(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

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?

[shivving]

[ He hears the initial call, and ignores it. Whoever's speaking doesn't sound like Ellie and doesn't sound like a threat, and is therefore irrelevant.

But when the tiny creature with the giant hat stops right in front of him, he's harder to ignore. Joel stares down at him, nonplussed. ]

No, I ain't lost.

[ He is absolutely lost. ]

[toosmall]

[Vivi would much rather be irrelevant because he's not seen as a threat. It's a nice change of pace from back home.

The man tells him he's not lost and Vivi wonders if maybe he lives in this big spooky building then?]

Oh... did you lose somebody then? We can look together if you want.

[shivving]

[ He's all set to reject the offer out of hand, but then he hesitates. He had lost someone. And as much as he hates the idea of buddying up with a stranger...finding Ellie is the most important thing right now. He can't afford to turn his back on anyone or anything who might potentially be able to help him do that. ]

Y'know this place at all?

[toosmall]

[Vivi shakes his head, floppy hat wobbling.]

No sir I don't, but I haven't seen any scary monsters yet. B-But if we do run into any I can fight them with my magic so it's okay.

[Aka he'll protect you Joel!]

I've only met one other person, she saved me from the dark metal hole in the wall. Her name was Sigrun, is that who you lost?

[shivving]

[ Magic. Joel snorts. Just what he needs, some dumb kid running into danger and trusting some imaginary superpower to protect him.

But it's also too late to walk away now. He shakes his head. ]

Just let me take care of the monsters.

An' no. I'm lookin' for someone named Ellie.

[toosmall]

[Oh Joel.

You cynical old fool.]

Wait, Ellie? I know Ellie, I'll definitely help you find her!

[Vivi turns to head down the hall a little, waddling as he does. Cupping his hands to his mouth he'll call for his new pal.]

Ellieee! Ellie?

[He'll peek into the next room he comes to. See Joel? He's already being so helpful!]

[shivving]

[ that's him

His eyebrows shoot up when the kid says he knows Ellie. Really, he shouldn't be surprised - she (and most of the rest of the world) has always been friendlier than him. Makes sense she would have gotten to know people. ]

Hey -

[ He hurries after when Vivi pokes his head into the next move, grabbing his shoulder and pulling him back. ]

Watch it, you dunno what's in there.

[ But the room's empty, if just as creepy as the one where he'd woken up. Joel enters slowly all the same, doublechecking, grabbing a pair of surgical scissors to use as a makeshift shiv. ]

You just wake up here, too?

[toosmall]

[Vivi is mid Ellie when Joel catches up and yanks him back out of the room.]

Oh, that's why I'm looking. Ellie could be in these rooms.

[He doesn't even consider monsters or worse. Besides, he could protect them if they did run into something! Or try. Vivi will follow Joel into the room a moment later, peering around too.]

Uh huh, a little while ago. Dunno what this place, but it sure is big!

[shivving]

[ She could have been, but she's not. So clearly it had been stupid to barge in there, whereas if she had been there, it would've been the exact right thing to do.

Logic. ]

Lotta things could be in there.

[ Obviously that cryptic statement will clear everything up, right? Joel grimaces, doing a last sweep of the room before heading out to check the next. ]

It's a hospital.

[toosmall]

[Logic sounds real confusing.]

What's a hospital, mister?

[Vivi follows after Joel, keeping an eye out for anything or anyone.

Yes it's a dumb question, but in his world they had healing potions and white magic to cure illnesses and wounds. They didn't need big buildings made just to care for sick people.]

[shivving]

[ Oh, no. They are not doing the "mister" thing. ]

Name's Joel.

[ He growls it out, closer to a command than an invitation. And while he's skeptical that anyone old enough to walk and talk and navigate this place on his own has actually never heard of a hospital, he also knows that arguing the point won't do any good. ]

It's where people go when they're sick, or hurt. The doctors who work here, they make 'em better.

[ At least, that's how it's supposed to work. ]

[toosmall]

[Okay, mister!]

A-Alrighty, my name's Vivi.

[Since they're exchanging names now it seems. Joel's answer to his question only begets more as he tells him about doctors and how they make people better. Better how?]

... do they use all the strange stuff in the rooms to help people? Where I'm from we use white magic to cure illnesses and heal wounds, or potions for most people.

[shivving]

[ Joel has to pause at that, just to briefly close his eyes. ]

Course you do.

Your mommy and daddy tell you that?

[toosmall]

[Vivi stops to look at Joel, shaking his head.]

No, I don't have any parents mister- I mean Joel.

[He doesn't sound upset by this, mostly just stating fact.]

[shivving]

[ Well, shit. Joel sighs inwardly, turning and just looking down at the kid for a minute. ]

C'mon.

[ He jerks his head to one side. It's just possible that his tone is the slightest bit gentler. ]

Next room.

[toosmall]

[If Vivi were a little less seasoned in the horrors of the world, his at least, maybe he'd feel hurt by what Joel had said.

Maybe if he hasn't found his own people and knew there was a place for him if he ever wanted that... maybe then he'd cry or feel some sorrow. He's stronger than he had been just a few months ago, he probably didn't even realize it himself.]

So um... If you know Ellie are you from the same place? Is that why you don't believe me about magic?

[He's attempting small talk, but mostly just remembers showing Ellie his magic before. So maybe it's new to Joel like it had been her.]

I can show you if you want.

[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. ]

[shivving]

[ He hears it. He pauses for a moment when he does, ears straining in case she calls again, trying to decide whether or not he'd imagined it. Or worse. Given everything else he'd seen today, he wouldn't put it past whoever's orchestrating all this to find some way of mimicking her. Of tricking him, whether just to screw with him or for some more malicious reason.

There's no universe, though, in which he doesn't respond. Joel hurries in the direction of the elevator. It sits there, apparently in perfect working order, sitting patiently and waiting for him to step in. He hesitates. Can't think why. Instead, he just pokes his head in, calling up to where he thinks the voice had come from. ]

Ellie? Y'up there?

i'm kjghsod

[backpacking]

Yeah! [ The relief is clear as day in her voice as she (carefully) sticks her head into the empty space and looks down. ] Up here!

[ He can probably tell by her tone that there's no immediate threat, but...she also very much does not want to wait around until there is one. ]

You okay? Is your, uh-... [ "Head alright?" She doesn't finish the thought, and instead swallows that particular fear and focuses on her descent. ] Any chance you can get that elevator working?

[ Otherwise, they're going to have to get creative... ]

[shivving]

[ Oh, thank Christ. He shuts his eyes briefly in pure relief. She's there, doesn't sound hurt or like she's scared for her life. Not at the moment, anyway.

But they both know how quickly that can change. He opens his eyes again to look at the elevator, waiting silently in front of him. ]

It, uh. [ He still sounds skeptical. How long's it been since he ran across an actual working elevator? But creepy as this place is, it's not twenty years abandoned like every post-Outbreak Day building back home. The lights are on, if flickering. There's no real reason the elevators couldn't be functional too. Right? ]

It looks like it's workin'.

[backpacking]

Okay... [ The tone of his voice doesn't exactly inspire confidence, but. One thing at a time! ] Can you get in it? Or just send it to this floor?

[ She'll be stepping back to avoid decapitation now, thank you. ]

Did you see anyone else down there?

[shivving]

I'll come up.

[ He may not entirely trust it, but like hell is he sending it up empty and letting Ellie take the risk riding it back down. ]

Just - just stand back, alright? I'll be right there.

[ He ignores her second question because, honestly, who cares. Just getting to her is what's important right now. Gingerly, Joel steps into the elevator, and when it fails to plummet directly into the basis, presses the button for the third floor. The doors close and he tenses again, but there's just a gentle ping and then the elevator traveling steadily upwards until the doors open again at the third floor. ]

Ellie?

[ He rushes forward, looking, if not great, then not any worse than usual. There's a distinct lack of evidence of any blunt force trauma. He leans down, taking her shoulders in his hands as his eyes rove over her, checking for injuries. ]

Are y'okay?

[backpacking]

Hey. [ He emerges safely and she breathes a sigh of relief that she'd been holding in. The elevator hadn't plummeted, which is...a good sign. The first of many, she hopes, considering their bleak surroundings. ]

M'fine. [ Though she tries not to think about it, her gaze drifts to his head, as if expecting to see signs there that would indicate his diagnosis from the hospital room had been real. It doesn't seem that way, but her throat tightens anyway. ] What about you? What was down there?

[ Their experience with basements is usually...Not Great, but there haven't been any Infected in this place (yet, at least). ]

I just...woke up here. No idea how, but I haven't seen anyone else. [ No obvious culprits, that is. ]