until, at length, I found that the noise was not within my ears.

[ushered]

[This post is open for reactions and thread-hopping. Your pups are also welcome to go see Roderick, but he'll be completely unresponsive. All events are backdated to last night.]

Roderick is having a bad night.

Though this place is far more accommodating than he ever imagined-his hallway feels so much more like home now, with bits of his old

Comments

[ohshiny_tomatos]

There have been really strange noises lately, and it's been freaking Parker out a bit. But this? This is another matter. She hears that sound and it's keeping her awake. She keeps shifting in her bed, hoping it goes away, but it doesn't. She wants to look under her bed, but she's too scared to.

She stares up at the ceiling for a bit longer, but when that thump thump gets to be too much, she's leaping off her bed and going over to where Sophie is sleeping. She gets there in a few leaps as possible and climbs up onto Sophie's bed. She doesn't want her feet touching the floor in case there are monsters under one of the beds.

She is trying to not sit on Sophie, but she isn't paying a lot of attention to space. Instead she's leaning in very close to Sophie's face and whispering in a panic.

"Sophie! Sophie! ....Sophie wake up!"

[wereall_addicts]

Sophie could sleep through anything. She has slept in a lot of places over the course of her life, and she's learned to tune it out and make it work for her. But there's certain things she won't sleep through, and that can be summed up in two words: panic and Parker.

Those are just things that shouldn't go together.

She blinks her eyes open at the voice above her, before rubbing her eyes awkwardly. "Parker? What is it?"

[ohshiny_tomatos]

As soon as she sees Sophie awake Parker sits back and hugs her knees to her chest. She looks around, her eyes shifting everywhere.

"There's a noise. It...sounds like a heartbeat. Listen." She closes her mouth and is quiet so Sophie can hear the thump thump thump. It's creepy. Very creepy. She edges closer to Sophie.

[wereall_addicts]

Sophie pauses for a moment as she listens, and slowly the thump thump thump pulls itself out of the rest of the sounds around her. It's disturbingly similar to a heart beat, and that makes her sit up even more and look around.

"Do you know where it's coming from?"

[lil_nellie]

Nellie too has been hearing this sound, and it doesn't really make her keen on staying in her room. Instead she's up and creeping around the hallway in her pajamas. It's dark and she's trying to not be spooked. She just recently changed back to her normal self and she doesn't really want to be in her seven year old form just yet. So she's taking deep, calming breaths as best she can as she slinks through the shadows. And she's muttering to herself.

"It's just a sound. It'll be okay. Any minute now someone else might come walkin' in to the hallway and startle you, but you don't hafta be scared. Just breathe, Nell...breathe..."

She's trying her best to listen to her own words and follow them. She really hopes no one comes up behind her and scares the adultness out of her.

[merlinianblood]

Dave is not going to come up behind her. He's in front of her, actually, peering out of his doorway with an expression that can only be described as "alarmed." He nearly screams when he hears Nellie's voice, but quickly realizes there's someone actually in the hall. Not a ghost.

"Hey, uh-miss. Do you hear that?"

[lil_nellie]

She sees him peek out, and she's glad she sees him. She moves over quickly and recognizes him from the time in the common room. She stands close to his door and looks over her shoulder.

"You mean that thudding? Yeah, I heard it. Not real sure what it is, but I heard it."

[merlinianblood]

He steps out into the hall and glances around as well, brows furrowing as the sound disappears. "That's... weird. Uh." He runs a hand through his already messy hair and glances at Nellie.

"Will I sound crazy if I say it sounded like a heartbeat?"

[wordoftheroses]

She was on her way to visit Mio, not for any particular reason but simply as a social visit. It had been a while since she'd been to the Tower and she thought it was time to drop by.

But as she travels through, she can[t help0 but be on guard. Something doesn't sit right here, something gets her hackles up. She calls forth her magic, has nit waiting on the tips of her fingers but she doesn't strike anything, just has it ready in case.

The narration would mention something about not sneaking up on her but that would be rather hard right now.

[trappedbyhate]

Mio is on her way down to go see what Roderick's problem is when she sees Aurora.

"Aurora!" Mio says cheerfully--or as cheerfully as she can manage given the situation. "Good to see you. Sorry about the racket. The Tower's recently gained a dead madman as a resident."

[wordoftheroses]

"A dead madman," she smiles and tries not to laugh. "I bet he's keeping you on your toes then!"

She looks around them, placing one hand on the wall and closing her eyes. Oh she can feel it and she very much decides that she'd rather not.

"Care for some company? I was coming by to visit after all."

[trappedbyhate]

"Quite," Mio says with a smile, but the amusement doesn't reach her eyes.

"He's not violent or malicious, for which I'm grateful, but unfortunately he's too tied up in his own delusions to notice he's inflicting them on the rest of us. And company would be wonderful, thank you."

[fortisleo]

Harry doesn't like the sound at all. It sounds like a heartbeat, but not like his heartbeat pounding in his head as he has heard it time and time before when he'd been in a tense situation, when he'd been running for his life or hiding as still as can be under the cloak of invisibility. It always seemed like his own heartbeat was thundering then, threatening to give him away.

This is entirely different.

He hears it. He feels it nearly, and it scares him to his feet and out the door into the hallway. Hedwig batters away at her cage until she's allowed some freedom and then she flies out into the hallway, nearly flying into someone coming down the other way.

Where once again, there's nothing to be done apparently but the beating heart sound remains within his room somewhere. Not out in the hallway, thankfully. Thankfully there's an escape.

He thought he was going mad.

[sollers]

Hermione is infuriated and the fury itself is not a fleeting thing.

She shifts back into her human form nearly on top of a sink, falling down to the floor with a thud, naked. In front of her best friend, no less. She takes the towel offered to her to dry herself, quickly changes back into her clothes, and storms out of the kitchen. She does not really look at anyone on her way up the stairs and back to her room. It takes a rather long shower to untangle the mess that is her hair, and to get that smell out of her. It also takes that amount to cool off the embarrassment somewhat, since that was completely humiliating.

She was an otter.

A stocky, hairy-nosed otter.Surely these things don't happen to Hermione Granger

[fortisleo]

Harry had stood back away from Hermione, giving her the space to change. In fact, he merely watches the cafeteria door, sending anyone on to another cafeteria for the moment with some hair brained excuse or another. When she storms from the kitchen, he returns for his tea and then eventually makes his way to the lounge where everyone else has gone to set up their sleeping bags for the night

[sollers]

She will have appreciated that, Harry, or would have if she hadn't been humiliated and thus hastily leaving the kitchen.

Hermione has been in Chicago for months now. Over half a year, really, since she found herself being led to its Tower doors only days before Christmas. In all that time, she had never had so much of an inkling that this would be her Rift ability, and she uses that term very lightly.

If there wasn't such a pressing matter to attend, no one would've seen Hermione for the rest of the evening, and perhaps the day that followed. As such, she is much too responsible and curious to keep to her room--particularly with that maddening sound all around.

"Harry," she says almost painfully prim, in response to his greeting, smoothing her hair with one hand. The angry waters have calmed somewhat, but she still narrows her eyes that the comment. "Yes, well. It was all rather unexpected and I would appreciate if we simply did not discuss it

[smithnjones]

And there is a Martha Jones near the storage area of the lobby with her journal and a pile of sleeping bags. They're there for anyone that wants to have something of a sleepover in the lounges and cafeteria to escape that dreadful heartbeat.

Obviously, the first ones to either of the lounges will get couches. She is planning on sleeping on the floor wherever it is. Possibly in the lounge where Gilderoy will be sleeping, because... the fangirl within her demands it.

Ahem.

However, she is either there or lugging these sleeping bags from the storage area to the lounges and cafeteria. She can be caught along the way for anyone that wishes to have one.

[bewilderoy]

NEVER FEAR, MARTHA. Gilderoy Lockhart is here. Everything is going to be fine. He has his wand, tip lighted, clutched in one hand, a blanket and pillow under his free arm, and is shirtless.

He was in too much of a rush to get downstairs.

(You're welcome.)

He notices her in one of the lounges and clears his throat. "Miss Jones, I presume?"

To his credit, he doesn't look at all frightened. And his hair is perfect. Naturally.

[smithnjones]

AH, yes. Of course, as soon as she sees him, all her troubles have melted away because she knows it is ALL FINE now.

There is none of that. However, there is fangirl squee at the sight of him that she has to shove down inwardly. Ahem. Martha raises an eyebrow at the lack of a shirt.

(She appreciates it. Half naked men do tend to make many things better.)

"Yes, that... would be me. I. I am she. Mr. Lockhart then," Martha says, and she had to stop herself from calling him Professor Lockhart. "Pleasure to meet you in person at last."

Naturally. Quite perfect hair. "You're one of the first to come so you'll have your pick of the spot in the lounge to sleep."

[bewilderoy]

He chuckles.

IT'S LIKE MUSIC, MARTHA. MUSIC.

"Plase, call me Gilderoy. If you don't mind, I'm going to go set up." And by that he means grab the best couch before someone else does. "Do let me know if you need anything, mm?"