Miles Edgeworth had quietly snuck off to a corner of the cafeteria during lunch, avoiding making conversations. He knew other people would probably lecture him later or accuse him of avoiding them, but that hadn't been true at all. He'd just wanted some time to work quietly by himself for a while.

He'd scribbled notes down from the bulletin board - it seemed that the focal year from people who had been taken from his own country was 2006. There were a list of names and schools that he was unfamiliar with, as well, and he wanted to look further into them.

When his nurse came to escort him to the next shift, he'd asked whether the library was open. That simple question had gotten him a long lecture. "Mr. Pierce, you've been spending entirely too much time in the library. You need to do something other than read all the time! At the rate you're going, we're going to have to fit you for reading glasses, and you don't want that, do you?"

In the end, the choices had been the Music Room, the Sun Room, or the Game Room. None of them particularly sounded appealing, but the Sun Room at least had the advantage of being near the bulletin board, he thought. He took a seat on one of the couches and began working again.

The second the intercom sounded, while the man on the intercom was still talking, Ashton pulled himself off the couch in the Music Room and slowly made his way to the door. He walked, glided even, as if he were a ghost in a dream. The nurses had already filed up to escort the patients to the lunchroom, and one bustled over to walk Ashton those few feet from one room to another.

"You're not looking very well, Mr. Pritchett," she said cheerfully. "Didn't you enjoy your shower?"

Ashton replied with a small, forced smile, then shook his head. He didn't feel like talking now. Though the nurses were pushy and downright annoying, he figured he owed this one at least a little explanation. They didn't know - or didn't believe - what went on after dark, but he owed them the benefit of the doubt. "Bad day," he decided on telling her.

Bad day indeed. The showers and the music had done nothing for his nerves. But then again, what could get that graphic image out of his head?

He glided ghostily through the taco line and settled on two chicken and bean tacos, with chips, a scoop of guacamole, two churros on the side, and a glass of apple juice. He wasn't used to this sort of food (save the juice) and he wasn't even sure he'd eat it, but the chances were high that he'd be able to pass it off on someone.

He was on the verge of tears again, too. What he would have given to just sit down next to a barrel and eat a hamburger.

Thank goodness the cafeteria was bare just now, too. It left all the corner tables open, the tables that shouted 'Don't talk to me, I'm brooding over here.' He sat at one, pushed his food a little away from him, and buried his head in his arms.

Well, that was a complete waste of time.

They were so occupied with fighting that pathetic ape they didn't even got a chance to enter that stupid office. Not even a peek, while the door was wide open. That was just pathetic!

Albel found himself back in his bed. The captain barely had time to wrap his knife in the piece of cloth and stuff it into his pocket before the nurse came in, whining about him missing breakfast. Albel merely glared daggers at her, but instead of taking the hint she just rambled on about the next activity.

The Ellicoorian wasn't particularly looking forward to taking a shower. Not that he had something against personal hygiene, on the contrary. But communal showers were not something Albel was exactly comfortable with, the captain liked his privacy. Part of him just wanted to turn around in his bed and pretend the stupid wench didn't even enter his room, but he knew that wouldn't solve anything. So he allowed himself to be escorted to the showers.

After he had arrived and silently stripped himself of his pathetic excuse of clothing, he walked over the cold, damp tiles. There weren't any of the other worms around just yet, which suited Albel just fine. He picked a shower head removed slightly further from the others. As usual, he wasn't in the mood to socialize. Hopefully, none of the maggots would bother. Showering in the same room was bad enough as it was.

Turning the shower on, he felt the hot water flowing on his body. As he began scrubbing himself, his gaze rested on the ugly but sensitive, burned skin of his left arm. He'd never enjoyed looking at it, it was the mark of his failure, his shame. His mind went back to that incident years back. He remembered the flames, the scream... like it all happened yesterday. And the events a few nights back didn't help any of it.

No, he shouldn't think about it. He couldn't allow himself to be weak, not here. Self-pity wouldn't get him anywhere.

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.

[from here]

Seimei reached the room without any incident, thankfully, and laid his brother down upon the narrow bed. The silence had endured as the two made their way, both listening for any threat that may leap out of the shadows.

But it seemed they were relatively fortunate, for the time being. Seimei brought out the journal he'd found in the room and began to make a map of where they had been. "Tomorrow night we should pick up where we left off."

He looked at Ritsuka, giving him a soft smile. "I'm sure we'll have better luck tomorrow."

[coming from here]

Ritsuka pushed the door open further and stepped inside. The sunlight still helped, but he clicked on his flashlight to illuminate the back of the room. Although the shadows melted away, there were still some fuzzy areas at the farthest point. Sweeping the flashlight beam from side to side revealed metal lockers that ran along each side of the room. He couldn't help but think back to the school gym's changing room. It basically had that same feel. "Looks like a locker room."

Walking over to the first locker, he tested it and found that they were also locked. He sighed in exasperation and kicked the locker, causing it to ring with a low hollow metallic twang. He leaned forward and rested his forehead on the cold metal surface, closing his eyes tightly. Frustration was starting to grow inside him and he bit his lip, hoping it would just go away.

[from here]

Hitting the floor so hard was definitely a jolt, but it really only knocked the wind out of him for a moment. Taking Seimei's hand, Ritsuka pulled himself to his feet and brushed himself off with his free hand. His flashlight lay on the ground nearby, and although he picked it up, he did not turn it on.

"I'm alright," he said, sidling up to his brother. "Takes a lot more to break me than that."

Ritsuka peered out into the darkness, but his weak night vision couldn't make out much. When they finally began to adjust, he managed to catch the barest outlines of tables and chairs set up in rows. Still, without the aid of the flashlight, everything beyond a few feet dissolved into lumpy shadows.

At Seimei's warning, Ritsuka quieted down and listened intently. The last thing he wanted to see was another monster like the spider body in the hallway. After a minute of relative quiet, he turned his head to look up at his brother. "I don't think anything is coming."

(from here)

"I'll take your word for it," Jack said. "All I ate was the cake." And as cake went, it had been pretty good, he had to admit.

And then they were at the top of the stairs. He hugged the inside wall for a moment, before slowly easing out into the new hallway, listening for anything untoward.

So far, so good.

"Looks like we have three choices," he said quietly over his shoulder. "Left, right, or straight."

(from here)

Yes, Jack was starting to think that this guy was a bit shifty. It wasn't the smile, so much as the fact that he was being more evasive than Jack. Which, as far as Jack had experienced, was quite an accomplishment.

But Jack had his secret weapon. While it'd be unpleasant if this guy randomly shivved him in the kidney, he knew he'd survive. Sort of. Perhaps not survive so much as die and come back.

"Sure thing," Jack said. He chuckled. "Feels so strange to be doing this without a gun..."

Flashlight held ready in his off hand out of habit, Jack started up the stairs. For all his joking, he was being careful; he swept the light ahead, keeping his weight balanced on each step so he could move quickly if something jumped down and tried to eat his head.

It wouldn't be the first time for that, that was sure.

Darman still wasn't pleased with the fact he had a new cellmate, but there was really nothing to do about it.

When the doors gave that telltale snick of the locks opening, he went for the closet under the pretense of getting one of the thicker overcoats, and fished about discreetly for his last remaining knife - it was almost lovingly wrapped in the remnants of the hand towel they had raided from the kitchen the night previous. Concealing it in his coat, and leaving Faust to decide what he wanted to do, Darman stepped out into the darkness of the corridors.

He should probably find Ordo, although he hadn't seen the other clone since that encounter in the courtyard, and knew that there was always the possibility he was being interrogated (good luck with that) or dead. Most beings, if they knew what a Null-ARC even was, also knew they were instant death on two legs...and that the best Null-ARC to them was a dead one. Brother or not, it was what Darman would do if he were in the enemy's place. Keeping Ordo alive and imprisoned seemed pretty suicidal, although it still begged the question how he of all clones had been captured. Ordo was supposed to be just plain better.

Sighing, and deciding to be optimistic - he still did have his knife after all - Darman set off down the hallway, following his mental map toward the main men's hall near the "bathrooms".

[Darman's moved here]

As the intercom switched on, the shuffling of papers was the first thing that could be heard rather than the voice of the Head Doctor. It seemed he had been going through a lot of them today, a fact which could perhaps be attributed to the fact that so many new patients had flooded the halls of Landel's on this particular afternoon.

Of course, the day was almost over, which accounted for the slight tinge of fatigue that could be heard in the Head Doctor's voice as he finally pulled the microphone towards him.

"Ah, yes, and it seems we have arrived at our final junction of the day!" He said, sounding slightly preoccupied as he looked for what he needed in his files. "I am pleased to announce something that many of you might have already guessed: In order to promote good behavior and friendly interaction among our patients, we have set as many individuals as possible up with roommates! Yes, yes, we all hope that you get along with your new friends, and upon the shoulders of patients who have new patients as their roommates, we put the responsibility of tutoring our newcomers about their current way of life. Speaking of which, I have a list of new introducteés this evening: John Bull, Arthur Hurley, Arthur Dent, Cole Li, Philip Hunt, Henry Kobayashi, Elena Taylor, David Barrows, Tobias Prince, Keanu Reeves, Brian Jones, Regina Dawson, and Matt Sherrow."

Just as the Head Doctor seemed ready to wrap up his short announcement, he seemed to remember one more thing.

"Ah, yes, and how could I forget dinner? Tonight, you'll be served trout fillets fried in a garlic-butter sauce, complete with sides of peas, cooked carrots, macaroni & cheese, and a baked potato. To drink, we will be serving a choice of water, milk, or apple juice, and for dessert, each patient will have a slice of chocolate cake all to themselves! Yes, a wonderful end to a wonderful day, don't you think?"

He paused for a final time.

"I believe that is all for today! I do hope you enjoy our dinners and that you look forward to our next Sunday excursion. After all, something special might again be in store. Ta-taaa!"

The intercom clicked off.

It was probably a good thing Penelo listened to that weird silver haired man (she never really did get his name, did she?), because her short investigation of the Bulletin Board revealed that she wasn't alone after all. Larsa and Gabranth were here too, for whatever reason.

Penelo still couldn't quite wrap her mind around the concept that Gabranth was alive, when she had heard his dying words and had later attended his funeral back at Archades. Basch had taken his place since then, and it just boggled her. How could Gabranth have returned to life? There was no force in Ivalice that could do that.

Then again, it looked like she wasn't in Ivalice anymore.

Penelo sighed, seating herself at a table near the bulletin board as she waited for Larsa and Gabranth to arrive. Hopefully, Larsa would have some answers; she never doubted his ability to dig up information, no matter what the situation. Even so, what did they get themselves into?

"At least Vaan isn't here," Penelo reminded herself. She had gone from frantically searching for Vaan to praising the Gods that he hadn't been captured in this prison.

As always, Tamaki woke up in his bed. He didn't know how he got there, but he woke up still in the clutches of fear he last remembered from the night. The fight in the hallway, Ed and Adel, the thing...

He was out of bed immediately, determined to make sure his friends were alright. He listened to the man on the intercom, not liking the idea of some big surprise. He didn't imagine any surprises could be good. And he hoped his friends felt the same way...

When his nurse came to get him, he chose the Sun Room instead of the chapel. He wanted no part of whatever was going to happen. He only hoped that Ed and Adel had the same idea....

They probably didn't. Agitated and worried, Tamaki paced along the window, hands behind his back, and waited.

[[from here]]

Sasuke peered cautiously around the doorframe, ascertaining that there wasn't anything in the halls yet.

Stepping more fully into the frame, he turned back to the two other ninja, gesturing towards the hallway with a quick flick of his head.

"Stairs are this way," he said succinctly. He'd let his grip on the bat lighten while talking to the others -- his guard slipped without his consent. Sasuke gritted his teeth, tightened his hold on the makeshift weapon, and slipped through the door, keeping to the wall.

[[from here]]

Sasuke had passed a set of goalposts, met wall, and thought for one panicked second that he'd have to go all the way back to the door from which he'd exited. Fortunately, he forced himself to a deep breath of the night air -- clean now, without the weird fog from that girl or the slightly musty stench of the shed -- and clear his mind. There was another door.

He opened it and slid gratefully into the hallway of the institute, glancing around. It didn't look as if anyone was here.

Well, outside had yielded one result. He twirled the bat experimentally in his palm. Definitely too light, but good enough for now.

Switching off the flashlight, he let his eyes adjust until he'd found the shadowy mass of the wall and followed it, watching warily for other patients. Or things.

Ichigo was only too eager to leave the cafeteria and its fresh memories behind when the softened chime of the intercome rang clear. What had begun as another ordinary meal, a rather agreeable one despite the lack of the proper utensils, quickly became somewhat unnerving. His conversation with...what was his name again?...took so many sharp turns, he should've felt dizzy. It was easy to feel a little sorry for the guy, though; surrounded by stangers in a very strange place, it was hard to blame him for being so alarmed.

The Sun Room occurred as a more enjoyable choice to spend the time; he had nothing against music, but something about being surrounded by some of the most unruly characters he'd ever met, each of them armed with cacophonous weaponry, didn't sound smart. Once his nurse departed, the young man picked out a cozy little spot near a flood of sunshine and settled in, cradling his head in the palms of his hands. There, he stared up almost bitterly at the ceiling with sharply focused eyes, still exuding the same unapproachable sense of being as ever.

The room was warm, even a little comforting, for any of the tired, weary masses found in Landel's halls, or even those who just craved a little peace and quiet. All he could hear, from end of the room, were soft footfalls and hushed voices. That sounded just fine to the 'berry head.

Dreamless slumbers were easy. There was no thought, no images of people or places you knew or ones conjured by your imagination. It was simply you in darkness until your eyelids cracked and the darkness gave way to a light you were unwilling to greet.

Barret dreamt of Marlene. Rather, he saw her visage stilled as a photo before his sight as he gasped a breath to break the chains sleep cast about him. He was in the same room he'd awoken in the night before. This morning was slightly different from the rest. It was this morning he sustained vast injuries he was acutely aware of by simply breathing in the institute air. It might as well been poisonous taint--everything about the place was taint. Only the stilled image of his angel made it seem endurable.

Yet even the remembrance of that little girl brought his heart to a chilling halt. This imprisonment seemed hopeless at every turn. It was as if every moment, if he wasn't confronted with the fact all escape was a little less than impossible, he heard new imformation to enforce this fact.

Wallace wasn't one for giving up, yet in his newest form of injury, he felt like a useless slab of meat. He recalled the days when he truly had something to offer, not only to the comrades that battled along side of him, but the little girl he grew to call his own and truly believe it in his heart.

His large hands gripped the sheets at his sides, inhaling a sharp breath not only at the pain, but the sorrow that was washing over him in a tidal wave of misery.

"Marlene..." he whispered in a trembling voice, shaking his head over and over at the troubling thoughts invading his mind. All attempts to banish them were futile, "Daddy don't know if he can get out of this one...but he gonna try..."

The words were not believable, not even as he spoke them. It was in his eyes--for the moment at least, he was giving up.

The nurses' cheerful voice barely registered as she rattled off about him missing breakfast. It didn't matter. He wasn't hungry anyway. She mentioned something about leaving the room, heading for the next scheduled activity, and nothing but complete blankness crossed his face as she continued to babble. She took his wrist, which was heavy and limp. He didn't even have the resolve to talk back to her, in which she must have seen his reluctance and silence as something more than what it was. Out of the corner of his eye, he finally saw a wheelchair positioned by the bed for convenience. Was his condition that severe? As he moved to seat himself in it with her aid, he noticed he in fact, was. He felt devestated.

It was interesting how she didn't make mention of his wounds. The clean stab through just above his gut was stitched on both sides, the gash as his knee was bandaged as was the slice at his gut. She must have thought them self-inflicted.

Maybe he really was insane.

He might as well have been comatose. His expression was non-existent as the nurse continued to ramble, pushing him down the hallway toward their destination.

When they entered the library, his care went from zero to in the negative numbers. She placed him gently at the head of one of the tables and asked if he needed help locating any books. When no answer came, she frowned but patted his shoulder in a comfort before leaving the broken patient behind.

He felt like shit.

[[From Disneyland!! here.]]

Hisoka sighed as he walked further into the hall, eyes glancing around as he swept the light around slowly in hopes of finding someone or something that could help.

Without much luck.

The hall was pretty much deserted, though that wasn't much of a surprise considering how quickly everything was becoming more and more strange. Light was practically nonexistent, people were pretty much the same and his clothes were missing.

He would say that things couldn't get any worse, but past experiences had shown him many times before that they could and would if he let them get out of his hands. Which wasn't going to happen if he had anything to say about it.

With that thought in mind, the shinigami peered as much as he could down the halls on either side of him then took a wild guess and turned towards the one to his right. Taking a few steps, he quickly increased his pace as the hall broke off into yet another which would undoubtedly lead him somewhere else.

Just perfect.

There was a grand choice of one destination on the Intercom message that made him even vaguely consider going there. Frankly, there was only so many interesting things you could do with confectionery, and the last thing he could handle right now was having to watch some annoying kid build a fully-functional gingerbread cottage with whipped-cream chimney smoke and a moving waterwheel constructed entirely out of chocolate. Artistic pursuits had never been his first choice - even as a kid he'd been drained to draw like a draughtsman, rather than cute little pictures of his family and house. He'd copied out his first gun blueprint at ten years old. Somehow, though, he doubted that iced gems had a good firing velocity.

Lying down on a full-length seat (comfortable, but rather sticky), he decided to catch up on a little sleep, or at least rest a while. Any other time, he would have gone off to explore, but he couldn't do a lot with this nurse hovering around him like a plague.

"Would you like me to bring you a book from the library?" she asked, politely. He nodded assent and answered a short list of questions about his literary tastes. At least something to read might shut off his emotions somewhat until he could think of a plan.

He lolled back his head, staring at the ceiling. He couldn't see any surveillance cameras in here, but imagined they were probably hidden somewhere. It didn't seem right to have a facility this big without any CCTV to speak of. Actually, now he thought about it, the security in this place was a joke. Apart from a few huge male nurses wrestling more resistant patients, he hadn't seen anything to suggest force was being used here. And he managed to spend the better part of the day completely out of reach of his nurse. It was a little too suspicious, he realised. She was probably aiming for him to give her the slip. But why?

His nurse returned with the book. He glanced at the cover. Sherlock Holmes. Well, it could have been a lot worse. He'd never found Holmes nor Watson particularly realistic characters, but it was better than a good deal of what he suspected he would find in that library.

Letting his body relax, he opened the book and began to read.

It was silly, but Wilson was nervous.

Mental health was by no means his specialty. It was true that he more or less had to act as a counselor for his patients. Most of them had terminal cancer. The dates were never any good. Two years, one year, six months, three months. He could speak to people about dying well enough, but this was different.

Hopefully he would get the hang of it. He took solace in the fact that he had a bit more experience than some of the other doctors. Such as, oh, House? He wasn't sure what the chief of staff had been thinking when he hired him. It made him wonder if the administrators were as insane as the patients.

Even though therapy didn't start first thing in the morning, Wilson had made sure to be there extra early anyway. (He had to make up for House, who would undoubtedly be late.) His office was also cleaner than it would normally be - first impressions were important, after all, and that was probably even more true with mental patients. He heard the intercom, which meant his first patient would be heading in soon. He straightened in his chair, though his nervousness caused him to grab a random doodad off of his desk and start fiddling with it.

[ ooc: For Adelheid, Cliff, Dias, Eric, Hikaru, Riza, Scar, and Seimei. ]