towerofanimus | Not all there

Entry tags:

Not all there

Characters: Cain Knightlord and anyone at all
Setting: Floor Three Library
Format: Prose, but will copy you
Summary: Cain is feeling the effects of being in Group C, clearly he should be bothered
Warnings: Sensory Hallucination

It had taken Cain and his partner in map-making more than just the one day to complete their task, scratching a map or notes on each floor carefully onto dinner plates. There were some floors Cain already knew he never wanted to return to, and at first he puts down the sensation of being watched to the unnerving sights of those floors.

Blood and screaming on one of them, endless night on another, what the hell was this place?!

He's taken the plates, twenty-one in total, to the library to sort them into a more organised fashion. Then he starts scratching them into one of the tables, copying the work into the wood for a safer and more sturdy map. But he keeps feeling something brush the back of his neck and shoulder, nothing there when he looks, an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach as he works until...

"STOP IT!"

The shout is loud in the library as he spins, one of the plates crashing to the ground to break, as Cain stares at... well, nothing.

[ooc: Open, please bother him. I love all the CR ever!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I'm not sure."

Emotional distress was something he would always hide from Abel; his brother was bad at dealing with that sort of thing, and it would just add stress to an already stressful situation. But he had endured enough mind-altering experiments and tests to deduce when something was liable to be physically wrong, and that was something he would never hide from Abel - if only because it was likely his brother would be experiencing the same, or so it had been in the past.

"I keeps seeing and feeling things, I'm not sure they're really there. I feel like something keeps touching the back of my neck and shoulder, trying to get my attention."

The concern in his eyes starts leaking elsewhere on his face rather than abating at this explanation. There were phenomenon on other floors of the tower they both had experienced -- voices, and whispers that made a man believe he was truly losing his mind. But they had carefully mapped which to stay out of, and this... had not been one of them.

Until now.

Abel gives a suspicious glance to their surroundings, as if looking for a sign of whatever unseen forces were deigning to toy with them today, before he offered Cain a hand.

"We should get out of here. It might not be safe."

Cain both disliked and was comforted by the concern in Abel's expression, it was rare that anything but apathy crossed his brother's face and it gave him a small satisfaction to know that he was truly cared for. Though on the same token, he hated to worry his twin and cause him any pain.

Where Abel protected Cain physically, so Cain protected Abel emotionally. His brother wasn't supposed to be concerned, Cain was meant to be the strong one who could endure anything with a smile. These voices were unnerving, but they were by no means the worst thing he had endured in his life, and so it was easy to bring back the slightly bashful smile as though this were silly.

"Maybe it was that ice cream I ate last night, I really don't think I should ingest that poison, it doesn't agree with me. But to be on the safe side, lets go back to our room, hm?"

Sigh. Of course Cain would try to play it off as if it were nothing... the fact he could at all was a minute reassurance. But the broken remains of the plate on the floor were testament to the fact all was not well in his brother's world.

Abel grips his hand and helps him to his feet, before brushing himself off and nudging a thumb to the table with the remaining plates upon it.

"Are you bringing these with you?" He'll help him gather them up, and they'll go.

Looking down at the rest of the plates, he nodded and started to gather some into his arms at the same time as Abel.

"They're a map of each floor, Suzaku and I--"

He cut off for a moment, feeling that brush across the back of his neck making him stiffen.

"...Cain?"

He is watching him -- carefully, the tension in his brother's body mimicked in his own, but not because he saw or felt any additional presence in their proximity. It was in response to Cain.

He is well used to pain as a learning tool, though it hasn't been used much since either of them had grown old enough to become a problem (or rather, for Abel to become a problem), and not at all since they held rank. That he can push away and ignore, pretend that all is well and smile through it... But this is different, this is something invading his head and that is never something that either twin has dealt well with.

"I'm fine, I just thought I saw something out of the corner of my eyes. Maybe I'm just tired, that's all."

His concern is only growing as time ticks onward; he hadn't seen anything. The impression of... something they had felt in the other floors of the Towers had been a shared experience, but this...

The disquiet in Cain's eyes was seriously worrisome, however much he worked to stifle it, and Abel finds his eyes locked on his twin with a little flutter of something anxious in his chest. There have been few times he has ever had to whole-heartedly worry after him; the experiments may have been cruel, and sometimes... brutal -- but there was the meager comfort that it was in a controlled environment, and they were investments that would be preserved. Nothing would be bad enough to leave permanent damage or put their lives in mortal danger.

...Here, those bitter comforts are absent.

"...let's go. Back to the room." He's going to watch him like a hawk...

He is sharply aware of that truth himself as well... here they were just more prisoners, expendable; not like back home where they were extremely valuable commodities.

Nodding, he rose to his feet and followed Abel towards the door of the library, steps neither too hurried or too slow. Whatever this was, it wasn't real, and he refused to let it affect him any more.

In a rare gesture he would utterly deny was for his brother's personal comfort and simply to make sure that he didn't find himself lead astray, Abel reaches a hand out to press on his twin's shoulder as they exited the library for the halls.

"We need to do some digging. Maybe you could talk to some of the others... find out the tests that went on before we arrived."

Maybe there was some... motivation to be uncovered. Maybe they could guess at what was coming next by figuring out what had come before...

Affection from Abel was so rare, especially in public, that even this small gesture was greatly appreciated. Though he would do his best not to show it, this had him quite rattled and having the support of his brother went a great way to giving him back some of his calm.

"That's a good idea."

He feigned shock, trying to get this back to a normal level, shaking his head wondrously.

"I suppose you had to have at least one, the odds were with you on that."

Abel's hand briefly squeezed, then withdrew at that quip -- grumbling as he folded his arms over his chest with a sigh instead. Blue eyes shifted elsewhere than his brother's person. Hmph, you just had to ruin his stroke of kindness, didn't you?

Not that he's not grateful for the hint of normalcy to the routine. This Tower was eating at him... irking him, making him uneasy in ways he had not been before, exposing insecurities he didn't even know he possessed til now.

"You've made a fast recovery," he mumbles.

"I'm just good like that, I bounce back quickly."

Not entirely; there were still lines of tension around his eyes that suggested how much this was affecting him, but he wouldn't let it expose itself as vulnerability again.

Whatever was happening to him wasn't real, and if he could just hold onto that thought, then he was sure to find a solution. His mind had never let him down before, he's sure it wouldn't this time either.

"Have you noticed anything... odd happening?"

His mind had traveled to the subtle oddities he'd experienced over the past few days -- things he had chalked up to interference brought on by their mysterious captors. He assumed the collars were to blame -- that they were feeding some sort of drugs or alterations to their persons... It was the only explanation, and had only hardened his resolve to see them removed tenfold.

"...I guess you could say that."

The reply is offered a little dully as they meandered along; he isn't particularly pleased by recent developments around here for obvious reasons... but he is beginning to see that changes might not be the same for everyone and worth discussing.

To hear that Abel was also suffering some effects was not a good thing, having them both compromised at any time was something that should be avoided at all costs.

Eyes sliding to his brother's face, he pushed his glasses further up in order to cover his dismay, before questioning him further.

"What sort of things?"

Admitting there was any sort of flaw at all was difficult, and thus further discussing it was something that scraped at his pride considerably. He was the sort to be more than satisfied stubbornly denying a problem until it bit him in the face; ignorance was the best policy, far as he was concerned.

But this had stretched to his brother, too -- and that meant the waters were ones he had to tread, like it or not. It didn't dispel the disdain, however, at having to verbalize his observations of...

Hitches.

"...it was in the cafeteria. Do you remember the blonde kid?" He gestures to Edward Elric's approximate height. "The one we met in the library. He and I were doing things... in unison, unintentionally. And I don't mean coincidentally. Moving at the same time, walking at the same time... breathing at the same time. It was ridiculous."

Mentally, Cain filed Edward Elric as someone who was also under change due to whatever was influencing them. It was possible it was something administered through the collars, but if that were the case then there still had to be someone controlling the doses and what was given to each subject.

A brow hitches upwards in surprise at Abel's description of what had happened to him, unease growing in the pit of his stomach. While what was happening to him was unnerving, what Abel had experienced had a much darker connotation of lack of control for him - especially if Abel, who had such a strong will, had begun to submit unintentionally.

"That's... very different to what I'm experiencing. Has it happened with anyone else?"

"...Not that I've noticed."

He's omitting the fact he'd been delivered electrical shocks in punishment for their synchronous decisions to beat one another's faces in, as well -- and how close Abel had come to sincerely cracking Edward's skull open in raw fury.

He's eager to change the subject.

"What do you think it means?"

"I'm not sure, I'd have to look more into the effects being suffered by the others and see if there were a pattern."

Scrubbing a hand through blond hair as they walked, already making plans for how to research this as a focal point for ignoring the hallucinations, he glanced at Abel out of the corner of his eyes.

"Whatever it means, we should stay close until we've figured it out."

Instead of arguing, for once... Abel's obedience was quiet and immediate in response as he nodded his head in acknowledgement. He could find no complaint in sticking to his twin like glue until they had determined what was going on and found a way around it.

"There has to be a reason for all of this." Even if their captors were intentionally keeping them in the dark, there was a reason. Abel wanted to find it...

And them.

Cain was glad to see there was no argument forthcoming from Abel, not that he had expected there would be. He was willfully disobedient at times, but when the situation demanded it, he could usually be relied on to behave appropriately.

"That's something we won't know until we do more research. It's possible the reason could be to test our endurance, to punish us for some misdeed, for simple scientific enjoyment.... we could speculate endlessly."

He gives a quiet noise of displeasure under his breath before exhaling a sigh. Had more than enough of this place... he never thought he'd see the day he yearned for the colony, but he did.

Or, more specifically... a redheaded woman within it.

"Then it looks like there's work to do."

If Cain knew Abel were pining for Lilith like that... well, he doesn't, and it's probably for the best. He misses their family as well, both sisters, but not quite the way his brother does.

"I'd suggest starting in the library and looking for any past records of incidents that might have been documented by prisoners here."

The way his face had ached after that confrontation with the little blonde shit was excuse enough to miss her. The moment he had her on his mind, he hadn't been able to get it off... and it'd been sticking in his craw, since. Hadn't seemed real she wasn't going to simply... show up like she always did when something was sincerely wrong or his chest ached in that funny kind of way she had a sixth sense for noticing.

Eyes on his brother are vaguely distracted. He needs to get them out of here... He's really worried about Cain, and if anything were to happen to either of them... then...

"...that doesn't much help us when that's where we just came from, Cain."

Ah.

He looks vaguely taken aback for a moment, he had been so caught up in trying to keep the whispers from affecting him that he had forgotten where he was. That was a lapse in his usual self-awareness, however foolish he pretended to be with directions sometimes, and it disturbed him.

"...Right." He grinned, lacking a little of the usual finesse. "I was just testing you."

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