Better and better. The air was saturated with blood and rot. There were times when his sense of smell was useful and times when it was decidedly not. Right now, it was hard to distinguish anything from the mess.

He did, however, pause on the dogs, though for different reasons than Alaric. The animals in the last hallway had been exploded; the ones here seemed to be a mix-and-match. He could hear the heartbeat on some of them, steady and slow, a resting pulse. Not dead, then. Well, those ones, anyway. The ones torn limb from limb were corpses through and through. Also familiar. Reminiscent, at least. Hm.

"You think?"

Re: the device, not the grenades. Obviously.

Definitely broken. He'd been skeptical before, but he wasn't now. It was too chaotic to be anything else. Of everything this place had done, it'd been organized enough. Singular, targeted. This, on the other hand, was like opening the damn floodgates.

He didn't pause long. He started down the hallway, not even bothering to sidestep the mangled corpses. No point: it'd be like sidestepping a swamp. He'd gone about two steps when a soft snarl came from behind him. No, behind Alaric. If he'd taken the time, he might've noticed that its eyes were distinctly on him, though, not the teacher, but he didn't.

He moved without thinking, knocking Alaric aside. The cat's neck snapped in his hands. He let it drop on top of a dismembered dog with more satisfaction than he might've felt any other time. It was just a cat. And he wasn't Stefan where chewing on fuzzy creatures gave him the thrill of a hunt. But it was still damn nice to move unrestrained again. Which was the only reason why he'd moved when he had. What else would it be?

Right. He'd been leaving. He brushed by Alaric to do just that.

"Pay attention next time. I'm not waiting around if you die on me."

[going here]