Day 59: Cafeteria (noon)

[immortale]

By the time lunch rolled around, things still weren't getting any better. The voices hadn't gone away; instead, Firo was pretty sure they were getting more frequent. Ennis had been silent since last night, but Czes's voice had been an insistent buzz in his ear all morning

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[roseoverture]

The day had been pretty uneventful for Utena so far, perhaps to make up for her more eventful night. She had spent the whole shift between aimlessly flipping through books and meandering into the Sun Room to stare in bafflement at the blanket fort chaos going on there. She wasn't sure why it was happening or why the soldiers weren't doing anything about it, but it was a good thing to see, she'd decided. Landel's needed more random fun things going on. And now it was lunch time. For once, she was actually glad for it, because by that point, the skipped breakfast was catching up with her. "Oh man, I could eat a horse right now," she said to herself as she entered the cafeteria.

Then she got closer to the food line, and the smell hit her.

"What? Wow, what is that?! Ugh!" Utena said, covering her nose and mouth while speaking. It smelled like something had died in the gruel pot. Could gruel even go bad? What was in it, even?

And yet the staff served her up a bowl of the rank stuff anyway, seemingly unaffected by the smell. Or the look of it, for that matter. What Utena got in her bowl looked a lot less pink than usual, molded over in grey and green throughout. Did they really expect her to eat this? Seriously?

"Seriously? You guys really expect us to eat this?" she asked the nearest soldier, still holding her nose.

He raised an eyebrow, but otherwise his neutral expression didn't change. "Yes, we seriously do. Go sit down, soldier."

If Utena had been baffled by the blanket forts, she felt like she was going out of her mind (again) as she walked by other patients and watched them eating the rotten gruel without complaining or even flinching. Was it really just her? She couldn't be the only one who saw this, right? She was still asking herself that as she found a seat, and wondered with a grimace if she was just going to end up starving for the day.

[Oh hai Gabe~]

[affictitious]

Well, that was aggravating. Oh, like... everything else. He shouldn't be surprised at this point. Castiel was still trying to - hell if he knew. What he was trying to do was be Dad. To Gabriel, at least. Seriously, the things he would've done if one of his siblings had, not once, but twice demanded to be updated on his activities like he was a wayward son.

He outright refused to do it. He wasn't here to help anyone. He was here to get his ass out and stop the freaking Apocalypse from destroying humanity because, for some reason, he had a personal affinity for them.

What he needed was a distraction, so - oh. Bingo. Target spotted. Except that was after the whole... rotting food debacle. No thanks. He'll starve, and maybe turn a dead rat into a croissant later tonight. You know, just for kicks.

Gabriel slid into the chair opposite a girl who would give cotton candy a run for its money with that hair. Yu-Gi-Oh had nothing on this shit. "Getting a little desperate, aren't you? The maggot's a nice touch." He vaguely pointed a finger down at her bowl, where the aforementioned worm wiggled its way in and out of a dilapidated state of biochemistry. Primordial ooze looked better, and he'd seen primordial ooze.

[roseoverture]

Utena didn't register the voice across from her over the smell at first, not until the word "maggot" jumped out at her. She snapped out of her dedicated not-looking-at-her-food-ness at that and chanced a look down. "What? Mag- What the-?! Ugh!" Utena shoved her tray sharply to the side, almost sending it off the table. She saw the telltale white wiggles in the middle of the bowl now, and that was the final straw. No way was she eating anything the Institute gave her today. If the man across from her hadn't seen the rotting as well, she would have seriously started to wonder if she was having another "Yomi"-type day.

"So I'm not crazy, then. I was starting to wonder whether I was the only one who could smell anymore," she said with a sickened sigh, slumping onto her elbows. Though, a quick glance around confirmed that, despite what she and the man saw, others continued to eat without issue. That still didn't sit well with her on the "maybe you're crazy" front. Had she spoken too soon?

"How can they all eat that stuff? Do they seriously not notice it?" she wondered aloud, hoping the growing queasiness in her stomach would go away sooner rather than later.

[affictitious]

"Well, the whole crazy thing is relative, but sure. Why not?" Look, the whole mental institute thing had its place. Eventually. Someone had to be crazy around here. Actually, you know, he was a great example himself. He had been pulling one crazy, stupid idea after the other for the past. Whatever. Days. Way too many days.

He would've shrugged if his bitten shoulder hadn't reminded him with a startling jolt of pain what a bad idea that was. Someone tear his wings off now. Please.

Gabriel wiggled his fingers in a mystical way. Or an annoying, maggot-like way. Whatever. "Maybe everyone's been brainwashed into eating rot. It's a training camp for zombies. Very Asylum of the Dead. I heard there were zombies around, at least."

[roseoverture]

Utena wasn't sure she liked this guy's dismissive tone when he talked about relative craziness. It sounded kind of familiar for some reason, but she couldn't quite pick out why that was. Huh... Probably nothing, she thought after a moment, shaking her head and trying to pretend smell was a non-existent sense to her at the moment.

She made a face at the man's suggestion, and suddenly felt a lot more sick for everyone else than for herself. "Oh, gross! That's so terrible! We ought to tell people before they get sick if that's true." Looking a little green to go with the pink, she added with a faint shudder, "And yeah, there were zombies all right. I was here that night when they were in Doyleton. Augh, still not over that..."

[affictitious]

He was so very good at looking thrilled with a conversation when he honestly couldn't give a shit less. Personal talent. Of course, it didn't mean very much when you came from his sort of family. Which included kiddos like Castiel and Uriel. Case in point.

Maybe Zachariah. Nah. He had definitely had his days.

"Why bother? They seem to be enjoying the hell out of it." He didn't believe a damn thing he was spouting, but whatever. It was probably just a limited hallucination done just to piss everyone off or something. Or maybe they had been given the Matrix-They-Live contacts that showed them how the institute really was. Ooh. Spooky. So where were the posters proudly proclaiming MARRY AND REPRODUCE? Might liven up the Spartan atmosphere they had going.

"You didn't happen to turn into a zombie, right? Just happen to know someone who got munched on by Zombo the dancing canine, and he seemed bitchy, but still reasonably non-cannibalistic."

SCREAM I just watched They Live today, too! 8'D

[roseoverture]

Utena's queasiness turned to annoyance at the man's continued flippancy. There was something about it that rubbed her just the wrong way. It kind of felt like talking to Saionji, or maybe Touga. Yeah, Touga, only less playboy and more smarminess, if that was possible. Here's hoping things don't go "playboy" too, then... she thought with a grimace.

"No, I didn't. I had to beat a few down, and a friend and I ran over a few with a car we hotwired, but we didn't get bitten," she answered, trying not to let the snark get to her (yet). "Sorry about your friend, though. He's okay now, I'm hoping?"

After a few moments, she couldn't keep the remark to herself anymore. She raised a critical pink eyebrow. "And what does it matter if they're enjoying it? They could get seriously sick if it's like you said. I'm pretty sure they'd regret eating today if that happens."

HUEHUE IT'S LIKE I KNEW

[affictitious]

Man, it was so hard to take any face from someone with pink eyebrows seriously.

But. In her defense, she had said something worth an archangel's interest. "You know how to hotwire a car?" Look, being a few thousand years old didn't really come with a set of entirely human skill sets. Picking locks had been one of them. Hotwiring cars would be another. In his defense, he had wings and - well. Wings kind of solved both those problems. Hooray, holiness.

"That's pretty hot." She didn't even know the definition of smarminess before this moment. He settled deeper in his seat, but it was clear the comment was mostly flippant rather than a true sleazy attempt. He could get to that later. He didn't comment on Castiel's well-being. Still bitchy was a problem enough as it was. "And? It's not going to stop anything. If they can put parasites in the food, a couple of protein-rich maggots won't hurt them. Much." He also wasn't a whiz with human biology. Practically everything killed them. It was a shorter list to spell out what didn't.

IT'S LIKE YOU'RE PSYCHIC OR SOMETHING 8|

[roseoverture]

Oh. There it was.

Utena's face went completely flat at the remark. "Yeah, it's something someone taught us that night. That's all," she answered, crossing her arms. Maybe he wasn't being as sleazy and blatant as Touga, but he was still a much older man calling a girl her age "hot". That was so not going to fly on her watch, and she was going to let this guy know it.

And then he went on being even more flippant and annoying, and Utena's reactions stepped up a notch to match. "How do you just not care about people this much?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at him. And after a pause, she added, "And when were there even parasites in the food anyway?"

I am 8)

[affictitious]

"I could give you the whole step-by-step instruction manual for not caring if you'd like," he shrugged, because at this point? Yeah, he was done. Done with the charade, with this world, with all of its machines and humans and megalomaniacs with bird fetishes. Of course, the human charade he'd put on only usually lasted about ten minutes and didn't involve much effort, but. Still.

Something to be said for giving up.

At least she didn't throw her hands up and leave. Not like he would've cared either way, but this way had the potential for more fun. "You missed that whole thing? Not too long. Five days ago. They bugged the food, mind games were had. Fun for the whole family."

[roseoverture]

Who the hell did this guy think he was? Did he exist just to show Utena that the exact type of person she hated still existed in this world? If there was one thing she couldn't stand more than anything else, it was people not caring, be it about themselves or others, and thus the man's sarcastic comment sounded like something akin to "I AM ASSHOLE, HEAR ME ROAR" in her ears.

Which made it hard for her to pay attention to the other things he was telling her, which actually did sound like things she ought to know. There was a visible twitch in her brow as she listened to the man prattle on explain. "No, I was out for most of last week," she answered. Five days, she thought; yeah, the would have been right after she blacked out and got taken... wherever the hell it was people were taken when things like that happened. "If it was anything like the 'mind games' I know Landel's likes to play, though, I wish I could've been around to help my friends get through it."