Sixth Floor Common Room - Saturday Evening

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

Kawalsky's head was pounding. He opened his eyes and found himself face-down on the floor of the Sixth Floor Common Room.

Groaning, he rolled over onto his side and clambered to his feet. "Hamlet?" Kawalsky called. What had happened last night? The details were a little fuzzy, but as he steadied himself, he tried to recall what went down.

They were in Room 666 with the book and the crazy window and the things flying at them. Then there was the big soul-sucking thing and some incantation and then...

He turned and stumbled as quickly as he could towards the door without falling over his own feet. Grabbing onto the door frame, Kawalsky hung out into the corridor and looked down at where the ridiculously long Sixth Floor corridor had been.

It was gone. All that remained was a normal dead end wall.

There were only a few rooms left. The endless stream of rooms was gone. Then he remembered. The hypercube section of the floor had collapsed in on itself. Kawalsky and Hamlet had run as fast as they could to keep ahead of the collapsing after the big 'thing' had heard the incantation.

They'd both landed pretty hard in the common room to avoid the thick layer of plaster and dust that now coated the remains of the corridor.

Squeezing his eyes shut in an attempt to push away the pounding headache he had, Kawalsky wondered what time it was and how long they'd been up here. He turned back around and saw Hamlet sprawled behind the couch.

He rushed to his side and shook him gently. "Hamlet? Hamlet?"


[OOC: For the Danish Emo Prince to wrap up the plot.]

Comments

[ihatedenmark.livejournal.com]

Hamlet grimaced as he was shook. He seemed to have picked up a roaring headache somewhere last night. He pulled himself up to his knees, and coughed as he breathed in some of the loose drywall that seemed to be floating everywhere. He rubbed his eyes with one hand.

"It looks like we're still alive."

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, it's a habit I'd like to keep." Kawalsky patted him on the back, then offered a hand up. "You okay?"

[ihatedenmark.livejournal.com]

"Aside from the headache, coughing, and dozen or so bruises, I'd say so." He looked out into the hallway, and frowned at the wall that now appeared a few doors down. "I'm not sure about my things, however."

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. Looks like we did a number on the floor." He was thinking about detention right about now. But it wasn't like they did it on purpose. "Which room's yours?"

[ihatedenmark.livejournal.com]

"603," he said, pointing. "One of the ones which is now by a wall, but seems to have survived mostly intact."

In the back of his mind, he wondered if Fluffypants was still okay.

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

Kawalsky headed towards 603, but stopped short and stared at the wall. His frown deepened, despite the fact that it intesified the headache. "Earl was in there."

[ihatedenmark.livejournal.com]

Lines of concern crossed Hamlet's face. "Can you hear anything from in there? Is he still alright?"

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

Kawalsky carefully placed a hand against the wall to make sure it wasn't going to collapse on them, then pressed his ear to the wall.

After a moment, he pulled back and shook his head. "I don't hear anything." Charlie's frown cleared and he turned, jogging into the common room. He had a tall lamp with a metal stand. Taking a moment to remove the cumbersome lampshade and the light bulb, he then wrapped his hand around the power cord and hefted the lamp stand.

THUMP. He swung it at the wall.

THUMP.

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

THUMP. THUMP.

THUMP.

He raised the stand for another hit.

[ihatedenmark.livejournal.com]

Hamlet watched Kawalsky start pounding on the wall, which made an odd kind of thudding noise he hadn't heard before. He looked over the new wall between hits.

"It doesn't seem to be making a difference."

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

THUMP.

He let the lamp stand drop to the ground. "Damn it." Charlie sighed and stepped back, then kicked the wall hard in frustration. He put a hand on his head and ruffled his own hair angrily. "Yeah, okay. Let's check your room out, then let's check the other rooms and make sure there's no other way through."

[ihatedenmark.livejournal.com]

"Sounds fine to me," Hamlet said. "We can only hope that he'll have taken refuge somewhere safe for the moment."

He led the way to his room and opened the door. The loose paint and drywall from the rest of the hallway settled like a powder over the whole room, except for Mr Canute Mimir Fluffypants, who waved his arms wildly from the bed. The explosions had left large cracks across the ceiling, and knocked loose the shelves from the walls, leaving broken possessions all over the floor. Hamlet frowned.

"It seems as though even the remaining rooms have been damaged a bit."

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

"Stay away from the power outlets. Might be some loose wires." Charlie kept the door open and looked around. "You can crash in my room tonight. I think Cam's gone for the weekend, so there's a spare bed. Or if he's back there's the couch. But we can pack some of this stuff up and get it outta here in case the wall decides to keep coming."

[ihatedenmark.livejournal.com]

"Thank you for that," he said, a note of relief in his voice.

He took one more look around the room. "I think I may need to apply for a new room on Monday."

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

Kawalsky looked at his wristwatch. "Yeah. We missed a whole day. It's Saturday night. I don't think anyone's noticed what's going on up here, so we'll have to tell Principal Washburn what happened on Monday too."

[ihatedenmark.livejournal.com]

A whole day? They'd been unconscious longer than he'd thought.

Hamlet grimaced, not looking forward to to facing the princpical. "At least we can tell her that rocks, fell, but no one died."

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

"Except maybe Earl," Kawalsky replied morosely. Not wanting a repeat of last night, he got something to keep the door wedged open. "You got any boxes?"

[ihatedenmark.livejournal.com]

Hamlet frowned. Oh, right. He prayed the Earl was off alright, wherever he was.

Hamlet maneuvered his way over to his closet, and pulled a couple of dusty boxes from the bottom. "Only the ones I brought here with me from Denmark when I moved in."

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

"That'll do. Essentials first in one box. Then we can just grab everything else and put them in the other boxes. Don't forget some clothes."

[ihatedenmark.livejournal.com]

Hamlet grabbed a couple dozen pieces of black clothing and threw them in the box, along with a blanket, a book or two, his school bag, Yorrick, and a still-flailing Mr Canute Mimir Fluffypants.

"I think this is all I need for now," he said.

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

"We can come back and grab the rest later. Probably a good idea to get out of here for a while. You sure that's all you want? Might not be here when we come back."

[ihatedenmark.livejournal.com]

He took another look over the room, trying to see if there was anything else there that he couldn't bear to part with. He shook his head in response to Kawalsky's question. "Much of this is Duo's, and ... I haven't wanted to clean that out."

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

Kawalsky nodded silently and looked around at Duo's stuff. "You think that thing got him? All of them?"

[ihatedenmark.livejournal.com]

Hamlet nodded. "Likely. A dozen different people all vanished overnight in the same way, and it all seems to much to be a coincidence."

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

Charlie leaned a hand above his head against the door. "You're the last man standing. You did the right thing by them."

[ihatedenmark.livejournal.com]

He leaned against the door frame, unknowingly getting white powder over his back. "Did I? I couldn't bring any of them back. I've destroyed most of their remaining things. Is that all that could have been done?"

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

"No," Charlie admitted. "More should've been done a long time before we came into the picture. But it wasn't, and good people died. That's the price we pay for looking the other way and letting things slide. But when it came to crunch time, you did what you could. You could've run or got someone else to do the dirty work. You stood your ground and avenged them. All a guy can do is take what he's got where he is and do what he knows needs to be done."

[ihatedenmark.livejournal.com]

Hamlet smiled a bit at that. "I suppose that's true, isn't it? In this world full of disasters and chaos, the only thing we can ever really claim to is that we tried."

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

Kawalsky nodded. "Truer words were never spoken. C'mon, let's get outta here and get something to eat. Feels like I haven't eaten all day."

[ihatedenmark.livejournal.com]

Hamlet grabbed his box of belongings and headed out of the room. "That suits me fine. I'm ready for anything but the evil cafeteria food."

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

Kawalsky followed behind him, closing the door after them.

He stopped briefly to check 604, then 602 and 601 for any signs of Earl, but there were none. They were just regular, empty rooms.

Letting out a long sigh, Kawalsky followed Hamlet to the stairs. He had a gut feeling that Earl was gone.