Principal In Yellow IC [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

UncleWolf

2013-12-30, 03:53 AM

Danforth Memorial High School wasn't exactly the best of places to be sent for an education. It wasn't the lack of funding, nor the fact that the teachers cared, but instead simply for the fact that the entire place was so damned intimidating to look at and stay in. It'd been in the city for at least a century that records can show, though no one can really say who built the place as records of the process had burned in The Great Fire of 1929 along with the blueprints. As a result, rooms got added without regards to what they were covering. After decades of such actions, there were entire areas sealed off from the rest of the complex and rumor had it that there were secret passages practically everywhere.

Every once in a while a student or teacher would uncover such a place, sometimes with the result of police being called in to investigate things that were found. The administration never reveals what's found though, and most of the students that find the chambers usually end up transferred out before anyone can ask them what happened either. The majority of the time, many of the chambers get sealed in with cement and the school board generally refuses to answer questions about what was in there except for a couple words.

"Nothing Good."

The school itself is quite a massive Gothic affair built from stone and iron and measuring over a square city block in size with three floors above ground and basements in several spots. Most of those are used for storage, but the largest is used for the Library and Detention area. Above that, the ground floor is reserved for Life Sciences and Mathematics, the second is for History, Psychology, other Social Studies, while the third and final floor is for The Arts. In the very center of it all are three different atriums separated by three hallways that meet at the school's memorial. The memorial itself has long since vanished in time and the copper plaque has corroded over the years to the point where even the janitorial staff can't clean it. Even so, the memorial stays year after year.

The three atriums are different from one another as well. The first, towards the front of the school, is open to the sky and houses several small trees planted on grass. The second, going clockwise, is the 'indoor' track for the gym classes. Finally, the third is reserved for Botany Class' overly large greenhouse.

Surrounding the school, outside the 20ft wide moat of fresh lawn and cedar trees, is an 8ft tall stone wall topped with wrought iron 'spears'.

The strangest part about it all though, was simply the fact that the place had only one entrance, the main gate, which could be sealed shut by a double gate of iron bars.

Overall, this was far from a friendly place, but that was school for you.

This being Saturday, it was even less friendly. Especially since it was detention at 5pm in the afternoon and you were expected to stay until 10pm writing God-knows what report the teacher wanted you to do. So, one by one, whether by car,walking, or bus, each of you have arrived.

At the gate, roster in hand, is Superintendent McCormick. He's a short man, barely 5ft 2inches tall, but his anger more than makes up for his small stature. Even without any snide remarks yet he's red in the face since he's had to come here on his day off. "Alright, let's see today's Dirty Dozen. The Chem Thief, Ma-Ti with The Power of HEART!!, Miss Frequent Flier, Captain Karaoke, Little Ms. Latina-Tude, and last but certainly not least, Mouthy Molly. Let's head in before the November night gets too near at hand." Unlike most of the school staff, Mr. McCormick had absolutely no issues with making his feelings known to the students. A couple of the students probably know the way by heart by now, but after ten minutes of walking, unlocking doors, relocking doors, and traveling down stairs, the group reaches the library. For the others it's just confusing as hell.

Left. Right. Straight through two locked doors. Left and through one locked door. Unlock the basement door on the right side of the hallway and take the staircase down. Take the door and hallway to the library. Unlock and enter.

With a flick of the light switches the lights don't come on. Not at first.It takes a few moments but after warming up the fluorescent lights flicker to life slowly, filling the room with the unnaturally soft glow they give off. This is perhaps the largest of the basements and is absolutely packed to the brim with books, and lacks even a single computer or printer which is going to make the report writing ever more miserable. Once inside, McCormick sits at the head of the table and pulls out his worn copy of Watership Down to read as he addresses the students.

"Okay, you all have five hours to research and write a three page paper on any poet of your choice. You have to have four sources and must reference them. APA style." He says blandly without looking up. " And please make it readable. Any failure to comply means suspension." He adds.

With it being 5:13, that meant a good deal less time could be spent slacking off.

An hour in and the Superintendent refuses to answer questions still, claiming that they have all the resources at their disposal.

That's when the nosebleeds start. At precisely 6:15PM, the students feel a stabbing agony slam between their eyes, forcing them to crumple to the ground as their noses refuse to stop bleeding and their stomachs tighten with the pain. Screams can be heard, but they are hard to tell if they are someone else's or your own.

After a brief moment, peace finally comes...

The young woman finds herself standing on the beach during sunset, watching the silent waves come in and out. For miles around there's not a single creature at the white sand beach except for one other besides herself.

The figure stands perhaps twenty feet away, wearing a white dress shirt and a pair of black slacks that match his short hair. It's hard to see anything about his face, but the way the being carries itself while the sand rises up between it's toes tells her that whoever this is isn't concerned in the least.

Hello, my darling. The man tells her. It won't be too much longer. He says in a singsong voice. It won't be much longer until we find one another and I can barely count the days. We will have so much to do when we finally meet, but for now, it's time to wake up. He starts, still not turning around to reveal his face.

Noemi will find herself waking up, blood on her face as she and the rest of the school group begin to get their bearings in the now mostly dark library. Only one of the lamps remain able to put off weak light to be replaced when someone better comes along. One question should be on everyone's minds...

What the hell happened?

Murska

2013-12-30, 12:00 PM

Thomas Remmings

"Guh..." With a groan, Thomas carefully lifts his head from where it had been resting on top of his notes. Which were no longer fit for use. Well, no great loss.

He looks around, having been too absorbed in his own suffering to follow the others. Those bookshelves sure did suck in the light - he'd never realized how dark a library could get. On the plus side, he could complain that there was no way to write a paper without proper lighting.

"...what was that?"

5a Violista

2013-12-31, 08:41 PM

Shadya Aminah Daniau
Earlier
Shadya came here by car, with one of her fellow cheerleaders driving and two others in the back seat, having come from a day out in the mall, where she bought the skirt and slightly-revealing blue top that she's wearing. Before walking up to the school gate, Shadya gave her ritual goodbyes to her friends.

After the Roll Call, she said, "Look on the bright side, Mr. McCormick: only two more detentions and I might get my free trip to France."

In the Library, Shadya spend most of her time texting and holding open a book in front of her phone. Her essay was hardly started: she had finally decided on a poet who wrote about wartime.

Now
By the time the lights went out, her phone has approximately 3 1/2 hours left of normal (i.e. nigh-constant) use left before its battery dies and needs to be charged.

She pulls herself off the ground, and uses her phone light to inspect her shirt. Shoot, she got a little bit of her blood on her new top. She pulls her compact mirror out of her purse to see where most the blood from her nose got to. Got to get it all gone before anybody looks at her, after all.

She stands up and, using her phone as a flashlight (It's so much brighter than that dim flickering lamp, anyway), she starts to look around for someone else. She hears Thomas talk and begins to walk towards him, shining her phone to not run into a bookcase. "Who cares?" she responds to his question. "It just means we get to go home early."

Lord Magtok

2014-01-01, 09:17 PM

Noemi Portillo

Eurgh...Noemi must've hit her nose against the desk pretty hard when she blacked out. Yes, she fell and hit her nose, that's what happened. Simplest explanations are the best ones. "Mr. McCormick? How you say in English? Fuga de gas? Go home?"

And this freak occurrence happening to everyone else as well means it was a gas leak, obviously. The building is certainly old and disgusting enough for it. The smart thing to do would be to pick up her things, try her best to wipe up her face with whatever's handy, and go find the superintendent. Then they can convince him to unlock all those doors and lead everyone out to safety. Who knows, if they're lucky, maybe they'll get out of all that ****ing writing too, for having had such a scary near-death experience.

Fan

2014-01-02, 12:03 AM

Lukas Hurber

Earlier

Lukas, being the fantastic mental prodigy that he was, heir to his families greatness, had finished his paper well into the end of the first hour and a half. Having chosen Walter Whitman. An American poet who helped bring the artistic world out of the dark world of brutish transcendentalism into the far more exalted form of poetry realism. A poet who though obscenely vulgar, did a great service to poetry as the father of free verse. Full notarized, all quotations done. Yes, another masterpiece from the Huber family. Hilarious really, that his detention papered rivaled the thesis of many modern doctors. Ah, young hubris. That is, until the nose bleeds started. Lukas writing it off at first as a result of dry conditions, and then.. stabbing pain.

Gah, he must have dropped those vials quite a bit harder than he thought when he'd raided the chemistry lab earlier. Lukas takes his own pulse for a moment, checking for any irregular coloration in his veins. Not exactly being in fantastic physical shape, and being particularly aware of the types of chemicals that can induce this sort of thing Lukas is a bit on edge, biting the inside of his cheek as he knows that their time left might just be measured in hours.

Standing unsteadily he looks around, using the bookshelf for support if need be, Lukas heading towards where the door was as he said.

"Gah, idiots. You don't seem to understand. If the gas leak was toxic enough to not only knock us out but cause nosebleeds then it was more than just natural gas. None of us are nauseous, so that means it isn't Methyldichloroarsine, or any of it's family. The superintendent must have left us here to investigate the problem. I don't know what it is so I can't tell you if you have any water in your lungs from it, which is my main concern given it hasn't already killed us. God, some idiot who didn't know what they were handling must have gone after the chemistry cabinet after I failed to get what I needed, spilled some mixture that produced the fumes that knocked us out. "

Lukas begins taking deep breaths, having always been a deeply paranoid child, checking for end inspiratory crackles. God he hoped he wasn't the cause of this. It would forever stain his legacy and make him the mockery of the school, maybe even arrested.

Shadowcaller

2014-01-02, 12:40 PM

Vallery Amari

Vallery's Phone is nearly fully charged. She never called anyone and no one really called her except her parents and other family members. The only thing time she really used it was when she wanted to look up something on the internet.

Vallery comes to consciousness again, perhaps the whole thing had just been a horrible dream? But looking around she still finds herself trapped with the worst group of losers, geeks and jocks imaginable. She grunts and quickly wipes off the blood, trying to not show any hint of pain and discomfort. These people were like sharks, extremely lame shakes, but sharks still. Show any weakness and they jump you, even if they were in the same situation.

Correcting her fedora she get's up but doesn't say anything, she really didn't need to. She would stand there and look much more calm and collected than everyone else, some nosebleed couldn't bring her down.

The others started panicking of course, typical.

It was probably nothing but it did spark her imagination. What if she suddenly was like in a horror movie? Some ghost had caused the nosebleed and was coming for them. It wasn't the first time she had imagined it happening in this school, it was directly taken out of a horror movie. So as ultrageek starts speaking she imagines him being slammed into the wall by an invisible force, making him swallow up every little science word he says. The imaginary ghost then flips him into the air and he falls to the ground, breaking his neck.

One could dream.

Instead they would probably have to write an freaking essay since the superintended was such an uneducated oaf. Why did even detention exist anymore? Vallery sigh loudly to express her disdain for the situation without actually saying anything and then heads to find the superintended. Or maybe he has been killed by the ghost...

Slii Arhem

2014-01-02, 01:21 PM

Joshua Clark

Josh considered briefly calling the super out on being a malignant cancerous mole on the left cheek of the school's hindquarters, butt frankly he's already going to be doing weekend detentions for weeks, he might as well wait until he deserves another set of them before he goes ahead and earns more.

He chooses Robert Frost for his essay topic, for a very simple reason. He's been in trouble for standing up for his beliefs and friends enough times that he always has it planned out ahead of time, and the easiest poet to write about and get annotations about happens to be Robert Frost. He's done similar essays in other years, but those were at his last school, so they won't show up on record to get him into more trouble.

He sketches out what points he has to remember to hit and the names of the books he has to find and pull for references. Should be done in about three hours, with plenty of time to slack off and look like he's working while he's filling time in amongst that.

And then the gas, or chemical, or whatever manifestation of evil hits, and that plan all goes to hell. Screw suspension, time to get the hell out of dodge.

"You guys heard screams too, right? Judging by that whoever's responsible for this knows exactly what happened, or is in a lot of pain. Maybe the supe went off to find them, or call an ambulance. Look, whatever happened we should get out to the front gate and wait there, right? That's where everyone would show up if there's any kind of chemical spill or gas leak, and that's where we'd get checked out. Anyone want to call 911 just to make sure there's help on the way?" His experiences as a rally organizer and generally prepared human being begin to shine through. You don't get raised by an army surgeon and not know how to speak up and motivate people when life starts throwing sewage at your fans.

"Anyone know where the nearest emergency exit is?" Of course, he's still more than a little disoriented, and can't quite seem to remember his escape plan. Not that he thought he'd need to escape the detention hall tonight, but I guess that'll show him the merits of not being prepared for a major building fire or other disaster at any given point and time.

Murska

2014-01-02, 07:15 PM

Fan

2014-01-04, 08:56 PM

Thomas Remmings

As people started speaking up, Thomas quickly realized that what had happened to him also happened to everyone else. And, from that, it was easy to conclude that his face was probably just as bloody and messed up as the others'.

"Aw hell..."

Wiping the worst of it on his sleeve, he stood up and started returning his things to his pockets from the table.

"Whatever. Let's just get out of here. Hey chem guy, you probably remember the directions?" You know, since it's a library. Thomas does not usually visit the library. I mean, laptops have been invented, you know?

Lukas Hurber

"Ah.. Of course. Of course.. What kind of prodigy doesn't have the layout of wherever he is memorized?"

He says, steadying himself. That had been one hell of a trip down panic lane he'd just taken, but being knocked out and then waking up to find you're bleeding from orifices tends to make even the staunchest of men a little on edge.. right?

Starting towards the door, Lukas attempts to turn the knob, though, if the super had locked them all in thinking he'd come back then his memory was all fairly pointless, and then they'd be back at square one attempting to figure a way out of here to the gate.

UncleWolf

2014-01-05, 03:52 PM

Why would everyone assume that it was a gas attack? It could be Vallery's latent telekinetic powers breaking their way into the world, or at least her overactive imagination. Though, perhaps it's the smell that confirms that it's a gas attack or maybe...

Wait. Smell?

Since Lukas was headed towards the door, he's the first to notice it but the others smell it soon enough. Coming from just the other side of the slightly cracked open door(about an inch or so, revealing only darkness on the other side), is a stench little better than sewage. To put it gently, it smells of stale urine and runny **** that has been out for several hours. Lukas will also feel that the current of air that the smell comes in on is cold, much colder than it should be this time of night.

Whether or not he still opens the door after the new knowledge is entirely up to him, but someone has to do it since it was the only way out of the library.

Naomi's calls go unanswered, meaning that the Super is either curled up under a table somewhere or ran away at the first sign of blood. He wasn't particularly known for being brave after all. As snarky as he was, he never was the type to stand up for anything unless it was against the students so it was hard to see him staying for the sake of them.

So...yeah. It probably means they can go home.

But go home early? That's not likely at all since when she turns on her phone, she'll see that the time displayed on her flickering screen is 11:39PM

Shadowcaller

2014-01-05, 04:15 PM

Vallery Amari

Failing to find the super intended Valley consider she have enough of a case to go home. Woo! Screw all this!

She goes to head for the door and the smell. What the hell? She have to cover her mouth, what in the world was making that smell? The only thing she could imagine being worse was to stay all night in here with these losers so she isn't going to let it stop her. So for now she waits for super-nerd to open the door, hoping he'd not get into the scientific facts about door knobs first.

Fan

2014-01-05, 06:10 PM

Lukas Hurber

Lukas sighs, the smell honestly didn't bother him that much, he was used to having to deal with the scent of embalmed bodies after all, having long been through with every possible college level science class the school, and local community college, made available.

It was the chill that got to him, there was no way it could be this cold inside the school, even if it was far later than it had any right to be, the low for tonight was definitely higher than this.

Still, he chalked it up to the damp dungeon like conditions of the detention area, he proceeded to open the door for better or worse.

Lord Magtok

2014-01-05, 11:44 PM

Noemi Portillo

Noemi bites back the urge to say something terribly rude to the smarmy asshat who insists on showing off how smart he is ever two minutes. She's not stupid, English just isn't her first language, you insolent gringos. She's heard you obnoxious jerks clumsily flail your ways through your own foreign language classes, damned hypocrites.

Noemi doesn't do or say much for now, though. Just takes a swig of her water bottle to try to clear her mouth of any taste of blood, and follows behind the group. Let someone else be the leader and get struck first by whatever's ahead. :smallyuk:

Murska

2014-01-06, 04:52 AM

Thomas Remmings

Standing right behind Lukas with the full intention to get out, the stink and the cold breeze reach Thomas before they've dispersed much. He takes a step back, covering his nose with his sleeve, and tries to breathe only through his mouth.

"Ugh, what the hell...? That's disgusting."

Slii Arhem

2014-01-06, 05:08 PM

Joshua

"Ah, damnit that's foul." Joshua exclaims, pushing back his seat and standing so violently that it clatters to the floor, "It's like freshly evacuated and bleached sphincter." Vivid imagery aside, he peers at the door from where he's standing and grabs his bag of stuff, his mind drifting to just how unappetizing his vacuum-packed meal is at the moment.

"Anyone going to call someone to pick us up, or at least use a phone light or something? It's almost black down here and the halls aren't exactly free of clutter." Okay, he can understand them ignoring him about the calling 911 thing, maybe they don't think it's a priority for whatever reason, but it seems pretty stupid to him to charge on ahead in the dark.

Just like it was stupid of him to not have a pen light on his keychain. He's investing in one of those as soon as the school lets out on monday. College store down a few blocks from his place sells stuff like that, along with $300 books.

5a Violista

2014-01-08, 01:47 AM

Shadya Aminah Daniau

Oh, cool. In that case, the phone is probably has a lot less battery power than she's expecting. Make sure you have it power off at the time when she's least expecting it, and make sure it's sooner rather than later.

In case you were wondering, here's the text she sends in this post:

Hey Jan. Still locked in. RU here yet?

Feel free to interpret that as you wish: whether Jan the other cheerleader was supposed to come along and pick up Shadya so they could go off and party, or...wait. I had a better idea that works perfectly for a horror game: Jan was supposed to come along and pull a fire alarm so they could get out early and go party. But, something happened (something mysterious!) that prevented Jan from going through with it.

Was it the police? Was it the superintendent? Was it her parents? Was it an fearsome monster that nearly killed Jan just before she pulled the fire-alarm and left her horribly disfigured and lying somewhere in the school in a puddle of blood so that our brave heroes will eventually run upon a pile of blood and a dirty cell phone? Only time will tell. (Just pick a cool one, and it'll be awesome. Then, I can pretend I've been planning it since the very first post, and that was the reason Shadya was texting her friends the whole time.)

Shadya looks at her phone.

She frowns.

She double-takes. Then blinks.

The first thing she does is try to send out a quick text. It's sad that not all places in this school have service, being so far down, but hopefully it'll get through in those occasional rare spots that give service.

Shadya the cheerleader starts to walk slightly slowly towards the door, using her phone to light the way. "My phone sa-" She cuts herself off, suddenly bringing her hands up to her face. Disgusting. Sometimes her father's clothes would smell like this after he came from work. Gross. One of the reasons she'll rebel against her family tradition and become a soldier, not a doctor. "Gross," she says, plugging her nose. "Anyway, my phone says we've already been here too long."

Once she gets close enough behind the others at the door, her phone should probably light up what's out there. (So long as others don't stand in the way, of course. Silly nerds, always standing in the way.)

UncleWolf

2014-01-08, 05:17 PM

It takes only a few moments to find a single bar, but that's enough to send out the message. Seconds pass before Jan replies with her usual LolCatian exuberance.

Ov corse! Just puld up. B rt ther. Lol. They won't spect this!! 1! :D

Some say ignorance is bliss. In this case, it really would have been.

When the door is pulled open, the stench gets even stronger as the source of it is revealed. Fecal matter, blood, vomit, and what everyone hopes to be water smeared all over the other side of the door, obviously done so by hand as if someone had been trying to claw their way back in the room.

Even so, it's not so bad.

Until Shadya's phone lights up the rest of the scene.

The bodily fluids seem to have even sprayed onto the low ceiling when whatever violence occurred happened, and laying right in the middle of it all is the Super, body twisted, torn open, and mouth ripped wide open (http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs49/i/2009/186/f/1/Ripped_Mouth_by_rev_Jesse_C.jpg) He is quite obviously dead as his stomach is sunk in, as if there isn't a single organ within this sack of skin and bone, and his throat has bulged out to the point where the skin split, as if something forced it's way out of Mr. McCormick. It seems that during whatever happened, the fear was so great that he lost any control over his body's functions.

The light shines off the set of keys in his right hand, kept in a fist so tight that the skin turned white on his knuckles.

Mr. McCormick had to be dead, right? No one could survive that sort of process, right? But...if the Super was dead...then why were his eyes moving to meet your's?

Murska

2014-01-08, 07:13 PM

Thomas Remmings

As the door opens, Thomas is quite ready to push past the nerd and head out... until the light reveals the scene beyond. Freezing just for a moment, unable to take it in. A nasty smell was one thing, but this?

Then he suddenly leaps backwards, letting out a very unmanly scream. "AHHH!"

Falling on his behind, he tries to crawl farther from the door. "What the... how did it... christ!"

Shadowcaller

2014-01-08, 08:24 PM

Vallery Amari

Vallery waits impatiently as super-nerd opens the door. But then Joe Nobody makes his way past her, how rude. She gives him a glare as she hears Miss Macheerleader speak up. The clock says they were wrong?

She takes up her own phone to check if the cheerleader was as stupid as she sounded and looked when Thomas scream startles her. Instinctively she looks up and immediately wish she didn't. It wasn't clear what exactly she was seeing but she was quick enough to look away.

She couldn't lose it in front of all of these people. Instead she takes a few deep breath and focuses on her phone, specifically at the dragon background on it. Pretending it wasn't there. The others could scream and panic but she was the cool one and she always kept her calm.

5a Violista

2014-01-10, 02:51 AM

Shadya Aminah Daniau

Shadya's eyes go wide when she sees what's on the other side of the door; so much that she drops her phone and it clatters on the ground.

She feels like vomiting.

...

But she got a text. It seems like it would be very important, so, holding her breath, she leans down to grab her phone again. Shoot; part of the screen cracked, making it hard to read the text. She looks at the text.

Shoot.

She turns away from the disgusting mess and walks away from the door. Half of her wants to stay down here and call; half of her wants to just immediately run up the hallway and find her friend. She stares at her phone in disbelief...until she tries to call a number (the same one she had just texted). Not texting this time; call: trying to find one of those few spots with service. "Come on, come on, hurry, pick up," she says to her phone in a panicked voice.

Lord Magtok

2014-01-11, 10:34 AM

Shadya Aminah Daniau

Shadya's eyes go wide when she sees what's on the other side of the door; so much that she drops her phone and it clatters on the ground.

She feels like vomiting.

Noemi Portillo

Shadya isn't the only one, and this time, we're not fortunate enough to have a distraction available like that phone to stop things from getting ugly. Noemi gets too good a look at what's happened to our dear superintendent, and promptly loses her last meal all over the floor. Ugh, well at least she won't have to worry about that happening later, at a more inopportune time.

"Keys...he has the keys."

Slii Arhem

2014-01-11, 06:32 PM

Joshua

A lot of things to do go through Josh's mind, things he could be saying. Dropping into a state of catatonia and cursing until he runs out of breath seem to be the best options in mind.

And it's not like he doesn't curse. His dad taught him some... inventive invectives to use on bigots and the like just through growing up around him. It would probably be quite the talk to hear if there wasn't an exploded pile of viscera sitting outside the door.

"It looks like a bomb exploded. Is that what kn-nocked us out, a pressure wave?" He has to fight his rising gorge just to keep talking once the adrenaline-fueled string of blue language has finished pouring out of his mouth. He looks into his bag, bends over, and grabs his multitool out of it before swinging it up over his shoulder.

"If you think you can get the keys, be my guest. Otherwise we'll just unscrew the hinges if the front door's locked. We need to get out of here." Or pry out the hinge pins if they're lucky and they're the kind that come out on their own and aren't sealed on both sides. That'd probably be faster.

Fan

2014-01-11, 08:54 PM

Lukas Hurber

Lukas was very familiar with the effects of explosions, the rayleigh pitot tube formula had that as an example in one of his physics textbooks.. but this.. this wasn't possible. That kind of damage was deliberate, an explosion didn't cave someone's face in without causing SIGNIFICANT collateral to the surroundings. If this had happened outside the door to the super via a bomb, they would've been just as bad off as he was.

"N..No that's.. that's not a bomb victim, the yield that would be required for a pressure wave to do THAT to a human being, and with no damage to the surrounding area.. no.. no it's not possible. That's deliberate, meant to terrify as much as possible. We may be dealing with a serial killer on the grounds. I. uh.. I'll check for signs for time of death."

He says, looking at the lesions on his body to look for signs of age, seeing if rigor mortis had set in yet. You know the drill wolf. No eyes to go the easiest route, but hypostasis should be helpful with blood pooling. Plenty of.. that around.

UncleWolf

2014-01-18, 10:16 AM

By the time he's on the floor, the eyes are back to how they should be. Cold, dead, lifeless, and most of all, not moving in the slightest. In fact, it'd appear as if they never moved at all.

The time on her phone reads 11:40PM. As she's concentrating on her phone, she'll catch a glint of light further down the hallway on the floor. The majority of the hallway is dark, but the entrance to the stairwell at the far end gives off just enough light that she might notice something wet glistening, leaving a trail that goes through the door.

Despite a lack of bars(really, none at all), the phone rings twice before being picked up. "What the hell?!? Are you trying to get me in trouble, dude?" Jan asks with a hurried whisper before rambling on as usual. "Thank your ass that I had this on vibrate. You won't believe what I just saw. I dunno where he learned to dance, but really, you know Carlos the Janitor? His hips do not lie. Wait, how'd you get away from Sup McDonald? You guys just went down into the basement."

(I should have made it a bit clearer that there are eyes, it was just the mouth from the picture. I hadn't realized the lack of eyes until much later when it was brought up)

Lukas' first assessment that the face was caved in is actually quite the opposite of what happened when he looks closer. What teeth remain are bent outwards rather than busted in and his jaw was ripped off the hinges. As for Rigor Mortis, the man is mostly limp except for his hands, and if he tries to get the keys he'll know that it's futile to do it by his own hands. Of course, Joshua has that nifty little multitool...

As for blood pooling...what blood? How much could possibly be left inside the guy when there's simply so much that seems to have been spilled? If he was really intent on finding out though, he'd probably have to roll the man over, but that means touching the mangled corpse a lot more than necessary. And removing the man's clothing.

Either way, much of it is rather hard to tell in this poor lighting, though the eyes are pale and somewhat cloudy by this point.

(As an OOC note, where does he have Forensics skills or experience with dead bodies? His entire background is that of a Chem student and a 15yr old one at that.)

Poor Noemi, losing her lunch all over like that. At least she doesn't have to deal with getting anything on her like that freaky Lukas kid. Until she starts feeling something drip right behind her left ear.

Drip....drip....dripdrip...

Shadowcaller

2014-01-20, 05:08 PM

Vallery Amari

Okay, **** this horror ****.

She had no idea why geek guy was bending over, probably since he was insane. But she wasn't going to play private detective, she was going to call the cops and probably her parents too while she was at it.

Looking more pissed off than afraid that she had to suffer through all this she quickly starts to dial 911 hoping there at least was some connecting. There might be something wrong with her phone after all judging by the time.

Maybe there had been some weird electric pulse caused electricity to go haywire and them to pass out? Miss Macheerleaders phone seemed to be effect too after all.

While she dials she mutters quiet swearwords to herself, if she just could get in contact with someone they would come and take her out of this nightmare.

5a Violista

2014-01-20, 07:10 PM

Shadya Aminah Daniau

Talking into the phone, Shadya's voice is pretty panicked, but knowing that the phone call got through calmed her down a little. "Jan...Jan. Jan. Wait, really? You mean it's not midnight? Okay, Jan, go back to the car and...and lock the doors. I'm serious, it's not a joke."

She glances over her shoulder to look towards the door again. It's only a brief glance, because it's sickening. She turns away again. "I think I'm going to be sick... I think Mr. Mc...Sup Corn...he is...dead. One of the nerds said there was a bomb or something, and...and...then..." Shadya falls to her knees and starts crying between words. "Just go back to the car and wait for me to come up."

((Also, side note:
Reading this thread at midnight and then walking home afterwards is not the best idea I've ever had. Seriously, that biker coming out of those bushes was pretty scary.))

Fan

2014-01-20, 07:33 PM

((Experience with dead bodies comes with the Anatomy class that was offered at MY highschool, let alone one good enough to afford these grounds. There were multiple forensics courses available as well, all I've done for Lukas is given him mastery of high school - low college level sciences as far as knowledge goes. Maxing the mental stat and choosing nerd makes that not too much of a stretch. If it's an issue, wont happen again.))

Lukas Hurber

Lukas sighs, pushing the bridge of his glasses up his nose as he said.

"Rigor mortis hasn't set in, that means.. ah... at most 2 or 3 hours since he died, provided we haven't been knocked out for days. Also, I said it's NOT a bomb, we're dealing with either some kind of animal attack or a serial killer. A bomb with the yield to do this to a man, underground as we are, would've killed all of us as well. The stone would've also been cracked around here at the very least if not left us completely caved in."

Lukas does his best to maintain his cool, now that the situation wasn't new to him he had to collect himself, he had let this all get to him to start with, but now it was quite clear that they could be dealing with a violent psychopath, and he, Lukas Hurber prodigy, and genius wasn't going to die here to some mongoloid with a hammer. It was time to put this situation to the test of his mental abilities. They would obviously need the keys later if they didn't take them now, but that meant breaking the man's wrist bones at the very least, and his entire hand in the most likely scenario. Well, every plan starts somewhere.

"Ei..Either way it goes though, we need his keys. We don't know what other doors in the school may be locked here right now, and I can only imagine that for a fact the front gate is locked. So um.. could one of you more physically inclined types do the task of breaking the hand bones to get the keys out? The death grip is rather famed for it's.. well power, and I don't think we'll get them otherwise. I'd do it myself but Gym was never my best subject."

Slii Arhem

2014-01-22, 12:29 AM

Joshua Clark

Rather than jumping forwards into the hall to no doubt dazzle the rest of the group with his willingness to pry the keys from a dead man's hand, Joshua instead what he sees as the sensible thing and finds the nearest wooden legged chair and lifts it by its back over his head, swinging it down against the floor with all the force he's capable of, hopefully fracturing the legs near the seat and creating a decent pair of weighty sticks. If he's successful, he'll go through the process again with the other two legs after flipping it over.

It might be loud, but if they're dealing with something that could do that to a person, he's not leaving this room until he's armed with something, for peace of mind if nothing else.

If there aren't any wooden chairs, he'll go for one with metal legs (http://kevinsddr3.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/school-chairpoly-shell-stacking-chair---buy-wholesale-plastic-chairsplastic-ih4dbtvh.jpg) and set about bending the leg at the point where it curves, back and forth until the stresses on the metal cause it to break. A much more laborious process, but one that he knows from experience even someone with less than average muscles can accomplish.

He's justly earned more than one detention in his day.

Murska

2014-01-22, 08:05 PM

Thomas Remmings

Thomas clambers to his feet, edging back to the door as it seems everyone else is there. Just his imagination. Right? Has to be. I mean, the sight was pretty horrible. He was just shocked. Regardless...

"Uh, no. I'm not going to touch that. Sorry."

Instead, he moves back to Joshua after seeing what he's doing, and grabs another chair. "This seems like a good idea. I'll help."

Lord Magtok

2014-01-23, 01:16 PM

Noemi Portillo

This isn't Noemi's first experience with the corpse of a murder victim, but she'd been hoping that crossing the border into the States would've put an end to all of that. Not so lucky after all, it seems. She does her best to try to wipe her face with one hand, before stooping over to peer at the vise-like grip the super has over the keys. Okay, this seems simple enough. Just have to loosen his grip somehow, and given everything that's happened to the body, no one will mind terribly if things have to get a little violent to achieve that end, right?

"Lo siento."

Noemi stands herself up, bracing herself for what she's about to do. She tries to wipe that...that whatever's falling dripping on her left ear, not wanting to know if it's blood or feces or some other third thing, before stomping down, hard, on the back of the superintendent's hand. And again. And again, intent on breaking the knuckles in the dead man's bony claw until those keys can be pulled free.

UncleWolf

2014-01-26, 07:02 PM

Noemi's stomps make horrid sounds as her third one brings a crack, and the fifth one brings more. All told, it takes about eight or nine stops from her to be able to break the hand to the point that it might be able to get the keys out. If anyone wants to try and take them by this point that is. The hand that's holding them, while loose, has obviously broken fingers, has been partly degloved and torn apart. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3193635/figure/F7/) Especially since the keys cut into the flesh while she was stomping.

Even so, the keys are now able to be grabbed by anyone who was willing to pry off the loose chunks of flesh.

Joshua and Thomas' actions end up being much cleaner and simpler. It was an easy thing to break off the wooden chair legs, allowing them to wield makeshift awkward clubs. It was no baseball bat, but something was better than nothing at all.

Vallery ends up with an automated message even before it rings. We're sorry, but your call cannot be completed as dialed. Either she was in a complete dead zone or something had happened to the actual cell service in the area. Of course, being underground it was likely the former, especially since the phone shows no bars.

"...alright. Look, I know I ain't the brightest tool in the shed, but stop pulling my leg. I just saw you guys go on down and I didn't hear a damn thing about any explosion. So, you got a choice. Either you can stop pulling my leg and I can pick through this door to unlock your way out, or I can just get going.

Fan

2014-01-26, 09:52 PM

Lukas Hurber

Gulping as he witnessed the stomping occur, Lukas figures it's the least he can do to retrieve the bounty from the ah.. mess. Shaking them off a bit as he cleans the gore from the keys with an all too "dear god why" expression on his face. He'd never been a fan of cleaning the mess up after the few dissections they'd done in class, and this was a bit more.. recent, god, he certainly understood why embalming fluid was preferable to the default now though.

Turning to the girl who'd done the deed he offers her the keys, a smirk on the slender boys face as he pushes his wireframes back up the bridge of his nose, speaking thus.

"Ah thank you.. Ms... Noemi Portillo if I remember correctly? You've proven that you're at least willing to do what needs to be done. I know it might not mean much coming from the president of the chemistry club, but things like this are how you establish respect, and you've earned mine as well as my thanks. A grisly task such as that deserves as much. Thus, I think it should be you who holds on to the keys. If we are dealing with a serial killer on the grounds, I want someone who not only can, but will, defend themselves to have our means of escape. I'd hold onto them myself, but as I said before. Gym is not my best subject, and if I were to be caught alone with our guest I'd be done for."

Slii Arhem

2014-01-28, 12:30 PM

Joshua Clark

Josh fights down his rising gorge as he picks up the four chair legs he managed to snap free and bundles them in his arms before heading to the door, with a grateful, shaky half-smile at Thomas for his help.

"Speaking of defending ourselves, let's just all grab a stick and head for the doors, okay? I need to get out of here so I can puke and we can get away from whatever did this." He holds out three of the broken chair legs with one arm, grasping one firmly with his other fist so that the splintered end is pointing out away from him.

"So long as we're all going the same way, nobody has to be caught alone with anything. We'll just all keep a look out and holler if anyone sees something out of place." At least unless they all black out from pain again, his betraying thoughts remind him quietly in response to his own false confidence.

5a Violista

2014-01-29, 04:38 AM

Shadya Aminah Daniau

What should she do?

Well, the smart thing to do would be to wait for the keys and go up as a group. The smart thing to do would be to tell Jan to just go back to the car. The smart thing to do would tell her to just call the police or something. The smart thing to do would be to try to figure out what in the heck is going on. What about all the texts they sent earlier?

However, overcome by emotion, Shadya can only think of one thing to do, after taking a deep breath to decide.

She tells Jan, in the phone, "Okay." Her voice is much calmer. She can make herself calmer. "Okay, Jan. Just unlock the door, and I'll meet you there. I'm on my way up."

Okay. Moment of truth.

Shadya hangs up, and takes a running start. She runs past those by the door (they'd better be careful, or they'll be knocked down as she passes!) and takes a leap over the disgusting corpse and who-knows-what-else.

Actually, it probably isn't that much of a difficult leap, especially for a cheerleader. She can do this with her eyes closed.
...
Not that she has her eyes closed. Actually, she does. But she opens them for the landing. She just didn't want to see the Superintendent on the ground as she leaped over him. After she passes, she's lucky she has her phone as a light. This place would be a nightmare trying to navigate without a light.

Then, she makes the biggest mistake in horror films:
She goes running off into the darkness, alone.

Murska

2014-01-29, 06:19 PM

Thomas Remmings

"All right. Let's-" And Shadya runs past him, almost pushing him to the floor. Regaining his balance, he tries to shout after her but not fast enough.

"Dammit, what's she thinking? We must go after her!"

Not wasting time waiting for others to reply to such a Captain Obvious statement, he jogs after Shadya into the darkness of the corridor. Not full-tilt in a panic, but like he runs to warm up for practice, keeping himself from getting winded.

Lord Magtok

2014-01-29, 06:42 PM

Noemi

Our favorite femme fatale bites back the urge to tell off Lukas for being so wordy and time-consuming. Stupid valedictorian and his stupid face. In fact, if it weren't for Shadya's abrupt bout of insanity, she might've considered trying out one of her English swears she's been holding on to. Oh well, maybe later.

"Pendeja! Is not safe! ****!" Ugh, stupid girl. She grabs a chair leg and races off into the dark, sure that the others won't be far behind. Well, everyone except Fedora, of course, but who needs her?

Shadowcaller

2014-01-29, 09:42 PM

Vallery Amari

Vallery turns around only to see some of the others moving... into the darkness. Someone was busy making... weapons? Really? Geez, what a loser. They were right in getting away from here though, she sure didn't want to stay another minute.

So Vallery puts away her phone and makes a run for it after the others. "Come on." She tells the people not currently running. As she makes it outside however she closes her eyes for a moment to not see more of the body than necessary. She was just going to run past it and go wherever the others were going...

Fan

2014-02-01, 08:20 PM

Lukas Hurber

Lukas balks for a moment, paralyzed at the sheer stupidity of the movement that just happened. A shock ripping through his system as he discovers that people can in fact be this stupid, and that no, none of them are joking or trying to be ironic.

"G..God, why? Why would you run off alone when I just explained there is a killer in the building? Why? WHY?!"

Lukas says, face palming for a moment before he realizes that it wasn't an isolated incident, and he himself is forced to follow lest he be left alone with a corpse.

UncleWolf

2014-02-03, 08:54 PM

"Okay. See you soon." Jan says before hanging up and presumably doing what's asked of her.

Shadya quickly races ahead, her physique and lead allowing her to leave everyone behind. Her phone lights her way, revealing more blood that quickly shrinks down to a bare trickle of a trail before vanishing all together before she even gets to the door to the stairwell.

And this is when it gets Fun! for everyone.

Shayda finds the door unlocked, and when she enters the the blindingly bright stairwell, the door slams shut behind her automatically and everything turns out to be quite a bit different than she remembers. Not only are there now stairs leading down, below what should be the lowest level of the school, but everything is bright white. There's no apparent light source, but the walls and even the stairs themselves are bleach white and seem to glow. There's no sound and she'll feel a pressure on her ears as if she changed altitudes suddenly.

Lukas brings up the rear as everyone races after Shadya, but as he does so he'll have a hard time getting the stench of the corpse out from being the forefront of his thoughts. It smelled so god-damned awful that it practically cried out for his attention.

About halfway down the hall his stomach growls hungrily.

As Shadya hits the stairwell door, it swings inward, revealing a bright white light before it slams shut behind her, well before anyone can touch it. When they reach the door itself they'll find it locked, needing the Super's keys to unlock it. Through the little window however they'll see neither Shadya nor anything that can give off a bright light. All that's there is a dimly lit staircase leading upstairs.

(From this point on, put all your posts in spoilers appropriate to whichever group you are in)

Slii Arhem

2014-02-03, 09:11 PM

Joshua Clark

Josh's string of expletives as he runs, half-slips, and runs more after the others is something to behold and remark on for later, when everything isn't going to absolute hell and he isn't forced to sprint after an idiot who just ran off on their own. And that's what she is, an idiot. Doesn't matter what the person on the other end of her phone conversation was saying, that was the absolute dumbest thing to do he's ever seen.

Running off without telling anyone why in an unknown, high stress situation? He's focusing more on just how much that dumb move makes him angry, so that he doesn't have to keep in mind how sick he's feeling in the pit of his stomach. It's easier to slap blame on someone else.

He's so focused on keeping the chair legs in his arms as he runs and keeping his eyes on the floor that he only barely sees the flash of light out of his peripheral vision, but still blinks dumbly at the window when he sees she's nowhere present beyond it.

"Hell... how fast is she anyway?"

5a Violista

2014-02-05, 03:08 AM

Shadya Aminah Daniau

Shadya can't wait to see Jan. She focuses her thoughts on meeting up and then getting away from this school. Telling the cops, too. Maybe they'll even send in the military.

She's breathing heavily - not out of tiredness, but rather to distract herself from all the blood on the way. Fantastic. Her shoes are probably leaving footprints of blood.

The door's unlocked...good. Means Jan is just on the other side.

But then, she opens the door. "Hey, Jan, I'm..." She trails off and raises her arm to keep the brightness out of her eyes. "I...I...I..."

This is weird. What's going on? Is she hallucinating? Is that what it was? The bomb hallucinogen or whatever it was that nerd-guy was saying? It makes sense, too. Bombs give off pressure in the air, don't they? That makes sense with how her head's feeling right now. She speaks aloud to keep her mind occupied. "M-maybe...maybe I missed it?" She turns around....and the door's shut. Huh. Nobody else is coming through, either...and she was sure they were right on her tail.

The cheerleader looks back at the blinding stairwell. This has to be wrong. What is...? Why? How? "Jan?" she says. I guess there's no choice, then, she thinks. "Are you down here?" Maybe they went to a different library. Not the basement one, but rather one upstairs. Is there even an upstairs library? There has to be. Otherwise, this would make no sense. So, logically, the way out of the building is downstairs, because the basement library is in the basement and so there's no way down from there, and the existence of stairs going downwards means that she's actually upstairs. Yes, that makes sense. Of course Shadya wouldn't know about the existence of an upstairs library before now - not that she would ever go to a library willingly, anyway. Going down, and she'll run into Jan and they can leave. Logic. Pure logic.

She begins descending the stairs, slowly at first. She's squinting to keep the bright eyes out of her light. "Jan?" she calls out, slightly louder. "Hey, can you hear me?" Louder. "Hey, is someone down here? Come on, this isn't funny. Jan? You there?" Descending...

Lord Magtok

2014-02-05, 04:29 PM

Noemi

Lucky for them, the keys are right here in Noemi's hands! Now, to figure out which key goes into the lock...wait, how did that stupid bitch get past this door if it was supposed to be locked? :smallconfused:

Shadowcaller

2014-02-05, 04:36 PM

Vallery Amari

Vallery opens her eyes just to see the to her blinding white light that Shadya runs into before the door closes behind her. She stops and instinctively corrects her fedora that sometimes fell off when she was running, she hadn't exactly planned to be in a horror movie today.

"The door must have been open before she shut it behind her." She observes as she see the most likely futile attempts to open it (without the key that is).

Murska

2014-02-05, 08:46 PM

Thomas Remmings

"That's just great." Thomas stares at the door for a moment before turning to Noemi with the keys.

Then he seems to have a thought. "Wait. Does anyone know if this is, in fact, the way out? Because I don't want us to get lost here."

Fan

2014-02-06, 03:50 PM

Lukas couldn't believe this. Not only had the girl been dumb enough to go on ahead, but she had LOCKED THE DOOR BEHIND HER FROM THE OUTSIDE.

This girl was dead, she was that dumb, she knew there was a killer and she did this.

No hope for her, literally too dumb to survive.

Lukas brings up the rear, clearly a bit out of breath, having never run anywhere farther than the chemical cabinet or to the bathroom, he was showing a bit of his nerd phyisque here.

"W..Why? Why would anyone do that. After seeing the Super there is NO REASON for her to have not only gone on, but locked the door behind her. I genuinely did not believe someone could not listen with such talent. Did she train her ability to ignore important discussion? Because as it stands, she may have just killed herself by doing this."

UncleWolf

2014-02-12, 06:23 PM

Shadya's descent is uneventful to the next landing but with each of the seven steps downward she'll find a greater and greater sense of Aloneness falling upon her shoulders. There's no door on the next landing, and when she reaches it she'll find even more steps going down. If she hadn't known for a fact that she had traveled downward, she'd likely believe it was the same spot she'd just left except for the lack of doorway.

Though, if she looks up at where she was, she'll find that door long gone as well.

Her voice doesn't echo, instead seeming as if she were speaking into a pillow with everything sounding muffled. The light doesn't change in the slightest either, keeping to that slightly annoying soft quality that seems to infuse the very being of this place.

Wherever this place may be.

Hey! Don't mock Shadya! She's obviously the trademark Horror Movie Cliche of a girl that gets killed just to prove how strong the monster is! That's a role of deep respect. After all, how else are you supposed to know that the monster can rip the skin right off a woman or tear someone in half if it doesn't have someone to do it to?

If Noemi looks through the keys she'll eventually find one that's marked "Master Stairwells". Presumably that's a master key for all the stairwells on campus.

As for ways out, until they get up to the ground floor, this is it. The library was the only room on this part of the basement.

Slii Arhem

2014-02-12, 09:48 PM

Joshua Clark

"Will you guys stop talking and take the rest of these before we get moving? Otherwise I'm just going to leave them here." He hefts the pile of wooden legs in the crook of his arm, "Let's just get to the front gate and call the police. If she's headed that way, then we'll either see her there or she'll be gone by the time we get there at the rate she was running. It sounded like her ride was going to be waiting for her there anyway."

5a Violista

2014-02-13, 01:23 AM

Shadya Aminah Daniau

Alone.

The further she goes down, the lonelier she feels.
The lonelier she feels, more she panics.
The more she panics, the faster she wants to go.
The faster she goes, the sooner she'll reach the bottom.

It seems like going back up isn't an option.

After continuing downwards a little bit more (and me assuming that it'll repeat at least once or twice more) at high speeds and calling out loudly, she realizes something:

This is a dream.

She just fell asleep while in the library. That makes more sense. An upstairs Library? Ha! That's rich. Libraries are never upstairs.

So, with this a dream...she doesn't need to call out any more. Okay. If this is a dream, she doesn't have to go down to get out. She can go back up and then maybe take a left into nowhere and then a right into a wall, and it'll still be a dream. Okay. Good, Shadya, this is a dream, you hear? So no need to be panicking as much. Breathe. In, out. Oh, wait, stop going down the stairs. Okay, now think.

Shadya thinks. It looks like she was already here. So, to make sure (it's not like the Superintendent will yell at her; after all, this is all a dream. He didn't really explode, and Jan is still waiting for Shadya to give her the word, because that conversation they just had on the phone didn't really happen. It was just her mind making it up.), to make sure, she'll be able to mark something on these annoying walls. Something she can laugh at and then, maybe, tell if she really is going around in circles in this annoying dream.

Shadya pulls out her small make-up kit, looking for something specific. Oh, there it is: her red lipstick. She's always wanted to do this.

On the muted walls, she writes (or tries to) in the deep red color, Have fun cleaning this up!. Then, she goes back up the stairs, a little. She puts the lipstick thick on her lips, then kisses the wall, in order to leave a big fat pair of lips on the wall - and writing XXOO With Love, SAD.

Okay, time to go back up the stairs and see how much fun she can have in this dream before she gets woken up and has to finish the report.

Murska

2014-02-14, 02:52 PM

Thomas Remmings

"Well, the way out is through here anyway. Let's just unlock it and get going."

Fan

2014-02-15, 07:06 PM

Lukas Hurber

"Yes, we should at least attempt to follow her. Also, if her ride is waiting for her up there it may be a trap. Think on it, this late odds are the amount of people in the parking lot at any given time would be pretty small. One, or maybe two at a time. 4 if by some miracle two families arrived at the same time. Given no one has showed up yet, and that ONLY shadya was called up. I imagine it might've been the serial killer baiting her into coming to him."

Lukas says, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, a look of cold certainty on his face as he walks over, grabbing a chair leg and sighing as he flips it around in his hand. it wasn't likely this would be do anything in his hands, but better to have the threat of violence to make him a less appealing target.

"Alright, Noemi, would you kindly open the door?"

Lord Magtok

2014-02-16, 07:34 PM

Noemi

Master Stairwell. Hm, stairwell looks kinda like the word 'stair.' That sounds like the right key. Noemi sticks the key into the lock, turns the key, and pushes the door open. She then steps aside, inviting some dumb boy to go first. She's not going to cower with Lukas in the back of the group, but there ought to be at least one body between herself and the unknown.

Shadowcaller

2014-02-17, 06:36 PM

Vallery Amari

Vallery sigh and takes one of Joshua's chair leg's without a word. She had wanted to argue like the rest of them but remembering horror movies made her think better of it. She wouldn't stand around arguing when the monster came and grabbed you.

The cheerleader would die first of course, that was the classic. Then the nerd would be offed, later probably the competent guy (Joshua) and/or the token Latino woman. Finally it would leave her and the everyday guy (Whatever his name was). And since she was the virgin girl she was the only one that was going to survive. At least in her version.

UncleWolf

2014-02-24, 12:30 PM

The girl is able to leave her mark on the wall, even the lip prints. Though if the Super was still alive, he'd undoubtedly would have had something to say to her about this sort of vandalism.

On her way up, she'll go about three flights of stairs before seeing her writing again, though this time it's written on a door instead of the wall. On the door is a triangle that seems not ot be painted on, but more of part of the innate design of the door, almost only a seagreen discoloration.

Next to that is a second door, this one a hollow circle of the same sort of discoloration.

The door opens. Yay!

The stairwell within is absolutely dirty and dusty and the hand rails on the sides are covered in something sticky that no one would like to think too much about. Not just that but the there's a subtle stink to the air and the one light flickers annoying.

So...pretty much like normal for this stairwell then. Actually, the stench is probably less than before but that might just be comparing it to the corpse just down the hallway.

Just one flight up for this stairwell and it'll lead to the ground floor. Then hopefully escape will be as simple as walking out.

Lukas feels a cold shiver and his hackles raise as the smell of the stairwell. For some reason it feels...lacking. Unappealing, but not because it's strong and smells of trash. More like something is missing from it all.

5a Violista

2014-02-24, 03:38 PM

Shadya Aminah Daniau

I feel sorry for her when she finally deduces this isn't actually a dream. :smalltongue:

Three flights of stairs is an awful long time. Knowing it's all a dream keeps her going, in spite of the strange quality of the hallway.

Upon reaching the doors, she audibly laughs. "I knew it."

Well, obviously, since this is a dream, the triangle door and the circle door obviously symbolize something. She almost wishes she had paid more attention in math class when they talked about geometry and whatever. But, if she had, she would have also realized that symbolism belongs to literature and not geometry.

She looks at the two doors. Well, hollow circles are symbols of tire wheels and donuts, she supposes, but the triangle has what she wrote on its door. So, obviously, her subconscious mind is telling her to go through the triangled door; otherwise, her lip stick would be on the other door. Which means it really doesn't matter what door she goes through, because, since it's all made-up anyway, it'll lead to the same place.

And so, without much thinking, she decides to try to force her way through the door with the triangle on it.

Fan

2014-02-26, 07:07 AM

Lukas is suspicious. This whole situation is starting to look more and more like a setup, like this is just one large.. artificial joke, this.. was not a way he wanted to feel. He definitely wasn't in the mood for someone to come out and tell him that he'd just been punked, or was on some sort of reality show.

Still, he advances up the steps, keeping an eye on his surroundings. If his serial killer theory was right, then he didn't want to get jumped, though.. there was also the chance that the serial killer was Shadya. She was quick to leave, distant from the others, and the death glare she'd given him earlier. If she was capable of doing that, and setting up this game in such a detailed manner that the others wouldn't notice.. she'd be a dangerous opponent. His expression narrows into a scowl and he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose before saying, no harm in sharing a theory without the culprit present.

"I've been thinking on why Shadya would run off on her own after seeing the Super's corpse, and there.. is another possibility. I don't want you to take this as fact yet because this is only a theory based on behavioral observation. Given Shadya locked the door behind her, left us immediately without waiting for a single soul to follow her where she believes there might be a killer. What if, Shadya is the one who killed the super, and this is some game where she gets to play cat and mouse with the group? It stands to reason that she would be among the top suspects for the crime among us, she had motive, was in the location, and left the moment the chance was provided to her."

Shadowcaller

2014-02-26, 08:12 PM

Vallery Amari

Vallery rolls her eyes dramatically. "Oh right, I forgot that you are an behavioral psychologist as well. There is no way she could have done that, stupid." Not that Vallery had actually taken a good look at the corpse but the refused to agree with someone who thought himself too smart for his own good. And besides, no matter how "the least suspicios person is always the murderer" theory was true in horror movies, there was no way that that bimbo could be the murderer. You couldn't hide stuff like that for years, she refused to believe that some cheerleader could have fooled her for that long.

"Keep yourself to math, comic books and bubble wrap. The human mind is obviously beyond you." She remarks, enjoying the opportunity to criticize the nerd. She hated people who used terms like "behavioral science" that in a normal conversation. Though it did add to her theory that she was in fact in a horror movie...

Murska

2014-02-26, 08:18 PM

Thomas Remmings

Already people turning on one another? Thomas can feel his faith in humanity falling. Better to try and defuse the confrontation before it gets worse.

"Yeah, that's ridiculous. She probably just panicked. This is pretty crazy, you know.

Let's just get out of here, okay?"

Thomas starts to climb the stairs, expecting the others to follow.

Fan

2014-02-28, 08:21 PM

Lukas Hurber

"A panicking person doesn't stop to lock the door behind them when they're fleeing in terror. You are right though, I am not a psychologist, I'm a chemist, I'm just not stupid. She's the only one with the physical ability to do it that left the group. It doesn't 100% set her up as the killer, I'm merely saying be careful around her."

Lukas says with a scoff, he had no love for people who derided people for being smarter than them, but he understood why. After all, he felt the same way about people who were physically superior to him and lorded it over those like himself. Sighing though, he collects himself. Couldn't these people see that he was just trying to keep all of them alive?

"Also please keep from making derogatory comments, comics are for troglodytes who can't handle reality, and bubble wrap is for the mentally challenged and the easily amused. This would be akin to me telling you to go back to painting your nails or shopping for clothes. We are, unfortunately, here in this situation together, and we cannot rule out any potential suspects as to whom the killer may be, and as much as I hate to say it, my intelligence alone wouldn't qualify me to last so much as a minute against any brand of psychotic. We need eachother as it is, all of us, but that also means that we need everyone here on their toes. I want no one to die tonight, and that's why I'm sharing what little knowledge and theories I've been able to glean."

Lord Magtok

2014-03-05, 12:22 AM

Slii Arhem

2014-03-05, 04:12 PM

Joshua Clark

"Man, shut up about bubble wrap. My grandmother would have gone crazy if they hadn't given her some every day to occupy her hands, so that stuff's officially sacred to me. Noemi's right though, she'd have been caked in blood if she was anywhere near the super when it happened, and we weren't knocked out nearly long enough for her to have showered and changed. It wasn't her, could have been whoever her ride was, but there's no way for us to tell and no reason to suspect it was except that's the only person we know is here besides us."

Joshua's grip chokes up on the chair leg and he steps forward past the others, "I'll lead first, someone shine a light over my shoulder if you've got a phone or something. We'll take it slow until we're outside alright?" Time to be stupidly brave and get mauled by some wild animal in school Josh. Not how you anticipated your night going.

((Josh will lead the way unless anyone stops him.))

Fan

2014-03-06, 05:54 PM

Noemi

"How? How anyone kill him? Do that to his face? Not Shadya. No blood on her clothes." Noemi insists, vehemently. It couldn't have been the cheerleader, she would have to be a wall of muscle to pull that off, some sort of superhuman to make those kinds of cuts in such little time.

Lukas Hurber

"Really? And do you have any idea how long were out? She could have had hours, maybe even DAYS to do that to him. When you're not cognizant of your surroundings time flies, and well. Even I'd be able to do something like that given sufficient time and tools, and I'm perhaps one of the worst specimens of physical ability on the planet."

Lukas says, his face set, he didn't like what he was saying either, and given the severity of obvious insanity of whoever did that to the Super he couldn't even rule himself out as a culprit. A sadistic alter ego that only comes out when he falls asleep though? He'd have to be some kind of walking cliche for that to be the truth.

UncleWolf

2014-03-11, 09:06 AM

When she opens the door, Shadya will find herself at the top floor of the school, specifically in the Advanced Painting Class' Studio. Being a cheerleader, it's likely she never entered the room too often, but even from her vantage point in The Stairwell, she'll be able to see that this room shouldn't have a thick layer of dust over everything, nor should all the portraits have the faces covered over in dark red paint. If she wants to investigate further however, she'll have to step out of The Stairwell.

As our Brave and Bold and Adventurous Adventuring Party climb up the stairwell, they'll feel that the steps beneath their feet are sticky, and hopefully it isn't anything other than gum or dried soda or something instead of blood and other body fluids. Though, given how hard it is to get gum off one's shoes and how annoying it is to walk with sticky soda on the bottom of your feet, body fluids might be a better choice.

Easier to clean.

As Joshua walks up the steps, he'll get a strong feeling that something is Wrong with the room or the people in it. It'll take half a flight of steps before he realizes what the problem might be though.

Since there's a flickering light, why is it that everyone has a shadow except him?

Provided no one interjects, the group will reach the higher floor's doorway to find it slightly ajar, leading into the brightly lit hallway beyond. The door is ajar though since there's a lung stuck between it and the door jam. And there's also blood on the door knob.

At the sight of the lung, everyone will hear Lukas' stomach growl hungrily.

Slii Arhem

2014-03-12, 05:39 PM

Joshua's skin goes cold. That's... not right. And unless the fear's finally caught up to him and he's snapped, it's not unreal either. He would blink to clear the image from his eyes like an illusion, but they are pinned wide open by the strangeness of the scene.

It's not worth thinking about. Get outside, get away from them once you're outside and watch your back until then. Be smart Josh, don't go off alone. Are his thoughts once he finally shakes himself loose from catatonia.

Joshua Clark

Joshua spends a moment staring at his feet soon after catching sight of the grizzly doorstop, possibly in shock, but slowly comes back to himself. The hands gripping his makeshift weapon are clenched tightly around it, and his voice is shaky when he speaks.

"We need to keep moving. Someone grab the handle, I'll knock the... I'll knock it out of the way. In case it's locked and it pulls shut when it's not blocked or something."

Murska

2014-03-12, 05:46 PM

Thomas Remmings

Everyone else

Ew. Gods. What is that thing? Who'd just leave some disgusting lump of meat... ew.

"All right." Thomas grabs the handle while pushing at the door. It probably opens outwards, given that's the route out of the building and legally doors have to open in the direction that leads out. If it does not open for one reason or another, he'll leave it to Joshua to get rid of the whatever-that-is.

5a Violista

2014-03-13, 12:11 AM

Shadya Aminah Daniau

This stairway was actually starting to give her the creeps. It was rather annoying and muted and...

Shadya doesn't waste any time getting out of this godforsaken stairwell, stepping quickly into the Painting Studio even before giving the place a good look around.

Once inside the room, however, she notices all the dust and red paint. Disgusting. Do the art majors take no care of their room? Sure, it's odd. And, yes, it's a dream. But, even so, one would assume imaginary artists would take better care of their paintings. "Disgusting. The locker room's probably cleaner than this place."

Unless...

The paintings are symbolic, again. Everything about dreams are symbolic. Dust means this is somewhere that Shadya hasn't ever been before. (Duh. Why would she take an art class? That's for people who aren't very good at sports.) Faces being painted over in red means...not having a face? Facelessness? Something like that.

She's careful not to touch any of the walls or tables or chairs. Don't want to get her clothes dusty, after all; she has a party to get to later tonight. Even dream dust can get clothes dirty. Everybody knows that...oh, shoot. She just rubbed against a chair, probably getting her pants dirty. Good thing it's a dream.

In order to get away from the dust, she quickly turns back around, trying to get back into that stairwell. At least there didn't have any dust.