Detection and Identification

[shotgunkid†]

((Wade Cartwright continued from Waking up in a strange place isn't so unusual for some...))

Hours. Long, grueling hours. That was what it had taken Wade to get outside of the thrice-damned asylum at last. He had a plan in mind as soon as he got outside of that hallway: Listen. Move. Stop. Repeat. He'd be able to sneak his way across the wards and rooms and offices the building had in a rapid and safe fashion, avoiding anyone else.

But as with so many things in his life, it didn't work out that way. As soon as he left the hallway, fear started to wrack his body and mind. He... betrayed himself. The 'listen' phase would last for ages as he simply stayed in a particularly comfortable and secluded spot and didn't move from it an inch.

Every distant noise and whisper and bang and scratch would echo in his mind. It would meld with his paranoia and grow and grow and grow until the slightest slip on his end, or any change in the ambiance, would cause him to lock up and freeze in pure terror. The kind that people caught in the middle of horrible situations must've experienced and fought through every waking second.

Every flicker in the corner of his eyes and faint bump in his ears pricked his senses. Each and every single change in stimulus generated its own monsters and psycho killers, who knew his location and were just around the corner, ready to disembowel him or slit his throat and it'd be like the first few moments all over again. He feared pain and always reflexively try his best to avoid it in everyday life. But here? Nowhere to run or hide or cower from the reality. He'd be murdered brutally he'd die a painful death oh God he didn't want to die somebody do something make it stop.

But it couldn't last forever. Whenever he'd waited long enough or managed to suppress his feelings, just like a radiator spilling its heat slowly into vacuum, all those feelings passed for the brief moments it took to move from a concealing piece of furniture to another, from a room to another. Then he'd make some clumsy mistake or stick around where he was hiding too long, and it would start again and again each time.

The asylum was finite, however, and it seemed so were his emotions. Gradually, as he navigated the first floor, the terror cycle slowly got less and less and less severe. The pangs of terror and fear and sadness started to ebb. Eventually, by the time he was very near to the front doors, they had vanished, replaced by a vague sense of apathy. He figured either he'd achieved some sort of true catharsis or had started to cope.

The sun had crawled downwards by this point. It had nearly set; when he got out of the building, he nearly panicked again upon seeing it.

But all the fear and apathy was gone. The cool determination to survive had returned. It was that simple. All he had to ask himself: where would he go from here?

That was quick. The bell tower, well, seemed like somewhere. It was the first thing he'd seen beside the office and somewhere much earlier he'd heard it ring. There was, quite simply, a familiarity to it that made it his first destination.

He no longer felt the need to sneak around. Outside was open enough that he could see and hear anyone coming. All that he would need to protect himself against was someone playing sniper; sticking to the wall dealt with that.

Others were in the distance. He never approached them, they never approached him. All was well with the world; he saw no need yet to talk to anyone else. All he needed was the belltower and all the belltower needed was him, that was it.

Arriving there was a different matter, and it was fragmentary in his mind. One moment, looking at the front doors. The next, what was no doubt the corpse of someone else. Instantly, all the emotions were flooding back and he tried to stem the tide--

Oh God they were already killing weren't they, everyone else those goddamn FUCKS. He couldn't bear to look at the remains of some poor, dead person but he couldn't stop thinking about it either. All he could focus on was how twisted the neck looked and how bloodied it was and the sickly pallor of its skin and oh God that stench, that horrible stench get away.

If he were trying to approach the situation rationally, he might have fled altogether after seeing that. But instead, he forced open the metal and door and started dashing up the stairs. Emotion eliminated the pleasant self-satisfaction he had felt. He wasn't rational anymore, all he was was a tired, panicked animal trying to flee danger. Up the steps, skip the rotten ones. A dusty smell replaced the deathstink and that was good, that was okay, he didn't want to lend any thought to the poor individual just like himself who had been killed here. Thoughts of haunting, thoughts of disappointment. He hadn't been anywhere near as rational or methodical as he was hoping. It didn't work like that.

The top. Reaching it might've calmed him down but he saw how a huge portion of the railings on one side were just missing, the signs of a struggle, oh God let it stop where did it stop it wouldn't end, the fear of heights added itself to the terror and he instinctively clutched at the solid column trying to catch his breath.

After a long moment, the sun had set. All was dark. He couldn't see or smell the body, but he still felt sick to his stomach just knowing someone had died and a sick sense of vertigo overcame him if he so much as glanced at the broken fence. The roof was small; knowing full well that one wrong move would lead to the exact same fate was no comfort, and he was clumsy on his feet.

It was nighttime. He'd largely cooled off again. Terror and fear simply weren't emotions one could sustain for long. Eventually, he was just tired and ambiently emotional and just wanted to get sleep. Sleep sounded like a good idea.

At first, he had a gripping fear he'd sleepwalk into the railings and to his death. But he'd never sleepwalked before, and this was an exceptionally defensible position, come to think of it. The secondary terror melted away, too. He wouldn't kill someone else offensively like a... player. But if a... player came to him, or rather someone attacked him, they were fair game. He wouldn't risk his life just to make sure...

He lay down on the boards and hooked an arm awkwardly around one of the corner pillars to make sure he wouldn't fall. It was painful and trying to make it not cut off his circulation moreso, but that was all a small price to pay to avoid death.

He kept his feet above the stairwell. That way, if someone was coming, he'd not just hear them but they'd brush their head against the shoes and thus be noticed. It was satisfying and calming to try to approach the situation analytically. He wasn't happy about the person who died, but the less thought he lended to that the better. His eyes slowly drifted closed, and so did his mind.

His dreams were strange and fragmentary as they usually were. New designs, new visions, new mish-mashes of everything he'd seen before put together in the oddest way. But eventually, they had to end. He woke up.

His consciousness shifted to reality. The island was light again. Light in a new way. His body felt cooler somehow, even though the air was actually warmer than it had been. However, an uncomfortably familiar voice boomed from somewhere-

"Good morning ladies, gentlemen, and those of unspecified gender..." Tracen again. The announcements. He'd forgotten all about the announcements! Although he knew he'd hate hearing the terrorist leader taunt the dead, it was an unfortunately necessary step to pay attention to them. Damn him and his entire organization for forcing him to see his fellow classmates as potential threats already!

"... so with no further ado, here's the butcher's bill."

He listened long, and listened carefully. Jennifer Su died.. a bridge. Was that the scream he'd heard? It didn't matter now. He mentally recited each name and what it was associated with as it passed. One Isabel Ramirez had killed Florentina Luz. Nancy Kyle had killed Scarlet McAfee. Kimiko Kao had killed Cristobal Morales. To be honest, most of the names didn't mean much to him, but each and every single one of them stung, each a thorn in his mind. Every name meant another one of his fellows dead, or another who had succumbed to opportunity and accident and had fallen for the terrorists' mindgame. He especially had to pay attention to the latter.

Judging from what had been said, the dead man at the bottom of the tower was one Barry Banks, and apparently he'd been killed by Alvaro Vacanti. Both names were faintly recognizable.

That showed the broken rail in an entirely new light. A significant part of Wade wanted to just get up and leave. It felt as though the entire place was.. tainted, somehow, by someone having been killed there. And, he realized, he was completely and utterly open to anyone who could snipe. He wanted to move again. So he moved. Just quietly picked everything up and went downstairs.

((Wade Cartwright continued in Thursday's Child))