push his mind away from all of this garbage and pound some small talk out of it.

Not to mention that waiting out here alone in the big hallway was twice as creepy as it was moving alone through the little ones. His flashlight swung back and forth. Please don't let anything be creeping on me in the dark. Please please please...

He was so not in the mood for whatever monstrosities were lying in wait for him. And knowing Landel's, they were.

[For the Platonic Family!! Y'all know who you are.]

Talking with friends usually put Anise in a better mood, but the subjects that she, Guy, and Tear covered at lunch were so heavy that Anise couldn't help but feel weighed down afterward. It was hard to think and talk about the terrible things that came about from her lies. She wasn't going to cry, not now, but she felt like she needed a little space.

Fortunately, children were going out to the Courtyard today, and that sounded like a good, wide area where she could get a little alone time. The fresh air could help her mood, too.

When Anise reached the door, however, a blast of cold air rushed in at her, and all she could see outside was a blinding veil of whiteness. For a moment, she simply stared at the sight. She never saw much for snow at Landel's, but here it had already covered everything in just one day!

"You might need this," a soldier said, presenting a black jacket to her. The color and style really didn't suit Anise, but it looked expensive. She slipped it on, and while it wasn't as feminine as she liked her clothes to be, the lining actually had a nice feel to it. On the left breast, she noticed a name embroidered over it. It wasn't her name, but it was still kind of impressive that they personalized these things.

Outside, snow had settled onto every surface, like a big fluffy blanket over the ground. Anise walked along the path for a bit, creating a single set of footprints in the otherwise smooth surface. Once she was a fair distance from the doors, she diverged from the path (which was barely visible to begin with) and walked to the edge of the pond, watching the falling snowflakes disappear into the water.

It was a pretty sight, but it wasn't enough to completely take her mind off of Ion. Before long, Anise found herself wondering if it was snowing where Ion was, too. Maybe he was really far away, though...

[waiting for her boyfriends ♥]

Though five days without bathing was hardly unusual for Rita, she was actually looking forward to showering today. To her, the last shift had been somewhat enjoyable, if only because it allowed her an opportunity to be alone with her thoughts for a bit. Of course, she couldn't be completely alone in the communal showers, but no one was rude enough to disturb her in there, which was good enough for her.

Once the shift was over, she re-applied the bandages on her leg and knee, dressed herself, and made her way to the cafeteria. The pain in her knee seemed to lessen as the day progressed, and her slight limp became less noticeable to herself. Hopefully it wouldn't impede her much come nightfall.

Upon entering the cafeteria, however, Rita found that she had more immediate problems to deal with. What was that slop they were serving?

Deaf to her complaints, a soldier quickly ushered her into the line for the pink gruel. While waiting, Rita became aware of a section in the room where edible food was being served... but apparently only to selected patients. Whose butt did they have to kiss to get that treatment?

After receiving her "meal" (using the word very loosely), Rita found an empty area to sit in. There, she made no move for her utensils, but instead glared at the plate of mush as if the food itself had somehow wronged her.

[For Woody]

[ from here ]

Either she was the only unlucky person to experience a freezing shower, or she just hadn't built up the tolerance for it that the more seasoned patients had. Whichever it was, she was the first person into the sun room and while normally she wouldn't mind that, the soldiers were majorly creepy and she was kind of hoping for some kind of buddy system thing to be established to minimize the creep factor.

No such luck, apparently.

With one shifty look around the room at the soldiers positioning themselves strategically and then a glance upstairs to see if the doctors and nurses were lurking -- they weren't, which was possibly even more unsettling than when they were -- she beelined for the bulletin board to scribble a worried note.

Four days since she'd showered meant three since last seeing Elle around. That didn't bode well for anything, especially considering the last time they'd talked it was about just how dangerous Sylar really was to her. If she was dead -- Claire had promised Peter that they'd keep her safe, this was just about the furthest from safe you could get. And it would definitely add up to why she'd been able to safely run into Peter the previous night without slamming straight into Sylar when they were shacked up in the same hallway. Obviously, he'd been busy carving Elle up like a pumpkin with his brain.

So, she stuck the note up on the board and then tried to hover around a couch until she found something to do with herself. The anxiety wasn't going to get her anywhere anytime soon, but hopefully someone would show up with information on where the blonde had been those past couple days (an answer that involved intense actual therapy rather than implant things in your brain therapy would be preferred, but as long as no one was getting mutilated, she couldn't complain) and if not hopefully someone could just distract her from that impending sense of massive failure that was threatening to cause a nuclear meltdown of feelings in her brain.

[ free ]