West Wing, South Hall 2-B

[mustbethesuit]

[From here.]It might be quicker to check the stuff at the end of the hall first and work his way back. That way he wouldn't have to back track in order to get into the main hall. Yeah. Yeah - the morgue was marked on his map, but there were a few rooms around it that weren't labeled at all. Morbid as the thought was, it would be practical to keep

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[product_of_fear]

He could have laughed in amusement - and no small amount of pleasure - as the boy suddenly realised that there was something off about the hallway he was in. Realised it far too late, but he got there eventually. Scarecrow had to wonder what he would see, what fears the gas would draw to the fore and what they would tell him about the boy and his red-haired pursuer. But there would be time enough for that later, as his toxin worked its beautiful magic in their systems and they gave voice to their fear in a song of screaming he never grew tired of. But for now he would watch. And wait.

The darkness had an almost thick, oily quality to it that seemed to consume the light of Peter's flashlight more and more with every passing moment. A heavy curtain that drew in closer and closer, like a living thing...

Exactly like a living thing. For it became apparently that the darkness itself was moving, slowly at first but faster by the second, zeroing in on Peter's position. And almost as quickly as there came that revelation, it struck, grabbing for his hands, racing up his legs... winding him tightly in its oily substance, a snake of shadow that swallowed his head and face last of all.

Which was when Peter would have felt it pushing into his mind, familiar, ruthless, hungry...

With the strange shadows gone more of the hallway could be seen, stretching out an impossible distance in either direction and bizarrely twisted around in an almost dizzying fashion. The doors that Peter had been aiming for and that both patients had come from were visible as well. Though now there were far more of them, dotted at regular intervals along the walls all around them and impossible to differentiate from one another. They'd come from one door and been aiming for another, but the question was: which ones?

akdfja;js so late

[deadlyjuliet]

A light cut through the dark and was swallowed by it again. No, not a light, something else. Like a yellow rod it appeared and disappeared in the fluid shadows, heaving up through the waves like a ship at sea, engulfed by the inky black again like there was no hope of it ever resurfacing. Grell stumbled as the floor seemed to give under him, rising to meet up, falling away to leave him hanging in the abyss. He threw a hand out and felt a wall, but when he looked there was nothing and he fell again. The wall stretched and bubbled away from him and he watched in horror as faces seemed to appear in the black - indistinct enough that it could be anyone, but with just enough features that Grell knew them. He knew these people.

And when he looked back, the darkness was receding and with them went the faces. They grew thin like glue being stretched, like candlewax being pulled, and then twisted into horrific shapes that couldn't have been faces if they tried. And that's when Grell realized the darkness wasn't just receding, it was forming. It was becoming. It was...

"Hello?"

The voice was unnatural. It sounded like gravel on sandpaper, like nails dragging on cobblestone and Grell tried to back away, tried to find a way out.

Too many doors.

That thing. That thing was what was doing this. That horrific demon was the cause of this. The darkness solidified into a shape, a person, an inhuman mass and Grell felt his heart stop. That thing was going to kill him. It was going to do to him what it did to itself, twist into darkness, swallow him whole. "....stay away." His voice was too thin. He reached for the doors, but they bowed away from his fingertips like this was all some sort of joke to them. He made a mad grab for one and failed, then whirled around and sneered at the creature, wishing now he had more than just a few scalpels up his sleeves. "Stay away! Demon, come any closer and I'll gut you like I did the rest of them!"

[product_of_fear]

The Scarecrow had seen people go mad with fear many, many times before; sobbing and begging for escape from what only they could see, screams turning to hysterical laughter as the mind gave up and broke under the strain... And sometimes his subjects would turn on each other, pitiful animals lashing out blindly at anything they could in the desperate hope it would somehow make the fear go away.

The boy's actions weren't exactly the same as that, but the similarity was there. Fortunately whatever was motivating him to attack was happy enough with focussing on the other patient, leaving Scarecrow to observe the effects of his fear toxin on them both and speculate on what they saw and what their innermost fears and motivations were.

[ooc: feel free to skip me from now on guys, since he'll just be observing unless something comes up.]

[deadlyjuliet]

It was screaming and Grell felt his stomach drop away. He was mortal here. He was mortal and that thing was the dark, the shadow, the evil of this place solidified. It was screaming and it must have been eating Kenny because Grell simply couldn't see him anymore. That was the screaming. It was the sound of a man panicking, losing his grip on reality as something ate him alive. As a death god, he'd been witness to many things - terrible things, horrific things, things that would turn even the most hardened stomach - but he was always just the observer. Such horrors could never touch him. He was above it all. He stayed in the shadow, behind the veil where nothing could harm him.

But he was mortal here. That realization kept slamming into him like the crushing force of a thousand foot wave. He was mortal and that thing had eaten Kenny. It had-- No.

Not eaten.

Worse.

The voice came back. The voices - two voices, mashed together, vying for dominance, neither having full control yet. The word it uttered was beyond Grell's comprehension. He didn't want to understand. He didn't want to be here anymore. Taking a few steps back, he let the power flare up into his eyes and he finally got a good look at the thing that Kenny had become.

White eyes. Black as the emptiness of space. Split grin from ear to ear with teeth and horror and--

It shrieked and began running toward him and Grell did the only thing he could think of: he screamed and turned tail.

He couldn't die here! He couldn't die! He was a death god! He was a death god!

[deadlyjuliet]

Knobs upon knobs and none of them turned. None of them opened to freedom or safety or flasks of acid and guns and knives that he could use to carve the demon into a million pieces. He needed to kill it. He wouldn't be safe until it was dead. He needed to--

A screech and Grell turned midstep, feeling sharp nails - talons - claws dig into his shoulders as he was forced off his feet from the force of the blow. For a horrible moment, he saw into the eyes of the devil and saw that they were white, soulless, without depth or caring or anything resembling mercy. This thing was a wild animal on the hunt. Time slowed as he felt the ground slip out from under his feet and his hands reached up, pressing against the creature's abdomen as they hung in the air. Just the briefest of moments, milliseconds really, but it was enough to feel that hot breath on his face, the slick feel of saliva hit his cheek, the very real threat of being eaten alive.

His back hit the ground, his head snapping against the ground and Grell did the only thing he could think of, rolling back with the pain, kicking his feet against the ground and pushing with his hands as he attempted to use the demon's momentum to throw him. The pain in his shoulders was intense, but the rush of pure adrenaline made it no more than a pinprick. He had to survive and if that meant using dirty tactics, so be it.

[deadlyjuliet]

It worked! The creature went flying and-- "Bloody hell!" The claws ripped from his shoulders, like knives dragging through muscle and skin, bringing forth blood from a heart that now beat twice as fast from the adrenaline rush. Grell rolled to his feet as he heard the thing hit the ground, grabbing his head as he felt the ground rush around him. The hall was still out of sorts and that put his head in the same bad way, made worse by the fact that he'd hit the ground so hard.

Move, darling. Move or you're dead.

He spun around as he heard the thing calling out to him, taunting like some sort of madman. Rip him apart? And do what? Eat him, most likely. Like the giants from the storybooks. Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. That's how the rhyme went, right? Grell took a step back and grit his teeth, one hand raising and then dropping as he tried to stop the blood welling up from his wounds.

"I'll rip--"

A fist raised and Grell had to jump back, stumbling slightly in his heels until his back hit the wall, one hand flying out to grab the door knob to keep himself upright. The fist breezed past him close enough that he could feel the air clip his nose. The thing Kenny had become was fast and deadly and there was so much pain to be hand in those hands. Grell wasn't about to become a meal for some nasty beast that had once been a skinny boy.

Pushing away from the wall, he reached into his pockets and drew out the scalpels, one in each hand. "I'll rip you apart, hellbeast. Try to touch me again and I'll take your ugly hands off."

[deadlyjuliet]

Dear Lord, he licked the blood of his fingers. The creature licked his blood off his fingers as if tasting a sauce for dinner. Grell felt his stomach roll and pitch and he took a second step back, grimacing at the sight. This thing really would eat him. It really was going to devour him whole or in pieces, one by one, like some sort of demented cannibal. No, not like a cannibal, he was a cannibal.

There was a click of the tongue and then before Grell could react, the thing that was once just an unassuming, somewhat annoying human boy leaped at him, claws out, teeth gnashing. For once in his long, immortal life, he hesitated out of fear. Only once before had he feared that his reign as a god would end. Only once, when Sebastian had held his own scythe high above his head and threatened to end his life in the only way possible. Back then, it would have taken a death scythe to kill him, but now?

Now it was claws digging into his skin, the combined force and weight of a demon horror shoving him back, the impossible chance of his ankle turning the wrong way to throw him off balance, and the feeling of free fall again taking his breath away.

This was not how he was supposed to die.

[deadlyjuliet]

The scalpel sunk into the boy's body. There were claws in his shoulders again, a flare of pain dulled by the absolute need for focus in the face of his impending death, and then the chilling realization that nothing would stop the coming onslaught. There was a slight pause as the beast gained its footing again and then the nightmare began.

Teeth - actual, real teeth - dug into his neck, right at the base, thankfully missing the vital bits. They bit and tore at his flesh, ripped his skin and poured his blood out down the monster's throat. There was a single moment when Grell couldn't believe this was happening. He couldn't believe that thing was actually eating him.

And then reality hit as the pain cut through everything else.

Grell screamed and ripped the knife out of Kenny's body, stabbing him again in the same place. Increase the pain in the wounded area, maybe he'd let go. It was his only chance. With his other hand, Grell began to shove at the demon's stomach, punching as hard as he could at his side, ribs, head, anything he could think of that would make him let go.

LATE IS FINE

[deadlyjuliet]

A hand crushed against his face and Grell's blows became frantic. He couldn't see. He could still feel the teeth and the pain and hear the rush of blood in his ears as his heart hammered unbelievably fast, but he couldn't see the thing anymore. There were pricks of pain in his temples and the panic-inducing sensation of suffocation. He felt his lungs burning and growing tighter, an unusual sensation, as the oxygen was rapidly depleted by his struggles. His vision was black, his head was beginning to feel light and he had a sudden, startling revelation that this could indeed be the end.

The end. A death god dying. Eaten alive by some monstrous boy. He was going to die.

And suddenly a fist connected with the monster's side. The hand was gone. He gasped for breath, his eyes flying open as his back arched from the sheer effort of trying to breathe. And a voice in his head started screaming at him to move even as his body refused to listen. His fingers were shaking as he reached for the wound in his neck. He was afraid to touch it, afraid to realize the truth that he'd just been bitten and almost killed.

It wasn't until the creature started shrieking that Grell snapped back to reality. He jerked to life, scrambling to his feet, struggling to get his footing because the ground was slick - with his own blood, your blood, spilled everywhere by that thing - and glanced over his shoulder. It was screaming, clutching its head as it rolled around on the ground. This was his chance. His chance to kill it. He had the scalpel in his hand and there was every chance that he could get a lucky shot in and stab the thing in the eye.

And every chance he could miss and get eaten.

Backing up, Grell dropped the scalpel and ran to the closest door. The knob felt as real as the rest and he gripped it hard, twisting only to hear it catch on a lock. Locked. Like all the other doors. But that thing was so close. It was so close. Pounding on the door with one fist, he gripped the knob with his other hand, flicking frantic glances back to the monster. If it got up, he'd be killed. Screaming in frustration, Grell kicked the door hard and felt it give absolutely nothing in return. He kicked again and again, but his head felt so dizzy... The panic could only carry him so far before the pain and blood loss began to eat away at the adrenaline rush. He could feel his strength waning and he tried one last time for the thing that never worked.

He called desperately for his scythe. He reached out to it where it should have been and tried to bring it to him. He knew it would be useless, but he had to try anyway. He reached down and--

A familiar heaviness filled his hands, pulled on the wound at his neck, and he looked down to see the red and gold beauty staring back at him. It came. Whether it was an illusion brought on by delirium or the real thing, he didn't much care. He had a weapon and he was ready to use it.

Pulling the ripcord, Grell heard the chainsaw jump to life and he slashed as the door. Wood and metal screeched as he ripped through the lock, the familiar jump of the machine kicking back against his hands. It wasn't long before the door gave way and Grell killed the engine, kicking the door open to reveal pure black space beyond. What lay there, he had no idea, but he didn't much care. He needed an escape and he would take the bloody unknown to the screaming horror behind him.