damned_institute | Day 68: Greenhouse

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Day 68: Greenhouse

By the time lunch ended, the gloomy weather had become a raging storm. Soushi held his coat tightly as they were separated once again, and followed his guide to the outdoor greenhouse. Luckily, the temperature changed and balanced out nicely once they were inside and he shook himself free of the coat.

The greenery was a welcome change, but it was hard to appreciate it when every passing moment only filled him with more worry. While he had obtained a great deal more information today than in his first day in the institution, he was still no closer to finding Ririchiyo or a means of escape. There was a dull ache in his chest that had nothing to do with any physical ailment and everything to do with her absence.

An audible sigh escaped his lips as he picked up a small trowel and gloves and took to the nearby plants, attempting to distract himself and failing miserably.

[Kurogane]

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"My desk huh? Okay, I'll check in there tonight." Ed gave his head a quick shake. "Sorry about the abrupt topic shift to that, it just occurred to me to find that out before I forgot."

He brushed back his bangs, frowning at a perfectly innocent daffodil. "Lust told me the doors unlock. And that there's monsters that she described as similar to chimera and spirits."

He was a bit skeptical about the latter personally, but he didn't see any reason to disbelieve her yet.

Abrupt topic shifts were par enough the course here, given how much the staff enjoyed cutting off or derailing patient interactions, that Sasuke simply shrugged off the apology. There were more important details to focus on -- like the second mention of a name that he could definitely remember. Lust had been one of the first patients he'd spoken to here, but he hadn't seen her for weeks either. If there were any way to find out whether the knowledge she'd shared with Edward were recently gathered ...

"They unlock as soon as the dinner shift ends," Sasuke confirmed, making a mental note to track down Lust if he could. "The monsters vary. Most are probably closer to chimaera, but there are some that are stranger.

"Did you only arrive this morning?"

Ed nodded. "Yeah. So when she found me, she filled me in on everything she could think of."

He shrugged a bit. "We're from the same world, so she was fairly happy to see a familiar face." He'll just leave out that they were on opposite sides until the end.

He took a look at what they were near now, took a mental note, and moved on. "She also said that someone we knew was sick, but she didn't get into specifics."

The same world? There was another bizarre piece to the odd way Alphonse and Edward had reappeared at the same time: was there some kind of pattern related to the worlds? Now that Sasuke thought back through the appearances and disappearances of those from his own world ...

But he and Aidou broke pattern, as increasingly he was noticing they did.

The information that another from their world was ill made Sasuke raise an eyebrow, remembering late that the supposed cure was to be found somewhere in the Greenhouse. Perhaps that explained the number of patients in here: a cure for a night shift ailment that existed in the day shift.

"A number of patients have been sick for a few days," he said, and then added: "It happens from time to time, possibly for Landel's amusement. If there's a purpose behind it, I don't see it."

"What does it do? A really nasty flu-type thing, or something worse?" Ed asked, finally getting tired of wandering around the greenhouse and coming to a stop.

Of course, stopping made him feel the need to do something else, so he folded his arms across his chest while he waited for the answer.

"Worse," Sasuke replied without hesitation, amused by the innocent assumption of what Landel called a 'flu' could be. "Much worse than that. It's not so much a disease as a decay."

And something akin to that mind control again, at least in whatever iteration Sasuke had experienced. Last time had been caused by infection, whereas this time didn't seen to have any discernible cause that Sasuke could tell. "There was something similar to this that happened a few weeks ago.

"... it caused a hunger for flesh."

That last resulted in an aghast stare from Ed. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

The prospect of getting sick with something that would make him want to start eating other people didn't bear thinking about. "It's not contagious, is it?"

Part of Sasuke wanted to respond with a quick I wish I were -- something weirdly immature in response to the naivete of this Edward -- but he quashed it with the awareness that the staff were already starting to murmur suggestions to the busiest patients to clean up to prepare for the next shift.

"That one was contagious," he said instead, keeping to the facts and choosing to omit the fact that he was one of the victims of contagion. Explaining that would have meant explaining the -- the undead, and that wasn't something that Sasuke could explain. In many ways there was no explaining of it: just telling.

"This one, I'm less certain. It doesn't appear to be through mere proximity."

"Great. Now I get to be paranoid of weird illnesses," Ed said, looking a bit pale.

He also took note of nurses having people wrap things up, and started moving again, to try to finish mapping the place out in his head. "Anything in here of note?"

Being paranoid was of little use here, given the way that the last illness had happened in circumstances no one whatsoever could have predicted and how this round had happened for no particular reason either. That was a line of thinking that would be of little use to Edward, though -- and to himself -- and just when had Sasuke given up so completely on extraneous things like worry --

He shook it off to glance around the greenhouse again, mouth tightening. "There's a rumour that the cure for this illness is in here. I am unaware as to what it might be."

Ed nodded, pieces of what Lust told him earlier clicking into place. "And everybody's been looking for it for either themselves or friends?"

Well -- to be fair, Sasuke hadn't been, which was why he hadn't taken the care to pay attention to exactly what it was supposed to look like. But it was a fair enough assessment of any situation like this in the Institute, so he merely nodded.

"There are groups other than the Institute that are from this world," he said instead. "They have less power than Landel and his set, but they provide information and claim to be here to assist us in some way."

"Do you know if anyone's actually met any of them?" Ed asked, as he warily eyed the nurses starting to collect other patients, and hoped theirs would be a few minutes more.

"Many have," Sasuke said, watching his own nurse pick over the crowd of patients with the faintly predatory air she wore when looking for him. "Those groups have gone through leadership changes themselves. What some patients met differs from what others have seen.

"Their motivations aren't to be trusted."

"So basically, take what they say with a grain of salt," Ed said as he suppressed a groan when he saw his own nurse approaching. "Look like we're done."

"Take everything you hear in this place with a grain of salt," Sasuke clarified as the pair of nurses descended upon them, and was struck again with how completely Landel had moulded him -- moulded them all, perhaps -- against his will.

So much for his willpower. Here there were only the methods of Sound, creeping and insidious.

"I'll keep that in mind," Ed said as the nurse started herding him off.

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Day 68: Greenhouse

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