Night 51: Disciplinary Therapy Corridor

[madeinthehrl]

[from here]The hallway was dark and, as far as Soma could tell, utterly devoid of life. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the lack of lighting, waited for her breathing to steady, her pulse to normalize. The voice in her mind had, for the moment, faded to a quiet whisper. Perhaps Marie had realized just how much she was affecting her host

Comments

[autophoenix]

[ from here ]

Well, she definitely found what she was looking for. There was someone there, all right, but this was in no way the crawl space she'd been looking at. Face reddened and blotchy from the crying, she reached up to rub her palms over her cheeks and get rid of some of the tears as she tried to find some way to rationalize what the hell had just happened.

She was still in Landel's. Landel's was still in one piece. Slowly, she stumbled further into the hallway, bracing one hand on the cold wall, pulse slowing as she tried to work through her anxiety. Did this mean they weren't dead? A look to her right told her Peter had come through the door with her, but --

That wasn't possible, he'd just …

"Peter?" Her voice was weak, scratchy. Terrified. She'd seen him blow up, there was no way. She'd felt the flesh being torn from her body. Burned and charred and forcibly decayed down into her very bones. There was no way he was standing there before her now, same as he had after the explosion above Kirby Plaza, like

[human_sponge]

Just as he'd been expecting for everything to go black (for real, this time), Peter was instead given the exact opposite. While wherever he had ended up was still very dark, he also felt very alive. When he took a breath, he felt it fill his lungs; when he reached out to his side, he felt a solid wall. A wall that should have been nothing but dust after what he'd done

[madeinthehrl]

Voices. There were voices--people approaching--but something sounded wrong. The first figure to emerge out of the darkness was a girl not much younger than Soma, her expression one of shock, her hand pressed against the wall, much as Soma's was. Hard on her heels was a slightly older man whose expression practically mirrored the other girl's. He looked familiar--where had she seen him before? Realization came quickly: the night they'd fought the patient Alita had called Sparky

[autophoenix]

As he braced his arms around her, Claire unwittingly sank into the embrace, eyes shutting in relief. He was solid. He was real. He was there. Her arms wormed their way around his body and pulled him in tighter and she tried to ignore the constant, hurried throb of his heart against her temple. Her pulse was doing the same thing, rushing in her ears, but she was forcing herself to instead focus on the positive.

It wasn't real. Whatever it was, it was over, and he was here, and people were here and --

Right. People. She heard the sound of a weak voice and she slowly forced herself to pull back a little from Peter, keeping her arms looped loosely around him because she wasn't quite ready to sacrifice the human contact yet. The latent fear was still there. He could vanish. But, there stood a girl who appeared to have come stumbling out of one of the patient rooms, and wasn't that what they'd come for

[human_sponge]

While Peter was a bit reluctant to let go of Claire, he didn't blame her for doing so when it turned out that there was someone there. It was a bit awkward to be found hugging like this, and Peter knew that Claire didn't like to be viewed as weak, just like he didn't. She didn't let go completely, and that was fine by him. If she needed to hold on, she could do so for as long as she needed to

[madeinthehrl]

It was easier to breathe if she focused on the details: the drying tears on Claire's face, the look of receding fear on Peter's. Peter. She recalled the bulletin board: he had mentioned wanting to come up here. He was a healer of some sort. He and Claire were a rescue team. That made sense. And they had seemed injured, if not physically--so the hall outside was guarded. No exit strategy to speak of--but that was all right. They could think of one. There was nobody else in this hall; they had time to figure something out.

The thoughts came one after the other, and she let them come. It was a moment before she realized Peter had asked her a question.

"I'm uninjured." She tried to put a little more steel in her posture, a little more confidence in her voice, and failed at both. "They didn't touch me, just..." Her hand rose to her head before she could help herself. "They did something to my head. But it doesn't hurt."

A slow breath. "You should look for the other patients who were taken. I'll be all right."

[autophoenix]

The explanations and introductions garnered an awkward, tense, and not altogether convincing smile from Claire that was clearly out of obligation. It wasn't that she had any reason to not give the usual niceties to Soma, or that she disliked her in anyway, but it was hard to muster those niceties up when she'd just come off of living her worst nightmare and was still reeling from it

[human_sponge]

Something had been to done to her head. Peter frowned, knowing that that could be any number of things, and yet he had no right to ask. Still, while it was a good thing that she didn't have any physical wounds to contend with, it also meant that he was more or less useless in this situation. He was almost sure that Soma had other people she wanted to see now, people who weren't him or Claire

[madeinthehrl]

"Uninjured physically," Soma repeated, and this time there was a finality to her voice that hadn't been there before. She appreciated their concern--it would have been understandable even if they hadn't come with the intention of helping to begin with--but she had always been proud. Even now, accepting help--if they could help at all, which she doubted--would seem like a concession

[autophoenix]

The look from Peter didn't go missed by Claire, and she just gave an innocent kind of shrug that showed she had no idea what she'd said that was so wrong for him to give her the disapproving look. It wasn't like she'd asked how they'd managed to screw Soma up -- she was just trying to be understanding. Or, rather, empathetic, really. Which was a rarity in itself for her -- it wasn't often she got to see exactly how screwed up she'd become reflecting in other people and it was her instinct to grab onto it, as insensitive as she was realizing that was

[human_sponge]

All the doors were locked, and the one that did open was already empty, meaning it either hadn't been used for the night, or some rescuers had made it through before them. Peter wasn't sure how, unless they were the only two who had been unlucky enough to be put through whatever that had been. Sighing, he turned from the last door and moved back down the hall toward the two girls, wiping some sweat from his forehead now that he had the chance

[madeinthehrl]

Illusions. Soma pressed her lips together tightly. Judging from the state in which Peter and Claire had emerged from the hallway, the last thing she needed was to venture out there. Whatever it was, it sounded as if her rescuers had gone through just as terrible a time getting here as she'd spent in the experimental treatment room.

What lay out there? Fears? Dreams? She felt curious, in a detached sort of way, but not nearly curious--or foolish enough--to see for herself. And yet--

"I arranged to meet with Senna and Meche and Hokuto," she said. "They would have noticed when I didn't show up." But there was no way of telling if they knew where to find her, and even if they did...

...they might be out there, right now. In that hallway, facing whatever it was that had had such an effect on Peter and Claire. Worry began to grow inside her, and she glanced back at the two of them, her thoughts clearly written on her face. Still, she attempted a faint nod at Peter's offer to stay.

"Thank you," she said quietly. "I appreciate it."

[autophoenix]

As hard as she tried, she couldn't help casting a meaningful look in Peter's direction when he mentioned people coming for her. If they came through that hallway, she could only bet there was a fifty percent chance they were going to come out of it in any condition to help anyone, let alone get into the hallway of experiment rooms at all.

She still couldn't quite figure out how they'd managed to, all things considered, but that probably had something to do with the fact that she couldn't tell her shoulder was still dislocated and broken from slamming the door in. Without pain, and with the baggy t-shirt of the institute on, it looked normal enough. Nothing was sticking out where it shouldn't be, but her healing had slowed enough that it was still chugging its way through fixing what she'd done to it in her hallucinated haze

[human_sponge]

So he'd been right. Senna and Meche were the two who had come to help him alongside Soma, though there had been one other. He'd talked to her, so what was her name again? Falis? Either way, he knew it hadn't been Hokuto, so he had to wonder what had happened to that one girl. It probably wasn't something he needed to be bringing up at that moment, though, and so he left it alone

[madeinthehrl]

Soma glanced at Claire sharply, anger flashing in her eyes for a moment before the emotion passed and there was only exhaustion written on her face.

"They'll come," she said simply. She hadn't believed it before; now, she knew they would. They had to. "They're stronger than you think. They'll get through that hallway, illusions or not."

Another deep breath. Her pulse was slowing now. She focused on Peter's question, attempting a faint smile. "I haven't seen any of them for a while. We were planning to catch up with one another, I suppose. Perhaps explore the area outside the institute; that's how all of us met in the first place."

[autophoenix]

Demons? Peter's question got a sharp look from Claire -- about on par with the one she'd received for being so blunt with Soma, really. Why hadn't he told her if he'd needed saving from demons? That seemed like the kind of thing that one would bring up with the person they were stuck with and relying on. Hypocrisy aside, of course -- it wasn't as though she was chomping at the bit for a chance to tell Peter all about how Sylar brain-raped her last week