[CENTER][Img]https://i.imgur.com/8BJy5WD.png[/img]
[b][code]St. Mercer Hospital[/code][/b]
[/center][hr]

Content to observe as he made sense of the chaotic circumstances going on around them, it didn't take long for Nate to realise they were already turning on each other now that the immediate threat of death-by-alchemilla-nurse. “God, you’re nosy. Those things attacked. We fought them. We won. They killed themselves. Justin refuses to tell Zoey that her stupid friend was a dumb bitch and got herself killed. Happy?” Penny had once again gone straight for the jugular to one of the newcomers in their growing circle of glowing bodies - to Zoey, it seemed, who in turn seemed ready to tear her a new mouth-hole. "Listen here, bitch, I want you to fucking tell me what happened to Claire. Right. Now." For a brief moment, a knot formed in his stomach at the tension which had filled the room - then uncoiled, fortunately before he could soil himself, if he even had anything to soil after the timeless stay in hospital. 

Jordan's arrival was a welcome change of pace, at least - even if she looked like she'd been dragging herself through the woods, one's own clothes were better than no clothes at all. 

[hr]

One change into an old set of clothes later, Nate at least felt somewhat more comfortable in his skin, not unlike a hermit crab that had ditched one of those glass shells for a bigger seashell. His phone, he was relieved to find out, had not been lost in the school's fight-or-flight situation - though he hadn't recalled turning it off. Once the dim glow of the screen returned, he felt a little relief - but any hope of getting in touch with Quent or Viv was dashed by two simple words.

[code]Network unavailable.[/code]

He checked again, tried restarting his phone while the others made conversation - but the result was the same. Even the GPS was off, he couldn't figure out where he was. Couldn't make a call home to his family to let them know he was okay.

"Fucking hospitals.." It was just a murmur that slipped loose from his lips, but it was the truth. He hated them, in no small part because he could never get a fucking signal in them. He remembered in the hours following what had happened to Mom, seeing her hooked up to all those tubes, unable to get a hold of anyone to keep up to date - not Martin - his stepdad, who was at home trying to figure out if their insurance policy would cover anything, what their options for treatment were (for which there was nothing). Not even the old man, who was miles away on business. For all intents and purposes, he'd been alone then. 

Now? Not so much, though the group he was with bore a great deal less familiarity to him than his family did. Case in point - Britney, her answers only raising more questions as the others pressed on her, understandably pissed off about the whole situation they'd been dumped into.

"How do we kill that thing?" The million dollar question. No - the [i]billion[/i] dollar question, if Britney's response had been anything to go by. "Billions of people tried to kill that thing and not one person could do it..."

It was a phrase used often for emphasis, but one which you couldn't really understand unless you added the extra digits to it - all nine of them, plus whatever number you had at the start. Wrapping his head around it gave him a headache, but he had to make some kind of contribution to the discussion, no matter how small it sound. "I've got an-.. I know someone from the sheriff's department. We've gotta try, I dunno - there's gotta be something we can do to try and stop this... thing?" 

Nate's voice strained a little at that, he knew it was a hollow statement. With all their powers they hadn't stopped it, Claire had died trying. What could Quent have done? Shoot it? Bullets probably [i]tickled[/i] their Friendly Neighbourhood Cthulu.

And Britney had proved just about as helpful as the stalker's photo collection at the school. Dripfeeding them information, pulling conspiracy-level answers out of her ass whenever she was backed into a corner. It had to have some truth, or else half the crazy shit with their powers and the God-Kid and Glutton wouldn't have happened, but now that more of them had died it was beyond the point of frustration. As if to add an extra note to Kimberly's probing question, he seemed ready to speak up himself about just [i]what[/i] they could actually do if the collective human population or its numeric equivalent had failed, when their red-headed companion butted in. 

"Why did you bury a body in my front yard?"

Without any chance to explain, Nate shared in their collective vision of what had transpired at the farmhouse.

[quote]Suddenly the group was back on John Reid's farmhouse, and they were all transparent third parties within the vision. Everything beyond a very small radius was imperceptible due to an ethereal fog. The scene was quiet as it focused the body of Andrea Pasternack... A rather pretty, tall, blonde-haired girl that was completely mangled by a swarm of insects that Sharon unintentionally summoned. Her body rested there at the foot of the Reid Household, as she fell simply seconds before getting away to safety. 

However, the first to step outside was Britney Williams, who noticed her before making a sickened face before she simply stared at the glowing brand on Andrea's forearm. Britney knelt down to touch the sigil before she came to an abrupt stop as the sigils on her palms began to glow. The wheat colored energy covered both sides of Andrea's body as roots sprang forth and covered her dead body before they pulled her into the ground. Britney manifested more plants simply to cover her tracks.

Before Britney stood straight up, sighing and moved on.[/quote] 

It was something which, in spite of having been a witness to the deaths already, seemed more [i]real[/i] in retrospective. The sight of Andrea's corpse, contorted on the ground with countless welts and stings pockmarking where the plague of insects had unleashed their wrath upon her, it wasn't clean, or dignified. Disgust perhaps was the one thing Nate shared with Britney in this situation - his stomach roiled, an urge to throw up clawing at his throat as he witnessed the roots sprouting from the earth, only to draw the remains back in like a carniverous plant devouring prey, then more plants taking their place to disguise the scene of the crime.

He drew his fingers inwards, tightening them into a fist for emphasis - though it probably wasn't as threatening as he'd meant it to be. "Really playing the 'I know what you did last summer' vibe back there, weren't you? Jesus-... fuck, you know what that is? That's a fucking [i]crime scene[/i] right there, you just illegally concealed a body.. you know what would happen if we got found out?" Quent's voice was in his head a little, though he was probably talking out his ass for some of it. "What about her fucking family? They'll just think she's missing - they.. they gotta know! It's not right." He knew that better than most, at least.