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Hospital





Wake up. It was a voice he'd almost mistaken for someone else's, if only because of the snow, invoking memories from home life in Bellevue, remembered Christmas Holidays the old man had promised to spend with him but hadn't because he didn't have time to make it back and forth for work before the weather kicked in. Bundling clumps of broken up snow and hurling them at other peoples' doors and windows to avenge the snowballs tossed at his own home, or just for the hell of it - because what was so bad about it? He-..

Nate was getting off track with his waking thoughts. His mouth was dry, his throat cracked - he felt thirsty, but only for the feel of water in his mouth. Part of him woke in a cold sweat, no dehydration there. His vision, still bleary - not like when he could slip through things, but more like being underwater without any goggles - eventually found clarity. Blinking, he tugged his arm inwards and felt the IV running from a stand to his arm. Instinctively, he reached for his pocket to pull out his phone and get an idea of the time, when he realised he wasn't wearing his clothes anymore - he was in hospital garb, exposed in comparison. The frequent blips and chiming of electrical equipment around him left no other doubts where he was.

Out and around him, however - his vision distorted. Colours briefly bleeding away, but without his mass shifting through the bed on which he laid. For a moment, silhouettes blinked in and out of existence, a dozen shades who had once dwelt here. How long had he been here? Opening his mouth to shout for someone, his voice rasped and he barely wheezed out a "Hello?!" A hydraulic press moved inwards on his temples in that moment, as if provoked by the use of speech, reminding him of the hell they had narrowly fled into... what? It didn't make sense. One moment, they were moving through the walls - Nate had spread himself out as far as he could, let the group slip through the world. Then... his focus had slipped. Some were left behind, others split off. Claire... she was dead he realised. It wasn't a dream. She'd died, she'd been... his voice rasped a little more, wheezing in a panic. He felt out of breath, like he'd run marathon without getting into any shape.

"Hello?" Nobody else answered. His stomach churned, the uncomfortable sensation of something wrenching at him pulling away. Nobody else seemed to be nearby, not that he could make any sense of, though the curtains surrounding his bed didn't help with that sense of isolation. What broke it in the end was a piercing scream from somewhere else, not so far off. The voice - the God-Kid - it had warned him that the thing that had killed Claire, that had chased after their group at the school - it was coming. Wincing, he pried at the IV line feeding fluids into his body and disconnected it, stifling a pained noise and climbed down from the bed, finding his footing to be unsteady.

Once he had his bearings, he approaches the curtain - ready to slip back into the gap between the physical realm and whatever lay on the other side.
I owe folks an apology here, a lot more came up in the last month than I anticipated and sapped both my time and concentration. I've barely touched my PC in the time between save for maybe a few hours where I didn't really have a stable connection. I'm a shit.
Sorry for the delays, real life got in the way, and I changed my mind four times in this post.


I think it's been the case for a few of us here, me included - sorry for the lateness on my part. I will try and bang out another post soon.

Hillview High - Mason Square
@Surtr Inc@Mike73@Atrophy@Majoras End@Fernstone[@Pretty much fucking everyone]



Relentless, the eldritch mass pressed on towards them. Nate felt his stomach lurch, his mind battling his body just to stop it from locking up, when he felt Paige's hand clasping against his, followed by a second against his other hand, then felt the weight of someone else tugging on that second hand's, forming a human daisy chain one by one. "Please work, please work," he mouthed, aware of the closing abomination which seemed unphased by anything they'd tried to throw at it, undeterred by the intensifying glow and heat from the smouldering interior of the building that Justin had managed to set alight.

A glance at either side showed just how many people had linked hands, arms - whatever it took to join themselves to him. Please work. It had to - it was only like the phasing he'd managed before, right? Like making sure his clothes phased with him, or the stuff in his pockets. Just... bigger clothes, bigger pockets. The tendrils were closing - he tugged at either side to signal he was closing with a solid surface, so the others would know to follow, then concentrated... and for a moment, the human daisy chained connected to Nate collectively felt the sensation of water rushing through their bodies, colour bleeding out of vision as they each sank into the wall, passing through like murky water.

Each step felt like he was carrying a weight of several times his own with them, in a sense - he'd never tried something so massive a scale before, he'd barely even got his head around his abstraction when this had all gone to shit. Nate's heart smashed against the interior of his chest, pounding with each movement, halfway out of the sheer chaos of the situation and halfway out of physical exertion, refusing to rest. Light spilled back into view, colours too as they emerged on the other side of a wall, some of the group still halfway across. He didn't dare break concentration for fear of leaving one of them behind, he just kept moving. "Don't stop, keep going..."

Another solid wall. Or was it a door? He didn't care - he led them through that, too, colour seeping away in the brief transitionary period between surfaces. It was behind them. The Glutton was still tailing them, ebbing forward at a steady but definitive pace. Was this the way out? He kept going, kept leading them. Silhouettes spilled into his view as they crossed between the planes and, just for a brief, fleeting moment in their escape, the others could see them too. Like the silhouette that had been stalking them outside John Reid's house, like the other silhouette that he'd briefly seen in the hallway - what had been a sight exclusive to him was shared among the rest.

If nothing else, they were the closest they'd get to the memories of the dead without joining them.



Shadows. A blade. More fighting that moved at a blur, too fast for Nate to follow, or perhaps it was the incomprehensible sight which followed that left him with a sense of disorientation. We should leave. It was a sentiment a few of them shared for real, with good reason - the shifting mass which had seeped out of the orb was taking on a form which seemed more human, in spite of it being anything but. That Rita got a lucky break when Kimberly brought her down was one thing, Claire's open challenge to it with the knife that had belonged to Reece pushed their luck too far and began forcing through the environment.

"Ancient bullshi-" he almost remarked, but in the heat of the moment quickly shut up and began focusing on walking out of this one alive, backing away from the fiasco as the writhing mass of shadows and oily black substance closed the distance between them. Nate felt the sensation of water and found the colour bleeding out of his vision for a just a few seconds, something sweeping at him from behind. One glance, one brief view of that shadow-tendril trailing after him was enough motivation to keep moving. Even though he was supposed to be untouchable, he knew that he'd felt something when it brushed clean through him, moreso noticable than the time he'd nearly got brained hiding behind the dumpster at Grand Ridge. Was this it? Was he fucked now?

Could he outrun it? He wasn't a runner - he wasn't a fighter, either, assuming any of them were even able to fight this thing. No, he rationalised, he'd have to take a shortcut. But where? What about the others? An almost suicidal thought came to mind - maybe it would work, but at the same time perhaps not. Right now, it seemed worth the risk. "Grab my fucking hand!" He blurted it out, gaze searching for the imminent exit route that hadn't been decided upon yet. Anywhere that didn't lead him towards this eldritch horror.
I apologise for the radio silence, I'm in the process of moving addresses at the moment and haven't had the head for writing as before. Will be good soon.



There was a lot to take in, cult-shit or not - and if Britney was telling the truth, which in this case it really looked like it was, he had a whole lot more than hillbillies and writing on the wall to worry about. Someone - no, something? Some group? The Watchers, the League, wanted him dead, just because he was awakened? Because he had an abstraction? That he didn't even ask for, at that, even though he wasn't complaining about having one at this stage.

No time to process it came before Paige alerted them to the horror scene going on in the hallway.

Nate had been caught like a deer in headlights, paralysed by indecision until the reality settled in a few seconds later. Reese had killed someone else and was about to kill more of them - but what would running do? He'd just come after them again and more would die. But what kind of a fight could his fat-ass give him? He wasn't like Lynn or Penny or the others, he didn't have anything he could shoot or throw at them.

What he did have, though... Nate took a deep breath, set himself towards the right frame of mind, then stepped into the wall, colour and surroundings bleeding out of his vision as his hooded frame disappeared into the architecture. Like wading through water, he had to actively push against his environment - there had to be another room he'd hit soon, right? It didn't take long before colour started seeping back into place - his torch beam, no longer covered, revealed yet another empty classroom, a few desk still left standing but little else of use. He was sure they'd passed a janitor's closet on the way in here. Pivoting towards the door, he came at it running this time and slipped through like a curtain, this time back into the empty hallways. Further down, he could hear voices and the ongoing commotion - and picked up the pace, feeling his own heart slamming against his chest and his temple throbbing.

There was the sign! CUSTODIAL Testing the door revealed it was still locked, but with a renewed vigor, he rendered himself intangiable against the sealed entrance and passed through to the other side, his torchlight hastily dancing across the dusty interior the moment he had the opportunity to look around. Mostly empty again, but a few things - cleaning solutions, a half-rusted toolbox, a mop... and a janitorial cart. A stupid idea came to mind - Nate checked over his shoulder for a moment to check if he could unlock the door from within and found, to his luck, there was indeed a catch. Thank you anti-molestation features.

Rattling came from within the custodial closet, then the door burst open as Nate wheeled the cart out, now laden with all manner of tools and junk that had been haphazardly thrown on top. With all the strength in his legs, he pushed hard against the floor as he got a running start towards where the fighting was - where Reese was - which soon turned into a charge.

"Move, move!" He rasped, then at the top of his lungs found another sentence roaring from his mouth, "Tenno heika, banzai!"

A butchered pronuncination of the Imperial Japanese warcry learned from countless Rising Storm sessions - but one that was surely going to catch Reese's attention and buy the others some time, maybe. Nate kept on going, damned-well intent on ramming this thing into that asshole whilst he was still in one place. Just don't die.

Hillview High - Mason Square



'Pandora's Box' had turned out to contain a collection of books from some place called... Glint? Taking a glance at the contents as a few of the others approached to inspect the discovery, he found the text was in a foreign language which could have been just as much a mess as Chinese for all he knew. Then, it occured to him - some it looked like it was Mandarin, yet the same time other languages had been thrown into the mix - letters and symbols which reminded him of Arabic, Hindi and whatever else came from that side of the world.

Further perplexing him, it became clear that Britney and Sharon knew way more than what they'd let on, especially in the former's case. She'd known about their abstractions and about all the other crazy shit that had happened so far, now Sharon had spilled both their guts out with more of the cryptic cult-talk. "Who's they?" Nate blurted aloud, "The voices in your head?" For a chance, he felt less like joking around on this one. "Seriously, what the fuck. You've been leading us along and telling us little pieces at a time, what are the Watchers and League that bug-girl here just let slip about?"


Hillview High - Mason Square
@Surtr Inc@FernStone@Atrophy



“I’ve seen enough horror movies to know that we shouldn’t investigate.” Nate felt Billy's nervous palm clapping him on the shoulder, the beam from their flashlight casting the derelict corridors in new shadows. “What did you see?” he heard another voice ask him, drawing his gaze from where the shadow had been to where Rita was standing.

"I saw-" Nate cut himself off, halfway along. None of the others had seen it? He wasn't going to finish that line with nothing, because it sure wasn't nothing that he'd seen turning back and disappearing out of sight. "I saw someone walking down there. Probably Freddy Krueger, deciding which of us goes first," he shot Billy a brief grin, "Anyone else feeling sleepy?" For emphasis, he loosed off a long, drawn-out yawn, just pitched enough that it echoed down the corridors, accidentally unsettling himself in the process.

It was enough that he almost lost track of some the conversation that was going on with the group again - he recalledthe tail end of Kimberly's musings, "-know all know the mountain, right? There's a rumor - no, an urban-legend - surrounding it - that it's cursed... that anyone who goes near it disappears, and anyone who comes back... comes back wrong."

"What kinda wrong we talkin' about here?" Hagan had asked a question that was rhetorical for most of them, only for Claire to jab at the mural and state the obvious, "This kinda wrong, dumbass." Maybe he had a point, though - mountains didn't just make you disappear unless you were talking about climbing accidents. He'd seen enough of them back in Bellevue whenever he got a good view of the skyline, imposing structures standing vigil over the city that they weren't exactly alien to him, but here, thinking of ut as some kind of omen - it reminded him of the night of the massacre as he'd been making his way to the camp, when he'd seen it in the without any daylight to frame it.

Sharon led them further into the building, more cult graffiti decorating the otherwise barren walls. In hindsight, it was definitely a factor adding to the 'this town is crazy' vibe, allowing him to feel some measure of understanding as to why the old man had moved out early on. Why had Aunt Viv come back here, though? Perhaps he was thinking too much on it - maybe they all had a filter on this kind of shit and maybe they'd just never run into any of the crazy shit he had since the massacre.

Back on track.

The 'Room 108' sign met the light as fast as their guide stopped outside, though her reluctance to enter was obvious. Claire seemed to be in that take-no-shit mood again though, shoving her inside. Everyone else started filing in, varied expressions contorting their faces - Nate followed suit and found himself cringing as he saw the checkerboard of photos adorning the walls wherever there had been space to place them up.

Faces on the photos weren't exactly unfamiliar, either - some he actually recognised, if only from brief glances in classes or because the others seemed to be recognising them. Curiosity seized him, more than the sense of dread at the pit of his stomach, so he followed it along, even taking time to look at the 'eliminated' faces. But something else that he caught, just off the edge of his torchbeam, managed to make his stomach lurch.

It was a yearbook photo, taken long before Nate had been a crude look in his parents' eyes. But it was a face he knew very well.

KENNY WARD - LOW - LOW

It wasn't the only one he recognised. There was another yearbook photo, this time of a girl with a few features that he instantly recognised.

VIVIAN WARD TAYLOR - LOW - LOW

Nate kept on following the trail, looking to confirm his fears. It had to be here, the third photo - he just needed to find it.

Oh.

QUENTIN TAYLOR - LOW - MEDIUM

Naturally, it wasn't a yearbook photo. It wasn't even a personal one that had been stolen off Facebook or anything like that - it was a close up from a PR photo of the whole Sheriff's Department from about a year back, at most. Why was he marked as a threat at all? Because he was a cop? Something deep within him felt a surge of frustration, maybe just a little anger. Without wasting time, Natetore down the three photos that he did recognise, scrunching them up and shoving them into his pockets. Was there anything else? A photo of himself, maybe? He glanced around, searching for one, but he found nothing - it was impossible to tell with the mass of photos spread around.

"What the fuck is this?" He found himself directing his question towards Sharon, in spite of the onslaught she was facing from Penny. "Why- why would your dad be out to kill everyone? Some of these guys - some of them are guys that I know haven't even been around for all this crazy shit. How's that being a Guardian of... shit, anything?" Engrossed in the moment, he almost missed Penny reaching over a couple of moments too late to stop her from cracking open an ancient pandora's box. Well, it looked ancient.
For the sake of avoiding confusion the silhouettes/shadows referenced in my post are and have been visible only to Nate.
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