damned_institute | Day 50: Chapel

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Day 50: Chapel

The last thing Claude heard was the Head Doctor's voice faintly filtering into the corridors of the ship before he found himself tucked beneath the sheets of his bed. It took a moment to register he'd even changed locations, but then he he abruptly sat up, fought the wave of nausea that washed over him, and felt the blankets beneath his fingers. The room. He was back in his room now. Under different circumstances, he might have wondered if last night had been some horrid dream, but the sharp pain in his eyes gave him a rude awakening. Hissing through his teeth, Claude buried the heels of his palms against his lids, only to discover two cold compresses had been taped over them.

"Good morning, Thomas," he heard the nurse's cheerful voice from beside his bed. Her sudden presence nearly made him jump out of his skin, and he sharply turned toward the source of the greeting, heart beating rapidly in his chest. "I'm sorry you're not feeling well today, but hopefully you can still enjoy some of the activities we have planned."

'Not feeling well' was a bit of an understatement. His hand hurt, his stomach kept turning with every movement, and it felt like someone had dumped a bunch of sand into both eye sockets. Right now, Claude just wanted the nurse to leave him be, but it didn't look like that was an option. Taking his uninjured hand, she gently tugged him out of bed, despite his protests that, no, really, he just wanted to stay in and sleep, please.

"I think getting out of your room a little bit will do you good," she told him. "I'm sorry your eyes are probably hurting, though. If you're ever feeling uncomfortable, don't hesitate to ask one of us for some pills."

"What about eye drops?" Claude asked tightly.

"Oh, no, too much of that could damage your eyes," she cautioned, and the sheer irony of the situation hit Claude so hard that it would have been laughable if he didn't already feel like crying right then. The nurse was as oblivious to it as always, however. "I know you usually go into the chapel during this shift. Would you like to go there again?" Claude didn't answered immediately, but that didn't deter the nurse. "Yes, I think that sounds best..."

In truth, he probably should have requested the sun room -- it was closer, for one, which meant the nurse didn't have to lead him as far of a distance. For another, lying down on one of their sofas sounded like a good option. But by the time Claude came to that conclusion, he was too stubborn to say anything, and he made his way up to the second floor, his footing slow, but steady.

The nurse deposited him on one of the central pews, next to the aisle, before leaving him to himself. Thankfully, it was still early in the shift. As he paused to listen, the room was mostly silent, save for the footsteps and hushed voices of the occasional staff member or patient who trickled in. But it was probably only a matter of time before others came. For some reason, the thought of being stuck in a crowded room made him tense, not necessarily because he thought anyone would pay him any mind, but because he simply didn't want it right then.

Somehow, the full implications of what happened last night hadn't sunken in: experiments, healing himself, the issue of whether he could actually go home after this, not being able to see, the ship, father. Instead, he just felt saturated with all of it, paralyzed by the horror of what they'd done to him, and the uncertainty of what it all meant beyond this moment. Claude took a shuddering breath, uninjured hand balling into a fist in his lap.

[For Guy.]

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As the number of quiet voices seemed to grow, Claude couldn't help but wonder what it was he was going to do with himself like this. Getting to the chapel with the help of the nurse had been difficult enough. How was he going to be able to check on his friends or be useful to anyone at night? Under normal circumstances, he might have recalled the time Ashton had been confined to his wheelchair, but right then the painful, sandy feeling in both of his eyes made it hard to concentrate on much of anything outside the fact his eyes were damaged. The cold compresses were apparently supposed to help soothe them throughout the day while the nurses helped him along, but what was going to happen once the lights went out?

Nails digging into the palm of his hand, he unconsciously clenched his teeth. He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he was unaware of someone sliding into the pew beside him. It wasn't until he heard a familiar voice and felt the weight of his friend's hand on his shoulder that he realized who was next to him. Guy...

Though Claude opened his mouth to answer, the words didn't immediately come. What could he possibly say? This wasn't the same as a monster attack. This wasn't at all like anything that had happened to him before. Claude swallowed hard and took another breath. He had to collect himself. If he couldn't at least try to keep it together around Guy, then he was going to have a rough time getting through the rest of the day. Claude just had to remind himself he wasn't the only one this had happened to. He could get through this.

"They came for me," he finally answered, his voice quiet and hoarse. "During dinner. Like...what happened to Luke and Ashton before." Some referred to it as "sleep studies", but Claude had no intention of using that deceptively innocuous term for what effectively amounted to torture. He'd always felt that way, but he never imagined he'd get caught up in any of it himself.

It hadn't been his intention to startle Claude, but the way his friend's shoulder jerked under his touch made it clear that he had. Guy pulled his hand away and set it awkwardly in his lap, his concern for his friend growing when it took the other blond some time to formulate a response. If it had been the fault of a monster, he wouldn't have been hesitating so much. Guy felt a weight start to grow in his gut, and then--

The words he hadn't wanted to hear were spoken, and his arms tensed with an anger he couldn't direct anywhere. He certainly couldn't direct it at Claude, but he couldn't blame himself either. He'd ended up in Auldrant the second he'd stepped through the door onto the field, and he'd been "home" up until night's end. There was no way he could have helped. In a way, that was worse.

So Claude's time had finally come. The younger man sounded horrible, like his throat was sore -- from screaming, maybe? The thought was just terrible enough that it might actually be true, but Guy obviously wasn't going to ask. Aware that his friend couldn't see the concern on his face, he realized that he would have to make it clear in his voice.

"I'm sorry, Claude, that's..." He sighed and shook his head. It had gotten to a point where he'd thought that maybe his friend was in the clear, but that had obviously been naive of him. "What did they do? Or... if you don't want to talk about it, I understand. If you do, though, I'm here." The most pressing question was what had happened to his eyes, but that might be the hardest thing for Claude to talk about. Had he been permanently blinded, or was it something else? Guy wanted to ask question after question, but he knew that he had to let Claude explain at his own pace, if he wanted to explain at all.

Although Claude hadn't expected anyone to sit near him at that moment, feeling Guy's hand on his shoulder had actually been welcomed. Aside from the sound of his voice, it was the only physical confirmation he could get that there was someone he trusted who was with him. Still, the gesture, however quick it was, had been a nice one, and he tried to give a brief, small smile to show he'd at least appreciated the thought.

It wasn't surprising that Guy wanted to know what happened. If their positions had been reversed, Claude would have asked the same thing, he was certain. Growing quiet a moment, he tried to collect his thoughts together and decide what he felt comfortable sharing. It was all so fresh on his mind, to the point where each moment seemed to replay over and over again. The stinging sensation that constantly plagued his eyes all the while only made it worse.

"I..." Claude licked his dried lips, trying to form the words. He hated that he was blind, and not just because it left him feeling vulnerable. If he'd been able to see, maybe the effects of the experiment wouldn't have been immediately obvious, and he could have at least put this off until he wasn't still reeling from what had been done to him. But admitting he was too shaken to even discuss any details seemed just as shameful to him, and so he forced himself to press on.

"They made me perform heraldry," he finally answered. Those were definitely words he never thought he'd have to say to anyone. To be honest, it was hard to know how he was supposed to feel about it. Right now, he was disgusted that they'd altered him, angry that it'd had such horrible side effects, and shamed that the doctors had apparently decided that his own abilities weren't adequate enough to keep the people he cared about safe. Yet the doctor had the nerve to act like he was supposed to be grateful for what they'd given him. Would there ever come a time when Claude would appreciate being able to use it? There was still a lot for him to sort through, though, so maybe his mixed emotions were only to be expected.

"I shouldn't have been able to do it," he quietly added. "It's not...natural. What they did wasn't..." There were so many ways he could have finished that sentence, and yet none of it was really adequate. Claude shook his head as he trailed off, not really knowing how to describe it himself.

Even with his eyes covered, Claude's expression still made it clear that he was having a difficult time finding the right words to explain what had been done to him last night. Guy leaned his back against the pew carefully, staring forward at the stained glass as he tried to remain calm and give his friend the time he needed to get his thoughts together. Pushing him wouldn't do much good, and he just hoped that his friend realized that he wasn't obligated to say anything, even something vague.

When Claude started to really speak, Guy sat forward and turned to face him. Even if his friend couldn't see anything, he got the feeling he would at least be able to sense that he was paying full attention to him. When he heard the world heraldry, Guy immediately found himself confused. He knew what the word meant, at least vaguely, due to the conversations he'd had with both Claude and Leon about possibly utilizing it as a new energy source for Auldrant. But the fact that Claude had been made to perform it didn't seem like such a bad thing, except...

He had said before that he didn't know how to use heraldry, didn't he? If that was the case, then what had the doctors done to make that possible?

It didn't take long for Claude to speak up again and explain, and Guy ran his hand over his mouth as he thought it over. Claude had always made it sound like heraldry was something a person could learn with enough practice -- why else would he have suggested it for use in Auldrant, after all? But it seemed clear that whatever had happened last night had been very, very bad, and the compresses over his friend's eyes were the clearest proof of that.

"Why not?" he asked carefully. "I thought it was possible to use it with enough work. And... why were your eyes damaged in the process...?" It was hard to see the correlation there, but Guy knew he was hardly an expert on the subject. He just hoped that Claude would let him know if he was prying too much. He had been planning to tell Claude about his own noteworthy nightshift, but none of that seemed to matter now that he'd been given such terrible news.

Claude took a small breath as he tried to think of how to explain this to Guy. He hadn't forgotten that he'd suggested heraldry as an alternative energy source for Auldrant. In theory, it should have been able to work, but there were definitely some limitations, too. Actually, he was pretty sure he'd implied that neither he nor Dias were heraldry users during one of their forays into the basement, but he obviously hadn't had a chance to go into details back then.

"Some crests can be used to enhance weapons or power gadgets," he told him. "But for people, it's...well, you're either born with the talent to use it, or...you're not."

Evidence seemed to suggest that it was a recessive gene among Earthlings, and probably people from Expel, too. After all, his father had been quite proficient at it -- something Guy had witnessed for himself the night the zombies invaded Doyleton -- but Claude and his mother had never been suited for that sort of fighting style. While he could see how that would bother some people, Claude had always been okay with that. It just meant he had his own way of doing things: techniques that were, save for a few exceptions, different from how his parents operated on the battlefield. There was nothing wrong with not knowing how to use heraldry.

And yet the doctors had seen fit to change him, to alter the very structure of his genetics somehow. What else had they done to him, aside from giving him the ability to heal? What price would he have to pay for it?

Claude rubbed at the compresses over his eyes in a desperate attempt to alleviate the pain, but it only seemed to make it worse. "I don't know why," he answered, his voice tight. "There was this...bright light hanging over me, and I couldn't do anything to protect my eyes." All of his memories of the experiment were seared with the recollection of how uncomfortable it'd been to even crack his eyes open at the doctor. The thought made Claude tense up for a moment, but he tried to make himself relax.

"I think it must have done something to my body," he darkly added. "Altered my DNA somehow, maybe..."

Normally, Guy would have jumped at the chance to learn more about heraldry and what it could do for both weapons and technology, but at this point he merely filed the information away so that he could focus on the matter at hand. Even his love for fontech wasn't enough to distract him when a friend was in need. He hadn't quite realized that heraldry was something that could only be used by someone if they were born with the talent. That meant that most people in Auldrant probably wouldn't be able to use it as a replacement for Artes, but he'd think more about that later.

He frowned when Claude started to rub at his eyes, immediately deciding that that was a bad idea. While he was sure that those compresses were difficult to deal with, the younger man was only going to make things worse if he kept worrying at them. Guy wanted to tell him to hold off (or even pull his hands away himself), but then Claude kept talking.

So it was a light that had damaged Claude's eyes. That made it hard to know whether or not the damage would be permanent. It might be something that Claude could eventually recover from, but it probably depended on how strong the light had been. Then again, maybe there was a healer around who could help him out? If the eyes didn't heal on their own, it was probably something Claude would have to look into.

But it sounded as if even Claude didn't know what exactly had been done to him, which was obviously unsettling. Guy frowned at the foreign terminology, though. Whatever it was, it sounded bad. "What's DNA?" he asked, uncertainty coloring his tone.

He'd been so caught up in his own thoughts that he'd assumed Guy would be able to follow what he was saying. Now that he thought about it, though, the question didn't really come from left field. Auldrant had their own way of understanding science, which was only natural.

"Deoxyribonucleic acid," Claude replied. He paused, trying to clear his throat a little, but all it did was make it feel more scratchy. "Think of it as...well, the basic building block of our genetic make-up." There was a lot more he could say about it, obviously, but that was the short end of it, and probably enough for Guy to get the gist of what he was trying to say.

The fact technology to change something like that even existed in the Institute was unsettling for Claude. It made him wonder what that final, excruciating procedure had been used for. They hadn't tattooed any extra crests aside from the one on his arm. But the doctor implied that he had given him an extra ability aside from healing. Had they inscribed some sort of symbol inside of him, too? The thought made his stomach turn more than it already had. If that was the case, it could be anything, even something dangerous...

Unfortunately, as upsetting as that possibility was, he had more immediate concerns he had to worry about. Like what he'd be doing with himself now that his eyes were obviously damaged. Biting down on his lip, he brought his uninjured fingers to the tape holding one of the pads down, as if silently debating on peeling it off at some point. Even though it hurt, not knowing how bad it looked underneath somehow made him more anxious about all this. If he at least had some idea of what he was dealing with, then maybe he'd know what to expect in the future, right?

The term was definitely a mouthful, but as a concept it was simple enough to understand. Someone like Jade probably would have been able to wrap his head around it a little more easily, but Guy just thought of it as Earth's version of fonons. He knew that those could be manipulated in a person, oftentimes with a negative effect, and so the possibilities of what had been done to Claude were definitely sobering.

It seemed like Claude was pretty much in the dark about what the bottom line was, though, which was almost worse than having all the excruciating details to relay. Now they would just have to wait for something bad to happen, and being on edge like that was a recipe for disaster considering what this place already put them through on a daily basis.

Claude wasn't in total dismay, though, in that he had at least made it out of bed and was willing to talk about what had happened. That didn't mean he was doing well, though, and Guy wasn't sure what he could do beyond physically being there as someone to talk to. When he spotted his friend messing with the coverings over his eyes again, he gently reached forward to grab Claude's wrists and return them to his lap.

"It's better to leave it alone," he cautioned. "Which I know is probably hard, but you have to try and let them heal." Now that he was done being overly concerned, Guy pulled his hands away and let out a sigh, rubbing at his own eyes wearily. "Anyway, if they altered your... DNA, do you have any idea of what the effect will be? Or is it pretty much a mystery?" Guy had a feeling it was the latter, but he might as well check.

His eyebrows briefly knit together in frustration when Guy reached for his wrists, but he didn't outwardly protest. Claude knew he meant well -- and that he was probably right. It was just hard to ignore them when hot moisture was collecting behind his eyelids, and his eyeballs felt like they were covered in sand. Still, he knew he ought to appreciate his friend looking out for him, which was why he made himself relax his hands once Guy had set them in his lap.

"I know," he said hoarsely with a pale, albeit somewhat apologetic, smile. "I'll try to remember that."

Hearing Guy's questions on top of the ones floating around his head only added to the uncertainty of the situation. Claude was sure last night wasn't the first time someone's DNA had been altered for this kind of purpose, but that didn't mean he knew what to expect, or what the long-term consequences would be. As he quietly mulled it over, he tried to bite back a sigh, but only half succeeded as his shoulders sagged a little under the weight of what he was contending with.

Finally, he gave a slow shake of his head in response. "I can't say." If it was done improperly, his body could reject it, and it would probably kill him later down the line. But that wasn't something he felt comfortable voicing aloud, for both their sakes. At any rate, he suspected the doctors were too invested in all this to needlessly destroy their subjects, so it was possible he would have to live with the consequences of this for a long time to come.

"I just know I can do at least one spell now," he added. "Maybe another. But I..." Claude trailed off a moment, losing his train of thought. It was hard to sort through his feelings on the issue, which made it even more difficult to articulate them to someone.

"I'm sorry..." Leaning forward a little, he ran a hand through his hair. "I don't want you to have to worry about this, Guy." Claude wasn't sure he would have even gone into this much detail if it weren't for the fact that saying nothing had a tendency to let other people's imaginations run away with them, making them fear the worst. Plus there was no denying what had happened, especially with the condition his eyes were in, and the crest that was tattooed beneath his sleeve. Lying about it to someone who knew better, much less Guy, of all people, would only make things look worse.

Luckily, it didn't look like his hands-on approach had bothered Claude too much. Guy wasn't sure if it was his business to be telling the younger man what to do, but he'd only spoken up because he was concerned. Chances were Claude's eyes were in a pretty delicate state right now, and if he wanted them to heal properly, the best thing to do was just leave them alone. It seemed like even if Claude was obviously pretty distressed after what had been done to him, he still had enough common sense to hear out someone else's advice.

Of course, it wasn't like that meant all was well. Guy watched as his friend slumped in his seat, noticing how defeated his body language was. Landel's really didn't let up, did it? First the zombies, then the coliseum, and now this. Guy almost wanted to entertain the idea that Landel was specifically targeting him and his friends, but he knew that wasn't true. The sad truth was that everyone here was probably going through their own version of this.

As expected, Claude didn't know very much more than he did, which meant that they would have to deal with the mystery of it, constantly on their toes as they anticipated a reaction to the alterations. Granted, that was sort of how he felt about the Curse Slot, though it looked like he was in the clear with that for now. He didn't suspect that Sync had forgotten, but it was very possible that it just wasn't working for him.

But Claude could do a spell as a result of this, which was interesting. While that might have counted as useful under different circumstances, that definitely wasn't the case when it had been forced upon him like this, and most likely at a huge risk.

In the end, Claude didn't get much further in his guesswork, but instead lapsed into an apology. Guy frowned -- was he really falling into that after what he'd just been put through? "Don't apologize," he said, a bit more firmly than he'd originally planned. "You shouldn't have to deal with this on your own, and I'll be there in any way that I can." He still didn't have much of an idea of what he could do, but that wasn't going to stop him from making the offer.

Guy hadn't taken too well to what he'd just said, but it was the hardness in his friend's tone that made him fully realize it. He could practically hear the frown in Guy's voice, and, for a second, it was hard to know whether he ought to feel relieved or worse about all of this. Guy's willingness to help him deal with his problems, despite his own mounting issues surrounding what had happened in the basement and the aftereffects, was truly a touching gesture. As horrible as this place was, Claude knew he was lucky to have such reliable friends, and even luckier that he'd been able to meet some of them within the institute's walls.

The thought made his heart tighten in his chest, not only from gratitude, but from the heavy realization that he wasn't going to be of much use to the people he cared about if he stayed like this for long. It was a conflicting feeling, one that he tried to avoid whenever possible. Now that he was faced with such a situation, however, it was hard to know what he ought to do with himself while he waited to see if he recovered.

"Guy..." Claude paused, turning his face toward the direction of his friend's voice. Opening his mouth again, he found himself uncertain of what to say at first. Words didn't really seem adequate, and yet that was all he had to work with. Finally, he scratched the back of his neck a little and offered a tiny smile. "Thanks."

There was something that had been on his mind ever since he woke up this morning, though. Well, a lot of things, actually, but now seemed like as good of any to bring this issue up before they talked about anything else. "Actually, there's...a small favor I'd like to ask, if that's okay."

Even if Claude had only spoken one word of thanks, Guy was well-assured that it was genuine and that the younger man appreciated his offer, even if there wasn't all that much he could do when it came down to it. It was better than Claude being left alone, although Guy couldn't help noting that he hadn't seen Ashton or Dias around in a long while. It was likely something that Claude had realized as well, and there was no reason to bring it up now. The fact of the matter was that Claude still had friends here, even if he hadn't known them quite as long.

While he'd thought that they might just leave the topic at that, Claude then went ahead and brought something else up. A favor? Raising an eyebrow curiously, Guy nodded and then remembered that he needed to speak up for Claude to be aware of what he was doing. "Of course," he said, trying to make a smile come through in his tone, "anything you need, provided it's within my ability." He doubted that Claude would be asking if it wasn't, but nonetheless, it was better to be safe.

Claude hesitated a moment. It wasn't a big thing, really, but he still hated having to ask someone to take care of something he normally would have been able to do just fine on his own. Thankfully, he was comfortable enough around Guy that he could ask regardless of his own hang-ups. The fact was that it was something that needed to be done, and he knew Guy was dependable.

"I always check on Ashton, Dias, Leon and my dad over the board," he finally explained. While he figured he could probably write a note and have a nurse help him locate the board to post it up, reading and replying to any responses he got was clearly another matter. At least, unless he wanted to ask a staff member to read the notes out loud, but that was letting them get a little too involved in his personal matters, as far as Claude was concerned. While he was inclined to believe a lot of the daytime staff were victims, that didn't mean he felt okay with asking them for that kind of help, either. Technically, they were still partially responsible for what had happened to him, and he knew he couldn't let himself forget that for safety's sake.

"If you get a chance," he added, "do you think you could put something up asking if they're all doing okay?" Claude hadn't heard from Ashton or Dias in what felt like awhile. That was a little worrisome, though he didn't want to voice those concerns out loud just yet.

It looked like Claude was wondering about his friends, then. In a way, Guy felt bad that he was the first person that Claude had gotten a chance to talk to after waking up from that, but at the same time, it was better than him having to sit here in the chapel on his own. It was more that he could see how Claude might have wanted to talk to his father while in such a vulnerable state, even if Ronixis didn't know of their relation.

That being said, putting up a bulletin post on Claude's behalf was a simple task, and one that Guy was more than happy to take care of. He did want to make sure that he only put out as much information as Claude was comfortable with all of them knowing, though.

"Sure thing," he said. "I'll get to that before brunch if I can." It all depended on how the nurses were feeling, but considering how well-behaved he generally was, he was crossing his fingers that they'd allow it. "But how do you want me to do it? Should I write it as if it were you, or do you want me to explain that I'm writing on your behalf?" That seemed like it would be a bad way to let the four of them know that something had happened to Claude, but at the same time, it wouldn't be very good to keep them in the dark about it either.

In the end, though, it was up to Claude, and so Guy patiently waited for his response.

Asking Guy to lie didn't seem right, but Claude wasn't so sure he wanted to broadcast what had happened to him on the bulletin board, either. "I don't want to worry anyone more than necessary," he said after a brief pause. "Pretending to be me seems like it'd carry its own set of problems, though." Someone could easily see Guy writing "Claude's" messages, after all, and then that would defeat the whole purpose of trying to cover up what happened to him.

"Plus my father already kind of knows something happened," he admitted after a moment. "He and another patient somehow managed to find me awhile after I'd been released last night. So if he comments, please tell him that I want to thank him and his friend personally the next chance we get."

Maybe by then he'd be in better shape to have a real conversation with Dad. As reassuring as his presence could be, Claude only wanted him to see him at his best, which made explaining the exact nature of what had happened to him a little uncomfortable. Although he definitely respected his father more than anyone in the entire universe, their relationship hadn't always been the best, which was only amplified by the guilt Claude still felt over their final meeting in his own time. On top of that, it was also a little nerve-wracking to think he could accidentally say something to give their relation to each to each other away.

But that was a little too much for him to wrestle with at that moment, so he quietly tucked such thoughts away until a more suitable time.

That left how to deal with the others. Claude didn't want Ashton, Dias or Leon to think he was totally debilitated, even if it was true that he couldn't really see anymore. Leon in particular was someone Claude didn't want to upset too much if he could avoid it. The boy had his own set of responsibilities, and Claude didn't want to be an unnecessary burden for him to worry over.

There was also the fact that the bulletin could be read by anyone to consider. Claude hated to be suspicious of other people, but the fact remained that there were certain patients out there who he wanted to keep in the dark about all of this as much as possible.

"If anyone else asks, I guess tell them I got an injury that's keeping me from the board for today," Claude finally decided. "But that I said I expect to make a full recovery soon, so they shouldn't worry." Which was...only partially true, since it was more like Claude hoped he'd recover at all. But that didn't sound nearly as reassuring as the former wording, which was why he settled on that instead.

It was true that pretending to be Claude would be pretty awkward; more than that, he wouldn't feel entirely comfortable doing it, but he'd wanted to seem open to the option for Claude's sake. The fact that his friend decided to steer away from that just made things easier on Guy's end. He doubted that he could perfectly copy Claude's handwriting, anyway.

What he was shocked to hear was that Claude had actually managed to run into other patients last night -- more surprisingly, his own father. It sounded as if not everyone had ended up going home in the same way that Guy, Anise, and Luke had, then. Which was odd, but maybe it had something to do with the three of them teaming up like they had. In the end, Guy was glad for it -- if everyone had been "home," then no one would have been able to find Claude and help him out.

Doing his best to remember the wording as exactly as he could, Guy ran that first part through his head a few times as he let Claude think the rest of it through, staring out over the chapel until he was pretty sure he had it down by heart.

When Claude brought up the rest, Guy nodded. "All right, yeah, that sounds good to me. I'll do my best to respond to them quickly, but I won't give them any details about it or anything." That was definitely something that Claude likely wanted to do himself -- and more than that, it wouldn't be fair to his friends if they found out second-hand like that. Luckily, being vague on the board was a pretty simple thing to do.

It sounded like Guy was willing to do that for him. Even though it was just posting a message on the board, knowing that someone was going to be able to check on those four made his burden feel somewhat lighter. That thought alone allowed Claude to relax a little, his mouth turning upward into a small smile. "Thank you so much," he hoarsely said. "You have no idea how much I appreciate that."

Now if only he could do something about that painful feeling in his eyes. Claude almost moved to touch at one of his eye pads again, but stopped short when he remembered Guy's warnings from earlier. Instead, the fingers of his uninjured hand flexed a little nervously at his side, but that was the only outward indication he gave of his discomfort.

"By the way," Claude said as he leaned his weight against the back of the pew, "was it just me, or were the doors...acting really screwy last night?"

Normally he would have immediately checked the bulletin for any information on that, but there was no way he could read any notes today. Which meant he was currently in the dark, both figuratively and literally. Claude knew he couldn't entirely trust his perception of what happened to him since he'd blindly groped at his surroundings for a good portion of the night. But there was no denying that he'd wound up on the Calnus along with Dad and that other patient before night ended -- or, at least, they'd thought they were on the Calnus. So that meant something had to have been up, right?

"Think nothing of it," Guy responded with a shake of his head. It wasn't as if Claude had asked him to do something difficult, though he could also understand why the other man was so relieved. When something so traumatic happened, sometimes the only thing you could do was try to take hold of those close to you as a way to assure yourself that things hadn't completely fallen out from under you.

When Claude suddenly brought up the doors, Guy raised an eyebrow -- more to himself than Claude, obviously -- and wondered what exactly his friend had seen. How had he managed to both meet up with others and get tossed around after getting experimented on? Well, regardless of what had happened, it seemed pretty clear that Claude had had a very busy night.

"Sort of," he said after a brief pause. "I mean, I really only got to go through one that wasn't in the patient blocks, but it took me to the last place I would have expected."

Now that he'd been sitting here and talking with Claude for a bit, the wonderment and homesickness that had stayed with him after that walk through Baticul was starting to fade. Which was probably for the best, since getting that taste hardly meant that he'd be making it back anytime soon.

Oh, man, so it sounded like Guy had been caught up in whatever game Landel decided to throw at them last night. Claude knew he shouldn't have been surprised, but it was still weird that they kept getting thrown around just by going through doors. It made him wonder if this was going to be a new trend, or if this was just a one-time deal. Personally, he was hoping it was the latter. While he could see how such a system could somehow benefit a person who happened to get lucky, chances were you'd just wind up in the exact opposite place you wanted to go. Claude's own experience had been pretty awful, to say the least.

But the last place Guy would have expected? Curiosity piqued, Claude turned to fully face Guy even though he couldn't see him. Had he wound up in some remote part of the building? Or had he been transported to a different universe altogether?

"Where?" he asked, prompting him to continue.

There was really no simple way to explain this, was there? That was partly because Guy still wasn't quite sure of what had happened to him and his friends last night. There was a chance it had been one big fabrication, but come to think of it, Claude might be able to shed some light on the situation -- maybe there was a technology that could allow something like that?

"Well, I was with Anise and Luke, and we were heading out onto the field, but the next thing we knew... we were in Auldrant." There was really no other way to say it. "We were in the throne room of the capital city of Kimlasca... it's the place where Luke grew up." Not that Luke had gotten to see most of it until he'd been seventeen (or seven, if he wanted to get technical about it), but it would help to put it in context for Claude.

"I'm not sure if we were actually there, though, since no one there could see us or hear us, and we couldn't touch anything. We were able to walk through doors like they weren't even there." Which was still strange, and the memory of it caused Guy to run his hand over the wood of the pew to make sure that it (and he) was still there. Even though everything was clearly back to normal -- or as normal as Landel's could get, anyway -- he ended up doing it anyway.

The news was startling, to say the least. Claude's eyes would have widened if they hadn't been covered up, but instead he visibly straightened, mouth opening a little at the news. Guy and the others had been sent to Auldrant?

Considering how he'd wound up on the Calnus along with Dad and Gilbert, maybe that alone wasn't so unexpected. But the rest of the story was surprising -- why would they not be able to interact with their surroundings, almost like ghosts or something? That wasn't like what happened to him. After all, he still recalled the way the stations on the bridge felt under his fingers, and the coolness of the floor as he collapsed onto it. Not that it was impossible to make someone think they were somewhere they really weren't, but the inconsistency was still odd.

"Wow, that must have been...really strange for you," Claude quietly said. He wondered why Landel would set it up that way when it was clear he had the means to let people at least touch their surroundings. Maybe it was supposed to demoralize them, but wouldn't you just run the risk of strengthening people's resolve to get back home? "And you actually saw people there?"

It was hard to judge Claude's response when the most expressive part of his face was covered, but seeing his jaw drop was enough of a clue. Still, Guy would have normally expected more of a reaction, though he got the feeling everything was a bit muted to his friend after what he'd been through last night. It was probably hard to work up the energy and effort to be shocked about anything.

"Yeah, it was pretty surreal. That's the only word I can think of for it." Guy had never experienced anything quite like it, though he didn't see it as something that was beyond the realm of possibility, either. It was easy to blame it on technology of some sort, mainly because he didn't know what else could do it. Then again, with so many worlds out there, who knew what was possible where? Landel could have all sorts of things at his fingertips depending on how much he knew, and from what Guy could tell, that was a whole lot.

"We saw a lot of people, yeah. The king of Baticul was there, along with Luke's parents and all of the townspeople. The oddest thing was that they were all talking about our disappearances" -- a fact that still bothered him, since it tore down all the ideas he'd had of how Landel was manipulating time -- "and yet they had no idea that we were right there, trying to talk to them." A good word for it was exasperating, but at the same time, Guy had been glad to have the chance to walk those streets again, even if he hadn't been able to feel anything or interact with anyone beyond feeling the ground beneath his feet.

"You mean, they...actually knew you guys were gone?" he asked, unease knotting up in the pit of his stomach at the thought. As far as he knew, most people didn't know their friends had been taken in the first place until they found each other in the institute. Some people seemed to take that as a sign that, somehow, things were all right back in their own worlds, but Claude had always suspected that their memories had been tampered with from the moment they first arrived. If what Guy said was true, then that could only mean that his worst fears were confirmed.

Claude could imagine how frustrating that must have been, to sit there and watch people you knew talking about your disappearance without being able to do anything to reassure them, or tell them where you were. The closest thing he could think of were some of the scenes he'd been forced to witness while traveling through the four Fields, but that didn't sound like quite the same as what Guy and the others went through. He wondered how that must have been for Luke, since he imagined his parents would have to be pretty worried about him. And if the king was involved, things had to look pretty serious to those they left behind.

But was it all real? Claude couldn't say for sure. He could see how it could be an illusion, but given how easily he'd been tossed around the building, and then onto the Calnus, who was to say for sure that it was all fake? Landel had been able to reach into different universes to take them back here in the first place. With that in mind, it was easy to see how he might have been able to manipulate the space-time continuum yet again to throw everyone's respective homes into their faces.

"Might have been a form of holographic technology," he murmured as he mulled over the possibilities. "But I don't understand why Landel would do bother with it when the stuff at his disposal is way more advanced than that. It shouldn't have been difficult to at least make the walls feel real to you guys."

It sounded like Claude had also been banking on the fact that time didn't progress back in their home worlds, and having that debunked was kind of hard to deal with. Even though there was a chance that the whole thing was just some elaborate illusion, he wanted to give Claude all the details on the off chance that it would be useful to know. "Yeah," he responded, "we showed up in the throne room first off, and the king was talking about how Natalia had just disappeared." Which he still hadn't gotten to the bottom of, but he got the feeling he'd be finding out soon enough. "I've told you about her before, right?" He was almost certain that he had, but Claude wasn't at his best right now, so he wouldn't be surprised if it'd slipped his mind.

"But yeah, they were acting as if the rest of us had been gone, too. Even Peony." Which implied that when he'd disappeared from here, he hadn't gotten to go home, but out into the world here. Guy had already gotten that feeling, but this did confirm it -- assuming that everything they'd seen and heard had actually been real.

When Claude suddenly came out with a term that Guy didn't recognize, he focused in on it. This was what he'd been hoping for -- that his friend might have some sort of insight into what had happened, just as a result of his own knowledge about Earth and its technologies. "Holographic?" he parroted. "What's that mean?"

But his friend brought up a good point. Landel clearly had immense capabilities, which meant that he'd made them experience Baticul that way on purpose. The question was what his intention had been. Maybe it was just as a method to make them second guess everything they'd already decided was true, or maybe to only give them some idea of what it would be like to finally return -- just so that he could later rub in the fact that they couldn't get back, if he got his way. There were a number of different possible reasons, and they could never know for sure which was the correct one.

Actually, Claude was pretty sure this was the first time Guy had mentioned Natalia to him. He seldom talked about his life on Auldrant unless prompted to, and these days Claude found himself wary of asking too many questions for fear of dredging something up that Guy didn't want to go into. As nosy as he could be sometimes, Claude drew the line at doing anything that blatantly made his friends uncomfortable.

"Luke mentioned her to me once," Claude said. "She's a healer like Tear, right?" That was all he knew about her, but his limited knowledge didn't keep Claude from understanding the implications of people discussing her disappearance. Though it was true that there were other things that could cause a person to seemingly vanish, it sounded like Guy's friend might have gotten caught up in Landel's horrible game somehow. Was it a matter of time before she woke up in the institute? Or was everyone going to be left guessing?

If Peony was still missing, then that sounded like people who were "released" stayed missing in their own worlds. That only made sense, of course. Patients had been clinging to the idea that somehow their presence here had no bearing on the people and places they left behind, but Claude had always suspected that was just some convenient story many told themselves for comfort. There wasn't necessarily anything wrong with that, but it sure made facing potential evidence to the contrary pretty hard to accept. For Claude, it just made him depressed to see more weight added to his theory that his version of life back on Expel didn't jive with his friends' because his own memories had probably been screwed with.

Guy's question about holographic technology made Claude switch gears, though, and he was happy to explain. "You remember those rooms I told you about, with the grids and the omnidirectional diodes that project images everywhere? That's a form of holographic technology. It wouldn't be hard to make a convincing replica of Baticul using that, but I'm not sure why he wouldn't at least make the place feel real to you if he was going to go through all that trouble."

Day 50: Chapel

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