It’s Such A Gray Day [ACTIVE//OPEN]
Characters: Odd Thomas, OPEN to anyone else willing to witness or join in on the marathon.
Content: Most people woke up in their beds. Odd Thomas, thanks to being away on his search for a certain wife-killer, did not find himself quite as fortunate. Nothing is ever fortunate when reverse psychic magnetism is involved.
Location: From Malcolm X Boulevard, all the way down to Hell’s kitchen.
Time of day: The evening after the Vanishing Thursday.
Warnings: An obscene amount of crab parasites, Odd’s overactive imagination, screaming, with a likely chance of more B-Movie clichés... oh my!
[ ooc: Let’s try to keep this organized and reply in separate threads rather than replying to the comments instead, shall we? With that in mind, I think now would be a good time to invest in the tracking feature Eljay has for this one, so that way we are up to date on tags. ]
On a scale of one to ten, Odd could definitely vouch that he had worse days. Sick to his stomach and his eyelids burning... if he drank one could easily mistake this one for a hangover. Of course, the hard bench didn’t help.
Didn’t help at all, as it wasn’t exactly one’s mattress of choice, and the late afternoon sun beaming into his face only worsened the whooshing in his skull. With a groan, he turned his head, averting from the lights peering down from the veils of the overhead tree branches. Lifting his hand up over his eyes, he squinted, peering through his fingers and-
His watch. The watch he had strapped around his wrist, an old automatic in case if he ever ran out of batteries, had stopped. He kept that watch for over four years now, shortly after he left St. Bartholomew’s Abbey, and not once did it ever stopped on him.
Just bad luck, that was all. Superstitions weren’t his thing, but everyone had bad days.
Hand on his forehead, Odd rolled his feet over the bench and slid upright, averting his gaze from the sun. Squinting between his lids, he saw no such thing as a sign of life anywhere on these deserted streets. No Billy, or Larsa, or Cheryl... Not even a tumbleweed blew through here. Considering his state of dress, it was a miracle he didn’t catch hyperthermia, either. Jeans and a sweater weren’t the best choice in winter gear; not to mention he was a little damp from having been lying on a pile of snow. When Odd stood up, he left an imprint where his body had been lying for... Who knew how long he had been there, or how he even got there to begin with; that was the unsettling part.
This time it wasn’t just the nausea. A sinking feeling really anchored in his chest; his knees weakened and he gave in over the bench again.
Before this... Odd remembered only wandering the streets the previous night. He looked at his watch, which had been working back then... still ticking away as the midnight needle struck the twelve. He stared at it like it gazed back at him; he wondered if this had anything to do with trying to focus on psychic magnetism as much as he had at the time, hoping that in some way it would assist him in finding Sunderland.
Focusing so hard as he had back then, Odd presumed that it had been because of that which caused him to slip into unconsciousness. He certainly didn’t recall ending up on this far end of the city. Last he checked, sleepwalking also wasn’t a side effect of the magnetism, either, not to mention Sunderland was still nowhere to be found.
He looked around. Where was he, anyway?
Odd stood up again, regaining enough of his composure the amble forward to the nearest street sign: Malcolm X Boulevard.
Perhaps he should have studied the maps of Manhattan a little more closely. This was definitely nowhere near where he had been the previous night, neither had it been a location that delivered any relative familiarity.
“Dammit, Sunderland, this is all reasonably your fault you stupid, selfish, deserting bastard!” Odd cursed while passing by a newspaper dispenser and, in his frustration, delivered a sideways kick to its metal side.
As if that would prove anything... Cursing himself again, he limped a few paces back, hissing as his foot now throbbed as well.
Pained toes underneath his shoes not doing much to improve his mood, Odd only went and hobbled down the boulevard to the intersection. That was when he turned to a nearby structure with a sign that caught his eye...
Odd frowned.
Central Park North Station...
With good reason, most people avoided Central Park and its immediate surroundings. Living at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which was so close to the park, didn’t accompany them at all, but God help him if Odd ever braved venturing into the park itself. Now here he was, standing at the gates of the very damned place, and he couldn’t have felt any sicker than he had since waking up.
A dipping realization as Odd realized what had occurred the last instance his psychic magnetism made its debut in this city. To make a long story short, it hadn’t exactly ended with Lady Luck smiling down on him.
Said magnetism had been very active since before the blackout.
Said magnetism also inclined Odd to turn his head, slowly, to the quiet scuttling and hissing noises approaching.
There came a slight rumbling beneath his feet, quaking from the soles and skin and vibrations to the bone so much he nearly lost balance. He didn’t want to, didn’t have to, could have just run but didn’t, couldn’t-had to see. Turned and looked and saw the army of legs and shell and a thousand eyes pouring from the beyond the trees of East Drive.
Once again, just like that goddamned time before... so many of them. So many, as if the entire population within Central Park had taken fancy to the appeal of making a grown man run for his life, screaming like a four-year-old girl.
Odd Thomas had come face-to-face with enough unknowns to know that you never stand there and wait for it to come tearing your head off. That being said, he turned and ran, not hiding the sheer animal terror as he booked it around the corner, with very well over dozens of crab parasites snarling and screeching at his heel. He was fast, even more so incredibly fast over the period of his stay here... These parasites offered one hell of a workout on more than one occasion, if Odd was willing to thank them for allowing him to lay off a few pounds of lard. Crab parasites still weren’t exactly his idea of model mascots for Jenny Craig.
If there had been any way of blocking them out of his mind, then none of this would have been an issue. With any luck, he would have a better chance of foiling them with a Groucho Marx disguise if not for reverse psychic magnetism drawing them directly to him like a slab of juicy, tasty, you-know-you-want-this meat. Unfortunately, trying not to think about the mass of parasites and how much of a bloody mess they will make out of you was like trying to not see a naked sumo wrestler while trapped in an elevator.
Don’t think about how many of them it will take to kill you. Just think about purple elephants.
Oh God and suddenly he was thinking about purple parasites wearing swim trunks and Sunderland’s jacket while carrying plastic bags of red lobster and their pincers sticking out and there’s a 50% Off sale at Target and they’re all stampeding for it while cracking the windows at the front doors and he’s the only store clerk around and they’re going to kill him they’re out for blood.
Ducking with his hands over his head as a crab leapt from one a building side and towards his face, Odd swiveled, nearly lost equilibrium, and retreated steps away in a swift evasion of the crab parasites pinching, clawing, attacking at his ankles. One was even this close to snapping his foot clean off until Odd found himself making a very bold if not insanely stupid move...
...and kicked it in the face.
Who does that?
A yell of frustration let out as Odd whirled around yet another corner and bolted down Third Avenue.
Content: Most people woke up in their beds. Odd Thomas, thanks to being away on his search for a certain wife-killer, did not find himself quite as fortunate. Nothing is ever fortunate when reverse psychic magnetism is involved.
Location: From Malcolm X Boulevard, all the way down to Hell’s kitchen.
Time of day: The evening after the Vanishing Thursday.
Warnings: An obscene amount of crab parasites, Odd’s overactive imagination, screaming, with a likely chance of more B-Movie clichés... oh my!
[ ooc: Let’s try to keep this organized and reply in separate threads rather than replying to the comments instead, shall we? With that in mind, I think now would be a good time to invest in the tracking feature Eljay has for this one, so that way we are up to date on tags. ]
On a scale of one to ten, Odd could definitely vouch that he had worse days. Sick to his stomach and his eyelids burning... if he drank one could easily mistake this one for a hangover. Of course, the hard bench didn’t help.
Didn’t help at all, as it wasn’t exactly one’s mattress of choice, and the late afternoon sun beaming into his face only worsened the whooshing in his skull. With a groan, he turned his head, averting from the lights peering down from the veils of the overhead tree branches. Lifting his hand up over his eyes, he squinted, peering through his fingers and-
His watch. The watch he had strapped around his wrist, an old automatic in case if he ever ran out of batteries, had stopped. He kept that watch for over four years now, shortly after he left St. Bartholomew’s Abbey, and not once did it ever stopped on him.
Just bad luck, that was all. Superstitions weren’t his thing, but everyone had bad days.
Hand on his forehead, Odd rolled his feet over the bench and slid upright, averting his gaze from the sun. Squinting between his lids, he saw no such thing as a sign of life anywhere on these deserted streets. No Billy, or Larsa, or Cheryl... Not even a tumbleweed blew through here. Considering his state of dress, it was a miracle he didn’t catch hyperthermia, either. Jeans and a sweater weren’t the best choice in winter gear; not to mention he was a little damp from having been lying on a pile of snow. When Odd stood up, he left an imprint where his body had been lying for... Who knew how long he had been there, or how he even got there to begin with; that was the unsettling part.
This time it wasn’t just the nausea. A sinking feeling really anchored in his chest; his knees weakened and he gave in over the bench again.
Before this... Odd remembered only wandering the streets the previous night. He looked at his watch, which had been working back then... still ticking away as the midnight needle struck the twelve. He stared at it like it gazed back at him; he wondered if this had anything to do with trying to focus on psychic magnetism as much as he had at the time, hoping that in some way it would assist him in finding Sunderland.
Focusing so hard as he had back then, Odd presumed that it had been because of that which caused him to slip into unconsciousness. He certainly didn’t recall ending up on this far end of the city. Last he checked, sleepwalking also wasn’t a side effect of the magnetism, either, not to mention Sunderland was still nowhere to be found.
He looked around. Where was he, anyway?
Odd stood up again, regaining enough of his composure the amble forward to the nearest street sign: Malcolm X Boulevard.
Perhaps he should have studied the maps of Manhattan a little more closely. This was definitely nowhere near where he had been the previous night, neither had it been a location that delivered any relative familiarity.
“Dammit, Sunderland, this is all reasonably your fault you stupid, selfish, deserting bastard!” Odd cursed while passing by a newspaper dispenser and, in his frustration, delivered a sideways kick to its metal side.
As if that would prove anything... Cursing himself again, he limped a few paces back, hissing as his foot now throbbed as well.
Pained toes underneath his shoes not doing much to improve his mood, Odd only went and hobbled down the boulevard to the intersection. That was when he turned to a nearby structure with a sign that caught his eye...
Odd frowned.
Central Park North Station...
With good reason, most people avoided Central Park and its immediate surroundings. Living at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which was so close to the park, didn’t accompany them at all, but God help him if Odd ever braved venturing into the park itself. Now here he was, standing at the gates of the very damned place, and he couldn’t have felt any sicker than he had since waking up.
A dipping realization as Odd realized what had occurred the last instance his psychic magnetism made its debut in this city. To make a long story short, it hadn’t exactly ended with Lady Luck smiling down on him.
Said magnetism had been very active since before the blackout.
Said magnetism also inclined Odd to turn his head, slowly, to the quiet scuttling and hissing noises approaching.
There came a slight rumbling beneath his feet, quaking from the soles and skin and vibrations to the bone so much he nearly lost balance. He didn’t want to, didn’t have to, could have just run but didn’t, couldn’t-had to see. Turned and looked and saw the army of legs and shell and a thousand eyes pouring from the beyond the trees of East Drive.
Once again, just like that goddamned time before... so many of them. So many, as if the entire population within Central Park had taken fancy to the appeal of making a grown man run for his life, screaming like a four-year-old girl.
Odd Thomas had come face-to-face with enough unknowns to know that you never stand there and wait for it to come tearing your head off. That being said, he turned and ran, not hiding the sheer animal terror as he booked it around the corner, with very well over dozens of crab parasites snarling and screeching at his heel. He was fast, even more so incredibly fast over the period of his stay here... These parasites offered one hell of a workout on more than one occasion, if Odd was willing to thank them for allowing him to lay off a few pounds of lard. Crab parasites still weren’t exactly his idea of model mascots for Jenny Craig.
If there had been any way of blocking them out of his mind, then none of this would have been an issue. With any luck, he would have a better chance of foiling them with a Groucho Marx disguise if not for reverse psychic magnetism drawing them directly to him like a slab of juicy, tasty, you-know-you-want-this meat. Unfortunately, trying not to think about the mass of parasites and how much of a bloody mess they will make out of you was like trying to not see a naked sumo wrestler while trapped in an elevator.
Don’t think about how many of them it will take to kill you. Just think about purple elephants.
Oh God and suddenly he was thinking about purple parasites wearing swim trunks and Sunderland’s jacket while carrying plastic bags of red lobster and their pincers sticking out and there’s a 50% Off sale at Target and they’re all stampeding for it while cracking the windows at the front doors and he’s the only store clerk around and they’re going to kill him they’re out for blood.
Ducking with his hands over his head as a crab leapt from one a building side and towards his face, Odd swiveled, nearly lost equilibrium, and retreated steps away in a swift evasion of the crab parasites pinching, clawing, attacking at his ankles. One was even this close to snapping his foot clean off until Odd found himself making a very bold if not insanely stupid move...
...and kicked it in the face.
Who does that?
A yell of frustration let out as Odd whirled around yet another corner and bolted down Third Avenue.