[F21]

If Aigis hadn't been there to see it herself she would not have believed it. Martin Landel, the bane of her existence for the past week, was now gone. Replaced. And she didn't know what to make of the new authority put in place. She told herself it was her inaction that filled her with unease. For a moment, he had been there right where she wanted him. She could have made him pay for all he had done. She could have avenged Heat or repaid him for the time he had returned her body along with a mission of violence. But she didn't. For some reason she had remained rooted in the spot, staring at the spectacle. Now that dinner had passed she wondered to herself, why had remained so unmoved? When she finally had her chance why had she uselessly let it go to waste?

( The rest cut for tl;dring )

The jingle of the intercom seemed ill-timed this round, a fact that was further pronounced by the pleasant voice following suit.

"Hello, patients. This is I.R.I.S. again. Due to technical difficulties, we are unable to speak to you directly at this time. Until the matter is resolved, we will be announcing the remainder of today's events from our automated service.

It is now time for everyone to retire to their assigned rooms for Dinner Shift. Tonight's menu consists of premium spaghetti with Landel's signature marinara sauce, garlic bread, and a side of Caesar salad. Our dessert for tonight is chocolate chip cookies. In addition, we will be providing the usual selection of drinks, and vegetarian alternatives can be made available upon request.

We again would like to apologize for any inconvenience. Please contact your nurse with any questions or concerns you might have. Thank you, and have a wonderful evening."

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! ]

[ from here ]

She'd kind of been expecting to run into someone by now -- hell, with the amount of people who'd been in the cafeteria? But maybe they were hiding out from the monsters that they weren't equipped to handle. After all, if Ruby hadn't been through what she had and lived as long as she had, she'd probably be curled up in her room for safety, too. It wasn't like she was excited to tangle with these freaks.

But, it was a necessary evil, just like most of what she was doing these days. The nurse's station that Roxas referred to was on her right as she headed down the hall with slow, purposeful steps, following the path that the nurse had taken her out through while the lights were up.

A part of her wanted to know how aware they were of this shit -- of the fact that they were basically leading the patients through the paths they'd need to know to screw them over. Probably. Judging by Landel's taunts, they knew a lot of what went on. Security cameras, maybe? She hadn't seen any -- yet -- but she couldn't eliminate the possibility.

[ to here ]

[from here]

And the center of the main hallways it was. Nice and tidy, right, right; a bit too quiet to be sure, but hey. The place would probably liven up soon, one way or the other. She, on the other hand, just needed to wait here for this Scott guy so they could go on their important mission of stealing instruments that may or may not be there.

...Yeah, this might have been a way to release some stress by not worrying about things for a little, but hey. Senna was reminded of Reid, and that damn ice field night, but either way, things had started off the same that night, hadn't they? Ah, well.... The girl stretched upwards, then wandered next to the entry room doors, leaning against the wall. In her shinigami uniform, with the red-hilted sword in her waist band, she might have made an impressive figure... If she wasn't only five feet tall. Oh, well. Intimidations could be had by someone else. Senna would just stick to wit and charms if she got accosted by a random passerbyer.

[For Scott!]

[from here]

And again, quiet. Silence broken only by far off footsteps and the creak of a building settling. There was more in the darkness, Ayanami knew this, but currently nothing had stepped forward to show itself. This night was too similar to another, and her hand raised to her neck without meaning to. There was nothing like trauma in this, she told herself. It was only that she had become wary of empty halls, had become distrustful of others in the dark.

More than before, it seemed. Still, Rei moved slowly, satisfied with checking the hall thoroughly before passing through.

[Eva pilots!~]

With breakfast finished and a new acquaintance made, the Scarecrow's mind turned to his other friends. The disappearance of Depth Charge's friend had brought back memories of how he'd felt when Kaiji went missing: helpless, useless, as though he should have and could have done something more to find him. If only he had his brain, then maybe he could have thought of something!

As much as he didn't like to admit it, it was unlikely his former roommate was still within the Institute's walls at this point, though the Scarecrow wouldn't know for sure unless Kaiji returned to visit him as Dorothy had, encouraging his supposed recovery. There was still the concern that Landel, despite his vile methods, was actually right and he was suffering from the delusion of having been a scarecrow in Oz. After all, that movie had been a pretty elaborate trick. Would he have planted it in town on purpose, knowing the Scarecrow would be taken there the night of the enchanted doors? And how could he guarantee that once he did find it, he'd take it and actually watch it? There was so much guesswork involved- it seemed the Wizard Landel either liked coincidences or he had more power on his side than any of the patients could have guessed.

The Scarecrow stopped by the bulletin board before heading for a seat, considering writing a note to his friends to check on them. He'd heard from Depth Charge, Remy, and Kibitoshin within a day's time, so he figured they were probably fine (as fine as Depth Charge could have been after last night, anyway). He'd seen Mele and Scar the day before. He put a finger to his head, thinking- he'd not heard from Abe or Sangamon in a day or so, but being professionals, they were probably very busy. Perhaps a note would be best for them.

[Kibby]

With sigh that toed the ambiguous no-mans-land between soft and explosive, Yuffie collected a plateful of waffles with all the toppings. She was sure that, if nothing else, it'd making a pretty satisfying splat if—when?—she launched it at somebody's face, and that was all that counted.

"Hanna, isn't that a little much?" Plucky asked, doubtfully.

"Uhhm. No. About, like... a little while ago, I managed five caramel apple pies with ice cream and berries and, y'know, I think there was a gallon of soda involved at some point." It wasn't the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. There really had been five caramel apple pies, but Cloud had ended up wearing two and a half and the third had taken a vacation to Boobsville (Tifa had loved it. Really. Really). The moral of the story (as she'd told Marlene and Denzel later) was that anything was game, just as long as you could run fast enough afterwards.

The nurse nodded slowly. "I… suppose. Well, I'll leave you to it. See that you behave, won't you, dear? You need to set a good example for the new batch of patients."

"My examples are the best examples," Yuffie proclaimed, with the dark-bright grin that still came so easily, no matter how little she felt really felt it. It lingered even when the nurse had flitted off to deal with another charge, but there was an edge to it. What the edge was, Yuffie couldn't say. Didn't want to say, after what'd gone down last night. Nah, she had better things to do; things like sitting down and waiting, just waiting, for Cloud or some other sucker of an easy target to walk through the door.

[HARLEY HARTWELL o/]

If she were honest, Yukari would have said she had no idea what a "sun room" was supposed to entail. She didn't ask, though, because by the time she had finished asking all the more important questions (which still weren't getting answered in any way that made sense), Yukari was getting rather fed up with all the nonsense her accompanying nurse was trying to feed her. It was all 'getting better this', despite insisting on the contrary, and 'your family is worried about you that', which was ridiculous considering the conversation she had with her mother the previous night actually went fairly well, considering-- and she was the only family Yukari had nearby.

She tried to be patient, but not long after she exited the room she woke up in the exasperation was becoming fairly apparent on the girl's face. The nurse, on the other hand, didn't seem fazed, as if she were used to seeing this reaction out of people. Did she make it a habit of confusing the hell out of everyone? Before long, Yukari was following her in silence; maybe there would be someone else around who would be far more helpful than this lady were.

What she hadn't been expecting after winding through hallway after hallway (or so it felt like a bit of a trek) were large doors that lead to an even bigger room; no, the room was huge, not to mention bright. Yukari had to shield her eyes with a hand for a moment or so as the late afternoon sun poured through the windows that encased the ceiling, making it considerably brighter than what florescent lights could produce. Huh. Fitting name. Large windows aside, with all the chairs and sofas placed about around each other and nothing more, it must have been some sort of lounge area.

"You've been asleep for most of the day, so perhaps somewhere a little more sunnier would wake you up some." Professional and all smiles still, the nurse stepped aside as if she needed to make room for Yukari to walk by. "Will you be okay for now? I'll leave you be, if you'd prefer."

"Uh-- yeah, thanks," she responded halfheartedly; if anything, she wanted this woman to scurry off somewhere already. "I'll just pick out somewhere to sit."

And that she did. The nurse eventually abandoned her side for whatever other matters she had to tend to, and Yukari... She never thought she would become one to ever get indecisive on where to sit, but with too many questions still going unanswered, it was all making her far too antsy for comfort.

What was going on?

After feeling like a little lost kid in an unfamiliar place, Yukari gave up and plopped right down on the nearest sofa, leaning back with a forearm covering her face. This was getting ridiculous. Sheesh, they didn't even have any magazines here.

[for yuffie!]

The day had been quiet so far.

After talking with Brainiac 5 first thing in the morning, the Doctor had spent brunch alone, though he'd kept an eye out for Donna. When he'd finally spotted her, she'd already gotten settled at a table with someone else. They needed to talk sooner or later, but he didn't mind pushing it back a little while longer. He also needed to talk to Dean—he was certain the young man would have a lot of questions about what had happened last night—but a quick check of the sun room bulletin after eating confirmed that Dean would find him when ready.

He was tempted to ask the nurse to take him outdoors to the courtyard, but the idea of staying in for the movie was more than a little tempting. It would be a break in the daily routine around here, and he could use that. The break in the routine might be refreshing, even if watching a movie in a mental hospital the day after finally, finally being reunited with the TARDIS all too briefly was really the last thing he wanted to be doing. He wanted to still be in the TARDIS.

He took a seat in the back row of the chairs that had been rearranged, leaning back and waiting for the film to begin.

[For Dean]

Somehow, after their talk in the chapel, Elaine felt simultaneously more accepting of and more irritated by her future husband. On the one hand, seven years had clearly been good to him. He seemed more sincere and thoughtful than he had been before his disappearance, and he had a more mature (dare she say, handsome?) look to him. On the other hand, there were clearly some things that made even time throw up its hands in vain and say, "To hell with this!" Guybrush was still inexorably prone to disastrous accidents if the story about the Pox of LeChuck was anything to go by, and he was so obviously keeping something important from her that any passing dolt in the Institute would have been able to tell. In the end, that eternal underlying sweetness of his that won out, keeping her from punching him again, at least. That was only by a hairs width, though. Her snugglecakes was going to have to stay on his best behaviour if he knew what was good for him.

She left the Mighty Pirate™ alone for the time being when the announcement of the next shift went off. He would want some time to catch up with Morgan next, presumably. As much as the woman's attitude bothered her, she was a friend of Guybrush's, as she had claimed. Elaine could be strict, but she wasn't the kind of shrewish future wife/past fiancé who would keep her man from seeing his friends. Besides, she needed some more time to catch up on the goings-on of the Institute. Patients filled the building to the brim, now, it seemed; there would be a lot to investigate.

After a few quick trips back and forth to the bulletin and a few new leads to follow up on, the governor gave in to her nurse's persistent nagging and headed to the cafeteria for brunch. After the relatively light fare of the day before, Elaine took advantage of the Institute's admittedly scrumptious offerings and loaded up a full, balanced brunchfast of eggs, sausage links, waffles, and vegetable soup. As expected, the selection of drinks did not offer either root beer or grog. Grog she could live without, at least, she thought while making a face. Eugh. For now, she settled for a tall glass of water.

Elaine settled into a seat in the cafeteria and tucked into her meal. Her eyes didn't stay on her food, though, instead gazing around restlessly; she hadn't seen LeChuck so far this morning, and god forbid he wanted to invite himself to brunch with her if he chose now to show up. A certain horribly unpleasant dinner on Mêlée Island came to mind. She was prepared to either move at the first sign of the dread pirate or signal a random stranger to sit with her before he could.

[For Dean]

"—na-"

… Viridian red buildings; clear water rushing—blood red running and then somewhere else; raining now, raining so hard it rained through bones, sounded like a drum-beat or a klaxon or Cait with his tail stuck in a socket…

"Han—"

… Insistent rain, more like Barret's gun-fire or pebbled sand against glass or both, loud and pounding and drowning but not, and somewhere overhead hung a second moon with a Tonberry leering…

"Hanna!"

… "Shut up," Yuffie mumbled thickly, her voice sticking in her throat like molasses.

"Oh, dear," said the trumpet in her ear. "You do have to wake up now, you know. Can't have you missing anything."

"Can too." Cracking her eyes open was going to be a chore like none other, Yuffie was quickly realizing. She didn't want to wake up. Sleep tugged at her, jostled her, clung to her. It called her back, pulled her under, but the trumpet—the voice; the nurse—was insistent. Had to get up, had to go face the day, and dear, oh dear, perhaps you're running a tad bit of a temperature, just a little, nothing to worry about.

It was then that Yuffie realized the problems.

One, it was morning. She wasn't in a locker room and she (mostly) didn't feel like she was gonna hack up a bowl of innards stew. That was… good. And bad. And it was awesome and it sucked, so point number two, please. Two: she didn't feel like somebody'd set up a blender in her stomach so much as she felt like somebody'd stuffed her head and limbs full of down-feathers and sticky toffee and socks. The cloying sensation was reseeding, but it lingered maddeningly. Point three, and this was the kicker: Plucky had been close enough to shake her shoulder, had been shaking her shoulder, and didn't have a black eye or a broken wrist to show for it.

"Oh, hell," Yuffie groaned.

Plucky tutted. "Language, young lady. Now, up you get."

Up Yuffie got, quick enough to almost send herself stumbling. She would not get sick. Not, not, not! It just wasn't gonna happen. After throwing on a sweater, Yuffie grabbed the two squishy balls—one orange and the other purple (both sporting stupid smiley faces)—from inside her desk drawer before she, Plucky in tow, left for the sun room. If she had something physical to focus on, something more than chatting or people-watching or cuddling with Fuzzbutt, she'd have a better chance of jump-starting herself into gear. Maybe. Hopefully.

Before long, Yuffie was perched cross-legged on one of the sun room's many sofas, Fuzzbutt the kitten languishing cosily in her lap. One hand rested against her knee—in that hand sat the purple ball. The other hand, her left hand, was up and moving, manipulating the orange ball into small tricks and sleights. Nothin' fancy. Nothin' even interesting, as far as the ninja was concerned. Just a quick warm up to get her fingers—and her brain, ugh; it was still fuzzier than she'd like—going.

[For Kaito and Yukari!]

[From here]

Maybe she should go snatch up her patient file? Possessions, too. Yuffie'd never say no to free stuff, even if it was a bunch of crap from a lie of a life. If she was lucky, she'd get somethin' handy. Handy like a cellphone, or, hell, even a laptop! Yuffie wasn't a technical genius at the best of times, preferring to leave all that stuff to Reeve and the guys in R&D, but if she could get 'em up and working, they'd be like a gift straight from Leviathan.

[To here]

Lingering around where the buses were parked made him feel too much like a lost tourist—especially with that woman looking at him like that—so Sam headed off to the park instead. Not too far since he knew Dean would want to see him. Not for anything specific, obviously. It'd just always been automatic to find each other after whatever crazy stuff happened to go down in the night.

Though what they were gonna talk about this time was beyond him. Oh sure, he could ask Dean what went on last night and Dean would probably ask him the same (to which he'd leave out any mentions of Ruby), but that only took up so many minutes. Then what? The job? Not much hunting was getting done. Just another thing that bothered him because yeah, being surrounded by the supernatural wasn't anything new, but a few memorable occasions aside, they looked for these things, not the other way around. Picking up a job or chasing down a trail wasn't the same as having that trail chase you down. It was hard to appreciate the role reversal.

Besides, any discussion of all of this was superficial at best. They were talking around things, not about them, and he knew Dean must've noticed, too.

Still. Screw it. Maybe it was time he pushed all that aside. Dean might've already made the deal—hell, for all Sam knew, Dean's contract might already be up—but he didn't remember the last year. They could...start over, as much as they were able to. Wasn't that the whole reason why he'd decided to keep all this quiet? To make sure Dean didn't have to deal with his crap?

Frowning to himself, he leaned back against a tree, resting his foot flat against the trunk. The skies were seriously looking grey and heavy, but man, he almost wanted to say he missed getting caught in the rain or other generally bad weather conditions. There was something so insanely controlled about the institute, it creeped him out. Kinda nice to see that at least the weather was one part that hadn't gone all The Giver on them.

Well. That and a communal breeding program. Presumably.

[say hi, big brother. :( ]

Despite the bit of bravado he'd displayed for Yuffie's sake, seeing her that way really had done a number on him. It was a good thing he'd found the bulletin board afterward. Having it confirmed that this state wasn't normal (was, in fact, new as of that morning) made it much easier to think positive. They'd get back the Yuffie they knew one way or another.

The girl had gone into the other activity room, so when Cloud was offered a choice he picked the room she wasn't in. He wouldn't be able to keep a watch on her this way, but neither would she be able to throw another fit over being stalked. This also gave him a chance to keep an eye on the board for anything else important that might show up.

Sighing, the blond made himself comfortable on one of the sofas, watching both the nurses and the cats roaming the floor. What were the people in charge of this place trying to accomplish?

[free]

When Momo left Hitsugaya's side, she felt both relieved to be away from him and disappointed that the nurses had separated them. Either way, she felt like she was suffocating, that she had too much building in her mind with all this on top of the message she'd been given by the undead knight on that rooftop the night before. There was only one way for Momo to relieve the pressure.

After leaving a note on the board for Senna, Momo headed into the Arts & Crafts room. She was still in a lot of pain, but Hitsugaya's healing, though minor, did make it much less painful to hold things. Taking all of the special markers, she stood before the large white board and uncapped the lightest of the colors - yellow.

Save thyself.

Those words would echo in Momo's mind for a very long time. She had much to thank the knight for, the least of which was leaving her right arm relatively undamaged. She needed it for many things, being her primary hand, but right now she needed it for one thing.

Momo began to draw.

[reserved for Senna]

After the way night had ended (Miku wasn't sure if they'd ever get the smell of charnel out of her clothes), and morning had returned with its clockwork weirdness. She was hurried onto the bus in her dark red long coat and the dark, knee-length, slightly full dress beneath it. It was surprisingly warm, Miku noted, but that could've just been her body lying to her legs, which were going to be undoubtedly chillier through the day. As always with these trips, her nurse had taken the opportunity to channel Little Red Riding Hood into her patient's life.

Oh, well, she didn't mind that much. It was just clothing.

Miku slid into a seat with her bag of breakfast and her camera in her pocket. She couldn't help shake the feeling of oncoming dread that had started with the end of the night's bleeding walls. Maybe she was just being silly, maybe she shouldn't listen to the alarm ringing in the back of her mind.

But still, she couldn't help but to wonder what it was leading to.

[Waiting for Peter]

[M74]

When the lights went out, Armand already had some of what he needed to take laid out upon his desk. He dressed by feel in the darkness, and made certain to steal another pillowcase from the bed to fold into his pocket. He put his journal and pen in one pocket, gripped his sword in one hand and tried to carry the light and full pillowcase bag in the the other. Awkward to say the least.

But he could carry it all, and did so. He could walk as far as the female block without being able to see. It didn't bother him at all, but that was mostly because he was used to it.

[gone here]

[from here]

The main hallway was empty, too. The quiet was broken only by squeak of S.T's shoes on the tile floor and tiny creaks of metal as the toolbox swung as he walked.

This was the part in the horror movie where the cheerleader took a knife to the throat. Good thing he'd left his pom-poms at home. As long as he was the idiot friend or the brains (hell, both) he should make it at least to the third act.

He hurried along, hugging close to the left-hand wall.

[to here]

[from here]

The fog wasn't quite as thick here, at least, and that was a blessing. But the town itself was like nothing Akihiko had ever seen. "Something bad happened here. Hell if I know what, but..."

And what was with that severed arm they'd seen just then? Where did it come from - from here? The thought sent a chill down his spine, though he really didn't want to think about it too much. He didn't want to think about what that thing he'd seen in the fog was, either.

"Weapons out, and be ready for anything." He couldn't keep the tremor out of his voice.

[from here.]

Akihiko didn't respond to that question of Junpei's for a few minutes; he had to calm down enough so the response wouldn't come out as angrily as he thought it might otherwise.

"Tell you what. You get the first shot at that bastard, then you follow up the beatdown with a last shot. Sound fair?"

Once that was out of his system, he surveyed the surroundings again. Was it just him, or did the fog seem thicker here?

"I think we want to keep going southeast from here."