CHAPTER TWO: Cecilia: Searching

[Laraqua]

The room is dark, dank, and changed. There's a static-like quality to the air that makes their hand stand on end that is in complete contradiction to the heavily moist air that clings to them and makes their every breath heavy within the claustrophobic confines of the warped room. The doors to the Nurse's Station are gone ... utterly gone ... creating gaping holes that show their glow of flashlight to every monster around. The computer is still, by some miracle, working despite its new mould-specled exterior. Somewhere, further in the building, there's the sound of running water, but here at least all seems still and quiet in the terrifying silence that follows that horrifying siren's wail.

Show,[b]Cecilia[/b] also loses 2 sanity (and gains 2 Silent Hill Mythos) for seeing the change over. Skill increases for [b]Cecilia[/b] to come.

[Kadael]

The alarms are still sounding in her head, pushing, clawing at her skull to escape. She remembers screaming, but her voice was gone. She was begging it to stop.

It's cold, now. The rotting, peeling floor is frozen where she lies, and the darkness is clearing from her vision.

"What..." Her voice is a dull rasp. She stands up on shaky legs, still managing to hang on to the stuffed animals despite her weakness.

And Jack is still here.

"What happened?" There's no anger now, only fear that echoes off the broken walls. Slowly, she walks up behind him, trying to get a look at the computer screen.

[Seon]

Jack slowly rises to his feet, blocking Cecilia from the computer screen, but stands so...absolutely...still...

[Seon]

A closer look reveals that he has taken out his diary and is writing something furiously into it

[Kadael]

"Jack?"

No. This is wrong.

Cecilia backs up, digging through the mess of broken plaster and machinery to look for the shotgun. Every few seconds, she throws a wide-eyed glance at him, afraid that he'll spring to life like a doll that looks too human.

None of this seems real. Like a world molded from wax and frozen blood.

[Laraqua]

Her fingers grasp nothing through all of the damp mush that slips through her finger tips and she can't see itout of the corner of her eye. Maybe it's the fault of all of those soft toys in her arms but it doesn't seem a good idea to drop them either.

The kitten is growling in her pocket like a tense stone reminding her of the situation. It had been silent during the sirens but it's growling now.

[Seon]

Jack slowly turned around and threw the diary at her feet.

Spoiler:

]

[Kadael]

She backs away when he throws it, only coming forward when she's realized it's not a lethal object. The red words stare and scream at her, spreading across the pages like a bloodstain.

Jack's gone. He's something else now.

The diary falls to the floor, mere seconds before she disappears through a tear in the wall, and keeps running.

[Seon]

Jack grinned as he saw Cecilia run away and began to search around the room for his shotgun.

"Where are you going?" Jack called out after her. "Don't you care about your daughter? She's here! Read all about her! Come back or I'll oull the plug from this darn thing, and you'll never find out! You deserve it too!"

Spoiler:

You REALLY shouldn't have done that, Cecilia. You really...really... shouldn't have...

[Laraqua]

The shotgun is sitting there, clear as day for him, with its gleaming well-oiled finish it somehow seemed so much cleaner than anything else in this mush.

Cecilia rushes out the warped doorway and finds herself in a corridor with the same worn down style. There's a row of three low down, broken doorways in front of her (A1, A2, A3) and door slush in the corridor to the left of her (B) and to the right of her (C) and the corridor arcs back to the right as well (D). She has only a split second to make up her mind as she can hear him rummaging around in the slush.

Hide,[b]Jack[/b] can't act until she has chosen and I've posted her results as he's still picking up his shotgun.

[Kadael]

Cecilia freezes, nearly out of breath when she hears him finally speak.

Katie.

Rushing back to the hole in the wall, she presses her hands to the crumbling plaster and glances inside. "You wouldn't."

"You know something about Katie? Tell me. Now." She comes back through, fingernails digging into her palms.

Katie's gone, sorry
You did it

[Laraqua]

Footsteps patter in the wet mush from the corridor behind her and she can barely turn to whip the flashlight around when someone shoulders into her, attempting to grab her but missing the mark. She gets a glimpse of brown hair and a flash of red and white clothing. The nurse?

[Seon]

Jack stood in the middle of the room, staring at the hole in the wall. He held the shotgun towards the ceiling and stood like a true psychopath in triumph.

His grin flickered as he heard Cecilia's footsteps coming back.

His grin faded when he first saw Cecilia's face around the hole in the wall.

"You," he said. "You came back."

He didn't even stir as he saw the figure attempt to grapple onto Cecilia, as if he considered the figure to be nothing but an annoyance for Cecilia. "It's in there," Jack said, shrugging towards the computer. "Whatever you want to find... it's in there..."

[Kadael]

Cecilia attempts to shove the nurse away and dash into the room, towards the computer.

Whatever happened, it must have set her free... if it is her. Regardless, she's trapped between two unpredictable, unstable people, and they both want to hurt her.

And she hasn't been sure of her own mental health for some time.

[Laraqua]

The nurse lurches for her with a whimper once more but her blindness works against her and Cecilia manages to slip through with ease.

The patient databaselooks simple enough to use. The only question remains whether she has time enough to use it.

Hide,+10% because it is meant to be somewhat intuitive. Jack's turn!

[Seon]

Jack's grin flared and he aimed his shotgun at her as he saw Cecilia dive for the computer.

"But... why make it so easy?"

[Kadael]

Armed with the experience that comes with long nights of research and typing important notes, Cecilia puts her fingers to the keyboard and runs a search on "Katherine Brooks".

Her breaths are shallow; she's painfully aware of Jack and the nurse, too close to her. She needs to get this done now.

[Laraqua]

The program begins the quick and easy search before Katherine Brooks' results ping up in the Search Field.

It was last updated a few days from now.

[Seon]

"You work too hard," Jack growled. "Don't be such an annoying work-a-holic."

He put the shotgun around Cecilia's neck and tried to wrench her away from the computer.

[Laraqua]

Cecilia failed to dodge out of the way and keep typing and was wrenched solidly aside. The shotgun's metal dug deeply into her neck and she could feel the warmth emanating from him as she was pulled away from the Truth and Answers that she so desperately needed.