Night 58: West Wing, Hall 2-A

[princeofthemoon]

[ from here ]The hallway in front of them did not seem much different from those downstairs, or the one which he had followed last night - there were more doors, in different locations, but the corridor itself had no real identifying characteristics, nothing that marked it as different from any other place in this facility. Sesshoumaru was growing

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[ultimagi]

The girl followed quickly into the new hall, only sparing a couple glances for the paths abandoned. So Edgar was right, at least about the experiments, and their location. Had he said where those took place in relation to the file rooms? No, she thought, not as far as she could recall. She hoped whatever fault to her memory that left her without a past was not something that would continue to corrupt the new memories she formed. If it did, what point would there be to pressing on

[ultimagi]

[and right back from here! way to go, team.]

Now it was the girl leading the way out, sweeping the hall once more with her flashlight. The door had been on her left side when they entered, so she pressed her left hand once more against the wall while her right was occupied with the light. Nothing seemed to have changed, even for the long passage of their absence into the library; there were no other wanderers down this hall. Even with the flashlight it was difficult to see precisely what was ahead; whether there were more doors set into the walls was practically impossible to tell.

Until they hit them, anyway.

[princeofthemoon]

Sesshoumaru's night vision was better than his companion's, and the flashlight was powerful - Terra's was enough for him to see most . Even so, his eyes needed a moment to adjust after he flicked his back off again, hardly able to see anything. It was disconcerting to be so blind, and a sensation he would have preferred to avoid. He blinked, a little impatiently, and followed a few moments after Terra began to move, waiting for his vision to readjust itself again. A little ways into the hallway normalcy had mostly reasserted itself; although his night vision was still comparatively weak, at least he could see"There are two doors," Sesshoumaru said absently when they drew closer. "See if the first is unlocked; if it is, you can examine it for anything of interest." He found himself hoping that it was, if only so that he would not be called upon to break another lock quite so soon. It did not really look like it was, and he could not smell rust, but he was not really focusing on his sense of smell. A slight headache had begun somewhere

[ultimagi]

The girl gave a short nod in response to the direction, turning the handle with her free hand. The door pushed open easily, and within only a moment it slipped closed once more behind her.

[to here]

[princeofthemoon]

[ from here! To the hallway! Again! Because we're cool like that]

Sesshoumaru stepped back out into the familiar hallway, turning off his flashlight as he did so and sliding it away again. He looked over towards his companion.

"There seemed little of interest - another of the bathrooms, similar to what is downstairs." Thus far the expedition had not been very fruitful, but there was time yet.

[ultimagi]

[from here, because we love this goddamn hallway.]

She might have felt surprised at the similar timing of their exeunt from their assigned rooms, but when her companion spoke, she nodded once in understanding. "Mine was the same," she said calmly. For a moment she wondered if his had red tile like the one she had seen downstairs, or blue like the one behind her. But the color of the floor hardly mattered, did it?

Once more she pressed her left hand against the wall, passing over the doorway her companion had crossed as she pressed forward. "There has to be something useful up here," she added, more of a reassurance to herself than the other. After all, Edgar had listed a number of things on this floor, only one of which she had confirmed by hearsay. He hadn't been lying about something as easily confirmed as this, had he? What, then, would that say of what he claimed to know about her? Or the trustworthiness of Locke?

It was better to keep moving forward.

[princeofthemoon]

It was one of the first things that she'd said without real purpose - hope, not knowledge. Sesshoumaru blinked in consideration and did not answer - one did not require answers for statements meant to reassure themselves, and in any case speaking without knowledge was foolish, as well as unnecessary.

He moved forwards along with this girl, moving almost silently. He allowed her to take the lead once again, though she was only a few paces ahead. It was more convenient that way.

It was some distance before they reached the next door.

[ultimagi]

Her fingertips were starting to feel numb, the way she dragged them across the surface of unchanging wall for yard after yard of silent passage. There was no sound beyond that of their footsteps, or their level breathing; she did not need to glance over her shoulder to know he kept pace behind her. Her light hit the opposite wall, of course, and the door stationed there, but she kept flicking it to the opposite side of the hall as she moved. No doors on the opposite side, it seemed.

Finally the hallway came to its corner. They reached the last door of this hall. She had no ominous feelings, no impending sense of danger or hesitation. Perhaps she should have. It might have proven useful.

Without a word, the girl pushed the door open -- and found herself quite startled by the sudden harsh sting of winter air.

Well.

That wasn't what she was expecting. She gave her companion a brief, bewildered look, before pulling the door open wide to the cold night and strode out without another look back.

[broodings]

[from here]

Alone. Finally.

Stefan pressed his hand against the wall to prop himself up, his mouth working silently against the pressure of his fangs. He was just hungry. It was just hunger. Stefan shut his eyes and breathed in and out, long slow breaths, gathering the shards of self-control again.

He'd survived decades before without losing himself to this. And he might have come close again a mere few weeks ago, but Damon and Elena had pulled him back out, and he would not, would not, make their efforts all for nothing. He would find something else to eat tonight, and it would be fine.

He exhaled. His grip on his knife loosened. The blood receded from his eyes. You can't do this forever, whispered a voice in his head, and Stefan laughed without humour before pushing himself away from the wall. Hunting first. Self-recrimination later. He glanced around the pitch black hallway, trying to decide where to go next.

[train_tracer]

[from here]Perhaps it had been a monster, Vino thought. His first real monster here! He'd always found it rather disappointing that he'd been here for nearly a week and he'd yet to even encounter a real terror yet

[damned_monsters]

It was always easiest to creep up on prey when they were off their guard, when it was least expected. Whether the pair of creatures that slunk down the hall toward the two humans knew that was debatable, but the fact that they were targeting someone crazed with hunger and another who was full of self-confidence pointed to the answer being yes.

Stranger still was that this pair of monsters was mismatched. Lurchers generally kept to their own kind, and yet this one seemed to have strayed away from its territory, perhaps drawn out by the sound of the one patient's loud voice. It dragged its immense weight forward, making no secret of its approach.

The lucentien accompanying it was somewhat more surreptitious, but any quiet was dispelled by how unnaturally it moved. The light it gave off was yet another signal that would be able to tip them off, and yet the creature didn't seem to see this as a disadvantage. As slow as the lurcher was, the lucentien was quick, and it swiftly took the lead down the hall as it headed toward its prey

[broodings]

Stefan's shoulders tensed at the approach of another person. Unthinkingly, he took in the scents of the hallway again, for all the good that did - once, he could've navigated a moonless forest on scent alone; now, all he caught off the man was that he wasn't bleeding, which was a meager comfort. While he'd managed to get his appetite under control again, that didn't mean he was any more fit to be around people than he'd been all day. Stefan stayed where he was by the wall, waiting for this person to pass, and certainly not expecting him to want to talk to a hungry vampire.

Not that this man could've known that. He was a 162-year-old teenager, who probably looked sick at worst. Feeling the other's gaze on him, Stefan forced a smile and took his time to look over. He was young, maybe a teenager himself, maybe a little older, with unmistakably red hair. Some kind of metal pole in his hand. And completely alone. Stefan's wrist flexed, lifting his knife by half an inch. If he was quick enough-

No. Stefan coughed slightly,

[princeofthemoon]

[ from here ]

The first thing that Sesshoumaru noticed, upon opening the door - along with the blessed sting of antiseptic once again, scouring at his nose - was the scent of blood. It was largely cleaner than that which had been left outside, pure blood, but blood all the same. Accompanying this scent were the sounds of battle.

He blinked, eyes adjusting to the somewhat darker atmosphere, and finally saw them - two men, a child, and two monsters. An extremely brief calculation followed, which ended in Sesshoumaru shortly thereafter closing the door. This really wasn't his problem.

[princeofthemoon]

[ to here ]