He closed his eyes at the sight of the hotel wall closing in on them.
He heard the sickening crunch of metal crushing in on itself and the sound of brick and plaster being ripped apart as the bus actually broke clean through the outer wall. The force rocketed throughout his body, shaking and vibrating inside of his bones as the bus continued forward with its momentum.
And opened his eyes to the sight of a bare ceiling.
A sharp gasp escaped him as he pushed himself up all too quickly.
He could still feel his bones rattling from the force of hitting the outer hotel wall and it felt like the entirety of his stomach was in his chest as he struggled to breath for a few seconds. The adrenaline was still going and he quickly looked around at his surroundings, expecting to see the chaotic remains of the bus and hotel walls scattered around him. But just one look around told him where he was... and it was the last place he wanted to be.
Pushing himself to his feet, he nearly collapsed at the weakness of his own legs and felt a convincing wave of nausea wash over him. It felt like his entire body was a mess and the race between his heart and his thoughts was not helping him in the slightest. Using the worn down desk to recollect his balance, he pushed himself across the small hospice room and stumbled out into the hallway- hastily looking around for anyone else. From experience, he already knew every room in this hallway was either locked or empty, so there seemed to be no point in checking, but he did anyways.
Just on the off-chance that something different had happened and the three of them were all here instead... but nothing had changed. The doors that did open showed nothing but an empty room that had been abandoned for weeks, maybe even years. And the doors that remained locked showed the same thing through their barred openings.
He stepped into the lobby next and felt that growing panic begin to force its way into his chest as he looked around at the empty room. He didn't know what he was expecting, it wasn't like anyone else ever came here but him.
"Detective, what seems to be the matter?"
The voice startled him for no reason.
He turned around at the question and watched as the dark-haired woman came walking down the hallway towards him. She seemed to be in no hurry despite the absolute mess he felt like he was in- and she certainly hadn't been down there just seconds ago when he was checking the rooms. Then again, he had stopped questioning her antics a long time ago.
"Where are they?" Sebastian started, his voice sounding rough when it came out of him. He was still out of breath and the adrenaline kept his heart rate from coming down, so it felt like he was still on that damn bus as opposed to this place. The brief, metallic taste in the back of his mouth hinted at blood, but it was hardly worth his attention right now.
Tatiana lightly frowned, but gave no other facial response.
Instead, she continued walking towards him and paused only after she had stepped into the lobby herself. She brushed her hands against the skirt of her uniform and tugged on the collar of her small jacket, before she looked back to him. "Where are who?" she replied. "You are the only soul here right now."
And it felt like his stomach dropped at the words.
She had said that nearly every time he was here, as though to remind him of the isolation, and she wasn't wrong.
Asides from her, he had always been here alone. So, that meant...
"No, no, I can't..." he started, hearing himself stammering briefly as the panic began to set in. "I was just with them- they need me."
Tatiana gave only a brief, semi-sympathetic shrug. "I'm sorry Detective, but... there is no one else here. I don't know who you are looking for."
He looked around at the empty lobby once more- knowing already that she was right. She always was.
And suddenly, the overwhelming panic felt like it was slowly turning into anger as he was forced to come to terms with the situation.
"Then I have to get out of here." He sharply spoke, as he turned and headed into the short corridor behind him first. The hanging mirror that overlooked the dirty sink was almost black and refused to reflect anything, already telling him that it wasn't the escape he needed. There were multiple exits scattered around this place and he went to each one, one after the other, only to realize they were all closed off.
He was trapped in this place until something happened and triggered a way out. Something, some kind of essence or being, was purposely keeping him here and it was going to make him wait until it was ready to let him go. And it didn't care that it was urgent for him to exit this place immediately.
He didn't have time to sit around for some kind of trigger.
Not when they needed him...
"Detective."
He didn't even hear her calling after him as he stepped into the back room behind her desk.
Their fucking bus was in the middle of being sent through a hotel and he was stuck here, wherever this place was. As many times as he had been here, he still wasn't entirely sure what it was- but he did know that, to some extent, it was some kind of safe haven.
And while he was safe here, his partners were still out there, in the other world, in danger... and there wasn't a damn thing he could do to help them.
And he hated feeling so damn useless.
"Detective."
Joseph just got fucking shot and he wasn't there to help him.
There was no way he was going to survive that bus crash and walk away in decent health. The bullet alone had kept him struggling to keep conscious and he had been trying to do what he could to keep his partner awake. In any other situation, this would've been a non-life threatening shot that maybe would've required a week in the hospital and then a week or so of bed rest. But they weren't exactly in the correct world for that; the possibility of him bleeding to death here was too great.
And Kidman... she was sitting at the front of the bus.
He would be surprised if she hadn't gotten knocked out going through that first wall. If she did manage to avoid that though, then she would have to jump out of the driver's seat or at least try to move out of the way before something else happened... otherwise the odds of surviving were against her. She was smart though and still in good health, there was still a strong possibility that she had lived.
They needed him... And he wasn't going to be there.
They were going to be bleeding out and defenseless against anything that might find them- and he was stuck here where nothing could get him. He was safe and... they were as good as dead.
And he would gladly trade his life for both of theirs.
"Detective Castellanos!"
Her sharp voice finally registered to him this time and, once more, it startled him. He had slowly been succumbing to his own panic and worry that he had completely forgotten about the woman. She snapped him back into this hospice world and he, again, became very aware of the silence and creeping isolation. He turned back around to her, catching himself in a breathless state once more.
"What?" he snapped briefly, as the frustration and bitterness about being stuck here caught up to him again. He didn't always have the best controlled temper, and he was never entirely happy with losing it from time to time, but he had other places to be right now; and she could be the one who was keeping him here for all he knew.
Tatiana didn't seem the least bit phased by his temper; she always looked as though she had dealt with much worse things anyways. "You're making a mess."
The remark caught him by surprise. After all, it wasn't like he was going around the entire place throwing chairs, or breaking windows, and clearing off tables. He wasn't on some kind of psycho, rampaging binge... he had hardly touched anything in this place. "What are you talking about?" Sebastian started.
She didn't answer and instead looked down at the floor.
And it was only when he looked down with her did he realize what she meant.
There were thick, splattered droplets of blood on the dirty, tiled floor and they had formed a trail going from room to room, which meant...
He stilled at the realization before he briefly looked himself over- just now realizing the blood dripping from open gashes that had torn his forearms open. In his worrying over Joseph and Kidman, he had forgotten that he too had been involved with that crash and... that he certainly didn't walk away in perfect health.
The barely-healing injuries on his hands had been ripped back open and his palms had been scuffed raw from trying to catch himself during the crash; there were still pieces of broken plaster stuck under his skin. His collar was damp with blood and the red stains dripping down the front of his shirt said something must've cut the side of his neck open. And the dull sense of pain from the back of his left shoulder told him something was wrong there too.
He had been aware of the injuries he had picked up during the ambulance situation, which meant anything new had occurred solely from the crash...
And, like someone turning on a light switch, he felt the adrenaline wear off enough for him to become vaguely aware of the pain shooting across his body. There was no telling what kinds of internal damages had been done, or how many bones might've been broken- although he could already feel a few of his ribs starting to throb.
"You should really look at a mirror." Tatiana offered. "There are some medical supplies in the cabinet, will you need assistance?"
He hesitated briefly, still a little caught up in the realization. "No, I... I'll be fine."
She gave a brief nod and turned to leave.
He remained where he was for a few seconds, before he slowly touched at the wounded side of his neck- wincing when he found the open gash that was bleeding out. These injuries were minor at best despite the amount of blood coming out of them- although that wasn't to say the blood loss could be ignored either. He hated to admit that this world would get to win this one time, but... if he was going to be stuck here for the time being, then he might as well take care of his injuries. After all, he'd be no good to anyone in this shitty state.
Maybe this fucking place would let him leave after he patched himself up.
Sighing, he headed back across the room and pushed through the second door- not even realizing that it wasn't locked as it usually was. The original mirror was reflective again, instead of being solid black, but it still wasn't cracked like he needed it to be in order to exit this place. Which was just perfect. He gave a brief look at himself in the mirror and winced when he noticed the blood spilling out of his split temple; he must've hit his head on something because the skin was split clean from his temple down to his eye. There were a few shallow scratches on his jaw from the Haunted he encountered around the ambulance, as well as a wide cut that ripped his lower lip open.
He didn't look bad for someone who just survived a hell-bound highway and an aerial bus crash.
He used the sink just long enough to clean the blood that had spilled down his face, and briefly cleaned the blood off of his hands and arms, before he walked back into the back office. He practically had to force himself to slip off his holster as he headed into the corner room and placed it down on the long table; his shotgun was slowly removed next and placed down as well. It was nice not to have the extra weight to carry, but it left him feeling vulnerable and unprepared without it. But he knew this place was safe enough to walk around unarmed- plus it'd be easier to patch himself up without them getting in the way. Giving out another sigh, he pushed his fingers through his hair as he walked back out into the main room and headed over to the strangely clean cabinet pushed against the wall.
A brief browse through the available medical supplies found each bottle and such neatly arranged on each shelf. There wasn't anything too serious, it looked like it was just basic supplies for minor injuries. And hopefully, that was all he had.
"Take a seat, Detective." Tatiana spoke, almost too closely behind him as her fingers barely brushed against his back. "I will take care of this."
It felt like he had no choice seeing as she simply pushed past him and began to sort her way through the cabinet. And he had this feeling that he shouldn't try to interrupt her- she certainly had more knowledge about this kind of stuff anyways. He gave a brief shrug and walked back into the other room, where he sat down in one of the free chairs. He could hear several bones crackling with the motion and tried to ignore the brief swell of pain that came from his lower back.
It was probably nothing serious.
Sighing, he briefly touched over the obvious bloody marks that had torn through his arms, at least glad to see that they weren't bleeding for the time being. And he knew damn well that they only reminded him that he had barely managed to escape the first wave of bullets from that chain gunner. The bullets had been hot when they grazed his arms and he was lucky they didn't tear through his body instead- he wouldn't have lasted five minutes out there.
But the thought only reminded him of why he had gone against the mounted gun in the first place...
He had managed to put a decent enough bandage on Joseph's wound, but... it wouldn't be enough to protect his injury from the wreck. More than likely, the violent movement from the wreck would only cause additional tearing to the bullet wound. His partner would be bleeding out again and he wasn't there to stop it this time. It was possible that Kidman could, but that was going off the assumption that she hadn't been knocked unconscious in the initial crash- and that they hadn't been separated afterwards.
"You look worried." Tatiana started as she sat down next to him, setting aside a small tray of the medical supplies she had finally collected.
He didn't reply and instead watched as she twisted the cap off of an unlabeled bottle and carefully soaked a few cotton balls with the liquid inside, before she went about cleaning his skinned knuckles. The liquid momentarily burned on contact, but the slight pain that came with it wasn't something new to him- he had gotten well used to it by now. She worked tediously with each knuckle, making sure to pay close attention to where he had caught some of them on the barbed wire that had been wrapped around a Haunted's face.
"I'm certain the people you are looking for are alright."
He couldn't bring himself to take her words as comfort.
What would she know anyways? She never left this place as far as he knew. He didn't even know how she existed here- or really what this area was in the first place. It was separated from the rest of this world and yet... still existed in the same universe somehow. Asides from a few, rare times, it was mostly untouched by anything this world could create.
But... as much as he wanted to believe that his partners were okay... the odds were stacked against them- especially in a hellhole like this.
And he wasn't stupid enough to try and overlook that; he wasn't going to pretend that everything could turn out alright.
"You must've been in quite the accident." she continued, as she moved to clean his bloodied forearm next. She worked tediously on each wound and moved on only when she had thoroughly cleaned each one of blood and grime. She would throw away the blood-soaked cotton balls between every other wound, and replace them with a new pair- which she would re-soak before she continued.
The open cuts and gashes on his arm were a little more sensitive and burned more than the ones on his knuckles, but, again, he could overlook it. He survived the first couple of walls, but the lack of a proper roof on the bus had left him fairly vulnerable to flying debris and shrapnel. His injuries could've been a lot worse though, so he was counting himself lucky with these.
"These must be painful."
"They're not the worst." Sebastian replied, although not entirely sure why he bothered to. It wasn't like he ever had much of a conversation with her before... she was hardly the type to hold one; she usually just said a few words and then went to minding her own business. Then again, maybe he was the one who never stuck around long enough to talk. It seemed like every time he was teleported here, by some outside force, he'd immediately try to leave as soon as he could.
Tatiana hummed softly and nodded as she gently pushed his torn sleeve out of the way to clean the last of the injuries on his forearm. It was looking better, especially when compared to the uncleaned injuries on his other arm. With the dirt and plaster cleaned away though, the incoming bruises and swellings were exposed. It looked better, but still... it certainly wasn't pretty.
He watched as she leaned closer for a moment, before she gently went about cleaning the open split of his temple; the quick burn of the medicine actually made him flinch for a second.
"You're quiet."
She was one to talk.
Sebastian sighed as he leaned away from her and lightly brushed her off. While he didn't want to seem rude... he was not up for company right now. And while she was doing him a favor by cleaning his injuries for him, he'd much rather do it himself or leave them as they were. "The bus I was on before this was sent through a hotel, so I'm not exactly in a talking mood."
Tatiana nodded once more and moved back in to her chair. Setting the supplies aside, she seemed to pause before she reached forward and gently rested her hand on top of his. There was nothing more to the motion other than a seemingly empty grasp at a comforting gesture. The woman was usually distant and unmoving, making this seem like the closest human contact she had had in some time. "It's understandable."
It sounded genuinely comforting.
The gesture held for only a few seconds before she pushed herself to her feet and moved her hand to his shoulder instead. "I have work to get done, Detective, will you be alright?"
"I have been so far." he answered, watching as she nodded before she quietly departed.
"You know where to find me if you change your mind."
Right.
Leaning back in the chair, he tried to ease the stiffness in his back and shift the pressure off of his hips. The adrenaline rush had left completely at this point, leaving him with his thoughts and obvious pains from the wreckage. He had been in a couple of car wrecks throughout his life- most of them were when he was on the job, so he was fairly familiar with the common pain that followed one. Of course, this had been a bus going through a hotel, which was an entirely different scenario, but... it had the same kind of issues with it- just on a greater scale.
Which meant everything would probably start feeling worse in the next hour or so.
He looked to the uncleaned injuries that remained on his other arm and figured he might as well keep with it; it would help pass the time and keep him distracted. Picking up where Tatiana had left off, he started at his knuckles once more and gradually moved his way up his forearm. A greater portion of his outer forearm was almost skinned, which made him think that he must've landed on his left arm when he let go of the bus; the open gashes on his arm were also stressed and showed minor tearing, which only seemed to further that idea. The bleeding was harder to control as well, making it difficult for him to clean the open wounds.
He didn't even notice his arm had been dripping blood onto the floor until he stood up to look for a bandage to cover it with.
Thick red droplets were splattered carelessly next to him.
It really wouldn't have been worth noticing until he stepped around the table and noticed what looked like bloody drag marks slowly leaving the room; the blood looked as though it was bubbling up through the tile like the floor itself was bleeding- and it was moving on its own accord. He had seen something like it before back in the asylum. It was some kind of puzzle that consisted of there being three separate rooms, each with a body bag, the choice between two medallions and the drawings from a madman on the walls. And every time he picked the correct medallion, the body bags would be impaled and spill blood onto the floor- and then... something would drag the blood into the next room.
The crimson trails eventually lead to a blood-stained door that took him further into the heart of the asylum...
So where would this one go?
For a moment, he hesitated. The last thing he wanted to do right now was get wrapped up in another one of Ruvik's puzzles...
But if this gave him a way out...
He slowly followed behind the moving trail, watching as it curved throughout the office area before it slipped under the door at the end of the room. His heart was already starting to pound away in his chest as he pushed the door open and quietly stepped back into the lobby. And it was only then did he realize he had carelessly left both of his weapons behind on the table.
So if this trail ended up taking him into some sort of trap, he would be fucked.
But the blood trail continued to slither around the front desk until it disappeared down the hallway with the hospice rooms.
Tatiana didn't seem the least bit bothered by it; it was almost as though she didn't notice it as she quietly continued to file her nails. She only looked up when he barely walked behind her, still not entirely settled with following the trail to its end. It could lead to a way out, or it could lead to a trap; this place seemed safe, sure, but he wasn't entirely convinced that Ruvik simply couldn't enter this place. That psychopath created this world and altered it to his liking, he highly doubted this place had been tucked away without his knowledge.
"Is something the matter, Detective?"
He didn't answer and instead watched as the trail began to fade and disappear down the corridor.
He started to follow once more, but stopped at the sound of one of room doors being forced open. With the uncomfortable silence in this place, it was incredibly loud, which made it hard to confuse it with something else. But... he had checked all of the rooms beforehand and the ones that weren't locked were empty, and he had left all of the unlocked doors open.
Which meant only a locked door could've made that noise.
... So who the hell was on the other side of that door?
"Great... I'm back to this fucking place."
The well-angered voice caught his attention and he stilled as he heard what sounded like the clicking of heels walking across the tiled floor. And it didn't take long before he had the answer of who it was.
Kidman stepped into the lobby looking... well, like a miracle really.