damned_institute | Night 44: Main Hall, 2-West

[From here.]

As they reached the top of the stairs, the Scarecrow prepared himself. Here it was: the Horrible Hallway, the passage through with the Scarecrow had hoped he and Depth Charge would not go. He paused at the top of the steps before following his roommate through the entrance, attempting to prepare himself for what could be lurking in the darkness of the corridor.

Took a step into the hallway and stopped again, looking around with his flashlight. It was surprisingly... normal. The floor was solid, the walls still, and the ceiling not dripping with an unknown, slimy substance. Huh.

He started walking again, a little faster to catch up with Depth Charge. "Which way now?"

It was hard to say exactly what she'd been waiting for, but she had waited -- allowed nearly a half-score of patients to pass without apparent interest. Perhaps she had simply found one that fit her fancy, although it was dubious whether she had much of a fancy to fit: more likely, perhaps someone had finally caught just the right pattern of entrance to stir her sleeping rage.

Whatever the case, she had awoken.

Tonight there were no shifting shadows, no slow, gentle approach. Tonight, she was more direct: the patients stepping into her space would feel a tickle in their throats that abruptly worsened into a sharp, harsh pain. If they were able to suppress the human body's natural instinct to cough and clear whatever obstruction to breath was suddenly present, it seemed that choking was imminent, as if whatever it was would lodge into their lungs and be impossible to remove hereafter.

It was just as well all the Scarecrow could see was his back, 'cause when Depth Charge caught the tail end of the his smile he couldn't stop the corner of his own mouth twitching. Still, even if he didn't have the grace to smile back he did slow down a little for him.

The hallway was empty, so far as he could see, but he only allowed the judgment to pass with a thorough examination of the area. Thorough enough to notice the Scarecrow's hesitation at the sight of the corridor ahead, that is. "Up through there," he answered. "You sure you can go through with... th..."

The words tailed away. Something was gathering in his throat, kind of the way he'd have expected Cheetor to feel when he was about to hack up a hairball. Only in this case, he realised with a jolt, it really hurt.

Suddenly Depth Charge was doubled over, choking and coughing as hard as his lungs would let him as his chest tightened like the drawing of a bow. He tried to make sure the Scarecrow was still with him but his slagging eyes were watering already. Why does everything here want to suffocate me?!

The Scarecrow had apparently thought too soon on the normalcy of the hallway- he watched as Depth Charge doubled, and immediately made a short dash toward him. "You okay? Wha-- "

He stopped both his run and question as he felt a strange, new sort of sensation in his throat- it was itchy and thick and left him nearly breathless. Unlike the foot-on-floor feeling, he was already very, very sure he didn't like it. His ankle twisted unexpectedly as he struggled to make it to his fallen friend, sending him to the floor in a heap.

Getting back to his feet while it felt like his throat was being crushed was whole new ordeal. He put a hand on the wall, trying to steady his legs. He tried to question Depth Charge again, but he only heard a strange wheeze escape his mouth. That couldn't be good.

The Scarecrow had indeed misjudged the hallway -- although the attack certainly seemed to be coming from within rather than without, for now. And though Depth Charge might have been suffocated before, this particular sensation was doubtless a curious one for a pair of patients who had little experience with human bodies between them. Then again, most humans with a lifetime of experience in their own bodies probably weren't really equipped for it.

It: whatever was was lodged in their throats that their systems were trying so hard to expel. If they coughed hard enough, they'd realise that there was some kind of substance coming out of their mouths.

If they gave it a good tug, they'd discover that it was hair -- long, seemingly-endless sections of it, slimy with spit. No matter how they pulled, no matter how much of it issued forth from their mouths, pilled up in their hands and on the floor, the stuff would seem never-ending for a long while.

Vaguely Depth Charge registered what sounded like the Scarecrow straining for oxygen. Suddenly his own chest gave one last great heave and something slid out past his lips, leaving him dragging in great mouthfuls of air over dark, slippery lengths of... hair?!

He gagged. 'Cheetor hacking up a hairball' hadn't been too far off, only this time he had no idea what the Pit was happening to them.

He could still feel it gathering, catching thickly inside of his throat, and automatically his hands clawed at the mass and dragged it out. A few moments later, choking with hands full of tangled hair that gleamed wetly by the light of his fallen flashlight, it dawned on him that it wasn't going to be that simple.

The wheeze was replaced with a more severe sort of gasping involving that thickness in his throat. His body coughed a couple of times, trying to clear the obstruction- he dropped his flashlight as it got worse. Some part of said obstruction make its way into his mouth during the fit, and felt no better once there.

He tried to pull it from his mouth, only to find there was more of it, whatever it was, still in his throat, still causing more discomfort than he'd felt in all the other unfortunate visits he'd made to this hallway combined. He couldn't see it in the dark- it was like slimy straw being pulled from within him, even though his body wasn't stuffed with it.

Needless to say, this was rather alarming.

He fumbled for his dropped light as he continued coughing, his hands shaking as he managed to find it and shine it around the hallway unsteadily. He wasn't sure if shining a light on their attacker would make the situation any better, but it had worked once before, and he was willing to try just about anything at this point.

Not that simple in the least. Hairs continued to retch from their throats, splattering spit-heavy to the ground where -- somehow -- they appeared to be drawn to each other, the black mass collecting into a bigger and bigger pile. Was it moving, or was it just that the beams of their flashlights were doing something strange?

Since, surely, it was just a trick of the eyes, given the way that the lights had begun to flicker erratically, illuminating the area they were in with increasingly weaker light. Surely, it was merely that effect that made the growing pile of hair seem to twitch and shudder now and again.

And, surely, it was just the light that made it seem as if there was something, someone, in the hallway around them: because whenever the Scarecrow swung the beam of his light in a direction, there appeared for just a flash-second in the darkest shadows, in the absolute peripheral of vision, a pale figure. Yet, if he were to try to shine the light on it again, it was gone.

By this point Depth Charge had adjusted to the vomiting- well, about as much as he could adjust to the feeling of emptying reams of someone else's hair from his throat onto the floor- and could just about see the Scarecrow to his right and fumbling for his flashlight. Clumsily he ducked and grabbed his own, gasping and choking all the while, and staggered closer to his partner. The hair followed.

Wait, the hair followed? Depth Charge's eyes snapped back to the growing pile, and sure enough it seemed to jerk, as though an animal were trapped inside it somewhere. But it was so hard to think about it when he could barely blink back the tears enough to see and barely swallow down enough oxygen to survi-

- someone was there. Now the Maximal was on full alert, yanking himself back up to his full height and scanning the area for... for... where were they? He gagged, just about managing to get out a strangled, "Show your face!" before doubling up again. The Scarecrow was closer this time, though, and he found himself grabbing ahold of the man's shoulder for support. "S-slag it..."

The light in the Scarecrow's hand made its way toward his companion as he heard him speak- it sounded like he was facing the same affliction, whatever it was. His own body felt foreign, trembling again as it heaved, still struggling to rid itself of that clog in his windpipe.

He managed to hold his footing as he felt Depth Charge's hand land on his shoulder; however, he did not keep hold of his flashlight as she shined it once more down the hallway and spotted something he didn't expect- someone actually there. Spooked, he dropped his flashlight a second time. Even though he retrieved it fairly quickly, the form was gone when he moved the light to the same spot. The light flickered unnervingly, threatening to leave the two with even less vision.

He tried to ask his roommate about it, but could hardly get a word out before choking again. He breathed shallowly, his eyes catching sight of something even more disturbing- some sort of black something gathering from the dark, tangled masses of what seemed like hair being pulled from their own bodies. Unable to utter anything coherent, he instead shined his dimming light toward the pile and pulled on Depth Charge's arm with his free hand to get his attention.

Depth Charge was probably going to regret that demand, but for the moment it seemed as if the end was in sight -- the choking finally began to ease, coughing subsiding until only a few strands of hair could be pulled from the throat. Doubtless a relief for the two patients, though the pain of having dragged large handfuls of hair up through the esophagus would linger for a while. And, for the moment at least, the figure disappeared from the edge of the flashlight beam.

But it wasn't the end. Even as they were able to claim with certainty that the majority of the hair that had been in their systems (however it had gotten there) was out of them, the pile of hair that had built up between began to twitch and move more violently. Slowly, jerkily, a roundish form pulled together from the still-damp strands, moving almost as if in a strange time-lapse.

And then suddenly it flipped upwards and a human face was staring at Depth Charge and the Scarecrow, eyes wide and bloodied mouth open, a long, extended death-rattle gurgling from it. Still looking up from the floor, the head began to rise, and underneath it unfolded a body: but a body that had obviously been warped and beaten, malshaped and not quite fitted together. It cracked now and again as if bones were straightening out while it rose from the floor as if it had been there the whole time, though moments ago there had definitely been nothing but hair.

The sheer fury that suddenly saturated the air was nearly palpable. There was no doubt: the sight of this body, the empty rage in those wide-staring eyes, was a curse.

The hair seemed to be coming up more slowly; Depth Charge couldn't feel more than a few strands through the bile, and, even in spite of a raw, convulsing throat, he became aware that he could actually breathe again. Wait, the Scarecrow. Scrap! Was he-?

He was pulling on his arm. Relief flooded the Maximal's senses for five nanokliks of peace before he finally registered his roommate's urgency. By the time his eyes refocused on the Scarecrow's flashlight beam, though, the pile had already stopped moving and started rising.

Human biology wasn't a subject Depth Charge would ever be well-versed in, no matter how long he spent as one, but even he could tell that what he was looking at wasn't right. That bodies weren't supposed to twist that way, and that limbs and joints shouldn't look as incongruous as they did now. Six days of human activity suddenly overwhelmed stellar cycles of robotics as something primal within him wrenched at the bloody figure it was now sensing so acutely.

"By the Matrix..." he muttered hoarsely. Instinctively, he stepped in front of the Scarecrow; that thing- no way was he going to accept that there was anything of a person in those dark chasms of eyes- may not have been like anything he had ever seen, but like Pit he was going to let it get past him.

The noise accompanying the rising form before them was enough to send shivers down the Scarecrow's now-human spine; the face that appeared from the mass of hair, followed by the twisted tangle of limbs, caused him to take a few clumsy steps backward. This poor girl looked like she'd been taken apart and put back together all wrong- surely this sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen to flesh-and-blood folks!

The Scarecrow found his breath again as his roommate stepped in front of him, separating him from the girl. He looked around quickly- the rest of the hall was dark, but seemed clear. Better yet was the fact that they were no longer hacking up hair from the inside-out. His flashlight was providing little light as it flickered, but it didn't matter- he could somehow still feel the presence of the mangled woman hanging in the air. It was a feeling he was certain he didn't like.

"Depth Charge!" he said in a raspy whisper, his throat uncomfortable, "Let's get out of here while we can!"

The spirit's blank eyes trailed their movements slowly, like a predator that wasn't particularly interested in its prey: although there was a hunger in the air that needed to be satisfied, now, a fulfillment of a blood curse that had new targets. When Kayako turned her head the movement was another twitch, the same unsteady jerking way in which she'd risen.

Her head tilted dangerously to the side even as the Scarecrow counselled escape, much further than a normal human's neck should bend, almost dangling at the strange angle, and then she moved --

Not in any way a human would, or most living things. It looked like the difference between two photographs; one moment she was standing, hair dangling in front of her face while she stared at her new victims, and in the next she was in front of Depth Charge, hands on either side of his head. Almost affectionate, her small hands settling into place like a lover's and gripping with a strength that could not be anything but supernatural.

Depth Charge's glanced back to the Scarecrow's frightened face, flashing in and out of the darkness against the flicker of his torch. As much as it pained his pride to admit it, 'getting out of here' sounded pretty good right about now. He could nurse the bruises to his ego when they weren't face to face with something that looked like it had just crawled straight out of the Pit.

I'm on it was what he had meant to say, but in the nanoklik it took to blink and summon the words the woman seemed to shift through the air like a hologram. And suddenly escaping wasn't an option anymore, because the delicate, waif-like hands placed oh-so-very gently against his temples might as well have belonged to Rhinox for all the good struggling against them was doing. His own hands were clenched from tension, muscles spasmed and tight so that they clawed uselessly around his flashlight.

Which left only one option. Through gritted teeth, he hissed a single command to the Scarecrow: "Hit her. Now."

He could feel bad about making a fighter out of a civilian when he wasn't in mortal peril. Primus only knew what this was leading up to.

"You want me to-- but-- she-- what if--" The Scarecrow fumbled over his words, trying to grasp them with his free hand as if they were in the air around him, completely taken aback by the order. He was a thinker, and wasn't the type to hurt anyone- not intentionally, at least. He would have been happy to just frighten this strange, mangled witch away if he were actually frightening and had the brains for it, but actually causing harm to her was another issue!

Then again, she was already somehow causing harm to Depth Charge. It didn't look like it, but the guy didn't seem like the sort to take this-

He cut his thoughts off, realizing this was not the time for internal debate. His roommate needed help. Get to it!

The Scarecrow sidestepped the taller man quickly, flickering flashlight raised, and brought it down as hard as he could toward the witch. He could think about the consequences later.

As the Scarecrow took his time deciding whether to strike or not, Kayako kept her empty-eyed focus fully on Depth Charge's face, hair sweeping slowly out of her face as if stirred back by a wind that couldn't be felt. Improbably, despite her diminutive frame, her head shifted up higher, closer to Depth Charge's, as if to examine her victim or to make the rattling sound coming from her throat clearer.

At the same time, her hands crushed in at either side of his head, as if trying to push through his skull (and was it just a trick of the mind, or were her fingers pressing inside his temples?). Eyes wide, almost curiously so, and neck still tilted, she looked like she neither saw nor expected the blow that came when the Scarecrow made up his mind.

But her body jolted, the flashlight landing with a dull smacking noise, as if her flesh had long rotted. And her head -- jerked around, still dangling in that broken way, eyes rolling slowly over to focus on the Scarecrow now. Her grip did loosen on Depth Charge's face, but otherwise the blow looked like it hadn't hurt her in the least.

It had drawn her attention. As suddenly and quickly as she'd moved the first time, Kayako was in front of the Scarecrow, one hand reaching up and right through his head, with all the attendant pain expected of suddenly having a limb slammed through bone and no visible wound. Fingers extended out the back of his skull and gripped into a fist, grabbing a handful of brown hair.

Dark, cold eyes stared into his face, staring in a way that would have been curious were it not for that alien inhumanity within them. Was it even capable of being curious? Like Pit it mattered, Depth Charge wasn't about to wax philosophical while he was still caught and- "S-scrap!"

Those same delicate white fingers he'd felt, vicelike, against his head, were suddenly forcing their way into his head, through flesh and bone. His processor was on full alert and telling him it wasn't real, but reasoning could only go so far while his senses burned.

And then suddenly release, and the hands were away from his face and the pain was subsiding, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Scarecrow's horrified face.

"Sorry," he managed to hiss out- much to his annoyance, when he realised barely a moment later. Geeze, this guy was better than a quart of oil at getting him to say things he didn't like saying. Next thing and he'd be admitting that, actually, he might be out of his depth. Which he wasn't.

But before he could recover the figure had moved again (Too fast for any alien I've ever heard of, what the Pit is that?!) and the next thing Depth Charge knew, the Scarecow's face had been impaled on its hand. Distant memories stirred, ghosting across the the Scarecrow's face with mech fluid and exposed circuitry; but she wasn't X. He wasn't going to just stand by.

Tearing the shears out of his back pocket he charged, points held together like a dagger and aimed at her neck.

All his thoughts came to a halt as the Scarecrow found himself face-to-face with the witch, and then faced with another new sensation- one far more horrible than any he'd felt before- as she seemingly reached right though his head.

His body flew into panic as his mind desperately told him to do something: call for help, whack her again, flail arms about- anything! Still trying to comprehend what was happening to him, he tried to pull away from the witch, only to feel her hand gripping his hair from the back of his head.

He froze, knowing he was in trouble. He finally managed to sort his thoughts into a statement: "D- do something!"

Kayako's features remained locked into the same almost-curiosity as she stared into the Scarecrow's face from scant inches away. Her height meant that she was staring upwards to catch his eyes, but as with Depth Charge there was something strange about the physics of the situation: those wide empty eyes kept coming closer and closer, the hair that partially covered her face shifting with some unseen movement. The rattle of her endless dying breath was interrupted now and again with a sharp twitch of her head on its broken neck --

And though it seemed like she was satisfied with her handful of hair for the moment, the sheer rage that the Scarecrow would feel building in the air around him was heavy enough to be felt -- a furious lust for blood vengeance irrespective of the target. Though her attack had lulled for the moment, the promise of violence could all but be tasted.

But the one who fulfilled it first was not Kayako. The shears found home, digging into the back of her neck and sliding straight through with barely any resistance beyond a few faint crunches as the blades met and pierced her pharynx and larynx. The points burst out from the front of her neck, scattering a few stray drops of dead blood onto the Scarecrow.

And the rattle filling the air distorted, sputtering into something closer to a gurgle as blood leaked into her already-ruined windpipe.

Slowly, she turned just her head around to focus her gaze on Depth Charge again, bones and organs cracking and popping in her neck until her head was fully facing the opposite direction from her body. If the Scarecrow were to attempt to pull away now, he would find that her hand -- and a fistful of hair with it -- would pass right through his skull. Agonisingly, but without leaving behind any visible wounds.

Night 44: Main Hall, 2-West

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