Welcome to Level Five

Participants:

eve_icon.gif

Also featuring:

adam_icon.gif daniel_icon.gif helena_icon.gif sylar_icon.gif

Scene Title Welcome to Level Five
Synopsis Eve dreams a little dream.
Date September 10, 2008

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The smell of death is a distinctive one, but like all smells it is hard to put into words. It disgusts, repels, and anyone who has smelled it once will know it again immediately. For many of the people in New York City, of which Eve Mas is one, it is a constant companion — an old friend. But when the young woman steps into the tunnel, the odor that floods into her nostrils is neither the stench of decay of decaying flesh nor the stale smell associated with old, dusty bones.

It's fresh.

Overhead, the tunnel's lights crackle and pop, sending brilliant blue arcs of electricity singing through the air. A metal walkway, slick with dark liquid, stretches out into the darkness. Although there is no clear indication of where it might lead, a lone voice cries softly in the distance and a faint glow seeping up through the walkway's floor illuminates a blood-spattered sign on the wall.

WELCOME TO LEVEL 5.

Heels click on the floor as Eve walks, she looks behind her shoulder a few times moving forward little by little. "Hello?" she calls and her voice echoes and as she enters the tunnel the smell hits her. She covers her nose and her eyes widen at what she sees. She shakes her head.

Bodies litter the ground and the dark liquid, that's blood. She slips a little but doesn't fall. The bodies have various wounds all over them and Eve closes her eyes and then opens them up again she has seen dead bodies before but these unnerve her more than any corpse ever has. Quickly walking through the tunnel and coming out to another part of Level 5. "Can anybody hear me?" she calls again and continues to move forward.

The poor light of the tunnel makes it difficult for Eve to identify any of the corpses that she finds along the way, but most of them are in uniform. The only exception is a mangled body at the very end of the walkway, bent in half and draped across a nearby railing like a child's marionette — its strings cut. Even though the face has been crushed in, there's no mistaking the mask it wears.

Daniel.

A few feet away, where the tunnel ends and whitewashed hallway begins, lies Helena. Unlike Daniel, she's still alive — if only barely. Her eyes, already beginning to glass over, stare up at Eve as her pale hands grasp feebly at metal rod protruding from her stomach. With great effort, her mouth opens and closes, as if trying to call out to the other woman.

No sound comes out.

The seer's mouth drops and she covers it with her hands. "Oh no.. not Daniel." She starts to walk towards the man but then backs away. Her eyes then fall on Helena and she falls flat on her butt. Her eyes are wide and she shakes her head over and over again. As Helena takes her last breath, Eve screams but it is muffled because of her hand. Using the wall to stand once again Eve steps over Helena's body and tears fall down her face. Her black dress is now covered in blood. Her eyes dart back and forth and she is really afraid.

Up ahead, the lights flicker and Eve sees a shape go by fast. Stopping she throws herself flat against the wall panting, once she is sure the shadow figure isn't coming to her she leaves the wall and continues to walk, now rather quickly, down the hall.

She turns a corner and stops dead.

When Eve rounds the corner, she finds herself face-to-face with another gruesome scene. Propped up against the closest well is another corpse, this one dressed in what appears to be feudal Japanese armor. The only things missing are its head and its sword, the former of which sits neatly at its feet with the top of its skull sliced clean off. Before she has the opportunity to react, a hand clamps down on her shoulder and spins her around, slamming her into the wall with enough force to knock the breath from her lungs.

It's a man, tall and dark, his face smeared with streaks of sweat and blood that plaster his hair to his forehead and make him look even more deranged than he already is. His hand fits easily around Eve's throat, and he heaves her high into the air, leaving her legs to dangle helplessly, the tips of her toes several feet above the ground.

"Do you know who I am?" he asks.

Eve chokes and grasps at the hands holding her up against the wall. She kicks her feet trying to get down. Her head shakes and her eyes grow wide in fear. The poor light in the corridor makes it hard to make out the face but Eve has the feeling that she doesn't know who the man is. "Please? let me go!" she gasps and her hair falls into her face. Still kicking and trying to get free.

The edge of a bladed weapon glimmers in the light, which might explain where the armored corpse's sword went. "All of you are the same," the dark man murmurs, his grip on Eves throat steadily tightening, "you beg and you plead, you cry and you wail — it’s pathetic."

"Let me the fuck go!" Eve swings at the man's head and her eyes narrow, if this is the man responsible for the death of her friends she isn't going to let him get away with it. She tries her hardest to fight him off and get down. Her hair flies into her face and she bares her teeth as the man tightens his grip on her neck.

Eve's efforts to free herself are not entirely in vain. Her nails leave angry red welts on the man's cheek and, with a snarl, he whips his head away from her.

"You stupid bitch!"

In one smooth motion, the man brings his other arm up and swiftly drives the point of the sword through Eves chest, piercing her heart. For several long moments, he holds it there before he lets her body begin to slide down the length of the blade. The last thing she sees are the marks on his cheek beginning to disappear as a new layer of flesh creeps across the gouges…

"My name," he hisses through his teeth, "is Sylar." And then—

—and then she wakes up.

A scream fills Eve's apartment and would probably be heard by other people too if they were awake. She holds her hands over her neck as she wakes and her eyes are wide and almost bugging out of their sockets. She continues to scream and scrambles out of the bed and into the wall making a loud thud. Her hands leave her throat and she puts them into her hair. Abruptly the screaming stops and she just stares across the room.

Tick-tock-tick-tock…


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September 10th: Fairies, Dwarves, And Ice Queen
Previously in this storyline…
Even Spidey is Gray

Next in this storyline…
What Would Daniel Do?

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September 10th: What Would Daniel Do?
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