And so it seemed that everything had gone back to normal.

Guy had spent his breakfast filling in a new patient and now Landel was rambling over the intercom like he always did. It made sense that the man would want to act like everything with Aguilar had never happened, though Guy couldn't help but wonder how things would change when night finally came. Knowing Landel, he'd have a long-winded speech prepared for them.

That was something that he could worry about later, though. Guy filed away the information about the doctors, but it didn't matter too much to him. He'd only been forced through that once, and had apparently been deemed a lost cause after that session. Speaking with a doctor here would just be a waste of time as far as he could tell, so that was fine by him.

Being placed in the Sun Room gave him access to the bulletin board, and perusing it gave him some idea of what had gone on last night, at least to the point that he understood that they'd had some sort of outside help. People were being secretive, but that was nothing new. Guy went ahead and put up a note for his friends, wanting to keep it up as a routine (at this point Luke should have been the one doing it, but Guy could talk to him about that later).

With that taken care of, he had little else to do but find himself a place to sit, and before long he located a comfy armchair. He took as seat, but as usual Guy couldn't help but keep an eye out for any friends.

[For Tear!]

[Coming from here.]


Daemon glided out into the wider corridor and paused for a moment, letting Renji join him, taking a moment to probe the shadows with his senses, looking for anything out of the norm. There was a tingle down his spine, the sensation of being watched, though he couldn't find its exact location, just the knowledge that it was there. He paused, debating on whether it was worth the effort of searching out, or leaving it to others while he and Renji kept heading for the stairs. He could see them from here, the door illuminated by his witchlight just off to his right.

He waited for Renji to join him, figuring the Shinigami would want a say.

"There are things moving in the shadows," he murmured to the redhead as the male moved out from the corridor behind him. Daemon didn't look at all disturbed by this statement, floating a few inches above the ground with a relaxed grace that was utterly foreign for their situation. Looking almost bored, he studied his black-tinted nails with a sleepy, hooded gaze.

Emergency. Emergency. Initiate CODE RED. Initiate CODE RED.

The blaring alarm had Daemon jolting to his feet, journal dropped forgotten to the bed and staff grabbed instinctively from beside him as wide golden eyes darted around the darkened room, braced for an attack. It hit him a moment later, a wave of something, so malevolent that for a moment he stumbled, going to his knees. It stole his breath and for a moment, his senses spun as he knelt there, disoriented.

That’s when he felt it, a subtle enticing pulse that felt as natural to him as his own heartbeat. He didn’t believe it at first, several seconds ticking past as he knelt there, frozen with shock. And then he tried calling in his Jewels, afraid to hope that what he was feeling was real and not some twisted illusion.

But no, the deep Red ring that appeared on his right hand was real, glinting faintly at him with an inner glow all its own. And there was a weight about his neck, one he recognized even before he lifted a shaking hand to find the pendant dangling there, with the familiar mounted Black Jewel at its center.

He stared at it for another long heartbeat, afraid to breathe, afraid to move, afraid this was some taunting dream he’d wake up from at any second, but that seductive whisper of his power, the depth of the abyss, it pulled at him like a siren’s call. He dove deep, descending through the lighter webs in a controlled dive, moving faster and faster the darker he went. When he reached the Black layer of his inner web, he threw his head back and unleashed a victorious cry, unable to help himself.

His Jewels were back. His powers. Everything.

He was going to wash this place red with blood before dawn.

An instant later, the room filled with an icy chill so cold and so sudden that the bed beside him cracked with the force of it. His smile was sharp and feral, eyes gone vicious as he prowled towards the door with all the deadly grace of a predator ready to hunt. He started donning shields as he went, just in case, taking no chances, not now. A Black shield snapped into place, coating him like a second skin. Another layered on top of that. He reserved the reservoir of his Birthright Red for anything else he might need as backup before donning a sight shield, making him invisible as he glided out into the darkened Institute.

The Sadist had come out to play.

[Going to here.]

Renji walked with purpose down the hall, though he wasn't in enough of a hurry to flashstep yet. He had to have somewhere he wanted to go first. Of course the idea that sprang instantly to mind was easily summed up as an equation: INSTITUTE + HIHIOU ZABIMARU = BOOM = :-D

However, that would need to wait until, for example, there weren't people he liked in the institute. And even with the Shinigami gone, he was sure there were people he liked around. Sora and Kairi sprang instantly to mind. So how to work that out? And he was sure there were other people around that had their own brand of kidou that could blow some shit up in a way that would paste a permanent smile on his face.

Organizing. That organizing thing needed to happen. And fast.

By the time lunch rolled around, things still weren't getting any better. The voices hadn't gone away; instead, Firo was pretty sure they were getting more frequent. Ennis had been silent since last night, but Czes's voice had been an insistent buzz in his ear all morning.

He'd spent the morning alone, trying to ignore any cutting remarks from a boy who wasn't there as he puzzled through things. Were the drugs responsible after all? A note on the bulletin had confirmed that someone else who'd been forced into the trial had been hearing things too, but Hakkai...

The call for lunch had been welcome; the day was barely half over, and Firo was already feeling exhausted. At this rate, maybe it would be best to just wait it out instead of trying to figure out what was causing it. If it was the drug, it should wear off after a while.

He accepted his gruel quietly, looking it over as he headed across the cafeteria—Hakkai had said it looked spoiled, but he couldn't tell any difference from what they'd served morning, noon, and night every day. Maybe the man was still seeing things after all, or maybe he was the one seeing things. It could have been bad and only looked alright. Or maybe it was just the color after all...

As took a seat, a new voice called out to him: "There's no point in you trying to figure it out, Firo. You're a real idiot, you know?"

Firo scowled. "I don't want to hear that from you, Berga," he growled under his breath.

[For Peter Petrelli ;_;]

Dean was convinced the universe had it out to bone any Winchesters it could.

He didn’t like getting wrangled into something and basically forced to do someone’s dirty work and being told that yeah, he better go on some half-cocked Rambo mission or the other patients would get hit with something didn’t exactly sit well with him. He didn’t care how they dressed it up. That was blackmail and hostages and he knew perfectly well that they could carry out that threat. The fact that Ruby was gonna be riding Sammy and him on this was just the bullshit cherry on a bullshit cake.

What he wouldn’t do for an excuse to exorcise her. Dean found his teeth grinding.

This was one of the times he started to regret making that crossroads deal. Not that he’d ever regret saving Sam. Totally worth it. But there was all the other mind-games with these demons and their friggen agendas and he wasn’t even sure what was up and down with the damn things anymore. So much for knowing that all he had to do was gank these things and that was it, end of story, possibly get a “thanks, you’re so awesome” screw, blow on out with the Impala and Sam. He kinda missed those days, even if they suddenly felt far away.

Dean was the first out the door without asking the others. The thing to do was insist Ruby take point, since she was, y’know, expendable (it wasn’t like she could die in the first place), but giving her a chance to scope things out before he did wasn’t an option.

He did that awkward half-trip as the environment changed on him. Star Trek totally had it wrong with the whole teleporting thing. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t even cool looking. He guessed he was lucky he didn’t break his neck tripping over a rock or something, Dean catching himself against a tree and in the next instance righting himself, bringing up the sawed-off and going for cover, all in one smooth motion as if he’d done this before for a living. So far nothing came screaming bloody murder from the jungle. Big plus there.

Dean covered their little patch of jungle while he waited for the others to pop out behind him. No door he could see, no sign these “rebels” or whatever they were really called were onto them.

Peter's lunch meeting with Tear had gone far better than he could have even expected. It was a good thing that he wasn't the sort of person who judged by age, seeing how the girl had proved herself to be very capable despite the fact that she was only a teenager. Not that Peter would ever admit it out loud, but Tear was a lot more mature than his own niece. He could only assume that Tear's circumstances had forced that onto her, though, which was the downside to the whole thing.

Or maybe it had something to do with her being a healer. She'd probably seen a lot of horrific things in her life already, things that some other people would never experience. Then again, Claire had seen her own body mutilated, so personality might have something to do with it too.

Either way, they had a basic plan. He was going to try and look into safe areas while Tear was going to work on their alliance with Search and Rescue. He wasn't too worried about the latter, but the former might be a pipe dream. Seeing how he had no interest in playing with beads and glitter, Peter chose to remain in the Sun Room.

It didn't take him long to draft up a message with his question, and once he'd posted it up (covering a few other replies in the process, but at the end of the day the board was low on real estate) he went ahead and found himself a seat. This way he could keep a careful eye on the replies that he got.

While he had already agreed to meet with Max tonight, Peter realized that the earliest this paramedic group could get going was the following night anyway. That was something to aim for, at least. Even if it was just him and Tear taking care of things at first, that was a start.

[For Haruno Sakura.]

Brunch had tasted delicious as usual, but he still felt guilty for enjoying it when so many other patients weren't as fortunate as him and Ritsuka. Still, he'd be lying if he said he wasn't grateful for his meals. His appetite had been pretty spotty during the week after his "sleep study", so Claude wanted to think he was making up for lost time by packing it away now.

In the meantime, it looked like they really were playing a movie this shift. Claude had half wondered if they'd simply been putting on an act for the benefit of any civilians in the building, but that didn't seem to be the case. That was good, at least. It meant that he and Guy could follow through on the plans they made a week ago -- back when Claude was still suffering from the immediate affects of the experiments, and Guy had kindly offered to stay with him.

That seemed so long ago now, and yet Claude could still feel his stomach knot up with uncertainty when he thought about the implications of what the doctors had done to him. Without thinking about it, he brought his hand up to crest inscribed onto his shoulder, beneath the fabric of his sleeve. He'd kept himself so busy that he'd never spent much time examining it.

But now wasn't the time to get wrapped up in that. It was easy to let himself get distracted by things he couldn't control if his mind wandered to much. Instead, Claude was going to try his best to enjoy his time with Guy.

After settling down on one of the couches in front of the projection screen, Claude leaned back and folded his arms over his chest as he kept a look-out for his friend.

So, as fun as her little lunch date with Sam had been, the crowding in the Tasty Burger had left Ruby pretty eager to get to a place that was away from the general crowd. She spent a while strolling up main street, eyeing the shops and debating her options. There wasn't anything here that they could do for her -- the bookstore was a bust, and anything else would be a waste of her time.

She wasn't going to find anything that would aide in any kind of useful witchcraft, and she already had a weapon -- assuming either would get back on the bus with her. She didn't have too much to carry between her flashlight and her knife, so that was also ruled out. Which just left her with a lot of spare time to think and do nothing until they got packed back into the bus for another of their nightly adventures.

Fan-freaking-tastic.

Following Main Street in an eastbound direction had her coming up on a park. Not too many people were crowded in it due to the snow, and who could blame 'em? For a girl who'd spent centuries getting used to hellfire, the chill wasn't exactly a blessing to her either. But, she'd take what she could get right about now. So, she headed up towards the park.

As she grew closer, she realized there was probably a good reason it wasn't too busy. It wasn't all that well-maintained. For someone like Ruby, it wasn't a big deal, but that didn't mean she didn't catch onto it. The place looked like the house Sam had squatted in for months until she'd dragged him out of it would be right at home in the midst of it. She didn't bother hunting down a bench, instead finding a tree near the westernmost edge of the park so she could keep an eye on Main Street from where she lurked.

[ Rose ]

Peter didn't know if he and Firo had left on the best terms, if only because the younger man was still so confused about what was going on in this place. The change in time period had a lot to do with it, but it had also sounded like he'd had a lot going on in his life before ending up here. Then again, who hadn't? Peter had just exploded before his arrival.

It was hard to think back to that night, to the way he'd stood in Kirby Plaza while burning up with nuclear overload, when he was in this quaint snow-covered town. This was the sort of image you'd see on the Christmas card; it wasn't supposed to exist.

Still, his walk with Firo had been rather long all things considered, and so Peter finally decided to leave the teen to his devices and go warm up somewhere. The best way to do that would be by putting some hot food in his stomach, and so he ended up backtracking to the Tasty Burger. He could have gone ahead to the Twin Pines, since the food was obviously better quality there, but the walk was longer and his face was starting to get numb.

Letting out a small sigh of relief as he stepped into the lively fast food place, Peter fished the proper coupon out of his pocket and went to stand in line, eyeing the two young girls at the counter as he waited for it to be his turn. Once he'd eaten, he could really start searching the shops for what to buy.

[Claire Bennet.]

Kibitoshin had never had a ‘haunt’ to know exactly what one was, but if he had to make a guess he would have supposed that the Bookworm was turning into one for him on their Doyleton trips. This was his third trip now, and yet again he’d returned to browse the shelves for books to browse through. He’d worked his way through a good portion of the romance section, skipping the less interesting-looking options and flipping through the rest out of curiosity; was that really how relationships were supposed to work? The books were in the fiction section, yes, but it wasn’t as though he had anything to compare them to on the scale of realism versus fantasy, what with the whole only-ever-living-with-four-other-people thing. And even then, they were—they had been (flinch) his siblings. It was hardly the same.

So, this time, the Kaioshin steered himself away from that particular area and towards the rest of the store. Maybe if he looked at a different genre he’d end up a little more savvy and be able to work it out for himself; as much as he wanted to know, he was also very aware of the fact that asking the nearest assistant whether or not romance novels were realistic came with the high risk of having said assistant laugh in his face. Or just make him look very, very odd indeed.

Where to look, then, if not there?

Pacing thoughtfully between the dark walls of books, he found himself drawn towards a section helpfully headed as “Self Help Books”. Did… that mean they’d be able to explain things to him, so that he could “help” him”self”? Because if that was the case, he had a lot of other questions that needed answering on top of that about Earth life in general. It was maybe too much to expect there to be information on other planets, but surely there would be something he could use in there.

With that settled, he ran his finger along the spines and pulled out the first promising title he came across: Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, by 'John Gray'. Well, that wasn’t right at all, he’d seen Mars enough times to know that…

[For... um... whatshisname.]

Previously, on Peter Parker's Sucky Life:

Pain, pain, fourth wall bulldozing, fire and pain, and teeny useless swords.

Yeah, so Peter wasn't feeling so hot today. It was a marked improvement on waking up after getting shanked by Grell, but this was in no way a good morning. They had all made it through the basement trials and got their dinky rewards, but man did they pay a hefty price for it. All of them. (Scott and the others had to fight robot raptors? What the hell...) Peter rose from his bed oh so delicately and with much wincing, thanking whoever it was that carried them back to bed every night for putting him belly down on his mattress.

His back, oh god. Peter seethed and hissed and grunted in pain. It felt like it was scabbing over, and the bandages yanked at the tender skin with every minute muscle spasm, every move he made. Cripes. Better his back than his arms or legs, but still. It was going to make things so difficult if they got stuck in Doyleton all over again.

Brainy was so thoroughly wrapped in his blankets on the other side of the room that Peter couldn't make heads or tails of his current state. But he'd stayed in the whole night, right? He should be fine.

Sometimes he just needed extra convincing of that. Considering the guy's track record and all.

From the sounds of it, this Aguilar guy wasn't changing too much of the routine. Being field trip day, Peter had wondered how the new man in charge would handle it (or how General Lieutenant Burger would, apparently). If he planned on letting them out at all. The announcement squashed that theory, and so did the orderly tromping in with a second-hand change of clothes. The burly man passed him the goods without so much as a word, stomping right back outside to wait behind the door. Guess they weren't going in military gear.

...Orderly? Peter pushed the door open again after performing the hastiest change of clothes he could manage in his state, peering at the man. That guy was in an army uniform yesterday. He remembered him. His buzz cut was uneven and he had a pointy old mole on the back of his neck.

"Uh. Are you going incognito?"

He was suddenly on the end of such a pointed look Peter could swear he was talking to Nick Fury. If Nick Fury was white and still had both eyes. "...Right. Okay. Lead the way, hombre."

So undercover it was. The people of Doyleton didn't know this was a military operation. Briefly, he wondered what the advantages of revealing that to the townsfolk could be, but then he remembered how they'd all up and morphed into the living dead at sundown. Put to rest any usefulness they might have had. They were just puppets, the same as the rest of the creepy crawlies in this hellhole.

Though that did beg the question as to why you would have to hide your secrets from puppets in the first place.

He was bequeathed with the usual paper bag lunch and packet of coupons, though he was still surprised to find himself a $15 gift card in the mix. Intercom Dude wasn't kidding about that?

He had money?

...What would he even do with money in Doyleton? What was fifteen dollars and worth buying that wasn't a gourmet burger? Peter boggled at the card as he clambered onto the bus. He'd never gone through the town with any inclination to window shop, so he couldn't even say what was available. He might actually have to look around. Even something simple might be a big help.

The orderly-formerly-known-as-Private-Dwight followed him on tucked a pillow into his seat for him. "Sit down. And don't do anything stupid. You'll heal a lot faster if you don't agitate it."

Peter fidgeted, but quietly settled into the pillow. This was kind of awkward. "Um. Thank you. I deeply appreciate your concern." The man nodded, and was gone.

Peter was the only one on the bus so far. The emptiness was kind of creeping him out.

[Reserved for Harvey Dent. WHY AM I TOP POSTING EVERYTHING YOU JERKS.]

Snow doubled in number as the day transitioned into the evening hours. Unfortunately, none of the patients were allowed the time to enjoy the weather changes. They were instead greeted by the telltale jingle of the intercom, signaling their cue to return indoors.

Once again, they heard the voice of a familiar female. She sounded unchanged from her previous announcements, her intonation as clear and as flat as ever.

"Attention all subjects and personnel. All subjects are to return to their assigned rooms for their evening meal. Lights Out will commence shortly after."

The woman paused, seemingly for effect.

"All personnel: you are to report to your stations. Thank you."

The intercom clicked off.

[ All room threads go in response to this post; please post your character's room number as the subject line of the initial post. ANY NEWLY ACCEPTED CHARACTERS MAY POST TO THIS SHIFT (but are not obligated to if you would like to wait for Nightshift or Dayshift); please refer to the new room assignments before posting. Thank you! ]

Though five days without bathing was hardly unusual for Rita, she was actually looking forward to showering today. To her, the last shift had been somewhat enjoyable, if only because it allowed her an opportunity to be alone with her thoughts for a bit. Of course, she couldn't be completely alone in the communal showers, but no one was rude enough to disturb her in there, which was good enough for her.

Once the shift was over, she re-applied the bandages on her leg and knee, dressed herself, and made her way to the cafeteria. The pain in her knee seemed to lessen as the day progressed, and her slight limp became less noticeable to herself. Hopefully it wouldn't impede her much come nightfall.

Upon entering the cafeteria, however, Rita found that she had more immediate problems to deal with. What was that slop they were serving?

Deaf to her complaints, a soldier quickly ushered her into the line for the pink gruel. While waiting, Rita became aware of a section in the room where edible food was being served... but apparently only to selected patients. Whose butt did they have to kiss to get that treatment?

After receiving her "meal" (using the word very loosely), Rita found an empty area to sit in. There, she made no move for her utensils, but instead glared at the plate of mush as if the food itself had somehow wronged her.

[For Woody]

After what seemed like an eternity of being amused, irritable, bored, in pain, in excruciating pain, and any combination of those, Guybrush was met by the same soldier who had led him to the cafeteria. He wasn't offered a trip to the Sun Room to check the bulletin board, but didn't push for it anyway. That would have been more walking, and moving was one of those many, many physical activities he didn't feel like doing in any capacity. Not today... or until next week, or whenever he'd stop feeling like he'd been on a date with a rough manatee named Large Marge. There was a slow minute of him feebly getting to his feet, then he followed the soldier without comment.

The comment came when Guybrush was handed a leather jacket on his way out the door. "A fine leather jacket... hah." He hissed as he pushed his right arm through the sleeve, settling to just leave the left draped over his shoulder. It was then he noticed the embroidery. At least Aguilar had a decent budget for clothing. If the pants worked, he'd be set.

There was something to be said about the General's methods, though. Why make the people who hadn't been in the food fight do the cleaning, while letting the guilty ones stand around? Sure, he wanted everyone to know who was responsible for the punishment, but wouldn't that just-

Oh. Wow, now that was a new level of crafty manipulation. Even LeChuck could be proud of it, if he wasn't behind it in some way. His disappearance made it possible- even probable- that his showing-up-and-playing-innocent-human-kidnapee routine had been an elaborate rouse, one even more diabolical than creating a carnival with which to recruit unsuspecting tourists into his undead army, more time-consuming than using a Mighty Pirate™ to look for a voodoo-sucking sea sponge so he could... get his mojo back? Oh yeah- Guybrush had died before that one reached Chapter 5. But if Landel's Institute was something LeChuck had cooked up so he could woo Elaine From The Past and change the future, then it was way, way more complex than his previous schemes.

And if it wasn't some incredible plot LeChuck had hatched because he finally grew tired of having his plans foiled? That made things even more complicated.

Guybrush made his way toward one of the benches, sprawling across it as he leaned his head against the backrest. Was the wall higher today? Maybe that was the aching in his chest talking. Either way, he didn't think he'd be going over it in an attempt to Escape from Aguilar's Institute™ that night unless they added a wheelchair ramp.

[Morgan]

[ from here ]

It took her a moment when she turned down the men's hallway to skim the area with her flashlight. This was the part where she got confused, the muscle memory not really carrying her the whole way. He'd given her directions once, but that felt like a lifetime ago now that she actually needed to put them into practice without Bella attached to her hip. Being alone made it harder, for some reason. She hoped Bella was having more luck than she was at getting to … wherever.

On her left, the single door of the bathroom that she suspected was the same as the women's facilities, and on her right four hallways. Peter's was … she scrutinized. Second in from the door? It sounded about right. If her room was F34 and it was the closest to the door, 24 should be one row further in. So, she hung a right and headed down the hallway.

Her flashlight beam checked the numbers on the doors as she headed down. 30 … 29 … the numbers were counting downwards, which was a good sign that this was the right hallway to get her to M24.

[ bumping into sylar peter ]

For the love of -

Bella couldn't help but feel slightly worried and annoyed when she exited hers and Claire's room (of course, after gathering her things, she gave Claire a wave and went on her not so merry way.) her thoughts locked onto whatever the hell "Project 2911" was. Whenever something started with project she knew good things were not ever meant to follow. After all, that was what she learned fro high school; whenever the teacher would mention a project, instantly everyone would moan. Therefore, forever more, projects and trouble would be forever synonymous in her head.

Why am I even thinking about this? Bella thought to herself as she clicked on her flashlight and heading down the hallway, chewing on the inside of her cheek. Seriously. What is wrong with me today?

She knew what was wrong. "Whenever I get nervous I talk a lot," she had said once, and now that she had no one to talk to but herself, she was keeping all of the words inside her head.

"Why am I nervous?" she said aloud this time, shaking her head and trying her hardest to gain back that confidence she was feeling before, no matter how slight it was. "Everything is going to be fine. A-ok. Picture perfect awesome."

She knew if she stopped thinking that, however, that the confidence would slowly slip away, and that was the absolute last thing she wanted.

(to hurr.)

[From here.]

It was probably a good time to declare everyone legally dead, because this was the fourth hallway in a row. This was what being proactive felt like. Yes. He was going to roll with that. Proactive and paranoid as hell, that was him.

Paranoid enough to take out the pathetic little knife from the pillow case and clutch it around the handful of cloth. Maybe one day, Edward thought derisively, I'll be lucky enough to find night-vision goggles so I can stop wasting my time with the light. As soon as he thought it the flashlight flickered, the round yellow beam turning black before popping back on again.

What little blood he had in him drained from his face. "That was terrible of me, I'm sorry. You're a fine flashlight. Possibly the best."

[To here.]