touchedgod
in
damned
DAY 59: CAFETERIA
Billy surfaced into wakefulness. Sleep receded like an inky tide, and it didn't say anything to him before it was gone. His dreams had been nothing but the sensation of water, rocking him restlessly in his bottle. There seemed to be an ocean beyond his confines, but he couldn't see it and couldn't reach it. He pawed at the glass, but any progress
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Rita tugged her legs away from the sheets and shot up out of bed, suddenly hyper-aware of the feeling of fabric against her skin, and the impact of her feet hitting the ground. Her body was there. Even though it had nearly faded away last night, it was whole again.
There was a wave of relief... but also anger. What the hell kind of drug was that? If it caused hallucinations, then Brook had seen them too... unless Brook himself had been a hallucination all along. Rita hoped her mind would have come up with a less stupid companion, if that were the case.
But if her body had truly been modified in such a way... and the experience had felt real enough that she couldn't dismiss that as a possibility... then what did that mean for Rita? Could she really assume she was fine just because she felt all right that morning? Someone couldn't have their whole body undergo a state change and then be fine the next day!
A soldier came to escort Rita to breakfast, and she was silent for the entire walk there, a permanent glare affixed to her face. When she arrived, she was handed her usual pile of slop and told to sit down. Rita did, but once she was sitting she shoved the gruel away from herself and brought her head down on the table, burying her face in her folded arms. She may have looked like she was sleeping, or maybe even crying, but it was neither of those things. Rita just wanted to shut out the rest of the world for a few minutes.
[for Woody]
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Closing his eyes, he tried to calm down. "Okay, Woody, deep breaths..." There was only one of him, but a wide range of rooms and hallways. Buzz could have gone anywhere, and they'd just missed each other. Maybe he hadn't been taken for...experiments or whatever at all, and he was just as worried about Woody as he was about him.
At least he could post to the bulletin board and ask. Resolved to do whatever it took to look for his buddy, Woody climbed out of his bed and fixed his beret onto his head with one, decisive motion. The movement felt familiar, even if the hat fit wrong.
Once the soldier came to collect him, Woody obediently followed after. (He still had some injuries from last night, which made moving a little more annoying, but his uniform thankfully covered them all.) Not wanting to provoke his escort, he did a decent job of keeping any biting comments to himself. (Okay, well, maybe he rolled his eyes a little at the man when he wasn't looking, but come on. With the way he never smiled, he obviously took himself way too seriously.)
Thankfully, his silence paid off, as he was allowed to jot down a note on the board before stepping onto the cafeteria. The room didn't have many people in it yet, though many "patients" were slowly filing in. Once Woody got his own plate of their...pink oatmeal (he couldn't believe anyone could actually call it food), he walked across the room in long, languid strides as he tried to find a place to sit.
Although his first inclination was to search for a table alone, Woody couldn't help but pause when he caught sight of Rita with her head buried in her arms. Did something happen to her since the last time they spoke, or was she just sleepy? Part of him wanted to leave the weird space girl to herself, but he faltered the moment he turned away.
Sighing (though mostly at himself), he faced Rita again and approached her table. Woody set his tray down and slowly took a seat. "Uhh...you okay?"
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No, not a ghost. Ghosts didn't exist. If anything, it could be compared to spirit conversion. Entelexia became spirits through a sort of assisted evolution... Was it possible that humans could attain similar forms? But even if they could...
Her thoughts were interrupted by a nearby voice. It sounded like it was directed at her, so Rita lifted her head out of her arms and stared forward with an irritated expression. "What do you think?" she retorted automatically. It was practically a reflex to answer with hostility, and she did it before even acknowledging who had asked.
... Oh, it was him. Rita wondered for a moment if Woody came to laugh at her, just like she had when he was being punished by the military. It couldn't be that he was concerned about her, right?
"... Hmph." Rita pulled her folded arms back as she sat up straight, crossing them over her chest. If he was going to ask how she was, then Rita supposed she might as well take the chance to vent. "The freaks running this place think they can do whatever they want to us. It pisses me off!"
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Thankfully, she continued before he could come back with some snappy remark. While he didn't appreciate the greeting, she had at least acknowledged him. Woody knew by now that Rita wasn't afraid to ignore people if it suited her. And anyway, he could get behind her anger at the Institute.
"Yeah, tell me about it!" Propping a hand in his chin, he stirred his fork around in that nasty-looking pink goop. "It was bad enough when we had to deal with creepy doctors who, who--" The whole thing was so ludicrous that he had to search for the right words. "--pretend we're in a hospital. Now we're locked in some kind of boot camp that everyone outside thinks is a hospital? What are they, a bunch of idiots?"
Didn't anyone out there know this place was all wrong? Or were the townspeople just that clueless?
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She could have continued her rant (oh, she could have ranted for hours), or she could have elaborated on what was wearing on her mood... but instead, Rita shifted the topic to Woody himself.
"I'm surprised you've lasted this long without losing any limbs," she pointed out, perhaps a bit too casually. "What've you been doing at night?" He didn't strike her as the fighting type (certainly not to the extent of battle freaks like Taura or Goku), so she was honestly curious.
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While Woody liked to think he could hold his own if push came to shove, this just wasn't any place for a toy.
As for the question, he wished he could give a good answer, like that he'd been exploring, that he was on the verge of finding a way out here. Woody hesitated, uncertain of how much he even wanted to share with Rita.
"I, uh...went looking for a buddy of mine last night," he finally said. A lot of good that had done him. Then again, Woody knew he ought to be grateful something bigger hadn't tried to munch on him and Ippo. "He wasn't anywhere in Doyleton, and then there's this, this..." He gestured with his hands as he tried to articulate what happened to him. "...gap in my memory, like I'd been asleep awhile."
Then, his expression changed, as though something just occurred to him. "Wait a minute," he said, eyes narrowing in thought. "When was that Doyleton trip, anyway?"
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Just as Rita thought, it really wasn't a good idea to get too close to people in the institute. It was hard to keep track of friends, and there was no telling when someone might disappear. Better to keep everyone at an arm's length. She wouldn't get hurt that way.
Woody's next question was an odd one, but Rita replied promptly, almost as if showing off how organized her own thoughts were. "Three days ago." It sounded like he was trying to work out how big that 'gap' was. Rita was admittedly a little curious now too, even if it didn't show on her face.
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"What?!" His hands slammed down onto the table, causing his fork to clatter off of his tray. Immediately, he felt the gaze of several soldiers. Woody instinctively hunched down and lowered his voice, but the terrified look on his face still remained. "What do you mean, three days? Doyleton was--"
Realizing his voice was beginning to escalate again, Woody took a deep breath and continued with a hiss, "Doyleton was the last thing I remembered when I woke up last night!"
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"I mean three days," Rita repeated in response to Woody's incredulity. There was a pause, and then she matched his hushed tone and asked, "You were seriously out for three days? Were you sick or something?" Judging from his reaction, that kind of downtime definitely wasn't normal for him. The only other possibility that Rita could think of was that the staff had drugged him in some way... which could have a lot of unpleasant implications.
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Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. "I feel fine, so that's gotta count for something. Right?" Woody wasn't sure why he needed a little reassurance right then (least of all from Rita), but that didn't stop him from throwing that out there. He hated having to muddle through this whole human thing, especially when he didn't know where to find Buzz.
"Do you know if this has happened to anyone else here?" he asked after a moment. On one hand, Woody was almost afraid to know what became of people who could fall asleep for days on end, but part of him was also scared to be the only one who'd done this before.
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When asked if she knew of any other cases, Rita looked upward thoughtfully... then shrugged. "I might have heard something like that before, but I don't really remember any details." When scanning the bulletin for information, the things that Rita made sure to retain were all facts relating to the institute itself and things she could use, and not so much the other patients. She didn't really give a second thought to people talking about how much sleeping they'd been doing.
"Anyway, you probably would have noticed some symptoms before or after if you were sick. My best guess would be that the military drugged you." Rita took a sip of her milk (the one part of her meal that wasn't insulting to her) as she mulled over the possible implications. She considered keeping them to herself, but... well, maybe she'd get to see another exaggerated reaction. "If they went to the trouble of knocking you out, they might have been doing experiments. Well? Do you feel any different? Still have all your organs?"
She was half-joking... though that did mean she was still half-serious.
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"I feel fine," he pointedly added. And if he was fine, that meant they hadn't cut him up or, or...anything else that involved needles or knives!
"I just...don't remember what happened between then and last night," Woody quietly admitted. "And anyway, I'm more worried about my friend Buzz. You haven't seen him anywhere, have you? He's got blond hair and blue eyes. Uh, he's kind of short and stocky, too."
It was weird how he couldn't just refer to him as a Buzz Lightyear toy without everyone looking at him like he was nuts. Complications like that just made finding him that much more difficult.
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"Buzz?" She had to force herself not to crack up as she repeated it. Woody said he was from Earth, didn't he? Rita didn't remember that many Earthians having such ridiculous names. Did Woody and his friend specifically come from the Village of Stupid Names or something? One would think the institute was doing them a favor by giving them fake ones.
Once she was sure she could continue without bursting into laughter, Rita answered the question. "No, I haven't seen anyone like that. I'm usually too busy with research to bother much with people-watching, though."
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Thinking about him made Woody's heart grow heavy. What he'd give just to hear his voice right then...
"Well, if you ever wind up seeing someone who fits that description, could you let me know?" he asked. Her excuse about research sounded strange when coming from someone so young, but Woody was too worried about his friend to think about making fun of her for it right then.
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"Yeah, sure, I'll let you know," Rita agreed, though her tone may have sounded almost dismissive. She wasn't a liar, though. Even if she didn't plan to put any effort into looking for the guy, she'd say something if he showed up in front of her. Even if she was a little bitter that Woody had found friends almost immediately and she was still completely alone (though she would never say so out loud), Rita wasn't about to try and mess up other people's friendships. That'd just be stupid.
The intercom sounded then, and the shift change was announced. Rita gave a small glance to her untouched food (using the word loosely), then pulled herself up out of her seat. "Time to go. Try not to get killed." As far as Rita was concerned, that was a nice thing to say.
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