[from here]

While Pierson worked on the second door, Indy went back to playing lookout and wondering why the hell Landel had left the first office so easy to get into. Even if they were confident that the patients wouldn't get anything useful out of that computer, the flimsy lock and the unguarded room still left it open to damage. It didn't look like it would be cheap to replace, either.

He took the lead into the second office, too, but his flashlight turned up neither an assailant nor anything else--the office was empty. Strike two.

[from here]

The office was as dark as the rest of the place, and Indy kept the pipe clenched in his right fist while he did a careful sweep with the light. He couldn't see anything moving here either, and there weren't a lot of places to hide. Probably safe.

Simple furniture--a small sitting area at the near end and the doctor's desk in back, with...what the hell was that thing on top of the desk? Indy groped for an explanation and came up short; the closest he got was some kind of miniature movie screen. Whatever it was, it looked important, but he wondered if instinct wasn't playing him false on that one. Why leave this kind of technology so carelessly guarded if it was useful?

"Recognize that device?" he asked Pierson. The cigarettes could wait.

[from here]

It didn't take him long to find the door and it took a few hard kicks to the knob before it was finally weak enough to push open.  When he opened it, however, he almost walked back out to be sure it was the right one.  Everything was different from how he remembered it.  Last time it'd been decorated a little differently.  Maybe the doctor had just moved things around?  Allen scurried over to the desk to check the drawers, but found nothing but paperclips, pens, pencils, and other useless items.  Great.  Just great.

He pulled the drawers out as far as they would go, throwing aside the office supplies in hopes he'd simply missed something, but no, whatever this office was, it wasn't the same as the one he'd been in a week ago.  Unfortunately, he just didn't have time to go searching through each and every other possibility.  With a heavy sigh, he headed back out into the hall.

[back out here]

[from here]

It'd been almost a week since he'd been down this way, though it felt like much longer.  Allen was pretty sure he remembered the right office, especially after he'd watched Tyki and that other patient facing off over a package of cigarettes. 

His ribs still hurt from last night's injuries, but at least some of the bruises had started to fade.  Allen gritted his teeth and continued on, peering through the darkness for the right door.

[to here]

[from here]

Allen hoped to finish the errand as quickly as possible so he could get on with the important things and mentally kicked himself for getting into this mess in the first place.  Of all the wagers he might've made, this was probably the easiest to fulfill, but it was still a pain.  And who knew if Sora would be waiting for him?  He supposed he could head out to the quarry himself, though it'd be difficult to get down on his own.  He owed them at least that much.

For now, though, he concentrated on running down this hall and on toward the next.

[to here]

[from here]

No, really, where the fuck was everyone? Shit, someone needed to be out and about. The rescue-mission post had had a dozen or so eager-beaver volunteers, so where were they? He hoped they were around when he got back with the gear, because he wasn't planning to spend the night as a poor man's on-call EMT.

O.K., so he didn't have other plans beyond the appeal of going back to his room and seeing if falling asleep by design yielded better results. But the idea of turning around and heading upstairs himself was marginally less appealing than a solo night dive. I.e. absolutely dumbfuck moronic, given his current mental state. He could admit to something resembling shellshock, here in the dark, by himself. Nothing a few beers and a few good nights' sleep wouldn't cure, provided he could get them.

[to here]

[from here]

The main hallway was empty, too. The quiet was broken only by squeak of S.T's shoes on the tile floor and tiny creaks of metal as the toolbox swung as he walked.

This was the part in the horror movie where the cheerleader took a knife to the throat. Good thing he'd left his pom-poms at home. As long as he was the idiot friend or the brains (hell, both) he should make it at least to the third act.

He hurried along, hugging close to the left-hand wall.

[to here]

Endrance sighed just slightly as he got his things together. Those injuries from the night before were still there, and he knew he would need to be careful if they should run into something unexpected that night. With any luck, any exploring they did wouldn't require fighting, but he knew now to be on his toes and prepared for anything that could happen.

He paused just before exiting his room. What was...oh. Right. That must have been what Haseo meant by that brief glance and holding up four fingers as they passed each other on the way back to their rooms. Well, that was certainly convenient, he thought to himself, and...it made him a little happy knowing that Haseo was only one hallway over. He blushed just slightly as he flipped on his flashlight and stepped out into the hall.

[to here.]

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. ♥]

[from here]

Itachi proceeded past the center of the main hallway, heading toward the east wing. He had not been over here much, except for that notable night when he had not been acting of his own will. The memory still smarted, a reminder of why he should take his mission here seriously, why he had to defeat Landel and leave this place. With luck he would uncover something useful tonight, and then he could turn his attention to subverting Landel through the very means by which he had taken advantage of Itachi's abilities.

[to here]

[from here]

This was boring. They needed to install like teleporters or warp points or something all sci-fi-like if they were going to be doing creepy experiments and shit. And then they'd make weird ass keys to make the transport things work and then they'd just have to hide them all over the fucking place because, clearly, the people running this place were never game testers, just game developers that actually remembered to disable the cheats.

On second thought, Junpei decided he'd rather walk.

[to here]

There wasn't any jingle as the intercom came on; it sounded like the Head Doctor was still having issues with the system, and it also seemed like he was none too pleased about it.

"Well, everyone, I hope that you all had more fun this last shift than I did! Hahahaaa..."

His weak laughter trailed off. His office chair squeaked.

"In any case, as you all probably know already, it's now time for dinner! I'm sure you've all worked up an appetite after all that repairing – er – exercising, so I'm sure you'll be happy to hear that you'll be served generous portions of spaghetti with delicious tomato sauce and, if desired, meatballs. For sides, you'll be having some freshly baked garlic bread and, if requested, a Caesar salad. Our regular drinks are available, and for dessert, we'll be serving some delicious strawberry gelato.

"And, now, I suppose it's time we get back to this wiri–"

The announcement cut off abruptly.

[from here]

Indy tested the board carefully with the weight of one foot before moving fully inside the building. He checked first for motion--any sign of someone lying in wait for an ambush.

Well, there was someone lying--a number of someones, in fact--but they certainly weren't waiting for anything except Judgment Day. The skeletons were sprawled all over the room, some holding on to each other, others slumped in the pews as if they'd thought prayer would save them from whatever was about to happen. Indy looked down at the board creaking underneath his right foot and saw a suspicious dark stain.

"Whoever smashed the steeple was right," he said quietly. "Looks like God didn't do a whole lot to save these people."

[from here]

In the distance Aidou stopped, and Senna trotted up to him good-naturedly. The question of why the guy had stopped was soon obvious. "Whoa," she breathed. "Good job us."

Ruins were what people had mentioned it as, and with that, Senna thought of something ancient, something crumbling and decaying. While this was true, ruins didn't exactly fit the place. This area seemed more like a ghost town, run down and incomplete, more like a corpse than things.

It was creepy.

Regardless, Senna found herself taking steps past Aidou, feets crunching on the broken road--looking with alert eyes that were were filled with, if not wonder, than some kind of amazement.

[from here]

The farther they got from the Landel's compound, the more forbidding the terrain was growing, Indy noticed. He got the feeling that wasn't a coincidence. It was still pretty easy going by his standards, but the increasingly dramatic rises and dips in the landscape weren't entirely lost on his leg muscles, either. The trees were starting to look larger, packed closer together. Definitely no ATVs here. No signs of any other life, either.

He was starting to consider the merits of turning in another direction and sweeping a circle around the Institute, maybe even cutting their losses and heading back if they had to. Indy detested giving up, but something told him starving to death in a cold, unfamiliar, contaminated wilderness wouldn't be a picnic either. Whatever they had expected to find out here, it hadn't been this kind of wasteland.

[from here]

First step accomplished: they were out. The road that could take them to freedom stretched out before them--for several yards, that was, beyond which Indy couldn't see a damn thing. "Is the future always this foggy?" he muttered reflexively to Pierson. "Movies aren't the only thing that have gone downhill in the last seventy years." They weren't exactly far enough out of the proverbial woods for conversation hour, but he felt the need to vent.

This done, he broke from the road to the left--east, according to the Institute maps. The dimmed flashlight beam hit on trees almost immediately, dense and shadowed. They were heading into the woods.

It sure as hell didn't look welcoming, but neither did the prospect of getting shot. Out of the smoke, into the flames?

[from here]

It felt like he'd probably been about right about the season; the night air was more than a little crisp (comparable to New York? Indy wondered, trying to get his bearings. No, they weren't freezing. Either somewhere warmer, or he'd been a few months off about the time of year). There did seem to be some kind of drive for vehicles here, but Landel evidently hadn't been generous enough to leave them a Rolls-Royce with the keys in the ignition. Well, no surprises there either.

"Where do you want to start?" he asked Pierson, still scanning the darkness for any obvious signs of impending death.

[from here]

The Entry Room (as the maps would have it) was generic and almost eerily symmetrical, with their path from one door to the other cutting straight down the center. Those would be the two other file rooms in the corners, but carting around a bunch of patient files didn't sound all that likely to improve their odds of survival. Good for future reference nonetheless.

Indy swept the room cautiously with his flashlight. It looked like they were the first ones here, but the desks and corners could provide plenty of places to hide if you were motivated enough.

"Better keep moving," he muttered to Pierson.

[from here]

He paused at hearing a noise in the hallway. Akihiko whipped his head around, searching for the source. "You're paranoid," he told himself quietly, when he didn't see it.

He shrugged again, noting the Sun Room door was partially open. He pushed the door open and stepped inside.

[to here]

Nightshift at last. The Gambler left Not-Noah 2.0 without another word, pulling his hood over his head and making his way into the hallway. Tonight was going to be an interesting one, to say the least. Were it not for Grell and his idea of a date, Luxord might have been sleeping in as Landel was (and truly, he did not blame him. Even Nightshift was becoming repetitive, poor man).

As he made his way through the hallway, he took note of how everything felt so wonderful with his Organization uniform on. He never truly appreciated it in his own world, but now it was... comforting, he supposed. It made walking through the shadows easier as well--who would be able to spot him, shrouded in darkness as he was?

[To here]