damned_institute | Day 43: Sun Room, 4th Shift

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Day 43: Sun Room, 4th Shift

The late-afternoon sun filled the large, open Sun Room. It was almost enough to make you sleepy, Euphemia thought, as she walked in, brushing a little glitter off her shirt. She didn't particularly feel like she was up to much - the worrying about everyone had drained her, as much as she'd tried not to think too much about it.

With that thought in the back of her mind, she walked over towards the bulletin board. It looked like it was cleared off at the end of the day, because now it was filled with information. She made a note of the 'primer' post, then began copying the maps onto some paper she'd taken with her from the Arts and Crafts Room.

One more thing struck her, though - the idea of visitors. Was this what all the announcements about graduates were? She thought of the others then, and frowned, hoping that neither of them were going through anything like that today.

[reserved for the tallmore.]

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This place really had all types, didn't it? From the overly friendly to the downright insane to the morally ambiguous. Then here was a girl who was so polite that she would probably let people walk all over her if they wanted to. It wasn't a good quality, especially not in a young girl who probably had enough obstacles to contend with already, without making it harder on herself. Harvey supported women pushing past anything in their way to do things just as well, if not better, than any man out there.

It was what had attracted him to Rachel in the first place.

His eyes narrowed. This was why he tried to avoid females here. Ever since Rachel's death, any time he talked to one he ended up reminded of her. He clenched a fist around his knee and let out a sigh.

"You're not going to get too far here if you don't push harder to get what you want," he pointed out. He wasn't sure how he'd ended up offering some sort of "elderly wisdom" to the girl, but hopefully this wouldn't fall into even more awkwardness.

Chances were she wouldn't take it to heart, anyway. Who was going to trust someone who looked like him? Even if the bandages covered all of the ugliness, he was sure some of it still slipped through, if in a different way.

... Well, that wasn't expected, considering what he had said initially. And she hadn't exactly expected to hear that, either. He reminded her of Christina when he had said that. While he didn't seem to be anything like the older girl, that was still something that Christina would've encouraged her to do.

He was giving her advice that could be useful. She couldn't trust the man just yet. She didn't know anything about him, aside from the fact that he had bandages covering his face. Those didn't bother her at all. Of course, they looked odd, but they didn't bother her. She'd seen worse things during her time in Celestial Being. Regardless of the fact that she didn't completely trust this guy, what he had said was true. ... And it couldn't hurt to at least try. Christina would want her to try.

"Then what are you able to tell me about this place?" She asked, her voice was still as quiet as ever. "The nurses do not supply much information."

Somehow he had pushed her into asking about things that he couldn't even help with all that well; the very point he had been making in the first place. He wasn't sure what that was about, if it just had to do with his soft spot for Rachel or if it was more about his lingering need to help people.

He didn't want that urge anymore, dammit. He'd been trying to get rid of it (or at least balance it out) ever since the day Rachel had died, but it still peeked out every now and then. It might have something to do with the fact that this girl, while a pushover, at least wasn't annoying. She probably didn't deserve to be here, either.

"Yeah, don't expect much help from them," he agreed. "And it depends on what you want to know. The first thing that you should keep in mind is that you're going to see things that make no sense here, and eventually you just have to accept it despite how crazy it all seems." He gave a dismissive flip of his hand. He still hadn't exactly learned to do that himself yet, but after zombie night he was getting close.

... How crazy did things get around this institute? Feldt couldn't help but wonder about that when the man said something about accepting how crazy things were. Feldt could feel that there was something off with this whole place, and Harvey's response only proved it. At least she was getting somewhere in terms of what she knew about this place, even if it still wasn't all that much.

She was still a bit surprised that Harvey actually started telling her something, anyway - the first time he had spoken, he had said that he wouldn't be able to tell her much. But if he was saying something... she would, at least, file the information away in her head so that she could record it later. There was a lot that she needed to write down and tell Lockon, Christina, and her parents at this point.

Curiosity was finally getting to her, and she decided to ask her next question.

"... What sort of crazy things happen around this institute?"

That was a pretty logical question for her to ask next, but at least she was asking it. Harvey already knew that he didn't have much reason to help this girl, but he didn't have any reason to not help her, either. He knew nothing about her, but chances were that she was too young to have done anything to make her worthy of death. She seemed harmless, more like prey than anything else. He might as well try to prepare her to deal with those people who might be dangerous.

People like him, he realized.

"Well, did you hear about what happened last night?" he asked, and he didn't even look like he believed it himself. Now that they were back in this clean institute with bandages hiding their wounds, it was hard to imagine that he'd been surrounded by the undead less than twelve hours ago.

"... No." She said, "I have not."

It was a simple enough answer, really. She didn't know, and this man was the first person she'd talked to that wasn't already a nurse or Setsuna. She hadn't had a chance to gather any information since waking up, at least, nothing concerning the events of the previous night. The question only served to make Feldt even more curious than she already was, and... from the look on his face, it definitely had to be something.

She was just hoping that he'd be willing to actually tell her. After all, he didn't need to say anything, and she was rather thankful for the fact that he was telling her something, at least. Any information she could get would be filed away until later that night when she met with Setsuna. She would make sure that he knew everything she did, since it wouldn't do for either of them to not have enough information while they were in their current situation.

"What happened?"

If she hadn't even picked up on last night's events, then that meant she was really new. As in hadn't-even-looked-at-the-bulletin-yet new. Then again, when Harvey had first arrived it had taken him a while to look at it since he'd believed it would all be insane rambling. And some of it was that, but there was also some helpful information and speculation. He still didn't know why the nurses allowed them to write about whatever they wanted on the thing, but he wasn't going to question it.

In any case, it looked like he had somehow landed the job of telling this girl about the zombies. He wasn't exactly looking forward to it; if she was any level of sane, then she wasn't going to believe him. Still, hadn't Jones been in these shoes when talking to him the first time? Harvey sighed.

"You probably know what zombies are, right? Well, whether you want to believe it or not, those things showed up last night and made all of our lives Hell." While he was glad to have gotten out of it unscathed, it would have been useful if he'd had an injury he could show the girl as proof. Unlike the nurses, he didn't think she would have been able to brush it off as self-inflicted.

Zombies? Feldt thought she remembered reading something about those things at one point or another. Her memory was a bit fuzzy on the details of zombies - she remembered that they usually had rotting skin and apparently liked to eat brains. ... But as far as she knew? They were fictional. What this man was saying now... it didn't really make a whole lot of sense to her. The fact that there had apparently been zombies the previous night seemed so unreal. There was no way it could possibly be true.

So... was the man a liar? There was no way he could possibly be telling the truth about this whole thing. But since he was offering to talk to her in the first place, it probably didn't hurt to at least continue to ask questions. She'd just file the information away for later, when she could talk everything out with Setsuna.

"... Zombies are fictional. How are they able to show up?"

Even if he didn't have an answer, it still didn't hurt to ask.

Of course she didn't believe. He would have been more worried if she had just taken his word at face value, since that would have been another sign that she could be swayed far too easily. On the other hand, Harvey wasn't sure that he had the energy to try and convince her. She'd come to realize he wasn't off-the-wall crazy after she'd been here for a few days.

"That," he said, pointing at her with his index finger as he shifted in his seat, "is a very good question. If I were in your place I would be reacting the same way... but I saw it with my own two eyes." (Or one, as the case might be.) He couldn't keep trying to convince himself that he had just been dreaming or hallucinating, either -- not when everyone else had been through the exact same thing.

"They came out of the ground and swarmed around, biting and scratching and God knows what else. Some people have the bites to prove it," he finished with a dark frown.

Whatever Harvey was describing, it sounded like some of the horror movies that Feldt vaguely remembered reading about at some point in time. None of what the man was saying actually made sense. This sort of stuff wasn't even supposed to exist, and yet... here this man was, telling her about the previous night. Of course, because she didn't exactly know him or this place, she still wasn't sure how much she could trust what he was saying. She was just being cautious.

She looked back down at the floor, thinking about what her next question would be. If this was true, and if people were injured by this... was that what his injury was?

"How many people were injured?" She asked, even if he probably didn't have an answer for her. "What were the effects of the bites?"

She was asking the right kind of questions, at least. That didn't mean he could answer them particularly well, but she was giving him the benefit of the doubt at least to the point that she was fishing for more information, even if she probably didn't believe him all that much. That was probably how he should have handled himself when he'd first arrived here, but he had been largely skeptical at the beginning. He still hadn't kicked that completely, but he was a lot more accepting now that he'd spent a few days here.

"I can't say for sure, but I'm guessing a lot. The things were pretty ruthless, and at least one of the people I was with got hurt." He wasn't as sure about Jones, even though he had seen the man earlier in the day -- wounds were pretty easy to hide if they weren't on the neck, lower arms, or face.

"There seem to be different stories about the bites. Some people were going on about infection, but everyone's been hush-hush about it," he explained. For obvious reasons, as far as he was concerned. If you ended up with some sort of possibly contagious infection, then you probably weren't going to spread that information around unless you were a real martyr type.

Upon hearing that one of the people the man had been with the previous night had been hurt, Feldt had to wonder if he was okay. From the bits and pieces that she could recall, a bite from a zombie was supposed to be contagious. And with what he said about infection? That only supported the little bit that she could remember. What if the person had been infected? Of course, there was still no way to tell if he was telling the truth or not. She had to keep asking questions and taking whatever information the man happened to give her.

And of course, this information was filed away so that she could fill Setsuna in later. She wasn't sure how much the Gundam meister would believe of this, but... maybe he would help her analyze the information. Analyzing information was nothing new to Feldt - she did it all the time with Celestial Being - but because she was stuck in a weird place and didn't know anyone or anything? Setsuna's help could be rather useful.

"... Is the person you were with okay?" She asked after a short pause. "I hope that they did not sustain a horrible injury."

That was a good question. Harvey hadn't seen much of the "prosecuting prodigy" around today, but he got the feeling that Jones would have checked in on her and let him know if anything had happened. It didn't really concern him to the point that he'd gone out of his way to get the information.

"I'm pretty sure she's fine," he said with a shrug. "It was just a scratch on her back, and she was able to keep going after getting it, so it wasn't too bad." He might have been more alarmed about the whole thing if she'd been bitten, but that wasn't the case.

And as much fun as talking zombies with a teenage girl was (which wasn't much at all), it looked like it was time for them to get dragged back to their rooms for dinner. That meant talking to the fine Mr. Godot once again. Harvey still didn't know what this computer system was all about, but maybe his roommate would have some thoughts on it.

He stood up from his seat and sent one last look at the stranger. "Try not to get killed."

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Day 43: Sun Room, 4th Shift

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