damned_institute | 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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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'...?"

Day 52: Game Room

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