Snake 6:00 A.M. Second Day
It's the second day, and I'm washing my face with a washcloth in the bathroom. The red around my eyes isn't disappearing, and I'm getting frustrated. My expression twisted into a grimace at the sight. I throw down the washcloth and decide to just change my clothes. The closet is full of the same pair of clothes I had on when I got here, so I grab a random one off its hanger.
When I'm done getting dressed I carefully put my hair up into buns again, it feels uncomfortable when my long hair brushes up against my shoulders. The red around my eyes is gone and the puffiness is barely visible so I hesitantly walk toward the door to my room.
I take a deep breath to calm my nerves before I open it, carefully putting my face into a blank slate, completely emotionless, and then I step out. Nobody is waiting on the other side which is a good thing so I head down toward the dining room to nab some breakfast. When I get there the table is already filled with food, though some of it is gone so I assume the others all had a chance to pick at it.
I grab a simple piece of toast with jelly on it, heading toward the doors to leave the dining hall so I don't run into anyone else, though my plan is foiled once the doors open revealing a girl with gray hair, I'm pretty sure she was called Rat. Her eyes meet mine and her expression morphs into one of surprise until a gentle smile lights up her face.
"Fancy seeing you here, I know we met yesterday but it's nice to officially meet you, I'm Rat." She holds out her hand in greeting. I stare at it for a few seconds before realizing I'm supposed to shake it.
"Ah, nice to meet you as well, I'm Snake," I tell her, my ears are turning red from embarrassment but luckily my hair covers them.
"Were you getting breakfast here?" She asks.
"Hm? What else would I get?" I shoot back. I almost bite my tongue, saying stuff like that is rude, I should've thought it over in my head first.
"Ahaha, right." She replies awkwardly. I should remove myself from this situation before further awkwardness ensues.
"Well, I'm going to go," I tell her, pointing to the door she's blocking.
"Oh, um, yes, sorry for blocking it and…oh! I met some of the others earlier and we were going to meet here for lunch and discuss things, I hope you'll join us." She moves out of the way but turns back at the last second to grab my shoulder and invite me. The physical contact makes me cringe but I keep my face and body neutral.
"I'll think about it," I say, then rush through the doors. I think that went well. I mean, I got invited to something, so it couldn't have gone that bad. I spent the next few minutes searching for a quiet place to eat my breakfast. The rec room was busy with the young boy, Boar, and the old man, Dog, playing around with some of the games set up.
The next place I checked was the bar, but Rooster was sitting at the counter and complaining while Horse listened. Everywhere I went had people around, but I didn't want to eat in my room, so I finally decided to eat at a place nobody would think of, the laundry room. I settled into the corner between a washing machine and a wall and quickly finished my breakfast.
I was thinking about how to spend the rest of my day when I heard the sound of a door opening and quick footsteps, the next second someone was on the washing machine and leaning over me. I flinch back but quickly school my expression, I don't think he saw but it's better to be careful.
The person leaning over me right now was the weird person from yesterday, Tiger. He talked strangely and followed me around, seeing him in the laundry room was a surprise as well. Maybe he wanted to avoid people too?
"Found you! I've been looking for you all morning but you just disappeared, I had to ask Rat if she knew where you went but even she didn't know." He grins.
"Uhm…why are you looking for me?" I ask him.
"I thought we were friends?" He tilts his head in confusion like the answer is obvious.
"...Friends?" I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. I haven't had friends in a while, but this is still a strange person in a strange place so I shouldn't get my hopes up.
"Are we not friends?" His eyes turn all sad and he shrinks in on himself. I start freaking out internally, I mean, what am I supposed to do about this? If I say we aren't he'll look crushed but if I say we are that means we'd hang out all the time and…wait that doesn't sound too bad actually.
"Fine." I put on my best expression of 'I don't really care but I'll allow it' and give him my answer. When I glance back up at him, his eyes are shining like I just gave him the best present in the world.
"Great! Let's go do something fun!" He exclaims, grabbing my hand and dragging me up from my place on the ground. For the rest of the day, he drags me around from room to room, he almost snaps a cue stick in half in the rec room and ends up spilling the available drinks from the bar all over the floor.
I made sure to pay attention to the different rooms, searching for a way out of our predicament, though, naturally, nothing caught my eye. Lunchtime came and passed and then we got the announcement for dinner time, it seemed dinner was the only time an announcement went off on the loudspeaker so it must be important.
"C'mon, we need to eat," I tell Tiger, pushing him toward the dining room.
"Aw, but I want to play some more." He whines.
"Food is important, we already skipped lunch," I say, giving him one last push toward the doors. He reluctantly opens them and we step through to find everyone else already gathered at the table.
"Well look who finally decided to show up," Rooster says mockingly. I tilt my head in confusion at the rest of the group's annoyed looks, and then I remember that Rat wanted us to gather for lunch, shit, I forgot.
"Now, now, we shouldn't be hostile, they probably just forgot." Rat tries to calm everyone down.
"If something as important as discussion over our escape was forgotten, then it should tell us what kind of characters these two have," Ox says plainly. I feel my mouth dry at the accusing glances, I really didn't mean to forget, stuff like that just slips my mind.
"Hey, aren't you being super petty, we forgot, so what, you don't have to treat us like bad guys." Tiger bristles.
"Let's just sit down, they can think what they want." I guide him to his seat before he can start any fights, but the atmosphere in the dining room has turned cold. Despite being hungry, I pick at my food as my appetite is almost completely gone.
"Ahem, while you two did miss the lunch mission, did you happen to find anything while wandering around?" Rat tries her best to mend the friendly atmosphere, but I didn't find anything interesting so I just shake my head.
"You don't have to give them favors, some people just don't want to participate in stuff like this," Dragon tells her.
"T-this, m-maybe we should just leave them alone." Rabbit stutters.
"Psh, who's to say they found something and aren't telling us." Rooster scoffs. I can feel Tiger tense up next to me so I put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. The only people who seem slightly sympathetic to us aren't saying a word, just giving us awkward looks like 'We can't help it'...stuff like that makes me sick.
"Well, we're clearly not welcome here so let's go," I tell Tiger, grabbing a few bites of food for us to eat in a separate location and leaving the room, closing the doors with a slam.
"You seem angry," Tiger states.
"...I'm not." I deny. I didn't mean to slam the doors, but their actions were pissing me off.
"Whatever, just don't think about people like that, they're all idiots who don't know what they're doing, fighting about something like this." Tiger grins. Whatever tenseness he had earlier is gone, replaced with barely contained glee.
"They're probably just on edge, it can easily lead to stuff like this," I respond logically.
"I guess." He shrugs. After we finish our food I head back to my room, telling Tiger that I was too tired to continue hanging out. It was sort of true, I did want to go to bed, but when I finally closed the door between me and the rest of the world I simply slid to the ground and cried.
It's not fair…why am I even here? Getting kidnapped and stuck with all these people I don't know. It's too much, I hate it here, I want to go home. I think such thoughts as sobs wrack my body and I wipe my eyes, trying to limit the tears. Though it doesn't work that well. I eventually manage to stop crying long enough to hop into bed, crying has left me too exhausted to do anything else so I just fall asleep right then and there.
The next day is spent roughly the same as the first one, I grab breakfast at the same time, running into Rat again, she wanted to say something to me but I wasn't in the mood so I brushed past her. While eating in the laundry room, Tiger found me again and dragged me around all day again.
At dinner, we simply grabbed some food from the dining room table before leaving to eat in the laundry room again. It was on the third day that things changed a bit, I wasn't feeling as bad as the day before so when Rat tried to talk to me I was open for a conversation.
"I just wanted to say sorry, for their behavior and my behavior. I should've done more to convince them but I didn't" She says. I can see the sincerity in her eyes and feel bad that I made her wait till today to say it.
"It's fine, I don't have a problem anymore," I tell her.
"Really!? I mean, ahem, you should try interacting with some of the others, it might help." She offers some advice before waving goodbye as I head out the door. Though I am still a bit annoyed with them, her words do have some merit, so I decide to speak to Tiger after breakfast.
"I think we should talk with some of them today," I tell him.
"Ehhh, why?" He whines.
"Because it could be good for us, we should at least talk to the more sympathetic ones," I explain.
"Hmph, fine." He pouts. That's how we found ourselves sitting in the lobby with Sheep. He had his feet crossed on the chair, resting his chin on top of his knees.
"Uhm, is this an interrogation?" He asks.
"No," I reply.
"We just want to get to know you better!" Tiger exclaims, he's sitting in the chair sideways with his legs and head draped over the armrest. I'm the only one sitting properly with my hands in my lap and legs touching the ground.
"Sooo, an interrogation!" Sheep smiles. I resist the urge to slap my hand to my forehead.
"Fine, it's an interrogation, first question, what do you think about being here?" I ask him.
"I think it's a bit weird, but not too bad, we have clothes and food and a bathroom, don't need much more in life." He answers. Through the 'interrogation' we find out that he was an artist and that he doesn't like most vegetables…and that's about it.
"That was completely useless." Tiger sighs.
"Mm." I agree. With that put out of the way we spend the rest of the day playing in the laundry room with some marbles we found in the laundry room. When it gets to be dinner time the loudspeaker crackles again, though the message this time is different.
"Ahem! Please come to the dining room for a special announcement!"
The message is short but sweet, the announcement could be anything. It could even be good news, we're getting let out, this was all a prank. But instead, I feel a wave of dread run over me, that game he was talking about before can't be anything good.
"Let's go," I say hesitantly. Tiger nods and we make our way to the dining room. We had no idea just how much that announcement would change our lives.