🌟🌌Dimension Hoppers [RP Remake]🌌🌟

As you all leave the room, Dead bows dramatically and deeply, as if finishing an elaborate play, a magnum opus of some playwright's life, like the spotlights are on him and him alone and the audience are the souls of the billions dead and now one more. The echoes of his laughter chase you for a while, down the stairs, out the hall, and into the hostile outside.

As you pass the golden gate, you notice, somewhat dimly in the back of your mind and subconscious that there's been some changes to the two and a half golden statues. The hawk has ceased its anger and can summon no more will to fight. The worm is at a loss for words and never will regain them. The third statue that was ripped and rendered has been restored. It's a headless squirrel, dozens of black pins all over. You're sure that if it had a face, it would be screaming.

The outside has not gotten any more hospitable since you last left it. In fact, its probably gotten worse. Augment gives you all a cheery goodbye as you all exit, then slams the door shut behind you. The walkway to the portal is still raised and has not left you, so you follow the steel path to the purple portal, which opens up before you, a gateway to another world. To the Dimension Hoppers HQ.

*Alice enters the portal... Wondering what species is Ato... Why did she tried to kill the group before... *

R4ven looks around at the sudden lack of pain, before silently following the others out.

For once, he is silent. His shoulders are slumped, and his walk is more of a shuffle.

The first thing Clover does upon arrival is supporting herself with a random wall and vomiting on the floor. This goes on for at least 4 minutes.

R4ven watches in a daze as Clover goes on a 4-minute vomiting session. He walks off somewhere shortly after, presumably to sleep or something.

Well, that was interesting, huh?

...

You don't need to answer. I know your answer already. You liked it. That feeling of killing something, even if it was just to survive. The blood, the thrill, the pain you got to see.

No, I didn't... I promise...

Quit lying to yourself. It helps nobody, you know.

I... I can't...

Tch. Fine then, go to sleep. I suppose you'll need it.

Not even bothering to clean herself or the mess she made, Clover makes a beeline for the beds and collapses on the mattress. She tosses and turns for hours without ever managing to actually fall asleep.

Mark is back, evidently having regained consciousness while you were all gone. He opens his mouth, most likely to give one of those pat-on-the-back speeches or congratulations he occasionally does when you return from a successful delivery, but stops himself when you all roll up through the portal looking like death.

He tries to move in to give a gesture of consolation, but is dissuaded from this when Clover decides to empty the contents of their stomach all over the carpet floor. So Mark elects to watch silently by the empty table where the food cooked by Ato has gone, leaving nothing but empty plates and glasses and dirty utensils. As you all funnel in he does a headcount, trying to find out who's missing, and comes up one empty, and realizes that Ato is gone.

Next to him, forever clacking away at a laptop is Sarah, who looks up at Mark with tired eyes and says,

"This was going to happen. The boss was going to kill at least one of them, probably to make an example, or to sate his- I'm sorry, please himself. It's better that it was the quiet one."

"That's a terrible way to think, you know that?"

"I do. We have our own problems to worry about, so until I'm not living on a timer, I couldn't give half a rat's -ss what happens to them, so long as we find that thing that the boss is so interested in."

"Can't you spare the tiniest bit of sympathy for them?"

"No. It won't do anything for them anyway. Won't bring back the dead."

"Still..."

The word hangs in the air as everyone filters on through the room. It goes unsaid, but the two of them know anyway. They wait there for a bit, soaking in the silence as the gears of the machine of the machination of Attica turn, as the invisible sand in the invisible hourglass slowly falls to the bottom, grain by grain. But time waits for no one, and they part again in silence, each doing their part in keeping the machine fed, in keeping the beast moving.

Besides, there'll be more time to mourn after they've done their jobs.

(Raidriar) ... *leaves to go upstairs, leaving a pool of blood on the floor, and he collapses on the floor, clearly passed out from losing all that blood*

Clover barely manages to overhear this, and even then, she can’t make out most of the conversation. This does not help alleviate her insomnia, so she keeps staring at the ceiling.

“…This was all a mistake”, she says to herself under her breath.

She turns her head to look at everyone else and sees Raidriar lying in a pool of blood. She gags again, but manages to contain it all, getting out of bed to try to help him.

"...this is a perfect opportunity to collect a sample from Raidriar... but I'm honestly just as tired after that ordeal..."

*Cyntalia would clean off the mixture of her and Xano's blood (along with secretly keeping a minor amount) to the best of her ability, and collapse onto one of the beds*

"...god, blood is a b*tch to clean up..."

DOC flies over to help and heal Raidriar. Meanwhile, Operator is working on a new drone, named CROSSHAIRS.

Time goes by, and the “night” wears thin. Maybe some of you manage to steal away shreds of rest and actual sleep away from the nightmare of the waking hour, maybe some of you don’t, and are kept awake by the memory of the “delivery”. Regardless, soon comes what can best be described as dawn and daybreak in a place like this.

No loud alarm contraption wakes you from your slumber (or non-slumber), just the weighted silence of the morning weighing down upon you. Time to greet the new day, regardless of if you want to or not.

*she'd wake up, fine despite everything that previously transpired*

"...it's surprisingly calm for this place's standards..."

*she'd collect the blood pouring out*

"...well, the opportunity's there... I'll just take it while that drone's patching him up."