It left Sidney free to wander the halls of the hotel, feeling too restless to sit down with the others, huddled main area. Her curiosity had drawn her upwards and she found herself wandering down the empty, identical halls. She peeked through open doors with interest as she passed them, her heavy coat draped loosely over her thin shoulders. Most of the guest rooms were in shambles, from what she could see... furniture knocked over, things flung about. Some showed signs of having been cleaned up and re-inhabited again... Probably by the Chosen who had arrived, and the guests that were still trapped here. Everyone seemed to be clustering together, leaving the outer, farther rooms to vacancy.
Up a few floors, away from most of the people and the fighting, it was terribly quiet. Almost eerily so, though it could have just been her nerves playing tricks on her. Her boots made soft noises as she slipped down the empty hall, but the carpet was plush and swallowed most of it. Sid could only imagine what it must be like to stay in a place like this... she had certainly never had the opportunity. It was Motel 8s for her family, back when they had had need of a hotel. Five people stuffed in a double bed room... She'd slept on the dirty carpet, tucked out of the way of feet under the table more often than not. Ducking her head into a room as she leaned against the door jab, she eyed the table and chairs it had in the corner. The carpet looked nice, or would have, if there hadn't been a fall of stuffing and shredded fabric all over it. The cause was pretty obviously the pair of beds sitting sadly in the middle of the room, most of their stuffing torn out by something.
There were sparkles of glass across the floor and a n** to the air. Pretty obvious the birds had broken through the window to do their damage before retreating. It crunched under her boots as Sid picked her way to the gaping hole the windows has become, leaning through it to scan the sky for birds with a wary eye.
Nothing immediately threatened, but the big hole made her uncomfortable. There were few people up here. No one to watch for anything coming through... If the birds were smart enough to use that opening, it could be bad for the people down stairs. She didn't like the idea of trusting they weren't, either. Sid eyed the hole as she stepped back, mentally measuring its width and height. Could she find boards downstairs to cover the gap with? But what would she attach them with? Her leg bumped the bed and she frowned down at it, the wheels turning.
They were large... they'd probably cover the span...
Sid hauled one of them up with a groan of effort and worked it over to the window, letting it thump down against the broken edges. The second followed with more effort as she worked it around the empty bed frame, but soon it too hit the window by its brother. They did well, coverage wise, but it was pretty obvious anything that wanted to get in from the outside wouldn't need much to shove them over.
Need something to brace them up, or attach them...
Sid glanced up and down the hall when she emerged, picking her way over discarded luggage as she wandered down and around a corner. There! And abandoned cleaning cart, still half stocked. A solid shove told her it had good weight. Maybe enough to do the job. Getting it back to the room was an exercise in patience and determination, between the weight of the thing with her small frame, and all the crap she had to push out of the way to clear a space for it to roll past. It caught on the door as she tried to shove it through and she snarled in frustration, already puffing from the work out of it. A flare of stubbornness got it through with a firm shove and she managed to make her way over the window, maneuvering the cart into place.
Standing back, Sid eyed the make-shift construction with a critical eye, reaching out to grab the cart and push it to test it's stability. Not bad but... it needed something... weighty. The supplies in it were not quite enough, not half-emptied as they were. It meant another trip out into the hall and a quick search of the luggage scattered about. Nothing terribly useful turned up... most had their contents scattered about. It wasn't until she reached the sitting area by the elevators that she found the answer; a fireplace, with fake logs inside. They had a good weight to them and Sid struggled to carry one at a time back to the room to stack on top of the cart. She was sweating, her coat abandoned across one of the bed frames, by the time she was done, but what she had managed looked nicely solid, even when she kicked the side with a booted foot.
It wasn't pretty, but it would work. Sid swept her coat up as she left, swinging it jauntily over her shoulder. It was a small thing, but it was something, and the satisfaction had her humming as she headed downstairs, ready to rejoin the other Chosen and see if anyone had come up with anything to eat. For once, she felt ready to eat.
Word Count: 988
Supplies:
2: A mattress with half the stuffing torn out.
5. Logs from one of the fireplaces.
8. A cleaning cart, half-stocked with standard supplies.
2: A mattress with half the stuffing torn out.
