Day 56: Magus Park (Morning)

[scintillatingly]

Getting to check up on Neku had been good (even though Sora realized that he was the one who'd been approached, rather than doing the approaching), but when the buses finally made their way through the snow and into the town, the boy was completely distracted by the view that followed. It really did remind him of Christmastown. There were no lights

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[for_a_song]

Gren stumbled off the bus and into Doyleton, feeling a strange sense of deja vu. Hadn't it been like this three years ago, arriving on Callisto sick and dazed, surrounded by snow and with no idea what he was supposed to do next

[selfnighted]

What was the sinister purpose behind this trip, Maya wondered. It was certainly a nice change of pace, to be out and about, get a view of sky that was not enclosed by walls. Yet Aigis had looked terrible this morning, a fact Maya attributed not to the trip necessarily, but in such a case, would it not be remiss of an asylum to neglect to keep Aigis indoors until her illness had passed? Despite the fact of being a mental asylum, in which case, that sense of compartmentalization was surprisingly rigid for an institute that had delivered Maya her pipe last night.

Hmm, unless the purpose was to parade the patients around in their terrible clothing. Maya exited her reverie to find herself in the park-amusing, considering her last thought. Not so amusing was the music her imagination-nay, her memory-spontaneously conjured up at the sight. A pity the park was all covered in snow.

"Pretty, isn't it?" she asked as she approached the man she thought she'd recognized. "But you seem not to think so. Is something wrong?"

[for_a_song]

When had he gotten so jumpy? When had he started letting his mind wander so much that he could be startled by someone simply walking up to him, in full view?

Maybe it was just whatever they'd done to him... whatever they'd pumped him full of this time. He never had found out what the point had been. Not that that was new, either. He seemed destined to forever be shoved around by forces beyond his control.

"Yeah," he replied, once he could make himself focus. He knew this woman... from the day before. He hadn't been doing very well then, either. He couldn't be making a very good impression on her at all. "It's nice. I'm just..."

Just what? He couldn't very well say what had happened. He didn't even want to think about it.

"Not feeling well, I guess."

[selfnighted]

Was there something going around? Sadly, Maya couldn't know unless she could ask every patient, or ask a soldier, which, from the way the soldier behaved, her entreaties would likely be met with silence.

"It is pretty cold," Maya said, in reference to the snow or to Gren's feeling under the weather, she didn't specify. She knocked the snow off a space on the bench next to him (brr, that was cold), and hoping she wouldn't regret it later and trusting that her coat was sufficiently thick enough, perched on the cleared space. "Have they been giving you medicine?"

Was there an all-purpose medicine for situations like this? Then again, who wanted to trust the soldiers with that kind of information? Who wanted to trust the soldiers to act in the patients' interest? Not Maya. Still, she'd noticed the bandages some patients sported. Perhaps....

[for_a_song]

"I'm used to colder. It's not bad, really." Which probably seemed a bit of an odd statement, given the way he'd hunched into his coat in an attempt to warm up, but today wasn't exactly an average day.

The question about medicine forced a laugh out of him, but it was a bitter thing without any humor. "Yeah. They made sure to do that," he replied. "They take good care of us, that's for sure."

He sighed and ran a hand roughly through his hair. "Sorry. I'm making a terrible impression, aren't I?" He didn't want to let the bitterness take over, but it was proving harder than he would have liked.

[selfnighted]

"Not at all," Maya replied, amused. "That's exactly what they're like. Let's not dress up our words for their sake, yes?" Mustn't forget that disguised soldiers were following them around, after all, presumably to note any 'deviant' behavior so they could have another round of Clean This Room So We Don't Have To. Complete with the principle offenders standing amongst them with stoic or ashamed looks, of course.

Best to change the subject before that scenario could come to fruition. "Have your nights been well?" she asked sympathetically. "Made sure to have a weapon?"

[for_a_song]

He smiled wryly at that. No need to mince words about the sort of situation they were stuck in here, apparently. That was good to know. Not everyone was so practical about it.

The topic change made him wince a little. Simple matter first. "Yeah, I've got something. It's effective enough, most of the time." He looked off into the park, at the snow and the trees, and was suddenly grateful for the cold. It was real, tangible, something to remind him that he really was here and that this wasn't some bad dream he'd drifted into on a final, dead-end voyage.

"Weapons don't do you any good if they decide to haul you off and make you one of their test subject's though." There wasn't any anger in his voice, this time. There wasn't any emotion to it at all.

[selfnighted]

What? "Test subject?" She remembered this, vaguely. Had it been the self-styled creeper extraordinaire pirate who had mentioned this? No matter; it certainly hadn't been a serious a charge as this, especially coming from someone who didn't seem quite as out of it in the certifiable sense. "What do you mean?"

The asylum could certainly be cruel, and the presence of soldiers was a whole other level (as well as the presence of a 'general'), but this was quite the revelation.

...Or perhaps not. 'Test subjects' could very well be referring to certain methods of treatment. Even forcing an unwilling person to see a doctor could cause resentment. However.... Maya reminded herself, once again, that she couldn't count on the goodwill of an institute that apparently released monsters into its halls. Or, for that matter, who treated its patients as prisoners in the draft sense. "What did they do?"

[for_a_song]

"No one told you?" He supposed it was possible--people could be cagey with information, and he hadn't found out about the tests until he'd been there a few days. "A few nights a week, they drag people off and... experiment on them." Even that seemed a bit euphemistic--they were experiments only in the purest sense. "Torture, really."

He was quiet for a long moment then, trying to pull his thoughts back into order. He didn't want to talk about it, but people needed to know, right? Maybe they'd be able to avoid it, if they knew. "They took my roommate and I last night. I don't know what they did to him--" He hadn't seen Edgar today, but with three buses and his own distracted state, he hoped he'd just missed him some how--"but they injected me with something... I don't know what it was, but..." He smiled tiredly. "I'm sure whatever it was wasn't any good for me."

Just like before. History repeating itself in some horrible loop he couldn't seem to escape.

[selfnighted]

It seemed the thing she had been told were more likely to be truth, and not mere fancies characteristic of patients in a mental asylum. Made it the perfect cover, Maya supposed.

And quite worrying, as well. Maya had woken up after the night had already formally commenced, which accounted for Senna being missing then, but Maya hadn't seen her since. But taking Gren's account into consideration, Senna should be back.... Unless they held some patients longer than others. "Has your roommate been returned yet?" she asked, in an attempt to clear up the matter.

The question was fairly moot if Maya would just wait until they got back to the asylum, but that wasn't for a while yet. Better if she could find Senna in town.

[for_a_song]

Gren shook his head at the question. "No--I don't know, I mean. I didn't see him this morning, but I could have missed him." Fairly easily, really. He'd been pretty out of it the whole ride in, and it was only now that the world was finally beginning to settle around him a little more, and seem less like some weird dream where the past way overlaying everything around him.

"I hope he's all right." He was left wondering why it had been them in particular, this time around. Did they usually take both people from a room? He'd thought it was more random than that. Or had they realized that if one of them was taken, the other was bound to come after them? Was it simply easier to do it this way?

Or was it something else entirely? They were questions he couldn't answer--not right now, at least. Maybe not ever. As always, the 'why' of things seemed very deft at eluding him.