ataraxionlogs | EVENT: MELPOMENE ▒ HOME

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EVENT: MELPOMENE ▒ HOME

CHARACTERS: Ensemble production!
LOCATION: Corridors in the belly of the Tranquility
WARNINGS: Creepiness, disturbing imagery, violence, etc.
SUMMARY: Characters discover slices of sanctuary deep in the maze.
NOTES: Open to all! Covers Stage Four of the plot & Escape.

You've been running and fighting for what feels like weeks now. Exhausted and desperate, you find another door, stumbling through into—

You're home, finally, far away and safe from monsters or spaceships. You're not alone, someone here who's been waiting for you, and they're so happy to see you. Relief overcomes you; you just want to rest, and there's no reason to believe anything here isn't what it seems, is there?

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Rey blinks, but she doesn't move or say anything.

On the surface, despite what she's been through -- or what she thinks she's been through -- she is unharmed. While not completely happy, she doesn't appear to be at all miserable, either. She doesn't appear to be anything. Just staring emptily at the open window, watching a dead Chicago.

If she decays here, she may as well. After all, it's not terrible here. Not really. In her mind, it's better like this. It's nice. She's been alone for such a long time, and how she's here. With him. The one person who's been there when she needed him most. The one person who reached out to her when she's been at her worst. And, god, how she's missed him.

And now he's standing between her and Charles. The man who's plagued her dreams -- her brother -- balls his hands into fists.

"I think you should leave," he says harshly, his pale green eyes hardening with a latent, animal rage. He doesn't attack Charles outright, but like an angry dog he's very much willing to at his earliest convenience.

His expression speaks volumes:

You don't belong here, Charles.

Rey, for god's sake--

Because Charles does not want to shoot her lure, and his voice is a small, slip of a thought over the surface of her mind. He locks eyes with the man blocking him from the woman sitting silent on the bed, that hand of surrender drifting down again.

His power shifts towards the construct, as he is taking to thinking of them, hand drifting two fingers to touch at his temple. There's that same, unchanging blandness to be read, and nothing to hook his power in to command. Nothing to talk to.

Charles does so out loud anyway. "Who are you?"

Stalling. In Rey's head, his voice is weak, faint;

You need to come with me. He's going to kill me.

For Charles, there is no reply. Not from Rey. Her subconscious is an empty field, numbed to the pains of the outside world and apathetic to the direness of the situation. And that sense of not wanting to leave is likely the only response Charles is to receive in his attempt to reach her.

The man, on the other hand, glances between Rey and then back to Charles. "She's my sister -- she'll stay with her family." He growls, not quite answering Charles' query directly. There's not so much an edge of protectiveness in those words, so much as a possessive need to cling to the soul that sits motionless on the bed.

Fists clenching, teeth gnashing, he stands over Charles.

"Leave. Now." His eyes dart to the door from where Charles came, and then back to him.

Last chance. Final warning.

He's going to kill me had been a somewhat indelicate attempt at manipulation, to inspire response, but by the time this man is approaching, as hackled as any attack dog, Charles isn't sure he was incorrect. He steps just aside so that he can't be pushed back out the door and sent spiraling into whatever hell he'd come from, or whatever new one he might find.

Because this one is just fine, or something. (Brother. Quotation mark fingers.) There are a lot of assumptions Charles is making, as fast as he is able. He looks to Rey's silent, still figure, and by the time he looks back at the man who resembles her so closely, there's a hint of regret that is all but meaningless, for no audience.

"Can't," he tells the other man, if only to make the next move necessary. With a practiced motion that's gotten more practiced over the course of a few days, Charles removes pistol from holster, aims.

Holds, if the man does not move. Pulls the trigger, aiming for torso, at the slightest suggestion he does.

No words, no witty reply. His face, once calm and collected before the intrusion, becomes twisted with a kind of fury that seems almost unnatural on him.

Fist reels back, he moves to swing white knuckles into Charles' face. Only the sharp punch reels him back.

Though it's not a punch, and the man knows that much. Bringing his hand up over the spot in his chest, he falters. But only for a moment. His expression shifts, the corner of his mouth turning up into a strange half-smile.

No words. No wit.

Just a laugh, as if happier than anything to be given a reason. He lunges forward, palm out, about to throw Charles up against the wall.

The kick of the gun does its own damage, numbing Charles' right hand and splitting a flinch through his expression. The next shot goes wild, clipping by the imposter's ear at a deafening whine and putting a neat hole in the opposite wall, but these things do not stop the rough grab, the rough throw.

Instinct alone keeps the gun in Charles' hand as his back hits the wall and he ragdolls back down to the floor without grace. Stunned for a second, his legs work without him to scrabble away, to twist around, butt of the pistol at a scrape against the floor--

His teeth grit, and for a split instant there is a flash of amusement. A look that, in spite of the bloody ear that whizzes by, speaks of a silent Really?

"Nice pea shooter," he taunts. "Least, I think that's what it is, with how you USE IT!"

With a grunt (or a laugh, or perhaps a laugh-grunt) and all the effort of tossing a plaything, he seizes the poor scrambling Charles by the neck, flinging him across the room. Towards the wall between the window and the bed. Rey doesn't even wince, or look at him.

At this point the man she's with isn't so much concerned with persuading the intruder from vacating the premises. Now, he's simply out for blood, taking a reprieve to touch his clipped ear.

"Nice..." the man says again.

A genuinely startled yell is cut off quick when Charles makes impact with wall, landing in a pile. Grimacing, as new and interesting bruises are busy coagulating. He's dropped his pistol, but it's the first thing he picks up -- roughly, numb-handedly, finger off the trigger but determined not to lose it even as fresh red is making a smeary crescent around an eye socket from a new, weeping wound.

"Rey," is still sharp, sandpapery in tone, Charles crawling the few inches necessary to lever himself up slightly on the bed, and roughly grab her jaw. He breaks her focus on the window, steers it towards him. "Rey, wake up." The thought of his words echo in her skull as a matter of course.

Not oblivious to the threat still present in the room, Charles is braced for further confrontation, a white knuckled grip on his gun -- but he can't do anything for her if she doesn't rouse.

By the time Charles reaches Rey, the man is already rushing towards him. Snatching the back of his shirt, he yanks Charles away.

In that brief moment, however, the tunnel vision and the world beyond that window changes, and then

something

just

snaps.

Her eyes close. When they open again, the blurry tunnel disperses. She sees her brother trying to drag Charles back across the floor, to the other side of the room again, holding the back of his neck with one effortless motion.

Wait.

Her brother's--

"Orion?" Rey finally speaks, slowly rising from the bed. Her muscles ache, like she hasn't moved in ages. Sadly she's all too familiar with the sensation. In spite of this, she wills herself to stand. "Orion, let him go!"

It's not like her to raise her voice like this, but she screams those words. She's been screaming, but until now no one's been able to hear her voice.

"He wants to take you back to that place!" Orion stops, still grasping Charles' neck. "I won't let that happen again."

Just like her own brother, he doesn't listen, and she knows. He's going to kill him. Orion plans to kill Charles.

Could she do it, though? Now? Could she kill her brother before he kills a man, if he doesn't listen to reason? God, this is so wrong...

"Will stay if you let him go," she hears herself say, her eyes focused on her brother and not the man he's holding between them. Even now she isn't entirely sure she wants to entertain the prospect of what she's offering. But Orion has that look, like he's seriously considering it.

Everything hurts. From the pressure holding him by the neck, as if it could snap it, through to the dull aches from being tossed around like he's made of sterner stuff than flesh and bone. (He isn't.) There are thoughts about his death permeating the room, just within reach. Trying to manipulate the man behind him, whatever he is, feels as though he's a moth trying to open a window, panicky and feckless. He forces himself to stop trying.

But Rey is moving. Making a deal. He isn't sure she means it, even if he wanted her to -- nor is he certain she has a plan beyond it.

"Please," he croaks out, the twist of his body like a struggling poodle held by the scruff. "Please, don't hurt me--"

He interrupts himself with a gunshot -- own arm curled up around himself, pistol pointed and centred for Orion's midsection. With any luck, it might shatter through pelvis. Guts. Spine.

"Run," is directed at Rey, regardless, through the tinnitus whine in his ears. We have to leave, is a faster, if fainter directive in her mind.

Her footsteps inch forward, as though possessed. Her eyes locked on Orion's. Look at me, she thinks. Keep your attention on me. Not him.

Until there's the gunshot. The blast alone sends Orion stumbling back, his hold of Charles weaken, and release. Rey flinches, watching her brother's back hit the wall, blood smearing the cracked white paint behind him.

No, he's not her brother. He wears the mask, speaks so much like him, but he's not that person.

Wordless, she moves to take Charles by the arm, offering support. No time to ask if he's okay. Orion, blood-splattered and slumped against the wall, barely sustaining himself on his own two feet, is somehow still alive.

She hears Orion curse as she grabs the doorknob with her free hand, swinging it open.

"What--?"

Outside, there is nothing.

Inside, however, is a red-soaked thing wearing her brother's face. Despite being shot, he's already starting to get back up. To stop them from leaving... wherever this door leads to.

Charles is not okay, but he can run, adrenaline fiery and saturating pain with skittery flight-response of getting the hell out of here. He is privileged with some foreknowledge, with zero emotional investment in the being he's just shot twice now, and a certain fearlessness for the next unknown if only because the other alternative must be worse.

His free hand binds around her wrist where she's gone to help him.

A look back sees Orion lurch forward, and so there's no time to be polite. He steps backwards out into the next world, yanking Rey with him.

"Get the door--!"

With a quick glance over her shoulder, she sees the room. Her brother. Inside, the walls seems to quake. The window cracks. Paint ages rapidly until it decays and falls apart, all around the man stumbling in the doorway, but does not pursue. There's a spark, a flame, Orion reaching out to her to her, screaming.

"Don't--!"

The room dissipates from existence.

No, no. But they can't stop. Her feet take possession of her movement and she knows they can't stop, because the black hall is starting to fall around them, too. The ground unstable. The darkness growls.

It's all falling apart.

The door. The door. Get the door.

One hand in Charles' grasp, she takes the initiative and blows through the next door, the next room. The next unknown.

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EVENT: MELPOMENE ▒ HOME

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