damned_institute | Nightshift 34: Staff Recreational/Exercise Area

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Nightshift 34: Staff Recreational/Exercise Area

[from here]

Unfortunately, because the door had no lock there was no way to tell if anyone had been in the room already before them. Nothing seemed to be disturbed, but that didn't ease Matt's worry any. He ran the beam of his torch over various pieces of exercise equipment, then moved aside to let the other two in.

"You first," he muttered, keeping against the doorway. The room was large enough that any number of things could be within and he wouldn't be able to catch them with his torch quickly enough.

He was not afraid of the dark, damn it.

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Heiji shined his light into the room, frowning a little. Equipment, equipment, and more stupid equipment. It would take forever to search this place...

"Well, lights prob'ly won' work, so break out the flashlights boys. We got us a room t'search!" Heiji took the far back left corner of the room.

Of course the lights wouldn't work, and Matt's torch was already out. He half surmised that Heiji was the type of guy who just liked to hear himself talk sometimes. Restraining himself from rolling his eyes was difficult.

The room was large enough that he wasn't willing to get too separated from the rest of their small group lest something leap out at one of them. He stuck closer to Heiji only because he was the only one with combat experience.

He idly wondered if a set of small weights would be of any use to anyone, but the thought of having to drag them around stomped out the idea of grabbing one fairly quickly.

Heiji cast his light over the weights. He grinned, "Sweet! Well, if we don' find th' radio clue thing, we can always bring a nice haul of scrap f'r weapons 'n stuff. Carryin' it would probably be a hassle, but I wouldn' mind too much. 'Specially if we jus' took th' smaller ones."

The detective straightened up and looked around again, frowning. How big was this clue thing supposed to be, anyway? And if this was the right place, where was the big baddie guarding the treasure (but sadly, no princess)?

Without warning, the lights that the patients were holding started to sputter out, flickering until they died completely.

There was a sound, almost like a cold wind blowing, and then some sort of movement (yet no footsteps). It moved from corner to corner, obviously not something that followed any physical logic.

The phantasm lurked, waiting for the patients to move further into the room so that it could envelop them. It wasn't a being so much as a presence, and yet there was still that chilling sense that it was watching.

Kaito had been shining his flashlight over some of the equipment in the room when the light began to flicker. The batteries could be dead already, could they? He shook the flashlight, but then it flickered out completely.

"Oi, Hattori, Robin," he said, turning to look back at them. It was dark... Had Robin and Hattori's flashlights died, as well? And then there were the sounds in the room...

Something wasn't right, but the chill seemed kind of familiar.

"Hattori, over here!" he called out, gripping the pipe he'd brought. He wasn't sure if the weapon could do anything, but Hattori was the only one who could use it properly. "Take the pipe!"

Edited 2008-09-03 04:36 (UTC)

Matt froze up as the lights went out. Bad. Very bad. The hand holding the now dead flashlight shook ever so slightly. He should have foreseen this. He should have known he would have run into this again. Then there was a chill in the air, and the man was already moving in the direction of the door.

Something cold. Didn't see it. Doesn't matter.

Cold. Like ice. Then...everything was gone.

"Fuck no," he muttered under his breath. The invisible creature would come and make them all unable to struggle. Then something worse would come along. Perhaps they'd end up falling victim to who or whatever was causing a stir in the central hallway. Perhaps it would be another overly large spider. Whatever happened, there was only one fighter among them. "Everybody out!"

"No!" Heiji shouted, catching the pipe and shifting easily into a kendo position. He had to take control--he had to do this, for Homura's sake. They were going to get this fucking thing, wherever it was.

"Get behind me, everyone behind me!" He called. "If we go out, we get caught in that battle out there, and I'm willin' t'bet it's a shitton worse than whatever's in here."

He could take it. No problem. He could take this.

"We're gonna move slowly. Keep lookin' f'r the thing, we'll move t'gether. Got it?"

Running would have been the better option. Once the phantasm made proper contact with the patients, whatever urge they might have had to get away, whatever need to survive that was instilled in them - it would be gone.

The shadows grew along the walls, making the room even darker than it naturally was. It was almost like a plague, a deadly sickness that was slowly coming closer, seeping toward them. It wasn't anything, really; it wasn't something that could be found, it wasn't something that could be defeated. It was simply a lack of light, of feeling, of everything.

And it wanted to consume anything that got close enough.

Kaito's instinct was to side with Robin and get out, but Hattori's words made him stand his ground. He didn't have a weapon now that he'd passed it to Hattori, but he'd promised that he'd have the detective's back... And right now, that meant staying.

He crossed the gap between himself and Hattori, fishing in his coat pocket for his syringes. He wasn't sure how reliable they'd be to use in combat, but it was better than being barehanded.

"There's nothing to look for, you idiots!" Matt was talking quickly now, and his voice had taken on a slightly desperate edge. "If it's what I think it is, then it's invisible. It sucks out your will and leaves you in a state of utter apathy - sitting ducks for anything else."

They wouldn't be able to fight it. It had gotten Kenshin from out of nowhere, and he was better armed than these two. Sanosuke hadn't even seen it. None of them had. There'd be nothing to hit, and even if there was it would get to them before they could cause any damage.

"Get the fuck out!"

Heiji grit his teeth. Shit, if he couldn't see it, he sure as hell couldn't fight it. But it was looming all over the walls, and escape unscathed was looking close to impossible. He'd fucked up this time.

"Okay..." Heiji said carefully. "That guy's still out there. We're gonna run for the door, then just keep runnin' for the stairwell, okay?"

Heiji tightened his grip on the pipe. There was no reason to endanger Robin and Kaito. No reason at all...

"GO!"

It wasn't inclined to let anyone escape so easily. The hush and chill finished its slow move and took over the entire room, that blackness cloaking everything; all the way around to the door that would have been their exit, in some sort of suffocating embrace.

Now that they were boxed in, there was no chance of escape. They would remain here, cold and unfeeling, until daylight broke and they were taken back to their rooms, put back in their cages. For now, they belonged to the phantasm's trap.

"Right," Kaito agreed, starting for the door. For his part, he was more than a little glad that Hattori had decided to relent so easily. If this thing was what Robin said it was... that was like what had happened to Okita, on that first night he'd been in the Institute.

In the darkness, though, Kaito really wasn't completely sure that he was even headed the right way, that the door was where he thought it was. He clicked his flashlight on and off as he moved, hoping that the light would flicker back to life even for just a moment.

Shit. Shit shit shit. Kenshin and Mello hadn't mentioned anything about something like this happening. It had to be the same creature, unless more than one type of being with similar abilities existed. Matt was definitely shaking now, teeth tightly clamped together.

He cursed lightly under his breath, not even sure which way was out anymore. Maybe it didn't need any other creatures to help it take them out. Maybe it had realized they weren't that large of a threat. Where could they even go?

Matt was not afraid of the dark... but after this that had the potential to change.

It was dark, to be certain, and Heiji didn't know which way was out either. His heart was pounding in his ears, and it was hard to think.

Okay, we walked in the door, I headed for the back corner, the thing came out, Robin told us to retreat, I turned my back on the door, so it's--there!

He turned around, barely making out a knob in the thickening darkness. It was now or never, before Kaito or Matt were sucked dry. Heiji didn't know how the thing did it's... thing, but if anyone was going to make it out, it had to be them. He'd fucked up, and now it was his job to fix it.

"GO!!" Heiji repeated, running at the door and slamming his right hand directly on the shadow covering it. His other hand fumbled for the knob. "Get... out...!"

The fact that they were trying to escape was almost laughable, and as the door was found, the darkness merely closed in. Maybe one of them could get through without touching it, but even that was unlikely.

There was a small window of opportunity, but other than that, there was nowhere for them to go without coming into contact with the being. It would take the very life out of them.

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Nightshift 34: Staff Recreational/Exercise Area

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