Day 66: Sun Room (4th shift)

[gald_digger]

Anise was glad that Barnaby had gotten back to her. Now she could meet him and hopefully learn something about the weird illness they had.

She didn’t want to look like a mess in front of the man, though, so she first made a stop in the washroom by the Sun Room to clean herself up a bit. She washed her hands and face, and fixed her pigtails, which had been looking a bit messy. There was no hiding the large rash that covered her hand and arm, even with a long-sleeved shirt, but she made herself look as presentable as possible.

With that finished, she returned to the Sun Room and stood where she was sure she’d be seen. Once she met up with Barnaby, they could probably take off to a more secluded part of the room for their talk. As cheerful and pleasant as she had been on the bulletin, this probably wasn’t going to be a very fun conversation.

[for Barnaby!]

Comments

[baniichan]

Maybe he should have given some warning about his condition ahead of time, but Barnaby hadn't particularly wanted to write about it on the bulletin board. When Anise offered to assist him, he shook his head with a neutral smile. "No, I'm all right, but thank you," he said, hating every moment of it.

With that, he began to move toward the area she'd gestured at. Since he couldn't wheel himself terribly fast, he had no doubt Anise would be able to keep up. Once they'd arrived, he deftly maneuvered himself until he was facing away from the wall.

"How is this?" he asked.

[gald_digger]

Anise walked alongside Barnaby as he wheeled over, watching his movements to see if she could figure anything out about his condition. It was probably best to just ask directly. Hopefully he wasn't the secretive type.

She nodded at his question, managing a small, friendly smile. "This should be good!" There was a chair facing him, and so Anise took a seat there.

Given the urgency of their conditions, Anise supposed she had to get down to business right away. Barnaby seemed kind of smart, so he probably already knew she didn't call him over just to flirt, as much as she wished they could just do that. "I kind of wanted to talk to you about... this," she began nervously, running one hand over the rash-inflicted one. She thought for a moment, then leaned in closer, her voice softening so as not to attract eavesdroppers. "First of all, um... how have you been feeling?"

[baniichan]

It was as he'd suspected, then. Barnaby's calm expression didn't falter as the girl motioned at her rash.

"The symptoms have persisted," he quietly answered. The severity of a lot of them had lessened in the wake of his transformation, but that was hardly any consolation, nor was it something he wanted to bring up right off the bat. "My current condition isn't related to the illness, though. I'm still recovering from the injuries I took a couple of nights ago."

Barnaby had a hard time believing that she was asking after him simply for the sake of checking up on him. Considering the fact that she knew what his X-Ray would reveal, he didn't blame her for trying to piece more things together. "And yourself?" he asked, turning the question back onto her.

[gald_digger]

"So... it hasn't changed much from before?" she asked. So far, it didn't sound like there was anything too different between him or Claude... or herself. Was this a dead end?

It was a small relief that the illness wasn't what left him wheelchair-bound, but those had to be some serious injuries. A couple of nights ago... Was that the night Anise and her friends met him in the X-Ray Room? He'd been seriously injured then. Considering how fast people usually healed at Landel's, he had to have been hurt worse than Anise thought. Or the illness made it harder to recover...

In any case, it was Anise's turn to answer questions. "I, um... not so great, but it's nothing really serious." Yet. Anise didn't know how fast their sickness could escalate, and she didn't want to endure it long enough to find out. Maybe Barnaby didn't know enough to help, but maybe he just needed to hear about the full picture before he could give the kinds of answers she was looking for.

"Actually, I kind of had a special reason for wanting to talk to you. You know how we used that x-ray machine before? Well... my friends tried again last night, with someone else who's sick. They found something in his stomach too, but... it looked different. It didn't have wings."

[baniichan]

He wasn't going to outright say he'd started changing. With how easy it would be for patients to start turning against each other in this kind of environment, Barnaby wanted as few people as possible to know about the extent of the infection. It was nothing against Anise personally; however, the fact remained that he could count the people he trusted on one hand.

When Anise further explained her situation, though, her questions made more sense. She was likely trying to pinpoint key differences between his symptoms and her friend's. If the object in the man's stomach lacked wings, Barnaby didn't have any difficulty making educating guesses without outing completely outing himself.

"I see," he said, pausing a moment to think. "There's a note on the bulletin board depicting the life cycle of a butterfly. You may find it interesting if you haven't looked at it yet."

Folding his arms over his chest, he shifted his gaze toward the board in question. "The shape of the object may determine how far along the illness is. In other words, a patient with a 'cocoon' could be at less of an immediate risk than someone with a 'butterfly'."

[gald_digger]

The life cycle of a butterfly? What Barnaby was saying kind of made sense. A cocoon, and then wings… If that was the order, then Claude was still safe for a while! But Anise didn’t know what it meant for herself.

“Really!? I didn’t see it.” Anise glanced over her shoulder, back in the direction of the bulletin. She’d have to give it a thorough look-through before going back to her room for dinner. “So having no wings is a good thing…?” She lowered her gaze a bit as she mulled those facts over in her head, realizing what this had to mean for Barnaby. He probably didn’t have much time left. How could he be so calm? Maybe he was just used to keeping cool under pressure, but maybe he already had a solution in mind.

“So, um… have you figured anything out about a cure?” she asked after a bit of an awkward pause. “I’ve been looking into getting surgery, but it’d be nice if there was a better way.”

[baniichan]

"That would be my best guess, yes," Barnaby said with a nod.

Part of him wondered if her questions about her "friend" were, in fact, about herself. Her illness had progressed since the last time they'd spoken, that much was obvious. Though Barnaby didn't know much about Anise, and even suspected she was a little more savvy than she let on, her young age was difficult to completely disregard. He'd never say it out loud, but infecting children with such a disease only cast Martin Landel in an even more despicable light in Barnaby's eyes.

"I'm still investigating avenues that don't involve surgery," he answered in response to her next question. "Assuming the planted 'clues' are reliable, they might point towards a river or similar body close to the institute grounds." Judging by some of the bulletin notes, he wasn't the only one thinking that. "Do you know of any places like that?"

[gald_digger]

Anise had to bite her tongue to keep from asking, do you really think you have time for that? Guy seemed to also think the clues pointed to a river, but from what Anise knew of the clues themselves, it seemed like a stretch. They had such little time left. Anything they explored, they might as well be betting their very lives on it.

Still, he'd asked her a question, and she knew the answer. Anise hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah... I know where you can find one. If you jump the north wall and walk east, you can't miss it."

It was hard to hide her doubt, however, and in the end she had to ask, "Are you sure about this? I mean... about the clues pointing to a river?" Anise wasn't even sure they should be trusting the clues in the first place. Maybe they were right about the bug in the stomach, but their 'allies' on the outside didn't exactly have a good track record overall.