DAY 65: Breakfast

[envy_the_sinners]

Scar came to slowly, vision blurred and head throbbing. His memory of the previous night was vague and somewhat scattered. What he was most aware of was his renewed and increased hatred for the man called Lingormr. The Ishbalan didn't give a damn if he had been a special counseling patient. That bastard had enjoyed every second of tearing Scar to shreds. What he may or may not have realized was how much it had affected Scar emotionally. He had felt a renewed sense of drive at the start of the night; the disruption on the intercom and the news of the 'cure' had rekindled a fire that fueled Scar to drive forward. To have a little hope.

Lingormr had promptly crushed that.

He was in pain. So much pain. The cut on his hand was only fading scab at this point, but stitches now pulled at the deep gashes in his legs and back. Not only had the nausea not settled, but his stomach was beginning to cramp. The rash on his arm was impossible to hide without the old bandages covering it. It had nearly reached his elbow.

Scar's hazy eyes could make out the nurse, now pushing a wheelchair up to his bedside. This was humiliating. And he was too exhausted and hurting to lash out or become angry. He was just broken. He still tried to take some sort of grudging control, insisting that he didn't need to be pushed around, that he could at least turn the wheels of the damned chair himself. But he didn't make it down the hallway before the pulling and sharp pain in his back became so obvious on his face that the nurse took over.

He entered breakfast with a frustrated, tired, but overall defeated look to him. Scar felt too sick to eat. He sat at the table and brooded, wishing more than anything to simply be left alone.

[For Goku!]

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[freewill]

Castiel woke to an intense pain in two places. First, his shoulder, where a wound that had been hastily stitched when he'd first received it had been torn back open by the same person who had helped mend it. Second, his abdomen, which was filled with a dull, twisting pain that he had never experienced before. It was nothing like hunger.

Of course, he knew the cause of that after what he'd been told by those other prisoners last night. A butterfly-shaped object had been in Barnaby's stomach, and while that wasn't necessarily the case for everyone who had symptoms, chances were that was exactly what he was dealing with as well.

He had no idea why something like that would be able to make them sick, and what the point of shaping it to look like a flying insect was. But it was clear that in order to get rid of it, some sort of extreme action would have to be taken.

If he was still at his proper level of strength, that would have hardly been a concern. He could have sliced himself open, removed the object in question, and then healed up just as quickly. But if he was his normal self, he wouldn't be having this problem in the first place. He wished he could stop having these cyclical trains of thought.

When his nurse arrived, he glanced at the sleeping Kobayashi for a moment before leaving the room to navigate the halls yet again. He paused by the bulletin board for a few minutes before entering the cafeteria. He definitely had a few things he wished to clear up with Lingormr after last night, not to mention discussing the information they'd worked out in the X-Ray room.

Of course, he would have preferred to stay out in the Sun Room if he'd had that option, seeing how the very idea of eating anything was almost enough to make his stomach feel worse. He still felt very uncomfortable as he took a seat at an empty table, shifting around in his chair as he tried to figure out what position gave him the most relief.

[For Lust!]

[a_sin_for_him]

My my, the mood was certainly a dampened one when Lust was escorted into the cafeteria. She felt achy and stiff from the night before, lingering pain she still wasn't used to. But at least it had been a successful night? Honestly, she had no idea how to quantify ideals such as 'success' or 'progress' in this place. It was all relative.

At least she wasn't the only one nurses left over battle wounds. Though from some of what she could see, she'd gotten off lucky.

As she made her way to get food - she actually wanted to eat, and assumed it would help her to feel better - she took note of familiar faces. So far she had heard no reports of deaths last night, but the morning was very young.

And Scar was alive, and already occupied, and after last night...well, best to avoid him for a bit. At least until they'd perhaps spoken on the bulletin. He looked terrible....

She found herself passing by a table where the clever man from the book store sat. Unoccupied. Well, she'd found where she was sitting this morning. She set down her tray opposite from him and slipped into the seat with bothering to ask.

"It's like the morning after a plague's swept through in here," she mused, but her tone wasn't joking or light in the least.

[freewill]

It was a familiar face who eventually approached him, and Castiel glanced up, taking in Lust's features quizzically. Her statement was a true one, and in response Castiel looked around the cafeteria, noting how many patients were in wheelchairs or had crutches leaned against the table next to where they were sitting.

Kobayashi had made it out here, he noticed, and was speaking with Barnaby -- who happened to be one of the people in a wheelchair. It made sense, seeing how both of his legs had been injured.

Castiel returned his attention to Lust, relieved that she had simply sat down without going through the formality of asking first. "Not surprising, if you were anywhere near the medical wing last night. And plenty of us are sick." He didn't bother excluding himself from that statement -- not when the telling rash on his arm was at a point where it was impossible to miss.

[a_sin_for_him]

"I was. I didn't realize just how lucky I had it, losing as little blood as I did."

Compared to the wounds that were be sported about the dining hall, aches and bruises were nothing, no matter how deeply insistently they throbbed.

She turned her attention to her breakfast, not much in the mood for eating but wanting the fuel anyway. So he was one of the ones suffering the potentially twisting illness. As well as 'plenty' of others, though Lust wasn't certain what range 'plenty' covered as far as a percentage value.

"How long have you been ill?" she finally asked. She couldn't remember quite when she'd first heard anything about a sickness going through the patients. Had it hit everyone at once, or had it been staggered? She doubted it had been staggered, despite their claims, no one had tried to make it appear to act as a natural illness. At least from what little she understood.

[freewill]

So she had headed in that direction as well? If that was the case, then it seemed that she hadn't made it all the way to the X-Ray Room. All things considered, Castiel hadn't lost much blood either, although the throbbing in his shoulder was difficult to ignore.

At the question, he paused for a moment, thinking back over the days. "It would be since the trip to town, I believe," he said. "Or the night before that, maybe." The symptoms had crept up on him slowly, but now the squeezing discomfort in his middle was hardly subtle.

He couldn't say if each person's experience had mirrored his own, but there were enough similarities that it was clear all of them were quickly running out of time. Castiel looked directly at Lust and asked, "Did you encounter Lingormr as well?"

[a_sin_for_him]

Lust's smile was tight as she thought back to the previous night's events She looked down at her plate and began cutting the sweet bread into small sections. Busy tasks helped focus the mind or whatever that one alchemist had said once to her.

"Let's just say that's as far as I managed to get. I take it the news beyond the guard wasn't promising."

If it were, one would imagine it would be reflected amongst their fellow prisoners. But there was only the usual oppressive sense of being trapped and helpless that permeated the days of this place.

[freewill]

If she had only reached Lingormr and hadn't been injured, then she was luckier than some. That Flynn man had been stabbed at least once, and who knew what Kratos had been put through after he and Rapunzel had took off. Fleeing like that still didn't sit well with him, but at least it hadn't been for nothing.

"It wasn't a dead end, at the least," Castiel said after a pause. He watched as Lust cut up her food and realized how unappetizing it really looked. He didn't feel nausea, but instead a complete unwillingness to eat because of the pain he was in. Like his stomach was literally rebelling.

"Something has been implanted in the bodies of those of us who are sick, and it seems that there might only be one way to remove whatever it is." Which was in the crudest way possible, of course. Nothing like this could end without some blood spilled.