(mini-event) IS THE DOCTOR IN?

[vestigemods]

IS THE DOCTOR IN?

OCTOBER 8TH

► SEMANTIC OVERVIEW

This mini-event takes place in the hospital (town location 5), also featured in the dreamscape of the latest Test Drive Meme. The hospital supposedly has three floors + a basement:
FLOOR-BY-FLOOR OVERVIEW (DROP-DOWN)


• 03 - This uppermost floor appears to be a regular modern hospital wing untouched by apocalyptic disaster, with various tidy patient rooms + an empty nurse's stand. Further down the hallways sit various offices. At a glance, it's difficult to tell from this floor that the hospital is run-down at all... Aside from the way the stairs have crumbled away, at least.
  
• 02 - Good question. you can't even fucking find the second floor. The elevator doesn't stop there, and there's no door on the wall in the stairwell where a second floor entry should be. What a shame - the signs say that's where you'd find the cafeteria.
  
  
• 01 - Basically what you see in the header pic: a very run-down hospital floor, consisting of messy/dirty patient rooms, abandoned nurse's stations, and a check-in/check-out desk (with the corresponding front door, currently jammed but not locked). This floor also has a trio of operating rooms, but these seem to be locked up tight... A fact which some might consider a blessing in disguise.
  
• B1 - Primarily of interest is the morgue / autopsy room (powered + in functional condition), but this floor also contains locker rooms, a laundry room, a break room, and a handful of other rooms with locked doors and covered windows that Trace doesn't want to make shit up for just yet. Each end of the hospital has an emergency exit door, unlocked from both the inside and outside.
Aside from 02, all floors can reach one another via the stairs (aside from the gap near the top) and the elevator (once someone has brought it up to 03 the first time, it continues to run as normal).

Exit/entrances include the main entrance (floor 01, unlocked but jammed and needs to be opened via strength) and the emergency exits (floor B1, unlocked and unimpeded).

FLOOR 3 ► LEAVING SO SOON? YOU HAVEN'T BEEN DISCHARGED

WAKING UP

You wake in a clean white bed to the overly-hygienic scent of fake wildflowers and the morning sun filtering in through the windows. You're in a hospital room, a visiting chair at bedside, a television hanging on the adjacent wall. Perhaps you're in a private room and can wake at your own leisure. Perhaps your room is shared, and someone else is waking up in their own bed on the opposite side of the cloth divider.

You have no memory of how you arrived here in this room, nor are you entirely sure where this is. For most, a glance out the window is all it takes to get some semblance of a clue - the town's skyline stretches out before you, landmarks recognizable but unfamiliar from what appears to be your third-floor height.

At the end of the bed, you might just find your file. At least, it seems like your file - it lists your name, one or more injuries you don't recall ever having (or perhaps injuries you suddenly have but don't recall ever receiving), and a brief but alarming summary of the cause of the injuries. That's the worst part, the summary. It's almost always something you don't want to hear - you're careful and the injury was borne of recklessness, you value your mother most of all and were stabbed by her hand, or any number of possibilities all written down in carefully clinical terms. If you've woken up alone in a shared room, you might also find a loved one's file attached to the adjacent bed, similarly concerning in content and with no loved one in sight to reassure you that the tale the document tells is a lie.

Outside of your room is a hall with many other such rooms, their occupants stirring now just as you are. A nurse's station sits nearby, thoroughly abandoned. Just beyond that is the doors to the elevator and the stairwell.

But leaving this place isn't quite so easy.

Calling the elevator earns a polite ding! before the elevator doors open to reveal an empty shaft, cables extending downward to indicate that the actual elevator lingers far below. The stairs aren't much better - you have six, maybe seven stairs attached to the stairwell landing before a section seems to have crumbled away, picking up again against the opposite side of the stairwell a good fifteen feet farther down.

Those who can fly or even hover may have no trouble at all. For everyone else? Perhaps you can set to work on figuring out a way to climb down... Or maybe, with luck, someone who woke up in the basement might elevator their way up to your rescue.

THE HALLWAYS

Or, rather than beating your head against the metaphorical wall that is finding a way down from the third floor, perhaps you decide to explore the hallways. Maybe you think there might be another way out! (Hospitals don't just have one stairwell right? That's a fire hazard.) Or maybe you just want to know what else exists on this floor, for the sake of scavenging or even for your own curiosity.

The hallways are, for their part, all very much the same - but those who may have experienced this place in a dream will at once notice the differences. These hallways are well-lit, the room doors are largely unlocked (mostly rooms like the ones you woke up in, with the occasional supply closet), and no matter how far you walk there's no strange sense of distortion driving you to turn back.

At the furthest reach of the hallway in each direction (the points of the H that makes up the hospital's shape), you'll find a host of small offices. Most are unlocked, and the filing cabinets within contain a number of patient files... Some of which you may even recognize, the information within matching that which you gleaned from one of the spirits last month, were you the sort to try to chat. Many of them, it seems, were once patients here, though this is hardly the morgue and none of these files list any sort of cause of death. This is true of each of the third-floor wings except the northwestern-most branch - there, the offices have long since been emptied, cabinets empty of files, desks void of any long-abandoned signs of life. A single locked door sits at the end of the hall, shades drawn across the small door-window. A dim light glows inside.

FLOOR 1 ► THAT'S A YIKES FROM ME

WAKING UP (CW: NEEDLES IN ¶2)

Those who woke on the third floor woke somewhere clean, somewhere adjacent to peaceful. Those who wake on the first floor, however, have no such experience. Though you wake in a hospital room, arguably even on what was once a hospital bed, that's where the resemblances end.

In sharp contrast with those awakening almost pleasantly two stories up, you wake exhausted and sore in the joints, as if gripped by the early signs of some sort of flu. And that's those who are lucky. Many wake into a world made hazy by anesthesia which has only just begun to wear off, or perhaps even still linked to an IV filled with a questionable unknown substance. Yikes. Might want to hurry up and deal with that.

The condition of the room itself is far different than those upstairs, too. It's dusty, even smelling of mildew - or perhaps that's just the bed on which you've awoken. The room looks almost ransacked, cabinets half-open, medical supplies and utensils strewn about the unwashed floor. Rust dots any metal surface in sight, and no wonder, considering the various points of visible water damage along the ceiling and walls. If the lights in your room function at all, it's just one flickering fluorescent... Otherwise, the only light washes in through the dirty window and (much dimmer) from the dim and similarly-unsteady fluorescents lining the hallway outside the door to your room.

It's hardly a place that anyone would wish to stay in for long. In fact, you may be on your way out the door before you notice even the half of the health code violations in your immediate vicinity - but one item might catch your eye before you go. A file, dusty but conspicuously undamaged in contrast with the rest of the room. Perhaps it's on the countertop nearby, or on the floor next to an upturned medical station nearby. Some may not have files at all, a mercy considering what's inside: Uncensored procedural pictures of some sort of invasive surgery you don't recall ever having. No, wait - the memory is filtering back to you, extremely hazy but present, as if you woke briefly during that procedure before falling unconscious again. A search of your own body shows no sign whatsoever that such a surgery ever occurred. Was it real, or are you imagining it?

Either way, it's time to get the hell out of here.

THE HALLWAYS?

The hallway outside of your room is in similar ruin, covered in dust and dirt and mold, furniture upturned, wallpaper peeling and in some places even ripped away. A nurse's station sits abandoned, leaving you and (by the sounds of it) any number of others to wake up in alarm and distress and sort through your surroundings alone. Or... not quite alone, I suppose. You do have each other.

Follow the hallway in one direction and you'll find the main hospital entrance. The front door itself seems to be unlocked, but the automatic-opening mechanism isn't really functioning and it's... a little bit jammed into place. Might need a bit more arm strength (or a helpful co-abductee) to get that open. Otherwise, the area has an intake desk in predictably poor shape, next to which sits a stairwell and elevator. The elevator sits on your floor, waiting to take you either up or down... And believe it or not, it's the better choice, what with the stairwell missing about fifteen feet of stairs just below the third floor. You might also notice that neither the stairs nor the elevator seem to stop on the second floor. Huh. I wonder what's up with that?

Venture further into the array of first-floor hallways and you'll honestly just find more of the same thing you awoke to but often in even worse shape, walls crumbling away between rooms, floors stained with dried blood. Down one branch of the hospital's H sits a trio of operating rooms, but the doors are locked, the rooms inside entirely dark.

BASEMENT ► DOES IT HELP IF WE THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD?

THE FRIDGE

Here, you wake in the dark and the cold.

The dark is absolute, and unless your eyes are especially keen, you'll need to use your hands to get a bearing on your surroundings - and once you do, well. The news isn't great. You've awoken in what feels like a coffin-sized metal container, cold against the inexplicably bare skin of your back. If such a thing exists in your world, you might recognize that the container is chilled artificially.

Maybe you're trapped altogether, with no choice but to shout and bang on the walls and hope someone outside is close enough to hear - because unlike in the warped version of this very building that some walked in a dream, each and every one of these cells has been diligently sealed. But drawing attention may not be so easy... As you begin to bang and shout, you'll hear similar banging from your left and your right, from above and below you, the room outside your cell filled with a cacophony of fist-against-metal with nothing but your muffled shouting to guide whoever is nearby to the correct cell.

With luck, a rescuer (whoever that may be) drags the floor of your cell out into the open air of a dingy run-down morgue. You were trapped in cold storage, and here in the light you find that you've been dressed down to nothing but a flimsy backless hospital gown, a tag tied to your toe. Upon closer inspection, the toe tag lists your name, where you're from, and... a cause of death? Since when were you dead? Or perhaps you already knew you were dead and the cause of death isn't quite what you recall. Either way, the contents of your toe tag are disconcerting at best, abjectly alarming at worst.

Around you, the other locked fridge cells have gone quiet. It's almost as if their residents were raising a fuss specifically to keep your rescuer from finding you, giving up once their cause proves fruitless. Opening these cells will find corpses in varying stages of decomposition... Certainly in no state to make such a ruckus.

But on to more practical matters: Your clothes and belongings can be found in the laundry room next door. Let's see if you can make it that far without showing a friend or stranger the entirety of your bare ass.

THE TABLE (CW: MEDICAL/SURGICAL GORE)

Or perhaps you don't wake in cold storage. Perhaps you wake on the autopsy table itself, one of three or four spaced evenly under the flickering fluorescents of the hospital morgue. A thin layer of paper covers your otherwise nude body, and beside the table, a tray of autopsy tools (some bloody, some supposedly clean) on a rusty cart within arm's reach.

An eight-inch-long rectangle has been cut from the front of your paper gown, and you're quick to see why: Some of you have a 6-inch-long, clumsily-stitched surgical slice down the center of your chest, almost as if an autopsy was attempted but quickly patched up before it could be finished. The rest of you aren't fortunate enough to have the stitches - your surgical slice is still open and bleeding mildly. Whether stitched or unstitched, the wound isn't any kind of life-threatening, having missed all vital organs and arteries... Not that it's terribly pleasant regardless.

If you (or a helpful friend or stranger) want to patch that shit up, there are plenty of supplies to bandage the area for now, or even a needle and surgical thread to stitch that up properly. Shame there's no anesthetic.

Once you've achieved enough relative chill to actually care about your prevailing near-nudity, your clothes and belongings can also be found in the laundry room next door. Maybe try not to bleed on them?

MOD NOTES

• This is a catch-all log for top-levels pertaining to October's Is The Doctor In? mini-event on the 8th. Go ahead and utilize vestigenet for any event-related network posts you'd like to make - characters inside the hospital are welcome to find their phone on their person, at bedside, or somewhere nearby.
  
• You're welcome to have your characters visit and explore the hospital on any other day henceforth, since this is now an unlocked location and will be added to the Locations page, but this is the only day on which people will be waking up here. Please utilize the October Catch-All for all non-event hospital threads!
  
• Characters who don't wake up here can still get involved if they have some reason to come join the fun. Maybe someone from inside texts them for help, or maybe they're walking down the street and see movements in the window of a building they know is supposed to be locked. Go ahead and wing it re: why they're there, honestly.
  
• Most of the accessibility obstacles are meant to induce drama, not limit threading capability - as such, feel free to (for example) assume that someone has already brought the elevator up to 03 or pried the front doors open on 01 if you don't want to fuck with those obstacles in your own threads!
  
• A few bits of exploratory intrigue have been peppered through these prompts. One of them is specifically what I was referring to when I mentioned 'exploratory subplots' back in the August Bulletin. If your character would poke around in suspicious places, by all means, hit me up on the questions top-level for more info!
  
• Being ambiguous about this since the prompt itself was under a CW, but if you opted into the 'questionable unknown substance' aspect of Floor 1's waking-up options and actually want something to come of it (as opposed to it just being some sort of alarming fake-out), hit me up and I'll toss you some side effects.
  
• If you want to have your character wake up via the fridge prompt in B1 but either don't want to fuck with a rescuer or want them to be able to get out and help someone on the table, feel free to say that the morgue fridge cell doors open on their own after a while, averaging on an hour but I'm not picky.
  
• Any questions can be directed to this top-level or, for a quicker response, to Trace on discord/plurk.
  
  

Comments

ellie ; ota

[backpacking]

floor three

[ She wakes up alone, in a hospital room, and almost immediately begins to draw tight, labored breathes. Ellie's eyes widen at the eerie familiarity, at the memory (or, lack thereof) that this immediately conjures.

There's no way this is Salt Lake, logic informs her. All the same, Ellie's breathing is quick and anxious, and she looks around wildly to get some clue as to where she actually is. Quickly, she slips from the bed and to the window, careful not to turn her back entirely to the rest of the room.

The scene is the town that she's grown semi-accustomed to, which...is only somewhat reassuring. As she turns around to scan the room more completely, she notices that it's meant for two, but that, in drawing back the fabric divider, no one else is within. Perhaps it isn't surprising to see Joel Miller's name on the clipboard, but it is alarming to see the notes on his alleged wounds: mention of severe blunt force trauma.

Her throat runs dry. Her own bedside assessment hangs forgotten as she slips from the room into the hallway.

It's strangely quiet, of course, but not dilapidated, either, as so many hospitals in their world are. Still, she walks with heightened caution, ready for anything ill-intended to come bursting through another door at any moment. Eying the stairs and the elevator, she chooses to creep toward the former to begin with, to see about getting back down...or, at least, to find Joel, and confirm his safety.

Fuck. And she'd nearly started to think that this town could be a kind of escape from their real lives... ]

[deferences]

[the stairs are what he'd chosen as well, too wary to chance the elevator right away, although it might've been better if he had.

sizhui stands on the very last crumbling step, considering his options, pondering just how far of a leap it is from where he's at to the other half of the steps. he can make it, he doesn't doubt that, but what's waiting for him on the opposite side if he does? that's the uncertainty he's experiencing at the moment, completely unaware there might be someone else on the floor along with him— until he hears the soft, resonating sound of approaching footsteps.

he turns toward the noise with such deliberateness, it's a wonder his neck doesn't creak. his is hand immediately at his side, ready to summon the guqin from its holding spot in the qiankun pouch if necessary then he sidles toward the doorway, holding his breath the whole way, heartbeat racing wildly—

and as he whips around the doorframe, he almost runs right into ellie, only narrowly missing because he grips the frame and digs his heels in just fast enough to stop himself.] M-Miss Ellie! [oh, thank gods, it's an actual person and not some monster or ghost. he lifts his other hand, clutches his chest like it'll keep his heart from bursting out.] Where— where did you come from? Are you injured?

[backpacking]

[ She nearly yelps as someone appears in the stairwell - and she almost runs into them - but slows herself in time and catches her breath, looking both winded and slightly relieved. ]

Hey - no, I'm...fine, I think. [ She'd been in a hospital bed, but there aren't any injuries that she could identify...yet. ] I just-... I dunno where I was before this, but I woke up in this place, by myself. It's...some kind of hospital, right?

[ Ellie releases a long sigh, taking a few steps back up the stairs to gaze skyward, making sure no one - and nothing - else is approaching. ]

What happened to you?

[coolmotivestillevil]

[ Geralt really, really doesn't like the Technicians. So many things have happened since he arrived, with no discernable pattern. They're clearly powerful mages with very bad intentions, and he hasn't been able to find a way to deal with them. He's not interested in playing their bullshit games, though, and he's out of the room almost immediately after waking up.

Of course he knows he's not alone. He'd heard quick breaths, he's heard shifting and uncertain steps. And the steps lead him to the stairs, where he finds who he assumes to be their owner, a girl that he thinks he's seen around but not approached.

He should probably announce himself somehow. She seems very on edge. ]

You all right?

[backpacking]

[ The sound, from someone who'd been moving fairly quickly, predictably startles her. Ellie whips around with her switchblade in hand, not quite relaxing at the sight of this unfamiliar, threatening man.

(...Is he familiar? Maybe she's seen him around, but it's no one she knows by name.) ]

Uh, if...waking up in a weird-fucking hospital is "all right," then...yeah. I'm super. [ Her flat tone is tinged with suspicion, and though she isn't exact brandishing the blade at him, she does peer through a narrowed gaze. ] ...You?

[ Assumedly, he doesn't work in this place, if...anything about him is any indication. ]

Jiang Cheng | The Untamed

[legbreakings]

top levels in comments

exploring the basement - OTA

[legbreakings]

[ Eventually, after the nightmares of floor 1, Jiang Cheng finds his way down to the basement level.

His mind still disturbed by the events of the first floor, he is twitchy, jumping at every sound or when he believes to see a flicker of light in the darkness. When he turns, all he finds are more ominous shadows amidst the flickering hospital lightning.

Wei Wuxian and he hadn't found his sword anywhere so he is wielding the largest scalpel he could find, a rusty thing with ominous bloodstains that look disturbingly fresh.

There is a noise louder than the others, like something - someone ? - banging against something metallic followed by clattering just as he passes by a door. Jiang Cheng freezes. ]

Show yourself! [ he barks, his voice echoing in the hallway.

His eyes flicker this way and that, uncertain. Did the noise come from beyond the door or down the hallway? ]

basement

[snowflicks]

[After a reunion he never thought would happen, Song Lan had very very reluctantly separated from Xingchen, at his behest, to go and search around to help any others. He hears the banging as well, it sounded like the racket his friend had made when he'd been stuck inside that strange metal enclosure in the wall.

The demand for him, or someone, to show themselves has Song Lan stepping cautiously from the room he'd been exploring, finding himself meet another familiar face. One he hadn't seen in person in many many years.

He bows, but as he straightens concern furrows his brows. Lips part as if to speak, but no words come. Instead he'll purse his lips before holding his sword to the young sect leader, offering it. Who knows what lurks in these halls. That scalpel won't do anything against any sizeable foe. Lucky for Song Lan he currently still carries two swords.

Eventually he'll return Shuanghua to Xingchen, but for now it was still in his possession. Nodding at Jiang Cheng he urges him to take Fuxue.]

closed to Wei Wuxian, 1st floor

[legbreakings]

cw: needles, rats, drugging

[ Jiang Cheng awakens to darkness - a fuzzy, wavering darkness - and the noise of something skittering in the distance - tiny feet? Many tiny feet? There is a squeak, then lights flicker up, a cold, wan light that barely holds enough strength to throw shadows on grimy walls splattered with red.

Or maybe that's his eyes. Maybe the world in front of his eyes is red.

He squeezes his eyes shut again, tries to fight off the fuzziness, the pounding headache, the nausea.

Belatedly, he realizes that he isn't wearing his clothes. His feet are cold. He sits up abruptly, fighting off the nausea and dizziness and then screams at a sudden yanking pain in his arms, screams again when he finds a needle in his arm, connected to a bottle of some sludgy brown-almost-black substance. He doesn't know that the needle is far thicker than any IV needle would normally be, barely understands that the moldewy hell he finds himself in would have been a proper hospital bed before maybe 20 years of decay and rust and rats making a bed of it, doesn't understand that the dusty green thing splattered with old blood stains he is wearing is a hospital gown.

All Jiang Cheng knows is he wants to get out of here.

So he yanks at the needle in his arm and all but throws himself from the bed. Beneath him, his weak legs give out and he crashes to the floor, an arm managing to hold on to something - the rusty IV stand - but it doesn't hold his weight and just clatters to the floor with a noise that sounds deafening to his ears.

And Jiang Cheng screams. ]

rolls in fashionably late, cw: surgical gore i guess

[mannerless]

( wei ying's own awakening is debatable at best. this could be a dream. it probably isn't, but it certainly feels like one and that precise fact leaves him in doubt. it's hard to be certain about anything when his head swims quite like this, like there's some vast distance between himself and the world around him, between himself and the bedside table even as he reaches out to touch it to confirm its reality. he fumbles it, sends it toppling over with a clatter that sounds metallic as various somethings skitter across the floor. that's a good idea, skittering across the floor. he thinks he should do that. or perhaps just walk upright upon it, wei ying supposes that's close enough. skittering seems like an awful lot of work, and this place smells terrible and he'd very much like to stop being in it.

so he stands - and suffice to say the simplicity of those the words vastly understates the experience. his legs feel very much like uncooked dough, boneless and a bit clammy, but this doesn't seem to stop them from holding him upright no matter how strongly the floor seems to pull at him. thank the gods for legs (the leg god, if there is such a thing. is there such a thing?) - that floor seems spectacularly unclean, and this coming from a man who found it perfectly acceptable to host guests for tea in a cave. but where to now? out, away, but how? the concept of doors isn't quite here yet - the door is just one more overly dirty thing, and his eyes scan the room for literally anything that is not covered in mold or grime until, aha! a thick tan paper, folded around other papers. it has a name on it, one which might perhaps be wei wuxian? letters are also still a bit beyond him.

pictures, however, are not.

and that's precisely what he finds inside the folder - pictures, and at first he isn't entirely sure what it is that he's seeing, brows furrowing, eyes squinting as he tries to parse the greyscale shapes, but - ah. it's upside-down.

perhaps it should have stayed that way, as the moment it's right-side up his stomach fills with a twisting unease. it's him, right there in the picture, there's his face. but he's asleep, asleep and covered in some sort of sheet, up to his neck, but there's a hole cut in the sheet and a hole cut in him and -

he drops the picture to the floor. he doesn't want to hold that one anymore. it doesn't occur to him to discard the whole folder. that they'd all be the same, these pictures... but then he looks at the next. it's the same scene, but this time a closer view of the alarming hole in his lower abdomen. this time, they seem to be- putting something inside the hole? taking something out of it? something which glows around the hands and arms which obscure it, and his stomach twists harder still. his golden core. but these white-robed men didn't remove it, and it certainly wasn't taken out here. that's nonsense. wen qing did that. why do these pictures say she didn't?

that picture is discarded next, and this time, he hopes for another. perhaps this one will help him reach some comprehension, some sense of how they could take a golden core he never had - but this next picture isn't of him. it's jiang cheng this time. he's also sliced open in just the same way, but this picture leaves little ambiguity in the way the golden core is being lifted from within him.

that's when, somewhere outside of this room, jiang cheng screams.

a panic grips his chest, his lungs, his throat, burning away at the wary confusion and everything else he might consider feeling like fire to paper. the folder drops from his hand, and he's throwing himself into motion now, lurching half-balanced out into the hallway to cast panicked eyes to the left, to the right, which way did it come from?! another scream, and he's moving again before it quiets, quickly enough to lose his footing and catch himself roughly on hands and knees before scrambling back to his feet to sprint clumsily off down the row of doorways. )

Jiang Cheng? ( into the first room, but no, it's empty. is he gone already? is wei ying too late? no, a different room, he has to be in a different room - the next one, in fact, the crash and a third awful cry greet him just as he rounds the corner. wei ying doesn't quite consider how to slow to a stop, instead just kind of stumbling to his knees beside where a-cheng lies on the floor as he chokes out a breath both relieved and dismayed. this isn't okay yet. he doesn't know yet what they've done to him. )

Jiang Cheng, Jiang Cheng - ( to get his attention, as if his haphazard arrival wouldn't have done so already. there's a clumsy slur to his words, too, more so even than the few times he has been properly drunk. ) Did they- ( the rest of the question doesn't quite come, his eyes flickering down toward the man's stomach and back to his face. he's pale, terribly pale. that's a terrible sign. ) They can't just steal a man's core away, we'll get it back, do you believe me? We will.

( unbeknownst to him, his hand still grips the last picture he saw, crumpled terribly now but perhaps able to shed light on what exactly wei wuxian is so panicked about, if jiang cheng thinks to notice it. that very same hand is bleeding a bit at the knuckles, which were bent when he caught himself roughly and thoughtlessly on both hands.

(he's also just careened through the hall in a backless gown, but there's no need to speak of that.) )

xiao xingchen | basement, anywhere else | intro!

[daozhangs]

BASEMENT, fridge

( xingchen wakes somewhere dark and cold, very much un like the bed in which he fell asleep. it doesn't quite register at first, his mind still bleary with sleep - the dark reads as night, the cold as a sign that he's kicked off his blanket. an arm lifts (too easily, that's the first hazy sign) to fumble for the blanket, but it barely a few inches into his reach, his knuckles strike something hard.

he's wide awake in an instant now, hand flipping to feel at the wall, to follow it up while the other hand finds the opposite wall. though the space he's in is still utterly void of light, it's quite evident that he's encased narrowly on all sides - including, he now discovers, above his head. and it's metal, the entire enclosure is metal like the blade of his sword but not nearly so smooth.

a tightness settles between xingchen's lungs. he has never really had a problem with small spaces, but then, every small space he has encountered has been some degree of voluntary. this, on the other hand... this, he'd very much prefer to find a way out of as quickly as possible. so despite that tightness, he draws in as much of a breath as he can to call, )

Hello, can anyone hear me? ( the shout echoes terribly in the metal box, and his nose wrinkles in a wince at both that and at what must come next. his hands curl to fists, and he bangs them against the walls to each side of his head, shouting again: ) Hello?!

( but even as his hands stop banging at the walls, more banging echoes dimly into the metal box from each side, from above and below. are there others trapped as well?! the thought occurs to him that he could probably break free if he truly has to. if no one can hear him. he has more than enough patience to wait a bit longer to see if anyone comes, to try banging and shouting at least a couple more times - but if others are trapped as well, he should free himself and let them out before they work up into any sort of panic.

(feel free to rescue him from his fridge cell - or alternatively, if your character is also in the fridge or on the table, i'll have him bust out and try to help.) )

ANYWHERE, assisting

( though he and zichen have reunited by now (and in such a way to beg a spectacular number of questions), it's with a bare minimal working understanding of this place that xingchen insists they part ways just long enough to scour the rest of this overlarge building in case anyone else is in need of help.

now, he can be found on any floor, robes crisp and white, eyes sharp as he makes his brisk way down the halls. every unlocked or open door he comes to, he leans briefly inside to make certain nobody is in there, then moves on to the next.

maybe you need help - any sounds of distress (or even human activity in general) and he'll hurry off in that direction to investigate. or maybe you're also trying to help, and you encounter him in the hallways. or maybe you're just... kind of lost.

(basically wild-card your character into this one, whether they need help or not.) )

You Know

[snowflicks]

[How he ended up in here is anyone's guess. The Technicians most likely he assumes. A fair assumption as far as he's concerned. Anyway, Song Lan wanders the halls of the basement, looking for a way out, listening for others who could be here as well.

In danger or otherwise. It doesn't take long for the echoing sound of banging and muffled shouting to catch his attention. Following the sound he comes to a room that looks alien to him. Cold and uninviting. The banging doesn't let up, the shouting within not desperate, but still hoping for anyone to hear them.

They're in luck, Song Lan heard and he'll go to the door of the cold storage unit and give it a good hearty tug. With his strength it opens easily. Locked or not, whether on purpose or by age and rust, it stood little chance.

It can't warn the person that he's not here to hurt them, so unceramoniosly he'll pull the drawer out with the person on it. It's not until he sees their face that his quiet yet concerned expression changes. Eyes go wide, lips parting in shock.

Xingchen? But how?

It feels like his entire body is frozen looking down at him, unsure what to believe. His sight? Or what he knows is true?

Xiao Xingchen was dead.]

[daozhangs]

( one moment, he's banging at the metal walls. the next, the very floor on which he lies is in motion, sliding out into a light which (however dim it may be) is terribly harsh after such thorough dark, and his hand lifts briefly to shield his eyes before he quite registers the figure hovering above him.

the hand drops just enough to meet wide, incredulous eyes set in a very familiar face, and a relieved little grin blooms on his face. ) Zichen, ( he greets, perhaps more warmly than usual but it's not often that their reunion involves rescuing him quite so thoroughly.

both hands find the edges of the platform on which he lies, which now seems to hover just below zichen's chest in height over empty air, and he pushes himself upright. which is precisely when it occurs to him (by virtue of the rush of chilly air against his back) that whatever manner of paper-thin robe this is, they've dressed him in it backwards and haven't even done him the courtesy of tying it shut. his brow flickers in the briefest of scowls, and - ) Forgive me, would you mind turning away a moment? I'd like to fix this. ( with a hand lifting to tap fingertips lightly against the bare back of his shoulder, to indicate the robe nonsense he's awoken to. the precise matter of why he's dressed as such is one he'll get to, but only after he's fixed it and zichen has told him where it is they even are. )

assisting;

[deferences]

[lost is exactly what lan sizhui is. distress, however, is in the eye of the beholder.

being dizzy and disoriented makes for an awful combination as well; he'd mostly recovered from the blood loss, given the raggedly stitched wound running along the length of his sternum, but it still aches something fierce and the pain has grown quite unbearable. it's fine, it's fine, he just needs to rest— and so he does, by slumping against the nearest wall initially then dropping to his knees afterward. if he takes a moment to meditate, perhaps he can gather enough strength to heal the wound somewhat better, though that's far easier said than done, it would seem.

the front of the long-sleeved shirt he's wearing is dotted with blood in places, spots where the stitching hasn't really held the best, where he's moved too quickly and quite possibly torn something but has been too stubborn to stop. he does spare them a lingering glance, hissing in pain while he draws the fabric away, hoping to avoid any uncomfortable sticking.

it's footsteps that draw his attention, have him lifting his head and squinting toward the figure in all white, mouth falling open with the realization that hey, he (sort of) knows this person. but is he really there or has he hallucinated something because the pain has proved too great?] Daozhang...

[daozhangs]

( he discovers the boy early in his search - he hasn't even yet left the underground level on which he awoke, and supposedly there are many more such levels stacked above their heads. but this level is cold, damp, and far too frequently stained with blood for xingchen to feel right departing without carefully searching each fork in the hallways.

and there he is knelt on the floor, leaning far too heavily against a wall not far off. xingchen's lips press together, and his pace picks up slightly to carry him over to kneel beside the boy. a lan, he sees the headband now despite the boy's lack of robes - and then, of course, he notices the blood.

'daozhang,' a word of recognition for his title at the very least, and xingchen offers a smile much softer than the elegant crispness of nearly every other motion he undergoes in this moment of apparent need. )

My name is Xiao Xingchen. I'm here to help. Will you allow me to see the wound? ( either by way of showing him or by offering permission for xingchen to (respectfully, professionally) pull the shirt away from the area, himself. )

jiang yanli ▶ the untamed ▶ ota

[soups]

▶ basement ; the table

❰ yanli jolts awake and succumbs to a lot of sensations all at once. first, the pull in her chest -- not emotional, but physical. she'd sat straight up, curling in and the pull causes her to gasp. looking up, she also realizes just how cold she is. it's so obvious to her in so many ways, like how she can feel a slight pain in her--

the shock of the sheet of paper that was covering her nude body makes her choke in a shriek, and now she sees sitting up has made it double over, breasts bare in the room. she quickly grabs the thin sheet, holding it close to her bosom with no regard to the pain it causes as she presses against her wound.

there's a good minute where she sits in stunned silence, only breathing quickly as her eyes flicker around the room. the sob she finally lets out makes her cry, but the fact that she can simply look down and see the incision in her chest quiver with the movement of her tears makes her weep. ❱

▶ basement ; locker room

❰ dressed and trying to step away from the trauma that's quick on her heels, yanli is looking for a more secure, closed off space to be while she tries to sort out her brain and figure a way out. she's stumbled upon the locker room, which is ironically filled with very small, very compact boxes she would like to curl up into and hide. some that she tries to open are locked, but others swing from their hinges. others have no doors at all, containing dust and bugs.

at last she opens one such locker and actually finds something...a small bag, left by whatever individual was here previously. still here, perhaps? yanli gingerly removes the bag -- truthfully, a purse -- but then whips around and cranes her neck down the other hall of boxes. is this someone's? should she try to find the owner? ❱

Excuse me? Is this...? ❰ but is there even anyone here with her, anymore? ❱

the table;

[deferences]

[luckily for her roommate, he's already been inelegantly sewn back together, crooked stitches running down the length of his sternum, lower-half barely covered by an equally thin paper sheet. while consciousness is coming back, it's going at a snail's pace; he can sense feeling returning to his limbs, warmth spreading through his arms and legs, steadily moving up his torso—

then there's the stifled scream, followed by a sob and outright crying.

sizhui sits bolt upright, head whipping one direction then the other, widened eyes darting around the room until they fall on—] Jiang-guniang! [he exclaims, still fuzzy from blood loss, though coherent enough to realize: they are both quite naked.

his first instinct is to immediately avert his eyes by turning away, one hand lifting to cup against the side of his face for extra privacy while the other clutches the sheet in place across his hips.] I'm sorry! I didn't mean to... [the lan disciple trails off, purses his lips together, color rising high in his cheeks from embarrassment. he doesn't think he saw anything except maybe lots of blood? which is worrisome enough, but the fact they have to deal with unfettered nudity on top of that is really just the icing on this horrific cake.]

Jiang-guniang... are you okay?

Vivi Ornitier | OTA

[toosmall]

Basement: The Freezer

[Waking up in the dark doesn't scare him at first. It's not until his mind wanders, until he remembers the boxes from the village of Dali. Being stuffed into one and told to stay there. Being called defective. Being scared and not understanding what was going on.

He knew now, but it didn't make him feel any better this moment. Panicked he'll feel around in the darkness and realizes he's missing a lot... er, all of his clothes. He's wearing something but he can't tell what and it all just kind of gets to him. If anyone happens into the morgue they'll hear sniffling and crying coming from one of the cold storage freezers.

Vivi doesn't bang or shout to be let out.

If someone does rescue him, they'll open the freezer drawer to find a very odd looking little fellow. He'd blend right into the dark, but being pulled out of it he stands out. He's human shaped, but his body is pitch black with a strange almost haze just about the edges of him and he has big glowing yellow orbs for eyes. There's a mouth there some where, but it can't be seen in the dark void of his face. He's wearing a little hospital gown thankfully, but nothing else.]

[bearhole]

[ She woke up in the hospital, had a weird experience that felt like a fever dream. When she woke up the second time, at first she was relieved to not be in the hospital. But then she looked around and realized she was still in the hospital. Just not the same part of the hospital. While the floor she had initially woken up on was clean and untouched, this floor looked a lot more like she expected a Silent World hospital to look: abandoned, ransacked.

She decides to look around, making her way down to the basement, where she hears whimpering cries coming from one of the drawers.

Carefully, she withdraws her knife and approaches. It could be a troll, trying to trick her.

It doesn't sound like a troll, though. It sounds like someone hurt, and scared. She reaches out with her left hand, holding her knife in her right, and pulls open the drawer, ready to strike at the first sign of an enemy--! ]

[toosmall]

[It's a shock as suddenly the cold metal floor he's laying on whooshes out. The light is blinding and he'll cover his face momentarily.

When he perks through his fingers Vivi sees a weapon and shoots up, scuttling back a bit, knees hugged to his chest. He feels so weird without all if his usual clothes. Everyone can see that he's not human like this easier than before.]

P-Please don't hurt me!

[Vivi doesn't know this person, maybe they're new here. Confused and unknowing like he's been. Even know he has no idea what's going on.]

I woke up in there a-and I dont know where this is.

[He sniffles a little, wiping at his face.]

Sigrun Eide - ota

[bearhole]

Third Floor

[ In the Old World, they had a saying for feelings like this: Dayjah View. That feeling when you feel like you've been somewhere or seen something before. The too-clean, too-bright, too-empty hospital is familiar to Sigrun, as though she saw it in a dream. A dream that didn't make much sense. The awake version doesn't make much sense either, as it turns out, but she embarks on the same plan she had had in the dream: gather as many bedsheets as possible and make a rope to climb down the gap in the stairwell. After that... Well, she hadn't gotten that far in the dream.

It doesn't occur to her to check the elevator. If she's in the Silent World, which she feels like she ought to be, given the creepy nature of this place, then there's no way the elevator would have power. (There would be no way the fluorescent lights should have power, either, but that also... doesn't occur to Sigrun.)

Maybe you run into her as she's raiding the hospital room beds for their sheets. Maybe you find her ransacking linens in a small store room. Or maybe you come across her as she's got her arms laden with fabric, carrying the whole lot of it back to the stairwell. Whenever you find her, she's a woman on a mission. ]

First Floor

[ Finally, somehow, she makes it down the fifteen foot drop. The first level looks a lot more like she would expect a Silent World abandoned hospital to look like: rundown, dirty, and covered in-- ] Ugh, gross, is that blood?

[ The sight of blood puts Sigrun on edge, and she draws a small knife from her boot, proceeding through the halls much more carefully now. As soon as she comes across the entrance, that becomes her next objective. Get the hell out of here. The doors seem to be stuck shut, though, so she's giving it her all trying to open them... With no luck.

If she sees anyone else nearby, she calls out to them. ]

Hey, you! What are you doing here? --Never mind, come help me open this door.

Wildcard

[ Want something else? HMU @ Chris_#9103 or millennialfalcon! ]

First floor

[theprezident]

[ Some time has passed now, and Rhys has had a chance to convince himself that whatever clues point to surgeries that he really wasn't aware he was scheduled for - because he wasn't - is just made up bullshit designed to freak him out. Meaning he's freaking out a little less, but only a little. So far, he hasn't found a way to get out, although he has yet to try smashing a window open with his metal arm. Worked last time. Last time? What he remembers of it, anyway, which isn't much, and maybe it was never really real in the first place.

He's been keeping clear of any voices or movements he's heard otherwise, because he's on edge and doesn't know what can be trusted. But he doesn't see or hear Sigrun before she sees him, and when she calls out, he yelps and jumps high into the air, raising his hands in front of him like he could actually fight off anyone that might jump him.

When nothing attacks him and he realises that's someone that at least looks like a human, he relaxes slightly. But only slightly. ]

Oh my god, w-why would you do that?!

[ Not that he has any ideas for ways she could have avoided making his heart leap into his throat. ]

Joel Miller | ota

[shivving]

floor one; waking up -> hallways

[ Joel wakes with a groan, squeezing his eyes shut tighter against the pain. He feels like he'd been beaten and then dumped, left for dead. What he finds, once his head clears and he's able to take in his surroundings, is worse.

It's like a sick, twisted dream. The IV in his arm, which he pulls out without hesitation, dropping the needle to clatter on the ground. The thin hospital mattress. He can practically hear the doctors' voices, screaming in fear, begging him to stop, but of course no one's here. It's just him.

Which is a problem. With a grunt of effort, he sits up and pushes himself off the bed, staggering before he catches himself. The room's a mess, and almost without thinking he grabs the few supplies he can see: medical tape, a scalpel that could be fashioned into a shiv, a bottle of pills. There's no time for a thorough search, not when Ellie's who knows where, but as he heads for the door he catches sight of the file, picking it up to stare at the pictures inside.

It grows all over the brain.

But it had been his own brain, this time, the doctors had cut into. He remembers it now, as clearly as if it had just happened, and he raises a hand in alarm, only to brush against his hair - uncut, unshaven, no bandages or scars or any evidence at all of what he knows had happened.

What the hell.

With a growl, he drops the file and prowls out the door, already calling out in a deep and dangerous bellow. ]

Ellie?

[toosmall]

[He's wandering through the hospital now that he'd had his own unpleasant wake up. Down in the morgue locked in one of the cold storage units. Thankfully he'd been rescued, but now he's looking around to see what this place is.

So far there was nothing "dangerous" here. No monsters or anyone trying to hurt him, but it sure was big and empty. The sound of his boots as he walks echo a bit in the hallway and it only punctuates how quiet it is. Until it's not.

He hears the shout of someone's name and goes to see what's going on. Turning down another hallway he sees someone and he wonders if they're just as confused about this place.]

H-Hello!

[Vivi calls out to the man. He doesn't run towards him, but he will head down his way, just a tiny uh... child... yeah that's it. Tiny just under four feet child in a goofy looking outfit with a big ol hat.]

Are you lost, mister?

[backpacking]

[ The stairs had been a non-starter, and so it's staring down into the elevator shaft that Ellie hears a distant, familiar shout. Usually - at least, in their own world - it could be life-threatening to yell in a situation like this, but...if he's done it, she assumes (or, hopes) that it's a little less risky... ]

Joel? [ Her voice reverberates down below her to where she assumes the elevator is waiting, but he doesn't sound as if he's right there, either. She takes in the cables, looks for a ladder inlaid in the wall, but there's no way down. No safe way, that is. So, for now, Ellie grits her teeth and weighs her options, considering giving the stairs another try...especially if he isn't able to hear her call in return, wherever he is. ]