Day 40: Lunch

[whiny-egomaniac.livejournal.com]

*hobble wobble*

"Damn that SCOURGE!" Starscream cried out, the slowly-filling cafeteria producing a jarring echo of his raspy voice. His limping, already bad enough from not knowing how to properly use his crutches, was now exacerbated from the injuries he'd received the shift prior. Despite the gauges in his non-casted leg so lovingly provided by the aforementioned 'patient', Starscream could still put some weight on it, but not so much that he could really stop and rest; relieving the soreness under his arms was out of the question. The nurse that walked behind him with his tray, already upset at having to deal with yet another troublesome inmate, was growing rather impatient as his charge slowly made his way down the food line.

"Just...give me a standard serving of the aquatic creature's flesh, some of those fried potato slices, two bananas, and three bottles of juice," Starscream sighed, his anger from just a moment ago assuaged by the physical exertion needed to move the way he did. "I'm going to sit down here...bring it to me when you're done."

He was hardly surprised to find that one of the bananas was completely bruised along its inner curve, or that the handful of 'chips' on his plate were all on the small side. Tired and frustrated as he was, however, he could barely muster a 'damned flesh-creature' before moving his fingers to the plate, picking one of the longer 'chips' and shoving it into his mouth listlessly.

There was an unusually high concentration of sodium chloride crystals on it. Of COURSE.

[For Tony Stark]

Comments

[fuyunohanabi.livejournal.com]

Rangiku gave him a curious look. He did look a little green around the edges. Was he feeling sick? The food was weird, yes, but it wasn't as though it was terrible. "You should eat. You need the energy." They were still making reiatsu apparently, because she still got ridiculously hungry. But it probably would be best not to press the point at the moment.

"I've been well enough," she replied with a shrug. "As well as I can be. Recovering." Even if she didn't think she'd ever get over feeling Hitsugaya's reiatsu just vanish like that.

[loyal-despair.livejournal.com]

The energy ... if he wasn't feeling like he'd vomit, he would have eaten some just to keep up his strength. Maybe later, during the dinner shift, when the smell wouldn't be so potent and he'd had the rest of the day to recover.

Recovering. Hitsugaya had disappeared only recently, he remembered, and Rangiku ... he hadn't spoken to her, even right after then. Hinamori had been at the forefront of his mind at that time, as she always would be, but why hadn't he thought to offer condolences to Rangiku, as well? He had been her captain, after all.

" ... there've been too many losses," he said eventually. Renji, the night before he arrived. Hitsugaya, within days after. And how many others? How many vanished each night, going unnoticed except by a handful of people close to them? Kira pushed his tray to the side, unwilling to eat or even look at the food. "It seems like all the ground we make is insignificant in comparison to what this place does."

[fuyunohanabi.livejournal.com]

Rangiku sighed softly, stretching her legs out a little beneath the table and quickly demolishing a chip. It was what she'd been thinking for days now, maybe weeks, ever since she'd stopped counting how many days had passed. How many people had she met who were now gone? Too many and there were going to be more, she knew it. "Maybe we're too used to being powerful," she said after a moment, uncharacteristically thoughtful. "We don't notice it, but we think that we'll be around forever, that we can't lose because we're from SeiReiTei." When had she lost her wariness and her healthy fear of the dangers of the world? "I don't think anyone has managed anything significant in all of the time we've all been here. But don't tell Hinamori-kun that I said that." Rangiku was supposed to be the optimist after all.

[loyal-despair.livejournal.com]

It wasn't a surprise to Kira to hear that other people thought they were gaining no ground ... but from Matsumoto, it was a little disturbing. She was usually optimistic, even if it was on the barest fringes of optimism. It could be worse seemed like her kind of phrase, while Kira lingered more on It could be better.

But she had a point. Even as they worked, diligently fulfilling the orders they were given, traveling from place to place, hunting down goals and new, hidden secrets ... were they even coming close to freedom? Was there a way out? If people had gotten outside but were still pulled back at night, then how far away did they have to run to finally be free of this place's influence?

"I won't," he said. And he wouldn't. Hinamori didn't need any more depression or pessimism among the ranks. "In a place like this, we shouldn't lose ... but we do. Because we're so far from invincible, it's almost laughable." They had never been invincible, but they had at least been powerful. Now, they had no power left. Nothing but thin, painful vestiges of their old abilities. "I wonder if they're going to break us, or if they just want to kill us."

[fuyunohanabi.livejournal.com]

She flashed him a smile when he agreed, looking more like her usual self. She hadn't really thought that he would tell Hinamori, he was too protective of her for that. "We should be able to destroy the building with one blast of reiatsu," she agreed. "But they had captain level shinigami here, Hitsugaya and Kuchiki-taicho, Renji, Gin... Kurosakikun was here too, for a while, and none of them managed to find an escape or any particular damage." And in the end, they'd all disappeared or died. It was disheartening at best.

"If they wanted to kill us, then I think they'd just do it," she said thoughtfully. "They wouldn't bother with the entire facade. They want us to break and give up."