Day 44: breakfast

Yuffie had died.

No, really. Seriously. She had actually died. Bleeding all over the place, making a horrid, sticky mess and scaring the hell out of Suzaku; she remembered it clearly. Kind of. Sort of. Through the blood loss, the pain, and the visions. Through Aerith's voice whispering in her ear, Cloud's stricken eyes, and her own panic. As bad nights went, it had been Bad, capital B and all the trimmings, and oh, god. She sat, trembling on the edge of her bed, eyes closed and hands pressed hard over her racing heart. The by-play between Landel—Landel!—and Lydia barely even sunk in. There was nothing in the whole world, any world, that could prepare you for something like…

Had it all been some kind of hallucination?

Had she imagined the whole thing?

No… She didn't think so. Nightmarish or not, Yuffie knew reality. But if it had been real, how was she alive now? That kind of pain wasn't something you could just cook up, was it? She thought about it all the way to the cafeteria, drifting behind her nurse without focus or intent. Maybe if she tried to stay clinical, tried to step back… But she'd never been good at that when things got personal. And every time she closed her eyes or blinked, she swore that the scenes played back to her, like an overused commercial on a crappy channel on a crappy TV, in a run-down dump of an inn that smelled like mothballs and yesterday's breakfast.

The scent of blood and damp, rotted wood clogged her nose. Disgusted, Yuffie shoved her bowl of cereal—handed to her by a clucking Plucky—off to the side so that she could melt into her chair, palm heels scrubbing against her eyes. Too much. This was… Too much. She couldn't even paste a plastic smile on her face to make herself feel better. Her usual shield, the white noise of inane babble that could filter out almost any crisis, was in tatters all around her. Five minutes, she gave herself.

Five minutes (not) to think, five minutes to get her act together, because there was no way she could let herself shatter here. No way…

[Closed to Sheena]
ninelivesonce: (animals don't weep)

[personal profile] ninelivesonce 2009-09-20 08:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Taura had never acquired the knack of possessions -- beyond some pretty clothes and makeup and jewelry, all of which would be useless without her own body to put them on, she owned very little that was hers by intention, rather than hers just by virtue of the fact that all her gear had to be custom-tailored. So the final requests of her fellow soldiers, all duly noted and on file, had never been of much interest.

Seeing TK-622's expression, though, the lesson she'd been told made more sense. Funerals are for the living. Whatever Armand had wanted, it had given TK-622 a purpose and the impulse to keep moving, and that was enough.

"I'm okay. Frustrated -- we didn't get anywhere last night. We don't have time to keep getting stuck in corridors, and people were counting on us for back-up. "I thought we'd lost part of the team, but it was a false alarm; looks like there were a lot of those last night." It wasn't the most tactful way to put it, when Armand wasn't among the people tossing notes up on the board like nothing had happened, but she couldn't hide the relief that at least this time, no-one else was missing in the morning. She hadn't missed spotting a compatriot trying to hide a mortal wound, and as long as Hattori was uninjured, their failure hadn't cost anyone their life. This time.

"How's the courier service doing? I'd still like to help, although I want to make up for last night to Homura first." It was as close as she could get through a suddenly-tight throat to I miss him too, even if I barely knew him.

[identity profile] loyal-soldier.livejournal.com 2009-09-20 08:52 pm (UTC)(link)
"I... think I missed whatever happened last night." He was glad. From what he'd seen on the bulletin on his way here, anything that might have happened to him would have probably made it hard to stay sane here. "The idea that this place brings people back is still hard to get my head around." Especially when it only happened some of the time.

"I haven't heard from Trevelyan since yesterday, and he hasn't given any assignments yet." He'd have to track him down today and see what could be done about organizing for the night.
ninelivesonce: (warfare = deception)

[personal profile] ninelivesonce 2009-09-20 09:21 pm (UTC)(link)
"I only caught the backsplash." Both figurative and literal. "That was bad enough." And that was all she really wanted to say on that.

"I mentioned the courier service to a friend, but I don't know if he was interested." Her voice turned contemplative, punctuated with more bites and chewing. "We need something -- the nights are too short for delays to be acceptable." That was the useful lesson to have learned from the night before -- the night before had already hammered home this place is unpredictable. What the next lesson would be, she didn't want, but did need to know. She needed to know everything, and she needed it yesterday -- or the day before; they all did. "Do you know anything about the other man on the intercom?"
Edited 2009-09-20 21:22 (UTC)