Inda

Stillwater Vale Asylum

"You're on." Nancy turned her grimace into a grin and walked out of the room toward the nurse's station on that floor. Each step brought her back a little more pain. She had waited too long to take a pain killer, she knew. She stopped walking and pulled the orange pill bottle out of her pocket, poured two pills into her palm and swallowed them dry. She tried to take another step and stumbled as she did so. The pain in her back was sharp and piercing, running up the muscles along her spine. She wanted to take a third pill, but she couldn't with the meeting coming up.

Instead, she rested her back against the cool wall and lowered herself onto the ground to sit betwen two cell doors. She hoped no one would walk by before she got herself back up. It was humiliating to be seen while in pain. She hated it.

-=Circus of the Dawn=-

Player Name: Inda

Character Name: Cailey Serena Liourdis

Age: 18

Gender: Female

Occupation: Music student, voice and violin

Brief history: Cailey was always so shy when she was growing up. A neighbor boy was the only friend she felt comfortable with for a very long time, Alex. She really enjoyed his company, and it was only Alex and her immediate family that she could find the confidence to play her violin or sing in front of.

It was in 6th grade when he told her to find her own friends and stop bothering him, among other things, that she never played or sang in front of him again. She did not handle the fight well and embarrassed herself with her emotional outburst- or so she thought for herself. She never knew for sure if anyone who witnessed thought she embarrassed herself. When the fight happened she was devastated and when he moved with the issue remaining unresolved, she withdrew.

It took a couple of years for her to begin to make friends again- her shyness had deepened through middle school- until she moved on to high school and joined the choir and started singing in public. Once she did, her confidence boosted and she began to forget about Alex. When she got into college and saw her roommates name, she assumed it was a typo- surely they meant Alexandra?- until he showed up. Cailey has been pretty distant (though much more self assured than he ever remembered her) since the move in, and has locked herself in her room to do any sort of practicing while at home. She could easily go to the practice rooms on campus, but something inside her makes her want him to hear her behind the locked door.

Portrait/Character description:

Additional Notes: Her family is Greek, having only immigrated when her grandparents were newly married. Her parents had three other children, of which she is the oldest.

Stillwater Vale Asylum

Nancy watched Liz slowly eating the jellybeans, biting in to one at a time. It made her smile. Pretty much everyone else, including she herself, ate jellybeans several at a time. Sometimes by the handful.

"I would be honored if you called me Nancy. So what-" She was interrupted by the loudspeaker.

“All nurses and other medical personnel meet in my office at 6pm tonight. That is in 5 hours in case you don’t have a watch. Thank you.”

Nancy stood quickly, regretting it when her back protested and she gave a slight forward jerk. It was already 1pm! "Wow! Ok, I had no idea it was that late. I'm sorry to cut this short, but I've got some other things I have to do before that meeting." She was a little annoyed. She worked earlier in the day. By four or five she was supposed to be off and in her apartments in the west wing of Stillwater. This meeting meant that she would have to assist with dinner instead of wrapping her shift up so the entire staff would be ready for the meeting and not dealing with feeding everyone, that her day was going to be extended for the meeting and however long it took, and that she would still have to be up early for her shift tomorrow. There was no way she was getting through this day without a pain killer. Her back was hurting even more than it was earlier.

"How about tomorrow night you come to the game room around 8? We can continue chatting. I should be done playing checkers with Lt. Davenport by then."

@Xandrya

-=Circus of the Dawn=-

Cailey watched him stand up as she walked toward him. She caught him looking her up and down. Her cheeks burned a little- obviously from annoyance, not because she was pleased- and she bit her lower lip.

“It’s ok. I hadn’t really noticed. I’m just glad you made it." He said. She slipped her purse off her shoulder onto the back of the chair he indicated and sat. She was about to make an attempt at small talk, but he started speaking before she could come up with anything to say.

"I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a while. Truth, I was too scared to do it before now. Too afraid that you’d say no, or not show up. Truth, I’ve wanted to apologize for how I acted years before now. The next day, but my family moved that night. I hadn’t known.”

So he wanted to dive right into this. She hadn't wanted to do that. She had wanted to pretend to act aloof, to pretend like it didn't matter to her. To pretend like their friendship hadn't mattered so much to her. She had never been so angry or hurt by anyone before, and she supposed that made her one of the lucky ones in life. Friends of hers had been through far worse, some things truly horrific and heart breaking. It made her feel like this issue was something so minor. She couldn't help it, though. The anger was still there, no matter how many times she had tried to force it away.

Once again, she opened her mouth to speak. Once again, someone got their words in first.

“Drinking anything, hon?" The waitress Cailey hadn't seen walking up asked.

"Water, please. No ice." Cailey smiled up at the waitress politely, trying not to look annoyed at the interruption. She worked at Mary's Diner the summer between Sophomore and Junior years. She didn't recognize this waitress, but her time working here had taught her to make an effort to be polite to food servers. She turned her attention back to Alex.

"I guess I'm not surprised you wanted to just dive right in. You never were one to beat around the bush." She chuckled awkwardly, pushing her hair behind her ear. She wished it would behave itself better. She tried to speak again, but closed her mouth. She took a breath and collected her thoughts. He was being honest with her. She would be honest with him.

You abandoned me. I was alone and lost for years.
You missed my birthday party that year. You were the only one I invited.
You never even tried to write me a letter or call me.
I turned out just fine without you.
I didn't need you. I still don't.
I don't need your friendship anymore. I don't even want it.

She took a deep breath, and spoke.

"I missed you."

Her face went pale. Abruptly, she stood and walked away from the table. She found herself at the jukebox, flipping through the albums available. Joni Mitchell's live album Miles of Aisles was there, as it had been for as long as she could remember. She punched in the number to select her favorite song. Real Good For Free. The sound of applause drifted out of the speakers, followed by gentle piano music. Joni's voice began to sing, and Cailey felt a little stronger. She selected another song, One Republic's If I Lose Myself, walked back to the table and sat down just as her water was delivered. She nodded in thanks, unable to get herself to look up from the table.

She had a hard time with words in general. This situation just seemed to make it impossible to say anything.

The Cannibal

"Yep." Hazel said, not really registering Haley's words. "Get the skillet, hang these over your back." Hazel handed Haley the shotgun on her shoulder and the crossbow.

"Get yourself ready to carry him upstairs, I'm going to grab the first aid kit I found in here earlier." She jerked open the drawers and cupboards, not remembering exactly where she had seen it. While she did that she found matches, a couple lighters, some emergency candles, and stuffed those in her pockets next to the bullets. She was frustrated with women's clothing. Why the hell would couldn't women's clothing have bigger pockets?!

She found a shopping bag and filled it with knives- steak knives, bread knives, butcher knives, all the ones she came across while finding the first aid kit, which she found one the bag was half full. She grabbed a couple frozen items from the freezer- she didn't see what they were, and stuff those in the bag with the knives and first aid kit. After a moment of thought, she dropped some of the unsecured items in her pockets into the bag and slung it over her elbow.

"Grab his feet, they'll be lighter. And move fast. We're going up the stairs and to the attic. Hopefully they haven't locked it on us." Hazel couldn't blame the others. She wanted to run upstairs and hide, too. But the fact that they had done it while she ended up staying downstairs made her angry. And the fact that it was totally unfair anger made her even more angry.

Hazel grabbed Amos' upper body, hooking her arms underneath his arms and lifting him up. "Ready? Go!" Hazel started running once she saw Haley nod.

The Cannibal

Hazel was still hyperventilating. She felt light headed, but things felt like they were slowing down.

The Tartok wasn't in a rush. It could leave quickly, dragging Haley with it. But it wasn't. For some reason.

She bent down and picked up Amos' gun. This one was loaded. She hoped all she had to do was pull the trigger.

For a second, Hazel's arm started to come up to drive the Tartok away with the eagle. That would only have it escape through the window, though, most likely dragging Haley with it. Her hand came back down.

The eagle was wrapped around the knuckles of her left hand. The gun was in her right. The crossbow, shotgun, and quiver of bolts were hanging from her shoulders against her back, making her feel awkward and unwieldy, like running with a full backpack on.

She raised the gun and fired, taking only a second to aim at the largest part of the Tartok she could see- its chest. If she missed and shot Haley, hopefully it would be fatal. Being killed by a gunshot was better than being eaten alive.

The Cannibal

Hazel wanted to run upstairs. She wanted to run upstairs and escape into the attic where everyone else was, where everyone had said it would be safe. She didn't want to be here.

She was hyperventilating. She needed to calm down.

She didn't have time.

Feeling as if she was only inhaling and never exhaling, Hazel followed Amos, trying to imagine that she was a character in a movie or a video game, that she was safe on the outside of this horrific ordeal. That there was a save point in case she slipped up and made a mistake.

She forced the knowledge that there was no such thing out of her head.

Hazel got to the kitchen doorway and saw the destruction of the beautiful kitchen she had just been happily cooking in, saw the jugs of water spilled all over the floor from her stupid decision to try to put the fire out that she stupidly built up.

The Cannibal

Hazel kept repeating the prayer over and over in her mind, wishing she could remember the rest of it. High stress levels always made her forgetful, and she hated it. It was one of the biggest problems she would face if she managed to open a restaurant.

When! When she managed to open one. She would not allow herself to be fatalistic about this whole situation, no matter how easy it would be.

Hazel saw the Tartok going for Courtney. She tried to push herself to the right to get in it's way, holding the eagle up to interrupt its path. Her speed wasn't her best ability, though, and she hoped she would make it in time.

Stillwater Vale Asylum

Nancy took the offered seat, catching a glimpse of the paper Elizabeth snatched up before tucking it away. "I understand just not having an appetite. It can be hard to make yourself eat sometimes, even though you know you should." She pulled the jellybeans out of her pocket, fairly sure that once Lt. Davenport was back from his appointment with Dr. Greene he wouldn't be allowed to eat. Appointments and procedures often resulted in patients being on strict diets as a result of the medication used or newly prescribed, sometimes because fasting blood tests were needed. She would just bring him the jellybeans tomorrow.

"Feel free to take these. Eat them one at a time, and sip some water. It won't fix the nausea, but it should help hold it off." She held the jellybeans out to Elizabeth. "We haven't really had a chance to talk. Do you prefer being called Elizabeth, Liz, Lizzie...? Something else?"

The Cannibal

Hazel screamed and brought the eagle pendant right in front of her face, between her and the Tartok's gaping mouth.

An Apache prayer slipped into Hazel's mind, one that had been taught to her by a friend of her father's when her brother had come down with pneumonia. Fearing he would die, her father's old friend comforted Hazel while her parents spoke with the doctors. It had stuck with her, been on of her favorites memories, but only the first lines came to mind.

She didn't think they would help protect her. She was sure she was going to die in this room. So she whispered to herself for comfort as the Tartok's mouth closed in on her.

"Mountain Spirit, leader of the Mountain Spirits, your body is holy.
By means of it, make him well again.
Make his body like your own."