damned_institute | Night 44: Main Hall, 2-West

The moment she coughed, there was another quick series of footsteps, louder and closer this time. The sound undoubtedly had the almost-ungainly, light tread of a child, something that might have been playful in any other circumstance -- but this time the quick-footed boy skirted just the edge of her flashlight's beam, enough for the bright light to illuminate his pale feet with clarity.

And then, just as abruptly as the sound of running, there was something rubbing up against Alkaid's ankles. A black cat, looking normal for all intents and purposes, was nudging against her feet in a way that was outright friendly.

"Aaah?" Alkaid saw the feet this time without question, then became utterly convinced that this wasn't so much of a twitch as a... a real-life child, running around without a care.

"H-hey! Uh! Kid! Kid!" She called after him to no avail. Now, she had to rescue Haseo, didn't she? But something like a little kid stuck and trapped in this place just didn't sit right with her. Endrance.. Endrance could handle it, couldn't he?

She almost jumped when she felt that slinky cat around her feet, distracting her from those milky-white feet. Seemed like a normal cat... Had one of the sun room cats somehow gotten out of whatever pen they were put in at nightshift? What the hell was going on?! Stuff like this made her so mad, and it was just getting weirder and weirder! Why would this place keep little kids, or let innocent little cats run around while there were monsters roaming the halls?

She had to protect this little cat! And Haseo, and Endrance, and the kid...

"Hey, kitty.. Do you belong to that kid? Heeey. Kit-kit." She reached down to pet the little cat, still trying to keep an eye on everything else, but her attention could only be spread so far...

[From here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/736668.html?thread=60539292#t60539292).]

Turning into this hall and not finding some sort of obviously distressing situation helped reduce Haseo's anxiety... though at the same time it was also mildly confusing after what he'd been told and come to expect from the place. But Alkaid was a hard one to miss even in the amazingly dull patient uniform, and with a brief glance over his shoulder to confirm Endrance was still with him, Haseo hesitantly approached her, flashlight beam aimed low.

However, he still definitely sensed something was off here, and he halted several paces away from the girl, looking first toward the floor and then quickly down the length of the hallway. Aside from the Twin Blade's odd body language he didn't see anything amiss. What was she doing?

"Uh, Alkaid," he started, catching sight of the cast still on her arm and thinking vaguely that the part where she'd implied her injuries on the bulletin board seemed much longer than half a day ago. Never mind he probably more looked the part of a zombie himself... albeit wearing grey sweatpants and no shirt.

The word 'kitty' made Endrance's stomach twist. This place seemed to love tormenting him with them; if it wasn't one cat attacking him, it was the same cat appearing in the Sun Room the next day. If it wasn't that...

He shook off the thought of what had happened the night before. If he let himself think too much about it, then there was no way he could keep moving forward, and for better or for worse, that was what he had to do, for Haseo, if not for himself. All of that said, though, if anyone in this place was going to have a cat come to them, it would be him, and he definitely didn't see one.

"...nothing's here. I would know if there was a cat...I seem to be a magnet for them. We should go..."

The cat rubbed against Alkaid's hand readily enough, though it didn't meow or purr or make any particularly feline sounds -- but then, perhaps it was an unusually quiet cat. It didn't seem like anything was wrong besides the fact that there was a cat out at night where normally there were beasts, and that there was presumably a child still out there in the darkness --

But that depended on the beholder, of course. To Alkaid, there was simply the beam of a flashlight and a cat winding innocently about her ankles.

And nothing more. Alkaid was coming to exist in the beginnings of a memory, time and space shifting around her to create what someone, something, wanted her to see: and that was the sudden noiseless appearance of a small boy right behind her, staring up and waiting for her to turn around. He looked a little pale and definitely a little frightened, dressed in a striped T-shirt and shorts with a bandaged knee, but he looked normal enough with his bowl cut and dark eyes.

And to Endrance and Haseo, Alkaid was starting to look -- just a little insubstantial, though perhaps that was the effect of the light, or the darkness ... after all, the cat now sitting by her feet looked the same way, didn't it? And it was just Alkaid and the cat to be seen, alone in the hallway, so surely there was no threat, no boy standing behind her waiting to be noticed?

She scratched behind the cat's ears, silent though it was - some cats were just like that. Poor thing, trapped out here! Alkaid had an unusually girly weakness for small animals. But... that probably stemmed from pets being surprisingly loyal followers. They couldn't betray you or do anything underhanded, which was a quality that she valued in friends, too. So... pets could be friends.

But... no. She had to find Haseo and help him. In the end, friends were more important than cats, even though it hurt her to tear away from the little lost cat, probably the only normal animal in the entire place. And when she turned to stand, that face---

"A-aaaah!" She scrambled back a little bit, staring back at the halfway-creepy, pale little kid. He'd surprised her. "H-hey, don't just jump out at me like that! I don't have time for this... I gotta save Haseo!!"

...It didn't seem like she had noticed that her friends were nearby, even though she seemed to be staring right past Haseo. To her, she was staring at the sad little boy, and nothing else...

There was... something severely wrong with Alkaid, but it took a moment far too long for Haseo to realize exactly what seemed to be happening. Even then, he merely stared at her, too transfixed to even move the flashlight's beam to a more advantageous position as she carried on like an actor in some sort of weird pantomime.

... The sight of Coite-Bodher Battlefield's terrain strengthened as the surrounding swirl of blue died out, a sick feeling rising in the pit of Ryou's stomach as he walked his character forward, searching for his friend-- spotting her just as she fell, and... moments later there was nothing he could do as Alkaid began to fade...

This place--!

The Adept Rogue's grip on his emotions had a track record of being somewhat tenuous, even when he wasn't mere minutes out from being forced so far past his limits. All at once the panicked state from before returned in force, and with barely a sound aside from a rushed intake of breath he stepped forward and tried to grab the girl's shoulder, shuddering at the sudden increase in warmth and brightness in the air near her.

"Alkaid, there's-- nothing..." he hissed, voice tinged with what sounded suspiciously like fear. Without further warning, he unceremoniously tried to push her toward the dark shape that was the entryway to the stairs. The fact that she was oddly difficult to hold on to at first despite the bluntness of the action caused him little concern save to encourage the need to get out.

Endrance didn't need to say anything; all he needed to do was move, get them both out of here, and now. He ran straight to the doorway, then motioned for both of them to get through that door as fast as they could.

Whatever it was she was chasing, it wasn't good, and the fact that she was fading out -- no. He couldn't think about that now.

[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/739831.html?view=60765687#t60765687)]

Night 44: Main Hall, 2-West

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