Another short one, but I figure instead of having the account idle for more than a few months (and missing a potential bday update whaddup) I'd post the slowly building steps to the kiddos' progress. Also, no lie, I almost forgot to put a title on this thing and nearly posted it as "owo whats this: electric boogaloo". Truly, naming things is an art form.

08 – First Steps

Six months ago

Everything felt numb.

It wasn't just on a physical level—no, it seeped into every part of him, drained him more than life already had and left him more of a husk than he'd ever been before. How long ago had he felt so drastically different? How long since the high had gripped him, punished him with its pleasuring pain? How long ago had it been since he was aware of the high? How long ago had he lost himself to it fully and drowned in its depths?

The shallow breaths and rhythmic beeps were hard to ignore. He knew the breathing was his own, the awareness of how hard he was trying to breathe as good an indicator as any, but the beeping left him lost for a moment. It wasn't something he'd hear every day, not like a microwave or a dial tone. It was something more fantastical, something suited for TV soap operas and dramas.

Ah. It was a heart monitor, wasn't it? Was he connected to a heart monitor?

No, he couldn't be. He was a waste of space, a waste of resources. Saving his life would've been on par with beating a dead horse.

He opened his eyes, finally focused his hearing. He could hear more than the beeps and his own breathing—the hiccups of someone nearby, the prayers of a desperate mother. His name, his brother's name, a plea to stay.

With every sob his mother made, still unaware that her son was awake, the numbness slowly crumbled away. Not that it made him feel any better, but feeling like trash was better than feeling nothing at all in this situation. He'd wasted doctors' time, paramedics' time, his own mother's time.

He was the scum of the earth.

"Who has which files?"

The words snap Nui out of her stupor in an instant. She's holding her bear in a death grip, huddled away in a small group with a few others in similar states to herself. And like a guard dog keeping everyone back, Avi has seated himself between the group and everyone else.

"I've got Ohicko-san's!" calls Yuna from nearby. Nui looks over her shoulder, just in time for Yuna to meet her cautious gaze, and she gets a soft smile in return. Yuna sets aside the small stack of folders she'd been holding, a few sheets of paper left in her hands as everyone watches her with bated breaths. What are they doing? Are those the files on the campers?

"Whenever you're ready, Tachibana-san," Pierre tells her. Yuna nods and clears her throat.

"Ohicko Karenachi," she reads aloud, voice raised enough to make even the unconscious Hajime stir. "Aged seventeen. Comes from Yokohama. Reason for admission: Self-admitted, cites a desire to better himself and recover from past trauma."

A few pairs of brows rise. Yuna glances up at everyone, and then continues, "Past medical history: Admitted to hospital due to an overdose of—"

"No more."

Karenanchi's sudden protest takes them all by surprise. Nui isn't sure what's going on still, but she knows the demand is out of character for the blond based on the past week she's known him.

The boy in question hides his face behind his hands and shakes his head. "I'm sorry, Tachibana-san," he sighs. "I'm not comfortable with the rest being said."

Yuna opens her mouth to reply, but Tadase's cold voice cuts her off. "That's fine," he says loudly, making sure everyone hears him. "Now we know where to start drawing the line at dead weight. Self-loathing drug addicts will have no use for us."

Two people jump to their feet the moment he says that—the first is Eichi, the only one to get close enough to Karenachi to be called a friend, and the other is Akiko, if only to hold the enraged Eichi back as he stalks over to Tadase.

"Are you kidding me right now?" Eichi snaps. Tadase casts him a lazy stare, making it painfully clear he has no time for the taller boy. Eichi gets to Tadase before Akiko can reach him. He snatches at the boy's shirt, and as he grips the collar tightly he's finally rewarded with a venomous glare.

"Unhand me," Tadase growls.

"Fuck off. What right do you have to judge anyone else in this place? At least Ohicko-san had the balls to volunteer himself for this place and improve himself." Eichi pulls Tadase closer, forcing the pink-haired boy to the tips of his toes. There's murder in Tadase's eyes. "I didn't see you volunteering to air your dirty laundry, either."

Akiko manages to grab Eichi's shoulder just as Tadase lashes out. Nui's heart leaps into her throat as she watches the smaller boy swipe at him. Something whistles through the air, a flash of silver coming far too close to Eichi's face—had Akiko not pulled him back when she had, jostling his grip on Tadase's collar, the thing in Tadase's hand would've come in contact with Eichi's eye.

When Tadase steps back, eyes wide and filled with hatred, everyone can see what he's got hidden away for moments like this: A fountain pen, more than likely lifted from the staff cabin while everyone else was busy coming to terms with the ordeal of last night.

"I already said more than I needed to about myself," Tadase snarls at Eichi, "and you've seen more than enough of what I'm capable of. No one else can say the same of you."

A water bottle sails past Akiko and Eichi. Nui's mind is racing when she watches Tadase swat it away. She can't fathom all of these things happening right now, let alone who is doing them. Even the guides are lost on where to start putting out the fire, hesitating with every new development or challenger in this heated argument. Much like Nui, they're especially lost at what to do with Karenachi—who, if his posture is anything to go by, was the one to throw the bottle at Tadase.

She's never seen him this angry before. She never even thought it possible for him to get angry. He's so meek and self-conscious all the time, so much like Nui herself on a good day, that anger should've been a foreign concept. But what she sees goes beyond anger as he glares at Tadase. What she sees is a protest, an objection; Karenachi taking a stand not for his own sake, but for Eichi's.

Nui so desperately hopes Karenachi's bravery doesn't end in death like her own had.

He picks up another bottle, this one half-empty, and readies it to throw at Tadase again. His hand shakes with how hard he grips it, the plastic crinkling and filling the silence that drags on with every passing second.

"Shut. Up," is all Karenachi says.

The tension is impossibly high. When the guides finally figure out how to intervene, not even the crackling of electricity from the taser fazes the arguing teens. Nui clutches her bear even tighter. Any more and its poor head will probably pop off. The guide in question readying their taser is Shinya, his characteristic goofy smile replaced with a more exasperated expression. Even he is starting to reach his limit, Nui thinks grimly.

"Now, now," Shinya chides, "Adkins-san just said not to Lord of the Flies our situation. If it helps any, coming from someone who used to be a camper here, the situation we're in is no different from what was intended for us. So let's all calm down and avoid whittling down our numbers right off the bat."

Akiko levels a hard stare at Tadase. "Exactly," she agrees. "No one's here for a better reason than everyone else."

"A person's sentence is not indicative of their abilities." Tadase crosses his arms. He scans the room, occasionally stopping on someone and blinking at them, before finally he notices Nui's attention. Now that she's back in reality, she's not safe from the conflict either. "You. What earned you a one-way ticket to the Home?"

She hesitates. It gives a few people a chance to jump to her defense—Akiko once again, yelling at Tadase to listen to them; Janet, demanding he lay off and focus on the issue at hand; Yuna, quite literally jumping to her defense by putting herself between Tadase and Nui, blocking the bespectacled girl's view of the angered boy. And like a cherry on top, Shinya: Rustling paper and staring down at the folder in his hands.

"Honnouji-san," he says quietly, "let's try not put our feet in our mouths just yet."

Nui's gaze jumps to Shinya. Is that her file? No, no, why does he have her file? She doesn't want everyone to know what she'd done—how pathetic she is, even after all the effort she put into changing herself. What if Shinya becomes cruel as well? She couldn't handle more torment than what Horibe—

Nui sucks in a deep breath. Horibe… She's here because of Horibe… If Shinya knows what Nui did, if he becomes like Horibe, will Nui wind up killing him too? Her chest practically collapses in on itself. She can't take more blood on her hands. She can't—she'd rather die herself!

Shinya speaks again, this time setting the file down and sighing. "Maybe this wasn't the best idea," he laments.

Aria speaks up for the first time since Nui started paying attention again, her melodious voice almost soothing. "I take the blame for this," Aria announces. "I suggested learning about our capabilities for the worst case scenario, after all."

"M—Maybe we can still work something out!" Pierre hurriedly pulls out timetables from his own files. He flips pages over, discards some, before he finally gives up and yanks a folder off of the floor. He smooths it out and leans on a nearby dresser. "We just need to, uh… Make a roster? As long as we know who can handle what chores, we're alright, aren't we? Honnouji-san, your pen—"

Tadase, very obviously holding the fountain pen still—and even capping it—deadpans, "What pen."

Pierre hesitates. Nui swears he's about to challenge the smaller boy, but seems to consider the consequences of that particular choice. Pierre shakes his head and continues smoothing out the paper. "What if we just write down things like cooking and gardening and cleaning—all the real basic junk—and we make a roster based on whose strengths lie where?"

Everyone is silent. Contemplative. It's like no one wants to admit to the proposal, too anxious to give out even the smallest bit of information after seeing the discourse that brewed from Karenachi's alone.

There's a groan behind her. Nui jumps and crawls away from the bed at lightning speeds, heart hammering in her chest. She knows it's Hajime on the bed behind her, but she still feels like something could jump out and grab her at any moment.

Hajime raises a hand lazily, still not quite there thanks to the painkillers. "Like sunflowers," she slurs. "I'unno if I can garden 'em."

Shinya blinks at her. "Mizushima-san? How long have you been awake?"

"Loud…"

The slurred response elicits a few giggles. Hajime joins in, probably unsure as to why some of them are laughing, but it seems like her declaration has calmed the group somewhat. Nui can see a few are still on edge, still ready to run or defend themselves at the drop of a hat, but she can still feel the tension lifting from the air. There's relief poking its head in ever so slowly.

"I think we can manage that," Yuna decides. She opens the drawer closest to her and tucks her own set of files in it, shutting the door with a satisfied hum. "Why don't we all rest for a bit? Adkins-san and I can draw up a roster and pass it around later. We'll even start it off by filling in what we can do!"

"Sounds good." Shinya all but collapses onto a nearby bed. He's somehow already disposed of his own files. "Man, but zombies… Who'd have thunk it?"

Nui loosens her grip on her bear. With the circumstances outside, threatening them with every passing minute, it helps that everyone is calmer now. Maybe now they can talk about what they can do without going at each other's throats. She shifts and looks between Minori and Avi, the only two people near her, and finally settles her attention on Minori.

Nervous as it makes her to speak up, she whispers to the girl, "Are you okay, Akiyama-san?"

Minori's shaking, but thanks to the cold sweat she's in Nui can't tell if it's from fear or something else.

"Do you think our families are okay?" Minori mumbles to her. Nui's heart clenches, almost skips a beat. She hadn't even considered her parents, hadn't considered anyone outside of the Home.

Are they dead? Are they surviving? Are they… zombies?

Nui's lip trembles as she tries to hold back a squeak. Thinking on it will only make her stress again. Thinking on it will make Minori feel worse. But they need to think on it eventually, right?

"I don't know," she admits. As though to reassure the other girl, Nui adds, "I hope so."

Minori just curls up even tighter around herself. Not once does she stop trembling.

Akiko announces that she's going to go into the girls' side of the cabin and drag some mattresses in. Aria, declaring Hajime needs to just sleep off the rest of the painkillers, leaves to help her. Everyone remains quiet as they duck into the next room, and it's only a matter of time before everyone except for a select few take the time to properly rest.

It'll be a rest they so desperately need before tackling reality, Nui thinks grimly.

So I've got my birthday next week, which means I don't know how much of next chapter I'll be able to work on! I will be trying to push out an update for Runner Ups next, and hopefully I can do it before a glass of midori is shoved in my face. So until then, guys!