DAY 5

Arbiter

"Can you let me out now?" Joel's voice came out muffled through the door.

Chief and Ellie had carried over some food. An armful of assorted items in Ellie's arms, an entire crate underneath Chief's one arm. A gathering had formed, the two dishing out vacuum sealed steaks, pork chops, lettuce, and some canned tomatoes, soups, and beans.

"Half an hour." My legs jutted through the railing and dangled off the second floor.

Jaime's teeth gripped the corner of a bag of carrots, trying to tear it off. Several other people were doing the same, until Ellie got their attention.

"Can I at least get some food?"

She held up a bag of pork chops sealed with some asparagus, wiggling a little notch making sure everyone saw. She ripped the bag open by the notch, very slowly. She pulled the pork chop and took a small chunk out, chewing with a smile.

"You sure you have an appetite?"

Sev took a break from his shift, grabbing vac sealed steaks and a couple cans of beans for his entire squad, who were pretty much some of the only people getting rest.

"That's not funny."

"I wasn't trying to be." I needed a place for Joel to be calm, someplace comfy for him, so I forced him into his room and tied a bed sheet rope to my arm, keeping it from opening. Leaving him alone didn't sit well with me.

A thud startled me. I could hear Joel letting out a deep breath.

"I had a daughter you know."

I turned my body, facing the door. I chose not to speak.

"Her name was Sarah." A small crack in his voice, came and gone. "She was 12- around Ellie's age."

I closed my eyes, trying with difficulty not to imagine. "The outbreak."

"Yeah." I heard him shift on the other side of the door. "My goddamn birthday."

I placed a hand on the door, "I'm sorry."

A large breath escaped him. "That young man is dangerous, you do know that?"

"I do."

Air blew back and forth from small holes; his nostrils. "I'm gonna keep my cool."

"I know you will."

"But if he even thinks-" his tone took a sharp turn up- "about doing anything, I will put him down."

I stood up, and began untying the bedsheets, "Good."

The door eased open. Joel peered through, looking me square in the eye. I gave him a nod.

He nodded back. "Can I have my bedsheets back?"

Cole

The Japanese woman introduced herself as Akane, and claimed she worked in law enforcement.

"This man was the last one alive." I had pulled her outside to talk to her in private. "I wish to know how he died."

She had agreed to do so, as long as he didn't come to harm and that I would help her get him to the proper authorities.

After that we got to work on him. I was good cop, she was bad cop. Wrex was worse cop.

"Are you aware of the crimes you have committed?" Akane said, with Wrex leaning on Kaneki's shoulder. "Mass murder, assault, mutilation, cannibalism!"

"If you help us," I spoke slowly, carefully recalling the words, "we can help you. We can vouch for you."

We tried getting him scared of being punished by the authorities. They didn't hold much sway over him.

"Are you joking?" a crooked smile spread across his face. "They'd kill me simply because I exist!"

Something wasn't right. We didn't know enough about him to call the shots. I pushed forward a second strategy.

"Let's learn what we can about who he is." I grasped her left shoulder, tilting her away so he couldn't hear. "Get him to open up. Let's start with the cannibalism."

"He is a psycho."

"Did you not die and come back?" I berated. "There is more here than you think."

I started with a seemingly innocuous question. "Are you hungry?"

"Yes I am." He looked me up and down, his smile having faded.

I pulled out a steak sealed in a bag. I ripped it open, just how the young lady showed me, and held the steak out in front of him.

He sniffed it, and jerked his head away. "I can not eat that!"

"Well tough luck!" Akane grabbed his collar. "It's all we have, and you can't have anything else you sick bastard!"

"You need to eat." I looked to Wrex. "Can you please untie him?"

He kept his arms crossed. Besides that, I couldn't read him. Not used to the territory. "If he misbehaves, I'm not holding back."

We spoke in English. "Noted."

Kaneki stayed motionless as Wrex began loosening his bonds. The ropes fell to the floor.

Kaneki rubbed his wrists, black fingernails now in sight. "You are wasting your food."

I held it out again. He stared at it, and swallowed nervously.

It only took one bite before he started vomiting.

"Stop that!" Akane demanded him.

I held a hand up at her, and continued giving him food.

I gave him asparagus. Thrown up.

Some carrots. Gone.

Beans. Expelled.

He couldn't eat any of the food. He vomited it all up.

"Why do you do this?" I asked, patting his retching back.

He gagged a couple before he could answer, "I am a ghoul. I cannot eat that food."

I pulled Akane aside and we talked it over. Something wasn't sitting right with me.

Akane disagreed. "What? He is sick!"

"Do you see Wrex?" I glanced at him. "Do you think he is a man in a costume?"

She snuck a glance past my shoulder.

"If he is not a man-" I shifted my body to block her view of him- "then perhaps Kaneki is not a man, either."

Akane agreed that the possibility was on the table.

We stood in front of him. "What is a ghoul?"

His hands brushed away little bits of vomit from the corner of his mouth, when he looked up at us. His left eye changed suddenly. The sclera turned pitch black. The iris glowed a blood red, and had visible veins surrounding it.

Akane gasped.

"Huh?" Wrex, who stood behind Kaneki, tilted his head. He walked around to get a closer look. "Didn't know humans could do that."

"Not human," Kaneki replied, "Ghoul. Ghouls can only eat humans and other ghouls."

I pulled out my notebook and wrote this down quickly. An entirely different species?

People are quick to judge others based on skin color, what's between their legs, which god they worship and how they worship that god. A people with horrifying dietary needs- now I can see why Kaneki isn't afraid of the authorities. They're after him anyway.

"And you can't eat fruit?" He shook his head. "Vegetables?"

I pulled Akane aside.

"If this is all true," her thumb and index finger squeezed her chin tightly, "then he might be more dangerous than we previously thought."

"Only means we need to get out quicker." We were making progress, but it still wasn't enough. "How can we use this?"

"It was a gas." Kaneki spoke up.

My head swivelled to meet him. "What?"

One of the soldiers in white armor and green markings pointed towards the room where Arbiter is staying in. Everyone here was an interesting character, but I couldn't wait to get to know those guys.

I reached the room and knocked on the grey door. "Arbiter? It's Phelps."

Arbiter appeared on the other end of doorway. "Come inside."

He made for me to walk past him, and closed the door behind us.

"We have a couple problems."

I thought about sitting on his bed, but decided against it.

"What is it?" Arbiter's unreadability unsettled me. His arms always stayed on his sides, never fidgeting, rubbing each other, and crossing. His mouth didn't smile or frown, and his eyes could barely be seen through his helmet.

"Kaneki can't eat our food," I began, "he threw up everything we gave him."

"Intentionally?"

"No, he didn't force it." I loosened my tie. "He can only eat human beings and his own kind."

Arbiter looked down, the one expression I could read. "What are the other problems?"

"He was gassed." I slipped my jacket off and hung it on my right arm. "The supply room filled with a yellow gas. He burned all over."

I could see his eyes sift the thoughts back and forth.

"It's mustard gas." I pulled my hat off. "It's yellow and smells like garlic. Burns skin, lungs, eyeballs…"

His growl startled me. "A tool of cowards!"

Honor. Glad to see it's a universal trait.

I placed my hat and jacket on the blue desk that was standing against the blue wall. "What are we gonna do?"

He moved towards me. I restrained an urge to step back a little. "Do your interviews. Learn what you can." It was nearly impossible not to stare at his mouth, as he was talking. "Find people who will either know what to do with the gas, the door, or our issue with consumables."

"You sure they're ready?"

"For now, it's our only course of-"

A voice pierced through the door. "Where's the girl!"

Elizabeth (Earlier, at midnight)

I found myself laboring for breath. I ran up to the door and started banging. "Let us out of here!"

I banged on the door with fists that grew sore with every hammering. "Let us out of here you bastards!"

Tears started to form around my eyes. Another cage. I'm in another cage.

"Elizabeth!"

"Let me out of here!" My voice broke. It was getting harder to breath. The hammering stopped, my eyes looked to the ground. My vision was starting to get blurry, breath accelerating and chest pounding.

"Cup your hands and cover your mouth!" Mr Glass voice rang out. "Cover your mouth!"

I forced my hands off the door and pressed them into my face.

"Not too hard! Cup them!"

It stopped after a while. Mr Glass helped me get it under control. I thanked him, but he was preoccupied staring at the sign. I cleared my tears and brought him back to the living quarters. A giant, green skinned man named Marcus carried Mr Glass up the stairs to one of the only rooms that were available, on the second floor.

Hot water rolled down my face, and soaked my hair. It smelled strongly of sulfur, but I stayed underneath it. Bubbles and foam formed all over my body, sparing my eyes somehow. A mirror engulfed the entire wall to my right. My eyes were red and puffy. A bunch of people taking notes and spinning a camera were probably on the other side.

I simply stood there, hands on the blue ceramic wall. In a cage, again. I knew what the sign meant. It's a boot to the neck.

I turned the hard, coal-black handles and the stream was gone. A small compartment sat in the wall behind me, opposite to the shower head, revealing folded towels that came in various sizes.

I grabbed the opaque glass door and pushed it aside, causing it to fold away. My right foot stepped on to the cold, blue-tiled ceramic floor of the bathroom.

Light shades of blue dominated the entire bathroom, second only to the large proportions.

The tub sized sink nearly stretched the length of both of my arms combined. The shower had an intense amount of walking space, and the shower head sat so high up my arms couldn't even barely reach.

And the toilet- the toilet was massive. Easily half the size of the sink. A slider that had the words, 'Extra Large', 'Large', 'Medium', 'Small' and 'Extra Small' sat on the left of it.

I didn't feel like figuring out what it meant.

My feet met the warm carpeted floor outside the bathroom, leaving wet impressions that quickly dried away. My corseted dress sat on the bed, currently my only pair of clothes.

The massive bed cushioned my back, m hands brushing my wet hair out from underneath my neck, and my arms and legs stretched out to barely meet the width of the bed.

The bright blue colors of the walls stretched to the ceiling.

...Blue.

My dress, my old dress, this room and the bathroom. Why is blue such a constant?

A book I once read detailed how colors influence people. Red makes people angry and hungry. Blue makes people calm- and too much can disorient.

Blue as the color of the cage.

A chuckle escaped my lips. "Cages all my life."

My hand reaches out to my dress, grabbing my choker. The cameo entered my view, the image of a bird soaring through the air.

Arbiter (present)

A bearded human man in a vest and a hat stood opposite of the commando known as Fixer. "Where's the girl!"

"Back off sir." Fixer planted his left foot behind his right, holding his right hand up to the man, his left halfway to a fist.

The man saw this,"You reckon you can take me on?"

A fist flew at Fixer's head. My feet were ready to leap over the railing when Fixer dodged the attack and locked it between his right arm and shoulder, his left hand delivering strikes to the man's side.

The man shouted in rage and pain, Fixer's arm snaking around a leg and sending the man's back to the floor. The rest of delta squad was already pouring out of their rooms, surrounding and pinning the man.

A red shape shout out and barreled into the man. "It not be that easy!" An accented voice announced.

My feet were already on the newly emerged assailant: A large bald headed man, the same one who had that powerful gun.

My right foot struck the man square in the chest, sending him into a door that held solid against the force. His arms shielded his head, but I focused my attacked on his ribcage, sending blows to the sound of crunching bones.

He shrieked in pain, knees giving underneath him.

Something rammed into my hunch, and all of a sudden something was constricting my neck. I lifted my arms up- and then something hits both of my eyes.

My hands flare out and grasp at empty air, all the while my head tilts away from the blows meeting it. Finally, fingers latch onto something- cloth.

My knees bend, head pointing at the ground, and my arms heave the assailant outfront and careening into the wall.

A white hooded man crumpled to the ground.

"Let him go!" An angered voice had caught my attention.

Delta squad had surrounded one of their own- the yellow marked scorch. Another man with a buzz cut stood behind him.

I immediately recognized him. Sev had fought him in the RC.

His arms were wrapped around Scorch's neck, his eyes bouncing around everywhere. I could make out that he was whispering something to Scorch.

"Move," he shouts, "and I'll break his neck!"

Delta squad planted their feet in the ground, not taking any chances.

The man was saying something to Scorch, his neck movements showing that he was responding underneath that helmet.

"No one!" Scorch shouted suddenly. "No one has the keys!"

A crowd surrounded us.

Joel and Ellie stared steely eyed out from the room they were bunking in. Joel clutched a hammer with a knife taped to both sides of the top, ready to smash a skull in, plunging the knives inside along with.

Wrex stood with his arms crossed in front of Kaneki's room, face caught in a scowl and eyes glaring.

Mr Glass watched from his chair atop the rails from the second floor, his suit removed revealing his white wife beater shirt and blue striped briefs. His thumb and index finger rubbed against his chin as his wide eyes were transfixed on the situation.

Elizabeth's head poked out of a crack in her door, wide eyes also apparent.

Jaime came running down the stairs, the blue suited man- Nate- in tow, and both wielding knives. "Let him go!"

"Don't come any closer!" He spun with his hostage to face him. "I swear to god I'll break his fucking neck!"

They stopped where they stood, not taking the chance that this man doesn't have the strength to tear a person's head off.

His attention no longer on me, my feet took a couple steps forward.

The training I took for cloaked combat didn't pay off, "I see you there!"

A large green shape slammed into them from above. The Chief pinned his torso down onto him.

The man yelped and started punching and elbowing Chief to no avail, vainly losing his hostage.

Chief grabbed his right arm and bent it in the wrong direction.

Crunch!