Night 58: Disciplinary Therapy Corridor

[for_a_song]

[From here.]Gren stepped into the dark corridor, sweeping his flashlight around to illuminate the hall. He'd made enough noise opening the door that there wasn't much point in stealth, and he'd prefer to know if there was something lurking around sooner, rather than later

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[corvus_veritas]

Byrne almost hadn't been expecting to enter another corridor filled with doors. (What had he been expecting, exactly?) But that wasn't bothering him so much as the emptiness of it all, especially after the amount of noise Gren had made breaking open the door. No guards were rushing out to attack them, no alarms were going off, nothing. There was just a painful silence to greet them here, and it made him anxious. Something didn't feel right.

And then there were the doors, which all seemed to be tightly locked from the first few Byrne began to investigate. Was this the right area after all? If it was, how did they know which door was the right one? Out of curiosity, the prosecutor pressed the side of his head against one of the doors for a moment, trying to see if he could hear anything on the other side. Nothing. That was just great.

He looked over at his traveling companion and frowned, shaking his head. "I'm not sure how easily we can break one of these down."

[damned_monsters]

The two patients may have been too preoccupied to feel a sudden change come upon the air around them. Nothing moved in the darkness, but perhaps the hairs on the back of Byrne and Gren's neck stood on end. Their instincts realized what their intelligence could not.

That air began to feel heavy and oppressive, growing colder as something unseen drew closer. It started as a whimper through the hallway, maybe like a door opening or closing in the distance, until a flicker of light that illuminated a faint blue color crackled beside the two patients. Eventually the sparks began to coalesce into a translucent figure, a boy in tattered clothing, with eyes like sunken coals.

[Claire]

[for_a_song]

"It was probably too much to hope that it would be easy," he replied. Maybe if they had keys, but he had no idea how you'd even go about obtaining such a thing, or if it was even possible.

And then, somewhere in the dark, there was a sound, accompanied by a feeling in the air that screamed 'something is very wrong.' His grip tightened on the shovel he held, and he backed up a few steps as what started as a flicker of light coalesced into a shape.

One he didn't think his shovel was going to be able to handle.

"Please tell me you see that."

He didn't think he was quite crazy enough to be hallucinating ghosts. Not ones he didn't recognize, at any rate.

[corvus_veritas]

Byrne felt the heaviness of the air and shivered before the cold even hit his skin. When he heard a strange whimpering sound coming from...somewhere, he took a moment to make sure his gun's safety was off before he began looking around for the source of the sound, even going so far as to press his back against the nearest door for security measures. Better to be safe than sorry.

Oh, he saw what Gren was seeing alright, and he was privately thankful he wasn't the only one who could. That faint light that formed into the shape of a young boy, his eyes hidden in shadow...what the hell? Byrne's eyes widened slightly, unable to look away.

"I-I do. What is that?" he muttered, feeling more and more uneasy by the second. And was it dangerous? It couldn't be a hallucination if Gren was seeing it too, could it?

[damned_monsters]

Its small mouth hung open, carrying with it a soft, unassuming grunt as if it were trying to form long forgotten words. The noise came again and the spectral boy took a step forward slowly. Its boyish face was sunken in and it lulled back and forth with every unsteady step it took with its malnourished legs.

It left no mark upon this physical realm except for the frosty condensation that circled its small feet. The strange cold followed it with every new foggy step, for he was the creator of dread and it wafted from the specter like a faint perfume.

The boy gave one last warning, a soft coo, before its voice began to rise in pitch and didn't show any signs of stopping. The siren call ebbed and waved like a wretched thing slowly dying on the dirty ground. Eventually, the wailing grew quiet, as if waiting for a sign from its captive prey.

[for_a_song]

He was backing up again, trying to put a little distance between himself and whatever it was they were seeing. One of the institutes little tricks, he supposed, although this was the first time he'd run into anything that looked human.

Whatever it was, it seemed to emanate fear. It prickled at the back of his neck and made him want to turn and run. Only the shreds of his dignity kept him from doing so.

And then the noise started.

His first reaction was to try and clap his hands over his ears, but they were full and he had enough sense not to drop his weapon. All he could do was grit his teeth and try to edge away, though it didn't seem like any distance would be far enough, and it felt like there was nowhere to go.

The sound died again and he found himself frozen to the spot, sick with anticipation of what the thing might do if he tried to move.

[corvus_veritas]

If it weren't for the fact that the ghost was a child in rags, Byrne probably wouldn't be standing and gaping at it like a cliche horror movie victim. How could he point a gun at a child? Even a child like this? He'd been through enough to know this place could do a lot of screwy shit to a guy, but this! There were lines he wasn't going to cross, and allowing any harm to come to a child, even one who looked like a demon, was one of those lines

[damned_monsters]

Keeping quiet and still was not what it had wanted. The translucent specter's soft illumination pulsed like a heartbeat as it whimpered and moaned with short arms outstretched. The temperature took a drastic dive as desperation swelled within the ethereal body of the lonely boy. Even the walls of the hallway began to drool with condensation as the wretched thing bent the laws of nature to its will.

Its whimpers soon grew soft as a sob, as if his lungs could no longer support enough air for its brutal tantrums, then rose high and shrill once more like a cat in heat. Those translucent hands continued to claw the air for the patients so it could imprint itself upon them, to force understanding through pain and madness. It was mad. It showed in the tension of its face, the tremoring hands that looked for support. It needed others to see, to be pull into its miserable reality so they could sympathize. If it destroyed them in the process, well, so be it

[for_a_song]

This wasn't good. He wanted to run, but if he took off now, towards the door they had come in, he would be leaving Byrne behind and that was simply something he could not do.

It was getting colder in the hallway as the phantasmic child continued its strangled sounding tantrum and somehow robbed the area of any warmth. He knew cold like this, had become intimately familiar with it on Callisto and knew that they couldn't stay here for much longer before it started to have an adverse affect on them. Which meant he had to do something.

"We get the hell out of here."

What he did next was borderline stupid. He took the shovel and swung it hard towards the apparition. Whether it would do anything at all was doubtful, but maybe it would distract it enough to let Byrne get away from it.

[corvus_veritas]

The more that time went by, the colder it became in the hallway and the more the child was prone to let out crippling yells. Just the sound of the child's voice was enough to shake Byrne to the core. It was as if the sounds were miniature shocks of--of--despair, or something. Something sad, something he couldn't really explain. Maybe that was why he was finding it difficult to run. Part of him, the parental side of him, felt sorry for the boy. Maybe it wasn't his fault that he was trapped in this form. Maybe he needed help

[damned_monsters]

The boy made no move to defend itself against the shovel as it could not hurt him physically. It did, however, slice his spectral body in two, forcing him to dissolve into a whuff of mist and rematerialized elsewhere.

It also meant his prey had a better shot of escaping. Crying out desperately, the specter reached out for Byrne, trying to at least mark him as he passed so it would be remembered. Someone needed to remember it and sympathize.

[for_a_song]

Given the utter lunacy of the action, that had actually proven more effective than Gren had anticipated it would be. He wasn't used to dealing with... was ghost too ridiculous of a term? Well, whatever it was, he wasn't used to it, and so he'd just assumed his shovel would provide no more than a momentary distraction. The fact that he'd actually managed to disrupt the thing for a few moments and give Byrne a fighting chance at getting away.

That accomplished, he happily followed Byrne's suggestion and started running full tilt for the door they'd come in through.

[corvus_veritas]

As Byrne ran past the ghost child, he felt something cold - even colder than the already low temperature of the room - brush past his arm, but he ignored it. He wasn't going to stop for it or anything now. Get away, they needed to get away as quickly as they possibly could and not look back!

Thankfully, Gren was also running to the door now, so he felt no need to stop for him or for anything. Just keep going, keep running before it gave chase. Run! Go!!

[To here.]