EVENT: MELPOMENE ▒ HOME

[ataraxites]

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?

Comments

[forgodssake]

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.

[circumitus]

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.

[forgodssake]

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--!"

[circumitus]

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.