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.]

Breaking down the bed frame after she'd eaten some of her meal had given Teresa something to do while she waited for the night time phenomena to arrive. Having not been conscious when it occurred the previous night, she was curious. She was not disappointed. The overhead words were certainly something different.

As the door opened, Teresa finished wrapping shredded bedding around the bottom portion of the six foot long metal bar that had once been a main side support of the bed's frame. It wasn't good quality metal by any means, but it was better than nothing. At least, she didn't think it'd break the first time she hit something with it given her reduced strength. As she hefted the weapon, she swung it around to get a feel and decided that it would do for now. Should she manage to find the right kind of stone or a file, she could even work a rough edge onto it.

A few more strips of cloth and the hybrid tied the makeshift weapon across her back, the 'hilt' sticking a foot and a half above her shoulders, and fashioned the cloth so she could pull on the knot by her right shoulder for a quick release. That done, Teresa took her flashlight and exited the room.

[to here]

[from here]

Something didn't feel quite right about the building as Beatrix stepped out into the hallway. Moving to the left, she put her back against the wall to wait for Wonka to arrive. She wasn't sure what didn't feel right about it, but her instincts were warning her to expect more of the unexpected and to trust what she felt, not her eyes.

A flicker of movement out of the corner of her eyes, yet nothing was there. Her eyes narrowed. Yes, something wasn't quite right.

[waiting for Wonka]

Soubi was restless. Demyx had provided a distraction from thoughts of Seimei and Soubi had other things to distract him once he was with Ritsuka. Now he just had to make sure Kio was sticking around and not sneaking off.

He'd been pacing by the door for only a minute before the intercom clicked on and the doors clicked open. He was out in a flash, waiting at the door of the room next door.

He wanted to move quickly. Make the exchanges he needed to and... set to work on this. Oh, and Ritsuka wanted to see Miku. Soubi was jealous curious about that...

[from here]

Even distracted as he was, Suzaku remembered to stay on his guard as he passed into the main hallway. He would only be here for a moment, but there could still be a monster lurking in the darkness. And it was so quiet and deserted just now that he would make easy prey.

[to here]

[from here]

The halls were empty so far, which was probably a good sign. Suzaku was hoping to get a move-on quickly, so they could hurry up and get Yuffie's sword made. The first night he'd been here, he'd been pulled back to his bed the instant he made it outside, so they'd have to move fast if they wanted to make any decent progress. And right now he couldn't afford to focus on anything but just that, making progress.

[to here]

[from here]

Raz trudged on forward over to the Sun Room. Still no monsters...

[to here]

[from here]

As he scurried through the corridor, the boy started to notice something was off.

"Where are all the monsters?" Raz wondered aloud. Everyone else was stressing the fact that this was a terrifying place crawling with giant snakes and zombies, but none were to be seen so far.

But then again, that was... probably a good thing.

[to here]

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. ]

Beatrix glanced briefly at the bulletin board before she headed into the library. It wasn't as if she had any interests in the book, but there was something about browsing book shelves that gave a person time to think while reducing the odds that someone would bother her.

Between her conversation with Venom and the one with Depth Charge, she had a lot to think about and little patience for unwanted interruptions. The library was wonderfully silent as she slowly walked to the back shelves.

[SubZero]

Kibitoshin left the cafeteria in what could only have been described as a state of sheer, unleaded anxiety. Why did he have to be the one Dory had spoken to first? With everything he’d said and failed to say she’d probably ended up with a reverse education. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she came out of it knowing even less than she had when she arrived.

Hopefully- and he really did hope, more than anything- someone else would be able to start over and tell her what she needed to know, especially since she hadn’t exactly seem altogether… well… there. To be fair, she had been a fish until today. Expecting her to be perfectly normal was maybe a little much.

What he needed now was some peace and quiet. Maybe if he had a chance to calm down he wouldn’t make such a fool of himself in his meeting later that afternoon. The library would do for that, right? If he was lucky (which he never was, but he had to be positive) they’d have that book he hadn’t quite finished in Doyleton (even if he couldn't think of the town without shuddering), the odd one about Lady Esmeralda (which hadn't been very good anyway, but...). A quick scan of the shelves on arrival didn’t turn anything up, but he did manage to find a battered old book called ‘Alice in Wonderland’ to settle down with. Apparently, it was about a girl finding herself in a strange new world. Why did that ring a bell...?

Satisfied, he took a seat and began to flick through the pages.

[free for unlimited poking!]

I.R.I.S. here again, and we continue to hope that you are enjoying your temporary stay at Landel's Institute! We hope that our staff have proved adequate for your needs so far, and we are now ready to showcase an uncommon – but vital – aspect of the lives of our future patients. Once every week, we will allow 'visitors' from the outside world to interact with our community and assuage any fears our patients may have. Perfectly tailored for each individual, these visitors will in fact be graduates of the very program that you are surveying now, and a testament to how the methods of Landel's Institute will truly usher in a revolution in the Next-Wave programs.

In order to allow you to see the quality of our work with your own eyes, we have arranged for a handful of our original test subjects to return and show you how profoundly they've been re-educated in such a short span of time. We hope that you are satisfied with what you find, and as always, direct any questions you may have to your console.

Thank you!

Once again, the nurses went about ushering assigned patients into the two waiting rooms as if Martin Landel was announcing with his same old shtick. Non-assigned patients were allowed to remain in the same public room of their choice or to move to a new one.