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 Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 3:42 pm
"How many rooms like this are there?" Amari asked, curiously. She smiled as the Phoenix leaned forward and gently stroked his head. Almost all person, huh? "It's nice to meet you," she said. "I've never seen anything as beautiful as you are."
She looked to Lori then, and smiled at him. "Thank you for showing me everything," she said, and turned her attention back to the bird.
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 3:59 pm
"Fifteen. They can be as big as we need them to be, though." Nobody knew if there had ever been blueprints for the HQ, but Lori would be willing to bet that these rooms weren't in it.
The phoenix trilled happily and the feathers on its head ducked down and then fluffed back out again.
"Sure," Lori said, "This is the fun part."
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 4:07 pm
So were the rooms themselves an illusion? Amari was curious. She smiled at the Phoenix again, carefully stoking behind its head feathers. "I still can't believe I'm here," she admitted, and seemed to be speaking to the bird. She'd been about nine when she'd decided she wanted to work for the FBPI.
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 4:11 pm
Lori laughed softly. "That's what they all say."
At least the girl was going to enjoy herself beforehand if she got fired. You didn't forget your first rare entity, not ever.
They spent some good time with the phoenix. The bird gave them a bit of a flight show and eventually cooed what turned out to be a goodbye before heading back into the fragrant cave.
Lori wiped his hands on his pants and nodded. "Alright. You wanna see how we work?" He was already heading toward what he knew was the door, but was actually just the horizon. It was impossible to get lost in these places. Your bodies acted like compasses. It could be unsettling too, but it was safer that way.
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 4:17 pm
Seeing the Phoenix has made Amari feel more at ease, somehow. It truly was a beautiful creature. She'd never seen anything like it. Would she be brought down here again, sometime?
"Oh, yes," she said, and followed Lori towards the horizon.
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 4:22 pm
There was a split second between the illusion and the cement floor where you seemed to be floating in nothing, but it was only brief and as long as you kept stepping you were fine. He had to open the door with his key card and it locked automatically behind them as they left.
They came back to the office and the quiet tapping of an office space and Lori sat down with a sigh. Alright.
"I don't really know how to explain this all to you, so I'm going to just talk as I think, okay? We've got three photos and a video I ran through the Seeker while you were at lunch."
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 4:27 pm
Amari sat and listened, nodding in understanding. He'd said he hadn't seen what he was about to show her, either, so she'd be able to see the process. She was looking forward to seeing how this worked.
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 5:09 pm
After a few hours, Amari wandered the halls in thought. She hoped she was doing well. She wanted to succeed. She wanted Lori to like her, he was knowledgable and she knew she'd learn a lot from him. But she wasn't here to be liked.
"So I avoid that apartment," she mused, looking toward the direction she was told Michael's was in. "And keep going this way--" Somewhere, there were tennis courts and a swimming pool. She'd figured she'd meet an entity there.
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 5:14 pm
Michael had heard. He had seen, too. He always knew when someone new was walking around, and depending on who they met they may or may not have been warned about him. It was all futile, though. People were afraid of ghosts and the things ghosts did. It made you wonder what humanity's predators had been way back when, aside from other people.
He caught the girl alone in a hall. An Elven thing, he was almost sure. Immediately the hallway became his playground. When she turned the corner (a corner that usually led through more office space and to the apartments at left and the call center at right) the hallway was empty, long, lined with the same doors or nearly as she had just passed.
One of the doors lay open. Blood was creeping into the hall.
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 5:27 pm
Had she gotten lost? Amari tried to work out the mental map she'd formed while on the initial tour. But that map fled from her mind as she spotted the blood. A hand went to her mouth, and she made her way towards the door.
"Hello? Are you alright?" She called. Obviously not, with amount of blood seeping through to the hall... But dead people didn't bleed.
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 5:30 pm
The door slammed and locked. It began to shake and rattle fiercely. The one diagonal to the right began as well. Soon all of the doors in the hallway were shaking and making an awful racket. Not one of them would open, but against the far wall blood began to seep from under the crown molding.
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 5:34 pm
What? What was going on?! The door had slammed and locked itself--was whatever had hurt that person still in there? And...everywhere? The doors were all shaking at once.
...and blood was coming from the wall over there. Amari swallowed. She wanted to help, but how?
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 5:44 pm
Words began to appear in smears of the blood coursing down the wall. They almost seemed to respond to her concerns.
"DEAD" they said. All of the doors went abruptly silent. As the blood began to pool on the carpet. Then, in the utter silence (as modern horror films liked to do- because it worked, damnit) there was a loud bang followed by a scream, underlit by those awful choking sounds just in case a scream was not enough.
Footsteps, rapid ones, came sprinting down the hall after Amari.
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 5:52 pm
Amari quivered as she read the words on the wall. She swallowed. Dead? How many? What had happened? This... The doors stopped rattling, but blood was pooling onto the carpet...
A gunshot?! Someone was dying. She'd heard those sounds before.
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 6:00 pm
The steps caught up to her and abruptly stopped. Hm. There'd be no running today, it seemed.
Suddenly Amari was standing in a different hallway entirely, the real one, having just emerged to the open area at the foot of the stairs.
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