dont_turn_around | The Abandoned Hospital

Another staircase leads to the third floor.

The stairs creak under your feet. There are crumpled papers on some of the steps.
GO HOME GO BACK GO HOME
The top of the stairs is dark as night.

Edited 2012-10-21 17:55 (UTC)

He stopped screaming long ago, now he's trying to hold onto the little kernel of himself he has left as he struggles against his restraints. This is what happens to those who are mad, they're put away.

In the darkness, the bed creaks and leather shifts against itself.

This is where those who are mad are put, and where they sometimes get better.

Urquhart is waiting in the shadows, for the Fear to turn up and remove itself from him forever.

He won't be mad any more. He'll be better.

The wall of water hit like a freight train, the pure fury of it loud enough to drown out the rest of the team's shouts. The water knocks Liz clean off her feet and drags her under; she fights and kicks in the cold and the dark, panic setting a roar between her ears. Something hits her shoulder, hard, and she sucks in a sharp breath on instinct -- and then her head breaks the surface.

She inhales a huge shuddering breath and blindly reaches out. Her hands close around something and she holds on tight, feeling the water beginning to recede around her as she bends over her knees and coughs up water.

When she opens her eyes, the building is silent and still, apart from a steady dripping somewhere. She's sitting halfway up a staircase, clutching the bannister. Water sits in pools across the foyer below her.

"Charlie?" she calls, wetly coughing again. "Olivia?"

There's nothing; there's no one. Her team is gone.

Liz takes another deep breath and then takes stock. Her flashlight and the EMF detector are gone; she's still got most of the other gear on her belt, but the tech isn't exactly going to be at its best (or work at all) after that underwater battering. Her shoulder is sore and her lungs are screaming, but otherwise, she's in one piece. She heaves herself up, plastering soaked hair out of her face, and she looks up the stairs.

Christ, it's dark up there.

A chill runs through her. She takes one last look over the bannister. She heard Charlie shout to run and thought she saw Olivia and maybe Wendy lunging for doors in the chaos; hopefully, that means they're all okay and still together.

The best thing to do, Liz thinks, is to push on; try to find Red and anybody else who might be in here.

She raises her left hand and lights it up, and draws her gun with her right. Who knows if it'll still actually fire, but she appreciates its familiar weight in her hand.

She climbs the stairs.

Somewhere in the distance he thinks there might be footsteps, but he can't be found, "I'm not here, I'm not safe, I'm not here."

If he says it enough then he can truly hide, he used to be able to hide from everyone and they never found him.

His restraints squeak as he shifts against them, trying to find a way to be still.

Liz freezes on the top step. The stairs were creaky and her own breathing is loud in her ears, but she could have sworn she heard -- something.

She does a slow, careful turn, listening. If it is something, it's too low to make out from here. She steps down down the hall, gun held up by her ear and her footsteps as quiet as possible. The shadows flicker into strange shapes in the light from the flames wreathing her hand.

Edited 2012-10-31 04:08 (UTC)

There is a tall, broad, dark figure in the shadows.

And then a shape doesn't resolve itself into nothing -- it resolves itself into a man.

Liz starts violently, the ball of fire surrounding her hand flaring up with shock, and stops short. "--Hello," she says, on the edge of a question. He's at least Hellboy's height, which puts him as towering easily a foot over Liz, and completely unfamiliar.

The tall dark figure is holding something in his hand, sliding out from under the cloak, some small and metallic, not a gun though, that gives a ratcheting sound, and a click.

In one swift move, Liz lowers her gun from beside her ear and clicks the safety off, elbows locked. "Don't," she says, short and tight, nerves humming with tension.

Edited 2012-10-31 21:28 (UTC)

The dark figure takes a step back into the shadows, and then the thing in his hands give an ominous click, and something shoots towards Liz with a whoosh...

Instinctive, she throws herself to the side even as she pulls the trigger. There's a wet click from her gun; in the same instant, something thunks into her left shoulder.

She wrenches back with the force of the blow; before the cry is even all the way out of her mouth, the fire that's been raging just beneath her skin explodes outward.

It's the months and months of training and practice, honed into instinct, that saves the building -- almost as fast as the explosion happens, Liz staggers back and pulls the flames back inside herself.

Urquhart is blasted back, with a great shout -- fire fire FIRE, his mind is consumed with the blaze, the present one (gone so soon) and the remembered one (never gone).

She shoves her useless gun into its holster, safety on, and glances down as she lets herself sag against the near wall. The charred remnants of a crossbow bolt are sticking out of her shoulder, her vest darkening with her blood; even as she looks, the bolt crumbles into ash.

Liz takes a long, shuddering breath in, the air around her still vibrating with heat and tension, and claps her hand over the wound and presses, hard. Then she steels herself and pushes herself upright.

Trailing her other (still flaming) hand across the wall, she makes her way over to check on the fallen man.

Urquhart sinks to the floor, singed outside and broken inside, groaning as he remembers the fire thrown at him in that despicable little house in Cologne, in the last night of his life -- fire fire FIRE enveloping his mind, even though the real fire has retreated.

She kicks the crossbow away, sending it skittering down the hall. "Wait here," she snaps -- probably unnecessarily, she thinks, given the guy's state -- and she staggers down the hall, following the sounds she'd heard earlier.

He'd seen the light from the fire and now couldn't make it stop in his head as Uruqhart's memories were loud. Someone was coming for him.

The bed creaks as he tries to shift, do something to be safer.

Edited 2012-10-31 23:41 (UTC)

Liz trails it to a door that's cracked open. She grits her teeth, her shoulder throbbing hotly under her palm, and she shoves the door open with her hip.

"--Oh my god.

"Hi," she says, softer, to the man strapped to the bed. She quickly comes across the room. "I'm gonna get you out of here."

Edited 2012-10-31 23:58 (UTC)

When the door opens, he flinches and then stares at Liz, "Are you real?"

"Real as a heart attack," she says grimly, and she lets go of her shoulder with a grimace. Leaving one hand burning for light, she uses the other to pull a pocket knife off her belt, flip it open, and start sawing at the leather thongs tying down the man's wrists and ankles.

"I'm Liz," she says, glancing over her shoulder to make sure nothing's coming at them, and then going back to carefully avoiding his skin with the knife. Her hand is hot, her eyes glowing red-gold, but not hot enough to hurt him or melt the knife.

Snap! His left hand is free.

The glowing is odd but helps him focus, maybe she's a mutant,

"Charles, I'm really not mad. I just hear thoughts."

Re: Upstairs - straight ahead

walking_napalm - 2012-11-01 00:12 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Upstairs - straight ahead

balancingminds - 2012-11-01 00:14 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Upstairs - straight ahead

walking_napalm - 2012-11-01 00:22 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Upstairs - straight ahead

balancingminds - 2012-11-01 00:24 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Upstairs - straight ahead

walking_napalm - 2012-11-01 00:31 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Upstairs - straight ahead

balancingminds - 2012-11-01 01:51 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Upstairs - straight ahead

walking_napalm - 2012-11-01 02:11 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Upstairs - straight ahead

balancingminds - 2012-11-01 02:12 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Upstairs - straight ahead

walking_napalm - 2012-11-01 02:35 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Upstairs - straight ahead

balancingminds - 2012-11-01 02:37 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Upstairs - straight ahead

walking_napalm - 2012-11-01 02:53 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Upstairs - straight ahead

balancingminds - 2012-11-01 02:55 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Upstairs - straight ahead

walking_napalm - 2012-11-01 20:06 (UTC) - Expand

As the Wild Hunt bears Slenderman away, the connection between him and those he'd chosen stretches and breaks.

They are free.

Urquhart barely notices at first, mind overwhelmed with fire, but then, he realises he is outside, lying on green grass, badly singed, and has no idea why're.

There had been fire fire FIRE! But why?

He remains slumped on the ground, barely there in spirit, until somebody unceremoniously picks him up and drags him towards the infirmary.

Edited 2012-11-03 12:51 (UTC)