Emily had given Chris a pat from the excitement of noodling. It deserved a hoot and a holler. She didn’t noodle anymore, not since her death. There was too much concern over losing a finger and not realizing it. Chris attempted a friendly pat in return. It reminded Emily of a handshake with a soft, limp hand. Well, it’s the thought that matters. Emily gave an angelic smile.

But the crash and the scream ended the pleasant conversation. The undead girl didn’t even notice Chris had jumped up until he spoke. Of course Emily thought someone was in trouble. What kind of question was that? She had a feeling Chris didn’t want to get involved. He was an awkward sort, for sure. Emily hoped they could be friends.

“I’m gonna take a look. You can wait here if you want. If I scream, call the police.”

She didn’t want the guy to feel like he had to be a knight in shining armor. Emily had lived alone for decades. She had run into gators, illegal hunters, and other wily folk and faired just fine. The female mutant motioned Chris to stay quiet. Emily tried the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Walking around to the back of the building, Emily noticed an open window that was slightly out of her reach. She grabbed a crate and hoisted herself up to the window. It was dark on this side of the building, with only the moonlight outside giving visibility. Inside, there was a rusted car with no wheels, some broken rubbish, and rows upon rows of mechanical equipment on high shelving. Plastic hung down from the ceiling, concealing more of the room and casting shadows on the walls and shelves. A large rodent scurried across the floor.

Emily dropped to the ground, making as little noise as possible. If there was something bad in here, she would find it before it found her. She headed toward the front, avoiding the hanging plastic to keep from making a commotion.

“I’m gonna take a look. You can wait here if you want. If I scream, call the police.”
Chris nodded and turned his attention back to the building, wary for any new noises. He definitely wasn't the heroic type. Saphirus had briefly tried to pull him into some sort of crime-fighting duo two years prior, but the energetic mutant had probably been the only one who hadn't realized that it was a lost cause to begin with. Chris himself had been aware of it, but had indulged Saph since... well, he was his friend. The grey mutant might not be a hero, but he wanted to help out his friends if he could.

Standing guard seemed to be a suiting task for him, and he appreciated that Emily had given him a way to help out without having to go into the building. There was just one flaw in the plan, he realized just as Emily rounded the corner to the back of the building... and it was a pretty major one. Chris got a cold, sinking feeling in his stomach. This was bad. If Emily got into trouble she'd expect police backup... and he'd be unable to provide it. After weighing indecisively from one foot to the other he made his decision, and quickly scurried after the other mutant.

The backside of the building was dark, even darker than the street. His eyesight was pretty bad, but he could just make out what looked like a sweeping skirt disappearing into one of the lower windows. Screaming to get her attention was out of the question, so instead he silently climbed up on the crate and in through the very same window. He landed swiftly on all four, his bare feet and hands making a low thud! against the floorboards.
Chris blinked, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but it was no use. His eyes were too dry, and in the soft light from the moon all he could make out was the blurry, dark shapes around him. A familiar, sharp smell and the sound of small, quick feet against the floorboard told him that there were at least one, maybe more, rats nearby. But he focused on the movement in front of him - Emily, he hoped, as he started crawling towards the shape.
"Emily?" he whispered, his voice barely audible. “"I don't have a phone."

The farther Emily walked into the building, the less she could see. She thought she heard footsteps to the right of her, so she headed that way. She hadn’t even noticed Chris had followed.

She stood in place to keep the floorboards from creaking. The space around her was a silent as a tomb. Emily did not blink. She was not distracted by the sound of breathing or her own heartbeat because she had neither. There was no wind moving through the building. Emily wondered why what seemed to be a mechanic’s shop had wooden floorboards. She concluded that this building was something else before its transformation into a home for automobiles. It looked like it had been abandoned for quite some time. Why leave all of this equipment behind?

Was that a giggle? Or maybe her mind was playing tricks on her. She walked behind another shelf and noticed a medal door. A small amount of light filtered in from the bottom of the entrance. A sheet of plastic trembled about ten feet away from her, making the sound: shsh-shsh.

Emily grabbed a crowbar that lay on the floor. Should she go through the door, or investigate what had made the plastic move?

Another scream. From behind the door. The light flickered from behind the door and went out. Emily decided to try the door handle.

The female mutant just kept moving forward without acknowledging Chris in any way. She probably hadn't heard him. A concerned look spread over Chris' face - he couldn't whisper any louder, out of fear that whoever was in the building would hear them... but if he didn't, Emily wouldn't know he was there. The best option was probably to just follow her silently.

Chris looked around at the non-descriptive shapes standing around the room. Having eyes adjusted to seeing under water with could really be a pain sometimes. He crept closer to one of them, opting to move on all four instead of standing up, and now he could see that it was an old car. Rust. Dented metal. Chris frowned - he'd thought that the shapes would be something that would make more sense inside of a building, like a row of lockers or cabinets or something. But on the other hand he lived in a bath tub in the back of a van, so he guessed he wasn't in a position to judge anybody based on their choice in furnishing.

Now that he'd gotten a better picture of his surroundings he turned around to follow Emily, and... found that she'd disappeared among the hanging sheets of plastic. Damn... she was moving quickly.

He headed towards the area of the room where he'd last seen her (at least he hoped it was her - he hadn't gotten a good look in the darkness) trying not to disturb the hanging plastic. At one point he almost knocked down an old empty soda bottle standing on a cardboard box near the wall, but managed to catch it before it hit the ground.
He was hoping that they'd been mistaken to come here. He hadn't heard anything out of place since he'd entered the building, and the scream from before... well, maybe whoever lived here was watching a movie or something. If anybody even lived here. Who would live in a place like this, filled with debris and with plastic hanging from the ceiling? Serial killers, that's who, he thought and instantly hated his brain for making that particular connection.

That's when the loud scream cut through the silence again. Chris froze. Except for his eyes, that were desperately flickering from side to side, and his heart, that was pumping hard as a jackhammer, he was completely rigid.

Emily realized that the scream probably alerted the awaiting Chris, who she believed was still petrified outside. The police would probably be on their way soon, if the male mutant believed that unearthly noise was from her. Oh how this night had changed. It started with pleasant conversation and an exotic meal. Now, Emily was searching for a sound unseen in a deserted, decaying building.

The metal door was unlocked, but there was something in front of it, something heavy. She was able to open it enough to peek through. The light flickered on again, but then quickly extinguished itself. From the few seconds Emily had been able to see, she was able to decipher a single wooden chair, sitting in the center of the grungy room. The light had been swaying above it, hanging from a rusted chain. There had been a form on the floor near the chair, but the light had been too dim to make it out.

She tried to push the door open even more, but whatever was blocking it was too heavy. Emily looked behind her and noticed a figure standing in the shadows. How long at it been there? She did what any reasonable person would do and ran up on the figure, brandishing her crowbar. Oh, it was just Chris. She hoped she hadn’t given him a heart attack.

“There’s something blocking the door. I need your help to open it.”

The silence after the otherworldly shriek was somehow even more chilling than the shriek itself. Chris was still frozen deer-in-headlight style. All he could think about in that moment was how far it was back to the exit, and how long it would take him to get there if he ran.

When Chris got frightened, he had a tendency to let his instincts take over. Right now the reason he'd entered the building complex was all but forgotten; reasoning, logic and rational thinking had to take a back seat to pure survival. So when Emily burst out from between the plastic sheets right in front of him like a character from a Victorian-themed slasher flick, waving a crowbar above her head as if she was going to bash his brains out, Chris let out a yelp and jumped three feet. He somehow managed to turn 180 degrees while still in the air and landed running. He scampered a couple of feet towards the exit before his stressed-out brain finally managed to register that it had been Emily back there, so he stopped and looked over his shoulder. Sure enough, she was standing there with the crowbar lowered, all innocence... as if she hadn't just given him the jump-scare of his life.
Chris stood hunched over with his hands pressed against his thighs, trying to force himself to calm down and his heart to beat at a somewhat normal pace again. He was able to resist the urge to run towards the door, which was something, but his nerves were still so much on edge that he barely registered what Emily was saying.
"Door. Right. Just... never do that again, please?"

He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. He was still feeling a bit frayed, but he skulked past Emily and quickly found the door in question. He reached out for it, hesitating as if he was afraid another scream would tear through the air if he touched the door, and then placed his hands carefully on the worn metal. When nothing happened he looked back at Emily, his fear clearly visible on his face. He gave her a pleading look and whispered:
"Let's just get this over with."
He was definitely not about to push until Emily had joined him. 

Emily walked over to the awaiting Chris. She hadn’t known he could jump so high. She had been impressed. They opened the door together, but whatever was behind it made a loud crash as whatever rubbish was on top fell to the floor.

The girl froze and waited to see or hear anything out of the ordinary. Nothing.

She stepped into the room, using her cell-phone as a flashlight. Emily wanted to remain in the dark, to avoid bringing attention to herself, but she had a feeling no one in the building was here to harm her. The light above the chair stayed dark. The form on the floor was, from what Emily could tell, a woman. She had been there for quite some time. The insects and other scavengers had already moved on. She wore a black dress and heels.

Emily sat in the wooden chair and looked at her GPS to find out what address she was at. Calling the police, she let them know her location and what she had found. She closed her phone and stared at the woman in the dark. “They’ll find out what happened to you. You don’t have to worry anymore.”

She heard footsteps again, this time from above. There was a vertical ladder that led up to the second floor. Emily used her phone again to make her way up the metal rungs. She spoke to Chris as she went up, not worried if anyone else heard her. “It’s probably just mice or old wood, but I’m going to make sure, just in case.”

When the door opened with a loud clatter Chris took a couple of steps backwards. Nothing exited throughout the door, though. Except from a smell that made his stomach turn - it smelled strongly of death.

Chris waited outside while Emily stepped into the room. He could see her turn on her cellphone to shed some light on the scene, and then she stopped by the shape near the chair. His heart sank. He couldn't see the body clearly in the dim light from the phone, but from the smell and from how Emily didn't even try to wake the person he could tell it was bad. This was confirmed when Emily called the police.
Chris weighed nervously from foot to foot outside of the room with the dead woman. He was hesitant to enter the room, as it was now a crime scene. 

He had only seen a dead human body once before. When he was seventeen he basically lived outdoors, but he went back to the cottage where he grew up now and then. One day he'd been unable to find his grandfather, so he'd gone out to look for him. He found him in the backyard, lying flat on his stomach close to the woodpile, axe still in hand. The old man had been covered in a layer of fresh snow, the first of that year. His body wasn't frozen, and the smell had been similar to the one in here.

But there was another association too... he'd felt a similar smell somewhere else. Recently.

When Emily started climbing the ladder to the second floor Chris stuck in his head through the door.
"Be careful," he whispered at Emily. "I don't think she was the one screaming."

“Oh, the screaming was probably just the wind carrying it from somewhere else. I wouldn’t worry about it.” She yelled back down to the awaiting mutant.

Emily shined her light into the upper part of the building. In the corner of her eye, she saw a grey shadow standing in the corner of the room. If she looked at it straight on, it would disappear. The undead girl gave an understanding smile. She quietly spoke to the upstairs room, “Come, I’ll show you the way out.”

The girl made her way down the ladder and found the front door of the room. It had a wooden bar in front of it and two common locks. She removed the bar and undid the locks. The door was a little hard to open, but with a little bit of jiggling, it finally allowed itself to open. The dim, outside light flooded the dreary room. Emily spoke clear and loud to the room with the chair. “We found you and free you from this prison. Go into the light. You are safe now.”

Emily heard footsteps once more heading out the door. She thought she heard a female whisper a thank you.

The female mutant made her way back to Chris. “It was just a squirrel up there. I thought encouraging it to use the door to get out would work. Guess not.” She shrugged. “Squirrels are stubborn.”

“I’m going to wait outside for the police. If you want to go, I understand. I can wait alone. Let’s get out of this building. It’s kinda creepy, isn’t it?” She pulled on Chris’s arm to get him to follow her into the room and out through the front door.

Chris turned his attention back towards the room with the hanging plastic. It seemed abandoned, but if someone was going to sneak up on him while Emily was on the second floor he wanted to be prepared. There was no movement there, instead he was left to contemplate Emily's words.
Had it really been the wind carrying that scream? Maybe. Hard to tell. It had sounded as if it was nearby, but maybe his nerves were playing tricks on him.

He was still on edge. That recent association refused to leave him. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on where he'd felt the smell of death lastly. It hadn't been nearly as strong, just a hint, and it had been mingled with perfume...

He heard steps approaching him and quickly opened his eyes. Emily was back, and she'd opened the main door to let some fresh air and streetlight in.
“It was just a squirrel up there. I thought encouraging it to use the door to get out would work. Guess not,” she said and shrugged. “Squirrels are stubborn.”
Chris didn't answer her, he just looked over at the door and then towards the dead woman on the floor. He shivered.

Emily said that she was going to wait for the police, and that he could leave if he wanted. Right now there was nothing he wanted more, but there was still something he needed answered before he left.
She reached out for his arm, trying to guide him out of the building, but when she touched him he withdrew as if he'd been burned. The unsettling feeling he'd had had earlier was back with a vengeance. He took a couple of steps into the room with the chair, not turning his back towards the dark-haired female. His eyes were large and round, catching and reflecting some of the moonlight in the darkness.
She'd been kind to him. She'd helped him. But he couldn't deny his instincts anymore - they were practically screaming at him that there was something awfully, terribly wrong about her.
"What... what is your mutation, Emily?" he asked with a slightly shaking voice.

When Chris pulled away, it was like a cold knife sliced through Emily’s heart. She stood a second in disbelief. Everything was going so well. The abandoned building hadn’t even phased her, but it looked like the dark unknown had gotten the better of Chris.

He was terrified of her.

Emily was dead. As dead as the woman on the floor. And people feared the dead, making up stories to frighten others and themselves. Vampires, Frankenstein’s monster, zombies, and ghosts were all dead things that defied the natural order of the world. Emily was a freak of nature.

“I…I’ve been around for a long time, Chris.” Emily inched sideways a few feet and walked toward the open front door in an arc, keeping away from the other mutant. She kept her eyes down out of shame. “I don’t eat. I don’t sleep. I don’t breath… My heart doesn’t beat anymore.”

Emily wanted to run away. Run away from this horrible situation. She was tired of this. Tired of trying to make friends. Tired of being reminded that she was inhuman and something to be feared.

The girl hurried out of the front door. Her sudden turn and the gust of wind from outside sent her black scarf flying into the road. She hurried to catch it and swiftly wrap it around her neck again, hoping Chris hadn’t seen. Hoping the jagged scars that went all around her neck from the night a man severed her head off over a century ago went unnoticed. She sat on the curb and laid her face in her hands. With luck, Chris would leave, and she wouldn’t have to explain herself anymore.

Dread started to fill him when she spoke. His instincts had been right. She was walking, talking, laughing in a way that made her seem full of life, when she actually... wasn't. Chris was usually open-minded about others' abilities, except psychics... but this was something he just couldn't get past. Death itself didn't phase him; the body on the floor didn't scare him, nor had his dead grandfather scared him when he was younger. He hunted fish and small creatures every day, killing them with his own hands.
When something died, it was supposed to stay dead. Anything else was just... unnatural.

Emily was clearly upset about it. She ran out of the front door, nearly loosing her scarf on the way. Chris felt conflicted. In one way, seeing her upset was deeply unsettling. You weren't supposed to feel something after you died. And yet, she still clearly still had the ability to feel and get hurt... which made him feel bad about hurting her.

Chris walked out of the door, grateful for the fresh air outside. The street was still mostly abandoned, but he thought he could hear sirens approaching. Emily sat on the curb, not far away. He was still frightened by her, his instincts were telling him to put as much distance between her and himself as possible. 
Still... she had done him a favor, and that was something Chris took seriously.

He took a few steps towards her and stopped, afraid of getting too close. 
"I still owe you one." He hesitated before adding: "I... usually hang around the Van Cortlandt park. If you'd need my help, go there. Ask for Grey."
Then he turned around and started to walk away from the scene rather quickly.

Emily didn’t move until someone touched her on the shoulder. It was a police officer. She answered questions as truthfully as she could, leaving out Chris so they wouldn’t try to ask him any questions.

Chris had left. Emily wasn’t surprised. She probably would never see him again. He had said he owed her a favor, but what excuse could Emily ever come up with to visit him. She would remember where he stayed, just in case.

The body was placed in a black bag and loaded into a white vehicle. From the way those on the scene spoke, they suspected foul play. Emily hoped whoever had hurt the woman would be found and tried to the full extent of the law. Other important looking people showed up and entered the building, probably to search for clues. She gave them her information if they needed any more from her.

Emily left, walking north. She had nowhere in particular to go. Maybe she would go back to the funeral home to clean up. That building had been particularly dusty.

(End Thread)