Day 58: Cafeteria

[gald_digger]

Anise woke up feeling lucky to be alive. She still felt a bit waterlogged, even though her skin, hair, and clothes were completely dry. During last night's adventures, she'd swallowed a lot of water, and it still felt heavy and disgusting in her stomach. Her arms and legs were tired from treading water. Lying still in her bed, she still kind of felt like she was floating and bobbing in the water.

But she was alive.

Knowing how close she came to death last night, and remembering the lengths her friends had gone to in order to save her, there was no way Anise could let a little discomfort get her down. She had to be at her best today so she wouldn't seem ungrateful to Guy and Claude. On that note, she had to remember to thank them properly, now that she was better able to express herself.

While getting ready, Anise was surprised to actually run into Claude that morning. He came to her room asking for the notebook he stored there (or maybe it was an excuse to see her cute face again), so Anise happily located it and handed it over. She was pretty tired, but the big smile she gave him was genuine. Who wouldn't be happy to see her savior so soon after a dramatic rescue?

After he left, Anise finished re-tying her pigtails into a low position so the military beret would fit on her head, and then she was ready! Even though her stomach wasn't feeling that great, she figured sitting down to a decent meal would help normalize it. And luckily for her, she was among the few who had the privilege of eating such a meal. Anise filled a plate with french toast topped with syrup and fruit, accompanied by small portions of each of the available side dishes.

It looked like she was early, which meant there weren't a lot of people around. That was okay, though. Anise could get a good head start on her meal before any company came around. She sat down at a table by herself and started on her sausage first.

[for Tolten!]

Comments

[believein0.livejournal.com]

Guy's answer left Zero with a bigger frown on his face than usual. Great. So the chances of him getting his old body back were slim to none. At least he wasn't the only one who used to be...something else. What 'else' was there, anyway? Organic animals were somewhat of a rarity nowadays, leaving few other beings besides Mechaniloids, Reploids, and humans...

Also, the whole transformation process didn't make sense physically. Zero had heard of human to cyborg transformation - Dr. Weil had done so, to be specific - but turning a Reploid into human? Or anything else into a human, for that matter? "How is it even possible...?" he wondered aloud, staring back at his plate of mush momentarily. A transformation like that, if possible, must require some incredibly advanced technology that he'd never heard of. Was the low-tech appearance of this place merely a guise? He had encountered that complicated machine the night before in the MRI room, but he'd sworn it had been useless when he'd investigated it... Perhaps he'd been wrong about that?

...There was still so much more to learn about this 'Landel's Institute'.

[nobleman]

That was a very good question. It was one Guy might have considered in more detail if there had been any way of finding out the answer, but he had to admit that simply imagining what sort of technology existed that was capable of such a thing made him a little giddy.

Of course, it wasn't being put to very good use when people were forced into other bodies against their wills. He couldn't even begin to understand what that was like, and he had to wonder if Zero himself was in that category. It might explain why he was so curious about the whole thing, though Guy had better manners than to ask him outright.

"I wish I knew," he said with a shake of his head. "You're going to learn pretty quickly that there are a lot of things that go on here that are never explained." It was frustrating, but Guy had gotten to a point where he brushed it off instead of obsessing. Which wasn't very easy for him to do, considering he was constantly questioning and wondering how things worked.

Before he could say anything else, a particularly cheerful announcement came on, signaling that breakfast was over. In the end Zero hadn't eaten much of his food, but hopefully he would be more spurred by his appetite at lunch. "Looks like we're out of time," Guy said with a sigh as he stood from his seat. "Be careful tonight, all right? This place takes some getting used to, but I think you'll be fine." If Zero was handling all of this stress so well already, then Guy got the feeling that he would be resilient enough to stand up to what the rest of the institute threw at him.