the light is not for all of us. for some, it is a reminder that we are damned, doomed from the start
Who: Siren's Port
When: The night of Friday, October 14th into the morning Saturday, October 15th.
Where: In the mind, in the dreams, in the unconscious of the sleepers.
Summary: --
Warnings: These dreams may be considered not safe for work, with violence, gore, death, underlying sexual themes and other mentions of graphic nature. Having them is completely voluntary. They will strike your character when they are asleep (and if they do not sleep, your character may be pulled into a trance-like state for an undetermined amount of time, at the mun's discretion).
Reactionary logging is encouraged, and feel free to use this post to do just that. Anyone hoping to do dream-walking and other psychic-related shenanigans should ask for permission first, though. And, of course, there will be one log per day of the dreams that happen at night for the entire event.
The radio goes silent.
The door opens. The Darkness floods in. The hour strikes and the world shifts on its axis. It does very little to dampen the senses, so open and observing of the tiny space. The lighthouse is large and ominous in the daytime...but it's nothing in comparison to what it is at night. It is a beacon of despair to those who should look at it, to those inside of it. Terror grips at your chest and you exhale, feeling like something is crawling around in your chest. This was not a good idea. What fools they were--
"Goddamn radio," Morrison mutters. Yee, at his side, is trying to work on it. They don't feel the difference, the coldness in the air and icy, crawling feeling you do up your spine. It's unrelenting. "Wonderful," he grumbles, turning back to you. He has a flashlight; they all do. He's prepared. "Well? What is it?"
You cannot speak. You can't seem to tell him about the faces you see in the walls or the words carved into the stone.
TURN BAcK
You're in a castle, that much is clear by what you see before you. Stone walls surround you, and a fire roars in the craggy hearth. You bear a long, and when you place your hand on your stomach you find it to be round and quickened with motion beneath your palm. You feel content for a moment, maybe more, before a pain in your midsection cleaves you in double.
A plump maid in a green dress bursts into the room, full of bluster and delight, as if signaled by that pain - she bundles you off to a dark, foreboding and heavily-curtained bed, carved with many figures of cherubs. It's a familiar sight to you and yet somehow, those figures are frighteningly eerie
"It is not set right," says the grey-bearded man beside the bed, trying to hold down your thrashing body. "The thirteenth - a black sign!"
The travail seems to take forever and the pain is keen, but suddenly the woman climbs between your legs and, with great pulls forth the body of an infant is pulled from your body, limp and breathless. You are overjoyed, then horrified to see that what you have so carefully wrought shall not breathe, no matter how hard you try to bring him back to life and give him voice.
Again and again, the child gasps and goes still, gasps and stills, until you raise your face in supplication to the women who have helped you give birth. But suddenly their faces have turned waxen, their glares sharp, dark, and fearsome; they have sprouted horns, and their features are near to peeling off of their faces. It is the molting, brackish, horrifying look of the Deadite.
"Your people hath gone in the black death, and now your child is gone and dead. Why do ye cling to what is gone?"
What sounds you make in desperation die away in the fiendish monster-howl of the beast emerging from your soul. You hear the plump maiden shout once more:
"You should never have tried' loved him!"
And with that you jerk awake.
The lighthouse, however, has other ideas. The light at the top of the unending staircase turns on, winking in the distance.
"Who the hell turned that on?" Yee, the pragmatic one, asks. He doesn't like this. His eyes are round with terror, like a small child's. He told you earlier about the child he has at home, the wife who nagged at him to go on this trip. He calls this a career maker. He's been a writer and researcher for most of his life, doing little things here and there. He doesn't believe in the paranormal, or so he's said. His lips move; he must be praying.
Morrison claps him on the shoulder and Sara just smiles. "It's probably automatic. It's the only lighthouse for miles and miles... The city needs for it to go on."
The whisper comes close to your ear. Necessary for the ships out there. But there's no one when you turn.
"Chitose, go with Sara into the back room over there. See if there's a switch. Yee, let's head up."
You find yourself in a large, elegant estate. The furniture is well-polished and of a refined taste, there's art everywhere and expensive rugs cover the smooth hardwood floors. There is a curious blend of Eastern and Western design to the place, from the basic layout to the more intricate details. Everything is dark and rich. It's the sort of place that you'd never imagine children being raised, but nevertheless this is your home. Whether or not you truly recognize the place, you know it as your childhood home in that instinctive and familiar way that only ever happens in dreams.
As you make your way through the living room, a fireplace burning low, you notice a letter waiting on the otherwise immaculate coffee table. A glimpse at the envelope reveals a name, your name, atop a neatly scrawled address. You know the handwriting and you can feel yourself getting excited. This is a letter you've been waiting for for a very long time from someone who is very close to you. Wasting no time you sit down on the plush couch and tear it open, beginning to read, eager for news from your far-away loved one.
What exactly the words say does not matter as the letters blur and shift if you actually try to read them, but again as with all dreams you know what it says...and little of it makes any sense to you. These words cannot be from your loved one, but it has to be them... As you continue reading words keeping flashing into your mind but fade back into the script when you try to find them again, you read it over and over, fingers brushing over the ink until your eyes strain and the letters begin to smudge and run together.
The ink keeps bleeding, keeps spreading until it flows, wet and thick down the page and over your fingertips.
The anxiety is thick now, and as you lift up your hand to look at the wet ink on your fingers, you think you see a faint red glimmer in the flickering firelight. Yet before you can ask the dreadful question, you at last can see the letter clearly through your fingers. Words form on the page by the wildly running ink as it drips down to the floor at your feet.
All it says is this: They're hurting us. Get me out.
And then the ink slips from the page and leaves it blank, taking the evidence with it.
There is no one here. There can't be. The state of the few rooms here, the kitchen and the bedroom, say so. There is old and putrid food in the small fridge, rotting for years and years. It makes Sara sick and you try to maintain yourself. There are cobwebs everywhere in the rusty lighthouse, a testament to the Darkness' hold on the place. It looks so dirty, the rust clinging to the cabinets and walls like dried blood. (Maybe it is--) It's not. It's not...
"It's so strange," Sara murmurs behind you. "If the Darkness can get in here...why aren't there any monsters in here?"
There don't need to be Core monsters, grotesques from the outside, here. Not when there are whispers just beyond the edge of your hearing, their incessant mumbling drifting in and out.
"I just don't like it."
“You promised!”
The anguish filled words ring through the empty courtyard outside of a massive cathedral. The one yelling them is easily identified too considering he’s the only one out there. A boy around twelve, dressed in a ragged cloak covered in blood splotches. Those clothes and his hopeless eyes belong in a war zone, not here in the quiet of a churchyard.
“You promised we could fight together! To the very end! I wanted to go with you! Why did you have to leave me behind?! Why?!”
Brilliant blue eyes fill with tears that fade all too quickly for the pain he’d suffered from seeing all of his friends die in a subjugation of sky pirates. Soon enough they become empty of emotion.
No… Now those same eyes, but in a much older face, were filled with determination. The same church is barely visible far, far below.
Rushing wind, the roaring of two hawkziles as they both plummet almost straight down after two falling objects. A tiny red orb and a brown haired boy. He had to get to Teito! He had to!
“Are you by chance, Zehel?”
It isn’t the same voice as before. This one belongs to the uniformed man flying on the other hawkzile, Hyuuga of the Black Hawks. He grins before continuing.
“Aya-tan is going to take everything that’s precious to you~”
Darkness curls in around the edges, spiraling closer and closer to Frau, or as Hyuuga had called him, Zehel. Soon there is nothing left besides the darkness and the blue of Frau’s eyes. Again, the expression in them changes. This time there’s a glint of menace, even mild amusement. The blackness pulls away on the edges, but still leaves Frau cloaked in shadow. The quiet of true darkness is broken by nearly crazed laughter and a finger is thrust out to point at Frau.
As the laughter slows, the owner of the finger and the now dead laughter speaks. While he looks a bit insane, the words are true. That truth can almost be felt.
“I can see your future! Soon you will vanish from this world!”
The image of the man shatters, pieces flying in all directions to leave only the darkness once again. An eternity seems to pass in a void of nothing before words emerge once more.
“I know.”
Frau’s voice, soft and understanding. He can’t deny those words. Nor can he deny the fact that everything surrounding him is dark, lost. There is only a tiny pinpoint in the blackness. For him, that tiny pinpoint in his only hope, but…
“The light is so far away…”
There's an old photograph in the corner that catches your eye, one of a crew of twelve men, all pointing to the place where the lighthouse now stands. The place in the photo is empty, filled instead with some construction and nothing more. They're grinning. Some look overly confident and others look like they're about to laugh. The rust of the Darkness hasn't touched the photograph, nor has it touched the stand. It has withstood the test of time. You brush your hand over the dust that's collected there.
A shout. You jump, knock into the table the photograph sits on. You grab it before it falls over and set it back upright.
"What's wrong?" Sara asks. "What happened?"
She didn't hear. You shake your head. "It's nothing."
You set the photograph back in place. You pause.
They're not smiling any longer. Their eyes are dark and hollowed out, but still they point to that empty space where the lighthouse will be, where their greatest work will one day stand.
It's a shame. They all died for it.
Men in old-fashioned clothes huddle around a table in the lamplight as the ship sways, speaking of demons and of immortality in hushed voices. You sit apart from them, watching them. Studying them. Hating them. One of the men-the one wearing glasses-glances over at you and offers a smile. Your own lips turn down in a scowl and you look away. You leave them to their hushed talks then, and take a lantern with you. You pick your way across the ship, walking down darkened hallways as you listen to the boards creak and groan as rain hammers against the wooden deck. There's a storm tonight.
The ship lists hard to port. You're tossed into the wall, and you slowly make your way to your door, your room. You twist the knob, head inside, outside, into the street. A car horn screams and you reel backwards, stepping back onto the curb. The familiar sights and smells of Manhattan surround you, brick buildings you've passed so many times-but now, compared to the Port, everything seems somehow older, outdated, a relic of the past.
The man with glasses and a smile is by your side now; the glasses are different and his clothes are more modern now (a suit and a fedora instead of a waistcoat and breeches) but it's unmistakably the same man. He shakes his head in a gesture of fond amusement. In that moment, you hate him-but that hate also feels foreign to you. You respect this man, you look up to him, but right now you want to destroy him and the others-to devour them all; not to eat but to consume; to take everything he's ever done and learned and experienced and make it yours. He'll die and then live on through you, and all you have to do is just place your hand on his head and then eat and eat and eat and eat-
-You can see your hand outstretched in front of you (an old hand, with so many familiar wrinkles) resting on the head of a young man. He's around your age, you think; he's you, and he's being torn apart as you consume yourself. Consume him. You're you and you're him; there's nothing left of his body once it's absorbed through the hand. He's now a part of you. You consumed and were consumed in return; you can recall both and it feels as though you're an ouroboros eating your own tail.-
The Model T that blew its horn drives past, and the man with glasses pats your shoulder before starting across the now-empty street. You realize that the sky is dark-is a storm coming?-and it's a long moment before you follow him, jogging to catch up. His back is to you; it would be so easy to catch him off-guard. He'd never suspect it; not from you.
Against your will, you begin to reach out your right hand. You don't want to; you want to stop; you don't want to consume him at all. You don't want to betray him or any of them, but you're----
A bang sounds upstairs. There's shouting. Sara's already gone to investigate and you follow quickly, brushing off the chill you feel down your spine. You throw the door open only long enough to see Sara's long braid as she launches herself up the stairs. She's her own glowing nightlight, shining like the sun in her paranoia. "Morrison?! Yee!" she calls. You start to follow her, your knees buckling oddly on the old steps. They groan under the sudden weight and you cast your eyes upwards, towards the light. It turns--
Sara screams.
You turn your head and see Yee fall past you, his eyes bloodshot and punctured. His body makes a sickening crunch when he hits the bottom floor.
Sara keeps screaming.
(Hey you do you see what I see?)
Time is a river, an irradiated stream which froths discontentedly in its muddy banks, secrets stirring beneath its glossy surface. The silver gleam of a starlit reflection softens the neon shade of pink to a translucent pearl instead.
(Do you see what I see... You. Do you see what I see?)
Artemis, a tiny thing with large eyes, deceptively fragile, but once a beloved god. He can handle these visions, is well used to the terror, can stand the noise and the fury... but can you?
Do you cry out in sadness and pain at the thousands (millions) of bleeding hands that reach out in desperation and despair. Can your mind stand tall against the rush of chaos and destruction? The race and clash of fire and flood, the shudder of the earth, the rise and fall of kings and heroes, the elation and contempt of the people.
How brave are you, to stand on the many battlefields with corpses scattered beneath your feet. Some in chainmail and some in sleek plastic armor, others are civilians with no protection at all, they spill out of their flesh in torment.
Death. The future trudges always towards death, and the little pleasures of life, of birth, of delight, are drowned out by the scream of missilies. The collapse of cities... But are you reaching for these treasures despite this hateful slurry of the inevitable? (Artemis reaches for them, but as the current of time goes onwards, they are ripped from his small hands, leaving not a mark.)
Perhaps that is the difference: the fresh wounds of destruction staining and debasing the innocent and the wonderous with tears and blood.
Dreaming in pink, the future in all its many strange and winding patterns overflows.
(This is why he does not sleep.)
"Morrison! Morrison!" Sara screams, over and over, calling for their boss. He doesn't answer. "God damn him," she curses, throwing herself over the railing and jumping down to Yee's side. She kneels down immediately, trying to revive him... The angle of his body is unnatural. No one could have survived that fall. You go to join her, to do something useful, nearly slipping as you go down the stairs. There's something wet on the railing, sticky, putrid-- You see the red on your hands and quickly turn back, horrified.
There's no red. There's only water leaking from somewhere.
Don't you know how Brooke died, you fool? Walking too fast down these damn steps. He tripped--
"Stop staring and help me, you idiot!" Sara screams at you. Her face is awash with tears for the crumpled mess at her feet. "We have to get him out of here. We have to do something..."
She suddenly snarls, enraged. She thrusts the radio to you and stands. "Fuck. See if you can get this working. I'm going to get him."
When you open your eyes, everything is as it should be. Instead of morning, it's twilight, and golden rays stream down on a cobbled street you know well. You're not sure how you got here, but what does that matter? You are here, right where you belong. You know this as well as you know what turns to make as you walk through the town.
It's strange, though. The people here-you know them, too. Not by names, but their faces are familiar, and you don't remember of them being this rude before, bumping into you as you walk and practically running you over when you cross paths. They don't even murmur apologies or glance your way. It's like they don't see you at all.
So you take a detour. The nearest numbered tunnel seems as good a way as any. No crowds here-just you and the darkness. But it's a lot darker than you remember, and no sounds of the city above filter into the empty hall.
This isn't peaceful. It's not calming. You're about to leave and head in the other direction when you hear a voice-an echo. It sounds like it might be saying your name, but it's too faint to tell. The only direction it could come from is further down the tunnel, so you go, ignoring the prickling sensation that comes from knowing it has never led this deep before.
You don't see anything at first. Only the crunch sound that comes from beneath your shoe alerts you that there's anything different in this stretch of the tunnel. When you remove your foot, you have to squint at the tiny thing beneath it, and you don't see what it is until you kneel down to pick it up.
It's a tiny shell, taken from the beach. Broken now, crushed by your foot into enough pieces that there's no putting it back together.
You're on your feet in an instant, rocketing down the tunnel, but something's changed. There's no light at the end of it anymore, just a dull glow, and something's changed about the walls, the floor-it's almost like glass, and this is familiar too, but you don't stop, not for an instant. You've been here before and you weren't trapped then; you won't be now.
The bloom of heat catches you off-guard and you throw your arm up, blocking your face from the force of it. This time there is a light, but when you open your eyes once more, it's gone again. Your eyebrows feel scorched; a flame that intense shouldn't die down so quickly, but only a few seconds you reach where it must have been. You know this because all that's left is a pile of ash.
When you start running again, you're not running to something so much as you're running away. Ash and broken shell-there's nothing scary there, but you're terrified. Faster and faster, it doesn't matter where this tunnel leads as long as you can keep moving.
Unexpectedly, it does end. There's something far off, but it's definitely solid, not just an endless expanse of emptiness. Something propped up off to the side. For all your recent panic, you find yourself slowing down. You're not sure you want to know what it is, but you can't stop and you can't go back. All that's left is forward. And finally, when you get close enough, you see what it is.
It's a flood mirror, just as tall as you are. Drawing up alongside it, you turn to face it, eyes squeezed shut. But it's inevitable-you already know that you must open them eventually, and you know what you will see.
You do. And there it is-the reflection of a boy, short, with spiky brown hair and an easy smile.
The reflection is not yours.
The dials do nothing. Static answers you every time you punch in frequency numbers or try any of the emergency lines. Your cell phone hasn't been working since you walked in through the front door. And so you're left to sit here with Yee staring up at you, and all you can think about is the little girl who won't see her father tomorrow, and the wife who will blame herself for what's happened--
The captain is there.
Yee's lips begin to move. His eyelids twitch. He reaches out a hand.
The captain.
The light above groans in its place, in the old metal which binds it to the structure. When the sound ceases its echoes in the hall, Yee's body is back where it was.
(TURN BACK)
The minutes pass. The radio gives nothing but static and white noise, half of which are whispers that you know don't belong here. They don't. But you can't shake them. This is why you're here. This is why you came.
The lighthouse exudes the feeling of claustrophobia, making you feel small and afraid. The murmurs continue, ringing in your mind. They call to you, they plead, they cry...
Leave. Go back. Go away. Go away. Go away. goaway go away
Sara doesn't come back that hour. Or the next.
In the corner of the living room, you look at the bodies of your parents and see nothing. Hugging your knees, staring blankly, you wait for your tears to come.
Not one did.
All the food you can carry, all of the (flavored) water bottles, you stuff them in your backpack. You take a jacket - a pink one that you and your mother share - and put it on. It’s the beginning of autumn, and it will be cool at night.
After a long hour of hesitation, you go into his room. You take the holster from his drawer and sling it around your waist. As you stalk around the bedroom, looking for any extra ammunition, you notice the framed pictures on his bedside table. A family picture showing rows and rows of them in police uniforms, an honored tradition. And there’s another one, of you and your father, grinning in front of a birthday cake in shape of a game controller. All of the faces are grinning, frozen permanently.
You move forward, reaching for the back of the frames, but then you stop.
You have your memories.
That’ll be enough.
Within forty-eight hours, you would’ve been dead. Torn apart by those leaping zombies, or suffocated by the tongue-things, or crushed by those enormous hands. Within forty-eight hours, your mortal clock would’ve wound down and your parents - especially Dad - died for nothing.
Within twenty-four hours, you shot someone who was definitely not a zombie. He yelps, more out of surprise than pain.
“Woah! Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!”
You let out a hushed “Oh shit!” and duck behind an upturned desk. Slowly you peer over the edge, gripping your (Dad’s) pistol. A young man wearing what might have been business suit, but without his jacket and a loosened red tie.
The man aims his flashlight strait at you and you strain your eyes against the painful glare. The man you have shot not too long ago merely frowns at you and glances behind his shoulder.
Two more men appear out of the darker corners.
“You immune, kid?” One of them asks; his voice scruffy.
“What?” Your voice is hoarse from being so quiet.
“You got bit? Haven’t turned into one of them?”
You couldn’t talk. You aren’t even sure what is going on, and you start to shake like a wet, pathetic dog. Slowly, you raise your left wrist, showing scratch marks from a lucky swipe of a very determined zombie.
The silence is unbearable and long, though likely it only lasted a few minutes. Then another voice broke through, from the tallest of the three (and reminds you immediately of a bear): “For crying out loud, she would’ve been a zombie by now anyway if she wasn’t. Let’s go; I can hear the beer coolers calling my name.”
Twenty-four hours after seeing your first zombie, you join what is possibly the most mismatched remaining members of the human race.
And for the first time in what appears to be a long time, you find yourself okay with that.
There’s a hundred, a thousand Infected by your side. You don’t hear the men’s yells and cries - there is only thunder coming out of your pistols, the bang bang. A slobbering scream, flailing arms, and then a hole made out of flesh and ribs and organs appear within the second a bullet is fired. The magazine empties. You toss it aside, reload, and fire again.
You hear Bill yelling; “Let’s go, let’s go!” but you don’t dare leave your eyes off the raving Infected. Instead, you feel a giant hand grabbing your collar - Francis - and you pulled somewhere else. You don’t question it - you just try to keep up with Francis as you continue shooting at the incoming horde.
One by one, methodically, cold as a cadaver, you tear them down.
In a dingy safehouse, you watch the blood dripping down from the ceiling, the remains of a head blasted away by a shotgun. Frenzied laughter rings outside, where the listless damned lurk. Winged things flew past the windows. A scream echoes.
You don’t sleep.
The October sky is red and cool; leaves turning into various shades of the color.
A corpse lies on the sidewalk as its two fingers twitches.
Mushrooms appear on a trunk’s half-empty body.
As soon the red bleeds into the darkness, you come out and let out echoes of false thunder.
The nights are bullets through the lungs.
You remember a song before your time, but popular enough for her generation. You recount her memories of friends and family with favorite movies and games with the others. Louis joins in, making jokes, making commentary of his own, as Francis looks on bemusedly at the whole thing. Bill only grunts and says that he never did get the whole Monty Python deal, but he did enjoy some of the skits back when they were being aired.
You and Louis try to coerce Bill and Francis into singing an upbeat song about brightness and whistles, but with no avail. Instead they sang without either man’s support.
The subway safehouse became a little bit warmer after that.
You can hear the APC - a steady roar over the howls of the desperate, the doomed. Your legs keep moving; keep running and that finger of your keep twitching, bullets cutting through the Infected and the occasional Hunter.
A flash of red and you are following Louis before you even know it. Follow him, and Francis and Bill right behind you. You go in the APC and the back door finally closes and finally, you and the guys are away from the house, the yard, the zombies, the fucking zombies -
“You are all Carriers.”
Oh, fuck. Oh, god. Oh, god.
The last meal you had - a measly energy bar - is clawing up your throat.
“It passes through from father to child . . . ”
Not even the living room that day was as dark as the cell is starting to become. You aren’t even aware of what else the doctor - the carrier - is saying.
Then, an alarm lets out a pitch wail.
All the people you have ever loved are gone. Taken away from you, violently, with hushed words of love and the underlying message you must survive.
All of the people she ever loved are gone, except for two.
Louis and Francis are arguing again - or rather, Francis is trying to put down Louis’ latest optimistic hopes.
You just stare at the burning fires straight ahead, silent. You see the silhouette of a Tank lurking behind the dancing shadows and you feel a strong, familiar urge of anger and hate.
When the rain starts to pour, you see a racecar streaking straight toward the town, a pale wash against the grey background.
“We got visitors,” you say, holstering your pistols. “Let’s welcome them.”
A door opens at the top of the stairs. You lift your head and shine your flashlight upwards. "Sara?" you call. Your voice sounds hoarse with fear, caught in your throat. Sara comes down the stairs, one at a time, her gait slow. Something is wrong.
"Sara," you call again as you walk to the bottom of the stairs. "Sara, we should just go. What did Mr. Morrison say?" Silence. "We can go in the morning, right? He'll come with us."
Step. Step. GET OUT
The whispers are back in full force, echoing, warning you. They are needles in your brain, puncturing holes in your sanity. "Sara, please," you plead.
The footsteps stop.
An earth-shattering blast erupts in the silence, something akin to a gunshot. The lighthouse echoes with it and the walls seem to expand like the inside of a mouth. The lighthouse gapes and groans, old metal creaking. The sound is deafening, enough to push you back against the wall. The voices you've been hearing, the dead and the restless who once walked this floor, begin to scream. Then you're screaming, and the world is screaming, and there's nothing but noise and the splintering of what must be your mind. (This can't be real, of course, this has to be some sort of nightmare...)
You go back into the captain's cabin and shut the door. You stumble. You fall against the table.
The voices are suddenly silent all at once and the only sound you can hear now is the heartbeat in your ears, the only sign that you're still alive.
Someone knocks on the door. "Chitose," Sara calls. "Chitose."
You leap to your feet. "Sara," you breathe. "God, let's just... Let's go." You grab open the door and are nearly blinded by the other girl's flashlight.
The flashlight rests on the floor, alone at the bottom of the stairs. Yee's body is gone.
But there are shadows. There are voices. And the rust begins to encompass everything in its sight.
When: The night of Friday, October 14th into the morning Saturday, October 15th.
Where: In the mind, in the dreams, in the unconscious of the sleepers.
Summary: --
Warnings: These dreams may be considered not safe for work, with violence, gore, death, underlying sexual themes and other mentions of graphic nature. Having them is completely voluntary. They will strike your character when they are asleep (and if they do not sleep, your character may be pulled into a trance-like state for an undetermined amount of time, at the mun's discretion).
Reactionary logging is encouraged, and feel free to use this post to do just that. Anyone hoping to do dream-walking and other psychic-related shenanigans should ask for permission first, though. And, of course, there will be one log per day of the dreams that happen at night for the entire event.
The radio goes silent.
The door opens. The Darkness floods in. The hour strikes and the world shifts on its axis. It does very little to dampen the senses, so open and observing of the tiny space. The lighthouse is large and ominous in the daytime...but it's nothing in comparison to what it is at night. It is a beacon of despair to those who should look at it, to those inside of it. Terror grips at your chest and you exhale, feeling like something is crawling around in your chest. This was not a good idea. What fools they were--
"Goddamn radio," Morrison mutters. Yee, at his side, is trying to work on it. They don't feel the difference, the coldness in the air and icy, crawling feeling you do up your spine. It's unrelenting. "Wonderful," he grumbles, turning back to you. He has a flashlight; they all do. He's prepared. "Well? What is it?"
You cannot speak. You can't seem to tell him about the faces you see in the walls or the words carved into the stone.
TURN BAcK
You're in a castle, that much is clear by what you see before you. Stone walls surround you, and a fire roars in the craggy hearth. You bear a long, and when you place your hand on your stomach you find it to be round and quickened with motion beneath your palm. You feel content for a moment, maybe more, before a pain in your midsection cleaves you in double.
A plump maid in a green dress bursts into the room, full of bluster and delight, as if signaled by that pain - she bundles you off to a dark, foreboding and heavily-curtained bed, carved with many figures of cherubs. It's a familiar sight to you and yet somehow, those figures are frighteningly eerie
"It is not set right," says the grey-bearded man beside the bed, trying to hold down your thrashing body. "The thirteenth - a black sign!"
The travail seems to take forever and the pain is keen, but suddenly the woman climbs between your legs and, with great pulls forth the body of an infant is pulled from your body, limp and breathless. You are overjoyed, then horrified to see that what you have so carefully wrought shall not breathe, no matter how hard you try to bring him back to life and give him voice.
Again and again, the child gasps and goes still, gasps and stills, until you raise your face in supplication to the women who have helped you give birth. But suddenly their faces have turned waxen, their glares sharp, dark, and fearsome; they have sprouted horns, and their features are near to peeling off of their faces. It is the molting, brackish, horrifying look of the Deadite.
"Your people hath gone in the black death, and now your child is gone and dead. Why do ye cling to what is gone?"
What sounds you make in desperation die away in the fiendish monster-howl of the beast emerging from your soul. You hear the plump maiden shout once more:
"You should never have tried' loved him!"
And with that you jerk awake.
The lighthouse, however, has other ideas. The light at the top of the unending staircase turns on, winking in the distance.
"Who the hell turned that on?" Yee, the pragmatic one, asks. He doesn't like this. His eyes are round with terror, like a small child's. He told you earlier about the child he has at home, the wife who nagged at him to go on this trip. He calls this a career maker. He's been a writer and researcher for most of his life, doing little things here and there. He doesn't believe in the paranormal, or so he's said. His lips move; he must be praying.
Morrison claps him on the shoulder and Sara just smiles. "It's probably automatic. It's the only lighthouse for miles and miles... The city needs for it to go on."
The whisper comes close to your ear. Necessary for the ships out there. But there's no one when you turn.
"Chitose, go with Sara into the back room over there. See if there's a switch. Yee, let's head up."
You find yourself in a large, elegant estate. The furniture is well-polished and of a refined taste, there's art everywhere and expensive rugs cover the smooth hardwood floors. There is a curious blend of Eastern and Western design to the place, from the basic layout to the more intricate details. Everything is dark and rich. It's the sort of place that you'd never imagine children being raised, but nevertheless this is your home. Whether or not you truly recognize the place, you know it as your childhood home in that instinctive and familiar way that only ever happens in dreams.
As you make your way through the living room, a fireplace burning low, you notice a letter waiting on the otherwise immaculate coffee table. A glimpse at the envelope reveals a name, your name, atop a neatly scrawled address. You know the handwriting and you can feel yourself getting excited. This is a letter you've been waiting for for a very long time from someone who is very close to you. Wasting no time you sit down on the plush couch and tear it open, beginning to read, eager for news from your far-away loved one.
What exactly the words say does not matter as the letters blur and shift if you actually try to read them, but again as with all dreams you know what it says...and little of it makes any sense to you. These words cannot be from your loved one, but it has to be them... As you continue reading words keeping flashing into your mind but fade back into the script when you try to find them again, you read it over and over, fingers brushing over the ink until your eyes strain and the letters begin to smudge and run together.
The ink keeps bleeding, keeps spreading until it flows, wet and thick down the page and over your fingertips.
The anxiety is thick now, and as you lift up your hand to look at the wet ink on your fingers, you think you see a faint red glimmer in the flickering firelight. Yet before you can ask the dreadful question, you at last can see the letter clearly through your fingers. Words form on the page by the wildly running ink as it drips down to the floor at your feet.
All it says is this: They're hurting us. Get me out.
And then the ink slips from the page and leaves it blank, taking the evidence with it.
There is no one here. There can't be. The state of the few rooms here, the kitchen and the bedroom, say so. There is old and putrid food in the small fridge, rotting for years and years. It makes Sara sick and you try to maintain yourself. There are cobwebs everywhere in the rusty lighthouse, a testament to the Darkness' hold on the place. It looks so dirty, the rust clinging to the cabinets and walls like dried blood. (Maybe it is--) It's not. It's not...
"It's so strange," Sara murmurs behind you. "If the Darkness can get in here...why aren't there any monsters in here?"
There don't need to be Core monsters, grotesques from the outside, here. Not when there are whispers just beyond the edge of your hearing, their incessant mumbling drifting in and out.
"I just don't like it."
“You promised!”
The anguish filled words ring through the empty courtyard outside of a massive cathedral. The one yelling them is easily identified too considering he’s the only one out there. A boy around twelve, dressed in a ragged cloak covered in blood splotches. Those clothes and his hopeless eyes belong in a war zone, not here in the quiet of a churchyard.
“You promised we could fight together! To the very end! I wanted to go with you! Why did you have to leave me behind?! Why?!”
Brilliant blue eyes fill with tears that fade all too quickly for the pain he’d suffered from seeing all of his friends die in a subjugation of sky pirates. Soon enough they become empty of emotion.
No… Now those same eyes, but in a much older face, were filled with determination. The same church is barely visible far, far below.
Rushing wind, the roaring of two hawkziles as they both plummet almost straight down after two falling objects. A tiny red orb and a brown haired boy. He had to get to Teito! He had to!
“Are you by chance, Zehel?”
It isn’t the same voice as before. This one belongs to the uniformed man flying on the other hawkzile, Hyuuga of the Black Hawks. He grins before continuing.
“Aya-tan is going to take everything that’s precious to you~”
Darkness curls in around the edges, spiraling closer and closer to Frau, or as Hyuuga had called him, Zehel. Soon there is nothing left besides the darkness and the blue of Frau’s eyes. Again, the expression in them changes. This time there’s a glint of menace, even mild amusement. The blackness pulls away on the edges, but still leaves Frau cloaked in shadow. The quiet of true darkness is broken by nearly crazed laughter and a finger is thrust out to point at Frau.
As the laughter slows, the owner of the finger and the now dead laughter speaks. While he looks a bit insane, the words are true. That truth can almost be felt.
“I can see your future! Soon you will vanish from this world!”
The image of the man shatters, pieces flying in all directions to leave only the darkness once again. An eternity seems to pass in a void of nothing before words emerge once more.
“I know.”
Frau’s voice, soft and understanding. He can’t deny those words. Nor can he deny the fact that everything surrounding him is dark, lost. There is only a tiny pinpoint in the blackness. For him, that tiny pinpoint in his only hope, but…
“The light is so far away…”
There's an old photograph in the corner that catches your eye, one of a crew of twelve men, all pointing to the place where the lighthouse now stands. The place in the photo is empty, filled instead with some construction and nothing more. They're grinning. Some look overly confident and others look like they're about to laugh. The rust of the Darkness hasn't touched the photograph, nor has it touched the stand. It has withstood the test of time. You brush your hand over the dust that's collected there.
A shout. You jump, knock into the table the photograph sits on. You grab it before it falls over and set it back upright.
"What's wrong?" Sara asks. "What happened?"
She didn't hear. You shake your head. "It's nothing."
You set the photograph back in place. You pause.
They're not smiling any longer. Their eyes are dark and hollowed out, but still they point to that empty space where the lighthouse will be, where their greatest work will one day stand.
It's a shame. They all died for it.
Men in old-fashioned clothes huddle around a table in the lamplight as the ship sways, speaking of demons and of immortality in hushed voices. You sit apart from them, watching them. Studying them. Hating them. One of the men-the one wearing glasses-glances over at you and offers a smile. Your own lips turn down in a scowl and you look away. You leave them to their hushed talks then, and take a lantern with you. You pick your way across the ship, walking down darkened hallways as you listen to the boards creak and groan as rain hammers against the wooden deck. There's a storm tonight.
The ship lists hard to port. You're tossed into the wall, and you slowly make your way to your door, your room. You twist the knob, head inside, outside, into the street. A car horn screams and you reel backwards, stepping back onto the curb. The familiar sights and smells of Manhattan surround you, brick buildings you've passed so many times-but now, compared to the Port, everything seems somehow older, outdated, a relic of the past.
The man with glasses and a smile is by your side now; the glasses are different and his clothes are more modern now (a suit and a fedora instead of a waistcoat and breeches) but it's unmistakably the same man. He shakes his head in a gesture of fond amusement. In that moment, you hate him-but that hate also feels foreign to you. You respect this man, you look up to him, but right now you want to destroy him and the others-to devour them all; not to eat but to consume; to take everything he's ever done and learned and experienced and make it yours. He'll die and then live on through you, and all you have to do is just place your hand on his head and then eat and eat and eat and eat-
-You can see your hand outstretched in front of you (an old hand, with so many familiar wrinkles) resting on the head of a young man. He's around your age, you think; he's you, and he's being torn apart as you consume yourself. Consume him. You're you and you're him; there's nothing left of his body once it's absorbed through the hand. He's now a part of you. You consumed and were consumed in return; you can recall both and it feels as though you're an ouroboros eating your own tail.-
The Model T that blew its horn drives past, and the man with glasses pats your shoulder before starting across the now-empty street. You realize that the sky is dark-is a storm coming?-and it's a long moment before you follow him, jogging to catch up. His back is to you; it would be so easy to catch him off-guard. He'd never suspect it; not from you.
Against your will, you begin to reach out your right hand. You don't want to; you want to stop; you don't want to consume him at all. You don't want to betray him or any of them, but you're----
A bang sounds upstairs. There's shouting. Sara's already gone to investigate and you follow quickly, brushing off the chill you feel down your spine. You throw the door open only long enough to see Sara's long braid as she launches herself up the stairs. She's her own glowing nightlight, shining like the sun in her paranoia. "Morrison?! Yee!" she calls. You start to follow her, your knees buckling oddly on the old steps. They groan under the sudden weight and you cast your eyes upwards, towards the light. It turns--
Sara screams.
You turn your head and see Yee fall past you, his eyes bloodshot and punctured. His body makes a sickening crunch when he hits the bottom floor.
Sara keeps screaming.
(Hey you do you see what I see?)
Time is a river, an irradiated stream which froths discontentedly in its muddy banks, secrets stirring beneath its glossy surface. The silver gleam of a starlit reflection softens the neon shade of pink to a translucent pearl instead.
(Do you see what I see... You. Do you see what I see?)
Artemis, a tiny thing with large eyes, deceptively fragile, but once a beloved god. He can handle these visions, is well used to the terror, can stand the noise and the fury... but can you?
Do you cry out in sadness and pain at the thousands (millions) of bleeding hands that reach out in desperation and despair. Can your mind stand tall against the rush of chaos and destruction? The race and clash of fire and flood, the shudder of the earth, the rise and fall of kings and heroes, the elation and contempt of the people.
How brave are you, to stand on the many battlefields with corpses scattered beneath your feet. Some in chainmail and some in sleek plastic armor, others are civilians with no protection at all, they spill out of their flesh in torment.
Death. The future trudges always towards death, and the little pleasures of life, of birth, of delight, are drowned out by the scream of missilies. The collapse of cities... But are you reaching for these treasures despite this hateful slurry of the inevitable? (Artemis reaches for them, but as the current of time goes onwards, they are ripped from his small hands, leaving not a mark.)
Perhaps that is the difference: the fresh wounds of destruction staining and debasing the innocent and the wonderous with tears and blood.
Dreaming in pink, the future in all its many strange and winding patterns overflows.
(This is why he does not sleep.)
"Morrison! Morrison!" Sara screams, over and over, calling for their boss. He doesn't answer. "God damn him," she curses, throwing herself over the railing and jumping down to Yee's side. She kneels down immediately, trying to revive him... The angle of his body is unnatural. No one could have survived that fall. You go to join her, to do something useful, nearly slipping as you go down the stairs. There's something wet on the railing, sticky, putrid-- You see the red on your hands and quickly turn back, horrified.
There's no red. There's only water leaking from somewhere.
Don't you know how Brooke died, you fool? Walking too fast down these damn steps. He tripped--
"Stop staring and help me, you idiot!" Sara screams at you. Her face is awash with tears for the crumpled mess at her feet. "We have to get him out of here. We have to do something..."
She suddenly snarls, enraged. She thrusts the radio to you and stands. "Fuck. See if you can get this working. I'm going to get him."
When you open your eyes, everything is as it should be. Instead of morning, it's twilight, and golden rays stream down on a cobbled street you know well. You're not sure how you got here, but what does that matter? You are here, right where you belong. You know this as well as you know what turns to make as you walk through the town.
It's strange, though. The people here-you know them, too. Not by names, but their faces are familiar, and you don't remember of them being this rude before, bumping into you as you walk and practically running you over when you cross paths. They don't even murmur apologies or glance your way. It's like they don't see you at all.
So you take a detour. The nearest numbered tunnel seems as good a way as any. No crowds here-just you and the darkness. But it's a lot darker than you remember, and no sounds of the city above filter into the empty hall.
This isn't peaceful. It's not calming. You're about to leave and head in the other direction when you hear a voice-an echo. It sounds like it might be saying your name, but it's too faint to tell. The only direction it could come from is further down the tunnel, so you go, ignoring the prickling sensation that comes from knowing it has never led this deep before.
You don't see anything at first. Only the crunch sound that comes from beneath your shoe alerts you that there's anything different in this stretch of the tunnel. When you remove your foot, you have to squint at the tiny thing beneath it, and you don't see what it is until you kneel down to pick it up.
It's a tiny shell, taken from the beach. Broken now, crushed by your foot into enough pieces that there's no putting it back together.
You're on your feet in an instant, rocketing down the tunnel, but something's changed. There's no light at the end of it anymore, just a dull glow, and something's changed about the walls, the floor-it's almost like glass, and this is familiar too, but you don't stop, not for an instant. You've been here before and you weren't trapped then; you won't be now.
The bloom of heat catches you off-guard and you throw your arm up, blocking your face from the force of it. This time there is a light, but when you open your eyes once more, it's gone again. Your eyebrows feel scorched; a flame that intense shouldn't die down so quickly, but only a few seconds you reach where it must have been. You know this because all that's left is a pile of ash.
When you start running again, you're not running to something so much as you're running away. Ash and broken shell-there's nothing scary there, but you're terrified. Faster and faster, it doesn't matter where this tunnel leads as long as you can keep moving.
Unexpectedly, it does end. There's something far off, but it's definitely solid, not just an endless expanse of emptiness. Something propped up off to the side. For all your recent panic, you find yourself slowing down. You're not sure you want to know what it is, but you can't stop and you can't go back. All that's left is forward. And finally, when you get close enough, you see what it is.
It's a flood mirror, just as tall as you are. Drawing up alongside it, you turn to face it, eyes squeezed shut. But it's inevitable-you already know that you must open them eventually, and you know what you will see.
You do. And there it is-the reflection of a boy, short, with spiky brown hair and an easy smile.
The reflection is not yours.
The dials do nothing. Static answers you every time you punch in frequency numbers or try any of the emergency lines. Your cell phone hasn't been working since you walked in through the front door. And so you're left to sit here with Yee staring up at you, and all you can think about is the little girl who won't see her father tomorrow, and the wife who will blame herself for what's happened--
The captain is there.
Yee's lips begin to move. His eyelids twitch. He reaches out a hand.
The captain.
The light above groans in its place, in the old metal which binds it to the structure. When the sound ceases its echoes in the hall, Yee's body is back where it was.
(TURN BACK)
The minutes pass. The radio gives nothing but static and white noise, half of which are whispers that you know don't belong here. They don't. But you can't shake them. This is why you're here. This is why you came.
The lighthouse exudes the feeling of claustrophobia, making you feel small and afraid. The murmurs continue, ringing in your mind. They call to you, they plead, they cry...
Leave. Go back. Go away. Go away. Go away. goaway go away
Sara doesn't come back that hour. Or the next.
In the corner of the living room, you look at the bodies of your parents and see nothing. Hugging your knees, staring blankly, you wait for your tears to come.
Not one did.
All the food you can carry, all of the (flavored) water bottles, you stuff them in your backpack. You take a jacket - a pink one that you and your mother share - and put it on. It’s the beginning of autumn, and it will be cool at night.
After a long hour of hesitation, you go into his room. You take the holster from his drawer and sling it around your waist. As you stalk around the bedroom, looking for any extra ammunition, you notice the framed pictures on his bedside table. A family picture showing rows and rows of them in police uniforms, an honored tradition. And there’s another one, of you and your father, grinning in front of a birthday cake in shape of a game controller. All of the faces are grinning, frozen permanently.
You move forward, reaching for the back of the frames, but then you stop.
You have your memories.
That’ll be enough.
Within forty-eight hours, you would’ve been dead. Torn apart by those leaping zombies, or suffocated by the tongue-things, or crushed by those enormous hands. Within forty-eight hours, your mortal clock would’ve wound down and your parents - especially Dad - died for nothing.
Within twenty-four hours, you shot someone who was definitely not a zombie. He yelps, more out of surprise than pain.
“Woah! Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!”
You let out a hushed “Oh shit!” and duck behind an upturned desk. Slowly you peer over the edge, gripping your (Dad’s) pistol. A young man wearing what might have been business suit, but without his jacket and a loosened red tie.
The man aims his flashlight strait at you and you strain your eyes against the painful glare. The man you have shot not too long ago merely frowns at you and glances behind his shoulder.
Two more men appear out of the darker corners.
“You immune, kid?” One of them asks; his voice scruffy.
“What?” Your voice is hoarse from being so quiet.
“You got bit? Haven’t turned into one of them?”
You couldn’t talk. You aren’t even sure what is going on, and you start to shake like a wet, pathetic dog. Slowly, you raise your left wrist, showing scratch marks from a lucky swipe of a very determined zombie.
The silence is unbearable and long, though likely it only lasted a few minutes. Then another voice broke through, from the tallest of the three (and reminds you immediately of a bear): “For crying out loud, she would’ve been a zombie by now anyway if she wasn’t. Let’s go; I can hear the beer coolers calling my name.”
Twenty-four hours after seeing your first zombie, you join what is possibly the most mismatched remaining members of the human race.
And for the first time in what appears to be a long time, you find yourself okay with that.
There’s a hundred, a thousand Infected by your side. You don’t hear the men’s yells and cries - there is only thunder coming out of your pistols, the bang bang. A slobbering scream, flailing arms, and then a hole made out of flesh and ribs and organs appear within the second a bullet is fired. The magazine empties. You toss it aside, reload, and fire again.
You hear Bill yelling; “Let’s go, let’s go!” but you don’t dare leave your eyes off the raving Infected. Instead, you feel a giant hand grabbing your collar - Francis - and you pulled somewhere else. You don’t question it - you just try to keep up with Francis as you continue shooting at the incoming horde.
One by one, methodically, cold as a cadaver, you tear them down.
In a dingy safehouse, you watch the blood dripping down from the ceiling, the remains of a head blasted away by a shotgun. Frenzied laughter rings outside, where the listless damned lurk. Winged things flew past the windows. A scream echoes.
You don’t sleep.
The October sky is red and cool; leaves turning into various shades of the color.
A corpse lies on the sidewalk as its two fingers twitches.
Mushrooms appear on a trunk’s half-empty body.
As soon the red bleeds into the darkness, you come out and let out echoes of false thunder.
The nights are bullets through the lungs.
You remember a song before your time, but popular enough for her generation. You recount her memories of friends and family with favorite movies and games with the others. Louis joins in, making jokes, making commentary of his own, as Francis looks on bemusedly at the whole thing. Bill only grunts and says that he never did get the whole Monty Python deal, but he did enjoy some of the skits back when they were being aired.
You and Louis try to coerce Bill and Francis into singing an upbeat song about brightness and whistles, but with no avail. Instead they sang without either man’s support.
The subway safehouse became a little bit warmer after that.
You can hear the APC - a steady roar over the howls of the desperate, the doomed. Your legs keep moving; keep running and that finger of your keep twitching, bullets cutting through the Infected and the occasional Hunter.
A flash of red and you are following Louis before you even know it. Follow him, and Francis and Bill right behind you. You go in the APC and the back door finally closes and finally, you and the guys are away from the house, the yard, the zombies, the fucking zombies -
“You are all Carriers.”
Oh, fuck. Oh, god. Oh, god.
The last meal you had - a measly energy bar - is clawing up your throat.
“It passes through from father to child . . . ”
Not even the living room that day was as dark as the cell is starting to become. You aren’t even aware of what else the doctor - the carrier - is saying.
Then, an alarm lets out a pitch wail.
All the people you have ever loved are gone. Taken away from you, violently, with hushed words of love and the underlying message you must survive.
All of the people she ever loved are gone, except for two.
Louis and Francis are arguing again - or rather, Francis is trying to put down Louis’ latest optimistic hopes.
You just stare at the burning fires straight ahead, silent. You see the silhouette of a Tank lurking behind the dancing shadows and you feel a strong, familiar urge of anger and hate.
When the rain starts to pour, you see a racecar streaking straight toward the town, a pale wash against the grey background.
“We got visitors,” you say, holstering your pistols. “Let’s welcome them.”
A door opens at the top of the stairs. You lift your head and shine your flashlight upwards. "Sara?" you call. Your voice sounds hoarse with fear, caught in your throat. Sara comes down the stairs, one at a time, her gait slow. Something is wrong.
"Sara," you call again as you walk to the bottom of the stairs. "Sara, we should just go. What did Mr. Morrison say?" Silence. "We can go in the morning, right? He'll come with us."
Step. Step. GET OUT
The whispers are back in full force, echoing, warning you. They are needles in your brain, puncturing holes in your sanity. "Sara, please," you plead.
The footsteps stop.
An earth-shattering blast erupts in the silence, something akin to a gunshot. The lighthouse echoes with it and the walls seem to expand like the inside of a mouth. The lighthouse gapes and groans, old metal creaking. The sound is deafening, enough to push you back against the wall. The voices you've been hearing, the dead and the restless who once walked this floor, begin to scream. Then you're screaming, and the world is screaming, and there's nothing but noise and the splintering of what must be your mind. (This can't be real, of course, this has to be some sort of nightmare...)
You go back into the captain's cabin and shut the door. You stumble. You fall against the table.
The voices are suddenly silent all at once and the only sound you can hear now is the heartbeat in your ears, the only sign that you're still alive.
Someone knocks on the door. "Chitose," Sara calls. "Chitose."
You leap to your feet. "Sara," you breathe. "God, let's just... Let's go." You grab open the door and are nearly blinded by the other girl's flashlight.
The flashlight rests on the floor, alone at the bottom of the stairs. Yee's body is gone.
But there are shadows. There are voices. And the rust begins to encompass everything in its sight.
