Day 43: Sun Room

[arc_wrench]

Why does this place always have to spoil my fun? was the first thing HK thought when he realized he was back in his cell in the Institute. Oh well. This meant his nurse would be coming soon to lead him off to whatever boring place he was supposed to go to now

Comments

[rope_victim]

”Good morning, Alice, I’m afraid I have some very exciting and disappointing news. I’m sorry, but Akihiro…” Miku had stopped listening past that statement. So, he was gone. Maybe it was shock, but Miku couldn’t get herself to feel anything but cheated and empty. Like an automaton, she’d eaten like her nurse had asked, and now sat in the Sun Room, staring into space from her seat on a couch. When she finally started crying, the noise was quiet, despite her soft gasps for air between waves. Her tears left messy trails down her cheeks, and the box of tissues a nurse had put beside her were soon empty

[mizuhomaiden]

Sheena woke up in a lot of pain and a lot of bandages. Her wounds had all been expertly bandaged. She could feel stitches in her side and on the back of her shoulder where the zombie had bitten her, but overall she felt significantly better. At least she wasn't seeing black spots and seemed to have evened out to having a normal temperature. She was still bone tired, but she managed to haul herself out of bed.

It was then that she realized the morning announcement had been different. Odd. Still, she needed to go make sure Soubi, Ritsuka and Miku knew she hadn't ended up as zombie food since she hadn't made it back to them. Her first place to stop was the Sun Room to check the board if she didn't see any of them.

She did spot Miku and the other young woman crying her eyes out made the ninja completely forget about her own injuries and the pain she was in. She sat down next to Miku and reached out to gently tug her into the ninja's embrace. "Miku..."

[rope_victim]

Miku followed Sheena's lead loosely, though her sobs punctuated every other breath and sounded nearly as hysterical with grief as they had been with fear the night before. She murmured something quietly, almost too quiet to hear. "Sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry..."

[mizuhomaiden]

Sheena wrapped her arms around Miku and let the girl sob into her ample chest. It hurt like hell to move her one arm that much, but she didn't care.

"What are you sorry about?" She'd seen the board, so she knew Sousuke was gone, but she hoped Miku wasn't blaming herself.

[rope_victim]

Miku sniffed and sobbed, "Nothing... Sousuke... I don't know!" She just wanted to sleep, now, and it wasn't fair. This hurt the same way Mafuyu's disappearance had hurt. While she hadn't cried when it had happened, she remembered the long ride back to Tokyo, trying to keep her sobbing from interrupting the other passengers.

Why couldn't she keep anyone? Would Ritsuka be next? Sheena? Who? Who would go and leave her behind again? "I just can't... I can't..." She'd given up.

[mizuhomaiden]

"It's not your fault," Sheena whispered. "This place is evil, Miku. We have to stop it. For the memories of those dear to us, if nothing else."

She gently kissed the girl's hair.

[rope_victim]

The kiss made her think of her mother, a person Miku tried very hard to not think of. It was awful of her maybe, and she did her best to accept that, but it wasn't as though there was much love in her mother's heart for her tainted children anyway. She was too cowardly to take her own life, besides, wasn't she?

It was like each little disappearance had built up to this, sliding under her admittedly weak armor, culminating in Sousuke's disappearance, and (perhaps worse) Rangiku's death. Oh yes, she knew about that when she'd woken up with a pain in her heart. Miku lifted her head and took a slow breath. "Thank you, Sheena... but..." I've given up and I don't care anymore. I don't. How can I relay to you that I've finished? "I'm not sure how much more of this I can take." She hurriedly rubbed the heel of her palm. "So many people... I've been here so long, and so many people have left me behind now..." She was not brave, she was not strong, and people abandoned her continuously.

So who would be next?

[mizuhomaiden]

"I know how you feel," Sheena replied, brushing Miku's hair back from her face. "Okay, not because of stuff here, but because of stuff at home. I've caused a lot of people to die because of things I did and things I didn't do - just before coming here and back when I was a child. Mizuho was always small, but because of me, it's really small."

She was silent for a moment. "You have to stand, Miku. You can't just curl up into a ball and wish yourself away. If that was possible, I'd have done that a long time ago."

[rope_victim]

Sheena didn't quite get it; she didn't have anyone left. She was the very last one of her family, and despite doing her best to put on a smiling face and take care of others, it had worn on her. It was better if she kept it bottled up, wasn't it? If she just put a plug in the dam where it had sprung a leak.

Miku's face was messy; her wet cheeks and the tip of her nose red. "Wishing doesn't work. How many times do you think I've gone through this now, Sheena?"

[mizuhomaiden]

Plug a leak in the dam and eventually the whole thing comes crashing down when the pressure gets too much. Sadly, Sheena was no engineer; she was just a ninja.

"I don't know, Miku," she replied quietly. "How many?"

[rope_victim]

"Six times, Sheena. That's not counting the three from this place. And who knows how many more? What if it's Ritsuka next?" As soon as the words were uttered, Miku felt herself freeze and burn at the same time. Her face went deathly white and her skin clammy.

"I don't feel well," she announced and upended the contents of her breakfast on the sun room floor.

[mizuhomaiden]

Thank Martel Sheena was ninja. This meant she noticed it just before it happened and started to move just before Miku managed to cover her in the process. Unfortunately, she was a very injured ninja so, though she avoided getting covered in stomach acid and whatnot, she did rip the stitches in her shoulder.

A whimper of pain escaped her lips as she clamped a hand over the wound, feeling the warmth of blood start to seep through her shirt. Sheena was semi-perched on the arm of the couch for a moment before she carefully lowered herself back down onto the couch's cushion once she was sure Miku wasn't going to throw up again.

"Miku..." Sheena gently rubbed the girl's back with her other hand as the one was still clamped over her wound as if that would make the pain go away. She had no idea what to do.

[damned_nurses]

If she really had to be honest, it was a...break from the usual to have to intervene in a situation that wasn't two patients trying to tear each other's throats out.

The nurse hurried over with a glass of water, having seen the poor girl get sick right there, and another nurse followed just a few steps behind.

"Oh, dear!" Her gaze went to where the other girl was bleeding. She held the water out to Alice before addressing Sara. "We'll get that fixed up right away, Miss. Davis. Are you all right, Alice? You're welcome to return to your room to rest if you're unwell."

[rope_victim]

Miku took the water from the nurse, but didn't sip it. It was the second time in nearly as many weeks that she managed to stress herself out to... this point. Embarrassing.

"I'm alright," she lied ineffectively. Miku's eyes traveled over to Sheena, worried and sad. That was as good as her fault, really. Not the wounds so much as the fact that Sheena had moved too fast to accommodate her injuries, and reopened them. "I'm sorry."

[mizuhomaiden]

Sheena glanced over at the nurse when the woman called her by that name and gave a short nod. She wanted to make sure Miku was going to be alright before she let them restitch her back up. Taking her hand away from the wound, she looked at the blood on them, then rubbed the pads together.

"Oh, it's not your fault," Sheena replied. "I just, uh, forgot about it." She nodded to the water. "Take a couple sips, please?"

[damned_nurses]

The girl didn't look all right at all, but it was fairly clear that Alice was upset rather than ill, so she didn't force the issue, deciding that in this case, it was best to let the patient do what made her feel better. Perhaps she simply wanted to remain with her friend here. It wouldn't hurt for Alice to have a friend close by under the circumstances.

"If you're certain, dear," she replied, waiting patiently for Alice to take a drink. She glanced at Sara. "It's best to get that looked at right away. We'll fix it as soon as possible and then you can see Alice again, all right?"