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

[madeinthehrl]

Consciousness came slowly to Soma, exhausted as she was by last night's events. Recollection was even slower to return. There had been...a wasteland, and the torn-up remnants of mobile suits...

And Landel's voice. She remembered that, even though she'd heard it from a distance. Two more bite the dust. But who?

One thing was clear, though. The library was a bust. She was stubborn, but she wasn't stupid. There wasn't a single weapon in her small arsenal that would be any use against the thing they'd encountered last night. Part of her still refused to believe it had been real. Surely it had to be an illusion like--like everything else last night.

The bulk of the pain from her surgery had receded by now, but the nurse still insisted she stay in a wheelchair for one more day. Tender as her abdomen still was, she didn't feel inclined to argue. And a quick look at the bulletin board on their way past it told her nothing about who had died last night. But that didn't mean nobody had. Frowning slightly, she scribbled a note for the Once-ler, then looked up at her nurse.

"Is Amanda awake yet?" she asked as they entered the cafeteria, thankful at least that she'd managed to remember Rapunzel's real name. "I haven't talked to her in a while, so I'd like to sit with her today if I can."

The nurse only smiled sympathetically, and Soma's heart plummeted into her stomach.

But it couldn't have happened. She'd seen Rapunzel last night. She'd been there. Asleep, but there.

No.

"No," she said sharply, loud enough to attract the attention of a few other nurses. "Don't you dare--"

"Maria, Amanda's gone home!" said the nurse. "You should be happy for her! I know you'll miss her very much, but--"

Soma didn't hear the rest. She looked down at her white-knuckled fists and tried to focus. If she did anything now, if she fought back, if she caused any trouble, she'd only be as bad as that idiot who'd started a fight on the bus. It would only end in other people getting hurt. She had to remember that.

(But she'd been there last night.)

"Of course," she said numbly. "I'm very happy for her."

And then it was just her and a slowly cooling tray of waffles in a corner of the cafeteria, and the overwhelming knowledge that she'd just lost another friend. And when Landel had said Two more...

No. She refused to consider that possibility. Soma dug her nails into her palms and didn't look up.

[for Sonia!]

[stylebythemile]

[Sorry this is so late! ;;]

Good moooorning, ladies and gentleman!

Sonia gave a quiet groan and rose from the bed sheets, stretching and yawning.

Did you all sleep--

"Huh?" She opened her eyes and glanced around the room. As it sank in that she'd been put to sleep before she could complete her mission, she scowled and seethed in silence, her hands balled into fists. It wasn't until the announcement was finally over that she quickly remembered something. Two more bite the dust...

"Sora!"

She was worried when she got to the noticeboard and found a note mentioning her friend, an operation, and how it had been unsuccessful. (It had probably been written by Kratos; it had the same handwriting as the Arts and Crafts message.) 'Unsuccessful'? Sonia looked over the responding notes nervously, trying not to assume the worst--

She gasped.

"Come along, Sophie," her nurse decided to say at that exact moment. "You need to--"

'Fatal'. Fatal! "No!" Then Sora was...!

"What's the matter, dear?"

Before she could think better of it, she was running back to the F Block as fast as her legs could carry her. When she made it to the women's bathrooms, she quickly shut the door and leaned back on it, then closed her eyes with a shudder. No matter how much she tried to hold them back, tears were already forming and rolling down her face. After a few seconds like that, she thought of her brothers. She'd never wish this place on them, but at the same time, she really wished they were here.

By the time the nurse showed up, the princess had pulled herself together. Less than a minute spent in front of the mirror to straighten herself up and she was out of there. If she could do it over again, she wouldn't have run away like that, but she didn't have time to be embarrassed. It was another unwelcome reminder of how terrible this place was. That and the other awful things she'd seen here...

...She had to find out what had happened to him. (It was what Sonic would have done.) Had it been the operation they'd tried to perform on him, or had they been forced to attack him? More importantly, they had to keep working towards finding a cure that didn't involve surgery.

Despite the lump in her throat, her stomach groaned the minute she smelled breakfast. It was just like the breakfasts the maids used to serve her. Shaking her head--thinking about that would just upset her even more--she moved to a table with her tray... only to look up and notice a familiar face.

"Oh!" she said, surprised, before lowering her gaze and offering a slightly numb greeting. "Morning, Soma." Once she noted the other girl was in a wheelchair, Sonia remembered what Kratos had told her yesterday. She really wanted to talk to her about it, but she wasn't going to sit down until she was sure Soma wanted company.

[madeinthehrl]

[no worries!]

At the sound of someone else's voice, Soma raised her head. Sonia, she thought, looking about as happy as Soma felt.

But that wasn't a reason to keep her standing there. Soma gestured for the other girl to sit down, trying to smile and failing miserably.

"Morning. I'm guessing you've heard the news already."

[stylebythemile]

Sonia took the seat across from her, giving a small nod and lowering her gaze again, but not for long. Looking back up, she tilted her head at Soma. "Kratos told me you underwent the same operation. Did it really cure you?"

Before she asked her anything else, she needed to check two things: whether surgery had actually worked for Soma, and whether she wanted to talk about it. Sonia was guessing her friend was in a wheelchair because she was recovering from the operation; it had been incredibly brave of her to undergo something like that, especially when they'd had no idea if it would work or not.

[madeinthehrl]

Soma inclined her head slightly. Intellectually, she knew it was pointless to feel survivor's guilt about something like this, but she couldn't help but feel like there was something she could have done about it. Some advice she could have given Sora before he'd gone and done the same, even if she and Lingormr had mostly been blindly fumbling about.

"It worked for me," she said quietly. "Lingormr found a device in my stomach like we expected, and once he took it out, my symptoms started receding almost immediately."

She shouldn't have felt like she needed to justify that statement with anything, either, but she did. "I hadn't transformed at all, though. Sora had. I don't know if it was because the disease had progressed, or..."

[stylebythemile]

Normally a description like that would've grossed her out a little, but instead it got her thinking all over again; how did the device make people turn into monsters? Was it a chemical? Some type of magic that was similar to the pendant? She'd never come across anything like it, but that wasn't surprising; Landel had proven himself to be more advanced than Robotnik in ways she couldn't get her head around.

Although... hmm. The closest to it she could think of was Dingo, but he hadn't been implanted with a device. ...Had he?

This train of thought was getting her nowhere. Next question. "Can you remember what the device looked like?" Was it shaped like a butterfly, like on the diagram that had been on the noticeboard yesterday?

[madeinthehrl]

Soma half-closed her eyes sand leaned her head back, thinking. Most of last night was a blur, and that was probably for the better, but she remembered Lingormr dropping the thing into her hand. The feel of it, warm and slick in her hand.

"It's small," she said. "A few millimeters across at most." How Lingormr had managed to find it, she'd never know. "The diagram is accurate, as far as I know."

It was almost absurdly large for something that could cause disease. She'd expected nanomachines--something more difficult to extract from the body, at least. But she wasn't about to complain.