Day 44: breakfast

[thatdamnedninja.livejournal.com]

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]

Comments

[high-prosecutor.livejournal.com]

"It was," Miles nodded. "I must say, though, his was the last voice I ever expected to hear again. His death was confirmed over the intercom. The message left little room for doubt, which leads to a new set of questions. Who, exactly, are the men on the intercom and the radio? It's possible that one, or even both of them, have been lying about their identities. The second: who is this 'Jill' that took over on the radio, what's happened to her, and what's her role in all of this?"

He was thinking out loud at this point, letting the ideas roll off his tongue as fast as they formed in his head, but thinking about theories and thoughts behind this place was as much a coping mechanism than it was anything else. It was actually easier to think rapid-fire thoughts about the powers that be than it was to think about last night in direct terms.

"There's the possibility that 'Jill' doesn't actually exist, per se. We know they have access to some extremely high-level technology in this place; it's entirely possible she's a computer program, like that 'IRIS' last night was. That could explain her periodic absence and the fact that not all of her clues have been accurate." A moment's pause for a sip of juice, then he continued.

"And, of course, you're right. They have too much control over what we perceive for this to be a simple trick of leaving the intercom running. The question, then, is why do it in the first place? I could understand it easily enough when the intercom messages served only to taunt us and the radio messages were accurate clues, but it's grown into something more than that. The problem is that we can't see the forest because we're stuck inside a grove of tall trees. There's some bigger puzzle, but I can't make it out clearly."

[pleading-ngri.livejournal.com]

"Once you start questioning who is and isn't real, that gets slippery," Phoenix countered, gesturing with his fork. "What about Landel himself? From what I've heard, he's only been seen once, and nobody's actually managed to touch him. With how unbelievable everything here is, you could make a case for nothing being real except for what we remember from home." He paused, then snorted, a wry smirk worming its way onto his face. "Which is funny, considering that's the one thing they're trying to convince us is fake."

He propped his chin on his palm, frowning thoughtfully. "I talked with one of the other patients awhile back, about possibly tracing where the radio is broadcasting from. That's the best lead I have for trying to figure out Doyle and his people, but even then, getting the machinery and setting everything up would be a huge project. I'm not sure any of the clubs would be willing to pick it up."

[high-prosecutor.livejournal.com]

"You could make that case," Edgeworth admitted, nodding a bit hesitantly. "But I don't think so. It's true that no one's been able to touch him, but...I don't want to doubt my own senses more than I already am. I'm one of the few witnesses left, I'll admit, but..."

Miles drifted back off into silence again. That hadn't gone as planned, and if logic was only going to lead to slippery slopes like that, then what in the world could there be to trust? "Though that's probably their plan in the end - throw enough things at the wall, see what sticks." He sighed again, frowning deeply.

"I don't think that's feasible, either. The machinery alone would be hard enough to get, and that's not even beginning to mention the setup and power issues."

[pleading-ngri.livejournal.com]

"Right. That's why it never got far past the 'talking' stage." The weapons-makers probably had enough work on their hands making actual swords and knives and everything. Just commissioning a couple of enormous antennae would have been a nightmare. The institute probably had a few geniuses who could make the rest of the electronic equipment, but getting it out into the field . . . ? Not with all of the monsters everywhere.

So much for that brilliant idea.

There just weren't enough solid pieces to fix this problem. That was the real issue, and even though the Institute was eerily obliging in letting them keep their ill-gotten gains, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary about them. "I guess we're back to looking through assorted rooms, then. Unless you have a better idea."

[high-prosecutor.livejournal.com]

"Right. Of course, there's the manual exploration route. Someone's finally gotten up some definite information on the basement, and I'll be keeping an eye on that to see if there are any clues as to possible locations for our magical disappearing head doctor and DJ," he said, the last part tinged with sarcasm.

"I don't think hitting assorted rooms will do us much good; it needs to be a more targeted approach. I've looked in one of the doctors' offices at night and there was nothing of much interest there, but there are some upstairs file rooms, and I haven't made it up to patient possessions yet. So it's possible there might be something there."

Knowing this place, they'd put in something ridiculous, like glow-in-the-dark prophylactics, but...