-Who knows where-
-Who knows when-
Co-written with
@CloudyBlueDay
Voltaeiche blinked for a moment, not believing her eyes. "
Must be more tired than I thought," she thought, rubbing her eyes as she stood up to look again.
Nope. Random guy was still there. Wet and on the floor.
Letting out a loud shriek, Voltaeiche frantically moved to put her shirt back on, her shriek turning to yelps of pain as she rubbed against her burns again. "W-who are you?!" she shouted, frantically looking around. Was this punishment? Was this the weird voice in the sky getting revenge on her for her talking shit? She was out of power and way too weak to get out...god she didn't want to die!
It took him a few seconds to get his bearings and peel himself off the hard floor. He was shivering now, cold and soaked and tired like all hell, but as much as he wanted to kind of just splat onto the floor and stay there, there was an injured lady and it was all his fault and he was going to do something about it.
Louis was not prepared for the shrieking. He should have been, but he wasn't, and he flinched and scrambled back, which triggered a few moments of wheezing just as he cleared the last remnants of water from his lungs. Uhm, she had been sort of naked. Guess that was why she was screaming.
He put his hands up in front of him in surrender. "U-uhm, uhm, my name's Louis and I swear I don't know how I got here, the creepy terrible voice said that y-you'd be hurt if I didn't go through the portal so I went through the portal, alright! I just want to h-h-help!"
Voltaeiche narrowed her eyes for a moment before wincing again from her back. Letting out a long sigh of pain, she eventually got her white t-shirt down far enough to be modest. "W-why should I trust you?" she mumbled. "How d-do I know that the c-creepy voice isn't messing w-with me?"
Louis winced along with her wince. Just watching her struggle with the pain was enough to make him cringe, which was strange, because he had a pretty high tolerance. For his own pain, he supposed, and not much for someone else's.
"I-I don't know. T-the voice is a voice, and I-I'm standing here and trying to be nice to you, which the voice has not been thus f-far, so.... he also just threw me in a burning city and then an endless ocean... fountain... whatever. If th-that makes you feel any better."
Voltaeiche continued to glower for a few more moments before she nodded, letting her eyes fall to the ground. "I believe you. S-sorry...it's just...been a long day," she mumbled. "Burning city and stuff huh. He dropped a building on me earlier," she grumbled.
"My name is Voltaeiche. I-If you want to help me, I need medicine. Burn medicine and gauze and stuff. I g-got in here but then the doors were like that so..." she mumbled, waving at the handleless door.
"J-jesus, a building?" Louis croaked, though it didn't sound too far out of this guy's league. He was surprised he had made it out with barely any injuries. Just some very achy limbs. Actually, he was sort of surprised they were still attached.
"U-uh... right, yeah, of course. I c-could totally help look. The doors were like... uh... what?" Following Voltaeiche's -- weird name -- gaze, Louis looked to see... a perfectly normal door. Stepping forward, brows furrowed, he reached out of his arm for the handle -- only for it to fall out of its shoulder socket and flop uselessly to the floor.
He stared at his arm on the floor for a silent moment, eyes burning with anger for its fucking comedic timing. "U-um -- fuck, sorry, this happens, d-don't freak out!"
Voltaeiche blinked, rubbing her eyes again before she looked again. "D-did your arm just fall off?!" she said, her voice raising in pitch before she stopped again, groaning. She was too tired for this, and screaming was giving her a headache.
"I...uh...t-this happens often?" she said, pointedly looking away from the arm that had fallen off and up at the ceiling. "A-are you sure y-you don't need b-bandages or something?"
Louis hissed a few curse words and bent down to pick up his arm. He tried to... gently... jam it back in, but it wouldn't really take. It always took too long, especially when someone was watching him and freaking out about it. "Er... no. Yes. S-sometimes. I'm f-fine, it's fine... it'll s-stick back on eventually. F-for now... just..."
With a huff Louis tucked his arm under his other arm and grabbed the handle of the door, opening it. "Seems to be working. Come on, w-we'll find you some gauze."
Voltaeiche blinked as she heard the door swing open, her head snapping down to face him again. "W-wait, how did you do that?" she said, before wincing as she looked at the arm tucked under his...arm. "D-does that hurt?" she mumbled as she moved to enter the room of supplies to find medicine. For the both of them at this point.
"I... turned the... handle?" Louis muttered, looking at her in confusion briefly before entering the room and moving towards a shelf that seemed fairly full of medication. "...Kinda?" He offered, trying to put his arm back into its socket again. No go, so he started to sift through the medicine. "...So... um... did you just get swallowed up into this through a portal, like me?"
"But there is no handle..." Voltaeiche mumbled under her breath as she slowly walked down the row to find the medicine she needed.
"Y-yeah," she mumbled. "I-I was at home, and when I opened a door it just...sucked me in," she said, sighing as she found gauze. "D-do you want gauze?" she called from her spot in the rows. "I-Is your arm b-bleeding?"
"No handles...?" Louis echoed. "There... were definitely handles. Guess the Big Man is still playing his tricks." He muttered with a small roll of his eyes. "I'll be the doorman for the day th-then."
However morbid it was, he was sort of glad he wasn't alone in this. For a moment, he realized he'd totally forgotten about his predicament in the world - about being hidden, about barely interacting with the outside world... did this count as the outside world? He wasn't really sure. He wasn't really even sure what he could do to get out of this, or what he could do in terms of protecting himself.
Nothing, really.
"I-it doesn't... bleed that much, when it happens like this. I'll t-take the gauze when you're done with it. Actually..." He grabbed a bottle of something that said burn relief on it, and some other medical jargon he could not decipher. "If I can just... maybe tape my arm together, I can try and help y-you with your stuff. The burns are on your back, right?"
Voltaeiche blinked. There...were handles? Turning towards the door again, she double-checked that in fact, she couldn't see any handles. "I...I guess he is screwing w-with me," she mumbled, shaking her head as she found a bottle of pain killers.
"I-I...uhm..." she stuttered, trying to get over the mental step of being half-naked while a stranger applied burn medicine to her back.
She couldn't.
"I-I'll do it myself, th-thank you," she stammered. "H-here, take the gauze first. I-I need to go...wash and d-disinfect first..." she said, turning and searching for alcohol swabs. "S-since you can g-get the doors, c-can you go open the uh...bathroom?"
Louis blinked, taking the gauze with his one useful hand as he looked at her nervously. "You... you're sure you don't want any help? I-is it because of the arm? I-I swear this is normal, it's c-cuz of my stupid powers... are you sure I can't help?"
"N-no, th-that's not," she said, frantically shaking her head. "I uh...l-look, I just m-met you and...you're v-very nice but uh...I-I d-don't really w-want to l-let you see me uh...sorta naked. A-again," she said, her face slowly transitioning from rosy to crimson as she spoke.
Louis stared at her, cheeks reddening slightly just through second hand embarrassment. "Um... yeah, okay... sure. Just... holler if you need anything? I-I'll be... right outside. Don't really have... anywhere to go..."
Louis cleared his throat and brushed past her to unlock the door that seemed to lead to the restroom. Then he moved away to wait near the corner of the main room to attempt to start shoving his arm back together.
Voltaeiche quickly ducked into the bathroom, her cheeks still hot as she regarded the interior. Sink, mirror...looked like a standard bathroom. Moving to the sink, she sighed as she rolled her shirt up over her shoulder, turning to regard the fresh burns on her back.
Turning on the tap for cold water, she took a deep breath before beginning to wash it across the angry red marks that had long since spread across her back in jagged marks, overlaying the lighter scars beneath.
Letting out quiet whimpers, she continued the practice, splashing cold water despite how it stung before she pulled out an alcohol swab to begin disinfecting. "H-how's your arm?" she called. "D-did the gauze help?"
Louis vaguely wandered around the medicine room. He wondered briefly if he should grab some of these things for the next time he got thrown into a new portal. For the inevitable moment when he would be injured by this psycho's games. But he didn't even have a bag. Should he go looking for a bag?
None of this made sense.
It physically pained him to hear the little whimpers that came from the girl in the room right beside him, and it bothered him that she had insisted on doing it alone. Luckily, his arm had actually taken to being jammed back into place without the use of gauze, so when Voltaeiche's voice rang out, he perked up slightly. "U-uh, didn't have to use it! It w-went back in. No w-worries. Do you need it yet?"
"I-in a second," she said, using a bit of tissue paper to dry her back before she ran the swab across it. Every time she brushed against a new burn with the alcohol, it felt like it was fire, heating all over again, and she could almost feel the lines across her back. "I should've taken the painkillers first," she thought, letting out a loud sigh of relief as she got the last line.
"O-okay. Pass it h-here?" she said, carefully stepping back and pulling down the front of her shirt so that she was mostly modest again as she reached a hand out from the doorway.
Louis offered the waiting hand the roll of gauze, then closed the door once it had disappeared, forgetting that she couldn't see any handles. He stood just outside a little while, trying to run through some possibilities in his head. Had time passed in the real world? How much time? How long had they been here? Was that nice speedster here too? Were they gonna be stuck here forever? Was there any way to get out?
"... You from Millennium?" He mumbled weakly, attempting to tug off his shirt and wring out some of the water from it. Maybe there was another set of clothes here somewhere.
"N-no, b-but my family moved here w-when I was young," she said, carefully spreading the burn cream across her back before bundling the gauze and wrapping it around her entire torso to cover the burns securely. "Th-they thought it would help me safely develop my uh...powers," she said. "A-are you from Millennium?"
"...Ah." Louis murmured, nodding in understanding even though she couldn't see him. Boy, what a load of shit moving to understand his powers had done for him. "No... Washington, actually. Ended up in Vermont for... er... school. For my powers, too. Then... went down to Millennium."
"Sounds...interesting..." she said as she continued wrapping, pulling the gauze a little tighter. "Washington, I mean. I've never been," she continued.
"S-so what were y-you doing before you g-got uh...well...portaled?" she said, sighing as she finished the last bit of gauze, biting and ripping it off at the end to tie it off before she sighed and popped two pain killers, hoping it would help and wouldn't be as disappointing as the croissants.
"... Yeah, er, it's nice. Grew up there. Gets pretty rainy, I guess. I liked it." He offered meekly. "Uhm... I had just... send some mail. And I was walking... home. And then I just got... shoved into it. What about you?"
"Uh...bathroom. I was going to take a shower after running," she mumbled, her cheeks lightly tinged before. "He said I had to uhm...find the doorway out or something, or be trapped forever more." Turning to the door, she paused. "Uh...can you open this again?" she called.
Bathroom. Ouch. Ironic, almost. No... very much ironic. "Oh! Yes. Yeah." Louis pulled his cold and wet shirt back on, and then jumped forward to unlock the door for her. "For me he said... I lack the courage to free myself, or be trapped forever more. And a bunch of other shit. Seriously, who does he think he is?" Louis sighed annoyedly, then looked up at her, a little bit of worry in his gaze. "Uh... you better now?"
Voltaieche took a deep breath, nodding as she faced the guy. "Y-yeah. Better than before at least, thanks," she said, sighing again. "Y-you? Your arm feel like it's going to uh...fall...off...again? Because otherwise I kind of want to get out of here...there was a pastry shop I uh...ate from earlier," she said, before scrunching her nose.
"Actually, anywhere other than that."
"I'm fine, it's fine, don't even worry about it." He saved his hand dismissively, proving that it was good and working. Louis looked at her somewhat baffled as she described a pastry shop, but then just shook his head, deciding not to press on the topic any further despite slowly realizing that he was sort of hungry.
"Well... if our friend in the sky isn't gonna portal us somewhere new, I guess we should just... walk around? Explore?"
Voltaeiche wrinkled her nose again. "I was doing that...but well...there are too many doorways for me to try..." she grumbled. "Well. Sort of. There's a lot of lack of doorways for me," she said, sighing as she rubbed her head. "Maybe I have to find my bathroom door again...?"
"...I just wish I had more hints other than trying to run blindly around the city," she mumbled, looking at the broken window as she carefully stepped her way through the broken glass and outside again.
Louis smirked lightly at the idea of Voltaeiche's only quest being to find her own bathroom again. "I doubt it's really that simple." He murmured, watching her crouch through the broken glass which he somehow only noticed just now. "Well, um... maybe your curse is being able to see the right door but not being able to open it, or something. So now if you see anything that catches your eye, I can... open the door?" He scratched the back of his neck. "I don't know. Is there a clothing store nearby? I'd kind of like to change."
"Oh, uh...yeah, I know some places," Voltaeiche said. "There's a mall a couple blocks that-a-way," she continued. "Nothing's running so it'll be a bit till we get there..."
"I don't know if it's a curse. But I've been wandering pretty aimlessly around the city for a while now, it's all been grayscale. I thought maybe I'd find the door because it'd be like...shining or something, but...well, nothing's really given off that feeling, and Millenium is pretty big. Only notable things that have happened were the earthquake, the building falling and someone who was falling through a portal, whatever those mean."
"It's alright. As long as there's someplace to get some dry clothes..." Louis shrugged. He didn't mind a walk much, as long as it wasn't going to become flooded, burst in flames, come tumbling down... Who knew what else their friend in the sky would throw them. "It doesn't really sound like the Big Guy would make it so obvious. Despite his dramatic flair w-when almost murdering us..." Louis shuddered, looking ahead at the grey cityscape before them.
"He must be a meta, right? Some psycho who's playing a game with some very powerful abilities." He mused quietly. "Maybe it's like... dream walking? He's in our heads? Our bodies are probably somewhere out there then, right?"
"Probably," Voltaeiche mumbled. "...if this is like dream walking, the pain and stuff is frighteningly real," she said, pinching her arm. "As is the hunger. And stuff."
"If our bodies are out there, there'd be a chance that someone would find us, and then try to wake us up or something right?" she said as they strolled down the street towards the mall.
"Hopefully." Louis murmured, rubbing his hands against his arms in an attempt to create some warmth. He wanted to go home. Home for real, back with his dad and away from this mess. But he knew this was only the beginning, and the thought brought anger up to his throat. He pushed it back down.
"This it?" He said, pointing to a building that seemed to have racks of clothing inside. All he needed was a dry hoodie and a pair of pants, that was it.
Voltaeiche nodded, glancing inside the store. Man, all the window shopping she was doing...at least this trip would hopefully be faster. Bringing her hand up to begin blasting the window with electricity, she paused. "You see a door?" she asked, glancing back and forth for a moment.
Louis instinctively flinched away as Volt's hand went up and her eyes glowed blue. His arms went up to protect his face and it took him a moment to peer through the cracks at her words. "U-uhm," he stuttered, throat dry as he inched towards the door and turned the knob. It swung open readily.
Voltaeiche hummed, watching a wall open up into the mall. "...surreal," she mumbled, walking forward. Glancing around the shop, she quickly beelined to a section of simple t-shirts. She really needed it; even though she couldn't feel it stick to her back anymore, she knew there had to be some blood showing on her current one.
"Hit the food court after this? Doesn't sound like you ate through the uh...fountain and burning and stuff," she said as she glanced up from a rack of graphic tees.
Once Voltaeiche's eyes had stopped glowing, Louis cleared his throat and straightened his posture slightly, trying to shrug off the frantic thumping of his heart. He wanted to ask what her powers were, what she would have been able to do, but he couldn't find the words so Louis simply shuffled into the mall. He started the grab clothes off the rack - a shirt, a hoodie, a pair of pants he hoped would fit. If not, there were other sizes to try. He peeled off his wet clothes quickly behind a divider and took a moment just to enjoy the feeling of dry cloth on his skin.
Shaking out his hair like a wet dog, his stomach growled audibly on cue as he emerged. "You think there's actually gonna be food?" Louis murmured hopefully.
"There was food in other places," she said as she came out from the changing rooms, having exchanged her white tee for a grey one, the original folded and tucked under her arm. The back had indeed been marred considerably with scorch marks and blood, which would be hellish to clean afterwards. "It was pretty bland and tasteless, but it was food so. Still something."
Louis moved further into the mall, now letting his rumbling stomach lead the way. A sense of hopefulness renewed within him as they reached the food court, thought he couldn't help but wonder, what if it was just fake? Voltaeiche said it was tasteless, maybe they were just eating nothing at all. Despite these worries, Louis still headed straight for a little pizza restaurant, diving for the freezer and praying to god that the oven worked.
Voltaeiche instead headed for a sandwich shop, looking forward to something more simple and satisfying than the croissants earlier that day. That, and her cullinary skills still had much to go so...sandwich it was.
Hopping over the odd half-wall, she got to work on her sandwich, cutting and placing meats and cheeses on the bread before throwing it in the oven. As she stood there waiting, she blinked.
The oven was working. There was power here.
Waiting for her sandwich to finish being toasted, she quickly tossed some greens and salt and pepper to finish it before inspecting the wall outlet. "...yeah, I can do this..." she thought, using her entire body to shift the oven before unplugging it.
And sticking a fork in.
Jumping slightly from the initial shock, she sighed as she let the power flow into her, slowly munching on her sandwich in her other hand. "At least I'll be able to do something later," she mumbled.
Louis found dough in the freezer and ingredients in the fridge. He wasn't much of a cook, and would have much preferred a few boxes of frozen pizzas. He kneaded the dough, accidentally poking a few holes but managing a lumpy circle. He poured sauce on. He dumped the mozzarella. And he did not skip out on the pepperoni. For a moment, he almost forgot where he was.
Shoving the pizza into the oven Louis stood and dusted his hands off, feeling a little prideful of his pizza skills despite having zero idea how long to cook it. He'd eyeball it. "Volt? Do you want pizza?" Louis called out, wandering over to the sandwich shop where she had set up camp and freezing in his track as he stared at her, mouth agape. She was sticking a fork in the outlet!
Without really processing the fact that she had just been calmly eating her sandwich and rather enjoying the fork-in-the-outlet position, Louis rushed forward in an attempt to tackle her away from the outlet.
Voltaeiche was humming idly as she ate and charged. "Oh hi Louis," she said, seeing him in her peripherals, though not really paying attention. "Nah, I'm good for pizz-PBBFT!"
Voltaeiche frantically tried to keep her sandwich raised as Louis tackled her, trying to ensure her food didn't go to waste. Sighing as they landed in a small pile with her sandwich still intact, she scowled. "
Louis, what the heck?" she said, a burst of French coming from her before she switched back to English. "You almost made me drop my sandwich."
He was in the air before she could protest, or rather, before he could register her protests. Oh. Shit. She was fine. This was probably her power. Voltaeiche. Volt. Electricity. Dumbass. He was a big fucking dumbass but it was too late and he had already lunged at her, because, hell, he thought she was getting goddamn electrocuted!
Louis did not notice that as he jumped, his legs did not exactly jump with him. And the impact with Volt sent his legs popping off like fucking jiggly gummy bears. By the end of it he was a stump of a body on top of her, that rolled off pretty weakly. Blood pooled, but a noticeably small amount of it for the amount of body parts that were now wiggling around helplessly like fish out of water.
"...S-sorry..." Louis whispered, face white as a sheet. "W-would you... grab... my arm....s...?"
"Why? Wha..." she started before glancing over him.
After she got over her internal screaming she took a deep breath, giving a curt nod as she put down her sandwich and went to gather his limbs. "
Don't think about it don't think about it you're thinking about it fuck."
Eventually gathering all of his limbs, she shakily sat down again. "S-so uh, w-what do I do?" she asked, holding up one of his arms
This was the first time all of his limbs had popped off. What was next, huh? His head? Was he still gonna be alive when that happened? What about when his guts fell out, was he even gonna have his hands to put them back together? Normally jamming his leg into its socket would work well enough but he didn't even have any hands to do it with. He opened his mouth and closed it several times, just trying to get past the initial shock and pain. This time, it actually hurt. Not like the dull throb he was used to. It hurt a lot.
But his face was pinched tight as he resolved not to show any of it, and all he could think about was that he was probably better off finding a bag and packing multiple sets of clothing. He wasn't losing much blood, but what if this kept on happening? Could he lose enough to collapse?
Dear god, he hated his powers.
The stumps of his arms and legs, though dripping blood like a leaky faucet, seemed coated in a sort of black shadowy ooze that was stopping the missing limbs from pouring blood at a normal rate. "I-if you could j... just... try to... rea-a-attach one of my... arms..." He swallowed down the taste of bile as Voltaeiche waved around his own arm. "J-just try and ... sho... shove it back."
Voltaeiche nodded again, taking a moment to figure out which arm was the left one and which was the right one before she began to slide it up the hoodie sleeve. "T-tell me when its reattached," she said, frowning for a moment as she rolled the hoodie sleeve up so that she could get the arm through the shirt sleeve beneath as well.
Oh, god. This was weird as hell. Having a person you just met reattach your limbs for you. He had to resist the urge to cringe away as Voltaeiche gripped his arm and tried to slip it back into its socket. It was so strange to feel her fingers grasp his, yet with no connection to his body. He could fel everything, it just felt... far away, in some strange way that gave Louis shivers down his spine.
Finally he felt something click, and the usage of his fingers didn't feel like pulling the strings of a puppet. "I got it," He mumbled quietly, barely audibly, as the reattached hand reached for the one still free of his body, and he attempted to put that one back into place as well. "I-if you could start on my l-l-legs. Th-that'd be... v-very h-helpful."
Voltaeiche nodded, again checking which leg was which before she began trying to reattach it. Ignoring the fact that she was holding another persons disembodied leg was...no it wasn't getting any easier it was still very very weird and uncomfortable. "Y-you said this happens often?" she said, looking away and trying to start up some conversation.
Eventually Louis could feel his arm takes its rightful place, and he reached for his other leg and began to attempt to reattach it. His throat was absolutely dry, and he couldn't tell it the slight nausea was just from disgust or a loss of blood. "It... th-things fall off a lot. U-usually not this b-bad... but maybe because I-I -- I thought you were electrocuting yourself or something, I g-g-guess I got panicked and then..."
Louis sighed, shaking his head as he could feel his legs begin to pop back into place. "It just happens sometimes. I can't do much except sit a-and wait, and bleed... a-all over your... s-sandwich. I-I'm really sorry."
Voltaeiche sighed. "Yeah, I suppose that's what it looks like...I appreciate the concern, and I really should've said something so that...this didn't happen."
"Don't worry about the sandwich. I'll just steal some pizza from you," she said, tossing the bloody sandwich away. "And uh, for lack of a better word, I was charging."
Eventually everything was back in place, and Louis stood shakily, smeared in his own blood. His hoodie was black, but it still seemed fairly drenched, and his pants legs were a whole other story. "Uh... charging. So... electricity manipulation, right?" He said quietly, opening and closing his hands to make sure he still had a sense of how to use them.
"Y-yeah. That's fine. How 'bout you... g-go check on the pizza, and I... will go change.... again?"
"Sure. And yeah, electricity manipulation. Been running low so I wanted to get some minutes in."
"Anyways, yeah, go get changed, I'll make sure the pizza doesn't burn," she said, trying to ignore how blood soaked his clothes was. "Do you want to head back to the clinic afterwards? Maybe a hospital?"
Louis shook his head, stepping over a sea of red and once again holding back the vomit climbing up his throat. "What good is it g-gonna do? Roam around an empty hospital? Makeshift blood transfusion?" He chuckled weakly and darkly, already walking away from the food court and back into the clothing part of the mall. "We're alone, Voltae. For now, at least. N-no clinic is gonna help."
He disappeared down the way.
"
Well...that was hopeful," Voltaeiche thought, sighing as she headed for the pizzeria. Having brought her fork over, she found another outlet in range of the oven before shoving it in, a quick shock going through her body again.
"Maybe he needs some time," she thought as she charged. "
Or some food or whatever...it is a shitty situation…"
Louis' pace quickened as he left the food court. He gritted his teeth harshly, grinding them together as his fists clenched and unclenched. He'd kept a cap on the anger until now, not keen on showing Voltaeiche every worst part of himself.
He was a prisoner of his own body, and he hated it. Most of the time, his body didn't even feel like his own. Louis looked and felt like a dead corpse walking, streaking blood behind him as if someone were dragging a body. But it was just him, limp, useless, and with all the strength of a platter of green jell-o.
He kicked a trash can aggressively, watching it flop over on its side and the top pop off, but no contents were spilled. Louis stared at it, and remembered his other problem. That he was stuck in a fake place, with challenges that seemed fake enough until they swept away his breath and stole his energy away to the point of all his limbs popping off his fucking body.
"ARE YOU HAPPY YET?" Louis yelled at no one, giving the poor trash can one more kick. At first, he wasn't sure if he was talking to the voice above or the voice within, but he made his mind up quickly. "You wanted me to get more acquainted with my powers, well here I am! On the crime scene of my own damn murder!" He shouted, staring at his bloodied palms for a stark moment before he began to tear his drenched clothes off in search of another set to eventually ruin.
Voltaeiche was still charging from the wall when she heard Louis shouting, jumping for a moment before she glanced out. "...sounds like he's having a rough time," she mumbled, sighing as she rubbed her head. He had gotten out of his hell...just to enter hers. He needed a break just as much as she did.
Smelling the melted cheeses and pepperoni from the oven, she quickly made her way over, sliding the hot pizza out and onto a plate. "Some cool refreshing drinks would be great..." she mumbled, heading back through the other stores to see if she could find some juice or soda.
There was no response, of course, not when Louis tried to talk to whoever was playing this terrible game with him. He grabbed a new set of clothes and headed into the bathroom, everything done with a sense of impatience and anger. Watching red dwindle down the drain as he scrubbed his skin raw. Finally he felt clean enough to put his new clothes on, discarding the rest and even finding a decent looking satchel bag to shove another set into. And a pair of pants and a shirt for Voltaeiche, too. They were both probably going to get fucked over again. Whatever useful stuff they could find he's be first to take it. Who knew how long they'd be stuck in this mess.
Eventually he made his way back, looking less like a corpse though his face was still pale and pinched unhappily. "Pizza okay?" He said quietly, watching her rummage through an ice box.
Voltaeiche looked up from where she was, a can of soda in each hand. "Yup. Far as I can tell at least," she said, holding each one up for a moment for inspection before placing them on the table. "What's in the bag?" she asked as she moved to the table she'd plated the pizza on.
The pizza didn't look half bad, which was surprising. A little haphazardly thrown together, but warm and tasty looking nonetheless. God, he was starving. If he didn't eat soon the limbs might not stick back on.
Louis looked to the bag at his side. "Extra clothes. For you too. I have a feeling we're gonna need it... i-if you see anything else useful, let me know." He moved to the table and cracked open the soda, chugging it down with renewed gusto. He grabbed a pizza cutter from the shop and sliced the pizza up. "I might... make another. Or find some other food. Think I need more than this." He mumbled, almost to himself, even though he had hardly started on eating the pizza itself.
Voltaeiche hummed as she took a slice. "Thanks," she said. "Mmm...there are more restaurants. Maybe we should make some food and pack it for on the go, just in case something happens."
She then opened the bag to check what kind of clothes Louis picked out. "Mind if I go try them on later? Make sure they're my size?" she asked between bites of the pizza. "Could look for some other stuff in the mall afterwards. Maybe a mattress store; I don't know about you, but almost dying left me pretty tired."
Louis nodded, expressions much more subdued now that he had cleared everything out of his system. He ate quietly, but quickly, and soon half the pizza was gone. He reached for another slice but felt bad that Voltaeiche wouldn't have enough, so he paused.
"Sure. Whatever you want, whatever you find useful... we'll g-grab it." He cringed a bit at the suggestion of a mattress store. "I... get what you mean, but I-I can't imagine falling asleep in this world. If you want too, go ahead. I'll keep watch." Louis murmured. "You grab food. I'll scout ahead."
Voltaeiche frowned, finishing her second slice before she dusted her hands off and stood up. "Well, you need to rest some time," she replied, pulling out her phone. "My timer still works, and I can charge my phone...I mean, do you trust me enough for me to keep watch?" she said.
"Yeah, I'll go grab some food. Any allergies I should know about in advance?" she asked. She'd probably grab a couple of sandwiches...she'd figure it out.
Seeing her dust her hands off, Louis went in to clean off the rest of the pizza platter. He only stood when it was empty, feeling a little bit better now that a good amount of food sat in his stomach. He bit his lip slightly, raising his eyebrows at her question. Did he trust her? Did he have any choice? He hadn't trusted anyone in quite a long time now. But... now or never. And it wasn't like there was anyone else to trust.
"I... just... sure. Whatever." He found himself unable to actually say out loud that he trusted her, because frankly, he wasn't sure he did. "Uh... peanuts. And I don't really have an epipen on me anymore, so, uh... hope there ain't any p-peanut involved death trials here." He huffed, shoving his hands in his pockets. "How about you set a timer for fifteen minutes, we meet back here. If one o-of us found a good place to sleep, you'll rest and I'll watch. If not, we should grab what's useful and head out."
Voltaeiche nodded, setting the timer on her phone before she stood up. And frowning as it repeatedly stuck to one time. "
Maybe not...." she thought as she showed Louis her screen. "It keeps going to 3 hours and 30 minutes no matter what time I set it to...think it's some sort of warning?"
"I'll go find a bag of my own and get started with collecting food," she said. "Two days worth should hopefully be enough, otherwise we can return here to restock more."
Louis stared at the screen expressionlessly. What? Three hours and thirty minutes? That wasn't something they could just gloss over, this was -- a countdown! A countdown to what? Their deaths? The end? More people, more challenges? Fuck, fucking hell this could mean so many bad things! It could mean they only had three hours to do -- to do what?! He didn't even know! And they were just gonna run around this mall until the time went up and then boom they'd be thrown right into whatever bullshit Big Guy had planned. And then -- and then..
Voltaieche was already off. Louis was stuck in place for a few moments, blinking dumbly before shaking his head and turning to huff off in the other direction.
That was when the map fell at his feet. Louis once again stared up at the ceiling where the portal had appeared and disappeared, and then the pamphlet. He bent down to pick it up. It seemed like a normal map. And a normal mall. Soap store, pretzel stand, clothing, clothing, clothing, clothing... sporting store. Sporting store? Maybe he could find something good there. Hockey armor or something. Baseball bat. Louis set off.
Voltaeiche had similarly set off, ducking through the various restaurants as she looked for food. It was probably best to pack food that wouldn't spoil easily. If power was still running in this section, then it was fine to leave some fresh food here.
After she'd gathered a small mountain of food, enough for two, she hummed before leaving to find a store with a suitcase. While a duffle bag of some sort would probably be better for moving quickly, a suitcase would inevitably be easier to wheel…
As she walked, she continued to mull over the timer on her phone, occasionally opening her phone just to stare at it. If she hit start...what would happen? Was it another hint?
Frowning, she looked to a store window, staring at her reflection. "Are you there?" she whispered, trying to call out for her odd other-self.