Day 52: Game Room

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Lunch had taken his mind from his worries, if only for a few minutes. But after the intercom sounded and the nurses began leading patients onto the next activity, one look at the bulletin board brought everything back in full force. No replies from Ashton, Dias or Dad. By now Claude felt like he was practically counting down until the end of the

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[hat_einen_vogel]

He'd felt a little relieved when the intercom announced the end of lunch, and even more so when nurses came to the table to pull him away to the next shift. It wasn't like he was retreating or anything, because he wasn't. Wouldn't. It was just because of the women, really; they needed him elsewhere now.

It took him a moment to realize the (now slightly less annoying) woman was talking to him as she led him out of the mess and into the sun room, "-lbert, do you want to try playing a video game this afternoon?"

Prussia stared at her. What was she... What was with that random Latin word? "...A what?"

"A video game!" she repeated. "Didn't you hear the announcement? We've set up a few games for multiplayer interaction! You may not be a teenager any more, but men your age still like games, don't they?"

He supposed more players was good for any kind of seeing-game (maybe the game was to guess what someone saw?), but he wasn't sure why the nurse was so keen on thinking he'd want to participate... competitive spirit aside

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The nurse had been right about it not taking long for another patient to join him. Only a few minutes passed before a member of the staff showed up and placed another person next to him. Still, the suddenness of it all was kind of unexpected, which was why Claude couldn't quite mask his surprise as he watched her place the other controller into his hands. And then as quickly as she'd came, she was gone, leaving the two of them alone

[hat_einen_vogel]

So it was Claude!

Prussia wasn't too bothered by the fact Claude didn't recognize him-given the state he'd been in that night, he would have been more surprised if the kid did. He was obviously doing better now (more or less) than he had that night, which came as something of a relief. The only other guy Prussia had found bleeding had been in a worse state, but he was also gone... At least he could be sure that Claude had survived, unlike Raph.

"Yeah, we've met. Name's Gilbert Beilschmidt... and I heard your name from Ronixis," Prussia explained. Hopefully the kid would at least remember something about that night, but he couldn't blame him if his memory was a bit foggy. Just in case, he added, "We ran into you on that fancy spaceship a few nights ago."

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"Gilbert?!" he echoed so loudly that some of the nearby nurses glanced in their direction. Claude ducked his head a bit, rubbing the back of his head with one of his hands while the other still clutched onto the control. It was so weird not knowing what this man's face looked like until now, when he had his vision back. Claude suspected if he had, he would have thought to find him sooner. But as it was, he'd had a lot on his plate until now

[hat_einen_vogel]

He was startled when Claude repeated his name so loudly, but with the way that he'd ducked his head right after, it must have been that he'd been surprised to hear it in the first place. Claude's next words confirmed it: he'd remembered his name, but obviously not his face. Or, at least, he hadn't remembered until the reminder of that night.

"Yeah, yeah," Prussia agreed, preening from the thanks. It always felt damn good to be appreciated. "That was the night. I'm glad to see you're doing better now... Don't know how you ended up there in that condition, but Ronixis and I had just left a bathroom. The-what was it.... Kalnass?-the ship was about the last thing I expected to find."

He grinned at the memory; the doors leading any which way had been pretty damn confusing then, but looking back on it now... It was actually kind of fun.

"And yeah, it was my first time in space!" he answered, laughing. It'd probably his only time, too, unless there was some need for nations to leave Earth. But that would be a long time in the

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A bathroom and an advanced spaceship couldn't have been anymore different from one another, and yet somehow Gilbert and Dad had found their way from one to the other. It was almost as strange as Claude's own experiences, having spent a portion of the night blindly stumbling around until he collapsed onto what he guessed must have been the bridge of the Calnus. If he hadn't had other people to verify that it'd really happened, Claude might have thought the latter half of that night had just been a vivid dream or hallucination.

But, no...Gilbert was here, even if Dad wasn't right now. Rather than finding the experience frightening or off-putting, though, he seemed to have actually enjoyed it. Saying it was the last thing he expected to find was...probably pretty accurate, though.

"You and me both," Claude said with a sigh. "I just wish I knew how all of those portals were able to connect to so many different times and places, and why we all wound up on the Calnus at the same time

[hat_einen_vogel]

Oh, the ship was called the Calnus. At least he'd gotten it pretty close.

"I'm from Prussia," he answered automatically, giving something much more specific than just 'Earth'. 'Earth' was far too general; he could have been from anywhere if he said it that way, and he wouldn't want Claude to think he was Austrian. Or Polish. Or French. Or anything other than Prussian, really.

But then again... Claude was obviously from the distant future (he had to be, since Ronixis had said they weren't aliens and West hadn't said anything about spaceships being common by 2010), and Prussia wasn't exactly in a hurry to find out if the name 'Prussia' might mean anything to people that long from now. He liked to think it did, that he'd make a comeback, but he didn't want to hear it if didn't"It's on Earth-part of Germany. And I've been here for about," he added quickly, pausing to make a count, "five days

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Sometimes it was kind of funny meeting someone who said where they were from based off of their country. When working for the Federation, people had a tendency to see things more from an interplanetary, rather than a international, perspective. Though once Earth began reaching out to the stars and getting into conflicts with other races, it would make sense that many people would gradually begin to identify more as Earthlings first and foremost. In that way, his own era could probably be described as being somewhat post-nationalistic

[hat_einen_vogel]

"That's right," he confirmed proudly. The year would have probably made a lot of difference in giving Claude a clearer picture of where he was from, but he hadn't thought to mention it. He did wondered what Europe might be like in Claude's time, whenever that was if they had spaceships. It had already changed a lot since he'd first made a name for himself there, and he couldn't imagine it ever stopping.

Talking about the future, however, was… humbling, in a way. "I guess so," he conceded. "I mean, I know that everyone here can be from different times; none of the other…guys here that I knew back home are from the same year as I am, or even the same decade. But ending up in a different decade just by walking around.…"

It sounded as crazy as time travel at all had sounded just days ago, or as going from Earth into space in seconds would have if he hadn't experienced it himself. Maybe Claude was right, and they'd gone through time that night as well. If they could get their hands on whatever the boss here had used to do it,

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So Gilbert had some friends here, too. While it was good to know that he wasn't in this alone, Claude couldn't hide his surprise at being told that some of them were decades apart. Then again, considering the situation with him and his dad, maybe nothing should have been so shocking by now. But, still, most groups of friends he'd met here at least came from the same decade. The Auldrant group was a prime example of that.

He wasn't sure whether he ought to tell Gilbert that he technically had walked into a different century altogether, but decided to keep it to himself. Instead, he nodded when the made the connection between the portals and a way home. "That's what I was thinking, too," he said. "I mean, it's possible the whole thing was an elaborate set-up, but I don't know. Some of the stories I've heard from other people sort of point to at least some kind of time travel

[hat_einen_vogel]

"I've been wondering if there's any reason why some of us come from different times than others," Prussia proposed. "Obviously some of the other prisoners couldn't be here right now without time travel, but if they could have captured us from any time... Why us, and why at that point?"

In truth he'd only given it the most cursory of thoughts before, usually when talking to West, and it wasn't something that had kept his attention long after he'd ascertained that it wasn't because of any particular weaknesses. Still, maybe Claude would have a better idea, and he could pass it on to West.

Now that Claude had mentioned it, Prussia hadn't really seen Ronixis around much (or at all) since that night. He hadn't exactly been looking-his brother had shown up and things had happened-but if Claude hadn't seen him either...

"Have you tried asking the wome-the nurses about him?" he asked. "They're at least useful for that; they didn't mind telling me that this other guy I knew wasn't here any more. If you haven't been able to find

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Why us? Why now? Those were some of the questions all captives here probably asked themselves, but no one had any answers. Claude couldn't count how many times he'd asked himself why Landel felt this need to target his family, why he'd grabbed his parents from just before Claude's conception. Had he really done it for entertainment value? Or was there some other underlying purpose for it?

"I wish I knew," Claude sighed. "I mean, so far it's looking like they want to use us for something, but I'm not entirely sure what." Whatever it was, it had to be pretty involved if they felt like they needed to brainwash them for it. Or was brainwashing their way of weeding out people they didn't want to use

[hat_einen_vogel]

He tucked the bit of information of the warden wanting to use them for something away, trying not to think on that too much right now. The quarters here were pretty nice most of the time; they were fed and clothed well, and aside from the supposed monsters roaming around at night, there wasn't much in the way of a sense of imminent danger. But some people who had been here were gone now, like Raph and maybe Ronixis, and Prussia didn't want to start thinking about what might have happened to them if they'd outlived their usefulness. The very thought made him uneasy, and he barely heard Claude say that he'd try asking about Ronixis at the end of the shift.

He did, however, latch on to Claude thanking him for his awesome suggestion. He grinned proudly, giving Claude a curt nod, only to bristle defensively a moment later when asked if the stuff here was new to him. His grin took on a nervous twitch.

A bold denial of 'No way; I know all about this thing!' was on the tip of his tongue, but he narrowly bit it back. The simple truth

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Claude watched Gilbert, and he belatedly realized that he might be the kind of person who got embarrassed over not knowing about something. If he was from further into the past, though, he imagined this wasn't the only thing that was new to him. Still, it was completely understandable that he'd be kind of out of his element here.

"That's right," he said with a grin. "A lot of people play video games for fun." Claude leaned forward and gestured at the buttons at the front. "You push this to turn it on and off, and you push that--" He pointed to the one next to the power switch. "If you need to reset your game

[hat_einen_vogel]

A game played on the televisions? ...Or on the box, but obviously displayed on the sets.

Prussia listened with rapt attention as Claude explained how to operate the whole thing. He felt a bit embarrassed that he had to be told how to use it, but at least if it ever came up again, he would know. The other nations wouldn't find him at a disadvantage (and it was one more thing he would know about that Austria didn't).

He didn't really know what to think of the game when Claude asked, however; having it explained was different than trying it himself. As it was, he was a bit skeptical.

"So it's some kind of obstacle course?" he asked. With the time limit and the jumping and the 'getting through the area', that was the best he could come up with, but he wasn't exactly sure why someone would play a video game instead of the real thing. But Claude had also said something about dying, so... He added a conclusion for the sake of confirmation, "A dangerous one."