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Lost in the Lost and Found part 2
Aug. 22nd, 2015 08:59 pmEvery hour, Ward tries to get in contact with someone (anyone... except Barton) at SHIELD. It's a risk, definitely, with a high-level agent clearly gone off the rails.
But this place...
Ward has been in crazy, inexplicable, illogical places before. There are labyrinths under some European cities that you could disappear into and never be seen again There are some mansions with architecture clearly more influenced by money and whim than good sense or stability. There are ruins buried and forgotten with secrets that have to be discovered by trial and error, since those who knew their secrets are long dead.
Somehow, whoever designed this place learned about all of those other places and decided to out-do them all, all at once.
So every hour Ward stops, settles his pack on the ground, and activates his SHIELD-issue tracker and his phone... and hopes. He calls everyone he can think of, every number that's stored into his phone, every number he has punched in to hear a friendly voice over the years. He tries for five minutes, not allowing himself to linger longer, making sure the phone and tracker are completely off before tucking them away again, shouldering his pack, and marching on.
It's been three days, and his phone battery is beginning to get worrying low. The tracker, he knows, will last markedly longer... but without someone looking for it, it's a bit useless.
Ward, currently making his way through what appears to be a gothic castle painted in colors preferred by the five-and-under demographic with wall that make disturbing squishy noises when brushed, pauses for his hourly check-in, grabbing one of the dwindling number of granola bars out of his pack while he does so.
The call doesn't connect. He's stopped being surprised.
Damn alien bars.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
His phone is dead. He briefly thought about smashing it when it finally failed to turn back on - he hasn't seen an electrical plug since he got into this mess, and he doesn't have a charger anyhow... but instead he just sighed, and tucked it away into a deeper pocket of the pack, out of the way.
It's... grim. His food and water stores are starting to get depressingly low, even with strict rationing. Since that first room, he hasn't seen any sources of food or water... and he took everything he could lay hands on there.
He tries not to think about it. It's not as if worrying about the situation will actually make it better. At least he can cover more ground now that he isn't stopping every hour. He also tries not to think about how he could be going in circles, or further away from a way out, or that there isn't actually a way out.
He doesn't think the latter scenario is very likely - this seems an almost stupidly elaborate way to kill someone. If that was the goal, he should have been left with Barton. His odds hadn't been great in that fight.
The floor of what looks like a long-abandoned Victorian house creaks under his boots. There has to be something organic nearby - there's enough flies to keep a legion of spiders busy, forcing him to bat away webs as he walks. He has been trudging down this particular hallway for what feels like most of the day - every few hours he reaches a door, but it only seems to lead to another hallway much like the one before.
And then... something different. There is another wall, with another door, that is exactly the same. However, the door is only a few feet tall. This could be the end. If the hallways are getting smaller, the quarters more cramped, there's only so far he can follow this trend before he just won't be able to make it further. The thought of backtracking puts a knot in his stomach.
Cautiously, he opens the door.
The space on the other side is... colorful. Vibrant. Technicolor-bright to the point of being painful. Cautiously Ward squeezes through the tiny doorway. Despite the unnatural coloring, he appears to be outside, the sky a flawless crayola-saturated blue. He's... well. If he had to guess, he'd say this is a movie set, a town square for one of those fantasy things where everyone's short and bizarrely cute. There doesn't appear to be anyone about, the silence ringing, his steps on the cobble stones unnaturally loud in the quiet. There is an enormous fountain five steps away, and he stumbles to it, reminding himself that he has to filter his water before drinking it, no matter how much he just wants to bury his head under the water and drink until he's sick.
Things are looking up.
But this place...
Ward has been in crazy, inexplicable, illogical places before. There are labyrinths under some European cities that you could disappear into and never be seen again There are some mansions with architecture clearly more influenced by money and whim than good sense or stability. There are ruins buried and forgotten with secrets that have to be discovered by trial and error, since those who knew their secrets are long dead.
Somehow, whoever designed this place learned about all of those other places and decided to out-do them all, all at once.
So every hour Ward stops, settles his pack on the ground, and activates his SHIELD-issue tracker and his phone... and hopes. He calls everyone he can think of, every number that's stored into his phone, every number he has punched in to hear a friendly voice over the years. He tries for five minutes, not allowing himself to linger longer, making sure the phone and tracker are completely off before tucking them away again, shouldering his pack, and marching on.
It's been three days, and his phone battery is beginning to get worrying low. The tracker, he knows, will last markedly longer... but without someone looking for it, it's a bit useless.
Ward, currently making his way through what appears to be a gothic castle painted in colors preferred by the five-and-under demographic with wall that make disturbing squishy noises when brushed, pauses for his hourly check-in, grabbing one of the dwindling number of granola bars out of his pack while he does so.
The call doesn't connect. He's stopped being surprised.
Damn alien bars.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
His phone is dead. He briefly thought about smashing it when it finally failed to turn back on - he hasn't seen an electrical plug since he got into this mess, and he doesn't have a charger anyhow... but instead he just sighed, and tucked it away into a deeper pocket of the pack, out of the way.
It's... grim. His food and water stores are starting to get depressingly low, even with strict rationing. Since that first room, he hasn't seen any sources of food or water... and he took everything he could lay hands on there.
He tries not to think about it. It's not as if worrying about the situation will actually make it better. At least he can cover more ground now that he isn't stopping every hour. He also tries not to think about how he could be going in circles, or further away from a way out, or that there isn't actually a way out.
He doesn't think the latter scenario is very likely - this seems an almost stupidly elaborate way to kill someone. If that was the goal, he should have been left with Barton. His odds hadn't been great in that fight.
The floor of what looks like a long-abandoned Victorian house creaks under his boots. There has to be something organic nearby - there's enough flies to keep a legion of spiders busy, forcing him to bat away webs as he walks. He has been trudging down this particular hallway for what feels like most of the day - every few hours he reaches a door, but it only seems to lead to another hallway much like the one before.
And then... something different. There is another wall, with another door, that is exactly the same. However, the door is only a few feet tall. This could be the end. If the hallways are getting smaller, the quarters more cramped, there's only so far he can follow this trend before he just won't be able to make it further. The thought of backtracking puts a knot in his stomach.
Cautiously, he opens the door.
The space on the other side is... colorful. Vibrant. Technicolor-bright to the point of being painful. Cautiously Ward squeezes through the tiny doorway. Despite the unnatural coloring, he appears to be outside, the sky a flawless crayola-saturated blue. He's... well. If he had to guess, he'd say this is a movie set, a town square for one of those fantasy things where everyone's short and bizarrely cute. There doesn't appear to be anyone about, the silence ringing, his steps on the cobble stones unnaturally loud in the quiet. There is an enormous fountain five steps away, and he stumbles to it, reminding himself that he has to filter his water before drinking it, no matter how much he just wants to bury his head under the water and drink until he's sick.
Things are looking up.
