[From here]

Finally, she thought. It felt good to be actually productive for a night--yanking copious amounts of liquor and snacks aside. Of course, it had come with a price, as the fiery throb in her hand reminded her. Carefully pushing the door open, which was still in pristine condition (and thus creeped the hell out of Tifa), for them to both enter the small, cramped room.

"There's the sink," she pointed to her right against the wall. "Run cold water over your arm and I'll look for something to stop the burn..." There were plenty of jugs to choose from, the question was which held the right chemical. It wouldn't do to make this worse.

"Oh--" That reminded her. "Your shirt. Careful with it. If you got any of that stuff on it, it'll just start a reaction all over again." With that, she whipped back around to the shelves of cleaning products. As she searched, Tifa felt a strange and nagging itch across her back. The door. It was wide open. That faux pas was quickly rectified. "That wouldn't have been good."

[From here]

"Should be one of these doors here..." She kept her words soft so as not to attract any unwanted attention, but it was ultimately a moot decision. It wouldn't take long to dispose of any refuse that lingered in this hallway and the loud slamming noises of Tifa's foot against the first helpless door weren't exactly quiet.

Her hard kicks were precisely place around the deadbolt in the door. After three, four, Tifa began to believe this was a hopeless cause. There was no damage or dents in the reinforced door at all. Narrowing her eyes at the glowing force field around her, the young woman turned her head to Zack.

"This might not be the right door," she confessed. "Let's keep looking. It can't be the only one..."

Even with depleted powers, Tifa had been able to break open the door to the cleaning closet. It was simply a matter of finding the right one.

[From here]

Once they hit the dead end of this hallway, Tifa directed them to the left. A pitch black corridor greeted them like the entrance into a giant monster's belly. There was the usual apprehension, but it was an unnecessary feeling tonight. They both may have been injured, but it hardly made them infirm. If there was ever a night to brave the darkness, it was this one.

Beside her, Zack stood, waiting on her cue since she was the one leading this operation. Tifa gave him a confident nod and moved forward. She took one step and stopped short. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end as the hallway before them came alive with the sound of growling.

Apparently her analogy hadn't been too far off. Out of the abysmal bowels before them stepped a rabid, ragged hound. It was in some later stages of decay and bigger than any dog had the right to be. It wasn't alone either. Several claws clicked across the linoleum tiles and clogged the entrance like the guardians of hell's gate.

"Well, let's hope they don't spew fire," Tifa quipped lightly as she bent forward, awaiting the first wave of attack. It came shortly, but the dog had aimed itself at Zack. That was fine by Tifa; she turned her attention to the next closest beast that came out of the darkness.

[from here]

The upper hallway was empty, at least at this end, though Lana could hear something skittering around. She checked her pocket -- ran her fingertips along the grip of the gun in the breast pocket of her jacket, but she didn't take it out. It hadn't done them much good last night, had it?

"And I didn't mean Gant, actually." Had she? Not primarily, at least, which made that not quite the truth, but only fractionally a lie. By some people's standards, that wasn't a lie at all. Her were as absolute as they had to be behind the Prosecutor's bench. Mmm. Did that make it entirely true, or entirely false? She'd meant herself when she'd said it, behind Faraday and Badd, but the subconscious was a slippery beast. So easily convinced.

So easily deceived. "Some of us are trying to learn from our mistakes, but that doesn't mean we won't make them again. I hope Ema will forgive me for what I said to keep her from coming along tonight."

[Coming from here.]

Upstairs was dark and silent, although to Daemon, the faint pink glow that coated all the surfaces since the alarm went off seemed more concentrated here. Was it stronger, perhaps? Or was there just more to hide? He brushed his fingers against it curiously as he stepped out of the stairwell and into the corridor above, his senses already probing the thick blackness around them, searching to see if they were alone or not.

He doubted it. His instincts were telling him otherwise. Their captors were really pulling out all the stops tonight. He and Renji had already carved their way through more monsters than most people saw in a week around here. It made him wonder what was lying in wait in some of the bigger rooms...

[Coming from here.]

Daemon slipped from the hallway and into the stairwell, starting the climb to the second floor. His gaze searched the shadows and he'd made no more than three steps up when he went carefully still, holding up a hand to halt Renji as well. The chittering came from above their heads, quiet but definitely there, the sound familiar enough to send a chill down Daemon's spine.

"Above," he whispered in warning, moving quickly to the landing to put the wall at his back.

Billy surfaced into wakefulness. Sleep receded like an inky tide, and it didn't say anything to him before it was gone. His dreams had been nothing but the sensation of water, rocking him restlessly in his bottle. There seemed to be an ocean beyond his confines, but he couldn't see it and couldn't reach it. He pawed at the glass, but any progress he'd made had been washed out of his memory.

He tried not to be disturbed by the deja vu, but it wasn't the sort of thing one was in full control of. And yet, his heart didn't race. His nose didn't bleed. His hands were shaking, but with a different tenor than the last time he had concentrated on them. Everything felt still, and whole, and maybe not right, but for the first time in weeks Billy breathed without trouble. There was no weight of a terrified, dying universe crawling over his shoulders and clamoring for attention. He laid there in bed for a long time. Victory. Not his victory, but someone else's, and that was good enough. He hadn't needed to be the one who saved it, he was just doing what he had to. Truthfully, he was glad to have not seen it. There was a lot Billy wished he hadn't seen.

He couldn't bring himself to react much to the fact that he was still here. Billy glanced around a couple times, vision blurred without his glasses, but saw that the room was basically the same. This time lit up, of course, although it didn't help him to gather many precise details. He would have almost said his aimless adventure with Captain Kirk during the night had been a dream, but it was all wrong, thematically speaking. Maybe if Kirk had been a squid dressed in gold lamé, he'd believe it. It really didn't matter what his dreams meant anymore, though.

( Kraken spoiler cut for those who mentioned wanting to read it. )

Any further thoughts were interrupted by a soldier he hadn't noticed entering.

"Get dressed."

Billy stared at the military blues from the night before. Clean and fresh, no sign of any blood, not that he'd been the one injured. There was even a little hat that he had missed the night before. He was going to look ridiculous, he could feel it.

"I think you'll probably find I'm not actually registered here," he tried to tell the guard, who was not impressed by Billy's claim. The soldier wasn't even moved by Billy pointing out that the dog tags didn't have his name on them. (Frederick Aldrich? An eerie coincidence that made Billy quietly comply with demands for a few minutes.) The man spoke in nothing but orders, which were easy to follow when you weren't particularly attached to any final aim. Billy was listless. Flotsam and jetsam. Getting back to London was an eventual goal, but he'd put in a call to someone later, and go back to whatever. His life, he supposed. He was already exasperated by the taciturn and far too serious military man. Once upon a time he would have wanted to gain purchase with him through inoffensive smiles and falsely friendly comments. Today, he could only give the man a tired look and equally brusque answers that didn't hide his irritation. Did he really look young enough to be pressed into a military academy?

He was led down cleaner versions of the hallways he had seen the night before, and into a large cafeteria, basically devoid of anyone beside himself and the assembled guards. Billy uncomfortably found a seat, and took a few seconds to just hide his face in his hands and block everything else out. The tray he had been given was immediately forgotten, just to the side of him, and he blamed his turning stomach on the adrenaline that was still working its way out of his system. It was so fantastically quiet in the large room, he wanted to drown in it. He only peered through his fingers when someone else in powder blue passed close to his table.

[For Castiel.]

[from here]

Momentum carried Kirk forward even as the scene changed: snow gave way to tiled floor and the field to a row of shelves, which they all got to experience intimately as Kirk slammed into Glasses and Wichita, and the two of them slammed into an assortment of soup cans, which tumbled off the shelf and down on their heads. Being the tallest, Kirk caught the brunt of the assault, because that was really all he needed right now on top of a gunshot wound and disorientation from the sudden teleportation. "Ow, ow, ow—"

Vaguely, he was aware of how deeply unheroic this whole thing had been, just as he'd been aware of how ridiculous he probably looked to the transporter technicians after he'd gotten trounced on the drill by Romulans and nearly killed himself and Sulu after losing his 'chute. But they were alive, or so Kirk judged from the echoes of ow from beneath him, and he'd take a ridiculous rescue any day of the week over an unsuccessful one. He let the pipe drop from his fingers, where it clattered on the floor alongside the last of the rattled soup cans, and grabbed his flashlight as he stepped away from the other two. They were in some sort of pantry... he remembered storage rooms marked on the map beside the first floor kitchen. Interesting.

It appeared they were— No. Kirk turned to point his flashlight at the exit, and frowned. He thought he'd saw someone darting from the room — short, with long pale hair — but the door stood firmly closed, and he hadn't heard anyone or anything in here except Wichita and the other guy. Funny. The last time he'd been in this area, he'd been with... okay, never mind, those cans hit in the head harder than he thought. The three of them were alone. Kirk finally allowed himself to prod at his bloody arm and grimaced. The bullet had passed clean through and hadn't hit bone, but his shirt sleeve was a mess. So much for his shiny new uniform.

But as much as it hurt, he knew he'd gotten off inexplicably lucky. Wichita had probably been shot worse. Kirk clamped a hand over his wound and looked over at the other two. "Everyone in one piece?" he asked, trying for a tone of confidence.

Well, that was interesting; being moved to a new room and injected with a Mystery Drug, all in one confusing moment. 'Interesting' being a blanket term for annoying and nerve-racking and ridiculous. It was all making her start to feel very Winona Ryder a la Girl, Interrupted. That was based on a true story, right? Kind of? Ugh. Though if she were being honest, being dosed was the first event that really, actually made this place feel like the mental institution she was being told it was. Minus being visited by not-Columbus. That was certainly brain-fuzz worthy, even with the warning.

Either way, her arm itched, and maybe that was just in her head, but she couldn't stop scratching at it. If she got some kind of rash from this crap, she was going to be livid.

Dinner wasn't so bad - at least her new roommate seemed normal, kinda - but she rolled off her bed and headed out as soon as the doors unlocked, map tucked into the side of her boot and her flashlight in hand. Oh yeah, so ready to take on the great outdoors. Because tonight she would be getting herself a bat. Monsters beware. Now that she was sure she finally had a grasp on where the hell she was going around here, she was determined to get outside and get armed.

Having already met two new people today, Zack found that his mood was slowly starting to improve, if only out of necessity. While he didn't like dumping his problems on his friends, he was even less willing to do so with a stranger. More than that, Rose had been very personable and he'd felt good about himself for being to help her with a few things. It was remarkable how something as small as a good conversation could help so much.

And even better was the fact that he could now go wherever he wanted. It was probably the best part about Sunday. Better than that was that he hadn't been scheduled to see a visitor today. He had an idea of who might have come to see him, and while he missed her, he didn't need to see her the way she would probably be now.

So, the question remained: where to go? He would need to get outside at some point, but he figured he'd leave that until the end of the day. At the moment he just wanted to keep his mind busy, which led him to deciding on the Game Room. Even if he couldn't find someone to play with, enough of the stuff kept there was also usable for one person. Once he got bored of that, he could head out onto the recreational field and run some laps.

Those guys didn't even have to order him to do that. Still, Zack preferred that: to do something for himself rather than because he was told to.

The Game Room was completely empty when he entered, but Zack hoped that it would fill up before long. In the meantime, he grabbed a deck of cards and sat down to deal out a game of Solitaire.

[For Tifa.]

Edgar's charming company had raised Anise's spirits enough that not even the Head Doctor's voice could bring them back down. Besides, she was feeling pretty sure that Landel wasn't actually around. To begin with, it wouldn't make sense, and secondly, his announcements sounded suspiciously like ones she'd already heard before. While Anise wasn't very familiar with Earth technology, she'd seen the little devices in the Music Room that could play recordings of people's voices. This had to be something like that.

It wasn't long before Anise was escorted to the Cafeteria, and then to the section where edible food was being served. As she filled her plate with waffles, fruit, and sausages, she looked to the other side of the counter with a look of sympathy. It was hard to enjoy her own meals while knowing what the other patients had to suffer through.

She wasn't about to refuse her meals just out of guilt, though. Anise needed her strength for tonight. There was still a bit of a nervous twist in her stomach whenever she thought about what could happen down in the basement... but she wasn't going to back down. Not after promising her friends they'd go together.

With her tray in hand, Anise seated herself at an empty table in the middle of the room. She preferred to have company while eating, but it looked like she was one of the first patients there, so there was no one to sit with. Maybe if she minded her manners and tried to look her cutest, she'd attract someone handsome! Holding her utensils delicately, she began to cut her waffles into smaller pieces.

[For Battler.]

[From here; and time skipping late late so she doesn't hit anyone on the other side with her car.]

Before long, Tifa came up on the dark silhouette of the institute. Eventually the road ended and became part of the entrance way into the mental hospital. The piles of snow masked the perfectly manicured lawns that overlooked the building and gave it such an inviting look.

As the road began to curve in a half circle back out onto main road, she reverses and angled herself at a straight shot toward the entry way doors. It may have been overkill to take down an entrance with a car, but, really, Tifa did not feel like getting out and waddling over and checking the door and finding out it was locked and then taking a few sensitive strikes to the damned wood or steel with her leg. That could all be bypassed with an engine and a fortress of metal.

The only thing she could do was hope she didn't meet the dash or the steering wheel with her face again as she gunned the car as fast as it would go in a very short distance. It barely made it about twenty-one miles per hour before she hit the doors and they popped open, a bit too readily. Nothing cracked between the doors. Nothing splintered except for the giant dents she put right in the middle of them.

The door had been unlocked the whole time, and now she had a car wedged in the door frame that no amount of reversing was going to change. So, she blocked the only easy entrance into the institute with a car when she could have just strolled in by herself and her booze. Awesome. Now she had the pleasure of kicking out the plexiglass windshield with a few awkwardly places kicked on the dashboard. This was not Tifa's best night by a long shot. Nothing hew hurt, thankfully, but a cooling trickle of blood from her forhead was starting to makes its way down her face.

Grabbing her bottles and a severed arm, she carefully slid down the busted hood, onto the glass-strewn floor, and back into the institute.

[To here]

[From here]

Tifa's car jumped the the sidewalk of Ames street and hit a wooden power line pole. The car hadn't been going fast enough to deploy an air bag, which was a pity since she still managed to hit her forehead on the steering wheel. Her vision blacked out momentarily, but the headache hadn't set in yet. Shock made sure of that. That was nice!

A shaky hand fumbled for the shifter behind the steering wheel. Despite the nice dent she now had in the front hood, the thing was still running. It was the only saving grace afforded her as the undead swarmed in once more. With her back window broken, it didn't take long for a handful of them to begin infiltrating the back seat. Fortunately, their combined fervency was what kept them largely out. Apparently, the rules of etiquette did not apply to the undead. She could still feel their hands as they grabbed at her, though. One caught a hold of her hair and pulled, and that headache kicked in when her head hit the back of her headrest.

Grabbing at her hair below the clawing hands, Tifa reversed and pumped the gas until she was squealing off the sidewalk and back into the street. Most of the festering townsfolk were flung off, but of course, not the ones with a fist full of her hair. The best she could come up with was to press against the headrest and floor it forward. One fell, but the other was stubborn. Another got his leg shattered by the front of the car and bounced up and over the windshield. He left a shower of blood in his wake, of course.

( Read more... )

[From here]

"Ger--Germaine?" Really? This town had the oddest street names. She didn't remember this street, but it went no further, so she turned right and clipped a pedestrian zombie with little sympathy. He spun so elegantly. Before she cleared the next intersection sign, she stopped and and crawled up on the dashboard to get a better look. She could see an A and that was good enough for her because the moment she stopped, a group gathered around her and began to crawl all over the car.

Popping her car into reverse, the few zombies still clinging were flung off. Two slid from the smooth hood and hit the asphalt in front of her. They tried to stand back up on their shaky decomposing legs, but Tifa didn't give them the chance. She accelerated right over the pair like massive, fleshy road bumps. This baby was not made for all terrain, though. Eventually enough squealing helped her clear the undead, but at the cost of controlled steering.

[To here]

[From here]

"Oh gross!" She still had the zombie arm in the car! Alone in the car, she relented to a grimace and very lightly picked up the arm, flinging it behind her and out of sight in the backseat. But now that the deed was done, Tifa wondered if anyone in the institute was a scientist--well, obviously the doctors that ran the the place, but perhaps a patient could test it. Maybe they could figure out how they shifted between normal and undead! Or not, Tifa really didn't know. Science was and never would be her forte.

Be that as it may, she had walked away (well, close enough) with quite the haul of debauchery. And, a zombie arm! All she had to do was keep this little car on the road, and that was proving harder than she thought. Driving was a rusty skill and all these damned undead were practically flinging themselves on her windshield!

"I can't see the street signs, ya jerks!" It was hard enough trying to read with no light! She hit Bohr street and kept moving on, knowing the park that the buses always parked in was still ahead of her.

[To here]

[ From here. ]

Deserted.

Regardless, Lightning took several steps into the large room, looking about and listening intently. Most importantly though, she was also trying to get a feel for the air there. She remembered quite clearly how it had seemed her first and second nights, how someone else going through ahead of her had caused the oppressive air inside to be stirred slightly, and figured that would be the best way for her to tell if anyone had already beat her out the door.

However, that didn't seem to be the case here, and as far as she could tell without walking all the way over to it, the entrance at the other end of the room hadn't yet been opened. Taking a hasty step backward, Lightning was quick to retrace where she'd come from as soon as she was sure of the possibility being struck out--

And then the sound of static from the radio trapped in her jacket, harsh and almost deafeningly loud in the darkened silence, nearly caused the already wound-tight l'Cie a heart attack then and there. Pressing her lips together in annoyance, she moved to retrieve the thing, immediately recognizing the first voice and then...

... That was-- was that the 'head doctor?'

Now almost outright scrambling, she quickly lifted the radio to not far from her face, first bending her head so that pieces of her pale hair fell forward as she listened, then promptly shaking it back, turning her back to the wall and leaning there, determined to keep an eye on her surroundings at the same time despite her surprise.

Much of the message went right over the ex-soldier's head still, but... they were working together- not even a child could miss that. Shaking her head in disgust, she started putting the noisy device back in the jacket pocket almost before the broadcast had come to an end.

[from here]

Tolten tried to seem confident as he took the lead, proceeding further into the dark corridors. There had been nothing overtly threatening so far, but his heart was racing in his chest even so. He couldn't shake a sense of lurking danger, of shadowing hidden fear. He tried to tell himself he was being foolish, but experience told him otherwise.

This reminds me of the sewers. Though hopefully there would be no failed experiments lurching about, hell-bent on human flesh.

And thoughts such as those will not calm your nerves. And now he was no longer alone, and he was bound by his honor to look after his companion. He couldn't allow himself to give over to old fears and childish worry. They would find an exit of sorts, find someone possessed of the means to help them, and... well, that was as far as he'd gotten but at least it was a plan.

The corridor widened suddenly, and Tolten faltered to a stop. He held up a hand and swung his torch in the opened space, taking in the change in surroundings.

[From here.]

It seemed the he was one of the first out tonight, though Castiel was not surprised that he had adapted to this routine so quickly. Heaven had involved far too much routine, and while being able to use his wings would have sped up this process a noticeable amount, he could at least make the nightly walk go by as swiftly as possible.

The halls were empty. Some people would have been frightened of a dark, quiet hallway, and yet Castiel hardly gave it a second thought. If he felt cold spots or saw flickering lights he would be on his guard, but at this point his only concern was getting to the meeting point.

[To here.]

Dinner had seemed to pass by too quickly, while night had come on quietly, with just the click of the door opening. Nonetheless, Peter had managed to get his new duffel bag packed with all of the medicine, syringes, and medical supplies that he might need without it being too heavy to manage. He still had to carry his shovel in his other hand, which meant he was going to be weighed down more than he probably should be, but he would just have to drop the bag if he got into a nasty fight.

It wasn't the best system, but it was all he had to work with and being able to hang the bag over his shoulder also meant that he still had an open hand for his flashlight. He definitely felt more like a paramedic at this point, especially since he had changed back into the military uniform.

Still, he could suit up as much as he liked, but none of it would matter if he couldn't find people to save. That started at square one, though, which meant finding Claire. She was probably the person who needed the least protecting, but he couldn't kick the feeling that her night yesterday hadn't gone well after she'd left him, and so she wanted to be a good uncle this time around. He owed it to her after she'd healed him.

After bidding farewell to Sam and heading out into the hallway, Peter didn't delay in moving down it. He didn't know if there was anything planned for them tonight by Aguilar, but it wasn't something he could spend time worrying about when he needed to high-tail it over to the female block.

[For Sylar.]

Window shopping--no, that was too lofty a word to be used with this quaint town. Looking at things all day (yeah, that worked much better) was all well and good until the chilly air became less than bearable. With the sun sinking into the earth, the shadows grew across the sidewalk and made pockets of frigid air. The redhead groused with each shadow she passed through. Frankly, this whole day had added to her grouchy mood. It was cold, she was wearing the most unflattering pair of jeans, and this jacket! She looked like a fat pink bird!

Horrible! This whole day was just horrible. The eva pilot couldn't even find a place worthy of her money. They had no beauty supply store, and what little the nail salon sold was just pathetic. So instead of buying anything worth her ten dollars, the second child decided to drown her sorrows in something containing amounts of chocolate and grease. Tasty Burger certainly had the grease part down, but Twin Pines had a better variety of heart clogging entrées.

Unfortunately, she wasn't the only one in this town with that line of thinking. There was a line and Asuka refused to take a table. She would sit in a booth, so there! Giving her name, the young girl found a seat at the entrance and waited as patiently as she could.

[Mein sugar daddy!]