The crowds being thinner out here didn't mean much, other than that there was room to move and breathe, the latter helped by being clear of most of the heavy, oily smell of rotting bodies. Not being able to smell much was the one advantage to panting, Phoenix guessed, pausing long enough to knock back one of the lurching figures that had managed to get by Ken. The impact jarred the pincushioned knot lodged right in the middle of his arm and wrung a noise out of him that, between his teeth and the more urgent need to breathe (what was with that, anyway? he shouldn't still have been this winded) he managed to muffle down to a thin, startled grunt. Mercedes had fallen back again, and he paused long enough to be sure that she was actually catching up again - sure, they were both walking like old women with bad hips, but at least Phoenix had a shell-shocked but otherwise steady walker. She put on speed again, though, and there was an ebbing-back of the distress rising and falling in his chest in a strange, distant way, like the sound of the ocean from a distance. Everything seemed sort of fuzzy and unreal, really, like it does when you have a fever, but that didn't make any sense. He felt cold, if anything.
When the hotel loomed near the end of the block, he breathed a low, intent 'thank you,' to nothing more than the spot of not-quite-as-awful luck that had brought them there, and finally let go of Edgeworth long enough to make their way through the blasted doors and into the ruined lobby.
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The crowds being thinner out here didn't mean much, other than that there was room to move and breathe, the latter helped by being clear of most of the heavy, oily smell of rotting bodies. Not being able to smell much was the one advantage to panting, Phoenix guessed, pausing long enough to knock back one of the lurching figures that had managed to get by Ken. The impact jarred the pincushioned knot lodged right in the middle of his arm and wrung a noise out of him that, between his teeth and the more urgent need to breathe (what was with that, anyway? he shouldn't still have been this winded) he managed to muffle down to a thin, startled grunt. Mercedes had fallen back again, and he paused long enough to be sure that she was actually catching up again - sure, they were both walking like old women with bad hips, but at least Phoenix had a shell-shocked but otherwise steady walker. She put on speed again, though, and there was an ebbing-back of the distress rising and falling in his chest in a strange, distant way, like the sound of the ocean from a distance. Everything seemed sort of fuzzy and unreal, really, like it does when you have a fever, but that didn't make any sense. He felt cold, if anything.
When the hotel loomed near the end of the block, he breathed a low, intent 'thank you,' to nothing more than the spot of not-quite-as-awful luck that had brought them there, and finally let go of Edgeworth long enough to make their way through the blasted doors and into the ruined lobby.