Night 63: West Wing South Hall A

[stop_the_rain]

[from here]

Footsteps echoing in the dingy corridors, Murphy kept his ears alert for the slightest crackle of static or rumble of thunder. But he heard neither. Something was...off here. More off.

"You know you've got problems when you're worried about levels of fucked-upness," he muttered to himself, peering around the corner into a wider hallway. It looked like it led out of the patient room wing. No monsters in here, and no Cunningham either.

Not to mention a lack of jarring paperwork scattered about. But of course there wasn't, what was left?

"Don't try to understand. You're not going to, not like this. Just...get out."

That core objective remained the same. Get out. Get...somewhere. Anywhere. Make like the couple in the song, go down south to Mexico and live on the beach. Lay in the sun and drink fruity drinks all day, try and be happy.

But first, another damned hallway....

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[stop_the_rain]

[to here]

[mirrorimage]

[From here.]

It didn't take Nina long to get from one hallway to another. She was careful to keep shining the flashlight several feet ahead of her, even tough the beam of light always landed on nothing but empty air or blank walls. She moved slowly and cautiously, careful to stay alert. So far, she hadn't seen or heard anyone. Every rooms she passed in the other hall had been locked or empty, and now this one seemed every bit as devoid of life.

What was going on? Why would any kidnapper or police officer or government official just leave her to wander around alone like this? Everything now made even less sense than it had when she'd woken up.

She had no choice. The only thing she could do was keep going. So she did.

"Hello?" she called softly, still purposefully but a little more suspiciously than the tone she'd used before, back in the room she'd woken up in. "Is anyone there?"

It didn't seem like anyone was.

[To here.]

[skeletonenigma]

[From here.]

Skulduggery pushed open a few doors on his way into what looked like the main hall, and every room they revealed had looked exactly like the one he woke up in. It was like the dormitory of a boarding school, but the rooms were all exactly alike - plain white, basic furniture, and empty of anything useful. With so many of them, Skulduggery had to wonder if he actually was in a hospital of some sort. He didn't really know what hospitals were like in other realities, after all. Maybe they didn't need medical equipment.

A stray thought was scratching at the back of his mind as he walked, stubbornly trying to grab his attention, telling him that something was... off. Skulduggery slowed to a stop, searching around for anything that he might have missed. He released his held breath, keeping one hand up in front of him and scanning for any disturbances in the air ahead.

Wait. That was it. He'd been holding his breath. Skulduggery hadn't just stopped breathing when he needed the silence, like he normally did. The skeleton was breathing, and he'd had to hold his breath to stop. Like a human, like somebody living.

Slightly more intrigued than suspicious, Skulduggery pinched the skin on his right arm and cringed at the quick shot of pain. It wasn't much pain, but it was still very distinctly there. Did that mean anything? He had no idea if a glamour could replicate pain or the need to breathe, but he did know what a glamour would never be able to simulate. Skulduggery put his free hand over his chest as he edged slowly forward, and even though he knew what he was likely to find, he stopped dead in his tracks.

There was a beating heart, beating out a familiar yet alien rhythm inside his normally bare ribcage. He couldn't move his hand away from his chest, couldn't stop feeling the impossible beneath the already implausible layer of skin.

It took Skulduggery a few seconds to be able to form coherent thoughts again, and the most forceful of those thoughts was don't think about it. Focus on moving, and finding out where you are, and don't think about it, or you'll drive yourself insane. Of course, it wasn't something Skulduggery could avoid thinking about as he crept slowly up to the next hallway. He could almost hear the rhythm of his heartbeat - his heartbeat - ringing in his ears.

[skeletonenigma]

[To here.]

[freewill]

[From here.]

As they moved down the hall -- which, unsurprisingly, was empty -- Castiel kept one hand clasped to his shoulder while the other one tightly gripped the branch he'd brought with him. He'd feel far better once he'd replaced it with his own blade.

"So," he said, turning toward Lingormr, "my room is in this block." He nodded to the door they were passing. "I can go retrieve my weapon and meet you at your room, if that's what you'd prefer." He didn't know how much time they had, but if the others wanted to proceed on, then he wasn't going to protest. He was hardly in the position to when he was the one who'd gotten himself hurt.

[complicatedliar]

"That would be best," Loki said. "I'd rather not have to carry about the medical tome or the packets of supplies. That is where Soma will join us, at any rate. I will go prepare things."

He nodded and started off down the hall, not bothered by the lack of flashlight in the slightest.

[To here]

[freewill]

The idea of having to make his way to his room and then locate Lingormr's after that sounded like far more work than it should have, and just that was enough to frustrate Castiel. This body was breaking down on him and he didn't know why, if there was some way he'd misused it or if it was simply bad fortune.

He didn't bother to watch Lingormr move down the hall, instead cutting into his own block and quickly making his way down toward his room.

[To here.]

[madeinthehrl]

[from here]

All right, so the complete silence of the hallways was starting to get to her a little. It had been a while since the attack, right? Why wasn't she seeing anyone else around?

Hopefully someone else would turn up soon. Soma tried not to think about the bodies in the lobby, and kept walking.

[madeinthehrl]

[to here]