Lightbulbs

Madison had been up there since sunset. She prepared something, her hands practically moving on her own, absent-mindely plugging in lanterns to outlets, putting nightlights to extension chords grappled to the generator wall. There were lightbulbs, a dozen, packed into containers of 4, ripped free in a cardboard carnage, screwed into squeaky light sources. Some of them seemed old. What if they went out? Heh heh, what if they went out and she died?
By the time the sun set, Madison sat on the crate, a crate that was there when she came up, surrounded by a glow of light, a pseudo-circular barrier. She watched creatures wiggle and shake to life, contort in splotches and blotches, weave between reality and the myth of her eyesight. And her finger rested in the switch of the lamp beside her. The creatures walked up to the wall that separated them. She smiled and flirted with the idea of removing the wall.

There was a crutch under one arm, a sling cradling the other, and a large medical boot stuffing her foot. A splint was around her wrist and bandages were wrapped around her chest tightly and even more bounded every nook and cranny of her arms and legs, covered up only by the long sleeves of her shirt and pants. Her battered hat rested on her head loosely, almost threatening to fall off at every moment. Bruises had swollen up throughout her body, but hey, at least her face only had a long scratch on it, only a dim rosy pink showing as it started transitioning into a scar.

With each and every step, the metal clanked and screeched as it smacked down on the paved concrete, blue eyes following the path that the small amounts of light the school provided for them once night came from the streetlamps. Each shine was poor, faded out, and filtering an odd shade of orange rather than the usual white and yellow. The schoolyard was empty, but only some time ago, it was filled with cicadas storming the skies and students stampeding in and out. It was only some time ago that she had received these injuries that rendered her useless and practically ravaged a quarter of the school grounds. As quickly as they fixed it, Nicola couldn't help but keep thinking. What went wrong in that fight? That couldn't be... There wasn't any plausible answer. And she hated that.

As she stumbled her way back to the dorms, twinkling lights from the rooftop caught her eyes, surrounding the area in an almost ritual-like state, as if someone had blown candles to try and summon some mythical creature of some sort. Wasn't it already decently bright up there? They even had natural moonlight, so... why? A grim smile stretched across her features as her foot turned around and she changed her direction. Curiosity drove her up, fighting whatever stupid nuances her body told her, trying to get her to stop with this foolishness. It wasn't an easy task, and Nicola practically limped all the way up the stairway without so much as a huff of air.

And then she saw who it was.

"Madison...?" That would explain the lights. Her gift sounded cruel and unfair; something she couldn't necessarily control. At least, that's what Nicola had concluded. Hallucinations were only the trick of the mind, and that could only mean the dark-haired girl couldn't stop that from happening. A power that manifested what she saw and those things trying to kill her every single night. No wonder she was so reserved.

Madison's head whipped to the staircase, and suddenly there was Nicola, there was her, the girl with the demon that almost entered her mind. She looked away at the time, but Madison still tensed up at the sight of her acquaintance. It was as if she brought the demon along. It was as if Nicola was the demon.

"Oh, hey..." Her voice was a little distant, out there, controlled half by her and half by the wind it fluttered on, like a pinwheel in a steppe. A man stood next to Nicola, touching her on the shoulder, then immediately on the leg, to the other shoulder, to his own face, he held a pinwheel, he held a lightbulb, he held a knife. "I wanted to see the night." She looked up at the moon, feeling as if she could touch it, an open night sky. She put out her hand, into the ocean of stars. An owl swooped down with purple claws. It slashed at her finger with its dancing talons. It drew blood. Madison sucked on her finger, seemingly unflinching toward what happened. "I'm kinda stuck. W-well, I guess I could take the lamp with me if I had to..."

"Isn't that dangerous for you, though?"

A small frown stretched across her features, and she glanced to the side, towards the giant barrier of light. Nicola shrugged, only to wince as a shot of pain came through. Really? No simple movements either? That stupid, fucking demon. She readjusted her crutch, her eyes turning back to Madison. Stuck? There was enough light around the area, wasn't there? "I can't really help you, here," she said with a small sigh, all of her focus on the medical boot that was shoved onto her leg, trying to shake it off. It was so uncomfortably, tight, and stiff. She couldn't do anything with this thing on. "There is a lamp by you, right?"

"Yeah." She looked out in front of her, not at Nicola, but at the deepest part of the darkness, where the rooftop stretched furthest. A snake with the head of a flamingo coiled around a transformer. She smiled a drunk smile. "I could walk out there, though. You know, I can do it. It would be fun." She hopped up, and walked over to the furthest extent of the light, where an apelike woman with broad shoulders and a huge sunhat stood. She jabbed a machete-sized claw at Madison, which just missed her throat, her stomach, her chest; the woman tried everywhere with no luck. Madison kept sucking on her index finger, the one that was cut.

Nicola bit her lip, watching the Madison move from where she was without even a second thought, straight into the void bleak, desolate abyss. She nervously smiled. There seriously wasn't any possible way she could do something useful here - did the the other girl even know she was doing something completely dangerous for her power? Was she fucking drunk? Turned to alcohol after nearly seeing an actual demon? Endless possibilities and she couldn't come to any kind of conclusion. Nothing came to mind; it was too vague, too unclear to figure anything out. She needed more clues, hints, puzzles, anything. She needed to get an answer to this. "Madison, isn't that a really bad idea?" Nicola started, half-wishing she could wring her hands together right now, the other half expecting to see the dark-haired girl completely die and all of the hallucinations springing to life around to start a massacre. "You're going to get killed if you aren't careful, right?"

"Yeah..." She seemed a little distant, as if she was half listening. Madison frowned at the woman jabbing at her, and spun, walking back into the light, but not too far. "I guess you're right. I would kill you too." She smiled at her feet, stretching out her legs. "I guess I'm stuck here 'till dawn." The snake creature had begun coiling itself around the light's outer reaches. That's when Madison saw it, a silver sword shimmering from the snake's skin, jutting from a certain part, as if someone stabbed it. She jumped up a second time, and walked over to the sword. She inspected it. It looked really sharp, glistening the color of the moon itself.

A hand reached out towards Madison, but she was way too far that it wouldn't be of any use. Nicola only grumbled under her breath, frustrated at her inability to do anything. She couldn't even grab the lantern and pass it on, and she had to just watch as someone pranced around and taunted death until the bitter end. An inaudible sigh passed through her lips, swinging her foot forward as she closed the distance between her and a lantern laying on its side not too far off. Using one crutch, Nicola tried to grab it at the very end, to get a hook on it. But it wouldn't work. That was a stupid idea. "Out of curiosity, why didn't you bring a lantern with you before you left the safety zone?" She tried to make it sound a bit like a joke, though that probably didn't work. It was a kind of serious situation. If the staff came up here and saw two severed bodies and pools of blood splattering the ground... Let's not think about that, actually. All she needed to know was that it would make for a very grim sight.

Madison didn't answer. She wasn't really paying attention, more focused on the sword in the snake. It looked so lifelike, so sharp; it was hard to believe that that was in her mind. Everything usually seemed so squiggly and odd, but this...this seemed real.The scales it penetrated pulsed as Madison put a hand up to it. Her hand extended from the light and into the darkness, where she touched the hilt of the sword. The snake tensed, but didn't make any movements. In fact, it was too still...

Nicola's frown stretched further as she didn't get a response, not even an utter or sound. Was Madison speaking too softly or was it because her lips didn't move to say anything? Blue eyes watched the entire scene unfold in front of her. Everything started out somewhat normal, but there was a growing intensity filling the air, and before she could say anything, she saw fingers shoot up to reach something, and she stared with wide, uncomprehending eyes as she slowly drew the pieces together. Darkness... light... hallucinations... gift. Shit. A shaky breath left her throat, shadows practically dancing around Madison's fists, light fighting against it, trying to ward it away. Nicola took a step forward, partially out of curiosity, the other because she knew this wasn't going to end well.

An icy chill ran down her body, her hands curling into fists as best as they could in her condition. She wanted to kick something, to lunge forward to stop her, to just do something that would be of some kind of use. Instead, she let out a strangled, frustrated breath, only staring as the words subconsciously spilled out of her mouth: "You idiot."

"You fucking idiot."

Still no response. Madison drew back a quivering hand, back into the light. With it came a blade, revealing itself as she recoiled, a silver blade sharp as was possible. It glinted in its new reality. Madison smiled feebly at it. "Sorry, what was that...? She held it shakily with both of her hands. "I haven't done that in a while...you know."

She looked back into the darkness and flinched. The snake's flamingo head looked at her with burning eyes. How did it get like that so quickly...? Oh well.

The frown on her face only deepened as she saw the gleam shining from the object in Madison's hand, that silver flash of light. What was that? That was the question she should be asking her. She just pulled a fucking knife from thin air and that's the first thing she wanted to say? Nicola only shook her head with an exasperated sigh, conceding defeat. Grabbing hallucinations and translating them to reality - who the hell came up with all of those gift? A terse 'tsk' bubbled out from her throat, and Nicola turned away, trying to quell the frustration in her head with each passing moment. Madison had seemed like a normal, decent person; but here, she seemed like she was completely drunk or under the influence of some kind of drug. It was like the difference between night and day - they were similar to some extent, but different in every way possible. Limping over and away from the circle of light, Nicola held a sharp look in her eyes, "Never mind what I said. If you haven't done that in awhile, then why now? Your hallucinations can kill you."

"Well, it's not every day they present me with such a shiny sword..." She studied the blade for a little while longer, before looking up at Nicola. It took her a little while to actually speak, but it seemed that taking the sword released her from her delirious stupor. "Um..." Madison gave a curved glance to the door Nicola came from. "Are there lights behind that door? I never bothered to...um...check."

"And you plan to go around and kill other people with it..." Nicola mumbled under her breath, a caustic tone creeping its way and lacing around her voice. Reckless was the only word she could think of using to describe Madison during the current time. It took her mind a few moments to process that she had asked something, but Nicola blinked, turning her head back to the stairway she had forcibly made herself travel up towards. Lights? "Yeah, the hallways in this building always seem to have the lights on. Maybe for the custodian or whatever," she started half-heartedly, trying to rip apart the situation and analyze it bit by bit. "Or maybe because staff is still moving around at this time. Not sure why."

Madison looked over her blade, tracing her finger along it. She stopped when an inkling of blood materialized over her finger, but kept looking at it, at the red on synthesized steel. Her mouth held slightly agape, even when she didn't speak. "Can you open it, please...? The door, I mean..."