( There is blood on his fingers. He cannot remember his hand sliding over sharp metal, he cannot remember slicing it open, but he feels the pulse of pain and looks down to see hot red wet spilling over the pads of his fingertips. Another blink, and he realizes at some point he put his back to the panel he was supposed to be opening. Those symbols — they linger hazily in his vision, splotches of color burned into his retinas, swimming dizzily.
When he looks up, the shadows converge; they coalesce; they become something other. They are a shape, or they're taking shape, something massive, something unnatural, something--
Something he can't shoot, so why the hell is he bothering to stare at it? He rips his eyes away from it, barking out a sharp sound as his fingernails dig into the panel again to pry it open through sheer brute force and determination. By the time he finishes punching in the symbols, he can feel the shadows breathing on him, licking up the back of his neck like ghosts.
This place. There is something wrong with this place. He doesn't know what it is, but god damn it, he knows people weren't meant to come here. Is this what a diffusion zone is? A stretching swath of land tainted by something, radiating other and threatening to consume pieces of you until you're dead or hollow?
The door doesn't wanna open when he rounds the building again, so he kicks it open hard enough for it to swing fast and bang against the wall beside it. Irritation laces his posture, but his aim is steady as he takes the corners with military care, all the way back to that sealed office where some stranger's depending on him to keep him from fucking drowning. Water fills the entire room, floor to ceiling. Driblets of it seep from seams that should not be able to hold back so much pressure. Frank doesn't stop to appreciate it.
He braces himself, gets into position, and yanks the door open.
Thousands of gallons of brackish water throws itself out of the room like a fire hose, like a tidal wave, crashing down and flooding the carpet on the outside as all of it releases itself out into empty air, draining the room rapidly. His eyes furiously scan what they can make of the flurry of liquid movement, searching for a person-shape, a body among all the floating debris rushing out with it. )
no subject
When he looks up, the shadows converge; they coalesce; they become something other. They are a shape, or they're taking shape, something massive, something unnatural, something--
Something he can't shoot, so why the hell is he bothering to stare at it? He rips his eyes away from it, barking out a sharp sound as his fingernails dig into the panel again to pry it open through sheer brute force and determination. By the time he finishes punching in the symbols, he can feel the shadows breathing on him, licking up the back of his neck like ghosts.
This place. There is something wrong with this place. He doesn't know what it is, but god damn it, he knows people weren't meant to come here. Is this what a diffusion zone is? A stretching swath of land tainted by something, radiating other and threatening to consume pieces of you until you're dead or hollow?
The door doesn't wanna open when he rounds the building again, so he kicks it open hard enough for it to swing fast and bang against the wall beside it. Irritation laces his posture, but his aim is steady as he takes the corners with military care, all the way back to that sealed office where some stranger's depending on him to keep him from fucking drowning. Water fills the entire room, floor to ceiling. Driblets of it seep from seams that should not be able to hold back so much pressure. Frank doesn't stop to appreciate it.
He braces himself, gets into position, and yanks the door open.
Thousands of gallons of brackish water throws itself out of the room like a fire hose, like a tidal wave, crashing down and flooding the carpet on the outside as all of it releases itself out into empty air, draining the room rapidly. His eyes furiously scan what they can make of the flurry of liquid movement, searching for a person-shape, a body among all the floating debris rushing out with it. )