fandomtownies | The abandoned warehouse district, Saturday evening

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The abandoned warehouse district, Saturday evening

The flea market had been wrapped up, and as twilight fell over Fandom and most folks made their way down the streets to whatever they were up to for the rest of their weekends, peace seemed to descend over the abandoned warehouse district once more. The balloons were floating at half mast or lower now, and most of the fliers had been taken down or pulled down. The abandoned warehouse was returning to its natural, fallow state.

But it is the way of the universe to tend towards chaos and decay. And buildings left fallow were no exception to the rule.

An old wire sparked. The spark caught. A fire started. It spread.

Good thing most people had already left.

[posted early for timezones! OCD is minor and also ready to go. Ping at will!]

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For those still inside as the fire spreads.

[Feel free to mod your own fire as needed! If you didn't sign up in the post last week but still want to get trapped and rescued, just let us know in the OOC thread so we know to send someone after your character!]

For concerned Fandomites to gather and/or rubberneck

For firefighters to coordinate outside the building and anyone who needs to talk to a firefighter and get their attention

Ping here to request a rescuer to a thread in the warehouse or to otherwise get my attention somewhere if I am missing something. I have had . . . kind of a Week, so it's not outside the realm of possibility that I might miss something.

I really hope I didn't, like, space and forget a Very Important Thread at least.

Steph had actually taken the rest of her stuff back up to the store for safekeeping, and then come back to take a look around the warehouse again.

Dude. Maybe I could repurpose one of these for like a rehearsal space? Somewhere I can really jam without worrying about the volume or having to soundproof shit?

She had her headphones on, and was sort of dancing along to the playlist on her phone, so she wasn't really paying much attention to her surroundings. Not until a support beam of some kind came down and toppled a wall panel that came crashing down to trap her in a corner, anyway.

Vi had been doing her girlfriend-slash-employee duties by helping Steph with all that heavy lifting, then hanging around (literally, on the rooftops) while she explored. Which meant that while she realised what was happening sooner, she didn't know exactly where Steph was to drag her out of there before, well, the ping she was replying to happened. "Steph? Steph?"

Things had gone better than Connor had hoped and he only had a few boxes to get loaded back up. But he was in no rush really so it was taking a lot longer than it should.

Cutter was still there so he really wasn't going to complain about having more time just hanging out.... that was until he caught a whiff of something.

"Do... you smell that?"

Cutter did and knew that something wasn’t right, “it smells like smoke,” he realised, trying to see if he could see any flames, “I don’t see any fire though,” he tilted his head.

Connor looked around himself and nodded. "I don't either... You think someone's just burning something outside?"

“Maybe,” Cutter frowned, “we should probably get out of here, just to be on the safe side,”

"Yeah... you're right" Connor said as the smoke smell got much stronger. "Lets get out of here."

He grabbed Cutter's hand and started towards the exit then stopped just before they made it.

"Damnit, my bag! It's in the supply closet still" Connor said as he let go of Cutter's hand like he was about to turn around and head back. "It's got all my gear, the detectors, the tracker, all of it!"

Nell, as usual, was one of the last to leave. She'd packed up what was left of her things - a gratifyingly small amount, then went looking for a broom and dust pan to clean up after herself. And others.

She'd worked her way towards the back when she realized that the comforting wood smokey scent she'd been smelling shouldn't have been here. She wasn't back home with her wood stove after all. She quickly returned the broom and dust pan to the closet in the back and turned only to realize that she was trapped in that area of the building. The fire had sprung up so quickly that it had cut her off from the exits.

Steph had at least had the sense to yank the headphones off as soon as she realized what was happening. This board or sheet of metal, whatever it was, had fallen in such a way as to cut off her escape from the corner... and it was too heavy to move, or wedged against some other piece of debris, or something.

So she could probably be forgiven for how, in all the chaos, it took her a few moments to pick through all the noise and realize someone was calling her name.

"Vi?" she called back, then again with her voice cracking in fear, "Vi! Over here!"

She couldn't move that panel, but maybe if she kicked at it with her heavy boots she'd make enough noise to give away her location?

Edited 2023-03-25 13:30 (UTC)

“Wait I’m coming with you,” Cutter said when he realised that Connor had dropped his hand to go back, “we’ll go back together, it’ll be quicker if we both go back,”

"Steph!"

This was fine. Vi told herself as she followed the banging. It was all fine. Sure the warehouse was on fire and she couldn't see Steph, but she could hear her and it wasn't even that big a fire. Yet.

"Steph, I'm here!" Ignoring the phantom twinge in her shoulder, Vi curled her fingers around the edge of the panel and started pulling. See, it was all going to be fine.

Just fine. Steph certainly hadn't imagined several dozen scenarios where her mom had been trapped in the wreckage of their house just like this or anything.

She choked out a sound that was almost a sob of relief when she saw the panel start to budge and leaned into it with her shoulder to try and push from the inside.

"I don't even get to watch you being badass," she said with a little laugh. It was an attempt to try and lighten the moment just a touch, but it came out shaky at best. "Unfair."

Whew, be careful what you wish for, huh? At least it was away from a residential area, though Fandom had screwed with his head enough to worry about families of raccoons possibly trapped.

And being in a burning warehouse was evoking absolutely no memories for Vi. Mostly because she was focused entirely on moving this panel.

That phantom twinge (it was more than just a twinge) was joined by a very real burn as Vi braced herself and hauled. "Are you hurt? Stuck?"

"I'm fine," Steph called back. "This thing's just got me cornered."

"Good. That's good!" Vi blinked away the images she hadn't been thinking about, and pulled on the panel one final time, dodging to the side as with a groan, shifted and started falling towards her, and more importantly, away from the corner.

Connor nodded and started back with Cutter in tow. And there was definitely a fire somewhere.

"Damnit, it's getting smokey in here now," Connor said when they reached the booth. The air was getting hazy and there was definitely a small of smoke that wasn't just a normal wood fire from somewhere. "Let me just grab the bag..." he said as he opened the closet door and stepped inside looking for the bag.

Cutter’s eyes started watering as the room filled with smoke, he could barely see anything and he could only hear Connor’s voice, “Connor?” he called out, trying not to breathe in the smoke, “is your bag still there? We really shouldn’t stay too long here,”

"Vi, be careful!" Steph yelped, but she could move again, and she bolted out of the corner toward her.

"Let's --" She swallowed, and tried not to think about how all the noise in here didn't sound all that different from torrential winds in the background of a staticky cellular phone call, or think about the photos she'd seen of the wreckage in the wake of the storm. Her chest was tight and her breath starting to come in rapid, shallow gasps. "We need to go."

Steph was going to get absolutely no argument from Vi, who was grabbing for her hand to haul her in close. "Yeah, we do."

Travis's thought process was not dissimilar, lets be real.

At least until he caught sight of the balloons and fliers, anyway.

"Crap," he muttered, then louder, in his 'guess I'm in charge' voice: "Looks like there was an event here today. Priority one is clearing the scene, getting any and all civilians evacuated. Buckley, Diaz, stay as close together as possible, and stay on comms. Probie, you're with me. I'm guessing no one's going to cry if we have to sacrifice the building because we were busy saving lives."

There were only the three of them after all. If Fandom wanted to prioritize real estate in these rare situations, it could train up some volunteers or something.

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The abandoned warehouse district, Saturday evening

Inside the warehouse

Outside the warehouse

Incident Command

OOC

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