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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[autophoenix]

In the most rational part of her mind, she acknowledged that Peter had a point. No good could come of testing her ability here when there was no telling what Landel had done to it in order to best screw them all over. But, her own mortality was a scary thing to face when she's gotten used to the reckless idea of never being able to die, and it was easier to just argue with Peter on it and keep doing what she'd always done. At least that way she could say it was because of her uncle that she wasn't doing it and not out of her own fear.

He was right, though. Arguments weren't going to get them far when they still had people to help, and Claire needed to stop focusing on her own indignation and start focusing on getting closer to those people so they could be, ideally, saved to some degree. Sure, Claire knew better than anyone that even her ability wouldn't erase the psychological damage of having someone carve you open and figure out what was inside, but not having the physical damage to overcome certainly made it easier to address the emotional aspect.

So, she followed after Peter like an obedient puppy, adjusting her grip on the bat she held, hoping it would make them just a little more prepared if something jumped out of the shadows. But, when they reached the next hallway, it was even creepier than it would have been if something had jumped out. There was a light pretty far down the hall, and the fact that it was in the middle of the floor was pretty indicative of it being a flashlight.

A patient's flashlight.

Claire's stomach twisted in her gut and she gave a hurried glance to Peter, wondering if he maybe had a better explanation for how it got there. Judging by the look on his face, though, he didn't. But, he was better than she was at keeping his eye off the creepy flashlight and on the prize -- in this instance, the locked door that they needed to go through. After she tried to strain her neck and eyes to see the light down the hall a little better without actually abandoning Peter to go take a look, she stopped to look at the door they'd reached and finally processed what Peter had said about it.

"Hold this," she said after a thoughtful beat, offering him her bat. After what she'd just seen down the hall, her flashlight wasn't going anywhere, but she wouldn't have a very easy time getting the door open if she had a bat in her hands. Hopefully this one would hurt a little less than some of the other doors she'd tried to force open and been disappointed by.

[product_of_fear]

How did the saying go? No rest for the wicked? Not that the Scarecrow believed that description really, truly applied to him - despite years of tender care at the hands of his grandmother, hard lessons learned, fear, control, knowledge, power - he simply taught others what he himself already knew. Fear was everything, it motivated everything, and Scarecrow was the master of that fear and, ergo, master of those it controlled.

And it controlled everyone.

Even these two new patients were already dancing on the edge of it, even if his toxin hadn't been working its way into their systems. The nervous glances they cast at the flashlight lying abandoned in the hallway spoke volumes to his practised eyes, and his face, burlap sack mask, stretched into a twisted smile in the dark.

Soon enough he'd have them screaming, but first, he'd give the process a little nudge to help it along...

As the girl handed a bat to the man with her, a flicker of a grotesque, distorted shadow passed over them both, cast by the flashlight abandoned on the floor. The shadow was only there for a moment, all elongated limbs and spindly fingers grasping for them before it was gone again, so brief it could have been just the product of their own nervous minds. And who was to say it wasn't?

[human_sponge]

When the bat was extended toward him, Peter thought for a moment that Claire wanted him to take a few swings at the door, just like he'd done downstairs. But he could tell from the girl's posture that she was very much intending to get the door open herself, and he frowned just at the sight of her. Maybe she'd built up some muscle as a cheerleader, but most grown men couldn't break down doors with just their hands and feet, let alone a teenage girl.

He couldn't keep the skepticism off of his face, but he did try to wipe the expression away as fast as he could, all the while holding onto her bat. Right as he was about to ask her what exactly she planned on doing, though, he got a creeping sensation, almost like...

Almost like something was watching them. There was a tingling sensation between his shoulder blades, causing the muscles of his upper back to bunch up. In the next second he could have sworn he felt something moving behind him or reaching out for him, and the feeling was strong enough that he ended up spinning around to stare down the dark hallway.

But all he saw was that lonely flashlight beam.

Despite the fact that he couldn't see a thing, the feeling didn't quite go away. The hair on the back of his neck was standing on end, and he wasn't sure if it was all in his head or not. In this place, one would never be certain. He rubbed his hand at his neck, trying to get rid of the sensation, and then glanced back at Claire.

"Did you just... get a weird feeling, or was that just me?" And he honestly wasn't trying to distract her from getting the door open, either. Peter wanted to get through and to those patients as much as Claire did, if not more so.

[autophoenix]

Once he took the bat from her, she set herself up to try and pick the best approach for the door. She could go running at it -- maybe that would help her build up the momentum necessary to bust it open. She'd seen it in procedural cop shows before, the whole busting in the door with your shoulder thing, and was pretty sure that as long as she wasn't too concerned about whether or not her shoulder dislocated in the process, she could pull it off. While she was assessing the door, though, she got lost in thought, only to be jerked out by Peter's words. She looked up, vaguely surprised.

"What, you mean like the fact that it's super creepy in here? Yeah, I've got that feeling. Just more reason to move fast, right?" She cast a last glance at the lone flashlight. "Okay, you know what? That might belong to someone, we should grab it. Post to the bulletin board about it so they can get it back." She sighed and turned to head over down the hall to where the flashlight was, getting progressively more creeped as she got progressively further from Peter.

Suddenly, she started to feel a clenching in her gut that told her Peter didn't just mean the general creepiness. There was an overall eerie feel to the room itself, like the walls themselves would reach out and grab you if you stayed still too long, or like any minute now Jason was gonna come running out with his machete. Surely it was just the mood of the institute, though. She'd been basking in self pity and pessimism for days, it was no surprise the inherent creepiness of the darkness was getting to her. She was a little surprised that Peter would admit to it -- wasn't the guy thing supposed to be hiding when they were scared? -- but at the same time, relieved that he mentioned it first.

It didn't take long to reach the flashlight, even though it felt like forever because she was perpetually checking over her shoulder in a kind of nerve-wracking discomfort. When it was in front of her, though, she crouched to pick it up, turning it over in her hands like maybe someone would have sharpied their name on it for identification purposes. No such luck, but not a bad idea in the future for her own. Or maybe it was just extensive cheerleading experience that made her think it wasn't a bad idea. She'd throw it around with Peter later. Slowly, she turned to look at him with what was supposed to be a reassuring smile, holding the flashlight up like it somehow made her victorious and clicking it off.

"See? Spookiness eliminated."

[product_of_fear]

The flashlight snapped off with a decidedly final click that seemed much louder than it really had any right to be. But it wasn't only the abandoned flashlight that Claire was holding that shut off with the click of a button, but their own lights as well, plunging the two of them into a suffocatingly thick darkness that almost felt alive.

Fortunately (if such a word could ever really be applied in a place like this, a situation like this one) it slowly became clear that there was something of a light with them. It was ever so faint at first, the soft glowing of a firefly perhaps, but growing slowly stronger.

And as it grew stronger, its origin became apparent. It was coming from Peter, or more specifically, his hands. They were glowing as if lit within by burning, churning energy... that was spreading and building fast.

[human_sponge]

Peter hadn't really meant to distract Claire from what she was doing, but it was good to know that it wasn't just him that was feeling something off. Or maybe it was bad to know that, since it meant that it wasn't just in his head. Something was after them, or watching them, and he couldn't even see any signs of it through the darkness of the hallway. Why did something have to catch up with them right now, right when they were about to reach their destination? But maybe that was the whole point.

"Wait--" He tried to call after Claire when she decided to just wander off and grab the flashlight, not thinking that it was worth the risk just to return it to whoever had dropped it there. Didn't the flashlights get magically replaced, anyway? But his niece wasn't always the best listener, and so she wandered off anyway. Peter's heart rate slowly escalated as the girl got further and further away from him.

And then she turned it off, but somehow that made everything turn off, even the flashlight he was currently holding. He stared down at it, but he knew it wasn't a problem with the batteries. It had to have something to do with whatever was tracking them, and he felt his chest clench as he waited for something to happen. "Claire, get over here," he ordered quickly, his tone urgent. His eyes were still adjusting and he couldn't even see her anymore. Dammit!

But then, without warning, a familiar heat started to build in his hands. It was so familiar that it made him queasy just as the memories associated with it. The most recent one was from when he'd been brainwashed, out in the courtyard, but more prevalent than that was the night that he'd finally lost control. How could this be happening?! His powers were weakened here! There was no way that he should have had this sort of strength here!

And yet it was happening. All of the energy stored in his body from holding so many abilities was manifesting through Ted Sprague's power, causing his hands to glow with a radioactive energy that he couldn't quell no matter how hard he tried. "Nevermind," he forced out, hoping Claire was here. "Just... get away from me." He didn't know why this was happening, but he was going to stop it. Somehow. Even without Nathan there to help him.

[autophoenix]

Okay. Both flashlights going off at once? Totally not where she was going with that plan. Claire felt her heart leap out of her chest as she fumbled for her own flashlight, trying to click it back on and finding that it refused to turn back on at all. And yet, somehow, there was a dim light. Claire, get over here. Peter sounded more distant than she'd realized and she, with a scowl at the broken flashlights, began to head over.

Her gait slowed as she realized where the dim glow was coming from, but she didn't stop entirely until she was only a couple meters away from her uncle. It had been months, but it was impossible to forget that glow. She felt her chest and throat constrict, preventing her from getting the air she thought she needed or finding the words she was supposed to be rambling off to reassure Peter. The adrenaline was kicking in and her heart was pounding in her ears now, a rushing noise impossible to ignore that she quickly realized was her blood.

"Peter," she croaked out, stepping closer and dropping both flashlights with a loud clack, her hands planting themselves on his shoulders as if they had a mind of their own and weren't bothering to listen to the inherent sense of self-preservation that was telling Claire to turn around and run the other way. She wouldn't. She didn't need to. She'd be fine, just like Peter had been fine, and this was the only way she could make sure he was fine.

"I thought you couldn't --" He wasn't supposed to be able to use these abilities. They were supposed to be safe, there wasn't supposed to be any worry about whether or not he could control them. Her heart leapt into her throat and she forced it back down, eyes scanning his face in a hasty, anxious manner. "Peter, you need to calm down. There are too many people here, I can't get them all out." Let alone far enough away to be anything close to safe from a nuclear blast of that magnitude. It was too hard to keep the near hysteric lilt out of her voice. "Just look at me and calm down, okay? It's gonna be okay."

[product_of_fear]

Whether Peter's abilities should have been working here or not didn't seem to matter. The energy was building and building fast, spreading from his hands up through his body, making his skin glow bright and hot under his clothing.

It was beginning to look like Claire would be lucky to get herself away from Peter before he lost what precious little control he had.

[human_sponge]

Why was Claire coming closer? Dammit, he'd told her to run!

But he felt her hands on his shoulders as she tried to calm him down, and yet none of her words were getting through to him. He heard them and was even able to grasp the meaning behind them in spite of the state that he was in, but they had no effect. He was terrified, plain and simple. If he blew up, then it would take out the entire institute and probably all of Doyleton along with it. All the people he'd befriended here, not to mention the countless others who he'd yet to meet, would die -- and it would be all his fault.

There was nothing he could do, though. The power was just growing and spreading throughout his body, causing him to burn hotter than should have been possible for a human. It was almost as if all of his powers which had been suppressed during these past few weeks were being forced into him all at once. Everything was glowing - his hands, his arms, even his face. He violently shrugged Claire's hands off of him, not wanting her to get burned.

But soon, she'd get much worse than that, and he needed to warn her. "Claire," he forced out as the radioactive energy he was producing lit up the whole hallway. "You need to run. Run as fast as you can. Tell everyone to do the same! Anyone you see!" Maybe if they got far enough away, the blast wouldn't kill them. Maybe they'd just get radiation sickness instead; that wasn't much better, but it beat dying.

The fact that he had to choose between giving everyone here a fast or slow death was terrible enough on its own. Peter's breathing escalated as he stared down at his body, trying to somehow force himself to contain the immense power. But nothing he tried seemed to help in the slightest bit. Why the hell couldn't he just fly out of here?! But even when he tried, nothing happened. How was that fair?

"Just go!" he finally yelled at Claire, swinging his arm out to the side to make his point. Unfortunately, all that did was send a blast of radioactivity, bright and orange, right at the wall. Just that one shot was almost enough to take the whole wall down.

This wasn't going to end well.

[autophoenix]

The force of the radiation was starting to really wear at Claire. Her flesh itself began to decay first in her arms and hands, then creeping down toward the rest of her body, taking portions of the uniform shirt with her, the smiley face in the center of her chest remaining untouched in a way that was just a little too convenient and eerie. At the burst of energy, she actually flinched back, jerking her hands away and noticing one thing above all else.

It hurt.

No matter how messed up it was and no matter how badly she might want to go warn the other people, she was officially not budging. There was something really weird about this -- all of it. Something unnatural, as if that didn't describe their entire lives since the first day they'd met. Slowly, she turned her hands over so her palms were facing up and stared down at them, bewildered as the flesh ripped away and tried to replace itself over and over again. It burned. Not just in an itchy burning kind of way, or the discomfort she was used to, it legitimately burned.

As it finally began to process, her brain remembering what the signal meant, she realized that the pain was crippling. Over the time she'd gone without it, her sensory nerves had worn away some of the resistance they'd built up to the pain -- they didn't need to be resistant to it anymore, it wasn't happening -- and now they were hyper sensitive. She felt her knees buckle and she planted her hands against Peter's arms again, gripping tightly and whimpering when she realized that she couldn't even feel his arms beneath her fingers anymore because the skin with the nerves that would have felt that weren't even there anymore. The radiation had burned them away.

And she still wasn't healing fast enough. It was too different from what had happened with Ted. When she'd tranquilized him, her skin had regenerated fast enough that the worst casualty was her clothing. Now, though, it was her skin that was falling away in ash and it wasn't growing back quickly enough because of the hindrance Landel had put on her ability. She could actually see the bones in her hands. A choked noise made its way from her throat, chest tensing up and heaving as she tried to hold back cries of agony at the pain as another shockwave rippled through her.

"I'm not leaving you," she returned stubbornly, but as soon as she opened her mouth, it was like the levee had broken. Tears sprung freely from her eyes and she tried to get closer, tried to hug him because it could very well be the last time she got the chance, at this rate, but the energy emanating from him was creating too great a force. It was pushing her back, forcing her away. Building a wall between them. "Peter, I can't just leave you. I can't," she persisted, her cries worsening.

She didn't have a gun to shoot him with to fix things now, even if she'd had it in her to pull the trigger. She was useless and all she could do was cry and acknowledge that at least there wasn't anything she could do for the others in the institute who the blast was going to kill -- Edward, Bella, Elena. Elle. They were goners, and it was far too late for Claire to even try to warn them. They'd all be caught in the blast radius -- if it was big enough to wipe out half of New York, it was big enough to wipe out the Institute and probably down to those ruins she'd visited with Bella, too. They were doomed.

And truthfully, if that was the case, she'd rather spend the moments with Peter than even bother trying.

[human_sponge]

All Peter could do was stand there and watch as Claire was broken apart by the radiation, by him and his inability to control the power that he'd been given. It was too much. Claude had said maximum potential, but this was far beyond what any human could handle. Yet despite that, he couldn't help thinking back on his training and knowing that he could have somehow tried harder and gotten better at this. He could have done something, but he hadn't and now his worst fear was going to overtake him and everyone was going to die.

Everyone except for maybe Claire, but it was clear that her power wasn't strong enough to help her completely, not now. It was a terrible kind of ironic, that they'd just been talking about her limits only to be faced with them now, in the worst possible way. He watched as her body desperately tried to rebuild itself over and over and over, but it just couldn't keep up with the destructive energy that his body was producing.

When he blew up (and it was a when, not an if, now), she might not be able to take it. It might actually kill her, and that seemed worse than anything else. The lives of the others mattered just as much, of course, but he was supposed to be Claire's hero, and now he might just end up killing the indestructible girl instead of saving her.

And yet he couldn't send her away, nor could he get away from her. His body was too overwhelmed for him to even move at this point. He couldn't back away, or run, or anything; all he could do was stand and wait for the inevitable to happen, with only one thought running through his head. He'd failed.

The glowing became brighter and brighter, taking over his vision until he couldn't see Claire at all anymore. But he knew that she was there, and that was something. If he couldn't get away from her and if she refused to leave, then he could at least hold onto the fact that she was staying with him. She wasn't abandoning him, not even when her life might be in danger, not even when he was about to become responsible for far more deaths than Sylar had ever racked up.

He felt his body start to separate, turning into pure energy to the point that there wasn't even any pain; it was only heat. Heat and adrenaline, except he couldn't feel a heartbeat anymore. He tried to clench fists that were hardly there, and then felt a yell somehow tear through his throat.

And then the blast came, and everything was gone.

[autophoenix]

The brighter he got, the stronger the force of the billowing energy, the worse the pain became. It wasn't long before she couldn't see him at all anymore beyond the light -- maybe her eyes had burned out, though. It wouldn't be all that surprising, and it would explain why it was all black instead of white.

The pain was excruciating. Immeasurable. It couldn't even be compared to the other brands of agony she'd put herself through -- partially because that had all been expected, and partially because this was ripping apart every individual cell of her body, or at least it felt like it. She was tearing apart from the inside out, she was sure of it, and soon enough she lost her will to cry -- or the ability. Her tear ducts were ashen and useless. She collapsed to her knees, trying to hug Peter's legs uselessly. He wasn't even tangible anymore. She tried to scream, but her vocal chords were useless, too, her throat emaciated and decaying from the radioactivity. Stubbornly, she tried to force herself closer to him, to no avail.

And then everything started crumbling. Her hearing in tact, it was the explosions she heard first -- and last. Because when it ended, and the institute had crushed her into the ground of the second floor which subsequently cracked and split and crushed into the ground level, and she started to slowly crawl out from under the rubble, there was no sound. Her skin hurt even more as it healed than it had when it was broken down, and her face and throat healed first -- quickly enough that she was able to catch the tail end of a scream of agony.

Her own screams were the only sound as her body forced itself back to gather, and she writhed in the rubble, sobs wracking her entire body the unpleasant sensations. Burning as muscles and skin and tissue knitted together, stabbing as her organs shifted back into their right place and renewed themselves. Crushing agony as she dragged her leg out from the rubble it had been pinned in.

It wasn't until she'd gotten herself back into one piece that she found the worst pain of all, though. She forced rubble out of the way with her body, whimpering at the dislocation of bones that it caused. She didn't dig particularly deep, but she didn't need to. She knew already what she'd find. Nothing. Peter's body would be gone -- disintegrated by the blast he'd created. He was gone. And so was everyone else. The doctors, the nurses, the monsters. Elle, Edward, Bella, Elena, the young Peter, Gren, every friend she'd made, every person she'd spoken with, gone.

Curling into a heap amidst the wreckage, Claire began to weep. For them or for herself, it didn't matter. She was alone now. No one was going to find her. No one even knew she was there, just as she'd never known Peter was there all that time. As the sobs consumed her, she dragged her hands down over her reddening, tear-stained face, then forced them back up to push the hair out of it, trying to find some reason to fight the onsetting hopeless, but there was nothing.

She was alone. Just like she'd always known she would be. Her fingers balled into fists, tightening in her hair and tugging at it hard enough to hurt. The pain only made her sob worse, but she didn't loosen her grip. She'd revel in it. It was the only thing that felt real enough to mean something at this point. It was all she had left in this Hell, where even Sylar's taunts over eternity had proven false.

[product_of_fear]

The blast had devastated the area, transforming the night into a bleak, desolate place, utterly silent other than the noise made by Claire herself. After a while, soft, grey ash started to drift down from the sky like snow that crumbled into dark smudges on Claire's skin.

This raised a few soft creaks and the occasional louder noise as the remains of the institute settled further, damaged wood giving way under the weight of ruined masonry. Some of it collapsed with groaning noises that almost sounded as though there was someone trapped under there somewhere, calling for help...

Death wasn't the end of it for Peter.

The world was grey and silent, all colour leached out of it so that it seemed faded, less real somehow. It was empty as well, nothing but desolate wasteland stretching in all directions, no one in sight but Peter himself.

That was when the whispering started. It was a tangle of voices, all of them too soft and indistinct for any one to be made out above the others. But as they started to slowly become louder, some of them were easier to pick out. People Peter had known and cared about within the institute, all of whom were now dead, vaporised by his inability to keep his powers in check.

[human_sponge]

This wasn't like the last time. The fact that he'd exploded twice was ludicrous, but Peter remembered the feeling of the wind whipping around his body as he'd fell, and how he'd eventually recovered to collect Nathan. He remembered the relief that had flooded through him when he'd realized that New York was intact, but also his distress over the blow his brother had taken for his sake.

Now, there was just an emptiness to everything. He shouldn't have been seeing or feeling in the first place; both of the sensations were dulled, but they were there. He felt as if he was floating in a dead space, and when he looked around all he saw were bits of dust being pushed around by a wind that came from nowhere. He couldn't distinguish any bodies, or even pieces of the building or surrounding area. He was surrounded by nothing, and by no one.

Was this the afterlife? Peter couldn't say for certain. Religion was something that he tended to struggle with, but either way this felt more like purgatory than anything. If he was going to end up somewhere, though, shouldn't it have been Hell? But he hadn't killed anyone on purpose, and so maybe that was why. He'd sinned, but not with real intent.

He drifted through the area, so shocked that he could barely feel. Or maybe it was just harder for emotions to manifest when you were dead. He didn't know what it was, but it was as if a nightmare that he'd been stressing over had finally come to life, and all he could do was quietly accept it for what it was.

It all felt so surreal and out of place, like it was too terrible to be true. But that was when he started to hear things. There were only snatches of people's voices, coming from all sides, barely audible. Peter tried to whip around but he only drifted further, and then the panic returned; the panic and the fear.

First was Claire's voice - "I tried to stop you" - and then Sylar's - "I always knew it would end this way." Even though he was dead, or something like it, Peter started to shiver. But he heard more and more. Sam's voice, Depth Charge's voice, Heat's voice, and they started to drown each other out as they called out for him, asking why.

"I'm sorry!" he tried to say, and he was shocked when he realized that he still had a voice. "I wasn't strong enough! I'm so sorry!" But he couldn't even see them. They were only voices, echoes of what they had once been. And he wasn't even sure if he was being heard.

[autophoenix]

Claire stared helplessly, pathetically, at the sky as the desolated remains of the building continued to crumble through the air around her. The ash felt warm still on her cheeks, the only reminder that her uncle had ever been. She didn't flinch away from them, even as they burned into her face and made her choke and cry -- worse than before. The thought alone that this was where it all ended, that this was all that remained of him, of her hero, made her nothing more than a useless wreck.

Maybe that was why, at first, she couldn't hear the groaning noise over her own sobs and self-pity. But as she tried to wipe away the black stained lines that her tears had dragged the ash into as they rolled down her face, she was sure it was really there. It wasn't her imagination, someone was down there. They had to be. Claire began to scramble, trying to gather herself up and stop looking like the pathetic mess she'd allowed herself to become. Her limbs were still creaking, skin still burning with the healing sensation even as she began to try and tug rubble away, forcing her way back downwards in the direction of the noise.

Smaller pieces of debris were moved more easily -- she wasn't by any means a weak girl, not after all the strength training required for the tumbling moves she'd learned for cheerleading, and it was helping her dead lift the rocks. No, not rocks. Chunks of building. Or what used to be a building, anyway. It didn't take long, though, before she reached a piece too big to lift. Somehow, it seemed like it was the last piece in the way between her and the noise. It sounded so much like someone who needed help, she started to try and press her palms against the stone, forcing it upwards. It budged a little, but not enough.

It was definitely, she could tell from peeking around the sides, the only stone covering where the sound was coming from. Any sound had to be good sound at this point, right? Maybe her blood could heal them if they were hurt. Maybe it wasn't all lost. God, it hurt to let herself have that hope, but she couldn't let herself believe she was really this alone. She couldn't. The aching emptiness was too much too bear. So, she pressed with her shoulder against the rock, trying to push it out of the way and ignoring the pain that came with it. At first. Finally she screamed and gave into the pain of the way the stone dislocated her shoulder and slouched to the ground, crying.

She remained there for several minutes, defeated. This close, and she was useless. As useless as ever. She could save herself, but she'd never be able to save anyone else. When it came down to it, she'd never be able to be the hero. She'd be the victim, the survivor, the most screwed up of them all, but she'd never be able to help someone who needed her. The overbearing weight of guilt sank down around her shoulders, preventing her from pulling herself up even if she'd tried. Slowly, though, as the groaning noises wore away at her psyche, she began to fumble her way back up, using the stone for support and pressing her palms to it as she rose back to her feet. She couldn't let it beat her.

"Hang in there. Just hang in there, please. I promise I'm coming, okay?" Was it even a person she was speaking to? Was she imagining it entirely? Was she really that horrified by the prospect of being alone that she'd hallucinate someone? The truth was, she was. And she was beginning to accept this, but regardless of her paranoia that it was just some hallucination, she needed to know. Needed to be sure. Slowly, with more determination, screaming still at the pain that was sent in shockwaves up through her shoulder and into her chest and ribs, she began to push at it again.

[product_of_fear]

The voices continued to build and press at Peter, familiar ones sometimes rising out of the constant murmuring, the whispers of disappointment - they'd trusted him, he'd been their friend, why did he have to end it this way? Why couldn't he control himself? - to make themselves heard.

"It's not your fault, Peter," someone suddenly spoke from somewhere behind his left shoulder. "It was all too much for you to handle, I've told you that from the beginning. You shouldn't have gotten yourself caught up in it. Wasn't the life you had enough for you? Enough for anyone?"

It was hard to tell if the speaker expected much of an answer, or if Peter could even be heard by them or if, as had happened already, turning around would only reveal there to be nothing behind him, no one there to speak to at all beyond the echoes in his own head.

But the voice certain sounded real.

It definitely sounded real, the sound of groaning and sobbing coming from underneath the huge chunk of rock Claire uselessly struggled to move. The voice of someone trapped under there, afraid, likely injured and in pain, and still unable to speak or make any noise beyond the occasional croaking sound as they tried to clear the dust and ash from their throat. But there was someone there and they were very possibly the last person alive for miles.

They coughed again as, against all the odds, the rock shifted from Claire's efforts. Not much of a shift, but it had definitely happened. She'd made something of a difference, though there was still some way to go before she could get it off whoever was trapped below it.

Assuming she could move it that far before they too died.