they should really label these things before handing them out [closed]

[a_minute_younger]

WHO| Gary Epps and Kousuke Nitou
WHAT| Gary is in bad shape and Nitou decides to fix him up with an unmarked syringe he found. It's probably medicine! Probably.
WHEN| Week one, Wednesday night (12/17)
WHERE| Outside the science labs
WARNINGS| death, chemical poisoning, the usual

Gary's had a bit of a rough week and a half.

The numbness and energy his returned abilities provide can only do so much. He's gone for hours before, walking around on sprained ankles and sliced legs, running purely on adrenaline; he has never gone a full week, and that week would not normally consist of constant sprinting, hiding without sleep, or a diet consisting solely of cake and water. He also didn't plan for the gravity to cut off for two days, throwing him mid-step and mid-jump into walls and aggravating already crippling injuries. By Wednesday, Gary decides that he needs a break.

It's while he's curled up against a dark wall leading to the science labs that an ominous green gas starts wafting through the vents overhead. Gary is dozing, more unconscious than asleep, so he doesn't notice until he's already taken in several deep lungfuls of it. He wakes up when he realizes that he can't breathe.

Within seconds Gary is up and blindly staggering down the hall, wheezing and gaping, trying desperately to find a way out of this haze. Or at the very least, find someone who can help him get out of it.

Comments

[a_minute_younger]

This is a pretty good distraction from the numbness creeping up the back of Gary's neck and settling in his chest. It is...it's getting really, really hard to breathe, actually. But maybe he's just feeling especially sluggish from the medicine and the presence of his friend is lulling him to sleep. Yes, that sounds nice. Sleeping. Gary could do with a good sleep. His eyelids threaten to drift closed.

"...Neat." Hard to breathe, hard to talk. Gary's voice is a hoarse, burbling whisper, spoken through a smile. He's got to be so high right now, he thinks. "He'll...look after us...right?"

[infinitemayonnaise]

"He'll, uh..." Nitou gives a nervous laugh. Gary looks so sad there, he doesn't want to say that no, actually, Chimera would probably eat them both if Nitou died and let him loose. "Yeah, sure. He'll watch out for us. He's a cool dude." The hoarseness of the whisper worries him. "You sure you're feeling better?"

[a_minute_younger]

"...Good." That's an indirect answer and Gary is making no attempts to clarify. Good that Chimera will look after them? He's feeling good? We may never know. There's an attempt at a weak thumbs-up, a sluggish grin, then his eyes flutter closed and he seems to drift off.

A few seconds later his breathing slows to a stop. Gary recognizes this after a slight delay--his chest convulses and his eyes fly open in panic, his neck arcs in an attempt to struggle, to claw at his spasming throat, but his arms won't listen, nothing will. It takes a bit longer for the neurotoxin to kill enough nerves so he stops moving entirely.

A full minute later, the siren blares.

[infinitemayonnaise]

That sudden convulsion and the way Gary's eyes suddenly open startles Nitou, to say the least. He jumps back, then rushes back towards Gary. "Gary? Gary!" He's shaking his friend, trying to shake him out of it, to do something, and then...

...then the siren goes off. Nitou slumps back and away from the body, freezing there in the sudden horrible realization of what he's done. Did he...did he just kill someone? Did he just kill his friend? He scrambles farther and farther away from the corpse--he made Gary into a corpse, why is this happening?--and takes off into a run.