Play@YSDC

Florence looks back briefly at the people from the cages, relieved to see John looking after them, before bracing herself for whatever may lie beyond the trapdoor.

(The brave five head into the other room and up the stairs into a new thread....)

As John shuffles them back into the cell he sees one of the women with long, straggly hair, twitch her head so severely her ear taps her shoulder. She then flinches, shudders, her jaw working as though in some queer approximation of speech. The others are still, so very still, but she seems somewhat more animate. Are the drugs wearing off? The others remain as strange and zombie-like as before, seemingly unaware of their clothing, warmth, or modesty.

John turns the woman around and holds her hands as he stands in front of her. "Hello, can you hear me?" He looks into her eyes for any flicker of response and wonders at how her neck must hurt.

The woman continues to try to work her jaw, her eyes staring past him in a glazed and confused manner. Slowly, her eyes swivel toward his face and she utters a small moan, more the escape of breath than any significant sound.

"What's your name? Can you talk?" John gives her a gentle shake.

ooc,This will be my last post until about 1st June, please npc John where necessary.

The woman doesn't respond to the shake and returns to her previously motionless state.

"This is so eerie," murmurs Julia. "What's been happening here? Where's my grandfather? How can this have happened?"

John just shook his head, still examining the woman's face. He had no answers to give.

Barely a minute passes before the door reopens and Irene and William re-enter, carrying armfuls of clothing.

"Hi," says Irene, bringing the piles of clothing over. "We found a wardrobe full of proper clothes upstairs. Julia, would you help me get the ladies dressed? There are only three fellows here, so one of you gentlemen might want to fetch the rest of the clothing."

"Are you sure about that?" asked Julia. "I don't think I'd want someone to dress me if I was ... I don't know, it just seems so ... so intimate."

"Well, that is a good point," says Irene. "Right now, they're not going to dress themselves, so the alternative is to leave them like this. Maybe they'll come to their senses eventually, and we can just leave the clothes here for them."

William deposits his armload of clothes and begins his slow ascent back up the stairs.

Irene also leaves the clothes she carried behind and heads back, assisting William up the stairs.

John shrugs, "Clothing them makes more sense in the long run, however inappropriate it may seem now. Miss, you do the ladies and I'll do the gentlemen." He rummages around in the clothing and tries to match them up to the men. "I wonder what all this old clothes are doing down here anyway." He has a look for laundry marks or name tags as he goes.

Julia nods. "Okay."

Most of the clothes don't have laundry marks. They're washed by wives and mothers, most likely, but the few that do have them point to a local laundry in Norbury. Most of the people here must be locals as well.

A gunshot cracks through the silence coming from upstairs and Julia startles, darting over to grab John's arm. Even the woman who had moaned before startles and her head slowly swivels again toward John, a deep-throated sigh rattling up from her throat, like someone coming out of the deep sleep of sedation. The woman's fingers twitch as though only just now realising that she can use them.

"What the blazes! That damn Yank, trigger happy no doubt." John attempts to pacify his own worried thoughts and those of Julia. "So these people can react to stimulus, I wish the nurse was here, she'd know what to do with them, I'm just an engineer." He realises he is babbling, pats Julia's hand and stoops to his tool bag for the biggest wrench he can find; thinks better of it and walks over to the door. He tries to listen for any other noises up the stairs.

listen (25),[url=http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4093341/]1d100=14[/url]

Julia shrieks and backs up a couple of steps. As John looks over at her, he sees her staring at the patient a bit in confusion. Julia shakes her head in relief. "Sorry. I just ... she reached for me." She took a couple steps over to the woman and takes her hand. "Are you okay? I'm sorry. You scared me."

John mutters, "These people are freaking me out." He can't hear anything else upstairs. "Must have been a loose shot, there's no other noise." He comes back to Julia. "Let's finish dressing them. I want to get it over with." He grabs some clothing and turns to the last man to be dressed.

The man stands still as he lifts first one foot, then the other, to slip the trousers on which is rather awkward to do when they're doing nothing but keeping their own balance. Its also disturbing considering his man parts are only a few inches away. Putting on the man's shirt is far easier but when John comes around the front to do up the top button, the man begins to whisper something under his breath. Something that John can't quite hear from his distance. Perhaps if he moved his ear a little closer....

John frowns, "I think this one is trying to say something." He says to Julia. He leans closer to the man's mouth.

(failed listen)