Waking up is hard to do

[got_burned]

[Note: This is seriously backdated.]

It's dark. Dark and enveloping, in the same way that water is wet and drowning. It's no comfort, no help, because there's something profoundly wrong with it being dark

Comments

FINALLY getting around to Maddy intro, holy crap.

[maddyhbic]

Madeline Westen, for a lack of a better word, had been feeling frazzled lately.

Well... more frazzled than usual. Michael had up and left again, leaving Sam in that usual job of looking out for her. And as usual, she let Sam know she hadn't forgotten about the sun room and occasionally forced him into going to partner stretching with her, much to his annoyance.

She was by herself today though. She figured forcing Sam into doing Aqua Aerobics with her might be pushing it. She dried off her hair with a bright purple towel from the house as she finished dressing herself in the locker room after class. She checked the clock on the wall. Sam wasn't picking her up for another ten minutes.

Maddy sighed and leaned against the mirror on the wall. She began to fish through her bag for her pack of cigarettes when the lights began to flicker on and off.

And she feels a sudden pull behind her.

[got_burned]

Michael resists looking too closely at the state of his car as he moves to open the trunk, ignoring the resumption of the pounding in his head and chin from the earlier impact.

It only takes a moment, but the trunk opens to reveal nothing but a continual blackness.

It's empty.

He slams the trunk lid shut with more force than is strictly required, a distinct glower on his schooled features.

[maddyhbic]

Madeline wonders if she's bumped her head or something as the lights come back on and there's a solid feeling on her back again.

Because the locker room has suddenly changed into a mirrored elevator that isn't quite moving yet.

Maddy's suspicious, but she presses the button for the lobby anyway.

[got_burned]

Where in the living hell is Fiona?

He turns that scowl on the building his car landed in front of: the hotel she'd said the oddest things about earlier. About how it doesn't let people leave.

Someone has gotten to her, like they're trying to get to him. And he's not playing this game any more. He moves around the car again, reaching in through the passenger window to open the glove compartment and find his sunglasses-- yes, they were put right back there too, it appears-- then he hooks them into the collar of his t-shirt, tucks the Charger's keys into his jeans pocket and stalks toward the imposing building.

[got_burned]

There's a protracted pause between the time he finishes dialling and the click-click-click that heralds a non-connection.

He reaches out and resets the line, though his watchful gaze continues to sweep the hotel's foyer, as if searching for clues.

Dial tone. Check.
Sounds as he dials. Check.
Pause.
Click-click-click ... and then, dead air.

Michael is a stubborn man at the best of times. Unsatisfied with this outcome, he reaches into his shirt pocket for his cellphone, and repeats the process over again.

The routine is a little different, but the outcome fails to change. After five more attempts, Michael changes tack, to see if a text message can make it through. For agonising moments, the Sending... message blinks on the screen. With each passing moment, his patience wears thinner.

Delivery failed. Save for later Y/N?

Michael gives in to his irritation and makes a barely-muffled, growled sound of incoherent frustration as he smacks the cellphone repeatedly against his forehead.

[maid_of_kandar]

Sheila's watched Michael's attempt at trying to get a line out with some consternation. She still only has a rudimentary knowledge of how phones work - enough to contact Ash, or to call the authorities. The cell-phone smacking's what concerns her, even if it's not a hard whack. "Sir..." Then she tries more firmly. "Michael, please...ye shall open a fresh wound."

She just doesn't want him to hurt himself.

[got_burned]

Michael pauses in his self-inflicted assault, the cellphone clutched in his hand as it rests against his forehead, and takes a deep breath as he leans an elbow on the counter.

Even with the wonders of modern technology, you're still going to find black holes of communication. Whether it's the mountains of Afghanistan or the backwaters of Ohio, there's going to be a place somewhere on the globe no matter what where you just can't get immediate word out unless you've got a carrier pigeon handy.

Sometimes, kind of like right now, the notion to self-immolate sounds really appealing.

He doesn't look up, or at her; instead he closes his eyes as if drawing from some unidentified source of inner strength in order to continue.

"You know, I didn't catch your name," he says, the overly-cheery act dropped. This is serious business, and she may well know a lot that he doesn't.

[maid_of_kandar]

It is indeed serious business, isn't it? "Sheila," she says simply. Telling him she's thirteenth century nobility won't exactly endear her to him, so she doesn't say this. "As I said, I am a friend of Fiona's, and the building is the property of..." calling Ash her lover sounds gauche and unladylike to her ears. "...An intimate friend."

[got_burned]

There's not much to analyse about something being thrown out of a window, but the choice of missile can in fact tell you a lot about the person who performed the defenestration. More often than not, though, you'll learn a lot more just by looking up.

Michael lifts a hand to visor his eyes from the diffuse Michigan daylight as he glances up at the building's exterior, standing clear of the shattered chair limbs lying attendant in a pool of diamond shards of safety glass. The chair's brocade-upholstered remnants tell him that it was from a room intended for a hotel guest, and not a conference room.

Rapidly he finds the curtain billowing out of the now forcibly open window, and makes a note of the floor. He has to get up there, and now, so he begins to move swiftly inside-- that is, before he sees his mother leaving the building.

Dammit, can't she do anything he asks?

"Ma," he says as he approaches, "I told you to stay inside!"

[erin_go_boom]

As if to illustrate the need for Maddy to take cover, a small comet sails through the broken window. Correction: a Molotov cocktail, aimed for the pile of chair debris.

[got_burned]

His attention diverted, he doesn't see the flaming missile until it shatters on the pavement behind him, bringing with it a whoomph of heat at his back as he reflexively ducks, simultaneously moving towards and in front of his mother to shield her.

[erin_go_boom]

High above, he can just make out the sounds of gunfire. Possibly the work of a H&K USP Compact.