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[ No, Hei doesn't believe in ghosts. But he also knows it's not in anyone's best interest to engage in conversation with a disembodied voice. Korra's Who are you? gets a blistering glare from him in the darkness, even as he reaches for the elevator's controls. There's no response from the voice. But it's only then that he becomes aware of a faint stirring -- like a chorus of whispers rising and falling through the elevator shaft. It's loudest on the floor above. ]

[ Lifting his gaze, Hei squints through the wire-mesh, where pinpricks of color resolve themselves to his vision. Countless pairs of glowing eyes. It's like spotting wild animals in the nighttime forests of the Amazon -- first one set, then another, then another. Too many to count. The whispering comes from them, too variegated to decode into speech, and Hei can see dozens of tiny bodies crawling along the length of the shaft, peering at him and Korra with glinting eyes. ]

[ The lift is a cage. Surrounded by crawlers. ]

We had an audience. [ Flat, almost toneless, despite the burn of adrenaline. He hits the mechanism to make the lift descend. The floor rumbles and the gears creak as they sink painstakingly lower. He just hopes the creatures don't drop down onto the mesh and attack them. ]

[Korra feels his glare but doesn't care. She doesn't see the point of pussy-footing around it. When she doesn't get an answer, she reaches down and grabs her shirt and bra. She doesn't put them on yet, not wanting to be tangled up if there's a fight.

Her gaze follows Hei's up.]

Yeah. I see that.

[She shifts her stance, ready to defend herself. (Not thinking about whether or not physical attacks will even work.) She doesn't take her eyes off of the glowing forms.]

[ There's a sharp recrimination clamoring through Hei's mind. This is what you get for coming here. The lift subsides lower, lower, but still the creatures hover on the encircling staircases, eye-glowing, whisper-creeping. The quiet menace coming off of them -- more than menace, outrage and affront -- is palpable. ]

[ Beside him, he senses Korra step into battle-mode. His own isn't quite so apparent; how can it be, when it's a default state? He flexes the fingers of his hands, keeping his cold gaze fixed on the illumination of those eyes. ]

[ When the lift touches the bottom floor, Hei yanks the rattling door open. ] Let's go. [ He doesn't take her arm. But he does usher them down the echoing passageways and drafty chambers at a fast clip. When they're at the ruined doorway, he nudges Korra out. But he doesn't make it after her. (Later, analyzing and retracing the scene, he'll remember a piercing cold that catches him in the chest like a blow. The floor seems to give way under him. Not give way -- melt -- and swallow him as if in a viscid pool of black. A million cold fingers -- feelers? tentacles? -- pluck him, handle him. Spreading dread and disquiet.) ]

[ (It's midnight, a voice croons, and it seems right by his ear. There's something else it says, something else he feels. But he never knows what. Darkness engulfs him.) ]

[ To Korra, it'll seem as if he was right behind her. That he vanished in an eyeblink, right when she stepped out of the building. ]

Hei -- Li?

[Korra whirls around, but he's not there. There's no sign of him anywhere. He wouldn't have -- No, he would have. But he couldn't have. She'd only taken her eyes off him for a moment.

She quickly puts on her bra & shirt, distantly grateful that no one's around to see her topless. Mostly she's worried.

Where did Hei go?

She heads back to the house. Whatever happened to him happened in that house. But something inside her stops at the threshold. It's not fear. Fear won't stop her from trying to save someone. It's just a feeling, almost like the times when Avatar Aang communicated with her.]

Fine.

[She steps slowly back from the house, and then jogs off. She'll do a quick pass through the area, in case Hei really had just bolted faster than her. You know that's not what happened. If those spirits actually had taken him...she'll figure out something.]

[ You do that, Little Miss Avatar. ]

[ He'll just be. Y'know. Off collecting souls and such. ]

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