damned_institute | Night 68: Main Hallway, 1-Center

It was far from his imagination: the Institute looked less run-down than it did altogether abandoned, moonlight striking the unkempt walls in a way that turned everything grey. The patients' footsteps stirred up thicker and thicker layers of dust as they proceeded through the hallway, and a strip of loose wallpaper fluttered free in a faint breeze of indeterminate origin.

The hallway stretched out before them, seemingly elongated, the far end buried in shadow thick enough that it was nearly tangible. Around them, indistinct and barely-there, there sounded the faintest rattling breath.

"Thank you," Gabe said, sincerely and earnestly and with his relief written all over his face. He stuck close to them as they walked, staying quietly in the middle. Both of them looked to be better in a fight than he was, regardless of his abilities. He wasn't a warrior; he just had some talents, in comparison.

He wasn't used to being open about those talents, so he hesitated first. After what had happened with Murphy, could he afford to not warn them, just in case? At least most people here had some kind of power. His having magic wouldn't be too odd. "I can wear animal shapes," Gabe explained. "One of them's a mountain lion." He smiled weakly. "I'd rather not have cause to use it, but I can, if I have to."

He couldn't help but glance toward the Sun-Room as they passed it. He'd deliberately avoided the place, for the most part, since Skulduggery had told him there was something in there. The sounds of battle only reminded him of it.

Except that when he looked back to the hallway at large, it was ... darker. Dustier. More shadowed. The not-quite-there sound made a chill run down Gabe's back, made his step falter, his heart leaping to his throat and eyes widening. He swallowed hard to try and control the unfamiliar urge to breathe fast, too fast, and instead took a slow breath, held it, exhaled. "I think--did either of you hear that?"

Riiiight, a mountain lion would come in handy. Why did Ryusei keep running across this? Was he simply at a statistical disadvantage?

More importantly, he thought as they passed the Sun Room—had this hallway always been this long? And this... dusty? Ryusei stopped and lifted a foot, shining his flashlight down. That was definitely dust. If the hallway had been like this in the morning, he would have noticed something.

"Hear what?"

Soushi could feel a faint breeze, as if a window or a door had been left ajar somewhere down the hall. It wasn't much, but it was enough to stir dust and bits of paper, the movement enough to cause his flashlight to jump from place to place.

His brows knit together. Nothing. It was just as empty as before, but he couldn't ignore the way the darkness seemed to close in on them. It hadn't been so dark moments before. He held steady, though Gabe's comment gave him pause. A mountain lion?

Soushi let out a slow breath as he continued. It wasn't a wolf, at least, but it was close. And if Gabe had a human form as well as the animal, that would make him an Atavist too, wouldn't it? Had he been part of Inukami's plan as well?

He opened his mouth to ask further questions, but Gabe was right on another count as well. It was faint and difficult to hear unless one was listening for it, but it was there all the same. The sound of breathing, difficult or labored as it might be, but certainly not one of their own. Either someone was injured, or this was something else entirely. He gripped the baseball bat in his right hand a bit tighter.

"Stay alert and move quickly," Soushi whispered in a quiet, but firm voice. He gestured to the far end of the hall, now almost completely obscured by the darkness. His experience with the supernatural was more than enough to make him wary. If they could avoid any sort of encounter, it was all the better, but it seemed even here he might not be able to escape the demons, ghosts, and monsters that followed at night. At least back home they'd had the protection of Ayakashi-kan, but here? He couldn't be sure what to expect.

Definitely dust, and definitely plenty of it. Clouds stirred into the air and stayed suspended as they moved deeper, wafting between them in the faintest breaths of air: a warm autumn breeze that smelled like decay, laden with the sweetness of the dying season. In the little moonlight that shafted into the hall the dust glittered in eddies --

And behind them, in more purposeful swirls, spinning and building into a figure, indistinct and barely-visible in the shadowy hall, lurching after them in a silent awkward hunch.

Yes, hurrying was a ... very, very good idea. Gabe quickened his pace, sticking close to the others but not enough to get in their way. He felt drenched in sweat, and had to strive to keep his breathing at least controlled. Fear. He wasn't used to fear in the face of such mundane things. Even with the skills left to him, he felt so vulnerable. A burden.

The swirling dust made him cough suddenly and explosively; the Archangel drew up a sleeve over his mouth. Taking in a deep breath to try and steady himself, Gabe almost choked on the scent in the air. That smell--it wasn't like the ending of autumn. Those were natural changes, ones that fed the earth. This ... this was something else. A deep terror.

Even knowing he shouldn't, Gabe looked back and almost stumbled. A being of dust and darkness, and he had no light.

"I think we should hurry," he said in a half-strangled voice vying between fear and control.

He had to be imagining it. Right? Where was that smell even coming from? He used a hand to cover his face.

Hurry— Yes, that was the idea. Ryusei glanced at Gabe, then looked back, too, and nearly stumbled from the sight. That was just another patient, wasn't it? Just like them, stumbling through the dust—

Did he want to find out?

He shined his light both ways as he resumed his gait. "Miketsukami-san— How long is this hallway?"

If the hints of earlier hadn't been enough, the longer they stayed, the more he was certain of it. There was something else here with them, something stirring that dust and decay and filling the hall with an unsettling aura. There was no fear, as one might expect, but more a feeling of familiarity, of things far too commonplace in his world.

His companion's sudden coughing fit was enough to draw attention, followed by Sakuta's near-stumble, though he was fairly certain whatever had drawn them in was already well aware of their location. He turned as well, eyes darting immediately to what looked like a hunched figure, though it was hard to tell amid all the swirling shadows.

Yurei?

Soushi kept his light trained on the floor, rather than agitate the figure. Confrontations between demons like these and his own half-blooded kind were common enough, but also typically unpleasant. His smile faded, replaced by a neutral and unamused look directed at the other.

"Much like the trouble with the doorways last night, it is not uncommon for certain creatures to be able to manipulate such things Sakuta-san." his voice hadn't changed at all from the calm, even tone, and he held his bat steady in one hand, offering his flashlight to Gabe with the other. As much as he disliked the thought of a confrontation, he would rather not have his hands full trying to balance a light and his weapon.

"Gabe-san, could I trouble you with this? I think you may be correct. Rude as it might seem, I suggest we not exchange pleasantries with our new friend. As they seem to be covering the way we came, it might be prudent to continue to go forward."

As if to match the shift in scent and atmosphere around them, the dust that grew ever-thicker beneath their feet grew damper, as if it had lain in rot for too long; the thin layer that had built against the soles of their shoes grew fuller and heavier, until it seemed almost as if the dust had soaked into a morass. Steps grew more difficult, particles no longer eddying around their movements so much as clinging to them, weighing them down.

And behind them, the figure coalesced. Still wreathed in shadows, it nonetheless grew first heavy with gravity, jerking limbs seeming to settle into physical reality, and then loud with it: bare feet slapped against the ground, each step accompanied by the faint crunch of a damaged ankle. The same ankle nearly folded her over -- for it was a her, a woman's figure dressed in a thin white dress -- with each movement. Yet, even as she collapsed, she gained on them with inexplicable speed, closer with every look.

With her came the sound of a death-rattle: but one that continued, breath unending, all the hatred and fury of life snuffed out building with it.

Something about all this--it was ringing familiar. Not as if it was something Gabriel had experienced, or witnessed someone else experience, but as if it was something he'd heard. The darkness. The shambling, decomposing figure.

"I--yes, of course." Gabe's voice was rattled but distracted by the realisation as he took the torch, immediately and inexplicably feeling safer once he had the weight of the light in his hands. It wasn't like it would do much against this kind of enemy. Still, when he aimed it at the floor it meant they could properly see the molasses under their feel. Gabe was starting to feel weighed down by it.

Not comforting.

The crunch of breaking bone made him flinch and he refused to look back, struggling on through the dust. "I think I've head of this monster before," he said, his voice a little steadier. "But it was in the sun-room. Be careful of its hair--and don't let it get too close. The man I spoke to was still hallucinating two days later."

Certain creatures?! What things?! Ryusei continued silently moving, acknowledging that something was weighing his steps down without putting much thought into it. Miketsukami hadn't mentioned how they were supposed to get away from it, other than run. If Miketsukami was going to be that calm about it, then that meant he didn't know, either. Ryusei didn't have a plan in the event they got caught. Gabe's warnings were information, not advice.

That sound— Those sounds— "Stop talking," he said, a little breathlessly. "Just run."

The heavy atmosphere was far too familiar and he found himself retreating, though he didn't take his eyes away from the growing creature that seemed just a touch more solid with each passing second. How unpleasant.

As it stepped toward them, moving with a speed that was slow and yet inhumanly fast for one with what sounded like a broken ankle. The sound of a shaky dying breath growing just as quickly. He could practically reach out and touch the hate and malice surrounding the creature. Ririchiyo's yurei had been much more adorable in comparison. Besides, her jet-black hair had much more shine to it and-

"Agreed," Soushi said quietly, covering their retreat as the other two moved on ahead. Talk would be of little use. It was quite possible there was no escape at all until the yurei was defeated or decided to let them go. He was without his sword or his true form and a bat was a terribly ineffective tool against the paranormal. Still, he held it outstretched toward the specter, meant as a warning should it choose to continue its approach.

One hung behind: two tried to escape. The darkness clutching at their feet writhed, shifted, until it was nothing more than a thick carpet of unbroken hair. Strands whipped up to snag around shoes and cling to their ankles, still in quantities fine enough to be broken with movement but multiplying fast -- if they failed to escape soon, it could only grown thicker and more constraining.

But the grip at their feet was not what needed to worry the defender. The body continued to shift, details blurring in between each blink of the eye: the bloodied hem of a dress. The rhythmic destruction of a damaged ankle, and finally --

Another blink --

And her hand, reaching toward Soushi with bloodied nails, and a face emerging from behind a fall of hair: wide-eyed, horrified more than anything else. A face alive with terrified rage on a body long-dead, and a mouth parted to give the endless death-rattle, even as she clawed toward his eyes.

This wasn't working. Gabriel wrenched his ankle free of the clinging hair, but it wasn't working--it wouldn't work--not in time. They'd be caught before they reached the stairwell at this rate, unless there was something they could do to break the hair.

Luckily, there was.

"Don't stop," Gabe ordered Ryusei. In the blink of an eye, between one yanking step and the next, Gabe segued neatly into the black-as-black mountain lion, fur ruffled and teeth bared. Claws extended, the Archangel lashed at the hair, breaking the strands trying to contain his changed shape and then the ones around Ryusei's feet, fast and efficient as the plain stumbling run couldn't be. As soon as Ryusei's feet were free, the lion whirled on graceful paws to go back for Soushi.

Ryusei stumbled as he was freed from whatever had been clinging to his legs, and he whirled around, flashlight illumination bouncing every which way.

Don't stop, he'd been commanded. But where had Gabe gone? Despite him saying that, Ryusei couldn't just leave if—

Focus. If it'd been Gabe who'd helped him (it had to have been, right?), he didn't have to do that. That must mean he wanted Ryusei to keep going for... whatever reason, from altruism to personally wanting a fight with whatever it was—but it'd been Gabe who'd said not to let the thing touch them— Focus.

Ryusei knew how this mindset worked. If he didn't keep going, Gabe (wherever he was) would slow down. He'd already helped Ryusei once. And Miketsukami had turned around, Ryusei could see. There was nothing Ryusei could do. The most helpful thing—the least obstructive thing—Ryusei could do now was to continue running. "I'm going," he said. "—Follow quickly if you want the favor repaid."

He turned to go.

Night 68: Main Hallway, 1-Center

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