logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: BURY A FRIEND

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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Crowley lowers them, but her words stop him when they're less than a foot above the water. Douse the lanterns; that's real death, total death. He thinks he sees the ferry, and he thinks it's solid as all hell, but it can't be there----he knows it, he's certain of it. It already sank. That already happened, it's already done. It's just another hallucination.

He flaps his wings and brings them back up, over the town. He doesn't fly farther than he can see, so he stays up, just above the town's lights.

"Roof of the Invincible?" he repeats to her. "Think we'll be safe there?"

Xayah breathes a shaky sigh of relief when Crowley gets them back up in the air. Now she's not sure what's making her stomach twist- the flying or the fact that they were a mere foot away from dying.

She shakes her head, "No- no idea. But it's high up..." she'd suggest a tree but odd sounds keep coming from the forest, and she doesn't want to be too far away from the Beacon if a true fight suddenly occurs. She has no idea what the fire is, but she realizes it's important for them.

"We can try at least..."

"Good enough for me."

Crowley gives a spin mid-air and directs them towards the Invincible. The town isn't large, it isn't some magical flight across the world, but it's fast, because he doesn't want to be seen and doesn't want to see the strange things the town has for them waiting in the woods any more than he has to.

He lands them softly on the roof, taking extra care as he tries to hand on only one foot before putting his weight back on Xayah.

It's over too soon for Xayah's liking. If it were her, she'd stay in the air forever and avoid all of the things crawling on the ground. And also- it's freaking cool. It was something new and fresh that cut through the horror of the hallucinations that just keep piling up.

When they land, she heaves a sigh and then helps Crowley sit down on the pile of planks and stone bricks because of his leg. She can hear people talking from here and the hallucinations subsided... for now. A moment to breath.

"Jeez, you almost killed us both," she huffs, taking a seat as well.

"I saw the ferry," he says, lowering himself to the planks. "I thought we could get down there, be away from the ground for a bit----"

He looks up at her and makes a face. "But it wasn't real. Of course it wasn't. It just feels so real. Like you can smell it, feel it, see it."

He runs a hand over his face. "I had one the other day with Aziraphale. Still not sure what it all meant."

"If I didn't know better, I'd say this place is out to get you," she mutters. Which, to be fair, it would make sense after the ferry fiasco, but then why is everyone else having hallucinations? Mass punishment for the innocent folk too?

"You just have to keep that in front of your mind all the time. Y'know how they say "pinch yourself to wake up"? Same thing." Honestly, if she can't get a grip of herself, she just slices her palm with a feather.

She silent for a moment. "You hallucinated him or you were with him when it happened?"

"She could be punishing all of us for what I did," Crowley says. "The Lighthouse Keeper. Doing this to all of us. Starting the nightmares, causing the visions."

It's all he can think. He doesn't know how the town works. It makes as much sense as anything else.

He reaches into his pocket, producing a single white feather. He'd collected it from Aziraphale when he was grooming his feathers. It made him think of the way Xayah had her lover's feather with her. He'd never had Aziraphale's with him, not even when they spent centuries apart. He never could. Now he could.

"He was there. It was---" He shakes his head. "Just not what I'd want to happen to him."

"Or it could be the Forest Spirits," she says casually. "They aren't above this and there are rumors about some spirit that messes with everyone's head." She rubs her hands together and blows at them, "This entire place is fucked up, can't blame it on just one person." Even though she really wants to.

Her eyes land on the feather he pulls out and her expression softens. It's from that guy that got her in bed when she got drunk a week ago, huh? Fitting.

"I know but... you just have to trust him that he can handle it."

"Don't take this the wrong way, Xayah, but I can blame whoever I want," he says. "And right now, she's the person with all the power. She can take some of the blame until she proves otherwise."

After all, why else would the Lighthouse be on?

Crowley spins the feather in his hand, and then tucks it away.

"I don't know if I can," he says. "These hallucinations get into your head."

Xayah rolls her eyes, "I've seen people trying to get her to take some responsibility for the carnage that happened. She just acted like a kid she is." Xayah's still not sure how she survived through that night, those several hours while the forest spirits rampaged. She felt so bad killing them, but she didn't want to die either.

The feather is very pretty and Xayah watches it until Crowley puts it away.

"They do. But I'm not going to lose to some visions," she huffs. The determination is there, but it's the strength to pull through that she's worried about. "I wish I could just sleep through it all," she mutters, curling her feather cloak tighter around herself.

Edited 2019-10-15 13:56 (UTC)

A kid? Crowley realizes immediately he doesn't know a damn thing about the Lighthouse Keeper except what he's heard. He doesn't read her posts, he doesn't interact with her. He mostly treats her like a faraway problem maker who passes judgement on all of them---which, really, is also how he treated the Almighty Herself when he was back at home.

"What do you know about her?" he asks.

He'll never admit it, of course, but he rather likes Xayah. She's a survivor, and she's not about to take nonsense when she sees it. The rest of the town could use a lesson or two from her if they're going to get out of this place in one piece.

"I once slept through a whole century because I didn't like it," he adds.

Edited 2019-10-15 14:11 (UTC)

She had thought that after ferry fiasco the guy would've taken the tablet and read through what they gathered. Not to talk to the Keeper but to be up with the things. She sighs.

"There's nothing much on her. She's a teen, from what I saw in posts, and she replaced the previous Lighthouse Keeper during the time her group was about to be reset. There's so much dirt around that story I don't know where to even begin," she rolls her eyes. How did she get to the Lighthouse, why did the previous one step down- questions that she will probably not get an honest answer to if she asks.

"So being the kid she is, she didn't accept the responsibility for the consequences until people got mad at her." Xayah didn't talk to her about that. She's trying to lay low and stay out of Keeper's sight for... reasons. She does sound irritated about the situation and that she can't do anything about it. Yet.

Well, that settles some things. While Crowley isn't against murdering kids, he can't kill them himself. That's just not who he is. So that takes that idea out of the equation. He can always tempt someone else to do it, but there's always the possibility that everything that this person says will happen will happen if she's killed, which would be horrific.

"Did they kill the last Lighthouse Keeper?" he asks. "Is that how she knows what will happen if you kill her?"

Crowley can understand not accepting consequences. He's never been the best at doing that, either.

"Probably in a reset, yes." She sighs. "Apparently the Keeper went nuts, went to reset the town, she got to the Lighthouse and got them to switch places with her." She didn't want to die, Robin said and, well, coming from a teenager she kind of gets it. Still, that guy Will, is clearly against her and they are now getting along purely because Winters is dead.

"Will, that Doctor guy, says she kills off people that are 'of no use to her'. So she's not innocent little flower," Xayah crosses hands and leans forward on her knees. "It's impossible to tell who is telling the truth since we have no means of checking it."

"He's a total wanker," Crowley says, because this is a helpful thing to note right now. "But does he say how she kills them? Not like she has a magical 'kill' button----does she?"

Crowley really should read the network more, he thinks. But reading. Ugh.

She nods- Will didn't say it- Robin said it herself.

"She... something like that. She uses music to control the forest spirits to go to all explored areas and kill everyone they come across." That ominous sound she heard back when Winters died. She visibly shudders and shakes her head, "I don't know if it's a button or what but- the forest spirits kill us when she orders them." She visibly looks pained and angry at the same time.

"She said that spirits don't always listen to her so I wonder if any of the resets ever failed..."

"Sounds like a winner, that one," Crowley says. "She could use them to help us, help herself, but instead she uses them to kill. How helpful of her." How human.

He looks out over the town. It's so dark here. Always so dark, so small. He's spent so long in London, living among the lights of the city, among its ever-buzzing energy. The slowness of this place drives him absolutely mad.

"Does she expect us to trust her? To like her? Does she think she's going to make us with her little army of murderers?"

"No thanks," she abruptly stops him, raising her hand. "Last time she asked the spirits to help us, it was a slaughter. It makes me wonder if she really did ask them to help us." It happened a few months ago but she can still vividly remember every single detail of that night. She wondered how she got herself alive out of that.

Xayah sighs and shakes her head.

"I don't know." There's a perpetual scowl on her face. "She says we don't have to like her but that we should work with her and together to solve this World Eater thing so everyone can move on. And yet..." little army of murderers... it fits. It's like Keeper is holding an invisible knife to their throats, ready to slice whenever she wants.

"Two years to solve the problem, otherwise she'll reset us since we weren't useful and the World Eaters would destroy everything."

"Two years isn't any time at all," Crowley says. "I've taken longer naps than two years. We have to make a plan and make it fast. Or figure out a way out of here first."

Crowley doesn't like the idea of being seen as 'useful'. It's the sort of thinking that keeps people alive in Hell, and he never really got on with people in Hell. He likes wine and movies and being generally rubbish at everything, and he doesn't like being useful. He doesn't know who the Heaven this Lighthouse Keeper thinks she is, but Crowley isn't about to dance around for her.

"What do you think about flying away?" he says, turning to Xayah. "Getting a few torches to light the way and just flying as far as we can go?"

He naps for two years? Huh.

"First we have to find them. The Keeper says she can roughly estimate where they are but she can't pinpoint them until they are close. And if they are close, then it's the end for all." So, as long as Robin says she doesn't feel them in the vicinity, they are good to go. That won't help for a long though and Crowley is right, they do need a plan more than this.

"Flying away..." That sounds nice and freeing. "I mean, we could try but- what if we actually run into them? Besides, World Eaters react to our lanterns, as they are our source of life." But flying around did give her an idea.

"...we should fly around though. Because maybe, if we move around with our lanterns and scatter into small groups, it will confuse the monsters? Apparently, they are slow-moving so it can buy some time." And this would be such a good plan in general- if it weren't for Forest Spirits. She loves them, but they are really hindering their progress when it comes to exploring.

"Could leave our lanterns behind," he suggests. "Take a torch from the bonfire for light, leave the lanterns locked up in a cabinet or something for safekeeping."

Would also do them well if they didn't return. Crowley almost lost Aziraphale when he nearly doused his own lantern in that water, he isn't about to see what happens if one of them accidentally dropped it.

He glances at the girl's back. "Do you think you could fly? You've got the wings. If you, I don't know, learned?"

She shakes her head, "Can't. I'm not sure why, but we can't go around without them." She also had that thought, of locking up her lantern. "I tried doing that with mine, but the moment I stepped few meters away from it, I almost fainted. I think it's our lifeline, of sorts. Too far away and it will break and we'll die here." So leaving the lantern behind is a no go.

"Huh?"

Xayah glances at her wing and her fingers curl into a fist, and she shakes her head.

"I... think I knew once how to." Before she was forced to hide and pretend her wing is part of her clothing. "Now I don't- I don't know. I can jump really high and float in the air for a moment, but flying the distance- not my forte." She tries to sound casual about it but it's certainly a topic that bothers her. What kind of bird doesn't fly?

"Oh."

Crowley has spent centuries not flying, but he's always known how. It's always been there, in the back of his mind, the how of flying. He literally couldn't imagine himself not able to fly. It would be tragic, he thinks, to forget how. That must be how Xayah feels.

"That sucks." He looks back over the town. He could teach her, he supposes. He could show her how to use her wings and fly. It wouldn't even be hard. He looks back to her. Would that make her happy, flying again? She seems to really like it when he flies her places.

Oh, but it would be so nice of him, wouldn't it? He cringes a little inside.

"I could----you know---if you wanted---?"

That's- not an offer she expected from a human. Well, sort of a human. He looks human and acts human but he has wings too and he can fly. She stares at him wide-eyed for a long time as if having a hard time to believe that offer leaving his mouth.

Is he nice to her?

"That's--"

Yeah, now they are both stumbling over their words. Great. But the thought of flying, on her own above everything else, is terrifying. It's not just leaping, but proper flying.

"I-- I mean-- don't you have a dock to rebuild?" She doesn't want him wasting time on a flightless bird. "Also- I'd- I'd need time to shapeshift this wing back into two wings..."

Crowley makes a face. "Right, the dock. Aziraphale's got plans on rebuilding it, I've promised to help with it."

All the same, it's not like he's really doing much else besides moping---not moping, just thinking very hard about the failures of the ferry hijack.

"Whenever you want," he says. "I can make time, I suppose."

Can't be too nice.

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that offer sounds so ;D haha

LOL!