Night 57: Main Hallway, 1-East

[antiheroed]

[ from here]As far as Riku knew-which wasn't a reliable piece of information in the least-this was approaching new territory for him. It was the first time he tempted fate by going somewhere without one of his friends since he first woke up in this place. If it wasn't Sora or Kairi that was there with him, it was Naminé; to some degree, each one had

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[mirthfulness]

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Now back out in the open, Gamzee took the opportunity while the hallway wasn't too crowded to wheel his new vehicle over to the side and attempt some spins on it. He had very little success with that.

While his one-wheeled device had been too tall for him, not allowing him to properly balance, this four-wheeled device almost had too much balance. It was clunkier than he'd expected, and probably not even as good as Tavros's now that he had a better look at it. Maybe it wasn't as well crafted.

There had to be some kind of trick he could practice on it, though. He took his time messing around and trying to figure out the best way to make use of it. He did everything from turning it upside down to standing on it and trying to move the wheels with his feet. Every time he fell off while trying that he just laughed and got back on again.

Until at one point he tried to stick his foot back on the seat and it went right through.

He fell to the ground, which somehow didn't allow him to fall through as well, and stared at the device. He hadn't broken it. There was no hole left where he foot had gone. Had he not seen it directly, the troll would have assumed he'd simply slipped.

Gamzee glanced down at his hands, and suddenly he felt... not so solid. Ghostly.

...Had he really died?

[believein0]

[From here.]

And now the traffic began to die out into a hallway that looked similar to the one he passed through a minute ago. Strangely, there was a sudden drop in temperature in this area. Zero shivered. Right... Humans weren't well sheltered against temperature, from what he'd learned from Ciel. He was hating this human thing more and more. And...

Wait. Why was there a kid rolling around the hall in a wheelchair?

Zero stopped to watch him, confused (though stony-faced as usual). He...seemed to be enjoying himself, whatever he was doing. The kid's antics reminded him of a certain naughty Reploid boy from back home - now that was a horrifying thought. He was ready to shake his head and keep moving to another area; but suddenly the child stopped, stood still, and stared down at his hands for some reason. Was there something wrong?

Curiosity won over cautiousness in this situation. Zero walked up to the boy, slightly concerned (though it didn't show outwardly). "What are you doing?"

[mirthfulness]

Talk about losing one's whimsy.

Gamzee jerked his head up as someone approached him, arms crossed over his chest. He could still be seen, it looked like. Did that mean he wasn't a ghost? If he was a ghost, no one would be able to see him. At least he thought that was how it went. He'd never been a ghost before so he wouldn't know.

"Uh. Nothin'. Just messin' the motherfuck around. Why?" He was cautious, and the chill in the air increased briefly at the last word. He had no reason to be wary of another patient. If anything, this one looked like he wanted to help him. But everything just felt so upsetting at the moment. He wasn't sure what to do.

There's a faint glow around the wild-haired boy, and his figure becomes more and more transparent the longer they stand there. His eyes fall into shadow.

[believein0]

...Did it get colder in here, or was that just him?

"You're acting strange," Zero responded, "like something's wrong." Truthfully, it was more like something felt off with this kid. Very off. He was about to start asking him a few questions to try and pinpoint the cause of this ill-feeling...

Then, as he watched, the boy's eyes grew darker and a strange glow formed around his figure. And was he...becoming transparent? Zero took a half step back with a mildly surprised look on his face, preparing himself for a potential threat. So now there were ghosts? This was getting incredibly bizarre.

[mirthfulness]

"Shit, bro. I dunno." This probably had some connection with what he'd taken earlier, but how could he just turn into a ghost like this? Not that he knew anything about how someone became a ghost. He continued to stare at his hands, the full ramifications of what was happening to him still not quite sitting in.

Then his eyes shot back up to Zero, not that the other would probably be able to tell with the shadow they were obscured by. "I think maybe I up and kicked the wicked shit somehow. Became all part of the vast motherfuckin' joke. Got myself dead, brother."

But was this it? Had he not been a good enough follower of the Mirthful Messiahs that they wouldn't take him to their Dark Carnival? Or did he need to walk there on his own?

[believein0]

The sudden transformation and persistent cold temperatures were not the only strange parts of this whole ghost business. What the kid said was another bothersome thing. He just 'got himself dead'? Zero stared, obviously confused.

"Dead? How did you manage that?" Because all the Reploid-now-human had seen was the kid messing around with that wheelchair. That was hardly a lethal situation, unless there had been some sort of neck snapping that he'd somehow missed. Which was unlikely, as was any other 'breaking' Zero could think of. Humans were fragile, but not that fragile.

...Hopefully this flashlight was sturdy enough to be a makeshift weapon in case things got worse. The kid didn't seem aggressive, but that could always change just as quickly as he'd changed forms...

[mirthfulness]

He shouldn't have gone to that room. That was clear to him now. "I don't all motherfuckin' know! I drank this thing and then nothin' all was happenin' but now I'm all motherfuckin' fun-housin' it out. This ain't even right, bro."

Gamzee wrapped his arms around himself, though it did little to make him feel better. He couldn't feel the cold any longer, but that wasn't much of a bonus. It would be better to be able to feel than not. How was he supposed to get out of there and meet the others like this? What was he going to tell Karkat? He hated feeling this way. The slime had kept him from feeling depressed for ages now.

"I can only guess I'm dead. I don't know what the motherfuck else might be goin' on." Turning see-through definitely wasn't normal, unless it was some sort of weird super power he had to learn to control.

[believein0]

...There was brief, slightly sickening feeling in Zero's gut as he listened to the kid talk, but he ignored it. The cold was more of an issue here, as was what he was being told. Now there was a possible explanation for this strange turn of events. This 'thing' the kid drank either killed him or somehow caused him to change forms, unless something else was to blame. There was something suspicious to investigate here.

As for 'what the motherfuck was going on', though... "Your guess is as good as mine." Zero shook his head. Maybe this kid was just as new and confused as he was. "Where did you find the drink?"

[mirthfulness]

Gamzee gestured back toward the hallway he'd come from. "Down that way, bro. Where the motherfucker on the radio was all sayin' they had shit for us to try out and get rewarded for." He shuddered. "I ain't all sure about this prize, brother. I wanna ask the man at the stall if I can get my motherfuckin' money back."

He walked toward the wheelchair again, holding out a hand to see if he could touch it. Once again it went right through, leaving only a faint frost where his hand was. The first time hadn't been a fluke, then. He was truly left in a position where he couldn't touch anything. how would he even be able to stand this?

[believein0]

Zero looked where the kid had gestured. There, huh? That's where some of the other patients had gone after he'd stopped following them earlier. Did they know about this? If they didn't, that could be trouble...

"I'm gonna go check it out." If there was a 'drink' around that caused strange form changes like this, then he needed to find out what it was and stop it if at all possible.

He turned back to the kid to see him try to touch the wheelchair, only to have his hand go through it and leave...frost? Did that mean he was the one causing the cold temperatures in here? How, exactly? Zero was baffled, but decided not to comment.

[mirthfulness]

"You might all wanna do that, bro. There were some other motherfuckers in there too." They hadn't seemed affected, but then it had taken a while for the effects to kick in with him. He hadn't even noticed anything until a couple minutes ago, but then he'd been occupied with other matters (such as spinning around in a four-wheeled device).

"Just don't take a sip of nothin', yeah?" Or eat one of the pills, or use the syringe, he supposed. Then again, who knew if all of that had the same effect. Maybe if he'd gone with one of the others he would have been fine. (Or something worse could have happened, but he couldn't imagine what that would be.)

[believein0]

"I won't." Not if it turned someone into...this. Zero paused, then added, "Be careful around here." He didn't seem like a bad kid at all, but others could feel threatened by him if they saw him in that form. Not to mention he'd left that frost earlier and could be the one making it cold in here...however that was possible. (Then again, could anything that's happened so far be considered 'possible'?)

Without waiting for a reply from the kid, the Reploid-now-human turned and went off to start his investigation.

[To here.]

[mirthfulness]

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