[AQ/X-MOD] Sterile Shadows

[Fuka]

SPOILER: Click to show

Shadows in the Hospital
+ Description: There's been a strange energy in the nearby hospital lately...people had been talking about how the doctors and nurses are acting a little weird; they seem rather dejected and don't seem to interact with their patients or their families well. Even the patients themselves don't seem as lively as usual; and there had been a number of cases where patients had started to constantly talk about wanting to die. Is this some kind of weird and scary one-off, or is there some kind of X-egg activity?
+ Investigate and find the source; attempt to resolve this peacefully and cleanse the X-egg(s): +2 Guardians, +3 Faberge, +2 Roost
+ Investigate and find the X-egg(s); cure the X-egg(s): +2 Guardians, +2 Faberge, +3 Roost
+ Investigate and find the X-egg(s) but break the X-egg(s): -3 Guardians, -2 Faberge, -3 Roost, +5
+ Investigate, find but fail to cure the X-egg(s): +2 Guardians, +1 Faberge, -4 Roost, +3
+ You're not here for the purpose of X-etc; try to just ignore it all: +3 Guardians, -2 Faberge, -2 Roost
+ Hospitals are terrifying; you can't even make it far enough inside to investigate: -2 Guardians, -3 Faberge, +3 Roost
+ Requirements: Tag for X-Mod
+ Submitted by Yukari

"Kitaki-kun, can you go fetch some fresh pillowcases from the linen closet on the fifth floor? We're missing some."

The request of the nurse rang in his ears as he'd given a cheerful, "Of course, ma'am!" in response, scurrying quickly out of the room with hair bouncing and eyes bright as he readjusted the apron that sat over his shoulders.

Twice a month, Kitaki Fuka volunteered his time at Otonoki's general hospital--running basic, out-of-the-way errands for nurses, hanging decorations for the season or drawing cute pictures on the whiteboards to lift spirits, or helping out with events and other miscellaneous goings-on. It was good for his image--volunteer work, check; hospital, doubly so; regularly; triple hit--and good for the community, too, plus it got him an in with the staff, nurses, even the doctors (even if it was primarily ever only a passing hello).

And so he headed up on that Sunday afternoon, making his way down the third floor hallway toward the stairwell (leave the elevators free for those who really needed them, and stairs were healthier! Yeah!), passing a nurse and offering a friendly greeting, but getting something rather halfhearted in return--was that odd?

He'd noticed a bit of that lately, since his last visit--here and there, it would seem like one of the staff members was very... off. It was hard to pick out specifically, but recently he'd been noticing it an awful lot, and it was strange. His usual methods of encouragement and cheering up didn't really seem to have any effect, which was worrying, but he tried to put it off as he entered the stairwell to head up two stories. Ever since he'd found those eggs, it felt as if he'd been feeling these things more acutely, but he could't exactly identify that, or that it had any kind of connection.

... Huffing and puffing by the time he hit the fifth floor, he pushed the door to head into the hallway, only to be hit by an atmosphere that felt... noticeably heavier. Was this strange?


_{Miuna junko ୧( ॑ധ ॑)୨ Ai
HEHEHEHEH
(no rush to reply, as usual.....sweats)}

[Miuna]

There was a noticeable change in the air inside of Otonoki's very own general hospital. The place was well-known for its light atmosphere and beautiful appearance. The sterile hallways were not only impeccably clean but welcoming to all patients. The nurses' bedside manner never faltered in the heat of the moment, and the doctors seemed to always be ready for any emergency that broke through. In the past few years they'd avoided any major incidents, though with the number of students getting into fights the patient count had increased exponentially. The staff were all grateful nothing serious had happened since the trains had reopened, keeping a careful eye on the news for anything that might bring a whole bus of Seiyo students to their door.

Of course, Seiyo students were also some of their finest volunteers. The hospital was always looking for people to help run some of the more tedious errands and Kitaki Fuka was no exception. His work was well-known all through the halls of the establishment and the nurses would be lying if they said they didn't look forward to his arrival twice a month. With the burdens of tiny tasks off their chest, they could really put their full energy into taking care of the patients that needed their help the most.

This was not the case today. Today there was a chill in the air. The air was thick with tension from an unknown source and the world seemed to be moving just a bit slower than usual. The nurses slouched as they walked, dragging their feet from room to room as they waved weakly at Fuka. Farther down the hall the shadows seemed to grow, spiking around the walls and encompassing the rest of the fifth floor.

From the very end of the hall a strange chuckling could be heard emanating out of one of the rooms. It seemed the nurses had forgotten to close one of the doors on their way out, the sounds from inside escaping to the rest of the hospital as the darkness seeped from that spot.

[Fuka]

The odd feeling was something he tried to push off; he didn't usually get jitters from being around the hospital floors--was it just because this was a floor with some ICU areas? Was it simply something that had happened today that he didn't know about; perhaps a particularly impactful death that had happened earlier in the day that now had down the spirits of the staff around?

... No, this was different. It almost felt... centralized?

It was making him roll his shoulders to try and clear the feeling from creeping up his spine. He had to pass that location where it felt to be emanating from in order to get to the linen closet he'd been instructed to tend to, and there was a strange hesitation clinging to his legs that was deterring him from continuing.

How annoying, was his general feeling toward it, even as dread was welling in his chest. He moved past the room, only to be faced with the chilling sound of a... chuckle.

He stopped in his tracks, unsure of what to make of this. This wasn't the psych ward, either, unless one of them had wandered away? ... The chuckling continued, and he wasn't feeling all that good about this. Something unpleasant was happening, even if he couldn't place his finger on it.

This is the part where you step up, he told himself firmly. It's the doers that get ahead. Standing around or letting it pass by him would do nothing; he had to act in order to make things happen, and if he could end up with a good deed under his belt for it, then that was worth it all.

Sucking in and holding a deep breath with a sense of irritation now sitting at the bottom of his lungs, he pushed open the door to the room further, already feeling sick to is stomach from the unusual feeling radiating out of it.

"Excuse me," he called in as he entered. "Everything okay in here?"

[Miuna]

The room that Fuka entered was dark, the curtains drawn all the way across the windows with only a few slivers of light escaping into the room. It was the same as the rest of the hospital, containing a simple bed with plain sheets and a couple pillows. The bedside table was clear but available for anyone to use. On the other side of the bed rested a few machines, steadily beeping to the pulse of the person sitting in the bed. Next to the heart monitors was an IV.

The patient on the bed didn't move at first. Their arms were propped above the sheets, one decorated with wires that sunk into the skin and connected with the fluids on the side. They seemed otherwise untouched, save for the bandages over their eyes. In their hands they held something small, barely even noticeable in the dark, dark room.

Fuka's words echoed on the sterile tile, and the patient turned towards the sound. They took a deep breath before laughing again. It was a breathless laugh, a wariness carrying over from the morphine they'd been enduring. The chuckling from before had vanished completely, the source disappearing just as quickly as it had appeared.  From the looks of it the patient was a boy, no older than Fuka with short hair cut close to the scalp.  They could have been another Seiyo student had they not been in their current situation.

"You don't sound like one of the nurses" The boy said, leaning farther back in the pillows.  Each movement was weighed down, slow with a strange pull to it.  Their head was pointed towards the door but angled ever so slightly off.  The bandages were too thick to properly look at Fuka.

"Who are you?"

[Fuka]

Fuka made his way into the room with a subtle wariness, careful to glance about as he moved around in the low light. He'd had to crane his neck to even catch a glance that there had beeen anyone in the bed at all, only to feel a slight stir as the individual in it had turned toward him with a gaze unseeing, covered thickly in bandages. It was a mixed feeling, and he was almost tempted to check the chart at the end of the bed to see if he could deciper any of it to maybe find out what was wrong with him--after all, he probably wouldn't be able to see him do so, right? ... He decided agaist it in the end, though, electing to move nearer the bedside. If one od the doctors or his actual nurses came in and spotted him trying to get a peek, it could've reflected badly on him, was his ultimate reasoning.

"No, sorry! I'm Kitaki, one of the helpers." His voice was injected with a bit of forced cheer to counter the twisting, uncertain expression that was trying to take hold of his face. He realized then that he'd have to explain his reason for entry--after all, he'd come in under an odd pretense and didn't seem to see anything fishy or off now that he was in here--or was he just no longer noticing it?

A pause, as he slapped a smile back onto his face, so that it would come through to his tone of voice. "I just came in to make sure you were okay!" He covered quickly; it wasn't often he interacted with the actual patients, but it had happened once or twice, so he figured it'd be fine, right? "Can I get you anything, is there anything you need? I can get it for you in a flash."

[Miuna]

"Kitaki, huh?" The boy stared in Fuka's direction for a moment longer before turning away. A strange shimmering of light through the blinds and the clack of wood against glass was the only sound that echoed through the room, a strong wind blowing against a tree branch outside. There was definitely a strong autumn wind heading towards Otonoki but the temperature in the room was a different story. There was a stagnant feeling to the air coupled with a very icy sensation that spread along the tiled floors and up through the body. For a young man wearing only a thin hospital gown, the strange atmosphere would be unbearable after a long while.

He folded his hands under each other, finally revealing a shiny black object in his palms. It glinted in the bits of sunlight that managed to filter past it, a white symbol of something revealed on its surface. The boy held it close, stroking it carefully with his thumb as he spoke again.

"Kitaki. It's nice to meet you, I'm sorry I can't put a face to the name. It seems my memory is still a bit jumbled...." His words trailed off and for a second he tilted his head down towards the bed, staring directly at his precious possession before looking back up. The cogs in his head were turning, processing information as though he had just finished a silent conversation. With one shaky hand he moved to pull the blankets from his body, rolling so that his legs dangled off the bed.

"Oh, no. No. I don't need anything. There's no real point anyway. It's all quite useless," He smiled in Fuka's general direction, "You can go, if you'd like."

[Fuka]

He gave a shudder at the coupling of both the branch hitting the window suddenly, as well as the chill that he'd noticed upon making it farther into the room. Even in a shirt and an apron, he felt a definite chill up his arms that made it way to the core of his spine, yet the patient seemed entirely unbothered, even moving to sit up more properly in the bed and move to let his legs over it to dangle below.

As he'd moved, Fuka had noticed an object in the other's hands; was he supposed to be having that? He'd caught a shine from it, but couldn't exactly make out what it was--but it seemed that, from the way his head was turned down toward it, that he was still looking at it. It made his shoulders roll uncomfortably; what was it, exactly? The thought was beginning to bother him.

"It's alright; I don't think I've seen you around before; what's your name?" he tried, leaning a little more carefully to look maybe more directly at the individual, suddenly paranoid if he could see him. He was almost starting to feel a little sick; what was happening in here? He couldn't even find an explanation.

A pause, as the other had said he didn't need anything, though. His pronunciation had caught him a little off-guard, too, in a way that made him want to cringe; but he kept his smile firmly planted upon his face. "Are you sure? It's awfully cold in here, I could go fetch you another blanket, or maybe see if I can get the temperature turned up in here, or--" he cut himself off then, pausing to fold his hands uncomfortably across his stomach, still keeping them light as he tipped a head to the side.

[Miuna]

As his feet touched the floor, the young boy shivered and clutched at the blankets. He was without socks, and though there were a pair of slippers only an inch away from his toes he ignored them. Instead he stood up straight and felt for the side table, using it as a guide to turn towards the wall and then towards the window. Each step dragged across the floor as the boy tried to get his bearings. His hand slid slowly across the wall, stopping only when it felt a particular mark that had been left by a previous patient.

Outside the room the hallways were empty. Now a single sound could be heard outside of the beep of the machines, yet as the boy kept walking the wires pulled. They extended just far enough that he could reach the closed blinds, creating a tight cord from his chest to his bed that spanned across the room. One accidental stumble and he'd surely rip them off of himself, signaling the nurses to check on the flat-lined patient.

"Kenta. Shimizu Kenta. It's nice to meet you," Kenta finally reached his destination, feeling under the blinds to place a hand on the cold glass. It took a few tries for the patient to actually do it, but with some struggling he managed to pull the blinds up enough that a square of light shone through. It lit up the room, illuminating the sterile, white space and making it shine. Though the upper half of his body was still shrouded in shadows, the black object in his hand now glistened in the sun.

It was an egg, black as night with a white cross--- or was that an X?

"There's no point in getting another blanket. It's not like I can even see it's there," His voice suddenly turned bitter as the hand on the window sill scrunched up, nails scratching against plastic, "I don't need anything from anyone... but thank you. I'm sure you're a great help at this hospital. It's good to know this hospital has at least one competent person working."

[Fuka]

The following sequence of events had felt like a strange dream, or maybe a scene of out some kind of surreal or horror film; in the low light with only the shine from the window illuminating, and the chill that sat in the air, and the silence that pulled everything apart, making the room feel a hundred feet wide and deep, which was only being amplified as he watched the patient get out of bed and head over toward the window, stretching all of his cords in a eerily gradual pace.

Fuka gulped. He was unsure how to feel about all this, and his instincts were screaming at him to call a doctor into the room, a nurse, an adult, whoever he could find, to try and handle what exactly was happening. But he felt frozen, both out of fear, his previous intentions of being impressive, and a sheer sense of curiosity as to what the hell was going on here.

As the equipment had given a threatening creak from being stretched so far when Kenta got to the window, Fuka instinctually took a step forward, reaching out a useless hand and watching with wide eyes. They were quick to fixate on the object in the other's hands as it finally came into light; an egg? ... With an X on it. It was black, and his usual smile dropped in an instant upon seeing it. It bothered him, gravely, and he couldn't exactly put a finger on as to why.

"You could feel it, though; it's really no pr--" the sound of the nails against the window instantly shook him to the core, and he flinched back with a start. Silent for a few heartbeats, it seemed like there was nothing that was going to get through to him easily.

"That... uh, that egg. Did the nurses let you have that? It seems kind of--"

[Miuna]

The boy flinched when Fuka brought up the egg, suddenly bringing his hands up to hold the object close to his heart. He seemed quite alarmed by the other's statement, body tense as he stepped way from the window. The light from outside slid farther down his body, hiding the egg once again in the shadows of the room. His mouth was pressed in a fine line and he shook his head.

"No, no. I found it, someone left it for me," The pull of the wires lessened as the boy followed their path, heading back closer towards his bed. His feet were awkward as they tried their best to feel around, the wall no longer a guide for the boy to follow. He managed to keep his balance as the wires went slack, pressing a toe here and there against whatever machine he came across, "So it's an egg, is it? I thought it was a weird shape. It's so cold, I thought perhaps it might be a rock or a charm of sorts...."

He reached his bed finally but didn't bother lifting himself back onto it. The egg was held so close to his heart and he looked fearful that the other might try to take it. The blankets on his bed remained untouched as he reached for his bandaids, touching the sides as though he wanted to take them off. Being without sight left him at a disadvantage as he listened closely for the footsteps of the other. The tiled floors would allow for him to hear Fuka move, but without the other's constant talking he'd have to hope and pray he tracked the sound correctly.

"You can't tell the nurses. They'll take it away if they found out, just like everything else. They said it's too dangerous to have belongings while the bandages are on. They think I might accidentally hurt myself," Kenta shook his head again, curling further into himself as he spoke, "You can't tell them, promise me you won't tell them! It's the comforting thing I have in this whole hospital. You just can't, okay?"