full_score
in
damned
Day 57: Sun Room [Third Shift]
Brunch had tasted delicious as usual, but he still felt guilty for enjoying it when so many other patients weren't as fortunate as him and Ritsuka. Still, he'd be lying if he said he wasn't grateful for his meals. His appetite had been pretty spotty during the week after his "sleep study", so Claude wanted to think he was making up for lost time
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Everyone handled that sort of information differently, though, and Peter couldn't be too surprised at the fact that a teenage kid saw it as a long time. Chances were that his problems hadn't extended beyond getting his homework done on time, so having something like this thrown his way had to be overwhelming. Though... at the same time, Peter knew that there had to be something special about Ted for him to even end up here. Not that he was going to pry, especially when it was clear that the kid was distressed.
All the difficult questions were getting asked now, just as they had with Mikado, and Peter rubbed his hand over his eyes as he tried to formulate a reply. "It's not exactly clear. We're being held here and sometimes we're experimented on or brainwashed, but... it probably has to go beyond that." They were being groomed for something, or that was his guess.
It was hard to be comforting when all the news was bad, but Peter gave it a shot anyway. "I'm not going to lie to you. Things can get rough here. But we're all in the same boat, so that makes it a little easier to bear. Find some people you can trust." That wasn't too difficult to manage, seeing how most of the patients were good people. There were definitely some bad eggs mixed in, but they weren't too difficult to avoid.
The characters in the movie were digging their escape tunnels by now, but Peter already had an idea of how this was going to end. It seemed pretty cruel to be showing them something like this, but that was probably Aguilar's idea of a sense of humor.
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Ted thought experiments were what you did with peanuts in Biology class; or what he might have been made to do, if he hadn't eaten the peanuts and gotten sent for detention by a most unsympathetic teacher. You didn't do experiments on humans. That was totally unethical and probably hard to fit under a microscope. Plus they could sue, and that would suck, Ted wisely concluded.
But no... wait. Aliens. Aliens experimented on humans, Ted realized. He'd read about it in some bodacious book on UFOs, and how you might be driving around at night when a flying saucer would swoop down and abduct you and the little green aliens would cut you up and do experiments on you and make you pregnant, even if you were a dude, which was totally non-triumphant and you couldn't even apply for maternity leave.
Maybe he was on a spaceship, right now. Ted blinked.
But Peter's words were somewhat comforting; at least he wasn't alone. But he didn't know anyone here. There weren't any familiar faces to seek solace in. Any friends would have to be new, and while he'd made some, so far, it didn't help to know that most were as clueless about the situation as he was.
But at least he had a theory, now. "Are we on a spaceship?" he asked Peter.
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Although then his companion for the shift spoke up again, not with any words of thanks or even with a logical question. No, what he asked came completely out of nowhere, forcing Peter to stare at him with wide-eyed bewilderment.
"What?" he sputtered, running through what he'd explained before and wondering when a spaceship had ever been brought up. It hadn't.
"What do you mean? I didn't say that." He was still trying to puzzle through it, but Ted was clearly working off of some knowledge base that Peter wasn't aware of, to come to a conclusion like that.
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He shrugged. "You said that people here get experimented on. That totally sounds like something that aliens would do, and most aliens live in spaceships."
Ted decided that some examples of spaceships might be helpful. "You know, spaceships. Like the U.S.S. Enterprise, the Death Star, Sesame Street... Maybe one abducted us, dude!"
In fact, there might be aliens amongst them right now, observing their behavior, Ted thought, glancing around with minor excitement. They might look human, but underneath their prosthetic flesh might be bug-eyes and green skin and exceedingly versatile tentacles.
"You haven't seen any aliens around, have you?" he asked in a conspiratorial whisper.
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Despite that, he was almost positive that Sesame Street was in no way a spaceship, but he wasn't going to start an argument on that basis. He was only willing to let this conversation reach certain levels of ridiculous.
"Believe me, it's not a spaceship," he said with a slight quirk to his lips. It was hard not to just laugh at the whole thing, though he had to admit that that was better than having a very serious, depressing sort of conversation. Ted was good company in that respect, at least. "You'll see when you go outside."
That last question wasn't one that he could just ignore, though, especially when taking into account the things he'd seen. A friend of his had turned into a demon and attacked him; he couldn't exactly act like everything was normal here. "It depends on your definition of alien," he said after a pause. "There are people here who aren't from Earth, but everyone here looks human." Not everyone started off that way, but Ted might be able to fill in the blanks on his own.
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"It is true that they may look human," he said wisely, "but we do not know what lies beneath their deceptive facades."
Unless they were friendly aliens, and the intent had been to blend in, not to deceive. Ted was about to bring up this possibility, when he remembered the more important thing Peter had just said...
"...but, dude... you've been outside?" he asked. Ted's previous attempts - though admittedly there had not been many - had not exactly been successful. "Someone said that there was a poisonous miasma out there, and that it was a totally bad idea to leave."
Miasma. Ted was proud of himself for remembering that word.
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He really hoped that he didn't end up face to face with any of those. It was bad enough that he'd spent a night fighting zombies here.
Ted's shock about being able to go outside took Peter by surprise, especially since they had just been in town the day before. He was newer than that, then. It was the comment about "miasma" that really threw him for a loop, though, and he raised an eyebrow at the kid before shaking his head.
"Whoever told you that must have been pulling your leg. You can definitely go outside here. Actually, you can probably go next shift, since we have free choice for where we can go today. Just ask one of the staff to take you to the courtyard or the rec field."
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