Night 55, Main Hallway 2-Center
[from here]He'd seen pins whose meaning he wasn't certain of, on other people's berets, a sword and shield the main one. Given Aguilar's fixation on results, and on the prisoners' proving their worth, Mello had to wonder if they'd be seeing a weeding-out of those who hadn't faced ordeals deemed worthy of pins. He was both disturbed and strangely
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It was too bad for the poor bastards who tried to go through the Sun Room, he was thinking, glad it wasn't his problem, when something that most assuredly was his problem began to manifest.
It started with the floor, or that was the first thing Mello noticed. Suddenly bare wood, charred and irresistibly calling to mind the warehouse after the explosion, which brought its own tumble of memories, fuzzed and distorted by the pain they'd been experienced through. And the sky; he'd seen that, too, then, had known he had to get the hell out to somewhere safe, and as he'd fled, he hadn't been able to keep the countdown from chiming in his mind, forty to zero, then starting over again, idiotically repeating, because any minute could be the last he lived, if Soichiro Yagami talked, finished writing. If anyone else had seen his face despite his care.
His steps slowed, and he was going hot and cold in waves, not sure what was real and what was illusion imposed on him. Haze hung heavy, and Mello told himself he was only imagining that it was smoke, that an acrid smell filled his senses, though it was real enough he tasted it in the back of his throat.
He stopped, and put his arm out to block Mordio from advancing farther around him, instinctively. He hadn't decided what he thought of her, but for tonight, she was on his team, and therefore partially his responsibility.
The hanging shape was clear and not in the polluted air; Mello found he dreaded it becoming clearer. "We need to get the fuck out of here," he said, low.
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"Get out of here."
At once, several other voices joined in, creating a chorus of breathy whispers that seemed to come from all around them, all of which had the same message for the patients.
"Get away. Run while you can."
But with the walls broken down and barely there, it was hard to tell where there was to run too.
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No. Absolutely not. Those didn't exist. It was preposterous to even think about it.
For the time being, Rita had to agree with running. She turned away from the figure and took several hasty steps in the opposite direction... but ahead of her, she couldn't see any place to run or hide. Where was this, anyway!? It didn't feel like they'd moved anywhere, so they had to still be in the institute, but...
"Where!?" she cried, her voice uncharacteristically shrill. "Where the hell are we supposed to run to!?"
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He couldn't tell if Mordio were close anymore or not. His arm was still out, blocking the path he was reasonably sure was the last she'd take, and he let it fall, and took a desperate guess. "Close your eyes," he ordered. He was doing the same, but it wasn't stopping the whispers. Get out, they said, not as insidious as the bugs, but there was something of the same quality in them, a sly knowing that made Mello grit his teeth. He told himself the floor was still solid beneath his boots, not sure if it were the power of suggestion, or something else, making him feel that a wrong step would send him crashing down into whatever the hell that was in the sun room.
One step back, another, feet carefully placed. He had no idea how many steps they were from the stairwell. Giving up so easily? the bugs asked, and Mello stopped. Opened his eyes.
"What're you going to do?" he said, lifting his chin, hoping Mordio had the sense to bolt while she could. "I live with worse than you, you fuckers."
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The area fell deathly silent as they started to move backwards, only the shifting of the ash-like dirt making any noise at all, and they might almost believe that they were going to get away, escape whatever was here, whatever may have befallen the still figure hanging there--
The figure that wasn't so still after all. Even at this distance, they would be able to see as it slowly lifted its head presumably to look in their direction, and a faint voice rasped; "Help..."
Maybe it was the plea for help or maybe it was Mello's defiance, but it only seemed to anger the voices they'd heard earlier, and what had been whispers rose to a wordless roar that became the roar and crackle of flames behind them, barring their exit... Unless they felt like trying to push through the barrier.
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Rita stared at the flames for a moment, her gaze sharpening. While the origin of the fire was unknown, fire itself was something she could deal with. Unlike the disembodied voices, it was something tangible. Her mind growing clearer, her gaze slowly moved downward... to her own right hand.
"The ring," she breathed, the panic subsiding just enough for her to properly think about the situation. "Wherever this is, I can get us out of here." She'd let Morgan decide if he was up for the trip outside, though if their situation grew any more dire, she'd have to make the decision for both of them.
The movement from the hanging figure caught her attention, and Rita shot it a wary look. "What do you want to do? It sounds like a trick." That was the obvious, logical answer. But even though Rita could be cold, she wasn't heartless. There was a part of her that feared what would happen if she were to actually abandon a victim on the brink of death. What if...
No. Any decision made at a time like this had to be a rational one.
Her body still faced the fire blocking their exit, as if she planned to fight the flames herself. In fact, that wouldn't be impossible for her, with her water magic... She'd keep that in mind in case it became necessary.
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He told himself the flames were just as much of a trick, that it was impossible for him to feel heat coming off them. That the throb of renewed ache on the left side of his face was psychosomatic, no more. He'd damn well been healed up enough to visit Lidner right before he got dragged here; there was no sane reason the pain should flare up so freshly-remembered. Except for how that's the one time you admit to failure, the bugs chattered. Not at all shocking that it's physically painful.
Fuck you, it wasn't a failure, Mello retorted, still fighting them, though he knew they were right in this one case. It was a strategic retreat.
Speaking of which. He caught Mordio's whisper, and was torn between uneasiness (not fear, fear wasn't acceptable) and narrative curiosity: what would the thing do, if they stayed? He was intensely aware that the ring would take them outside, far from the hall that surely still existed a few dozen yards behind them. Where, behind one of those doors, Matt was going to need help soon.
But he reached out again, offering his hand for Mordio to grab if she needed to use the ring. He could bolt back here if he needed to. If whatever was controlling this illusion, apparition, whatever the hell, could do actual damage to them, he'd be in no position to carry Matt (he assumed this would be necessary; unthinkable that Matt would be mobile after his ordeal when Mello hadn't been) if he forced a confrontation.
He glanced back. Mordio rose some more in his estimation for looking like she was spoiling for a fight as much as Mello was. "We haven't gone that far," he said, with more certainty than he felt. "But get ready, in case this is the kind of trick that can hurt us." If she smashed the ring right now, he'd deal with it, but he wanted more information about what they were facing before running.
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The flames flickered and roared, leaping higher and reaching for the patients right in front of them, the heat a promise of blistered and blackened skin. It was enough noise and heat that it might be possible to miss the breeze which stirred the area in front of them, sending dead leaves rattling across the ground and making the suspended patient moan in fear, his voice merging with the sound of the wind itself.
All at once, the voices returned in a rush, loud and breathless around Rita's ears as the very air seemed to try and ensnare her hair and clothing, pulling and dragging at her from all directions.
"You should have listened!"
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Rita did her best to focus, to block out what was happening around her, to think only of extinguishing the flames and creating an escape route...
But it was no good.
The voices that assaulted her ears tore her focus away from the magic, and in an instant, the blue light was gone. Also gone were Rita's senses, at least for that fearful moment.
"Eeeyaaahhh!!"
With that shrill cry, Rita darted behind Morgan, clutching the fabric of his clothing at the shoulder. Her body was acting independent from her mind, doing the only thing it could to get itself away from that wind - or whatever it was that was grabbing at her - even if that was impossible. Hell, she didn't even know what was attacking her or how. How was any of this possible!? It wasn't, it just wasn't...
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The babble of the whispering voices, he couldn't fight so easily. It was indistinct, but Mello's imagination filled in the gaps all too readily: the invective he lived with, redoubled. Who knows what Matt's facing back there, and it's because of you. Your fault he's dead, your fault he's here for them to do this to him. Ten days, and you've failed already. You'll go home, assuming you get home at all, to a world where you're beaten. The twit's solved it by now, you know he has, the victory all his; or he's lost, and that makes you third, doesn't it? Makes you nothing, a piece that couldn't even stay on the board long enough for the endgame.
"No," he said, under his breath, and turned to face the girl; watched with some surprise as her chanting called up the blue light. He'd seen plenty of things that shouldn't have been possible here, but not like this. No time to think further about it. She seemed as affected, as ready to bolt as he was, and he made as if to take hold of her shoulders, if she'd let him. "Get a sodding grip, Mordio." That helped to calm him, in the strange way talking someone else down from fear could lessen one's own. He didn't realize that his British accent, usually all but indistinguishable, had come back. "If that thing could actually hurt us, it would've done already." The other creatures Mello had run into at night had certainly wasted no time attacking; he had to think if this one could, it would already be trying to incapacitate them physically. "All it can do is scare us, and only if we let it."
[I'm so sorry for my slowness! It took forever for my net to come back. ;;]
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