Day 48: Intercom, Evening
"AACHOO! Ahem!" The Head Doctor's slightly-better-but-still-congested voice came on clearly over the intercom. The sound of Nurse Lydia sighing and pulling out a tissue from somewhere in the background was also audible
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Besides, she wanted to talk to Luke, after hearing about what happened to him. He was probably going to be okay, but the less time he spent moping around, the better. Besides, Anise just didn't like hearing special counseling victims act so apologetic. It made her start to think; maybe she hadn't taken her own brainwashing seriously enough...? When her friends assured her that things had worked out better than they could have, Anise was quick to agree, wanting to put it all behind her as soon as possible. Was that wrong?
--Ugh, she couldn't start thinking about that again. Luke was just being Luke, and things were going to blow over soon enough.
By the time Anise reached her room, she had managed to push most of her worries aside. But when she stepped inside, something was missing. Immediately, she broke away from the nurse who escorted her, and sharply pointed at the top of the dresser.
"Where are they!?"
The nurse looked confused for a few seconds, but then it seemed to dawn on her. "Oh! Those flowers from your boyfriend." Her expression turned sympathetic, and she bent down to speak to Anise directly. "I'm sorry, Dolores, but flowers don't last forever. They were completely dried up when I came here this morning, so I had to take them away. You understand... right?"
Anise just glared at the woman's patronizing words. Of course she understood. She saw how those flowers were withering, but... she didn't want to get rid of them. Those flowers, along with the chocolates on her desk, were from Ion. Even if he wasn't really himself when he gave them to her, they were the only things Anise still had that were from him.
The nurse eventually left, and Anise threw herself into her seat in a huff, unceremoniously jabbing her fork into the salmon on her plate as she began to eat her dinner. That stupid old hag. It was none of her business!
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Then she looked around the room, noticing something different. "What? Why in the world would they just throw out your stuff without asking?", she asked, as she sat down on the other bed, poking her fork at her fish. "That's really awful. I'm sorry."
It really was. When you only had so many things to hang on to? Things like flowers mattered a lot. Rika understood that and was definitely sympathetic.
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...So she probably also saw how quickly they were dying. It made Anise happy, in a funny sort of way, that she'd take her side despite that. "Right!? That makes me so mad!"
Still irritated, Anise made another jab at her food, though the motion was far less violent this time. Having someone around who seemed to understand her feelings was helping her calm down. Anise chewed and swallowed the piece of fish, and then sighed. She knew she couldn't keep fuming all night.
"Um, so anyway, how've you been? We haven't talked in a bit." Actually, Anise had been pretty worried about Rika. Not only was she fairly new to the institute, but she was young - really young. This had to be a scary place for her.
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