Bloody Little Present

Who: Zania and D
When: Early Morning
Where: 2nd Floor

Zania was still awake when the knocking came at her door, her eyes having been glued to her monitor all night. The tall man in the checkered mask terrified her, and she was convinced that he'd be in her room the second she fell asleep. Her bathroom and closet door were still available, and until she had those taken care of, anyone could get in. All they needed was a chance. She'd been so busy keeping up with him that she didn't have a chance to try and see who might be outside her door, though now that she thought about it, a horrible squealing was coming from that direction as well. The cameras did little to help show her what might be making up, though they did show a box that hadn't been there moments before... at least, she hadn't seen it. If the noise wasn't coming from the box, it could have been there for hours, but Zania was betting that wasn't the case. A sweep of the second floor using the cameras showed that no one else was around, and the creepy doctor, if that's what he was, was busy with Hannah and Cortez. Slowly climbing off her bed, Zania made her way to the door and opened it slowly. Now she knew the noise was coming from the box, though she didn't want to open it. Somehow she knew this would be worse than the chicken.

D was actually awake at a stupidly early hour. Awake being that he hadn't really gone to sleep. After the rampant bullshit meeting, he'd hung around and watched the cameras almost all night. It was hypnotizing, in a way, watching people do their thing. He smoked a bowl and just zoned out for a while. ... Until the creepy shit started happening again. Dudes in masks, the little girl again ... fucked up shit that he wasn't really sure he was really seeing. He frowned and watched with concentration as the check-faced dude showed up in the room that Hannah was staying in and ... sniffed her? What the fuck? He switched views and spotted something move near a familiar corner. That was his floor. "Aw, fuck you, muthafucker," he muttered, and shoved back from the desk. D burst out of his room and looked in the direction of the three rooms that were sort of separated from the rest. Nothing there but ... Zania, that was her name. And what the bloody fuck was that noise? He scowled down at the box in front of her door. That seemed to be where it was coming from.

Another noise on her floor and Zania looked up from the box, panicked, afraid it might be the masked giant coming out of someone's room. Fortunately it wasn't, just D, having come out at this un-Godly hour for who knew what reason. Zania blinked at him, then looked down at the box again. The squealing seemed louder now, or was she just more awake? "There's something dying in there," she said, eyes suddenly drawn to the corner of the box, soaked in blood. The ribbon, tied around it, showed the same stains.

It sure as hell sounded like it. The box was sort of moving, and he thought he heard some scrabbling around. There was definitely a high-pitched inhuman noise coming from it, though, unlike anything he'd ever heard before. D's jaw set and he strode forward, leaving his room behind to head for her's. He remembered the snake incident very clearly, and hoped whatever the fuck this was, it wasn't poisonous. He luckily still had his Timbalands on, and he used one toe of the boot to slide the box further away from her. It left a red streak on the carpet. The something inside moved more. This was gonna be shitty. D crouched over the box and tugged on the ribbon to untie it.

Though Zania had not asked for his help, she was glad D was there. If anything, it confirmed that this wasn't all in her head, as some of it seemed to be. Sometimes she couldn't tell. "Someone nailed a chicken to my door yesterday," Zania said, watching him toe the box with a look of distaste. It wasn't him, but the contents of the box that earned such a look. "It was still alive, but had a nail through it's feet." She knew this must be worse. It had to be worse. "Maybe we should just... throw it out." Zania was thinking the window would be good, though that would mean someone could find it later.

He made his own face, glancing up at her. A live chicken to the door. Fuckin' sick. Whatever this was, it was still alive too. Which made him very much want to not open the box, but he was going to do it anyway. He started to lift the lid, angled where she couldn't see very well, and tilted his head as he peered in. The skinned rabbit, startled by the sudden light, and crazed with pain, flipped out. The box jerked and flipped over onto it's side, and the bloody mess of a creature bolted out of it, running for it's life that wasn't going to be saved. D made a short bark of a noise and jerked backwards.

She didn't mean to scream, but she hadn't been expecting anything to jump out either. It was a short little scream, a curse in Italian actually, and it had her tripping backwards as her eyes grew as big as saucers. She could not have identified the creature as a rabbit if her life depended on it. All she could do was stare as it ran and hide, as if that would save it, and when she finally found it in her to speak again, she didn't know what to say. "Do you think we need to catch it?" she asked, cringing. If it died, or when it died, it was going to rot... yet chasing down the bloody half-dead rabbit corpse didn't seem like a good way to start her day.

"Fuck naw," he said, sounding pissed off at the whole situation. Which was pretty accurate, 'cause that was fucked up. He thought maybe it was a gopher or some shit; D wasn't really up on his animals. He stood up again and kicked the box all the way over. Well ... there was it's fur. "Sick shit, man," he muttered. "Let it die, somebody'll find it. Or the invisible maids or whatever'll clean it up, I don' give a shit." Hell, he didn't even want to clean the box up. So ... he just wasn't going to. Wasn't his gift. Just a fucked up skinned rabbit-thing.

Zania was fully and completely with him on this one. Chasing down dead animals was not for her. She looked down at the pelt, her stomach flipping a bit in disgust. "I can't do it," she said, shaking her head. The most she could do was scoop the fur back into the box using the box itself. No way in hell was she touching it. "You didn't happen to see anyone near my room, did you?" she asked, hopeful. She really wanted some kind of lead here. Course, there were two people she should go ahead and report to Lina, now that she knew who they were. It might not get her anywhere, but she'd figured out who'd seen her in the library that day. They were the only two besides Dorian that knew for sure about the box.

"I saw somethin' move, but I thought it mighta been that lil girl," he said, tossing a belated glance around them. There didn't seem to be anybody in earshot or even awake, even with all the noise they'd been making. "But naw, nobody really." He watched her move the box around a bit with a look of distaste on his face. This place just got more and more fucked up, every goddamn day. D wanted to go back to bed, honest to god. For the rest of the fucking year. Why did they think some kind of alarm system was going to work or anything with shit like this going on? He made a disgusted exhaling sound and rubbed a hand over his braids.

"Fuck," Zania sighed, kicking the box lightly as she rubbed a hand over her eye. It would have been so nice if he'd seen. Then she could get rid of at least one form of paranoia, at least for a bit. "I've been getting these things every damn day. And now it's just getting worse. This is bullshit." And it would leave a mess, at that. She'd been so tired lately, and it was really starting to catch up with her. She hadn't had a good night's sleep since getting camera access, it felt like. "Thanks for helping me with it," she said, feeling a touch bad that she'd exposed him to one more thing to be disgusted by. "If you see anyone at my door... let me know?"

D shrugged a shoulder at the thanks, and nodded. He didn't feel good about any of this, and was highly aware that he could be a target just as easily as little redhead whitegirl could, most likely. Maybe he'd succeeded in keeping his head mostly down so far. Maybe. "You see the crazy bullshit goin' on now?" he asked, upnodding to her door. The cameras had become something of a fixation for him, too, which was why he was up as stupidly early as he was. Maybe he'd take dude up on putting all the locks on his door, 'cause at the moment he felt kind of exposed even out in the goddamn hallway.

"You mean the people that come at night?" Zania asked, keeping her voice low. It was the things that appeared on the cameras at night that had her spooked, unable to sleep at all. "I need to see if Dan or Adam will put bars on my bathroom and closet door. I'm sure they'll think I'm crazy, but the idea of people coming in while I'm sleeping has me.. not." At least when she could help it, she wasn't. "And that little girl," Zania said, frowning. "She shouldn't be here. We have to get her out." How, she didn't know, but it had to happen before things got worse. Could they get worse?

He looked at her sideways, then shook his head. "Ain' no gettin' her out," he said, tone a bit derisive. He continually didn't understand why people thought they had an actual influence here. Like they could make a difference. "You cain't catch her, and even if y'did? Where y'gonna take her? She jus' be back. She workin' for them or some shit, an' yeah, that's fucked up beyond tellin', but ain' shit nobody's gonna do about it." Just like all the rest of the fucked up shit that was going on. There was nothing they could do but watch. That was the whole fucking point. With a frustrated noise, he kicked the box a lot harder than she did, sending it bouncing down the hallway.

She knew he was right. She didn't like it, but she knew it, and her expression said so, mouth curving down into a frown. "It's all fucked up," she said, watching the box bounce down the hallways. "Queens popping into rooms, leaving little hearts behind. People getting drugged. Horse masked guys sneaking in through doors I can't find. They could be in my room the moment I fall asleep. They could do anything, once they drug us. And they've even gotten a child to help them... She shouldn't be here..." Had she already said that? Exhaustion was kicking in, now that her 'present' had been opened. "I hope they get rid of the animal corpse for us. It's gonna smell when it rots."

In D's humble opinion? She should be more concerned with the violence that was going on than the creepy shit the scientists had been sending around. It seemed tailor-made for the people with cameras anyway, as the figures hadn't actually done anything that he'd seen to the people they 'visited'. It was just happening to fuck with their heads, and it seemed to be working on this chick. Whatever, not his problem. "Somebody'll find it, ain't important," he repeated. Then made a sound that was half-chuckle half-snort. "My nigga ass is goin' t'bed. Fuck this noise."

Though she couldn't care as little as D did, she could still be amused by his response. Somebody would find it, and would likely freak out about it. That might be amusing to watch over the cameras, but it would do little to stop her from receiving a similar gift the next day. Perhaps it was time to report this to Lina again, even if she was pretty sure the house authority could do nothing to stop it. "Sleep well," Zania said, retreating towards her room. She might nod off to sleep herself, just as soon as dawn came, when the house became a little less creepy.

He didn't reply verbally, just waved a hand over his shoulder as he ambled back to his room. That had been a fun rush of adrenaline, now it was time to pack down a bowl and see if he could actually sleep. After he locked his door and shoved something heavy in front of it.