SILENT HILL PLOT: NIGHTMARE FUEL

[yardbird]

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

Comments

[savethebullshit]

There's a thickness to the tension around them, the kind of thickness that is almost palpable. Anne swears if she tried she could actually touch it. In the foul dimness of those twisted corridors that mirror the darkest parts of her psyche, the most horrific moments of her life, all she can do is keep pushing. Helplessly pushing the wheelchair like she has so many times before.

The longer she pushes, the less everything around them makes sense. The less she's able to feel and the more she's able to just get caught up in the terror of it all. The tears stop eventually and so does everything else. She's just blood and flesh and bones when it comes down to it, she thinks. She's nothing that this horrible world can't erase in a single moment.

And it wants to. It's hungry to. Behind them that whispering horror... she can feel it creeping up on them, fast and slow all at once. Automatically her legs move faster, pushing the heavy wheelchair at a faster pace with some effort, but she doesn't let up. Not when her muscles and bones scream with the exertion or when she nearly loses her footing because the floor is slick with shower water and blood. All she is now is monotonous pushing along with the numbing terror that is starting to bore its way into her skull.

[yardbird]

It's not a light that approaches from behind now. Not the same light that Murphy knows so well. This is something else. A darker vacuum that's a mean to self-destruction.

Murphy can't turn to warn her, but he can move slightly with a twitch of his own muscles. He's much heavier than Anne, and she's hauling both of them along in the panic. He might as well be dead weight to her now. Useless to her, even if it's true when she said that she loves him.

If he felt even an ounce of that same feeling in return, and Murphy is sure that he does, he wouldn't want her to die this way. Torn up and turn to nothing by the same nothing that's coming to finally claim him.

You don't belong here, Murphy.

Of all things that could pose a threat in their current predicament, it's a maze in a hospital. Anne would have that to look forward to -- twists and turns and obstacles obstructing their path. And the hush and groan of something else coming in closer, a hair's breadth behind them.

[savethebullshit]

Body screaming in protest, Anne just keeps going. She pushes onward mechanically, unwilling to give up and even more unwilling to just leave him behind. The weight of Murphy and the chair combined make it a grueling trek, traversing hospital corridors. Blood and rust everywhere. Rage and pain in the form of a world that's twisted and unfathomable. That breaks apart all around them and yet stands still and does nothing at all.

As they move it's increasingly obvious it is coming, though it's less obvious what it is. And whatever it is, she wonders if it's unavoidable. This run is prolonging their lives, pushing back stubbornly against the inevitable and painful end.

With the thought of death, her mind turns to Frank. Of Sunday mornings watching the rain and reading comics together from the newspaper, making hot cocoa in the winter, catching raindrops in their hair while they went fishing together in the later years. Of him teaching her to fix her ex-husband's car for his birthday. More things. Endless things. Things that mean life. Then she thinks of what Murphy told her, about his little boy at the bottom of that lake. Of the deadness in Murphy's eyes. A different kind of death, in those eyes.

There's no way in hell she's going to let him die thinking it's his own fault.

That gives her the motivation she needs and she pushes forward on shrieking, flaming joints, sweat beading hard on her brow. Her breathing is hard and shallow but she can choke out a few words between them, though it's a labor at this point.

"Don't give up."

[yardbird]

He can't think. Not for himself, or of anything. Inside is an empty shell, with no thoughts and no feelings to dwell on. And who knows, maybe he's better off like this -- that's what he would be thinking, if he could.

Instead, he's just falling. Deeper and deeper into the mess of himself, far enough that he'll have no choice but to scurry back out again. Just not now, where he is nothing but a player on a stage... on Anne's stage.

--And you have to run.

Sharp fingers claw and scrap across the walls, the smoky wisps lashing out from the void that's crawling to greet them -- on the walls, on the ceiling, but never touching the ground. Closer and closer, through the twists and turns, until it's there and reaching out for them... reaching for Anne, for Murphy's husk in the wheelchair.

Surprisingly, there is an eventual end to this seemingly endless hallway, only it's more of a bitter defeat, as far as Anne would probably be concerned. Because at the end of the corridor, between themselves and a roaring tide that's made up of shadows and limbs grabbing for them, is a flight of stairs descending far into an even deeper darkness.

[savethebullshit]

As Anne's aching and exhausted body forces itself forward on pure will, further and further until she swears she can't do it anymore, she does. She always does. Anne never gives up, never just crumbles and loses it. Not when it counts. It's something she's always striven for, but now she wonders, if it's all even been worth it.

Funny, how in these moments, every other moment is irrelevant. All the struggles of life, the endless push forward and upward, all of it unravels into something meaningless. Because this thing behind them doesn't care. She spent years doing what she could to become the best CO she possibly could, spent years doing what she could to be just like Frank. And then spent years unwittingly becoming less and less like him after he was attacked. But that thing doesn't care. All it wants is to destroy the both of them, and it strives for this with all the singlemindedness Anne strove for her revenge.

And that's what it is, maybe, she thinks. All of that coming back to haunt her. Those years of pain and bitterness and hate, the horrible and disgusting and dirty things she did to get Murphy where she wanted him. And then, what she did to Sewell. Standing over him watching his eyes grow dull and stare up at her, open and glassy. The work of years. Anne knows what the thing looks like without even looking over her shoulder. Black tendrils fingers reaching hands anger and hate and death.

The sight of the end of the horrible, twisting maze ahead of them is no relief. Anne's heart sinks even as it's beating so hard she swears it's going to explode out of her chest. Stairs. It occurs to her that Murphy can't go down the stairs properly in the wheelchair. That this isn't going to work.

She doesn't care.

All she can do is keep pushing, keep pushing the vegetable, the cripple in the wheelchair and try not to think of the inevitable death, of one or both of them. That this is the rest of eternity and there's no way to get back what once was. Murphy's smooth skin and dark hair flicker, change. For a moment she's looking at the ghostly image of hair that's fallen out, twisted and pale skin that's marked with scars from IVs and needles to test his blood, and there's urine on the hospital gown and the sick smell of medicine and human waste is in the air.

Back to reality with a hard blink and a shake of the head, and Anne sees Murphy again, knows he's been Murphy this whole time. Lungs and muscles and bones aching and grinding she keeps going, pushing onward, that last stretch making her feel like her lungs will split. She doesn't know what will happen when they reach the end, but she can't stop.

That thing behind them, the horrible tendrils that reach for them, try to tear at them, gets closer with each step, until Anne doesn't know if she can avoid it anymore. And finally, it touches her, just as her foot hits the top step. It tears at her, and she feels blood spring out of her back under where it tears her tshirt before the wheelchair loses balance on the steps, and its weight pulls her with it.

As she and Murphy topple down the stairs she reaches blindly for something, anything, falling arm over arm and smashing into the chair, into Murphy, rolling helplessly over the two of them with no way to force herself to a stop. She tries to keep an eye on Murphy, but the gravity of the fall makes it impossible to look in any one place for long. She feels her shoulder split, her knee, and then finally her head.

It's the last thing she's aware of before she blacks out.