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SILENT HILL PLOT: NIGHTMARE FUEL

CHARACTERS: ALL OF YOU SICK-MINDED MOTHERFUCKERS.
LOCATION: THE TRANQUILITY: OTHERWORLD EDITION.
WARNINGS: SURE IS RUSTY HERE, HUH?
(Also expect violence and unhappy things because haha survival/horror. Yeah.)
SUMMARY: YOU'RE WALKING ON THE SHIP;
THERE'S NO ONE AROUND AND YOUR COMMUNICATOR IS DEAD.
OUT OF THE CORNER OF YOUR EYE YOU SPOT THEM...

OOC: Congratulations! You've made it to Hell. It's not just you, either. It's this whole ship -- it's being invaded by the Otherworld. A world of someone's nightmarish delusions come to life. Little by little, the invasion is spreading. Trying to swallow up everything in ~~must be on drugs~~ darkness.

Now that I got that out of my system... Also note that communicators will not work in the Otherworld. They will, however, emit a static that will warn you when monsters are nearby. You might find this to be pretty handy.

There will also be "safe rooms", or areas that are seemingly devoid of monsters, so don't worry about it being constantly infested. However, I wouldn't bet your life on staying in one place for too long, because they'll probably hunt you out sooner or later. The goal is to get out of the Otherworld and back to a safer place (i.e. the Fog world). How do you do that?

Gee, I don't know. Got any pent-up issues that need sorting out, I wonder?

Crawl through a hole, maybe?

Collect puzzle pieces? Rubix cube?

Riddle me that!

Did you stock up as well? Very good.

Again: If you plan on shifting between the worlds in the middle of a thread, you cam link when starting a new thread in the other log. But again, it's up to you how you want to doit, and totally not mandatory. Just go have fun!

For information/questions, refer to this post.

THAT LOG WITH LOTS OF FOG IN IT

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Murphy didn't know how much time had gone by since he had woken up in a prison cell. The remains of his house in Boston, his ex-wife, and all that life he'd left behind him went away like a bad fever dream. He wondered if any of it ever actually happened at all. That he was faced with the possibility that he had been here, that he had always been here -- stuck in this cell, dying and coming back forever.

Crazy as it might sound, nothing about this was sane. What more, the inmate jumpsuit did wonders for making him feel at home here. Not that Murphy ever asked to get cozy, but he didn't have much of a choice. He found himself getting anxious more and more, pacing his cell. He waited by the bars, checking out the catwalks outside and hoping that maybe, just maybe somebody would come by eventually and talk to him. He was so tired of hearing the sound of his own damned voice...

How long had he been here? Hours? Days? Christ, it felt long enough to be years at this point. (Time had no relevance where he was at anymore. It all blurred together and could become either decades or the blink of an eye.) In spite of this, he didn't starve, and hardly ever felt the pang of hunger or thirst. He hardly slept. When he did sleep, he would wish that he hadn't. It wasn't like his cot was graced with a mattress, either, so waking up was an ongoing issue as well. Courtesy to the so-called "wardens", nobody ever came by to tend to the state of this place, hence the incredibly rustic and vacant feel of the prison. He was quickly reminded of the haunted penitentiary in Silent Hill, so much so that this might as well have been the real deal.

Murphy had been alone for some time. He wondered if this was his punishment. Maybe he wasn't allowed to leave, maybe he would never leave, maybe he had never left in the first place. Maybe there had never been a Tranquility. Maybe he had been in that town all along, so he could be forced back into his old shoes and realize what he had lost.

Murphy didn't know how much he'd burned off of him, simply by pacing impatiently until his feet blistered and burned. He would say that he was going to die here, but he was pretty certain that it would have happened by now if he was. Hell, he would have died countless of times before, if this place would have let him.

With a sore throat and a noose in the corner of his cell, with its snapped rope, he was already reminded of what a fucking idiot he really was.

The agitation drove him mad. Seriously, utterly, goddamn bugshit. And what did anybody expect, really? When dying was out of the question, where else was his mind supposed to go, other than off the deep end? Of course--

Elsewhere, from somewhere on the same floor as him, Murphy thought he heard something. A door. Had to be. It wasn't like he didn't hear sounds before, because this place could've breathed a life of its own. But after his long stretch of solitude and loneliness, he prayed for the prospect of seeing an actual person again. Which was why he drew towards the door, hands clutching the prison bars as he peered out to scan the cell blocks.

"Hello?" Murphy desperately called out. "Is somebody there?"

Edited 2012-09-28 18:09 (UTC)

When one arrives in an abandoned building, the only option really on the table is to press forward. If there's anything Irene has learned in this whole wretched experience, it's that she must press on. The only out is forwards, brazen through the present situation and wait for the landscape to change. It always does, inevitably.

Jails aren't a place she's particularly fond of. Her face is very pale as she steps into the room. The hem of her skirt is ripped and dirty, and she doesn't answer his call immediately, but instead looks around, seemingly assessing the situation before she presses onwards.

"We always do run into each other at the worst moments, don't we?"

Her tone is lighter than it has any right to be in a place like this. But one must keep up appearances, even in the most desperate of situations. She stays an arms length away, for he could grab at her through the bars and then where would she be? Just as trapped as he, no doubt.

Oh, God, it's another person. One whose face and voice belongs to someone vaguely familiar. To him, it's already felt like years; time spent pent up in this cell, pacing and slowly losing his mind.

He's surprised that he doesn't lose it altogether when she appears. Doesn't just crumble with hopeless relief and desperation. His hands grip the bars so tight that his knuckles pale. Keep it together, man.

Name, name, think of a name... What was her name?

"Adler." Yes! He remembered now. "Please, I..."

Fuck, talking. Words. At this point, these things seem like alien concepts to him. Murphy shakes his head, his jaw clenches as he struggles to think and vocalize.

How long has he been here? Long enough to grow desperate, perhaps, judging from how white his knuckles are against the bars. She doesn't draw closer, thinking of Petyr Baelish's dream, of the black knight and his hands that gripped so tightly they'd bruised and yet--

"Just what have you gotten yourself into?"

Her voice is very soft. Irene's face is white, blood draining at the way his voice is hoarse from disuse, the way everything here points to long captivity in silence and solitude and surely that musn't be what happened but it clearly is, for not a single guard has come running. It makes her shiver at the very idea. Irene Adler has ever been the songbird who abhorred cages. Being left to die in one, she could never think of a crueller end.

It's close to torture for him that Adler keeps her distance. Not that he can blame her. Murphy Pendleton looks like shit. Prison jumpsuit aside, his current circumstance doesn't place him in a very favorable position.

But hearing her voice is almost calming. He tries to focus on that instead.

"I don't... I don't know. I was just... I got here. Don't know how." Murphy breathes deeply to compose himself, then taps his head against the prison bars. He closes his eyes for a moment, before looking up at the center structure in the middle of the cell blocks. "That guard tower, over there, uh... There should... be keys, inside."

Murphy doesn't care if he already owes her... Well, he owes her something. Part of him has a hard time trying to remember what it is, though. He hasn't really thought about it in awhile. Or, to him, it's been a long while.

Funny the way time works around here.

He's a wreck, a man falling apart in ways Irene doesn't let herself comprehend. Pity is something she should only allow in the abstract, never something so uncomfortably close as this. It would be a lie if she said she didn't consider turning on her heel, lifting her skirts and running. Leaving him here would be nothing, while expending the time and energy to retrieve the key would be--

Well, it's a risk. And Irene doesn't take risks lightly.

But he's in a cage. He's in the kind of predicament that would ruin Irene, drive her utterly mad. And so she hesitates, takes a step closer to look at his face.

"And if I go retrieve those keys, then what?"

Murphy hates the fact that he's asking. He hates having to ask anyone for help, because they usually want something in return, and she's no exception. Everyone always wants something. What other choice does he have, though?

He doesn't. And he's manic, head pressed to the cold and unyielding bars, he forces his eyes to slowly move up and meet Adler's face. He's broken and desperate; he can't hide that fact. Not when he looks at her, his shoulders shaking.

"Up to you. Wh... Whatever you want. I don't... I don't care. I jus..." He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath in attempt to compose himself. Second by second, he's been falling apart. "I can't stay here. There's... somebody I've gotta find, and I can't... not in here... please."

He'd start begging if he has to. It's not like he has any pride left to worry about.

Irene Adler is a lot of things. She's not a particularly nice woman, nor is she a good woman. But she hasn't completely cut out her emotions and seperated herself from them. Murphy isn't--well, he's certainly a person she's acquainted with but she's never felt particularly strongly about him before she saw him like this, caged up and falling apart and she understands that so well. She doesn't think she'd manage it any better, being locked away somewhere like this.

She draws just close enough to touch his cheek, fingers skimming along his skin. It's an impulse. It's a foolish one and she draws away quickly, but it happens all the same.

"I'll fetch it. And then we'll leave this place, I'll make sure of it."

Murphy has a right mind. It's not much of one, but it's there. Enough that he doesn't lash out or reach for Adler as she's inched closer. After what feels like so long in this maddening state of isolation, the touch of a hand is something warm and soothing in a place that's been cold and empty for so long. He didn't expect Adler to give a shit. Still doesn't. She just doesn't seem the type. His chest aches at the thought of her leaving him like this...

But she doesn't.

"Thank you." It's nothing more than a choked whisper.

There's a distant sound of creaking metal. Some of the upper structure in the prison is falling apart. Many of these catwalks don't look too sturdy, and the way to the guard tower doesn't look any less precarious. They're sounds that Murphy's been used to hearing for awhile. But he's heard other things here as well. It's enough to make a man's imagination run wild, and drive him insane. It's a herculean effort just to keep himself from falling to pieces right here and now.

Now this, this is the sort of sentimental nonsense that gets people killed. But she can't leave him in a cage. It's too cruel even for her. Even if he's next to nothing to her, just a man who owes her a debt and perhaps that's what tips the scales, the desire to collect. ( No, that's not true, this isn't such a simple thing. )

"I'll be back in a moment."

The point of no return. She takes a deep breath, and sets out. There's no way that strikes her as less hazardous than the others, nothing that seems so obviously safe. So she squares her shoulders and picks the one that seems the fastest, the most straightforward. No sense in taking the long way around when she could die just as easily in that attempt.

Murphy manages a small noise, acknowledging Adler's words and having no other choice but to trust her. He doesn't, but he's got no one else. He doesn't expect that she would let herself get killed for him, either. If she flees, he wouldn't be surprised.

Fortunately, there's a straightforward enough pathway leading towards the destination. The steel-grated catwalks are enough to carry the weight of the woman.

From the guard tower, a phone starts to ring.

What the hell?

That's strange. Murphy peels his head from the cold bars and looks over. He's not able to see the phone (he had no idea there even was a phone here), but he can see Adler. For now.

There's a moment when she thinks, what sort of noise could that-- and then she remembers. A phone. That's a phone. She looks from the tower then back over her shoulder to Murphy, pressed against the bars. Perhaps there's another way. If she went back--

No. She's not the sort to retreat. She musn't start now.

So she presses onward, each step cautious and careful. She'd rather not fall to her death. Has she not brazened through worse than this?

The only way to go seems to be what's ahead, and even then...

There are other ways, but they don't appear any more stable. Most of this structure seems like it's going to fall apart. Murphy knows better. This whole place has been falling apart for what seems to be years to him. So long. Too long.

As Adler glances over to him, and Murphy grips his forehead and looks back down. God, his head hurts. It's freezing in here, but his hands are sweaty. If the phone keeps making noise like that, it'll be bound to attract unwanted attention. Murphy's never seen it, but he knows.

No matter how long it takes to answer, the phone in the tower keeps on ringing. It'll be hanging on the side of the doorway, that's been left suspiciously cracked open just a hair; enough for a woman to slip through.

In the end, she throws caution to the wind and moves fast. Everything in this place is falling down around her and Murphy's in his cell and she has no time to approach this cautiously. ( That's a lie, there's always time for caution, but she wants this done. ) She slams down the catwalk, metal screeching and twisting beneath her feet and her heart hammering in her chest and she's already dead, she can hardly die a second time but--

But she hesitates a moment before edging through the doorway.

She debates for a moment whether or not to answer the phone. It can hardly be a good thing, and surely she should look for the key rather than trifle with it but in the end, she lifts it gingerly from its cradle and puts it to her ear, listening.

The guard tower looks as run down as everything else. Rusty walls and death reeks from the air of this place.

Adler enters, and a radio switches on. Garbled, incoherent noises breathe from the speakers, before a little melody picks up.

There appears to have once been an upper level of the tower, though the ladder appears to have been broken in half by something fierce. There are stairs leading even farther downwards, though, with a few flickering lamps and a dim light down there. In spite of this, it's obvious that no one has occupied the place in some time... Which makes the single phone, hung up and ringing on the wall, all the more uncanny. Who would be calling in to such a place, when the only apparent occupant is clearly out of reach?

When Adler picks it up, it does stop.

At first, only the sound of running water can be heard. The stream over the wire continues for several seconds.

Then, a boy's voice:

"Daddy?"

Irene slams the phone down.

Her hands are shaking and that's alright because she's alone. She's alone and no one can see and she can be white faced and shaking if she wishes. She wants to slam back out the door but she'd promised ( what are promises to thieves? ) and she couldn't leave a man locked in a cage to a slow death from starvation ( sentiment, it'll kill you every time ) and so she couldn't leave this room without a key.

No matter how much she'd might like to, isn't that the rub?

So Irene begins rooting through the draws, overturning everything and anything. Her hands still shake, making her clumsy and slower than she should be but she's so desperate to find it...

The phone rings again.

This time, it's in longer intervals. As it goes unanswered, the more distorted the ringing becomes.

Water begins to dribble down the walls, and it starts to feel as though the metal is breathing, inwards and outwards. Rivers of black liquid pool across the ground, down the stairs. The lights down there switch on and off, on and off...

Before long, Adler's rifling is fruitful. Somewhere beneath the discarded memorandums with scribbles and names scratched out, is a set of keys with a particular keychain attached to them: REPEATER. Weird...

The phone keeps ringing, regardless. Whether Adler answers it or not is neither here nor there. A strangled, child's cry resonates from the rattling noise:

Run.

Then, a thud. The ear-splitting sound of nails grating over metal scuffles nearer.

Something crawls up from the bottom of the long stairwell.

Irene doesn't need to be told twice. Running is what she does best. Running is a simple, easy thing, fluttering away from whatever dangers present themselves. Running is what she should have perhaps done in the first place. She grabs the keys and bangs out of the door, sending it slamming open.

( quiet, quiet, you should have tried to be quiet )

She'd been cautious in her approach, but her exit is a far more haphazard thing. She scrambles, metal screeching and groaning under her feet but whatever was behind her, Irene didn't want to wait and give it time to grab hold of her. If the metal gave way beneath her, she'd just have to pray she was quick enough to move past it before falling too--

Well, inevitably her death, but that wasn't anything new, was it?

Behind the bars, Murphy turns his head at the sound of the radio, the ringing, and the commotion altogether. It's the first time in awhile that he's heard something else moving around that guard tower. Long as he was in the safety of this prison cell, he didn't worry about it so much. But with Adler out there, quite possibly with his only chance of escape, his pulse races furiously when he sees her rushing into view.

A flashing motion of a lanky silhouette flows past one of the windows of the tower. Murphy grips the bars again, as he can only watch Adler flee from whatever the thing that's coming after her is. The metal creaks, snaps, but holds her.

"Hurry!" Murphy helplessly calls out, hoarse, rasp; his throat sore.

Really, she wants to snap at him. Hurry, as if she isn't already hurrying. But she nearly falls through before throwing herself down off the catwalk, so perhaps the advice hadn't been for naught. She scrambles to her feet, dashing to the cell.

"Here, here. Get ready."

Because they'd have to run. Something was coming and she didn't think it was the sort of thing she could manage with just her bludgeon. There were opponents too great for even Irene, Irene and her shaking hands as she forced the key into the lock.

At least Adler had something. Murphy was armed with his own fists and nothing else. Much like the last time he wound up in this place, he was left to fend for himself once again. And he hated it.

All the more reason for his frantic behavior when she returned to his cell. He forced himself to let go of the bars just before the lock released and slid the cell door open.

There wasn't much time for reveling in freedom, however. The partially-opened door to the guard tower burst open, and something was beginning to show its ugly face in the distance. Murphy didn't have much time to look at it, but it was tall and nasty and two seconds away from catching sight of them.

"Oh shit...!"

He didn't need Adler there to tell him to run.

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SILENT HILL PLOT: NIGHTMARE FUEL

September 29th | The Penitentiary | Irene Adler

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