Day 54: Breakfast

[arc_wrench]

For once, HK was working very hard to hide a giddy facial expression as he met his nurse at the door. He'd already hidden his scalpels in his clothing. The wonderful, sharp implements of doom would be needed today. “Statement: Despite my reticence towards all processed meat and plant products, I am experiencing intolerable levels of hunger,” he

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[vsyourface]

Scott woke up feeling strangely refreshed. He shouldn't have been surprised. Sure, he had ended the night on a worried note for Senna's sake, but really, what else had happened that was bad? For once, the night had thrown no monsters at him, no brainwashed dicks, no shifting geography, and no disturbing physical projections of his own subconscious. For the first time in a long time, Scott had been granted an incident-free night that had actually been...productive.

Wow. This Eagle thing or whatever it is must really have Landel slipping on his game.Scott had only half paid attention to the announcements the day before. Announcements were boring. Daytime Landel was boring. The rushing, tense staff had caught his eye at first, but that ultimately hadn't seemed like anything he needed to worry about either. Because come on: when did anything bad happen during dayshift? Now that he'd had such a good night, however, his guard was (ironically) heightened. Nothing good ever came without a walloping of bad in Landel's Institute, so maybe, he

[pullstrung]

As a toy, Woody had seen a lot of things over the course of his long life. Moves, birthdays, garage sales, kids growing up -- all of that and more, which ought to have left him prepared for just about anything at this point. But over the past few days, he realized how wrong he was. Dead wrong, even, except that was a terrible phrase to use right now, so he thought of it as little as possible.

Still, that didn't change the fact that there were few things more disorienting than minding your own business, getting ready for a night out with your buddy, and then suddenly...waking up in bed again, as if someone had conveniently pushed some kind of "reset" button. Sure, he knew that the "patients" here had a tendency to black out at the end of the night, but that early? It didn't make any sense

[vsyourface]

Scott looked up when he thought he heard Tom Hanks approaching his table. His suspicions were confirmed when he caught sight of the disturbingly well-proportioned head of Woody being ushered down the cafeteria aisle. More mostly-relief washed through Scott's system at the sight of him. Thank goodness, the childhood icon hadn't been taken out on any of the past few nights; Scott's hopes about Woody being able to take care of himself had been well-founded. The guy didn't look too visibly injured, either, which was even better. That all raised the question, though: had Woody actually run into any monsters yet? Some patients were weirdly lucky that way, and the fact that Woody didn't seem injured made Scott wonder. He knew he would look like a big weirdo for warning Woody so thoroughly only to have nothing threaten the guy other than a few night chills. And heaven forbid Scott Pilgrim look like a weirdo in front of a talking cowboy doll

[pullstrung]

This wasn't the first time the nurse had done this to him, sadly, but at least she'd put him with someone like Scott instead of Rita. Not that he hated Rita or anything, it was just awkward talking to a girl who thought she was from outer space (and had an attitude problem to boot). Weird outbursts aside, Scott was probably one of the more normal people he'd seen around

[oneman_onekill]

Niikura was about to tell Badd that he ought to just give up on looking for his underage ward or whatever she was to him when, as he had for the past week or so, he instead woke up in bed. It was less shocking now than the first time it had happened, but there was nothing more awkward than saying, "I think ya should--" and realizing that you were talking to the ceiling

[gargantuanlaugh]

[Bring it on, Showy]Morning came as a blessing to Gant. Sure, he hadn't gotten munched last night and progress had been made, but being in a morgue in the pitch black darkness... Even the chief had a hard time keeping it together dealing with something like that. And Xemnas wasn't helping with his cold demeanor towards everything, as if this was all just commonplace for him. What had that man been before coming here, again? Had Gant even asked? He couldn't remember and it ate at the corner of his mind as he stumbled around, hiding his newly acquired shears and scalpels in his desk

[oneman_onekill]

Ah, the man of the hour - and looking remarkably confident this fine morning as well. Now, what on earth could be the reason for that...? Most of the times he'd imposed upon Gant, the man's expression had fallen noticeably once he'd sat down. Something in their relationship must have changed

[gargantuanlaugh]

Niikura also seemed to be in good spirits this morning. Must've had a nice night too. Gant offered a big smile in return for the friendly greeting and sat back in his chair. His hand moved up to tug at his bangs thoughtfully, though no real thinking had to go into his answer.

"Well, if I were to hazard a guess..." Gant paused and released his hair, looking up over his glasses, "I believe someone's cozy little institution is in for an inspection. And a pretty serious looking one, at that!" He doubted it could be anything less than an inspection, but there was always a possibility this was something more complicated than that.

He grabbed up one of his English muffin sandwiches and took a bite, chewing contemplatively. "I believe the real question would be what prompted this inspection." Landel had gotten away with a good deal, and for a long time if all of the patients were to be believed. So what was it that had brought attention to this place? Or was this routine?

[loyal_soldier]

The night had been mostly uneventful for 622. He'd spent most of it patrolling the areas around the cell block, looking to see if anyone needed help. Apparently, he'd been fairly redundant, all things considered. No one had really seemed as, well, helpless as the civvies usually did.

This morning, though. Something odd was going on. 622 tried asking his nurse, but all he got in reply was a hurried admonishment to behave. Whoever was visiting today, it had them spooked.

He grabbed his customary pile of food, sitting down to eat quickly. He was no strategist, but he really wanted to find some way to take advantage of the situation.

[Taura!]

[ninelivesonce]

One moment she was standing in the hallway, listening to Doctor Landel attempt to regain a semblance of control over the chaos he'd unleashed. Perhaps deliberately so; the man wasn't stupid, whatever he pretended, and she doubted the maneuver was anything but deliberate.

The next, a soft noise from outside her room was alerting her that she'd been transported and rendered unconscious again, without a blasted thing accomplished. Damn. There was commotion outside, but even her hearing couldn't tell if it was just early-rising patients, or if this Eagle had bothered to pay a visit. She was at the door and dressed as soon as the door opened; the 'tech went pale -- no, paler at Taura's crisp, only mildly-ironic salute. The uniformed guards behind her gave a silent explanation that only asked more questions than it answered, but Taura didn't try. Neither the staff nor the grunts would know anything other than the party line, and she'd learn more of that by listening to other patients queries. Other doors were opening now, behind

[loyal_soldier]

622 looked up, swallowing a large mouthful of food, giving Taura a nod in acknowledgment. Then, having noticed the wave, he responded in kind, a little belatedly and awkwardly.

"It is," he agreed. "We need to do something with this." In between rants, Landel always tried to say that he was on their side, but empty, unsubstantiated words weren't enough to show that. Landel had said they needed to behave today, so obviously, he was showing a massive weakness that could be taken advantage of.

[ninelivesonce]

"Question is, what? They're not distracted enough." She tore off a third of a sandwich in a single bite, barely chewed it, and swallowed. "Yet."

"I wonder if Marc knows about this? Could he have engineered this somehow?" Surprise inspections weren't hard to trigger, with the wrong -- or right -- kind of military mind at the top. A word here, and credit chips were being bounced off bedsheets even if the night watch was asleep in them.

Either way, it was still too quiet to do more than keep their eyes open; the few patients who looked like they agreed with Landel's Condensed Sleep description were outnumbered by bleary-eyed civilians.

[notachick]

He'd never woken up so disorientated before. His last memories were of having a relatively quiet if pleasant dinner with Guy, eating his food as best he could, taking the pills for the no-longer lingering fever, and then... the morning intercom came on, rousing him from a drowsy, dreamless sleep

[flashyaudacity]

Landel wasn't wasting any words today, was he? No blathering on about what a great day they had in store for them, no rambling about the breakfast offerings... Kaito had to admit he actually preferred the usual announcements over whatever the heck these specialized announcements were.

The nurse hadn't arrived by the time Kaito had climbed out of bed, and he took the moment to snatch his journal from his desk. Yukari's disappearance and return had gotten him wondering, and more than that, it had gotten him worried. If the same thing were to happen to himself or Hattori or Kudou... Well, he couldn't say he'd mind Kudou forgetting all about the accusations he'd tossed into the open after that disaster of a night, but he didn't want to go back to square one just because he'd forgotten a few things, like how he and Hattori had become friends here. It would be nice to have some kind of idea of whom he could trust

[notachick]

His brain was still running laps to recover from whatever had happened to him when he realized he was being approached. Years of training couldn't be overcome by a single foggy night and as his supposed guest for the day drew closer, Okita forced the confusion he felt to the back of his throat, swallowing it down until he was alone again. And for good reason, too. Soon enough, Okita found himself looking at a smiling and familiar face, one that warranted a smile in return.

"Good morning, Kaito-kun," he returned, just as cheery and with a pleasant smile of his own. There was no need for the boy to know that his pseudo-not-really-leader-type was in a weird place. It had been awhile since he'd seen Kaito anyway, and after hearing what Heiji had been saying, it was good to see the boy with a smile on his face. Now, if only Heiji could pick that attitude up again. Okita missed Heiji's smile.

Motioning to the seat across from him, Okita pushed his tray aside slightly and said, "And a favor? That would depend. Is it a fun favor

[flashyaudacity]

Kaito laughed, the sound coming across more nervous than he would have liked. "I wouldn't exactly call it 'fun', no..." He raised the hand holding the two notes in front of him, glancing down at them and trying to decide how to word his explanation and his request

[gald_digger]

Anise woke up with her body curled into a ball at the top of her bed, above the sheets. A pen sat just next to her, with her notebook pressed under one of her arms. Picking up and pushing away the book, which had left a slight imprint in her skin, Anise straightened out her body and sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes. She felt more well-rested than usual, and her shoulder wasn't too sore anymore, but there was this nagging feeling in the back of her mind, like she was forgetting something important

[razing_phoenix]

Having the night end as Claude was trying to hold back his tears wasn't really the way he'd hoped for things to go, and so Guy woke up feeling oddly somber and quiet. All in all, their conversation had been a good one; they'd sorted through a lot of the secrets kept between them, and he was fairly certain that they would be able to get back to how things had always been between them. Still, learning about what had happened to his friend's father was enough to put him in a strange mood

[gald_digger]

Immediately, a smile came to Anise's face. After losing so many friends lately, and not getting to see Natalia last night, it was a huge relief to see even one familiar face. "Ooh, you missed me that badly after just two days?" she half-joked at him with a cutesy giggle. Two days wasn't that long a while, but the truth was that she kinda missed Guy herself. Time seemed to stretch forever at the institute sometimes

[razing_phoenix]

Luckily, Guy knew Anise well enough to realize that her first comment was only a joke. She often made remarks about how she wouldn't mind being wed to someone as polite and high-class as him, even though Guy didn't know if his status as nobility even counted at this point. Still, she was much better off going after Luke, and so Guy usually directed her toward his friend. Unfortunately, Luke wasn't here anymore, but he didn't need to dwell on that when they were just joking around. Instead, he just sent her a charming smile. "Of course, Anise