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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"If I hadn' been worried, it woulda been just wrong!" It would've meant he was going nuts again and he didn't ever want that to happen again.

"Nah, didn' see him. Maybe he got held up or somethin'." There might have been more people like costume guy around, or those monsters Renamon had talked about.

"Well, I know I'd feel the same way if it had been you," Loz replied. He didn't want to be stuck in this place with no friends. Especially since he hadn't found Kadaj yet.

"Probably," The Remnant agreed. "Maybe he got lost. This place is pretty huge, and everything's so dark at night."

"Thanks, buddy," he said, giving Loz a lopsided grin. "Yeah, he could've. Prolly wouldn' help that if he asked fer directions, no one'd be able ta figure out what he was sayin'." He'd seen some of the stuff Alex had written on the board, and he couldn't make heads or tails of it.

"Yeah, he talks real funny," Loz agreed. "I could hardly understand a word he said when I talked to him. Only word I was able to really figure out was 'droog', which I think means friend."

"I couldn' figure out any of it. ...'n that's a funny word. Wonder why he talks like that." He had his own weird way of talking sometimes, but at least people could figure out what he meant. He sort of thought that was the whole point of saying something in the first place.

Loz shrugged. "Dunno." Of course, most big words confused the Remnant, but it was pretty nice to know that Alex's words didn't confuse just him.

Loz looked back down at his food and decided that he did feel like eating now. Talking to Beelzemon had cheered him up a little. He cut a little square of the 'french toast' off and popped it into his mouth with his fork. It was sweet and delicious.

"Never ate anything like this in my world," Loz mumbled in between bites.

"Huh? Oh right. I didn' get any food yet. ...Be right back." He'd been too busy being overjoyed that his friend was still alive and all.

He went up to where they kept all the food and got... well, lots. Digimon weren't exactly known for being light eaters. He returned to the table and sat down, trying his food. He actually remembered about knives and forks this time. "Hey, this is good!" he managed to get out around a mouthful of french toast, then started working on making the rest of the food disappear as quickly as possible.

"Mm-hm," Loz agreed, his mouth too full to say anything properly. He wolfed down his french toast, though not as quickly as Beelzemon. The Digimon was eating as if he'd been starved for days, but Loz didn't really mind.

Once he was finished with that, the Remnant started on his eggs. "I hate this place, but at least the food's good."

"Yeah, it does." Not as good as that bread that he'd, uh, gotten Guilmon to give him when he was Impmon, but still really good anyway.

And it was gone now. Eating that fast sort of hurt. "I don' think humans can eat as much as Digimon." Weird. It wasn't really like Digimon needed food to begin with, at least not in the Digital World. He hadn't really noticed if it was different in the Real World.

Loz paused in the middle of eating his eggs to look at Beelzemon curiously, "Digimon have to eat more? Why?" Everytime he thought he had Digimon figured out, Beelzemon would say something else about them that Loz didn't know.

"We don' have to, we jus' like to. Stuff in the Digital World is all about what ya think you need, most of the time. Like, if ya don' think ya need air when you're swimming, you can talk an' won' drown." That could take some getting used to, especially when you got to the Real World.

Loz tilted his head to the side, a bit confused, but trying to understand. "So, you can just think of something there and it'll come true?" If that was true, then Loz really wanted to visit, and maybe even live in, the Digital World.

"Uh, I don' think so, but lotsa weird stuff happens there." Like Biomerging. If ever the word weird could be used to describe something, that took the cake. "But if th' DigiGnomes start messing with stuff, then it could happen." Come to think of it, the little squeaky thingies could have been what brought Loz back. They did all sorts of impossible stuff already.

"Oh. Um, okay," Loz murmered, still kind of confused. Then again, maybe he wouldn't like to visit the Digital World, if it was gonna confuse him.

After finishing his eggs, the Remnant asked, "DigiGnomes, what are those?"

"'s a neat place, just weird, 's all." And dangerous, especially if you were stuck at a low level and couldn't digivolve.

"They're these little flying, glowing guys that just make squeaky noises an' can make random stuff happen whenever they want." Except for digivolving, or at least probably, 'cause that was what Calumon did.

"Sure sounds weird," Loz said. Sounded just as weird as this asylum, if not more so.

"Neat," The Remnant tried to picture them, and ended up thinking of them as something like glowing, magic birds. "Don't think we have anything like that in my world."

"Yeah, but it's better 'n here most a the time. Bad stuff still goes down there too, though." He'd fallen under the category of 'bad stuff' before.

"I think they're only in th' Digital World, but the lil guys can be sneaky."

"Sounds like bad stuff is everywhere, no matter where you are," Loz said. "Lots of bad stuff happens in my world." Kadaj had talked about all sorts of bad things had happened before the three of them were even born.

"Kinda wish I could see one," The Remnant said. "They sound neat." Plus, he was also curious as to what they were like.

"Yeah. But there's always good guys ta try and straighten things out, right?" They'd certainly straightened him out, that was for sure.

"Well, ya never know where they turn up next, so maybe you could. ...I'd draw one, but 'm not good at that."

Loz smiled, "Yeah, you're right." Just like he and his brothers had tried to straighten things out by finding Mother and making everything right.

"I hope so. And you don't have to draw me one. Maybe I'll know one if I see one." After all, how many kinds of glowing, flying, magic creatures were there out there?

"'s good that there is, or I'd still be a real screw-up." He'd been out of control, he really had. If he hadn't gotten stopped, then he wasn't sure what would have happened, but it would have been even worse.

"Yeah, there's not much like 'em." Well, there were plenty of little flying guys, but none of them really looked like DigiGnomes.

"Really?" Loz asked. Just what had Beelzemon done to be a screw up? Loz had a hard time picturing his friend as a screw up.

"I'll know it when I see one then," Loz repeated, confirming it to himself. Plus, if those things could apparently 'make things happen', then maybe he could get one to bring his brothers and Mother back to him.

"Yeah. When I first digivolved I was outta control. Just wanted more power, an' that meant... Meant killing other Digimon an' loading their data. Everythin' I did then was bad, but worst was killin' a Tamer's partner. Th' guy was named Leomon. He tried ta stop me, but it didn' work 'till one a them finally got through ta me after I'd already done more damage." He didn't want to say it, but he shouldn't hide it, it just wouldn't be right.

Loz listened closely to Beelzemon, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. So Beelzemon had killed people, huh? Loz had done that too, and had even almost killed Big Brother and one of his friends.

Still, the way Beelzemon spoke, it sounded like he'd regretted it. It also sounded like that Leomon guy hadn't really been playing with him. Loz didn't like the sound of that. It just didn't sound fair. Killing only came after winning, and only if Loz didn't like them.

When Beelzemon finished, Loz said, "Well, that's over now, isn't it? You're not out of control and killing people now."

"Yeah. 've done what I can ta make up for it, 'least for now." He'd help Renamon out if she ever asked him. ...Even if she didn't ask him, cause he didn't think she'd say soon enough if she had a problem.

"An' I finally set things right with my Tamers, so it'll prolly never happen again." He hoped it didn't. If it did, then he wasn't worth saving again.

Day 44: breakfast

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