Welcome to Gaia! ::

When Doc Wes swore Vanessa could only stare at him. While she had heard many words like those before, and even used a couple on occasion, it startled (and also kind of thrilled) her to hear them come from the lips of such a man. Teachers weren't supposed to use foul language.

As the good doctor endeavoured to answer Mr. Liddel's question, Vanessa reached out and ran a gentle hand over the claw marks that had scarred this door. Thoughtful, she teased her bottom lip between her teeth. Her forehead, visible over her sunglasses, was furrowed in silent contemplation.

These were not just corpses. They were bodies that had, once upon a time, harboured lives. She was suddenly very ashamed of the careless way she'd handled the remains, and shifted away from them slightly.

"I'm not very happy to be here," she announced to the room at large, and tore her gaze away from the skeletons on the floor. "But it could be worse. We are all still alive, at least. We were in a room with a window before. I think there was somebody on the other side- you know, watching us. I wanted to find that place, but we didn't really have a choice."

Her voice had taken on a slightly darker tone. It was clear, at the very least, that Vanessa did not believe she had found what she'd been looking for.

"There has to be a way out," She was determined to find it. Super Van stood up with a sigh, brushed her hands off on her costume, and, with her own broken chair-leg tucked under her arm, started examining the room for clues. There was so much junk in here. Broken toys and other miscellaneous debris crunched audibly under her sneakers as she wandered. Vanessa came to a stop at the place in the wall where the door that Polaris and she had come through should have been. She tested it with her fingertips, and was dismayed to discover nothing but wall.

"If anyone here's actually happy to be here," said Perry, "then that just means they're nuts. Absolutely nuts." He stepped away from the corpse, his prodding having done nothing but making some of its flesh sag in a slightly different direction for a second before sloughing back to the way it was. "The only way I wouldn't be angry to wake up in a place I don't recognize would be if it were on a lawn chair on a beach with a bucket of ice and some Pisco within arm's reach."

He still had the banjo strapped around his shoulder and hanging from his back, somewhat amusingly; he took a moment to glare at the mess of nail-scratched canvas in his hand that was supposed to be a map. Then he looked back up, a puzzled frown on his face, and continued, "This one might land me in the loony bin, but does anyone else here get the vibe this place is alive or something? We got weird doors, we got paintings that can't decide if they're Donatello or da Vinci. I bet the rest of you kids have seen other stuff that's just as crazy."

The cabinet was huge and heavy and didn't look like any human hands would be able to budge it, but Perry tried anyway, made an attempt at wedging his fingers into the door and prying it open.

Phantoms had chased them. Nightmares had plagued them. The pictures moved and the mirrors reflected various scenes of horror. This place, this world, this whatever the hell it was... It was something that Sailor Corvus wanted out of. Now.

What she hadn't expected after try and try again was for another door to open. Whether it was an out or a trap she took it, grasping her mop handle tightly with gloved hands as she lead Devi through it, turning on heel like a wild woman when she heard the door slam... And promptly disappear?

"No! No." She nearly growled, throwing her wooden stick down so that she could pound on the now door-less wall, spitting several variations of different curses at it. It was only mid-tantrum that she let it filter into her mind that there had been other voices in the room that they'd been dumped into. Now wishing that she hadn't dropped her only weapon she turned, body tense as though ready to pounce.

-Had he been closer to her age, or perhaps even simply a girl Polaris might have felt the need to assert her opinion and place when John had taken to the task of spouting orders. But just like Tallulah, Aurora tended to behave for such authority figures and today was no different. In fact, she was only MORE happy to oblidge in this situation.

Trotting over to the water system that had caught her attention earlier, she inspected the cistern thoughtfully. It seemed normal enough compared to alot of what she'd seen today. She could see dark coins in the water and fished out one in curiousity. Had the skeletons had nothing better to do then wish for their rescue? It was a somber thought...

Water dripped from high above in the darkness but what was caught below looked fairly clean and clear. Setting down her bat she picked up one of the many old cups laying about and dipped it into the water before lifting it to her lips. She didn't smell anything strange... and as she sipped the water seemed clean and even the tinest bit sweet.

The coolness on her tongue and throat was refreshing, and she dipped her cup again, filling it full before she turned back to the group. She hadn't forgot about her mission to clean up Super Van and now she finally had some water to better accomplish the task. She was almost cheerful as she reported in from her task.- "I can't see where the water is coming from, but it's cool and sweet. The drip isn't very steady so I doubt the opening it's coming from is very large."

"There are cups if anyone is thirsty."

"Oh and.. there are some of these in the cistern" -She held out her hand and the coin in it now that she was near one of the lamps, trying to inspect it curiously.-

"Dr. Westerman?" a voice peeped from the back. Devi had been creeping behind Sailor Corvus, hoping to use her as human meat shield in event of any other strange encounters. Now, this was certainly a strange encounter - seeing a familiar face in this bizarre world that certainly must be hell, or a strange drug hallucination. However, this was a welcome strange encounter and Devi couldn't be happier to see her teacher. If there was one person she could trust about surviving skills, it would be that man.

"Its me, Devi," she said, stating the obvious. Oh god, he wasn't going to ask her to hand in her biome project, was he? Then this place would definitely be hell.

She turned to the girl with water. "I would listen to him, he's a smart guy. He's a teacher." Devi was a strong believer that there is no such thing a stupid teacher. Nothing they say could ever be wrong, much like anything read on the internet is always right.

There was nothing inside the mousehole. Nothing he could see, either, except for a glint -- there was something in the shadows that he'd have to reach in his hand and grab. Something shiny.

"J.. just a sip..." -She wanted to die as the sudden barage of attention was turned onto her. It wasn't particularly malicious but a wound to her ego was a wound nonetheless. She normally loved attention, but this was negative attention, the sort of 'how can you be so wrong, so stupid' echo'd over and over from one voice to the next. She wanted to crawl back in the cistern and die. She was in fact less concerned by the voiced worry that she might actually die from her little taste.

She held her little cup tentatively, no way she was going to accidentally poison Van while cleaning her wounds. A weak nod was given to the instruction to speak up if she started to feel different. Her eyes drifted down once again to the heavy coin in her hand.-

The water had been clear and cold and sweet. Polaris did not feel anything yet, other than slightly more refreshed than she had been previously. The coin in her hand was an Australian fifty-cent piece -- it had funny edges, and on one side was a depiction of Queen Elizabeth.