Night 75: West Wing, Hall 3-A (third floor)

[redcladidealist]

[From here.]

The hall they stepped into was empty and dark, save for the light they carried themselves. As near as Lloyd could tell, there was no one else there. The silence made their footsteps sound way too loud. Lloyd dropped his voice as he continued to speak.

"Lana was worried about running into a monster, too. She said she and Ryuuzaki aren't the greatest of fighters. I told her they could call us for help, but..." He trailed off as sudden dread filled his gut. "Castiel, those key cards seem to take us to the last place we were. What if they took Lana and Ryuuzaki right back to that room?"

Comments

[freewill]

Castiel didn't know Ryuuzaki that well, but he saw no reason why he would lie in circumstances like this, and so he had no qualms about following his directions. He'd said the door at the very end of the hall, and so Castiel took a left in that direction.

"Then we'll have to hope we catch up to them," he said in response to Lloyd's question. Maybe it seemed cold, but what else could they do save for hurry? They hadn't spent that much time in the archives, and with this shortcut they had a chance of making up for that lost time.

As expected, the door at the end of the hall was locked tight. Castiel flipped his blade around in his hand so that the handle was pointed outward and then took a hard swing at the lock. It was going to take more than one shot to get it open, though.

[redcladidealist]

The realization that people could be in danger set Lloyd's nerves right on the edge. Logically, he knew that that was always possible in this place, but that logic was always on a theoretical level. Something like this felt more real.

And more immediate. There was a danger, one that Ryuuzaki and Lana had run into the night before, and they could have gone back to that room right now. They could need help, and every second mattered. It was all Lloyd could do to resist the urge to sprint ahead of Castiel - though that may have had as much to do with the fact that he didn't know the way they were going.

As it was, when they reached the door, he shifted from one foot to the other, anxious, impatient, while the other man tried to break the knob. He knew, he knew, that it wasn't easy to break the knobs, especially not in one blow, but still- "Do you want me to give it a shot?"

[freewill]

Castiel could practically sense how nervous Lloyd was, and he couldn't exactly blame him, but part of being a good soldier was being able to handle stress and pressure of this kind.

Not that Lloyd was necessarily a soldier, but his father certainly was. Lloyd didn't seem to take after Kratos in any obvious ways, but who knew? There might be more subtle aspects of it.

Allowing Lloyd to take a shot would only waste more time in the end, and so Castiel shook his head, giving the lock another smack with the handle of his blade. That was enough to break it apart, and so Castiel forced the door open and stepped inside, uncertain of what would be awaiting them.

[To here.]