EVENT LOG: BURY A FRIEND

[inthenightmods]

EVENT LOG:
BURY A FRIEND

characters: everyone.
location: around town.
date/time: october 9-17.
content: the hallucinations begin...
warnings: psychological horror. please cw tags appropriately.

it's probably something that shouldn't be said out loud

October 9 feels like a normal day at first, save for the red lighthouse beam cutting through the darkness overhead. You know by now—or you've heard—that the lighthouse is only active during ferry arrivals and events... And there's definitely no ferry docked at the, er. Beach. The town is quiet, the forest spirits behave business-as-usual, Rastus doesn't know what's up. Whatever's going on, you'll have to figure it out for yourself.

And you will, though the hallucinations are subtle at first: objects moving when they shouldn't, people's proportions looking just a bit off, voices in an empty room, and so on. Is it just your mind playing tricks in the darkness? Might be! Will did warn you all about the effects of living without a sun and a proper day/night cycle.

As the days go on, the hallucinations are harder to ignore, no matter how much you may wish to wave them off as flukes. What's wrong with everyone's faces? When did all the howling start? Who do you hold onto when the world drops out from under you? And those hands...

While you might know it can't be real, it certainly feels real. But at least it can't last forever!

...Right?

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Comments

OTA + 1 closed | CW: injury, gore

[callada]

1. Oct. 9 - Bonfire

It's in passing the bonfire that he sees it first - that faint reflection, that glimmer of light off a strand hanging in the air. Someone walks by, heading this way or that, but they're not moving of their own will for from the center of their shoulders sprouts a string that shoots upward into the sky.

It puts him immediately on edge and he stares, watching. He's seen this before. The village was destroyed soon after as his brother tested the limits of his powers. But surely if Doflamingo had arrived here, he would have known already. Wouldn't have missed him coming off the ferry. Doffy doesn't make subtle entrances.

He waits, he watches, then eventually he calls out "Hey," and waves his good hand. The other, his left, remains in its sling at his side from his earlier injury. He sounds casual, despite the fear seizing his chest. Wouldn't want to tip anyone off that he's noticed, after all.

2. Oct. 13 - Library

By now, Rosinante is certain he's going mad, but at least he's not alone. Enough of the people here have seen strange things that make no sense, things that shouldn't be happening, and it brings the jellyfish spirits to mind. Trying to read and shut out everything else is a new attempt at escape, but it hasn't helped, because the hands keep turning the pages of his books. Keep picking up books off the shelves and throwing them violently at him, causing him to duck or fall right out of his chair. Finally, frustrated, he grinds his teeth and throws his own book at the nearest sign of movement, which might just be you. Better dodge fast, he has good aim!

3. Oct. 15 - Boathouse ruins

Maybe there's something here worth salvaging. Maybe it can be rebuilt. He'll do anything at this point to avoid being around other people, because the hands and their puppeteering strings and the laughter ringing in his ears, too familiar for comfort, have him in a foul mood.

He's overtaken by the stench of blood and gunpowder as he passes a collapsed section of the former wall. Had someone been shot here? Shit, is it too late? He leans down and sets his lantern on the ground in order to free up his hand and lift the wood panel from where it leans on another, and reveals a body. Headless, dressed in patched and decaying clothing, once fine linen now soaked with dark crimson. Recognition rocks through him, sends him sprawling backward with a clatter of wood and a strangled cry before he claps a hand over his own mouth and silences every sound. But even silenced, he can't hide the visible anguish as he turns sideways and his chest contracts in a dry heave.

4. Oct. 17, outside the Invincible. Closed to Kuai.

Staying locked indoors isn't helping. He tried that already. His room smells like wood smoke and the hands reach up the walls and fill the space with pitchforks and stones, swords and arrows. They slice and carve at his skin, and even though by now he's satisfied that the blood isn't real, sometimes the scars linger long enough that he fears they'll become as permanent as the rest.

He staggers down the stairs and out the door, rounds the corner of the building and finds himself merely feet away from the very person he's been running from this entire week, dressed in his finest suit and sunglasses, shrouded in feathers, and it no longer matters if this is real or not because Rosi only knows how to react. He's too exhausted to think his actions through. In one swift motion he drops his lantern and palms his flintlock, sweeping it up in an arc to aim at his brother, his killer, finger already twitching to squeeze the trigger.

4. Time to bring the trauma

[paletteswap]

Kuai has been trying the same strategy: if he stays in his room can he pretend none of this is happening? As it turns out, he can't. He can hear people long since dead speaking from beyond the walls, he keeps catching glimpses of those he lost out of the corner of his eye. But the final breaking point is closing his eyes to steady himself and when opening them he was briefly back in his room in Arctika.

He darted out of the building after that, staring pointedly at the ground and clenching his fists as he goes... Anywhere really. It doesn't help as he can see the hands reaching out of the ground, some of them look shadowy like his brother's clone had multiplied and was trying to physically drag him down to the Netherrealm.

He's so distracted by that he doesn't notice Rosinante until he nearly walks face first into a gun. He can fight his way out of a lot of situations, but being shot in the head from two feet away isn't one of them.

Reacting immediately he dodges to the side, shooting a barrage of icicles at Rosinante's chest, expecting the trigger to be pulled any moment.

"Rosinante?"

His eyes widen. Maybe this isn't Rosinante. Maybe its whatever he fished up on the beach and it's finally reformed and gotten the ability to walk. And it's going on a killing rampage? That sounds plausible.

[callada]

He hesitates. He had last time; he does so now as well. Points the gun at Doflamingo, puts his finger to the trigger, and can't bring himself to pull it. His hesitation is met with ice, and he's knocked backward to the ground by the impact of the fragments. Too familiar, but in this case the blow is not lethal even if it hurts like hell, and he stares wide-eyed up at the monster which rearranges itself before his eyes into Kuai.

A string clone? Kuai himself? He can't be sure, and he re-trains the weapon on the other man's face as he scoots backward to place his back to the building. The clones can't throw ice, surely, and neither could his brother.

"Kuai. What the hell is going on?" he growls, wincing at the scratch of the shards through his shirt before they begin to melt.

[paletteswap]

"I would ask you the same." He's crouched in a defensive position, ready to go on the attack should this prove to be some sort of clone.

But how would he know? Is the only differentiation the fact that the foam creature wasn't wearing shoes? Something that went through the trouble to replicate a person would not leave out such an important detail a second time. The hands behind Rosinante reach out to grab him, to drag him into the wall where there'll be a shadow portal to his death and Kuai actually jerks forward instinctively to try and pull Rosinante back before he realizes that the other man isn't reacting to them.

The hands are clawing at him, but they don't seem to be doing anything. They're not real. Just like all the other things he's seen.

"I think.. I think I am still hallucinating from the forest. Or it has come back." He suddenly looks very unsure, unable to trust his own senses.

[callada]

Kuai's sudden movement is met with the twitch of his own pistol, keeping it trained right on Kuai's nose in case he judged the situation wrong. But there's just enough doubt to keep him from firing. Kuai's movement isn't voluntary, he sees - he must have missed it before but he too has one of those parasite strings arcing up into the sky, controlling his movements. From somewhere above, a pink feather drifts down, and yet he doesn't dare look up to seek out the distraction. People being puppeted are still as deadly as they would be otherwise. To look away might mean being speared right through the eye with one of those icicles. And wouldn't that be just the sort of irony Doflamingo would enjoy? An eye for an eye, in some sort of literal sense, as if any of this had ever been his fault just because he was the one who ran.

No, Kuai is talking and he needs to concentrate on reality even with his mind trying to sprint several extra miles at once.

"I have been all week. So have others. I can't tell what's real half the time and what isn't." He was afraid to admit it earlier but by now it's gotten hard to care. His ability to think straight is compromised and he knows it, and if this is really Kuai, he deserves the warning.

[paletteswap]

He looks away from Rosinante just briefly, because the longer he looks at him the more he morphs into someone else. Or pieces of someone else anyway. An arm of one person, the face of another, as if his mind can't decide which hallucination it wants to settle on and instead tries to make some amalgam of all of them.

"Were we drugged?" If this is effecting everyone then there must be some cause to it. He'd remember if one of those Jellyfish had whacked him with a tentacle again, unless they floated into his room while he was asleep. And somehow did the same to everyone else?

Very slowly he backs away, putting more distance between the two of them, because this is Rosinante, and not someone he needs to attack. And even if this is some sort of clone, it could have killed him several times already.

"What are you seeing? Everything..." He trails off, head snapping to the side as he hears a recognizable voice asking where he is. But no.. it's not real. It can't be. "Everything is almost melting, like my memories of back home are merging with this place."

He's not going to mention all the hands.

[callada]

Drugged? Who knows. Robin had called it an "event" when he asked her, but nothing she says is fully trustworthy. So this is beyond her control? He doubts it. She's very good at playing innocent.

Truthfully he doesn't know the answer, though, so he just shrugs, drawing the feathers of his coat higher toward his ears. The distance is a relief, as it grows, and though he keeps the gun pointed at Kuai, he lets his arm lower to the ground. It's there as a warning, not to him but whoever is controlling everyone. The thought occurs to him that if Doflamingo and Robin somehow were to work together, they could probably butcher the whole town spectacularly. She's certainly the type he likes to collect and wield.

"You're a puppet," he replies. "I thought you were my brother, or one of his clones made of string. But you're really Kuai Liang, aren't you? Under his control."

3

[worthallthis]

The Soldier is on patrol-- not unusual, but this time it's actively looking for people, rather than just watching the borders of the village and nearby known territory, lantern's shutters actually fully open and shedding as much light as possible. The sound of Rosinante's distress, and the sight of the tall man illuminated by his lantern, brings the Soldier coming at a trot. "Rosinante."

It doesn't touch him, but it does pause within reach. "What is it."

[callada]

He hears the footsteps approach, for he has only silenced himself and not his area. But he doesn't react immediately, for in the moment he feels small and helpless all over again and it takes so much effort just to pull himself together, to fight back the nausea and shock and remind himself that the past is long gone. Saliva drips from his mouth as he gasps for air, but then he sits up on his knees and takes a deep breath. Just like he'd been taught, long and slow. Center himself in the here and now.

When he looks over at the source of the voice, he sees Soldat being shoved forward by the hands of a hundred villagers. They've chosen their representative to speak to one of the monsters, and he half expects to be kicked back down.

No, no, no. This is not the past, and he glances over his shoulder at the collapsed wooden panels and points. "There," he mouths, though he's not ready to un-silence himself just yet for fear his voice will crack.

[worthallthis]

The Soldier takes one step to the side-- not closer, not with that expression of fear and anguish on Rosinante's face-- so it can see what Rosinante is pointing at. ... nothing. The tall alien-man is pointing at ruined wood, but nothing to elicit that kind of reaction. It must be what everyone else (even itself; if Rosinante has seen the Soldier at all in the past several days, it was obvious it was seeing awful things, too) is seeing.

Though it doesn't have a lot of range of intonation in its voice, the Soldier tries for as gentle as it can. "Rosinante. There is only the ruined boathouse. I don't see what you're seeing."

[callada]

For a moment he doesn't quite react, just watches blankly as the hands move. Some clutch at Soldat in fear, others grab at rocks on the ground, preparing to throw. He shakes his head and they shrink back into the air slowly, mostly, then he turns reluctantly to look at the space where the body had been but there is indeed nothing there.

As the rational side of him knew there would be, despite how very real it had looked. Had even smelled. He takes another deep breath and wipes off his mouth on his sleeve, shakes his head, then taps his hand to his chest to release the effect of his devil fruit.

"I'm fine," he says, sounding a little flatter than he'd like. Not as convincing as he knows he can be. "Just more of whatever's going around." As if it was something that simple, as if it can be so easily ignored if he just says so.

[worthallthis]

"Nobody's fine," the Soldier says with a little slow shake of its head. "Whatever this group malfunction is, it's got almost everyone." It looks even calmer than before all this shit went down, actually, with a clear gaze that, while it doesn't meet Rosinante's eyes, doesn't shy away from looking at his face. It absolutely doesn't look like it feels any hands on it. "Counting your breaths helps a little. You can try that."

[callada]

"I know," he snaps. The hallucinations have drained him of his patience and he doesn't much feel like taking meditation and mindfulness techniques he already knows from someone who he barely knows and doesn't trust.

Anyway, he's fine, and he doesn't need to go through those exercises right now. Doing so would prove he needs to. He does take one deep breath just to compose himself, looks toward where the body was once again - just to check - then decides to turn the conversation around just so it's not about himself. He stands, slowly, and brushes splinters of wood off his shirt.

"You, then - what have you been seeing? Maybe there are similarities between people." Like the hands, he already knows that one. Everyone sees the hands.

( prompt: october 13. )

[sunborne]

"Hey!"

It's definite Daylight and, due to his size and his surprise freezing him in place, he's unable to dodge the book in time. He gets whacked with it and he's really unsure of how to react to this. It doesn't hurt, not really, but seeing the spurt of ichor come out from his cracked armour, colouring the walls and shelves, leaves him feeling faintly sick. He doesn't like that so he tries to focus his attention on the other emotion he feels: Indignation.

"What was that about?" is the first thing that comes out of his mouth, the words sharp and loud. He needs to clear his vocoder quite a bit before he continues, thanks to the persistent static and white noise he's been suffering from for the last two days. "I was just coming by to see if anyone else was here. I- I heard something."

[callada]

"Oh- damnit, I'm sorry," Rosinante says as the space between shelves, full of grasping hands and books and occasionally strands of fine and shining string, resolves itself into the shape of Daylight. "I - the spirits keep throwing books at me. Thought you were one of them. That must be what you heard."

Which is an utter lie, of course, for not once has he actually been hit by the illusory books. The spirits, though, probably are actually at fault one way or another. These hallucinations must be somewhat like what his companions on an earlier expedition had seen when they touched those jellyfish-like spirits. He never did, himself, but perhaps their influence spread through the waters of the lake when he and so many others had been submerged in it earlier.

"Are you all right?"

[sunborne]

Daylight, though looking quite miffed for a few seconds (and for what he thinks are for good reasons too!), he softens up when he hears Rosinante's response. Can't stay angry at a friend when they're just trying to defend himself.

"I'm fine. Nothing but wounded pride on my end. That's pretty rude of them to do too so sorry about that." Daylight tilts his helm, his expression thoughtful and worried now. (Also in an attempt to tune out the crying that's starting to increase in volume. What is making that racket-?) "Um- Do you want me to talk with them so they'll cut that out? It's the least I can do."

Better to stop it in its tracks before the spirits hurt someone or, even worse, someone hurts the spirits in retaliation. Everyone has been on edge from what Day could tell for the last few days. He's been on edge for the last few days and that's telling.

[callada]

"You can try. Maybe they'll listen to you better than they've listened to me."

There's the sound of skittering footsteps to his right, though when he turns abruptly to look what he sees is not a spirit but instead more hands curling around a bookshelf, grasping for things to throw. They pull books off shelves, sure, but a pair of them seem to be draped over the bookshelf with a long scrap of fabric - a blindfold?

He narrows his eyes at that, and doesn't take his gaze off them as he scoots his chair backward and reaches to grab another book off the shelf. "Better talk quickly." It's hard to know if those ones might somehow be real and he doesn't want to risk them tying him up while the fake ones serve as distractions.

[sunborne]

Well, that’s definitely one of the most ominous things he’s heard all day. Which is saying something with how this day has been shaping up.

Daylight clears his staticky vocoder to address any nearby spirits who could still be around. Judging by Rosintante's reaction to something he must have missed. “Hey there, buddies! Nice to run into you all in a place like this.”

He slowly looks around, trying to find someones to properly address. No luck too far but his optics have been frizzing out on him. Perhaps it’s best to just… address the room in general. He continues to talk, doing his best to help Rosinante while ignoring the strange and echoing crying that continues around them. “Um… I’m Daylight and this is my friend, Rosinante. We were wondering if you’d, you know, cut that out?”

He stops for a second, trying to recollect his thoughts. The crying is getting really annoying now, distracting him from his train of thoughts. "Because I know we're all tense and stuff but, you know, we don't have to do this. I just think- You know- Maybe you should-“

The crying suddenly pitches into a scream and Daylight visibly flinches, looking scared and shocked for a second as his optics just happen to land on the bookshelf where, unknowingly to him, Rosinante’s own illusions were picking up again. Daylight backs away from part-shock, part-yank from his(?) own accord.

“Sorry, but how can you ignore that for so long? This is awful?” No- That shouldn't be a question. This is awful.

[callada]

As Daylight talks, the hands shrink back slowly - and as Rosinante turns to look at the robot, he sees that perhaps why they had moved. There's practically a halo of them around Daylight, stroking his metal chassis and moving his jaw for him as each word emerges. It's strangely grotesque, and Rosinante can't help but watch in slack-jawed horror.

Before he can say anything, though, Daylight flinches back and Rosinante rapidly turns to look toward that bookshelf again, though he sees nothing there this time.

"Shit, I didn't - I was about to say something!" he exclaims, assuming Daylight means the hands all over, and kicks his chair backward as he stands, then swiftly gathers it up with his good hand. Just because one arm is trapped in a sling doesn't mean he can't still fight these horrible things off, and with another step he's up and over the table, wielding the chair as a weapon as he swings it through the air immediately next to where Daylight is standing.

"They're all over you!"

Oct 9

[knifecollecting]

Jo had been sorting through things in the store before she returned to the Bonfire. She's still trying to ignore the feeling that something is off. In the store, it seemed like there was always something moving just out of sight.

She doesn't like it.

When someone calls out, she stops to find the person before heading over to them. She gets close enough to recognize it's someone she's spoken too before. He seems nice enough.

"Hey." It only takes her a second to notice the sling. "What did you do to that arm?"

[callada]

"Broken or something. Took a bad hit when the ferry went under," he explains, trying not to look at the rippling string connecting her to the sky, just barely visible and golden in the light of the fire.

"Bad luck, I guess. I was just trying to help unload it. Were you there when that happened?"

[knifecollecting]

Jo nods when he answers her question. She's honestly surprised that more people weren't killed. Most of them got lucky, she supposes.

"I was waiting on the dock. Never made it onto the ferry." She had been trying to help the new arrivals.

"Bad luck feels even worse here, huh?"

[callada]

"I dunno. It is what it is, wherever you go," he says with a shrug. In retrospect, he should have been more alert to the fact that someone was trying to hijack, but he can't get too stuck worrying about hindsight here.

"Glad you're all right, though. If you were on the dock, you probably saw most of the new people coming in, right? Anyone... noteworthy?"

Say, anyone his height, with pale hair like his own and shrouded in pink feathers? But no, it's ridiculous to even ask, which is why he's not more explicit. He would have noticed, surely. Especially by now.

[knifecollecting]

That question makes her pause. Admittedly she was distracted as soon as the ferry broke routine, so she wouldn't say she saw most, but a fair number, perhaps.

"What definition? There was a girl with a wand. Others too." She should try to find the girl who had the nosebleed. Hopefully she's okay.

[callada]

"Anything that stood out," he clarifies. "Always wondering who's joining us, you know."

If he was here, she would have seen him. The strands of spiderlike silk guiding people from place to place must be something else, and there's no need to be so paranoid. A spirit, for example - they did have insects join them recently. Maybe there are spider spirits now.

"The wand, though, that's probably a good sign. Some of the magic these people can do is impressive."