CHAPTER ONE: Cecilia: Checking In

[Kadael]

Well, that's a good sign. Cecilia returns to the pole and peeks inside her pocket.

"Come on," she says softly, reaching in to scoop it out. "It's safe here, okay? But you can't come with me."

[Laraqua]

The kitten blinks up at her blearily, half-shutting one eye as a particularly fat rain drop lands on its fluffy forehead. There's nowhere nearby to put the kitten, in truth.

[Kadael]

She sighs, and shields the kitten from the rain with one hand. What is she going to do? Is she seriously delaying for a kitten...?

She takes the coat off and checks it for any pockets that can be buttoned or zipped closed. It might be a tight fit, but it'll lessen the chance of the cat falling out.

[Laraqua]

There is an internal pocket that can be buttoned shut.

[Kadael]

Cecilia puts the kitten in the buttonable pocket, checking to make sure it's an okay fit. Then she buttons it closed, puts the coat on, and assesses the light pole.

OOC,What rolls can I fail at here? :P

[Laraqua]

Hide,Climb Check. Failing that, a Luck Roll. If you succeed on that, you can make another Climb check. Yeah, it's horizontal, but your best bet is to grip it and slide yourself along and, well, it should be somewhat harder than Dex x 5 so I'm making it a Climb. After all, what else do you do on branches in tree houses?

[Kadael]

Cecilia takes a deep breath to try and calm her nerves. It's going to be a long way across, and an even longer way down.

She crouches low and grabs hold of the metal. It's smooth and freezing - God, she should have worn gloves. And slowly, she climbs onto the pole and begins to slide.

Inch by inch, like a caterpillar crawling to shelter, Cecilia slides along the light pole. She doesn't think about what lies below, or how far she might fall.

All she can think about is how her beautiful daughter is on the other side, and this is it - this is the climb.

She takes slow breaths through the fog and shadows. Her flashlight reveals little. Once or twice, she feels herself slipping--

but her fingers, though stiff and hurting from the cold, still cling to the pole. And somehow, she manages to right herself and keep going.

It doesn't come soon, or without fear or danger. This isn't waiting. This isn't what Cecilia does.

But it is now. And she's on the other side.

OOC,Well, would you look at that?

[Laraqua]

It's not raining over here. The cold air feels almost warm in comparison to the town streets. Twin lanterns wink faintly in the darkness and as she approaches she can see their dead-insect-stained glass shells framing a set of large wooden doors. The kitten struggles in her pocket, rolling over as though to get comfortable, providing some slight distraction as she reaches for the door. As her hand clasps the handle, she hears a monstrous roar that shakes the door knob beneath her hand followed by a panicked male scream, abruptly cut off, coming from somewhere within the hospital.

[Kadael]

Cecilia shrinks away from the door, cringing. The shotgun. She needs the shotgun. Where did it land?

As she searches the area, she unbuttons the pocket the kitten is sitting in, scoops it out, and returns it to its bigger, more comfortable pocket.

What's inside that hospital? There's no way that scream could have been Katie, but maybe it already...

That's it. If she doesn't find the shotgun quickly, she's going in without it.

OOC,[url=http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3328066/]Aaand we're back...[/url]

[Laraqua]

The kitten purrs with pleasure as it attacks her hand mid-transition, before settling safely in the larger pocket.

As for her search, it takes her some time but she finds it in the end, half-hidden beneath the gate.

[Kadael]

For a moment, Cecilia considers the safety, and decides to switch it off. She'll keep her fingers away from the trigger, and the muzzle pointed at the ground, but the hospital makes her wary. It'll be nice if the shotgun never has to be fired, but... she's not sure.

She pulls the door open and steps into the hospital.

[Laraqua]

Linoleum tiles peel back to reveal water-stained exposed concrete. Several ceiling tiles have fallen down, leaving insulation form to hang down in wet globs, and rusted accordian-file vents to hang low like distended intestines from the ceiling itself. The walls are covered with public information posters that are water-stained and mouldy while the counter, at least, seems reasonably clean and tidy - with an old-fashioned computer with a CRT monitor and a notepad on the edge of the counter. There's a door behind that counter and there's also a left turn into a corridor at the end of the room. A rack of informative flyers sit to her right, just inside the room, beside the hard wooden chairs that run down the side of the room beneath the night-shrouded window glass. This is likely to be a big hospital. It'd get confusing to run around without any assistance. Maybe there's a map somewhere around here?

[Kadael]

There are plenty of reasons why people hate hospitals. 'Deteriorating and disgusting' is usually not one of them (if anything, they're always too clean).

Cecilia decides to take quick glances at the posters, the flyers, and the notepad, to see if any of them are worth investigating further.

[Laraqua]

Most of the flyers are damp and mold-bitten and certainly worthless but one of them seems cleaner than the rest and is title: Palliative Care Volunteers at Alchemilla Hospital. Most of the writing isn't something she'd pay attention to right now. It's the fold out mapof the different layers of the hospital. At least now she can pick out where she'd like to go.

The notepad has a few simple words: Mommy? You came!

[Kadael]

Cecilia picks up the notepad and stares at those three words, like they could mean something more than what they say...

...but it can't be. There's no way.

Cecilia takes the map with her and decides to take the stairs to the second floor. She doesn't know where Katie is, but she might be in one of the patient rooms. As for the stairs... well, given the condition of this building, she's not touching those elevators with a ten-foot pole.

[Laraqua]

The double doors creak as she enters the next corridor and heads out onto the landing. The stairwell is stained and tattered and there's condensation everywhere on the railings and the steps that make it slippery beneath her feet. It's almost a relief once she's on the 2nd floor landing, if only because it means she doesn't have to worry about slipping over or anything similar. Her flashlight passes across the corridor and she could swear she glimpsed a figure heading into the last room in the corridor: Room 204.

[Kadael]

Cecilia adopts a brisk pace and heads for Room 204. "Hello? Is someone there?" she calls softly, and immediately wonders whether or not that was a good idea.

[Laraqua]

A nurse stood at the far end of the room, facing the wall by the hospital bed, carrying a clipboard in one hand as she carves something in the top of the bedside cabinet with something held in her other hand. The scritch-scritch of blade against wood is the only thing that can be heard in the hospital room. The nurse's uniform is red, sensible (water-stained) white shoes, her hair brown with a little white cap on the top.

[Kadael]

The nurse's behavior is odd, but Cecilia doesn't give it a second thought - this is someone who can answer her questions.

"I'm sorry to bother you," she says, walking closer, "but is there a little girl named Katherine Brooks around here? Blonde hair, green eyes, six years old?"

[Laraqua]

Something drips down onto the bedside counter from the woman's arm. Something red and thick. Blood? Is it blood?

The nurse doesn't respond to her comments, but she does seem to be trembling, as though from suppressed tears or, perhaps, laughter.