dont_turn_around | The Abandoned Hospital

The Abandoned Hospital

Of course, it's bigger on the inside.

When you first walk through the door, there is a staircase straight ahead. There is a hall to the left, and a ruined wall where there was once another wing to the right.

Down the hall...who knows.

If you think you know your way around...you don't.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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."

"Telepath?" she says, almost conversational. Snap! goes his right hand's tether. She tenses at the sound and her head snaps toward the door again -- but it was just her; she did that, she tells herself. "I know a couple've those."

She moves down to his feet. "Think you can get that?" She points, with a flaming finger, at his chest strap. (She's pretty sure it'll require two hands, which will mean she has to extinguish her hand, which would leave them in the dark.)

"Yes, we need the light,"

He doesn't want to be here and not here in darkness.

His hands are cramped and his fingers tremble but he manages to get the strap undone.

Two snaps in quick succession herald the sawing through of the last two straps, and then Liz puts away the knife and closes her fingers on the fire.

They're only in darkness for a split second before she lights up her other hand, her left hand. Now with her good (right) shoulder free, she offers Charles her right hand.

Get him out, she thinks; gotta get out of here, deal with the guy outside, and then she can come back in and keep looking for Red and for her team.

"I think I can walk,"

Once the straps are off, he just has to stand, he can do that.

He's going to be free, he's just moving slowly to get there.

There's sound in the distance (nearby? it's impossible to tell, in this place); the floor faintly shaking, something that might be voices-- Liz tightens her fist and keeps her elbow extended in case the telepath needs support.

After, she tells herself; after she gets these guys out of here, she'll come back for whatever the hell those noises are.

Edited 2012-11-01 01:44 (UTC)

Once he's standing, he ends up leaning slightly against her, "That didn't sound good."

"Nope," she says, slinging her arm around his back and starting their slow walk toward the door. "C'mon, let's get you outside."

One thing at a time.

One deeply wary, paranoid, painful thing at a time.

He nods and takes a breath, he can do this, "Yes, how far is it?"

"Down the hall, downstairs, and out the front door," Liz recites, pulling him through the door.

In the hall, the man she'd blasted back is still lying in a heap on the floor; he seems to be conscious, if not exactly with-it. He's way too big for her to drag out on her own, much less with a bleeding arm and the telepath hanging off her other side. She'll have to come back for him.

One step at a time. That's how she's going to push through it.

"I can do that,"

Charles quickly looks away from the man on the floor, his thoughts are too intense.

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)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only