Sue had no idea what had happened. Here she was, genuinely trying to help… what was his name? Manacle? Something like that… and then he ran off. Well, swam off… flew off? Wait, he bolted up toward the door. Perhaps he was just that eager to get out of here and go find food.
“I guess?” she said. “Unless it’s locked. Or not a door. Or electrified, or some other kind of trap. Or —” she was rambling again. “Yeah, let’s go do it.”
Miles still looked a little worried, but much less so than before.
“Are you ok to walk on your own? We might not get very far if your leg’s still hurting.” The lawyer turned his head to look at the top of the stairs, trying to see if anyone was still lagging behind.
“And I think everyone else has moved on by now. We should probably get a move on if we don’t want to get stuck here.”
“N-n.” Was the only reply, but the subtle shake of Basil’s head seemed to imply that was a negative.
Stuck here?
That sounded positively horrible. At the mention of the word Basil tried again to put pressure on his leg, but even the idea of it hurt. He looked between Miles and Alexis to see if one of them had an alternate solution.
Taimon wordlessly stalks back to the closed hatch/door, one eye practically dislocating itself to remain locked on Sue the entire. Ostensibly to make sure she’s following. The eye somehow manages to convey all of Eve’s frigid demeanor.
She looks at the hatch and then at Sue. “Crouch down, and I’ll lift you. Then you open the door and find out what’s behind it.”
The cyborg holds out her hands. The very, very, very sharp fingers glisten slightly. “I’ll try not to cut you too badly,” Eve says. It’s difficult to tell if she’s being genuine or not. She is at least not grinning threateningly, though her deadpan stare isn’t much more comforting.
Alexis nodded and gave a mumbled “Thank you.” as she finished tying the knot that would hopefully keep the makeshift bandage from falling off.
it’s going to work for now, at least until we’re can get out of here.
“That’s not entirely true.” Alexis replied sliding her arm back into her labcoat, she instinctively grabbed for her sweater’s sleeve cuff before realizing that it was entirely absent. “That’s going to take some getting use to.” she made a mental note that she would probably need to purchase a new sweater when they got out of here, correction If they got out of here.
She turned back towards the boy who looked quite desperate for a solution for his plight, well she assumed that’s what he wanted, she couldn’t really tell. “We could carry you, i’m sure mister…um…what’s his face could carry you, kid.”
It was then Alexis realized that she hadn’t really taken the time to learn the names of her fellow captives. “I don’t think i caught either of your names.”
Basil was pretty confident the proper term was lawyer man.
“Uh-” Basil retreated slightly to the opposite side of where Alexis crouched. This was a random person in what was probably a basement now that he thought about it asking for his name while he was sitting on the floor unable to walk. Maybe providing the information wasn’t such a good idea?
But wait. These two had done nothing remotely close to hurting him this entire time. Yes, they had weird go through wall powers - or at least the one guy did - but instead of using them to, like, turn his brain inside out or something, he used them to completely remove a giant glass splinter which had harpooned his leg and was clearly irredeemably evil.
There had to be a decision made between now and just after now. Were they going to help him or harm him with learning his name? Could he take it for granted that this lady was just trying to be friendly and polite with the information presented, and not trying to manipulate him into becoming more trusting and divulging personal info for their own purposes?
Whatever the risk, there was also being completely socially awkward to worry about. He didn’t typically have to worry about that sort of thing, but trapped between two stingbums and a wall was no place for indecision.
“b-b-” He stuttered, cautiously watching both of their eyes to see if either would make any sort of sudden movements. He swallowed nervously. “Basil.” His hand extended under the blanket as a customary greeting of two human acquaintances introduced to one another, without considering that a blanket handshake was neither orthodox nor customary in any setting.
Sue knew immediately that there was no way she was putting her feet onto those sharp fingers. Still, she should be tall enough if she were kneeling, but even then she risked a scrape or two to her bare knees, as her pants were comfortably short.
Hmm… if she was wearing short pants, did that indicate it was summer outside? What day was it? What… year was it? She suddenly felt an eagerness to know what was outside. It was worth a scrape or two to her knees to finally escape this place. She lets Eve lift her toward the door, and attempts to open it.
Alexis leaned forward on the tips of her toes and softly shook Basil’s blanket clad hand, “I’m Alexis, I wish we didn’t have to meet in these circumstances, but hey, that’s life.” Alexis began glancing around, but stopped the second she laid her eyes on the room they had awoken in. “We should probably get going, can you walk or would you prefer for one of us to carry you?” she asked nervously, not daring to break eye contact with the room.
The bladed fingers mostly avoid cutting through the fabric, but Sue definitely doesn’t end up unscathed. The stinging of the sharp edge piercing the skin was… Oddly unfamiliar to Sue. Had she simply forgotten? Or did she seriously never get cut ever before? Or better yet- well, I imagine getting cut in the present moment mattered more than any pondering.
Regardless, the lovely door above refused to yield despite any efforts made against it. The answer, thankfully, could be seen: it was on a sliding track so as to move out of the way rather than swing open. But how to make it move?
Light was streaming into the dark room through a very door-shaped hole. What’s more, two people were standing beyond it - and now one of them was lifting the other up towards the ceiling. Process of elimination made it clear the lower one was the robot girl, but no extra consideration was needed to decipher the identity of the second, as the massive eyeball head made it really obvious who she was.
Basil tried to force some kind of a response out of his mouth, but nothing came out. His throat grew too small for any words to fit through, and it was a really good thing his face was obscured lest it be obvious he was just sitting there with his mouth open.
Basil looked down at his leg. He gave it the slightest amount of pressure against the floor, and it stung. It was very unhappy with his recent decision-making.
And on top of that, so was he. His incapability had lead to the lightbulb being broken, and now his leg being wounded by sprinting through the broken glass. Every action he had taken, be it darting across the room and making the robot lady angry enough to hit the wall to falling down the stairs was entirely his own fault.
Were his parents there, a long talk would occur which would start with a mandatory apology and end with a thirty-minute lecture. But somehow these people, these strangers in uncomfortable circumstances with clear and obvious distrust for one another, were in even greater capacity to be disappointed or let down by his actions. The notion that he had deliberately acted in a manner which had lead to serious inconvenience for people with absolutely no connection to him whatsoever was particularly crushing, and Basil couldn’t figure out why that was the case, but his stomach was knotting all the same.
He looked down at his wounded leg, the trophy to his failure.
“I’m sorry.”
Eve’s head shifts first over in the direction of Malaco’s yell. “What is going…what are you yammering about?”
She glares back at Sue and then toward the panel. Slowly her expression changes, the anger draining away in lieu of thoughtfulness. She purses her lips and deliberately lowers Sue toward the ground. “Step off. This is getting us nowhere. Your tiny hands aren’t opening that, and none of you are strong enough to lift me.”
“That fish,” Eve mutters. Something about what he was saying had struck a chord with her. She looks at the panel again. “A badge…”
“Did you see anything coming in here,” she asks Sue abruptly. “Shiny objects, some kind of…of card, or anything like that since we left the room?”
Sue was about to suggest that there had to be a different way to open the door when Eve abruptly dropped her down. She glanced again at the panel. That had to be the mechanism to open it, but how? Maybe the suit guy could open it, like he had with the other door?
Wait a second. She suddenly found herself looking at the suit guy, along with the kid and the other girl, through the door that Jung had opened. How did they get past? Wait, no, that looked like the room the group had started in. But how? Didn’t they just go up several flights of stairs?
Distracted by the inexplicable sight of her companions beyond the door, it took her a moment to reply. A badge? Don’t those typically just say who a person is and what they do? How would that help open a door?
Or, wait, like a keycard? Don’t some places use ID badges that you use to automatically open doors? That might make sense.
“The only thing I found was that restaurant paper thing, but there are more doors here. Perhaps there’s a badge hiding behind one of them. It’d make sense if it was one of the doors on this…” she hesitated before saying the word ‘floor’, still confused as to how they’d wound up next to the first floor again. “…right here, in this area?”
Eve lets out a low, long, and thoroughly irritated breath. Her eyes wink open-and-shut a few times before she opens them for good and turns around.
“I’ll go ask the…others if they have any ideas. Or if they saw them. If your eye actually lets you see more things maybe you can spot it somewhere.”
The cyborg turns and irritatedly storms back to the steps, expecting to find…well, if not everyone, most of the other people there. Dreams, she reminds herself mid-stride. They’re not people, they’re Dreams. This is my dream, and no one else can enter.
Can they?
She suppressed the train of thought with a pinched grimace and flicks the wall nearby. The cyborg stops at the top of the stairs and crassly hollers to any of the crew in sight (or earshot): “Who of you can open doors? Or make door panels open, that also works?”
Alexis breathed a sigh of relief, if the Beast decided to show itself there could be the possibility of the other two alerting her, now thoroughly convinced there wasn’t too much of a threat Alexis returned attention to Basil.
Alexis was taken aback to say the least, she hadn’t expected the child to apologize to her, especially considering the circumstances, Unfortunately, Alexis was no stranger to what Basil was experiencing. Feeling the need to say sorry for something that was completely out of your control was quite common when she was ill, it didn’t help that her illness was quite clearly worsening the already fragile rift between her parents. “No no no, don’t apologize, it’s not your fault.”
Alexis had completely tuned out her surroundings as she tried to find a way to comfort Basil without worsening the situation, well all except
Alexis’ eyes darted straight from Basil to the metal lady with an almost frenzied madness, to say she was beyond excited to hear there was some form of electronics in the area was quite the understatement. “Where?” she finally answered as she slowly stood up as to not scare the already shaken Basil.
Eve gazes down at the woman below. Shorter than her, dressed in a labcoat full of pockets, black hair. She seems enthusiastic. Overly enthusiastic, considering the situation. Then again, given their imprisonment in this strange place, she could just be eager to do something that isn’t standing around.
Eve raises a hand, flexing her knife-fingers for a moment before point behind her with a thumb. “Over here,” she grates monolithically. “Keep up.”
The cyborg turns and stalks all the way back to the panel, expecting the other to follow.
Alexis nods and turns back to look at Basil. “I’ll be right back, we’re going to try to find a way out of here, once we do, I’ll be right back.” She then turned to the man in the suit, gave a nod, and finally joined the metal lady on her way back towards the panel. @Ghid @Diero
Eve says nothing the whole time, until the duo finally arrive at the room. Eve points to the panel and then to the doorway. “Found that earlier. Door didn’t open to small hands and none of you could lift me high enough to open it with mine. We found that, and then the talking fish-”
Eve pauses, wonders at the strangeness of her sentence, and then continues. “-and then the talking fish can running in screaming something about badges or shinies. And the eyeball girl assumed it meant that we needed a badge or card or chip or something to open it.”
She stops and turns her head to glower at Alexis. “So. Can you open it, somehow? Did you find some mysteriously done up card that fits conveniently in the slot?”
Basil’s eyes quivered, failing to break from his leg.
“It wouldn’t have happened.” He protested, finding his voice only to shun himself with its words. “I could have stopped it, I-”
“You-”
Basil’s head rotated to follow her as she departed. His voice seemed to leave with her as well, his watery eyes traveling back down towards Miles, and then down at his self-inflicted injury again. The hands under the blanket crawled closer to his own throat.
Good idea, she should make herself useful. She watched Eve head back to the others… down the stairs, toward the room that was at the bottom of the stairs and also at the top of the stairs… this place made no sense.
Maybe it really was a dream. Eve seemed to think it was. But if it was a dream, it must be hers. She didn’t remember any dreams where she could see before. Well, she didn’t remember much at all, but how would a blind person know what seeing was like to dream about it? Unless this wasn’t what seeing was like, and maybe–
Okay, this was getting nowhere. Enough thought, time to do. She looked at the wall panel to try and determine how it worked. This lasted all of two seconds before she realized that visual inspection was useless for one who had never seen a wall panel, and also had no idea how keycards worked. She then opted to take her own advice and went to open one of the doors. Maybe this might reveal more than muck.
A part of her resolved it as a challenge. Let’s see if I can find a way to open the door before the tall one does!
“As long as you can boost me up there, I should be able to work something out with it.” Alexis took a note of how strange that must’ve sounded to the metal lady, well might’ve sounded; from what she said, being able to talk to machines wouldn’t come close to the weirdest thing the metal lady experienced today. “Just don’t tear my feet to shreds.” She added as she approached the hatch.
There was no visible slot, or any indicator of any kind for access. Simply a green panel. Maybe it didn’t need a key?
The door swung open with a slow creak, revealing…
Muck. A really good amount of muck. It was all piled in one corner, as if someone had planted a muck seed there and it had sprouted into a beautiful muck lump. Thoroughly revolting, to say the least, although the room seemed to be furnished nicer than the others.
Maybe this wasn’t the best option.
There was a… peculiar sensation.
Was it coming from the ceiling or the wall? Was it near or far away? No, it had to be close, or it couldn’t feel so… Strong. Like a pulsing sensation of blood, only thousands of times faster. Tens of thousands of times.
Whoa, don’t get overwhelmed. That sensation - it was like feeling for a pulse under the skin. It was like… Feeling the vein, the exact location of the artery, except… Feeling it with your mind. It seemed to run across the wall and the ceiling, and if you decided to focus, you could almost feel an exact path between the panel on the wall and the hatch above.
Kinda sus ngl