damned_institute | Day 44: breakfast

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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]

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It was really hard to tell what the man was thinking. The way he reacted made her wonder if he'd really heard her at all. Then he looked straight at her and Kagura found it difficult to maintain eye contact. At least he was wearing sunglasses.

"I wish I knew," she almost squeaked, deciding to busy herself with cutting the french toast into pieces. "You just sort of... black out at the end of the night. No one ever remembers how. Then when you wake up again it's the next day and you're back in your bed. I don't really remember how I got here. Just that... when I woke up, I was in a room and there was a nurse and... and those bigger male nurses."

She paused, looking guiltily at her toast, now in pieces on her plate, "I got mad and they stuck me with a needle. You have to ah... be really careful not to get too upset. They don't like that either."

Haine's mouth twitched. So it was just one thing after another, conspiracy on top of conspiracy. Sounded like the story of his life redone in technicolor and bad subtitles.

So the girl had no idea how to get out. Chances were she didn't know what caused the blackouts. Piss off the staff and you'd get drugged. Yeah, sounded about right.

Haine felt a little sick. You could say he just wasn't one for nostalgia.

"So they pit us against monsters, or what? Do they stand around and watch?" More likely, they hid behind their one-way glass and scribbled notes down. Bastards.

Something still didn't sit right, didn't feel right. He felt like he was missing some vital piece of the puzzle, here, but he had no idea what it was.

He figured he could go without knowing whatever it was, so long as he could find a way out of this. The sooner he found it, the better.

It was hard to know if the man was asking because he really wanted to know or because he just wanted to grumble about their situation. Either one sounded plausible. She hadn't really thought about whether or not the doctors or nurses were somehow watching them at night, but it made sense. How else would they know where everyone was at the end of the night?

"Well- I- I don't really know. I've only run into monsters a few times, but that was enough. They're... they're just awful. I don't think I've been watched, but..." she couldn't help but let her eyes drift up to the intercom speakers. "It... it's possible."

Haine sighed, a little irritated. She really didn't seem to know much about what was actually going on. Well that was fan-fucking-tastic, wasn't it? Trapped in the Underground, though they were calling it Landel's Institute. Well, a rotting corpse by any other name, or something like that.

They were probably being watched. Haine looked up, searching for cameras in the corners of the room. There wasn't anything glaringly obvious, but that probably just meant they were stealthier than that. He needed to get his guns back. They weren't necessary in a fight, but he liked them. Tearing shit up with his bare hands wasn't his favorite method, after all; he'd had enough of that to last a lifetime.

"So, what can you do that's so fucking special?" he asked, not seeming to care if it was rude or not. "Why'd they bring you here? Gotta be something."

With Kagura, it was always a fine line between various emotional explosions. Either she would take it like the weak little teenage girl she appeared to be and start sobbing into her napkin, or she would get angry instead, and break her plastic tray over someone's head. Luckily, she wasn't quite to that point just yet. She was still trying to get over the surprise of being asked what was special about her. She knew full well that there was one thing that was definitely unique, but it wasn't something she could tell just anyone! Imagine what Akito might do to her!

"I'm not special," Kagura insisted. It wasn't really lying. Being cursed didn't make you special. It just made you cursed. Besides, how did he know to jump to that specific question? Did he already know something she didn't?

"I- that's- I don't understand. Are... are you special?"

Haine laughed, a couple short, almost barking sounds. "Me? Nah," he said. It wasn't even a lie; he'd never been special. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He was a monster.

Making monsters fight the monsters made sense, though. But this little girl? Sure, looks could be deceiving, but even if she'd been genetically altered in some way, not all alterations were like his. Surely not everyone could fight monsters, anyway. He hated to think of how Nill would fare against some big nasty monster, for instance. She just wasn't suited for that kind of thing. Chances were that Kagura wasn't, either, unless she was hiding something.

Then again, everyone was hiding something, weren't they?

He tilted his head and considered. He didn't talk about the thing in his spine, in his head. Never had. But he didn't want to let her think he'd just asked a question for no reason. Too bad he wasn't really one for considering.

In the end, he remained quiet.

Kagura didn't see why it was so funny, but maybe it was an okay question. Not one she would've jumped to, but if they were making people fight monsters all the time and doing experiments and things like that-

"Mm... w-well, I know there's some here who are. There's people here who can do all kinds of things." Hesitantly, she took a bite of her french toast. It was sweet, much too sweet for so early in the morning, but she swallowed it down anyway. Even if this place was gross sometimes, she was still pretty hungry.

"I... I'm sorry, I don't think I caught your name," she added after a moment. She remembered giving hers, but if he'd answered, she couldn't remember it.

He watched her eat, but made no move to do the same. He didn't trust the food yet.

There's people here who can do all kinds of things. Probably other experiments, or people set to become experiments. The age of genetic alteration had passed, at least, outwardly. But there was still plenty of shit going on that people didn't see. This place was just one more like the one he'd been taken to as a child, wasn't it? Sure as hell seemed like it.

"Haine," he replied, as if it didn't matter at all what his name was.

Kagura had a difficult time enjoying the food in the first place, but when someone was watching her, well, it wasn't any easier, that was for sure. Maybe she'd think twice the next time the nurse asked her to befriend a new patient. She didn't seem to have much luck with it.

"Ah..." she replied quietly. She didn't try repeating the name. It was another foreign one and she wasn't sure she could say it quite right without messing it up. At least it wasn't as difficult as Trevelyan's had been to learn. That was a tongue twister.

"It... it's nice to meet you," she offered. "I'm sorry the circumstances are.... w-well... not the best."

Haine stared off at the wall. "Yeah, you too," he said, flatly. His mind was on other things.

He wondered where that asshole partner of his was. He still wondered why Giovanni wasn't laughing at him. Maybe he was, but it seemed more likely that Giovanni would come to gloat in person. That was more his style.

After a minute, he looked down at the food again. "You sure they're not drugging the food?"

When Haine turned away, she had to wonder if he thought she was just plain annoying. Everything about his body language said he didn't want to be there, but maybe she was reading too much into it. He could just as easily just be upset at the situation in general, she'd just lucked out and got to be the one to break it to him.

She let her own eyes wander a little. Where was Bridget? Had he come in yet? Their night had been quiet at least, so she didn't have to worry about him being in a bloody heap come morning. Hopefully.

"I- the food?" she turned back, looking at the soggy bit of toast, egg, and syrup on the end of her fork. Well, it was possible, she supposed. "Why would they do that?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Why not? If they want to keep everyone here, that might be an easy way." It might not be, of course. It was hard to say what kinds of drugs would actually affect people who had been genetically altered. Maybe nothing would. But these people had to have done their research, right? Otherwise, why have everyone here fighting monsters?

Treating it like a normal mental facility, though, that was the part that threw him. Why bother with the cover? No one really investigated the Underground; it was dangerous. People who got in over their heads ended up like Badou...or worse.

He thought about it, and decided that the chance of a drug working on him might not be high. He was just distrusting by nature. But really, what were they going to do to him that had never been done?

So he finally took a bite of the French toast. Enh. He'd had much worse to eat in his life than this, drugged or not.

Drugs could do a lot of things, but she had a hard time believing that they could track every last person down, let alone make them pass out at the exact same moment. That just didn't make sense.

All the same, it wasn't until Haine took a bite of his breakfast that she finally stuffed the soggy toast into her mouth. It didn't taste funny to her. No mediciney stuff. Just sweet syrup, and the eggy bread.

"I guess," she sighed. "It could be they put something in us before we ever woke up too. When I woke up, something was definitely- ah- well, most people say that there's a change in... in what they used to be able to do and... and how they are now."

Haine hadn't wanted to consider that possibility. Waking up different...

He put a hand on the back of his neck. It felt funny at first, though he couldn't quite say why. He dropped his hand almost immediately; drawing attention to that thing wasn't going to help anyone.

"What do you mean, a change? Like they can do new shit, or they can't do old shit?"

What would that mean for him? How could he possibly be altered more than he already had been? That wasn't something he ever wanted to think about.

While he didn't seem all that upset by the news, he didn't seem happy either. Even if he said he wasn't special, why should that worry him?

"Usually they can't do things they could before. I think they... they're afraid some of us might be too powerful. I don't really know. I don't have any powers, but... but some people said they can't use theirs anymore." It wasn't entirely true, but it wasn't a lie. She couldn't transform in the daytime anymore. Really that was a relief, not something that concerned her. But it wasn't true for everyone. The other Kagura, her roommate, was pretty upset when she found out she could summon... or something.

"Everyone is a lot weaker... except at night. At least, that's what I've heard."

Haine looked at her, skepticism on his face. Stronger at night? What the fuck were they, now, vampires? Right. Sure. Whatever.

He didn't feel any weaker. Part of him wondered if he could stab a fork into his hand and watch it heal just to prove her wrong, but he'd never been one for self-injury. Why push it, anyway? If she didn't know what he was, what he could do, there was no point in exposing it.

It was still slightly tempting, though...

He was about to say something else when the nurse arrived. She was standing close enough to him that he jumped up from the table, away from her.

"Don't fucking sneak up on me like that!" he said, his voice tight.

She pursed her lips at him. "There's no need for language, Alex. Breakfast is over!"

He glanced down at his food. He'd taken, what, a bite of it? Not like he needed it. He could go awhile without, and if it was drugged, he'd avoided most of that.

The nurse indicated that he should follow, and he managed to keep enough frame of mind to glance over his shoulder at Kagura.

"Nice to meet you, K--Ruth," he said, remembering what the nurse had called the girl. No point in doing anything but playing along until he knew more.

He grinned at Kagura, a little lopsided, a little crazy, and followed the nurse, staying at a safe distance. Well, safe enough, anyway.

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Day 44: breakfast

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