[attr="class","illie i]"still?" she murmurs, gaze trained on the hallway looming in front of them. horrors await and they're walking in blind... it's unsettling. the dread in her stomach increases with each step they take toward the basement. "maybe there's a pokemon blocking him out." another obstacle to take care of, she muses. as difficult of a choice as that could be, it would have to be done. they can't just wander in without knowing what's waiting there. it could be a trap and that thought has her stilling momentarily.

she follows alexander faithfully, almost blindly. their steps are light and soft although she's curious if they need to be as quiet as they are. the situation with the man back in the kitchen had been a bit loud, right? would they have already alerted anyone still within the building to their presence during that fiasco? perhaps but... perhaps not. she meets his gaze head on when he turns, head raising a little higher. they can do this. she can do this. right...?

galahad leads them down. illeana winces with each creaky step as if the noise could cut through the tension like a hot knife. neither of them make any sounds, any attempts at conversation pushed aside for focus. flammae keeps close to her heels with a brush of fur and a few wandering glances up in her direction. despite the gravity of the situation, the ninetales is a comfort. with the contents of that god awful fridge still fresh in her mind, she lets a hand wander back to gingerly pet her head.

and then, they're at a steel door and she's swallowing in an attempt to force back the sudden rise of even more dread from suffocating her. whatever horrors this basement contains... they're just beyond steel. the thought alone is enough to make her nauseous. and yet, when the door swings open and galahad steps forward, they're met with a brightly lit room. oh, and a zap cannon? she doesn't notice until alexander is calling out and galahad is bringing up a barrier with a quickness that could make her head spin. her footing wobbles at the commotion and flammae snarls at her side, tails curling protectively around illeana's legs as if they could keep her safe from harm. a nod of appreciation is first given to her faithful companion and then galahad and alexander, a shaky exhale coming a moment later.

only when the porygon-z is out of commission does she step forward. and it takes a beat, a pause, for her to utterly regret that action.

in the end, thoughts didn't do this justice. somehow, she had thought that her mind was supplying the worst imagery, the worst possible scenario. and yet, this is so much worse. like with the fridge, the first thing that jumps out is the smell. it's metallic and thick, far too familiar for her liking. a heavy mixture of blood and decomposition has her gagging and rushing to cover her mouth with her hands. "oh god," she croaks out. cages spread out across the floor in the back of the room, their contents long since deceased. each one looks more mangled than the last... different parts that definitely should not be on the corpses stick out in odd angles. it... it almost looks like they kept trying to create a chimera, a hybrid of species. she recognizes some of the pokemon they used to be. a ralts with the tails of a vulpix lays limp in the far corner and her eyes can't stop wandering back to it.

she has to turn away, has to tear her eyes away. looking any longer is just torture. her stomach churns and she's retreating from the room with another gag, ready to paint the floor outside with her lunch.