damned_institute | 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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

In response to the question, Leon nodded and took a seat behind the man in the space offered. As usual, he had his worn journal clutched in one hand. If he looked uncomfortable when he took a seat, it didn't have anything to do with the company. He just wasn't sure what to say, really.

"I'm all right, but it was strange..." The young mage clasped his hands together and placed them in his lap. "Did any of the doors work... normally for you last night? Ours kept taking us anywhere but where we meant to go." Sometimes even to places they shouldn't have been able to get to from Landel's, unless there were some actual portals somewhere that they weren't aware of.

He wished he knew more about the game they'd found themselves in. A game like that was apparently electronic in nature, and if that was the case then somehow it could be hacked into. Someone could find out how Landel was controlling it, and if they could find out that then maybe they could find out how he pulled people from other worlds. Of course, now that he was even thinking like this it was doubtful they'd ever be able to get back to that location again. Not as it had been at that point, anyway.

It was a relief to move straight onto all the strangeness of that night rather than anything too personal- he certainly didn't know if he knew Leon well enough to burden him with anything so personal as what had been going through his mind before. This was a much, much easier topic of discussion, anyway.

"That happened to me and the people I was with, too!" He shook his head helplessly, for one second looking, for all intents and purposes, precisely like a kitten stumbling across its reflection for the first time. "And we even ended up outside of the Institute. Like, all the way in Doyleton!"

Which definitely hadn't been as fun as visiting in the day. In hindsight, they should probably have tried a few more doors just in case there was some kind of pattern to it they hadn't figured out, but even Leon seemed stumped. And Leon had always seemed to him like some kind of child genius, way ahead of him in the intelligence stakes. "We were just lucky we didn't end up anywhere dangerous."

So it hadn't just been them. That was interesting to know, but not surprising. This was something new, designed to mess with the patients. Perhaps Landel thought they were getting to where they needed to go too easily. If it became a permanent thing, then they were going to be in trouble and would have to develop some countermeasures. ...If they even could.

The patient blocks hadn't seemed to be much of a problem, at least not that night. That meant that others should be able to get to him for weapon making needs. That was important. Even if they got zapped this way and that, at least others would be able to arm themselves.

Kibitoshin mentioned Doyleton, but didn't mention anything beyond it, like The World. Or rather, the game that went by that name. "Did you ever end up anywhere that wasn't part of the grounds here or Doyleton at all? Some place completely different, like where some of the patients might have been before they'd arrived in the Institute?"

Leon seemed to be thinking about something, so Kibitoshin did his best to keep quiet and not ramble on about his night dropping in and out of various stores until he was asked another question- which he was, soon enough. Even if it sounded completely bizarre no matter how he thought about it. "Wasn't part of the grounds...?"

The Kaioshin tilted his head to one side, looking somewhere between thoughtful and perplexed. All of the rooms they'd ended up in seemed right for the Institute and Doyleton, even if he'd never seen most of them before personally. "I don't think so. I'm sure I'd know if we ended up somewhere like-" Wait, from where the patients might have been before-?!

Hold on. That would mean the places they'd come from in the first place. Home. It seemed so unbelievably crazy that the Head Doctor would actually do something like that, that-- that it just might be true. And why would Leon ask after something it unless it had actually happened? "You're saying some people got sent back home?!" he managed, staring at the young mage in bewilderment. "For real?"

"It's... well I'm not a hundred percent certain." Leon scratched just behind one of his ears, feeling suddenly awkward trying to relate this when the details were still so sketchy. If it hadn't actually been Haseo's world, or game, then Landel had sure done a good job of duplicating it - even down to the portals that worked with no one around to operate them. "We ended up somewhere that looked like the place a couple of my friends are from. It's actually a game of some sort, but it looks like a whole distinct world."

Yeah, Leon still didn't know all the details surrounding that so he wasn't going to even try explaining it. "It was empty of anyone else beside us, though, so I'm not sure how real it actually was. It might just have been some sort of copy, or a false reality that we stepped into. There's no way of telling just yet."

Had his group been the only one to run across this? If Kibitoshin's group had been having the same issues with the doors, then others would have too. Someone else had to have ended up somewhere as strange as they had. It would just take a little more asking around.

"You're not sure? O-oh..." The Kaioshin's face fell briefly before he remembered himself and tried not to look too disappointed. What had he been expecting? There was no way they'd genuinely be sent home, not properly. Still, if it had looked enough like wherever Leon's friends had come from to confuse them, who knew what kind of use someone like the Head Doctor could put it to? It was probably a good thing he hadn't found somewhere like that himself- the odds of walking straight into a trap if it had been his world were probably higher than he'd have liked to admit.

He sighed a little, giving Leon an anxious smile. "Well, if there wasn't anyone around, I'd say that was pretty suspicious. Not that I'm an expert or anything. Are your friends okay?"

Now there was one other reason Kibitoshin could find to be grateful, even in spite of his homesickness. Getting so close to freedom, only to wake up back in the Institute again the next morning as if nothing had even happened... he couldn't imagine how Leon's friends had felt after that. Like they'd been cheated. Even if he couldn't quite get his head around how their world could be a game: did Leon mean like the ones his Ancestor always played?

The boy nodded. "Yeah, they're fine." At least they had been the last time he'd seen them, which was before the end of night. As he'd never seen anything happen to someone from the point night ended to the first shift the next morning, he could only assume they were both at least physically all right, if shaken mentally. And besides, he'd already seen Endrance. Looking back over, he saw that Haseo had joined him as well. So yes, they were both fine.

He could understand why Kibitoshin would be disappointed over the lack of information. Leon himself was disappointed about that. It was as though Landel had waved some important truth about the Institute in front of their faces, but then snatched it away before anyone could get a good, proper look. Like they'd been given a taste of home only to have the plate taken away after a single bite. It was a game, moreso than the world Haseo and Endrance had come from.

Leon gave the man a weak smile. "At least we all made it through that mess."

Day 50: Chapel

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject