logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: TURN THE LIGHTS OFF

EVENT LOG: TURN THE LIGHTS OFF

characters: everyone.
location: around town.
date/time: january 20-29.
content: the lanterns begin to malfunction.
warnings: body horror and psychological horror. please cw tags appropriately.

you'll become one

January 20th arrives the same as all the days before it. There's no great pulse of warning that throbs through the air, no ominous wind that causes the bonfire to shudder. The spirits are neither agitated nor do they hide. You could almost miss the change, if the lanterns weren't always by your side. There's no explanation that comes with the way that it's changed, but it's impossible not to worry when it's happened so suddenly.

Maybe it takes a few days, or maybe it only takes a few hours, but suddenly it isn't just the lanterns that have changed. You, yourself, have become somehow different. It's possible that you won't even have the right state of mind to wonder how long it will last. At the very least, it appears you aren't alone. All across Beacon, lanterns are changing, and changing the people with them.

Out in the distance, the lighthouse's beam has turned green.

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That's both a lot of blood and a heck of a guilty expression to sum up in a single word. It's probably not the most reassuring reaction, either, when Riku's visible hand closes around a shimmer in the air that crystallizes into the weighty shape of a weapon; it looks... kind of like a broadsword, but blunter, with strange grooves in the metal. It swings up, just shy of brushing the beams up above.

"Heal!"

Unfortunately, his curative magic has been altered by either his death or just the way magic seems to work in this place. It won't do enough to help internal bleeding, which is what ultimately did Five in, all those months ago when they got the Lighthouse hooked up with the network.

The spell sheds no light, but there's a glow of green and yellow blossoming like a flower in the air above the injury, a drop of condensed magic descending on it. For all of its limitations, perhaps it will potentially stem the external bleeding, at least. Riku hopes that's all there is.

"Check him," Riku demands, his voice neutral and his fist tight around the handle of his Keyblade, "And start explaining. Be specific. It's important."

He's not sure if it's just his ears rushing with too little blood or the fact that Link might be hearing things again, but the stilted reply is worrying. The Cure spell is familiar, at least; his eyes flutter open as it hits, completely comfortable with the green seeping into him.

Oh hey, here's something he never wanted to do in front of Riku again. That strange blunt sword he has? Dante never got it back, or was enough of a cagey jerk to keep the thing to himself until it was too late. Sora's eyes roll toward it, focus, and freeze, unmoving, his breathing slipping out of conscious control as he experiences another echo, his brain flooding again. It's a dark world he's seen before, he's speeding toward Riku and the King and that woman with blue hair, that's her, that's Aqua-

He comes back, but he's never had a memory echo during an injury this bad. There's no hiding this one. The four second loss of consciousness had apparently been enough to make him start hyperventilating. Spots appear on his vision right before he squeezes them back shut and holds his breath, desperately trying to get his lungs under control. Sorry, Link! Echoes are usually not this bad! Sora will be back to confirm his story in just a moment.

Edited (phrasing) 2020-01-24 12:05 (UTC)

"SORA!"

Link shouts as the young man lapses out of consciousness. Maybe the wound was worse than they thought.

He grits his teeth and his gaze snaps towards Riku. This is no time for guilt. Guilt can wait.

"Something happened. I was seeing things. I thought he was attacking me so I-- I counter attacked. Stabbed him with a sword. The one my back."

Quickly, his gaze shifts back to Sora.

"I'm seeing and hearing things that aren't there... He knocked me flat, though, with a spell. It knocked the demon outta me too. I mean...mostly."

The lantern hanging from his belt still has a green glow swirling around within it, but it's not the intense light it had been when he'd attacked Sora.

His shout drags Riku's gaze back to the couch and the boy on it. He's already pale from half a year in the dark, if not for the ruddy glow of his cracked lantern, the way the color flies from his face would be more conspicuous. The bottom of his stomach drops out.

It's the same feeling every time he would dream of the boathouse or walk by the shore where it used to be only to see a shape lying supine on the beach, knowing before his lantern's light even falls on it that it would have Kairi's face, that she would be gazing sightlessly out at him or the sky, that her mouth would be full of lake water and she wouldn't really be there.

The same shocky sweep of nausea and then it gets lost somewhere on its way to his throat, he stands there, but he doesn't feel like he's standing there. All of this is happening to someone else, somewhere else. This can be useful in the moment, when he needs to focus and observe and take action without hesitation, but the experience always makes him feel depleted, like he's tipped the balance too far to the dark.

"Did this start when your lantern changed? Is it always green?" sounds like a strangely calm line of questioning when there's a bloodied boy hyperventilating on his couch; Riku can see he's trying to hold it together, crowding the boy wouldn't help him regain control.

A lesson he'd learned in first aid on how to ground a panicking camper: four, seven, eight. He figured he had the four a little too well covered, and he kept it in past the seven until he remembered how he - Skyler - had actually stopped to listen to the Red Cross employee all those years ago. Something about wanting to do the job right, if he had to do it. It had seemed important.

He counts up to eight as he lets go of the breath, mentally chastising himself to breathe in for four, to remember to do that. What use is training if you forget it when it counts?

He cycles through the numbers until he's back in the present, resurfacing just in time to catch Riku asking about whether a lantern had always been green. The lanterns. He remembers something about that. He needs to contribute. Hold, six, seven.

"Rosinante," he says, surprising himself. He opens his eyes and this time looks down at Link's hand, using that information to ground himself before shutting them again. Not willing to risk another echo here. "His lantern was weird. Cracked. Like he dropped it."

He has so many things to add to that observation, plus another question about magic and keyblades that might trigger another echo but he has to know. It's not the topic now, though, and his eight second allotment of breath was through. He also doesn't want to summon his own weapon when Link is so close and he doesn't know where his hands are. (He'd dismissed his own keyblade at some point, hadn't he? Somewhere on the walk between the bonfire and the village. He can't remember that happening.)

Anyway, he doesn't want to poke Link's eye out by accident. That'd make things way worse than they are now. He'll keep breathing with his eyes closed, counting, trying to find his hands mentally. He's not sure if that's a grounding thing, but it's something he can do.

Link watches Sora as he speaks, then looks up again, at Riku.

"It's usually a golden light," he says.

"But it lit up in uhm, almost the same color as my tunic. That's when this started, yeah."

It isn't.

The darkness around the ceiling seems to speak voiceless words that blossom into anxiety inside his head.

You were mad long before this. The lanterns are just drawing it out.

Link pinches his nose again.

"Is it the lanterns doing this? Does this happen a lot?"

Rosinante is a good source, reliable. He seems to be getting his breathing under control, too. That's good. Riku considers what he said, about the lantern looking cracked, like it had been dropped, and his pale lashes drop low over eyes that cut away from the two of them and down to his own lantern.

It hangs from his hip, but that's the same side as the blanket he's draped over what's become of his left arm. The lantern still paints a jagged, ruddy light on the floor underneath it, and he's careful not to try closing his hand protectively around his. His hand is in no condition to go handling anything, least of all his own lifeline.

"No," he admits, "This is new. And it's happening to the lighthouse, too. It's Robin's lantern... if she's hallucinating the way you said you are, if it's bad enough that you'd wound someone else like this..."

He feels cold.

Already, he's thinking about who is vulnerable, potential bolt holes, how long they could expect to last. How to address all the lost blood. Maybe Ms. Lutece knows his blood type-

"Make sure the wound's closed," says Riku, dismissing his Keyblade and turning to take the glass off the counter. He's soon coming back with the juice. Stooping suddenly to set the glass of juice within reach from the couch, he adds, "I need to send a few messages. You've lost a lot of blood. Drink. Don't move too much. Be careful."

In, out. In, out. He's still cold, the skin on his hands washing in and out of iciness under a thin dry layer of blood, but he thinks he's almost to a point where he'll either stop thinking about breathing or he'll pass out. In a good way. If there's a good way to pass out? He'll find it if it exists.

Wildly, weirdly, Riku bringing up Robin and the lighthouse makes him smile a little, even in a situation as dire as this one. With Link so close, he's reminded of the hour they spent sitting on Aziraphale's bathroom floor, talking about the bonfire and giant Robin who lived in the lake because obviously people scaled with their lanterns, and Link almost concussing himself on the edge of the bathtub, and Sora dunking his tablet in the sink just to see what would happen. It had fried. It was really funny. The hallucinations were less so, but at least no one else was hurt. That's something to feel good about.

He'll nod at Riku, or at least he hopes he does. His eyes are still closed, he can't really aim the nodding. He'll open an eye again, picking out Link's ears in the green light. (Green? Is that what they'd been talking about?)

Sora breathes out. He doesn't need to count anymore. Step one. "Hey, bro. Watch your head," he says softly.

Without looking, and because it seems like the least obstructive place to summon it, Sora will reach up from the couch, feeling around until the Kingdom Key forms in his hand. He pauses, then closes his eyes. "Heal." The same green spectral leaves curl around him, soaking into his skin and dying away. It's still throbbing, probably still open, and he's still very weak, but he could close his eyes and imagine that it was just a really, incredibly bad stomachache.

He lets his weapon fade away. No need to keep it around if he's here.

Drink? Drink what? Sora looks down at Link, trying to move despite what Riku said. Did he leave something? "Link, how are you feeling?"

Link ducks his head slightly and feels the strangely shaped blade brush against his ear tip.

"Don't worry about me. I'm fine."

While "fine" is a word that, in the Link Lexicon, usually means "I'm bleeding internally but don't want to worry you" he actually is feeling perfectly fine right now. Physically, at least.

Mentally is more complicated. There is a darkness all around, still whispering his own worse thoughts into his mind. He doesn't mention this because, well, he doesn't want to worry anyone.

"Here."

Link reaches past Sora's head for the drink Riku had set down and gently hands it over.

Seeing the boy summon that familiar Keyblade and call on the same magic slams Riku back into himself with all the mercy of a dull guillotine, a dissonant note that kicks a hole in the wall Riku's been trying to keep up around the parts that are still heartsick over the people he's had to bury.

Because those things are Sora's when a lot of other things aren't.

Not much happens on the outside. Link gets it. He's someone who has to stuff down the things he's feeling because what he's needed for doesn't leave room for being a person with a heart to break. A whole kingdom needs their legendary hero to be strong all the time, it's not something a guy like Link can switch on and off, is it?

But it does make Riku's typing on the network sloppy, it makes him a little more harried when he tries to solicit help to make up for all the things he personally lacks. Eventually, he gets what he hopes will work, he doesn't turn back around, cradling his tablet in his bestial arm, trying to keep that hidden. There's enough alarming going on.

"A doctor is coming. Lie still," he warns, adding, after a lengthy pause, "Please."

Sora pushes back until his head hits an arm, and then gets up on an elbow until he has a shoulder propped up against it. Riku, he hears that, but unless he has a straw to work with, he's gonna end up with blood AND juice on his admittedly already trashed sweatshirt. Sora may be a little insecure about what he knows about Riku at the moment, but he's about 80% sure he was never a sippy straw kind of guy.

"Good," he says to Link, looking at him through lidded eyes as he grasps at the glass gratefully... and then maybe winking. He is very lightheaded and has very little impulse control and would like Link to know they are still cool. "If you hear any more voices... tell 'em to buzz off." In the meantime, Sora will lie on this couch, sipping slowly at his juice, trying not to study Riku's profile from the couch as it's lit faintly by a weird, sickly mix of green and red light.

Wait. Red light?

Sora tries to look around again - he has his lantern on him, and Link's still swirling green lantern is right there - but, yep, that's too sudden and he is now seasick again. Nope, bad. Head hurting now. "Where's the red coming from," he asks before putting the glass down carefully floorwards and letting his eyes snap shut again.

Link reaches out to gently support Sora's head with his free hand. His other remains clamped over the wound.

He looks up at Riku and notes that the young man is hiding his arm. Or, rather, that he's still hiding his arm. It's probably something the red lantern is doing and it's probably something that someone who's suffered blood loss shouldn't worry about.

"Red? I don't see any red...," he says to Sora. "You probably just need rest..."

With a sigh he bows his head and his own eyes drift closed.

Sora will live. The wound isn't fatal. All will be well... All will be well...

When he opens his eyes again he asks "When will the doctor get here?"

If a healer arrives maybe he can slip back out. These two young men would be in good hands and he's already feeling like he's intruded into their lives enough. Outside, in the dark, he can complete his descent into black insanity away from prying eyes.

Something in Riku's posture seems to stiffen at the observation, only to ease when Link, unexpectedly, covers for him. No- not for him, personally, Riku has no illusions that it was done for his sake so much as the boy nearly delirious on the couch. It hasn't escaped notice that he's so tender with the other boy, either.

Even a part of Sora still draws people in. Even his echo is potent.

"Soon," Riku replies, sending out another message, asking Quentin when he'll return. The better to get the mess cleaned up before he returns, if he can, or beg forgiveness for the unexpected guest, "Is his wound closed, yet? He says he'll be able to restore his lost blood."

No red, huh. Trust your friends. Sora's too tired to anything but trust his friends at the moment, but after Link's reassurance that there is actually no red light - nothing wrong at all, really - the switch Sora's mind makes from suspicion to a calm, sensible understanding is rather stark. His eyes are closed. He was mistaken. It was, indeed, very much his imagination. How silly to think he'd seen any red. If he were to open his eyes right now, he would, in fact, never notice that Riku's lantern had changed color at all.

He lifts a hand to pat Link's, mostly in thanks for the heads up and some what to be reassuring, letting him know that there are still lights on upstairs. Just trying not to be sick again. The wound is still there, front and back, and Link would do well to keep his hand on it for at least one more application of the Cure spell, but by this point, even a layman's stitch could fully close it. Sora's out of danger when it comes to shock or internal bleeding - luckily, the Master Sword seems to be extremely sharp and left no raw edges anywhere inside - but the blood loss is definitely still an issue. No one loses as much blood as Sora did and comes out completely fine.

... He's forgotten to say something. He needs to say it now, or else he'll risk going under without saying it. Come on, say it. Don't be shy. This Riku may be a tiny bit of a stranger, but he's as kind as he ever was. At least, he is kind in the way Sora remembers him - efficient, rigorous, responsible, sturdy. It's good. It's always been more than good.

"Thank you, Riku," he says, as loud as he can manage. He means it. There isn't much energy left in him for much nuance, it's just... gratefulness. He's thankful that he was there, and opened the door to his cabin. A little sorry that it was necessary, a little embarrassed that he'd come back to darken his doorstep at all, but he's grateful to still be alive. Or, well, as alive as he can be in Beacon, anyway.

Riku has tried not to look directly at either of them, because he's aware of what the light does to his transformed eyes and it reminds him of... things he isn't proud of, but has nevertheless accepted as a part of who he is. He can't help it at that, though, briefly they shine like two newly minted gold coins split down their centers, like a feline caught in a photograph.

He looks away, conflicted. About what he could say, whether he should, whether he isn't just making this harder on himself than it needs to be, whether his conscience and his heart would have let him refuse when they showed up at the door. No, Riku feels miserable, his grief barely scabbed over before he's scraped it raw again, but maybe that's just life, or the afterlife, when you're the one lagging behind.

As usual, there's a lot more going on behind a brief pause and clenched fists.

"Be more careful." Not that he could under the circumstances. It just needed to be said.

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EVENT LOG: TURN THE LIGHTS OFF

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