[from here]

622 headed down to the last door in the cell block corridor, keeping alert for anything that might already have set itself up in the hall. There usually weren't any ambushes this early in the night, but better safe than dead.

He knocked on the door to M41, waiting slightly back from the door for the Commander to open it.

The previous shifts had offered much in the way of her own personal curiosity, but little in understanding the place she was in. Still, Renamon's mind had quieted; the irritation shifted into the back of her mind. Was it simply children that accomplished that? Or the kind of people that maintained their differences, and sated something in her. She sought to understood, and that had increased in her new surroundings. Learning had become some kind of peace. And in this alone, she could maintain her ever-present calm.

Refreshed in a way by this, and looking forward to the night--if the one called Brainiac was what he said, he of all people should be able to help Renamon in this--the Digimon took a seat off to the side in the sun room, content to simply be alone with her thoughts. But thoughts were too often overrun, and she took efforts to move away from the more heavy items. Dairine disappearing. Toph, Toboe. Orihime. And Rika.... Should Renamon be glad she didn't see her this last visitor shift? Or should this be more of a concern?

She closed her eyes, calming her mind. One thing at a time. There were no moves to be had until night came. So she would wait.

[Digimon Tamers, represent!]

Peter woke up suddenly, his body twisting in the bed and then forcing him to catch his breath in pain. Pain, which was coming from his middle because of the thing that had scratched him last night, and after that...

After that, Zach had jumped in front of him like some kind of martyr, like the exact opposite of everything Sylar stood for, to take the next hit for him. It got pretty fuzzy after that, so night must have ended right around then.

The man let out a pained grunt as he straightened himself up in bed. For some reason, he got the feeling that he'd slept in. There was no way for him to really tell without a window in the room, but he just knew. The fact that Sam's bed looked long since vacated was another clue.

Sam, but was he Sam again? Had the brainwashing worn off, as he and Roland had hoped, or was he going to have to go through this nightmare for even longer? He didn't know how long he could handle "Zach" and "Harrison" before he started going batty himself.

Pulling himself out of bed, Peter lifted his shirt and saw that he was tightly bandaged. The scratch most likely wasn't nearly as bad as the bite that "Zach" had received, but it still smarted. He let his shirt fall and then had to deal with a nurse chiding him for sleeping through the morning announcements. Not that Peter really cared at the moment. He was too busy thinking about last night and the fact that in a way, he now owed something to Sylar. Except it hadn't been Sylar. That was something he was sure of now.

Lost in his thoughts, Peter reached the Sun Room right as the rest of the patient populace was trickling in from breakfast. Sighing to himself, he headed over to the bulletin board and then saw a note written in familiar yet unpleasant handwriting. Holding his pen in a vice grip, Peter scribbled out a reply and then stalked over to an armchair and fell into it with a huff.

While Sylar was maddeningly frustrating, there was one good thing about the fact that he was himself again. It meant that Nathan was too.

[For Spock!]

(From here.)

Sean's legs were starting to burn from the effort of keeping Schuldig on his back. It was only a few more feet, he told himself. Like he always did when he was running with the soccer team. He was always last, but he could finish the run at least.

The boy pulled Schuldig over to the plush red carpet in the center of the room and lay him down. The sofa probably would have been a better choice, but Sean intended to barricade the door with that.

'Check his heart!'

"Check his heart!" Sean said as he passed Chris on his way back to the door. He closed it, then rounded the couch. With a grunt, Sean started pushing it towards the door. It was taking him a while, though, as the couch was much heavier than Schuldig and he was moving it across carpet.

(From here.)

Pulling Chris through the door, Sean nearly slipped on the grass as he ran barefoot across the yard outside the greenhouse. It was quiet--a strange and eerie silence that made Sean's skin crawl. He had a bad feeling about being outside. Like eyes were watching him run across the grass. Like he shouldn't be out here without something... but he couldn't put his finger on it.

"This way," he whispered to Chris, guiding his friend around the back of the greenhouse and ducking down into the shadows. Maybe Schuldig would think they'd gone through the door on...

Goddammit! Why hadn't he taken them through the second door?! Now they were trapped here, praying that Schuldig didn't see them hiding behind a glass wall.

'He's going to kill you now,' Artemis gloated. 'You heard him--he's going to be even angrier now that you've made him chase you this far. And only to be caught~ How disappointing.'

(From here.)

Sean rounded the corner, Chris in tow, and skidded to a stop (fortunately not wearing shoes had helped him run faster, though his feet felt uncharacteristically dirty--the floors were clean, weren't they?). He looked around frantically in the dark for at least one glimpse of a member of the night staff. Nothing. He and Chris were on their own.

"Try the doors!" Sean instructed, letting go of Chris' hand to yank on the first door handle available. Locked. He tried the next one. Locked, too.

"Chris you remember what I said about that bruise being done myself?" Sean called over the frantic jiggling of doorhandles. "I lied--Schuldig did it while trying to get Artemis back. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, but I'm afraid he's going to do it again!"

[From here]

Tyki headed through the double doors into the next hallway, still not seeing anything or anyone around this place. The area was still as empty and boring as ever. He'd almost wish for the head doctor to switch around the lay-out of the place a bit, if only it weren't for the fact that figuring out what was where would be a real pain. Especially on the rare occasion he would need to be somewhere, and considering the guy's excellent sense of timing...

[To here]

Hayes paused in the middle of assembling the few useful items he had- the flashlight and TK's map, of course, and maybe one of the pens in case he wanted to note some kind of landmarks- to scowl up at the intercom. He talks like a schoolteacher and laughs like a damned Ilwrath, he thought, with a very slight shudder. A laugh like that was never good news, and worse when you were defenseless.

Then the lock clicked off, a tiny sound that completely shattered any remaining illusion of this being a legitimate psych unit. The door opened easily under Hayes' touch, and he turned back to look uneasily at his cellmate.

"I guess we have our answer," he said grimly, and turned his light into the dark hallway.


[For McCoy!]

Today was really trying to rain on her parade, wasn't it?

Well, it wasn't gonna work! Hanna was determined to stay strong and cheerful, in spite of Kenshin throwing a mega bitchfit and that the chick from the library being… Yeah. Her flightiness had been bad enough, but the half glossed-over memories had bordered on terrifying. Had she really been that far gone? It had to have been the meds. Just the meds. Yuffie was a douchey, semi-sociopathic klepto ninja thing, but even in that imagined world of hers, she hadn't gone around slashing people to ribbons for fun. Had she? Ugh, Hanna didn't even know anymore. Crazy people were capable of crazy stuff

Hanna's gut clenched just thinking about it, and she turned determinedly back to her lunch. The food wasn't exactly great, but it was better than some of the stuff she'd eaten. Like Stan's Deep fried Twinkie and mashed banana hot pot. Or, y'know, the normal stuff that teenage semi-runaways ate. Craptastic sandwiches and super economy potato chips, when she could get them, and whatever was in Tiffany's fridge when she couldn't. Dignity was dignity, and dignity was important, but being able to scratch a living from a rock was a handy life skill to have.

Stuffing another few chips in her mouth, Hanna did her best to ignore the door—and, by proxy, anybody who happened to come through it. Nostalgia trip aside, hadn't the Head Nurse said something about a whole new batch of crazycakes? Now she'd feel even more like a sardine than ever. Great.

[ For Cloud? :D ]

Even before he got sick, Sean had enjoyed reading. His teachers had always said that he read 'ahead of his age group', but he figured that was just because he read more than most kids his age did. He liked everything: fantasy, science fiction, biographies, journal articles... There was just something satisfying about holding a book--something someone poured a lot of effort into producing--to Sean.

Today, though, he didn't want to get into anything particularly heavy or involved. No psychology textbooks for him today--he was going to read something fictional. Pulling what looked like an interesting science fiction novel off the shelves, he cracked it open and began to read happily. Oliver would find him soon enough and no doubt interrupt him, so he'd just read as much as he could for now.

[For Badou]

"Stop calling me Greg, it's weird!" Raz protested, but predictably his words were ignored, and the nurse left with his roommate without a sound. The door closed shut, and he was alone once again.

The events that occurred this dinner shift played through his mind over and over again, though he very much didn't want them to. It was bad enough that he got trapped here in the first place, but couldn't he have at least got a friendlier roommate? Really? Was that so much to ask for?

As he contemplated how to deal with this problem, it seemed that all he did was blink, and then the room was dark. The lock unclicked, and Raz knew what that meant.

"Time to get to work," he said to himself, as he grabbed his flashlight and headed out the door.

[to here]

Once again, it was Nurse Lydia who took over the daily announcements just after the jingle came on. She didn't seem to waste any time and launched right in.

"Hello, everyone. Dr. Landel will be taking over for the last announcement of the day, but for now, I will continue in his stead. Presently, our nurses will escort you to your rooms, where dinner will be served. Tonight, the menu consists of herb chicken, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and carrots. Dessert is a brownie."

After one of her conspicuous pauses, she added:

"A double-fudge brownie."

It seemed as if someone had been coaching her from the background. At any rate, she stiffly finished the announcement with: "The Head Doctor will speak with you soon."

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. SOME ROOM ASSIGNMENTS HAVE BEEN CHANGED IN LIEU OF DROPS, so please double-check on your character's assignment here. ]

The day had been slow for L so far, slower than he required: the events of the previous night were traumatic, but they did not outweigh his need for information and a useful way in which to apply whatever he might learn.

When the nurse shepherded him from the cafeteria, through the Sun Room, and over towards the door of the Arts and Crafts Room, he experienced a small internal wince: this was the room where it had happened the night before. Unpleasant, yes, but likely to be irrelevant in terms of my own welfare, except in terms of what I can learn from it, he reminded himself.

He had the impression that he could avoid the room if he wanted to, but there were several convincing reasons to push past his reluctance: his meeting with Lunge was necessary, the opportunity to see the room in more usual circumstances might be valuable, and he did not want the staff to see that he had been affected. He wasn't sure how they were tied to the events of the previous night, but the buzz of information around the Institute suggested some kind of strong connection.

As he stepped into the room, feet feeling imprisoned in the slippers that the staff kept insisting that he wear, he avoided the area where he had collapsed. Instead, he turned to the right and proceeded as far into the room as he could, then left, then took a seat in the back corner.

If the nurses pressed him to be more creative, he would take up painting. However, he expected to express his creativity in other ways.

[For Lunge.]

That had been a very frustrating shower. For many reasons. At least Raine was going to at least look at Forte. Hopefully, she'll actually heal him. The showers had also succeeded in making the ninja feel like a pervert. A mild one, but still... It was as if Yukari had picked that spot in the showers because she knew the ninja could easily see her.

Ugh! Damn youkai.

Squirreling herself away in a corner of the cafeteria, Sheena finger combed her wet hair before pulling it back with the bright red ribbon. She so needed her own hair ribbon back. She was attempting to formulate her plan of acquisition - she was ninja after all - as people started trickling into the room. The plan was put on pause, though, when her stomach rumbled.

Food now - plan later.

[Closed to Haseo and Endrance]

Okita had woken with a start, his breath coming back to him in a rush. Toward the end of the night, he had sworn he'd seen someone in the shadows - someone no taller than a boy of nine, a mask covering his face, blood running down his front. He'd seen him. There was no way of mistaking that outfit or that mask; and Okita didn't need to see the face behind it to know who it was. The man didn't have a name and he likely never would, but Okita could never forget him. No one ever forgot their first kill.

When his breathing returned to normal, he realized that Guy was gone and worse, that the shift was nearly over. The nurses came in, fussing over him, saying he'd had a fever or some other nonsense that morning and thus they had left him to rest. Now they were asking how he was feeling, touching his forehead and trying to get him to put some metal tube in his mouth. That? Was a big no. Okita politely and firmly refused their repeated requests and they finally gave in, allowing him to get up and get dressed before informing him that today was--

"Now, the adults may be escorted to the showers while children can partake in Arts & Crafts activities."

The intercom cut in and Okita smiled. Finally. A shower. He put up little resistance when the nurses led him to the shower room, quickly undressing before touching his shoulder and ribs. Fully healed now, not a trace of his former injuries. Without further hesitation, Okita went to the closest stall and turned on the water, closing his eyes as the heat washed over him, clearing his head of the previous night's illusions. There was no way that demon man was still alive, and no way that he could have returned to taunt him yet again. It was merely a trick of the mind; something easily dismissed. That was exactly it. With that decided, Okita began to shampoo his hair, marveling again at the conveniences of the modern day.

[free~!]

Yuffie had died.

No, really. Seriously. She had actually died. Bleeding all over the place, making a horrid, sticky mess and scaring the hell out of Suzaku; she remembered it clearly. Kind of. Sort of. Through the blood loss, the pain, and the visions. Through Aerith's voice whispering in her ear, Cloud's stricken eyes, and her own panic. As bad nights went, it had been Bad, capital B and all the trimmings, and oh, god. She sat, trembling on the edge of her bed, eyes closed and hands pressed hard over her racing heart. The by-play between Landel—Landel!—and Lydia barely even sunk in. There was nothing in the whole world, any world, that could prepare you for something like…

Had it all been some kind of hallucination?

Had she imagined the whole thing?

No… She didn't think so. Nightmarish or not, Yuffie knew reality. But if it had been real, how was she alive now? That kind of pain wasn't something you could just cook up, was it? She thought about it all the way to the cafeteria, drifting behind her nurse without focus or intent. Maybe if she tried to stay clinical, tried to step back… But she'd never been good at that when things got personal. And every time she closed her eyes or blinked, she swore that the scenes played back to her, like an overused commercial on a crappy channel on a crappy TV, in a run-down dump of an inn that smelled like mothballs and yesterday's breakfast.

The scent of blood and damp, rotted wood clogged her nose. Disgusted, Yuffie shoved her bowl of cereal—handed to her by a clucking Plucky—off to the side so that she could melt into her chair, palm heels scrubbing against her eyes. Too much. This was… Too much. She couldn't even paste a plastic smile on her face to make herself feel better. Her usual shield, the white noise of inane babble that could filter out almost any crisis, was in tatters all around her. Five minutes, she gave herself.

Five minutes (not) to think, five minutes to get her act together, because there was no way she could let herself shatter here. No way…

[Closed to Sheena]

Hello! I.R.I.S. here once more to announce to you, our honored guests, that you have officially made it through a day of our typical Landel's treatment. Of course, it isn't quite over: we will now have you retire to our designated patient quarters with one of your agency partners to inspect their sleeping area and the tools that we provide them with for the true bulk of our behavioral testing. On an added note, we would like you to notice once again that the meals we provide to our subjects are of the highest quality.

For those of you feeling apprehensive about taking part in our more intensive methods, please be aware that we would never imagine putting all of you in any danger whatsoever. This last shift will be your last at our Institute; afterward, we will escort you to our Head Doctor's personal observation station to survey some of our test Next-Wave participants in the rigorous trials we put them through – all for their betterment, of course.

Once again, we hope that you are satisfied with what you find, and as always, direct any questions you may have to your console.

The nurses began to escort the patients to their rooms. They didn't even seem to be brought to awareness by words such as "testing" and "subjects."

[ All room threads go in response to this post; please post your character's room number as the subject line of the initial post. (Find all of the newly changed room assignments and shift introductions here.) If you are introducing your character during this shift, you may either choose for them character to wake up before their roommate gets back, or after. ]

The late-afternoon sun filled the large, open Sun Room. It was almost enough to make you sleepy, Euphemia thought, as she walked in, brushing a little glitter off her shirt. She didn't particularly feel like she was up to much - the worrying about everyone had drained her, as much as she'd tried not to think too much about it.

With that thought in the back of her mind, she walked over towards the bulletin board. It looked like it was cleared off at the end of the day, because now it was filled with information. She made a note of the 'primer' post, then began copying the maps onto some paper she'd taken with her from the Arts and Crafts Room.

One more thing struck her, though - the idea of visitors. Was this what all the announcements about graduates were? She thought of the others then, and frowned, hoping that neither of them were going through anything like that today.

[reserved for the tallmore.]

Sam frowned when he heard the intercom message. That didn't sound right. He'd gathered from his conversation with Sen that everybody in the institute was sane, but that the staff were trying to convince them they were mental patients for some nefarious purpose. So why that announcement? If Sam knew anything about brainwashing, he knew that it was a bad idea to announce it to the brainwashees. Good thing he was immune to...

"Oh no," mumbled Sam, feeling the top of his head. He wasn't wearing his hat, and if he wasn't wearing his hat, he wasn't immune to mind control. His mind was totally open to whatever insidious brain... control... things this place planned to inflict on him.

They seemed to be leaving him alone for now, though, so he headed back into the Sun Room and inspected the bulletin board, which was very hard to miss now that he was looking for it. It was plastered with messages, some signed with strange aliases, and some babbling about zombies.

Sam read the messages closely, engrossed. The biggest thing he'd learned about solving cases these days was that it was important to read everything. Talk to everyone too, but that could wait. Even that short conversation with Sen had taken all of brunch.

[for Scott Pilgrim]

When the shift changed, HK stayed put. Even after a long night of zombie killing, he had no interest in meatbag fuel, especially after all the discussion of chocolate with that rather strange meatbag. It was just making him crave the stuff even more than he had previously, if that was possible.

Oh, right. He was supposed to be looking for someone who was "VERY LARGE, WITH DARK HAIR." And also seemed to not know what lower-case letters were on the bulletin. As if that would help. He'd seen a likely candidate last shift, but talk of chocolate had distracted him.