Dayshift 49: Bus 2

[diamondstorm]

Morning hit without warning, with the sheer knowledge hitting the Digimon before anything else that today they were going back to Doyletown. Her feet hit the floor and she rotated her right shoulder experimentally. The skin stretched tight, soreness persevering, but it moved fine. She stretched her fingers then curled them into a fist, staring at the tanned skin that was her right arm. If something happened this time... She would be more useful. Her mind replayed the events of last week, and Renamon stilled, considering.

There wasn't much time left to her as the nurse bustled in with an armful of clothes, the same shade as the weeks before. The woman murmured a cheery complaint that it was too cold for skirts and left Renamon to change. The pants were preferable to the past two weeks, though the other item she was left with gave too much to irony. She frowned at it for a minute, then slid it over her head, reflecting that this motion in days or weeks past would have left her shuddering. It meant she was becoming used to this human body, and that was nothing that boded well. She grabbed her notebook before being led to a bus, and slid into a seat halfway down the aisle, pressing against the window. Again, the previous night had been more than short. Was it just her, or was there something more to it?

[for Haseo!]

Comments

[angels-inflight.livejournal.com]

At the very least, Battler assured her that he wouldn't be doing anything stupid. He sounded sincere, so even if her warning may not have been taken as seriously as she liked... Well, Battler must have understood that this place was dangerous, at the very least. So she was satisfied with just that. When he tried to make sure she would follow her own advice, Naminé only gave him a slight smile, before nodding. Yes, she mustn't repeat what happened two weeks ago... But for now, it was time for her to recollect what happened when the Head Doctor finally showed himself to the patients.

"That morning, he made an announcement that there was a surprise waiting for us in the Chapel, if we wanted to visit it in the morning. Many patients showed up that morning, myself included. It took some time, but the Head Doctor finally showed himself. He was right in front of all of us, but yet..."

Naminé frowned. Despite the many times she went over this in her head, it was still eerie to think about it. It wasn't as difficult to explain as the dead walking, but it surely was strange in it's own right.

"Any patients who tried to get near him... just couldn't. And a lot of them tried, but they couldn't touch him. In fact, they were exhausted just trying. There were nurses there to stop them, but it wasn't really necessary. He just couldn't be touched. And the whole time, the Head Doctor was just talking over them, like it was nothing."

She still wasn't quite sure what the point of that appearance was. A display of power, to show them who pulled the strings? Was it because he earnestly wanted to give a speech, or was it something else entirely? She supposed she would never really know the answer to that, not unless she had a chance to speak to the Head Doctor face-to-face. And honestly, Naminé hoped that such a circumstance would never arise.

[dreadofthegrave]

Couldn't be touched? It wasn't an entirely unfamiliar concept, but the way Naminé described it was something new to Battler. "Exhausted... just trying to get near him?" he repeated to himself. What exactly could cause something like that? Certainly nothing like a magical barrier. But weirder than that was the fact that it had occurred during the day. Wasn't the day supposed to be the friendly, 'normal' face of things? That story contradicted that; it wasn't much advocation to the idea that people there were insane, if he had gone in and flaunted some sort of fake power. The question was, what did that mean? It sounded like he wanted to give off the impression that he was untouchable, but the timing seemed off. Could there be a hidden message there?

He scratched his chin with his thumb, trying to reason out the possibilities, but was interrupted by a particularly large bump, accompanied by a small *thud* and the buss shaking.

"U-waaahhh!!!"

Even as he was acting on auto-pilot, bracing himself for some kind of horrible mountainside crash, he could already feel his face getting red, vaguely aware that he'd just done something really, really embarrassing. It was just a bump, they weren't going to have any accidents like rolling off the side of a cliff and never being heard from again or anything...! Ah, dammit, that wasn't helping at all! He forced himself to stop thinking about it, taking in a deep breath and leaning back into his seat.

"Ihihi... Um, sorry about that," he said a little warily, rubbing the back of his head. At the very least, it had happened in front of a nice girl. A guy his age and he'd probably never hear the end of it.