Soar, Part 16 - Vanilla

"Hello, excuse me," Olivia said, tapping one of the nearest women on the shoulder. The woman slashed her hand away, not even looking at the girls, and Olivia pulled back, looking confused. She stood there for a second, watching the woman clearly trying to go somewhere through the crowd and then went to the next person.

"Hi," she said, grabbing the tall man on the arm. He tried to pull his arm away, but since Olivia was holding on to her he he couldn't. He turned to look at Olivia, eyes both angry and empty, and bared his teeth. Olivia let go of him, and slowly backed to the other two.

"They don't respond," she said. "They won't say anything."

"Yeah, we noticed that," Alex said. "But we need to get into the hospital, and it looks like the door's locked. Or that these people are for some reason able to open it to get through it. Either way, we're not going to get through this crowd to it."

"So how are we going to get in?" Skye asked.

"We fly," Olivia said, like it was obvious.

"She's right, there's got to be a door on the roof, so they can bring people in flying," Alex said, turning to Skye, "Are you up for some more flying?"

"Not unless I don't have to change," she answered, "I mean, I know we have to get in. But I don't want to change back." She looked up. "But I should be able to make it up there with one of you at a time."

Alex nodded, and Olivia clenched onto Skye. She took a good hold on her, and took off. The flying was harder with two people, but Skye had luckily had some practise with that. The dance choreographies included her holding up the weight of someone else for a lot of the time. She put down Olivia carefully in more or less the middle of the roof, and flapped back down. When she got back up with Alex, Olivia had ran to the door on one end of the roof.

"It's locked!" she shouted at them while they walked towards her. "I mean, it was. Until I picked the lock," she continued as the others got to her and opened the door, grinning.

"Let's go," Alex said, and the girls were on their way, jogging down the wide stairs until they found a door to get into the hospital properly. They ran through the mostly empty hallways, looking for Roxie. It was weird how empty the halls were, even in the middle of the night. It was like everyone was occupied somewhere else. Which they probably were, with the mob down stairs.

The hospital was so big they ran for a good while before finding anything. They had ran through the long hallways, peering into every occupied and unoccupied room on their way. They almost flew (and Skye sometimes literally) down more stairs, down more hallways, and then more stairs.

"Oh," Olivia said, peering into a room four flights down from the roof.

"What?" Skye asked, stopping to see what had surprised her.

"This man in this room is petrified," Olivia said, beginning to move again.

"We must be getting close to where Roxie is," Alex said, hurrying down the hall, "Assuming she's where the petrified people are."

They rounded a corner and almost bumped into Roxie, walking back and forth in the hallway.

"You got here!" she exclaimed, as the others stopped to catch their breath. Alex nodded.

"Yeah, you kinda said it was important," she noted once she had more or less caught her breath.

"So what is happening?" Skye asked, still breathing hard, though the running had been easier for her. She could glide some of the way while running, after all.

"I don't know," Roxie began.

"Well, it's great you woke us up for that," Alex said, as much sarcasm in her voice she could muster trying to catch her breath.

"No, I mean a lot," Roxie said, "I had this weird dream about a girl who said she knew what happened to Annalise, but then she had to go before she could tell me anything, and that woke me up and I just got up to get some water but mom was up looking at pictures of the victims and I spotted the same girl from my dream in one of the pictures and then mom got a call from the hospital and she left and told me to go back to bed but I obviously followed her, "she was speaking fast now.

"You had a dream of a girl that knew what happened to Annalise?" Skye interrupted as Roxie paused for just a moment to draw a breath. Roxie nodded.

"What did she say?" Skye asked.

"That she knew what happened, but that she had to go and I should go find her," Roxie said, "And then it turned out she was one of the victims. Which I already said. Anyway, when mom left I would've followed her even without the dream, because I obviously want to know if something's going on with the people, but then I got here and it turned out that the thing that was happening was that the girl that had been in my dream had gained some brain function, which was weird, because none of the other ones show any sign of being alive, and then it turned out that her brain activity increased when I was around and talking, so I guess she somehow recognises my voice and now I have no idea what's happening."

"And then there appeared a mob in front of the hospital?" Skye asked, trying to keep up.

"Yeah, the mob, I have no idea where they came from, and no one else has either, or then they're not telling me. But it seems no one knows what that's all about. They just appeared here just before I texted you. It seems none of them are reacting to being spoken to and if you try to get physical they just push you away and that's all the contact you can get," Roxie explained, speaking really fast. Skye nodded. This they had noticed. "Either way, they put the hospital on shut down until the police can figure out what's going on with the mob, but it seems like they're under some kind of a spell, so I'm thinking, and actually my mom too, that that spell is somehow connected to the petrified people -spell. And now I can't go anywhere, because my mom rushed off and told me to stay put, and I'm probably in enough trouble anyway and..."

"Is this the girl from your dream?" Olivia interrupted, standing at the nearest door to a patient room in the hall, facing into the room.

"Yeah, why?" Roxie asked, confused.

"She's awake," Olivia said, disappearing into the room. The other girls shared a glance, and then rushed into the room after Olivia.

The girl was sitting on the bed, legs crossed, swinging slightly back and forth. She was silently humming to herself, and as Roxie entered the room a big smile appeared on her face. Her orange eyes looked almost like they were on fire, something that Roxie's dream hadn't quite made justice. The eyes had been weird even in the dream but now that they looked almost alive they were even more unnerving.

"You came find me!" she said happily. Her voice was almost as weird as her eyes. It wasn't a voice quite like anything any of them had ever heard. A lot of the creatures in the world didn't exactly have human voices, there was something elvish or fae or magical about them, that was hard to put your finger on, but the voice of the girl was weirder still than any of them. There were no way to describe it.

"I did," Roxie said slowly. "You said you know what happened to Annalise. But I guess also to you and everyone else."

"I do," the girl said, looking like she was going to continue.

"Who are you?" Olivia interrupted her, watching the girl with huge eyes. The girl laughed, a sound that was the same kind of fascinatingly weird as her voice.

"My name," she said, staring straight into Olivia's curious eyes, "is Vanilla."
_________________________________________________________

Your topic for Monday is.... I had a really good one right on my mind and then you texted me and I got distracted and forgot it.

The topic is Tongue.

~matu