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Rose half expected Archer to run in and stop her, but thankfully, she remained alone in the ramshackle room. Her footsteps echoed against the cracked floorboards as she approached the stairwell, wrinkling her nose from the stink of mold. She faltered as, through the dust motes, she saw a graffiti symbol that looked oddly fresh amidst the decay. A symbol everyone knew as that of Amalgam.

Despite the heat of sunlight through windows, an empty laugh from upstairs chilled Rose to the bone. It sounded nothing like the joyous chuckle she knew. It wasn't him, her instincts warned her, it had to be a trick... But even if it was, it was a Ravel related one, and she had to get to the bottom of it.

With a stiff shoulder, an eye she could barely open, a weapon requiring training she didn't have, and no allies around. Yeah. Those odds weren't exactly looking great.

Nonetheless, she drew Thorn and headed up the stairs, heart creeping higher into her throat with each step. A hallway stretched out before her, lined with doors, some closed, others hanging off of their hinges. [color=ff4f61]"Jay?"[/color] she called, inching down the hall, peering into room after room. [color=ff4f61]"Where are you, and what's going on?"[/color] If he was here, involved in any way, she wasn't going to let him down again. The open doors, however, revealed nothing but dust and disintegrating furniture. Rose tried one of the closed doors, but it wouldn't budge.

She gasped, head whipping around, as a voice broke the silence. A voice from behind a wall, a gap between two doors.

[color=59de3e][i]"I'm not sure where I am....Vern?....Where are you?"[/i][/color]

A shaky laugh spilled from her as she sprinted over. It [i]was[/i] him. He'd called her Vern, not that stuffy full name Laverna. [color=ff4f61]"Oh, Jay, what happened? How did you get here? How did you..."[/color] Her voice cracked. [color=ff4f61]"Fuck, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I wasn't there."[/color] She looked into one of the rooms flanking the patch of wall, breath catching - she still couldn't know what to expect - only to see nobody in there. A glance into the other room revealed the same.

[color=ff4f61]"O-ok, ok..."[/color] She took a deep breath, studying the wall, tracing her fingers along it in case this was some kind of weird illusion. [color=ff4f61]"What can you see in there? And who brought you here?"[/color] The questions poured forth, one after the other, as she struggled to make sense of the situation.