Night 66: Main Hallway, 1-West

[dualistic]

[From here.]

That hadn't taken long. So much so that it looked like he was the first person to make it this far. Harvey took a moment to scan the hall with his flashlight, including near the stairs, but he didn't see (or hear) much of anything. It was the sort of thing that set him on edge.

Since he couldn't do much else, he leaned himself against the wall by the stairs and then grabbed for his gun, holding it near his side as he waited. Normally he didn't take the weapon out unless he planned to shoot it, but when there was a possibility that some transformed patient might come barreling down the halls in the next few seconds, he wanted to take precaution.

Hopefully Scott and Sangamon would haul ass over here before all hell started to break loose. If things got too hairy, Harvey was ready to make a run for it on his own. That was the logical thing to do.

[Waiting for S.T.]

Comments

[thecamellia]

_{[from here]}

Maybe she'd been premature in announcing there was no danger around...

The walk out of the female cell block had been as calm and peaceful as it got--there'd been no strange flashes of movement, no strange noises, no strange individuals. Nothing that had struck Tsubaki the wrong way.

But now that they were heading into the building's main hallway, that assessment changed. There was a smell. As they walked closer to the second nurse's station, there was also... unusual movement. What was that? Was there--

Tsubaki realized belatedly that the human-shaped thing sharing the hall with them wasn't entirely human, not with a long, cylindrical thing sticking to its head (which was angled bizarrely, at that). "I think there's a zombie," she whispered suddenly, tense with the possibility that one of those violent creatures was in the building. "Watch out!"

[survives]

Tsubaki's declaration that there wasn't anyone around came as a relief and Leanne allowed herself to relax some. Not too much, not here, of all places, where something could still leap out of the shadows later on, but it was still enough to have her breathing easier. Even armed and wearing her own clothes, she was still sick, after all. The less they ran into, the better.

...It was just too bad that didn't last long.

She drew in a quick breath, her eyes widening at the warning. A zombie? One of the monsters from the town? How... How could one of them have possibly walked all the way into the Institute? Didn't they already have enough monsters to deal with?

Her grip on her guns tightening, she took in the sight of it, barely visible in the dark. "Got it," she whispered back, her voice tight. It cut an imposing figure in the darkened hallway, but it didn't seem to be trying to attack them, at least not for the moment. "I don't think it's noticed us yet. We... We could try to get away from it."

[thecamellia]

Leanne was in no condition to face down potential trouble, but Tsubaki would rather be safe than sorry and warn the girl ahead of time. They'd already been surprise attacked once--they didn't need a repeat of that. Next time it could be Leanne who took the full brunt of an ambush, and that was just unthinkable.

If Tsubaki's suspicions were unfounded, that'd be great... only she didn't think they were. Not entirely. Non-humans that wandered the hallway almost always acted aggressively toward the prisoners...

With the both of them focused on the figure, the only thing to do seemed to be to speak as quietly and make as few sudden movements as possible. Given that one of them was ill, they couldn't be too careful. "Okay." She nodded with equal parts agreement and decidedness. "Let's be careful and try to keep moving. Straight through?"

[survives]

"Straight through," she agreed, her voice little more than a whisper, her entire body rigid. They hadn't exactly had a lot of luck the last time she'd run into one of these, unarmed as they'd been, but now didn't exactly seem like a good time to try tangling with one either. At least Tsubaki shared her opinion on getting away from it, something Leanne was immensely grateful for at the moment.

"It doesn't even look like it's doing anything here..." she breathed as she took careful, measured steps further down the hallway, never straying far from Tsubaki. It wasn't that big of a hallway, right? They just had to make it. "I haven't seen a lot of monsters act like this before."

[thecamellia]

Tsubaki didn't take her eyes off of the strange figure, keeping her body oriented toward it so that if anything happened she would be able to get ahead of Leanne and intercept. Even as she watched, she wasn't quite sure what the thing was herself. Leanne was right--the Institute's normal monsters didn't tend to linger on their own. Any time Tsubaki had seen a monster, it was usually because it was attacking someone...

But then, it kind of looked like someone had already tried to incapacitate it to some degree...

"It looks... like someone might have fought against it," she murmured. She didn't have to turn around to be able to count Leanne's steps; she followed them intuitively. "It could be disoriented." There was something lodged in its head, after all. If it'd been put there by force, that would throw off just about anything, wouldn't it?

[survives]

"It could probably already be hurt, too," she whispered, on the heels of Tsubaki's observation. "That's good for us, right?" The tightness in her chest loosened just a little at the thought, though she still didn't dare to move more than was absolutely necessary. Whatever had been done to it, it could very help them make their escape. But it wouldn't do to get too confident either, not after what had happened the night before.

"If... If we're careful, I think we can get past it now. It might not even be able to follow us for long if it sees us." They were getting closer and closer to the creature by then, closer to where they could finally move past it. "We can do this..."

[thecamellia]

"Yeah." Nightshift was a time to slip into an assassin mode, and that meant treating others' injuries as potential advantages. If the figure was dangerous and was slowly recovering from someone else's assault, that worked in their favor.

She turned and nodded, encouraging the other girl along. With luck, they wouldn't have to find out just how far an Institute monster could follow someone.

_{[to here]}