Day 59: Intercom, Evening

[damned-intercom.livejournal.com]

As the day began drawing to a close, the intercom flickered to life. Instead of Harrington's voice, however, Berg's calm tone filtered through the speakers.

"Attention all personnel: please escort subjects to their quarters for the duration of dinner shift. After that, you are expected to report to your stations -- no exceptions. Anyone caught away from his or her post without direct orders will have to personally answer to the general."

An odd tension hung in the air, but Berg didn't say anything more than that. Once the intercom clicked off, soldiers began to gather up the patients and bring them to their rooms. Most didn't know why Harrington wasn't handling the announcements, or why Berg sounded particularly serious this evening, though no one would admit that to the subjects themselves.

The few who did know had more pressing matters to contend with.

Comments

[revolutionise]

Utena circled around back to the side of her bed, hand still over her nose and mouth as she watched Anise like she were watching a professional handle a legitimate biohazard. She even jumped a bit when the girl yelped and the glass clattered on the ground, almost springing to action to save her roommate from the threat of the rotten food. Thankfully, though, the door was shut right after that, and the smell seemed to subside ever so slightly.

She relaxed with a slight slump of her shoulders. "I really hope you do. I didn't eat a bite all day, and I'm sure you didn't either. Definitely not a good way to go into nightshift."

After a moment, Utena followed Anise's lead, picking up her own bowl of gruel and holding it away from her face as she moved it over to the other closet. Once there, she pushed it to the very back corner, then yanked out a few of the shirts still in there. "Here, this should help block out the smell some more," she said, stuffing the shirts in the bottom cracks of both her closet door and Anise's. "It'll keep that milk from trickling out too, hopefully."

[gald_digger]

Everything Utena said was right on the mark, and Anise nodded with each statement. If the trials ahead of her were anything like the ones she and her friends endured two nights ago, she needed all the strength she could get.

While her roommate attended to her own 'food', Anise sat down on her bed and started digging through her possessions. She found Tokunaga before looking for anything else, and set the doll on her back where it belonged. After pulling out several miscellaneous items, Anise finally found what she was looking for: snacks! There was a chocolate bar, two bags of gummies, and a box of chocolates. The gummies and chocolates were half-empty, but if they were edible, then that was all that mattered.

Anise glanced up again, only now noticing that Utena was stuffing the bottoms of the closets. "Hey, thanks!" she called to her, glad to have something else between them and that gross stuff.

And it was back to the snacks. "Gels don't really go bad, do they...?" she wondered, opening the bag and giving it a sniff. Considering she and her friends often picked up gels from all kinds of places, including ruins that hadn't been in use for years, she was pretty sure they had to be okay. They didn't smell funny or anything, at least. Lifting the lid from her chocolates revealed that they looked more or less the same as she last saw, too. "I think we can eat these. I'll split them with you, okay?"

[revolutionise]

Utena's spirits lifted her to her feet at the sound of the words I think we can eat these. "Really?" she asked, hurrying over to see what Anise had. Sure enough, her expression lit up as she smelled sweetness rather than rot for the first time that day. "Ah! Yeah, that'd be great! Thanks so much!" she answered — just as her stomach rumbled again. She laughed a little at that. "Haha, I guess you can tell how much I appreciate it."

As Anise split up the snacks, however, her thoughts turned back to the coming night, and a question crossed her mind. "Hey, so what did you mean back there on the bulletin, by the way?" she asked. "Why do you think checking out the basement is a bad idea?"

[gald_digger]

Anise smiled when Utena responded enthusiastically. She was feeling eager to put something in her stomach too, even if she didn't have more than light snacks. They didn't have any plates left, so Anise opened the box of chocolates and used the overturned lid as a place to put Utena's half. As she sorted the chocolates, she couldn't help but think of Ion. With the way he was now, he had no idea what Anise was going through at the institute... but if he did, he would have been happy to know that his gift was helping this much.

What cheer remained in her expression faded when Utena asked her next question, but Anise knew they were going to have to talk about this. Somehow, she had to warn Utena! But when she couldn't specify what she was warning about, it was going to be tough.

"Like I said, it's hard to explain," she began, talking as she continued to sort the sweets. "But I've been there. I know what's there, and I just... I don't want anyone else to..." She felt a familiar numb feeling in her head - a warning sign that if she kept talking, she'd be silenced. How was she going to make Utena understand like this?

In the meantime, she'd finished splitting the goods. Each of them had a handful of gummy bears, fruit gummies, chocolates, and half a chocolate bar. Utena's were all placed in the box lid, and Anise quietly rose to her feet and walked over, holding it out for her roommate to take. "Here."

[revolutionise]

"Don't want anyone else to...?"

Okay, Utena was getting a little annoyed at this point. First S.T. was being evasive about the basement, and now Anise? Why couldn't anyone just talk to her straight about what was down there? Was it really just that indescribable? How could anything in the basement really be worse than anything else she'd experienced in the Institute? When one had seen a friend brainwashed and trussed up with a multitude of swords, or had one's mind taken away for a day, or been painfully transformed into a fire-breathing lizard, all of which had reversed by the day afterward, there wasn't really a lot left that could really shock and surprise anymore.

Still, she wasn't about to toss Anise's concern out the window, especially not if she really had been to the basement before. Utena accepted the sweets and set the lid in her lap as she sat down on the bed and faced her roommate. "All right, I think get that there's something really bad down there. I appreciate the warning, even if you can't really tell me more. Is there anything else down there you can tell me about? I want to go down there looking for clues about how this place really works, or whether there's more to it than just the whole mad doctor or military things. Is there anything like that at least?" If there was, then whatever was in the basement might still be worth checking out, Utena figured.

[gald_digger]

Anise sat back down on her bed, pulling a pillowcase full of supplies close to her. She'd planned to write down what she grabbed last night, and while she wanted to give Utena her full attention, this was her only chance to do it.

She shook her head at Utena's words. "I don't think there's anything like that down there." The caverns were still a mystery, of course, but she wasn't going to say anything that would encourage Utena. "In the first areas, you'd have to go through some really dangerous trials. Stuff that's way more dangerous than usual. And then after that, there's..."

... She couldn't continue. Her mouth just wouldn't form the words.

"I... I can't tell you what, but it's worse than anything else you've seen here." Somehow, she had to make Utena understand. This wasn't just a risk - it was certain death for her or someone she knew!