damned_institute | 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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"Meche," she confirmed. "It's short for Mercedes." Which was a machine, and a car was the first thing a lot of people thought of when she introduced herself. Probably not Albedo, if he really was from the future, but she pronounced it in Spanish anyway, just to be clear. Mercedes--mercies. Even her name was good. She wondered idly if it still suited her.

Albedo was still playing with the wrapping, but at least he'd stopped trying to get it off for the moment. Meche let his hand go. What did he mean, he didn't need to heal? Maybe it was just the sedative talking. It might make sense in his own mind, but she didn't know what he meant.

But kids made illogical statements all the time, and she thought it was best to try to give them a reasonable answer if she could. She gave him a smile. "Don't you? If the places you got hurt heal, they won't cause you any pain, and it'll be easier to move around. And leaving them alone will help you make sure they don't get any worse. Those all sound like good things to me, don't you think?"

Mercedes. Something in his brain leaked forward to translate--forbidden knowledge slipping magenta inside his mind. His eyes closed, lips tugged in something like a smile. "You're in the right place, then," he said, only tripping over the last word. "Mary, Mary, quite contrary." How does your garden grow?

Distracted but unfulfilled, loneliness churning in his stomach even as pain pounded a refrain in his skull--for this moment, Albedo wanted to sleep. The benches weren't comfortable, but he had rested in worse places. The Song itself was metal everywhere, but his resting spots were hidden corners and high beams. Softness was a luxury he didn't need. Like the fact of healing itself. His eyes opened, catching her smile. She didn't understand. It was alright. She didn't need to. She probably couldn't. His voice had lowered without him noticing; no threat thickened it, merely a pain of its own. "This pain doesn't matter," he stated, clear as fact. "This pain doesn't count."

He remained silent for a second, the haze in his eyes shifting to reflect a deeper pain, making him look older than he was. A minute passed, then the moment as well.

He blinked, dragging a finger to his mouth. Opening, he bit down on the side of it hard, sharp teeth tearing through the thin flesh. Albedo removed it, looking at it almost intently through his sedated gaze. There was a pause as a line of blood trailed to drip downward. One drop, two... More slid then, and then light softly glowed on the wound, shifting it away centimeter by centimeter. Albedo sighed, chest tight for a minute. He leaned his head back against the bench. So tired. "See?" he said slowly. "I don't need to heal."

Meche wondered if Albedo knew that Mercedes really referred to Santa Maria de la Mercedes--the Virgin Mary--or if he was just playing with the similar sounds of the names. He kept surprising her, this kid. Especially when he pronounced that this pain didn't count, and she was hit again by how unsettlingly grown-up he sounded--

"Oh!" she cried as he bit his finger, but even though she reached out instinctively, it was already too late to stop him. Blood was welling up and sliding down the finger. Meche looked around for something absorbent to press against it, but when she looked back, the little cut was glowing--and then disappearing. She stared with her mouth open, completely taken aback.

Well, that certainly put the lid on her argument about bandages. Meche closed her mouth. But then again, she thought she could still see that wound by his collarbone, plus whatever was under the wrappings. If his powers were limited here like Senna's, he might not be able to fix it all. It would be safer to leave the bandages on, if that was the case.

"That's very impressive," she said sincerely. "But it looks like you still have other injuries. You might be better off to leave those wrappings on and wait until you can fix yourself all up. If you take them off now, the nurses will probably just come over and fix them and you'll have to do it all over again."

Day 43: Chapel

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