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Post by ∆§Indea§∆ on Dec 3, 2012 15:51:34 GMT -8
Half of Micah decided that it must have been Bart and the guy was not possessed, other more paranoid part was not convinced. Unfortunately the latter was probably more sensible at this point. Nevertheless whatever was in the gallery downstairs held more fear than the owl man, so he continued to scurry after him in the curving hallway. Hallways weren't meant to curve, either the architect had gone mad in the process of building the art school or something else was causing it to twist. Maybe Micah had gone mad? Was he in reality, holed up in some institution in Australia giggling and dribbling into a straightjacket...It was fucking possible he guessed. Oh Fuck. The reflecting images in the glass warped his features and the parts of his hair that weren't drenched in sweat stuck out in odd angles, causing him to look even more the madman. Quivering in fear, Micah continued onwards in the hopes of some escape. Or at the very least catching up with the owl man, if he was indeed fucking crazy, insanity with company was better than nothing.
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Post by ◊◊BLOODBEASTER◊◊ on Dec 4, 2012 6:59:02 GMT -8
Micah stumbled down the hall, feeling like his head was swimming. The strange gray light mixed with the pink to blow out the environment in a hideous brightness the likes of which he hadn't seen since everything began and the world had become lit by candlelight. He moved, the image of himself reflected in the mirror-like posters distracting and disorienting. He heard faint voices from the end of the hall. American accents, but he couldn't make out the words. It sounded like genial chatter, like a very subdued party. Bzzt-- a fly bounced off the side of his head as he moved forward. More of them did lazy circles in the air, bloated and large. The hall kept curving until he could no longer see the point he'd come from. Just these endless posters, endless firmly closed doors... Was he running? The flies seemed thicker here, they crawled along the ceiling, buzzing past his head. He took a hard sniff in through his nose, and tasted blood. The wetness on his face... It wasn't sweat. His fingers came back darkly red. A nose bleed... That's why he didn't smell it until it was too late.
He gagged at the sight.
To the right of the hall, which ended abruptly at a rather sharp angle, was a large open room. It was a very small gallery, perhaps just one for the use of students. This one had been cleared out, and was strangely dark compare to the beaming glow of the rest of the hall. The man stood in the center of the room, looking at a completely blank wall like it was rather interesting. At his feet were swollen and darkened corpses, fluids running from the remains of their eyes and mouths, their faces unrecognizable. The clothing that strained at their decomposing bloat were fashionable and youthful. Striped stockings, colorful t-shirts printed with geometric patterns, expensive and complicated footwear. The corpses lolled, pushed against the walls despite the stiffening of their limbs. Like a child had arranged them for a tea party. When Micah looked at them, those vague voices stopped, suddenly. The man turned to look at him with a pleasant expression. ???- "Excuse me, do you know when the caterer is due to arrive? We'll need the refreshments set up somewhere over here. You know the first Thursday crowd." Micah felt paralyzed as the man talked, his eyes seemed to glint in the light. He moved oddly as well, like he had a skateboard beneath his feet, but Micah couldn't move his eyes from the man's gaze. The man slowly slid forward, almost inperceptibly.
???- "You kids might not believe it, but I'm very young to be starting my own gallery. It's just an amazing opportunity. It's too bad so few of you can feel the camaraderie I've found in the community here.
I just hope you don't turn to anti-intellectualism, graffiti, that sort of thing. That's what all the kids are doing these days. It's like just because art is no longer defined by the classic concepts, people think it can be anything. Well, if it's got no mind, no heart, I just don't think it can be art." A fly lazily buzzed in front of Micah's gaze, and snapped him out of his reverie. The man was growing closer, his face impassive but those eyes begging for Micah to look at them. The man's feet brushed against the ground lightly, like he was floating in a swimming pool, the toes of his pointed dress shoes barely scraping the surface of the tiles. He had colorful aqua colored socks with purple polka dots. ???- "Did you know that wine is good for the heart? Maybe that's why all those rich guys are gonna live to a hundred and three. I hope we can get a good vintage, but it could be two buck Chuck and they wouldn't know."
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Post by Thy Dungyeon Maestyr on Dec 4, 2012 7:14:15 GMT -8
???- "Are you the caterer? We really need to get this wine set up here. The ravening crowds will be here soon and the preview crowd here could use some loosening up." The man's uncanny slide suddenly turned into a blur of motion. He was getting close.
???- "Loosen up."
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Post by ∆§Indea§∆ on Dec 4, 2012 21:15:46 GMT -8
The heat began to eat it's way into his head, his thoughts were becoming sluggish and increasingly fearful. The grey light played erratically with the pink glow of his flare, which he clutched like a beacon of sanity against his increasing hysteria. The metallic taste of blood still held his tongue and the smell mingled with the bloated liquid smell of death that invaded his senses with it. A thought made it way through his mind carelessly, it was the mad hatter's party... Happy unbirthday. Micah guessed it was happy fucking undead party but they weren't zombies and hadn't they been talking...The decayed lifeless bodies almost seemed to smirk at him and in some bizarre way he felt like some jerk who had come to a party uninvited . ..The owl man turned from where he stood.. Micah's paranoia was smug, it hadn't been Bart after all, had it Micah? No and now he was fucked. His stomach felt as if it were boiling and bubbling, the urge to scream building like a thousand of those bloated flies crawling through his bowels...but it seem to get stuck somewhere in his throat. He was lost in the pale glow of those blue eyes that seemed to take everything in. A fly, perhaps an escapee from his mouth broke his focus and his hands began to convulse like he was an attraction at some sick ghost train, the axe murderer. Only the owl man was... had he done all this, or was he like Micah feared he was and just a madman. Micah felt the urge to scream grow stronger, it had begun to move again that or was he going to chunder.. it was hard to know, all he could discern was an immense pressure failing to make it to his lips. Micah wasn't sure what was worse if owl man was just a man or something more... “Loosen up.” The wretched scream broke finally erupting from his lips like air hissing from a balloon and he felt movement return to his limbs and he scuttled away from the man like a broken puppet. His limbs felt heavy and the movement of one leg after the other seemed to cause his lungs to scream out in pain. Nevertheless the scream still continued into a howl that seemed to exist of it's own accord. He ran out into the hall the flies buzzing in his ears and crawling over his skin, taking an intense interest in the blood that still trickled from his nose. In another state he would have done something about it but in this moment Micah was interested in nothing but moving away from the wretched owl man and his fucked up party. Micah scurried through the hall in the hopes of finding the staircase again and getting away from whatever the Owl man was...
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Post by ◊◊BLOODBEASTER◊◊ on Dec 5, 2012 2:27:20 GMT -8
Micah dashed down the hall which now seemed even longer than it had the way in. The endless curve made him wonder if he was just running a circuit on a giant loop. Door after unmarked door rushing past him. He nearly couldn't believe it when he saw it-- the stairwell door. He flung himself inside, he was losing bits of time in his panic. He was already several flights down before he realized it, wondering whether he should have gone up after all. The heat grew as he descended, the flies buzzing was louder and they were thicker, swarming in clouds and crawling on every surface. He was sure he was smashing them beneath his feet until his shoes felt gummy. He was dumping sweat and it felt like he was running toward some unattended boiler room. He had to skid to a stop on the slippery stairs. The stairs were blocked by neatly stacked chairs. Not just a few, at least a hundred. Navy blue plastic molded into an organic swoop of the seat, with dull silver legs. They were stacked side by side, all the way to the top of the stairs above. Then, they moved. The bottom row seemed to push out all at once, falling over as they hit the landing. There was another row behind, and they slid forward to fill the space. Then, the movement was less neat. Chairs began tumbling forward chaotically, but somehow staying mostly attached in a giant mass. A few chairs flung free wildly, one was particularly violent as it was ejected, bouncing off the wall and knocking into Micah with a powerful force, luckily only slamming him into the railing. The stairwell was filled with a hellacious clatter that Micah recalled from earlier. He could only flee as the chairs were tossed around by an invisible force.
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Post by Thy Dungyeon Maestyr on Dec 5, 2012 2:43:45 GMT -8
He couldn't make any better time with parkour moves going up - just had to run as fast as possible, hooking a hand around the railing to help reverse directions at landings without losing momentum, plastic and metal clamoring behind him at every moment.
He ran around the corner, and saw a vague grayish light pouring out from an open door, and a now familiar face peering out of it, with very eerie pale blue eyes. He regarded Micah with a slight nod, and then lightly shook his head and sighed. Pale-eyed man- "It's not safe down here, man. It's not safe. You should go back upstairs." He couldn't even slow down as he approached. He was going to have to run past him, somehow, chairs exploding behind him.
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Post by ∆§Indea§∆ on Dec 5, 2012 16:41:30 GMT -8
Micah was fighting the urge to vomit as he raced upwards, the sound of crashing behind him from the storm of chairs, threatening to swallow him up if he slowed down. The pain in his back from the earlier blow was a growing ache. His clothing stuck to his skin, the heat still clouding his judgement. As he drew on the leaking grey light of the door, the Owl man's odd gaze was a mere flash as the rumble of chairs echo behind him. “SHITTING MOVE, YOU DICK!” Micah screamed at the man, waving the hatchet around as he moved past. He continued up the stairs, trying not to look behind him. He was going to heed the man's advice and get the fuck up those stairs, he just hoped that there was something at the top to escape to. Being crushed by chairs was not on his list of ways to die. At one point he slipped, forcing himself on all fours for a tense moment before regaining his gait, racing towards the top of the staircase.
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Post by ◊◊BLOODBEASTER◊◊ on Dec 5, 2012 17:15:25 GMT -8
Micah slammed open the door to the 6th floor and tumbled out into the hall. As the door was closing, he though he heard a faint voice calling out his name. His heart pounded in what felt like his throat, and black dots began to form on the corners of his vision. He slumped against a wall, and drifted down, his eyelids feeling very, very heavy. He noticed the overcast daylight pouring in from the window next to him, and then he was out.
Micah is unconscious.
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Post by ◊◊BLOODBEASTER◊◊ on Dec 5, 2012 17:29:51 GMT -8
Alex and Seth came running into the 6th floor, weapons drawn. Right in front of the door, Micah lay, slumped against the wall with a bloody face. The hall was quiet, and seemed about how they'd last left it. The two men scrambled to the un-moving man, checking his pulse to find him alive, but unconscious. Blood had trickled out of his nose and mouth, and soaked the front of his shirt a bit. He seemed otherwise unharmed, to the eye at least. Seth- "We gotta get him out of here... He's a pretty small guy, maybe we can carry him?"
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DKender
Only One Skeleton has the Power to Control both Life and Death, Light and Dark, Words and Blank Space, Our Humble Lives Continue Only by the Grace and Magnanimity of This Skeleton
Nay, let us walk from fire unto firey skeleton ...
Posts: 9,204
Gender: Unknown Skeleton
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Post by DKender on Dec 5, 2012 18:31:16 GMT -8
"Yeah, he's not much heavier than one fifty. I can take him. Just won't be able to fight." Seth put the shotgun away and took Alex's flare.Though the situation was urgent - the demon and its ghost army could be moments away - Alex cautiously pulled Micah's limp body from the wall and ground to avoid exacerbating hidden injuries. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he arranged Micah across his shoulders via the old-fashioned fireman's carry technique. This unfortunately required the use of both hands: the sledgehammer was discarded. Alex stood straight with a grunt. "Uhh. Heavier than I figured. S'okay. I won the couple's carry race with Carly twice." Granted, she'd been five feet tall and just one hundred pounds. But he'd grown much stronger since high school, anyway. Seth nodded and looked at the stairwell door in anticipation."Let's go!" Seth moved into the stairwell torch first, and held the door for Alex. Once Alex was inside, he took up the lead position again.
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Post by Thy Dungyeon Maestyr on Dec 5, 2012 19:33:14 GMT -8
The stairs were getting old. Black black black, pink flare light on the shiny grey concrete between dark voids, narrow passages, the hiss of fire and the squeak of shoes and the healthy huffs of their breaths. They were definitely starting to feel the exertion again. Seth- "I wonder what this guy saw. After everything, you'd think it'd take a lot to make a guy pass out." Another odd noise gave Seth pause. Was that coming from right in front of him? He angled the torch differently and saw... Scraps of plastic and metal, sliding over the wall like an oil slick, dripping upwards? There were only three floors to get from the 6th to street level, or six flights of stairs.
If the chair monster was near, would it be worth the risk to just try to get down there?
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Post by ◊◊BLOODBEASTER◊◊ on Dec 5, 2012 19:58:49 GMT -8
Seth- "We gotta just go! I'm gonna run ahead but I don't want to leave you in the dark...!" Seth dashed down the flight of stairs and peered around the corner to the next.
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DKender
Only One Skeleton has the Power to Control both Life and Death, Light and Dark, Words and Blank Space, Our Humble Lives Continue Only by the Grace and Magnanimity of This Skeleton
Nay, let us walk from fire unto firey skeleton ...
Posts: 9,204
Gender: Unknown Skeleton
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Post by DKender on Dec 5, 2012 20:28:22 GMT -8
As Seth took off, Alex stared at the moving scraps of rubbish like they were the world's most poisonous and aggressive spiders. "Shout ... if stuff starts ... flyin' around!" His speech already sounded labored. "I can go down the stairs fast with Micah, but if we got to run back up to escape tele ... telekinesis ... that won't be easy." He followed at a quick pace, though the weight on his shoulders made Alex feel clumsy, and he strained to see in the faint light. One foot after the other. No time to be afraid. The staircase wound on and on. Suddenly and surreally, Alex felt like Sir Galahad. Yeeeah. He was Sir Galahad escaping a damned castle with the evil lord's prisoner. Would that make Seth King Arthur? Well, look-wise, Slugger probably made a better Lancelot. Absorbed in the fantasy, Alex's fear ebbed, and his pace quickened.
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Post by Thy Dungyeon Maestyr on Dec 5, 2012 23:16:00 GMT -8
As Alex neared the next landing, Seth raced down to the one after it and paused. Alex could see Seth, but not what he was looking at, his face contorted in concern and strain, searching. ((ooc- chris wrote these clunky phrases. my bad.)) Sir Galahad felt a moment's unease hauling the evil lord's prisoner past the inverted cascade of mysterious debris, but then it was done...
Until the next set of stairs brought them close to that wall again. Flowing around the cracks in the corners of the stairwell, shards of chairs, moving like a fluid. Seth stood next to it, looking down to the next level, looking up to see Alex's progress. Seth- "Come on champ! One more!" As before, the stairs grew darkest before the last step, unnatural shade dimming the pink torch to practically nil, Alex having to test each new stair with a foot to make sure he was stepping right, until...
Success! They emerged into the grey-lit lobby and hustled to the door. Seth held it open for Alex with a look of pride.
RETURN TO WESTLAKE-THE STREETS
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