Morgan had found the elevator by some stroke of luck or fortune. She pressed the button once, sharply. Then a dozen short and fast jabs when the light didn't come on. Something must have messed with the reciever.

They were trapped.

Suddenly Toxin was attacked. The man's hands gripped tightly around her throat, and something about the terror in his eyes told Morgan that he wasn't joking. This intention was to squeeze the life right out of her.

Why wasn't the elevator working?!

With one final jab she hesitated, wavering between stepping into the fray and turning tail and fleeing for the stairs. Nobody would know. Nobody here knew her. The man was dragging now, and shouting to an unseen grandparent.

She couldn't do it. She wasn't strong enough. What if she messed up and made it worse? Her hands clutched for her phone and she called it in. The voice, familiar through the speaker phone had an air of professionality which she knew was his code for boredom.

"Vince- It's Morgan. Something's going down at the party. Heaps of people are losing their sh**."

She rattled off a series of codes as she stepped up behind the man who seemed to be crushing her aquaintence's windpipe.

If she was on the phone to herself she would tell herself to hide, to get out of the way of the crazy and save herself. As it was she hovered behind the hulking frame. She desperately wanted to help, but the fear of turning the man's attention on herself paralysed her. If she could just get ahold of herself she could mace him. Or maybe she could tie his hands with her prop rope of no-lies hanging from her waist. She twisted her hands tightly, the phone delivering the sound of screams and cries down the line to her coworkers. They would need the connection to stay open to have the best chance of finding her.

Faintly, she heard the dial tone sound, then a connection. A tinny child's voice spoke from the phone, like an echo.

>>"Hello? hello? I'm calling about my Mommy. Mommy? Mommy, wake up!">>

With horror she clutched the phone and stared at the screen. A pixelated child's face stared back at her- the dark shape of an adult hunched against the wall in the background.

>>"My Mommy won't wake up. I need help.">>

She shoved the phone into her waist pouch. This was neither the time nor the place for that particular flashback.

Mentally shaking herself off she looked for something- anything she could use to try and break the man's hold on Toxin. A pitcher of punch was nearby and she snatched it. It was plastic, but the contents made it heavy. She brought it up over her head and cracked it down on the gladiator's. She could put him in the recovery position, if only she could knock him out, or at least out of the memory that seemed to be playing out in front of his eyes.

This was bad. This was very, very bad.

((OOC: Joint post by Andy Sanchez-Soto and Ignacio Ramírez ))

Huddling into the corner of the elevator, Andy looked frantic. He was frantic. How could he not be? A snake was in the hallway! A big, probably poisonous snake! Moreover, it had been looking directly at him with its slitted, yellow eyes, as though it was about to strike. Andy winced at the scary thought of its long, sharp teeth digging into his skin, filling his body with deadly, inflammation-inducing poison. Even if it wasn’t poisonous, the mere thought of being bitten or strangled by a snake made his heart race even faster.

Then he remembered he wasn’t alone and picked up his head. Other people were in the hallway, including his boyfriend. “Iggy, look out!” he shouted in a desperate tone before realizing that the snake was no longer there. “Oh, fuck,” Andy cursed, his back pressed against the wall of the elevator as he looked left and right and even up for the apparently fast-moving snake. It could be anywhere! He shouldn’t have taken his eyes off of it!

“Iggy, please. Get into the elevator. We have to get out of here now.” Why didn’t he want to get in the elevator? It was clearly much safer in here than out there. Did he want to get attacked by a snake? Maybe he hadn’t seen it? But there was no time to explain. “Iggy, please, I need you,” he begged, a look of pure terror in his eyes as the thought of losing him filled his mind.

---

Ignacio's heart was beating out of his chest and he wasn't sure what he should do. He had a boyfriend to protect and a X-Men impress. He couldn't let his fear take over and turn him into a pile of ash. Hearing Andy's cries for help, Iggy picked up his head to look at him. "B-but what if I accidentally....I don't want to hurt you, Andrew." Ignacio whispered. He could feel himself start to well up with tears.

---

Andy’s fear increased with every second Ignacio spent outside the elevator. He was in danger. They both were. At any given moment, the snake could come back and kill them. Their best bet was to go up to the very top floor, maybe even the roof, and wait it out until someone else caught the damn thing, but Iggy was afraid to get in the elevator for a reason Andy didn’t understand. “Hurt me? What are you talking about? ¡Sólo métete en el puto elevador!”

>> "Come on man, you gotta stick together and look after each other, get in for me."

Cafas stepped in to help, but it didn’t seem to be enough and Andy was quickly losing his patience. The thought of leaving without his boyfriend crossed his mind, but he just couldn’t do it. He cared too much about him. Letting out a frustrated groan, Andy said, his voice raised, “Iggy, there’s a fuckin’ snake out there and I don’t want to see you get hurt. Just, please, do me a favor and get in the damn elevator.”

---

Ignacio covered his eyes and let out a sigh of irritation. It wasn't at Andy for cussing at him (he'll deal with that mouth later) but at himself for allowing fear to cripple him. With a deep breath, Iggy balled his fists and stormed into the elevator. He glared down at the tile floor, sputtering out curses and R rated phrases in Spanish. "Whatever this is, I'm going to kill it!"

---

A wave of relief washed over Andy as soon as Ignacio stepped foot into the elevator. So much so that Andy couldn’t help but wrap both arms around him and pull him in close. He didn’t care who saw or how gay he looked. He was just glad Ignacio was okay. Besides, it was only a hug...

“What the hell!?” Andy spat out in a mixture of surprise, confusion, and fear as he watched the same X-Man that was supposed to protect him from whatever dangers lied ahead slip out of the elevator just before the doors closed shut. Instinctively, Andy’s finger moved toward the button that would open the door, but then he remembered a vicious, fast-moving snake was out there and stopped himself just in the nick of time. “He’ll be fine… right? He’s an X-Man...”

The question was, would they be fine on their own? And why wasn’t the elevator moving?

Terrified of the door re-opening while they were still on the ground floor, Andy scrambled to push every single button he could, repeatedly and desperately… “Holy shit, it’s not working! We’re trapped!”

And, to make matters worse, he could have sworn he heard an all-too-familiar hissing sound come from outside the elevator. “No, no, no, no, no!”

---

Ignacio turned his attention to Andy and immediately picked up and carried him away from the elevator buttons. "Stop it, Andy! You're going to break it!" Maybe staying at the Mansion was a better idea than going out to the Halloween party. "We have to keep our heads on straight!"

---

“No!” Andy protested, flailing his arms and legs as Ignacio forcibly dragged him away from the elevator buttons. “The door is going to open and the snake is going to--” Andy gasped when, all of a sudden, the elevator roared to life and begun lifting the two higher and higher. Andy breathed a sigh of relief and let himself fall back into his boyfriend's arms before realizing the elevator skipped the second floor… and the third… and the fourth… “What the hell? Why isn’t it stopping?”

And why was he hearing that hissing noise again if he was no longer on the ground floor?

Feeling something slither across his smoke-covered feet, Andy latched onto Ignacio for dear life and let out a bloodcurdling scream. "THE SNAKE IS IN THE ELEVATOR! THE SNAKE IS IN THE ELEVATOR! AHHHHHHH!!!"

Tag: Cafas

"Yeah they're in the elevator, which I'm fairly confident is disabled." Cafas stared at the fog. It swirled of its own accord in a way he found just a touch unsettling. Whoever the special effects director was, they did good work. Maybe too good, given all the talk of a snake from one of his shirtless partyboys. Shortsighted, even. Surely the hotel knew people took things before these parties. Cafas shook his head and hit the call elevator button once more.

"Cancel that, it just moved. How do I know? Well I'm a mutant that affects metal. Yes that one. Because no one ever trained me in dealing with these cases. Listen, I didn't ask to become an official part of the police force, it just happened around me, so honestly I have no idea what business people thought we had, but clearly it was mutual."

The second elevator opened, and it too was swirling with the darkness. From it came a scream as a sobbing "cowboy" tumbled out, lashing his fists at Cafas and trying to pelt away. He could see the fear in the man's eyes, and the sweat all over him. He was screaming incoherently, but Cafas caught snatches about chainsaws. The X-man threw a hand out to catch him. Trying his best not to injure the flailing party goer Cafas pulled him into a choke hold, then back into the elevator. The man scratched and scrabbled at the X-man's armoured arm, but quickly fell limp.

Sorry buddy, couldn't have you hurting someone.

Okay, two guys he'd just met was one thing, but this guy? and from the elevator shaft he could hear further echoing sobs, screams, and scuffles. There was something more sinister at play. Cafas lay the cowboy down on the floor and put his phone back to his ear. "Listen, I just had another guy in a panic, apparently seeing things. Yeah that party. Look, there's this weird smoke, I don't know where it came from, but this was all normal before that. Another call? What floor? Because I'm a deputy, and on scene that's why! Thank you."

He slammed the button for the top floor and jammed his phone into his pocket, line still live. It sounded like he might need both hands.

The elevator shot off in that unique way of high rise lifts. He eyed the smoke with deep suspicion, doing his best to not breathe too close to it. It did him no good though, he was in the building already. He knew he should have just left the area until the gas-masks arrived, but it didn't agree with his sense of duty and urgency. He had to find the source. Maybe the air ducts? It sure would spread a gas. His brain raced trying to pin together a sensible conclusion. It was either a chemical or a mutant. If it was using vents that meant... That meant it was probably the roof? Or the basement. Or literally any vent access. They could be anywhere.

Who the hell would even do this?

The elevator slowed, stopped, dinged. The doors opened, and in front of him, chaos. He sent it back down with the unconscious guy and stepped out into a hallway of people tearing themselves and others apart. He hadn't seen the like since the riots. "Well shit." He pulled two people apart, each with deep scratches on their faces and bite marks. All he did was turn their attention towards him. He threw one and slammed his fist into the face of the other, sending her limp. Cafas cringed. "This is way too big. Need to cut it off at the source..."

tag Charlie Sinclair

Oh it was glorious. Abigail could feel it. The pulse of madness that coursed throughout the hotel, the people ripping themselves apart in fear. It was oh so sweet and most certainly what the Old Ones would want; this hotel, as well as the locations that her sisters were utilizing, would make the most perfect offering to the old horrors. They just needed to be pushed just a bit longer, to simmer until the flavors of blood and flesh were just ripe enough to be consumed in the fires of insanity. Abigail had never felt this close to her gods and she was not going to let anything stop her now.

Another wave of her hands and she pushed the people within the hotel towards maddening levels. There were still those that resisted, that proved to be a bit more defensive against the effects of her aura, but that wouldn’t last for long. Even if they didn’t succumb to fear, she would ensure that they would not stand in her way. As a matter of fact, already the hallways and rooms of this hotel were becoming the stuff of nightmares.

A cackle upon her lips and the dark teenager stiffened up, her arms lashing outward. The people in the hotel, particularly those most susceptible, all screamed in unison as their fears soon began to take them utterly over. Anyone not affected, or suffering slowly, would soon become everyone else’s greatest nightmares. They would be torn to shreds...

FEAR GAUGE

Ahagl's soth l' ah'lloigshogg mgng nilgh'ri!

DICE ROLL

X Charlie Sinclair 5/5
#1 Cafas 0/5
#2 Winnifred Ann Wickham 2/5
#3 Andy Sanchez-Soto 3/5
#4 Ignacio Ramírez 2/5
#5 @morgan 1/5

✿

[/quote]

Charlie had intended to figure out what was going on and set things right. It was a noble cause and she had pure intentions. According to all logic, things should have gone right for her, but such was not the way of the universe.

She just wasn’t fast enough. Before she could actually do anything, her vision shifted as the smoke took hold of her mind. The room was no longer a place full of people who were losing their minds, it was a room full of people out to get her.

Charlie spun around, her eyes bulging as she watched her worst nightmares come to life. The people around her were distorted and shambled around, their skin pale and sickly. No one looked at her. No one even blinked.

The woman looked at her hands, thinking that it was all some strange party trick that someone was pulling. Ha, ha, very funny. Make everyone look dead. Only, her skin was just fine. She turned to a mirror to see that her eyes didn’t have the same sunken quality as everyone else’s. They looked… dead. She was the only one left alive.

The only one. How could she be the only one left? Had it really come to that? She was the only person, and her mutation had kept her around to see the world without anyone else? Her heart felt as if it was going to beat right out of her chest as she staggered back into the crowds, letting out a scream. She was going to spend the next eternity all alone. All alone forever, thanks to her stupid ****ing power.

A writhing body on the floor tripped her as she took steps backward, and all she could do at that point was crawl in the same direction that she had started in. Her face was contorted, and she was letting off a continuous, ear-piercing scream. There was nothing that could sate her at that point; things were only getting worse.

Eventually, she had travelled back far enough for her wrists to collide with the bottom stair leading to the roof. Charlie turned, an escape route spotted. There was nothing going through her mind at that point, only pure, untainted fear. The fear kept her legs moving as she scrambled to her feet and moved up the stairs. It kept her going right out onto the roof.

She stopped running part-way down the way, so she was only about ten feet from the edge of the building. The fear had not subsided, but she had managed to get a grip enough to stop the screaming for just a second. She had to catch her breath, after all.

Only, she wasn’t alone on the roof. There were no dead people, either. She was legitimately not alone. In the company of… CLOWNS!

Every single person that was on the roof was wearing the same hideous makeup and outfit. Each of them swarmed closer to Charlie, their smiles contorted maliciously as they stared her down. They were getting closer and closer, imposing on her space and pushing her closer to the edge.

Charlie screamed louder than she had in her entire life, her face in a permanent state of shock and horror. The scream rang into the night air as she stepped even farther back. Soon enough, her red heeled shoe connected with the ledge, and she turned. Even in that state, she knew what her choice was. She had to jump off. She knew from years of experience that doing so would solve everything.

So, she let herself fall, screaming all the while. The sound got quieter to anyone on the roof as she travelled downward. Finally, she connected with the pavement, and her body was gone in an instant.

Winnifred Ann Wickham

Winnie could scarcely see what was going on anymore. As the hands wrapped tighter and tighter around her neck, her eyes bulged in fear. She stared at the face of the gladiator that sought to pull her head free from her body and already she was feeling the life seep out of her. Nothing that she could do would stop him and even her newfound friends were quickly proving to be absolutely no friends at all. This was how she was going to die, right here, at the hands of a psychopath who thought she was something she wasn’t -- that was no way to die.

She gasped, the man barely registering that Amazing Lady was trying to stop him. Instead her hits were doing little else annoy the man who swiftly kicked backwards, attempting to kick the other woman off. His focus was on Winnie / his grandfather, and her alone. Winnie’s eyes began to roll up into her head, her mind slipping away into blackness as she felt the for sure that this would be the end of her. She would die here and she hadn’t done a damn thing with her life. That was probably the most terrifying thought that she could have.

Her pulse raced and Winnie wondered if this was what death was; final race of blood through the veins before they run dry and stop moving forever. It scared her, deep down, completely and utterly. And that alone was what brought on the most familiar of feelings, a vibration covering her from head to toe, before finally, in a sudden sound that cracked the air, there was a POP!

Winnie’s world suddenly grew around her. She wobbled meekly on her two, spindly legs, shaking her head and blinking her eyes in confusion. For a few seconds, she didn’t even realize what was happening, until she looked up and spied the massive figure standing above her, looking just as perplexed. It was then that she realized it...she had gotten scared being so close to death and that must have done the only thing she could imagine -- activated her mutation.

”Ah...f**k me!!” she grumbled in agitation. The gladiator looked down and, upon seeing the tiny little kiwi bird, jumped and turned his foaming mouth towards her. Shakily, Winnie ran out, between the man’s legs and looked up to spy Amazing Lady still standing there. ”Don’t just stand there you f***ing idiot!! Run!!”

Winnie only caught the smallest glimpse of Sandy and, by the time she did, the leather pants wearing woman had run off at impressive speed. She was gone, a trail of screams being the only thing that followed her as she ran off, down the hall and disappeared. Winnie couldn’t spare the time to even think about what happened to her, thanks to the towering behemoth of a man that turned to seek her out.

Hopefully Amazing Lady took her advice and bolted because that was exactly what Winnie was going to do. Her tiny heart racing, her pulse far too fast, she took off, dodging around maddened people, dashing between legs, and making for any place that looked safe; behind her, the gladiator pursued. Winnie only managed to make it around the corner before she found herself slamming against another massive man, this one with extremely blond hair and holding a hammer. He didn’t seem as confused as the others so shouted.

”Watch it, ya big Moose!! That guy is trying to kill me!!” she shouted, just in time for the gladiator to move it around the bend and charge at her tiny frame at full force.

Tag: @morgan

The plastic pitcher was exactly as effective as it sounded like it would be. It did effectively slosh cold sticky drink over her lovely costume. It did effectively make him mad. It did effectively give him a bearing on her enough to kick at her. Many of the kicks missed, but one connected rather solidly with her knee and she saw a flash of light. She kinda wanted to puke.

A stream of swear words poured from her mouth. It was the only way she could tell it wasn’t her that was screaming. Someone was screaming though, and not the person who had been banging their head against the wall. They were very still, crumpled in a pile against the wall. She couldn’t look at them. The shape was too horrible and too familiar.

She thought, maybe, it was Toxin screaming, but it couldn’t be. Morgan had been unable to break the man’s hold around her neck. She might never scream again. Morgan cast horror-filled eyes up the hallway to see their other acquaintance fleeing the scene. There was really no other word for it. It was definitely fleeing.

Screwing her courage to the sticking place she moved to the diagonal-front of the man. His attention was focussed on the woman in his hands. The limp, dangling woman in his hands. Morgan kind of wanted to throw up. Instead she kicked forwards and up as hard as she could under the gladiator’s hanging leather man-skirt.

Imagine her horror when she heard a pop.

This was not the season nor the outfit for the Nutcracker Ballet. She leapt away, somehow managing to keep her feet despite her knee and turned to see what affect her kick had had.

Apparently nothing. The man seemed to have been completely unaffected by the boot to the Netherlands. That, more than the talking little creature was surprising her more. She thought maybe it was a cat. Or a very large guinea pig. Whatever it was it was swearing advice at her and she was inclined to take it. She took off down the hall, for a moment ahead of the cat-pig, then sometimes glimpsing it in front of her ducking between legs, hopping over corpses (corpses?!). The little head skimming along just above the mist.

This was not how Morgan expected her night to go. This was not how she expected her night to go at all. Not that she had expected it to go the way the other girls had expected it, but she thought even that would be better than this.

She huffed and she puffed. If there was a house to have blown down she would have. She was not a runner. Even with the fear of a deranged gladiator behind her she was not built for speed. Plus, her boots had a small heel. She kinda wanted to puke. She legit thought her heart might actually come up if she did. Somewhere deep inside she made all sorts of bargains with the cardio gods. She would never eat pizza again. She would take up jogging. She would do anything. Anything. To get away.

The cat-pig was in front now, and she heard the voice before she rounded the corner. She wasn’t running fast enough to collide with the form on the other side of the corner, but she was running fast enough to slither in behind him on heels slippery with punch. She didn’t want to think about what else might have been on the floor that was making her slip’n’slide.

She would have added to the information. Advised against the one thing she had tried. As it was she put a hand against the wall and heaved for breath. Once, twice, then her head went down and her dinner came up. All down the wall. She would have hoped she didn’t hit the cat-pig, but her mind was occupied with her knee. Chubby as it was already it was clearly swollen and seemed to have a tint of blue.

“Owwwwwwww.”

She managed to moan.

Tag: Andy Sanchez-Soto

((OOC: Joint post by Ignacio Ramírez and Andy Sanchez-Soto ))

Ignacio had no intention of putting him down especially with the way he was acting. "Because, mi amor! You pressed all the buttons so now the elevator is going up and up!" Iggy couldn't really be mad at Andy even though he wanted to be. They both were afraid and didn't know what the hell was happening. "W-we just have to see where we end up, okay?"

---

The sound of Ignacio’s lighthearted, yet caring voice managed to calm Andy down slightly. So did being in his warm embrace. Taking a deep breath, he guessed what mattered was that they were together and no longer on the ground floor, where he had last seen the snake. But then he heard the snake’s threatening hisses yet again, and this time they were coming from inside the elevator. How could he not fly into a panic?

“THE SNAKE IS IN THE ELEVATOR!” Andy repeated, frantic, as he continued attempting to climb on top of his boyfriend so as to avoid touching the floor, which was completely covered in swirling black smoke. Glancing down fearfully, he couldn’t see the snake, but he knew it was there. Somewhere. “AHHHHH!!!”

--

Ignacio thought that the horrors were over, but soon his boyfriend started to scream out and attempt to climb on top of him. "A-Andy! Stop climbing on top of me before you make my skirt fall off!" Iggy tried his hardest to calm down his boyfriend, but he knew that it was going to be in vain. The last thing he wanted was let this fear consume Andy and cause him to do something stupid out of fear. Instead of picking Andy up, he put him behind him in a corner and tried his best to shield him for whatever he was feeling.

---

Whatever Iggy was telling him, Andy wasn’t listening. He was busy screaming his lungs out. It wasn’t until Ignacio moved in front of him that he was finally able to catch his breath. Breathing heavily, Andy’s eyes went wide as he realized Ignacio, the man of his dreams, was now the one in mortal danger. Yet, Andy was frozen with fear, unable to speak a word or move a muscle. All he could do was clutch onto Ignacio’s muscular frame from behind, hugging him as though for the last time, his eyes shut tight.

And then, all of a sudden, the elevator came to an abrupt halt. PING! The elevator doors swung open.

---

The teenage Sun god's eyes shot up to the digital number on the elevator once he heard that the doors opened. "The fourteenth floor?!" Ignacio cussed in Spanish and grabbed one of the hands that were wrapped around his midsection and ran down the hallway. "Come on! We have to go!" God, Iggy wished that it was the daytime. Currently, he was feeling so exposed and helpless out at night. He knew that it would've been a better idea to have a Halloween Party when the Sun was up and Iggy wasn't running on his solar power reserves. ]"Where are we going?!"

---

Andy’s eyes shot open at the sound of the elevator opening. His brain urged him to move, to make a break for it, but his body wouldn’t let him, still frozen with fear. Fortunately, Ignacio wasn’t nearly as scared of snakes as Andy was and pulled him out of the elevator. Mobility came rushing back to Andy’s body shortly after, allowing him to run alongside Ignacio as they entered a crowded, noisy corridor filled with black smoke and clinically crazy partgoers. They were fighting each other, beating each other to a pulp, but Andy didn’t care. He was just happy to be out of that damn elevator. There was no way the snake could follow them without getting stepped on. “I don’t care where we go! I just want to get out of here! This is the worst hotel ever!”

---

"Agreed! The next time we want to be nasty, we will stick to the pool, el alma gemela!" Ignacio looked behind him to see if anything was chasing them. Luckily, nothing was and instead, Iggy and Andy turned around to focus on the group in front of them. Why were they fighting each other?! "I don't know..." Iggy looked around frantically and tried his best to get his thoughts together. He stopped running and turned to look at Andy. "Look, we have to get out of here or try and fight this thing. Are you with me?"


Cafas

Cafas looked around himself with a degree of desperation. He knew he was in a bad spot. Surrounded by people trying to kill themselves and others, he could do little to nothing to prevent it. A woman in leather, perhaps from Goop, ran by him screaming. He grasped at her but missed. She pelted up the nearby steps, and Cafas could see the smokey fog on them. He tried to follow but was held up by the woman he'd thrown turning on him. He'd seen that coming a mile off, but cursed her bad timing.

His knee met her stomach, his fist drove down into her jaw. She went down and he felt like throwing up. These people were afraid. He knew afraid when he saw it, he'd spent years dealing in afraid. He'd been in a similar state when that photographer had snapped him and Isabel in the woods. They needed protecting, but he had to protect himself to protect them.

>>”Watch it, ya big Moose!! That guy is trying to kill me!!”

Cafas looked around for this new, very much lucid, voice. It was coming from down. That didn't make sense. Another woman, Amazing-Lady, in spite of whoever might have told her not to do it, stopped by him and promptly evacuated her stomach. In hot pursuit, like a raging bull down the hallway, some skirted gladiator dude. He hadn't seemed to notice Cafas, and was headed right for the X-man's favourite amazon.

If I save one, it's not a waste...

"Sorry mate." Cafas stepped by the hurling woman, wound his hammer back, and drove it forward with both mutation and muscle. It met the charging man's chest with a heavy crunch. He all but backflipped from the force, landing on the ground gasping for air, momentarily stunned. The X-man turned his eyes to Amazing-Lady, inspecting a badly hurt knee, then to the floor, where he could just see a...

"Kiwi? Small world." Cafas glanced around, but as far as he could tell they were the only people not either completely out of their mind, or actively engaged in a fight. He couldn't help them all. It hurt, but they'd have to hope they could fend for themselves. "Alright you two, upstairs, we gotta get above this gas. I know it hurts dude, but you gotta reach down deep and find your strength. Live to cry another day." Cafas clapped her on the shoulder and gave her a push towards the stairs, carefully hopping over the kiwi, onto someone in the smoke. He stumbled, and tried not to think about it as he made sure there was a clear path to the stairs.

He took the stairs by fours, ready to fight at any moment, but found them empty. The door to the roof was swinging open, and outside more black smoke swirled about, completely heedless of the wind. The X-man burst through, eyes falling onto Sandy, so close to the edge, backing away in a panic. "Watch out!" He dropped the hammer and ran, but couldn't cross the distance before she jumped. His feet skidded on the gravel as he ground to a halt. The scream was bad, but he knew what the worst would be. He cringed when it cut out, hot tears of anger running down his face.

You have a job to do. Pull it together.

Cafas scanned the rooftop. It was covered in the fog, but a cackling drew his eyes. A swaying form in the epicentre of swirling blackness, dressed completely inappropriately for the freezing wind. Cafas frowned and stepped towards her tentatively. "Excuse me, miss, are you alright?" His stomach felt uneasy. His hammer edged towards him along the gravel, just on the edge of his influence. He felt a headache coming on.

Hauling it too long...

tag Charlie Sinclair

Abigail was ecstatic. It was working. She could feel the sanity draining from the hotel below her. It was euphoric the way that it made her feel, the blood pumping through her veins. She even broke into a cackling laughter when she spied one of the hotel guest run up to the rooftop and hurl herself off the side, screaming into the very wind on her way down. Truly this was the most blissful thing that she and her sisters had ever take a part of. But her good and sweetness would end when she noticed another person climb onto the roof.

He was tall, quite handsome, and build like the pathetic god that he attempted to portray. But he was a false deity, nothing more, no match for the true old horrors that existed beyond the twinkling stars. Biting her lip, she turned her glowing red eyes onto him, the pulsating darkness of the umbra reaching outward with more force. He stood strong, but it wouldn’t last for long, as the closer he stood the her, the more powerful her effects were.

>> "Excuse me, miss, are you alright?"

”We are more than ‘alright’,” she hissed pleasurably. ”We are are about to open the tear. You shall bear witness to the Old Ones, finally claiming what is theirs. But their visage comes at a price…” she whispered. ”What do you fear most?” Another arch of her back and woman opened her mouth in a silent scream as she looked skyward. ”No more games. We unleash the full might of the Old Powers!”

The dark smoke increased in strength and speed. A maelstrom ripped through the rooftop, shaking powerlines and toppling over air conditioning units. Abigail seemed unscathed, though, her eyes narrowing in on the tall blond man and his pitiful hammer. If he wanted to challenge fear, then he would see it full force.

Unseen by all except those within the influence of the darkness, the sky high above the city cracked open. A psychedelic array of colors, patterns, and nightmarish designs stood in contrast against the inky black sky around the split in reality. And from this gap in space and time, the universe moved an dizzying speeds, so fast that the human eye could barely look at it without keeling over in a seizure. The headache-inducing display was muted though, but by something far more horrible. In the sky above New York, eclipsing the dazzling spectacle there were the darkened silhouettes of horrors that the mind could not grasp. Undulating masses with far too many limbs or no discernable shape, while some were of such geometrical perfection that it seemed impossible, and then those people of vague, monstrous yet humanoid shape that looked ready the pluck the very sun out of the sky.

Anyone within the aura of these three girls, anyone slightly affected, will look up and see the most horrible of things imaginable...the realization of just how small and insignificant they truly were.

FEAR GAUGE

Ahagl's soth l' ah'lloigshogg mgng nilgh'ri!

DICE ROLL

X Charlie Sinclair 5/5
#1 Cafas 2/5
#2 Winnifred Ann Wickham 2/5
#3 Andy Sanchez-Soto 4/5
#4 Ignacio Ramírez 2/5
#5 @morgan 3/5

✿

((OOC: Charlie’s fear gauge has been decreased to 2/5 post-mortem.))

Charlie awoke with an extended gasp. Air filled her lungs as she once again joined the world of the living. The bar basement was cold and damp, probably from some sort of flooding that had happened in the last few days. Roger would need to get on that or she would have to schedule a chat with him.

Fortunately for the bar owner, a chat about the quality of the floor she was waking up on was the least of her concerns. Her memories were fuzzy, as always, but there was something very wrong. She knew that, at least. She could remember little bits about two girls and some smoke, but beyond that… it was dark, but surrounded by a feeling of dread. It was like her brain was specifically trying to hide those memories from her. Whatever it was, it scared her. It scared her beyond belief.

There was something dangerous going on at that hotel party. It was something more than alcohol, too. She could vividly picture people banging their heads against walls, and she knew that no substance that she’d ever tried had done that to people. Her hands trembled and she could feel her breath catch in her throat when she thought about going back there, but she knew that she had to go back. If not to settle her own fears, but to figure out what was causing it and see if it could be replicated. Something like that could be a great thing for the Syndicate to posses.

She took deep, slow breaths as she slipped into the clothes that she had left herself a few days before. The jeans, gray shirt and black jacket definitely weren’t a halloween costume, but at least she wasn’t showing up nude.

The blonde trudged up the stairs and into the bar, forcing each step as she went. Everything inside her screamed for her to turn around and not look back, but she knew that she had to go. She had to see what it was. There were too many people, though. Each time someone looked at her, the dread inside her got a little more intense. She could feel the cold sweats starting back up. What on earth was this that it could follow her through death? The whisky glass that she had stolen and downed on her way out had been a necessary thing. With any luck, it would steady her nerves a little.

She walked out onto the street and hailed a taxi, which quickly took her back to the hotel. The entire time, she had a strange feeling that the driver was going to do something strange, and she had to regulate her breathing, but she made it there in one piece. She was proud of herself for that, even if she was still terrified for some unknown reason.

The taxi stopped and Charlie climbed out, walking forward. The smoke had really taken hold of the place by that point. It was pouring out the front doors and onto the street. Either someone had lost control of the smoke machine or there was something else going on with that smoke. Whatever it was, Charlie walked through it and back into the hotel. The elevator was already packed with people going up, so she joined. The top floor. That’s where she had been before, right? There hadn’t seemed to be anything wrong with that, though… things had gone bad… she couldn’t remember exactly when, but everything had gone down there.

The little box travelled upward and brought them to the top floor of the hotel, and Charlie stepped out onto the floor. The sight before her was unnerving. People were clawing, grabbing at each other, and the whole place generally looked like an insane asylum. She moved through the hallways, jumping at every sound and avoiding hands, looking for a source. She shook as she looked around the room, trying to force herself to try to identify causes. When nothing obvious appeared, she moved to the stairs.

Just one flight to the rooftop. Surely something had to be going on there, right?

Winnifred Ann Wickham

It was hard to follow. She was focusing on the quickness of her pulse and the fear that was quickly enveloping her. She didn’t know how calm herself but she knew that she needed to get out of her. Already she was being chased by some madman who thought she was some diabolical grandfather and that was her cue that she needed to run. She bolted down the hall, shouting for Amazing Lady to run too, despite the fact that she had been abandoned to be strangled to death. But before long she ran into another man, this one seemingly right in the head. Again, her shouting was put to work as she told the man that she was being chased.

Surprisingly, the man didn’t think she was a figment of her imagination and actually acted to protect both herself and the Amazing Lady; though, admittedly the Amazonian wasn’t looking very “amazing” right now. The scent of her vomit quickly filled the air and Winnie opened her beak, gagging a bit. Ugh, that Amazon was totally not getting laid tonight.

Looking up, Winnie watched in surprise as Thor acted, throwing a hammer that immediately collided with the man’s chest, sending him crumpling to the ground. Needless to say, she was impressed. She watched as he tried to take command of the situation, informing Amazing Lady that she needed to push through the pain and then ordered them up to the roof. Was that really the safest option? She guessed it could be. After all, maybe the smoke was just coming from within the building and the roof would lead them all away from it?

”Ugh, fine!” she grumbled. Winnie turned her small head back to Amazing Lady and, ignoring her ramping up fear, shouted at her again. ”Come on, gorgeous! We gotta go!”

With a mighty warcry, Winnie ran towards the staircase, hopped...and collided with the side of the step. There was the immediate sound of grumbling and shouting in a variety of colorful words as she hopped up, several times, before finally managing the first step. God, that was torture. She looked up, spied the length of the staircase, and just shook her head. She was going to die like this, wasn’t she? But she had to try, no matter how comical it looked.

A determined theme song playing in her head and Winnie charged on, hopping up, ascending stairs, and making great progress. After what seemed like hours (it was seconds) Winnie flopped her tiny kiwi body up, upon the step, finally, and sighed. She did it! She totally did it! She looked up...she had gone up two steps.

”SONNAVB*TCH!!!” she chirped and flopped over again. She grumbled breathlessly. "Corgi-bird down! Corgi-bird...down!"

Tag: @morgan

The Norse god dealt out a slamming blow to the gladiator right there in the hallway and Morgan choked down her feelings and what remained of her food. The tall blonde seemed to be in control of his mind as well as the massive hammer. This was the authority figure she had been looking for, once the bellman became obsessed with his invisible dentist with a drill.

He named the cat-pig key-wee and encouraged them to get out and the only real way out was up. Along the hallway Pouffe had run and ascend the fire escape. He made a point of acknowledging her injury and she sniffed, hard. She could be brave. The sobs issuing from her phone made her lips tremble, but she would follow Captain Hammer to the roof.

His shoulder shove and the kiwi’s cry was the last encouragement she needed. Maybe on the roof the smoke would be thinner and she could take some deep, calming breaths, silence the phone so they could hear her but she couldn’t hear the noises coming from it. That the noises were in her head wasn’t a thought that occurred to her.

She took a few limping steps to warm up her protesting muscles before breaking into a jog.

Step. Ouch. Step. Ouch. Step. Ouch.

At least she had managed to keep herself relatively clean. The kiwi’s distaste at her display was not top of her list of things to be worried about, but she stored it away later to be brought out as a memory and turned over and over in her mind, reliving the little ‘yuck’ face until it was burned in her mind. She still called her gorgeous though, but that might have been sarcastic. Mo-mo had never been so good at sarcastic.

The fluffy little fruit took off down the hallway in a galloping run (that would have been funny in any other circumstance) and Mo-mo only caught up once she was stuck on the stairs. She hesitated a moment. The creature didn’t really seem to have hands to hold. She couldn’t see any way to scoop her up and carry her bodily without taking both of her own hands out for the count and she needed one free to be able to grab the mace. The critter seemed like its nose would be too fragile a handle, and she could just imagine the cursing if the current display was any indication.
After a second of deliberation she took the mayday cry for a sign and grabbed the bird gently by both legs, carrying her in one hand like a giant turkey drumstick hanging on the opposite side to her hurt knee.

“Sorry.”

Huffing and wincing with every second step she arrived at the rooftop in time to hear the spooky voice flowing from the equally spooky child. She set the kiwi down. Of course it was a kid. Of course it was a mutant kid. She was just grateful it was a kid out of the peak horror film age. If it had been a pre-schooler she may well have followed Pouffe right off the edge.

Tag: Andy Sanchez-Soto

((OOC: Joint post by Andy Sanchez-Soto and Ignacio Ramírez ))

The two ran in no particular direction, their hands firmly linked. So hyped up on adrenaline, the thought of someone seeing them together as a couple didn’t even cross his mind. He was more concerned about not getting caught in the crossfire. “What is wrong with these people!?” Andy shouted over the sound of unbridled chaos that tore through the darkened, smoke-filled atmosphere. He barely could hear himself, let alone Ignacio, who suddenly stopped running, looked him straight in the eye and said, in a serious tone,

>> "Look, we have to get out of here or try and fight this thing. Are you with me?"

Andy bit his lower lip nervously, wide-eyed, as Ignacio asked him to do something he was not at all ready for. “Fight what thing? All these people?” Fighting complete strangers in the Danger Room was one thing, but in real life? Andy wasn’t sure if he could…

---

"No! Fight that black smoke! Now I know that we're out of our elements. If we were at the beach on a sunny day, we might be unstoppable, but we aren't." Ignacio's kaleidoscope eyes stared into Andy's beautiful brown ones. "We can do this, mi amor."

---

Andy gave Ignacio an incredulous look. He couldn't seriously be calling him mi amor at a time like this. "How do you even know the black smoke is causing all of this? Cafas said it was just mutant special effects..." Then again, how could it not be the cause? Why else would people be trying to kill each other at a Halloween party? Letting out a sigh of defeat, he added, "Okay, so we find the mutant responsible and then what? I'm not even an X-Trainee yet. What if something goes wrong?"

---

"Yeah, well...I don't know, okay?! I just know that I don't like seeing you so afraid!" Ignacio turned to look at the crowd. He knew it had to be the smoke or something that was in the air to cause all of these people to act crazy. Iggy was about to say something else when he felt a fist hit him in the back of the head. The young mutant tumbled forward, almost crashing into Andy. With a growl, he turned around to see who did it. "What the f***?! Who did that?!"

---

“Are you kidding me? If you don’t like seeing me afraid then why the hell are we planning to--” Suddenly, Andy saw a shady, masked figure in a long, black robe approaching Ignacio from behind and froze in a mixture of fear and uncertainty. On one hand, the Ghostface impersonator could have overheard their conversation and wanted to join them in the fight against the craziness-inducing black smoke; on the other, he was dressed as Ghostface. What if he had a knife?

“Iggy, look out!” Andy tried to warn him, but he wasn't quick enough. A gloved fist connected with the back of Ignacio’s head and Andy instinctively extended his arms to catch him when he fell forward. Ignacio was pissed, but not nearly as pissed as Andy, who balled his hands into angry fists and tackled the man to the floor without thinking twice. “Don’t touch my boyfriend!” he yelled as he punched Ghostface repeatedly in the face until his mask flew off.

---

Once Ignacio let the initial anger dissolve, he quickly bent down and tried to tear his boyfriend off of the guy. "Stop it! We can't act like this!" The eighteen-year-old mutant finally got Andy off of him and turned around. "It's not their fault! It's the black smoke! It's making them crazy."

---

Fearing retaliation, Andy continued throwing wild punches even after he felt the the man behind the mask’s nose crack under his knuckles. He could hear Iggy yelling at him to stop, but for some reason he couldn’t. Luckily, Ignacio grabbed him under the arms and dragged him away before he could do any more damage. Then his eyes widened as realization dawned on him. “I think it’s affecting me, too. We have to get out of here before it’s too late!” 

Desperately, Andy looked for a way out and saw, at the very end of the crowded, violence-ridden corridor, a faint red light peering out from behind a cloud of black smoke. Hoping it was the emergency exit sign, Andy grabbed Iggy's hand and gave it a tight squeeze before breaking into a sprint. “This way!”

Tag: Cafas

Red glowing eyes were turned on him from growing shadows. Cafas took an instinctive step back, his hammer scraping a little closer. Nothing more seemed to happen. Cafas let out the tense breath, and the girl started to speak. To him it sounded like so much insanity, no more logical than anything else said by those effected below. It was more sinister though, more in control. He had clearly found his epicentre. She seemed to contort before him as she spoke of her old ones.

A sudden wind picked up, threatening to pick the X-man off his feet. He had practice in that sort of environment though. He leaned into the gust and took unsteady steps forward, his hammer drawing closer and closer as his heart rate jumped. Colour and light played across the sky above him, and Cafas found his eyes drawn up to a rip in the sky through which leered back unknowable creatures.

Huh, drove a fire truck into that one...

The thought broke through the trance.

Something played across his skin, all skittering legs, a dark hairy shape at the edge of his vision. Cafas tore his eyes back and tried to find what had just touched him, but saw nothing. The sensation repeated on his back, then on his other arm, always just out of sight. He spun a circle to try and find what it was, but saw nothing at all. He could feel his adrenaline surging. His heart racing. His face drawn into a tense scowl.

Smoke is getting to me.

Swirls of the blackness surrounded him, confusing and disorienting him. He could no longer see the door to the stairs, nor any of the other people he'd found. All he saw was the red glow of eyes ahead. "Young lady, I am going to give you one chance-" Were those cries for help? He could have sworn... No, they were at the Mansion. Something crawled over him again."One chance to stop this. Come quietly. There's no need for-" There it was again, he spun a circle, hammer flying to his hand with a huge tug of energy. He was cut off, he could see no one. "No need for violence."

It's just the smoke. Ignore it. She's not here. You can save her, just stop this spreading.

Tag Charlie Sinclair