Night 59: M-B Block Hallway

[mustbethesuit]

[From here.]

Peter left the room thinking very deep thoughts. Most of which entailed speculation on the origins of the pink glow he had just been assaulted by. As much as he hated himself for it, he couldn't help but keep coming back to the Matrix. Maybe they just changed something. Turned the halls into mazes.

Buzz.

MREOWWWWWW!"JESUS

Comments

[scarefaux]

[From here.]

While it didn't seem a twister had turned the building upside-down, the next hallway certainly held an unexpected sight. The Scarecrow's eyes followed the beam of his flashlight as it trailed along the walls, down the trails of what appeared to be blood that speckled the surfaces of the corridor like fresh splotches of paint. A door lay in the middle of the hall, apparently removed from the bathrooms on the opposite wall.

This was a curious occurrence wasn't it? He had no idea what just yet, but he reasoned something awful had to have happened, given the announcement, the pink glow, and now this. Whether it was related to Major Harrington's secret was yet to be seen. The former strawman shook his head- he needed to get what mind he had off of that topic. If he dwelled on it forever, he'd never learn anything new.

His light landed finally on a figure standing near one of the walls- another patient, presumably. The Scarecrow approached him. "Pardon me, but what's going on?" he asked, seemingly unmoved by the sight. His eyes fell with a curious look to what the man had been inspecting: a... hm. Just what was that, anyway?

[unpriest]

Seishin had noticed the light on him, and he tore his gaze off the corpse to meet the man who was approaching him. It wasn't someone the novelist had met before, but he appeared to be a fellow patient.

"My apologies, but I don't know," the former priest said quietly, returning his gaze to the corpse with a frown. "There is clearly some sort of problem for our captors, but I don't know the meaning of all this."

The glowing walls and now this mutilated cat -- he did not have so much as the slightest idea. Perhaps that in itself was not surprising. After all, there were so many things in this institute that were in the realm of the unknown.

[scarefaux]

The Scarecrow's brow knitted together as his eyes followed the stranger's back to the broken form on the floor. It looked like it might have been one of the somethings that wandered the Institute at night; however, that left him with a puzzling question: what was it doing so close to the patient rooms? Most of the dangers he'd seen were either outside, in the room at the front of the building, or in the Horrible Hallway. He supposed it wasn't impossible for them to show up there, but when combined with the sight of the door off its hinges, it did make one wonder. The occurrences at the start of the night only furthered his pondering.

Even without the sudden alarm and strange magic that had enveloped the walls, it was certainly a foreboding sight. After all, what could have defended itself so thoroughly from one of Wizard Landel's- or the General's, he supposed- creatures so well that it left something nearly unrecognizable behind? Patients didn't have that kind of strength, he reasoned. Perhaps there was something even worse out there, roaming the patient hallways.

Though he felt he should have been more frightened in light of his very human condition, the Scarecrow didn't have it in him to be afraid at that point. He wanted answers; he wasn't getting them any faster by hiding in his room. His friends were (and had been) willing to risk themselves nightly to try to find a way home, a way to defeat Wizard Landel, or simply a way out; he had to do the same. It was only fair.

"Well, we won't find out if we don't look, now will we?" he said.

[unpriest]

Seishin turned to look at the stranger again, mildly surprised by the use of the plural. It was only momentarily, however, before he nodded, offering the other man a polite smile. "Yes, you're right."

Standing here would grant him little, other than perhaps death once whatever else roaming the hallways picked up the scent of blood. It would have been ironic, now that there was something that kept him going even if that was but a fragile hope.

The former priest hesitated for a brief moment before he asked: "Pardon my rudeness, but did you have anyone to meet? With these circumstances, it seems unwise to travel alone."

[scarefaux]

"Not rude at all," the Scarecrow insisted, his tone friendly in spite of the madness surrounding them. The stranger certainly had a point, which was one he often had to remind himself of: he was human, and traveling alone just wasn't a good idea, especially with how easily human bodies could be injured. "I've told myself that more than once. No night is safe, and all of this mess can't be a good sign, that's for sure."

To be perfectly fair, traveling into a night filled with visible dangers without a way to protect himself wasn't a very good idea, either; however, he didn't have much besides the knife from Hunk Howard's box and the one Depth Charge had given him in his room, and he'd established that sitting around wasn't going to do them any good. He supposed hitting things with his flashlight was a viable alternative if worse came to worst.

His flashlight trailed the walls again, ignoring the blood- which, now that he thought about it, he hoped belonged to the strange lump of a creature in the floor rather than a patient- in favor of examining the glow that surrounded them. "Now, I'm not very bright with knowing things, but I suppose we should head for the main hallway. We might find someone else who knows what's going on."

[unpriest]

Seishin offered a polite smile at the other's insistence. This had been settled rather easily, then. He didn't have any objections to traveling together, for the man appeared friendly enough.

With his lacking knowledge of the institute, he couldn't have provided a better suggestion even if he had wanted to. "That seems to be the best option," he answered, "We should probably go on our way, before the scent of blood will attract something."

Shifting his hold on his hatchet, he began moving towards the door leading outside of the patient block.

[To here]