Night 53: Autopsy Room 2

[you_miss_it]

[From here.]

And it was dark. The bright white of John's flashlight only seemed to emphasize inky black shadows and pristine white tiles. When (if?) he got out of here, he resolved never to see another horror movie -- after all, what would be the point?

He ran his flashlight over the room, taking in the empty tables, the scale. It was obvious (or at

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[neuepolitik]

While Watson went to investigate the cabinets, Ludwig went over to the three tables in the middle of the room. His flashlight played over the cold tables and the tables near them, one after another. It was quiet, so quiet that he could clearly hear each step John took, and the darkness was so absolute that it was nearly suffocating. Ludwig wasn't particularly afraid of the dark, but when he couldn't see anything outside of the beam of light... he was most certainly on edge.

Of course, that wasn't the only reason he was so nervous. He was used to horrific experiments, terrible science... and worse, the aftermaths of such things. So many bodies, so much death... it made him shudder and feel sick to his stomach. He didn't want to think about it, but since it was here... he had to. Especially after the encounter with the shadows, he couldn't avoid thinking about it.

Nor about one major, major question. "...why do they have so much capacity for processing dead bodies?"

[you_miss_it]

John pulled open one of the drawers, running his eyes over rows of familiar surgical implements, glinting in the beam from his flashlight. He tried to imagine using one of the scalpels to fight off creatures like they'd seen earlier... he couldn't say he liked the idea of getting that close, but it would be better than being empty-handed. He opened each of the drawers in turn, taking inventory of their contents at a glance, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing he wouldn't expect to find in a place like this.

Except that Ludwig had a point. John didn't know exactly how large of a facility this was, but there was a lot of freezer space in the morgue.

"It's not a safe place. People get hurt."

He'd seen the number of injuries for himself.

"Not all of them can make it."

He wasn't sure he believed that, but he was trying the idea on for size. It was preferable to some alternatives he could come up with for having an excess of morgue space in a medical facility.

[neuepolitik]

Hm... no, that didn't seem quite right to Ludwig. The simple fact of the matter was that there weren't enough patients in the Institute to justify all of this, especially not with so many tables. Mortality rates didn't seem to be all that high. No, as Ludwig glanced at the tables, he found himself shaking his head. "People get hurt, but they seem to have advanced medicine, enough to help the body heal faster than normal. Besides, if they were killed, why bother with a morgue? The refrigerators were clearly empty, they can't be storing the bodies here. And certainly they can't have so many deaths a night that all of this equipment would be necessarily. Especially if the other room is similar to this one

[you_miss_it]

"It does seem a bit... much," John agreed, glancing back towards the tables. "Even for the number of injuries I've seen. But what..."

What -- who? --were they autopsying? John shook his head; there was no good to come from this line of thought. And little evidence to draw conclusions from. Sherlock often chided others for coming to conclusions too rapidly, for speculating without evidence. It wouldn't do him any good to start guessing, to start jumping with shadows. Not when there enough shadows to jump at already.

Ludwig's last question, at least, had a simple answer. "More than enough."

He held up a scalpel and offered it to Ludwig, picking up another from another drawer for himself. They were better than nothing, after all.

[gargantuanlaugh]

[from here]

Another researching room, no doubt. With the way the tables were laid out, Gant figured it was somehow related to the lab they had just left. But it was different, somehow. There was one of the same blue cabinents in here as there had been in the storage closest, but what was that machine on the other side... Was that a scale?

"What is this now..." Gant whispered, moving further in. Like he had expected, no monsters. None that were visible to the eye, at least.

[itneverwas]

It would seem they were fortunate tonight, to not stumble upon the abominations that roamed the institute during its hours in darkness. This room, too, was defined by silence.

"This would be an autopsy room," Xemnas answered as his gaze scanned the room. As what may have been expected in a similar room, there were three cadaver tables with overhead lights above them them. Another blue cabinet hung on the wall, but a brief investigation revealed nothing they had not already acquired. On the other side of the room there was a scale, likely used to weigh the lifeless bodies of those who had met their end.

After this room, there would be the morgue.

[gargantuanlaugh]

"Oh? Know of this place already, do you?" Gant did his best to ignore the fact that Xemnas had used the word 'autopsy' and instead focused on what lay around them. Yes, that was a scale. Yes, another blue cabinet that held similar tools to before. Yes, yes, it all seemed to be in order. On to the next one, then!

[And Gant can't move fast enough to get here]