[ACTIVE/CLOSED]
Characters: Brook, Doctor Angelicus
Content: Two characters meet by accident. Oh sure, it doesn't sound strange now...
Location: Rockefeller University Hospital
Time of day: Early evening
Warnings: Two really weird individuals.
***
"Really I'm not at all certain why you fellows bother. Even if you caught me, I haven't any meat on my bones anyway."
The dog-sized thing clicking and scratching the sidewalk didn't look terribly interested in holding up its end of the conversation. Neither was it entirely convinced of Brook's inedible state, although the reason for the sudden unholy sound and grasshopper leap might just as easily have been annoyance. Its jaws closed on air for the twenty-seventh time since mid-afternoon.
"And unfortunately I just...well, I can't very well let you catch me," the skeleton said from his new perch in a nearby tree. "It's nothing personal! I'm sure you're all very nice horrible monsters, if I only had the time-"
The twenty-eighth bite also missed, and the crab's leap left it smashing through smaller branches and tumbling to the lawn on the tree's far side.
"-to get to know you. Only, well, I haven't got much time right now, so-" and then he suddenly broke off in a yelp, for the crab had gotten its bearings and promptly decided to chase him across the grass.
Somewhere over the sound of his own anatomically impossible breathing and the decidedly aggravated noises of the predator at his back, Brook heard something else: more clicking, more scratching, or else the echoes creeping out across the great still city's air were turning strange again. That still happened occasionally, though not nearly as often as during the days and nights and days before-
"Why look, sir! Your friends have come to get you. Far be it from me to delay your plans for the evening, I'll just...be on my way..."
Crash. Crash. Screech.
There were four of them climbing like spiders up the stone wall after him.
When he jumped a second time, and when his fleshless fingers caught a window ledge high above the ground, there were four of them that followed. There was barely time to brace his feet against the building and jump outwards again before they landed, all clicks and scrabbles and teeth and hate. One of them hit window instead of wall, disappearing from sight with an undignified crash of breaking glass. The other three tore madly down the side of the building to where the skeleton waited on the lawn again, but it was that broken window that held his empty gaze.
Either this would work or he was about to die horribly. That was fair.
The three crabs were halfway to catching him when the fourth leapt through the shattered window and came racing after them. They were nearly upon him when he moved again-
-past them-
-up up up GO-
-things were howling in the night-
Brook caught a window ledge and swung through the opening feet first. There was - YES there was a door inside, excellent, he really preferred not to die again if he could help it. Not just yet.
The door slammed shut behind him, and the first of four crab parasites slammed into the door, and that was finally the end of that. Goodness, he was tired.
Now...where was he?
Content: Two characters meet by accident. Oh sure, it doesn't sound strange now...
Location: Rockefeller University Hospital
Time of day: Early evening
Warnings: Two really weird individuals.
***
"Really I'm not at all certain why you fellows bother. Even if you caught me, I haven't any meat on my bones anyway."
The dog-sized thing clicking and scratching the sidewalk didn't look terribly interested in holding up its end of the conversation. Neither was it entirely convinced of Brook's inedible state, although the reason for the sudden unholy sound and grasshopper leap might just as easily have been annoyance. Its jaws closed on air for the twenty-seventh time since mid-afternoon.
"And unfortunately I just...well, I can't very well let you catch me," the skeleton said from his new perch in a nearby tree. "It's nothing personal! I'm sure you're all very nice horrible monsters, if I only had the time-"
The twenty-eighth bite also missed, and the crab's leap left it smashing through smaller branches and tumbling to the lawn on the tree's far side.
"-to get to know you. Only, well, I haven't got much time right now, so-" and then he suddenly broke off in a yelp, for the crab had gotten its bearings and promptly decided to chase him across the grass.
Somewhere over the sound of his own anatomically impossible breathing and the decidedly aggravated noises of the predator at his back, Brook heard something else: more clicking, more scratching, or else the echoes creeping out across the great still city's air were turning strange again. That still happened occasionally, though not nearly as often as during the days and nights and days before-
"Why look, sir! Your friends have come to get you. Far be it from me to delay your plans for the evening, I'll just...be on my way..."
Crash. Crash. Screech.
There were four of them climbing like spiders up the stone wall after him.
When he jumped a second time, and when his fleshless fingers caught a window ledge high above the ground, there were four of them that followed. There was barely time to brace his feet against the building and jump outwards again before they landed, all clicks and scrabbles and teeth and hate. One of them hit window instead of wall, disappearing from sight with an undignified crash of breaking glass. The other three tore madly down the side of the building to where the skeleton waited on the lawn again, but it was that broken window that held his empty gaze.
Either this would work or he was about to die horribly. That was fair.
The three crabs were halfway to catching him when the fourth leapt through the shattered window and came racing after them. They were nearly upon him when he moved again-
-past them-
-up up up GO-
-things were howling in the night-
Brook caught a window ledge and swung through the opening feet first. There was - YES there was a door inside, excellent, he really preferred not to die again if he could help it. Not just yet.
The door slammed shut behind him, and the first of four crab parasites slammed into the door, and that was finally the end of that. Goodness, he was tired.
Now...where was he?