Amoré Schoonhoven had been working as an 'extreme cleaner' for six years when he was sent to clean the property of Advanced Processing Solutions BV. He'd been told that the place was an absolute shithole but he liked the idea of a challenge. 'Extreme cleaning' involved going to places that nobody else wanted to touch and leaving them spotless. Some times that meant scrubbing excrement from the house of a demented old cat lady and sometimes it meant throwing out knee-high stacks of useless trash gathered up by some dead antisocial hoarder, but the work was always rewarding. Though he had to get his hands (well, his gloves) dirty, Amoré felt that he was at least making a difference. It certainly was much better than his previous job of vacuuming the same boring carpets of the same (essentially clean) office building every other night.
The premises of APS BV did not disappoint: the owner had gotten caught up in some fraud case and had fled the country. Disgruntled employees had taken the opportunity to strip the place of anything of value, taking out their anger on what was left. Apparently, various break-ins after the closure had made things worse, with thieves attempting to strip the copper linings from the various pipes that ran through the place. Finally, Amoré's extreme cleaning company had been hired by the trustees overseeing the bankruptcy proceedings, hoping that they might get the place into a state where it might be sold.
"We're going to start by getting rid of anything moveable. Like that broken chair. Furniture. Anything you can carry", he said. "Just put it in the back of the truck. I'll drive it to the dump when it's full."
He was talking to his assistant for this job, Roderick. He didn't like Roderick. He was a bratty, entitled second year student who didn't have a passion for extreme cleaning. He was just doing this as a part time job because it funded his drinking habits. Amoré also suspected that Roderick used this job to get 'cool pictures' for his Friendsbook. Certainly the youth was playing with his phone far, far too much.
"Woah. This place is listed on several urban exploration websites", Roderick called out while pouring over his smartphone. "One even says it's haunted by the spirit of some worker who died in a mysterious accident. Place must've been abandoned for months. I guess they really can't sell a piece of crap like this, huh?"
"Your 'urban explorers' made all this shit here on the floor ", Amoré replied. Rodericks' mentioning of 'urban explorers' just strengthened his suspicion that the boy was in it for the shocker picks, which might violate the privacy of their clients if he posted them. And he wasn't at all impressed by these 'urban explorers', given the mess they'd left. Graffiti, plastic disposables and broken beer bottles were definitely left there by someone other than the original employees. Loudmouth students with too much time on their hands, perhaps.
"Why don't you put that phone away and start working eh?"
"Yeah yeah", Roderick said with a resigned voice. "I'll start in the back."
"I better not see you with that phone again!"
One and a half working days had passed since the pair had first started cleaning. He had to admit that Roderick had pulled his weight, even if he'd spent most of his break time staring at that bloody phone. Two truckloads of loose debris had been removed from the premises, the carpeting had been stripped, the remaining floors had been vacuumed and the tiles were once again sparkling clean.
The only thing left to clean was the confusing mess of pipes and instrument panels that ran all through the place. Amoré didn't really know what the place had made ('chemicals', presumably) but it sure had looked like a mighty complicated process. Wanting to do a thorough job, he'd opened some of the pipes up to clean them on the inside, pouring in the water and cleaning solvent and then scrubbing as deep as his arm could reach. Nobody would be able to say that he'd done a shoddy job! And besides, it was really zen-like to slowly watch a messy place get back into an orderly state.
He was still scrubbing the inside of a pipe when Roderick came into his field of view, the earbuds that dangled across his chest still blaring out some of that thumpa-thumpa dance music that the student liked so much.
"Hey. Moré. I think I saw that ghost", the student said. "The floor was shaking down below. Like it's an earthquake."
"There's no ghosts here", the senior cleaner replied dismissively. "Nor is there such a thing as earthquakes. Not here, yeah? Up north maybe. Or down south in Epheron. Let me tell you --"
His story was interrupted by a rumble that came from the basement. The basement that Roderick had just vacated. There was something going on there.
"I'm telling you! It's the ghost!"
"Let's go have a look-see", Amoré replied. He was curious too now. His grandmother had told him stories of ghosts. Well, spirits, really. The spirits of his ancestors, of his family, that were watching over him. As he'd grown older he'd become more sceptical of such things. But maybe - maybe something was going on here.
As the pair went on downstairs they quickly noticed that the rumbling was getting louder, and there was some sort of hissing sound that accompanied it. It sounded ... it sounded like a leak.
"Fuck."
They'd both spoken simultaneously as they saw the cause: the concrete floor of the basement had cracked open and the hissing sound proceeded from it. The meters and indicators on the panel just behind them had all started to move, with some of the indicators pointing to a red zone and others just ... off whatever scale it was supposed to represent. Amoré immediately felt it on his skin, too. His eyes were pricking. His throat seized up and seemed to burn as if something had set fire to it. It had become difficult to breathe. Something had gone very, very wrong.
"I'm calling the emergency services", Roderick insisted, phone already in hand - and this time Amoré was glad for it. While the student was trying to make the call they both retreated, shutting the basement door behind them so that the gas - whatever it was - couldn't just follow them.
"An ambulance? No! I can walk. Just.. unf... breathing difficulty. I'm walking away from the source. Look. Uh. There's this gas - that's for the fire services right?"
Panic was creeping into the student's voice even as there was an alarming change in the pitch of the noise that was coming from behind that door.
Amoré wanted to run but didn't have the strength in him. Something had sapped it. His last thoughts were of his mother and grandmother. Maybe those ancestor spirits were real. Maybe they would protect him. Maybe everything would be okay.
At 12:14 local time, a sudden explosion rippled through an abandoned chemicals processing plant in the Purendal industrial park, north east of Dwalmendam and right in the middle of the densely populated Hartstad conurbation. Though the damage done by the blast was contained by the sturdy concrete structure, the top was blown from a gigantic underground storage tank containing an unknown, colourless gaseous substance.
As the gas was blown downwind the people caught in it began to experience coughing, severe eye irritation, a burning feeling in the throat, involuntary twitching of their eyelids, breathlessness, stomach pains and vomiting.
The symptoms then got worse, and people began to choke while trying to cough up their own lungs.
Cruel winds blew in an easterly direction on that slow summer day, towards the densely packed urban area that was home to most of Knootoss' citizenry. Before the emergency services were able to get a grip of what was going on, thousands of people in the affected area were already dead, or dying.
((OOC: Open RP. OP's rules. Telegram me if you have questions. I'll open an OOC companion thread if it's necessary! ))
