OOM - The Labyrinth Part I

[theresnodoor]

There is boredom. There is restlessness. There is anxiety. And there is recklessness. Stages of reactions following the common phrase of There's nothing to do. If left alone for too long, this condition can result in conversation, conflict, experimentation, explosions, discovery, and death.

Among others.

But sometimes, Fate steps in. Someone looks down and notices the ever-increasing stages and says, Hey. That looks kind of dull. Let me help you out there.

The common reaction to such politeness is gratitude.


Well into the stages of boredom, Rachel opens her eyes and finds herself not in her bedroom, her apartment, or even the Bar's couch. Instead of soft fabric, there are hard, rough stones beneath her back. Instead of open space, the walls are close and dingy and the ceiling is low. And when she sits up, sharp and sudden, she is staring out of an archway that leads into the darkest of dark hallways, despite the flickering torch on the wall.

Blue eyes dart in every direction and not a single one of them makes sense - including the other person, crumpled on the stones nearby.

Comments

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo rolled her eyes. "I'm hardly random."


"And there's no way I'm going wherever that leads," She pointed with the gun. On purpose. "With just your baby blue eyes to protect me."

[theresnodoor]

"If that's all I had to work with, I would have grabbed the gun first."

Though she's certain it hadn't been there when she woke up. Her point stands.

...as does Jo's. She's not random. Not entirely.

Probably.

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo doesn't look that impressed or intrigued.
In fact, she's sporting a Grade A Ellen Harvelle look.


"Yes. Well. Someone us in the room would like to still be alive at the end of today, too."

[theresnodoor]

Rachel puts on her very own Intimidating Mother look, made all the more intimidating by how much more frequently Rachel has had to use it than even Naomi has.

"Fine," she says quietly - for lack of anything better to say and a desperate desire to get out of the dim, close-walled room. "Keep the gun. Just watch where you're pointing it."

[tobeclosetohim]

"Don't turn out to be an evil copy of a patron, and I'll leave your head right where it is," Jo shot back.

Finally advancing on the door and dark hallway.

[theresnodoor]

Rachel frowns and leans a little away from the wall to follow. That is, before some crucial information occurs to her.

"...in that case, I have a newsflash."

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo turned with the gun pointed.

Her face uncertainly wary.

[theresnodoor]

Rachel makes the same mother-face, distinctly unimpressed. But at least the gun isn't pointed at her, so much as in her direction.

Which is a relatively new experience, actually.

"I'm not an evil copy," she snaps irritably. "I'm trying to tell you why I didn't want the gun so you don't shoot me like an idiot if something attacks."

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo arched an eyebrow.

"Well."

[theresnodoor]

Dignity in a small dark room is highly overrated. Besides, Rachel's pretty sure there's no cool, dramatic way to say this.

"I can turn into animals."

She eyes the rifle for a moment and her frown deepens.

"Also? I really hate getting shot."

[tobeclosetohim]

That's.....



......not the oddest thing she's heard in Milliway's.
If she's still in Milliway's. Which she better well be.


Maybe trying to hold both. She frowned, nodding to the door. "Does it still hurt if you get shot, even though it can't actually do anything to you?"

[theresnodoor]

Rachel opens her mouth, incredulous and outraged and-- changes what she was going to say at the last moment. "Yeah. It hurts. That would be why I hate it."

If Jo wants to assume that getting shot doesn't do any damage to her at all, that's fine by Rachel. At least until they get out of here.

[tobeclosetohim]

Serving people is her domain in Milliways. Nothing else.
The most she knows about med is how to 'borrow' supplies.


She doesn't quite believe Rachel, but she heads through the door. Not exactly before her. She doesn't believe wholly.

[theresnodoor]

That's fine. She doesn't need to, right now.

Rachel pulls the torch from the wall and walks with her, more beside than the other woman than behind or in front. Which doesn't help much. The hallway is close and she's antsy enough in the small space as it is.

And all the torch shows is more stone floors, stone walls, stone ceilings.

"Scenic."

[tobeclosetohim]

"Annoying." Clipped.


So many steps forward.

So much darkness.

[theresnodoor]

So. Many. Stones.

Entirely too many things closing in.

And walking side-by-side with someone else in the same small hallway? Not helpful.

The noise Rachel makes is mostly frustration, holding the torch up higher to glance behind them at the room they left behind.

[tobeclosetohim]

Except it's gone. There's a wall behind them.

"Well, that's brilliant." Crass and cold.
She liked this place less and less.





Especially as a growl started beyond them.
Somewhere out in the darkness beyond the light.

[theresnodoor]

Not just one growl either. Several. And not unfamiliar.

Turning away from the total-lack-of-arch-where-that-had-totally-been-an-arch, Rachel lifts the torch even higher. She doesn't need to, exactly. There are some animal sounds that she's heard so often she will never, ever forget them. Her first thought is Cassie but that, of course, isn't going to mean anything to Jo.

The torchlight only catches a paw, a stub of muzzle.

"Wolves," Rachel says quietly and switches the torch to the hand nearest Jo. "You need to hold this."

[tobeclosetohim]

She opened her mouth to say hell no. She'd need both hands.
But she's about to do that thing. Isn't she?



Torch and a gun. Well, she's managed odder. Maybe.
Jo took the torch. "Don't think this means I'm sitting it out."

[theresnodoor]

"Fine," Rachel replies and reaches for her shirt - but another wolf growls and she curses in her head. She likes these clothes, even if she doesn't have to pay for them.

Fine. Fine. She doesn't close her eyes but a soft cracking and squelching signals the start of the morph, with the light too dim to see the way her body begins to shift and change.

"Don't get bit. You don't want to see me try and patch someone up."

[tobeclosetohim]

So disgusting. And lacking any med skills.



It's not really that dim.



Not when one side of her is snapping bones.
And the other is snarling wolves advancing.

She wandered the torch low and forward in an arc.

Four at least, and unpleased at the threat of fire.
Hopefully Rachel didn't need them distracted long.

[theresnodoor]

Less than a full minute. They can't stand side by side anymore, though.

At the next low growl of the wolf, cut short when they all lift their noses and sniff the air, a grizzly bear, fuzzy ears brushing the stone ceiling, gently pushes Jo out of the way and steps in front of her, growling low in her throat.

There is a pause, just one. The wolves are reluctant to attack a beast that large; the bear is reluctant to attack first.

But when a wolf lunges, she has no compunction with swinging a paw to catch it at its furry neck and send it flying to bounce off the wall further down the hallway.

Which is about when the rest of the pack loses its reluctance.

[tobeclosetohim]

And, fuck, but the impulse to swear and to start shooting at both the bear and the wolves is great for the first few seconds. But it's attacking.

And so are all the wolves.

She only muttered -- "if this explodes in my hands, I will still find you and beat you to death with the stumps that get left" -- and fired her first shot at the wolves that weren't too close to the bear.

Er. Rachel. Fucking. Weird.

[theresnodoor]

Yes. Welcome to her life.

A life that includes a wolf giving a high-pitched yelp as the bullet hits home, and two wolves that leap simultaneously. Since she has to choose, Rachel turns her head to the side and opens her jaws, clamping down on the forepaw of the beast that had gone for her shoulder, then shaking her head hard like... well, a dog with a bone.

The wolf's cries of pain are a small consolation for the other one that gets in and sinks its teeth into her front leg.

[tobeclosetohim]

They're all moving.

In the shadows. While she has a torch.
It's hard enough balancing. Almost impossible.

Without aiming too close in case Rachel moved suddenly.