Day 49: Morning - Main Street

[sanguinario]

[From here.]

Easily forgiven? Unlikely. A pair of (presumably) mental patient committing theft. No, it was highly unlikely they would be easily forgiven. Conscience-wise? It wouldn't even stain his thoughts, really. Nothing like ten years of judgemental slaughter to make your mind jaded against the simpler crimes in the world

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[swornandbroken]

Mello had finished the chocolate by the time the bus parked, and he stared dully out the window as the other 'patients' started to clear out. The town looked like a slice of corny Americana, except for the graffiti. Genuine paranoia, conspiracy, or... He sighed. Who the fuck cared? Either way, he wouldn't find any sympathy or help here, and he no longer trusted his ability to turn that around with charm or more forceful persuasion.

Once off the bus, he pulled the hood of the awful tangerine thing up over his hair, and stuffed his hands into the jeans pockets. He was used to people looking at him, but not like this, suspicious as hell. Even if shoplifting weren't beneath him, he'd never pull it off. Not looking like a walking goddamn traffic cone, and not with the locals watching him as if they expected a psychotic break any second.

So he just walked along the sidewalk of the main drag in the drizzle, slouching, thoroughly sorry for himself and not bothering to hide it. He hadn't touched his breakfast. Maybe he'd grab lunch later. Two whole choices, how exciting.

[one cheery ray of sunshine, free!]

[mugenreppa]

Mele was looking up at the clouds as she exited the bus. Her prediction was looking more likely, wasn't it. Not that she had anything against rain-just on principle, it was....

She sighed and fished out the apple from the paper bag that, in turn, had been fished out from the big pocket of the black coat. What an annoyance. She'd take it off, but the prospect of having to carry the coat around wasn't any more appealing.

Munching on the apple, Mele started down the street, wondering why the town looked so beat up. And why there weren't more construction sites. Had she calculated wrong? Most of the rebuilding from last week would have been finished by now, she'd thought. But then, what was the purpose of those smiley faces? They resembled the ones on the grey shirts they always had to wear; was it supposed to be some kind of message?

"You look like you're having fun," she commented idly as her pace brought her next to someone who looked like he was trying to imitate some kinda fruit. Very...citrus-y.

[swornandbroken]

"I love fake freedom, don't you?" He glanced over at the girl: about his age, at a guess. Pretty, if you liked that sort of thing. He wondered how she got her hair to do that with limited supplies; his always felt dirty, yet another low-grade, background annoyance. Company might not be a terrible idea after all. The weather put Mello uncomfortably in mind of the day he'd been sure, until last night, would always rank as the worst of his life.

In his mind's eye, he saw the kid he'd been, leaving Wammy's in the rain, with one bag and the clothes on his back. Don't do it, he wished he could tell him. You're going off to a war you'll never win. He'd been so sure, then. So cocky, and so wrong. He dragged his thoughts back to the here and now.

"How long do you think it'll be before the villagers come after us with pitchforks?"

[mugenreppa]

"It was never any sort of freedom, you know," Mele replied, glancing up at the sky again. Why hadn't they been given umbrellas? The rain was going to make her hair all soppy. Though, umbrellas were probably too much to ask for. "We can't get out of here, either, or we'd be gone already."

Not that she'd know for sure; last time, she couldn't walk. But it worked on the same principle that the Institute did: there were too many of the type who'd strive, despite their own safety, to help everyone out. If there was a way to get out from here, they'd have heard about it.

"...Pitchforks?" She glanced around. Mele had noticed the glares, but she didn't see any pitchforks. Unless the villagers were hiding them really well. "Why pitchforks?"

[swornandbroken]

"Trust me, I know there's no way out." He'd been trying to console himself with the idea that while he might not be the exception he'd been so damn sure he was, everyone else was stuck here too. It wasn't working so well, only serving to remind him that with brilliant people like L, and people with powers like some he'd met, all consigned to this fate, what chance did he have of ever busting out? He couldn't even find his gun, or fight back against their sadistic experiments.

"The angry mob, with-- you know, never mind." Explaining it would've made it even less funny.

"I'm Morgan." Again, he used the alias mostly out of stubbornness. "How long have you been here?"

[mugenreppa]

Must be grumpy from the entrapment. But wouldn't getting out of the Institute be a reprieve, then? Mele tilted her head, but didn't ask. But if the villagers had pitchforks, she was going to have to take the advice she'd given Scarecrow and find some stuff to throw. Just in case. She didn't have her sai anymore, and who knew how many of her attacks wouldn't work. Things had...changed, after that night, as if her rinki had been messed with before it had been restored. Not that it hadn't been messed with to begin with.

"Mele. Two weeks." That is, if these trips were a week apart. Mele had never confirmed it, but it seemed a safe assumption. With sometimes losing nights inexplicably, it was harder for her to keep track than she usually would have. "Why?"

[swornandbroken]

Five days, and he'd cracked. Hm, other 'patients' did have a way of having more to them than met the eye. Mello looked down at the grubby toes of the work boots as he walked along. "Just curious. I've heard about weird shit happening here in town." Another glance over at Mele. "Weirder than vandalism. You know anything about that?"

The drive to find more information was still there, no matter what else they'd done to him. Even if it proved to be useless, and nothing more than a way to kill time. There was a possibility, however faint, that solving the mysteries of Doyleton and the Institute could lead to a cure for him, and as long as Mello could fight his feelings of hopelessness, he had to try to find those answers.

sorry for late! ;A;

[mugenreppa]

"Vandalism?" Was that what it looked like? ...Well, she supposed that was what it looked like. That did explain the smiley face, but not why it looked like this in the first place. If they'd had time to do something like this, then why not repair it completely?

"Depends on what you know about the hopping corpses," Mele answered, filing that thought away for now. "When we were trapped here the whole night?"

Oh, that doesn't count as late!

[swornandbroken]

"Before my time, but I heard about it." Mello started to notice other signs of damage he'd overlooked before, like the broken glass that clinked when he kicked it out of his path. Great observational skills, there, he told himself.

"Not from anyone who was here, though. What happened?" Teresa had said the Institute was attacked by Doyle that same night, which seemed too convenient to be accidental. Mello already didn't trust either side of that feud. Petty little men, making the prisoners pawns in their stupid little game, and he should've seen, by now, where to apply pressure to make it all come tumbling down. But he didn't.

[mugenreppa]

"We were trapped here the whole night. Apparently, night...'ended', and we woke up in the Institute. So it was like a night back in the building, I suppose." Mele flicked her apple core at a nearby trashcan as they passed it, taking a moment to let herself remember.

There'd been that tall guy-no, that was before the night. "It was...very sudden. The buildings changed...darker, more run-down or something. And hopping corpses appeared. No minds, no strategy, just..." Mele tilted her head. "...slow. Anything in particular you want to know?"

[swornandbroken]

"How were you trapped, exactly? How'd you find out you couldn't leave the town?" Mello hadn't known that, and it seemed to corroborate the theory he'd had, before all that crap had gone down last night, that whatever it was that knocked them out and made them wake up back in their own beds, its influence extended past the walls of Landel's proper. The zombies, he thought, had been a distraction; the point had been keeping people here, keeping them away from the real fight.

He asked the questions mostly on autopilot, though, knowing they were the ones he ought to pursue. The thrill of chasing down new information just wasn't sparking this time, not when he doubted that any progress at all was really possible here.

[mugenreppa]

"There were hopping corpses around," Mele answered. "Too busy fighting them to think of getting out. And anyway, we couldn't leave in the day, why would that be different all of a sudden?" And Mele hadn't exactly been in a position to find out. It was a possible missed opportunity, especially since those hero types wouldn't have had a way to alert everyone, in that case. Tch. She'd stick by the edge of town this time, if she could find it.

She could understand getting information-Scarecrow had just been telling her about some guy who was doing an investigation-but Mele would've thought 'no escaping you're all screwed haha!' was what anyone could expect from Landel. "Why the specifics? You know something?"

[swornandbroken]

"Just pieces," Mello admitted, sourly. His impulse was to keep what little information he had to himself, even if there was no point to doing that. His way had gotten him nowhere so far, and he still didn't want to give it up. Change, and the little wanker in the lab coat won.

"Did you know there was an attack on the Institute the same night?" That was easy enough to find out on one's own. "Good thing for Landel you were all stuck here, hm?" Mello remained suspicious that it might not be as clear-cut as it seemed who benefited from most of the prisoners being away. He dashed his damp bangs back from his eyes irritably. Second-guessing was going to get him nowhere, too.

"Wait, they were hopping?" She'd said it twice, probably not a figure of speech.

[mugenreppa]

Mele waited for him to elaborate, and when he didn't, she sighed. Everyone knew 'just' pieces-

"On the- No, I didn't. What happened there? Did his lackeys get tired of him?" Although if it had been some sort of mutiny, it clearly hadn't worked. Who else but the patients opposed Landel, though? "I don't think it would've made a difference if we weren't," she replied. "His power still worked." And anyway, they wouldn't have known where to attack. Mele still hadn't found this third floor she thought existed, but given how little progress she'd made, that was perhaps not so surprising.

"Hopping corpses, kyonshi, the reanimated dead, zombies," Mele answered, flicking some hair out of her eyes. There were other terms for it-one of the other ones in another language was on the tip of her tongue-but the rinshis had hopped, and the ones from last week hadn't been rinshis so 'hopping corpses' they were. "They were attacking."

[swornandbroken]

"Heh, gotcha." He was almost amused at the idiom, before he focused on the rest of what she'd said and his frown reasserted itself.

His power still worked. Not so long ago, Mello had been sure he could take that power for himself. And yet here he was, damp and wearing castoff clothes, eyeing the windows of a store and wondering if there were decent chocolate in there, as if he'd forgotten that shoplifting was for amateurs. Being beaten in a fair fight would've stung, sure. But beaten by a petty tyrant, who relied on tricks and monsters to keep his victims here? That ate at his soul like acid.

One corner of his mouth twitched in what wasn't a smile, but the conclusion of a quick internal debate: Fine, I'll give this much information up. She and I are in it together. "It was Doyle. Or someone wanted people to think it was." He hadn't discarded the idea of a third person or group being involved, but he'd based that all on a gut feeling, and those, well. Tended to fuck him over. He huffed a sigh. "Someone also wanted us to think he died that night."