damned_institute | Day 43: Chapel

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Day 43: Chapel

And just like that, the disorienting feeling of blacking out just to wake up in an unfamiliar bed came again. Alkaid had wondered if it would - everything about last night had been different, all the way from the zombies to the eerie emptiness of the Institute to the strange broadcast at the end of the night. Had the Head Doctor been shot? Damn, someone had gotten to it before her. And who was the voice at the end there? It was like she'd been allowed access to some kind of strange mystery that she could not understand, one that had been going on for a long time before she had arrived and would be going on for quite a while in the future, after she was gone. Had these strange sets of circumstances been bugs in this place's programming? Who could say?

The morning's intercom greeting was strange, as well. Federal training whatsit? It didn't seem like this happened very often, from the sound of it, but so much had happened since the last day she remembered that the former Demon Palace Emperor was ready to take pretty much anything at face value.

The room she woke up in was still empty. Wondering where to stick the half-cracked bat that she'd picked up last night, she shoved it under the mattress hastily when she heard footsteps in the hall.

The stupid nurse was the same as ever, though. Some things never changed. "Ahh, good morning, Eileen. It's so nice to see you awake."

Alkaid rolled her eyes at the nurse's chuckle, and shook her head. She didn't care that the NPC thought it was nice, she just wanted to see the rest of the institute already.. see what had changed! "Yeah, it's fantastic. Whatever! Just take me where I'm going and be done with it!"

It was just then that she realized that she was not wanting to devour the flesh of the nurse in front of her. And that the pain on her arm had kind of abated - she couldn't see through the thick bandages they had covered her arm with, but she wondered if her skin was still rotting off like a zombie. Had they somehow cured her infection overnight? Or was the nurse not human, like Alkaid had always thought?

There was only one thing for it: she had to go somewhere else.

"Chapel, sun room, or cafeteria, then?"

"Does it look like I care?"

The nurse sighed, then started walking Alkaid down the hall, up the stairs, and down another hall to the chapel. No one here yet, huh? That was weird. She couldn't imagine that no one else'd show up, but who could say? This place had been turned on its ass.

The chapel was empty so far, and kind of nondescript. She shooed the nurse away, and stood in the middle of the space between the pews, standing akimbo. What would happen today? What would she learn about herself... her situation? How long had she been sleeping? Was she really still going freaking undead, or had that been somehow taken care of?

All this would come to light really soon. She hoped. Geez, too many mysteries!!

[unwittingly awaiting Haseo]

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Guy had been so distracted by what had happened to him and the strange intercom announcement this morning that he hadn't even recalled the awkward situation Celes had put him in yesterday. It hadn't exactly been her fault, of course -- rather, it was that blond man who had come over to talk to her. Either way, it was water under the bridge now and he gave a quick shake of his head so that she knew as much. "I wasn't even thinking of that," he admitted.

He glanced her over and noticed the bandage around her arm. "I guess they got you too?" he asked, gesturing to it.

Talking about his own experience wasn't really on the top of his list of things to do right now, but it might be better for more people to know about it, especially if the infection resurfaced when night returned. Some patients seemed to be concerned that that would happen, and Guy didn't really know enough about things like this to argue.

He hoped Claude was all right, though. Guy knew for a fact that his friend had to be freaking out about what had happened, but he knew that Claude hadn't been able to help himself. It wasn't a good situation by any means, but Guy wasn't the type to point fingers. It was the institute's fault for making those contagious zombies come out in the first place, that was all.

"A small bite," Celes admitted with a shrug. "Nothing appears to be wrong with it, so far as I can tell, and I'm terribly grateful for that." She'd heard stories at home, of course, of what sometimes happened to small towns and villages that were wiped off the map from undead infestations. The thought gave her pause. She looked over Guy, as well, but didn't see anything visually amiss. Rather, his whole person gave the idea that something was off.

"Anyway, it appears to be fine now; if Dias and I hadn't found one another, I doubt I would have been so lucky." Not that she would admit that to the swordsman himself - she was still somewhat displeased by his bravado. And she hadn't seen him this morning yet, either.

From what Guy had seen on the bulletin, it sounded like not everyone who got bitten got infected... He and Claude were just that unlucky, then. He realized he'd rather it happen to him than some other, less experienced people, but that certainly didn't mean he was happy about it. His chest was still in a good deal of pain, but he'd gotten good at masking that sort of thing.

He nodded when Celes mentioned Dias, knowing firsthand that he was a good person to have at your side in such a situation. Granted, the blue-haired swordsman hadn't been able to stop Claude from getting poisoned that one night, but that was hardly his fault. None of them were perfect, and yet Dias had probably done pretty well against the mindless zombies.

"I'm glad to hear he's also okay," he remarked. "Me and Claude had a much tougher time. To... be honest, both of us got infected bites." That was probably a better way to phrase it. Celes didn't need to know that Guy's bite had come from Claude.

Celes' eyebrows shot up her forehead. That was dangerous, very dangerous. If they were infected... she wasn't sure if she could heal them. Usually, healing magic would harm those inflicted, and Celes was hesitant to attempt healing them and only end up killing them instead. She put her head back against the pew, her lips thinned into a line, her arms crossed under her breasts, and looked up at the white ceiling. Damn, and damn again.

"That worries me," Certainly, it worried them too, but... If Celes and Dias had to otherwise keep them from the rest of the population... If the two of them were dangerous now... "I suppose we'll see what happens during nightfall, though, won't we? Perhaps the infection will burn itself out." It was a logical course of thought. Those that were injured healed quickly, far quicker than if left to their own devices. Perhaps the infection would do the same.

"Are you having any symptoms now, Guy?" Celes sincerely hoped the answer would be Of course not, Celes, but the little knowing voice in the back of her head reminded her that only fools had that much hope.

Though her reaction wasn't unexpected by any means, it still was hard to face the shocked look on her face. Guy knew that it wasn't an easy thing to mention, but at least this way someone else knew. He told himself once again that he should post to the bulletin about it as well, even though he didn't exactly want to. The rest of the patients deserved to know, though, if he and Claude really did end up becoming a danger.

"I'm hoping it will," he admitted. "I don't know of many things the institute does that end up being permanent, so..." He shrugged, knowing very well that it wasn't a very strong argument. Still, there was no way to know for sure what was going to happen, and so he would rather stay realistically optimistic about it if he could. If not for his sake, then for Claude's.

"I feel fine right now, other than the pain where the bite is. I'm... not sure if the rotting is still there or not, but I can't really check here." He wasn't going to start stripping in the middle of a chapel, no matter how important it might be to know. Almost everything out of the ordinary disappeared during the day, though.

"You should know I may not be able to heal you and Claude," Celes sat up again and worked her hair into a braid, thinking quickly. "Where I'm from, it destroys things like the undead." And Wights, Ghosts, and Phantoms. Celes knew from experience that things that had the hand of death on them were generally anathema to even items like potions. Apparently, Sabin and the others had learned that the hard way. "It could kill you both." Celes' tone was a little strained, and rightfully so. There were many burdens she could bear, but perhaps that wasn't one of them.

"If it comes to the worst possible scenario, and you're both... bitey, we could store you in a patient room until we can think of a better plan, or until the condition heals." If the condition heals. "Anyway, we can cross that bridge when it comes, can't we?"

Guy honestly hadn't even been wondering about whether or not Celes could cure them. This didn't seem like something that would have an easy fix -- it was a way bigger deal than getting poisoned, for one thing. Still, hearing that any help from her was basically not an option didn't do very much for his morale. He did have to wonder, though, if death was preferable to living with that kind of disease for the rest of his life.

Not that he was going to start getting any irrational ideas just yet. The fact of the matter was that they were all assuming the worst, when it was quite possible the infection was already gone and there was nothing left to worry about. Like Celes said, they would just have to deal with what happened when it happened.

"Being locked up would probably be the best option," he agreed. He wasn't sure if their strength was enhanced by their condition, but he didn't think there was any reason that it should be. If anything, they should get weaker as they continued to rot.

He'd rather stop thinking about it, though.

He would warn Okita about what had happened and then his roommate could deal with him if something went wrong. Guy trusted him to do that.

"So," he said, aware that he was making a sudden subject change and not really caring (Celes would probably understand his desire to do so), "how did you and Dias meet?"

Celes understood quite well, and was thankful for it; the former subject paired with her mood was enough to make a lesser woman fall into doldrums. Celes kept her displeasure to herself, however, hiding it under her usual chilly expression. She raised an eyebrow at him, "Yesterday? I met again with him after taking care of some business." And they fought. Of course they fought, he was annoyed and she was already at a point where fighting would've proved cathartic. Which it hadn't, but, that was easily fixed when the monsters had appeared. "And then again during the night, we happened to be fighting the monsters on the same street." And he'd saved her. Twice.

Ooooh! The rankle! The nerve! The horrible shame!

She shrugged, and hoped she had answered his question the way he wanted. Perhaps some clarification was in order, "Unless you're speaking of some other instance?"

While she hadn't answered the question in the way that he'd meant to ask it, Guy didn't mind listening anyway. It would get them further and further away from the previous topic, which was what he was aiming for. It was a good thing that Celes and Dias had stayed together during the attack, and Guy only wished that he and Claude had been able to get out as unscathed as the other pair had.

"I actually meant about how you first met," he said with a small smile. It was a little embarrassing when someone misunderstood like this, but at least it gave them more to talk about. He was only curious because Dias and Celes already seemed to be rather close, which meant they might have met a while back -- although there was also that other man who had cut into their conversation yesterday, so who really knew?

Celes gaped at Guy in open-mouthed surprise, and closed her mouth with a quiet clack of teeth. "Oh," she murmured after a moment, and even managed to nearly blush. "My apologies, I misinterpreted."

She fingered the end of her braid to regain her composure. "We met at breakfast one day some time ago," she started, "and found we had similar interests." There wasn't really anything much to that initial meeting, to be fair. "Though he is rather obtuse." Which wasn't the half of it, as the two of them seemed to fight more than agree, but she did enjoy his company.

Guy wasn't sure what other kind of answer he had been expecting. How else did people meet here? Sometimes they ran into each other by chance at night, but it looked like in this case Celes and Dias had just hit it off for one reason or another. They didn't seem like the best of buddies, but the swordsman could definitely sense a certain amount of respect.

He laughed for a second or two at Celes' last comment, though. "That's an admirably courteous way of putting it," he remarked. It reminded him of the way he might have watched the things he said around the Duke or something. Then again, Celes was more polite than most... Maybe that was what Dias liked about her? "But yeah, he's given me a lecture or two," he admitted.

"I can hardly throw stones, myself," Celes smiled, pleased to see that Guy had appeared to relax a little. "Though, if he lectures me, he'd best bring a shield." She would spit the vitriol right back; Celes Chere would not stand to be lectured like some recalcitrant schoolgirl. Especially if she didn't deserve a lecture (which would only be served by a certain man in a yellow coat, thank you).

"And how did you meet our obtuse friend?" she said, turning the tables on to Guy. She wasn't much for keeping the interrogator's light on her, after all. Celes had quite enough of that for one lifetime.

As far as Guy could tell, Dias wasn't the sort to lecture unless he thought it was necessary, and he found it hard to imagine the man scolding someone like Celes. It seemed like the two would be peas in a pod, but maybe that wasn't the case, especially with how they had bickered over the healing a few nights ago.

Seeing how he was unsure of what was the best way to comment on that topic, he instead chose to respond to her return of the question. "Oh, I just met him through Claude. Me and Claude have been friends for a while, so I guess it's inevitable that I meet his friends from home eventually." They weren't really from Claude's home, strictly speaking, but they didn't need to get into that at the moment.

It looked like the shift was about to end, but at least they had managed to get some normal conversation in among all the zombie talk.

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Day 43: Chapel

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