The cafeteria is a lot less populated at this time of night, but there are still people around. Most of them sit by themselves and eat or drink quietly. A small few have books in their hands while others occupy themselves with puzzles. Some have notepads they’re scribbling on, which Sira assumes is work-related as most of those people still have gear on. Some heads rest in folded arms, either asleep or resting their eyes. There are still a few people manning the counters where the food is given out.
This time, almost no one pays any attention to Sira. They can easily picture getting overwhelmed if that wasn’t the case. Not wandering around this place on their own makes sense in that regard. Which means they must concede that point to their escort.
They keep getting drawn back to the range of tattoos decorating the back of Mikael’s arms and shoulders, which don’t move much as he walks thanks to him putting his hands in his pockets. He aims for the end of an unoccupied table. He also doesn’t walk too quickly, which Sira privately thanks him for.
Mikael takes a seat and digs into his pockets. Sira doesn’t stick around to see what he’s doing with the pit of hunger growing within them. He doesn’t stop them or say anything about it. That’s fine. Otherwise, they’d feel even more like a child.
Or a person being kept on a leash.
Sira approaches one end of the counters where they remember seeing a line forming earlier that day. They unconsciously clasp their hands to their chest, running their fingers over one another, as a man sitting behind the counter notices them walking in his direction.
They can’t help but pick up on the slightest quirk of his brow and the moment of hesitation before he gets to his feet, but instead of meeting eyes with him, Sira scans the steaming pots and ladles set into the surface of the counter with restrained eagerness.
Most of it is different types of soup. Some of it looks more like gruel, but all of it smells warm and savory. Their loss of appetite has abated by this point, but soup still sounds easier to get down than anything else. A glance at the rest of the counters in the place tells them there aren’t a whole lot of options. They imagine most of this is left over from earlier mealtimes.
“You’re that kid with the captain, ain’t you?” The man asks.
It sounds more like a passive observation rather than genuine interest, but Sira still stiffens. “I don’t know how much I’m allowed to talk about that.”
“Figures. What do you want?”
“Um…what do you think is best?”
He retrieves a plain-looking bowl from a stack set next to him on the counter, spoons a red-colored soup into it, and wordlessly hands it to Sira. The man then points them off to the side, where a section of countertop is taken up by a few small bins. Upon going over to them, Sira sees the different types of silverware sorted out into each, retrieves a spoon, and then heads back to Mikael.
He’s turned to the side, an unlit cigarette hanging from between his teeth as he continues to search for something in his pocket. The sight stops them for a second, but this is a break room of sorts, and other people were smoking in here earlier. Considering the machines they use to filter the fog out of the air, the structure of the place must have something to compensate for smoking.
Sira picks out a chair one seat away from the one directly across from him, both due to the cigarette and the alternatives feeling confrontational. They gently set the bowl down on the table with the spoon propped up inside it as Mikael finally pulls a metallic lighter out of his pocket and flicks it open.
It takes him a few swipes to trigger the flame, but once it’s lit, he presses it to the end of his cigarette, illuminating the ring of bruise-colored skin beneath his uncovered eye. The moment of sharpened shadows on his face makes him a lot more worn out overall than he does in normal light.
“You weren’t watching me sleep, were you?”
The question comes out a little impulsively. They’re tired and they don’t exactly want to talk to him any more than he’s spoken period, but silence right now is unpleasant, especially while sitting together at a table. He deftly flicks the lighter closed, pinches the cigarette between two fingers, and takes a short drag.
“Don’t be stupid,” he says, smoke escaping his lips as he speaks. He keeps his body and head angled slightly away from them. “You’re not the only one here that might have trouble sleeping.”
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They assume by ‘here’ he means their line of work, or maybe anyone existing in this kind of world in general. Sira takes their spoon and dips it into the soup, absently stirring it. “I’m only asking because you’ve been staring at me a lot. More than anyone else has.”
“I was trying to make sense of a situation that didn’t make sense. At some point, I gave up. Is there a problem?”
Combative, but not defensive. Sira finds a small amount of relief in that. Maybe not a creep after all, just doing his job instead. Or something like that. “…no, I guess not.”
They scoop up some of the soup, tentatively try a sip, and suppress a visible response at the taste being better than they expected – but that might be skewed by how hungry they are affecting what they find tasty. The warmth of it settles into their chest, the most welcome sensation they’ve experienced since the events of…yesterday? They’re unsure what time it is, but it doesn’t matter.
From the other side of the table, there’s a sigh.
“I might owe you an apology.”
Sira lifts their head to look at him and raises an eyebrow. That’s not something they expected to hear from him, not that they have much to work from. He takes another drag from his cigarette as he narrowly dodges eye contact with them.
“For almost shooting you in the head,” he clarifies.
Oh. “I mean, from the way you all talked about it, I can’t exactly blame you.”
Their mind flashes back to the image of him holding the shotgun aimed at their head, the splattered remains of the phantom streaked across the front of his helmet and smoking off into mist. The air in that pocket of time hadn’t smelled thick with blood, but something much more putrid.
Logically, they do understand it, and they don’t blame him. He did, after all, save their life directly beforehand. It evens itself out, in a way. But that image of him and the primal terror associated with it – even if that terror feels more distant now – is going to be hard to forget.
He sits back in his chair and folds his arms over his chest, putting more distance and an additional barrier between him and Sira. One of his eyes being hidden doesn’t help with discerning what he might be thinking. “Hesitating like that in any other circumstance would’ve ended badly. For everyone.”
For a moment, Sira goes stiff.
“Wording it like that makes it sound like you don’t know if you made the right choice.”
“…I was thinking out loud. Forget it.”
Some apology. “So…have you ever had to do that before?”
He gives them a pointed look. “Take a wild guess.”
They take that as a sign to drop it. A mess of thoughts and feelings start to buzz around in their head, and they decide their focus is better directed at their soup. They try not to eat it too quickly and make the wariness too obvious, but the sooner they’re free of this situation and back to resting before daybreak, the better–
–if they can sleep. It might be a small grace that they don’t remember whatever nightmare they had earlier, but a constricted sensation comes over them when they think about it.
A restlessness creeps over them. The cafeteria isn’t entirely quiet, with some of the people softly chatting to one another from where they sit, but it’s faint and distant enough that the bubble where Mikael and Sira sit is silent and tense. The longer they go without saying anything, the more their mind wanders to the earlier events of the day – especially the scary parts – and the more questions and anxieties bubble up on their tongue.
It could be worse. It could be Lionel instead of Mikael, and Sira easily pictures him assailing them with a barrage of inquiries even at this late hour.
As for Mikael, he has one elbow resting on the table with his hand supporting his head, still angled away from Sira as casually smokes. They notice his eye roving over the room repeatedly and meticulously, but other than that, he looks bored.
“Not much of a talker?”
“Correct.”
“You did say you were trying to figure me out. Kind of. Do you not have any questions or anything? Something I can say to make me a little less…perplexing?”
Sira doesn’t know what they’re trying to do. They don’t want to tell him anything, especially not about where they woke up before telling anyone else, but if they feel like they keep quiet, they might blurt out something even weirder than what they’re saying now.
It might be that he has a harsh aura about him, and it instills in them the urge to ‘appeal’ any preconceived notions he might have, but they don’t even know if he has any sides of himself to ‘appeal’ to. It could be squeezing blood from a stone…and for what reason?
Mikael’s aversion to eye contact had since turned into a hard stare after their question. “You hardly remember your own name.”
“Fine. Good point.”
“Besides,” he continues, “I don’t think you’re going to be around much longer.”
“I’m hoping you mean not around you, instead of something worse.”
An eye roll. “Obviously.”
That makes Sira pause. Karim reassured them it wouldn’t be torture and said they weren’t going to get dissected, but it’s only now that Sira considers another possibility: isolation.
The group they’ve come to know – even if just barely – being swapped out for strangers would make things even more stressful. Will they be cut off from other people altogether? Sectioned away like a pet project and only exposed to doctors or scientists? Will none of them be their age, or at least have the same personality as Karim?
It’s a chilling thought.
“…and do you have any idea what they’ll do?”
He puts his cigarette out using the surface of the table. “No clue. Hurry up. We only have a few more hours before daybreak.”
“Right. Sorry.”
He stares at them for a second longer before he goes back to scanning over the room. Sira can’t tell if he’s simply on guard, or expecting something to happen, but his posture isn’t at all lax. They don’t know if talking made that worse or not.
Like he said, they might not be around each other for long, so Sira probably doesn’t have to worry much about his opinion after all. They mentally shake off the rest of the tension in the air and go back to the soup as he suggested.
Tomorrow – or technically today – is going to be a long one.
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