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. ]

When the shift changed, HK stayed put. Even after a long night of zombie killing, he had no interest in meatbag fuel, especially after all the discussion of chocolate with that rather strange meatbag. It was just making him crave the stuff even more than he had previously, if that was possible.

Oh, right. He was supposed to be looking for someone who was "VERY LARGE, WITH DARK HAIR." And also seemed to not know what lower-case letters were on the bulletin. As if that would help. He'd seen a likely candidate last shift, but talk of chocolate had distracted him.

It had been easy enough during the daylight to dismiss the idea of monsters as a mass hallucination or the result of some sort of psychotropics. Bond, standing in a bank of fog that had not been present just moments before, suddenly found it just that much harder to rationalize. The trees lining the park looked warped and twisted where their branches stretched out through the mist, and the grass beneath his feet was withered and foul-smelling. A quick mental review showed nothing eaten recently enough that its contents should have brought on delusions nearly this quickly.

He peered through the mist with narrowed eyes, straining to see anything more than distorted, vague shapes. The scrabbling of earth nearby brought his head around, in time for his gaze to light on bony fingers, flesh hanging in greasy shreds, poking up through the dead earth. There was an instant during which his mind...stuttered, trying to refute the information conveyed by his senses, the low moaning and eerie scrabbling and reek of rotting flesh atop the macabre scene. The dead didn't crawl out of their graves, couldn't.

Unfortunately, no one seemed to be telling them that.

Jaw set and expression grim, he cast about for anything that looked like it might serve as a better weapon than bare hands. The closest he could see were the limbs of the trees; hopefully whatever had fouled the earth and twisted the vegetation would make them easy enough to snap off.

"Well," he muttered, opting for dry understatement in the face of the horrific and impossible, "this could get interesting."

[for Alec!]

With the early morning’s embarrassment out of the way, Depth Charge had decided to devote a chunk of the day to familiarising himself with Doyleton: its ins and outs, the stores, the street names. Anything that could prove useful if he ever managed to escape- that, and having something to keep his mind busy after the incident in the used car place. Not only had he looked stupid, he’d looked careless and stupid, and neither of those were looks he really wanted to go for.

Finally he drew his circuit of the town to a close in a run-down park just off of Kelley Street, and boy did it ever look like slag. There was something oddly refreshing about it after the squeaky-clean stroll he’d taken around Perfectville, and anyway, he could hear the sound of a stream in the distance. Good enough for him.

The paper bag he’d been given on the bus was starting to feel irritatingly heavy to him, so it didn’t take long to pick a bench and sit down to eat. Depth Charge opened it up. Ah-hah. There it was. His old adversary. The orange fruit.

What was it Mori had done? Peeled the top part away? With the care of a ‘bot picking the wires on a ticking bomb, he began to strip the outer layer off of the fruit. So far so good. At this rate he might even be able to eat the slagging thing... 

[What light through yonder window breaks? Tis the East, and Lugnut is the sun!]

Before anyone could come to any decisions for their next move, the room suddenly filled with a thick fog. Faster than he could realize what was happening, it had filled up the entire room and swallowed every single one of his friends. Then there was that undeniable stench of iron, blood and... he last remembered taking a step back and feeling that slippery skid and the realization of what that was. By the time he yelled, he was sitting straight up in his bed like he'd bolted awake. Like it'd been nothing more than a bad dream. ...What the hell just happened?!

"Oh! Good morning!" The nearby voice made him yelp with a half squeak-like noise. Oh, for hell's sake. It was one of those freaking nurses again. She was beaming at him like nothing had happened at all. Before he could so much as ask one question, the hag started blathering real fast about some field trip and buses and getting changed and hurrying up before everyone left without him and... OH MY GOD, WHAT WAS SHE DOING?! She was grabbing at his shirt like she was about to start helping him get dressed (or undressed in this case).

He flailed in a desperate attempt to get away from her and yelled his consent to go along if she would get out and let him change HIMSELF. What was the matter with her?! Thankfully, she left but told him to hurry. Hell if he knew what she'd do if he took too long. So for the sake of not getting freaking stripped, he quickly changed into the clothes she'd left on the bed. Clothes being the ugliest looking white-and-black track pants he'd ever seen and a bright blue sweatshirt with a cute little penguin design on the front. This was some kind of joke, right? ...Not to say the penguin wasn't cute or anything but there was no way, no way, he was wearing something like this in public.

But the nurse had burst right in again, and before Kanji could offer much protest, he was being pulled down the hallways and through the doors of the bus. He'd yelled some things her way, but she totally wasn't listening at all. By the time they stopped, he was standing at the front of the bus with a paper bag and the nurse had run off to cart another poor sap along. Frickin' PERFECT. For the sake of not standing up there like some kind of zoo animal for everyone to stare at, he plopped himself into one of the seats by the front and sighed in complete exasperation.

[Free. No limit.]

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]

All praise to Leviathan, the Flower of Wutai was free!

Yuffie all but bolted away from the weirdo she'd shared her breakfast table with. She wanted to get to the courtyard as soon as possible, wanted to be free of the jolting disquiet brought on by Albedo's creepy grin, strange attitude, and his questions. If it hadn't been for the night before - and if he hadn't been one of the ones directly involved -- maybe it wouldn't have bothered her so much, but she was on edge. Couldn't quite work out what to think and what to feel. A breath of fresh air and the feel of grass under foot would hopefully fix that, or at least make it easier to deal with.

She spent the trip over bugging her nurse, as usual. And again as usual, she escaped from the woman as soon as she possibly could. "Like I'd ever cause trouble!" She called back to Miss Stuffy McNursey-pants, calling an end to their pseudo-argument about behaviour and safety. Grass tickled her palms as she cartwheeled across it. She breathed so deep that it almost made her dizzy, tumbling to a stop right by the edge of the pond, and stared up at the sky. Just this time last week, she'd met Sagara for the first time. It felt like months ago… Yuffie sat up sharply.

Now wasn't the time for nostalgia. Now was the time for the future, for getting her head on straight. The usual avoidance tactic just wasn't gonna cut it, kind of like how a butter knife would be useless in a battle against a Rampaging Syrup Monster from the depths of Carameltopia. This was going to require finesse. The Problem At Hand was trying to ninja her; she had to ninja it right back. Sneak up on it, grab it in her best headlock and hold on until it surrendered. Make it think it really was getting to her -- which it was -- and then… and then…

Push it down the No-Go trapdoor and pretend it never happened? No. She had to use this. Nobody could change the past, but the future… that was fixable. If her various victims didn't make it their missions in life to A - make her time hell or B - take their revenge in slightly more permanent ways, that was.

[Loose reserved for Guy. Limit: 4]

Endrance turned his head to look at the intercom, giving it a look that would wither an entire rose garden in an instant. He would never get used to ending up in his room again from somewhere else in the Institute.

He brushed his bangs out of his eyes, not sitting up just yet. He could tell already that his torso had been heavily bandaged, even more so than it had been the night before. The cuts on his arms were covered with fresh bandages, and the one on his cheek seemed to no longer be there at all.

Endrance had been expecting to wake up in a lot of pain, but even that seemed numbed. "They must have given me something," he murmured quietly, as he slowly sat up.

At that moment, his nurse came to get him, pushing a wheelchair along with her. "Peyton, dear, good morning. I've come to take you to breakfast, so..." He shook his head. "I'm fine. There's no need for that...I can walk perfectly well."

She sighed. Well, if he insisted, she wasn't going to stop him. She motioned for an orderly to take the chair away, and walked him to the cafeteria. Once they had gotten there, she pointed him toward a seat, then set a full tray of pancakes covered with syrup, a bowl of fruit, and a glass of orange juice in front of him. "Now eat all of that, Peyton, or else you won't be strong enough to keep walking like that."

He glared at her back as she walked away, then stopped suddenly. There was that faint pulse he'd felt the night before...it was exactly the same.

And so he completely ignored his food in favor of staring at the cafeteria doors, looking at every patient that came in.

[thread will be closed to Haseo. ♥]

Just like usual, the intercom came on soon after dawn, pulling most patients out of their "sleep" to start a new day.

The voice was Lydia's, and she was quick to explain her presence. "I apologize for the Head Doctor's absence, but as he was busy doing paperwork all night long, he's feeling a bit exhausted this morning. He should be around for the next announcement."

With that taken care of, there was a slight sigh and then a shuffling of papers.

"Some new patients will be joining all of you this morning, so please do your best to make them feel safe and welcome. Breakfast will be pancakes with sides of tater tots, bacon, and scrambled eggs. There is also a salad bar and drinks such as water and juice available."

She was all business, not even taking the time to throw in a quip or side comment. Instead, she rushed to end her announcement.

"I hope you all have a good morning."

The intercom shut off.

[ All introduction posts for this shift's group of new characters should be made in response to this post.

Have your character wake up in a random room as we don't have roommates sorted out yet. Putting M??/F?? in the subject line is fine. ]