Just gonna... test something. Let me know how it sounds, I guess? Figure we could all use a bit of a pick me up...

[The sound of electric guitar strings can be heard, plucking out random notes. Eventually it knocks itself into a recognizable tune.]

Now I heard there was a secret chord,
That David played and it pleased the Lord,
But you don't really care for music, do ya...

[The Once-ler doesn't have the same deep and rich voice as good Mr Cohen does, and thanks to his lip scars letters like 'm' and 'b' are difficult for him to pronounce and are much softer or even altogether skipped over. But it's a song, and he sounds like he's doing it because he hasn't in a while. To think he used to sing at the drop of a hat back home...]

[The Once-ler is on his way to Garry's room to talk to him. He's been letting things hang for too long and been hiding behind work like he would have done back home. Of course, back at home his work would have been inventing bigger and better machines to take down the trees and produce thneeds, not trying to get to grips with using an axe as a weapon and tightening up his apartment. Or dealing with his snooty ex-parrot of a roommate. The differences didn't matter though; he was doing exactly the same as always.

But on his way down, he flicks open his blackberry to drop a message off.]

Hey guys! [He's not wearing his gas mask, so his scarred grin can be seen pretty well, as well as the back-to-front cap he's wearing.] I've been thinking things over, and the conversation I had with Miss Pekoyama is right. We should really think about having some sort of leader here. Not to boss us around or anything, but more to just sort of... take the initative of organizing searches and things like tha - ahh!

[He's broken off with a screech and he drops the phone. There's scraping and banging sounds, along with his yells, as he's dragged down the hall of the second floor by his foot.]

[action; apt 301]

Predictably, or maybe not so predictably for those who don't know him, when Sakuya wakes up and takes stock of his surroundings he panics, spits out the candy in his mouth(a stranger putting things in his mouth?!), and makes a squawking noise, tumbling off the bed that has been most generously provided. He'd gone to sleep in his lovely mansion, then woken up in a dingy apartment, a filthy bed, and an awful, foreign, unfamiliar simian body! When he stands, wobbling uncertainly, he notes that his pristine white suit(which he does have to admit is quite nice) has become dirty, either from the bed, falling onto the floor, or both. Muttering a few curses under his breath, he begins to dust himself off, though he quickly starts to realize that this won't be nearly enough.

Once he spots the computer, he makes a beeline for it.

[video]

[There is a very angry looking blue-haired teen in the video, looking as though he's about ready to break something.]

I demand to know what kind of foolishness this is! I slept in my own bed last night and I wake up to this filth?! This is unacceptable! I don't know who will see this, but for those who do, I expect a full explanation!

[There is a muffled sound of someone awkwardly trying to work a phone, before a loud voice finally speaks up. Eddie proving to have some colorful language when he speaks.]

Dunno who I'm talkin' to- but, hey. If you could like direct me to the asshole who shoved a cinnamon candy in my mouth, it'd be appreciated, I'd like to have a few words with that shit.

Cause, hey- mother fucker. Shovin' cinnamon candy in someone's mouth when their asleep is fuckin' terrible. Besides you know, the chokin' hazard, do you know how fuckin' nasty cinnamon is? Seriously. Who the fuck even does that?

That in itself is the shittiest fuckin' thing. C'mon, man, at least give us somethin' like mint. Mint is perfectly acceptable if not less fuckin' nauseatin'. If I'm gonna die from candy, let it be mint, or- [There is a brief pause as he deliberates over his choices] chocolate mints. Yeah, chocolate mints.

Thanks for listenin' I guess? Hell if I know how these shitty blackberries work. This is why I use a flip phone, shit is simpler.

[As the smell of paint and white spirit floods his senses into awareness, partnered with the sickly sweet flavour of cinnamon, Seth opens his eyes. There is something in his mouth, which he spits out into his hand growlingly before he sits up and blinks his vision into focus.]

[Something knocks his foot, and he stares at it baffled. A heavy roll of red tape is at the foot of the unfamiliar bed. He is accustomed to waking up in strangers rooms, but he can usually remember if they've played with bondage tape the night before. He'd usually remember an apparent that looked as weird as this one too, but it was completely alien.]

[He doesn't hear anyone inside, no shower running or piss trickling, just uncomfortable silence.]

[On the nearby bedside table he notices a phone, not his, that is switched on, recording him. He frowns, reaches over, and mutters a few Russian curses under his breath.]

Stupid bastard could have asked before making a video...

DON'T ANSWER THE PHONES.

[Mika's gone whiter than the bandage on her face, her right eye looking more bruised and hollowed out.]

If a number calls you that you don't recognize, DON'T ANSWER THE PHONES.

[She's shaking, visibly sweating as she seems to be gripping her laptop tightly.]

Don't answer the phones....just...hide them. Drop them in the well or something, whatever you do don't answer the phones!

[The way she looks around the apartment it seems like she's expecting something to come out of the depths of her apartment and attack her just for saying it.]

[Excuses had made up most of the reasons why Mika had stayed inside and not answered the phone. Years spent in isolation had left her craving social interaction but also terrified of it. Scared to leave her apartment save for collecting food, she'd taken to only going out when she'd known the halls were empty. Returning Zita to Rubi Malone had apparently sapped Mika of what little courage she'd had to venture outside her apartment walls.

Either that or she just couldn't be bothered.

It was necessity that drove her out of her apartment today. A festering, oozing mess that wasn't healing well no matter how she cleaned it or how many times she went to the mall and the supermarket to find medicine. Changing bandages revealed a swollen, seeping gash that marked her nearly from her hairline to her cheekbone, somehow managing to slice her eyelid without blinding her. Or it wouldn't if she could get the damn thing to heal.

Her phone swings from a lanyard around her neck, and her heavy breathing is drowned out by the deafening screams and broken wails of children. Mika's running from something, a flash of stained walls that might have been white once and decrepit tile flooring, her satchel bouncing heavily against her hip as she slams into a door shoulder-first and forces it open into a stairwell with flickering lights.

Even with her bad leg she takes the stairs two at a time, a rushed "come on, come on, come on" making it through over the sound of her cane striking the steps. She ducks her head as she throws herself at another door, and for a moment the heavily bloodstained bandage over her eye is visible before she's running down another corridor.

Mika almost makes it to the door outside before something yanks her feet out from beneath her and she goes down with a shrill scream, her phone clattering across the floor in time to see Mika get thrown on a gurney by a doctor with her satchel and cane left strewn across the hall floor. The gurney is wheeled out of sight faster than Mika can escape the restraints, and a door swings shut cutting off her screamed protests.

The silence is almost deafening after that. The minutes creep past before the phone catches a pair of figures rushing silently after the gurney, their sensible work shoes surprisingly white in the filth of the hospital. The two figures disappear through a doorway, the flash of their pristine uniforms unmistakable even when the flickering lights overhead make everything impossible to see. Patients shuffle past in and out of existence, and then Mika returns with the pale figures at her elbows as they guide her back to her things so she can retrieve them. Mika's shaking so hard she can barely stand, forced to lean heavily on her cane as she mumbles grateful thank-yous to the vaguely smiling staff. One of them whose face seems partially missing, but waves Mika off anyway with a murmur about hoping she doesn't need to come back anytime soon.

Mika doesn't speak for a long time until she makes it outside, collapsing on the steps of the hospital where she buries her face in her hands and begins to cry.]

O-oh my God, I hate the damn hospital. Oh fuck it hurts...oh God I almost died...

[The video is pretty grainy, but there's enough visible to show it as the reception area of the apartments. That might not be the first thing noticed, of course - you might be looking at the blood stained guy in garish blue sunglasses and a gas mask over his lower face. He's breathing pretty hard and the mask gives it a slightly robotic edge.

After a moment, he takes it and the glasses off, revealing the Once-ler's scarred face. He gives a grin.]

Supply run went pretty well! We got a bunch of stuff. Would kinda like a native Japanese speaker to help us label the antibiotics we swiped, but we can sort that later.

Come down to the lobby in about.... fifteen minutes? We're gonna set up these rucksacks with a bunch of stuff... basic equipment if you're out and about, y'know. So if you want one, c'mon and grab it.