Day 59: Game Room (Fourth Shift)

[razing_phoenix]

Guy's head was still spinning from finding out that his friend was back once again. He realized that he'd done a good job of keeping his cool while explaining everything to Luke, mainly because nothing would have been solved if both of them had been reeling, but

Comments

[inconstancy]

Okay, so maybe it was rude to judge the girl who approached her immediately by how young she was. Was this some kind of all-ages boot camp? Her helper for information hadn't made that all too clear. This whole scenario was still pretty whacked out, and she liked not thinking about it. The girl in front of her wasn't helping. She was pretty young, though, so it was a fair judgment. Ramona didn't like hanging out with teenagers. She barely liked it when she was one.

But board games were harmless, right? Even if she wasn't into the whole weird teenager thing-that was more Scott's scene than her own, a great bitter thought lodged into this whole scenario-she realized she'd have to come up with a hefty excuse tell the girl no. And she was nice enough. "Nice enough," of course, meaning that she wasn't attacking her and wasn't psychotic. She had pretty low standards when it came to this stuff.

"Why not? It's better than someone psychoanalyizing me for my game time activities," she remarked. Ramona swept her cards together and put them back. "Wanna play Clue? I think it fits the feel here." She motioned toward the game box on the shelf. It was that or Life, but she wasn't up for sardonically depressing at the moment.

"Oh, and yeah, I'm Ramona. I'm new." It was added as an afterthought with a tone that really indicated as much.

[kingdomless]

Kairi smiled and took a seat across from the girl, nodding her head when she spoke her name. "Well, it's nice to meet you, Ramona. I'm sure you have a lot of questions. I'll help you with anything I can, since I've been here for ... " her shoulders drooped slightly at the admittance. "A very, very long time."

Watching as the girl put the other cards away, Kairi began, trying not to shove it all on Ramona at once. She was used to this kind of thing by now. "You're in a place called Landel's. It ... well, it used to be a mental asylum, but now it's some sort of military base, I believe." she frowned. Truthfully, she missed when the facade had been that of a place for crazy people. "But ... it's not," she said simply, leaning back in her seat as her eyes swept over the room, looking out for any random soldiers and whatnot. Punishment was the last thing she needed.

"Everyone you see here, we're all prisoners. No way to get out. Any special abilities we had from where we came from are either gone or severely tampered with.

"And once the lights are turned off, everything changes," she finished, looking up to the girl if she had any questions. It was always a gamble, speaking to newcomers. They either believed her and were prepared for nightfall, or ... well, they thought she was crazy and didn't believe her and were in for a surprise once the lights ceased. Either or.

[inconstancy]

The infodump wasn't exactly what she asked for, but it gave her a little something more to work with. It left Ramona wondering, against her own free will, if that was why Scott was here. After all, he was Scott Pilgrim. Even if he was kind of lame, she wouldn't be surprised if he could muddle his way through saving everyone. It was one of the basic facts of life, and something she didn't really worry about anymore.

Which was why the rest of it didn't really bother her. Ramona suddenly felt like she walked into an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark?-complete with the creepy setting and the teenager telling her the ghost story. Or was it an alive story? They were currently alive, right? She decided she'd figure out the semantics of something like that later.

But it all answered all the questions she hadn't felt like thinking about and more. That also explained her incapability toward her untimely escape. Ramona might've tried to write off that on something else, but now she knew. She figured that if they were "prisoners," something like subspace wasn't a factor. That was great. That really made things better.

"Um, okay," she replied. "So instead of being outside living directionless and meaningless lives, we're inside doing just that. Only I don't have to pay rent anymore." Her tone, at least, indicated that she didn't actually believe what she was saying. This wasn't an ideal situation, but Ramona tried to hide how compressed she suddenly felt.

"I'll look forward to the mood change tonight. Hey, do all the soldiers go berserk and try to hunt us? Because that's a total cliché, even if they try the chip on the back of the head thing. Or magic." It was rattled off like it was nothing-so yeah, Ramona definitely didn't think she was crazy. She just wasn't sure how much of this she wanted to parse out at the moment.

[kingdomless]

Well, that was ... certainly one way to put it. Kairi blinked in surprise at the blunt words. "Um ... well, I suppose you could ... say it's like that. However, I don't think we lead meaningless lives. After all, we all mean something to at least someone, right? That's not meaningless."

Ramona actually looked forward to the night? Kairi's eyes widened slightly and she frowned, brushing her fingers through her hair. "Well, not quite. It's different. I don't think I've heard of any soldiers attacking, but there are other things out there. All kinds of monsters and other nightmarish creatures. Sometimes even the patients are brainwashed to attack one another. Oh, and then there's the times where we're plucked from our rooms and experimented on," she frowned, freezing in her spot. "I believe tonight is an experimentation night, so ..."

"I know you said you just woke up, but," Kairi continued, looking up at Ramona through her eyelashes. "You haven't at least seen anyone you know yet, have you? It's difficult to wander the hallways alone at night, especially without a weapon. There's a flashlight under your pillow in your room, so that should at least help, but without a weapon, it's hard. And it's sometimes difficult to come by something to protect yourself with. I would recommend trying to get to the Recreational field and getting into the shed. Just be careful, because there's usually something guarding it. Sometimes the thing that's guarding the shed is invisible."

[inconstancy]

There went any ease she might've been able to fake about this place. Experiments. Now, it struck her what was so deeply unsettling underneath all of this, what she was trying to ignore because, rationally, she was used to this: Gideon Graves would be proud of this place. In fact, she could easily be convinced that he was behind this. Scott was here, anyway, and so was she-it'd be the perfect way to bring things to a close. The one final trap.

But this was going a little too far. This wasn't his irritating style. Ramona wasn't denying that this crappy place she landed was a hell hole made by someone evil, but it was a different someone evil. It didn't have to do with her poor dating choices.

Which, really, was a bit of a relief.

To her benefit, she actually looked mildly uncomfortable as she worked through this, muttering a brief, "Experimentation night?" with her eyes somewhat widened. It still looked like she was processing things. Where to get weapons wouldn't be hard, because Ramona had a habit of being clever with her surroundings, but recreational sheds tended to have stuff like baseball bats. Those were good. She wished she had one right now to take on the officer lady just on the other side of the room ... Though that was a little too cruel of a thought, wasn't it? At least Ramona kept herself from looking over there beyond an idle glance.

"Actually, I do kinda know someone here. Weird, right? You'd think they'd be pickier, but it sounds like that's normal." It was a casual transition from her processing stage, all for the one final statement: "His name's Scott. Kinda dopey, loud. Do you know him?" Ramona couldn't hold back her curiosity, after all.