CHAPTER ONE: Cole's Journey: Lock & Key

[Garrett]

I step forward and kick the bed over, wanting to make sure the bastards dead.
OOC- I"m assuming it's a hospital bed, I'm also assuming that I was correct in my assumption and the kids body just flopped onto the floor.

[Laraqua]

The kid's body did simply slump to the floor and from Cole's brief estimation it looked like his neck was broken. The hospital bed is a thin metal frame with a thin mattress and it overturns easily to reveal an adolescent girl in her early to mid teens whose short black hair hangs over black scrawl-like tattoos over her face and hands whose dark eyes stare diagonally across the room, blood dribbling from her open mouth. She wears a long blue dress, now stained with blood, and black polished shoes like some kind of school uniform but she seems too old for this primary school.

Show,what do you reckon? Would that be a sanity hit for Cole or is he so hardened to killing that even a youth wouldn't count?

[Garrett]

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3680234/ (74)
Definitely a sanity roll, Cole's a bastard but that's a pretty nasty thing to see. Plus he has a soft spot for woman and children.
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, of FUCK. I punch myself in the stomach, just hard enough to feel some pain. Okay, calm down, yeah she's young, and a girl, but she why would she hide from you if she wasn't the one who killed the kid? Maybe she was just scared. NO! NO SHE IS A KILLER, AND EVEN IF SHE WASN'T SHE SHOULD HAVE DONE WHAT YOU SAID, THEN SHE WOULDN'T HAVE DIED! ITS HER OWN FAULT!" I take a few deep breaths and take out my flask, struggling to unscrew it with my trembling hands. I gasp in relief when I get it off and I bring to my mouth before remembering it's empty, "GAHHH!" I scream and throw it hard at the wall. With my head a mess I take a few deep breaths before stumbling out of the room, and once again trying to find the quadrangle.

OOC- I'm assuming while writing this I lost at least one sanity points.

[Laraqua]

Cole's sanity is shaken by his experiences. He staggers out into the corridor, not far from one of the doors that sit in the middle of the corridor (likely leading to yet another one) facing the way of the reception desk and the other corridor ending door. To the left is the set of double doors heading into the foyer. To the right is another set of double doors.

[Garrett]

I continue taking deep breaths and head for the door on my right, repeatedly chanting to myself that the girl was a murderer.

[Laraqua]

The thought seems pretty flimsy but it is a possibility, right? He clings to the concept as he opens up the double doors onto a darkened courtyard so thick with shadows that his flashlight barely makes out the hedge rows and the odd bench that sit on the blood-smeared grassy expanse. A clock to his right dongs above him, ringing out the hour. Is it only nine o'clock? It feels so much later than that.

[Garrett]

Well this isn't the quadrangle, I begin thinking more calmly, having firmly pushed the fact the girl was a vicious killer into my head. I turn around and head back to the other double doors.

[Laraqua]

The corridor is an empty as before. It seems emptier now somehow.

[Garrett]

Where the fuck are those damn police?! I am completely calm now, with my gun raised I head for the next set of double doors.

[Laraqua]

The only other set of double doors leads into the lobby. There is a door behind the reception desk and one door on either end of the corridor.

[Garrett]

I go to the door on the other end of the corridor.

[Laraqua]

The door opens into another corridor that heads length-wise from this point in a T-intersection. To the left are two doors marked with Boy's Toilets and Girls' Toilets (in that order away from you) followed by a wall. Directly across from you is a door marked Teacher's Room. The flashlight dissipates into darkness to the right of you down the length of corridor - there are likely further rooms there.

[Garrett]

I head further right. Damn, you'd think the quadrangle would be easier to find, if I wasn't such a good fucking person I'd just scat and let the cops handle this. I thought sarcastically, well the quadrangle's downstairs and the shooters probably upstairs, then again there could be more then one staircase. I guess I'll just keep looking for the kids.

[Laraqua]

There's another two doors marked Teacher's Room that are close together and then another gap before there is yet another door marked Teacher's Room on the left and another door on the opposite side from that. On that other wall there are plenty of school posters, particularly of a number of school performances that were held at the local Artaud Theatre. To the left is a staircases that folds back on itself as it heads up to the floor above but its been blocked with wooden planks nailed into place with large, heavy nails to form a lattice that is too big for him to squeeze through. They feel firmly put into place. He'd need some kind of instrument to truly put it apart. He could use his gun but that would take a long time and would alert the shooters to his position even more than the first gun shot did. If he didn't get through soon after shooting, he'd be easily taken out from someone in the darkness of that stairwell.

[Garrett]

There are too many variables, there could be another staircase, he could be waiting in ambush, it's better I just keep looking for the quadrangle, I turn around and head for any the only path I haven't taken yet, the door near the lobby.

[Laraqua]

There is still the unmarked door opposite the stairs. Its unknown where that leads.

[Garrett]

I head through it.

[Laraqua]

There's another corridor with a door that heads into Storage, two sets of double doors set back into alcoves on either side of the corridor, and a third door on the left labeled Hall. There's a final door that likely leads to another corridor heading down toward the first one. As he reaches the midway point of the corridor and starts flashing the light back and forth to read the labels, he feels another tremor grumble below the ground and send up shivers and vibrations through his bones. As it settles, the door to the Storage room squeals on its hinges as it drifts open.

[Garrett]

My gun darts up to the door in an instant. After a moment a slowly move closer, and look inside.

[Laraqua]

The room isn't a store room at all! It seems to be some sort of hospital ward set up, disused and dirty, with a vague and sickly smell of pus, old blood, and necrotic flesh hanging on the air like a musty aroma. There are two plasma bags hung from some apparatus by the hospital bed and a photograph on the cabinet to the other side that looks similar to the tattooed teen that he had shot although without the tatts she looks to be around 11 or 12. A chair stands by the foot of the bed with an old and heavy tome sitting upon the cushion. The air is still and quiet here as though he had briefly walked into a tomb and as his flashlight darts around the interior he can hear the gentle strains of piano music coming from upstairs.