2013.10.14 - Exit Light: Rain

Rain would likely hear a thump. A dull, blunt, semi-quiet impact. Then nothing. The wait is long enough that she might even begin to suspect it was her imagination, or it was someone closing a car door somewhere, or any number of other explanations. Slowly, gradually, the shadows deepen. There's another thump of the same type as the first. Muffled, as though coming from behind something. Black lines crawl and creep, extending outwards from any sources of darkness in the house and connecting to other points -- drawing a pattern or network of nearly vein-like designs on walls, floor, and ceilings. It's still somewhat unobtrusive. But then there's two thumps in rapid succession, more distinct.

Ten seconds later the door to the liquor cellar *THUMPS* loudly and visibly moves as though something had struck it from the other side. The door practically JUMPS under another impact. An awful, pale, not-light grey starts to shine out from under the door even if it's airtight.

There's something down there.

The door to the cellar bursts open, revealing some hideous place that is Other than what should be behind it. An enormous hand composed of dozens of other appendages thrusts out, making any necessary adjustments to its course it must to reach Rain, try to grab her, and pull her into this place where grey light pours forth and leeches the color from everything it touches, seemingly just TAKING IN light and life and giving nothing back. And the cellar door would slam shut behind her if it succeeds.

Then nothing? Rain's heart is beating furiously enough to compensate for that, it seems. She peers out, squinting as the shadows deepen. Time is moving agonizingly slow. Each heartbeat seems slow and fast all at once. She watches it, those lines, then the thumps come again. The hairs on the back of her neck are standing up and she moves back from the door. She should scream. She really wants to. But no words come from a tightened throat. She also, somehow, at the same time, wants to look and see. Just so she knows. Uncertainty is an awful feeling.

She stands. Watches. And then HOLY SHIT! The door bursts open. She finally manages a scream. She doesn't want to do, and will do her best to avoid it. But that's probably not quite fast enough. Fear envelopes her. She doesn't want to die. Not like this.

Rain's dodge attempt manages to evade the main bulk of the arm, but all the other smaller arms that comprise it then reach out and seize her as it passes. And then, as the smaller hands hold her still, the big hand -- also comprised of arms and hands -- closes itself around her entire body and head and feet in a fist. Then it slips back into the 'cellar' and the door is shut.

The Other side of the door is not what is on the other side of the door. The giant arm made of other arms that pulled Rain into this place props itself up vertically, the multi-appendage hand squeezing tightly about her, but not quite tight enough she can't struggle and force her way out. The hand doesn't really try to hold her in if she does. She's alive! She's alive and, as near as she'll be able to tell, intact.

However, given what lies all around once she sees it, she may wish she had remained clutched in the monster's grasp. There's no sun, but there's a hideous pale light everywhere. It's not 'light' in the conventional sense. More like some force that bleaches the life and color from everything, eradicating its vitality bit by bit. When even the darkness is being dissolved, the absence of light matters little. What the grey not-light 'illuminates' is a vast expanse of... Terrain. Identifying it as anything other than that is difficult. The 'ground' seems to shift in a manner similar to water in places, though it has no texture or color that any water has ever possessed. More like white and black mold floating on the surface of a sea of blood. Then there are other areas that seem to be solid and yet still in motion. From up here it's hard to tell what they are exactly.

But if Rain climbs or flies or otherwise finds her way down, she'd figure it out. They are mounds of bodies. Flesh. Appendages. Not all of them identifiable as specific things, just unattached tissue woven together in impossible ways. No eyes, no mouths, no ears, no noses, no faces. No blood. No organs. Just bodies that have long since lost any semblance of personal identity, all writhing and twisting and flowing into each other. And all the ground for as far as the eye can see -- which is much farther than would be possible on Earth due to there being no curvature to this place -- is made up of this stuff. This, and the more liquid-like portions.

But if Rain climbs or flies or otherwise finds her way down, she'd figure it out. They are mounds of bodies. Flesh. Appendages. Not all of them identifiable as specific things, just unattached tissue woven together in impossible ways. No eyes, no mouths, no ears, no noses, no faces. No blood. No organs. Just bodies that have long since lost any semblance of personal identity, all writhing and twisting and flowing into each other. And all the ground for as far as the eye can see -- which is much farther than would be possible on Earth due to there being no curvature to this place -- is made up of this stuff. This, and the more liquid-like portions.

Thankfully, Rain may soon find herself not so alone in this world. Not alone, and with a familiar face no less.

It's always the minions that get you. Or sometimes, anyway. This time. She does her best to curl up and protect herself. It's an ancient, instinctive reflex. Almost primordial, even. Too bad she doesn't have a shell. She opens her eyes eventually. She seems perturbed, deeply unnerved. She manages not to throw up, seeing how - whatever this is. Maybe its lack of -ness makes it all the more strange. Sort of like existing without any sort of quantification or definition. Not light, simply dissolved darkness. It's enough to make her brain hurt and thank the stars she never went into philosophy.

On a sea of blood. She will see if she can call her broomstick to her and hover carefully on it. She does intend to get out or down or which way in a sea that lacks coordinates. That lacks that definition she seeks. Mounds of bodies. They were animals, people, loved once. It makes her feel more ill, putting a - no, better not touch her face. Let your eyes water and look over the land. Let's see...

Rain's broomstick does indeed come to her somehow -- even here.

There's nowhere to sit, unless you want to sit on what used to be people in a much more direct sense than the Circle of Life. So when Rain turns around to look, there's Pete Wisdom just-- standing there. Looking out at the sea of blood, smoking a cigarette contemplatively, ashing on what could have been a shoulder at some point, or maybe a knee.

He's monochrome at the best of times, and this isn't the best of times-- his skin's got an unhealthy pallor to it, and when he turns to look back at Rain, it's with an exhausted conservation of motion. His expression starts to light up, then--

--goes bitterly resigned. "Let me guess. You're not here on purpose either."

Rain is pretty pale herself, and yup, black hair. But s till. She looks to Pete, and nods. "Yeah..." She seems relieved not to have to sit on anything here. Good ole broomstick. She seems surprised though, to see Pete. And concerned. "It got you too?" Pete's one of the most badass people she knows! She frowns again. "Um. Wanna sit on the broomstick with me?" She seems sympathetic, though doubly worried. "I came down from above, whatever that means now," She glances up, none too happy about it all. "It was near my aunt's liquor cellor door when I got got. You're not hurt, are you?"

There's a pause, as if Pete's doing a quick mental inventory of his parts, or maybe trying to remember if he got hurt. "No," he says finally, coming closer, eyeing the broomstick with some trepidation. "And you think I wouldn't just-- fall off? I'd rather not faceplant into this shit, really. But standing on it's not a bed of roses, either..." Normally so decisive, it's like there's no wind in his sails.

"Where the hell is this place, anyroad? It looks like one of the circles of Hell," he adds after a second, reaching up to touch the broomstick hesitantly. His tone's disparaging enough, anyway. He drops his cigarette and crushes it out on what was probably someone's calf at some point, unconcerned. Blue eyes look up to meet Rain's, shuttered.

The sky -- or the closest equivalent -- has no signs of a door in it. Just an undulating expanse of writhing white and grey with black occasionally appearing like an ink spill, only to get sucked back up. Even as Rain looks, an enormous knife blade stabs down out of the sky -- not far enough to reach her and Pete down on the 'ground', but still pretty vast in its scope. The fact that there's a knife of uncertain dimensions coming out of the sky at ALL is probably not good. The fact it is sawing in and out like there's some giant on the other side of the sky trying to cut his way through to get to them is probably unsettling at best. The knife makes no noise as it penetrates, and as there is no light to cast shadows, if Rain hadn't looked up just then she might not have even seen it at all. The knife eventually retreats back into the sky like it was never there.

One of the featureless bodies nearby bucks upwards a few feet as though trying in vain to escape when the cigarette is ground out on it, but it gives up and flops back down after only that one brief attempt.

Rain looks over Pete. "You can sit sidesaddle. Or hang on to me. I don't feel any heavy winds," She admits, holding up a hand. She will move in to let him climb on if he wishes. "I think we're inside it or its home. The chimera thing, anyway," She considers. "I remember being grabbed and pulled in. So - could be guts, could be another dimension," She offers. She seems more alarmed and dazed, stunned into a quiet helplessness and uncertainty. "This whole lack of anything is hurting my brain."

Only an equivalent. Alas. Rain frowns a little. Then her eyes widen as the knife comes down. "Um. Sky knives. That's - - something is trying to cut in to get at us or... I don't know..." It's sawing and - her words fail.

There's no brilliant plan. Not this time. Wisdom does climb up on, behind Rain, and does sit sidesaddle, and very much wraps an arm around her waist. He's always been so warm, feverish-- but this place eats light, eats darkness, eats warmth and cold. He's no warmer than she is, and his hold on her isn't so much tentative as lackluster.

"It gets to you," he says quietly, looking down at the horrible terrain, unfazed by the rearing up of protesting flesh and the burn and black mark the cigarette caused. "It's a fuckin'-- it gets to you. The knife might be better. Maybe it's one of those places you need to die to get out of."

Flesh and ichor-like blood covered in mold and a sky that is not a sky and no light or darkness. The only 'landmark' is the giant arm made out of arms that brought Rain here. But then Things appear. Awful beasts with no eyes in their faces, just slit-like noses, and big mouths full of sharp teeth that drip a putrid blue-white mold that Rain has seen before. Pale skin, sparse hair, nearly-emaciated bodies with skeletal structure unlike a humans, long arms that end in claws with organic metal blades instead of fingertips... They crawl up out of the black ooze, it not clinging to them like a liquid at all, just staying where it is. The Mold Beasts swarm up out of the blackness, a few at a time and then dozens, all running near-silently up to the giant arm-of-arms and starting to apply their teeth and claws to it. They eat the Thing that brought Rain here. They tear it apart, and the blood that spills from it is black and it splatters all over the 'ground' and the monsters themselves.

And where the blood spills, the blackness starts to grow and extend upwards. Stretching and splitting and dividing into a capillary network of ichor that covers the air, seems to superimpose itself over what passes for reality around here, and cuts Rain and Pete off from a view of what else happens. And in its place, where once there was a giant arm and mold beasts and a plain of flesh in all directions, half of that plain has been replaced with a forest. The sounds of the monsterous feast have already departed.

The world seems to have just... Shifted into something else entirely where they were. There is a forest of vein-trees, and within that forest, a building appears to rise up out of the canopy. Just an outline from here, it is still clearly visible.

A plain of flesh and monsters in one direction... Or a creepy forest of solidified blood with an unidentified structure in it in the other direction.

OOC: http://daishokaioshin.deviantart.com/art/Mold-Beast-402165016"

Rain nods at Pete. She seems reassured as her friend is there. She'll make sure he's steady. She looks over the terrain and hms. "Yeah..." It does. She'd been fending it off, but that fear sinks into your stomach. Realizing what the place is made of. All of the lack of definition, -nesslessness, the absurdity and wrongness of the landscape. She is more afraid, dazed and lost than drained. For now. The prospect of her falling next hangs over. She looks around herself. "That's the giant arm and arms-" She points, tensing and almost hissing. But she manages not to, only tensing quietly. That mold... And those people. She stays still, like a rabbit huddled in its hutch. The fox will pass, the fox will pass. She looks double horrified as the thing that brought her here is eaten. Apoptosis?

Reproduction? She doesn't want to think about it. At least she's not alone. Though, one could've said that about all the parts around here. She tries not to breathe too deeply. "So. Do we try the forests or the monsters..." Her voice lacks its usual confidence, replaced by fear.

"I'm actually kind of hungry," the Englishman says, frowning down at the mold beasts, and then looking with suddenly growing interest at the vein-trees. He's silent for a second. "I wonder if the fruit bleeds."

He's silent for a longer second, and then twists a little on the broom to wrap his other arm around Rain, and he leans into her, face in her hair; he inhales the scent of her, one hand opening across her stomach, slowly. "I wonder if the fruit bleeds," he repeats, much closer to her ear now, voice like candy dropped in the sand, sweet and gritty and unpleasant. "I'm always hungry. The fire is gone and I'm still hungry."

Then he lets go fast, and it's only one arm around her again, loose. "Probably the building thataway. If there's anyone to beat up, they'd be there, likely."

The vein-trees don't seem to be innately dangerous. But the undulating grey-white sky is shifting just like the plains... Finally darkness is appearing. But even this darkness is not quite darkness. It creates a contrast of black against a fog-like background. The plains behind start to recede, stretching away in the distance. An optical illusion or more reality warping? Either way, the trees stop looking like veins and start looking like trees. Trees of pure black against a white background.

Then more Things appear. Balls of black like fat birds, with wings that look like hands beating up and down at their sides. They fly up in a cloud, surrounding the pair on the broom and inquisitively examining them.

They're almost cute. Then the black splits in a horizontal line and red spills out like someone just slashed the darkness and made it bleed. The openings are lined with teeth. Mouths. The bird-things laugh in the voices of children at play. And then they dive in and start trying to take bites out of Rain and Pete. Quick in and out attacks. Dart in, bite, dart to safety. All from so many directions. A light goes on in the distant building, making it a beacon in this pale place and perhaps somewhere safe from the bird-things that continue to grow more and more numerous as they awaken and fly up from the trees with teeth already dripping, and giggles already bubbling from their hungry, hungry mouths.

OOC: http://sta.sh/02g9f5mhss4y

Rain is quiet. She looks to the fruit. Uneasy. There's something wrong about vein-trees and their fruit. She doesn't protest or move away as Pete leans into her. She seems glad for the company, really. Her friend is there. And he's not part of the writhing sea below. She would even smile, except his question perturbs her. "..." She can't find words to answer that voice. "I wouldn't. Just to be safe. All I have was the candy bar in my pocket. It's wrapped, but... And the fruit? It - it probably bleeds but nothing follows anything anymore," Those people, animals, monsters, melding into a sort of gooey beingness. It doesn't work for her. Her mind just blots it out and leaves her huddling. Hoping for something logical and not going to kill her.

"We did see monsters, but I think you're right." She'll head towards that building, then. At least, until things shift. And there's darkness again. Or whatever darkness means here. Words have melted away. And huh. Birds. Yeek. Rain yelps, bitten - though not seriously and swatting them away as she can. "I - am going towards that building." They can't stay and swat birds. Nor can she sit and concentrate to cast magic. bitten is bad and Rain is going to hurry. She's going towards the beacon, to avoid those horrible giggles. They're so wrong.

No, they can't stay and swat birds. And the harder Rain works on getting away, the more of a game it seems to the sharp little giggling brutes. Suddenly, Pete starts struggling, on the broom behind Rain; the broom's heavier. He's perfectly soundless; he lets go the arm around her waist. Should she glance back to see what the hell is going on back there, right then, she'll be in the thousand-dollar front-row seats for the worst impression of a Gallagher show in the history of ever:

He's being mobbed off the broom. Trying to punch one off him only gets his hand snapped off, the chortling Thing dribbling his blood from its mouth; it's only a split second before one of them rips his throat out, spraying Rain with Wisdom's hot coppery life's blood. He falls silently, blue eyes locked on the little witch in horror and accusation.

He never even hits the ground. The gigglers are like sharks and there's blood in the water.

Like the worst combination of sharks and pirannha, given the ability to fly and numbers in the thousands. The number of them in the air seems to explode when Pete is pulled from the broom. On a broom, there is some purchase -- some capacity for defense. Free-falling? Not so much. They all focus on him, for you see they are so very hungry and like the Big Bad Wolf, they just EAT HIM ALL UP. Not even bones are left. Rain is alone again. Alone, and though the gigglers may be focused on their meal, it's only a matter of time before they come for her as well. Thankfully she's already on the way to the building. If she stops to try to rescue Pete, she likely won't get a second chance to escape.

As the building is closer now, it should be clear what it is. Though run-down, it is identifiable as a hospital.

A hospital.

Just the place she'd need to have taken Pete and herself to get treated if they had survived long enough to get there.

Now it's just her. Darkness falls around the building -- real darkness this time. Shadows that creep up suddenly from the rest of the place and fill the gaps in Rain's vision. It goes from being able to see clearly how unpleasant this place is to being in a night without even the moon and stars to show the way. The giggles and happy laughter of children can still be heard somewhere behind her.

The front door appears to have been boarded closed at one point, but the boards are broken now. The door is open. The windows... Still covered and shut.

Wait. Pete? No! Rain - couldn't - She calls out his name. And yet, he doesn't even hit the ground? She goes after him, unable to abide the stare that he gives her. And the realization of what's just happened. She's just so angry in her helplessness at it all. "FREAKING BIRDS!" She hates them. She hates them so, so much. He can't be dead. He can't. She has to get a hold of something - anything of him and - it's hard not to just wail. "I'm sorry!"

But he's gone. He is really, really gone. Her eyes are watering and she bolts, then. She can't stop. But the water in her eyes make it hard. And now the shadows. She lands and - will try to make her way to the boards. No stars, no moon, no Pete- just herself and a rather nasty pending case of survivor's guilt. She'd happily burn all of these stupid, awful chimera and those gigglers, whose existence seems based on taunting. Gotta get inside. Gotta. But -

The door is pushed open rather easily even with fumbling in darkness. The boards had already been broken, but there was a gurney propped against it from the other side, probably to serve as an obstacle to anyone else who would enter. Clearly not a very good obstacle. The lobby is dark, with only a sliver of... moonlight spilling through from the boarded-up windows. Moonlight? From a moon that doesn't exist outside of these walls? There's dust all over. Pieces of ceiling that have crumbled an fallen to the floor. Rust-brown stains from old blood everywhere. It's a somewhat old-fashioned hospital.

The front desk has no computer, just scattered papers. There's a rotary phone lying on the surface, with a chair knocked over behind the desk itself, and another chair still standing. It is quiet, except for whatever noise Rain makes. Silence that is nearly painful after all the cacophony of a thousand children's voices that belonged to no children. There are rickety wooden stairs to the right of the desk, and a loose wooden door to the left, barely hanging on.

Amidst all the dust, there appears to be some areas that have been disturbed. The outline of where shoes have been, possibly recently. They appear to lead from the stairs, across the room, around a chunk of rubble in the middle of the floor, and then to that unstable door. Rain might just need a moment to catch her breath after seeing she is -- at least for the moment -- alone. To catch her breath and think about what just happened in the quiet.

She doesn't get that moment.

The phone at the desk rings shrilly, breaking the silence.

Rain feels like she's going to die. She's convinced of it. Why is she running so much? She seems surprised by what's in here. She looks around. It's just hear and her thumping heart. The watering eyes. She tries not to sniffle so much. But ... Pete just ... She tries not to breathe in too deeply. And wait. Shoes? She blinks. She looks to follow them. What is it so visceral and horrifying about hospitals? People come here for help... even if it doesn't always-

She squeaks in fear, as the phone at the desk rings, flailing in what would be comical motions in another place and time. She carefully, carefully ... picks up the phone and will listen, holding it just a little away so she can hear. But just in case of phone spiders or god knows what else...

It's a good thing Rain holds the phone away from her ear. Because the most ear-splitting scream of some woman on the other aside comes out almost immediately. Screaming, screaming, begging for mercy, then begging for death, and then the screams turn to an oddly familiar laughter. Laughter that then turns into Rain's own voice on the other end of the phone. "You're not going to make it out of here, you know," the other Rain explains. "That screaming is going to be you. Just like Pete, you're going to die. You're going to die screaming and begging for more. More pain. More suffering. You'll want to suffer just a little bit more before it all ends forever. You know you want it. You know you want the agony. Because that's the only thing that will tell you that you're still alive in here. When the pain stops, that's the end of the line."

Then the other Rain starts laughing again, and then the laughter mixes with her own screams. "OH GOD MORE! CUT OUT MY EYES NEXT! CUT ME UP AND BURN ME AND MELT ME AND KILL ME, KILL ME, KILL ME--" the phone suddenly goes dead. Even if Rain hung up. Even if she listened through the whole thing. It kept going. But now she may notice that the frayed phone cord has been cut and severed from any power outlet the whole time.

And then, in the quiet that follows, she may notice the sound of footsteps coming closer -- from beyond that door to the left. Rapid footfalls. Someone is coming!

Rain winces and jerks her head away a bit. Wait. That's her own voice. Her heart and stomach sink. Reminded about poor Pete's demise at the hands of the gigglers. She feels sick. Is that bile in the back of her throat? And she never thought of herself as much of a masochist. Suffering sounds, well, pretty awful. Torture to death? Also awful. She lets go of the phone, dropping it and putting a hand over her mouth. Oh no no no. There were better metrics of aliveness than that. Even with the gooey, nothingness of existence here. Something - hang onto that precious sense of self and logic. Even her ancestor's voices forming a Greek chorus of 'Coward' from a dream. That too, is a memory of hers. She reels, moving away from the desk.

"Right." Stupid - place. This is a place. She thinks. But then foot steps. Her eyes dart over that way. She - is going to take cover behind the desk. She listens to the prey part of her brain. She can ambush them or simply hide here. But she'll peek around the desk just a little...

Footsteps, all right: and there's Wisdom.

Alive. Covered in his own blood, but healed over where he'd been torn apart-- healed over in that seams are at least not gaping ragged open wounds. His eyes are wide, searching, a little mad; his hands touch the walls then flinch away from them. "Rain?" he whispers, his voice a choked thing. "Rain-- I heard you, love, where are you?"

His /face/. His face, as fucked up as it is, looks *more* alive than it had back there. It's almost like it confirms what that other Rain was claiming over the phone. Like pain woke him up. He looks to the desk, sees the phone, and starts and stops toward it a couple of times before drawing away again, his breath hitching. "Fuck," he whispers to himself, "fuck. This is too open. It's too quiet. I hate it when it's too quiet."

Nothing else happens for now. Just Wisdom showing up, Rain cowering behind the desk, and the dead phone that couldn't possibly have been working lying there. There are creaks and groans from the old building, a sound like floor boards above them under pressure, but nothing pops out of the walls at them. And eventually even the creaking stops.

Rain will peek out, seeing Pete. "Pete? Are you -" His face. She looks horrified. "Let me tend to you if you want," Rain is all about consent. It's Pete and she looks so happy she could just hug the British fellow till he falls apart. "There you are." She looks so happy. It's only for a moment, noticing his wounds. It is a battle, ebbing back and forth. "Yeah, it's - I hid behind the desk, sorry." There's a pause at the creaking, dark purple eyes wide and then narrowed, trying to pinpoint. She takes a shivering, deep breath. She's here, and alive. It's a repetitive refrain, that of a small animal huddled shivering in a burrow as something larger and far more powerful passes.

And some predators like to play with their food. She tries not to think about it too much. Because here's her friend.

She looks like she could hug him until he falls apart; as soon as she's come close, he picks her up in a huge tight swing-hug. "No don't waste the energy right now. I mean nothing hurts-- it's-- we've got to get out of the open; they're coming back. They're coming back--" He's set her down again, but he's not letting go of her completely; his hand's slid down to grasp her wrist, holding maybe a little too tightly, a little mechanically too tightly. "This way. This way and we might-- just-- this way." There's a tug at her, he's a little breathless, he hasn't smiled. And the -seams-. And for a second his hand's around her wrist just tight enough to hurt, before he lets go. He starts up the stairs, motions furtive, favoring his side. Probably a rib again.

A loud groan or moan comes from the hall that Pete had emerged from. It might be a person's voice, or it might be a water pipe. In this place it could possibly be both. Either way it's probably not safe to go that way--yeah, there's the sound of something being dragged. That hall is occupied, or will be soon. The rasping of something being pulled across the floor comes every few seconds. Slowly, methodically coming closer.

The stairs creak and squeak when weight is put on them, and at times make groans of their own so loud that they sound like they're going to break under pressure. The stairs are dark, the moonlight barely illuminating things at all, but not as dark as at the top of the stairs. A pair of halls, only barely able to be made out from the rest of the darkness, each heads in a different direction. One straight ahead from the top of the stairs, another heading left. Both of them are lined with doors -- almost all of them are open. Only a few are nailed shut with boards and have gurneys and boxes and whatever else barricading them.

The scraping sound of something being dragged continues downstairs. There's only two directions to go other than 'back down to the lobby'. Two directions, and a multitude of doors with dark rooms that may or may not be occupied.

Rain is gleeful, for just a moment in the tight swing-hug. She hugs him back and frowns. "Okay," She nods. She doesn't pull away her hand, either. She's okay with the handgripping. It's reassuring. Aside from the seams and lack of smile. "Okay. But once we're in cover... you're hurt," She whispers. Just loud enough for him to hear. They are HERE, after all. And the thing or things are not giving them up. She will follow him, looking over her shoulder. She peers a moment, at their choices. None look particularly appealing, as her eyes dart. Something coming closer.

"Light?" She asks Pete quietly. For now,she strains to hear. If there's no protest, she goes straight. best to keep the easiest path... they can backtrack more easily.

Wisdom grimaces, patting his pockets; he comes up with his Zippo, flicking it open and into flame. But what should be a warm, flickering yellow glow is just as leached of life as the rest of this place: it gives off a sickly greyish-white light that holds as steady as an acetylene torch. It doesn't help much with illumination, either-- the shadows are only deeper. "We could," he says quietly, "set the whole place off. Won't hurt me. Can you shield yourself against fire?"

He draws himself further down the hallway, peering into the rooms ahead of Rain; there's no reaction from him to anything inside them, so they're probably empty. He freezes in place every time there's no sound, only moving when whatever else is moving does the same thing. "Can you shield yourself against fire?" he asks again, with no change in inflection. It's like he doesn't remember he already said it.

The dragging rasp continues. Until suddenly it reaches the bottom of the stairs. It's obvious when it does, because the sound of wood splintering under a greater weight than either Rain or Wisdom is like gunshots in the otherwise silent hospital. And behind the footsteps is a *thump* that trails with every step. Like whatever is being dragged behind is striking the sides of the steps every time whatever is being dragged progresses further upwards. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

The rooms mostly seem to be empty, just as indicated by Pete's lack of reaction. One of the barricaded doors ahead of them shows a sign of occupancy as the door knob rattles. It twists from side to side. The room directly across from it, on the right seems to have a reasonably intact and sturdy door, and aside from an empty and (though dusty) surprisingly clean operating table and one of those metal trays on wheels that are used to convey doctoring equipment. The room is small enough that it can be plainly seen even in the awful un-light of the lighter that it is definitely empty (for however much that is worth). They're almost to the end of the hall, and while there's another hall going left-and-right at the end of it, there's a smell like someone spilled a couple dozen gallons of bleach. Maybe they can duck around the corner, but who knows what's in this other hall? And if they don't get out of sight, then in a matter of seconds whatever is coming up the stairs is going to see them.

The door across from the empty operating room rattles again, as whatever is on the other side tests the lock once more. Then there's a loud THUNK as a metal butcher knife not unlike the one that Rain saw upon first arriving coming out of the sky punches through the locked and barricaded door. It jigs up and down a bit, then sinks back out of sight. Only to THUNK through again. Other sealed rooms also start to evidence occupants of their own, mostly in the sound of whimpers, sobs, groans, and noises of pain. Whether it's Rain and Pete who are drawing attention or the thing coming up the stairs, either way they can't stay here. Risk the next hall and whatever might be in that overpoweringly chemical-stench-filled passage? Or hide in the room to their right and hope this all passes them by?

Rain blinks. She follows Pete, moving as he does. "No, I can't," She admits. "I would burn." She looks worried. Please don't- why is he asking twice? Pete? She was glad for the hug but - she watches him with wide-eyes. And then the thing is at the stairs. She is going to avoid the chemical smells - it would be dreadfully awkward to avoid rasping death, only to wander into CHEMICAL BURNS. She's going to try to hide, naive as that might be. Surely some magic must work here. Those chemicals smell too unpleasant to risk it. Bleach fumes are bad, after all. Unless Pete protests. But hiding seems more up her alley.

Oddly, no matter Rain's moving to hide, Pete glances toward her then flips the Zippo closed. In the sudden darkness, he reaches out to grab her by the arm and haul her out of her hiding place, bodily dragging her if he has to. This might be a protest, yeah. And if Rain's memory of the hallway's layout is accurate, he's dragging her toward the door that's got the knife regularly stabbing out of it-- and yes, it's directly in the view of the stairs. "Can you," he says, voice an inexorable grind, "shield yourself. Against *fire*. I'm hungry. I wonder if the fruit bleeds. I mean nothing hurts."

And then he jerks in the pitch darkness, hauling back to kick open the knife-door, grip like iron around Rain's arm.

The thing coming up the stairs sees them moments later. Its eyes are baleful red lanterns in the darkness. It is twisted, like it was mutated horribly, or like its body was sewn to a bunch of other bodies at random. Behind it, as it steps into the hallway, a body bag becomes visible. And the motionless body inside suddenly begins to thrash. And Rain would hear her own voice screaming and laughing from inside of it as her own hands press up against the cover. The darkness is almost total. Only the red glow like some living furnace emanating from the monster's eyes casts any illumination at all.

The stabbing of the door comes faster, more forceful, more frenzied. The wood is impacted from the other side. It starts to splinter. Everything is falling apart all at once. The abomination dragging Other-Rain comes closer and closer, slowly, methodically, as though its sole purpose is to terrify as much as possible before the End finally comes.

Then Other-Rain says completely calmly, "This is your chimera."

"This one that's dragging me?"

"This is the chimera of souls that you are going to become."

"And you will beg for death even as you take lives from others. You will beg for death and harvest their pain because their pain will be the only thing that suppresses your own."

"Welcome to the club, sister. You're the replacement for our Pack mate."

Then Other-Rain starts laughing again.

OOC: http://sta.sh/02g7zz7409p1)"

They have to HIDE! Rain's eyes widen at Pete. "We have to -" She stops protesting, as he starts to drag her a bit. She moves with him, then. Until - that knife. "No, that's - the knife-" Rain shakes her head, protesting. "He'll see is. It will see us. And no." This Pete seems - Pete? What's wrong with Pete. This doesn't feel right somehow. The red lanterns. She freezes. If only her soul channeled something besides a frightened bunny. If only. She's going to die. This is it. She survived those damnedable birds, everything. It feels so futile and frustrating. Something pulling her in to the darkness. But there's an exhaustion that soothes. She's becoming tired of being afraid. Is this why animals lay down and accept the slaughter?

But then. The other Rain speaks. And explains her destiny. Her chimera? They made one of her? "Who is - she? She's not. What happens to you two then?" She asks, backing - there's nowhere to back up is there? But a tiny part of Rain is screaming. No. Not. Now. This is their realm. And they might think of her as a replacement. But - she's feeling to see if she can pull her magic here, trying to keep some distance between them. No, not now. She doesn't want this.

There was a pause there, yeah, when the thing came up the stairs-- and with Rain even protesting the slightest bit, getting her back up a little to argue with him-- Pete paused. But now that the game's stepped up a notch, he *does* grin, in the sick light from those red eyes, and his mouth is a thing crooked with the seam from where he'd been torn to pieces. "You're going to lay down and die, you're going to stand there and let them take you," he hisses. "And we can *all* join the party, then, petal, can't we?"

Now he /does/ kick the door open, with a splintering thunderous crack; he lets go of Rain now, but it's because there's a tremendous rush of wind from within the room with the person with the knife.

Wind! Wind from nowhere, the first wind, the first moving air in this whole place since the second Rain was dragged in.

Pete, twisted as he is, shoves Rain violently toward broken-open door, against the wind. Inside there? It's dark and empty, and the far wall's like-- it's like torn paper, not like a true wall, really. Who can cut the sky with a knife? What kind of barrier is paper?

But just inside, standing right in front of Rain, and Pete behind her, there's something. Something short and pale, and with eyes glowing red as embers. It's holding the knife--

Something awful that resembles a little girl in some ways and not in others is standing there. Her hair writhes in the air around her like lines of rot -- like decayed snakes. Her dead-white face is twisted in anger, lights as red as rage itself glaring from her otherwise black sockets. Teeth like razor blades glint in the minimal illumination as the bleach-soaked air is sucked out through the hole in the wall behind her. Her ragged, age-stained night gown ignores the movement of the air even as everything else is affected by it.

Under different circumstances, looking much more like a living perso nand much less like a monster, Rain met her once. Briefly, she met this little Japanese girl at the place where this all started. It might not come to her right away under these circumstances. But then Sally lunges out of the dark room in a blur of movement, going AROUND Rain and trying to stab 'Pete' in the chest and then drag her butcher knife up from the wound like there's just no resistance at all. Like she's cutting through air. Pale bare feet don't even touch the ground before she is tearing down the hall as the Other-Rain screams in frustration and anger.

Sally slashes the chimera-that-would-be-Rain's-new-body-if-it-could-get-close-enough in half, sending its warped torso flying down the hall and then down the stairs. Then she starts stabbing Other-Rain in the body bag, and blood sprays upwards like a geyser, painting the ceiling, drenching the walls and floor. The little girl pauses when Other-Rain finally goes silent. She turns to face Rain and her face is more like it was back then... In the forest preserve. Pale, still, calm, and splattered with blood.

"Get out." Then she points with the knife in the direction of the room she came from, and that hole... The hole that seems to lead...

Out.

If Other-Pete is still intact or not, the girl targets whatever is left him next. Her face twists again, smooth black hair once again writhing upwards and trailing in the air like total darkness made mist. The hall seems to be becoming lighter and lighter. The structure of the hospital crumbling and the pale light seeping through once more. This is not a place to stay even if Rain wanted to.

Wait. What? Pete? Rain looks - like she's going to try again. Water wells up in her eyes. Betrayal is up there with the worst emotions possible. It's a unique pain, born of something bad about to happen and of a broken bond. No. No way. But then, Pete was acting strangely. She gasps at the wind. Wind? It's dark, empty, there's a knife - Wait, no. Her head is reeling again. Still, that inner voice protests over it all. This is not quite what she had in mind.

"I -" Hello? There's a little girl. She should greet her. Almost amusingly, there's an apologetic look for just a second. The little girl is scary but - Rain's mind is exhausted. Reeling. She's familiar somehow. But Rain can't place the unpleasantness. "... sorry ..." Her words fall, like milk from a spilt bowl, useless and washing away into the air. She's just so sorry. She can't even bring herself to dodge. Right. Why can't she - then Sally goes around Rain. Her eyes widen to the size of near dinner plates. She wasn't expecting that. Holy shit. She's part ninja. "... thank you." She thanks her rescuer. And then Rain, pauses. A glimpse at the face. Nod. Thank you. She makes a quiet note to set incense or something out some night. But for now? Rain is going to GTFO like her ankles are on fire and her backside is gonna catch.

The last time Sally Tonetti, a ghost girl with anger management issues, ran into one of these Things, she had a bite taken out of her that kept her from returning to her site of death, made her confused and weak, and almost caused her to fade away completely as she wandered around lost in the forest preserve. Thanks to her adoptive mother, a freaking VAMPIRE, Sally got that piece of her back. And a child version of one of those Mold Beasts was captured and brought home with them. It should have died. It was in terrible pain as it was unable to exist in the other universes without exposure to the corrupting energy of its other plane. But Sally kept it alive. She kept what passed for its soul in her hand and she learned how these monsters worked.

And, as she was just so full of malice anyway, she practiced how to kill these Things.

The Chimera of Souls had a Pack. A Pack that wanted Rain to join them as a replacement for the one killed by Amaya and Martin. Fusing the witch's soul to a husk that would seek out more souls to ease its own pain. A walking perpetual torture machine that spread misery and corruption everywhere it went.

The body bag with Other-Rain in it suddenly bursts open as Rain flees. As the real Rain departs this place and finds herself back in her house -- but with a gaping hole in the wall that isn't quite closing, and veins still tracing the walls and ceiling. The Chimera of Souls that was already part of the Pack erupts from the bag, screaming and hollering and growling with the voices of a thousand monsters. Tendrils of shadow, arms of rotten flesh, mouths of fire, eyes of purest void, all extend and stare and try to crawl their way out of the tattered bag. If Rain isn't going to be eaten, SOMETHING is going to be consumed.

Unfortunately for the Chimera, as Sally grabs the corpse of Other-Pete and drags its rapidly-mutating form towards what was once Other-Rain, it turns out it's not the ghost who is going to be eaten.

"Give me your pain," the hateful specter hisses. Then she cuts the Chimera, over and over and over and EATS IT ALL UP.

And Rain felt bad, if she'd truly known the girl's plight. Still, she'll definitely set out incense, a bell and maybe a snack. She's not up to her Things Ghosts Like but that might change. She looks over her shoulder, grateful. And Rain will politely decline joining that Pack. She looks worried, as there's a gaping hole in the wall. Those veins. Craaaaap. "Oh shit." Oh geeze. She backs up and away. She watches in horror, as Other-Pete is being grabbed towards the Other-Rain or what was once other-Rain. She can only watch from here, stepping back.

The hospital is still on the other side of that hole. The veins still trace the ceiling and flloor.

Rain seems like she's home again.

But she's not really. Not yet.

Because at least two others have yet to come back. And until their own status in the Pack is resolved, the corruption will continue to spill forth.

The nightmare isn't over yet.