Austin went pale at the mention of ripped intestines. If he was being honest, all the ingredients were there to turn this into a visceral disaster, but it all seemed to surreal to believe it was possible.

 But he had to keep his composure. Panic was a sure-fire way of turning this all into his worst nightmares. Especially when he was staring down a girl with a mattock dangling carefully from her hand. He paused, re-evaluated the situation.

 Sources of panic: The darkness that claimed them, the trashed atmosphere, the presence of a weapon, their combined residual discomfort.

 That placed them all around a 5 or a 6 before he did individual calculations. God, he really wished he could have his notebook at this moment in time. He could use the phone, he supposed, but there was only limited battery as Justin was saying. He just used his for light, and they might all need lights later. For now, the most important thing was trying to keep everyone calm, and keep everything normal.

 [color=magenta] “Justin, that’s a good idea. Did everyone see their room numbers on the doors? We can probably rule those out,” [/color] he paused, [color=magenta] “or it might be a good idea to move all of our stuff into one room. That way we can all access it easily without too much splitting up.” [/color]

  Then, with a breath, he decided it was best to come clean about what was hiding. No more secrets for now. Everything needed to be open if he was to generate any sense of trust. Sure, they were friendly now, but there was nothing to cement that relationship. At the moment they were only strangers in a similar situation.

 Seeing Irina was good too. The more the merrier, even if it could have greater disasters long-term. If Austin could find ways to keep stress levels down, then they could probably all make it through this alright.

[color=magenta]  “So… I didn’t get a mattock, but I did get another item.” [/color]

 He licked his dry lips.

 [color=magenta] “There was an empty revolver with spots for two bullets… I think.” [/color]

 He turned to Cleo who was coming down the passage, greeting her with a kind smile as he brushed fading pink hairs out of his face. With all the group assembled, he cleared his throat and added one final piece of advice.

[color=magenta]  “I think our best chance to get out of this is if we can all work together. So, if it is okay with you, I think we should tell each other what our ‘mission’ is, and then do it. We don’t know who captured us, we don’t know why we’re here, and whoever put us here definitely has the upper hand. Let’s play by the rules for now and then find a better way out of here later.

 As for my mission: I’m supposed to find my ‘soulmate’ who could be pretty much anybody for all I know.” [/color]