Some days you had to embrace tradition. Or even someone else's tradition - St. Patrick's Day wasn't generally a big holiday for Ulysses, but this year, this week, he'd felt like he needed the potentially cleansing experience of rowdy crowds. So he'd gone on a little bit of a gay bar crawl on the mainland on Saturday night.

Had it been a good night? Hard to say.

He'd woken up in a stranger's bed, feeling like trash, followed by being awkwardly shuffled out the door like maybe he was.

The Commute/Walk of Shame back to the island hadn't been great. He'd probably made it actively worse with his rash decision to call up Portalocity to ask about connections back to his Los Angeles, knowing full well they weren't going to have any and wouldn't know when they could anticipate having service up and running again, because it was the same answer he'd gotten every time he'd asked in the past two years.

He'd asked about Fillory, too.

At least there was a sense of novelty about getting the same spiel about someone else's home for a change, right?

Whatever. He was just glad MHA was so close to the causeway, so he didn't have to try and find the energy to climb too many of the island's stairs. Fumbling with the keys right outside his door seemed to be effort enough.

Maybe the next tradition he'd embrace would be ordering some hangover Mooby's.

[ooc: Can be open, sure.]

It was the same dream Ulysses had been having for most of last week. Just... fire and fire and fire, flames eating up everything, going up so high that he couldn't even tell where he was, just knew that he was alone.

There was a key difference this time, though. Something... specific, being engulfed in the fire: a missing persons poster, with Illyana's picture on it.

Ulysses woke up with a start. He scrambled first, with an unsteady hand, for his vape pen. Then, a puff or two later, for his phone.

He needed to send this text right the fuck now.

txt me back AS SOON AS u see this, need to know u r ok

[ooc: Open, though I may be slow because it has been a long day.]

Yes, I know, this train already left the station, but I have a note about Uly, so DEAL WITH ME.

( ULYSSES ZANE )

( OCTAVIA BLAKE )

( BUCKY BARNES )

( CORRIE )

Ulysses could hear his heartbeat in his ears.

The hallway lined with doors to various teachers' offices stretched on ahead of him, pitch black. He was holding a lighter, but the small flame could only do so much against the darkness. He'd almost twisted his ankle just making his way over to the school from the dorms, startled by some scuttling that had suddenly seemed to come from way closer to him than he was comfortable with.

So why was he even here? Well, there'd been the note. And all the lights were out today. And... Ulysses didn't make great decisions. Just in life. In general. So, he'd thought maybe visiting some offices under the cover of darkness was a fine way to pass the time tonight.

He was already reconsidering that thought when the lighter's flame flickered out, suddenly.

"That's fine," Ulysses said to himself after a beat, reflexively reaching for his pocket, for... something he'd actually left behind at the dorms. "This is fine."

But it was not fine. The darkness had swallowed him up, and that meant that what little bumper there'd been between him and whatever the everloving fuck kept making those noises in the shadows was just gone. And almost immediately, he could hear something coming up behind him. So he startled forward, with several long, quick strides --

And promptly walked into a wall. Right, the hallway actually took a turn, there. He knew he should've at least looked at the floor layout before he'd come here, or something!

"... Oww."

This was going to go great for him.

[ooc: Oh so open for anyone else wandering the halls/breaking into offices!]