Chasing Ghosts (attn: Ianto)

"Fair enough," he remarked, setting down the paper, not noticing or not caring that some of the spilled wine soaked through a corner when he put it down too close on the table. Knowing that to break the illusion, he had to break the mirrors, Jack picked up an old candlestick from off of the table, its weight in his hand reassuring despite the strangeness of knowing that it likely wasn't real.

Then again, maybe the dead man bleeding there hadn't thought any of this was real, either.

He made short work of the mirrors, smashing them with the candlestick, which bent under the pressure. With each mirror shattered -- there were four total -- the image around them flickered and faded, until, with the last, it broke altogether, leaving them in the same room they had entered into. Realizing he wasn't holding anything anymore, Jack brushed the broken glass from his coat. That, at least, was real.

There was a reddish stain on the corner of the paper, though the wine had vanished and the bottles with it.

Ianto snickered once everything went back to normal just by Jack smashing the mirrors with a candlestick. Of course that made sense, but Ianto never even considered it, since he thought, by looking at the bleeding (now completely dry) man, that if it had been that simple, the poor bloke would have gotten away.

"Right." He said, rolling his eyes. "Any thoughts on why it let us live long enough for you to break the four mirrors, but it didn't behave the same way with that man?" He asked, pointing at the dead body.

"I am sure he would've done it if he had the chance." He concluded.

"None," Jack replied with a shrug. "Maybe it likes us?" Yeah, because that kind of luck or fondness was common in this line of work. Right. He was being facetious, though - he actually had, as he said, no idea why they'd been, as it was, spared. "Maybe it just didn't like him."

There were, at least, more doors to open, and Jack pulled open the hall door again -- this time it came open easily, almost too easily. (Few things more embarrassing than being all in-charge and then hitting yourself with the door; he just dodged that.)

Ianto didn't think the likeable factor had had anything to do with their incredible luck, or the man's misfortune, but he grimaced (although he was absolutely trying to smile) at Jack nonetheless.

"Ah, well, even the door likes you better." Ianto joked, walking out behind Jack. All he wanted to do was bolt straight for the front door, but, of course, that was out of the question.

Ianto did stop in his tracks before he could reach the next "mystery door", though. Someone, or rather something was whispering behind him, around him, even.

"Sir? Are you hearing anything unusual?" He asked Jack, afraid to look back.

When Ianto asked that, Jack turned around, looking at him curiously. There was nothing there, and he hadn't heard anything. "No," he told him, frowning slightly. "Are you?" Of course, in a place like this, there was always the possibility of something else, a new angle to the illusions. He was hoping it would stick to the visual, but that didn't seem to be the case.

That was fine, since, apparently, it hadn't stuck to the illusory, either - just look at the poor sap in the last room. He looked pretty real, and to all appearances, it was an illusion that did him over.


(ooc: I am so, so sorry I didn't post before now. My brain hit a road-block, but it's back now. xx; Sorry.)

Ianto was shaking softly at this point, as the voices wouldn't leave him alone, but he couldn't make out what they were saying, either. They weren't speaking any language he could recognize.

"There's whispers. I can't understand them." He told Jack, looking around again, always waiting to see something move out the corner of his eye, but that never happened. There were only voices, but they were becoming louder and louder, almost as if they were screaming in Ianto's ears, and if only he could understand them, make sense of what he was hearing...

"Oooooh, shut up, you." Ianto told nobody, or the voices, visibly irritated.

"Whispers?" Jack frowned, a little puzzled and a little concerned. It probably didn't bode particularly well, this. "Come on, let's get this over with." Not letting either of them dwell on the odd voices, he pushed open the next door, covering his mouth instinctively when the stench hit him - something rotten. This room was dark, moth-eaten, heavy curtains pulled before the windows, casting crazy shadows everywhere. Even the furniture covers in this room weren't white, but a rusty dark red that reminded him unsettlingly of dry blood. Across the floor lay what Jack was positive would be a bizarre-looking creature in life, though in death it looked more pitiful than anything, stretched out dragon-like, half the skull exposed. It had died more recently than the man in the other room, which only made it more disgusting - it was still rotting away, some bones exposed and others still covered in stretched pale gray skin and scales half worn or eaten away.

Its shape was vaguely reptilian, at least if the scales and face were any indication, but with sharp ripping teeth that reminded him overmuch of a velociraptor. Its forearms more closely resembled humanoid anatomy, though, with four long, delicate fingers ending in vicious claws. After noting that, Jack stopped looking too closely - it was an ugly sight, and as used as he was to ugly sights and dead bodies, that didn't mean he liked looking at them.

"Found something, anyway," he muttered, staying to the doorway for the moment, though.

Ianto could barely hear what Jack was saying, now, and he was in a constant state of frowning. His ears were burning, now, with the force of ten or more voices screaming into them, taking their toll.

Jack opened the door and Ianto took a jump back, banging onto the wall opposite the said door. As he came closer, his frown became one of disgust, for it seemed that the room was covered in rotten blood, and there was a rotting creature on the floor, to boot.

"Looks like a hybrid between a reptile and a humanoid." Ianto screamed, unable to hear himself over the voices, now. "Oh, God, this is a little much." He said, lowering his head, as if that would somehow make the stupid wretched voices go away.