Day 37: Breakfast

[scarletspeedstr.livejournal.com]

[for Sylar, I believe]

At the sound of the intercom, Wally jerked awake and blinked around at the room. He’d fallen asleep. He should have been up and keeping an eye open for ZEX, but he’d fallen asleep waiting on his bed.

“Idiot,” he groaned, ruffling his hair and sighing in annoyance. “Way to help a guy out, hotshot.” Hopefully ZEX hadn’t dropped by and thought he’d left or something, or wouldn’t be too mad at him for just forgetting about it like that. If he was lucky, he’d be able to catch up with the other patient at some point and explain what had happened.

Rolling himself a little awkwardly out of the bed, Wally took the opportunity to stretch his injured leg and test how well it was holding up. It was feeling a bit better, not so much that he could abandon his crutch or that it didn’t pull painfully if he wasn’t careful, but better. Tony had apparently made it through the night in one piece as well, which was a relief. He really didn’t feel comfortable about the thought of his roommate wandering about on his own with an injured arm. Not when Wally himself could relax and fall asleep in the apparent safety of their room.

Yeah, he wasn’t going to let himself forget that one in a hurry.

It was at that moment that the door swung open to admit one of the nurses. She seemed surprised to find him awake and ready to go already, but smiled warmly. “Hungry, are we Mr. West? Well in that case, let’s get you to the cafeteria. The staff have provided some delicious French Toast as well as a range of other foods I’m sure you’ll like. Now will you be needing a hand with your leg, dear?”

“No thanks, I can handle it,” Wally replied, smiling back. After all, it probably wasn’t the nurses’ fault that this place was so messed up, so it wasn’t like picking fights with them would do anything. With a cheery wave goodbye, Wally slowly made his way to the cafeteria, keeping a tight grip on his crutch all the while. Obtaining a plate of food was only slightly less difficult than it had been yesterday – he didn’t have the painkillers to work around this time – but he managed well enough, coming away from the buffet with a tray containing a plate piled high with slices of French Toast and slathered in maple syrup, butter, and sugar, as well as a glass of juice. Not quite as good as some coffee would be right now, but the sugar would hopefully make up for it. And, with how few people were here at the moment, he could afford to take more food than might have been considered ‘normal’ – he’d have most of it gone by the time anyone came to keep him company, then he could just worry about how many extra serves would be allowed before he aroused suspicion.

Feeling pretty happy with how things were looking so far, Wally hummed faintly to himself as he dug in to his breakfast.

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[diamondstorm]

[I am so sorry that this is so long. T_T]

Renamon graced Kakashi with a small rare smile. It seemed like the people that came from this village were all intelligent. He seemed to have followed what she had said, and asked the question she would have asked herself. "I have. There's nothing to be gained from withholding knowledge, and not having certain kinds might allow someone to be killed when it wasn't necessary."

She brought a hand up to her face, thinking. "You came at a good time, if that's possible. There was a meeting last night about theories about the Institute and to share other information. A few subject there were that people have a tendency to disappear here, as sudden as they came. Obviously, they were not rehabilitated. So the conclusion came to was that Landel already had used that person all that he could. Mello and I are currently looking for a pattern by interviewing the friends and family of the people missing. If we know what he received from them, we can attempt to deny him such.

"Landel has absolute power: the entire populace can suddenly black out at his whim, so fighting back in force is meaningless. When we're free at night, it's simply a game; he limits where we can go, and what we do there. So we're trying to learn more, and understand. There's many people here from different worlds, different lifes, human and otherwise, ones already dead, ones from different time periods from others. So Jiraiya and I formed a theory about how this place works from a logical standpoint.

"It restrains our powers by the powers themselves. The energy from the abilities is what mutes them. It makes sense since there are no patterns. Some powers are activated with emotion, some with spells, etc. So some people still have access to their abilities, depending.

"That doesn't explain why there are perfectly normal people here. How would they contribute energy or power?" She paused, tilting her head. "First it would have to do with how we come here. I spent most of my first days interviewing other people that normally traveled between worlds. Finding the patterns there, I feel comfortable enough to postulate that we ourselves create the portals that bring us here. Most of us come here after a world-shattering event; something that shakes our reality, even our own death. There are of course exceptions to the rule, but for the majority, that holds true. We open the portal in a moment of extreme emotion, and Landel manipulates it to bring us through.

"Second, it would have to do with the extreme stress we're under. People telling us our lives are fictional, creatures attacking us at night, people we possibly care about being brain-washed or disappearing. Not only that but people form connections here, quickly and severely, some are even ones that wouldn't think to form those connections in the first place. Stress creates emotional bonds, but these all can't be attributed to that. What we believe is that our heightened emotions power and strengthen this place. The severe circumstances we're under don't allow for any to be calm unless they've made a life of it, and the possibly forced bonds between patients add to the strength as well. Because things that are powered by emotions aren't picky in what emotions they feed on. As long as they're strong and deep, that's enough. Love, pain, anger, sorrow. It's all the same to those kinds of constructs."