Anise was actually sleeping well for once. When morning came, she was curled up on her side, her arms tightly hugging her pillow in the same way they would usually hold Tokunaga
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Zack was getting pretty sick of it. He didn't really care what the risks were. Tonight he was heading out on his own. If someone came across him and wanted to tag along, that would be fine, but he wasn't going to waste more time waiting around when he could manage just fine alone. It wasn't that he wanted to push people away, but someone needed to make progress around here and it was going to be him. He was used to getting things done and not being able to was wearing on him at this point.
He still took note of what he was wearing and the voice that was coming out of the speakers overhead, but Zack didn't really care at that point. He'd been keeping himself together so far, but after yet another night spent doing absolutely nothing, he was starting to feel both trapped and useless. Did it really matter if it was Aguilar or Landel who was holding them here? It still left them in the same situation.
Being offered a visit to the chapel was probably the best thing for him at that point, since it would allow him to calm down. Part of him didn't want to since this sort of anger and restlessness would lead to progress, but the last thing he needed was to be put in solitary again.
So he went and sat in the first row of the pews. He wished there were flowers here, and that the sun could shine down on them. He wished it had less people, or that it at least had the one person who would have been able to comfort him in this situation.
Aerith...
But no matter how hard he wished for it, that wouldn't make her magically appear. She'd waited for him for four years; he had to repay the favor now. Forcing out a breath, Zack closed his eyes.
And what is the point of this chapel, I wonder, Maya thought as she entered. It'd been mere curiosity that she wanted to see it; she saw enough of the Sun Room during the day.
Her guard had been kind enough to let Maya change her mind after leaving a comment on the bulletin board, at least, though it did leave one to wonder: why was she in nurse garb instead of her more sinister uniform? Maya had asked, but she hadn't answered. As per usual for her, but Maya amused herself by imagining how she'd react if she told her about the conversation Maya (and everyone else, presumably) had overheard on the intercom before they'd gone-forcibly-to bed.
But even that couldn't hold her attention for long, and she became distracted by the room. A bit lacking, was it not? It took a slow walk down the aisle to realize why: the imagery was somewhat off. Rather, it didn't seem present. Strange.
Speaking of strange things.... "Sleeping in the first row?" she said teasingly as she took a seat beside the young man. "Sacrilegious, yes?"
Having someone tease him while he was sitting in a church (or chapel, but it was basically the same thing) was almost too familiar for him to bear. But even as he opened his eyes, he knew that it wasn't Aerith who was speaking to him. The girl looked sweet enough at first glance, but she wasn't who he'd been hoping (maybe praying) for.
Still, he couldn't let on what he was feeling, both because it was rude and because he didn't really want to talk about it with a stranger. In the end, he always fell back on distractions instead of facing his own moods. Well, it had worked so far.
"I wasn't sleeping," he responded as he tried for a smile. It came to him far too easily. "Besides, it's not like anyone's giving a sermon." He motioned to the empty pulpit in front of them.
It seemed that she would be his company for the moment, though, and so Zack decided to introduce himself. "I'm Zack Fair," he said with a nod. "Haven't seen you around before. What's your name?"
Were such things done here? Maya had seen many chapels, but had never been to a gathering that took place in one. "I suppose not. I'm Maya. Pleasure to meet you."
Straight to business? No, that was bad form. She'd have time to ask the questions she wanted later. Moreso since her selection was quite random; she'd simply picked whoever had been nearest. Next time she'd pick someone who seemed knowledgeable about where patients disappeared to.
Now, then. That was the second time someone she'd spoken to had used that expression. "Do you normally keep a record of who you see?" Surely he'd passed by many others, even in a day? Likely it was simply an expression. "Something on your mind? The face on your chest bothering you, perhaps?"
Zack didn't know if it was obvious that he wasn't feeling so great or if Maya had just made a guess, but he was going to have to be more careful in the future. The fact that he'd been resting his eyes when he'd just woken up had probably been a giveaway. Well, he could always avoid the questions that he didn't want to answer.
"I will admit I liked the other uniform better," he said with a laugh. "But nah, I don't really keep track. You just start to see some of the same faces once you're here for long enough." It meant that she was probably newer than he was, at the very least. She would clarify if she felt the need to, but Zack wasn't too interested in knowing how long she'd been here. It didn't seem to matter all that much when it came down to it.
"How about you?" he asked, deciding to turn things around before the conversation got too focused on him. "How're you doing this morning?" She seemed to be in a good enough mood, but it was possible that she was also hiding her true feelings.
Had one of her questions been skipped? Here she'd thought she had picked the harmless ones. No matter; here, trust was paramount. In any case, the question had been general enough that the lack of response didn't tell her much. If she were one to analyze such things, that is. Which she was not, hm?
"Same faces is accurate," she responded to the question. Such a perfect lead-in. "But faces start to disappear, as well. I'm looking for someone with purple hair, a cheerful personality, and possibly a sword. Have you seen anyone fitting this description?"
...Hm. That was a little ridiculous, wasn't it? "What I mean to say," she said after a pause, "...is that I am fine this morning. I've heard it is common for patients to disappear...?" Without her meaning to, the last sentence trailed off into a question. Surely it wasn't a good idea to bombard a stranger with something like this. But Senna had been missing for possibly days, and from the looks of the bulletin board, Maya wasn't the only one getting worried.
"... I apologize. Something must have come over me. But I do want to know."
So it seemed that Maya had had a reason for coming to talk to him after all. Maybe she hadn't come here with the express purpose of asking about a missing friend, but it had clearly been on her mind. They had that one thing in common, then, although Zack already knew that Aerith was gone. It seemed that Maya was still holding out hope for the person she'd described.
"I don't think I've met anyone here with purple hair, and definitely not recently," he said after a pause, his brow knit. "I'm sorry." He'd run into his fair share of people here, but the only person with purple hair who he could remember off the top of his head was Anthy. And, well, he hadn't seen her in days.
"Disappearances are common, though," he continued. He didn't want to make her believe that that was definitely what had happened to her friend, but it was a possibility that she was going to have to open herself up to soon. "And don't apologize; it's normal to worry."
He wasn't sure if he should clarify what happened to those who vanished. Maybe that was something she was better off hearing about once she was positive that her friend was gone.
Maya had a small mental list of people she hadn't seen around for what seemed an unnaturally long time; Senna was the most obvious (and possibly the most recent) who sprang to mind after her conversations with Gren and Rose. Best not to ask after the others, however: if patient disappearances truly were common, it must be a sore spot.
In addition, Maya couldn't spend all of her conversations asking after others. What a wasteful opportunity. "Thank you kindly," she said faintly, leaning back into the back of the pew. She needed a new tactic; doing it this way made her impatient. Perhaps she should ask first, which left her free to discuss other things once the most urgent matter had been settled. Quite a paradoxical way to have a conversation, but...she'd manage.
"Enough depressing things," she said with her let-us-leave-that-topic-for-now smile. "I hope your night was okay? No monsters, I hope?"
Zack thought it was a bit strange that the girl didn't follow up with more questions, but maybe that was all that she needed to hear. Or she was planning to go to the bulletin to discuss it further. It wasn't the most lighthearted of subjects, obviously, but he would have answered her questions if she'd wanted.
The topic she decided to jump to instead wasn't necessarily less depressing, but it did open up something that he could complain about if he wanted. He wasn't one to do that too much, but he did end up sighing in response. "It was... all right. I got to meet up with a friend of mine, but we weren't really able to do anything." Going to check on Tifa had been a bad idea, and yet Zack hadn't had the heart to tell that to Cloud.
"It's been like that for me a lot lately," he admitted, his gaze facing forward. He didn't really want to look Maya in the eye since he was being pretty open and with a relative stranger. "I just wish I could get more done, and I don't know how to fix it." Except for throwing caution to the wind and going on his own; he'd finally gotten to that point.
'Do?' Do what? "For some, meeting up with others for another night is the goal, you know." But clearly, here it was not the case. Maya hadn't yet begun to think of the ways one could subvert the asylum. A symptom of Fair's longer stay, perhaps?
But of course Maya would need to think of these things eventually. It was simply that anywhere away from Wataru was fine (however atrocious calling such an event 'fine'), and for its drawbacks, Maya had not encountered Fangire within these walls. She wasn't in enemy hands, she was in a place she could meet people and amuse herself observing their outlandish behavior, she didn't lack for food or shelter.
Yet it was still causing her grief. Her mental list of the missing was several people long. She may as well start getting serious with her rebellions now. "Is that mindset not the same for everyone?" she responded. "Time is not something we can reverse." A small joking smile; she didn't mean to trivialize his frustration, but she'd heard this sentiment a fair amount. "What are you planning?"
She had a point. Sometimes, making sure that your friends were all right was all that was necessary. In Zack's opinion, though, that was something that could happen during the day. At night he wanted to at least keep others out of danger by stepping up to fight -- and if not that, then he wanted to explore places, find items, do something beyond wandering the halls around the room blocks aimlessly.
It seemed that Maya felt that a lot of people were in the same boat as him, but Zack still got the sense that there were some patients who really were getting places at night, and he wanted to be among that number. He wasn't used to this constant failure that had become a pattern here.
"Well, tonight I'm going to see how far I can get on my own." Cloud, Tifa, and Yuffie had all proved themselves to be capable, so he didn't have to worry about leaving them alone. Cloud was the only one who wasn't armed (seeing how Tifa fought with her fists), but Zack had been convinced by now that his friend could handle himself despite that.
My, was this another evasion? There was no reason to be secretive, was there? "How far you can get to where?" she asked, making an attempt not to sound accusatory if he couldn't say. After all, what did she know of his circumstances?
Maya was attempting empathy. How novel. Her conversation with Arthur brought up the point that everyone was trying their best, but as there had been patients before Maya, their attempts couldn't have amounted to much. She had barely been acquainted with Doctor Landel before the change of asylum head occurred, and not much had seemed to change, except the strictness with which patients were treated.
Say... "How long have you been seeing how far you can get?" she asked, thoughtlessly framing her question in a slightly mocking way, as was her habit. "Before the General entered the picture?"
It seemed like Maya wasn't interested in the questions being directed to her, and Zack suddenly felt like this was an interrogation -- or at least like she was judging him. He wasn't much in the mood to be under a critical eye, but he also wasn't rude enough to just walk away from the conversation. Instead, he was quiet for a long while, trying to both calm his nerves and figure out how he should answer her.
"I've been here for over a week, if that's what you mean to ask." If so, she had a really roundabout way of doing so. He wondered if she had really accomplished all that much during her short time here, but it didn't seem like he was going to get the chance to ask.
"As for where I'll go, I'm not really sure. Could try to just head over the walls and run as fast as I can as far as I can, or I could explore deeper into the building." He had no shortage of options, seeing how his progress thus far had been so limited. He knew exactly where the basement was, but that apparently couldn't be a one-man job. There had to be other options where it was possible, though.
Zack was getting pretty sick of it. He didn't really care what the risks were. Tonight he was heading out on his own. If someone came across him and wanted to tag along, that would be fine, but he wasn't going to waste more time waiting around when he could manage just fine alone. It wasn't that he wanted to push people away, but someone needed to make progress around here and it was going to be him. He was used to getting things done and not being able to was wearing on him at this point.
He still took note of what he was wearing and the voice that was coming out of the speakers overhead, but Zack didn't really care at that point. He'd been keeping himself together so far, but after yet another night spent doing absolutely nothing, he was starting to feel both trapped and useless. Did it really matter if it was Aguilar or Landel who was holding them here? It still left them in the same situation.
Being offered a visit to the chapel was probably the best thing for him at that point, since it would allow him to calm down. Part of him didn't want to since this sort of anger and restlessness would lead to progress, but the last thing he needed was to be put in solitary again.
So he went and sat in the first row of the pews. He wished there were flowers here, and that the sun could shine down on them. He wished it had less people, or that it at least had the one person who would have been able to comfort him in this situation.
Aerith...
But no matter how hard he wished for it, that wouldn't make her magically appear. She'd waited for him for four years; he had to repay the favor now. Forcing out a breath, Zack closed his eyes.
[Free.]
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Her guard had been kind enough to let Maya change her mind after leaving a comment on the bulletin board, at least, though it did leave one to wonder: why was she in nurse garb instead of her more sinister uniform? Maya had asked, but she hadn't answered. As per usual for her, but Maya amused herself by imagining how she'd react if she told her about the conversation Maya (and everyone else, presumably) had overheard on the intercom before they'd gone-forcibly-to bed.
But even that couldn't hold her attention for long, and she became distracted by the room. A bit lacking, was it not? It took a slow walk down the aisle to realize why: the imagery was somewhat off. Rather, it didn't seem present. Strange.
Speaking of strange things.... "Sleeping in the first row?" she said teasingly as she took a seat beside the young man. "Sacrilegious, yes?"
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Still, he couldn't let on what he was feeling, both because it was rude and because he didn't really want to talk about it with a stranger. In the end, he always fell back on distractions instead of facing his own moods. Well, it had worked so far.
"I wasn't sleeping," he responded as he tried for a smile. It came to him far too easily. "Besides, it's not like anyone's giving a sermon." He motioned to the empty pulpit in front of them.
It seemed that she would be his company for the moment, though, and so Zack decided to introduce himself. "I'm Zack Fair," he said with a nod. "Haven't seen you around before. What's your name?"
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Straight to business? No, that was bad form. She'd have time to ask the questions she wanted later. Moreso since her selection was quite random; she'd simply picked whoever had been nearest. Next time she'd pick someone who seemed knowledgeable about where patients disappeared to.
Now, then. That was the second time someone she'd spoken to had used that expression. "Do you normally keep a record of who you see?" Surely he'd passed by many others, even in a day? Likely it was simply an expression. "Something on your mind? The face on your chest bothering you, perhaps?"
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Zack didn't know if it was obvious that he wasn't feeling so great or if Maya had just made a guess, but he was going to have to be more careful in the future. The fact that he'd been resting his eyes when he'd just woken up had probably been a giveaway. Well, he could always avoid the questions that he didn't want to answer.
"I will admit I liked the other uniform better," he said with a laugh. "But nah, I don't really keep track. You just start to see some of the same faces once you're here for long enough." It meant that she was probably newer than he was, at the very least. She would clarify if she felt the need to, but Zack wasn't too interested in knowing how long she'd been here. It didn't seem to matter all that much when it came down to it.
"How about you?" he asked, deciding to turn things around before the conversation got too focused on him. "How're you doing this morning?" She seemed to be in a good enough mood, but it was possible that she was also hiding her true feelings.
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"Same faces is accurate," she responded to the question. Such a perfect lead-in. "But faces start to disappear, as well. I'm looking for someone with purple hair, a cheerful personality, and possibly a sword. Have you seen anyone fitting this description?"
...Hm. That was a little ridiculous, wasn't it? "What I mean to say," she said after a pause, "...is that I am fine this morning. I've heard it is common for patients to disappear...?" Without her meaning to, the last sentence trailed off into a question. Surely it wasn't a good idea to bombard a stranger with something like this. But Senna had been missing for possibly days, and from the looks of the bulletin board, Maya wasn't the only one getting worried.
"... I apologize. Something must have come over me. But I do want to know."
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"I don't think I've met anyone here with purple hair, and definitely not recently," he said after a pause, his brow knit. "I'm sorry." He'd run into his fair share of people here, but the only person with purple hair who he could remember off the top of his head was Anthy. And, well, he hadn't seen her in days.
"Disappearances are common, though," he continued. He didn't want to make her believe that that was definitely what had happened to her friend, but it was a possibility that she was going to have to open herself up to soon. "And don't apologize; it's normal to worry."
He wasn't sure if he should clarify what happened to those who vanished. Maybe that was something she was better off hearing about once she was positive that her friend was gone.
Reply
In addition, Maya couldn't spend all of her conversations asking after others. What a wasteful opportunity. "Thank you kindly," she said faintly, leaning back into the back of the pew. She needed a new tactic; doing it this way made her impatient. Perhaps she should ask first, which left her free to discuss other things once the most urgent matter had been settled. Quite a paradoxical way to have a conversation, but...she'd manage.
"Enough depressing things," she said with her let-us-leave-that-topic-for-now smile. "I hope your night was okay? No monsters, I hope?"
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The topic she decided to jump to instead wasn't necessarily less depressing, but it did open up something that he could complain about if he wanted. He wasn't one to do that too much, but he did end up sighing in response. "It was... all right. I got to meet up with a friend of mine, but we weren't really able to do anything." Going to check on Tifa had been a bad idea, and yet Zack hadn't had the heart to tell that to Cloud.
"It's been like that for me a lot lately," he admitted, his gaze facing forward. He didn't really want to look Maya in the eye since he was being pretty open and with a relative stranger. "I just wish I could get more done, and I don't know how to fix it." Except for throwing caution to the wind and going on his own; he'd finally gotten to that point.
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But of course Maya would need to think of these things eventually. It was simply that anywhere away from Wataru was fine (however atrocious calling such an event 'fine'), and for its drawbacks, Maya had not encountered Fangire within these walls. She wasn't in enemy hands, she was in a place she could meet people and amuse herself observing their outlandish behavior, she didn't lack for food or shelter.
Yet it was still causing her grief. Her mental list of the missing was several people long. She may as well start getting serious with her rebellions now. "Is that mindset not the same for everyone?" she responded. "Time is not something we can reverse." A small joking smile; she didn't mean to trivialize his frustration, but she'd heard this sentiment a fair amount. "What are you planning?"
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It seemed that Maya felt that a lot of people were in the same boat as him, but Zack still got the sense that there were some patients who really were getting places at night, and he wanted to be among that number. He wasn't used to this constant failure that had become a pattern here.
"Well, tonight I'm going to see how far I can get on my own." Cloud, Tifa, and Yuffie had all proved themselves to be capable, so he didn't have to worry about leaving them alone. Cloud was the only one who wasn't armed (seeing how Tifa fought with her fists), but Zack had been convinced by now that his friend could handle himself despite that.
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Maya was attempting empathy. How novel. Her conversation with Arthur brought up the point that everyone was trying their best, but as there had been patients before Maya, their attempts couldn't have amounted to much. She had barely been acquainted with Doctor Landel before the change of asylum head occurred, and not much had seemed to change, except the strictness with which patients were treated.
Say... "How long have you been seeing how far you can get?" she asked, thoughtlessly framing her question in a slightly mocking way, as was her habit. "Before the General entered the picture?"
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"I've been here for over a week, if that's what you mean to ask." If so, she had a really roundabout way of doing so. He wondered if she had really accomplished all that much during her short time here, but it didn't seem like he was going to get the chance to ask.
"As for where I'll go, I'm not really sure. Could try to just head over the walls and run as fast as I can as far as I can, or I could explore deeper into the building." He had no shortage of options, seeing how his progress thus far had been so limited. He knew exactly where the basement was, but that apparently couldn't be a one-man job. There had to be other options where it was possible, though.
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