Nightshift 35: Stairwell by Waiting Room/Lobby 2

[i-dont-paint.livejournal.com]

[from here]

Tony found something just a bit unnerving about the jagged, darting shadows cast by the beam of his flashlight as he made his way up the stairs. They were made erratic by the bounce of the beam, in time with his steps, and more than once he caught himself tracking one, with the vague expectation of seeing something dart out of it. It was the atmosphere of the place, he knew, and there was no more likely to be something lurking in the stairwell than there had been earlier in the night's trek.

And no less likely, either. He wondered if that was half the point, to drive people nuts with jumping at shadows while they waited for some sort of trouble, animal, mineral or vegetable-that-ate-New-York, to make itself known.

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[scarletspeedstr.livejournal.com]

Wally snorted with surprised laughter. "I would never live it down if I let a bunch of stairs do me in, so let's hope that doesn't happen." He also noticed the lack of an elevator, but figured it must have been due to the fact that all of the patient areas he'd seen so far were on the ground floor, so there would be no real need to allow people alternate methods than the stairs. Still... "Not very wheelchair-friendly, are they?" he remarked, following Tony up the stairwell.

Tony was taking his time on the stairs, cautiously keeping an eye out in case of trouble. Wally knew it was important and all that, but it wasn't half getting to him. He wanted to just speed past and check all the rooms himself, as he would have done had his powers been working properly. But that wasn't an option, so he fell back to his normal standby: absently chatting about whatever was on his mind. "Hopefully tonight will be better than last night. Like I said earlier, I wound up fighting a bunch of giant mutant dragonflies. Got a few bites out of it too, even if we did win eventually." He thought back to what had happened and how he'd blacked out afterwards only to wake up back in his room. "Wish I knew what happened after that though. Didn't even really make it that far before we got attacked. What about you? Did you find anything useful last night?"

He paused in his constant stream of babble as they reached the top of the stairs and walked out into the area beyond.