Day 63: Main Street (Noon)

[lighthearted]

After speaking with both Kratos and Tsubaki, Sora realized that he needed to try and handle this whole sickness thing sooner rather than later. Because there was no way it was just him. Even if he hadn't run into anyone else yet, there had to be some other patients who were suffering in the same way. Thus far he'd been content to just stay outside because the cool air felt good on his flushed face, but in the end he forced himself into the grocery store and over to the bulletin board.

He left two messages: one for the patients at large to try and get a discussion going on what to do about this new problem, and another one for the Arts and Crafts club. Sora hoped that would at least put them on the right path, and he had to admit he felt better after writing those notes.

There wasn't much for him to do in the grocery store when he didn't have an appetite, and so the boy left and stepped outside as soon as he was done. He was going to have to check back throughout the day, but he figured it was going to take the others a while to notice.

Which left him with the same question: where did he go, what did he do? It was hard to think straight when he felt so lousy, but he also had twenty-five dollars burning a hole in his pocket. What would be worth buying even when he was sick? He could get medicine, maybe, but why waste his money on that when the nurses would give it to him when they got back to the institute? This was harder to figure out than it should have been...

[For Snow.]

Comments

[ninelivesonce]

Taura strolled down the street, her newly-painted nails held out in front of her. The polish was a glittering emerald, this time, and while she was pretty sure it had dried, she wasn't taking any unnecessary risks.

She hadn't realized it when she'd pulled the bottle off the shelf, but it was almost exactly the same color as Cissnei's materia. Little good it had done last night, but it wasn't the stone's fault. Or hers, she reminded herself, although it hadn't quite stuck. She'd been as gung-ho about going to the basement as the others, and they'd all paid the price, but in vastly different measures.

Some people might have thought Taura callous, for the fact that she was admiring her nails the morning after watching one of her friends slaughter another; she wouldn't even blame them for doing it. It wasn't that it didn't hurt, but that there was only one right thing to do in the face of loss, and that was to play another hand. She wouldn't stop as long as there was breath in her lungs, and she'd picked a color that screamed life to remind her.

[Utena]

[revolutionise]

Sure enough, there hadn't been much new to see in the abandoned building. At least what they had seen, Utena had been able to get a better look at, alongside Leanne. It gave her a better sense of how Marc's time had been that day, and what might have been going through his head as he holed up there. 

She parted ways with Leanne at Main Street, and after that, wasn't quite sure what to do with herself. She had more money on hand than she'd ever had here before; surely there had to be something good to spend it on. But what?

As Utena pondered, a sprinkling of green caught her attention for a moment. Funnily enough, that flash of colour brought her gaze to someone she knew. Utena smiled, picking up her feet and heading up the street toward her friend. "Oi, Taura!" She waved. "How's it going, stranger? Haven't talked to you in a while."

[do you want to backthread this or move it into the next shift? sorry for being sloooow]

[ninelivesonce]

"Utena-san!" Taura grinned, and waved back. Then she had to think about the question, and her grin wavered before falling completely flat. "It's been better," she said, which was true enough. At least she wasn't sick, but that was about all that had gone right.

Utena didn't look sick, either, which was a relief. In fact, she looked downright cheerful. Maybe they could talk about that, and Taura wouldn't have to think too hard about wwhat had happend last night, and whether it had been worth it. "How've you been?"

[It would have to be a backthread; Utena's booked next shift. And I am sorry for the same. ;;]

[revolutionise]

"Pretty okay, all things considered," she answered, looking down and lifting the edge of her skirt as she spoke. "I had an unexpected rest day. I think it re-energized me if nothing else. What about you?"

[ninelivesonce]

"I think I'd almost have preferred that. Though then I'd feel even more useless, yeah?" She'd been trapped, in the stands last night -- all she'd been able to do was watch. There were things worse than dying, worse than failing -- doing nothing was definitely one of them.

"At least I'm not sick -- I've had enough of being the monster for a lifetime." And not just here, though she wasn't sure she'd ever explained that to Utena.

[revolutionise]

"There is that, yeah," Utena said in regard to the comment about feeling useless. While she could agree that rest could be a good thing, she also knew far too well the feeling of not being able to do enough to help the people around her.

That feeling was completely brushed aside, however, by Taura's next comment, which almost made Utena do a double-take. "Wait, being a— You too? What does that have to do with being sick?" she asked, suddenly sure that she was turning a bit paler. Utena had some enough clear memories of her own about what it felt like to be a monster, but they had nothing to do with sickness, unless one counted the incident happening in the Infirmary. Landel had mentioned a cold going through the patient body...

[ninelivesonce]

"He made an announcement, last night. The one just after lights out." She closed her eyes, remembering, and quoted, "Tomorrow, some of you will experience some unorthodox symptoms. Something something symptoms will intensify, victims will be obvious, and then, when you least expect it, some of you will change." That cut some bits out, a but unless there'd been something coded into the exact words, that was the gist of it. "People are sick, and some of them will turn into monsters. Again. I don't know if he means zombies, this time, or something else."

She hadn't explained about the drug trial, and the injection site turning into a bite wound, and everything else, but she wasn't sick this time. Unless that's what he'd meant by least expected -- that the illness was no sign at all, and that it would strike randomly, or even only those who had seemed completely healthy. Taura shivered, and it had nothing to do with the wind.

[revolutionise]

"Really?" Utena's jaw clenched back at that. Oh man, had she been feeling sick at all today? Even the slightest? She knew that not too long ago she had...

"Do you think it's going to affect the people who had to deal with something like that before?" she asked, trying and failing pretty spectacularly at keeping her cool. Turning into a tiny fire-breathing lizard monster was never easy to think about, let alone talk about.

[ninelivesonce]

"It hasn't affected me," Taura said, shaking her head. "I don't think I could do that again." Her low voice squeaked upwards; it wasn't quite a whine, but it was only a few installments short. Fears were like compound interest; they snuck up on you in dark alleys, and fed on themselves. "But I feel fine."

Utena's account seemed to be on the same plan as Taura's -- she didn't look happy, though she also didn't look sick. "D'you mind if I ask what happened before?"

[revolutionise]

Utena sighed faintly. Whether it was relief over Taura's words or discomfort over her memories, she wasn't even sure of herself. "Probably the same thing as you, if I'm getting you right," she answered, pushing a hand up into her hair. "I've had a few interesting nights in Landel's since I got here, and that night was one of the weirdest and the worst."

[ninelivesonce]

It had been several nights, though. Oh. They weren't talking about the same thing, were they? Unless she hadn't been the one bitten, and was just talking about the last time they'd been in town. No, probably not that.

Or turning into the girl in her file -- but that had been a day, not a night. She'd have to just ask. One thing was certain: there were always weirder stories in this place. "For me, it was something they injected. I was turning into one of those zombies from town, but only for a few days. What happened to you?"

[revolutionise]

"Injected?" Now she was confused again. When had they injected people? Had this been for one of the experiment nights? "I guess we are talking about different things. I'm talking about the night there were drugs in the Infirmary. A friend and I risked taking them so we could get weapons for people," she explained, now trying not to picture Taura in the same state as the townspeople all those weeks back (ugh). "Whatever she took made her get really violent, and for me, I ended up becoming this gross little fire-breathing lizard."

[ninelivesonce]

Taura nodded. Same thing, except in all the ways that mattered. "Yeah. The next night, they didn't give us a choice about it." She shrugged, but the tension didn't leave her face. "At least they still gave us weapons for it."

And then there'd been the monster that had taken over her mind, long enough to hurt Rita and overcome her ability to resist the zombie infection. Rita had forgiven her; not that it mattered, now. "At least it was a stunner they gave me. If we need to take our friends down, I might have a chance of doing so without permanent damage." Being built to be an efficient, ruthless, killing machine had some downsides.

[revolutionise]

Utena ground her teeth. No matter how disgustingly used to things she became, things like forced injections — forced anything — still made her want to punch things. "That's the little blessing you get in with the mountain of crap they shovel on us, I guess," she said with a rough sigh.

Her mind now back on the night of her own transformation and the night following, Utena tilted her head in thought. "What was I doing that next night? I think I was out with..." Right, she had been out with Renamon and Tear, she remembered. That had been the night they'd made it out to the ruined town in the forest. And of course, who had the three of them found there that night? Since when did Marc start sneaking his way into everything lately? she thought, half-wondering if she could invent a new game called Six Degrees of Marc.

"Hey, kinda random subject change, but did the radio come on last night at all? Or was it just The Late Night Landel Show again?" she asked, looking back up at Taura.

[ninelivesonce]

Taura shook her head, and then frowned. Late-night Landel show didn't even begin to cover last night. "I'm not sure if we'd have heard the radio, d-where we were."

"I.R.I.S. was on again, though." No one ever asked Taura to do announcements, even though female voices were supposed to be less threatening, and fangs couldn't be seen over an audio channel. "A children's song, and then more numbers." Memorizing the binary alphabet wouldn't take that long; maybe she'd do that on the bus ride home. Not that I.R.I.S. had ever had anything worth saying so far, but she'd still rather know.