|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 4:12 pm
She'd meant to go back and get Jeremiah, she had. But she'd just been ******** stir crazy about the hospital- thinking about the bugs, thinking about the people who'd died. Autumn refused to let herself get addicted to her drink for dreamless sleep. It was too easy to lose herself in her perfect solutions without really working past her emotional s**t. So she'd gone back.
Thankfully, by some miracle of God, Autumn had found an entrance. She probably should've thought back to Jeremiah, to the fact that entrances tended to come and go for a reason, but she was lost. Confused. Angry. If there was an answer to how to save those people in the hospital, then by god, Autumn Smith was going to find it.
She was in her exploration gear once more, Rosalinde tucked neatly into her messenger bag. A quick escape, she'd told the cat, so the burning man incident would not repeat itself. Determined, Autumn stepped into the hospital once more.
Round two.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 4:52 pm
It was worse than before. The hospital that had been crumbling the last time she was here was now further in a state of decay. Nature was taking it back. The rain dripped through cracks in the floor and seemed to fall in a light drizzle even on the first floor. For now there was nothing but silence and rain and Autumn's pulse in her ears for noise.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 6:30 pm
Spooky. The uneasy feeling in Autumn's stomach twisted itself further, but nonetheless she pressed on. She had things to do here- answers to find. The shadows she'd seen milling around... the spider she and Jeremiah had seen. There had to be a reason for it, Autumn just knew it.
Onward she went.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 6:47 pm
The rooms were destroyed, if she looked in them, vines and plants having overgrown some of the doors and barred them from entry. All paths lead one place: to the stairs. Autumn would feel eyes on her the entire time. From everywhere. As if things are watching her from the shadows. The skittering noises do not help.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 6:55 pm
Autumn did not look up. She refused. If she kept her eyes forward, kept walking, she was going to reach her goal. She swallowed thickly and pressed for the stairs, stopping when she arrived.
God, Jeremiah would probably have words with her over this. Easy and obvious paths were not the ones you took. And yet, this was the only place she could see to go. Everything else was destroyed and falling apart.
Autumn ascended the stairs.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 8:02 pm
It was there on the stairs waiting for her. A small black thing. A spider. When she saw it, it would dart away and up the stairs to the second floor.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 8:16 pm
that ******** SPIDER JESUS CHRIST. Autumn, incensed by the sight of it, sprinted up the stairs and after it. No way in HELL was it getting away from her this time! She had Rosalinde (who growled at the sudden jostling), her water, and protective salve rubbed all over herself. It wouldn't save her from everything, but damn if Autumn wasn't ready this trial.
"GET BACK HERE, YOU LITTLE ********," She snarled, taking the steps two at a time as she hurried after it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 8:20 pm
Where there had been one, there was two. Then three. Then six. There was an entire hoard of them and they were all there where doors had been barred previously. They did not skitter anymore, they simply watched her as one large mass.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 8:22 pm
Autumn skittered to an IMMEDIATE HALT so that she did not THROW HERSELF INTO THE MOSH PIT OF SPIDERS, HOLY ********. She stood, staring. They stared back. She stared more.
"...I'd like to retract my little ******** comment, if the jury is willing?" She hedged, voice uneasy. In her messenger bag, Rosalinde was bristling and hunkering down lower.
"I'm. I was hoping to get some answers. I'm not here to hurt you, I promise."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 8:48 pm
They did not answer but they did sweep apart and disappear into various doorways one by one. One small dark shadow remained on the floor and did not move.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 8:53 pm
Moving very slowly, Autumn approached the small shadow, and kneeled down to be more on its level, the way you did when approaching a new dog or a particularly unruly baby. Perhaps small shadow spiders didn't understand smiles but... She offered one to it anyway.
"Hi," she said more softly. "Will you help me figure out what's going on?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 9:19 pm
Once she knelt before it the thing moved like a shot. It was climbing up onto her arm, up to her shoulder, and then it was somewhere near ear. The feeling of it on her was something else. As if something was being drained, as if something was being given, as if there was always a state of something ... Autumn received no answers to her request but the path in front of her was still open.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 9:25 pm
Autumn shuddered very heavily when the spider ran up her shoulder, and at the odd sensation, she wondered- if she was ******** murdered by a spider in Other Ashdown, what story was Jeremiah going to have to make to cover it? Cause that seemed like a pretty peculiar death, honestly.
"Don't. Don't bite me, George. I'm calling you George, okay? Please don't bite me."
But still...
Autumn stood, George apparently in tow, and headed down the pathway ahead.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 9:46 pm
The decay of the building seemed to get worse the further she went and the less it looked like the hospital. There were vines and flowers and plants of all kinds, some of them even familiar to her, and as she turned a corner she came to a gaping hole in the floor. Light only showed parts of it, the first floor not even visible (it should have been, it was not) and it seemed to be endless.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri May 06, 2016 8:30 am
Autumn stared at the hole, bewildered. This was definitely some passageway to hell kind of s**t, no other way about it. She back away, putting a good three feet of distance between herself and the portal to Satan himself, and sat down.
"You're... really not expecting me to jump in that thing, are you?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
