November 23, 2009 // 4:48pm
The door opened without much trouble, creaking only slightly as the Scarecrow stood in the doorway. The rooms looked so different at night- even his flashlight had little effect on the overwhelming darkness. He looked over his shoulder into the hallway, briefly thinking of turning back and finding someone to look for Mele with him. Then he remembered all his friends were changed somehow, affected by the Institute's influence. He took a deep breath, more determined. No turning back now. It might take all night, but he was going to search this place as best he could. He couldn't just let them wander around, thinking everything was fine and dandy- they were in danger!
He took a step into the room and closed the door behind him, moving his light toward the front door of the building, then toward the walls, attempting to find the door to the Waiting Room where he'd seen Dorothy. He swept half the room quickly with his light, making his way in a few more steps. "Hello?" he decided to ask the darkness, almost hoping he didn't get an answer. The handle glittered in the dim light. The strawman gave his dying flashlight a shake, trying to get it to brighten as he made a bee-line for the door.
November 23, 2009 // 12:10pm
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!"
November 23, 2009 // 2:17am
Sean kept charging down the hallway, not pausing to see if Schuldig was still following them or not. At this point, his priority was getting both himself and Chris to safety as soon as humanly possible. Fortunately soccer practice had done something besides give him bumps, bruises, and skinned knees--he could run for a decent amount of time at a swift clip.
"Let's try the doctor's offices!" Sean replied. Maybe one of them would be unlocked and they could hide in there until someone found them. At this point, getting in trouble was better than facing Schuldig.
November 22, 2009 // 5:27pm
Naturally, Dist couldn't do his exploring alone. It could be dangerous! Jade, after all, had his artes, and even if they weren't as powerful as they should have been, they were more than Dist himself had.
When he got to the end of Jade's hall, he walked right up the door and knocked loudly. "Jade!" He stood there for a moment before remembering that the doors unlocked themselves after dark. That made things much easier; he simply pushed the door open himself. "Jade?"
November 22, 2009 // 12:21pm
While a part of him was mortified that he'd even think about stepping foot into the girl's bathroom, Stephen knew that anything was better than just vomiting all over the hallway. He didn't bother (or more like he didn't have the time) to check if anyone else was occupying the space, rushing to the sink and ducking his head down just in time.
And that was how he remained for the next few minutes. He'd long since dropped his flashlight, the object having clattered to the floor several feet away from him. The teen weakly held himself up as he emptied the contents in his stomach, all the while trying not to breathe through his nose and triggering another series of heaves and coughs.
Eventually the heaves became far and few until they were completely gone, though Stephen didn't feel any better than before. He took the time to catch his breath, reaching over to turn on the faucet and grimacing as the discolored water washed his dinner away.
November 22, 2009 // 4:28am
Demyx settled himself on his bed with his sitar, forcing himself to ignore the still vaguely uncomfortable feeling (or sensation, or whatever it was; it kind of made his skin crawl a little, whatever it was) of sitting right where Abe had inexplicably died the night before. It wasn't really squeamishness, or sympathy for the guy; mostly he didn't like the thought that something invisible had killed someone right where he was sitting, and could theoretically do the same to him at any given moment.
But he'd been around awhile, and until Abe, nothing invisible had attacked him
...oh. Um. And he'd promised to meet Kvothe. He'd kind of forgotten they were both going to be coming at the same time...well, Kvothe was a musician, too, wasn't he? He probably wouldn't mind listening to Hanatarou's song before they went to patient possessions. And - hey, maybe Hanatarou could help with Kvothe's hand! He'd said he was a healer or something, right?
Cheered up significantly despite his double-booking mistake, Demyx set to work on Hanatarou's song. Something soft and low-key, definitely, understated but nice and upbeat despite that...
November 21, 2009 // 11:40pm
The air outside tasted so good that Bill didn't even bother to worry about how improbably realistic it was that he could be hallucinating fresh air too. He supposed if his genius IQ had to be good for something, it was for conjuring overly complex delusions. How else would he have come up with that whole bit about old future Spock instigating him to start a fight with Aidan? Only his own awesome brain, creating elaborate lies to excuse the shitty things he did after getting suspended from school.
It was freezing out here. Balancing his flashlight in one hand, Bill reached for the buttons of his coat to block out the cold, but then stopped when the dancing beam of light made it obvious that he was alone on the soccer field. Or, at least, imagining that he was alone as far as he could see, which admittedly wasn't that far at all. Still, there was no one moving along the building to the other door, no one headed to the walls...
Bill squinted through the barely moonlit darkness, unable to explain why any of that should unnerve him.
November 21, 2009 // 9:36pm
There seemed to be a lot more options here, Aerith noted as she passed a few doors along the way. Maybe she'd come to center of the building? It was hard to tell, and her sense of direction wasn't fantastic. She was lucky if she'd remember the path she'd taken so whimsically to get here. Stopping in front of a particularly large set of doors, the flower girl took a quick break from her exploration to try and commit to memory all the turns she'd taken to get here from her room.
It was certainly worth noting that she still hadn't heard even a whisper from the Planet. Aerith had always thought she would be thankful to not hear the screams and whispers for once in her life. Now that her wish had been granted, she honestly found it strange and more than a little unsettling. Even in Midgar, she'd had a place that she could always go to if she needed to hear the echo of her mother's voice. If anything Gaia had always given her direction and companionship. Clearly, she'd have to apologize when she got out of this place.
And Aerith Gainsborough would get out of here. One way or another. She had to believe that.
The young woman lifted her flashlight, scanning every inch of the wide hallway that she could. Maybe it would be best to take a moment and collect before she continued on her exploration.
November 21, 2009 // 9:20pm
Here. Finally.
Except there was no sign of Simon. There was also no sign of crazed hungry monsters, wearing ninja outfits or not, but he checked the hall as well as he could with the handheld light, including the ceiling, before giving a hesitant knock on the M60 door. It was nice that the room was on the end of a smaller hallway. If something went wrong, he wouldn't get cornered too easily.
"Simon? Are you there?" Usopp kept his voice low, although trying to keep it from shaking. That didn't make a very good impression on people. The rubber band in his coat pocket snapped between his fingers nervously. "It's me. Usopp. Your friend that doesn't remember you who's a great pirate and sharpshooter? Um, you didn't turn into a monster or a werewolf or anything for the night, did you?"
November 21, 2009 // 9:05pm
Aerith's first course of action had been to explore her room. A thorough sweep had revealed a few interesting finds: a flashlight under her pillow, a journal, a few pens, and a radio. The most curious discovery, however, came in the form of a very familiar set of clothes hung carefully in her closet. Her pink dress was just as she remembered it, and even her red jacket was there along with her favorite boots, the string necklace she'd been fond of wearing, and the ribbon. As strange as it was to find a set of hr own clothes in what she could only assume was some sort of mental hospital, Aerith didn't think twice before exchanging her current sweat suit for her usual garb. She even took the time to braid her hair and tie it up with the pink ribbon. In fact she was in the middle of adjusting the silver bangles around her wrists when a strange announcement sounded over the intercom.
The man's voice was a far cry from the overly pleasant announcer that had bid his patients good night only moments ago. Aerith hardly had time to wonder more, however, as the loud sound of her door unlocking almost made her jump out of her boots. Aerith stood slowly from her seat on the bed and fumbled for the flashlight she'd set beside her. Cautiously, she moved to the door, testing it. She frowned. Apparently she hadn't been losing it. The heavy door was open, revealing a dark hallway. Was this some kind of game?
Eventually rationalizing that she wouldn't be able to learn anything about her predicament just sitting in her room all night, Aerith stepped out into the hallway. She shined her flashlight up and down the hall. So far it seemed completely empty. How weird...
"Hello?" she called out softly. With any luck, she wouldn't be in this alone. Someone had to know just what was going on in this place.
November 21, 2009 // 9:02pm
The light's in the bathroom didn't seem to be working.
Heath flipped the switch a couple more times just to be certain before angling his flashlight upward. It wasn't as if he could actually tell if it was the bulbs or the electricity that was out unless there were broken bulbs and wires dangling, but it had been worth a shot anyway. Eventually, he set his light on its end so that it shone up at the ceiling and bathed the area around him in a faint glow. That would be enough for now, as he didn't expect to stay long.
( Read more... )
November 21, 2009 // 6:20pm
He turned his mind to the issue of Captain Kirk. Upon further reflection, it was painfully obviously that he'd been brainwashed or at least had fallen to Stockholm syndrome. What would cause that so quickly though, was a mystery to Chekov. It had to be something akin to brainwashing--short term brainwashing at least. Or possession by some higher entity that the Captain was now doing battle with in his mind. But these were just ideas.
The better question, he thought, was what would he and Commander Spock do once they'd tracked down Bill? Commander Spock must have had some kind of plan, otherwise he wouldn't have suggested putting this particular mission into action. From what Chekov could tell of his conversation with Bill, there wasn't much of Captain Kirk left--even if his mannerisms were similar. At least, they were similar to when Captain Kirk had taken command of the Enterprise and gave the ultimatum: either Nero was going down, or they were.
November 21, 2009 // 6:11pm
His breath came back to him slowly, and each bit of oxygen that he took in went down cold and numb. His whole body was numb, to the point that he wasn't even sure if he was really there. Where did people go when they died? He'd never known.
As his eyes (if that was really what he was seeing out of anymore) opened, he saw nothing but blackness in front of him. Was he standing up, lying down, floating? Did he exist? He had to. He could think, and he could remember the way those fingers had squeezed around his neck...
Another breath (a breath), and suddenly the pain in his throat started. It was sore the whole way round, almost like a broken bone—even though that made no sense. Slowly but surely, his sense of his physical form came back to him, and he realized that he was alive.
Alive and trapped.
His arms could still barely move (on top of possibly still being broken, they were numbed from the cold), and so Guy concentrated on moving his legs, waiting for the feeling to come back into them. They'd weathered the least damage in the battle, and so he used them to slide over cold metal and figure out his surroundings. He was in some sort of tube, completely enclosed, and it was only as he jammed his foot against the lower part of his cage that he realized he might be able to get out.
Actually forcing the door (if that's what it was) all the way open was going to be a feat, though. He banged his foot against it again, trying to force it to slide open. If only he could move his arms!
Then again, if he could, they would probably ache too much to do anything with. He realized he should be grateful for the general lack of feeling for now. When he really started to warm up again, it wasn't going to be pretty.
His mind was spinning, wondering how this had even happened, and yet right now he was just going to focus on getting out and figuring out where he was. From there he could try and answer the how.
November 21, 2009 // 6:11pm
This hallway seemed to be clear, too. Not many patients were out, it seemed--though he didn't have any basis for comparison in his own hallway at least. He hadn't been out of his room and loitering in the larger hallway before.
The ensign stopped and pulled out the page he'd scrawled a map of the patient blocks on. He shone his light on it, oriented himself, and decided that the best method to continue would be directly down, around Commander Spock's block, and to the door. He frowned a little--whatever civil engineer had designed this building, he wanted to talk to them about the possibility of not making it impossible to travel between the two sections of blocks. This was ridiculous--someone could die walking around in the dark for ages on end like this.
November 21, 2009 // 7:44pm
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!]
November 21, 2009 // 7:05pm
So far, so good. Once Bella’s hand touched the corner of the wall, she followed it slowly, her feet stumbling over themselves for a few seconds before she finally got her footing. “Stupid ... disorientating darkness,” she muttered to herself, her cheeks flushed from the thought of falling. That certainly wasn’t high up there on her list of things to do tonight.
Oh well.
Pressing forwards, Bella found another door and pushed it open.
Here we go, she thought to herself. And stepped into the empty hallway.
November 21, 2009 // 6:23pm
Scarecrow's suggestion that he find the third floor seemed to be a good one. The problem came in finding a way up there. As far as he could tell the path to the third floor never crossed that of the stairwells between the first and second floors. The area he had explored with Mr. Smith seemed fruitless even without that small creepy child making advances at them, and if the rest were that easy to find someone surely would have found the stairs by now.
Experience and training told Abe that if you were looking for something important it was probably hidden in a place you wouldn't expect. Putting stairs right next to stairs made too much sense, you had to apply some unhuman thinking to figure out where they'd put it. Somewhere people wouldn't go but disguised as somewhere completely normal--of course. The cafeteria. There were doors behind it but there was no reason for people to go into the cafeteria at night because there was nothing of use there. Abe wished he had the emotional energy to feel proud of himself for his cleverness.
He checked the closet before he left intending to see if anything had been put in there since last night. No weapons, no tools or notes, just a single dark wetsuit hanging forlornly from a clotheshanger.
His wetsuit.
Abe took the dark material in hesitant hands and turned it--Sapien was imprinted on the chest. The breathing apparatus was gone, as was the gun, but the belt had the familiar red and gold emblem on it that he'd seen so many times it had been burned onto his overlage retinas. How and why were futile questions to ask here even if it was real, Abe would find no answers from this mad place, but it was here now. Perhaps someone friendly had chosen to give it to him and remind him of what he used to be and of the frail human that he wasn't--for better or for worse, Abe's enthusiasm at being a normal human was severely flagging.
It made sense to take it. The wetsuit would give him a minimal amount of padding and wouldn't be nearly as heavy without the bulky breathing apparatus, the pouches on the belt would help holding anything useful he might find, the goggles might come in handy at some point...he'd be a fool just to leave it in the closet. But it still, in some twisted way, felt as if the BPRD had managed to suck him back in without him even knowing it. Abe donned the top part of his uniform but kept his lightweight pants, then carefully folded the goggles and tucked them into his belt pouch. Snapping the red sword-and-fist belt buckle around his midsection felt like donning a dog collar and he did it without looking down. Necessity only. They didn't own him anymore.
[To here.]
November 21, 2009 // 3:46pm
Oh, so this was the hall he needed to be in. At least, he was pretty sure it was the right place. If he remembered right, the man on the bulletin board talking about Search and Rescue, his name was Phillip Hunt. If there were only two people in a room, though, it shouldn't be too hard finding him.
Allen shone the flashlight up on the wall, following the numbers. M14, where was M14...
[moving down to here]
November 21, 2009 // 11:42pm
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]
November 21, 2009 // 11:34pm
He supposed this marked how far he had gotten last night. A sad amount of progress if he had wanted to get something done, really. But then again, if he had wanted to get something done he wouldn't have stood around talking all night in the first place.
Tyki headed right, simply because he didn't feel like heading outside tonight. Nah, climbing over the wall and seeing what the head doctor had in store for them out there would need to wait. Climbing with burns would be pretty bothersome, after all. He wasn't even going to get started about having to climb in the first place.
[To here]
November 21, 2009 // 11:23pm
Place was pretty quiet, Tyki noticed. He casually swept the beam of his flashlight around the hallway, but there really was noone in sight. No monster, no patients, nothing. Huh. At this rate, he was going to think he was breaking his personal record of being early or something.
Even though the amount of his cigarettes declined, the Noah only paused to light one. He took a grateful drag from it before moving on.
[To here]
November 21, 2009 // 3:11pm
As he was writing, he was too engrossed in his thoughts to pay attention to his roommate. It felt better, thinking about his family, at first. But trying to describe the shooting, how he tried to push away Rick and how he probably screwed it all up beyond repair. He felt that pain again, knowing he'd ended someone's life. And in the metaphorical sense, his own. He also felt the need for those feelings to just go away.
Maybe it wasn't a good idea to bring all this back up, but wasn't that how people were supposed to get better? By facing their issues? What if he just wasn't strong enough, and retreated into that other personality again?
He stopped writing mid-word when the lights went off and the PA system came on again. There was something really creepy, but familiar about the doctor's tone. The door unlocked with a distinctive click.
November 21, 2009 // 1:34pm
They weren't supposed to do that. The Head Doctor wasn't supposed to speak with that tone of voice either, much less laugh at them, but he had. All of that meant-- what? Was Brendan having a relapse already? He didn't think his day had been awful enough to trigger it, but-- no, the fact that he was still thinking of himself as Brendan should be enough to disprove that theory. He wasn't Lelouch. Lelouch wasn't the one staring fixedly at the door and shakily rising to his feet, book, king, and cranes on his desk going entirely forgotten. Maybe it was just-- a minor hallucination, nothing to worry about. It certainly couldn't mean what he thought (more like dreaded) it meant, and with that firmly in mind, he ripped his gaze away from the door and slowly made his way to his bed.
He found his flashlight under his pillow as usual, thank god, and he quickly flicked it on before sitting on the thin mattress. That was probably rude of him when his roommate would want to sleep, but he needed to see right now and know that nothing else out of the ordinary was going to happen. He didn't dare check the door at the moment; if it opened under his touch, he would have actual physical proof that this was real. It could just be some malfunction in the locking mechanism, maybe, but-- no, he was going to stay right here and touch nothing. It was just a hallucination. None of this was real.
He pulled his blanket partway over himself and lay down on the bed, making sure to partially obscure the light so that it would neither bother his roommate nor attract the attention of anyone in the hall. If it was a lock failure, he didn't want anyone wandering in here, and if it wasn't, he could at least try to be courteous while he wondered where his mind was going.
November 21, 2009 // 3:15pm
Todd heard the click of the door unlocking and thought over his options. On the one hand, that announcement had gone a long way toward creeping him right the hell out and he felt too restless and nervous to go to bed. On the other hand, he could just see if he could lock the door from the inside and curl up under his blanket until he fell asleep...
It wasn't like there was anything he could actually do out there, but maybe he'd rest easier if he went out and checked the hallway for anything weird. Then he'd run into a nurse and they'd tell him he was hearing things and he'd go to bed and go to sleep and everything would be fine and he'd probably have a nice dream.
Yes, that was a good idea. No sense getting so worked up over nothing.
Picking up the flashlight on the desk, Todd stepped outside.
November 21, 2009 // 1:19pm
Junpei found himself a spot not too far from the door leading out to the hallway. Seriously, if Yukari waned the damn Evoker, she needed to run her mini-skirted ass down here to get it since he wasn't going much farther. It was only fair since he'd trucked down to her block last night.
Setting the bag of stuff on the floor, he leaned against the wall after adjusting the Evoker in the waistband of his jeans. He was not happy with having lost the t-shirt he'd had last night, forced to wear the smiley one again, even if it was turned inside out. He sighed and looked down at the square bandage on his arm. Vampire. He'd been bitten by a vampire.
Just to make sure, the junior checked his teeth. No fangs. Good. He probably would have freaked out if he'd found any. Still... curiosity got the better of him and he peeled half the bandage off to look at the bite. Twin puncture wounds with some redness about them. He poked it.
"Ow." Poking it was not a good idea.
[Hey, Yuka-tan... got any garlic?]
November 21, 2009 // 3:18pm
The moment the voice over the intercom sounded, Bella breathed in a sound of relief – and then simultaneously breathed out a breath of dread. The lights shut off, and everything was washed in a thick darkness, causing her to blink her eyes for a moment as she tried to reclaim at least a little sight.
Let’s do this, Bella. Before Linda says anything.
By the time she got a bit of her sight back, she could vaguely see the door if she didn’t look directly at it. Stumbling to her feet, she carefully made her way to the door, opening it wide before taking one more breath and escaping into her first nightshift.
She wandered quietly down the hallway, her hand pressed against the wall so she could steady herself against something, her breathing low, heart beat racing. She had no idea where she was going, but … well, she’d need to explore some time, and now would be the best time. Plus, Inspector Lunge said it would be best if she had a weapon of some kind, so …
With a mission in mind, she continued down the hallway.
( to here. )
November 21, 2009 // 1:12pm
As it was, the teen was terrified he'd feel some kind of mystical pull dragging him to Evangeline to do her menial work, like carrying her shit and laying down over a puddle of mud so she could walk across him or something equally as lame and humiliating for a servant to do. Seriously, he did not want to find himself calling her Master and holding her purse at the mall while she tried on a bunch of dresses and shit.
...what if she made him do, like, evil things? Now he really wished he hadn't told her about Persona and let her see him burninate that unholy drain clog. She could do all sorts of things, make him do them, and he might be vampirically driven to do them. Evangeline would be a cruel master. Gods, she terrified him.
It was a good thing he was giving Yukari the Evoker that night. He set out to meet her once he decided that he wasn't getting called to be Evangeline's bitch that night. His armor, baseball bat, jersey and the closet rod were all in the mesh bag slung over his shoulder.
...his arm itched. Stupid vampire.
[to here]
November 21, 2009 // 3:03pm
He opened the door, standing in the doorway. "Query: Well?"
November 21, 2009 // 12:56pm
Once away from the safety of the patient block, Momo slowed down as she traveled along the left hand wall to cover her blind spot. In this position, she could easily draw her sword and deal with issues as they arose. Hopefully, there would be none.
Momo had too much on her mind to want to deal with anything she didn't have to.
November 21, 2009 // 12:51pm
Momo really hoped Senna was going to just stay inside her room. She didn't want to worry about her but she couldn't help it. Hopefully, Hokuto would keep her safe. She would just have to place her faith in Hokuto.
The shinigami headed out into the main hallway.
[to here]
| PAST RECORDS |