Night 69: West Wing, Hall 2-A

[envy_the_sinners]

[From here]

Scar slowed his pace once he was in the hallway, checking back for the others once again. Normally he would have had no issue with being at the front of the group, but after that thing that had attacked him the other night...

This was impossible.

Comments

[fullmetalheart]

Ed followed Scar down the hallway, mentally grumbling about the lack of proper lighting and looking around alertly. Scar's twitchiness was making him edgy.

[a_sin_for_him]

At least the hallways seemed quiet tonight. If they were lucky, they'd keep up this streak. She'd had more than enough of things after her in the last few nights.

But considering what they were looking for, Lust expected one of the Institute's guard creatures to be somewhere about.

[armoredsoul]

Alphonse kept his light shining anywhere Scar's wasn't, glancing back behind them to be sure nothing snuck up on them. Or at least to be able to give warning before whatever might be here attacked. His eyes flickered over the placards on the doors--medical library, restrooms...the first he and Edward might come back to check out another night, but they weren't likely to lead to the staircase they needed.

Something occurred to him then. "You don't think the staircase might be behind some hidden doorway, do you?"

[envy_the_sinners]

"I have no idea." Scar took note of the several doors along this hallway. "I think we're more likely to know we've gotten there when his 'guards' show themselves."

Which meant that they were inevitably going to be taken by surprise. He looked to Lust.

"Have you been down this hall before?" Opening random doors was just asking for something bad to happen.

[fullmetalheart]

Ed eyed the restroom doors as they passed them, suddenly paranoid that something may pop out of them at the group. "If it is hidden, it'll take forever to find."

[a_sin_for_him]

"And this isn't the place to split up in."

Lust frowned and tried to remember. The nights blurred together and one hall looked like another. "I'm not sure...no, I don't think so." She could hardly say whether it looked familiar or not, everything looked the same. Miserable and dank. But it didn't feel familiar, and she had no other inkling one way or another.

"There has to be sone hint or clue. They like doing that, it's like a game."

[armoredsoul]

"Great," Al groaned, rolling his eyes. "Well, we have to start somewhere, I guess."

He looked down to the end of the hallway, eying the door at the end of it. "Staff lounge?"

[envy_the_sinners]

"We aren't splitting up." The unnecessary remark was Scar's way of agreeing. He followed Alphonse down the hall, trying the handle to the lounge door.

"It isn't locked. We might as well."

[To here]

[envy_the_sinners]

[From here]

Scar waited by the door, watching for Edward and still gripping his arm. Now that he was farther away from the situation, he was starting to actually realize how much it hurt. Those things' talons were sharp. Unnaturally so.

[fullmetalheart]

Ed followed the group in, eyes on the sky. When the aquila started to dive he backpedaled as quickly as possible to get in and slammed the door shut. "I vote that we never go outside at night again. Holy shit."

[a_sin_for_him]

Once inside, Lust doubled over with her hands on her thighs, breathing heavily from exertion. That something like that would even wear her out...

She hated what this place did to her.

"We have to go out sometimes," Lust said, though the aggravation in her voice wasn't directed at Edward.

[armoredsoul]

"If we do, it will be for as little time as possible," Al gasped out, looking everyone over with worry. That gash on Scar's arm needed to be tended... "Have either of you seen those things before?"

[envy_the_sinners]

Scar slumped against the wall once everyone was safely inside, taking off his shawl and beginning to cut it into strips for bandages. It was difficult with the awful shape his arm was in. He was only really succeeding at getting blood everywhere.

"Once before, yes. A swarm of them on the access road." But only one had come after them that night. The chaos of all the other patients had been what had saved them.

He surveyed the others, looking for injuries but thankfully finding none.

[fullmetalheart]

"Gimme that," Ed said as he took it from Scar to start tearing off strips to bandage his arm with. Those got passed off to Al to use on Scar; carefully, since his arm was still transmuted. "That must have been a bucket-load of fun."

[a_sin_for_him]

Lust let the brothers see to Scar's wound. He'd likely prefer that, anyway.

"They're only outside," she said, with a small shrug. "And only sometimes. But for now, we stay in. There are medical supplies on this floor." A pointed look at Scar, though not a cruel one. It was almost fond. The fool of a man couldn't leave his room without getting injured.

"Unless you'd still like to try for the third floor after that little encounter?"

[armoredsoul]

Al took the strips and started binding up Scar's wound, ignoring any protests the older man might make. "A swarm? I'm glad we only had to deal with the two!"

He frowned then, glancing to his brother. "I'm not sure if our luck will hold or not. Either way, you do need to get patched up properly," he added to Scar. "Even if they do stitch you up before morning, real bandages will be much better than this."

[envy_the_sinners]

Scar only gave the brothers a brief, frustrated look as they began to fuss over his arm. He would be fine with this cloth for bandages. They didn't need to go out of the way.

God knew he'd gotten by with less resources and worse wounds. He was still for them as they wrapped the wounds, though.

"If we pass a proper supply closet we can dig through it." He met Lust's eyes for a moment before turning his gaze back down the hallway. The last thing they needed was to be jumped by another abomination of this place. "Beyond that, I don't care. We've hardly accomplished anything, but we don't need anybody getting killed over this. There will inevitably be more information tomorrow."

[fullmetalheart]

"If we keep looking, we're sticking to indoors in case those things are waiting for us to come back out," Ed said as he finally stopped tearing apart the shawl and returned what was left. He also ignored the look of frustration; not that it was hard as he's had plenty of practice due to different sources.

[a_sin_for_him]

"If we can get our hands on useful items, we'll have accomplished something," Lust pointed out, evenly. "We aren't going to discover everything we need to in one night. Every small bit helps."

And besides, every time they went out, they learned more of the subtle workings of this place. Or at least she did. Knowledge was the only weapon they could truly rely on in this place.

[armoredsoul]

"Let's go ahead and look for supplies, then," Al said as he tied one last strip around Scar's arm. "We definitely need to make a better weapon for you, at the very least, Scar."

[envy_the_sinners]

Scar nodded to Alphonse. Much as he was loath to rely on alchemy, he wouldn't let his lack of weapon become a liability in a life threatening situation like it just had. Scar had been utterly useless out there. It was humiliating.

"Where is this closet, then?" Lust seemed to know where she was going better than any of them did. He pushed himself up from the wall, still gripping at his shredded arm. It stung a good deal more than he cared to let on.

[fullmetalheart]

"Well, even if nothing else gets accomplished, Al and I will have gotten a chance to explore and find out where things are," Ed said in a philosophical tone.

He stood back, letting Scar have his personal space back and waited the the group to decide to get moving again. He had no idea where they were going and knew it was better to let the ones that had been there longer lead the way.

[a_sin_for_him]

"Somewhere on this floor," Lust repeated, evenly. "I haven't been there myself, I only know from collecting information off of the public board. Did we see a sign, can you remember, when we were here last?" She tapped her finger against her lips, thoughtful. She wanted to say that she had, but it was hard to tell what was a memory and what was just confused fancy.

"And I don't mean a closet. I mean proper hospital rooms. Medical rooms. This is the floor that they're on." She turned to look back down the hallway.

"Well, aren't I amongst a group of gentleman." It looked as though it was ladies first. Fine then. Someone had to take some manner of charge here.

"Is that wrapped well enough?" She cast her eyes to Scar's arm where he clutched it, hesitant to move beyond the relative safety of where they were if it wasn't.

[armoredsoul]

"I assume you mean other than the morgue, then, 'cause I don't think we'll find bandages in there. ...unless they do experiments in there that I really don't want to think about," Al added with a shudder.

He picked his sword back up and shone his flashlight back down the hallway, making sure nothing had come up the hall during their brief scrambling outside.

[envy_the_sinners]

"I don't remember a sign. We had intended on finding supplies but never got that far." They'd gotten distracted in the possessions room. "But I can imagine examination rooms would be in a section all to their own." As far as Scar was concerned, giving Lust the lead had nothing to do with being a gentleman. He would have much preferred to at least stay toward the front, not for control's sake, but simply for the potential risk that was involved with being at the front of the group.

"It's fine," he grumbled in response to her question of his arm. He hated being incapacitated, always being the one to get hurt, yet he would rather it be himself than any of the others.

Scar began marching off down the hallway, wanting to maintain some sense of being in the front. Restrooms did them no good, and neither would a staff library.

[To here]