Locke had never been particularly claustrophobic, though he did fear the dark and silence closing in on him at night, but with the walls making him act and move like he was playing Twister, he was starting to feel the fear. On top of that he was getting frustrated, knowing that there wasn't really anything there, but at the same time it had to be. They were now operating in un, sub, or super-natural forces, which meant that logic was no longer a factor. He hated the lack of logic and made a mental note to avoid anything to do with Lovecraft and Cthulu in the future.

A rapping noise now accompanied the random bulging, and despite what Maya had suggested the Californian stopped. For some reason he was compelled to stare at one bulge. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and a bead of perspiration slid down his face, getting caught on his upper lip as he held his breath. This isn't real, this isn't real... Locke had to keep reminding himself. Eyes still glued to the one wall bump he started to back away. A tentacle burst through one of the lower wall bubbles and wrapped around Locke's legs, pulling him onto his stomach and dragging him. The whole "this isn't real" thing was a little hard to keep up when he was getting a pink belly.

"No way," he grunted, throwing himself into the earth. Locke had to think fast. He was too tired and too inexperienced to make another one of those things big enough to fight off the tentacle, but maybe there was something else he could do. His palms were getting scrapped raw as he was dragged backwards, so he did the first thing that came to mind. Two misshaped hands emerged and wrapped around his wrists. It kept him from going backwards, but he was too focused on keeping them there to make an escape.

This obstacle course, ANY obstacle course, was so much harder with a physical body that could not reform its shape or fly. She'd been spoiled for a long time with her 'get out of trouble free' card. It had made her irresponsible in Romania. Irresponsible pretty much everywhere.

It was time to make up for that irresponsibility.

Whump."No way." Maya turned from her sort-of dance, sort-of limbo moves that were getting her through this wobbly, bubbling mine field.

The kid was getting dragged away. And now was the time when not being ghosted was advantageous. She could lunge and grab his... hands?

She yipped and started pounding at the hands that had come out of the ground to grab him. Was nothing sacred?

The hairs at the back of her neck started to stand on end as she pried at the earthy fingers to free his hands. This was creepy!

Maya was hindering Locke more then helping him as she tried to free him from the hands that were keeping him from being pulled away. The concrete might not be as shifty, but that meant that it was harder for him to get to move. And with Ms. Csendes pulling away the fingers, Locke found it hard to keep the hands holding tight. One hand released its grasp on him, and the tentacle that was wrapped around his leg jerked him backwards so hard that it felt like his arm was going to rip out of its socket. He might have spoken up and let her know that the hands were helping, had his mind not been so focused on getting the hand back around his. His vacant expression probably wasn’t helping much either. The lights were on, but nobody was home. Soon enough he was finding it very hard to keep the hands period.

Sirens started up, fire, ambulance, police, and air-raid. Add to that noise cat howls, and a strange wet gurgling noise, all fluctuating in volume and pitch so that you could never get use to it. At times the noise was so loud you’d think you would you were going to go deaf, but at other point so soft that you forgot that it was even there. Locke could keep it up, but the lights started to flicker, as if replaced with strobe lights, and strange colors played upon the way. His focus wavered, and both hands dropped back into the earth. His body was violently pulled back, one leg going into the hole in the wall where the tentacle had come from. Crab like creatures poured out from another wall bubble. The ground sizzled and hissed as if some sort of acid had been dropped onto it.

Never before had Maya wanted so badly to change states of matter. The room frightened and overwhelmed. Her change in senses would have been a great help in deciphering what was worth a scream and what was worth squashing with a blast of air. But she was stubborn. Stubborn enough to peel at earth fingers that helped. Stubborn enough to grab at slipping hands when Locke backward. Stubborn enough to not end the stupid simulation.

Something with too many legs scampered up her leg and Maya wriggled so that it would fall off rather than reach up her skirt. She lost her tenuous grip on the teen.

It wanted them to be separated. She was too late in noticing it, but once they were apart the room went even wilder if possible.

The bubbling walls seeped between them and like pustules parts of the barrier popped. Small creatures or pieces of larger monsters writhed out toward Maya. No. This was not a happy scenario. This was a scenario that befit someone looking up whoever created it and... and tell them to fix it.

A barrier of air that whipped and curled around her was the best she could do for now to keep everything at bay. She had done this before, though never just personally. It seemed to work... on the solid things. Maya closed her eyes and let her hands feel forward in front of her as she inched toward what had separated the teen from herself. If it was really there, she would have a heck of a time pushing through.

The floor scrapped at Locke’s stomach, worsened when the friction pulled his shirt upwards. If Locke had any chest hairs, chest hairs that teenage boys might search for and celebrate over, they would have been rubbed off. Never before had Locke been so close to understanding what it must be like to be a plank of wood on a belt sander. He also had no idea what was going on. It was like someone had plucked him out of himself and put him in another person’s body. Locke wasn’t sure that he was Locke, because a large part of him had been inside of those hands, and now that he no longer was there… Why was he going backwards? It did not make a difference, for Locke did not like what he saw. Ms. Csendes was moving away from him, having to deal with her own tentacles. Little things skittered about. Sometimes he could actually sense them there, but at other times he couldn’t. Were they there or not? Locke got stuck for a moment at the hole. The tentacle had not planned ahead and take into account that he had a width to him that it did not, so he got slammed rather painfully into the wall. The tentacle adjusted, then pulled him through.

It was dark on the other side of the wall, surprisingly dark considering Locke knew that the lights were on where he was just a moment ago. It was also about twenty degrees cooler, which would have been nice after the sweat that had been built up with the enclosing walls, but this was Locke. And Locke hated cold. There was nothing over here, a complete lack of features. He was somewhere and nowhere at the same time. Locke was pretty sure that there was a ground underneath him, because he was still flat on his stomach, and people don’t just float in mid-air. As sudden as the pull in had been, his release came quicker. Hesitently he pulled himself up onto his hands and knees, rocked back onto his heels.

Ziiip

The patch of light that had been the hole he was dragged in through zipped itself up, leaving him in his nightmare. In spite of the cold, or maybe because of it, Locke felt sweat trickle down his temple and tasted the salt on his lips.

Ghost edged forward. Or what felt like forward. The amorphous walls moved around her barrier. But they didn't move willingly. Every step was a battle. Because she had a plan, she wasn't scared. She was moving forward, making headway. It didn't matter if it was dark and the sounds were just sounds with herself tucked safely behind her barrier.

"'ello?"

Oh. That was so not okay. "Jude?" Her barrier faltered enough that the amorphous wall she was trying to move through took advantage of its weakening. It sent a tendril through and that disrupted her air flow enough that the barrier had a hole in it and once it had a hole it was worthless.

It all came crashing inward, whatever the goo or darkness or nightmare was, it was touching her all over. She held her breath, closed her eyes and tried to think. This was even more not okay. She didn't hear Jude. Was he really in there? Was it some sick joke of this sick scenario? Did he wander in and was now in danger?

There was a wail in the distance. To Ghost, it sounded like a young boy. In pain.

She took a deep breath to shout at the computer to stop the scenario except... she inhaled goo.

This was a bad, bad, very bad idea. Locke scolded himself, and wiped his palms on his knees. "I know, now shut up so I can think." Talking out loud to himself was a bit distressing. He'd been to enough of those brain quacks to know that arguing verbally with himself could be thought of as strange. Cthulu wanted them to go insane, and he...she... it? was breaking them down. Ms. Csendes was probably facing the thing that had brought her down to the living room, and Locke had to wonder if the room had been listening in on them earlier. Of course that was a ridiculous suggestion. After all a room can't listen to you. Then again a room didn't decide to stick you in nowhere. He had to breathe and just try and focus. There was something he could do, he was sure of it. All Locke needed to was to figure out what to do and where to go. Before this madness had started Ms. Csendes had not given him much direction or information. Just that this was going to be an obstacle course.

Locke could move his body, which made this at least a little better than his nightmare. Taking a guess as to what direction he had come from Locke moved forwards. After the first step it felt as if something was watching him. He took another step. Then another. Something was glowing softly now, and when Locke squinted he noticed it was an eyeball. Like straight out of a cartoon. Feeling uneasy he picked up the pace, each step making a new eyeball up. He threw his hands out in front of him. Surely the wall had to be there, even though he felt nothing. Could he use his powers to get his way out? Locke wasn't even sure that he was where there was something he could work with. "Ms. Csendes! Ms. Csendes!"

She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe! She always thought she'd go gasping, suffocating, panicking.

Screw it. If her options were to die little by little or all at once, Ghost was choosing little by little.

She ghosted.

All urges to breathe goo were gone and the sweet cry of the teen's voice reverberated through whatever substance she was currently inhabiting. The goo didn't quite know what to do with her. She knew just what to do with the goo.

Ghost moved through the goo. Seeped, more like.

"Locke." Ghost pulled herself out one bubble at a time. Blub. Blub. "Can you hear me?"

Then end of the objective seemed suddenly highlighted. A button. There was a button over a quivering pit of writhing horror. Easy. Easy as pie. All she had to do was move over there and push it.

Locke. Can you hear me?


”Yes?” Locke asked, timid. How could be sure that the voice he was hearing actually belonged to the real Ms. Csendes. So much of what he had encountered thus far in the Danger Room had been a fabrication, from the scuttling noise, to his current location. If it was just the Cthulu making the voice Locke did not particularly wish to respond to it. They had to end this soon before he truly lost his mind. As was he was not entirely sure that he was sane. His earth sense had never been wrong before. When it told him someone was behind him there was indeed someone there. Yes it was not perfect, but as long as they had made contact with the ground he’d get some notion of a presence. But the tentacle had not given him any warning. Locke couldn’t even feel himself.

An enraged growl escaped from the teen as he pounded once more against where he thought that the wall was. It was not only his hands that slammed, but his mind as well, stretching out as far as possible. His mind was like a net being cast out for fish, but nothing was getting caught. Panic was taking over, Locke was getting devoured by the silence and the dark. The pounding against the wall increased in frenzy. ”I’m here, I’m here.”

The eyes simply blinked at him. Hundreds of eyes all blinking in unison slowly made a frightful noise. The would be wall gave way underneath him and Locke tumbled forwards. His hand touched something that felt like concrete. Was he safe?

Ghost heard Locke's answering call but... it was the age old dilemma. Stop to help a person? Or possibly stop what was hurting that person? Her heart went to the teen. She wanted to personally pluck him out of his misery. Her body went for the kill switch. She also wanted out.

Of course the textured areas around the kill switch were not just abnormal texture. Detecting movement, something launched out at her, and subsequently through her. Shapes gurgled up. Arms, legs. Pieces but never a whole.

There wasn't a way to not look with her vision, but it wasn't enough to stop her.

"Go back to the ocean of goo from whence you came!" She sent a blast of air at the switch and as soon as it flipped up everything stopped.

"Jerk." Lovecraft was not very loving. She determined to rename this devil simulation Insanecraft.

The control panel eased out of the wall and it took some delicate prodding and some attempted remembering on her part. What turned it off and put everything away? She just wasn't sure. So she had to go solid. Anything rather than risking turning that stupid thing back on.

As soon as she had condensed enough to start feeling again, she knew that ghosting with the sensation of suffocation was a poor choice. Ghost turned suddenly, sputtered and coughed up a wad of goo. Disgusting. Even worse? The pile of dismembered bodies she was standing on. She knew it was fake, but it was definitely a scene her brain could have survived without.

One glance at the display and Ghost knew what to do to make it all go away. She hit the buttons many, many times just to be sure it would all just go away.

"Locke?" Ghost croaked out the word, suddenly tired. Hey. The diversion had worked. She was no longer thinking about herself and her own selfish issue. "You don't happen to see a ten year old running around do you?" She had heard him... but she never did see him.

The danger room started folding away all the evil and goo and insanity. No Jude in sight? Then it was definitely bed time.

Whatever it was that Locke had found in the darkness started, well, dancing, underneath his fingertips. It skittered, it shifted, it did not stay still. Locke hated that. He could not tell if it was him panicking and that having an effect on the, hopefully, concrete, or if it was the computer program messing even more with his mind. Of course he knew that this was a just a bunch of data, and that he wasn’t really trapped inside of a wall, but logic did not want to coincide with him now. Lovecraft might have been a wicked man for coming up with Cthulu, but whoever decided to recreate it here, they had a mind more twisted than a plate of spaghetti. If he found out who did this, Locke was going to drag them down into the dirt and give them a time out until they knew the amount of panic that he’d been through.

He did not let himself think long about the revenge he was going to get on the programmer. The possible wall might be his only chance to get out of this nowhere and out of the sight of the eyes. When he made a golem, it came up and out of the ground. Hopefully being on the inside of the dirt would make it bubble outwards instead of inwards. If only he could break through… Locke gave it one last hard shove, both physically with his hands, and mentally. It was all he had in him as panic was dissolving him.

And somehow he fell through. It was not the result of anything that he had done, because the wall was no longer there. Things around him were slowly going back to normal. “Ok, that was almost as bad as my nightmare,” he panted, glad to be free and to see that there was no tentacles. Ms. Csendes asked him a question and he needed to catch his breath before answering. Locke unzipped his jacket and tied it around his hips. “I saw nothing.”