Patrick Dawn (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bashfulshifter) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
animus_network2013-08-17 01:26 pm
bashfulshifter) wrote in animus_network2013-08-17 01:26 pm
[text/action]
[It's too quiet.]
[Rick's been wandering the Tower since Thursday, trying to help whoever he can with their shadows, checking up on them every few hours when he can catch his breath. But after yesterday, he's lost track of nearly all of them...and earlier today, he watched yet another die. After making a full circuit of all the safer floors and the stairwell, he's only now beginning to realize that perhaps Sertoria's death was just a continuation on a pattern that he's somehow missed.]
[It's evening, now, and around him the Tower has become eerily silent. Rick's staggered his way to the top floor dorms; his collar is almost as clear as it was Wednesday. He knows that the network hasn't been working well, but he's so alone, so terrified that he's failed all the people that he's tried so hard to help, and this is the only other way he can think of to try and contact them. The message he sends is short...]
Is anyone still up and around? There's so few people left...if you're still alive, I'm on the first floor of the dorms. We should stick together. Don't let the shadows win this.
[...but the message that comes out is glitched, nearly unreadable in spots. Rick paces between terminals, reloading his post to see if the problem fixes itself--and then, appropriately enough, he gives one of the computers a solid, frustrated kick, and collapses on the opposite side of the hall.]
[It's doubtful that anyone will be lucky or persistent enough to decipher Rick's message. If they do, though, he'll be curled up by the wall where he left himself. A shadow rubs his back.]
[You tried, honey...but you can't save everyone, you know. I told you it wasn't worth the effort and you just didn't listen...]
[Rick's been wandering the Tower since Thursday, trying to help whoever he can with their shadows, checking up on them every few hours when he can catch his breath. But after yesterday, he's lost track of nearly all of them...and earlier today, he watched yet another die. After making a full circuit of all the safer floors and the stairwell, he's only now beginning to realize that perhaps Sertoria's death was just a continuation on a pattern that he's somehow missed.]
[It's evening, now, and around him the Tower has become eerily silent. Rick's staggered his way to the top floor dorms; his collar is almost as clear as it was Wednesday. He knows that the network hasn't been working well, but he's so alone, so terrified that he's failed all the people that he's tried so hard to help, and this is the only other way he can think of to try and contact them. The message he sends is short...]
Is anyone still up and around? There's so few people left...if you're still alive, I'm on the first floor of the dorms. We should stick together. Don't let the shadows win this.
[...but the message that comes out is glitched, nearly unreadable in spots. Rick paces between terminals, reloading his post to see if the problem fixes itself--and then, appropriately enough, he gives one of the computers a solid, frustrated kick, and collapses on the opposite side of the hall.]
[It's doubtful that anyone will be lucky or persistent enough to decipher Rick's message. If they do, though, he'll be curled up by the wall where he left himself. A shadow rubs his back.]
[You tried, honey...but you can't save everyone, you know. I told you it wasn't worth the effort and you just didn't listen...]
no subject
It's--it'll be all right. I'm sure you did everything you could to help. It's all right. I'm fine, and you're fine, and everything will be fine.
[Kariya says this with more certainty than he has a right to.]
I--is there someone who can help you, someone we can find?
[He's not sure what to do, on his own.]
no subject
[He doesn't answer Kariya's question directly. Instead, Rick glances over his arms with red-rimmed eyes, sad and pleading.]
...P-P-Please d-d-don't l-leave.