damned_institute | Day 52: Game Room

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Day 52: Game Room

Lunch had taken his mind from his worries, if only for a few minutes. But after the intercom sounded and the nurses began leading patients onto the next activity, one look at the bulletin board brought everything back in full force. No replies from Ashton, Dias or Dad. By now Claude felt like he was practically counting down until the end of the day, when he was going to have to finally grapple with the real possibility that most of his friends from before Landel's, as well as his own father, had fallen victim to the institute.

And now he was going to have to deal with his mother being here on top of that. It didn't seem like a coincidence that she'd show up right when his father's whereabouts were so up in the air. But what did it mean? Why couldn't Landel leave his family out of this?

Normally, the announcement about new video games would have made him perk up, but his eyebrows only knit together with concern as his nurse led him into the game room. That didn't seem to stop her from trying to get him to unwind, though.

"Oh, come now, Thomas, you've worn that expression for most of the day!" she told him with a frown. "Why don't you have a bit of fun now that your eyes are all better? I'm sure you could use it."

The last thing he wanted was to be reminded of his "sleep studies", he darkly thought to himself. But before he could protest, his nurse had sat him down in front of one of the television screens. There was an old gaming console, one Claude had never seen before, and he glanced at her with a confused expression. "Go on," she encouraged as she placed one of the controllers in his hands. "I know how much you enjoy these kinds of things. Someone will come play with you soon, too, I'm sure. Doesn't that sound nice?"

He didn't have time to answer her, because she'd soon bustled off to tend to some of the other patients. Claude watched her leave with a sigh. He realized the daytime staff meant well, which made knowing what they turned into at night even worse to think about. But now he was just being negative for the sake of it, wasn't he?

Taking in a small breath, he reached over to the console and turned it on. As long as he was waiting for some kind of answer from the bulletin, there probably wasn't much he could do except pass the time. Claude watched the title screen appear on the television, his expression growing more curious in spite of himself. Super Mario Bros....

[For Prussia!]

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As Elle moved away, Isaac visibly relaxed. The only way to describe his existace back home was "reclusive". He had fallen into certain mannerisms and could barely recognize a social life anymore. While Elle seemed innocent enough in her own way, the painter couldn't help but be a little wary.

"You're really trying to pull something like that in a place like this?" He shook his head and pushed his tangled mass of hair away from his eyes. "Besides, I don't know how to play," he admitted.

Obviously he could have learned quickly, but he didn't want to. He really didn't want to.

"Something like what?" She rose to her feet, mostly so she could stare down at Isaac with her hands on her hips. Elle happened to think that her offer was perfectly innocent. She'd both attempted and got away with a lot worse in her Company days.

"It's totally innocent. And I don't know how to play either." Her words were punctuated with a huff. "How hard can it be? I mean, five year olds play this, right?"

"Trying to manipulate me." In retrospect, it was an innocent offer, but Isaac didn't appreciate offers such as Elle's. His last few months had been full of manipulation, the incidents from Noah Bennet weighing the heaviest on his mind: shoot up and paint the cheerleader, receive help getting clean.

But then again, at least Elle's offer didn't require doing anything that could potentially shatter his already broken life. At the most, it would be an hour of irritation and awkward conversation in return for possibly vital information. Peter had told him a lot, but not nearly enough. Isaac hesitated, groaned as he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, but gave in.

"Fine," he sighed, shooting her a look that clearly showed his displeasure at the idea. "But you're going first."

"It's not manipulation." She was already heading towards the consoles. If she didn't snag one now, there was a chance that her and Isaac would never get to play. No matter what Isaac's complaints about the situation were. "We're just doing each other favors. You want to know stuff, and I want to play this game."

She ignored the instructions in favor of button mashing her way along. Isaac could at least appreciate her enthusiasm.

He didn't answer, but did follow her in the same unwiling manner. Be couldn't help but be a little bit impressed, though. How anyone could still be so eager and enthusiastic in a place like this was beyond him, but Elle seemed to be doing a pretty good job at it. It was almost as though she wasn't fazed by the thought of the monsters that lurked around the facility at night.

He watched her button-mashing antics for a moment, tired and listless. "I think you're doing it wrong," he drawled. "You should have read the instructions."

If she had her powers at this juncture, the nintendo would have been fried. And Isaac, too. So it was probably very fortunate for him that neither was physically possible at the moment. As it was, she threw down the controller in an angry huff.

"What do you know?! " Maybe it was childish to lash out at him like this, but she didn't find herself caring, if she was aware at all. She threw the controller down. "You try it then. Figure it out."

He couldn't help but be a little startled by her reaction, and a little confused. It was just a...well, it wasn't a friendly observation, but it was a casual observation. Isaac didn't have the greatest handle on his emotions either, but Elle's anger was more than just a little surprising.

He kept his eyes on her while he reached down for the controller, almost expecting her to lash out further. "It's nothing to get upset over," he mumbled, glancing nervously from the controller to her. With a sigh and a shake of his head, he pressed the start button, actually read though the instructions on the screen, and began to meticulously tap buttons.

He was already losing interest.

It was easy to focus all her anger and frustration on one thing--- the stupid game. Being stuck here at all was such an immense, huge, horrible thing. If she tried to process that anger, she'd never be able to stop. So it came out in spurts of irrationality over things like Donkey Kong.

As she watched him, the anger simmered down to annoyance, and she simply observed him with crossed arms.

"I thought you said you never played." Because that was the only way he could not be a failure like her, obviously.

"I haven't," he replied dryly, rolling his eyes. At least Elle had calmed down as quickly as she had gotten angry, but her random outburst paired with his complete unwillingness to actually play still made Isaac uncomfortable. "I read the instructions. It's not that difficult. Here--"

He killed his character off purposefully and surrendered the controller yet to Elle. His stomach was already turning from lack of food, and the moving graphics of the game weren't helping. "You press the A button to jump. Use the joystick for everything else."

She couldn't help but glare at Isaac, despite his helpfulness. She didn't like people telling her what to do, even if it was for the purpose of being helpful. But all the same, she snatched the controller and went back to playing, this time with significantly more success.

Since he upheld his end of the bargain, Elle decided it was time to do some work on her end. "What do you want to know about the institute?" She asked as casually as someone would ask about the weather, not taking her eyes away from the television screen.

He watched Elle's more successful trek through the game with disinterest, frowning as he considered the things he didn't already know. Peter and his roommate had been fairly successful in explaining the gist of the facility itself and why he was there, but the whole situation was like being in a dimly lit room. He didn't think he'd ever see the whole picture.

"Is there any way out?" The first question slipped from his mind easily, and others followed. "Where are all the monsters during the day, and why is my door only unlocked at night?"

Oh, that question. Elle had been over it in detail with Jo earlier today, and bringing it up for the second time was a little annoying. But Isaac couldn't know that, and she did want him to like her despite her childish tantrums, so she sucked it up and tried to remain civil.

"If anyone knew a way out, do you think they'd still be here?" She tried to keep her tone low, eyes still transfixed on the screen. "I don't know. Nobody knows. I've never even seen a monster, and I don't know why the doors are unlocked at night, either. Maybe it's somebody trying to help us." She doubted it was the result of shitty security or a purposeful kindness, that was for sure.

Given a chance to think about it, he should have realized that. No one in their right mind would stick around a place like this if it were possible to leave, but he couldn't accept it as being that simple. In his experience, nothing was ever that simple.

"There's a way in, there has to be a way out," he argued in a low voice, glancing around to be sure there were no nurses wandering about. "I got a taste of what lurks around here last night. Maybe the doors were unlocked because that's exactly what they want to happen, but surely someone's used that to their potential. There has to be a way out."

Of course, he didn't know that. It was simply his own way of offering some hope to himself.

"Do you know the way in? I was under the impression that everyone got here just like I did-- in some random bed with some nurse calling me a name that wasn't mine." The screen flashed to game over while she was busy explaining, so she tossed the controller aside, disinterested now.

Elle stopped listening halfway through his monologue, attention still caught by the first thing he said. "You ran into something? What'd you see?"

Isaac twisted his lip uncertainly, giving Elle a quick glance, but no answer. He didn't know the way in. He had arrived in the same way she had: random bed, random name, but there had to be more to it. He had been dead, in New York. Wherever this was, it wasn't New York. Someone had to track him down and bring him here to be revived, but he didn't mention that to Elle. It was too complicated to explain to someone he had just met.

He couldn't help but feel relieved when she tossed the game controller aside. It meant Elle was no longer interested and he wouldn't have to play anymore either

"It was a spider, as big as me, and I didn't just see it. It attacked me." The spider attack was mostly Isaac's own fault, being too depressed to protect himself, but Elle didn't need to know that unless she asked about it.

Elle's eyebrows raised in surprise. It was the first time someone was able to give her an actual physical description of one of the monsters that roamed Landel's. And she didn't quite know how she felt about it.

"But you're here talking to me now. So… how did that happen?" That was the most interesting and simultaneously most confusing part. Isaac didn't look particularly strong. And he couldn't have been in the institute long enough to acquire a weapon … could he?

Maybe he was just a good runner.

The way Elle was sizing him up, he could tell she doubted his physical endurence. He doubted it too, considering it was almost non-existent at that point, but it was hard not to be uncomfortable when someone else clearly recognized that. Feeling self-concious, he pulled his arms close to his chest in an attempt to hide the needle tracks. "Someone saved me," he stated when he was settled, shrugging. "I didn't catch his name. Maybe I'd know him if I saw him again, but..."

He trailed off. Despite leaving his room last night with the intent of dying, he really was grateful towards the young man who had saved him. It was the beginning of the wake-up call that Peter and Elle had capped off for him. He couldn't bring Simone back and he was stuck here. He was much calmer now, but far from content.

"You've really never run across anything?" He was admittedly surprised that he had been "lucky" enough to meet one of the monsters on his first night, and he hoped Elle never would meet one.

"How mysterious." Elle gave him a look that said his story sounded like something out of a cheesy romance novel, but then shrugged it off.

But the shrugging didn't last very long. His question brough back memories of the night before. Running into Sylar like that was pretty traumatizing, no matter how she tried to cut it.

"I ran across … something." She averted her eyes. "But it wasn't any… mutant spider or anything." Honestly, when it came down to it, she would have rather had the spider.

Isaac rolled his eyes at that look Elle was giving him, but he didn't reply. Yeah, it sounded cheesy, but it was the only way he could think to describe it. He hadn't seen the kid who saved him since, and he hadn't been given a chance to thank him. He felt a little guilty in that respect.

When Elle went on to mention that she had seen something that wasn't a monster, however, his interest was peaked. Elle had said she hadn't seen any of the monsters, hadn't she? Of course Isaac knew that Sylar was lurking around the facility, but it didn't irk him as much as it should have. He had barely thought about Sylar and it never ran across his mind that there would be someone here who feared him. He turned to get a better look at Elle, trying to find some clue in her expression. She wasn't looking at him, but whatever she had stumble upon in the dark had obviously left an impression.

"What do you mean?," he asked, furrowing his brow.

Edited 2010-10-19 19:08 (UTC)

"Not everyone here's a knight in shining armor, okay?" She snapped, all of Isaac's prying making her edgy. Why didn't he just take what she said and accept it?

But then, she guessed she wouldn't have accepted it, either.

"Some people actually deserve to be here," she continued. "Like… psychopaths. And serial killers. You should look out for this guy named Sylar. He's… I don't know, he tricked the nurses out of locking him in a padded room, but he's still probably the craziest one here."

Even crazier than Claire Littleton. And that was saying something.

Edited 2010-10-20 00:29 (UTC)

He ignored her small-scale outburst. He had already gathered that outbursts were a normal thing for Elle and there was no point in apologizing when he caused them. But when he heard the name of his murderer, his head snapped up. If he had only been paying partial attention before, now he was entirely focused.

"Sylar?," he repeated. "You know Sylar?"

It simply hadn't occurred to him that someone other than himself, Peter and Claire would be connected in some way to Sylar. It was already difficult to wrap his mind around knowing that so many people from home were gathered here, but then again, Peter hadn't mentioned Elle.

He leaned forward slightly, curious. "How do you know Sylar?"

Great. Apparently Isaac already knew the joy to the world that was Sylar.

"We're old friends." The tone was bitter enough for anyone to immediately recognize that they were about as far from "old friends" as one could get. "He has… a grudge or something." That was the understatement of the year, she thought to herself.

You know, this raised an interesting question. Elle tilted her head at him, intrigued.

"What about you? How do you know Sylar?"

He eyed Elle, interest still captivated. Obviously her run-in with Sylar, whether it be here or back home somewhere, hadn't been a pleasant one. She implied she'd known him for awhile, though, which only sparked his interest further. She must have known about him and his skull-slicing shtick, which gave the painter the leeway to comfortably tell the truth about his own passing with Sylar.

"He killed me," he replied, barely batting an eye as the words left his mouth.

He wasn't bitter in the same ways Elle was. It was more of a note of lament that was in his voice; the remnants of regret that he still wasn't dead. He was over his attempts to seek out death again, but that didn't mean that he couldn't angst a bit about it being taken away from him. The only reason he could find to hate Sylar was the fact that he had taken the lives of other innocent people who hadn't wanted or deserved to die.

But he was still intrigued and pushed on a little further, curious about Elle's story. "And when you say 'old friends'...?"

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Day 52: Game Room

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