Play@YSDC

It's a lovely spring day; light streams into this one of many corridors. The Department of Physics is on the wrong side of the building to catch the morning sun well, but it still boasts excellent windows.

Classes haven't begun yet. Most of the students are outside, in the courtyard or farther off, and the university is empty without them. Soon, they'll pour into the building, filling chairs and rooms. Professors are making last-minute preparations for their first lessons of the day.

Henry is one of them.

Henry Witherspoon goes over his lesson plan for this morning's lecture one more time. He has already preapred it the night before, but it always pays to refresh himself again. Though the material is introductory to him, it nonetheless holds his interest. It is especially worthwhile, as this course could help younger minds gain a love of physics much like his own. Some students have not yet chosen their majors, and a well-taught class could be the impetus they need.

As he's giving the material one last inspection, something smacks into a nearby window. It sounds like an unfortunate bird, but it'd have to be a pretty big bird. More thumps ensue, and there's the sound of something breaking - not the window glass, but something else outside.

A second later, there's a scream.

Henry drops what he's doing and immediately runs towards the scream.

As Henry turns, he catches sight of something red on the window glass. There's no way to be sure of what it is with such a short glimpse.

Henry,If you would like to give the window a closer look, you are not required to roll anything. However, it will cost you a few seconds.

Henry doesn't hesitate and keeps running towards the scream. Someone could be hurt bad, and every second might count. Whatever's on the glass will probably still be there later.

Henry makes a mad dash for the nearest door and is outside, at the scene in record time. His attention is drawn to the young lady standing just a few feet away, screaming and sobbing into her hands.

Her back is turned, and from where Henry is standing, she largely obscures somebody behind her. He can see the frantic movements of hands, beating at a window.

There's a lull in the girl's panic, long enough for him to hear somebody further away: "Arkham Police! Stop right now!" Then she starts up again, shaking and wailing hoarsely.

"You there, what do you think you're doing?" another man shouts as he comes around from the opposite side of the University. The pounding on the window stops abruptly.

From behind, there are more hurried footsteps. A young student runs around Henry and pulls the girl off to the side. She makes no effort to stop him as he pants out an apology. "Eliza, God, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have, I..."

The figure at the window is a man. His scraggly, sandy hair obscures his features, and there are loose straps and buckles hanging from his jacket. Another, older man - the custodian? - is grasping his arm, which is covered in thick, red blood.

He turns.

Henry,Please move to the following thread: [url=http://www.callofcthulhu.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=224&t=3194]Perception[/url]

The Department of Medicine is a spotless, sterile white. A metallic odor clings to the air, and every step Henry takes echoes in the emptiness. It isn't a hospital, but it might as well be.

Despite the aura of loneliness, Henry can hear somebody else's footsteps coming around the corner, loudly.

"There's a medical emergency outside the Physics Department!" Henry calls, turning towards the approaching footsteps. "A man's lost both his eyes, and he's lost a lot of blood. He needs help, quickly!"

The footsteps speed up, and a tall man in a white lab coat rounds the corner, his eyes wide. "Lost his what? My God, of course, just a..."

He turns to run down another hallway - probably to fetch the necessary supplies.

Henry follows along. "I'll take you to him once you've got what you need," he says.

Henry catches up with the man in a pristine yet disorganized storage room. "Is he conscious?" he asks, while rifling through drawers and tossing things into a large, black bag. "Do you have any idea of what may have happened to him?"

"He was conscious when I left," says Henry. "I'm not sure how it happened, but he was outside one of the windows and beating on it when I got there. He was also wearing a straitjacket, but it was undone and his arms were free."

"Straitjacket? A sanitarium escapee? But how would he get here? That's all the way over..." The man snaps his bag shut and turns to Henry. "All right. Take me to him. You said he was outside the Physics Department?"

"Yes, this way," says Henry. He leads the way back at a run.

When Henry arrives, the first thing he notices is the trio of policemen. The man in the straitjacket is sitting on the grass, looking a great deal calmer. His stare is fixed on a patch of purple flowers.

Henry,Return to [url=http://www.callofcthulhu.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=224&t=3194&p=128180#p128180]Perception.[/url] Do not read any posts above the one you have been linked to.

Students begin filing into the room shortly after Henry has arrived and prepared everything. Several pairs of eyes flick curiously over at the red smear on the window.

"Yes, there was an...incident a short while ago," says Henry. "A lunatic escaped from the sanitarium, and he appeared to have injured himself and smeared the window. They've just taken him away."

Some of the students are quiet as they settle into their seats, but suspicious murmurs and curious whispers can be heard amongst the throng. A few young men come right up to the window, looking all at once disturbed and fascinated.

"I'm sure they'll send someone to clean the window soon," says Henry. "If you'll be seated, we can commence with today's lecture. We're going to discuss the double-slit experiment first performed by Taylor in 1909 and how it demonstrates the unusual behavior of light. Classical physics is at a loss to explain the phenomenon, but perhaps the new discipline of quantum physics can shed some light - so to speak - on the matter."

With some difficulty, everyone pulls their attention away from the window. The room falls silent.

Henry,Unfortunately, we're going to have to wait for everyone else to catch up - unless you really feel like delivering that lecture!

The door to the lecture hall squeaks open, and a young man shuffles in awkwardly. Henry recognizes him as the student who was at the scene, apologizing profusely to his female friend. He says nothing as he finds himself a seat.

Henry pauses and nods to the student before launching into the lecture: "The double-slit experiment shows the odd behavior of light. Is it a wave, or a particle? It turns out the answer is more complicated than that. Light is possibly both...or neither. The experiment involved shining a beam of light through a barrier with two slits onto a surface beyond it. If light were a particle, you would expect that after passing through the slits that it would form a pair of bands because each particle must pass through one slit or the other, but if it were a waveform it would form a single one, as it would pass through both slits at once. The strange truth is that light's behavior depends on whether or not it is being observed..."

After the lecture is done, most of what Henry hears from the students on their way out is gossip about what happened outside. Did you hear? and How awful, and My goodness!

When the lecture hall has mostly emptied, the student from earlier gets up from his desk and shuffles forward. "Professor Witherspoon? Do... you have a minute?"

"Of course," says Henry. "What's on your mind? Is it about what happened?"

"Yeah." The young man rubs the back of his neck and awkwardly glances around the room, waiting for the last couple of students to clear out.

"Look," he says, dropping his voice low and leaning closer. "Everybody's heard the rumors about this place--Arkham, I mean. But I always thought they were just stories, you know, stuff girls like Eliza would believe. This morning, though... Professor, was that man just crazy, or could there have been something else going on?"

"I don't really know," admits Henry. "I've never seen anything so bizarre. But I've seen enough in my study of physics to realize that the universe is stranger than we imagine. I'm willing to keep an open mind."

The student shrugs and nods a little. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess. But is--" He goes quiet, suddenly looking embarrassed.

"You didn't, by any chance... see him seeing things? I know it sounds crazy, but I-- I was late because I was walking Eliza back to her dorm, and she kept saying that man was-- was looking right at her. That's impossible, right?"

"It looked like that to me too," says Henry, nodding. "I know it sounds crazy, but you've learned in this course a little about the strange properties and behavior of light. Maybe there are aspects of it that we don't know about yet. Or perhaps he sensed Eliza's presence some other way, by hearing her or smelling her, for instance. Blind people often develop their other senses stronger to compensate, though it does usually take a long time to improve them. Or sometimes people can sense each other's presence in some unknown way. If there's someone standing behind you that you haven't seen, you might get a feeling that someone's there. If someone you aren't looking at is looking at you, you could feel some kind of sensation letting you know. I know there must be a reasonable explanation for what happened."

"Right, of course. There's got to be an explanation." The student nods firmly at Henry, though it seems like he's really talking to himself. Then he folds his arms and nods again. "Thanks for your time, Professor. Really. I think I just needed a moment."

"You're welcome," says Henry. "Any time you need to talk about anything, remember that my door is always open."

The young man manages a small smile. "All right. Well... goodbye, Professor." He squares his shoulders, turns on his heel, and walks out of the lecture hall.

Henry is alone now, but he can see Ms. Ross, the groundskeeper, and another young lady conversing outside his window. Have they been there the whole time?

Henry gathers his things and heads outside to where Ms. Ross and the others have gathered.