Day 57: Arts & Crafts Room (Fourth Shift)
When she left the lobby, Anise still didn't know what to think about her visitor. All this time, she thought the one person the institute would never truly get to was the Colonel, and that if he was gone, then maybe he was hiding somewhere, plotting a way to rescue the rest of them. Now that she thought about it... maybe that was naïve of her. She
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However, there was no activity to be found. In fact, the room was practically empty except for one pig-tailed girl who he recognized, who was soon joined by an older blond man who was also familiar. Both of them had been in the institute for a while, and yet Sora had never gotten the chance to speak with them.
Shrugging to himself, Sora decided to find something to do with his time and ended up with a set of markers and a piece of paper. He wasn't the best artist, but he didn't think he needed to be if he was just looking to entertain himself. Before long he'd started to draw out a rather childish version of his island home.
Even if Roxas was gone, Sora's mood was kept afloat by the fact that the club was going well and Kairi was in good shape. His night was also shaping up to be busy already, seeing how he was going to have to hand over Minato's gun to his friend and then wait for Tsubaki to drop off whatever she had for him. Not to mention giving Kairi her gifts! Still, Sora was glad that he had so many things happening, since it meant he couldn't let himself drift into any unhappy thoughts.
[For Ruby.]
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So, she headed into the room, making a face when the stench of Elmer's glue and fresh craft paper hit her. It was like 20th century second grade classroom that she'd never had the chance to be in. She didn't see the draw this crap had for Lilith, but when you were painting in the blood of other kids instead of watercolors, she guessed it could make a little more sense.
Scoping out the room kinda brought down her theory on first sweep. Instead of finding anybody useful, she got what could be expected out of arts and crafts -- kids, kids, and some people who wished they were kids.
Then again, Roxas was just a kid too. She did a double-take when she saw a shortish guy with spiky hair and the bluest freaking eyes, but was disappointed to find it wasn't him. Disappointed? Since when were demons -- a warm blossom of pain in her gut told her to stop questioning and brooding on it. Fine. She was freaking disappointed.
Still. The longer she looked at him, the harder it was to shake the feeling that something in him reminded her of Roxas and -- hey, she'd probably just seen 'em together before. So, she headed over to where he was coloring with markers, dropping into the seat across from him and stealing the blue marker for herself, reading the label and turning it over in her hands thoughtfully.
"All the artsy crap they stuff down our throats, you'd think Picasso finished up his Guernica in rehab." She set the marker back down, scrutinizing Sora's face for a minute. "I don't know you, do I?"
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Still, she'd taken his blue marker. He'd needed that to work on the ocean part of his drawing, which was sort of an important part. The childish part of him wanted to demand it back, but he was old enough now that he could crush that down. She'd probably return it eventually, right? And if not, he'd just ask politely in a minute or two.
Either way, his drawing was forgotten for the moment to grant the lady his attention. He had little idea of what she was talking about at first, but was able to focus on the question directed at him. Did she recognize him? He frowned at her for a moment, but he was certain he'd never spoken to her before. Still, he was pretty used to getting recognized by now, for a variety of reasons.
"I don't think so. Maybe you've just seen me around?" he asked with a tilt of his head. "My name's Sora."
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"Arts and crafts. Cute." There was something humorous to finding him actually playing with markers upon realizing that he was in the, apparently aptly named, club. She realized he probably had no idea what she was talking about, and after a beat, clarified. "The club on the bulletin board. That's you, right?"
It didn't fully excuse how she knew him. Maybe she'd seen him with Roxas, though -- if they were in their little club together, they had to hang around each other, right? It was the best explanation she could muster up, anyway. Ruby didn't like having to come up with her own rationalities, though. She liked having the facts.
"I'm Ruby. Roxas is one of yours, right? He helped me out some a few days back."
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As it turned out, she also knew him from the club. That still didn't explain how she had known him just by looking at him, but it was possible she'd seen him hanging around the bulletin board writing up notes to the club. That was the only thing that made sense to him, anyway. "Yeah, that's me," he responded with a nod.
Unfortunately, it didn't end there, since the next thing he knew she was bringing up Roxas. (At least he'd gotten a name: Ruby.) It was even more likely that she had noticed the resemblance, seeing how that had just happened to him yesterday with that woman named Claire. Unfortunately, he had bad news for both of them.
"He's... my friend, yeah." It was much more complicated than that, but he wasn't going to explain unless asked. It was kind of a headache trying to explain Heartless, Nobodies, and everything else in between to someone who'd never heard of it. "But... I'm sorry, he just disappeared yesterday." He glanced down at his drawing, mainly so he wouldn't have to see her expression in response to that.
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The news made a sufficient distraction from her curiosity, though, because she felt something she wasn't entirely too familiar with. Like the disappointment had come back with a vengeance. And friends. And armaments. It was like a weight of tension had leveled in her gut, and was crawling its way up into her throat. She didn't like it, and she especially didn't like the underlying sizzle she could feel of the Grace racing through her as a result. At least it had dulled over the past day.
"Disappeared? How's that work, did somebody come haul his stuff and check him out?"
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Sora didn't really want to explain it, and yet if Ruby and Roxas had been friends then she needed to know. It was something that she should be aware of in general, in the event that any other people she knew suffered from the same fate. While Sora realized that it wasn't as horrible as if they'd actually died, it still wasn't an easy thing to hear about.
"Not exactly. Anyone who vanishes from this place has probably ended up out in the world somewhere," he said with a tilt of his head, meaning to indicate the land beyond the institute's walls and beyond Doyleton. "But they don't really know who they are anymore. They think they're the fake person that this place made up for us. All of the visitors are like that too."
Donald, for instance. Actually, Sora was lucky that Roxas hadn't come to see him today, although it probably took more than a day to get settled out there. Not that he really knew how it worked, but it would have been a quick turn-around either way. "Sometimes people will come back, though, and they might remember stuff about this place or they might not." There didn't seem to be any set rules for how that worked.
Although, remembering what had happened to Kairi, Sora had to wonder if maybe Roxas was just being kept unconscious in that mysterious medical wing. He didn't want to keep his hopes up, though, and so it was better to just assume he was with Donald and everyone else. Hopefully he was happy.
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She relaxed over a brief moment and then fixed a stiff gaze back on Sora, assessing him. In that moment, a part of her almost wished he didn't remind her so much of the little blonde kid who now thought he was just another brainless part of the masses. But no such luck. She grasped at words to temper the awkwardness of her fervent reaction.
"So, they just screw with his head and send him packing. God bless rehabilitation." There was snide loathing to the way she said the word rehabilitation. No one deserved that, especially not some innocent kid.
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"It could happen to any of us," he said with a sigh. In fact, it happened to most people. For some reason it hadn't happened to him yet, except for that one day when he'd thought he was Matthew. It was scary to realize that they could do it so easily, and yet here he was despite that. He didn't get it, but he was going to call himself lucky for now.
Before he could say anything else, however, a woman dressed as a nurse (but was she really?) moved toward their table with a letter in her hand.
"Here you go, Matthew. Sorry that we were late getting it to you."
Sora took the envelope, surprised by the idea of the staff would be giving him anything. Before he could ask anything, the woman had walked off, leaving him to stare down at the front of the letter. There was a name there, one that he recognized and yet not enough: Delmar.
"Donald...?" He said it to himself, and Ruby was more or less forgotten as he quickly moved to tear the envelope open and get to whatever was inside. A note from a brainwashed friend. It was almost too much of a coincidence considering what they'd just been talking about.
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She knew better than anybody that it could happen to any of them at any time. She knew because she'd gotten the firsthand account of when it happened to her out of Sam. Sure, Roxas being out and about and released was a little less serious than her going all Michael Meyers on everybody's favorite antichrist, but it was the principle that really bothered her.
When the nurse stopped by and dropped off her little envelope, though, that caught Ruby's attention a whole lot more than fixating on what kinda position Roxas was in did. She'd rather just push that to the back of her mind and deal with it later. This, on the other hand, she could only grill Sora about now. After all, it wasn't every day they got mail.
"Who's Donald? Ex-boyfriend?" There was a wry, comical edge in her voice as she raised an eyebrow at the reaction that the brat seemed to give off.
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Even though part of him didn't want to read whatever Donald had written him, he knew that he had to. His friend had taken the time to write it and while he wasn't aware of himself right now, he was still worried for Sora. He had to honor that.
The letter was pretty long, which Sora was grateful for even with all the horrible implications. He read about names that he didn't recognize but that probably belonged to people he knew; about a play he'd never heard of; about his mom and how she and everyone else missed him.
I'm sorry, he thought to himself, almost as if the words could get to his friend if he tried hard enough. Maybe if he'd been back home, the power of his heart would have been strong enough that his message would have gotten through, but he knew that wouldn't be the case here.
He wanted to read it over and over, but he knew that Ruby had to be watching him and so he finally looked up again, a tired smile on his face. "Sorry, I just... it's good to hear from him, but it's sad too, y'know? He doesn't remember anything about what we went through..."
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But not this time. This time, as Sora began to read the letter, and she caught his face falling from what was on the page, she actually felt a tug in her gut. The corners of her mouth turned downward and her forehead creased further as she tried to grapple for what she could do. The pain started rushing back, as though it'd been just a few minutes ago that she'd been pumped full of angel juice. She clenched her jaw and bit through it.
As he looked back up, she forced her way back to a neutral, less concerned expression, and she studied his eyes. There was weariness at the edge of his smile -- the kind that kept it from looking really genuine. Whatever it was they went through … the kid had a lot behind him.
"Don't get too worked up about it," she responded with a dry kind of casualness, shrugging her shoulders. "It's not him. Hobbes still remembers everything about you and your little adventures, Calvin. It's just stuck up there, and it'll stay stuck up there until we beat it out of Landel or Aguilar or whoever the hell's pulling this place's real strings. You want to see him go back to what you remember instead of what you're getting outta this letter?" She pointed to it purposefully, then folds her arms over the table. "Keep it close and make sure you remember to fight."
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He nodded firmly, tucking the letter carefully into his pocket before looking back to her with a clear look in his eyes. He already knew what he needed to do and had decided on it the second that he'd seen Donald, transformed though he'd been, walk through the waiting room doors last week.
"I know that. I'd never leave my friends behind, so I'm going to find him and everyone else and get them back to normal before I ever get home. Don't worry." It made Sora wonder if Ruby had any friends who had been brainwashed that she didn't even know about, but putting that thought into her head would just be cruel.
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"Sounds like you've got some pretty big aspirations going." It was clear by her tone that she was impressed. After a moment of studying him more, she spoke up decisively. "Tell you what, Sora," she grabbed a small scrap of craft paper and wrote her room number down on it in big blocky letters, then slid it across the table to him. "You need any help with those big dreams of yours, you look me up."
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"Help is always good! I actually run a club here, so if you ever need something to do with your night, you can always take an assignment." He didn't know if that was the sort of help that she was offering, but it was more or less the perfect time to mention that, wasn't it? He didn't want Kairi to feel like she was the only one trying to recruit people, after all.
Either way, this turn of events was serving as a good distraction from the letter he'd just received. With people like Ruby willing to help, saving his friends was seeming more and more possible.
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After all, she wasn't going to take a sabbatical from pushing her blood down Sam's throat to help out this kid with his charity work. But, if he got in trouble, that was a different story. She opened her mouth to add something, but the nurses came by to start ushering them out of the room. Ruby stuffed the marker she'd used back in the box, raising her eyebrows at Sora.
"Later, Alligator."
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