logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: WILD HEART PART ONE

EVENT LOG:
WILD HEART PART ONE

characters: everyone.
location: the medical center; all in town.
date/time: march 20-22.
content: half the town is captured; the other half comes to their rescue.
warnings: torture, possible character death.

to think everything must die for anyone to matter.

Welcome to part one of the WILD HEART event! The prompts below are intended to cover all the main parts of the event, but you're all free to take your own liberties with the details. The prompts are meant to add flavor, not to limit you.

Kimiko and the gang will make their debut in part two! If you've got questions for the Hunt, they'll be available in the next event log. If you've got questions for us, hit up the OOC post!

captives.

KIDNAPPED

You wake to hands gripping you, muffling your shout of surprise and pinning your limbs to your sides. Spirits large and small surround you, staring at you blankly as they lift you out of bed. You have the sickening sense of movement, and suddenly you're outside-- you can see the flickering of the bonfire flame, feel the chill of the spring air. You have just enough time to renew your struggle once more before a spirit's hand raises, flying down to strike you on the temple, and then you know no more.

When you wake, you're in a room that seems long since abandoned. Cracked tiles are chilly beneath you, and the walls are a nondescript, faded color you can't make out. You're far from alone, though: at least twenty others surround you, waking up slowly.

Why are you locked in here? What's going on? Nobody may have answers yet, but at least you can be confused together.

TORTURE

Of course, you aren't confused for long. Soon the door opens, and without warning you're grabbed by a large spirit, dragged along whether to cooperate or not. You're led into an enormous room full of what must have once been sterile medical equipment, ranging from gurneys to scalpels and everything in between. Pushed onto an operating table, your arms are spread out, strapped down; further straps are pulled tight against your legs, your hips, keeping you still.

A green-eyed spirit comes into your line of vision. They hover over you, staring down blankly. Breathes heavily . . . and then, slowly, reaches for you.

CW: hallucinations

In an instant, you're somewhere else. Somewhere darker. Where? Only you know, because it's a nightmare personalized just for you. The scene of your darkest nightmare, a jagged mix of all the worst things you fear. It's endless, cruel in its relentlessness-- and just when you think it may be over, it melts seamlessly into another, and another. Your insecurities, your failures, your terrors, your loved ones bloody and dead, joining you in this endless purgatory dimension . . .

Or maybe it's not as personal as that. Maybe you simply wake up in a room: white, blank, featureless. Devoid of doors or windows, with no colors to break up your vision, and the only sounds the ones you generate. You scream, maybe, or pry at the walls. Perhaps you sit, assuming this will end soon, that you'll wake up soon and be perfectly all right.

But it doesn't end. Not for minutes, and those melt into hours-- and those melt into days, maybe, except you don't know, because you're trapped there. You don't grow hungry or thirsty; sometimes you sleep, and when you wake, you're still in the room. You're still in the room no matter what you do, or so it seems, caught in the hallucinations as you are.

CW: gore, blood-mixing

The scalpel that slices into you is slow and steady, piercing and splitting skin with terrible effciency. Flesh parts beneath the rusted blade, blood welling immediately to the surface, gushing forth and spilling down the sides of your body-- but suddenly you aren't so concerned with the blood, because the pain's hit and it is nothing, nothing you can ignore. White-hot and piercing, and maybe you're screaming and maybe you try to keep silent but it doesn't matter because either way it does not stop. Not until the spirit is through, cutting into you all over, your legs and your arms and your stomach and your chest, slicing you open like a butcher with his cut of meat, so terribly impersonal as you writhe in agony.

And then, suddenly, it ends. Just like that.

Cutting's only the first part, after all.

Setting the scalpel down, they reach for a bucket next, filled with a dark liquid. Dipping their fingers into it-- and you know, suddenly, that it's blood-- they smear it into the open wounds. Over and over, coating them in it, scooping out your own blood so they can replace it with their supply, like the world's crudest attempt at a blood transfusion. They care not for your pain, nor the way you struggle and writhe; they care only about replacing every single drop of blood in your body.

CW: force-feeding, hints of cannibalism

Your mouth is pried open by a spirit's dextrous fingers, knocking against your teeth, dodging your tongue so they can get a good hook in your jaw. The smell of blood is thick in the air, mixing with a particularly sweet stench that you can't place. There's blood on the spirit's fingers, too, and you choke on the taste of it as it mixes with your saliva and slips down your throat.

With their other hand they grip bloody chunks of meat. In a moment of horrifying clarify you realize what's about to happen just a split-second before it does, but it's too late to protest. The spirit shoves the meat into your mouth, so deep into your throat you gag in a reflex attempt not to choke. Blood pours down your throat, the meat slimy in its rawness, but the spirit refuses to let you spit it out: they cover your mouth and nose, cutting off your air, until you chew and swallow. Not just the one piece, but more and more.

If you look down, you'll see a hint as to what you're being fed: there's a few fingers scattered in the meat, a tongue, an eyeball . . . and a few feet away, a mask, broken and discarded. One of the spirits that had brought you here.

DOWNTIME

After all the tortures you've gone through, you've lost all sense of time. But at least you're not alone: all around you are the faces of those kidnapped alongside you. Some are sporting injuries similar to yours; others seem to nurse invisible ones, flinching at shadows or gagging at the smell of blood.

Perhaps you're too injured to do anything but rest. But perhaps not. Do you try and aid the others? There's plenty hurt who need some attention, whether it be medicine or simple emotional comfort. Or maybe you're more focused on the future instead of the present, desperately plotting an escape before your captors come back.

ESCAPE

Movement, noise, all different from the chirps and hoots you've grown accustomed to over the past three days (and that's to say nothing of the screams of your fellow captives). There's shouting, voices deep and piping both, indistinct words echoing down the hallway and into your disbeliving ears. Hallucinations? No, they're too insistent and chaotic for that. It feels too good to be true, but it is. They're human voices.

The rescue is underway.

Now what? Do you try and break free? Shout to let the others know where you are? Or perhaps you're too injured for that. Perhaps you want to help those who are even worse off than you, weakened by their tortures. Whatever you do, decide quickly: it isn't long before someone breaks down the door and urges you to flee into the night, where the Wild Hunt awaits, ready to guide you back to town.

rescuers.

WAKING

Friday morning, the town feels emptier than usual. The population has never been enormous, of course, but even still, as you go through your morning routine, you find there's simply fewer people around. Surely they're not all asleep, right? And weren't you supposed to meet someone after breakfast, anyway? But there's nothing.

It doesn't take long before you and the others realize what's happened. At least twenty residents, if not more, have simply vanished. Are they dead? It seems unlikely. What about missing? But it seems strange that so many would simply disappear, and even if they did, where would they go?

You aren't the only one asking these questions. Soon everyone is talking about it, and that only invites even more questions. Some people want to go into the woods to search; others suggest caution, waiting and seeing. The debate seems endless-- until someone points out that there seems to be a more immediate situation on hand.

They melt out of the shadows, not magically so much as very, very good at blending in with the trees and the darkness. Clad in cloaks, mirrors masking their faces, they number at least fifty strong. There's no aggression in their posture; rather, they seem to be waiting for something. Someone.

She doesn't keep them waiting for long.

A woman dressed in a tailored suit emerges. Her mask is tied to her hip. Her gaze is steady, but there's warmth there as well as she looks around at all of you.

"Your friends aren't dead," she says. "They haven't disappeared, either. One of my scouts saw them being taken a few hours ago. If you wish to save them, you're going to need our help. We know where they plan on taking your friends, and we know how to fight. We'll teach you how to save your friends with the minimal amount of loss.

"My name is Kimiko Yasutake, and I am the current leader of the Wild Hunt.

Now. Are you ready to learn?"

TRAINING

You work. You sweat. The regiment Kimiko and her fellows put you through isn't easy, but she wasn't lying: she really does know what she's doing. By the end of the day not only do you know how to sufficiently wield a spear or a knife, but what to do if you're outnumbered or surrounded. You know what to do against an enemy taller than you; you know what to do should you be left without a weapon.

Whether or not you do any of these things is up to you, of course. Instruction can't replace muscle memory. But at least you know the basics, and that's worth something. Besides: you have all day to practice, and members of the Wild Hunt are eager to help correct you as you do.

RESCUE

The captives are evidently being held in the surgical wing and its adjoining operating rooms, and the abandoned hospital halls make for a contained battlefield. Most of the regular forest spirits scatter when the assault begins, skittering out of windows or barreling straight past the attacking residents, not interested in fighting for this cause... But not all. The meaner spirits stay to fight, perhaps just for the thrill of it.

And then of course there's the green-eyed spirits. There aren't many, maybe only a dozen or so, but they're strong. They typically look roughly humanoid (not always, though) and their limbs are ...troubling, in a too-long sort of way. They prefer to fight from a distance when possible, inflicting terrible hallucinations of monsters and gore and whatever they think might put off an attacker—and these hallucinations are powerful enough to do real damage. Just because it's a hallucination that tore off your arm doesn't mean your arm is any less torn off! But when they're forced to confront their attackers in close quarters, they rely on those long limbs to tear and rip at anything they can get their hands (or teeth) on. The green-eyed spirits can be killed just like any other forest spirit, but it'll take some doing. Dismembering them until their body dissolves is the only way to make sure they won't come back.

The plan is simple: surround the medical center as covertly as possible before Kimiko gives some signal to her crew. The key to victory is overwhelming the enemy as completely as possible, from all angles at once—and that's what happens.

The hospital halls force the spirits into a bottleneck; some stay to defend the operating rooms while others attempt to sneak through the windows or the ventilation shafts to attack you from behind. The green-eyed spirits shriek horrible melodies that echo through the hospital, loud enough that their voices might damage your hearing if you're standing too close. The spirits don't use much in the way of weapons, at least, but they'll hurl any debris or furniture that gets in their way.

But your numbers are greater than theirs. Progress is made quickly as the green-eyeds are forced to retreat little by little, until they've lost their claim on the operating rooms, and thus the battle. Most of them will escape back into the forest before they can be eradicated, and surely both sides have suffered losses—but you've won.

(many of our monster images are credited to Trevor Henderson!)

RETURN

The green-eyed spirits flee back to the forest before long, and the surgical wing is left open for the rescuers to free the captives. The Wild Hunt hangs back as the rescuers reunite with their friends and fellow residents, although they're step in to assist with any medical emergencies as needed—enough of them have rudimentary training in field medicine, and they'll be able to patch up any survivors enough to get them back to town.

There are survivors, is the important thing. The kidnapping and subsequent battle has no doubt resulted in many casualties, but you are alive, and now it's time to head home.

The Wild Hunt keeps a perimeter around the group as they slowly make their way back to Bonfire Square. From there, recovery can begin. Kimiko and the others promise to stay in town long enough to answer your questions and help with any repairs necessary in the aftermath, though they'll need to, er, make some arrangements before they can dive in. In other words, stay tuned for part two!

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Ironically, the only sign of Riku's kidnapping had been the birthday cake he'd baked for Daylight splattered on the forest floor, his satchel not far from the ruin. The tablet inside had an unsent message primed and ready, that he needed to talk with Day about something, so he should come right away.

The cake's frosting had been decorated in shavings of lemon zest and pieces of charcoal; Riku still remembered that review of the ice cream vendor's wares and which flavors Daylight had seemed to favor. Daylight would never get the chance to try it, a score or more of them spirited away overnight.

This is, indisputably, the worst way to observe one's own birthday. ]

Day-

[ It takes him an excruciatingly long time to reach him, teeth grit against the slow responsiveness of a body that's been pushed too far. He does, though, there's blood around the edges of his fingernails, the creases of his knuckles are dark with dirt, but his palm rests against the space between his winglets. ]

Don't think about it. [ That just makes it worse, ruminating on what it was like, how the taste and reek of it never seems to get out of his nose. It's an awful kind of knowledge they've gained and Riku doesn't think any of them are all that equipped to help each other here, but this is the best he can do. ] Don't think. Just get it out.

[ is daylight nodding frantically to riku's words, acknowledging what is a friend is telling him for his own sake? or is he simply bobbing his helm up and down, trying to dislodge chunks that refuse to leave his burning intake?

whatever he meant to do, day does do what riku suggests in the end, inevitably or not, and he continues to hurl his tanks out without chanting under his breath. it takes a while - he manages to get out a few more heaves that sound both painful and agonising - but he trails off into a series of coughs now, a servo pressed over his mouth while he stared at the puddle of ick he left in the corner of the room.

when day manages to look at riku at long last, his optics cracked scratched up from an earlier 'session' he had hours (days? weeks?) ago, all he can manage is a raspy: ]

This is fucking awful. What the fuck.

[ he wants to ask if riku's okay, now that he's gotten that out, but, despite his exhaustion and his pain, day realises how dumb that question is with their current situation.

instead, he asks a more pressing and possibly better question: ] What's the point of this? All of this? What do they gain from doing this to us...?

[ It sounds terrible, and to avoid a sympathetic response, Riku tries to think about something else as it continues, until Day seems to lapse into coughing. He feels him start to turn and retreats, sitting with his back against the wall.

His shirt is dirty, stained dark all down the front, and exhaustion has bruised the skin under his eyes, even as haggard as his appearance is Riku is still present, he's still sharp-eyed and determined.

He doesn't think he's ever heard Daylight swear before. Somehow, that's a relief - he would've been a lot more concerned if he tried to be chipper under the circumstances. ]

Been asking myself the same thing. Far as I can tell, they haven't killed any of us.

I guess because it means we get out of this thing they're forcing us through. Or it means there's a chance the others can track us if we're now gone.

[ day winces when he finishes speaking, wondering why those cynical, sharp words poured out from him so easily. he rubs at his throat, carefully touching the serrated, loose cables that were tugged on and yanked at when he was being-

he hums, trying to think of something else to say to riku. speaking with a friend is comforting in these... these times they're in now. and it'll be better to focus his attention on the conversation and it'll be nice to bounce some ideas and theories and anything with someone he knows he can trust . ] Do you think... When they make us eat...

[ his tanks churn, despite being devoid of anything now, and he takes a deep vent. tries to force himself to ask the question because- because day needs to know if others have had an inkling of this thought or if it's just him. ] Do you remember what Soldat told us some time back? How some spirits didn't want to cooperate with the Green-Eyed ones?

[ Riku, in an odd reaction, chooses to inhale through his nose - deliberately, slowly - while wearing a speculative expression. What Daylight says seems, to him, an expression of Darkness building in his heart. His sense for it might actually fail to help him here simply because there's so much negative sentiments swirling around this place, the despair and misery a thick reek in the air. ]

I'm sure someone has thought to look at Mary's mural.

[ Her painting in that public building shows each of them, every last Beacon resident, and their general state, albeit in the manner of a talented child's drawing. He's sure someone will notice they're gone and check, and if one saw a large number of their people in apparent depicted distress, they'll realize something happened. ]

They'll search for us. There's only so many places this many can be hidden. Don't lose heart.

[ He knows it's hard, after the kinds of horrifying things they've done, the torture. Riku's calm is equal parts shock and exhaustion after being cut open, after what feels like almost a year in hallucinated isolation, after the indescribable things that got forced down his throat.

They haven't managed to break him, which tells him that's perhaps not the point. ]

...It's- [ Riku's expression changes very little, but the tightness around his eyes and that wrinkle of his nose, the bob of his adam's apple as he tries to swallow around a wave of nausea says volumes. ] - really better not to speculate.

[ Now he can't help it. To think, not long ago, they were celebrating under the light of the aurora, he might have eaten one of them-- Riku squeezes shut his eyes and breathes deep through his nose as his stomach cramps. There isn't anything left to give up, his throat burns, instead. ]

... Yeah.

[ probably the best they didn't think about it. much as it lurks in the back of his processors, hissing nasty things, the ideas and theories that are bothering day can wait for some other time. out of the corner of his optics, he sees riku's reaction and his spark twists in apology. more reason to keep moving on and refocus their conversation on something else.

so before he can stop himself and consider his next words, day simply blurts out: ]

Happy birthday?

[ um. uhh... hmm... actually... he can roll with this, day decides with some measure of optimism. there is something he can talk about with this angle.

day coughs, trying to ignore the taste of something wrong resting on his glossa. ] Yeah. I... I guess it wouldn't hurt to spoil the surprise now since we're talking. I was- I'm still working on a gift for your birthday. When we get out of there, I'll send it to you when it's ready and everything. It's taking a while to complete so, um, sorry for it being so late.

[ when they get out of here. not if. day is determined now to try and be positive, his rattled nerves and queasy tanks be darned. ]

[ That huff Riku makes might be surprise or laughter or a little of both. ]

You know, when they caught up with me, I was bringing a cake to the Invincible.

[ He rests the back of his head against the wall his back is nearly flush with, his lantern flame flutters, casting strange shadows through the holes in the cast iron whorls. ]

For you-- well, for everyone with a March birthday, I guess. Maybe even for the people without them.

[ He confides this like he's sharing a secret. ]

Happy Birthday, Day. When we get out of here- [ When. ] --we're gonna do this thing right.

EVENT LOG: WILD HEART PART ONE

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