Day 65: 3rd Shift: Courtyard

[redcladidealist]

[From here.]

It was chilly out in the courtyard, making Lloyd glad for the odd but relatively warm clothing he'd found himself in when he woke up. He could have stay inside the building, he knows. His nurse had told him he had a choice of several rooms he could eat his lunch in, if he wanted. The cold felt good, though, and the tree he was sitting against felt solid and comfortable. He still felt lost, but trying to get straight answers from the nurse was frustrating. The man had retreated to let him eat in peace, promising to come back when Lloyd was finished and he'd had a chance to "clear his head." The teen was just fine with that.

Lunch itself was actually pretty good. He'd gotten a chicken sandwich, and his spirits lifted a little when he saw that there was a brownie with it. It had taken him a minute to figure out the box with juice inside, having never encountered anything like that before, but after that it was easy to just settle down and enjoy his food.

Well, for the most part. Worry for his Dad still ate at him, and he had no idea where any of his friends were. He still felt a little off, too, like some intangible part of him was missing or weakened, but he chalked that up to leftover side effects of whatever it was Yuan had done to him. He was confident that would disappear soon enough, once he finished recovering. He already felt well enough that as soon as he was done eating, he was determined to leave. If his doctor had his things, he'd ask for them first, and maybe he could talk to some of the other people here, see if they knew anything that could help, but one way or another, he needed to find his friends and make sure his Dad was all right.


[To here.]

Comments

[thecamellia]

It was true, the picture of the butterfly was the only clue they had so far, and Leanne was doubtlessly scared, but…

Tsubaki let her lunch bag hang from her arm, reaching out with both hands to hold one of Leanne’s. If she added the days up, it’d only been about a week since they’d met, but it’d been a long month of watching people be hurt and sometimes disappear entirely. She didn’t want to watch what people were left suffer over this callous experiment. It was enough watching.

“I understand your feelings,” she said, “and finding a way to make you better is the most important thing. But we should figure out what’s in there before doing something drastic. Like… we can take a picture of your stomach like the people on the bulletin board did, right? Maybe you don’t have anything that needs taking out. The Head Doctor only said some people are going to get really sick.”

[survives]

Leanne could only stare down at her hand, intertwined with both of Tsubaki's, for several moments. She meant it, every single word. That much was more than obvious. Everything she said only further hammered in the fact that Tsubaki wasn't going to let her go at this alone, that she really was concerned over her.

She couldn't even begin to express how much she appreciated it, even though...

Deliberately lightening her tone, Leanne shook her head. "I get what you mean," she said, her voice soft. "We don't really know anything about all of this, I guess."

She breathed out a sigh, but soon flashed a smile at Tsubaki. "But I'm not just gonna sit around with that thing inside me either, if it really is there."

[thecamellia]

"If the others managed to check, so can we!"

At the very least, there was still time to work out a method that would verify the clue's accuracy once and for all. If they could at least prove there was something foreign in the sick prisoners' bodies that needed removing, that would save a lot of unnecessary pain if people opted for a surgery and ended up finding nothing...

Assuming the physical trauma of the whole thing wasn't too much. Strange that now of all times she sorely missed Professor Stein's dissection skills.

But she wasn't going to worry about that, no. There were options. Ways to make a cure safer if not painless. Straightening, Tsubaki let her hands drop, fixing Leanne with a look that didn't let any doubt show through. "Do you have anyone looking into things with you? If you want, you could come with me? We could go to the Medical Wing, figure something out. I'm sure there must be others considering taking an x-ray, as well. I'm helping someone heal from some injuries tonight, but he also appears to be sick, so I bet he'll be thinking along those lines, too."

Or there was just... the chance for company. There was always that, too.

[survives]

With a shake of her head, she pulled her own hand close again, frowning in thought. Aside from asking Guy for an explanation, Leanne hadn't exactly asked anyone for help with this, no. She had to admit, she just wasn't used to asking for help like this, not when she had Zephyr and Vashyron around all the time. The three of them... didn't really need to ask, did they?

Then again, in the end, she hadn't even had to truly ask here either, had she? Tsubaki was offering to help, perfectly willing to do whatever she could, as she always did.

"I'll go with you, yeah. Thank you..." She looked up at the girl, her smile widening. "Going to the Medical Wing can't hurt anyway."

[thecamellia]

“There’s nothing to thank me for! We’ve got a plan and we can work together!” Tsubaki said with an encouraging nod. “If there are any people knowledgeable about this sort of stuff, I bet that’s the place they’d head so we might have a chance of putting our heads together there. I can’t think of a better place to start. Mm, we‘ll just have to keep our ears open for any more clues that might be handed out tonight…”

If the man on the radio or whoever was sending out the clues really intended to help them, hopefully any further information that came from him wouldn’t mean too much of a detour.

Tsubaki put her hand to her chin to think for another moment. Eventually, she said, “If you don’t mind waiting, how about I come to your room in the girls’ block?”

[survives]

It was easy to feel confident like this, like they really could get through this with everyone surviving, with no more casualties. With their plan of action stated so simply, so calmly, it just seemed a given that they'd manage it. It'd be just the perfect way to stick it to Landel, too, wouldn't it?

Besides, this wasn't even a certain death, not like before. There was no reason to be afraid now, not when they could do something.

"It's fine! I'll wait for you before we go there." Leanne nodded, already feeling much better than before she'd run into Tsubaki. "My room's F9."