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LordCowCow

The Others [IC/PG-16/Accepting]

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Carmen was glad at least that Brian hadn't scolded her for wasting their time in what ended up being a fruitless endeavor. The girl then wasn't quite sure what he meant by having six other ways to leave, though only felt her anxiety grow and build into actual physical recoil as he attempted to break the wall with the chair. Startled by his brazenness to find an exit Carmen had immediately started looking every which way above, paranoid about whatever security staff might've been watching (or would watch) what had just happened and wondering how in trouble she was going to get. She could barely afford living in her apartment as was, but having to deal with being sued by some office building on top of that for property damage would certainly put her into financial ruin. Her nerves were only set off even more as Brian then swept off a desk and asked something of her. 

The girl looked between him and the ceiling several times, dumbfounded by the prospect of having to actually go up there and do...something, to find their way out. Carmen had been rooted in place at first, shaking at the idea of having to traverse the internal area of this office by herself. She had seen movies, she knew that nothing good ever came about from crawling up in spaces like that. Of course the more she thought about the more her other options didn't seem really good either. Either Brian was angry with her and she was stuck in the room with an angry Brian, or he decided to try it himself and left her here by herself in the middle of an infinitely looping horror room. So, meekly stepping forward the girl awkwardly hoisted herself onto the desk. It was stable enough to hold her weight though her footing made it feel like she was afraid it was going to collapse at any moment. 

Looking at the hole in the ceiling, the girl gulped nervously before finally managing to reach up to the ceiling and grab onto the ledge. It was a struggle. The amount of upper body strength needed and the amount that she had available were not in good proportion with each other and it was more her floundering and throwing herself upward until finally enough of her body was up in the ceiling that she could pull herself through the roof. 

"Wha-!" The girl let out a surprised yelp as suddenly her upward movement turned to downward movement, and inner working of the ceiling were replaced with the same office room. Flopping onto the floor the girl let out an, "owowow..." as her face buried into the office carpet, wallowing in her moment of failure. Finally, picking herself back up the girl let out a dejected sigh, looking to the side as she mumbled, "sorry...I'll just uh..."

And without really explaining herself the girl went to go back to where Brian had been, opting to make herself useful by cleaning up the mess that had been on the floor and not wanting to leave any mess for the eventual return of people in here who could be angry with it. Grabbing the notebooks, the girl opened them up, flipping through the pages by habit to see that all there had been was several types of innocuous lists such as, "things that are yellow," or "things that are soft," and yet another picture of the devil boss from behind the poster. While the first time she had seen it it had elicited a chuckle from her, the repeat failures on her end only made it feel like the devil was also her own boss silently judging her. Shutting the notebook closed and placing it back on the desk, the girl went to wander about the room aimlessly, checking the other desks in the process.

The desk at the top right of the room was where she wandered to first. While it also had a computer, that wasn't on, it provided a good deal of information to the girl that she didn't realize she had been missing. Such as a humidity checker, stating the room was a bit dry and eliciting a need to get water from Carmen. A thermometer that said it was 65 degrees inside, making her wonder if she were perhaps dressed appropriately for such weather. Two calendars, one a desk calendar and one hung up by geometric shapes, letting Carmen know the exact date in two different ways. And a clock that read 7PM, making her all the more cognizant of the time and growing antsy that they would be trapped here all night. There was also two bottles of hand sanitizer, one mostly empty, but Carmen thought it taboo to use another person's hand sanitizer without permission. 

Meandering about eventually to the exact opposite end of the room to the last desk in the room, the girl's eye immediately focused on the corkboard that had several cat pictures on it. She wondered if their dog owning neighbor and them were friends or bitter rivals. Stacks upon stacks of sticky notes littered the room as well, making her wonder what kind of amount of note taking this man had to do, though it seemed he was also quite busy learning or innovating with the several coding and programming books that littered his desk. Seeing something more colorful on the desk as well, the girl looked over to try and get a closer look, only to immediately back off  with a blush on her face. Seeing a figure of a bikini clad girl from an anime Carmen, wondering what tonight's episode would be like in her own anime she was watching, couldn't help but mutter, "...how brave...." 

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Was it disappointing to see Carmen disappear through the ceiling and immediately reappear coming back through one of the doors to the room? Yes, obviously, but Brian tried not to let it show. He’d thought it was a good idea, and now he was less enthused about his other idea about breaking down the wall. He was running out of good ideas in general, actually, which sucked because he was the one who suggested thinking about the whole thing like an escape room in the first place, and he hated admitting he was wrong. At the same time, Carmen had found a clock that was still ticking away. According to that, it hadn’t been long at all since they’d first entered the room, but Brian could still feel his mortality creeping up on him. The office had water, so there was that necessity, but soon he would require food, and there wasn’t much in the way of leftover congratulatory pizza parties (provided instead of a cash bonus, of course) that he could see.

He sighed. Well, there was one idea left. They were dealing with something supernatural, and they did bring a box of things with them that worked on supernatural things. In his defense, they’d known the room was cursed or whatever from the moment Carmen went through the door, he just thought there was an actual ghost to find like last time. He hopped down from the desk as Carmen went to go pick up all the shit he’d kicked off of it, and grabbed a handful of seals.

The first thing Brian sealed was a door. The far one, the one that had started this mess in the first place when Carmen had gone through it. He stuck one on the other door across the way for good measure too. When he opened the door and stepped through, though, he found nothing had changed. He still immediately popped through to the other door with no time in between.

Brian made a noise like “Hm,” and paced between the door and the box. Nothing else in the room seemed out of the ordinary. It all seemed perfectly mundane. Too mundane, perhaps, but that was just offices in general. He’d been in those. The only thing out of place really, was, well, the people in it: Carmen and himself. It wasn’t their office. He took one of the seals and examined it under one of the humming office lights. Now that he thought about it, the seals were supposed to put ghosts back where they belonged, and right now, they were kind of like that. Brian stuck the seal on his chest.

The next best idea was ripping one in half as part of the solution to the stupidest riddle imaginable (put the halves back together, two halves make a whole, fall out through the hole).

He turned to Carmen and looked her up and down. He couldn’t put one on her chest without running the risk of touching something he wasn’t supposed to so he looked for somewhere more unassuming. He settled on her forehead and closed in.

Carmen leapt back. “Wait wait wait, what are you doing?” she said.

“I dunno, what’s it look like?” Brian said. “Just trying stuff. I’ve got one on and it hasn’t killed me yet. so you shouldn't have to worry about anything bad happening.”

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As Brian put on the seal on her forehead, something Carmen couldn't help but feel a bit dissatisfied about but didn't dare any raise objections about having the object placed on her, she followed after the man. The two of them walked through the door and found that...nothing had changed. They came out the other end as before and the room itself seemed to have not changed at all. The girl let out a defeated sigh as it seems that their options to what to do were running low. With her head hung low the girl trotted her way over to a nearby desk, sitting down on it and placing her face against the desk for a moment. The girl looked at the photo of the hound Sherlock, wondering what the great detective mutt would do in this situation. Was it possible that dogs could sniff out ghosts? She would certainly like it if that were the case but she had no intention of owning or caring for a dog to bring on a mission, and the thought of a dog getting the job done faster than her also filled her with a sense of shame.

"Do you think Shiki would hire you instead?" But not so much shame that the girl wouldn't gladly give her position to the dog. 

Trying to make her self feel less pathetic, though, Carmen looked down and saw that there was a drawer to the desk. She had searched everything else thus far but she hadn't actually looked inside one of these yet. Of course she didn't really feel comfortable looking through someone else's personal belongings and she was certain that she was going to get in trouble for doing so, more so then if she had gotten the floor wet from the water cooler, but being at her wits end already the girl steeled her resolve and reached down. With her hand shaking, wondering if some kind of jack in the box surprise was going to pop out at her, and maybe maim her, the girl gulped down before finally opening the desk drawer. Inside she had found...mundane papers and office supplies. Letting out a sigh of relief, the girl looked down and saw something else that caught her attention.

Reaching down and grabbing some of the candy, the girl couldn't deny the temptation. After all, she was going a bit stir crazy from being confined in a singular room that wasn't her own bedroom for so long. And the candy was right there. The girl looked around, knowing that there was only one other person in this room but still feeling the need to look both ways to make sure she wasn't being watched. Well, she was probably being watched by the security cameras and the ghost was always able to judge her for her actions as well. However, the allure of the sweet proved too much for the girl and she ended up grabbing one. 

"Mmm..." The girl let out a satisfied noise as she ate the candy and, ignoring her paranoia about being watched had gone for a second. After getting that, though, she figured that there was still someone still in the room fully capable of judging her actions. Looking over to Brian sheepishly the girl asked, "do uh...do you want some?" 

He sighed. "If you want to just take a break go ahead I'll keep figuring out what to do."

Her eyes widened at the generosity the man was providing as she eagerly nodded saying, "oh, uh sure. I'll do just that." Leaving the thinking to him now the girl attempted to turn the computer on several times once more but found no luck. The girl frowned before turning to the modern personal computer; her phone. It turned on without issue and, while she had no idea what password for the wifi this building had, she was able to connect to the internet via data easily enough. The girl pondered how that worked but didn't seem to care to think much beyond it as she browsed through her phone on her break. 

Edited by Skaia

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Carmen was still flailing around. She stammered a few times through a couple different beginnings of sentences before she finally managed, “B-b-but it’s still only ‘yet!’ Who knows what could happen? Maybe you stick a broken one on me and it catches fire or something!”

Brian took another step forward. “Well, if it catches fire, there's a water cooler over there,” he said. “I’ll even say a prayer so it’s holy water or whatever. Put the seal on, Carmen.”

Her eyes were still as big as dinner plates, but Carmen relented. “Well, okay…” she said. “But let me put one on myself. You’re looking sorta…” She seemed to realize she was about to say something impolite and wisely decided not to say anything.

It was something Brian could ignore. He relaxed a bit -- though only a bit -- went back to the box of seals, lifted the whole thing up, and carried it back to Carmen. “Take your pick,” he said.

Carmen hesitated again. She reached into the box, then took her hand back out as though she was somehow choosing for her life instead of picking one out of identical pieces of paper. She went back and forth a few times like this, eyes darting back and forth before she finally snatched up a seal and stuck it to her arm, bracing with her eyes closed like either she or the seal was going to explode.

No explosions came. Not in the physical sense, anyway. But Brian had had enough of this. He grabbed a seal himself. “Grow up, Carmen,” he said. “God, you were fine handling these things yesterday. I even felt okay letting you take care of yourself for half the night. It’s the same fucking box. They didn’t suddenly become a different sort of magic bullshit.”

But before Brian could slap the seal on Carmen’s forehead, her eyes snapped back open. “Ahh!” she screamed. “Assault! Assault!” She ran through one of the doors and came back in through the other one again, still running. Brian walked after her, but Carmen grabbed the garbage can and started throwing garbage at him. When she ran out of garbage, she threw the whole can at him too, though it was a weak throw that barely even reached him.

“Hey, Carmen,” Brian said, “did you ever see the movie They Live? John Carpenter? Nineteen Eighty-Eight? It’s known for two things. Thing the first: the phrase ‘I’m here to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I’m all out of bubble gum.’ Rowdy Roddy Piper came up with that line. Absolute legend. Thing the second: In the middle of the movie, Roddy and Keith David get into a ten-minute fight over whether or not Keith is going to put on some magic sunglasses. It’s stupid, both people know it’s stupid, but they fight on anyway. I’m going to stick this seal on your forehead, Carmen, and so help me Christ, I don’t think you're going to be able to stop me.”

Carmen waffled, looking like she was going to say something, but Brian stayed firm, and when it looked like she realized that, her face went entirely expressionless, and she lunged at him.

“Fucking knew it,” Brian said even though he didn’t. He dug in his heels, grabbed Carmen’s wrists, and pushed back.

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It didn't take long for Carmen to realize that her phone was a poor distraction to her environment. There wasn't anything particularly going on at this hour for one, and for another she was also reminded that the less she paid attention to her surroundings the worse it got. After all, she knew what to be afraid of if she could see the danger. She had no idea what to be afraid of if she was looking elsewhere or had her eyes closed, and that was all the more frightening. Putting her phone down the girl looked up and asked, "s-so uh...have you um...found anything?"

He sighed, annoyed. "No, nothing. Maybe there's nothing to find..." he picked up the trash can and looked under it and shook his head.

"Ughhhh," the girl whined as she placed her chin on the table, defeated. Looking at the dog picture she grumbled, "we're both just Watsons..." The girl made her joke and complaint to herself and the dog picture, but then she thought of something. Why did she make that joke? It was because the dog was named Sherlock, of course, but how did she know that? Looking at the dog, squinting and leaning forward closer she was positive that there was something that told her its name until she thought back. Remembering that there was a name tag on the dog, she looked and found no such thing on the dog anymore. "Eh? Huh?" There were two possibilities here. One, Carmen had made the whole thing up and just assumed based on the dog picture. This could not have been the case though as Carmen had always believed her own irrationally paranoid mind to be correct when it came to such inconsistencies. Which lead to only one other option. 

"A-aaaaaaaahhhhh!" The girl shouted as she immediately back away, the chair rolling away from the desk as she shoved herself away from it. 

Brian turned towards her. "Can you be quiet I'm trying to figure this out."

"B-b-but I think it's haunted!" She emphatically pointed at the dog picture.

Brian made his way over and looked, then looked at Carmen. "Are you sure you're alright? Maybe you should, I don't know, take a nap or something."

"Eh?" A mortified look crossed her face at the thought, shaking her head violently to reject the idea. "Taking a nap here?! No no no no, I don't want to close my eyes in a haunted building that'd be the worst! And," the girl gave Brian a side eye, nervously taking a step back and shaking her head. "...I definitely can't sleep here..." Her last mission made her well aware of what kind of man she was dealing with. 

"You might as well, not like you're doing anything else." He gestured around, "and obviously I'm not going anywhere."

His insistence only proved to her more and more that falling asleep in such a place would be the end of her, in a sense. Shaking her head violently still, the girl made her way over to the seal box and, in an attempt to be useful and do something else. Slapping the seal on the picture of the dog, nothing seemed to happen. 

Brian rolled his eyes and wandered off, "whatever."

The girl gulped, knowing that she had just failed to do anything useful but continued to start looking around for anything else in the room that would be haunted. 

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The thing that wasn’t Carmen (unless Carmen was even more of a weirdo than Brian had estimated) didn’t offer much resistance as Brian pushed into her center of mass. Oh, she struggled as he grabbed her wrists, sure, but one solid push sent Carmen’s legs buckling and she collapsed to the floor. She actually offered less resistance than Brian had expected, and he toppled over her, landing on his stomach by the box of seals. Carmen was quicker to get up than he was, flying to on top of his back to keep him down, though she was light enough that Brian could still stand up with only a bit of effort.

Not that that stopped the Carmen thing from thrashing at his back or throttling at his neck or any other sort of move that a child might do when throwing a tantrum. But she wasn’t a child, and Brian knew that. There was no reason to just stand there and take it. Instead, he fell backward on top of her, crushing Carmen against the ground.

Brian popped back up and wheeled around, glaring at “Carmen” as she struggled to get back up herself. It wasn’t something he was about to let happen. He snatched another seal out of the box and fell again, this time on top of her. Carmen grabbed wherever she could, but Brian maintained the pin and held the seal up.

It seized Brian’s wrists. He could tell the thing was desperate now. But it wasn’t even close to the strongest ghost Brian had wrestled with in even the last forty-eight hours, and he kept his hand moving forward, sticking the Carmen right in the forehead, just as he said he would.

Carmen burst into flames. They didn’t hurt even though Brian had been right on top of her, but they sure consumed ghost Carmen right quick, leaving nothing behind. “Fucking dork,” Brian said. “Stupid tricks, can’t put up a fight, can’t even burn right.” Nothing else about the room changed, except that he was alone in it. Part of Brian hoped the Real Carmen was okay, wherever she ended up, but he wouldn’t admit that to himself. Even so, got up, grabbed the box of seals, and went to the door. Surely it would work this time.

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