Day 69: Sun Room (3rd Shift)

[redcladidealist]

Tomatoes in both choices. Lloyd's face fell the moment he heard the announcement, and with a groan he let his forehead thunk against the table in the Sun Room. He couldn't even ask if he could have a sandwich made without tomatoes in it. The lunches were already made, his nurse holding one of each in her hands. Unhappily, he accepted the one that had meat. Maybe something could be salvaged from it.

Ignoring his nurse's cheerful parting words to enjoy his meal, the teen waited until she'd stepped away before he took his lunch out of the bag and started picking it apart - only to freeze, heart pounding unevenly. A deep, rattling breath had just- Lloyd didn't even finish the thought. Something was here! He whipped around, not even sure how he was going to defend himself. The only thing he had was one of those plastic spoon-forks, and if he was up against that same thing they'd run from last night-

There was nothing. Nothing but nurses and patients passing by. Not even any cats. No one else looked like they'd even heard anything. Lloyd's eyes darted around, but still nothing showed up.

Come on, I know I heard it...

[For Ed and Al!]

Comments

[overlimit]

Great. So both Rita and Taura were in some part responsible for Goku’s death. During the years she lived in solitude, Rita had convinced herself that every friendship inevitably ended in some kind of betrayal. She just never thought she’d be on the ‘betrayer’ side of that arrangement.

Rita knew it wasn’t her fault for not recognizing the kid. But after all that time Landel spent trying to goad the patients into killing one another, she couldn’t help but mentally kick herself for having done just what the bastard wanted.

Regardless, there wasn’t much Rita could do at this point, but she was going to do what little she could. Now that she’d worked out how last night’s events came to be, it was up to her to inform the other patients, in case that kid had any other friends worrying about him. She jotted down a brief note for the bulletin, then picked a chair at random and seated herself in it. Retrieving a sandwich from her lunch bag, she started eating.

[Yuri!]

[fullmetalheart]

Ed slept through the announcement of the change of shifts and had to be shaken awake by a nurse.

"Wha?" he said groggily as he opened his eyes.

"Time for lunch, David," she said as she gave him a bag. "There's two choices, but since you slept through the announcement, I picked for you."

Ed took the bag he was given with a sleepy grumble and sat up carefully, aware of his brother on the floor.

[armoredsoul]

Al was similarly shaken awake and handed a bag, which he accepted with a sleepy mumble. He stretched out a few kinks in his back, then blinked as he spotted a familiar face across the room. "Brother, Lloyd's over there!"

[voiceofthanatos]

Yuri didn't have much planned today. His body settling into a routine at Landel's and it disgusted him how easy he was being controlled. Part of his body was bandaged underneath the clothes from where he suffered injuries from last night. But they should heal soon and only made certain movements a little sore.

Normally he would eat lunch by himself unless Barnaby or Kotetsu had asked to, which he didn't mind. It was simple courtesy. However the girl had taken his interest, recognizing her from the night before despite the changed clothes. He came over to her table, and spoke up. "May I sit here miss?" He asked politely.

[redcladidealist]

Ears straining for any hint of that horrible, rattling sound, Lloyd caught his name as someone called out, not to him, but it still caught his attention, drawing it to the two blond teens across the room.

"Edward! Al!"

He lifted a hand to wave them over - and promptly lost another heartbeat when another rattling breath shivered the air behind his ear. He jumped, wide-eyed, and whirled around again.

Nothing. There was nothing.

Dammit, I know it's here!

[fullmetalheart]

Once his brother was out of the way, Ed made his way over to Lloyd. "What's wrong?"

There was no way Ed wasn't going to notice him being squirrelly.

[armoredsoul]

Al noticed as well, getting up and hurrying over along with Ed. "You're being haunted, too?"

[dividedby]

Although his nurse had made a huge deal about stretching his muscles to a healthy extent, Zero had spent most of the day so far sitting. Sitting on his bed, sitting in the cafeteria, sitting on a couch here in the Sun Room...it made him feel unhappily lazy, but sitting was admittedly more preferable than moving about when his major injury was so hypersensitive to pressure. (Unfortunately, sitting also meant the nurse had an excuse to keep him company when he was otherwise alone...but obviously he was trying to get around that whenever possible.)

Lunchtime gave him yet another excuse to sit around, though at least this time the excuse was understandable. Once again, he let the nurse choose his lunch since he had no idea what either of his options were; she came back with the 'grilled mushroom something sandwich'. Fair enough.

Quietly, he started on his sandwich as the nurse, who was still standing nearby, decided to do something quite shocking. "I need to check on something with the other nurses," she suddenly said, "so stay here and be good, okay? I'll check on you after lunch." And then just like that, she walked off. She...walked off? She wasn't going to bother him at all this shift? Really?

... Zero's mood had just jumped from 'vaguely annoyed' to 'nicely calm'.

And yet he still continued to sit and eat quietly, despite his new-found 'freedom'. (What? It wasn't like he could do much else...)

[Aigis!]

[redcladidealist]

"Haunted?" Lloyd's head jerked up and back around to stare at them. "What do you mean, haunted?" His voice strained, not with disbelief, but with more than a little alarm. "You think there's ghosts in here?!"

[fullmetalheart]

Ed slid into a seat at the table Lloyd was at and nodded. "Scar thought it was likely a ghost we met. And uh..." He looked down at his injured arm.

[armoredsoul]

"I've thrown up hair twice today," Al added with a grimace, also taking a seat. "I can't think of a better explanation."

[redcladidealist]

"He thinks it's that thing from last night?!" Lloyd doesn't need to know who Scar is to trust that Ed wouldn't repeat it if he didn't think that Scar might be right. "Wait, it attacked you?! Both of you? Are you guys all right?"

[fullmetalheart]

Ed shrugged. "Yeah, I'm fine. I was more than a bit startled by having an invisible, really cold, hand grab my arm and dig in nails deep enough to make me bleed, but I'm fine."

[armoredsoul]

"My throat feels raw and I don't think any food I eat today is staying down for long, but I'm doing okay." Al shrugged with a small frown. "What were you getting paranoid about when we spotted you?"

[no_dont_go]

Having taken her time in the shower during the shift before, Aigis had merely used the time to contemplate her own health. Was she honestly healed after eating the plant? It seemed very unlikely. How could something like that cure her so completely? But she trusted Sechs and she trusted Castiel. She would wait to see what happened and hold onto that trust all the way.

Lunch came swiftly and soon she was toweled off, in a fresh institute garb and headed to lunch. She grabbed a bag at random since both sandwiches available sounded fairly novel, then she made her way into the Sun Room to check on the bulletin.

Only one note caught her eye. Someone was looking for a mechanic. While she wasn't necessarily trained in service beyond her own physical maintenance, it would not hurt to offer support if necessity proved too great. That done, she decided staying in the bright Sun Room was perhaps just as well as traveling outside of it. She gazed around the large area and happened to spot one of her fellow mechanical beings. Moving that way, she offered Zero a nod as a greeting before settling herself across from him in an armchair.

"Good afternoon, Zero-san. I do hope you have been enjoying your lunch so far."

[overlimit]

Rita looked up from her lunch with a tired stare. She didn't expect to be approached by a stranger. While Rita wasn't in much of a mood for socializing, she quickly realized that she'd sat near a large-sized table. She couldn't exactly insist that she needed all that space for herself.

"Sure, do what you want," she replied before taking another bite of her sandwich. Rita knew she couldn't take her current frustration out on a stranger, but that didn't mean she needed to go out of her way to be friendly, either.

[redcladidealist]

Lloyd's hand went to his throat, and for a moment he could almost feel the monster's fingers there again, digging in past the bandages that covered his own injuries. He shook his head abruptly, trying to shake the feeling off.

"I thought I heard it again. You know, that sound it made when it was creeping up. Dammit, if it's here during the day..." Daytime was frustrating, but it was a least supposed to be safe, which was good because they were even more helpless than at night, with no weapons and no access to their powers.

His eyes went to Al. Al had suffered the most from the monster last night. Now it looked like he was still suffering. That was bad, but... "I didn't realize you swallowed that much hair. At least it's a good thing you're getting it out... right?"

[fullmetalheart]

Ed's head thunked down on the table. "Great. So it's harassing all three of us," he grumbled.

[armoredsoul]

"I wonder if we can even kill it to make it stop harassing us." Al sighed and decided to investigate his lunch bag, pulling out the juice and salad for now. The rest could go to Ed--at least then it wouldn't be wasted.

"I don't remember swallowing any, though," he said. "It sure didn't feel like I had anything in my stomach until I threw up."

[redcladidealist]

At the thought of confronting that monster again, Lloyd swallowed, something turning queasily in his gut that had nothing to do with the tomatoes. "How do we even kill something like that? I threw everything I had at it and we barely escaped."

He shook his head at Al's denial. "If you didn't swallow it, how did it get its hair inside you?"

[fullmetalheart]

Ed continued sitting at the table with his head on it. "Dunno. Magic?"

No, he's not actually serious although it's as good an explanation as any.

[armoredsoul]

"There's already ghosts, why not magic?" Al griped, then poked Ed's shoulder. "Brother, eat your food. You didn't get the extra food yesterday, so you can have the rest of my lunch."

[redcladidealist]

That actually did sound like a reasonable explanation to Lloyd, and he even started to nod before he caught something off in the tone of their voices. He blink, casting an odd look at the brothers. Had that been... sarcasm?

"You guys don't believe in magic?"

[fullmetalheart]

Ed grumbled and sat up properly. Then he reached for his bag of food. "It doesn't exist back home, so why would we?"

[armoredsoul]

Al pokes a bit at his salad, then takes a bite before replying. "Our world is governed by science, even if others have mystical...beings, I guess? Powers? Either way, there's nothing like spirits or magic in our world."