Night 57: Front Desk (Medical Wing)

[purpletaint]

[from here]Unsurprisingly, the door opened with a twist of the handle and little pressure. The interior hidden behind a door long since locked--if they were to believe the blow-hard of a commander who had taken control--was quite large, dwarfing the sun room in comparison. Enclaves and doorways crept away from them, and Albedo was idly curious--

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[ultimagi]

The conversation didn't concern her directly, so the girl let it fall into the background; she listened, but not with the same intensive concentration as in the hallways. Instead, she focused her energies on seeing into dark room. The beam from Lana's hand was not enough to slay the darkness, but it pierced well enough. A lance of light rather than the bright cast of flames. The floor was pale in hue, the walls chill, and she could not see how high the ceiling or how far the hallways stretched. There wasn't much that caught her attention, even where the light did shine. Nothing was familiar.

The shapes of human figures could not be distinguished by detail; the closeness of Lana and her light were all that kept her from slipping from the girl's view. While she spoke towards Bella, her attention moved from them to the ghost boy. His translucent form was more difficult to pluck out, but she found him all the same.

She had so many questions--for him, for Bella, for Lana, for everything that was going on--but little clue where to start. "What's your name?" she asked, echoing the question she was not able to answer for herself. If the boy without a body could remember his name, could remember what led him here, could remember a friend he left behind... why couldn't she?

[mirthfulness]

"Gamzee, sis." The troll didn't stay close to Lana. Rather, he hung to the back away from all of them, following all the same. Somehow, the idea of accidentally walking through them didn't sit comfortably with him. This way he could at least pretend he was still a solid figure. "Gamzee Makara."

He wasn't familiar with any of them, so he doubted it would be the other way around. It had only been a couple days since his arrival, and the only even remotely recognizable person so far (aside from Karkat) was that Rose girl. They hadn't even met in person before arriving here. Everyone was a stranger to him. While that hadn't been an issue at all before, he was a little more uncomfortable with it now that he was in a state that was frightening others away.

And it looked like they'd be returning to the med wing after all. He might as well follow along. His shadowed eyes wandered toward the smiley face on the board, bright and cheerful with the nose he added. There was hardly any reason for him to feel cheerful now.

[vitale]

Well, this was different. Bella was trying her hardest not to worry about the ghost boy, and the instant they stepped towards the front desk of the Medical Wing, she was moving away from all of them, towards the desk with interest. What kind of things did they have already hiding in this small place? It looked ... almost like a real hospital -

When the boy said what his name was, Bella decided that she at least had to add in on the conversation. She knew how frightening it was to have something she couldn't explain happening to her, so she couldn't just ignore the boy when something that was beyond his control was happening to him.

"How old are you?" She asked in a hushed voice, frowning as she looked up at him. He seemed pretty young - but she had seen young children here before as well, and it was horrifying. How could Landel have taken such young children from their homes and brought them to this horrible place? It just. It wasn't fair.

[fourstonewalls]

Lana was cataloging everything in the room, and peering through the doors that would open. It wasn't June 10, unless something really odd had happened to the climate -- if they'd been up in the mountains, it could be this cold, but it would have been getting warmer, not colder, over the past few weeks. The ink on the whiteboard came off at a touch of her sleeve; normal dry-erase, nothing sinister except the message.

A peek into what appeared to be a lounge was no different; everything fit the same mismatched furnishings as the rest of the Institute. So close to correct, but with a few fatal contradictions. The first being that, she was entirely certain, the calendar would be the same tomorrow. She'd carefully lifted up most of the pages, and torn out December 12; the next time she made it back here, she could start a collection.

Bella was calming down, which was just as well, though she hadn't answered the question. Ah, well. It might be better to ask tomorrow, in broad daylight. She'd just join in the chit-chat.

"You haven't been here very long, have you?" Lana said, crossing back over from the door to the lounge.

[ultimagi]

Bella. Lana. Gamzee Makara. The girl whose name was not Jane held a hand to her temple, and closed her eyes. It was a weak brace against the headache threatening to return in full force; if her vision would have blurred for pain, she couldn't know. Nothing about this was familiar to her, so why was her head pounding so fiercely? The fingertips against her temple slid to a full palm against her forehead, blonde hair damp and tangled around her knuckles. It felt like the beret, currently trapped beneath her belt, was still wound tight around her brow.

The girl took a breath and forced herself to drop her hand back to her side. They seemed to know what they were looking for, and the ghost had been here before; she only had to follow their lead, right? There really wasn't anything else she could do.

[mirthfulness]

They were talking to him now, letting him follow along. That was a little more comforting, knowing they didn't appear ready to leave him at the first opportunity. He could attempt idle conversation, at least.

"Uh... I'm six solar sweeps. That's all bein' somethin' else in human time or whatever, though. All I know's it's around thirteen, but I couldn't all do any motherfuckin' math for you." Numbers were complicated, alright? Math was part of that whole science and explanations deal, anyway. Just took all the miracles out of everything. "And... I only been here a couple days, so you're right."

He was sure there were still plenty of things he needed to learn about this place so that incidents like this didn't happen again. Or maybe incidents like this were simply unavoidable. That would make him feel a little better.