Last night had been a nightmare. That had to be what it was, but Ilia couldn't deny reality. In her anguish, Ilia had slept through the first half of the day plagued by nightmares. In her dreams she saw Rose's broken body all over again with Gamzee standing over her, his club raised to strike again. Somewhere, she could hear Martin Landel laughing.

Much like the battle last night, Ilia was overcome by her powerlessness. Was she really so useless? Why did it have to be the children who suffered pain and death? Why was she left alive here? She didn't wish for her own death, but if she could have given up her life to save Rose... But nothing could be done now

Ilia had failed to save an ally in need. If only her Captain could have been here, then just maybe his uncanny luck and drive might have saved them. He had a miraculous touch that could solve anything. Ilia now understood why she would never be on equal footing with him.

Miserably, Ilia roused herself at her nurse's insistence that she come eat. She didn't take a moment to brush her hair or wash her face. She just followed along as directed, trying to ignore the hallow feeling in her chest. Ilia wasn't hungry, but she took one of the bags offered to her and trudged to the bulletin. She addressed a few notes then added one herself. It wasn't the prettiest note, but Ilia couldn't produce the level of prose that Rose deserved. Instead, she wrote it quickly, like ripping off a band-aid. Short. To the point.

Her task done, Ilia found seat in the corner and sunk down into the cushion. Burying her face in her hands, she concentrated on breathing. She couldn't face the sun today.

[For her children Claude and Anise]

( from here. )

Honestly, this room made Kairi uncomfortable. As small as it was, there were rows of shelves in front of them, and she could see a door at the far end of the room, leading out to the lobby, she guessed.

Well, two exits were better than one, she supposed.

"Should we look for anyone else while we're here, you think?" She asked Sora in a soft whisper, not knowing what lurked in the darkened space ahead of them. She knew they had to be cautious, especially considering the small size of the room. She knew that no matter how safe something seemed, it didn't mean it was just that. Sometimes the most horrifying things came in small packages.

( from here. )

Kairi stepped quietly into the room, clicking her flashlight on as she peered through the darkness. There were no windows, nothing to help light shine through, but it was small enough. There were chairs and a table, and she could see what looked like binders and books lined up on bookcase after bookcase.

"Doesn't look like anything really could be in here, but," Kairi trailed off, moving deeper into the room. Her fingers moved over the bindings of the books as she read out loud.

[from here]

"As for the maps...actually, this area was only 'unveiled', for lack of a better word. Until a few nights ago, it was entirely inaccessible. I would not know the reason entirely--I would suspect it is a combination of both purposeful censoring and ignorance--but I do believe that most of this place has not been officially mapped."

Kratos walked past the first hallway to come up. He remembered it from his previous trip here with Soma of all people. (That night has also ended up unfortunate; he'd been hallucinating the whole time, and the gas at the very end had not helped things.) Down there was a library and another room for records as well as a few offices: hardly supply rooms. No, they would have to go a little further. Here was where the true exploration began.

"I would also assume, though, that the staff would remove a map of this place were it to be posted. Patients, after all, are not meant to be wandering out at night."

[from here]

Ah, this place. It had been a few nights since he had been here, and Kratos took a few moments to sort through his mental map of this place. There were still some large blank spaces, but hopefully, those would be filled soon--tonight, even. That would make three birds, wouldn't it? He was certainly pinning much on this little excursion.

He turned back toward Lingormr. "Well, here we are. The supply rooms should be somewhere further in the back, although, since I've never come here for supplies before, I'm afraid the specifics elude me."

[from here]

"It really isn't far to the hallway upstairs."

Lust could see the door to the stairwell now, at the edge of the light from their torch. She looked to Scar again.

"What do you think we'll find?" she asked, hoping to steer the conversation to something that wouldn't result in them ramming heads like mountain sheep. And she was somewhat concerned over what was in this room. Things that were supposed to be theirs, but...what did that mean?

And how much would it really tell them?

[from here]

"I know you didn't believe at least half of what I told you at breakfast."

And she supposed that was being a bit generous. But why should he have believed her? She really couldn't blame him. This place was full of half-truths and illusions as it was.

"But I hope you at least verified what I told you. I have no reason to lie to you, Scar. What purpose would lying to you about this place possibly serve me?"

If nothing else, she figured an appeal to logic might have more impact on him. She really didn't have any reason to lie to him. Not about the Institute. And for goodness sake, it wasn't as though she could carry on a lie. All he needed do was ask someone else!

Now that he had finally been allowed back inside, the warmth from the Sun Room hit him like a heated slap in the face. With ruddy cheeks and the sticky feeling of perspiration from his little walk/job with Niikura made him feel like a sun-burned mess. His nurse was kind enough to take his jacket from him before he went to the restroom to splash a little water on his face.

It also gave him a moment to himself, completely alone and silent so he could think. The water in the sink continued to run, but the older man was more occupied with the mirrors. He stared at his wet reflection as he took a few slow breaths to help contain himself. The longer he stayed here, the more surreal it all felt. Slowly, he began to feel less and less attached to this reality because he believed it was only a matter of minutes, seconds before he woke up.

He couldn't let the sensation overwhelm him. In fact, he picked a hand up from the sink and pinched himself to prove his point. Bizarre or not, this was his situation and he needed to figure out soon just who put him in it. The fact that none of the nurses would even humor his talk of his Hero alter ego said many things to him. Suddenly no one had even heard of him and it was an all too familiar problem that made his blood run cold. In spite of it all, he needed to be on his toes. This was no time to fall apart, he reminded himself. With one last deep breath, Kotetsu put his clueless smile back in place and stepped out of the bathroom with his nurse in toe who gave him a quick tour of the all the places he could go if he chose to.

He passed one room and took three steps back to get a better look. "Ah, excuse me, ma'am! What's this one?"

"Oh, that's arts and crafts," she said flippantly, not expecting a grown ass man would be interested in playing with clay. Well, she was clearly mistaken now that he saw the extent of the materials. They had a lot in here! And he had the perfect idea. If the staff here refused to regard him as Wild Tiger, he was just going to have to force it on them.

Snickering like a fool, Kotetsu grabbed several sheets of black construction paper, glitter, glue, and a pair of safety scissors before sitting down at a vacant table. Actually, all the tables were empty. He was the only one in here and that was probably for the best since he was making himself a makeshift domino mask of ultimate secretiveness.

He laid all the pieces of construction paper on top of each other before he began cutting out something that looked like an elongated figure eight with little barbed fins at the bottom. It wasn't going very well. Kotetsu was confident he could probably cut a tree down with a stick of butter faster than these scissors would cut through the paper.

He was going to be here for awhile.

[Kaede Kairi, come to papa!]

Needless to say, her night was a bust.

It wasn't that Ramona was trying to turn it into an absolutely safe evening in which she got nothing done. A part of her wanted to test the limits of her abilities and see what she could actually do in this place, but outside of the absolute confirmation that subspace was no longer a go, she couldn't bring herself to go much farther. Scott's words hung over her heavily. The fact that he had made it clear that he was going to continue being as affectionate as possible wanted to remove any chance of her dealing with anyone. So, though she hit another hall, she turned back around and headed back to her room. Ramona was the type of person who sometimes preferred sulking with company, but that wasn't on the plate for the night. (And she didn't want to call it sulking, either.)

She wasn't certain when she fell asleep, but when she woke up, she was sure the people in charge here had some kind of fast-forward button that they could hit whenever they got bored. That was definitely not the entire night, nor had it been the night before. Sometimes night just ended. Of course, Ramona could appreciate the need for a scene change. This place was already running on enough lame clichés to last it a lifetime. Sometimes they need to return to the daytime status quo to hit reset.

That all said, she was getting the feeling that her own waking up process was a little boring. Ramona was glad that her hair was short now because it made her feel a lot less neurotic about the lack of allowed primping. She cast a glance in the direction of her roommate's bed before she plodded out after her nurse. The woman was kind looking, which, of course, meant that she was evil. Then again, anyone could be evil. Ramona just wanted everyone to be evil right now.

(Maybe she was still sulking.)

"We've noticed that you haven't been socializing as much, Sandra," the woman said while grabbing her attention, and it was as if Ramona finally clued in that a conversation was supposed to be happening. Great, she was fitting the bill for crazy on top of incredibly irritated already. The nurse was definitely evil. And maybe a bitch, with the way her fingers freed her shoulder and she stepped back, snorted softly, and gave a shake of her head. "It's always when you're new that it's hard," the nurse added. "And we can tell you're rebellious."

"Wow, it's been a while since someone thought I was a punk rocker. Don't worry. I can socialize," Ramona assured her as she hit the cafeteria. But it looked like she was one of the first arrivals.

Ramona decided she'd get the woman off her back by grabbing a tray of food and not sitting too far from it. At least people might stumble upon talking to her if she looked available enough.

(And hopefully, that someone wouldn't be Scott. Even though she highly doubted his ability to get out of bed, he seemed to acclimate to this place enough to make an appearance with his face and his smiles and his stupid "I love you"s.)

[for America]

[From here. Outside F36.]

And he'd made it! That hadn't been so bad. Sora was just glad that he'd been able to make it over without any interruptions. After last night, this one was practically calm. Still, he realized that that could change at any second, so he was relieved that he'd gotten here before anything weird had started.

F36, right? Sora realized that he'd gotten here pretty fast, which might mean that Kairi's roommate was still here. He had never met her (did he even know her name? He didn't think so), so it might be kind of nice to, so long as he and Kairi were left alone after that.

Well, only one way to find out. He held his flashlight down at his side and tightened his grip on the pillowcase that was hanging over his shoulder before rapping on the door with his knuckles. "Hey, Kairi? It's me!"

Anise had been lying snug in bed, only vaguely aware that she was awake, when her rest was disturbed by the one sound in the world she'd never wanted to hear again.

"Good morning, everyone!"

The girl's eyes shot open and she immediately sat up straight. There was no doubt about it. That was the Head Doctor, that bastard, and he was back! Now that she was wide awake, Anise realized she was wearing the institute's old uniform again, and that the decorative items in her room had been left alone.

It was hard to contain her frustration at hearing the man run through the breakfast menu as if it were any other day, and she ended up throwing a pillow against a wall before pulling herself out of bed. Didn't Marc get a chance to kill that guy? What about the army? Landel had to have pulled some dirty trick to end up back in the Head Doctor's seat.

Seething was only going to get Anise so far, though, and she knew she'd have to go out and face the day. She wasn't surprised when a clueless nurse came to pick her up, though she wasn't any less annoyed that the hag was carrying on as if nothing had happened. At least she had Tokunaga back with her...

Finally, she reached the Cafeteria, where Anise instinctively moved to line up at the real-food counter... before realizing they weren't divided anymore. More importantly, though, the food looked and smelled not only edible, but delicious. Whatever happened yesterday seemed to be over, thank goodness. She loaded up a plate full of waffles topped with strawberries and made her way over to a seat.

There was a lot to think about, but she needed to take things one at a time. Since she'd gone all of yesterday with nothing to eat but candy and chocolate (something she may not have objected to if she were a little younger), getting some real food into her body was Priority Number One. And Priority Number Two was... oh! Luke had to be around somewhere. He promised he'd meet her that day, so she had to keep an eye out for him!

[for Luke]

[from here]

The next hall was blessedly empty and, more importantly, blood-free. Somehow, that meant that he could breathe a little easier, but Niikura still kept up the pace he'd set the hall before. The faster they got to Mike, the better: safety was going to lie in numbers tonight.

"--but anyway, as for me, my day was alright--well actually, it was more interestin' than just plain old 'alright'." He might as well tell her since she was going to ask inevitably, and he would rather do it on his own terms. "Talked to a couple of characters today..." He looked down at Shiina, face suddenly somber. "You're not talkin' to anyone about Akumetsu, are ya? If ya could keep it under wraps, at least the name, that'd be appreciated."

[from here]

No, something was different. It wasn't until she reached the next hallway that Anise realized, but she could feel fonons - in the air, and in her body. It took a moment to process this, but as she thought about it, she quickly grew excited. Could this mean...!?

Tokunaga was retrieved from her back, and she held the doll in front of her in her arms. She focused her energy, and... to her delight, the doll began to grow. Its limbs stretched out, then thickened as the head and torso swelled to several times its original size. Once it was large enough, Anise tucked her weapon in the strap of the bag tied around its neck, then used her free hand to hold on to its head. When it finished growing, the doll was slightly taller than an average adult (and much wider), and Anise sat happily atop its big round head.

"Tokunaga! You're back!" she cried excitedly, wrapping her arms around the top of the doll's enormous head to give it a celebratory hug. "Let's go show the others!" This could only mean good things! Maybe they could finally escape!

The doll charged triumphantly through the hallway... then stopped at the door. The frame was too narrow for it to fit through. Anise had to shrink the doll down a bit, carefully squeeze through, make it grow again, and then they were off to find her friends!

[to here]

As the day began drawing to a close, the intercom flickered to life. Instead of Harrington's voice, however, Berg's calm tone filtered through the speakers.

"Attention all personnel: please escort subjects to their quarters for the duration of dinner shift. After that, you are expected to report to your stations -- no exceptions. Anyone caught away from his or her post without direct orders will have to personally answer to the general."

An odd tension hung in the air, but Berg didn't say anything more than that. Once the intercom clicked off, soldiers began to gather up the patients and bring them to their rooms. Most didn't know why Harrington wasn't handling the announcements, or why Berg sounded particularly serious this evening, though no one would admit that to the subjects themselves.

The few who did know had more pressing matters to contend with.

Guy's head was still spinning from finding out that his friend was back once again. He realized that he'd done a good job of keeping his cool while explaining everything to Luke, mainly because nothing would have been solved if both of them had been reeling, but...

What exactly was he going to do now? Tear and Natalia being excluded from the basement group was one thing, but Guy felt a duty to Luke that he was going to have a difficult time divorcing himself from. He realized he wasn't really Luke's servant anymore (Luke had said so himself), but with how often Luke had left this place only to return again, how could he not feel as if he needed to keep an eye on him?

Granted, it was something that they could split up among their whole group. Luke wasn't going to like the idea of being babysat, but Guy didn't know if he was comfortable with anything else. Tear and Natalia could stick with him when he headed off with Claude and Anise, but getting all of that information transmitted in the small time left before night came seemed impossible. In any case, if he made it sound more subtle -- like they were all just taking care to stick together -- then Luke would probably accept it.

The soldiers forced them apart when lunch ended, however, meaning that Guy's only option was to put up a bulletin notice and hope that things worked themselves out that way. He was pretty sure Claude still had an extra sword for Luke, so that was one weight off of his shoulders at the least. But he really didn't want Luke going off on his own at night, so any chance of preventing that was his priority.

Once a note had been posted, Guy finally agreed to go into the Game Room with most of the patients. He realized he had the ability to wander elsewhere, but it seemed pointless when there were barely any others who had the same privileges. Still, he couldn't help thinking of Sai; he still needed to track the man down at some point.

Upon entering the room and finding that it was still relatively empty, Guy started to wander in search of anything interesting to play. He could always check out one of those portable game systems again.

[For Edgar.]

Anise couldn't get out of the Cafeteria fast enough. The stench of rotted food was overwhelming, and she was starting to feel sick. Most of her nausea came from seeing the people around her eating it, though. Even her friends! Anise didn't know what to do... What if lunch ended up being the same?

The Sun Room didn't feel like it was nearly far enough from all the rot, and Anise was convinced she could still smell it even after leaving the Cafeteria. She considered ducking into that blanket fort to get away from it (wait, blanket fort?), but decided distance was a better buffer than a pile of sheets and cushions (but seriously, blanket fort?). After giving the bulletin a quick look-over (No one had said anything about the food yet. It wasn't just her, was it...?) she decided to duck into the Library. With her privileges, Anise probably could have run off to wherever she wanted, but she figured it would be too boring to do that if she wouldn't have anyone to talk to.

Come to think of it, Anise hardly ever came to the Library, even though she liked reading. It just never felt like there was enough time to read. The first and last time she came was the day she had that fight with Aidou. She wondered how he was doing. Maybe it was about time they made up...

The last time she came, she'd been looking up Earth myths and legends. Anise wandered back to that section, looking over the rows of books as she considered giving that another shot.

While she stood there, her stomach growled, and she set a hand on it with a groan. "Like I could even stomach a meal right now..."

[Tear.]

[From here.]

Almost immediately, everything got darker. The trees were so thick that the scant moonlight was completely cut out to the point that it felt almost suffocating. Like they were cut off from the rest of the institute entirely. More than that, it was quiet here. Sora heard a rustling from the bushes and a flap of wings here and there, but other than that it was like they were completely alone.

Which meant that it was the perfect time for something to find them and go for the kill.

There were a number of paths branching off in different directions, which made it even harder to know which way to go. Sora glanced to Riku and let out a breath. "So, any guesses to which way we should head? This is as far as I've been..."

Though before he could finish any of those thoughts, Sora did see something -- or rather, someone. He thought he was hallucinating for a second, especially because the person who was drifting through the trees ahead of them was someone he recognized. The red hair, those tattoos -- it was unmistakable, and Sora gasped as it sunk in. "Renji!"

He had to fight to not chase after the man, realizing that if he did that Riku would probably end up losing his balance. More than that, Sora knew that this couldn't be real. His friend had died -- they'd even tried to hold a funeral for him -- which meant that this was nothing more than a ghost. And yet just seeing some representation of Renji wandering around like that was enough to dredge up a host of memories.

Sora had learned by now to not dwell on the people who he'd lost during his time in this place, but it was hard not to when it was being shoved in his face like this.

[from here]

His feet hit the ground hard, which made him feel like he just worsened the mark that the bullet left in his leg.

Riku forced himself to keep going for a few steps before he just stopped. And it wasn't just that he stopped, a dizzying feeling swept over him, and it wasn't unlike how he felt after fighting Xemnas. He managed to get through that fight all right, but he knew he didn't have much after. This was worse. Minus his additional strength and plus the other factors, he was barely moving. Each step, as he lumbered on, was almost impossible. He forced himself to stop, and though he should've been listening for his friends, it felt like his heart was beating too hard to focus.

Was that the limit of this place? Was he all right in a fight as long as he didn't hurt himself? Riku fell hard to his knees as he tried to focus on this. What good was he to them now? His hand fell over his leg and he felt the warm, sticky liquid, and he winced from the stinging feeling of the pain.

Nowhere in his mind was the lingering feeling of resentment over not being able to go with his plan from before. Right now, all he could focus on was how much of a burden he was. After insisting he came along on this, this was all he was good for, in the end.

[from here]

Stepping outside sent chills all over Brook's body for how cold it was. He'd welcomed it when there was snow for him to play with, but given the absence of the white powder this evening, Brook only shivered and crossed his arms to rub away the sensation.

"Must still be winter then," he laughed and watched as his breath condensed.

Telling what time of year it was in this place was difficult anyway, but the temperature at least gave an area for them to consider. Snow meant winter, or just nearing spring, and then the cold temperatures had to be either Winter or Fall. And since they couldn't go backwards from snowy winter to fall...

"Ah, but that would be a shock!" The place had seen stranger occurrences that Brook actually had to consider that the seasons could try to go backwards on them. At the very least, that gave him the potential for making another snow angel or having that snowball fight that he'd overlooked while in the town.

Eventually the cool of the night air overtook Brook's wild theories about weather patterns and reminded him that he shouldn't be dallying. He was supposed to be searching out his friend! Brushing his arms over once more, he turned for the door at the opposite end of the field.

[gone here]

Something horrible was going to happen. Rita was sure of it. She didn't know what, but receiving an unknown injection from an army that already had a reputation for screwing around with people definitely wasn't good news. And if the things she read on the bulletin that day were to be believed, she had every reason to feel uneasy.

Rita wasn't going to take this lying down. No, she was the greatest mind in all of Terca Lumireis. If anyone could do something about this, she could.

If it was a chemical they injected her with, then maybe there was a chemical that could just neutralize its effects... so before those effects became too severe, Rita was going to hurry to the medical wing, where there had to be something she could use.

Had to be something. Had to be something. She wasn't panicking.

Rita snatched her backpack, gave the room one last frantic glance, and then took off without another word to Kairi. She didn't want to give the girl a chance to try to stop her.

[to here]