Eve pauses a moment to glower at the wounded…child? The others are tending to it, she shouldn’t interfere. Even if the small bits of empathy won out, this…body, was not suited to healing.
She also had never so much as taken a class on medicine in her life, so that probably didn’t help things.
She lumbers past the group on the stairs, only pausing to glance at Basil once before looking upward. There’s a landing up there, and…
“More. Doors.” Eve rumbles. It sounds vaguely like rocks falling.
She steps up behind Sue, alternating between glowering at her and at each of the doors.
“Are they locked? Do they even have handles?”
Alexis had begun systematically poking small holes in her left sweater sleeve with a screw in preparation to dress the child’s wound, in fact she was already halfway done when the well-dressed man interrupted her thoughts
she shot Miles a suspicious glare as she made the first of many tears at her sleeve, What trick?
Alexis met his gaze, widening the hole in her sweater further. “That depends entirely on what the trick is, but if you feel it’s safe i’d say go for it.”
The definition of the word ‘calm’ seemed completely unattainable for Basil, both during this moment of extremely high stress and what had been known before all these dream shenanigans as his ‘normal’ attitude of high energy and mischief involving sweets. However, one had to give him credit for trying really hard to obtain such a concept during this moment.
Okay, let’s see. He talked about getting through a door.
Wait. Passing through walls? Does that hurt?
…How much would it hurt me?
It was probably safe.
It was most likely painless or this fellow wouldn’t have suggested it. Or at least, a lot less painful than any other method. In fact, it might even be considered ‘cool’ given the circumstance. It would help him get back on his feet that much faster. It would help keep the party moving.
But the quivering eyes of Basil could only think of one thing as they stared at Miles’ hand. There was a large piece of glass in his leg, and it was about to hurt really, really badly.
The panel was… Strange. There were no switches, and it was darker in color, while those utilized by Malaco’s owners were a chalky white. If he were to touch it, there would be a small instance of warmth emanating from it, before it was cut off.
Very strange. Perhaps one of those ‘very bad at their job’ temporary owners would know how to use it.
There was no sound. It was an uncomfortable silence.
Every door seemed to have a handle. In fact, the handles appeared to be in rather good condition, considering how the rest of the building fared.
If any of the party cared to try the doors, they would find the handles turned incredibly easily. Really, how come they had not found themselves inside a room with a proper door instead of that sad concrete box?
Jung opened the door to the other side of the hallway. He hoped someone else was there. Someone else who could get him and the others out of this strange scenario. At the same time, however, he really didn’t want someone to be there. Wherever they all were, someone had to have put them there. If that same someone was out for them, they probably wouldn’t be terribly happy they had exited the room.
Regardless of that, the group couldn’t sit around and waste away. Thus, Jung steeled his nerves and entered in
The door struggled to give way for a moment, then, slowly and heavily swinging on its hinges, it arced into a considerably dark room. Obviously whatever Malaco was up to could wait.
The pungent smell of mold and sickly sapidity of rot flew into your senses. The room was lightless and only illuminated by an open door at the opposite end, which seemed to lead into another hall. Something shimmered on the floor of this room, illuminated by the light from beyond, and with a thrill you noticed two vague figures past that second doorway, turned away and cloaked in the dim light. Had you finally found assistance?
Distracted by the sudden noise, Eve whips her gaze toward Malaco. “Switch. Show me the switch.”
She blinks and looks toward Jung and the dimly lit doorway. She fails to notice the people, or if she does she doesn’t show it. Instead she turns toward Malaco, and then toward the black panel.
Aaaaand then he wandered off. Maybe he hadn’t heard her? Honestly, given the awkwardness of her statement, that was probably for the best.
Sue started to follow Jun, then stopped. Sure, she was curious about what lie ahead, but perhaps, if he intended to investigate the upper doors, it would be better for her to investigate the lower ones? That way there was someone doing each task? Or maybe it would be better to stay with the group?
She pondered for a second, but in the end, no amount of rationale would ever trump her utter curiosity. Several doors were put in front of her; she had to know what lie behind each one. She had to see it. Ignoring whatever the fish and the rest of the group were doing, she went back to the first set of doors and began to open each one…
Each door swung open with absolute ease. Each door unveiled the dark, musty room beyond. And each dark, musty room beyond contained about six inches of muck and mold on all surfaces; not even the ceilings were safe from it.
However in one of the rooms there was a mostly destroyed chair, eaten away by rot and age, collapsed into the sickly stuff. But on the arm of the chair was something reflective, shining brilliantly in the very limited light. Something flat.
It would be utterly irresistable were it not surrounded by this disgusting filth.
“Alright, here goes.”
As gently as he can, Miles grabs the shard of glass between his thumb and forefinger and focuses on phasing it out of Basil’s leg. Slowly, he moves the jagged piece of the light bulb through the boy’s little leg and out of it without any issue, leaving only the open wound to deal with.
And then… A very strange sensation. The cold of the moist, sickly air, the tingling of pain and flowing blood, the void space almost tangible in form. It was gone. It had been removed.
Much against his better judgement Basil creaked his eyelids open the tiniest amount before they shot all the way open at the sight. The piece of glass had been fully removed, and was now held in the grip of the lawyer man. Interestingly enough, but hardly noticed by Basil at the time, was that it was now completely free of blood.
In less than six seconds it had been removed. Any other emotion could wait, as presently absolute awe and flabbergasted shock carried the day. However, his leg was most definitely still the home of an Open Wound, esq., and would presumably still need tending to.
There had been the sound of ripping fabric, but Basil didn’t piece anything together.
She opened the first door eagerly, excitedly, revealing, the most disgusting room she’d ever seen. Okay, so that wasn’t saying much, considering that she’d only seen one other room and a hallway/staircase, but still. She expected hidden treasures, confused captives like her and the rest, imprisoned monsters that would kill her in gruesome ways. Okay, so that last one wouldn’t have been fun, but at least it would be more exciting than this
Well, maybe the next door held something… nope, more muck and mold and must and mire and manure and probably other repulsive words that started with m. Why does my brain keep alliterating today?
With each door, her despair at finding anything interesting grew, until…
A coin? A treasure coin? A gold coin?
Okay, so the odds were against it. Still, it could be worth investigating… wait, in her excitement at opening every door, she had forgotten to blink. Okay, back to the shiny thing.
How to get to it? It was out of reach, and there was no way she was going through that mess in her bare feet. She wouldn’t even do it if she had shoes on, especially her nice –
Wait, hold on. What kind of shoes did she have? Did she even have shoes? Why had she assumed they were nice shoes? Maybe she had a pair of nice warm fuzzy slippers. Well, regardless, unless they were knee-high rubber galoshes, she wouldn’t tread them through that muck.
But the shiny thing… maybe she could get one of the others to get it? Perhaps the talking fish?
Well, this was a waste of time. Dejected, she went upstairs to see if Eve and that other guy had found anything.
She didn’t even realize she had missed one of the doors…
Eve glowers at the green panel as if it has personally offended her. She raises a hand, knife-tipped fingers flexing. “That doesn’t narrow it down,” she says snippily.
The cyborg taps the panel experimentally to see if it does anything. Immediately losing patience she follows it up by tracing a finger around the edge, looking for any internals to manipulate.
“Did you find anything else?” She asks Malaco, one eye swiveling to stare rigidly at him.
The panel does nothing as the knife-tipped finger taps on it. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of internals to manipulate, at least not visibly. But there was something… Odd. It was as if she could feel the electricity running underneath it.
Whatever it was, it had an electrical purpose, and it still functioned. But what could it be? Had anything occurred for Malaco, or was asking a fish what happened two seconds ago a rather risky business?
Not just in terms of info, but your dignity would be a stake.
Eve makes a noise that sounds like an anvil being dragged over a bed of nails. Low, immensely displeased, and something that would cause anyone to run to see if their oven was on the verge of exploding.
“It’s closed,” she grumbles, turning to stare at the panel. It reminded her of an attic. There’d been one in her old house, hadn’t there? Her family had stored everything up there they couldn’t fit in the house, from old clothes they refused to throw away to extra furniture they’d got from yard sales and goodwill stores.
Eve’s left index finger twitches and her perpetual scowl falls, replaced by a morose, blank expression.
She stretches a little bit taller than her maximum height, all ten of her knife-fingers reaching for the trapdoor. Assuming she can reach it, she’s fairly confident she can tear this stupid door open. Maybe there’s even a way out behind it.
She does notice Sue. Or if she does, she doesn’t show it. Honestly either is equally likely.
At the maximum level of stretching, she is able to touch the trapdoor, but only barely. Her bladed finger taps the trapdoor, and even with the slight tap it was obvious there was a void space beyond it.
Could this, then, be the way to escape this horrible place? If there was any chance, it surely outweighed watching everyone else walk in circles. Either by conventional or… Less than conventional means, this trapdoor had to be opened.
Sue had an idea. An awful idea. A wonderful, awful idea.
She had considered that the best way to get the shiny thing in that one room would be to get the flying fish to retrieve it, but how? Were he a normal fish, she’d be out of luck, but a fish that seemed to have some understanding of human language, albeit still the brain of a fish, might be manipulatable. If she could make him understand, all she would need to do is make him listen. So how to convince a fish to retrieve a shiny thing? Well, fish were naturally attracted to shiny things – or was that birds? Maybe it was both. Regardless, she wanted him to get it and bring it to her, not ignore it or try to eat it.
And that’s when she came up with her evil plan, and after a moment of consideration, decided that the ends justified the means. “Hey, fishy?” she said. “There’s a shiny thing in that room down there I can’t get to. If you could bring it to me, it might contain food…”
Well, it was technically true. It could be a can of fish food.
“Sorry, didn’t know your name,” Sue replied. A part of her couldn’t believe she’d just said that to a fish, but her apology was genuine; she’d probably insulted him. She definitely needed to learn everyone’s names at the soonest opportunity, so as to avoid this.
Okay, so she probably would’ve called Malaco “fishy” just now even if she had known his name – she would have thought it a funny nickname – but she wasn’t about to tell him that.
Also, she was probably about to offend him again. He might hate her forever after this. Still… doing her best to quash her regret, she led the fish to the room with the broken chair.
If blinking had come more naturally to Sue, she probably would’ve, the thought had never occurred to her. Although, now that it had, it might be funny if – no, bad brain, being mean to a fish is not funny. I’m being mean enough as it is.
“I promise I will not,” she said genuinely, taking a step back from the door. Of course, she probably could’ve reached it to shut it anyway, if she had actually intended to; the gesture was merely symbolic. She tried to give a slight smile to indicate she was sincere, before remembering she had no mouth.
