villagelogs | 010 » something wicked this way comes

Entry tags:

010 » something wicked this way comes

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: ???
WHEN: Day 010
WHAT: Spooks happen. Some sanity loss may occur. (More on that next week!)
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Thank you so much for your patience with this! My Friday was much busier
than expected, so I'm very sorry for the lateness on getting these out to you all.

RECOMMENDED ♫ Deadly Avenger "Gyuki"

DAY 010
“We make up horrors to help
us cope with the real ones.”
—Stephen King
The day dawns but few wake to see it. Only one, who has been exempt from the strange happenings about to unfold. She will face a day like any other, a farce of normality in an utterly abnormal universe — but she will face it alone. For none who will experience these strange happenings are to be found in the town until the next morning dawns. Each has been taken, whisked away to another layer of the town, peeled back and exposed like a raw nerve.

Mathias screams and there are none who can hear it.

THE DETAILS
Each exploration, encounter, and revelation happen separately from one another. Though some may include the same locations, none will overlap in time or space. The circumstances laid out in each prompt are exclusive to that situation — do not assume the answers someone else received will also apply to you.

Players may ask questions as they normally do for logs, but these should be kept as part of the designated thread. You may create a subthread under your header for questions, or intersperse them with your "tags". Your responses may be formatted as IC tags or as a more OOC "telling" what your character does rather than showing.

DAY 011
All characters involved in this event will wake on the morning of Day 011 in the exact location where they began to sleep on Day 009, but they will find themselves covered in a layer of dust just as thick as that which had covered much of Mathias. The dust does not extend to their surroundings.

The memories of what they encountered or saw remain clear in their minds, no matter how impossible they might seem. Sights, sounds, smells, all may be recalled with crystalline clarity, even if they wish it were otherwise.

navigation | faq | setting | locations | mod contact

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The New Yorker was his own little tornado whipping around and Raylan let him, watching the edgingly frantic shuffling between glancing over the damp, molding room. His brain produced exactly one word. Addict. Maybe the reason Malcolm looked the way he did had nothing to do with where they were.

His eyes narrowed fractionally and gestured back towards the door.

"Then we go up."

Once they were out of the room and starting up the first few stairs, Raylan spoke again. "What were you looking for? Anything specific?"

Edited 2020-10-31 19:32 (UTC)

He'd resent the word 'addict', even if it was accurate. His drugs were prescribed and, when withdrawal passed, the relief of that would be shortlived before the symptoms those drugs were treating likely became devastating.

He looked at Raylan, but didn't quite meet his eyes. "I'm not sure we're equipped to know what might be useful," he remarked. "But anything that could tell us who brought us here or how. My money is still on some sort of sedative gas for moving us around."

It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the truth, Raylan could tell that much. He wasn't going to push right now; they were stuck somewhere unfamiliar and stirring shit wasn't going to help either of them. It would hold.

"That's startin' to be just as much of a stretch as ghosts. Maybe we'll find something' at the top of these stairs." His boots crunched as they stepped up and he brushed the leaves aside uselessly, watching as they fell down to the floor. "Stay on the inside and don't use the handrail. Can't say that I'd trust it."

He looked down. Maybe falling wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, if they got high enough first...

He took a breath and forced that thought aside.

"Who suggested ghosts?" Malcolm asked in a distracted tone.

While the stairs weren't wide enough for them to walk freely together, something in his gut was glad that he'd ended up on the outside half. He could grab Malcolm if the smaller man decided to go for a long dive. There was something going on with Malcolm and it was pushing him more and more towards the previously supplied label.

"Coupla different people. Well, one was ghosts, one suggested Demons. Unless this is the Truman show, I still can't figure anythin' out for how the storm kept me in that first set of houses. No type of science I know that causes that kinda shit." And he was seriously starting to entertain the possibility, however scant, of magic being the reason.

"Do you mean the impenetrable fog that everyone keeps talking about?" Malcolm asked. "Whether you believe it's science or ghosts or demons, some being brought us here and I think it's a more productive line of inquiry to pursue the why to find the how," he explained, putting a hand to his head as he squinted against the increasingly throbbing headache he couldn't shake. "We're inside the cage. We can't see the locks."

"No, I mean the rainstorm I couldn't walk through without feeling like I was tryin' to turn the world with each step," he replied perhaps a little sharper than he intended. "Mm. Not yet."

He looked up the stairs. They'd gone at least three levels but the stairs didn't feel particularly hopeful for some reason. When he glanced up the hole it felt like it'd go on forever, capped by a roof he could see but couldn't gauge how far away it was. Still, their steps remained steady, pushing onward.

"What if this is a lighthouse?" That would explain the damp, the wind. Maybe that's what was up top.

Malcolm looked up and then down.

Spiral stairs in both directions, his throbbing head, the sharpness in Raylan's tone, the round roof... it felt like the whole room was spinning.

No, wait.

Raylan's sharp tone had said something. What had it said.

"Tell me about the rain storm," he said, his voice a little strained with the effort of sounding casually conversational.

"Focus ahead of you," Raylan suggested softly with a gesture.

"The storm that brought the first group of us in. I tried to walk through it to get to the buildings I saw ahead of me - The streets we get to walk now. But every step I took felt like I was tryin' to push a train hard enough to hurl. Nausea, exhaustion, a weight that seemed like it would smother me. No Science I know does that. I got no answers for possibilities." He hoped telling the tale would help distract Malcolm from.. whatever he was dealing with at the moment. Something to focus on that wasn't this odd place they'd found themselves with no reasons as to how.

Again.

Malcolm looked at Raylan while he talked, the lines of his face just ahead of Malcolm easier to focus on than the seemingly neverending stairs. He was about to say something as he turned his head to glance ahead and suddenly he startled backwards, grabbing at the wall for purchase to keep from tumbling backwards.

"How did you get here?" he all but gasped, swallowing hard.

"No, I..." he protested, cut off by... something only he could hear.

His expression hardened. "That's rich coming from you; you're the one that made me this way."

Raylan stopped with him, looking up and down the stairs for what Malcolm was focusing on. He couldn't find anything. Brow furrowed, he stepped down a few steps to center himself in front of Malcolm's face.

"There's no one else here. Who are you talkin' to?" Who made him this way? What was 'This way'?

Malcolm just stared at Raylan for a moment, then cautiously leaned just enough to look past his shoulder, where Dr Whitly was still smiling smugly at him. He pulled back quickly and closed his eyes, ducking his head, taking a couple of breaths.

They wouldn't bring someone there that he could see and someone else couldn't, right?

No, stupid, that's what your brain does.

"Right. Of course," he said with a sage nod. "We should, um..." He gestured up the stairs and moved to slip around Raylan on the outside.

"No," Raylan stated, one hand extending out to gently block Malcolm's path. "You're sweatin' in the cold and seein' things... What kinda drugs were you hopin' to find in that room down there?"

If they were stuck in this situation together, he would have his answers and he was still betting on 'addict'. Without them, it was clear he was stepping in blind with Malcolm in the equation and that was dangerous enough on its own.

He laughed, but it was humourless. "Drugs. I'm not on drugs," he said emphatically. He paused, looking down at Raylan's arm like he was trying to remember why it was there, then he looked at Raylan and held up his hands. "Okay, I'm on drugs, but not," he stressed, raising a finger, "the way you think." He tapped that finger on Raylan's chest and then attempted to step around his other side, on the inside. "I'm on some medication that is prescribed by a doctor and you're not supposed to stop taking some of them without scaling down the dosage gradually," he explained, "and I don't happen to have even a rationing dose of any of them on me, so. That's where we're at, okay? It's fine; it'll pass." He wheeled on Raylan. "But, I think it's very telling that our captors didn't factor that sort of thing in when they were abducting people," he added, shaking a finger in a vague direction to make the point. "Though, I thought, maybe if they had, they'd hide them in this...." He gestured around with a wave of his hand. "In this great big scavenger hunt they've constructed and you just have to look in the right place. But there are no right places. None."

Raylan's face remained unchanged as Malcolm started, glancing down at that tap on his chest as he dropped his arm to let Malcolm get back on the inside with a turn of him that kept the smaller man in his view. He knew it was drugs. Didn't much matter why Malcolm was on them on its face - he was suffering withdrawal symptoms and that could manifest as a lot of things.

"Stealin' copper pipe for moonshine ain't such a crazy idea now, is it." It wasn't a question. Raylan gestured forwards. They had steps to go. "They got you on somethin' heavy." That also wasn't a question. "What are your meds for?"

"Listen," Malcolm said, leaning towards him, "my mother is an alcoholic, so I get it, but... getting out of here is the way to resolve chemical shortages and we can only do that by figuring out what the purpose of this is and how the cage works. I know you want to know," he said, wagging a finger at the Marshal. "I've seen your face when you look around and figuring stuff out is what you do." A beat. "Though I'm sure it's very convenient to be able to just make the chemicals you're dependent on," he conceded.

He slid his hands into his pockets carefully picking his way around something that wasn't there, then glancing over his shoulder at it. He looked at Raylan and smiled faintly. "They've got me on several heavy things," he admitted like it was a secret. "For anxiety, depression... complex post-traumatic stress." He looked at the Marshal again, his expression suddenly sober. "You wish you were here with anybody else, don't you?" It wasn't a question either. He turned his attention down to the stairs as he stepped on them.

Though it seems as if, by looking up, the stairs should twist up and up for many more levels, when they reach the next landing, that will be it. The top of the lighthouse, with its glass encasement for the unlit beacon that will signal a warning to passing ships. The rust has continued as they made their way upward and is in this area with a vengeance — the metal and glass doorway to the balcony around this level has been rusted in place, a thick caking of the substance gluing the seam at the doorway into a firm position.

The wind snakes in through open door and whips around the tall building itself, and from this vantage point they can see down to the ocean (grey and angry), a wide expanse of sky (grey and angry), and the cliff upon which the lighthouse sits (grey and angry). If they go to the "back" of the balcony, they can see the small outcropping of the cliff, the forest that extends beyond, and to the left, the stretch of the town.

"Don't know you well enough to feel that strongly about it either way," Raylan replied evenly, ignoring most of the shots fired at him. Malcolm was half right but moonshine could barely be called a chemical he was dependant on. He was doin' well enough and since he was comfortable in that, nothing really bothered him.

He'd rather focus on putting steps behind them... Except suddenly there weren't anymore. Raylan frowned and looked back down the center well, already breathing easier for being up and out, and yet, not at all easier for having been down there in the first place. Well, at least he'd been right about something.

Lighthouse.

"Do you have a phone that works?"

"Most people don't need to," Malcolm murmured.

When they suddenly reached the end of the stairs, he was distracted by the rust and the glass and the wind and at Raylan's question, he looked at him suddenly and quizzically. ".....Does anyone have a phone that works?"

It wasn't sarcasm; he was genuinely asking. He had no reception. There was no network.

A beat and he added "Who are you looking to call?"

"Ghostbusters?" He glanced around the room, finally looking away from the view from the windows. "Not call. Take a picture. Nevermind. I'm going to go out, see if there's any sense of where the root of this place is. We're too high for a door or a road down and somehow I doubt there's a rope ladder."

Setting one hand on his hat, Raylan tried to push the door open a little more for a broader step, cussing with a 'shit' as he slams his shoulder into it, too confident in it moving. Sliding himself out instead, he stepped out into sharp wind, free hand curling around his chest as he eyed the horizon. He was still damp from laying on the floor and the wind felt like a million needles on his back and any bare skin he had showing.

"Wait..." Malcolm said, already reaching into his pocket, but the wind was howling and Raylan was wedged in the doorway and Malcolm's voice was lost with Raylan slipping outside. He frowned faintly and took a picture down the spiral staircase and a few of the 360 degrees of rusty windows around him and of the ceiling. Then he also shimmied through the door, glancing around as he got outside. He only had the thin fabric of his suit jacket for warmth, but the pinpricks of icy drizzly rain or sea spray - he couldn't tell which - and wind on his face felt good against the flush heat of his body's own reaction to its new chemical imbalance. He closed his eyes a moment and just breathed it in. It was like putting ice on a bruise, but everywhere.

After a moment, he opened his eyes, squinting against the icy rush of wind, and took some more pictures. Sea. Rocks. The town sprawled below. The forest where he woke up a scant few days ago with no idea the trouble he was in.

He didn't try to speak to Raylan and he didn't scrutinize the view from the lighthouse. They were seeing what someone wanted them to see: that there was nowhere to go. Instead he lingered quietly by the wall and watched the set of Raylan's back as he looked out.

Is this really all of the town? All we see now? Raylan ignored the biting pain of the cold and breeze, staring down at the town and the forest that split between them. There'd been no door at the bottom, no obvious way out. Where is the bottom of the lighthouse? Carefully, Raylan stepped forward to peer down, hoping that he'd see some structure that would point their way.

They'd have to go back down to where they started.. right? What was the point of this view? Raylan flexed his jaw as he mulled it over. What was the point?

So what if he was hit with a wave of unexpected isolation. This was not where he was meant to die, that's all Raylan was sure of.

Malcolm had some ideas of the point.

He watched Raylan for a further moment, then stepped up beside him. "Maybe there's a fire escape or something, if we walk around the perimeter," he suggested, his voice raised above the din of waves and wind. "And if not, we'll have to go back down." He held his phone up. "I got some pictures, but... was there anything in particular you wanted me to get?"

There is no way down from this level of the lighthouse except the way they have come. Well, there is, but jumping from this height and onto the cliffs below is inadvisable. Which, if they look closely, they will see a precarious path winding down the side of the cliff to the beach below.

Back in the attached living space, they will find a front door, slightly ajar. Perhaps they simply missed it before. Perhaps it wasn't even there...

If Malcolm hadn't, Raylan might have stood there forever. The sound of his voice pulled Raylan back out of his thoughts and he nodded briefly. "Let's walk around and talk inside." Shouting made his accent worse, drawing things out a little more with the force of his voice.

Walking around to the other side of the back outcropping, Raylan glared at the whole landscape, as pretty as it was and tilted his head down to head back inside the rusted out welltop, shuddering violently once the wind was off him. He shook his hat and put it back on his head before wrapping his arms around himself tightly and rubbing off what he could of the water and cold.

"I cannot die in this shithole of a place," was the first thing out of his mouth once Malcolm joined him, speaking about the tower specifically as well as the town at large. "How thick do you think the walls are. This goddamned town," he continued, muttering the last words as he started pacing back and forth. "Disseminate our situation now, Mr. Bright, where do you think we're standin'?"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

He has Zero answers lmao

no subject

no subject

no subject