SuAside - Locked in

[trixie]

DAHLIA: The ink on the next page has run down the pages, hopelessly staining them. The photographs all have the same transparent child's face looming large in the camera, from a face shot, to the lower part of the face, to an opened toothless mouth. Lurking in the darkness in the background is a man and a small girl who grope around in the darkness. For a moment, she feels she can almost see them moving. It is only then, that she realises the photo album is now sodden with water.

"Oh no!" Dahlia tries to salvage the bits of paper and feels her heart sink as she realizes the hopelessness. The ink has run entirely down the pictures, making it very difficult to tell what each page says. She kicks herself for not having read it cover to cover when they first found it in the Children's Ward.

"DARN IT!" She flips the pages, looking at each one, hoping to memorize them. As she does, she walks to the stairwell, where she remembers Sarah having gone to get up to the roof. She takes a last look at the room before she opens the door to the stairs.

[Hammond]

Hammond decides that she is fighting a losing battle with the children and changes her plan. She walks over to little Charlie and picks him up. "Come with me sweetie. I'll take you to safety myself." With Charlie in one arm and a gun in the other she makes her way down the stairs to some unknown destination.

[trixie]

Dahlia pauses when she sees Hammond take Charlie away. She looks back into the room and panics all of a sudden.

"JASON!!!!! JAAAAAASSSOOOOOOONN!!!!!" She yells at the top of her lungs. Strange that she hasn't heard from him in a while. Yes...very strange.....

[SuAside]

"What is it?" Jason replies annoyed as he is about to run back in into the ward to fetch more children.

[trixie]

"N.N.Nurse....H..H...Hammond.....she...she took off with....with Charlie and she.....didn't tell anyone where she was going! We....she.....well we just have to.....get him back!"

Dahlia grabs Jason's hand as she says it and starts pulling on him to come to the staircase. There is a wildly panicked look in her eyes, like this could be the end of the world for her. "Remember....we can't let anyone.....get separated. Jason! What if she's...like.....EVIL???!!!"

[SuAside]

"She's also got a gun & we don't..." Jason replies as he runs back in into the ward to fetch more children, thinking more about their safety than Charlie's.

[trixie]

Dahlia stamps her foot and screeches in rage. How could she do it by herself?

She walks back over to the stairs and opens the door with a slam of anger. Why do I have to do everything myself? Where in the heck did Nurse Sarah go anyways. Maybe I should go find some help.

Dahlia starts walking up the stairs, clutching the little knife she kept tightly and scowling in fury.

[Laraqua]

The floors she passes are all so dark but there is some ambient lighting coming from high above. The door to the rooftop stands partially open. Ash and rain mingling. She can hear it from outside. That and the sound of an engine running. There are lights outside.

[Laraqua]

As Jason re-enters the Children's Ward, he sees that each child that stood by their beds have now come forward and are standing in uneven rows in a range of six and nine feet from the door. Their eyes continue to flutter into the whites. Their hangs on either sides of their faces. Their bodies continue to drip, contemporaries and old-fashioneds alike.

Two of the children that he and Hammond had yanked out now stand a dozen a half feet away from him down the corridor.

[SuAside]

"Oh shit..." Jason says as he comes to a halt realising they're moving in on him "Not good."

He backs up and tries to make his way back out.

[Laraqua]

He darts around the two still boys with ease. He can hear the patter of small and not-so-small feet as though the children and adolescents were closing in on him.

[SuAside]

As Jason heads for the staircase, he turns around to examine their faces with his flashlight.

[Laraqua]

They are stopped seven feet behind him, frozen in place but trembling somewhat with life.

[SuAside]

Jason coughs lightly when he thinks about what to do. People in trance are often woken with water to the face, but that would obviously not work. A slap to the face might, but is he willing to risk getting that close?

Instead he decides to experiment if they follow him further and heads for the stairs.

[trixie]

Dahlia peeks out the door to the roof. Is that the helicopter still there, with its engine running?

I wonder if Nurse Sarah is still out here. I wonder if it's safe.....walking out in all that Ash. Or if that big metal thingy is still lurking somewhere outside.

Dahlia walks out on the roof, staying low to the ground. The lights are a relief to see. "Hello? Can anyone hear me?"

[Laraqua]

Jason finds the door to the rooftop shut and locked. The children are a short eight feet away. He might be able to get out into the Fifth Floor by squeezing past them or he could try and deal with the rooftop door's electronic lock.

[SuAside]

"I fuckin' knew it..." Jason curses "That fireaxe would've been handy right about now."

He hits the door a few times, in the hope that someone might hear it on the other side, but he suspects he doesn't have a lot of time, even if the kids haven't made a move yet. He judges his chances of bypassing the electrical lock rather slim, but he has never been to the fifth floor either, but if the floors are consistent, it is unlikely that he could keep running around without cornering himself in some dead end.

Taking all things into account, he tries to fiddle with the lock, attempting to find out his chances of doing something with it.

[Laraqua]

Jason manages to get the cap off and reveal the wires but he can't make much sense of their placement. He hears the little feet approaching.

OOC: Electrical repair, I think, is for this, though in the roll I said it was Computer Use. Base rate Electrical Repair is 10% http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=1283705

[SuAside]

"Oh, fuck this shit..." Jason curses as he smacks the palm of his hand one final time against the door, no longer really expecting anyone to hear him outside.

He turns and leaves the electrical lock for what it is, fearing to damage it beyond repair and preventing others from entering. He attempts to slip past the children on to the top floor.

[Laraqua]

Three children are paused a bare foot away when he turns. Their hands are out-stretched, nearly catching him. Their eyes flicker, still rolled up to reveal the whites, their faces frozen in joy. Others stand further back, still locked in a frozen run. Some are children he knows from the ward. Some are not.

OOC: Dexterity x 5 to get passed them.