[from here]

622 headed down to the last door in the cell block corridor, keeping alert for anything that might already have set itself up in the hall. There usually weren't any ambushes this early in the night, but better safe than dead.

He knocked on the door to M41, waiting slightly back from the door for the Commander to open it.

(From here.)

Sean's legs were starting to burn from the effort of keeping Schuldig on his back. It was only a few more feet, he told himself. Like he always did when he was running with the soccer team. He was always last, but he could finish the run at least.

The boy pulled Schuldig over to the plush red carpet in the center of the room and lay him down. The sofa probably would have been a better choice, but Sean intended to barricade the door with that.

'Check his heart!'

"Check his heart!" Sean said as he passed Chris on his way back to the door. He closed it, then rounded the couch. With a grunt, Sean started pushing it towards the door. It was taking him a while, though, as the couch was much heavier than Schuldig and he was moving it across carpet.

(From here.)

Pulling Chris through the door, Sean nearly slipped on the grass as he ran barefoot across the yard outside the greenhouse. It was quiet--a strange and eerie silence that made Sean's skin crawl. He had a bad feeling about being outside. Like eyes were watching him run across the grass. Like he shouldn't be out here without something... but he couldn't put his finger on it.

"This way," he whispered to Chris, guiding his friend around the back of the greenhouse and ducking down into the shadows. Maybe Schuldig would think they'd gone through the door on...

Goddammit! Why hadn't he taken them through the second door?! Now they were trapped here, praying that Schuldig didn't see them hiding behind a glass wall.

'He's going to kill you now,' Artemis gloated. 'You heard him--he's going to be even angrier now that you've made him chase you this far. And only to be caught~ How disappointing.'

(From here.)

Sean rounded the corner, Chris in tow, and skidded to a stop (fortunately not wearing shoes had helped him run faster, though his feet felt uncharacteristically dirty--the floors were clean, weren't they?). He looked around frantically in the dark for at least one glimpse of a member of the night staff. Nothing. He and Chris were on their own.

"Try the doors!" Sean instructed, letting go of Chris' hand to yank on the first door handle available. Locked. He tried the next one. Locked, too.

"Chris you remember what I said about that bruise being done myself?" Sean called over the frantic jiggling of doorhandles. "I lied--Schuldig did it while trying to get Artemis back. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, but I'm afraid he's going to do it again!"

(From here.)

Sean kept charging down the hallway, not pausing to see if Schuldig was still following them or not. At this point, his priority was getting both himself and Chris to safety as soon as humanly possible. Fortunately soccer practice had done something besides give him bumps, bruises, and skinned knees--he could run for a decent amount of time at a swift clip.

"Let's try the doctor's offices!" Sean replied. Maybe one of them would be unlocked and they could hide in there until someone found them. At this point, getting in trouble was better than facing Schuldig.

[From here]

Place was pretty quiet, Tyki noticed. He casually swept the beam of his flashlight around the hallway, but there really was noone in sight. No monster, no patients, nothing. Huh. At this rate, he was going to think he was breaking his personal record of being early or something.

Even though the amount of his cigarettes declined, the Noah only paused to light one. He took a grateful drag from it before moving on.

[To here]

[from here.]

There seemed to be a lot more options here, Aerith noted as she passed a few doors along the way. Maybe she'd come to center of the building? It was hard to tell, and her sense of direction wasn't fantastic. She was lucky if she'd remember the path she'd taken so whimsically to get here. Stopping in front of a particularly large set of doors, the flower girl took a quick break from her exploration to try and commit to memory all the turns she'd taken to get here from her room.

It was certainly worth noting that she still hadn't heard even a whisper from the Planet. Aerith had always thought she would be thankful to not hear the screams and whispers for once in her life. Now that her wish had been granted, she honestly found it strange and more than a little unsettling. Even in Midgar, she'd had a place that she could always go to if she needed to hear the echo of her mother's voice. If anything Gaia had always given her direction and companionship. Clearly, she'd have to apologize when she got out of this place.

And Aerith Gainsborough would get out of here. One way or another. She had to believe that.

The young woman lifted her flashlight, scanning every inch of the wide hallway that she could. Maybe it would be best to take a moment and collect before she continued on her exploration.

Hayes paused in the middle of assembling the few useful items he had- the flashlight and TK's map, of course, and maybe one of the pens in case he wanted to note some kind of landmarks- to scowl up at the intercom. He talks like a schoolteacher and laughs like a damned Ilwrath, he thought, with a very slight shudder. A laugh like that was never good news, and worse when you were defenseless.

Then the lock clicked off, a tiny sound that completely shattered any remaining illusion of this being a legitimate psych unit. The door opened easily under Hayes' touch, and he turned back to look uneasily at his cellmate.

"I guess we have our answer," he said grimly, and turned his light into the dark hallway.


[For McCoy!]

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 ]

Once again, it was Nurse Lydia who took over the daily announcements just after the jingle came on. She didn't seem to waste any time and launched right in.

"Hello, everyone. Dr. Landel will be taking over for the last announcement of the day, but for now, I will continue in his stead. Presently, our nurses will escort you to your rooms, where dinner will be served. Tonight, the menu consists of herb chicken, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and carrots. Dessert is a brownie."

After one of her conspicuous pauses, she added:

"A double-fudge brownie."

It seemed as if someone had been coaching her from the background. At any rate, she stiffly finished the announcement with: "The Head Doctor will speak with you 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. SOME ROOM ASSIGNMENTS HAVE BEEN CHANGED IN LIEU OF DROPS, so please double-check on your character's assignment here. ]

(From here.)

Artemis threw open the door to the movie rental while managing to keep Haku on his shoulder. Quickly, he set Haku down, turned to the door and locked it. Looking to his left, he spotted a shelving unit with movies in it. Without a second thought, he went around it and shoved the heavy shelf across the door, cases falling to the floor as he did so.

Once the shelf was in place, the boy went back to Haku, body shaking from how much adrenaline he was running on at that moment. "We need paper materials. We have to set the building on fire."

[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.

There had still been enough time for the nurses to gather everyone and head back, though it didn't keep Yuuhi from staying near Sakura's side, just in case.  What he hadn't expected though, was the sudden change that came early and worst of all, came fast.  In the time it took to draw breath, the scenery around them changed, as if it was some kind of magic, though it certainly wasn't any spell he'd ever heard of.   

He took a step closer to Sakura, concerned about the nurses and townspeople not far off who had started moving with those strange, almost possessed movements.  The same thing had happened on the bus when they'd been stuck with the nurses and he had no desire to repeat the situation.  At least this time they weren't stuck in the cramped bus to fight them.  All the same, it didn't change the fact that they were stuck outside with monsters in sight and Sakura's guardian was nowhere to be found.  

"Stay close," he told Sakura, keeping a smile on despite the sudden change in circumstances.

Usually it wouldn't be a problem to sense Yue's magic, but here, everything was different.  He had a general idea of where they might be though, and that was really all he could hope for.  Keep Sakura safe; he could do that much, couldn't he? 

"We'll find somewhere safe, ok?"

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?]

After lunch, Kanji had just decided to stay sitting at the table and slowly finish off his soda while he tried to think of something productive he could do while he had the chance here in town. ...Ah, who was he fooling? He had no clue what the hell to do. His senpai probably had a list of things they could all be doing while in town. Investigating stuff or mapping the landscape or gathering information from the townspeople or... something like that. But Kanji had no clue how to go about any of those things. He had the observational skills of a rock and him walking around trying to talk to everyone wouldn't end well.

But even he knew he couldn't just sit here, slurping on his soda all day. He just needed to think of something. Yeah. Something.

....

He drank some more.

[unknowingly for Zex]

After the way night had ended (Miku wasn't sure if they'd ever get the smell of charnel out of her clothes), and morning had returned with its clockwork weirdness. She was hurried onto the bus in her dark red long coat and the dark, knee-length, slightly full dress beneath it. It was surprisingly warm, Miku noted, but that could've just been her body lying to her legs, which were going to be undoubtedly chillier through the day. As always with these trips, her nurse had taken the opportunity to channel Little Red Riding Hood into her patient's life.

Oh, well, she didn't mind that much. It was just clothing.

Miku slid into a seat with her bag of breakfast and her camera in her pocket. She couldn't help shake the feeling of oncoming dread that had started with the end of the night's bleeding walls. Maybe she was just being silly, maybe she shouldn't listen to the alarm ringing in the back of her mind.

But still, she couldn't help but to wonder what it was leading to.

[Waiting for Peter]

The static snapped Spider out of his gruesome writing trance. His initial project had been to cover the walls in his shit, but he soon sobered up and realized that the nurses would probably wash it all off as soon as he cleared out of the cell, and he couldn't even read what he'd been writing very well. Instead - and mostly because he didn't actually want to smear shit all over himself - Spider had begun writing on his clothes and body using a mixture of blood and saliva. He was still having problems reading what he'd written, but he planned to transcribe it later. He'd have plenty of time after the interviews. He just needed some jumpstart, maybe a cigarette, maybe some coffee, maybe a whole fucking lot of coffee and - WAIT! INTERVIEWS!

The static rose in volume, and Spider heard the click of his cell door unlocking. Leaping to his feet, Spider threw himself against the door until he found a way to open it, and burst out into the corridor.

"HAVE AT THEE, DOGFUCKER! WHO UNLOCKED MY DOOR? I WILL EITHER THANK YOU OR FUCK YOU IN THE NECK DEPENDING ON WHO YOU ARE."

Spider threw his gaze around the room, attempting to slam it into a lurking orderly or patient. He found no one.

"BAH! I HAVE INTERVIEWS TO CONDUCT. YOU ARE SAFE FOR NOW, YOU QUIVERING TOWER OF EXCREMENT! BUT THIS IS NOT THE LAST TIME THE BASTARDS WILL PUT ME IN SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, AND THE NEXT TIME YOU LET ME OUT, I WILL GRIND YOUR SKULL AGAINST ITS OWN FOOLISHNESS UNTIL CANDY COMES OUT."

Screaming into the empty corridor, Spider kicked open the door and ran.

[to here]

Just as von Karma started to enter the doorway leading to the Courtyard to look around for anyone remotely resembling his daughter, that pretentious lunatic's voice rang out over the Intercom, heralding the approach of lunch time. Right away, the damned nurse practically dragged him back into the cafeteria and towards the serving tables, telling him in that cloyingly cheerful tone that he could get his fresh air after he had had his meal. What rotten timing!

His mood worsened as he saw what was on those tables. "Nurse! This is the same greasy, disgusting, perfect-artery-ruining swill that was offered for lunch the last time I was in here! Does this Institute serve nothing else? How is any of this healthy for someone whom you claim has recently suffered from a stroke?!"

"Why, you're right, Mr. Fuchs! Here, I'll fix you a nice, big, healthy salad." Before he could protest that he wasn't hungry anyway, the smiling nurse loaded a heap of greens and some fruits onto a plate for him. Then she led him to one of the tables and seated him there. "Now, be a good man and finish all of that. You will do that just for me, won't you?"

The look he shot her in response indicated that he would never do anything "just for her." Certainly, not consuming this entire mountain of lettuce and carrots. As much as he approved of salads, the portion she served him was nothing short of ludicrous. Glaring at her in silence, he made no pretense of even starting in on this ridiculous travesty of a meal. Finally, she seemed to take the hint, excusing herself to attend to the other patients... but not without admonishing him that his "plate had better be clean" by the time she returned to take him to the Courtyard.

As she left him, von Karma looked all around him to see whether Franziska had come into the cafeteria yet. Unfortunately, as he had already arranged to meet his former roommate at this time, all he could do for now was to attempt to visually confirm her presence in this hellhole. As much as he hoped that the author of the replies to this S.T.'s note was nothing more than an impostor -- in which case, he would make that person pay for brazenly impersonating his daughter -- he was not entirely certain of that right now.

In the meantime, he had other practical matters to attend to. He still needed to speak to Javert to find out what had truly happened during the time he was unconscious. As he surreptitiously scanned the stream of arriving patients for the face of his daughter -- or those of his enemies -- he patiently awaited Javert's arrival, hoping that the man could still recognize him after all this time.

[Closed to Javert]

Lunch had passed quicker than Jizabel would have liked, and he found himself back in his office once more, awaiting his own patient first and the addition to his schedule second. After the two morning sessions, Jizabel was hoping he would have some more interesting patients this time. The "vampire" had turned out to be only a spoiled brat, and a truth-teller... well, there was hardly any way to work with that kind of specimen outside of just being Dr. Disraeli. Nothing to drag out of the patient's mouth left things far too dull.

Now with the lawyer Jizabel had found added to his list for the day, things should easily be more interesting. And there was always Sean's dear roommate to get to know. Hopefully he wouldn't be too sore over the incident he had caused yesterday.

[this Doctor's mun is sick, but she guarantees backthreads because of it!]