Day 67: Breakfast

[knightspirit]

For the first time since Kyousuke arrived, waking up didn't feel the slightest bit strange or out of place. It was still like night had suddenly stopped, with nothing in-between then and now, but instead of being disorienting, or like there was something missing, it was like waking up from a nightmare. His breaths came heavy and anxious, everything flooding back to him, but unlike last night, he had more mental clarity, and he actually understood what it meant.

Sora... was dead.

After a moment, his breathing seemed to ease up, and he sat up slowly, and simply stared down at his blanket. The motion hurt quite a bit, a lot worse than it had yesterday morning, but he seemed to be in decent shape, all considered. Sore, battered, a little faint, but compared to worst of it...

He wondered if he should feel upset right now, or want to yell, or cry, but the truth was, he didn't. If anything, he was just numb. Tired and listless. He wasn't sure what to think or feel about anything, but somehow it seemed distant and disconnected, like something that hadn't actually happened. Yet, if he lingered on it too long, the lifelessness grew into something nauseating, heavy and constricting in his chest, and he didn't even notice until he realized he was gripping his bedding unnecessarily hard. So he forced himself to relax, and not focus on it too much. ... He preferred the cold sort of nothingness.

When the nurse arrived, she wasn't empty-handed, unfolding a wheelchair by his bedside and looking at him expectantly, as if she wanted him to settle himself into it. Looking at it was strange and uncomfortable, and he found himself refusing automatically.

"... I can walk fine. I don't need—"

"What you don't need," the nurse said sternly, "is to be overexerting yourself. You got to walk around yesterday, and what do you do? You go and reopen your injuries! Honestly, Mr. Taylor, you might be young, but you need to take better care of yourself! Today, you're resting, and if you're good about it, we'll see about maybe taking the chair away tomorrow."

That was bad enough, but then she wouldn't even let him wheel himself, and pushed him along from behind. This was totally unnecessary... But though it made him feel helpless, Kyousuke didn't have the energy to argue, so he let her do what she wanted. She asked if he wanted to make a quick trip the bulletin, first, but... Would the news be there? There were people who deserved to know, but there would be reactions to it, questions he didn't want to answer, and feeling his stomach give a lurch, he decided he didn't want to deal with it. Any of it.

Once in the cafeteria, the nurse asked him about breakfast, but Kyousuke insisted he wasn't hungry. ... He wasn't. Sensing he wanted to be left alone, she wheeled him off to an easily overlooked portion of the cafeteria, but quickly returned, setting food and some juice in front of him, "just in case." She set a small paper cup with a couple of painkillers on the tray, and after that, she left, leaving the boy to stare down the meal he didn't really want.

[ Kratos! ]

Comments

[dividedby]

Fortunately, Zero could certainly understand what the other man was saying despite his talking with his mouth full. Understanding was important - especially when it came to discussing such things as the Institute, and how things worked. (Or how no one quite knew anything about how things worked.)

The once-Reploid listened intently, chewing another piece of waffle in the meantime, and this time he waited to answer until he had swallowed. For once. "Things here don't always have a reason," he said, lightly shaking his head. "I think it's intentional so Landel can confuse us, to keep us from figuring out what his plans really are."

That was the only good explanation he could come up with, anyway. The rest of it was just questions, questions, and more questions. The only 'answers' were theories. Sigh. What a wonderful, frustrating system Landel had going on here. It was all in his favor...

"...And I don't know why they let us keep what we find," Zero continued, as he prodded at the bacon on his plate with his utensil. "But it's probably a way for him to keep things more interesting." After all, he could easily let his prisoners fight monsters with nothing but their bare fists...but they wouldn't last nearly as long as if they had a weapon of some kind. Was he perhaps trying to 'weed out' the weak from the strong? Made some sense... Zero pondered that theory as he popped a piece of bacon in his mouth.

[redcladidealist]

"Will they always let us keep what we find?" Lloyd's tone was curious, but the question was intent. The answer would make an incredible difference to how he approached the night. Maybe I should take something with me to carry anything I find... Pockets could only hold so much, after all. Maybe a pillow case...

"You make it sound like he's doing this for fun." Which was hard for Lloyd to swallow. How could anyone enjoy making other people suffer? How could they do that with no other reason at all? Even the Desians in the Human Ranches had a reason for what they did, even if it was one that Lloyd hated and felt was wrong. They made humans suffer so that Exspheres could be created. Was there something like that here? Lloyd pulled his plate back closer as he mulled the thought over. Not bothering with a knife, he used his fork again to cut off another bite. "Does anyone have any idea what it is they do in this place? Why they brought us here?"

The bite of waffle went in his mouth while he waited for the other's response.

[dividedby]

"So far, it seems so." After all, if Landel let Zero keep such things like a medical kit and a handgun... There hadn't been a time yet where something he had stolen had not been in his room the next evening. Hopefully it stayed that way.

As for the rest... Zero could only slowly shake his head, a frown creasing his otherwise emotionless face. "Everyone wants to know that," he said, setting his eating utensil down on his plate for a moment so he could focus his attention solely on the other man. "But if anyone actually knows, they aren't telling us. Landel won't say anything, either." And again, he most likely wanted it to stay that way.

"I don't know how likely it is that we're all here for some specific purpose, but I wouldn't be surprised if that tyrant kidnapped us just for his own amusement..." Landel wasn't the only power-thirsty madman Zero had ever known, after all - and based off of personal experience, people like that didn't always do things that made sense to anyone else.

[redcladidealist]

"I'll have to keep that in mind." He made a note to remember that when evening came again. It would make it a lot easier to fight this place, or escape, if he could collect supplies beforehand.

It was hard not to be frustrated, though, when his tablemate couldn't give him a solid answer for Landel's actions. His fork jabbed sullenly into the waffle as he fought against the idea - the very real idea, he knew - that this place might just be someone's idea of entertainment. Outrage boiled in his gut at the thought, threatening to explode. He wanted to shout, wanted to hit something, but he couldn't. He'd been warned what would happen if he did. His hand clenched into a fist before he forced it to relax.

"Well, even if we don't know why, it's still wrong." It wasn't an argument. He wasn't trying to convince this man of anything. It was an angry statement of fact he knew they both agreed with. "I guess we don't need to know why. We just need to do something to stop it." He just didn't know what that something was yet.

Looking up from his waffle, it finally occurred to him that neither of them had introduced themselves yet. Putting down his fork, he held out his hand. "I'm Lloyd."

[dividedby]

Of course. Knowing why Landel was doing this might be helpful in some ways, but in the end, no reason could ever justify what that sick man was doing here. Zero didn't reply in any outward way to the man's outraged statement, but he still agreed with it internally. Stopping Landel should be everyone's first priority, regardless of the true purpose of this place... He was not going to get away with this. No matter what.

...As for the rest. Zero continued to stare when the man - Lloyd - introduced himself, although he only took the offered hand after a few awkward seconds of no response on his end. "Zero," he said, then retracted his hand with as much grace as he had accepted it with - meaning absolutely none. The same hand found the utensil on his plate so the former android could continue eating.

There were other things he might ask about now - Lloyd's origins, or what else he might be confused about, for starters. But Zero said nothing, only putting more food in his mouth and staring at Lloyd in case he had anything to ask first.

[redcladidealist]

"Zero?" Lloyd echoed the name with a hint of uncertainty. It was a pretty strange name to him. His name was really a number? Something that meant nothing? It was enough to distract him from Zero's lack of grace. Anything else... Well, Lloyd had already been injured himself. Maybe the same was true for Zero, just not as visibly as the bandage on Lloyd's arm was.

Either way...

"It's good to meet you." That wasn't a lie. Even if Lloyd might not have ever met Zero if not for this place, even with what he'd gone through and what this place did, he wouldn't let that make him regret meeting the people here.

His hand free again, and his curiosity momentarily satisfied, he forked another bite of waffle into his mouth. "'hanks," he said. "F'r answering my ques'ions."

[dividedby]

Zero noticed Lloyd's slight uncertainty after the former android said his name, but he declined to comment, using his mouth to chew the last bite of waffle from his plate instead. There wasn't much he could say about something he didn't understand. Was 'Zero' such an unusual name? Perhaps to a human, if that's what Lloyd had always been, but Zero didn't have enough interest to ask about that. It wasn't any of his business when Lloyd was practically a stranger and there was no informative reason for such a question in the first place.

If it were still Zero's first week, he wouldn't have hesitated to ask. But now, when he understood that most people here came from different worlds and were often different creatures before being changed into humans, there was less of a point besides learning about what other worlds were out there... And that wasn't something Zero was eager to do this morning, when there was so much else to worry about.

So he quietly nodded his head when the other thanked him and then turned his attention to the rest of his food. The one last important thing he was going to ask - whether Lloyd was still confused or had any further questions - was just answered. Anything else to say...no need to. Silence was okay with him right now...

[redcladidealist]

For the moment, Lloyd was content to concentrate on his food. He was hungry and he'd always had a healthy appetite, and being in this place didn't change that. It only took him a few minutes to clear off the rest of his plate, leaving him just a glass of juice to finish off, and he considered getting up to get more food. His eyes drifted back to the two journals, though. Then he looked at Zero contemplatively.

"So, if you've been here longer than me, can you see anything on this map that I missed that you know about?" He had no idea how complete Ishida's map was, except that it didn't include the second floor. The halls were all labeled, and some of the doctors' offices and group therapy rooms. One box was labeled "Greenhouse?" The question mark was scribbled out on Lloyd's copy, though. It had only taken him a minute to realize he'd been to that room and could confirm that that was what it was.

[dividedby]

Zero had taken their moment of silence to mean that the conversation was over, but then Lloyd broke the silence to ask him another question after not too long. It didn't really bother the former android, though; it was relevant to what they had been discussing beforehand, and it was something important about the Institute. Besides, his plate was pretty much clear at this point, too - although unlike Lloyd, he was quite satisfied with what he had eaten and wasn't about to consider seconds.

But he would consider the question that was asked, of course. Zero leaned forward in his seat a bit so he could take a closer look at Lloyd's maps. They seemed accurate enough...although: "You're missing the second floor," he commented. Stating the obvious, of course, but that was really the only glaring detail he could see that was missing at the moment.

"I can't tell you everything you might be missing without my own maps to compare," he continued, sitting himself back down, "so you should check the bulletin board later. Someone usually puts up maps every day of both floors and they have most of the important labels on them."

[redcladidealist]

"Yeah, I knew I was missing the second floor." He probably should have thought to mention that before asking Zero that question. Oh well, too late now, and even though the other man had only been able to repeat what Lloyd already knew, he'd still given him a piece of information that was incredibly valuable. "Someone puts up maps?" He hadn't noticed that yet. "I'll have to take a look after breakfast."

Which seemed to be about to and end, in fact, the nurses already starting forward to mix into the crowd of patients. Guess I won't be getting seconds after all. The silent lament was brief, but with only a little regret. He knew he'd spent a lot of time copying from the journal instead of eating. It had been worth it, as far as he was concerned. Those maps would be useful later on.

Spotting his own nurse approaching, he quickly finished off his juice. "Hey, thanks again."