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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rune" data-source="post: 152131" data-attributes="member: 67">12 April, 2002 Session.  Part 3Downstairs, all of the doors are chained and padlocked.  That is unusual.  All of the windows are barred.  That is very unusual!  Mike, Anthony, and Kelly attempt various methods of breaking through the doors.  One such attempt—when they try to lift a stone bench from the hallway and smash through a door—results in the shearing away of each of the three’s fingernails.  That is when Rune gets away.  Rune knows of a trap door in the front of the building, beneath the carpet.  No one is sure where it leads.  Urban legends suggest that there are catacombs underneath the campus that runaway slaves were once hidden in.  Perhaps sinister meetings take place down there.  More likely, it is merely the entrance to maintenance tunnels.  Rune doesn’t care.  He just wants—needs—to get out of this building.  His friends detain him once again.And a curious footstep pattern can be heard echoing down the hallway.  It sounds like two steps…and a cane.  A short, aging man with extraordinarily thick glasses walks into view.  We shall call him Dr. Strangeman.  Dr. Strangeman is usually a very jovial and good-natured, if somewhat eccentric, man.  Today, he is ill tempered and undoubtedly insane.  He barely seems to recognize Rune, at one time an appreciated student, only muttering something about how “there always must be someone.”  He is clearly going to be no help, so Dr. Strangeman is asked to leave the group alone.Dustin has always mistrusted the professor, so he follows him to his second floor office.  Inside, he catches a glimpse of the scrawlings on a small blackboard.  He nearly loses his mind and finds that he cannot remain in the room.  Whatever was scribbled on that board was beyond mortal comprehension.  That is not a good sign.Dustin returns downstairs, where he can see that Rune is trying to gnaw through the cast-iron chain, losing his teeth in the process.  To everyone’s amazement, Rune actually has gnawed through the chain!  Quickly, they run outside…and someone is shooting at them!The students run around the back of Draper building (dragging the body of Rune, one person per limb), dodging the bullets of a sniper, whom they cannot see, to get to Anthony’s car.  Their progress is impeded by the emergence of tentacle-turned roots from the trees surrounding the area.A lucky shot from the sniper severs Rune’s left arm as Kelly holds it.  Now, at least, they can see where it is coming from.  On the top of the Science building, a man takes aim with a rifle.  He is prone and hard to see, but his ten-gallon hat can just barely be made out.Heedless of the shots raining down around him, Kelly does his best to stop the fountain of blood that spurts from the severed stump of Rune’s shoulder.The Media Services’ van (whom Anthony works for and for whom Rune once worked) is parked directly in front of the students, with the door open.  That is too convenient for Anthony to trust at this point.  The group runs to his car, but finds that all of the tires have been slashed and sugar has been poured into his gas tank.  The group returns to the van, throws the unconscious body of Rune in the back, and brave Berea’s city streets to drive the block to Berea Hospital.Inside the emergency room, they wait on an update on their friend’s condition.“Don’t worry,” they are told.  “He probably just needs antibiotics.”</blockquote>

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