Guest (Thanks! Here it is), Prince Of Pariahs (Thank you!), Kenizz (I'm absolutely happy that it works :). Thank you and here's the new chapter), DarkSkyDepth (Thanks! ;) ), Aquarinus (Same here. I think this fandom needs more stories from Thor's POV. He's an interesting character to play with, so I don't understand why everything should be about Loki. I like Loki, don't get me wrong ;). Well, Loki can have some feminine attitude, it's like him, a lot of it can be found in mythology, but when in some fics, based on movie- or mythverse, he acts like an adolescent girl, I don't read it either. So I understand what you mean. Thanks for reviewing!), Nachtmensch (Danke schön! ;) ), Clint Barton-Loki's Butt Warmer (Thank you!), Maru de Kusanagi (Thanks a lot! :) I haven't played SH for a very long time, so I only remember a puzzle with some coins and clock :) ), Ginsekatze (That was very flattering. I'm so glad you enjoyed reading it :). Thank you and, please, enjoy the next chapter ;) ), THORKISUPPORT (Thanks! Enjoy ;) ), Guest (Yes, I love Thor, too. Thank you! :) ), RainbowMoon13 (Thanks for reviewing! Unfortunately, I can't answer your question, yet, because it's a part of the plot. My answer would be a spoiler ;). But I'll make things clearer in the story, eventually.), monkan (Thanks a lot, once again! :) ), salenastarzz (Oh, thank you so much! Very nice of you ;) ), AntennasToHell (Thanks again! :) ), Guest (Thank you! This is exactly how I like Thor. His manliness makes me dizzy :P).
A/N: Sorry for the delay. I've been playing hockey quite a lot lately, just as I usually do during two weeks before the New Year celebrations. It's a traditional thing for my amateur team every year, but this year we've been playing almost every day, the whole two weeks before the New Year (or even more). Our team has made a lot of enemies ;).
10. The Dark Adventure
~oOo~
Once again, he was on the top floor of the hospital. He had already been downstairs; the ugly wall was still there and didn't let him go any further, so he'd had nothing else left to do other than come back where he had begun, having no clue for the further course of actions.
He decided to go in the other direction, not the one he faced every time he found himself here, not the one where was that double door on the first floor and the staircase that he always used to get to the first floor. It seemed like a stupid decision to take another way, but Thor didn't see any other choice. He had tried so many things already, including trying to go out of the building in order to find another entrance from the outside into the part of the building where he needed to get to. But the entrance doors were locked and he'd failed to open or break the windows on the first floor. It was ridiculous, but he couldn't go outside no matter what he did.
Surprisingly, he reached the end of the corridor. He had never reached the end going in the other, already habitual, direction of this corridor that, like some other corridors here, seemed endless. It was interesting, though he wasn't sure if it was useful. There was a door. When Thor opened it, he saw another staircase. It obviously was the last one, because he was certain he was at the very end of the building. Going down wouldn't have made any sense; he would've just gone through the corridor on the first floor to once again reach the concrete wall that blocked his way. The corridors of the second and third floors seemed endless (he had already tried to reach the other end of the building through them, trying to find a way around the damned wall, but he'd failed), just like here, on the top, fourth floor, so there was no point in going down there, either.
'I'm so sorry, Loki... Looks like I've really failed you.' He sighed tiredly and rolled his eyes... And it was a very fortunate thing to do, because he suddenly saw the slightly rusty ladder that led up to the trap door in the ceiling. Well, going downstairs made no sense. How about going up then? He didn't put much hope in this idea, but, while he was here, he had to check everything.
It took him a few attempts to grab hold of the ladder as he was jumping up to reach it. But he managed to pull it down and climb up to the trap door, which, thank goodness, wasn't locked. Thankfully, this time no keys taken from dead babies, or other unpleasant things, were required of him. Thor found himself in the attic. Basically, there was nothing unusual here. It was very dusty and very empty, not including pipes along the walls and constructions that supported the roof. There were no sources of light other than some holes, mostly very little, but quite numerous, in the rusty roof. Those holes let the pale rays of daylight in, as well as not very numerous dormers, which were just apertures in the lower part of the roof, not blocked by anything at all. It wasn't too much, but it was quite enough for Thor to see the place properly. Strangely, he felt rather safe here in this spacious, moderately murky place, but decided to be careful, nevertheless. Who knew what the creature had in store for him.
He started his way through the attic to the other end of the building. 'Please, please, don't let it be endless...' he thought gravely, but, at the same time, he was inwardly getting ready for another disappointment. All the other floors, except for the bottom one, were endless; or rather they seemed endless, which made no difference, because, either way, he couldn't reach the other end as a result of some anomaly.
On his way he often met the concrete partitions that separated parts of the attic, but they all had doorways, even though there were no doors. Thor secretly sighed in relief almost every time he saw that the partitions weren't whole and the doorways in them weren't blocked. But as he reached the one that had an old, massive door with a padlock, he groaned in frustration. Breaking the door didn't seem possible. He wished he had his sledgehammer now. Fortunately, there were dormers, and there were heavy wooden stairs under each one of them.
Without thinking twice, Thor climbed up and out onto the roof. The dormer was at the very edge of the roof, but thankfully, there was some space in front of it that allowed Thor to step on it and walk away from the edge, hoping that the roof wouldn't break under his weight. It was rusty in many places, but it didn't feel like it was going to break, despite some small holes in it. As Thor made sure he'd found a balance and felt steady on his feet, he let himself stand straight and look around. The afternoon sun was shining down on him, barely warm, somewhat dim and pale, but it definitely felt much more pleasant than being inside of the building. He filled his lungs with clear, cool air, squinting slightly as his eyes were getting accustomed to the light.
He had already seen the surroundings through the dirty windows, but now he could truly admit that the other buildings around this one were more like mirages than actual buildings. They were blurry and... just didn't look very real. The sky was slightly blurry as well. The clouds didn't move. Nothing did... But Thor could feel the pleasantly cool airflow. He inhaled once again and smiled slightly, unable to suppress his joy. It wasn't the best time or place to enjoy anything, but he couldn't help it. Somehow he felt like some kind of a conqueror of heights. He only wished Loki was here with him instead of that cursed place down there. The thoughts of Loki, the fresh, cool air, the open space and the tranquillity gave Thor strength to continue his way. He felt like a lonely adventurer and enjoyed the feeling while he could, knowing that it wouldn't last. Either he would be frustrated by meeting another insuperable obstacle, or too focused on the task at hand and too worried for his brother. For now he felt like he could do just about anything, even if it was nothing but self-deception.
Thor carefully continued his way. The roof was gabled, but the slope of its two sides was rather slight, so Thor didn't worry that he could slide down, however, he kept closer to the central ridge, just in case. He thought about coming back into the attic through the other dormer he came across, but decided against it. If there were other locked doors, he would have to climb up and out again. Plus, from here he could see the end of the building, so there was a good chance that the roof wasn't 'endless' like all those corridors; he couldn't say the same about the attic, though he simply didn't know and didn't want to waste his time trying to find out.
He reached the end of the roof and almost sighed in relief. There were no anomalies so far... Carefully he went down to the nearest dormer, making sure he wouldn't stumble, slip or just lose his balance. It was a four-storey building, but it was pretty high due to the high ceilings, plus the attic, so falling down would be undoubtedly fatal. Still, Thor was considering the possibility of somehow finding a way to climb down on the ground and finding a way to the isolated area from the outside of the building, as he had already planned, but couldn't make it because of the locked doors and windows. He left the idea for the future consideration, in case his current attempt would prove itself futile.
He liked to think that he had some options, even though he had no idea how he would be able to climb down from the roof, unless there was a wall ladder at some external wall of the building. Such ladders usually started at a roof. If this building had any, Thor would have to find it. But, once again, now he had other matters to attend to. Nevertheless, he smiled to himself, thinking that Loki would've approved his foresight. His brother liked having spare plans for most situations; it was his peculiarity.
He made it into the attic again, after looking at the pale sun (it wasn't even bright enough to really hurt his eyes that by now were pretty used to its light) and taking a deep breath of the cool, fresh air one last time, as he didn't know when he would be able to enjoy all these things again.
There was nothing special in this part of the attic, and, fortunately, there was another trap door in the floor. Thor hoped that it wasn't locked. It wasn't, so in good spirits he soon found himself down in another staircase, exactly in the part of the building where he needed to be, on the other side of that concrete wall blocking the way. It was the very last staircase in this end of the hospital. Now he could only hope that there would be no more obstacles on the way, including odd anomalies or other walls. After the freshness of the air outside, the light stench of the smoke that saturated the entire building seemed more acute.
As Thor reached the first floor, he quickly went to the double door, for the first time almost happy to see it, despite Loki's pain in the air. He was glad that nothing had changed since the last time he had been here, so, wasting no time, he went into the room with the dead baby in the jar, purposely refusing to look in her direction, as he was walking towards the door that he had unlocked with the key taken from the tiny, dead hand. He could still feel the nauseating smell of formaldehyde in the air.
The door was still unlocked, so he entered the corridor that was already familiar. He really hoped that this luck would keep accompanying him. Either the monster was playing with him, once again making him waste his time, or it just wasn't powerful enough to really, once and for all, isolate the entire part of the building where it resided. Maybe it didn't know the building well enough to prevent Thor from getting in this cursed part, so it was blocking the ways it knew Thor had already used. Also, sometimes this place changed in unthinkable, illogical ways, as Thor had already had a 'pleasure' to find out, and he wasn't sure that all of it was entirely the creature's work, so it probably couldn't foresee everything. Who knew... Damn, he really wished to understand how the things worked here.
In any case, before more ways here were blocked for him, he had to finish everything as soon as possible. Next time the way he had used today would be, most likely, blocked as well, so he had no right to make a mistake or postpone anything. He had to find the creature and deal with it once and for all, no matter the cost. But what was more important, he had to get Loki out of here. He had promised him that. Loki... Thor couldn't fail him. Just couldn't... 'I'm here. Can you feel me?'
Via his empathy, Thor was trying to locate his brother. He could feel Loki, as usual, but hadn't found where exactly he was so far. Too soon Thor had decided that the place hadn't changed since his last visit. At some point the familiar corridor had almost suddenly changed into something that resembled a basement; long corridors created a real labyrinth, or at least, to Thor it looked like one, because he had no idea where he was and he couldn't tell if he hadn't been in the same places many times before, or it was just another dimensional anomaly. The corridors were dilapidated and the walls dirty, as well as pipes along the walls and some old wires. The light (coming out of nowhere, obviously) was very dim and sometimes Thor could hardly see anything at all.
There were rooms on his way, but they all were small and empty or with some old, useless stuff. The only sound Thor could hear was the sound of his own footsteps, his breathing and dripping of water here and there. He felt uncomfortable and definitely not safe here. His body was tensing instinctively the way it always did before the fight, getting ready for defence and taking unexpected blows. It happened every time he had to turn and couldn't see if there was any danger around a corner. The place was like catacombs, and, though he knew it was just a deception of his hard-working senses, sometimes it felt like the passages were becoming unbearably narrow, pressing in on him and making him feel claustrophobic. Sometimes the noise of his breathing and footsteps sounded almost deafening, unless he really tried to be quiet, because noises he made deprived him of the ability to hear anything else, which could be vital.
Thor just knew he was no longer on the first floor. No, he was under the building, and he had no idea how deep. He wanted to get out of here, but he was lost; really lost. Eventually, he started thinking that he was in a place that no one else knew even existed, and that, if he died here, nobody would even know. He would never be found; neither dead, nor alive.
The place was driving him insane and he never stopped feeling like he was being watched. And then, before he knew it, he entered the part that was completely dark. It shook Thor out of his haziness and he stopped. Making several steps back, he, once again, found himself in the barely illuminated passage. It was odd, because the darkness couldn't start this abruptly. There should've been a gradual transition between the light and the darkness. But there was nothing like that here. He stepped into the complete darkness once again and stepped back, to make sure his own mind wasn't playing tricks on him. Maybe he had finally lost his mind? On the other hand, it wasn't the first strange thing he'd seen here; far from it. There was no labyrinth of the passages any longer, it had been left behind. Now it seemed he had only one way, - forward, into the darkness. He couldn't give up on his Loki, no matter what. Once again, his time here was limited; if he didn't do what had to be done during this time in this damned place, he probably wouldn't have another chance; he just felt it. He knew it. And then Loki would stay forever trapped in here and Thor would go insane from grief. 'No way in hell'. He frowned and decidedly stepped into the darkness.
What happened next was an absolute madness. The mind-blowing, dark emptiness had devoured Thor. He could no longer hear anything at all; not even his own footsteps. He tried to yell, but couldn't hear even that. He could no longer smell the dampness of air or the weak stench of smoke. Everything was gone. Soon his mind was hardly even working. He knew he kept walking forward, but he was sure he'd got lost and there was no end to this odd place, whatever it was. He could hardly feel if there was any floor under his feet. His legs felt feeble; he could hardly feel them at all. Before long the rest of his body felt the same. He forced it to move forward. He wanted to turn back, but he'd absolutely lost the feeling of direction, so he couldn't take a risk. Maybe he wasn't even moving forward or wasn't moving at all. The thought was less than appealing. He really felt like he had stuck in one place and wasn't making any headway at all.
After the sense of direction had left him, the sense of time followed pretty soon. It felt like many hours of futile attempts to move forward. He didn't feel any danger, he didn't feel like someone else was there in the darkness, but it was possible that his instincts had simply left him together with most other senses. And he could no longer feel Loki's presence, which made him feel especially lonely and lost. That connection to Loki had felt like something to hold onto. The loss of it had created the cold, hollow emptiness inside Thor's soul.
He didn't know how much time he had already spent here. Sometimes he felt like he was losing consciousness for he didn't know how long. Sometimes he wondered if he was sleeping or already dead, and then he started wondering if he had ever existed at all. Eventually, he stopped wondering and caring about anything...
A/N: I know it was short and boring and ended too abruptly, but I absolutely wanted to separate this part from the other parts. I'm already writing the next chapter and it'll be much longer. It's a promise.