Among these 'hallowed' walls...

[Dannyrulx†]

This was the library of an insane asylum.

That was a kind of weird thing to wrap your mind around, but it was a nice library. Maria sat on one of the tables, end of her shirt in hand, and was wiping off the grease and dust that had already accumalated on the blade. It was relativley clean, but she if she couldn't keep herself clean, then her blade would be clean. A slice of bread was sitting next to her, on top of a copy of The Man in the Iron Mask, and next to a half-finished bottle of water. Maybe she was burning though her supplies, but if she was at top condition all the time, then her chances of survival were far higher than if she only ate when she was starving to conserve food.

She had pulled out a book from the romance section, and it was lying on the floor for her to tear a page out. She helf it up with one hand, then carefully moved the blade at a positivley glacial pace. The blade sheered through the page without an inch of deviation or resistance, and she let out a slight whistle. If that had been muscle rather than paper... This was a surpsingly good weapon she'd managed to get. A gun would have been preferable as always but...

Jesus, how was she being so blase about this? She was litterally staring death in the face, and instead of crying or panicking or really doing anything one would expect, she was calmly cleaning the blade to stab death in the face. Was this normal? Did actual people do this? Were any others of her classmates settling down and getting ready for the storm that would no doubt arrive? Or was she being the crazy preparer of the bunch?

She picked up the book and set it standing up on the table where she had been sitting, before bringing the sword down again.

She was going to win this fucking thing, no matter how much she hated the idea of having to kill someone. She was going to win, she was going to go home, and she wasn't going to end up dead like the poor sod who had won a few seasons ago.

[Slam]

((Sandy Bricks continued from Hideaway))

The silence was really starting to get to him.

Of course there were ambient noises: the creaking of the old building or some faint (imagined?) footsteps from down the hall, but for the most part Sandy was managing to avoid people as he made his way around the place. It was quiet. Too quiet.

When Sandy didn't have anything to distract him, be it a picture to paint or music to listen to, he was alone with his thoughts. On a good day that wasn't an issue, but on the bad days it could get overwhelming quickly, and naturally this was a bad day.

Fuck Audrey, and fuck Danny. He hadn't wanted their company; they had been the ones imposing themselves on him. He'd been reasonable in asking them to leave, but they just spat in his face and made the closet theirs. They probably made fun of him after he'd gone as well, laughing it right up. Maybe Alvaro had gotten in on it too, regardless of how battered he might've looked when Sandy had brushed past him. He'd probably picked himself right up and joined the other two in having a right laugh at Sandy's expense.

Sandy wasn't a bad guy for wanting to be left alone, not when he was just trying to get his thoughts together. It wasn't antisocial, or cowardly, or him being a loser. He was in a life or death situation, how was he supposed to be diplomatic and friendly at a time like this?

Other people could probably pull it off though, show some civility and make friendships that would keep them alive and happy. Even if they couldn't, they'd probably be coming along to murder him soon anyway, and then he'd die. Why should he be able to survive? He never did any sports or exercise, he didn't have any people skills, and he'd probably just get his ass handed to him the second he tried to defend himself. In short, he was pathetic, and thinking any different would just highlight how pathetic he was.

He pressed his fingertips to his orbital bones, shaking his head to distract himself from the draining mindset. He really needed a something to occupy himself.

When he saw the door labelled 'library', a small glimmer of optimism formed in the bog of his mind. He loved reading, and books were indeed a good distraction. Infinitely better with a soundtrack, but he'd take what he could get.

He opened the door without too much caution, though slowly all the same, and looked around the room as he walked inside. It was a very bright room for one inside such a dingy building, and the musty interior was like something out of an old photo. He wished he had his camera with him to capture how it looked.

As focused on the aesthetics as he was, if Maria hadn't made the overt noise of slicing a book in half Sandy could've very well walked right into her. Fortunately for him, he was alerted to her presence when there was still a shelf between them, the slicing blade snapping him to his senses.

He cursed to himself. He wasn't ready to deal with people again, not by a long shot, but he really wanted the books. He couldn't go back outside again, face being alone with his thoughts, so he decided to peer around the corner of the shelf and see who he could see. He was still holding the neck of his Molotov cocktail, never really having let go of it since he left the storage closet.

A lump was forming in his throat.

[Dannyrulx†]

Maria sat down on the table next to her blade, and looked up, straight into the eyes of a kid peering around the corner. She immediatley jumped up, one hand on the blade, and tugged at it in an attempt to get it out of the thick wood that the table was made out of, but to no avail.

Upon realising that her designated weapon was useless for now, Maria backed off from the kid. She didn't recognise his face, didn't know what weapon he could have on him, and that made her nervous. If he had a gun this could be over in seconds, but otherwise she might make it out. Assuming of course that the kid was looking for a fight, which judging by the fact he was in a library, probably wasn't the case.

Calming down her paranoid mind, she straightened up and looked at what she could see. Blonde hair, glasses, not a whisker of stubble and face shape that could almost be from the Med if you squinted. She helf up a hand half-heartedly, and managed to say hey, trying to prevent her from sounding as terrified as she was actually.

[Slam]

Sandy flinched as Maria went for her blade, squeezing his own weapon tighter. He'd already had to dodge one CD player today, and he didn't want to start having to dodge a sword swinging at him too. Fortunately for him, her efforts were pretty futile as the blade refused to budge. He couldn't let out a sigh of relief, though.

He continued to eye her up from behind the safety of the bookshelf, even as she meekly greeted him. Another person he knew nothing about, another stranger who would do God knew what to him because he was so goddamn antisocial. This was what he got for spending his whole life crying in a room instead of meeting people like everyone else in school did.

There wasn't time to dwell on that though, as Maria was still across from him.

"Hey." He finally responded after the long pause. He edged out from behind the bookshelf, ever so slightly, but he did not reveal himself fully.

Why had Maria tried to chop a table in half? Testing out her weapon? Taking out her frustrations on the innocent woodwork? Neither said "I'm not going to hurt anyone anytime soon" to Sandy, and neither gave him a good reason to let his guard down. Unfortunately, if he wanted to browse the library's collection fully he was going to have to deal with her sooner rather than later, and the alternative of leaving without anything to take his mind off his situation was not inviting either.

"I just came in here to find something to read, alright?" he was still speaking in his terse tone from earlier, when he'd been bluntly telling Audrey to fuck off. "You don't give me any trouble, and I'll leave you alone to chop more tables in half."

Not wanting to appear without backing in his reasonable request, he held his cocktail up for Maria to clearly see. "I'm not looking for a fight, so don't throw anything at me."

[Dannyrulx†]

A molotov. She could almost laugh. He would never throw it if he wanted to grab a book and besides, how would he light it? "I just want my blade back, not gonna attack you, alright?" She stepped over to the table and grabbed the handle with both hands, before tugging hard, working the blade free of the wood as she did so. "Look, some people I know are planning on ringing the bell and getting people together. I don't think that's a good idea, but that's not my call. If you want to go, then that's fine, but they're going for a group that's too big. If we stick with each other, then we have a much better chance. We can cover each other's backs, you know? Two or three people are better than one, and far better than a larger group."

As she said this, Maria wiped her sweaty left hand on her jeans, giving the kid a good view of the missing tip of her index. She returned to the blade and yanked hard, finally pulling the metal out of the wood. She looked at the two halves of the book in front of her, then turned to the kid. "So, what's your plan? Go solo? Small group? Or the guys that want to gather everyone up?" She slipped the blade into the belt loop, and stuck her hand out at the kid. It was a risk, but she really, really needed to be able to sleep well at night, and having someone covering her would be the only way she could be sure of that.

And besides, the kid looked far too weedy to take her on. She wasn't the strongest of people, but she could easily take this guy on, no problem.

[Slam]

Sandy exhaled deeply as Maria echoed Audrey's friendship babble at him. He shot her a rather rebuffing glare from behind his glasses as he swatted her hand away.

"My plan is to find a book to read and stop having to deal with people, alright?" he was getting terser by the word, his voice beginning to rise as his patience wore thin. "If your friends want to go ring the bell and draw everyone up there, then good for them, but I don't give two shits about meeting up with other people."

He folded his arms in a defensive posture, still holding the neck of the bottle, as he stared at Maria. If she was smart, or at least smarter than Audrey, she'd get the hint and just leave him alone, or even apologise for getting up in his face and preaching at him to stop being so damn antisocial.

Ok, so getting up in his face might've been overstating things, but why did everyone find it so hard to imagine that he didn't want to be buddies with anyone, especially not with people he didn't know at all? If he'd never bothered to make any real friends at school, then why should he not keep the ball rolling in their current state of affairs? It wasn't like making friends was even worth anything anymore anyway, given how screwed they all were.

"Now like I said, I just came here for a book, so leave me alone so I can go get one and then we can be done with this."

[Dannyrulx†]

"Alright then, fine by me. Die alone and earlier rather than with people and later. Whatever floats your boat dude." As she said this, Maria picked up the half slice of bread, balled it up and popped it in her mouth, chewing and swallowing to get it out of the way and following it with a bit more water. When she was done, she slipped the bottle into her pocket and picked up the book that had been her makeshift plate.

The Man In The Iron Mask, she read, flipping it over. One of her favourite older novels. What a bloody coincidence that that had been laying on the table when she walked in. She loved the book to death, had a special-edition binding back at home which she'd picked up in Brighton of all places, which had it's own sheathe and everything. She put the book into her hateful assigned bag, and looked at the kid, trying to read his expression at her words.

[Slam]

"Fuck you." Sandy spat back to Maria's heartless retort, before heading over to a bookshelf to distract himself from yet another person who just wanted to give him shit for not liking people.

As he browsed through the titles, he continued to keep Maria in the corner of his eye. As far as he cared, she was a rude, thoughtless bitch, one who wouldn't know how to be civil if it came with a step-by-step manual. She thought she was such hot shit, acting like being in the situation didn't bother her or that she was so much smarter than Sandy because she could actually deal with being around other people at a time like this. Besides, if he was going to die (which he probably was, because his chances were somewhere between zero and less than that), then why would he want to do it around other people? Fuck other people. Fuck Maria.

He paused his search to rub his temple. All this anger and rampant swearing was starting to give him a headache.

Finally, he pulled out a familiar but unread title from the shelves: The Iliad, by some random Greek who shared his name with a cartoon character. Heavy reading, especially compared to the light hearted novels he usually went through, but heavy reading was what he needed to take his mind off of everything. Besides, what were the odds he was going to find Artemis Fowl on an island like this?

Sandy turned back to Maria, still giving her a look that could freeze fire. "I'll be going now."

[Dannyrulx†]

She was getting sick of this already. The first group had had very strange and lethal weapons, and an enclosed environment. The second group contained one of her worst enemies, and was trying to achieve a goal she thought to be insane, and now she met the most antisocial boy the world had ever seen, armed with a molotov.

"I don't even have to swear at you. Your very imminent death will do better than any swear word I can conjure up." Maria, loosely held the hilt or her sword in her hand,d walked towards the boy, Would one fucking person I properly know be too fucking hard to find?" she muttered, before almost shoulder-barging him out of the way.

[Ruggahissy]

((Caleb Diamond continued from Lone Wolfe))

So Sam said he wanted to go alone. Internally it stung a bit, but he shrugged it off. He'd go off in a different direction. He pulled out a flashlight from his pack, holding it in his right hand with his mask in the other. Caleb made his way, cautiously, quietly, to a stairwell. It wasn't surprising really, the way things had turned out.

He opened the door to the stairwell and was hit with the smell of metal and mildew. As soon as he let go of the door from the area he had come from, it slammed behind him. He walked down the steps with his footsteps echoing in the small, dank space.

I wonder who's going to get my stuff? Is there going to be a funeral?

He started moving a bit faster. The echoes were closer together and the light from his flashlight bounced jauntily.

Funerals are pretty much expensive scams anyway. And there's not even a body. Maybe they'd get a doll or something. Like a scarecrow filled with hay. Do they play music at funerals? Should I have made a playlist-

Caleb felt something sticky and wispy on his hands and face all of the sudden. Something tickled a bit. A thin layer of sticky substance covered his upper body. The beam of the flashlight revealed it to be spiderwebs, with a considerable amount of long-legged friends scurrying all over him. Caleb gasped, his foot missed the next step and he went tumbling down the stairs. He crashed into a door which opened into a new room. Caleb landed on his back, staring up at the sky through a glass ceiling that was hazy with decades-old filth. He was still clutching his Nixon mask and had his bag around his shoulder, but the flashlight had been lost in the stairwell somewhere. After a second, he began frantically trying to slough off the webs he was tangled in and the remaining spiders.

He coughed up dust and felt that somewhere on his body he'd injured himself. Caleb landed in a library.

[Slam]

Sandy flinched back out the way, even as Maria's shoulder barge only brushed the air. Great, so she was acting like a fucking twelve-year-old bully too. She was without a doubt the hottest shit he'd had the misfortune to meet so far, in the biggest steaming pile.

"Maybe you're going to die first, think about that? Maybe someone less patient than me's going to show up and put you out of all our misery, you callous bitch." His spiteful words were accompanied by a quiet tremor going through him, hand gripped so tight around the neck of his bottle that it started to leave an imprint. Its heavy weight in his hand reminded him that it wouldn't be so hard to just whack her across the face with it. It was violent, criminal, and something crazy, but he could absolutely do it, and no-one would be able to stop him. At least that would probably make her shut up.

Before he could make an assault though, he was distracted by the crashing of a Diamond through the library doors. Sandy couldn't see Caleb, the shelves blocking view of the entrance from where the two were stood, but of course that only made the situation worse.

Not wanting to be the first to look and find another battered mess of a boy, he turned back to Maria with a glare that could cut glass, silently daring her to make the first move.

[Dannyrulx†]

Maria was just about to leave when she heard a creaking, cracking sound, followed by what sounded like somebody falling through the roof. She peered around the bookcase that had divided her from seeing what caused the noise, and saw Caleb, bruised and bashed, but very much alive. Her eyes widened and she jogged closer to him, just as he started to slough off the cobwebs that had accumulated from the fall.

She gave out a loud whistle to signal her being there, and walked right up to him, before kneeling down so they faced each other face-to-face. "Hey, hotshot, that's not the way to make a proper entrance. You're suppoded to avoid getting a concussion, not tumble straght into one!" She grinned, actually happy despite the situation. Sure, Caleb wasn't in the best of shapes, but it was somebody she fucking knew at the very least and that was all that mattered.

"Talking about concussions, serious here, what's your full name?" She started to brush off some of the cobwebs from him, trying to ignore the fact that he was litterally coughing up dust.

[Ruggahissy]

"...you callous bitch"

Whoever was on the other side of the room was not happy and seemed to be incredibly tense. However, not-that-person came over to Caleb and started asking him questions peppered with jokes and smiling widely. Caleb thought maybe he had concussion and he was hallucinating before remembering that hallucination wasn't typically a symptom of concussions. So the bad news was that Maria seemed to not understand the immediate danger. The more bad news was he'd have to figure out if he had concussed himself.

"Diamond," he croaked.

Caleb reached up to his head. Pulling his hand back, he saw he was bleeding from the forehead. Caleb leaned as far as he could to see past the book shelves and it looked like the irate customer was a boy, staring total venom, holding a makeshift explosive. So the situations was thus: angry boy with explosive who was unhappy with Maria, who doing nothing to mollify him. If anything, Caleb imagined her flippant attitude probably made Sandy want to kill her even more. Current objective: get out of the building without Sandy setting them on fire.

There was the place he'd just come from which was some kind of emergency stairwell and then presumably whatever main entrance these two had come in through. Going back to the stairwell seemed like a bad idea because what if he just threw the explosive in after them? Caleb looked down.

This is the stupidest fucking idea I've ever had in my whole life, which is really an achievement.

He tucked the mask into his pocket and started gathering gathering up pieces of web that had the most critters and gathered up spiders into his right fist. He stood up and grabbed Maria's hand with his left hand and slowly moved around the bookshelf towards Sandy.

"Uh. Hi. So it looks like things are a little heated in here just going off what I heard when I came to. We're just going to leave you here, with your best friends, the books and-"

Caleb threw the handful of spiders at Sandy and took off running with Maria.

((Caleb Diamond continued in Survival Strategy ))

[Dannyrulx†]

Caught off guard by Calen's sudden reaction, Maria just had time to yelp out a 'Whatre-" before she was whisked away by the Diamond.

Oh, and flip the antisocial cunt that had been in here the bird. Always time to flip the bird at cunts.

((Maria Cucinotta continued in Survival Strategies))

[Slam]

Sandy watched wordlessly as Maria took the dare and moved behind the shelf, shouting with glee from the other side. Sandy heard the reply, but couldn't place the last name Diamond at the drop of a hat. Hearing Caleb's first name too probably wouldn't have made much of a difference, though, since there was nothing tying the two together.

When the new arrival rounded the corner, Maria unfortunately in tow, Sandy stood his ground as he eyed up the couple. He didn't recognise Caleb any more than anyone else in the corridor, and the fact that Maria, by contrast, clearly did wasn't any kind of reassurance; if anything, it only made him warier. After all, terrible people tended to enjoy terrible company.

Caleb flinging spiders at him just proved him right.

Sandy yelled out, swinging up his arms to shield himself from yet another face full of who knew what, but he was too slow as a handful of eight legged freaks landed on his skn. Panic set in as he scrambled to pull whatever the hairy things trapsing across him were, and in that time Maria and Caleb had long gone. He spat one particularly invasive arachnid out of his mouth on to the ground, stomping at it to make sure it didn't bother him again.

His chest was heaving now, as he gritted his teeth in a quiet fury. First a CD player, now spiders? Why the hell had everyone decided to make him their punching bag, decided to insult and abuse him? All he'd wanted was just to be left alone; was that so much to ask? He hadn't even said a word said a single word to Caleb, and this was what it got him?

He looked down at the writhing body of the spider on the floor again. It was still moving, twitching, as it struggled in its limited sense to understand what was going on, why someone had wrestled it from its web, and why it could no longer do anything about its fate whatsoever.

Sandy stared at it for a moment longer, before bringing his foot down hard.

((Sandy Bricks continued in Dreams and Reality))