Welcome to Gaia! ::

Megan's ribs felt much better today, but she was still so, so shaken. At least she could run again. But nobody else had to watch a teammate die before their eyes and those two idiot brothers had to go around making a joke of it every time she tried to announce it to the radio. She'd only repeated it three times before she'd gone off on them and hurled her radio into the wall in frustration. If people died to more of those because they froze up instead of running, she was going to blame the two of them.

She walked through Zone 1 again feeling like that meeting felt like a waste of time. She hadn't really learned anything new, everything they brought up was something she'd heard either on her radio or when she was up in the tower, and the only things she brought up that she'd been keeping to herself were the mutant undying reports and Harbinger warning about the lottery. But nobody even knew what that meant.

A loud crack suddenly rang through the air, and she looked up to the next zone boundary to see... were those fireworks? Was somebody suicidal? The winking of the lights cast weird shadows all around and she instantly fell back into panic mode. She was expecting infected and undying or another one of those shadow things to come at her just for being so close to all the noise and light, so she ran again. Not back to the darkness where they'd surely be coming, but toward the source of the fireworks where someone might be there who might defend themselves.

But nothing.

She was under the lights before she dared to look back, and found... nothing. No sign of infected or undying at all. It wasn't until her heart stopped pounding that she took the time to look around. Why was this place so bright? Where was the power coming from? She saw guards at the doors, and looked up at the sign. ...Casino? Was this where all the people in the radio had gone? Where all the background noise was coming from?

She looked over her shoulder, still expecting something to come at them. Maybe it was her imagination, but was that an infected lurking just out there in the shadows? If it was, the armed guards didn't seem concerned.

Maybe... maybe it would be okay to come in just for a little while...

She didn't last long after the blackjack game. What the hell was going on? She felt lightheaded, but she hadn't had a drink or anything, all she'd handled was the coin case the attendant had given her. Then it hit her. Something in the air, or something on the case.... and she was out cold.

When time started moving again, the only thing she was really aware of was a dullness of... well, everything. It was dark, and she couldn't move; couldn't speak, either, thanks to what was probably tape. There were some muffled sounds of confusion all around her, and she panicked in the darkness, rattling her chair as she struggled. It was dark, oh god, what if there was one of those things...

And suddenly, light and sound. She shut her eyes tight against the blinding light, waiting for her eyes to adjust. When they finally did, she found herself surrounded by other people, seated row by row, everyone bound fast. The boom of the speakers was deafening until her senses finally cleared the haze. The message played over the speaker, unfortunately, was not hopeful. Buying their freedom? Was this whole place a trap? What did they do with people they "bought"? And a... dinner fundraiser? Well, didn't that sound ominous. She didn't want to ask anything when the call was put out for questions, but she heard people behind her trying to scream as they were dragged out.

As the sounds drew nearer, she braced herself for her turn. She stayed mute as the attendant came and almost picked her up, chair and all, hauling her to another room to face two other prisoners. The announcer gave her another choice. Redeeming one of these two? She looked over to the young man, must've been a teenager, but she really didn't like the look in his eyes. She'd dealt with a lot of people with that kind of look in their eye and all of them, horribly unpleasant. The woman, on the other hand, appeared genuinely terrified, as one should in a situation like this. Perhaps if they got out of this, she'd have information. Megan nodded toward her choice, watched them cut her free. What got under her skin was what followed, what they did to the one she hadn't chosen to "redeem". She caught a glimpse of blood as he was dragged away screaming, and she simply winced as she was released herself; the split-second glimpse into the next room was all steel and tables. She didn't want to think what happened in there, it sent a shiver up her spine.

They weren't clear yet, obviously. The attendants took them to a separate room, where the other girl beelined for a side door. She did come back out, and seemed cleaner, so Megan took a look inside. Washroom. Too bad she didn't trust tapwater. She declined the opportunity to clean herself up. She'd gotten rather accustomed to the sweat and grime. The woman she'd saved took only a moment to thank her before one of the attendants grabbed her and took her away again.