damned_institute | 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]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[For Lord Recluse, limit any]

There were some things that Marcus had never thought he would experience again. Last night had certainly counted as one of them, and after he'd woken up in his bed he had spent several moments of disbelief gasping for air. His body hadn't hurt at all, there was no lingering pain. As he carefully got out of bed there was also no remaining feeling of weakness.

Marcus, however, did not feel at all himself. Out of everything that had happened so far, out of everything he'd gone through, that had been the most disturbing. He as distracted from his introspection when the intercom came on. It seemed the head doctor himself had likewise returned to life this morning. He was still very pale and distracted as his nurse took him to breakfast, paying very little attention to everything around him. He barely even gave the food he was getting any attention once he sat down.

Food had no appeal, and it was difficult to think about anything but the last few moments of last night. Stefan had been there too, and while at the end things had been very incoherent he was fairly sure that Stefan had died as well. Looking around the cafeteria for the first time, Marcus wondered who else had died last night.

Recluse woke up absolutely furious. There were some things he never wanted to revisit, nor for anyone to know. The former had been forced upon him in a way he had never anticipated, and now he would likely have to tell Marcus the reason why it had happened. Because if there was one fact he had come to accept over the decades, it was that Marcus never stayed dead.

It took far too much of his self control to not break his nurse in two before he got to the cafeteria, immediately sighting Marcus and heading for his 'friend', trying to calm himself as he did.

He sat down across from Marcus, still angry, but looking more drained than anything. "I think I finally truly hate this place."

It wasn't surprising that Stefan came directly to him, not after what happened last night, but Marcus had wanted a little time to himself. He didn't want to really share what had happened to him last night with Stefan. Marcus also didn't have to be a mind reader to know that Stefan probably didn't want to share either. Although he did have to wonder, since he had experienced his wife's death, what death had Stefan been forced to relive?

"Morning," Marcus said. It took a while for what Stefan had said to get through to him, but he couldn't feel as angry and irritated at that as he should have been. There was no chiding, since Stefan should have hated this place all along, but Marcus didn't feel this was a good time to argue about it. Stefan didn't look good this morning, and Marcus could only imagine he looked the same, if not worse.

Recluse sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he felt an oncoming headache. "I'm almost surprised we're here to see the morning." Either the prophecy was still in effect or this place simply wasn't done toying with them yet.

"Yes. You... you looked pretty bad last night," Marcus commented. Marcus hadn't had a chance to stop by the bulletin board yet, so he didn't know if it had been only the two of them that were subjected to that, or if they were the only two to survive it. If they were the only two, that would likely be because of the prophecy. Marcus didn't think about it very often, although Stefan probably did.

"Did someone you know die like that?" Marcus said finally. He and Stefan had known a lot of the same people when they were younger, but Marcus doubted it was someone from back then.

"One of my operatives. She died in an avalanche we caused," Recluse answered, not eager to give more details. And if Marcus had experienced the same phenomena... Her. He'd died like her.

He almost would have been happy if it had kept, even though it was an utterly self-defeating sentiment.

As surprising as it was, it sounded as though there actually had been someone Stefan had cared about. Marcus had occasionally wondered if Stefan wasn't better off as sociopath. They were both going to outlive everyone else, and Stefan hadn't had to suffer through so much loss the way Marcus had.

Although it sounded like Stefan had cared really about this operative. There was an odd bitterness in his voice. As much as Marcus always tried to prevent any casualties when he and Stefan did battle it just wasn't always possible.

Marcus wasn't going to press for details, and he was glad Stefan hadn't asked. Then again, as well as Stefan knew him it was possible that he'd already determined it. Hopefully he'd have the sense to not mention it.

"The notes I saw on the way here seemed to indicate that this event happened to many others as well." He hadn't looked at the details, but most seemed confused and afraid. Fear was not something he would allow himself to feel.

If nothing else, he still had purpose here to focus himself. Escape and dealing with Marcus. He would use what happened last night in whatever way he could.

Since it seemed that other people had survived a similar ordeal last night, the prophecy probably wasn't why they were still alive. "I'll look at the board later," Marcus commented. There was no need to point out the obvious implications if other people had gone through the same experience.

He glanced at the door to the sun room. Search and rescue operations would need to be organized, but at the moment Marcus really didn't care enough to do anything about it.

"If this or other phenomena to occur, it will complicate our job severely," Recluse pointed out after a few minutes of silence, "Or at least assigning of patrols. Do you want me to still organize that? I am never quite sure whether you want me in charge or not, which is why I did nothing yesterday."

Day 44: breakfast

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