<span style="font-weight: bold">"This isn't a desert island, it's an old house somebody locked us in. We don't need to bother making long-term preparations." He pointed out matter-of-factually, folding his arms. Glancing back at the window and the locked door, he spoke again. "Why not just smash the window out?"</span><br/><br/>"Because it won't work."<br/><br/>Michael had done his best not to jump when the boom echoed through the floorboards, but of course such thoughts can only really occur after the fact--reflexes were a bitch, sometimes. He almost lost his cigarette in the process, the ash at the end of it falling to the couch in a sudden torrent with the sudden jerk. What it meant he couldn't say, but almost at the same time he watched the door slide open down the hall...<br/><br/>He closed his eyes, and breathed deeply.<br/><br/><br/>The redhead was talking about getting moving, which was good. Hunkering in perhaps not, but moving was good. They had to do something, or they'd all go crazy--it was clear enough by the panicky behavior going around that not a one of them could accept that staying still and keeping calm was the best way of doing things. As he heard the man suggest breaking the window, however, he stopped and looked to him pointedly.<br/><br/>"It's not going to work." He said again, repeating himself and closing his eyes. As much as he didn't want to say this, he knew someone had to. "We all know it. If it was going to, we wouldn't feel so fucking creeped out, and this wouldn't be such a big deal, and our phones would have worked." He was talking faster than he meant to, but his tone was still as collected as he could make it. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his iphone and turned it over in his hands before whipping it at one of the windows, hard.<br/><br/>If it was normal glass it would have broken--the case around the phone was rated for some ridiculous amount of stress. Nothing short of backing over it with a truck should have broken it, but as soon as it hit the glass it crumpled with a crack into a slightly sparking mess and fell in a lump to the floorboards. Michael's heart was racing, but he kept going without breaking stride--he didn't have to watch to know it wouldn't work. A moment ago he had been sure that if they just stayed put everything would just go away, but he hadn't believed it. Not really.<br/><br/>He knew better. They all did.<br/><br/>"Something's going on around here." Keeping himself calm was not the easy part of this--the more he spoke the more he felt like a frayed wire, live and electric, but he forged on anyway because if he stopped he wasn't sure he would be able to keep going. "We all know it. We're being fucked with. But we popped in here like nothing, and I'll bet that's how we get out." Raising an arm, he pointed down the east hallway to the door, and he tried not to let them hear him swallow.<br/><br/>"The door has been opened." He pointed out dryly. "I'm going to play ball, because I can take a hint and I don't think I'm any better off just sitting here. If you do, feel free to stay." It felt good to say it all, finally, to admit to himself and out loud that this was definitely in the realm of<span style="font-style: italic">not ok</span>. It didn't feel good to look down the hallway towards the door. It felt ice-in-your-teeth bad. It felt look-out-behind-you, here-comes-the-Hindenburg bad. But he was about to go as crazy as the rest of them, and if he was going to even pretend to keep it together, know what he was talking about, and deal with this, he couldn't let that happen.<br/><br/>The dust of the loveseat clung to his fingers as he pushed himself up, reaching for what was left of his cigarette at the same time. As much as he tried to stop it, when he looked down the hallway he balked. His body stopped, he wouldn't move. The hair on the back of his neck stood up, and his hands shook so violently he fumbled his cigarette. Looking to where it fell on the ground--almost instant relief, he noted, which was disconcerting--he twisted his foot into it to grind it against the floorboards. He shot a quick grin to the redhead and the newest addition to their little cluster fuck, and started foreword just before his nerve failed him.<br/><br/>Michael walked down the hallway to the door and looked inside.