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

[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.