Night 55, Main Hallway 2-Center

[swornandbroken]

[from here]He'd seen pins whose meaning he wasn't certain of, on other people's berets, a sword and shield the main one. Given Aguilar's fixation on results, and on the prisoners' proving their worth, Mello had to wonder if they'd be seeing a weeding-out of those who hadn't faced ordeals deemed worthy of pins. He was both disturbed and strangely

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[product_of_fear]

As the patients approached the hallways overlooking the sun room, they would start to realise that there was something very wrong with the area. It began gradually, the floor underfoot slowly transitioning from the normal subdued colours of the institute to blackened and scorched flooring that only became more damaged the further they moved on until each step creaked ominously, as though the brittle floor were about to give out below them

[bodhiandspirit]

Rita wasn't entirely satisfied with Morgan's reply. "What kind of chemicals?" she demanded, but he was already well into the next section of the hall. "Hey!"

Who did he think he was, stringing her along with just a bare-bones explanation!? If Rita walked off right then and there, what was he going to do if a monster came along? Hit it with his flashlight? Hmph.

When Rita caught up, she shot Morgan a cold look... but her attention was soon drawn to the bizarre sight that he was staring at. She edged closer to the railing, but kept what she deemed to be a safe distance. Whatever was happening there... it wasn't normal. No, not just that. It wasn't possibleA sense of dread began to well up inside her, and she could feel the hair on her neck stand on end

[swornandbroken]

"The kind you can make a bomb with," Mello snapped, irritated into giving away more of his plan than he might otherwise have done.

It was too bad for the poor bastards who tried to go through the Sun Room, he was thinking, glad it wasn't his problem, when something that most assuredly was his problem began to manifest

[product_of_fear]

Despite the area, the broken walls and the gaping ceiling, Mello's voice seemed to echo strangely, coming back to them like hollow warning, similar but not exactly the same as what he'd said.

"Get out of here."

At once, several other voices joined in, creating a chorus of breathy whispers that seemed to come from all around them, all of which had the same message for the patients.

"Get away. Run while you can."

But with the walls broken down and barely there, it was hard to tell where there was to run too.

[bodhiandspirit]

The color drained from Rita's face as each utterance reached her ears. What were those voices? There wasn't anyone around, so where the hell did they come from!? It wasn't like they could be ghosts or anything...

No. Absolutely not. Those didn't exist. It was preposterous to even think about it.

For the time being, Rita had to agree with running. She turned away from the figure and took several hasty steps in the opposite direction... but ahead of her, she couldn't see any place to run or hide. Where was this, anyway!? It didn't feel like they'd moved anywhere, so they had to still be in the institute, but...

"Where!?" she cried, her voice uncharacteristically shrill. "Where the hell are we supposed to run to!?"

[swornandbroken]

"Back the way we came," Mello said, still in a mutter that was all but uninflected. He didn't want to look, but it was irresistible, had been ingrained in him for far too long that knowing was better than not, that understanding erased fear. He doubted that was the case here. But he saw nothing but disintegrating walls and flickers now, hints at horrific sights, no more.

He couldn't tell if Mordio were close anymore or not. His arm was still out, blocking the path he was reasonably sure was the last she'd take, and he let it fall, and took a desperate guess. "Close your eyes," he ordered. He was doing the same, but it wasn't stopping the whispers. Get out, they said, not as insidious as the bugs, but there was something of the same quality in them, a sly knowing that made Mello grit his teeth. He told himself the floor was still solid beneath his boots, not sure if it were the power of suggestion, or something else, making him feel that a wrong step would send him crashing down into whatever the hell that was in the sun room

[product_of_fear]

"Nowhere," came a whisper in answer to Rita, quiet enough that Mello's voice seemed as though it should have drowned it out, but yet it was still perfectly audible to the pair.

The area fell deathly silent as they started to move backwards, only the shifting of the ash-like dirt making any noise at all, and they might almost believe that they were going to get away, escape whatever was here, whatever may have befallen the still figure hanging there--

The figure that wasn't so still after all. Even at this distance, they would be able to see as it slowly lifted its head presumably to look in their direction, and a faint voice rasped; "Help..."

Maybe it was the plea for help or maybe it was Mello's defiance, but it only seemed to anger the voices they'd heard earlier, and what had been whispers rose to a wordless roar that became the roar and crackle of flames behind them, barring their exit... Unless they felt like trying to push through the barrier.

[bodhiandspirit]

Rita didn't need to be told to shut her eyes; she'd already done so, hoping that when she opened them again, the sights around her would begin to make sense again... but there was no such luck. As the voices rose around them, the fear in Rita also rose... but the roar of flames seemed to temporarily snap her back to her senses

[swornandbroken]

The shadowed figure was a trick, Mello was sure, and Mordio gained some points with him for her question. This whole thing had to be some variation on the Institute's night-time idiocy, an implied threat: run, or suffer this. He resolutely did not look down, but the ground felt different nevertheless. Gritty, unstable, on the verge of collapse, like something he'd felt before...

He told himself the flames were just as much of a trick, that it was impossible for him to feel heat coming off them. That the throb of renewed ache on the left side of his face was psychosomatic, no more. He'd damn well been healed up enough to visit Lidner right before he got dragged here; there was no sane reason the pain should flare up so freshly-remembered. Except for how that's the one time you admit to failure, the bugs chattered. Not at all shocking that it's physically painful.

Fuck you, it wasn't a failure, Mello retorted, still fighting them, though he knew they were right in this one case. It was a strategic retreat.Speaking of which. He caught

[product_of_fear]

"Please..." the distant figure begged. "No, it's coming..."

The flames flickered and roared, leaping higher and reaching for the patients right in front of them, the heat a promise of blistered and blackened skin. It was enough noise and heat that it might be possible to miss the breeze which stirred the area in front of them, sending dead leaves rattling across the ground and making the suspended patient moan in fear, his voice merging with the sound of the wind itself.

All at once, the voices returned in a rush, loud and breathless around Rita's ears as the very air seemed to try and ensnare her hair and clothing, pulling and dragging at her from all directions.

"You should have listened!"

[bodhiandspirit]

The offered hand went ignored at first, as Rita was still focused on the fire. The warning the figure gave them fed a sense of urgency in her, and as the wind rattled ominously, Rita decided it was time to act. "Fine. If we aren't going that way, then we'll go this way." Taking a step away from the flames, she began chanting a spell in a low voice. Her free hand faced the fire with its palm facing outward. Below her feet, a blue light in the shape of a magic circle appeared. Countless flecks of blue light began to rise from the circle as she continued chanting, containing the very essence of water within them.

Rita did her best to focus, to block out what was happening around her, to think only of extinguishing the flames and creating an escape route...

But it was no good.

The voices that assaulted her ears tore her focus away from the magic, and in an instant, the blue light was gone. Also gone were Rita's senses, at least for that fearful moment.

"Eeeyaaahhh!!With that shrill cry, Rita darted behind Morgan, clutching the fabric

[swornandbroken]

The hot air stirred Mello's hair, and the pain of the burn, remembered and illusory or not, hadn't faded. He gritted his teeth, and fought the instinct that screamed at him to run.

The babble of the whispering voices, he couldn't fight so easily. It was indistinct, but Mello's imagination filled in the gaps all too readily: the invective he lived with, redoubled. Who knows what Matt's facing back there, and it's because of you. Your fault he's dead, your fault he's here for them to do this to him. Ten days, and you've failed already. You'll go home, assuming you get home at all, to a world where you're beaten. The twit's solved it by now, you know he has, the victory all his; or he's lost, and that makes you third, doesn't it? Makes you nothing, a piece that couldn't even stay on the board long enough for the endgame."No," he said, under his breath, and turned to face the girl; watched with some surprise as her chanting called up the blue light. He'd seen plenty of things that shouldn't have been possible here, but not like this. No