damned_institute | Day 62: Breakfast

A misplaced sense of familiarity met Barnaby the moment he opened his eyes, and the sight of the blank, white ceiling from yesterday morning greeted him. After rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, Barnaby sat up and felt around for his glasses. Had he blacked out again and wasted an entire night? Where was Kotetsu? And what had become of the man who had seemingly vanished before his very eyes at the end of dinner?

Once Barnaby slipped his frames onto his face, the world came into clearer focus, even if he didn’t get any answers out of it. He was in his room, and someone had apparently stripped him out of his street clothes in favor of the hideous hospital pajamas. Barnaby wasn't sure what he found more offensive -- that someone here had once again touched his things without his permission, or that he’d been undressed while unconscious for the second time since his arrival.

The thought made his skin crawl.

Just as he looked over to find a lump in the bed next to him, though, his assigned nurse came to retrieve him. He would have to confirm Klavier Gavin's whereabouts later. For now, he had no choice but to allow the nurse to escort him into the cafeteria. Strangely, she seemed to be under the impression that he and the other patients had slept soundly the whole night. While he might have assumed it was an act, Barnaby got the feeling that she genuinely believed what she was saying.

Regardless of her intentions, he knew she wasn't going to be any help. Instead of trying to ask her anymore questions, Barnaby left a note on the bulletin board concerning his roommate. If his observations from yesterday were any indication, he'd get some responses, at least. While he could have taken the time to leave something for Kotetsu, Barnaby didn't feel inclined to do so, especially when he knew he probably wouldn't check the board anyway.

He had no appetite this morning, but his nurse wouldn't leave him alone until she'd assembled a tray of fresh, fluffy pancakes for him. Honestly, Barnaby didn't see why some people felt the need to butt into his personal choices like this. At least there wasn't anyone forcing him to eat -- for now, at any rate. He sat down at an empty table close to the wall after setting his food down, privately hoping that she wouldn't try to find a "friend" for him to eat with this morning. He was tucked out of the way, so maybe she would forget about him for a few minutes as long as he didn't draw any unnecessary attention to himself.

Hands neatly clasped on the table, Barnaby didn't look at anyone in particular as patients filtered into the cafeteria for their morning meal. There were too many questions buzzing in his mind for him to focus on the names and faces of people he didn't care about. If Kotetsu wanted to find him, he could. It wasn't like Barnaby was going anywhere.

[For Kotetsu.]

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It was the same as her memory. That was a good sign, wasn't it? But surely couldn't have spent the entire night with the spiders, could they? All those missing hours...

"Nothing after that?" she prodded, gently, her voice soft with its ever-present uncertainty.

"Nothing. Night ended as I turned around. One moment, we're awake; the next, it's dawn and we're trapped here for another day. Whatever magic it is they're using on us to accomplish that is beyond me."

He leaned onto the table, trying not to look as though he were examining her silently (which, of course, was exactly what he was doing). "With how I've not seen you since then, I thought you might be avoiding me."

"Avoiding you?" She seemed as perplexed at that notion as... well, as any other notion introduced, really. She was a very easy girl to befuddle, it seemed. Her eyes turned down towards her plate with the slightest shake of her head, almost imperceptible. No, she wasn't doing that, it said, and the way she poked at her breakfast said, just as clearly, I have no idea how to eat this.

"No, I... I know it sounds bonkers, but... could you tell me..."

Her eyes flicked to meet his, worried. "... how long ago that was?"

Ah. That did answer the question of where she'd been...

Edgar kept his look impassive as he listened to her, not wanting to wear his concern on his sleeve and worry her further. Her own expression was telling enough, and while assured she hadn't been avoiding his presence purposefully, the revelation she'd lost time was unsettling.

"Three nights ago," he answered, taking his fork and knife in hand and cutting his pancakes into pieces. "And believe me, you're not the only one here who has fallen asleep and awakened a few days later."

What he didn't say was that he understood neither why it happened, nor the cause of it, but that it was generally accepted by those posting on the bulletin board as anything but a good sign.

If his words gave her some relief, it was short lived. She gnawed at her lower lip, frustrated, as though she were tasked with solving a jigsaw puzzle with hands bound up in oven mitts.

"I'm not the same as them," she muttered, her weak fork tearing apart one of the lopsided brown circles on her plate. Was it supposed to rip like that? The sticky brown liquid on top rolled into the new gap, slipping down onto the plate far too slowly to be called slipping in the first place. Well, Edgar was cutting his apart, so maybe it was supposed to be torn into pieces like that. It still didn't seem like a food to her. "Am I?"

"I'm not sure what you mean," Edgar answered after a bite, his reply less than truthful. It was fact that she wasn't all that different from the rest of the patient body- she was a fellow prisoner, and as such was subject to the same enchantments, traps, and dangers they all were. She fell asleep with the rest of them at night, though most weren't out for days at a time when it happened.

However, she was right that he knew how she wasn't the same as the others, how she was different from everyone else. It was not just her heritage nor her abilities that set her apart- she was without a past entirely, without the luxury (or burden, as some would claim) of memories. She'd been stripped of her identity as well, and that was a far more painful part of oneself to lose.

He sighed, annoyed with himself. He needed to be more honest with her, had told himself that if he saw her again that he would be. Now was his chance to right his mistakes. "Terra... You are different than most of us here, it's true. But that doesn't make your loss of time completely unique."

While he wrestled with how much to tell her and his patent evasion, the girl experimentally stabbed at the strange flat cake. It flopped around almost without structure, so it took a few folding stabs to get it to stay in place. It was a little uneven, syrup rolling off the mess of cooked batter, and she couldn't help but feel like she might have preferred the pink stuff. At least that was easy to figure out.

But the syrup was really, really sweet, so it wasn't all bad.

At her name ("name"), she looked up to meet his eyes once more. There was something about her that was different than most, this they knew. But... there was something about him that was different, too. And that was something she still didn't understand.

She carved another piece of the cake. "Has anyone else... lost as much as me?"

"I've heard of some sleeping for nearly a week," he replied, watching her attack her breakfast as he took another bite of his own. He hoped to never hear of Terra sleeping that long- even being unnaturally worn was a troubling sign. After all, Celes hadn't been herself right before she disappeared.

"It's a tiredness that can't really be explained," he continued, recalling what he'd been told. "Like thinking through mud."

His expression hardened the slightest bit, tone reflecting the seriousness in his next question. "How are you feeling?"

Like I'll never be okay, even in her thoughts, sounded too harsh. She delayed with eating, trying to pick words adequate enough.

There were surprisingly few. "Like any time I step forward, I get spun around. I don't know where I'm going, or... or what I should be doing."

Edgar almost smirked, able to keep the corners of his mouth from crooking upward in the slightest- the look on her face said more than she did herself, and was not one that ought to be teased. Still, he understood the feeling she described, having been there himself.

"An unfortunate effect this place has on people," he replied, bringing his napkin to his mouth more out of politeness than necessity. "None of us really know those answers, of what should be done. There are rumors of what direction we're supposed to head, and things Landel has told us himself, but how far can the man holding us captive be trusted? Or any of the rest of them?"

He shook his head. "What I do know is we have to fight back. We have to do what we can to survive, and the same goes for you."

Her fork pushed through syrup, scratching through the browned skin of the pancake. To survive. That was true for her as well, wasn't it? The life she knew covered only a smattering of days, not even a week... and even of that miniscule amount of time, chunks of night and entire days were lost to her. But... but even lost as she was, confused as she was, for as little as she knew about herself and of the world around her, she didn't want her life to end.

She wanted to live.

Edgar watched her reaction— or rather lack thereof.

"It's not easy. I can't say I know exactly what you're going through, especially not in a place like this, but... if we're all going to get out alive, we have to work together. You'll have to make judgments and decisions on your own, but I will help you where I can, if you wish."

Day 62: Breakfast

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