"A horse!"

Gods preserve us, Bast had went and discovered the Pet Supply Place. Standing outside the corral, he held his radio in his hands, chattering away to it.

"Of course I was good. The nice nurses gave me two blue pills, and I was fine. When are you getting here?"

Listening intently to the radio, he nodded and tucked it back in the crook of his arm. The horse continued to ignore him despite Bast's best efforts to gain its attention. How he had gotten this far down the street was anyone's guess, but there was a better than average chance that his 'oh shiny!' response played a large role in it. Patting his radio, Bast tried again.

"Here horsie! Here horsie!"

The horse snorted and munched on a few grains, pointedly ignoring the weird one.

[ from here ]

The landen behind the counter was badly dressed and watched him. He paused in the only clear spot to look through his coupons. It didn't look like the staff wanted them to come back with any books. Ah well, he could look. There could be something to learn there.

Saetan found the spaces between the shelves a bit clausterphobic, and all the books seemed worn and well-read. He didn't recognize any titles since he only knew books from his own Realms. He ended up in the section that, by the lurid art on the covers, held romances and what the witches in the Coven had called sniffle books. The memory made him smile, and he pulled one off the shelf to flip through it.

[From here]

If a being that lacked his heart could somehow have a heart attack, Xemnas would certainly have one as soon as the radio broke the deafening silence. As the man blurted his message, the Nobody found himself torn between listening to said message or trying to silence it. It would seem he had no choice in the matter, even despite the possible foes the noise would certainly attract. If it was possible for Xemnas to do so, he would certainly regret bringing the item along this little trip.

Naturally a curious man, the message was merely fuel to the fire. Where the Dead rested..., certainly some of the patients must have perished during their stay, leaving a mere corpse behind. There was no graveyard to speak of, yet those bodies needed to be stored somewhere...

Even so, the Superior had no idea where he could find such a place, as he still hadn't fully mapped the institute. Added to the fact he still had no decent weapon...it seemed incredibly unwise to pursue the supposed clue unless he would have some means to defend himself. There was also the possibility it was a trap. How much could this man of the radio be trusted, after all? What could be said of him?

He continued ascending the stairs, eventually reaching the very spot he had been a few nights ago. He had gone straight ahead back then, now there were both the options of left and right. After a moment's pause, he finally chose to head left.

[To here]

[From here]

Xemnas briefly paused as he reached the staircase, his orange eyes slightly narrowing as he gazed upwards, trying to determine whether something above waited, or not.

The Darkness didn't provide him the slightest moving shadow, nor any sounds broke the everlasting silence. For now, both the stairs and the immediate area around it were void of anything remotely sentient.

With that, the Nobody silently climbed the stairs.

[To here]

Lunch had been taken in Stegman's office. He wasn't the mingling type. And certainly not with the sort of staff this place employed. Really, he was beginning to think he was the only qualified practitioner of medicine in the whole building.

But then again, Stegman generally thought that no matter where he was.

And now it was back to the grindstone. But then he could return home. Though home was hardly the term for it...

Ah well. While waiting, he pulled one of his psychology journals from the bookshelf behind him and flipped it open.

Rabastan was on a mission to try to please Severus Snape. Someone should really stop and pity the poor Potions Master. So far, Bast had managed to lose just about everyone he had gotten attached to, and he was determined to not lose Severus. Severus was real after all.

Radio tucked into the crook of his arm, he grinned and shook his head when the nurses tried to get him to play, going for the sweet and cute thing. He did seem to be listening to their warnings to stay off the field then so he wouldn't get hit accidentally by people playing their various games. Heading to the sidelines, he began poking around at the grass and other small plants, trying hard to remember Potion classes from back at Hogwarts. Was that a good one? Or a bad one? Maybe it was a weed.

Either way, Bast plucked it gently and cupped it in his hand as he settled down on the grass and began fully inspecting the area around him. His radio was lectured to as he looked around.

"Mr Head Doctor, do you think we could go to the Arts and Crafts room later today? Severus might like some of the things in there. I'd like to get some of that faerie glitter if you don't mind."

Kuja was, in fact, quite surprised to suddenly find himself in bed. An odd turn of events, as he previously remembered investigating the contents of a closet. If the genome hadn't known any better, he would have thought he hadn't even left the room. However, the items he was still holding obviously proved such thoughts untrue; he had left his room.

This cage was a peculiar one.

In any case, unlike the night the day seemed the appropriate time to perhaps take a rest from all the danger lurking in the darkness. While he was resting his wings, perhaps it wouldn't hurt to "socialize" with the other patients, as allies would certainly be more useful during the night (and not merely to open doors for him). Perhaps he had made a fool out of himself tonight, but such wouldn't happen twice. Not everyone was fond of an encore, after all.

The sorcerer silently stepped out of bed, noticing his roommate was still asleep. The man didn't waste any time, however, as he hastily stored the items into his own closet, camouflaging it with clothes. Nurses finding his newly acquired items was the last thing Kuja needed, after all.

After he had closed the doors of said closet, another door opened as an extremely cheerful woman came in. Such contrast with the night, but the actors played their parts well.

Perhaps too well...

Kuja allowed himself to be escorted to the cafeteria, his attempt to gain more information from the nurse proving to be completely fruitless. Halfway, he had given up, as the staff seemed not as stupid as the Alexandrian court. Either they were acting, or they were unaware of the role they were playing. Regardless, they were mere pawns.

After he had filled his plate with some food, he seated himself at one of the tables, purposely choosing a place where he could easily watch the others patients entering. Blue eyes studying the various canaries flying within their cage as they were finally allowed an opportunity to rest their wings, he picked up a fork and began eating his breakfast.

"You know, Doctor Landel, you really should cheer up some. All that doom and gloom can't be good for you or your digestion. There's this called disassociation that you could try sometime. I think you're really making too much of this thing with Jack. Move on with life! You have a wonderful institute, a caring staff who never run out of cookies, and you're doing a world of good for these poor people! Who else would take care of them all if you didn't? There's this saying about saving one man and saving the world. You should be pleased with yourself and all you've accomplished instead of letting the past drag you down."

Bast patted his radio kindly as he glanced up and down the hallway. Poor Head Doctor. He'd sounded so despondent tonight. He needed a good pep talk, and who was better for it than Rabastan? He was a hero in his own mind. Speaking of being a hero...

"Doctor Landel, Aya went and got lost on me. I don't know where he is. I hope he's not in trouble like Jack did. I've been thinking, Head Doctor, and maybe Jack might be sick. Like in the head. You know how sick little kids hate to take yucky medicine? Maybe he needs help too even if he doesn't want it. He's into a awfully lot of things that it don't sound good for him to be."

Bast nodded to himself even as he peered up and down the hallway again hopefully. It looked like he wasn't going to find his friend standing here, but Bast didn't know where else to go. With that logic in mind, he did what he did best.

"AYA! I'M HERE!"

Not wanting to be dragged along on whatever Mission of Annoyance Schuldig had planned for himself at lunch, Farfarello instead headed straight into the cafeteria, alone.

The tranquil haze of the drugs was fading and the thought of being stuck in a room with dozens and dozens of strangers was starting to make the hair on the back of Farfarello's neck stand on end. He'd spent the last year and change mostly in solitary confinement, except for visits from Schuldig and the times he was let out for missions, and being expected to sit calmly and have his lunch while surrounded by potential threats was not something the Irishman wanted to deal with; unfortunately, he had no choice, so at least he could get there early and find a table close to a wall.

Much to Farfarello's surprise he was not only early, but the earliest patient to arrive in the cafeteria. He almost expected to find rank, disgusting food, as a result--if patients were so reluctant to come to lunch, surely there was a reason--but instead was reasonably pleased by what he found. Two sloppy joes and a token piece of fruit later, Farfarello retreated towards the tables, only to find that not one of them was isolated enough for him. So, he grabbed a chair, dragged it into a corner, and sat down with his back to the wall and his tray balanced on his lap.

He would get through lunch without getting sedated again, no matter what it took.

Renji's quasi-peaceful mood from breakfast was well and gone by the time he got out to the courtyard. Rather than dwell on the all-new problems with Rukia - and the fact that he had absolutely no idea how to deal with any of it - he tried to occupy himself with a mental checklist of the things he needed to do today. Meet with Roy Mustang at lunch, introduce Hitsugaya around, hopefully speak with Qui-Gon at some point in the day, figure out who would be doing what in the night...

He'd gotten seperated from the rest of the Shinigami during the shuffle out to the courtyard, so he found himself somewhere out of the way where he could work out what else he needed to do.

It wasn't that he was avoiding Rukia, really.

Mostly.

Because avoiding someone in this place, at these times, was pretty much impossible.

His normally grouchy expression seemed just a bit more sour.

Aidou Hanabusa, a vampire, was one of the first into the cafeteria, which was swimming in dim sunlight. A grey morning suited his mood.

The fact that his biological clock was pitching fits was only the cherry on top of the cake; the last thing he wanted to do was sleep. "Waking up", once again, with no memory of how or why he'd been brought back to room M52 infuriated him, on top of getting absolutely nothing done during the night. In the (miniscule) self-deprecating part of his mind, he thought it served him right for making concessions for humans. He wasn't going to make that mistake again, no matter how alone he was.

Aidou secluded himself in a corner. Solid food couldn't replace what he was missing, but it would keep his appetite in check. For a while. If his better sense told him not to repeat yesterday's mistakes, then at least he could forget tablets and go hunting tonight. It wasn't like Aidou was required to follow protocol during Landel's fine nightshift. No one else did.

No one from home would think less of him for cutting corners, either. If they hadn't been able to find him by now, then things were worse than he imagined. With a table piled high with food, he cupped his chin in his hand and let his gaze wander. He had a fair idea where the female cell block was. It wouldn't be difficult to overpower a young girl...

Eventually grabbing the knife, Aidou poked at one of his many bagels. He'd been right about to find a suitable instrument in the mail room, something long and sharp enough to cut into a bat and allow him to see what similarities remained on the inside... The plastic blade sank through the bread, went through the paper plate underneath it, and finally snapped in two against the plastic tray.

More new "patients". A day of "doctor consultations". It was nothing he'd ever experienced before, nothing he'd ever heard about before, and it was seriously driving him nuts. For the first time in his life, he just wanted to be left alone, without feeling a set of eyes on him.

[[From here]]

The quiet and darkness were almost unsettling, in their own way. He couldn't even hear his own foot-steps as he stalked quietly along, and his breathing was silent as well.

The darkness and silence reminded him too much of memories he'd only recently regained. Fox would've felt slightly less uncomfortable with the whole situation if he'd known that there were guards, or some other opponent to avoid, anything to get rid of the feeling of isolation.

At the same time, part of him was glad for the darkness and silence, moving quietly along the wall of the hallway. This was his element. When the radio crackled on in his coat pocket Fox nearly jumped.

He didn't dare turn it off in case something important was revealed, but at the same time he hoped the noise didn't attract anything. The radio man's speech, at the very least, gave him something to think about as he made his way slowly to his destination.

((Hurrying from here.))

The boy didn't meet any lone wanderers as he stepped out into yet another hall, but that was always the case. Right when he thought he was in the clear some asshole stepped from the shadows and decided to make things difficult.

Right now, Hisoka was praying that all the assholes here within Landel's were busy. He really didn't have the time to tell anyone off right now and personally, telling others off probably only made them follow him more. It was a vicious cycle.

Hisoka rolled his eyes and swept the beam of his flashlight up and down the length of the hall, eyes taking in all the details. Not that there were much, this hall was exactly like the other hall he was in two nights before. There was no differences and, if he was none-the-wiser, he'd be sure he had never been forced to switch rooms to begin with.

A part of him wished he was none-the-wiser.

Shaking his head, the boy decided to go with his wild guess from before and went through the door closest to him.

((To here.))

Recluse was practically watching the door, waiting for the lock to click open. He had hidden the angle iron he had begun to work on, as well as a good amount of rust, stored in a small sack made from a portion of his sheets. His years of working at Paragon City's shipyards had shown him that rust could really come in handy, if you knew the proper ways to employ it. He’d need more materials, but he could always try to find them tonight. "I have the rust, some screws from the bed, and I can always pull some wires out of that radio… I just need the water, salt and aluminum." It was amazing what you could do to create something destructive, even if you were limited to just human abilities.

When the intercom sounded the first time, he listened impatiently, although he did wonder a little about these 'disciplinary therapies'. At the messages' last "Goodbye!" he muttered "Good riddance," to the daytime façade. Now all he had to do was wait through the first nighttime rant.

Which proved to be more amusing than he had expected. ...the stuff of nightmares? Recluse actually laughed aloud at that just to show the doctor how a real evil laugh was done. He was quite sure that whatever the doctor thought was so dire, he had personally done worse. To good friends, even.

The doctor was really sounding more insecure by the minute. He shook his head, looking like a teacher disappointed in a failing student. The lunatic propaganda from both the intercom and the radio was starting to grate on him. For now, he was content to do what he had always done and trust no one.

When the door unlocked, he quietly made his way down the hall, unlit flashlight in his left hand, idly flipping the sharpening steel into the air with his right. He had been able to put a wicked point on the end of the thing, regardless of the efforts of the kitchen staff to lock up all potential weapons.

He needed to find a hammer, among other things. It would be wherever supplies for repairs were kept, but he hadn’t seen anything like a janitor's room or any staff centers on the ground floor. There had been several nurses and doctors glancing in on the prisoner's activities in the sunroom from the second floor, he remembered... Maybe he could have more luck up there. He had heard sounds of a fight passing the stairs the night before, however. He would just have to be more careful.

His leg was still bothering him, but he could make do. He certainly wasn't going to allow his attention to wander tonight.

As the intercom clicked on, one could almost hear a very new, very faint sound emanating from it, and that was the high-pitched whine and scratchy voices on a television. The extra noise was cut short, however, when the Head Doctor seemed to realize he had left his television program on and turned it off so that he could make his announcement.

"And it seems our day has already almost drawn to a close! Ah, well, as is life, eh?"

When he received no response but a cough from his always-present assistant, and he continued.

"In any case, now we will revert to the normal pattern of every evening and have all of you escorted back to your rooms for dinner. Tonight's menu will consist of beef brisket along with cornbread, peas, mashed potatoes, and a cookie for dessert. Starting tonight, however, you will only be receiving water to drink, and as we've found giving too much sugar to patients before bedtime has increased the likelihood of cavities among our charges, each room will also be given a separate, large washing bowl filled with water and two extra glasses of water, along with two toothbrushes and a tube of toothpaste, so that we can begin ensuring proper dental care in this facility! We found out a while ago that sending every patient to the bathroom at once was unfeasible with our current numbers, but we hope for this to be an easy solution to the problem.

"We hope for your own sake to receive your cooperation in the act of personal hygiene! Remember: Cleanliness is next to godliness!"

A pause.

"I believe that is all! I will bid you goodnight once dinner is over. We hope you enjoy your meal!"

The intercom clicked off and all was silent again.

[ OOC: Remember the posting format for dinner! You guys all respond to this post with a separate thread for each pair of roommates. Thanks! :D ]

That hadn't felt like an entire night.

And his goddamn head hurt. Pounded, even. Enough that he wondered if he was going to end up playing another round of "Christen the nurse" this morning.

Maybe it was because he'd spent so much time and energy trying to find Nowe. That could be the reason behind both those problems. Just the thought of it made his stomach turn, made him want to fucking choke something.

Still, there was shit to do. He forced himself out of bed to put away his pens and the other leftovers from the adventures that didn't happen last night. He'd have to try to talk to Sora today, to see if they could just do tonight what they were going to do last night... and to see if the kid was doing alright.

...he just wished his head would stop hurting. That was probably the result of just how badly he'd overreached himself the previous morning.

The nurse that showed up to get him was cheerful. He grunted at her, listening to her with only half an ear until she mentioned all the excitement, about someone pretending to be a patient, all that crap that Landel had mentioned.

Renji gave her a narrow-eyed look. "Dr. Landel is a goddamn lying coward, and he's lying about that, too," he said. Whether it was true or not, there was only so much good cheer he could take on a shitty morning. "I hope he chokes on a cock." No matter how much venom he put in that statement, it wasn't enough.

Then he had to listen to a lecture about language and gratitude for the rest of the walk to the cafeteria, so maybe it wasn't worth it after all. She dragged him through the breakfast line, and he ended up with granola and toast and tea and a cinnamon roll, because not even a shitty fucking night could ruin his sweet tooth. Though that thing was looking a little too sweet.

The cafeteria was pretty much empty; he had his run of the place. He sat himself about as far from the doors as he could get, and proceeded to stare at his breakfast.

"Master Raistlin?"

Pulling open another door, Bast peered into the room and sighed. This wasn't going well. Holding his lighted wand over his head, Bast stepped back out into the hallway and glanced left and then right. After wandering a little from the bathroom to here, Bast had finally remembered that he was on a mission to find and protect the Dark Lord.

The problem was that he was beginning to worry quite a bit. The longer he wasn't with the Dark Lord, the more he doubted that he'd even found the man. What if it had all been a trick? Harry Potter or Albus Dumbledore would have done that. Evil bastards.

Clutching his wand bravely, Bast headed for the next door.

"Master Raistlin?"

And Demyx thought this guy knew the way out...

[[From here.]]

Once they made it down by the bathrooms, Yazoo couldn’t help but pull one of the daggers out of the bag. He turned it over in his hand, examining it, and gave it an experimental twirl. Yep, he’d definitely need practice with a blade.

Looking over at Kadaj, he asked curiously, “So, what’s this about an important appointment? If I would have known about it earlier, I would have made sure not to keep you waiting.”

The intercom's announcement found Miles Edgeworth in a much better mood than he had been the previous shift. The conversation he'd had with the young Elven Lord Valyn had provided interesting information, even if hard to believe, and he finally felt as if he'd been useful to someone, rather than a hindrance in the setting.

He bowed, in a manner reminiscent of his courtroom days, and took his leave of the young man. "Good luck. And be careful."

With that, he reshelved his books, picking another at random, and took a seat in the corner. He wasn't sure if the note he'd left on the bulletin board had ever reached its intended recipient, but it wouldn't do to leave a note saying you were in a place and not actually be there.

Cid usually liked sleeping in, especially in a place as messed up and uninviting as this, but this happened to be one situation where he really wished he hadn't.

Right there, on the bulletin board. The Head Doctor and he'd fucking missed it? Some part of him wished he'd been there to take his eye out and another part of him knew he wouldn't have been able to. No man that powerful who hid for so long went to dangerous places without some kind of entourage.

Brunch sounded like it'd be filling, at least, though he nearly stopped in his tracks when the bastard announced TEA. TEA. It'd been a damn long while since he'd had some fucking tea, though with all the stress this place had found fit to rain down on his fucking head, it hadn't really been the first priority on his mind. Kinda nice, even if Cid was sure this was just some game the mother fucker was playing to get them all stuck neck-deep in Stockholm Syndrome.

He scanned the mostly-empty room for any sign of a familiar face once he'd piled waffles and sausages and syrup on his plate, though the person he really wanted to talk to was that Reynolds guy. "Spaceship" was the last word he remembered clearly before waking up in his bed, and dammit if he wasn't going to keep it stuck like glue in his mind.

He found a table where he could watch people come into the cafeteria and grabbed for his mug. The steam rising from his drink and the bag of herbs in it was nearly enough to make him grin despite it all, and it was with marked leisure and a little relief that he drank his goddamn tea.