Night 69: Main Hallway 2-West

[envy_the_sinners]

[From here]

Scar shone his flashlight down the second floor hallway. It seemed to be deserted as always, but God only knew what might come out at them.

"I don't think there's anything down this first hall. I woke in one of the rooms there last night."

Comments

[freewill]

It didn't take long for Castiel to piece together that he and Soushi had run into the same ghost that night. If he factored in Gabriel, that was three different groups of people who had encountered the spirit, though he realized it was possible that Soushi and Gabriel had been traveling together last night. That would be a strange coincidence, but not impossible.

"I ran into the same spirit," he said as he finally made it to the top of the stairs. He paused for a minute, leaning against the banister to catch his breath. Being winded after walking up one flight of stairs was ridiculous, but that was still the state of things.

"My traveling partner and I were unable to get past it," he admitted. "Did you feel any remnants of its haunting over the course of the day?" They needed to be moving on and he knew that, but they might as well finish this discussion while he caught his breath.

[ever_loyal_dog]

Soushi watched the empty halls for movement, patients or otherwise, as Castiel caught his breath. It would do no good for him to overexert his guide. But he turned back to the man, once he had finished speaking. Castiel had run into the same spirit?

"Yes. I cannot speak for those I traveled with, but when I spoke with you earlier, that was when I first noticed it. The bench you were sitting on was covered in dust and decay and long black hair. I heard her, for a moment, but then it was gone," he said softly, hoping that in describing the spirit, it would not call it upon them.

[freewill]

It was true that they might be tempting fate by speaking of the spirit when they were out at night like this, but Castiel didn't concern himself too much with it. If that ghost wanted to find them, then it probably would. It was either that or it only haunted a certain part of the institute -- and judging from his previous encounters with it, that was the first floor.

So that was why Soushi had seemed oddly distracted during the latter part of their conversation. Castiel hadn't understood it then, but he'd only felt the aftereffects himself in the following shift.

"I see. Something happened to me as well. I hallucinated the sounds of someone drowning, and then my arms suddenly became drenched in water." It wasn't that harmful in the end, but it was possible that some of the patients who'd encountered that spirit had been affected in worse ways than he and Soushi.

All speculation aside, they needed to move on. Soushi wouldn't know where to go from here on, and so Castiel shuffled away from the banister and down the hall to the right, expecting that Soushi would follow.

[To here.]