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damned_institute2012-05-06 02:53 pm
age_of_kings) wrote in damned_institute2012-05-06 02:53 pm
Night 63: Bus 1
By the time the darkness fell and the strange fluxing of air swept across the buses, Tolten still wasn't certain what was going on. Only that there was some problem with the final bus, and that they had been waiting to resume.
Of course now it was very certain that there would be no return trip tonight. Whatever the implications of that were, the young king had no idea. Nor did he spare a thought to it. Rather he found himself lurching to his feet and losing his lunch in the empty seat space behind him.
It was the only reaction his body could offer to what he saw unfold before his eyes, a twisted carnival show of gore and depravity the likes of which he had never imagined. Even the creatures in the sewers were less violent and torturous than this!
He knew he didn't have time for pity or wonderment as to whether or not the staff was always like that, under the surface, but his mind was slow to follow. He could only stare, shaking, his mind buzzing with fear and disgust and sorrow.
This was simply wrong!
[For Locke!]
Of course now it was very certain that there would be no return trip tonight. Whatever the implications of that were, the young king had no idea. Nor did he spare a thought to it. Rather he found himself lurching to his feet and losing his lunch in the empty seat space behind him.
It was the only reaction his body could offer to what he saw unfold before his eyes, a twisted carnival show of gore and depravity the likes of which he had never imagined. Even the creatures in the sewers were less violent and torturous than this!
He knew he didn't have time for pity or wonderment as to whether or not the staff was always like that, under the surface, but his mind was slow to follow. He could only stare, shaking, his mind buzzing with fear and disgust and sorrow.
This was simply wrong!
[For Locke!]
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Then there was the nurse...
Being chased down the hall by whatever that creature had been upstairs was one thing...this was something entirely different. Nothing he had seen since arriving here or before had ever been as horrific and bloody as that. It made him freeze in fear for longer than he would have liked to admit.
His brain reminded him he'd seen Tolten seated in the back when he'd gotten on and a surge of protectiveness pushed him out of his frozen state and made him bolt for the back of the bus. He kneeled down beside his friend with a hand on Tolten's arm while Locke's eyes darted from the king in concern to the monster before them. "We have to get out of here. Make a run for it." Perhaps if there was an exit at the back of this thing...
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Tolten was well aware that he should be running. But his body was waiting for signals that just weren't coming. At least not until Locke's hand on his arm broke the young king from his stunned shock.
"We're unarmed and have no idea of the lay of the land and we cannot fight those things." But on the other hand...well, they were on the road to the town. Where there were all sorts of things. And it was certainly safer then returning to the institute! It was night. If he came close to the building...those things....
"In back!" he managed, pushing himself upright and turning. "It says 'exit' in the back..."
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The treasure hunter stood and rushed to the back where there was a door with a latch. Even without the instructions printed on the door, Locke would have had no trouble figuring out what to do. Grabbing the lever, he pulled up on it and pushed on the hatch, pleased to feel it give with little resistance.
"Tolten! Through here!" He jumped down to the ground and turned, holding a hand out to help the other man out as well. They needed to get out of here. Based on what he could tell from the quick glance at the other buses, the nurse/monster in their bus wasn't the only one. Perhaps if the made a dash for the institute...but those things circled the grounds and they would be just as difficult to fend off as these creatures.
There was the town...but would they make it? They could try...
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And while a part of him wanted very much to protect the others on the bus, but...what could he do? They were unarmed and he had just retched over a bus seat. He wasn't exactly in any position to play leader. It was smarter and safer to run. Really...
He followed Locke, sending a prayer for everyone trapped out here with them, and clambered out after the treasure hunter.
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"Come on! Hopefully there aren't many more of these things hanging around out here."
[To here]
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Then something unusual happened. One of the other buses careened off the road and smashed into a tree, halting the trip as the staff went to assess the damage. What happened? Did something come loose, did the driver fall asleep at the wheel? Was this the work of one of the other patients? Whatever happened, hopefully this wouldn't take too long to fix. Byrne watched the sky outside go from sunset to twilight and wondered if there would even be time for dinner tonight at the rate things were going...
And then everything went to hell. Literally.
Well alright, not literally literally, but it might as well have been literally to Byrne. When his whole world suddenly changed from normal to supernatural horror movie in a matter of minutes, it was the only thing he could think of: Hell on earth. A feeling of uneasiness was in the air as the wind outside howled so loudly it was almost ear-piercing, and the nurse at the front of the bus collapsed in a heap and slowly morphed into a screaming, twitching abomination. He'd never seen anything more terrifying in his life and it was all happening right before his very eyes.
Oh, Byrne was trying his hardest to keep a clear head - trying so damn hard - but this? Shit, how could someone keep their composure during all of this?! He almost couldn't move as he watched that nurse transform, he was so stiff with shock. This is it, he thought to himself in that moment, heart pounding so hard he almost couldn't hear anything else. We're dead. We're all gonna die.
Somehow, he reminded himself that it was possible to move his limbs. Somehow, he noticed the fact that there was an exit at the back of the bus, and somehow he remembered that he could easily get to that exit and get the hell out of here and live.
And so, after a moment's hesitation, that's exactly what he did.
[To here.]
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Guy was already tensed and ready to move as the sky above got darker and darker. "Anise, we need to be ready," he warned the girl, wondering why this had to happen now, when Anise wasn't feeling well and both of them were without their weapons. Then again, that was probably the whole point.
Still, he would protect her. That much, Guy knew.
He felt the change right as it happened; there was a faint thrumming in the air that he remembered from the last time, even though it was weeks ago. Guy bolted up from his seat then, trying to keep his attention away from the nurses that were contorting into their nighttime shapes. He'd seen it before. He didn't need to see it again.
"Anise!" he ordered. "Let's get out of here!" Staying inside would just leave them trapped and without anywhere to run, and neither of them had the right tools to fight.
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The nurses began to change, and while Anise didn't want to watch, she found that she couldn't tear her eyes away. The horrible pain, the tearing skin, the twisted limbs... Was that what was going to happen to her if she couldn't be cured? For a moment, the girl could only stare in horror with that thought looming in her mind.
It was only a second later that Guy shouted at her, and she quickly snapped out of it. "Right!" she answered before she could even think about it. The staff were concentrated by the main entrance, so that was out. "Can we break through a window?" That was how Anise got out last time, so it was the first idea to come to mind. However, a few frantic glances around the bus revealed a better option.
"There!" At the back of the bus, two men (wasn't that Tolten?) were opening another door that Anise didn't even know was there. That had to be the easiest way out.
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Still, Anise was trained for this sort of situation, and she quickly refocused her attention and even found a viable exit for them. Guy took note of the emergency door, relieved to see that the bus was well-designed if nothing else.
He rushed to the back ahead of Anise, grabbing for the door before it shut again and holding it open for her. She was going to have to squeeze past him, so Guy did his best to push his body as far back against the wall of the bus to make sure that they didn't touch. "Go!" he yelled to her, wanting to make sure that she deboarded safely before he followed.
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Ever the gentlemen, even in a high-pressure situation like this, he'd stopped to let her escape first. There wasn't any time to argue, comment, or even thank him; any seconds wasted meant giving the nurses time to gain on them. With just a quick nod, Anise ran past her friend and jumped out of the vehicle.
[to here]
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The more time passed however, the more everything just seemed... off, somehow. Shouldn't they... The monsters always came out at night, didn't they? Just what would happen if they were to be stuck outside when nightfall came? Surely, they wouldn't wait for the buses to reach the Institute again before coming out from wherever they usually were. Would they?
She didn't have to wait long to find out. The moment night fell, it felt almost as if the very world itself had changed, an ear-splitting scream filling the air, and the nurse. Worse still was her screaming, as she turned into something else entirely, something even worse than many of the monsters in Basel. Was this really what they had to go through every night, only to be completely ignorant of it the next morning?
For one long moment, Leanne felt as if she could scarcely breathe, could barely even move, her entire attention on the scene in front of her. It wasn't until she saw others moving around her, toward the back of the bus, that she could even make herself move.
Finally tearing her eyes away from the nurse, she followed the others to the exit.
[to here]
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—Ah. More importantly, Maya got up, and—as the nurses were positioned at the front of the bus, blocking the door—banged ineffectually at a window before it came to her attention that someone (maybe several someones) had opened the door in the back. She'd best be off before the nurses reached her.
[to here]
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She grabbed Rose's hand and jumped out the seat into the aisle, shoving the girl back towards the exit door at the rear. "Move! Go! Go now!"
Other patients were scrambling just as fast to get away, and in such dangerous proximity it didn't go beyond anyone to throw another under the bus to escape. But Ilia was already in full-blown mother hen mode. Like hell would she allow anyone to knock Rose into harm's way. Not tonight.
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She yanked her hand out of Ilia's, jumped up onto the seat, and pulled open one of the bus windows. She could just barely fit through; Ilia would have to go the long way around, which suited Rose just fine. She pushed up through it in a move that would have made a certain Disney mermaid blush with inadequacy, and then launched herself forward into a youth roll the likes of which hadn't been seen in the Institute (or environs) for at least twenty minutes.
She hadn't forgotten, per se, about the fact her entire torso had been recently skewered and hastily reassembled. She'd just ignored it. Now that she was flying through the air, she had time for one final thought. This was also going to hurt.
> Rose: Land already
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Very bad news, he noted wryly as he scrambled his way off of the bus with every other patient who had an ounce of self-preservation instinct. Better to face the unknown outside than stay trapped with whatever the hell the nurses had turned into. He'd thought they were un-cute before, and now they were...
Well. He wasn't used to seeing that sort of thing outside his nightmares, and if he hadn't known better, he would have thought he was asleep now. The pain in his leg, however, was all too real, though he did his best to ignore it as he followed the stream of other patients away from the buses and down the road.
[To here]
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It was just starting to sink in that this was what could be happening to Shiina too in a few nights. Suddenly, he felt as if he were going to be ill; the thought of watching her contort and writhe on the ground as--he shook his head violently as he turned to find the exit. Couldn't think about that right now--he wouldn't let himself. They just needed to focus on what was in front of them.
"Stay close. We need to stick together at all costs." He was going to be sticking to her like glue, personally.
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She felt the tug at her arm, and moved along with wooden legs. She still couldn't rip her eyes away from the dreadful scene. She stumbled back through the aisle despite being yanked and jostled by Shou and the other patients.
"... stick together..."
Words seemed to echo in her head, delaying her response. But the echos finally breached her fogged brain and Shiina's fight or flight instincts kicked in. Flights was the only option in this case, and she pushed along with Niikura through to the back of the bus and out the emergency exit.
[to here]
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Facilier had been impatiently waiting for the buses to start moving again, but one of them just had to be a stubborn case for the staff to fix. It was getting late, and the Bokor was feeling increasingly annoyed and smothered. Facilier was already missing those good 'ol trams back in New Orleans; at least he could get off and jump on another one if something went wrong.
Some other patients weren't as irritated by this mechanical inconvenience as Facilier was though. As the sun was dipping below the horizon, tension and dread was filling up the bus like a thick cloud of smog. The more Facilier observed the fear in some patient's eyes, the more his own aggravation eased into worry.
The shadows were stretching their ethereal fingers into every crack and crevice of the bus and with the spreading darkness came panicked whispers. The Bokor didn't like what few words he was catching, and it wasn't long before a deeply disturbing sound directed his attention towards a nurse standing near the driver's seat...
Screaming... Tearing of flesh... Scalpels and claws extruding out of the skin... The horror which played out before him strangled him inside, choking out any words he could utter as his remained petrified in his seat like a terrified rabbit frozen on the spot. Taking in quick, shallow breaths, Facilier's eyes did not waver from the excruciating sight he was witnessing; he had seen monsters at night before, but he never thought of where some of them came from in the first place! He couldn't imagine what that transmogrified woman was going through--
--and frankly, Facilier did not care to think for another second of it.
"MOVE!" Facilier sprung into action, twisting and shoving his thin body down the aisle towards the emergency door. "Either get yer rumps out that exit NOW or get outta my way!" he hollered. Good form and chivalry be damned!
[To here.]
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There was a horrible feeling in her gut when she noticed that the buses hadn't arrived at the institute the moment the sun disappeared across the horizon. She had glanced at stories on the bulletin board that described rare incidents where the nurses would turn into monsters while the buses traveled back from the town. It never happened to her before, so this would be the first time experiencing such horrors before her eyes.
Chise could only stare in shock as the nurse on the bus transformed into a horrific, grotesque monster, lashing at the patients closest to it. Many patients ran past her, racing towards the emergency exit. Even if she were to use her cannon to kill the nurse, there were too many patients in close proximity that would get caught in the blast. And so, she took the best option and followed the rest through the emergency exit.
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