"Are you really going to make me go grab another one?" She protested, lounging half off her chair for lack of anything better to do.

He looked up at her from half-underneath the monstrous projector, with that half-sarcastic half-amused look that made her weak at the knees, and nodded. "If you couldn't tell, I'm a little tied up at moment." He paused a second, as though considering getting it himself, but made one of those mock-sad faces had her twisting in her seat regardless. "Please?"

"Fiine," She rolled her eyes, though as delicately and non-threateningly as she could, even if she wasn't sure if he was watching her. It certainly wasn't his fault the projector had decided to conk out right before a showing, meaning that they were spending the better part of an evening trying to fix the damned thing before they got too off schedule. It also meant that they were only ones in the building, the only ones running about in little circles running damage control.

Of course, the repair job had technically only needed him (there certainly wasn't room for two under the projector), but she'd been signed up to help him screen the film, and had fluttered her way into spending those extra hours handing him tools – always the one for the ulterior motive, she was. But if she had to go down another three flights of stairs, to grab him a different size wrench or whatever he needed at the moment, she was seriously considering making him fix it by himself.

Getting up with a long-suffering sort of sigh, she tossed her hair for good measure, just in case, and wound her way through the claustrophobically narrow hallway out of the booth.

Now that she wasn't quite as distracted, it was starting to dawn on her how very creepy theater booths really were. Strips of old-school film hung from the shelving, fluttering despite the lack of wind, great silver platters set up to spin the film slowly turning on their own, silently practicing the dance that brought the moving pictures to the screen. Out of the booth itself, the hallway was dark and narrow, badly paneled and chipping, just the sort of setting she could see the latest slash-fest. In fact, she was surprised that there weren't more set up in these sorts of hallways – it certainly put the hairs up on the back of her neck, put her ever so slightly on the edge, uneasy, uncomfortable. It didn't help that they were the only ones on that floor, probably the only ones in the building – it was a Saturday early evening, after all, just enough to get dark this time of year. A school building was hardly the sort of place that students wanted to hang at that time of night, of course, and the scheduled showing wasn't for at least another two hours.

Her feet made soft plodding sounds as she traipsed down the three flights of stairs to the maintenance closets, echoing slightly in the silence. As nonchalantly as possible, she hummed a little to herself, just to break that awful lack of sound. It would take a lot more than just an empty building to make her admit that she was a little freaked out, to admit that she wasn't totally ok with this level of creepy, but that wasn't going to happen, especially not in front of him.

Shoving aside mops and brooms, she rummaged about the cabinet for the specific size of whatever he'd needed, carefully settling herself so that her back wasn't to the doorway. If there was anything creepier than an empty building, it was that building's basement. As much as she knew better, really knew that the odds of something happening to her were astronomically low, she couldn't help but stay a bit on edge anyway.

Several times, she thought she heard some odd sort of buzzing, towards the outside doors, but she ignored that. Nothing threatening made buzzing sounds; that was silly. Now, footsteps, those she would have paid attention to.

Feeling a little silly for having been so nervous, she headed back upstairs. What was wrong with her today? Usually this wasn't the sort of thing that bothered her (she was a horror-movie kind of girl, the one who got to laugh at the ones who were scared, never the one who was scared), but there was just something about today – she'd been off all day, hadn't quite felt right. Like she was picking up something she didn't know she could pick up, some signal.

No, she dropped that line of thought, feeling extra silly. There were no hidden signals for her to pick up, that was just stupid. She'd probably psyched herself out or something. No big deal.

But it was that same uneasy feeling that had her pausing outside the booth door; had her taking a moment to think about it before she laid her hand on the doorknob. What was it with her today? She knew nothing was going on, she knew there was no way there was actually anything dangerous up there, but… still. It was undeniable, the foreboding. The freaky feeling that if she opened that door, that everything would change and there would be no turning back.

But that was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Yeah, they didn't have a specifically defined relationship or anything, had just gotten drinks together a couple times, seen a film, the usual. But was she really the kind of girl who was going to be consumed with nervousness over the idea that a guy hadn't fallen for her? She certainly hadn't thought so.

She was just being stupid, and if there was anything she hated, hated more than awkwardly empty buildings, it was being stupid. So she opened the door, with a bit of flourish, and stood there. The hallway was exactly as she had left it, empty and a little bit creepy. Feeling, if possible, even more foolish, she hurried down the hallway, trying not to blush. Life-changing indeed.

"Got the thingie-" She was admittedly low on technical jargon "-that you asked for!" She announced cheerily, popping her head into the booth. "Where do you want it?"

It was only when she received no reply that she realized she couldn't see him, that the room seemed remarkably empty. Frowning, she looked about again, not immediately catching sight of him where she'd left him, poking out from under the projector. But the light was off as well, the room lit only by the dim redness of the equipment lights, by the ghostly reflections off the glass. It wasn't a particularly wide room, long and skinny, and as cluttered as it was with the miscellaneous castoff of the theatre industry, she should have been able to see him…

Carefully this time, slowly, she started forward into the booth, turning so her back was against the wall. It was so dark in there, had been even with the lamp on, so dark she wondered if maybe he was just around the other side of the projector – but then he would have answered her, yes? But maybe he'd popped out to go grab a snack, or another technical object, or anything really – but no. It didn't feel right, him leaving and her not having seen it, as she hadn't been gone at all long. She would have run into him, surely.

Trying to see around a rack of shelving, she realized with a sudden shock that her right foot was sticking slightly to the floor. As her stomach dropped down right through, feeling a sudden panic rising, she looked down slowly, oh so slowly-

And found herself standing on a bit of candy. Feeling another rush of stupidity, of over thinking, she blushed, kneeling down to pick it off her shoe.

And that was when she saw it, small and nearly unobtrusive, a small wet spot. The stomach that had only recently settled back where it was supposed to rocketed back down again, leaving her slightly light-headed as she gingerly reached for the spot. It was tacky, wet and just slightly congealing, with just enough stick to be absolutely awful.

Bringing her fingers closer to her face, leaning towards the lamp, she saw that what she'd though (hoped, really) had been brown was really that sickeningly familiar red, that coppery metallic smell unmistakable. Swallowing hard, suddenly tasting what she'd eaten for lunch, she stood, backing up slowly. No no no no no…

Edging towards the door, trying to very hard not to breathe, not the move while moving as quickly as she could, wanting to run but too terrified, she'd just about touched the doorknob with her finger tips when it slammed shut, startling her into a scream.

Pressing up against the wall, she swallowed hard again, panting. What was that? How could it have closed on her if she was the only one in the room? Was she the only one in the room? She slid her eyes from the traitorous door, glanced at the empty room sideways. There was no way that there had been anyone (anything?) on this side that could have closed that door without her seeing it. But there wasn't anyone outside either, not unless they'd been absolutely silent and still in a corner somewhere-

She stopped that train of thought right there. Panicking would not do, would not provide any explanation or get her out of this. Taking a deep, slow breath, she let it out slowly, feeling her racing heartbeat come slightly more under control. Stepping forward purposefully, she reached for the door again, determined that she'd get out of here. It was obviously just the creepy air of the place, getting into her head; that had to be the reason, as anything else was just unthinkable.

But she froze again, when the silence was broken, not by her quiet breathing, but by something else – something, she couldn't believe it, didn't believe it, something else breathing. It was unmistakable, that soft, whispering sound as air escaped lips, but that wasn't the worst of it, not at all. "Nick?" She called out, quietly, voice quavering to an unacceptable degree. Maybe this was just some sort of elaborate prank? He seemed like the type who might, but that, she couldn't say way, just felt wrong. This was bigger.

Then everything got worse, not that she would have said that it could. Because it (they? Whoever? Whatever?) responded to her, but so not in the way that she wanted. This wasn't a cheerful 'yes, it's me, lol', this wasn't a 'surprise!', it was… It was a cold, quiet sort of chuckling. Half a laugh, half an awful, awful laugh. And it was moving closer.

Yanking at the doorknob, she choked back a scream (why? She wasn't sure, it had to know where she was so it wasn't like she could hide, but still, she didn't want it to know where she was) when it didn't budge. Yanking on it again, panic rising faster than she could beat it back, she choked back another scream when nothing happened. The knob didn't turn, it wasn't like it was locked, it was just, frozen there, stuck, immovable.

Now she could hear the footsteps, slow and measured, coming closer. It was funny, how she was just as scared for when they would be close enough to her for her to see them. Somehow seeing whoever it was would make it that much worse, knowing whatever this thing was, and not being able to try to talk herself into thinking it was nothing. That this was still some sort of elaborate prank, that this was all a really, really realistic hallucination.

So preoccupied was she, with the footsteps and the chuckling and the door, and her nearly paralyzing dread, that she completely missed that buzzing sound from earlier. Not that it would have made any more sense, but it might have at least been a warning.

Frantically yanking at the door, desperate for movement, any movement that would mean that she might get out of this, whatever this was, (she didn't dare acknowledge the "alive" hanging off that statement) she really did scream when it suddenly snapped open, knocking her off balance. The footsteps paused for a moment, as though they, too, had been surprised by the opening of the door, but she didn't notice.

Mostly because there was someone in the door, someone who'd grabbed her arm and half-thrown her into the hallway. "Run!"