Day 54: Breakfast

[arc_wrench]

For once, HK was working very hard to hide a giddy facial expression as he met his nurse at the door. He'd already hidden his scalpels in his clothing. The wonderful, sharp implements of doom would be needed today. “Statement: Despite my reticence towards all processed meat and plant products, I am experiencing intolerable levels of hunger,” he

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[autophoenix]

Before she knew what was going on, Claire was awake, sitting straight up in bed like she'd just suffered some massive heart attack or gotten jerked from a serious nightmare. Which was, honestly, more or less the case. Even given the way Bella had reacted and the fact that, apparently, there were dozens of patients just like her within the institute -- even witnessing that Peter wasn't just good at soccer as he'd initially preached and knowing that there was only one explanation for what he had done to that nurse -- there was a huge part of her that was screaming inside.

Her father had spent months upon months drilling into her head that no one was going to just accept her. She had to hide her secret or they'd use it against her one way or another, and now the list of people without abilities who knew about it in Landel's was growing. It was like inviting Landel himself down to the cafeteria and asking if he was interested in cutting her up to see if it healed. On second thought, he probably already knew, and it was a miracle she hadn't been chosen for some kind of 'test trials' of her own already, but the point remained. She wasn't equipped to handle people just finding out like Peter had without the chance to explain.

And that was where the biggest problem lie. Neither of them had an opportunity to explain. They'd just seen an astounding demonstration of what super freaks they were, the slowly dawning stare of recognition and understanding getting interrupted for their brief comas before the day began anew.

It wasn't until her heart began to slow down to a more reasonable pace that she actually realized how groggy and slow-moving she was. The adrenaline of the shock and worry had shot her up to a sitting position, but now that she tried to blink the sleep from her eyes, the room began to swim. She needed to eat -- she needed to something before she passed out again and lost the chance to try and get in touch with Peter. They needed to talk.

The nurse's presence in the room caused her to jump again as soon as Claire realized exactly who it was -- not Bella, unfortunately. It was a painful reminder of the wounds she'd suffered the previous night from one of them -- well, more like from whatever they turned into. Was it this nurse? Was there any way of even knowing? She jerked her arm back when the nurse tried to help her out of bed.

"I can do it myself," she muttered in a groggy slur. And, she did. She threw back the covers and dragged herself out of bed, pulling on the slippers they were permitted inside and heading for the door, out the familiar path to the cafeteria. The haze of sleep and exhaustion was so heavy that she couldn't even manage to latch onto what part of Landel's message rang so wholly strangely with her, instead mulling straight to the serving area to get herself an english muffin with all of the amenities, stacking the pseudo-sandwich as high as possible.

The bustle of the cafeteria hadn't started up yet, but her brain was fully aware of the fact that it was inevitably coming, so she picked a table near the back corner for the sake of not having to deal with people if at all possible. She was simply too tired for that.

Though she briefly considered that the sleep schedule Landel kept them on, which was really more like a lack of sleep schedule, had finally caught up with her, the wiser part of her brain knew it had to be her healing -- Edward had passed out from her blood healing his wounds, it made sense that everything she'd gone through last night would leave her feeling like the walking dead. Still, it was obnoxious, even if it was the only thing keeping her from winding up bandaged and broken like the patients always seemed to be.

As hard as she worked to be alert and cognitive most days, it was time to just accept that it wasn't going to happen. She was lucky to be alive, she didn't get to be picky.

[ Elle ]