[From here.]

Still empty. Maybe he was just moving faster than usual? Though it seemed the patients poured out in droves at around the same time. Edward imagined the unlocking mechanism worked on all the doors simultaneously, especially since it always occurred immediately after that final intercom announcement.

It was amazing how the human mind adapted to the strangest situations with time.

The vampire ground his tongue against his teeth as his fingers searched the walls in the darkness. The thirst was coming back, and even the disgust of tasting the jell-o equivalent of blood wasn't going to stop him. Otherwise, he could be just as dangerous as whatever they were hunting would be.

[from here]

In contrast to the main hallway in the block behind her, this section of hallway seemed to be completely quiet. Creepily so, and dark with the sort of darkness that scared children (and, okay, maybe some teenagers who were completely mature and rational otherwise, which group definitely didn't include her) and made them jump from the center of the floor to the bed rather than step too close to the thick shadows underneath it. Minako paused a moment to turn in a complete circle, shining her light around the hallway to make certain there wasn't anything lurking... at least, not within the range of her flashlight's beam.

...yeah, okay, thinking about it too much was just going to freak her out, wasn't it. Minako sniffed and flipped her hair back over her shoulder, looking the picture of absolute indifference just in case anything watching might care if she was worried or something, then flounced off down the hallway without a sideways nervous glance. She did, of course, remain entirely alert and listening for sounds of movement, but that was kind of habit by now.

[to here]

The latest intercom announcement filled Aigis with a sense of dread. Aborting her attempt at writing in her journal, Aigis stood silent for a moment then paced to the closet to retrieve her baseball bat. She would normally have offered her roommate some assistance during her first night in the institute, but Kay had already expressed during dinner that she had plans with a friend. It worked for Aigis. She had plans herself. The unhappy task of receiving one last memento from her released friend.

It shook her to the core, thinking how her friend had disappeared so suddenly. They had only just met up, and now she was already gone. It was almost too much, too powerful of an emotion for the android to fully realize.

"I wish you safety in your endeavors tonight, Kay-san," Aigis whispered solemnly. Then, grabbing up her flashlight in her free hand, Aigis moved to the door and made her way down the hall.

[to here]

[From here]

Now where had Knives said her room was? Scott reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the crumpled napkin she had written the number on at breakfast. F30. Okay. Assuming the girls' block worked the same way the guys' one did and wasn't some alternate dimensional maze that only people with boobs (twitch) would understand, Scott was pretty sure he could find the right room. 

[To here]

Scott didn't like the sound of that intercom announcement one bit. Granted, he was hard-pressed to think of one he did like. Maybe the ones that involved pancakes? ...No. No, not even those. By virtue of the man talking about them, those announcements were tainted. Those pancakes were tainted. Tainted pancakes. 

Ew.

In any case, it sounded like Landel had someone holed up with him. That was definitely not good, thought Scott with a glare at the speaker in the ceiling. What exactly could he do about that, though? No one knew for sure how to get to Landel, and even if they did know, they'd probably have to battle through a ton of bosses and barriers to get to him. Now wasn't that just shitty. 

"Freaking Landel cockteaser cocky cock, when I get to the final stage I'll shoryuken his ass into his balls..." Scott continued muttering in frustration to himself as he got everything together for the night. There was nothing else he could do right now. Nothing but focus on the one person he could help protect tonight, anyway.

When he was changed and geared up, Scott nodded over his shoulder to Guybrush and headed out in a hurry. 

[To here]

There were very few activity shifts, Cloud was sure, that could possibly make him feel more like he was being treated like a child. He took a seat at one of the tables and blankly examined the materials set out before him. A pair of the dullest scissors he'd ever seen were labeled 'ages 3 and up'. It was good to know where the patients stood in this.

He wasn't much of an artist, and he ignored most of the paints and other drawing utensils in favor of a few sheets of colored paper and instructions on how to make origami. That sounded vaguely familiar. Didn't Yuffie have throwing weapons made out of paper at some point? It was something to do anyway, and thus Cloud began the process of crafting what ended up being very elaborate paper wads.

Sadly, his attempts to keep from dwelling on the subject of his missing friend failed when he realized this was something Aerith probably would have enjoyed greatly. Tonight, he and Yuffie would go out and try to accomplish... something. It was depressing to think there really might not be anything they could do, that they might all end up the same as the flower girl eventually.

[for a hopefully more optimistic materia thief]

[from here]

The bathroom at night wasn't too much different from the bathroom during the day--tile floor, a bunch of stalls, sinks, et cetera--except that there was a faint weird smell to it, almost like something rotting. It sounded like the water might be dripping, too.

Morgan stopped at the door and did a careful sweep with her still-dimmed flashlight. When she didn't see anything that needed to be pummeled into submission (and by "submission," she meant, "pulpy, reddish demise"), she crept quietly over to the sinks. The pipes underneath (wow, at least she had to admit this place knew how to do indoor plumbing right) were exposed. Morgan studied them with the expert eye of one well-versed in the ways of destruction, then drove her foot experimentally--not too hard--into one of the joints. She thought she could feel it threatening to give way. "We could probably bash these apart without too much effort," she suggested. The closet rods might or might not hold up, but a few well-placed kicks might just do the trick.

Elaine hadn't mentioned the ring yet, and Morgan didn't bring it up either. She was sure it'd get mentioned sometime, though, and she realized it probably wasn't practical to hold out on Elaine. Guybrush might have a point about their all needing to work together, as contrary to her nature as it was to have to rely on not even one, but three other people. No way was she going to tell LeChuck, though. That guy was sneaky and (she had to admit it) a darn good fighter, and he couldn't be trusted not to stab them in the backs at the earliest possible opportunity. It'd be better if he didn't know which one of the three of them had it.

[F23]

Once finished with her dinner Nunnally had reached into her desk drawer in search of her journal, thinking to make some notes while she had nothing more to do than wait for the approach of night (for that was all she had to wait for, certainly-- they wouldn't return again tonight... would they?). Though the journal was there, she found something else that she hadn't expected: a plain silver ring, set with a red stone. It quite willingly distracted from her original purpose and worries, and she drew the ring out instead and turned it over in her hands, curiously examining it for any kind of mark or identifying engraving, but found none.

It seemed a peculiar thing to her, as everything else in the drawers served some kind of known purpose-- pens for writing made sense, as did a notebook for writing in, but what use would a supposed mental patient have for a ring? She tried it on and found that it fit, so apparently it was meant for her, though she'd no idea why. Well. As with all unexpected gifts from a place such as this, perhaps she should be wary of it? Though what a ring could do, she'd no idea.

When the intercom announcement came her curiosity only increased further, but so did her concerns. The last place she'd been the night before? The memory flashed before her eyes all unwilling, and she shuddered lightly before firmly placing the ring on the surface of her desk. Lelouch was sure to stop by her room as soon as he could, and perhaps this would make more sense to him.

[from here]

Like a ghost story, Natalia told herself as one hallway opened into another. Reminding herself that these were the same halls she had been escorted through during the day had not served to ease the hairs on the neck, nor her quickening heartbeat. An adventure, a quest through haunted rooms to find the one responsible. That she was not, in fact, looking for Dr. Landel, but heading to a meeting of the Cake Club, she opted not to consider.

Simply thinking of that man emboldened her heart, hastened her hesitant pace, threw back her shoulders. In short order she stood before the doors that opened into the next hall, and was not afraid. Would not be afraid. Had she not faced many beasts during her travels? True, she no longer had her bow, and in that she was at an extreme disadvantage.

Then, be sure to escape. Then, be wary, but not afraid.

[though i walk in the valley...]

As expected, after the allotted amount of time had passed, the nurses started to move through the waiting rooms to inform the visitors that it was time for them to leave, whereas in the Sun Room King Kong was turned off and the staff quickly sprung to action to put the equipment away.

Meanwhile, the sound of intercom turning on cut into the hustle and bustle, but it was Lydia's voice which came through. "Mr. Landel is taking a quick nap," was all she said by way of explanation, as she seemed to be beyond making lengthy excuses for the man. "Nurses, once the visitors have said their goodbyes, escort the patients back to their rooms for dinner. Tonight there is steak and fries on the menu, with a slice of cheesecake for dessert and vegetarian options if requested.

"Enjoy your food and have a good sleep." Keeping it short, the intercom then turned off.

Somehow, after their talk in the chapel, Elaine felt simultaneously more accepting of and more irritated by her future husband. On the one hand, seven years had clearly been good to him. He seemed more sincere and thoughtful than he had been before his disappearance, and he had a more mature (dare she say, handsome?) look to him. On the other hand, there were clearly some things that made even time throw up its hands in vain and say, "To hell with this!" Guybrush was still inexorably prone to disastrous accidents if the story about the Pox of LeChuck was anything to go by, and he was so obviously keeping something important from her that any passing dolt in the Institute would have been able to tell. In the end, that eternal underlying sweetness of his that won out, keeping her from punching him again, at least. That was only by a hairs width, though. Her snugglecakes was going to have to stay on his best behaviour if he knew what was good for him.

She left the Mighty Pirate™ alone for the time being when the announcement of the next shift went off. He would want some time to catch up with Morgan next, presumably. As much as the woman's attitude bothered her, she was a friend of Guybrush's, as she had claimed. Elaine could be strict, but she wasn't the kind of shrewish future wife/past fiancé who would keep her man from seeing his friends. Besides, she needed some more time to catch up on the goings-on of the Institute. Patients filled the building to the brim, now, it seemed; there would be a lot to investigate.

After a few quick trips back and forth to the bulletin and a few new leads to follow up on, the governor gave in to her nurse's persistent nagging and headed to the cafeteria for brunch. After the relatively light fare of the day before, Elaine took advantage of the Institute's admittedly scrumptious offerings and loaded up a full, balanced brunchfast of eggs, sausage links, waffles, and vegetable soup. As expected, the selection of drinks did not offer either root beer or grog. Grog she could live without, at least, she thought while making a face. Eugh. For now, she settled for a tall glass of water.

Elaine settled into a seat in the cafeteria and tucked into her meal. Her eyes didn't stay on her food, though, instead gazing around restlessly; she hadn't seen LeChuck so far this morning, and god forbid he wanted to invite himself to brunch with her if he chose now to show up. A certain horribly unpleasant dinner on Mêlée Island came to mind. She was prepared to either move at the first sign of the dread pirate or signal a random stranger to sit with her before he could.

[For Dean]

The last thing Claude heard was the Head Doctor's voice faintly filtering into the corridors of the ship before he found himself tucked beneath the sheets of his bed. It took a moment to register he'd even changed locations, but then he he abruptly sat up, fought the wave of nausea that washed over him, and felt the blankets beneath his fingers. The room. He was back in his room now. Under different circumstances, he might have wondered if last night had been some horrid dream, but the sharp pain in his eyes gave him a rude awakening. Hissing through his teeth, Claude buried the heels of his palms against his lids, only to discover two cold compresses had been taped over them.

"Good morning, Thomas," he heard the nurse's cheerful voice from beside his bed. Her sudden presence nearly made him jump out of his skin, and he sharply turned toward the source of the greeting, heart beating rapidly in his chest. "I'm sorry you're not feeling well today, but hopefully you can still enjoy some of the activities we have planned."

'Not feeling well' was a bit of an understatement. His hand hurt, his stomach kept turning with every movement, and it felt like someone had dumped a bunch of sand into both eye sockets. Right now, Claude just wanted the nurse to leave him be, but it didn't look like that was an option. Taking his uninjured hand, she gently tugged him out of bed, despite his protests that, no, really, he just wanted to stay in and sleep, please.

"I think getting out of your room a little bit will do you good," she told him. "I'm sorry your eyes are probably hurting, though. If you're ever feeling uncomfortable, don't hesitate to ask one of us for some pills."

"What about eye drops?" Claude asked tightly.

"Oh, no, too much of that could damage your eyes," she cautioned, and the sheer irony of the situation hit Claude so hard that it would have been laughable if he didn't already feel like crying right then. The nurse was as oblivious to it as always, however. "I know you usually go into the chapel during this shift. Would you like to go there again?" Claude didn't answered immediately, but that didn't deter the nurse. "Yes, I think that sounds best..."

In truth, he probably should have requested the sun room -- it was closer, for one, which meant the nurse didn't have to lead him as far of a distance. For another, lying down on one of their sofas sounded like a good option. But by the time Claude came to that conclusion, he was too stubborn to say anything, and he made his way up to the second floor, his footing slow, but steady.

The nurse deposited him on one of the central pews, next to the aisle, before leaving him to himself. Thankfully, it was still early in the shift. As he paused to listen, the room was mostly silent, save for the footsteps and hushed voices of the occasional staff member or patient who trickled in. But it was probably only a matter of time before others came. For some reason, the thought of being stuck in a crowded room made him tense, not necessarily because he thought anyone would pay him any mind, but because he simply didn't want it right then.

Somehow, the full implications of what happened last night hadn't sunken in: experiments, healing himself, the issue of whether he could actually go home after this, not being able to see, the ship, father. Instead, he just felt saturated with all of it, paralyzed by the horror of what they'd done to him, and the uncertainty of what it all meant beyond this moment. Claude took a shuddering breath, uninjured hand balling into a fist in his lap.

[For Guy.]

[From here]

America typically had a pretty vivid imagination, so he could picture a lot of things being out in the hall waiting for him. What he hadn't considered, however, was the hall itself not being there. Instead of a nice, reasonably creepy, relatively dry corridor, America walked into a full on thunderstorm. It took all of five seconds to get drenched in the downpour, and the nation let out a frustrated groan as he looked around. Just what the hell had happened?

America threw up his hands in frustration, then shot an accusatory glance at the other nation, making sure his voice was extra loud to carry over the storm. "England, this is totally your fault!" The old man had been the one just talking about going outside, so it was perfectly reasonable and fair to place the blame on him. Of course he immediately turned to go back inside, but--wait. Where had the building gone?!

"Uh, what's going on here?" Not that dreams were ever supposed to make sense, but the architecture at least had conformed to the basic laws of logic up until now. America made sure to keep his flashlight on, then turned back to get a better look at where they were apparently stuck, since the whole fucking building had up and vanished.

[From here]

Sure enough, the door did not lead back into the hall they had originally come from. Nor did it lead back into the same pantry, as had been the case with LeChuck. Instead, after the moment of spinning and queasiness had passed, Elaine found herself in what looked to be a combination restroom and shower. Though she had been expecting something strange to happen, actually seeing a whole new room where it shouldn't have been was still enough to make her mind boggle some.

She stepped further ahead into the space, giving the others room to move in behind her. Scanning the flashlight beam across the tiled walls and floor in fascination, Elaine murmured to herself, "I was expecting a maze tonight, but this is... not exactly what I had in mind." There had to be some kind of magic at work here, she thought, or possibly some of Leela's futuristic technology. Did this happen every night, she wondered?

[From here]

A slightly larger and comfier-looking room greeted the pair next. A couch and several cushy chairs littered the space, along with a table, chairs, and a large cabinet, among other things. Definitely wasn't the worst place they could have ended up in, Scott thought. They could have ended up in a fridge or something.

Speaking of fridges. "Anything you wanna grab from in here? I kinda want to see if there's anything in there," Scott said with a little grin, gravitating toward the side of the cabinet where a mini-fridge sat. If he knew mini-fridges, he knew they tended to contain at least one of two things: alcohol or pop. With the former, he didn't want any, but he could think of at least a few people who probably would. With the latter, he didn't really like the fizziness, but hey, there could be free power-ups in them, at least!

[from here]

Agatha wasn't really sure what she'd been expecting. Either something would try to defend the room, and she was as ready for that as she could be; or it wouldn't, and she could move on to those adjoining rooms she'd spotted through the doorframe. But she'd certainly expected there to be adjoining rooms, what with having seen them already. In fact, she'd expected it to have anything at all in common with what she'd seen, rather than being a rather boringly tidy little office.

It barely contained anything- desk, chairs, couch, tiny and severely plain machine with a flask- but somehow, it was enough to bring unease to the forefront, despite Agatha's fury. Something was horribly... was even more horribly wrong than she'd thought.

Sleep studies. Emergency reconstruction. The doctor's first message was just as ominous as his second, and once again Aigis felt herself dealing with a rush of sudden, burning emotions. She had to stay seated for a moment, biting her bottom lip, just trying to cool down. With her cooling jets missing, it wasn't quite as easy to filter in air to calm her. She had to rely on this model's version of human "breathing." Was this how real humans coped with the fluctuations in their systems? It was a tedious process.

Finally, she was relaxed again, but just as determined. Standing to her feet, Aigis retrieved the baseball bat Junpei had prepared for her and made for the door. She would find Landel tonight, and force him to release all the patients here in the institution. If he would not listen to her pleas, she was not opposed to using physical means.

[To here]

[From here]

Maybe she should go snatch up her patient file? Possessions, too. Yuffie'd never say no to free stuff, even if it was a bunch of crap from a lie of a life. If she was lucky, she'd get somethin' handy. Handy like a cellphone, or, hell, even a laptop! Yuffie wasn't a technical genius at the best of times, preferring to leave all that stuff to Reeve and the guys in R&D, but if she could get 'em up and working, they'd be like a gift straight from Leviathan.

[To here]

[From here]

Where it was time to go, Yuffie wasn't exactly sure.

The weather warned against another attempt on the outside. Disappointing, but there'd always be another chance in the future; a chance that didn't involve hypothermia, pneumonia, and-or drowning in flood water. Yuffie was no coward, no way, but she could appreciate prudence.

[To here]

Although the trip was longer than usual on account of the rain and wind, the buses did eventually – and safely – reach Landel's Institute. No strange happenings yet; the patients were escorted off the buses according to the usual protocol and made to go to their rooms and change back into their normal uniforms while the nurses temporarily left them to retrieve their dinners and, in some cases, new roommates.

It wasn't long before the Head Doctor made one of his usual announcements:

"Welcome back, everyone! I regret I was unable to join you on your foray today, but you'll soon find that we had some new guests to attend to in your absence! And now, for your dinner: lamb curry, spicy, but served with naan and mildly seasoned steamed vegetables for anyone who might have a sensitive tongue! For dessert, we'll be serving each patient a slice of banana cream pie, and our usual drinks and dietary alternatives are available.

"I'm hoping you all didn't get too wet, and hopefully the hot dinner will warm you up in no time. Nurses, please escort our newer patients to their new rooms, and everybody, I'll speak to you again soon!"

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. ]