(Untitled)

[laughing_mage]

Scattered tools of his nights work can be seen around the room in the abandoned building he has been using as a workshop. In one corner are a pick and shovel covered with fresh earth with gloves and boots saturated with liquid and mud flung beside them. On the table where he's been working are several newspaper clippings and lists. Special ink and

Comments

[jla_extras]

The walls have a heatbeat that beats like rain in a London summer. It's suddenly humid, the air so moist it appears the walls are sweating, and in the dim fizzle of expiring lightbulbs, the beads of water running down hard stone look like blood.

The man in the Armani suit is curled fetal on the floor. His teeth gnash into his arm repeatedly. Traitor clothes. Traitor clothes. The fabric against his skin is a Judas. It has betrayed him. His skin itself has betrayed him. He will defend himself with the only weapons he has left. Fingers and teeth, fingers and teeth. Mad beast, put down with foaming mouth. Put down the rabid dog in a rich man's clothing. Put him down.

He lashes against the ground repeatedly, bashing his head again and again on the cement floor. Ray-Ban sunglasses spinter beneath his railing.

Fear finally grips the well-dressed man's heart. About time. Hayden reaches into the man's head, and accelerates it. The man's pulse is a jackhammer. His breathing a convulsion. He is soaked in sweat and bodily fluids. Hayden soaks it all in. He soaks everything in. He reaches out around Arkham, and he can feel the other inmates' minds.

The man is clawing at his clothing now, ripping it off until he is naked, still lying on the ground in a growing pool of his own fluids.

"You did this to yourself," says a strangely cool voice. ""That girl you think of when you harm us? The one who smells like jasmine? She no longer exists, and no one knows but you. The dog you've had since you bought your house? I made it go away. And you? You will feel terrors you never knew existed."

The man's head collides against the floor, the walls -- any hard surface, again and again, the rhythm of the impacts so set that he still flails again and again for nearly a minute after he's dead.

Behind the ghost a cell stands empty, the door unlocked.

[laughing_mage]

Eyes narrowed thoughtfully, he watches the scene unfold. Ghosts are talky folk if you just know what to look for. Trouble is you don't get their message sooner or later they get impatient and start throwing things.

when the scene seems to have wound down he walks through it towards the open cell. The place of pain. Pausing on the threshold he makes sure he has the items he prepared in his pockets and steps in.

[jla_extras]

The ghost seems to have begun the cycle over again, and is whole once more. Whoever he was, he must have been impressive -- a muscular, mountain of a man; well-dressed. Reaks of money. Funny, there haven't been any news stories about anyone dying at Arkham lately, and that's the sort of things the local papers keep up on, even in this town.

Whatver happened to him let an impression. He's screaming now, shielding his face. Somewhere, there's a smell of lavender, and then it's gone. Somewhere --- far, far away -- a dog is barking, and then it's gone. Somewhere the skies have turned red.

The man is clawing at his skin and clothes now, ripping into himself. The air is heavy with paranoia and betrayal.

The cell has been cleaned out. Nothing remains inside. But the nameplate is still there -- "Hayden, Roger."

[laughing_mage]

he's ignoring the rest of what's going on in Arkham, small explosions and the voices of inmates as they are making their escapes. Whatever he's looking for it has some connection to here.

Roger Hayden.

he considers trying a few things but this might not be the best place for it. Where there's death, there has to be a body. He hates being around ghosts always makes him feel his own too much.

He balances the pen on his hand and waits for it to show him the way the body went

[jla_extras]

The ghost seems to have noticed Constantine now, and stands to walk toward him. Up close, it's easy to tell that one eye is gouged out, and judging from the blood on his hands, the man did it to himself. His teeth are impacted, some shattered -- they chattered from fear so hard that they broke. They sliced his tongue into ribbons.

"He remembers," says the ghost. "He remembers everything."

[laughing_mage]

"Who remembers? Give me a little help here freakshow."

[jla_extras]

The ghost doesn't speak, but instead reaches out its blood-drenched hand toward Constantine, and before he can react, the hand is touching his face.

He is somewhere else -- Suburban America. The sun is shining, the houses all have the same manicured lawn. The woman in the garden is beautiful -- long blonde hair falls in gentle curls along her shoulders. She smiles, and the sun seems to wash over her face. Her hands are packed with dirt from planting day lillies.

Streaks of red clouds begin to highlight the sky, and the once-blue heavens seem to be bleeding, lightning crackling everywhere. The German shephard by her side barks angrily. The dog is scared, and with good reason. Constantine has seen these sorts of skies before. The last time they came, he lost a good many friends, and a woman he loved.

And nearly the entire balance between good and evil.

The woman and the dog are now running for the house, but there's a flash of light, and suddenly they're both gone. As if they were never there at all. The skies are blue again, the lawns well-manicured, but there are no day lillies planted in the yard.

When the vision passes, the ghost is gone, and Arkham's alarms are ringing.

[laughing_mage]

gasping and stumbling back once the vision releases him he stumbles out of the cell to lean against a wall until he can get his head back together. The ringing alarms arent' helping.

Emma...bloody fuck not now, get the job done get maudlin later.

Wishing he'd brought a bottle along he starts to make his way down the corridor, holding himself up with one hand on the wall until he can stand without walking into anything.

Time to find some bodies.

[laughing_mage]

continues here