Pandora Pennsylvania Location

Robert looked over to see who it was that was directing everyone outside and was surprised to see that it was Walter. He hadn't really talked to the guy despite having eaten at the same table as him for a while now, although that was probably because the two didn't really go out of their ways to interact with others. So seeing him take charge when it would be something Alyssa would do was a bit weird to say the least. Now, however, probably wasn't the best time to be impressed by someone's leadership skills as exiting the building before it could potentially collapse on itself seemed like a priority.

As Robert was hopping out of the cafeteria and following the others he began to smell what he thought was smoke. "Hey do any of you smell smoke?" He asked to make sure he just wasn't imagining things. If there was a fire in the building then the alarms and sprinkler system were probably malfunctioning which made it all the more imperative that they exited as quickly as possible.

Walter was feeling a little surprised by his sudden burst of leadership. How out of character. But, since he couldn’t see Alyssa anywhere at the moment, he continued to usher the survivors out the door as fast as possible. After all this he’ll probably just be one among the masses again, but right now he was feeling very important, even if all he was doing was holding the door open for shouting people to rush through. It was probably just the adrenaline, actually.

When the last of them exited the room, Walter went through the door himself and followed the backs of the running figures, easily keeping pace due to these fantastic wheels. He was grateful for being the last one in the group, because, even though he had lived here for a month now, he still felt like he would get lost if he were the one leading.

Just as they were passing a staircase leading somewhere mysterious, he heard someone nearer to the front ask something about smoke. Smoke? Yes, there definitely was smoke. Walter could see wisps of it starting to form in the air. And with smoke, came… “Fire!” the boy shoved at the nearest person in front of him. “There’s a fire! Go! Go! Go!” It was quite liberating being able to just shout like this. Arching his neck, he thought he could see the exit further down the hallway. If they could make it outside, they would be safe. Hopefully.

Robert heard someone in the back of the group yelling "Fire", although he couldn't make out who it was since he was near the front of the group due to him needing space to hop forward. Though regardless of who it was, they confirmed his suspicions that flames were starting to spread inside the facility. As Robert was following those leading the way it suddenly became clear that something was quite wrong.

Where what would have probably been the rest of the path to exit the facility was now replaced with a gaping hole. The facility didn't experience an earthquake, it was cleaved in half and appeared to be drifting upwards. Robert was amazed and frightened to say the least. There was only one force that could practically bring about so much destruction this quickly, and thinking about it started to make Robert panic.

The group had stopped at the exit. Or, rather, the hole in the wall that looked like it was an exit, judging by the sunlight streaming through there. The ground started feeling a bit wobbly. What was wrong? Walter couldn’t see past the people, due to him not having legs or x-ray vision. Pushing forwards with a few ‘Excuse me’s and ‘Sorry’s, fighting the growing sense of unease, he reached the front and saw what the survivors were staring at.

It was the other side of the facility. The compound had been gorged in half, a huge ravine separating the two parts. There were layers and layers of levels revealed on the opposite slice, rooms upon rooms, previously only lit with cold, hard, artificial lights, now exposed to the searing sun. Walter had never imagined the compound to be this big. It was like someone held both ends of the facility like a cookie and broke the middle upwards.

A flash of light on the other side of the gap caught his eye. Another appeared. Then another. Looking closely, he could make out something bright flaring out of the broken hallways, leaving behind only black residue. Fire. The whole complex, made of stone and concrete, was on fire. This was bad. They really did have to get out now. Jumping down into the chasm didn’t seem very appealing, and, fortunately, the group seemed to be at the edge of the facility, and another exit should be somewhere nearby.

Pushing back through the crowd, Walter sped into a side corridor, hoping to see a way out. And he did. Nearly immediately. And the doors lead out into the air only ten feet above the ground. How convenient. He turned back the way he came. “Guys! We can get out here! Quickly!” And with that, he rolled out of the doorway, landing rather squishily into the dirt.

Subject Renaissance

Alexander wasn't sure of all of the details of today's test, but he thought he ad if pretty much figured out. It was going to be like that first day, wasn't it? That time they had him touch a guy who'd been badly burned, and he'd healed them right back up in a second. What sort of thing was he going to have to see this time? He wasn't looking forward to whatever it was, but if his power would heal them, then he'd do it.

"Through here," the woman leading him motioned towards a door. He thanked her and after a deep breath went in. Whatever sort of hellish sight he'd been bracing for, his expectations weren't met . It was just a small, well-lit room with a single chair. Doctor Smith was already there. He'd gotten used to seeing that man and his creepy, too-friendly smile. But it was the other person he assumed he'd be asked to use his ability on. A giant of a man, but only in height. He was skinny, like walking skeleton thin. Alexander couldn't see what was wrong with him by looking, but there was obviously something very wrong with him. An illness maybe? Cancer?

"Hello, I'm Alexander," he introduced himself to the man, who was staring intently at him.

The man turned towards Smith. "Hey Doc, who's this? That sort of things are you gonna be doing to me here?"

Smith smiled. He was busy preparing a wide range of medical tools and lying them all out on a tray. Alexander couldn't even begin to imagine what one would need that many medical tools for. "Didn't you here him when he introduced himself, Purgatory? He said his name is Alexander."

"Yeah, I heard, but why's he here?"

Smith's smile grew even wider. If Subject Omni had been nearby just then he would have heard both Jordan and Alexander thinking creepy in almost perfect unison. "Why, didn't I tell you you might have a birthday party in your future? This boy's ability here restores whatever he touches to mint condition. He's going to use his power to fix you."

Jordan's face changed as he struggled to piece together what the doctor was saying. Irritation, confusion, surprise, and finally, outright shock. He looked towards Alexander, eyes wide and pleading. It was only when he strained to get closer that Alexander realized the man was strapped into the chair.

"Just in case the change isn't as smooth as we hope," Smith brushed off his question. "Well, are you ready?"

Jordan's answers came out as an almost begging repeated yes, yes, yes. Alexander just nodded and reached out his hand. He stumbled and fell backwards as the entire building shook violently. The tools Doctor Smith had so precisely laid out all crashed and scattered across the floor.

The doctor swore as he stood back up. "Wait one moment," he said and walked quickly towards the door to check what was happening. As he reached to open the door, the building shook again. Alarms were going off all throughout the compound. "No. NO! No No NO! Why here! Why now!" Smith ran out of the room without looking back.

Alexander stood unsure what he was supposed to do now. He'd been told to wait, but it didn't seem like that was what he should really be doing. If there was an emergency, shouldn't he get out of the building? He'd need to help the man out of the chair first though. He couldn't leave him. What felt like a bomb going off rocked the building, sending everything flying. The ceiling of the room came down on top of them, and a moment later the floor gave out too.


Subject Medusa

"A-are you okay?"

"I... think so."

"Thank goodness." The doctor grunted either from strain or pain, she wasn't quite sure, as he pushed off the loose rubble that had covered the two of them.

As soon as he'd made enough room Abigail crawled out from underneath him. She was perfectly fine. She'd hit her head a bit from being pushed down, but otherwise she was unhurt. "You really sa-" As she turned, she saw Ling. In the pale light cast by the monster up above, she saw that she'd been the only one to escape harm. No, he'd shielded her from the falling debris. "Oh no," she whispered. "I'm so sorry."

"There isn't time for that now," the man barked at her, snapping her out of whatever she'd been thinking. He searched through his pockets. It was difficult with only one hand. "Take this," he handed her a small memory stick, "and get away from here. Whatever happens, all that matters is you live. This has a way for you to contact Pandora in it, among other things." He reached over to feel his other arm, but immediately regretted it. The bone was completely shattered, on top of the shoulder being dislocated, and he didn't even want to look at the wrist where it had been pinned. It was unusable. "Listen to me. If you need someplace safe, Elysium should take you in."

"Elys-what? What is that?"

He kept speaking, quickly, ignoring her. "Stay away from the snow. Please, just make sure you stay alive." He pulled off his ID and gave it to her as well. "On the way out, please help the others get out too. I'll try and reach those down here, just let out the ones up above. Too many have died already, please. Just go."

His voice started to get quiet. "Doctor! Ling?" Abigail's voice was full of concern.

"I'll be fine," he barked at her. "I'm just a little banged up, that's all. Now hurry, go let out the others before this place falls apart more than it already is! I'll find a place to hide down here until that demon's gone, so don't worry about me."

"But-"

"Go!"

Abigail had known Doctor Ling for over a year now, and as unfriendly and cold as he could seem sometimes, he'd never gotten angry. She'd never once even heard of him yelling at someone. So when he did, she shut her mouth, struggled for a moment, and then turn and ran.


Subject Energizer

Devin made his way up the stairs slowly. Not out of fear or because he wanted to take his time. No, if anything he wanted to jump up the steps, take five, no ten, at a time just to get to the top faster. But he'd learned how to restrain himself to keep his ability in check. If he ran, all he'd accomplish would be bringing down the entire stairwell and probably crash himself into the ceiling too. Besides, he wanted to keep every drop of power for punching that black monster in the face. To pay him back for taking everything way... he'd kill him!

A door, but it was locked. Devin clicked his tongue. "Oh well, can't be helped." He kicked the door, smashing it off its frame and into the hall beyond. He'd wanted to do something like that for so long. There were alarms going off, but the hell he'd found himself in was empty. He picked a direction at random and walked, stopping to pick up the door and drag it behind him.

He stopped and turned his head towards the ceiling. There was light coming through a crack here. A devilish smile spread across Devin's face. He took a step back and threw the door right at the crack. It was a if a bomb had gone off. The whole place shook, and when the cascade of rubble stopped and dust settled, there was a good ten foot wide hole in the roof, through which the sky could be seen. Devin jumped up through the opening and looked around. When he found what he was looking for, his blood turned cold and a rushing sound filled his ears. He was here. Omega. The monster stood out against the blue sky like a stain.

Devin focused everything into slamming his feet into the ground as hard as he could. It crumbled beneath him, falling down into the collapsing Pandora complex below, but he flew into the air towards the black demon. He got within a few hundred feet before his momentum ran out and he started to fell back towards the ground. The monster hadn't even payed him enough attention to look at him. "Hey asshole!" He threw the handful of rocks he'd gathered at Omega. They left his hand with same force as if he'd shot them out of a shotgun. Omega finally turned as a couple of them hit him. They simply vanished as they came into contact with the black shape. Seeing Devin, Omega simply moved its arm, and it was as if an invisible fist had slammed into his body. He struggled to breath even as he was sent crashing through the ground and back into the Pandora complex.

Omega turned its attention back to the destruction of the complex, but the boy it had just sent flying not a moment later came flying back out of the hole he'd made. This time Devin reached where Omega was, . He roared as he swung to land a punch on the monster that had caused so much death and destruction. This was for his mom, his dad, his brother and sister! His fist slammed into something solid and stopped. Omega was staring at him. Devin's fist was stopped just in front of the monster's head. Why couldn't he move? Why couldn't he kill this thing!? Why! Tears ran down his cheeks.

"Just fucking die already!"

As if in reaction to being yelled at, Omega suddenly released Devin from its invisible hold and threw him away. The boy fell through the air in an arc, slamming into the ground some ways away.

Omega turned back to its task as if nothing had happened.


Subject Midas

Michael was in the gym, playing horse with Shelby, when the building suddenly shook. "What was that?"

She shook her head. "I have no idea."

A black shape came crashing down through the roof, cutting the space in half and continuing down through the floor. Thankfully the two of them weren't where the blade came down, and they were on the same side of it. Shelby fell backwards away from the new wall through the middle of the room, and Michael, ignoring her no touching rule, grabbed her and pulled her away from whatever it was. A few seconds later all of the alarms started going off.

What the hell was going on? That was all Michael would think as he held onto Shelby. He suddenly let go and started to apologize to her. He'd left a thick golden handprint on her arm and had turned half of her jacket to gold.

"Really, it's not important. There's bigger things to worry about right now." The black wall suddenly fell apart like it was nothing more than smoke hit by a strong wind. "What the?" Shelby jumped up. She had no clue what she'd just seen, but something felt seriously wrong. The thing's sudden disappearance had destabilized the roof of the room. Dust and small pieces were already coming down on their heads. "Michael, we need to get out of here!"

He nodded and joined her running across the room towards the cafeteria doors. He saw it happen as if in slow motion, but at the same time it all happened too fast for him to react. She took a step and the floor gave out beneath her. She didn't make a sound as she fell.

"Shelby!" He screamed her name. When the dust cleared enough to see, he was relieved to see that she hadn't fallen far, only a couple of feet.

"I think I'm fine," she called back. "But I think I need help getting back up." She'd fallen with the floor, and was pinned up against one wall. It looked like it was just one chunk of rubble against her stomach keeping her from moving.

Michael climbed down carefully until her was next to her. "Okay, I'm going to move it," he said.

She nodded quickly. "Do it."

He grabbed ahold of the rubble and pulled with all of his strength. It was surprisingly heavy, but slowly it began to slide off of Shelby. She cried out, and he stopped immediately. "What is it? Does it hurt?"

She smiled at him. "Sorry, I don't think this is gonna work."

"What? What do you mean?" He looked at where the rubble had been pressing against her and nearly stopped breathing. The other side of the piece of rubble, where it had broken off, there were metal cords running through the concrete, sticking out of the smashed part, and into Shelby. Her jacket was already covered in blood, turning what of it that wasn't already turned to gold a deep dark red. Shelby was hurt, bleeding bad, and Michael found he had no idea how to fix it. What did he do in this situation? His mind wasn't putting ideas together like it was supposed to.

"Someone! Help! Anyone! Help! Help us!"

His voice cracked painfully, causing Shelby to laugh. It was such a stupid little thing, and it was inappropriate, but she couldn't help herself. The whole situation was so surreal that she couldn't help but laugh at something, and hearing the always smooth Michael's voice crack like that did it. She continued to chuckle and turned her head to stare up at the line of blue sky she could see through the hole cut by that black shape a minute ago.

Michael decided that the best thing to do was get the rubble off of Shelby, even if that meant hurting her by pulling out the metal. It would be worse to leave her pinned and slowly bleeding out. Once she was freed he could rush her to the medical wing, or even force her to use him to heal using her ability. He struggled to move the rubble again. Why was it so much heavier now than it had been a moment ago? He looked at the piece of rubble, and never before in his life had he hated himself more than in that instant. "I'm so sorry," he struggled to say while keeping himself from crying. The piece of rubble was almost completely turned to gold. "I'm so sorry," the tears began to fall. "It's all my fault." He looked at Shelby, but she wouldn't meet his eyes. How could he blame her. She might bleed out because of his stupidity. "I'm so sorry."

"Michael," Shelby's voice was calm and clear. "Michael, just leave me. Get out of here. Right now!"

He just stared at her. "What? I can't just..."

"Michael! Look up!"

He did exactly as she told him to. He saw the opening in the roof, the sky, the black form above. Omega. His mind went completely blank. He couldn't even begin to try and figure out what was going on right now. All he knew was he had to save Shelby. If he did that, all of the other problems wouldn't matter. He struggled to move the impossible weight of the rubble. If he pulled the rubble it would hurt her and make her bleed out faster, if he didn't she'd be trapped and bleed out slowly. If he kept trying to move the rubble it would keep turning to gold and only get heavier, if he let go it would go back to crushing Shelby, now much heavier than before. Everything was the wrong choice. There was no good options. What was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to do!

A hand grabbed his shirt. "Michael." Shelby dragged him closer so she could say something. Instead he felt her lips gently touch his cheek. Then she pushed him back. "Go! Get out of here! There's nothing you can do here, so just make sure you can still get away! There's no point in two of us..." She couldn't say the rest. "It's not your fault," she said softly.

Michael stared at her, openly crying now. "I... I'm so sorry," he said one last time. He climbed back up into the gym, keeping himself looking up to not be reminded of what he'd done, was doing. The black shape up above moved slightly, and flames rained down into the opening in the ceiling. Michael sprinted towards the cafeteria doors and slammed through them. He didn't slow down running through the other doors on the other side and running down the hall. He turned towards the medical wing. If he could just get help. He ran until he hit a locked door. The medical ward was just on the other side. He needed to get their attention. He slammed on the door, over and over, leaving golden marks that grew with each hit. No one came, and when he pressed his face to the glass to see inside, the entire room was filled with debris. The entire section had been caved in. From the door he could see flames begin to rise further inside the medical wing. The last tiny bits of hope he'd been so desperately clinging to snuffed out.

He turned around and walked back down the hall. When he'd ran through the cafeteria and turned towards the medical wing, he thought he'd heard voices coming from the other direction. It made sense. That was the direction where the recovery teams had brought everyone here initially. If people wanted to get out, it would make sense to go that way. Maybe there was someone there who could help. His mind finally decided to try and be helpful by thinking of Alexander. That guy could fix people, he could save Shelby. And that gravity girl, Grace, she could lift the rubble, no matter how heavy it was! Filled with purpose again, Michael ran after where he thought the others might be.


Subject Salamander

Alyssa was reading a book to Emily and Nick in her room when everything suddenly shook.

Emily stopped leaning against her to look around. "What?"

"I don't know," Alyssa said, frowning. Nick had nodded off with his head on her lap, and if he hadn't been woken up by that, she wasn't going to wake him now. She knew how much he needed any sleep he could get. So she very carefully moved his head onto the bed and got up to investigate. Another tremor shook the room, stronger than the first. Emily fell over on top of Nick, but he somehow stayed asleep. Alyssa almost lost her balance, but caught herself before she fell. Alarms started blaring in the hall.

She tried opening the door, but it wouldn't budge. Whatever had just shaken everything up must have jammed the door. She hit it with her shoulder then tried pulling on it, but it was no good. "Well, it looks like we're a little bit stuck in here," she informed Emily and the sleeping Nick with a reassuring smile. "Don't worry though, that just means we get to pass the time by continuing that story."

From the hall came the sound of something crashing. A lot of something. A lot of very heavy something. "Well, maybe no more reading right now," Alyssa corrected herself. She tried pulling the door open again, and this time it actually moved a little. She forced it open an inch and looked out the gap. There was nothing she could see that looked out of place, aside from all the alarms going off. The looked around where she could see. Nothing at all, until she looked at the other side of the door itself. It had a crack running down the entire other side. Following that, she saw that the frame was split in two at the top, and the crack continued along the ceiling of the hall out of sight. Now what could have done that, she wondered.

Now that she knew why the door wouldn't open, she could figure out a way to, force - she put pressure on the inner edge and then hit it hard, causing the door to bend inward, nearly snapping it in two - it open. Emily stared wide-eyed. Alyssa smiled and winked. "You just need to know where to apply the right pressure."

Emily hopped off the bed. "Um, he'd still sleeping," she poked Nick's face. Sure enough, he was out.

That was strange sure, but there were more pressing things wrong about the current situation. Alyssa put Nick on her back and walked out of the room. "Emily, try and keep your bubble around Nick and I, okay? I don't know what's going on, so better to play it safe." Emily followed right on her heels.

In the direction of the gym the hallway was filled with rubble and debris, making it impossible to get through that way. The sound of footsteps from the other direction put Alyssa on guard, but it turned out it was just Andre, and a little ways behind him was Grace, causing all of the dust and debris nearby to start drifting back up into the air.

"Andre, I'm so glad to see someone else!" Alyssa greeted him warmly. "Tell me, do you know what's going on here?"

Andre shook his head. "Glad to see you too, I was doing some training downstairs with Grace, and when we couldn't find anyone after feeling the tremors, well we didn't know what to think had happened. But I'm afraid I know nothing about what's happening. I'm as clueless as you appear to be."

Alyssa thought for a moment. "I think we need to first determine if the others are-" She stopped. "Did you hear that?" Everyone was silent.

"...elp! Help us!"

"It's coming from in the gym," Andre said.

"The other side of that mess, then," Grace called out, motioning towards the pile of concrete and steel blocking the hall. "I'm gonna come closer to loosen," she warned them before everyone started to feel the effects of her ability on them.

Alyssa pushed aside the now-weightless pieces of rubble, quickly and efficiently moving everything aside to make a path through. She was moving the last pieces of debris aside when there was a sudden flash of light and heat. from the other side. Alyssa pushed herself back, but there were bright red scales appearing on her hands and on her face where the heat had hit her. Her eyes had seemed lighter for a second too. "The gym's on fire," she informed the others.

"I guess we'll find another way then," Andre turned to go back down the hall.

"No, someone called for help," Alyssa said calmly. "I'm going in to check."

"Alyssa, you can't be serious. That's too dangerous, even for you!"

"Alyssa, don't!" Emily grabbed the older girl's dress to keep her from going.

Alyssa just smiled and reached down to tickle her until she let go. "I'll be back. Andre, can you keep Nick safe for me? He hasn't woken up from all of this. I'm worried about him." Andre nodded that he'd watch over Nick, and Alyssa slipped back through the tunnel she'd made. As soon as she pushed through the last feet of concrete she could feel the heat. The gym was burning. Her whole body itched as her skin was replaced by red scales, but the flames didn't burn her at least. She felt the familiar urge to search out stronger, hotter flames. It was loud, much louder than in any of the tests. Probably because the Pandora scientists hadn't been able to test her whole body at once before. She wanted more, more flames, more heat.

She shook her head. No, she was looking for anyone who'd been yelling for help. Focus Alyssa, you need to stay focused! She kept moving further forward. All of a sudden the floor simply ended, replaced by a sudden drop into the deeper underground levels. She took step back from the edge. That was close. If she'd walked off that drop, who knew how far down she'd have gone. But it wasn't that far across. She could probably... Without giving herself time to consider what she was doing, she ran towards the edge and lept across.

The other side looked to be in much better shape. The ceiling was still mostly intact at least. Alyssa started to look around when the floor beneath her feel suddenly moved and sent her sliding across the room, away from the drop thankfully. At least that was what she was thinking until she fell through the floor.

"Ow," she complained to no one. Alyssa wasn't hurt really, her scales were pretty hard, but it just seemed like the kind of situation to say ow, you know? She sat up and looked around the place she'd fallen into. It was hard to tell what the room was, it was full of too much rubble to-

"Shelby? Shelby!" Alyssa rushed to where the other girl lay. She wasn't moving. She wasn't breathing! Please don't be dead. She couldn't feel for a pulse with her hands covered in scales. They blocked too much of her sense of touch. She tried anyway. As soon as she touched Shelby, every part of her flared with pain. Her head hurt, her vision blurred, she had to cough from the feeling of smoke inside her chest, but the worst pain was spread across her stomach. She let go instinctively, and the pain began to fade, but then she took hold of Shelby's arm and the pain all came rushing back. Alyssa gritted her teeth. If Shelby's power was still working, then she was still alive!

Not letting go of her for anything, Alyssa checked Shelby's stomach, where the worst of the pain was coming from. There were pieces of hot metal sticking into her, coming out of a larger lump of shining metal. She'd been around Michael long enough to recognize his handiwork. He must have tried to pull it off of her. But if that was the case, where was he now? But that was something to think about later, right now only Shelby mattered.

She tried to move the chunk of metal, but it was simply too heavy, and she refused to let go of Shelby's arm. Her fingers started to dig into the hot, soft metal. Alyssa could feel Shelby's power cutting into her stomach as if she was the one being pierced by the metal cords, but the heat from the concrete-turned-gold against her body lessened the pain somewhat. Her fingers slipped from the block, ripping a small chink of gold from it. That gave her an idea. Alyssa pulled at where the cords were coming from the piece of rubble and scratched away at where it had been turned to gold. Eventually she felt something break and she was able to pull the cord away from the piece of rubble. Sure enough, inside the block the steel cord had started to turn to softer gold. She pulled at the other cords until she'd broken all of them free, all while Shelby's ability tried to kill her and her own worked to protect her.

"Sorry Shelby," Alyssa whispered right before she grabbed ahold of the cords and pulled them from the other girl's body. Immediately her own body was hit by throbbing pain, but by pressing herself against the hot metal she was able to keep herself from losing conscious. Now that those were gone, Shelby's power should start to work right, at least she hoped. It was a few moments, but sure enough, the bloody holes in her abdomen slowly started to show signs of closing up. As soon as Alyssa let go of the lump of heated gold, her own body felt Shelby's wounds opening up on her stomach. She grit her teeth and threw Shelby over her shoulder, making sure to keep in contact with her.

Alyssa climbed the rubble until she made her way back up into the gym. The wooden floor was still burning. She had to keep Shelby from the flames, but at the same time she wanted nothing more than to lie down in them. They felt so good against her skin. The floor had tiled upwards, when she'd fallen through the floor she assumed, so she had to climb upwards to get back to the gap she'd jumped to get to this side. But she wouldn't be able to get back that way. It was as if the entire complex had been split open. Looking over the edge of the gap, as far down as she could see was the lower levels of the complex. The other side of the gap was at least thirty feet away. There was no way she could get back across.

A shape fell from above and landed on the other side of the gap. The shape stood up, unharmed despite falling out of the sky. The other side had been burning much worse than the side Alyssa and Shelby were stuck on, but as soon as the person touched down, the flames around him seemed to die out, almost like he'd stolen their heat. The person shook himself off and made sure he was still in one piece, and then he jumped. She'd never seen anything like it, he just left the ground and rocketed into the air back the way he'd come. She followed him with her eyes, not understanding what was happening. Not until she saw what he was flying towards. A black shape standing motionless in the air. The feeling of unmistakable dread that filled her chest. Omega. What was he doing here though?

"Alyssa!"

She turned. On the other side of the gap, Emily was yelling her name.

"Emily! I'm fine, but I won't be able to get back to that side! You go with Andre and find another way out! Remember where we said to meet up!"

Emily listened to her reply, and then turned and ran back from the edge. Good, she was a good girl. Andre would keep her safe. She continued to watch the ledge were Emily had disappeared. Well, she'd better find her own way out too. But she didn't turn to go. She was stuck staring across the gap. It took her brain a few seconds before it could figure out what exactly it was she was seeing.

A man had just jumped off of the ledge. A man with wings. A man with three more people clinging to him. He fell at first, and then his wings moved and he was flying, clumsily but somehow sill the most graceful flying she'd ever witnessed from a man with wings.

That was Andre, right? And he was moving the heavy metal wings he always complained about. To fly. He was flying. Grace was clinging to his back, with nick in between her and Andre, and Emily was swinging from his leg. It was the most ridiculous and impossible thing Alyssa had ever seen. And she'd seen a lot of ridiculous things in her time at Pandora.

The ridiculous conglomerate of people and powers flew across the gap and touched down surprisingly lightly on the gym floor. Or rather, Andre landed with Grace and Nick on his back. Emily let go just before he would have touched the hot floor and instead floated above it. Grace, right. Her power would have made the others weightless. Andre walked over to her, having a surprisingly easy time walking despite his own body weight and center of gravity now being that of the young woman on his back. Alyssa had known that he'd been doing tests with Grace for the past month, but she hadn't expected it to involve anything like... this. As Grace got closer, Alyssa found herself having to hold onto Shelby to keep her from drifting from her arms.

"Well, this is a new look for you," Andre said.

She looked at herself for the first time. Most of her clothing was gone, burned by the flames, but she didn't exactly feel naked. After all, there was barely any of her skin left. Her entire body was covered in the protective red scales. Now that she payed attention to it, she did feel a little heavier, and her movement was kind of stiff. "Trying something new," she replied. "Do you think you'd be able to lift two more people?"

"Doesn't matter how many people, since I won't be lifting them anyway. Just grab on somewhere and don't let go." He walked towards the edge of the drop and stared up. "We can't stay here."

When he lept off the edge again, this time he had one woman and a boy on his back, a young girl on one leg, and two more women on the other. It was incredibly awkward moving, but with Grace making everything weightless he was able to move them all using his wings. For the first time ever, he was thankful for them. If they would help him get everyone to safety, he might finally stop cursing Alpha for taking away his arms.

They rose out of the compound and over the trees outside. Alyssa was just beginning to think they might be safe when the ground beneath them suddenly cracked apart and rose to meet them. Omega had turned its attention towards them. Rock spikes with sharp ends came at them. Andre couldn't get them away in time. He'd never flown for real before. He had no clue what he was doing, certainly not enough to know what movements might get him out of the way of those things. It came to everyone's surprise, well all but Emily's, when instead of being impaled they were thrown higher into the air as the spikes met the invisible barrier surrounding them.

Met with another thing that refused to be destroyed when it was supposed to, Omega did exactly as it had to Devin before: it slammed them with invisible force. Everyone held on to each other as if their life depended on it, which it did, as they were sent flying through the air. Without gravity's pull, they continued flying far out of sight without signs of falling.

Omega returned to its task.


Subject Medusa

Abigail ran up the stairs, up to the level Omni and Siren were. As she got close to their rooms she could hear Omni speaking to Siren. Not out loud, but inside her head.

Christian! Unlike the other wards up above, Abigail frequented this level. She'd gotten used to being able to hold a conversation with Omni even at the outer range of his power.

Abigail? Do you know what's happening? I heard people panicking, but it was too confusing to make out anything, and now everything's quiet. What happened?

Even as he asked the question, he must have been able to see the answer in Abigail's mind because she could feel the same dread she'd been feeling for a while now enter his thoughts. Yes, it's him. The one trying to tear the place apart is Omega. Christian's thoughts went somewhere dark and painful. Abigail tried to not hear - see? feel? - the things that flashed through his unguarded mind, but there wasn't any way to cover your ears when it was inside your head. Everyone who'd been through Omega's devastation harbored some darkness within them towards the demon that had destroyed their life, some more than others, but it was always there. Christian's power just made it harder for him to hide it when his emotions got in the way of him hiding his deeper thoughts. She heard him respond to something else. Siren must be trying to calm him down. Abigail couldn't hear the other girl's voice speaking in her head though. Only Christian heard everyone around him, other people could only hear him.

Hold on, I'm gonna let you out. She pressed the doctor's ID against the door, and the lock clicked open. Christian thanked her, speaking in thought of course, as she moved onto the next room. He thanked Abigail again in Siren's stead, the other girl just nodding her head to indicate her gratitude. Abigail couldn't keep herself from thinking how odd, cute, but odd the two were. She might not have been able to see Christian blush as he heard that thought slip out, but she for sure saw him quickly let go of Siren's hand, which had already been holding tight to his. Siren pulled back her hand, not knowing why Christian was suddenly so self-conscious, but becoming uncomfortable herself in an odd chain reaction of tangled thoughts. "Sorry," Abigail said aloud, completing the triangle of awkwardness.

We need to get out of here. Christian's thoughts suddenly became focused as he snapped back to the situation they were all in. Abigail, you know the way, right?

"Uh, yes," she said, then in her head just because talking aloud to two people who didn't just seemed wrong, Yes, I know the way out from here. I can lead us. She turned to lead the other two.

Christian grabbed her arm to stop her. Wait, there are still others stuck in here.

What? But there's no one else on this floor besides you two I thought.

They're on the floor below. I don't know exactly how many, but I've heard them before, when they've been moved around probably. They're survivors for sure, I can tell.

Abigail had known there were more dangerous survivors kept down below, down in The Box, but she hadn't known that the'd kept more survivors so close to the upper floors. Were they like Omni, kept below for their own comfort, or were they like Siren, whose ability was dangerous but could be kept under control? That didn't matter right now though, she just needed to get to them and let them out. Okay, let's hurry up and get to them then.

Christian nodded, and grabbed Siren's hand again as they hurried back to the stairs. Abigail forced herself to not think about Doctor Ling, down in the lower levels, hurt, still trying to save the others when letting those people out might very well cost him his life. But that kind of mental restraint was hard. Maybe Christian could have done it, but not her, and the pain she felt reflected in Christian's mind was enough to tell her that she'd failed to keep him from hearing her thoughts.

You can't avoid thinking, Christian said as they ran down the hall. All you can do is try to think about something else, or think quieter. As if to show her how it worked, all of a sudden it was like he wasn't there. He still was, she could see him reflected in Omega's piercing light, but she couldn't feel his thoughts at all.

They arrived at a door Christian said he heard a person behind. There's a second person further up, he said.

Abigail tossed him Aryan's ID card. Here. She didn't need two.

He thanked her and ran to open the other door further down the hall. Siren didn't leave his side. Abigail hadn't seen her release his hand once. The door clicked open.

Shit, she thought. "Shit," she said aloud. The person inside the room was in a wheelchair. Well that explained why he was on the upper floors.

"Thank god!" The boy didn't seem to care about her first reaction to seeing him. "I thought no one was going to come for me! Thank you, thank you really!"

No time, she thought, still in Omni-speak mode. "No time," she repeated aloud. "We need to get out of here and fast." ignoring his sounds of confusion and discomfort, she took hold of his wheelchair and pulled him backwards out the door.

"Uh, okay, sure," he sounded anything about confident about letting Abigail steer him down the hall. To his credit, she was at the moment considering if the floor was inclined enough to just let go and have the wheelchair roll on its own.

Christian stopped in front of the other door. It was another survivor. Now that he could hear their thoughts he was sure about it. He couldn't say what exactly it was, but the thoughts of other survivors just felt a little bit different from other people's thoughts. He touched the ID to the lock, and sure enough it clicked open. Immediately a breeze blew out of the room.

Wind?


Subject Midas

Michael had caught up to the others. The group was just a little ways down the hall. It looked like most of the other wards had been in the cafeteria and had kept together making their way to get outside. The person at the back of the group was Tisha. She couldn't run very fast, she had to be careful to keep her feet from falling through the floor. She noticed Michael approaching and turned to wave. A piece of the ceiling cracked and started to fall.

Michael lunged to push her out of the way, but he was still too far away. But it turned out Tisha had others watching out for her. Alex shielded her from the smaller falling debris while Spark, always the showoff, jumped to grab the larger chunk of falling concrete out of the air before it could fall on top of, and likely right through, Tisha's head. Only he could pull of making that kind of reaction speed look so easy.

"Good save," Michael told him once he'd closed the distance.

Spark tossed the rubble against the wall and gave him a thumbs-up.

"Thanks, both of you," Tisha thanked Spark and Alex. Tisha might not have been in any real danger of being hurt, but it still meant a lot to her that they'd protected her. And she hated it when something big passed through her head. It freaked her out. She was pretty sure Spark and Alex knew that too. That made her feel happy. Even with everything going on right now, she was glad to have such good friends.

"Have you seen Grace or Alexander?" Michael asked Spark, the urgency coming through in his voice.

Spark shook his head. "Nope. They aren't here. I think Alexander was supposed to be in the medical wing for some sort of testing today though. No clue about Grace."

Michael's heart dropped. The medical ward. That was completely caved in and filled with fire. He felt the last bit of foolish hope die in his chest. He couldn't save her. He'd left her to die. Everything hurt.

"A-are you okay? Michael?" It was Spark. He might provoke and fight with Michael all the time, but that was only because of how close they were. And when Michael suddenly looked like he was about to break down into tears, Spark let his genuine concern show.

"She's dead," Michael choked out. "She fell, and I tried to help, but I can't, and now she's dead. Because of me."

Spark didn't understand. Who was dead? Why was Michael saying she was dead? Why? He looked to Alex. Alex was smart, smarter than him at least. Maybe he'd understood what Michael was saying. The other boy's eyes were narrow. Whatever Michael had said had him on alert. Seeing Spark's look, Alex just shook his head, telling him to not say anything. Okay then, he nodded back.

"Michael," Alex said in his serious, grown-up voice. "Whatever happened, it's not your fault." He stepped closer to the young man dressed in gold, his power pushing Micheal back until he was forced to look up. "Right now there's still something you can do," Alex's silver eyes reflected Michael's bright blue. "Help the rest of us."

Michael stared blankly up at Alex, as if not comprehending how such a young kid could find the words to pull his back from the edge of his own despair so easily. Was he really just a kid? "Spark, please hit me," he finally said.

"With pleasure," the boy said with a grin, glad that the uncomfortable mood had been broken. He slapped Michael across the face and jumped back, just in case Michael changed his mind about wanting to be hit after the fact.

Michael didn't feel any better, the pit of despair was still there, but he wasn't falling into it right now. He was in control for now. "Let's hurry and catch back up to the others," he said. The four ran as fast as Tisha was able until the others were in sight again.

The reason they'd caught up so easily was because the others were stopped, everyone gathered around a door open to the outside. Why wasn't everyone running out? Michael used this opportunity to see who was here. Aside from himself, Spark, Alex, and Tisha, there was Rachel and Ken, Robert, and a seemingly empty dress wearing a hat. That would be Antonia then. As he approached, Ken jumped through the door... and disappeared from sight.

Rachel moved for Michael to see what was on the other side of the door. "Watch the first step, it's a bit of a drop," she said dryly.

She wasn't wrong. For some reason he couldn't understand, the ground was a dozen feet below. Aside from Ken, Walter was down there as well. Ken was helping him up, and looking quite uncertain about how exactly he should be going about it. "What's going on?" Michael asked aloud.

"Omega," she told him. Michael's blood ran cold. "He's here, and tearing this place inside out. And by the looks of it, he's trying to pick the whole complex up too. It's still rising now."

Sure enough, the ground below was slowly getting further away. Could a single being really be capable of lifting the entire Pandora compound, underground levels and all, into the air? Omega could do it. With everything that thing had done to the world, there might not be anything it couldn't do if it wanted.

"Out of the way!" Alex, the impossibly mature boy who'd saved Michael from himself just a minute ago, ran past and jumped through the door way with an excited yell. He slowed slightly just before landing, enough that he was able to stick the landing. Michael was impressed, and if Rachel's raised eyebrow was any indication, she was as well.

"Coming through!" Tisha jumped next. Michael panicked. If she hit the ground, she'd go right through! He reached out to grab her, but his hand passed right through her arm. She fell through the air, but Alex was ready waiting below. As she fell towards him, she slowed down. She still ended up flying right through him, but she was going slow enough afterwards that she only went up to her knees into the ground. Alex turned to help her get out, and return the dress she'd left on his head, but was interrupted by Spark coming crashing down on top of him.

They ended up wrestling over who would give Tisha her clothes back while she was left to free herself from the ground. Alex finally knocked Spark away, but Spark had ahold of the dress at the time, so he was the winner. Tisha made sure to call them both idiots even as they helped her get dressed again.

Michael shook his head. Those kids never could take anything seriously. Omega was here. The cause of all the misery, death, and destruction that had ruined their chances to ever live a normal life. That. Was here. And they were playing around. He couldn't possibly understand how the minds of those kids functioned. He jumped down to join them.

Angel's eyes opened themselves slowly as he heard the click of the door and the sigh of wind escaping a confined space. He sighed in a conflicted state of happiness and sadness. He'd been woken by the sounds of the Pandora complex being ripped apart, and had been trying to meditate as he waited to be retrieved or forgotten. He slowly unfolded himself from lotus position and floated back down to the floor carefully. The air around him continued to chase itself around him as he tightened and locked the straps on his backpack. Sighing once again, Angel calmly strode towards the door to his room, an slowly pulled it open. There was a sizable whoosh of air escaping the room as he prepared to be shot with a tranquilizer gun at any moment. He shut his room down behind him and turned to face the firing squad. Except there was no transport team outside the room to greet him. Just a boy with platinum blond hair that looked almost white and bright glacier blue eyes that seemed to be able to see right through a person.

Angel looked down at the kid in total bemusement as the wind around Angel slowed to accommodate the size of the hallway. "What- who are you? Where is my transport squad? My sedatives?" Angel forced himself to remain calm and still as he asked his questions frantically; he liked to talk wit his hands and knew that that was a really bad idea. Flashing through his mind were memories of the other few times he had been retrieved from his room; he was always sedated.

Robert watched as one by one, everyone that had made it to the exit began to jump down from the slowly rising half of the facility. As the number of people left to leap dwindled, Robert began to worry a little. He had never tried to jump down from anywhere high up with his new legs and wasn't really certain how to break his fall. "Well if these legs are made for bounding around then they could probably absorb a reasonable fall. Just in case if anything goes wrong that is, right?" he asked himself quietly as he looked down over the edge to get an idea of where he wanted to land. "No use hesitating about this jump, I just gotta do it." he mumbled to himself as he jumped down. His landing wasn't nearly as impressive as Alex's but Robert was just glad that he didn't injure himself or anything, although his legs did feel a bit sore.

Walter bounced once off the ground, wobbled a bit in the air, then landed on his side, sliding forwards before finally stopping. He groaned. Not the best landing. Fortunately, though, he’d chosen to wear a long-sleeved shirt this morning which protected him from most of the scratches, and his blob seemed to have absorbed most of the impact damage.

A shadow fell across his face. Turning his head, he saw someone with a tail standing above him, looking unsure of how to help the boy lying on the ground. Walter grabbed a hand and was hauled upwards, rightened with all four wheels on the ground. Thanking Ken, he turned back to the slowly rising compound, where more people were beginning to drop out.

He blinked. There was something black hovering over the facility. Something black and humanoid that sent a chill down his spine. Omega. It had to be. Nothing else could have done this. Except… maybe it was a Level Five. Maybe it was just a friendly, human, all-destroying Level Five. One that had pure-black skin, city-annihilating power and looked exactly like Omega. No, who was he kidding – it was Omega. They were in even more danger than he thought they would have been.

Suddenly extremely afraid for everyone’s well-being, Walter turned his attention back to the ground and saw that Robert, Alex, Tisha and Spark had come down. And also Michael, it seemed. Heading back to the group, he glanced up at the entrance and waved at the people still there to come down as well. Hopefully, the other survivors, wherever they were, were all right and escaped unharmed. “So. What now?” Surely they had a plan. Any plan would do, if it got them away from that monster.

"What now?" Robert asked in reply to Walter's question. "I think it's pretty clear what we gotta do now, and that's put as much distance between us and the nigh omnipotent being that is tearing apart the entirety of a facility" he said to the group. Robert didn't want to come off a rude, especially since that was the probably most he had said out loud for a majority of the individuals present there, but he also wasn't interested in sticking around by Omega. "Only thing is...aside from running away from the facility I don't have any idea of where we would go." he said looking up at the sky making sure nothing troublesome was coming their way.

Subject Omni

Christian shook his head. He'd have loved to stand there and explain everything that was going on, but they didn't have the time for that right now. Whatever Omega was doing, it was ripping apart the entire compound. So he did something he really hated doing and stopped hiding what he was thinking, opening up everyone nearby to his full stream of consciousness. In a fraction of a second he flashed through the ground shaking, alarms blaring, confusion, Abigail coming for him and Siren, him seeing Omega in her mind, the rage and fear and everything else he felt, wanting to rescue others despite that, and everything else leading up to him standing in front of the windbag before him. Christian closed his eyes and hid his thoughts back behind the veil of white noise. He hated broadcasting his thoughts uncensored like that. Too unpredictable, too intimate, it made him feel exposed. But his being uncomfortable didn't matter at all right now, not when wasting time could mean the whole place falling down on their heads. Then they'd be a lot worse than uncomfortable.

We need to go, he added, in case the urgency of the situation hadn't made itself clear in what he'd just tried to show. Hearing Abigail and another person coming down the hall, he turned, and then jumped back so as not to get ran over by the wheelchair Abigail was pushing recklessly towards him. She came to a quick stop, nearly sending the boy in the chair flying.

"People Sam, Sam people. Now we need to get out of here."

Abigail, may I push the boy's wheelchair? Christian met Sam's eye for a moment, as if to say that he agreed with what the boy had been thinking about Abigail just then. And there was the minor issue of her technically being blind. He could tell that she was able to see right now for some reason, even if he wasn't entirely sure how it worked, but still he wasn't okay with letting a blind person lead someone without legs. If her weird way of seeing stopped working, she might hurt both herself and him.


Subject Medusa

"Yeah, sure," she said without any resistance to dumping the task of pushing Sam around onto someone else. "You, blowhard! You're power's annoying and we've gotta go that way, so you go in front." She pointed further down the hall. If she remembered right, going that way would lead outside faster than going back the way they'd come. Assuming she remembered right.

She led the others, or rather the wind guy led them with her telling him the way, to the far end of the hallway where there was another staircase. From there it should just be two levels up and down another hallway to get out. As soon as the windbag was done going up the stairs and filling it with his annoying blowing around, she followed, with the other three right behind her. She'd just stepped out of the stairwell when suddenly everything went dark. The source of the light she'd been using to see had suddenly vanished. The unexpected change made her trip and hit her head. At the same time she lifted off the ground, or rather it the floor fell out from under her, only to crash back into it a moment later, hard. The last thoughts that drifted through her head just before the ceiling collapsed and buried her was that the windy guy's power looked kind of pretty now that it wasn't drown out by Omega's light. The way it swirled around him looked almost lazy, so serene.

Prrrgadilly


Subject Omni

Christian pulled Sam's chair backwards up another step. He'd never thought of stairs as being a challenge until now having to pull a wheelchair with a person in it up four flights. Siren was following a few steps down just in case he slipped, but so far there were no problems. It was just slower going than how fast he'd like to get out of the compound. Abigail reached the next level and ran out of the stairwell. Almost there, he thought to himself.

You can do it, Siren sent back.

He smiled at her, just before being thrown into the air. He came back down on top of Sam and his wheelchair, slamming his head into the other boy's knee. The entire side of the stairwell fell inwards, and as the steps below them cracked and fell, so did the three people still on the stairs as everything came crashing down around them.


Doctor Ling

A person in a bloodstained while lab coat struggled to keep walking, stopping every few feet to lean against the wall. He might not have the same kind of medical expertise as Smith, but he knew his own body enough to know that he wasn't in good shape. One arm was completely shattered, his head felt like he might have a concussion, a few ribs cracked at least, and there was something sharp in his back that he didn't dare try to remove.

He had to keep moving. There were subjects in the lower levels he had to get to. If Omega planned on destroying the entire complex, they'd be trapped in their cells and buried alive. He was having trouble focusing. That hit to the head had definitely left him with a concussion. Abigail. He regretted yelling at her. He hoped she'd been able to get everyone else out. If she'd done that, he'd be fine with her last memory of him being him yelling. So long as they lived. He'd never once in his life been a religious person. In the past he would have argued against anyone who so much as suggested any kind of divine intervention as being the reason behind anything, but in the last three years he'd seen enough to know how little he understood about how things really worked, so to hell with it. "Please," he mumbled under his breath to whatever beings might be listening, "let them live."

To survive Omega once only to die when it found... The man's eyes opened wide with a sudden clarity. Could that be it? The reason Omega was here. His vision swam as he fell forward. He needed to tell someone his idea. But try as he might, his body refused to get back up from the floor. Ling lay on the floor where he'd fallen, his breathing becoming more shallow with each breath.

Through the haze of death that was making it hard to even think, he heard what might have been someone approaching. He struggled to move, for some reason only able to think about how annoying it would be to leave a dead body in the middle of the hallway. But his body had stopped listening. He couldn't even move his hand right in front of him.


The man stared sadly down at the doctor. There was nothing he could do for him. The man's body was too broken. He stepped over Doctor Ling and continued down the hall.

"Please... let them live."

He turned and looked at the dying man.

"Please let them live. Please let them live. Please let them live. Please..." The dying man was simply repeating those words over and over again.

"Sorry," he said softly. "I truly am." He walked past the doors where there were still subjects locked away. The doctor's words made him want to stop and open each of them, but there wasn't time. His destination was the far end of the hall, in front of a door that seemed different from the others. It was set back into the wall and seemed heavily reinforced. The man didn't attempt to open the door, he just stopped in front of it.

The man simply waited there, perfectly still as the seconds passed by. Finally, the one he was waiting for arrived. A section of the ceiling and wall cracked apart, but instead of falling it was pulled backwards and thrown out of sight. Through the hole dug down through level after level of the complex, the man could see all the way to the blue sky far above. Floating in the air on the other end of that tunnel was the dark shape of Omega. Its featureless face was looking directly at the man. Where one would have expected some show of fear or denial, the man simply stared back up at the god of destruction. If anything, he seemed almost sad about it.

Omega blurred and disappeared, reappearing on the other side of the tunnel it had created.

"Stop this," the man spoke to the being. Simply floating above the complex, Omega had radiated enough destruction to collapse nearly all of the first level and some of the second, without taking into account the intentional destruction it had caused. So why did it seem that now that it was actually inside the compound, that nothing around it showed signs of being destroyed by its proximity? The man who should have been smashed into paste against the metal doorway behind him was standing perfectly fine right in front of Omega, closer to the being than any person ever had without dying instantly. The ceiling started to show signs of cracking, but it was still nothing compared to the mass destruction Omega was known for. Something was definitely off.


Doctor Ling

He was dead. He felt dead. Was he dead? He wanted to live. Of course he wanted to live. He'd always chosen to not believe in any kind of afterlife, but right now the idea of simply disappearing terrified him. He didn't want to die. He wanted to be alive, and continue to study the children. No, not study. Protect. He wanted to protect them. He just wanted to keep them from seeing anymore death.


A white figure skipped down the hall. Each time it touched the floor the concrete rippled as if liquid. The figure skipped once, twice, and then left the floor and continued to drift down the hall as if carried on a strong breeze. It passed over where the doctor's body lay and continued onward. It stopped floating and returned to skipping along at some point. When it reached the stairwell it stopped. Suddenly it was back at the doctor's body, or rather it was sitting on top of the doctor's body, glowing white legs dangling off of him and disappearing into the floor as if only the man's body was solid.


Subject Fire Starter

Julia waited in her room, on top of her bed with her arms wrapped around her knees, back against the far wall facing the doorway. She had no clue what was going on, but whatever it was sounded and felt like it was something bad. The black blindfold meant she couldn't see anything, so siting far from the door was just to give her an extra second to decide whether or not she should take off the blindfold or not if someone opened the door.

Her body lifted off the bed, then she was slammed back down again. She bounced and landed on the hard floor. Julia hissed angrily at the floor for coming up and hitting her, but stopped as soon as she heard lock to her room click open. She retreated back to the bed and waited for someone to open the door, but after a minute with no sign of anyone entering she got impatient and went to the door. Looking out would have been pointless with her wearing the blindfold, which was too thick for her to see anything at all, so she simply stopped and listened.

Hearing nothing, she stepped out into the hallway. The room she'd come out of had been on the right of the hall coming in, if she remembered right, so she turned to the left and moved along the wall until she felt the edge of another door. Pushing against it, it seemed that like hers this door was already unlocked.

"Hello? Is anyone here?" She pushed open the door slightly. "Is there anyone in here?"

augmentedspartan


Subject Salamander

Alyssa kept ahold of Andre's leg as if her life depended on it, which given how high up they'd been thrown and the speed they were going after being thrown by Omega it almost certainly did. She had one arm hooked around Andre, and the other keeping hold of Shelby. It wasn't something she could have done if not for Grace making everyone weightless. So when everyone's weight suddenly returned, as if Grace's power had stopped working, she found herself being pulled between the two people she needed to not let go of. As the group fell she slowly felt Shelby's unconscious form slipping away from her. Alyssa lunged to grab her again, and fell away from Andre and the rest. The ground was rushing up to meet them too fast.


"Alyssa! Alyssa!" A voice was calling out her name. It sounded familiar. But she felt sore and tired. They'd have to wait until she felt like getting out of bed.

"Alyssa!" It was a different voice. Nick?

She forced herself to open her eyes. It was dark. Slowly her eyes adjusted so she could see stars high up above. How long had it been since she'd seen stars? Too long. She wished she could see the moon, but it wasn't visible through the opening in trees directly above her. Alyssa tried to call out, but her throat was dry and she only managed to cough.

"I think I heard something!" The first voice was closer now. It must have belonged to Grace. Sure enough, Alyssa felt her body become lighter as she got closer.

"H-here," she said as loud as her voice was able to get out. "I'm here. I'm okay."

When she finally appeared, Grace's eyes were full of relief at having found Alyssa. But that immediately turned into confusion and then, was that fear?

"Grace, it's me," Alyssa tried to speak in her usual reassuring voice, but it came out scratchy and dry. Her throat hurt. "I'm fine."

"Alyssa, let go of her!"

Let go of who? She hadn't even noticed Shelby lying on top of her. Alyssa was relieved. It looked like she wasn't hurt. In fact, there wasn't even any signs of the injuries she'd suffered inside the compound anywhere on her body. Grace lunged forward and grabbed Shelby's arm, pulling her away. Alyssa couldn't understand why she was acting the way she was.


Subject Spark

Spark jumped and spun around so he landed facing the other direction, away from the compound and Omega. "Of course there's a plan!" he pointed at the kangaroo man. "Alyssa came up with plans for what to do no matter what happened." He jumped again to point at Ken. "What's the plan for Omega showing up and breaking everything?"

Ken nodded and recited as if from memory. "If something happens and we need to leave the compound, in the event we get split up and can't find each other right away, we make our way to Chicago and regroup with everyone there." There was an odd pause before he said Chicago.

"Supposedly Chicago is where a bunch of survivors with powers are hiding out," Michael explained. "I don't know why Pandora and the government would just let them have what's left of the city like that, but Alyssa seemed to think it would be a good place for a bunch of kids with powers to wait without attracting too much attention." He stopped himself from saying that the original plan would have been to rendezvous in Philadelphia, as Ken had just done the same thing. Alyssa had changed the plans to keep the new arrivals from having to go anywhere near the city they'd come from. It was for the best, especially since it looked like there was a pretty bad storm to the East. Hopefully they could find shelter before it got much closer, otherwise they'd be in trouble.

"Well then let's go. We can't stay here if Omega's already trashed the place." Spark lifted one foot and just held it in the air. "How far away is Chicago?"

"Far," Michael said flatly.

"Which way?"

"Turn a little to the left."

"Like this?"

"Around that way, pretty sure."

Spark started walking. "Hurry up everyone, we got places to be and a blizzard to stay ahead of."

"Blizzard?" Michael turned to look at the storm again. Now that he was paying attention, it did look like something other than rain falling from the clouds. It was a bit cold out, but he wouldn't have thought it cold enough to snow. He guessed he didn't know as much about weather as he'd assumed. "So it is."

Rachel stepped forward as if to say something, but instead she simply swayed unsteadily and fell over. Michael grabbed her before she hit the ground. "Rachel, are you okay?" But even as he said it he noticed the thing that was wrong. "Spark, shock Alex, right now."

"Huh, why?" It wasn't like he refused to, he shocked Alex all the time when they played, he just didn't get why Michael suddenly wanted him to.

"Just do it!"

Spark walked up to Alex and poked him in the arm. As usual, there was a crackle of static that jumped from his finger to the other boy. "Okay, but why?"

"Again," Michael said, intent on proving something Spark couldn't see.

Spark poked Alex right on the forehead this time. "Okay, but why?"

Alex had frozen in place. "There was no shock," he said. "You aren't being pushed away. Michael isn't turning Rachel's clothes to gold, and Rachel has her weight, doesn't she?"

For once it was Spark's turn to be shocked. He spun around to look at everyone. Tisha was jumping against the ground without going through, Antonia was staring in awe at her own arms and hands, things she hadn't seen in over a month. Ken still had his tail, and seemed bothered by the fact that everyone else was suddenly returned to normal. Or maybe that wasn't it and something else Spark couldn't see was bothering him. Aside from Rachel losing her balance upon regaining her weight, the only ones that seemed to be struggling with the sudden loss of their power was Walter and Robert.

IctoraPost RatKing

Subject Tempest

Angel was initially shocked as he realized that he was experiencing the thoughts of the boy standing in front of him. The flowed of mental images was almost too much to keep up with, but luckily, his unconscious mind was hashing out the important details first and was spoon feeding him the rest as he subconsciously asked for more. He understood the gist of their current situation and nodded as the boy, Christian, mentally stated their need for urgency. Angel gave Abigail, Siren, and Sam a nod of acknowledgement each before Abigail called him a "blowhard and directed him down the hallway and up the stairway. He would have been offended by her attitude if the situation had called for any meandering.

He was standing a ways into the hallway facing the stairwell and waiting for the rest of the party to make their way up the stairs when suddenly the world shifted, and for a split second, Angel was floating in air. Thanks to rag doll physics, his arms were flung out in front of him, which caused his winds to propel him backwards and slam his back harshly into the far wall. Then suddenly, gravity kicked back in, and Angel as then slammed stomach first into the floor several feet from Abigail. Luckily, his hands were already near his head, so he was bale to protect his head from slamming into the floor, though he was having trouble breathing at the moment. He couldn't even scream in shock as he watched the stairwell fall away and the ceiling cave and bury Abigail.

As the ceiling rained down on Angel, his winds were enough to keep debris from falling directly on top of him. He ended up partially trapped under a lean to formed by two slabs of concrete that were barely holding each other up. The constant movement of air was enough to keep him from breathing dust before he realizes that there was no more breezes. The air was still around Angel all of a sudden; that hadn't happened since the day before Omega had attacked New York. Initially, he was glad for the peace and quiet but soon grew concerned that'd he'd be unable to escape the deathtrap that had once been Pandora without his winds. Surprisingly, Angel's "power outage" only lasted about thirty seconds, and was already widening the crevice of rocks he was trapped under. After a few minutes of catching his breath, Angel pulled himself out from under the concrete slabs and that collapsed in plumes of dust.

Angel stumbled over to where he'd seen Abigail buried beneath ceiling and rubble and began carefully shifting debris out of the way. He wanted to see if the three on the stairwell had survived, but knew that eve if they somehow survived the fall, they would have feel too far to help. Angrily scrubbing at the tears that were welling in his eyes, Angel mindlessly swept a hand over the burial mound over Abigail and knocked nearly all of it into the stairwell with a concentrated gust of wind. Digging Abigail up out of the reduced wreckage, Angel took off his backpack. Slinging her body over his back and then putting his backpack back on, Angel used the strapped and buckles to secure Abigail's limp body to his own. He couldn't even tell if she was still breathing over the whirring of his winds, but it didn't matter.

The only good thing about the ceiling collapse was that the floor above them had led to an exit from the compound, and that the partially collapsed ceiling made a perfect ramp to climb. Angel wasted no time in climbing up a floor and stepping to the doorway leading out of the compound. He had struggled up the incline of what should have been a flat floor and realized that the doorway facing partially towards the sky. Paying it no mind and focused solely on leaving the confining building for open space, Angel leapt though the doorway and braced for impact as he fell several fee to the ground. His winds spun enough to slow his descent , and Angel hit the ground relatively softly. He immediately looked around for anyone else who may have escaped, and saw a group of young people that must've jumped from a different opening. Finely in open air, the winds around Angel began to picked up, but he ignored them as he trudged slowly towards the group with Abigail's body strapped to his back.

RatKing IctoraPost OverconfidentMagi

Subject Plague

Rocío was pretty sure this wasn't a normal earthquake. She hadn't been in any before, but she doubted there were this many stops between trembles in a real one. It felt less like the earth was shaking and more like they were being periodically bombarded, which for all she knew could be happening. There weren't any windows in her cell, her door was even hermetically locked and the only thing that kept clean air circulating was the complicated set of fans covering the ceiling and most of the walls. The fact that there were no alarms blaring or anyone telling her to put on her mask and get out either meant that this was nothing to worry about, or that it was such a mess that there was no one left outside to help them out. Judging by the tremor that had just knocked one of her pile of books over, it was probably the latter.

There wasn't much she could do, though, the door was too thick to bother banging on it and she doubted anyone would hear her if she shouted for help. Long term planning wasn't something she did much of anymore, so she decided to do what she had been done these last few weeks, take things as they came. She chose a comfortable spot on her bed, which she judged to be the safest place away from any possible falling objects, and was about to start reading when she heard the mechanism of her door switch open.

She put her book down and looked at the door expectantly. Normally she got told through the intercom when someone was coming in, both for meals and tests, but this time it remained completely silent. She kept waiting for someone to come in until she realized whoever had opened probably wasn't coming in. Whether it was because they knew of her condition or because they simply left, she didn't know, but right now it didn't matter. Escaping wasn't something she thought much about, both because she didn't think she could realistically do it and because she didn't know what she would do afterward. The idea of killing people just by breathing close to them didn't appeal to her, which is to say, she abhorred the thought. Before she was able to come to any decision, though, the door moved and in entered a girl wearing a blindfold.

"Stop!" she said, thankful that her bed was the furthest away from the door. "Don't come any closer."

OverconfidentMagi

Robert was listening to the plan as Ken and Michael explained it. Apparently the plan was to take refuge in the remnants of Chicago where they would wait out for rescue from Pandora or figure something else out. It wasn't the best plan especially since it didn't account for what they would eat or drink and it didn't help that there was a storm rolling in, but it was better than nothing and it gave them a goal to reach.

It was then that Rachel had taken a step forward and stumbled and was caught by Michael. At that moment it became apparent that something was wrong, normally whatever Michael touched would either be turned to gold or gain a gold film on the surface. This time however, nothing happend. To confirm what they were all think Rachel had Spark try to shock Alex and on the second attempt nothing happend. Then it hit him.

Robert suddenly collapsed to the ground screaming and writhing in pain as his animal limbs slowly began to shift back into their original human form. Bones began to break and reshape and muscles were being torn and mended. It was probably the second strongest surge of pain he had felt in his life, right next to the initial transformation.

Subject Slime

Walter nodded. Though he had never been there before, Chicago seemed like a nice place to go if some city-destroying monster suddenly appeared before you. Just go to another city. Simple. Never mind the option of just camping out in the wild, safe from the thing that seemed to be attracted to places with a lot of people, they’d go to a city. Still, though, they couldn’t stay here, with that ominous storm coming in and the murderous god floating above them. Right now, any place would do.

But then Rachel suddenly fell over, only just being caught by Michael and his quick reflexes. What was wrong? Were the events of the day finally catching up to her? Walter watched in bafflement as Spark slapped Alex. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. A shrill scream pierced the air. Whipping his head around, Walter saw Robert rolling on the ground, flailing his limbs… Were those his limbs? They looked more like twisted branches of flesh-colored bones than limbs. What was happening!

Walter tried to go over to Robert to help, maybe to try and straighten out his legs or something, but he wouldn’t budge. He couldn’t move. His wheels weren’t working. Panicked, he looked down and saw something was happening to his blob of slime. It seemed to be shrinking, the fluids being sucked into the thing, dryer and dryer by the second.

A dull ache was beginning to spread into his legs – something that he hadn’t experienced in a month. It grew as the mound split, a searing sensation tearing through his body. Letting out a cry, he fell to his knees, the pain growing by the second. Tears streaming down his face, he could feel his muscles ripping and tearing inside his lower body. Through his screams, he could make out the two separate pieces of his blob slowly gaining shape and solidity. With an axle stuck through them. He couldn’t scream anymore. His throat couldn’t do it. The pain. The pain was too much. Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop!

Then it stopped. Walter was left fallen, sobbing on the ground, as his legs reliquified and returned to its blobby shape. Breathing hard, shuddering, he didn’t try to get up. He just lay there, shivering.

Subject Antipole

Alex was too preoccupied imagining what it meant if his price was gone that he didn't notice how the change was affecting the others. Not until Robert and Walter started screaming. What he saw was a grotesque show of things a human body was not meant to do. Bone and flesh and whatever it was that Walter's legs had been reduced to were broken down and rebuilt. It was sickening, but for some reason he found he couldn't stop looking.

Their screams were joined by Antonia's as she saw what was happening and fled to get further away from the sights and sounds of what was happening. He heard what sounded like someone throwing up. Spark was somewhere behind him telling Tisha not to look. Alex would have expected for Michael to be the one to rush forward to help them in some way, but the older boy didn't. He seemed frozen in the same way Alex found himself. Instead it was Rachel that stepped forward.

Subject Dust

Rachel witnessed the torturous transformation of Robert and Walter until she had to look away. She could feel the things she'd just seen flowing into that black well of hatred towards Omega she kept within her chest. Just another drop in the ocean of suffering it spread. To distract herself from thinking about what was happening just a few feet away she looked to Michael. But be was staring right at the two, eyes wide. It looked as if he was paralyzed with fear.

Now was not the time for goldie to suddenly decide he had a body modification phobia. Rachel narrowed her eyes, shut off everything she was feeling, got up, and ran to the two suffering people. Robert in his flailing kicked her in the stomach as she approached, and even with a normal weight she was knocked back winded. But she just ignored it and forced herself through to grab his unchanging human hand and squeeze it tight. Walter's change should have been easier, if not for the metal in his body. It was keeping his legs from reforming properly. The shaping bones broke against it and nerves touching it sent waves of pain through him. She would have tried to get the metal axle out of his body, but just looking at it was enough to tell that there was no way it could be done. is body was already too solid to pull it out, not without some way of cutting it out, which she didn't have. There was nothing she could do help him, so Rachel just held his hand as well and whispered that they would both be all right.

Robert stopped spasming once his legs reformed, but poor Walter didn't get that relief. Even after his legs returned to normal, he still had a metal rod sticking through his ankles. Rachel had to keep herself from looking. She just kept hold of the boy's hand.

And then the whole process reversed. Robert's human limbs cracked apart as they reformed back into the animal forms they'd taken for the last month. Walter's simply melted against the ground, finally bringing him relief. For a moment she thought she felt his fingers stat to liquefy in her hand, but they resolidified after a moment. Rachel let go of his hand and reached for the metal sticking from his once again semi-fluid flesh and tried to remove it, fearing that the change back might not last long, but she found she couldn't make it move at all. Just how both of their bodies had changed back, all of her weight had fled once more. All she succeeded in doing was pulling herself.

Subject Antipole

Alex watched everything as it happened without moving. His mind couldn't make itself up whether it wanted to be racing trying to understand what was happening to everyone or frozen from witnessing Walter and Roberts' transformations. A thought that hit him as he watched Robert's limbs break for the second time broke him out from his daze. He spun around. "Tisha, don't..."

"... jump." She and Spark were both looking at him. Tisha had both feet firmly on the ground.

Spark put his arms up behind his head. His brown hair stuck up to follow his hands as they moved over. "Power's back," he announced to the group, as if anyone hadn't noticed already. "I figured it'd come back," he said in response to Alex's look.

Alex let out a relieved sigh and said a silent thanks to Spark's instincts. He'd saved Tisha from dropping through the ground as soon as their abilities had returned.

Subject Dust

Ken walked over to do something to help Rachel with Robert and Walter. What he could do he wasn't sure, he just wanted to be useful after embarrassing himself by throwing up seeing their bodies breaking apart.

"Ken," Rachel said his name without turning from the two people.

"Y-yes!" He was willing to do whatever she told him.

"If it looks like he's about to transform again, take hold of that metal rod and rip it out of Walter's body."

Ken eyed the axle sticking out of either side of the boy's lower body. He wasn't sure if he could bring himself to do that, but he couldn't say that. So all he said was, "Okay." He put his hand on the metal and mentally prepared himself for pulling on it with all of his strength at the slightest warning.

Michael still seemed frozen, from what exactly Rachel didn't know. The reaction didn't quite fit simply seeing the, albeit gruesome, transformations of Robert and Walter. Everyone else seemed to be fine. The trio of Spark, Alex, and Tisha seemed concerned with each other. It was really just Walter and Robert who got hit hard by the odd "blackout" of their abilities. Wait, where was Antonia? Rachel couldn't see the invisible girl, of the floating outfit that marked her presence, anywhere.


Subject Spark

Spark turned before anyone else even noticed the shift in the wind. The boy's hazel eyes sharpened towards the unknown person approaching. It was clear that this person was a survivor of one of Omega's appearances, but that didn't mean he was someone who could be trusted. For all Spark new he could be one of the dangerous survivors who'd escaped from The Box. This person wasn't a part of his family, and Spark was fully prepared to fight him off to protect the people behind him.

But then he saw that the person was carrying someone on their back. He ran forward and jumped right into the swirling winds surrounding the person's body, somehow using them to land to one side of the man, to get a closer look at the person he was carrying. "Abigail!" His eyes jumped back to the man. "What did you do to her!" It should have been comedic for a child to demand so strongly towards one much older and larger than them, but Spark glared up at the man with enough directed anger that it was hard to imagine him anything but serious. Of course the electricity running through his body making his hair stand on end as if he was some kind of animal did add to the effect.

Prrrgadilly IctoraPost RatKing


Subject Fire Starter

Julia flinched an dropped down in response to being yelled at. She cowered in the doorway with her arms shielding herself, expecting something terrible to happen. She'd been stuck in her room alone long enough to have imagined all sorts of other curses besides her own. Was the person whose room she'd just intruded on going to turn her to stone? Or maybe freeze her solid? She didn't think she'd make a good statue either way. Or was she going to be turned into a flower? Squished like a bug? Blown away? Julia had imagined so many terrible ways a cursed person could kill the people around them, and every single one ran through her mind as she cowered there waiting for one to take affect and be the one to end her life.

When none of those things happened after a second, then a few more, Julia slowly moved her arms from in front of her. She couldn't see anything, so it was entirely pointless, just some kind of muscle memory as she lowered her guard slightly. "I-I'm very sorry," she mumbled before fumbling to find the edge of the doorway and scramble back out into the hall.

Julia sat with her back against the wall some way away from the room. Her heart was still beating fast in her chest, but now that she was able to think a bit more slowly she realized that her reaction might have been too extreme. She didn't know if the person in hat room even had a curse. But... she felt that they did. If someone had come into her room without warning, she'd have reacted the same way, by telling them to stay away so she didn't accidentally burn them. The idea that the person might be the same as her both terrified her and gave her hope. Maybe they knew what was going on? Since she hadn't burst into flames or anything right away, maybe they had some way of controlling their curse to not kill people right away?

augmentedspartan

OverconfidentMagi said:

Subject Spark

Spark turned before anyone else even noticed the shift in the wind. The boy's hazel eyes sharpened towards the unknown person approaching. It was clear that this person was a survivor of one of Omega's appearances, but that didn't mean he was someone who could be trusted. For all Spark new he could be one of the dangerous survivors who'd escaped from The Box. This person wasn't a part of his family, and Spark was fully prepared to fight him off to protect the people behind him.

But then he saw that the person was carrying someone on their back. He ran forward and jumped right into the swirling winds surrounding the person's body, somehow using them to land to one side of the man, to get a closer look at the person he was carrying. "Abigail!" His eyes jumped back to the man. "What did you do to her!" It should have been comedic for a child to demand so strongly towards one much older and larger than them, but Spark glared up at the man with enough directed anger that it was hard to imagine him anything but serious. Of course the electricity running through his body making his hair stand on end as if he was some kind of animal did add to the effect.

Prrrgadilly IctoraPost RatKing

Click to expand...

"The roof caved in." Angel replied to his suspicious interrogator just barely loud enough to be heard over his winds as he immediately began unbuckling his backpack straps. As always, Angel moved at a slow pace to avoid creating gusts with rapid hand movements. He ignored the boy beyond replying to his question as he knelt down to close to the ground and slowly laid Abigail's body on the ground, trying to not jostle her too much. Once Abigail was placed on the ground, Angel rose and took several slow steps back as he put his backpack back on and strapped it back on his back.

"She was the only one I could hope to save." There were tears in Angel's eyes again as he thought about Christian, SIren and Simon. This time, he did not even try to wipe them away. He did tuck several strands of hair behind his ear that had escaped his long braid. Being the center of it, Angel was the first to notice that the winds surrounding him were beginning to pick up speed and intensity. "I need to be inside. Is there an inside place nearby?" Angel spoke calmly to the entire group of other Omege survivors and waited for a response as the winds continued to grow in speed and strength.

OverconfidentMagi IctoraPost RatKing

Subject Slime

Breathe in. Breathe out. In. Out. Deep breaths. Out. Calm. Out. It was over now. The pain was gone. No more pain. None. Only a throbbing numbness where his legs had been. In. Out. There were voices above him. Sounds that seemed alien – strange and incomprehensible. The pain was gone now. But the memory remained, lingering, floating through his mind. It was draining away. He could shut away the experience. He had to move. There was a monster here that had destroyed everything, and who knew what it would do next. He had to get over this, and get up.

Walter got up. Or, at least, he tried to. His arms were still too weak from all that flailing, so he attempted to roll over onto his side. He found that he couldn’t. Turning his head, his eyes were met with the sight of a figure kneeling over him, holding him down. His heart beat faster. Was it Omega? No, it was just Ken. Walter tried telling him to let go. All that came out was a hoarse wheeze. Too much screaming. Instead, he just weakly swatted at the boy until he caught on and let go, helping him up. A weary nod of thanks.

Walter looked around. Robert was still on the ground, but his limbs had returned to normal. To the animal-shaped normal, at least. Their powers had malfunctioned, and had temporarily stopped working. Not a good sign, whatever it meant. He shivered. Not from the fading memory of pain, or the growing sense of dread in his stomach, but from the cold. It was windy. Very windy, with gusts coming in from all sides, tearing at his clothes. There was someone standing some distance away who Walter couldn’t recognise, with Spark seemingly having confronted them. And was that… Abigail? What was she doing, lying on the ground? Was she hurt? He didn’t know. He was too tired, and just watched and waited.

Subject Chimera
Amidst his flailing and screams of pain, Robert noticed that Rachel and come up to both he and Walter to try to comfort them. Unfortunately, her first approach to help them out was quickly denied by an accidental kick to her stomach. Robert knew that regardless of the form of his legs a blow like that must have hurt, but Rachel pushed through the flailing limbs and held onto his right hand tightly. Eventually, his body had returned to normal and the pain began to subside, but the moment of peace from the pain quickly came to an end as his human limbs transformed back into the animal form they had been previously.

The pain of the back to back transformation of his limbs was nearly unbearable. Robert wanted to just rest there on the ground and recover from the terrible aching pain he felt, but he knew that they would have to get moving to avoid Omega. As he began to try to prop himself back onto his feet wincing in pain a bit, he heard the sound of gusting winds and Spark calling out Abigail's name. It seemed someone had carried her out of the facility and Spark was confronting them about something. Robert just watched Spark yell at the guy he assumed was the cause of the sudden strong winds as he rubbed his legs trying to ease some of the soreness he felt.

Subject Plague

Well that was a bad start. Five minutes in and someone already wondered into her cell, someone wearing a blindfold, so they had been either wandering around for a while, or they were in one of the cells close to her. Thankfully, they got the hint and left before anything could happen. Suddenly exhaling, she realized she had been unconsciously holding her breath. A good thing, probably, but it reminded her that she had been in this place for far too long. Using this thought as an action trigger, she stood up and walked towards her door, which had been left partially open. Before she could change her mind, she took a deep breath, held it, and poked her head out.

The place was a mess. Roots and branches were sprawled on the walls and ceilings, reminding Rocío of some of Beksiński's paintings. Judging by the cracks along the walls, the roots were the only thing holding this in place, otherwise they would have been blocked in. Looking around, she saw the girl sitting too close to her door. The urge to go to her and find a way to get out before the entire place collapsed was strong, but she didn't want to get close to anyone just yet. Thankfully, it seemed like luck was on her side this one time, for she saw a breathing mask attached to a gas tank not far from her. Ducking her head in and taking another breath, she quickly went and inspected it. Just as she thought, it was a similar model to what they normally gave her, meaning that she could safely breath out into it without risking anyone close to her.

Grabbing the mask and pressing it into her face, she let the rebreather do its job as she exhaled into it. However, as she breathed back in, she noticed the valve marking it as empty. Great, she was breathing someone's CO2. Cursing, she looked around to see if there was any spare tanks, but whoever had left it there did it so out of necessity, since she couldn't find anything. Cursing again, this time louder, she picked up the gear and started strapping it in. Using the mask as a reverse respirator would have to work for now. As long as she remembered to breath into the mask, everything should be dandy.

Practicing a few times, she walked towards the girl. "Are yo-", she started, before clapping her mouth shut. Talking equals exhaling. She almost killed that girl by being careless. Taking a deep breath, this time into the mask, she tried again. "Are you alright?"

OverconfidentMagi