Event Private lab rats

Britta was not saying much, but she was certainly watching. She was trying to listen, too—but she was farther away from those who were actually speaking and closer to those who were just yelling and panicking, so she wasn’t getting much of use.

Although, one of the screaming ones had now since calmed down and had spoken up to her. Britta lifted herself from the cage wall and moved closer to the side where Lulu resided.

“I am sure I do not,” Britta replied, leaning her arm against the wall as she examined the other. What even was this weirdo? Well, whatever. Now wasn’t the time to really be concerned. She drummed her long fingernails against the side of the cage, agitated but remaining calm. There was no point in freaking out and wasting her energy—not right now. But if one of these fuckers came into her cage…

While they couldn’t hear much from the far end of the cages, Britta did jump a little at the sound of a commotion from Abi’s cage. It was hard to see or hear what exactly was going on, but clearly there was something happening. She tried getting on her tiptoes to get a better view, and when that was not quite enough—she stood up on the toilet, which allowed her to at least somewhat see what was going on in Abi’s cage.

Schrödinger tried really, really hard to break the glass. He pounded it, smacked it, and even tried to kick it (ouch, no). An extra mouth that had appeared on his neck snapped in irritation.

Some deep part of him rejoiced at the sight of Abigale's peril, cheering on what looked to be the start of a fight. It laughed when Aeden tried to tell him to be calm. Calm?

This was--

Schrödinger pushed it down as ruthlessly as it appeared. He hated that feeling. Scratching his hands, the boy nodded. "Okay," he replied to Aeden, shaking slightly. His toe throbbed. "Okay."

And Schrödinger watched, and waited. The shadowy limbs stilled, unnaturally glowing eyes unblinking.



((OOC @Nikki
I'm not sure? I mean, Schrödinger's cell dinged, and cell 2B wasn't on the list. Maybe a malfunction or something? Or...something? I don't know, but sure, yeah that makes sense.))

This wasn't home.

There was no sign of Iaemor or Maya, or any of the doctors who usually took care of her. Curious, but Cairo couldn't seem to be upset by it. Everything still felt great! Getting up to receive the food that was shoved into her cell, she realised what a horrible mistake it was to assume that she was fine - the tiniest amount of weight put on her legs and they crumbled beneath her. The pain that resulted was dulled and faded, so at least her medication hadn't worn off completely.

Weak and unbalanced, Cairo opted for scooting across the floor to the wall that didn't connect to another cell, where the food had been left. People were confused, dazed, angry, violent - and aggressive whirlwind of negative emotions that Cairo just couldn't seem to understand. Hadn't they all just been put back into quarantine? Wasn't this just the hospital? It made sense, when she looked around. She recognised some of these people from the old quarantine building. Had the March Virus made a comeback? Some of them looked like they still had symptoms but they said it had all been cured. The virus should be gone.

Her two neighbours were panicking. The one across from her tried escaping through the toilet, which almost made Cairo retch. The fact that their toilets functioned as their sinks as well, was a thought she tried to ignore. The food... Could have been better. It was worse than the usual hospital food. Maybe this was a new quarantine building?

Whatever it was, everyone was freaking out, except for the now-sedated... 12-B? Is that what they said? The woman in the cell to the left was pretty quiet. 12-B tried talking to the one next to her, but that was interrupted by... Something going on? Maybe they recognised someone further down? It didn't really matter. Something was happening and the person to the left was interested.

Cairo knocked on the glass to get Lulu's attention, using her teeth to break the skin on her finger. Cairo doubted that she'd be able to speak loud enough for them to hear, so instead she used her now bleeding finger to write her name on the glass for the others to see, drawing a smiley face beside it and waving.

@Boop @Kathinja

Well, LuLu hadn't actually expected another patient to know much more about what was going on, but they had hoped for a bit more of a response. They also weren't sure if everyone had been captured around the same time, or if perhaps there were some who had been here longer and would, therefore, know more about procedures or anything about their captors. They had been indisposed and hadn't even seen when most of the others woke up. Still trying to learn more about their fellow captives, since there didn't seem to be any captors to talk to, LuLu asked, "Have you spoken with any of the others yet?"

When the woman climbed up on the toilet to get a better view of some commotion, LuLu turned to see where she was looking. They couldn't get a clear view of much other than feet from where they lay on the floor, and even rearing up to the full five feet their tentacles allowed didn't do much to help. The distortion from many layers of glass, plus the heads of the other people, made it very hard to make out much of anything. They thought there might be two people in one cell, but they weren't sure. They asked the woman who had climbed, "Are you able to see what is happening over there?"

Then another person awoke, who had still been sleeping when LuLu had decided who to talk to. This other person caught the eldritch's attention, then wrote something with what appeared to be their own blood. Well - that was one way to do it. LuLu read the writing - Cairo - and she had drawn a crude face as well. The eldritch guessed from the face that she had written her name and that she wasn't trying to tell them that they were in Egypt. They wondered why she didn't just speak, the glass wasn't soundproof at all, but then they figured that perhaps this Cairo could not speak. They didn't have blood to write with, but they could spell their name with their tentacles if they lowered themselves back down a bit. They spelled out "LuLu", in case the girl was deaf as well, and said out loud, "We are named LuLu. Can you hear us?"

Schrödinger, of course, had no idea what mass sedation meant.

"Miss?" he whispered, staring at Abigale's prone form. "Miss! Lady! Hey, are you okay?"

Four black tendrils had formed around him, waving in the air, clearly agitated. Teeth were snapping, and the cheerful gleam faded from Schrödinger's usually-bright eyes. It was dulled in the light of his situation, but now all traces of it were gone. He glared, angry, at the spot where Anthony last stood.

"HEY!" the boy shouted, a now-physical tentacle slamming itself on the floor of his cage. Its existence bothered him with each passing moment, the bracelet lightly humming with the usage of his eldritch form. Apparently, it did nothing much to contain his form, and stood no chance against the will of an angry nine-year-old. "MISTER! YOU HURT HER! LET ME OUT, LET ME OUT, LET ME OUT!"

He paid no mind to the others in their cells, ignored Aeden next to him, the octopus in the far away one, and the blood on Cairo's walls. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. The nice lady was supposed to win! The nice people always win!

The image of Anthony beating Abigale's already downed form was burned into his memory. That wasn't fair. It was brutal and unnecessary, and something about seeing the nice, considerate lady a couple cells down get beaten past unconsciousness made Schrödinger's blood boil hot. Why was she not getting up? Why was she not getting up?

Schrödinger's dull, red-amber eyes searched his own cell for a way to break free. Tendrils of smoke and shadow drifted around him. He no longer remembered considering escaping to get back home.

If he ever got his hands on that man...

LuLu themself was more than a little perturbed at the direction this captivity was taking. Getting into a fight with the captors certainly did not seem to be the most prudent thing to do. And the level of savagery required to actually smash another being - it made them shudder. In fact, their tentacles waved around a bit, but there were many ways for their body language to be interpreted.

Yet they were completely ineffectual in this situation. They couldn't aid or interfere in any way, seeing as they were trapped in a glass cage, which was part of the whole problem anyways. If they weren't captives; they wouldn't be beating up their captors. And there wasn't much to do, all by themselves, isolated. Even if they were able to get over there, they couldn't really do anything.

But then, from what little LuLu could see, the fighting appeared to stop. And a voice spoke about mass sedations. That could be inconvenient. Although, the eldritch wondered why these mysterious people hadn't just done that anyway - unless it would throw off their experiments. They hoped this would help convince everyone to cooperate. They understood panic, of course, but other than that aggressiveness and violence would solve nothing and had been proved ineffectual.

Then someone young-sounding began screaming. LuLu could see that it was most likely another eldritch of a different type, but not much else. Their mouth flipped into a frown of consternation. How would cooperation ever be achieved? They looked at their co-captives. "Perhaps... each of us should gather information from the ones we can speak to? We must have communication between ourselves."