The lockdown had been interesting. The fact that the staff had enough power to put down a rebellion that quickly and then lock people into their rooms just as fast was something of a feat to be admired. Their efficiency would have been much more impressive if Okita had been on the other side of it, however. As it stood, he had to keep his assessment to himself and when the nurses came and escorted the men out to the showers, he was ready to play the role of model prisoner for a little while.

The last thing he needed was another needle in the neck, after all.

He followed his nurse, smiling pleasantly at her as she led him through the Sun Room and toward the men's showers. Despite arriving almost a week ago, this was his first time experiencing these strange Western bathrooms. He'd explored them at night, but the smell had kept him far from the spigets and fixtures except when absolutely necessary. His nurse pointed out the changing room and politely turned around, trusting that he'd be good for now.

It was fortunate that she did or she might have seen the extra five pens he'd stuck in his waistband to be used later if he needed a weapon. He undressed, hiding the pens away along with his journal and allowed his nurse to remove the bandages around his chest. The scratches had scabbed over and were mostly healed by now. He took the towel she offered him and went into the showers, glad to see he was the first one. It would make finding him easier if anyone needed to speak with him.

Stepping over to the shower furthest away from the door, he fiddled with the knobs and nearly screamed when cold water hit him full on. Stupid Western plumbing! He hadn't been expecting that from what everyone had told him about showering. It took a few minutes, but the hot water began to run and he calmed down, peering at the showerhead and marveling at how water came from the wall directly. Such innovation. With little else to do but enjoy a nice warm bath, Okita began to wash, feeling the stress slip off him along with the week's accumulated sweat and grime.

[open for anyone]

Burly orderlies and agile Calm Effect nurses flooded the cafeteria from the Courtyard while regular hall nurses filed in from the Sun Room and ushered out those not involved in the rebellion. It indeed seemed as if Landel was sending out all the cavalry, and an effective cavalry they were: The riot didn't continue for much longer after the alarm sounded, though it seemed strange just how quickly all of the mutinous patients fell, even the ones who hadn't been injected with anything.

The hall nurses were quick to escort their well-behaved charges back to their rooms, praising those who hadn't joined in and chiding those who muttered under their breath in response. There were some exceptions, of course: One nice young man had even defended one of the nurses from the violent patients! Now, wasn't that exemplary behavior? Dr. Landel would be so proud to hear about it...

Within half an hour, all of the so-called "loyal" patients had been safely deposited in their rooms, and it was then that the alarm finally stopped and the true difficulty of the situation was tackled. There certainly weren't enough rooms in solitary to accommodate such rampant disobedience, and yet measures would have to be taken to ensure proper consequences for each and every patient involved. After all, something like this couldn't be allowed to happen again!

Different options were considered. Perhaps they should make an example out of the girl who had sparked the riot, but then again, perhaps not. This certainly wasn't the first case of patients attacking nurses or their peers in a crowded area, but what had been different this time was the sheer support that the other patients had shown for her. Should the staff then make examples of all those who had tried to "protect" her from the well-meaning nurses? No, there were too many for that...

In the end, it was decided that the best immediate solution would be to treat the rebellious patients in the Medical Wing while they were unconscious and then move them back to their rooms to await punishment. To ensure the safety of both their roommates and the patients themselves, however, the staff decided to securely fasten their limbs to their beds and keep them heavily drugged. Such a sad sight they were to see, but... it was necessary.

Finally, when each and every patient had been escorted back to their respective rooms, the staff hurried off to an emergency meeting upstairs. Strangely, Head Nurse Lydia was the one taking care of the proceedings in the Head Doctor's stead. She calmly told them that he was preoccupied with more urgent matters, and as she began to speak to the crowd, the staff could only wonder what could possibly be more important than an unprecedented patient riot...

[ Comment to this post with separate threads for each patient room, and please put your character's room number in the subject line. Thank you! ]

Hitsugaya woke with a start.

His entire body ached, but the pain was nowhere near as bad as it had been the night before. His injuries had been tended two with clean gauze and bandages, and he found every movement wasn't agony. He wasn't in the best of shape, but thanks to the miracle of landel's strange time distortion, he had mostly recovered from the vile poison without having to waste anyone else's talents.

And in his hand, still...there was the key.

He dressed quickly, sliding the key onto the key ring from his desk drawer and stuck it into his pocket. Whether the key stood to gain them anything or not, it stood as a vital reminder that they could succeed in this place. There was hope, as insignificant as it often seemed. They could beat this place.

That small shred of hope made getting up worth it.

The nurse who escorted him to breakfast was cheerful, and commented idly about how wonderful it was to see young Tommy Winters up and about again after his unfortunate run-in with a bad case of food poisoning. He smirked slightly, knowing that any lies the institute forced into their heads were only that: lies. He wouldn't buy it for a second. And on top of that, the concept of muffins sounded almost appetizing. While he still preferred his authentic Japanese cuisine, the food here was slowly becoming more and more bearable. He would have preferred a warm bowl of sweet nattou over rice over the mufffins, but they would do. The plain yogurt and fruit, on the other hand, was excellent. He piled his plate high with fruit as usual, and got several small bowls of yogurt as well.

Finding the most convenient table to the end of the food line, he took a seat and scanned for the new arrivals. New arrivals meant people who would be lost and confused. Renji did a good job of making a bulliten post last time...he should recommend abarai-fukutaicho do the same again this time.

[Waiting for Angel]

[[From here]]

SubZero cautiously stepped inside the sun room, "Do you see anything?" SubZero was trained to operate in darkness, but even with the light coming in over head HK still had an advantage over him when it came to detecting things.

There were a lot of obstructions for monsters to hide behind in here, unlike the hallways, which were usually clear of such obstacles.

He did not want to get jumped on by a giant cat, though the monsters in this place seemed to favor attacking HK instead. Another good reason to keep him around.

[[From here]]
Maybe it was a test, he reasoned as he walked down the dark hallway and toward the other boy's room.  That was why they let everyone out at night.  And maybe the monsters really were just a part of his imagination.  He tried to convince himself that it was true, but his body couldn't forget the creature that had torn into his shoulder, or the cold feeling in his fingertips as his blood had pooled in the hall.  A bad dream.  It was just a bad dream.

Still, for all his reasoning, his footsteps moved just a little bit faster down the tiled hallway.

[[From here]]

The hallways were empty so far, and while SubZero was glad he didn't have to put up with a bunch of kids and other people running around, it was odd to be in an area without any sign of other patients after having been surrounded by them so often.

He much preferred the silence, though there were a few prisoners that he could tolerate. HK was being quiet at least, which was a welcome change from the constant complaints and insults.

Mason took a few moments to rub his eyes and yawn before waking up fully. He finished off the whiskey, then stuffed Gone With the Wind back into his pants before exiting out into the hallway.

...Shit. There was supposed to be a party in his room tonight, wasn't there? As host, he couldn't really leave, but on the other hand, he really wanted to see Lyta, and he really wanted to find that teenager with the weird name and beat him up.

Maybe if he hung out in the hallway for a little while, he could tell a couple of the hot women who would surely be showing up any time soon that the party would have to start a little late. They could spread the word to all the masses of hot women.

Staring at the empty whiskey bottle, Mason settled in to wait for just a few moments. The hot chicks would definitely be along any second now. Any second...

[From here.]

It didn't take long for Ururu to make it to the meeting place, since really, it was right outside her door. Maybe that's why she was the first one there. She shined her flashlight around slowly, thinking it was awfully dark and awfully quiet right now.

Maybe other people had been sleeping too, and just hadn't woken up in time.

Ururu moved over by the stairwell she thought Rangiku had meant, and watched the area around her with wide eyes. It wasn't that she didn't think she couldn't take care of herself, because she knew she could. It was just that everything looked so different at night, when it was dark, and she was alone.

And all of that put together really made everything seem scary.

And thus the intercom jingle sounded once again, marking an end to the easy socializing for the day.

"Sorry to break into your leisurely activities, patients, but it's time for you to all be escorted back to your rooms. We do, however, have a scrumptious meal planned for all of you: Salmon fillets stuffed with garlic, chives, and other spices, along with sides of mashed potatoes, green beans, and carrots. Feel free to liberally apply butter, ha ha... ha. You of course may ask your nurse for whatever drink you choose from our stock.

"I do hope that our new patients had a good time meeting new faces and exploring the Landel's environment today! Unfortunately, the rest of you won't be meeting the new members of our population that we'll be bringing in tonight, but... ah, well, you'll see them in the morning, right?

"But it isn't lights out quite yet, is it? Oh, no... In any case, nurses, please escort our patients back to their rooms, and escort those who don't yet have assigned rooms to the empty rooms marked on the lists that were given to you this shift.

"Also, I'd like to say that I look forward to reading all of the notes that I have heard were put in the Suggestion Box! In any case, ta-ta for now and have a wonderful dinner."

The intercom clicked off.

[ As per usual, all dinner shift posts should be in response to this post. Please put your character's room number in your subject line unless you don't know it yet. Thanks! ]

Nathan had never actually been in a nuthouse before and had only recently contemplated checking himself into one in a fit of sarcastic, self-depricating humor as of late. It was safe to say that he wasn't terribly familiar with the typical layout, even though he guessed it wasn't too hard to assume in this case. Everything was clean and painfully sterile-looking, if you could tell just by looking anyway, and he had to admit that they did a decent job of dressing this place up like a stereotypical, mental institution. They'd probably wait until evening to run whatever tests they wanted after they'd drugged everyone up nice and good.

The former congressman parted ways with his nurse, offering her a fairly sarcastic "thanks" as she let him loose in the expansive cafeteria. The food choices seemed pretty basic: hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza... The sort of thing he'd been living off of for the past, couple of months. Nathan hadn't realized how hungry he was until he actually picked up a plate. Skeptical as he was of the food here, it probably didn't matter whether it was drugged or not; if he was where he naturally assumed he was, they'd have their way no matter what he did. The only thing not eating would accomplish would be to make things easier for them.

With a hamburger and some fries piled on his plate, Nathan scanned the large room for any familiar faces. If he'd been nabbed in his sleep, there was at least a small chance that they might've nabbed Parkman or one of the others too. Unfortunately, he seemed to have chosen the wrong place to get information. It was practically empty.

Great. It looked like he'd be keeping himself company for the time being. Always a fun person to pass the time with. Sitting down at an empty table, Nathan took a moment to stare his hamburger down before taking a hesitant bite.

Ginji was shocked, stunned, overjoyed. Here they had just provided an entire "All-You-Can-Eat" meal and yet... and yet.... there was still more food. He knew there were people who could eat and eat and eat and eat because they had the money, but he had never, ever been one of those people. And now he was able to eat and eat and eat. Real meals. Snacks. So much food. Ginji was the type of person to enjoy whatever he could, and food was something he really, really, really enjoyed.

He grabbed as much snacks as he could and went back to a table to enjoy it. Keeping some of his manners, he called out his thanks before going to munch on some fresh vegetables. So delicious. He was grinning despite the fact he was in a horrible place, that friends he had made had disappeared, that he was still too injured to really walk very well on his own, and that he had had to explain to someone else about Raitei. He got the feeling that Roland understood it a lot better than other people. For one he hadn't tried to tell Ginji that anything Raitei did "wasn't his fault". Ginji didn't like talking about it and didn't want to think about it, so he focused on the food in front of him.

"Yummy!" he said cheerfully, after he had finished chewing what he had shoved into his mouth.

[From here]

Apart from the anaemic moonlight, it was pitch-black, and the weight of the darkness pressed down on him, exaggerated the blindfolded absence of that sixth sense they'd given him. He was amazed at how much he'd come to rely on it, but then he realised; he centred his life around using whatever he was given without thinking twice.

He was thankful for the cold of the night - he'd always been fascinated with cold places, cold things, and this was an uncharacteristic one dog night in a place where you should only need a blanket. He was quite substantially dressed thanks to that nurse, but the bite of the wind through his arms and against his bare face was comforting. The cold raised your heart rate - in theory, he should be better prepared for the fight he was waiting for.

Damn Axel. Cursing him with ideas that he knew were probably right.

Wasn't it a bit too coincidental that his sixth sense chose now to flake out?

Momentarily, he sneezed in the cold, strangely paranoid about the fraction-of-a-second loss of vision. He idly recalled an old game he'd seen Otacon play. Maybe the reason he couldn't sense anything was because they'd filled the air with SNOW-9. He wouldn't put it past them to use something like that.

The only thing that kept him from heading back was the fact that paranoia was better than confirmed danger. There couldn't be anything out here worse than there was in the hospital. He suspected that the bus incident hadn't gone entirely to plan, and that meant they weren't omniscient.

And that, he decided, meant they had a chance.

[Dropping down from Bus 3.]

Shana dropped into the darkness from the open window above, keeping her back to the carraige as she waited for her eyes to adjust to the pitch blackness surrounding her. It must have been a cloudy night, for she could make out no stars or moon above. Eerie sounds filled the night and she shivered, not liking the sound of it, nor the fact that she was out here alone with no idea of what could be lurking in the shadows.

Shadow was still trapped in the bus somewhere above and behind her, and she had no idea where Valyn and Keman were. Focusing her magic, she tried to reach out and feel for them, wondering if they'd felt her cast her magelight spell, wondering if they'd cast anything in return for her to find them. She had no desire to spend the night separated from them, especially since she hadn't been here long enough to know her way about the place, let alone the extent of dangers it could hold

Sanji was blinking furiously, trying to figure out why he still felt awake though everything was dark. The sedatives, just recently injected into his system, were working full force and he was having difficulty figuring out which way was up and down. All the sounds were reminiscent of something out of a nightmare. Was that what this was?

But why couldn't he see anything?

He struggled out of his seat and into the aisle. Slipping and falling to his knees from lack of balance once there, he simply sat for a bit with a hand on the seat behind him. "Th'shit is... What?" his slurred question probably wouldn't mean much to anyone, but that didn't matter. The floor was as good a place as any for the moment as he tried to get a clearer view of things going on around him. Squinting into the darkness revealed very little, and so many voices just befuddled his drugged mind further.

What the shit was going on?

When the bus had lurched to life, Okita was barely able to contain his scream of terror. He was lucky no one was sitting next to him or he would have died of embarrassment at his actions. Never having seen or even been in a modern transportation vehicle, he spent most of the trip curled up in his seat, gripping it like it was his only lifeline. The bus terrified him - the sounds it made and the way it jolted along the road. When it had become apparent that it wasn't going to explode, though, he'd relaxed enough to realize that unlike riding a horse, this metal monstrosity made him motion sick.

As soon as the thing stopped, Okita was off it, looking a little green. He remembered to take his sack breakfast and the coupon book, though, and quickly fled the area to find the closest place to hide. It ended up being a beautiful park with carefully sculpted lawns and what looked like play equipment. The fresh air did him some good and he quickly moved to the swings, setting the brown bag in his lap as he lazily moved to and fro on them.

He still had a lot to think about, he'd been able to supress most of his worst homocidal urges on the bus. Hijikata couldn't just disappear like that. Perhaps he'd been rescued earlier and would be somewhere in town today. All Okita had to do was get up the courage and start moving - no matter how difficult that seemed to be.

There was, Naomi decided, some sort of cosmic irony in all of this. Not that she was trapped in a deranged and possibly other-worldly asylum with a man she'd idolized for years and a boy who was being investigated for - among other things - the murder of her fiance. No, at this point, those were perfectly normal occurrences. Rather it was the soft, pretty, feminine pink sweater dress she'd been stuffed into in the morning. A chance to wear normal clothes, and she looked like a soccer mom. The white blazer and white boots only made her look like a soccer mom who maybe hadn't given up gogo boots.

It was humiliating. Why couldn't she have jeans and a sweater? And sneakers? Something she would conceivably wear? Not this damned pink monstrosity. And her nurse kept saying how pretty she was.

She didn't care if she looked pretty.

Grumbling to herself, and taking it out on her muffin, Naomi was shoved onto an empty bus and told to 'sit tight'. Oh, she'd sit tight alright....

At least she was relatively certain L was alright. She'd spent the whole night with him, and other than falling on his ass, nothing had happened to him. And hopefully nothing would happen to him in town, either....

[From here. Unknowingly waiting for Star Dragon Sword, so please don't interrupt without permission unless you're a nightshifter]

As Scar stood in the door opening, he found himself to be quite surprised to inhale the outside air. Being in a prison, he hardly expected part of this Landels to be outside. Not that the former lion minded; it was certainly something he preferred. Unlike the small spaces and hallways, outside seemed to be less of an confinement. More of what he was used to, even though it was still quite the difference.

Shutting the door behind him, he swept the lights-tick across the area. The darkness made it difficult for only his eyes to see what kind of area it was. He noticed the area was made out of grass. He could also see the faint outlines of things further on the area; things he couldn't quite identify.

He hesitated to move further. If he proceeded, there was no wall to support him which would make walking all the more difficult.

[From here]

Scar stumbled into yet another empty hallway. The nurse had taken him into the right direction this morning, which had led to the sun room and all the other connecting rooms. He wondered what happened to be located in the opposite direction.

Continuing, the king eventually noticed the door at the end of the hall. Fiddling around with the handle, he managed to push it open and felt the cold breeze from outside on his skin.

[To here]

[from here]

Mason finished his copy of the map with an unnecessary flourish, and handed the original back to Raiden. It had become crumpled around the edges just by being in Mason's possession for a few minutes, but he hoped the other man wouldn't mind. "Thanks, Raiden," he said, stuffing his copy into the waistband of his pants. He missed his own clothes, with their multitude of convenient pockets.

It was then that the intercom turned on, causing Mason to jump nearly out of his skin. "What the fuck is going on?" he demanded, clutching his chest. If his heart had been able to beat, it probably would have danced right up his throat and out his mouth and be halfway to Mexico by now. The creepy voice on the intercom with its mean words, and the creepy door opening creepily didn't help. Mason really didn't like it here. Being high, he decided, would be a definite plus right about now.