and in our darkest hour, we look to the heavens above and pray to be redeemed
Who: Siren's Port
When: The night of Saturday, October 15th into the morning of Sunday, October 16th.
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 silence stretches longer and longer, the hours blending in together. Were you sleeping? Were you dreaming? The world is bright with pain, needle points in your limbs and in your head, making it hard to even stay awake. They've been calling for you for hours, amassing outside of the room you sit in. You can feel their presence, the shadows that stare at you. They want to be heard. They refuse to be forgotten. The door's been opened and now they won't be silent.
For hours now, they've been telling you to leave. To run. To go back.
The boat outside is missing, shrouded in the fog. Leaving now would be suicide.
Morrison's still upstairs. He hasn't come down for hours.
The light in the lighthouse is still lit.
You snap awake in bed, but it’s not your bed, even though it is. The smell of cinnamon hangs in the air, hiding the faint smell of mold and wetness. Everything is in sepia-tones and muted greens, and that seems normal. As you get out of bed, you turn towards the door. All of the cracks and the keyhole have been sealed with red tape, which burns so bright in the dull room that it is almost blinding to look at, at first. You get out of bed, reluctantly, and head towards the door. As you reach out to open the door, your NV, sitting on the table, comes to life, crackling with static, before emitting a shrill and steady series of beeps.
Beep… beep… beep… beep… beep….
It sits on your nightstand, rattling against the surface as it vibrates. You forget about the sound after a while, slowly peeling the tape away from the door so you can leave.
Once you’ve pulled all the tape down, you realize that the beeping has changed over to tinkling music, like the sound of a child’s music box. This normally whimsical sound is undercut with something on the feed, something wet-sounding, like someone breathing, whispering, mouth against the mike. It almost sounds as if the source of the noise is in the room with you, not in their recording station.
The music suddenly cuts short. A little girl begins to recite what you think are numbers, but there is so much feedback and interference, and she’s not speaking a language you understand anyway. In a moment of indecision, you stand between the door and the nightstand before you finally pick up the NV and take it with you back to the door.
The living area on the other side of the door is dark, with huge thorny vines intercrossing and growing across the walls and the windows. There are roses growing on these vines, over-bloomed and richly red like drying blood. The front door isn’t immediately obvious to you when you walk out, but it must be somewhere. You know you have to leave, even if you have to dig your way out.
The little girl stops reading the numbers and the music-box noises return, loud as ever, even though the NV is now in your pocket. It doesn’t matter, it feels like it’s coming out of your head. You feel clumsy, your limbs feel like they’ve become full of lead, and you’re practically tripping over the rug, and bumping against the coffee table. There were two cups of coffee there, side by side, recent. Steam was still rising from them before your bump upended them onto the ground. Their crash is accompanied by momentary silence. It hangs over the room and it slowly dawns on you that you are not alone. You feel sick, a combination of coffee and blood suddenly assailing your nostrils, chasing away the cinnamon smell.
You whip around quickly and there is someone standing in the doorway of the room you just came out of, despite it being impossible that there was anyone in the room with you. The bedroom is now very bright compared to the living area, and it makes this person difficult to see. His body is slim and lithe, but seems to ripple with confidence and power otherwise unexpected. You have trouble seeing his face, but what is very very clear are red scaly arms extending from the nape of his neck. They writhe and push at the doorframe, cracking the wood, but it doesn’t make a sound. You can feel your heart drop into your stomach. You’ve wronged this man somehow, but you can’t remember how, or why, or even what his name is. You open your mouth to speak but then the noise starts up again. The tinkling sound of the music-box music is distorted, warped like a record left in the humidity. He steps forward, those long red arms reaching for you, longing to draw you in. You can see his smile now, the hungry gleam in his eye. It’s like his head splits open at the bottom, all the better to devour your sins. He starts to talk to you, but he is utterly drowned out by the sound of the girl, her voice distorted and heavy. You turn to flee, to grab a weapon, anything, but that damned coffee table! You had sworn you had moved past it after you bumped the coffee onto the floor.
The little girl’s voice gets slower, and the background noises, that wet slurping and the whispering, get louder and louder and suddenly he’s on top of you and you’re trying to crawl away but he’s caged you with all of his red arms and his jaw is practically unhinged and his face is bleeding but maybe it’s your blood instead? You don’t have time to react as his human hands bury themselves into your chest and rip your ribcage apart, spraying him with more hot gore. The pain is unbelievable and your whole body shudders but you’re not dead yet. He doesn’t want you to die yet. You know you’re screaming but you can’t hear a thing, but he seems to, and between the sounds you are making for him alone and the sight of your quivering viscera, he seems positively enraptured. He reaches inside of you and you can feel the violation of it.
“I always thought of you as a heartless bastard, ey? I guess not.”
Just before your vision flashes white, you can see his arm contract, squeezing and tearing and stealing and the pain just becomes too much to bear.
It's a struggle to walk now. Limbs heavy from fatigue, there's only so much you can move without feeling the stinging pain from earlier. Your memory's foggy but there's cuts and scrapes on your arms and legs. You can only imagine what they're from, though you'd rather not find out.
It's them. It's the voices. It's this damn place...
That's not important now. What is important is --
TURN BACK turn back turn back
You just want to go home. It's unbearable.
You clutch your small bag to you with the few items you've found here with your team - now splintered and lost - and begin walking.
All you want to do is stop. You want to breathe, you want to rest. But it is absolutely important that you don't. You have to move. You always have to move, you can never slow down. They get you if you slow down for even one microsecond. The world around you is distorted beyond any recognition. It's static, heavy with something you don't understand but know very well. But that doesn't matter because you must keep moving. If you stop, you're dead.
But you really need a break. Just for a minute, or a moment.
And just like that, you've stopped. You don't know why, you didn't mean to stop moving. Yet there you are, frozen in place. You can't move your feet, your legs. Your fingers, hands, and arms are in locked at your sides, spread out like you're going to catch yourself from falling. You can barely even move your chest up and down to breathe. Oh God, no. This isn't what you want. You can't be stuck like this. It's the worst thing that can happen to you. So many bad things happened already. Please, not this. Please. You want to struggle so badly, you want to be free. That's all you've ever wanted.
"You don't deserve to be free."
You try to look up at the voice, but you can't move your neck. But you don't need to see to know whose voice that is. That deep, menacing voice.
"I've got you now, brat."
There's another deep voice. Thick, thick accent. How can they be here? Only you can be here. Terror holds you even tighter in place, gripping your insides and smothering you.
"We're everywhere you are. We're always right behind you."
Another voice this time, a woman's. She's American and so very cold. She was there that night. All of them were. You want to tell them to stop. You want to tell them to go to hell. You want to cry and apologize, even though you didn't do anything. But you still can't move. You can't even blink.
"You didn't listen to us."
No, no, no. The voices are closer now and this new one makes you feel sick. It used to be the man's voice that would tell you that everything is going to be okay.
"Why? If you just listened, we would be alive."
And there she is, right behind him. As it should be. Always together. They even died together. You can't imagine them any other way. Together they made you. Now together, they're going to rip you apart from the inside out.
"You would have killed them anyway. You're rotten and that's why we need to destroy you."
It's the very first voice again. They're all so close. Please, you think, let me go. I need to run. I need to move. But the voices are talking over each other and they're so very angry and they're coming closer and that chaotic static is swallowing you whole and you need to get out of here, please, please.
"It's all your fault!"
That young, panicked voice so full of hate is yours.
Step. Step. You pull open the door of the captain's cabin and step back into the central floor, gazing up the winding staircase. The stairs seem to go on forever, but that can't be the case. And you refuse to accept that. Determination swells in your chest; you will go home. You'll leave.
TURN BaCK
You'll go. You'll leave this place and never come back.
"I'm sorry, Dad. I thought I could do this, but..."
But now you know. Now you've seen what this lighthouse can do and you want no part of it.
This place wants to claim you for its own too.
You’re walking up the central aisle of a splendid church, cast all in gold with gold filigree inlaid on the wall, a Latin refrain of an ancient prayer wrapping the place like a consecrated bow. It's so beautiful, you think. A man could find faith here, but you know you don’t deserve it. Some wrongness about the place irks on a level too subsumed to understand. It has the feeling of a place long abandoned, like a child’s birthday party with the candles melted to nothing and two dozen chairs that were never filled.
Candles, torches, beautiful lights make it to shine like the sun in your vision, all brilliance seeming to fall on a massive crucifix in a marble tabernacle taller than some houses. Your eyes are not cast down in thought or humility, no religious contemplation or respect, but fixed boldly up at the eyes of the vividly detailed marble Christ on his cross with all the anguish of a very real and graphic death. A spire reaches up to the peak of that central dome, past the tall panels painting the dome with images of the angels in their nine choirs right to the benevolent bearded visage of God at the peak, looking down on all.
You move silently through the chapel, past the pews, and do not kneel at the altar. There are no eyes watching, no pause at all as you walk like you belong around the clothed table and right to the golden tabernacle in the heart of the marble structure, atop a silver-inlaid reliquary, nor when you finally tear your eyes from the tortured face of the Messiah to gaze on the engraved chalice adorning the small golden door, reaching a hand out to touch. You pause then with a hand outstretched just inches from that holiest of things; no. It's not supposed to go like this.
You turn, then, intending to reach for the holy water font you saw a moment ago, and stop in confusion. Where before there was only a small, understated basin on a slim pillar now stands a stoup you know wasn't there a second ago. It's a child angel holding up the basin like the crushing burden of Atlas, averting its eyes in pain. You approach slowly, heat tilting in curiosity, a hand outstretched to touch, to feel proof that all this is real.
The instant your finger brushes the cold marble the statue erupts in blinding white light, knocking you back a few feet as you cover your eyes instinctively. When you open them again the cherub statue is gone. In its place there’s only a smoking stain on the chapel floor shaped horribly like a body the size of a child. You look at it wonderingly before turning, starting in shock at what’s suddenly in front of you.
All around you, spotted randomly in the tabernacle area and flanking the altar, are holy water stoups with their faces all turned to you. Angels carved from gorgeous marble, the pure white stone stained with a curious black ash. They’re as dazzlingly beautiful as the church itself until you turn away and you can almost see horrible rotted faces, wasted skeletons smeared with ash right in the corner of your eye. There's at least a half dozen or more, some bowing reverently with eerie supplicating expressions, some with pain in their eyes, others averting their eyes. Whatever it is that they’re afraid of, you can’t see, but as you suck in a death-rattle breath there’s obviously something very wrong here. You swallow down your dread and pick your way through the maze of cold angels, stepping slowly down the chapel aisle.
The air is frigid and silent as a crypt, with a layer of dust settled over everything beautiful and, here and there, pitch-black ash. A few times, between your echoing footsteps, you swear you can hear faint, muffled scratching, but no matter what you can’t hear where it’s coming from, so you ignore it. The third time it happens, you turn back only to find a new stoup blocking the door that wasn’t there a second ago. This one isn’t like the others, all angelic and sad. It’s different.
It’s the Devil himself, carved from vomitous red stone etched with white veins and black ash caked into every slight crevice. The gargoyle Satan’s face is contorted into a vicious sneer and stares at you from under the weight of the holy water font with hateful, accusing eyes. You swallow hard and stop in your tracks, but not for long. The scratching is even louder now. It’s just unsettling enough to draw you in, until you’ve crossed the length of the chapel and bend down to see it yourself.
The cold stone turns to squishy rotting flesh under your hand, your fingers sinking in. The chapel starts crumbling around you, opulent splendor crumbling and rotting away until all that's left is a putrid hellscape almost profane in its horror, all blood splatters and decay and oh, the noise. Every angel statue is screaming, melting slowly until they burst in dazzling light. You spin around in shock, ears ringing painfully as they go up one by one, hurling broken bodies against the bloodied chapel walls. You recognize some from the Network: Castiel, blood dripping from his mouth, Anna, eyes burned out with sockets still smoking. Gabriel, head fallen back to rest on his shoulders with a broken, agonized look to the stars that will never answer him. Others you’ve never seen before, figures old and young twisted in pain and strung-up like blasphemous Christmas lights. Every single body is flanked with the enormous imprints of ashen wings.
There’s sobbing coming from somewhere. It might even be you. The walls are closing in now; this place is death paved with gold- a crypt of the forsaken never meant for you. Your gaze is locked on their faces as you turn: empty eyes, hollow cheeks, expressions contorted in confusion or desperate heartbreak.
That’s when you hear it.
The noise. You turn slowly, cold with horror, and see the Devil statue still intact, still kneeling beneath his basin full of holy blood like Atlas himself. This time, though, the eyes seem to move- following your gaze like they’re alive. You kneel down slowly and reach out with trepidation, to feel a seam at the eyes- there’s no stone there. Something is inside, and suddenly the scratching makes sense. Heart pounding in your chest, you tear into the eyes and, somehow, a piece of rock comes off in your hands. In a rush you tear away the rock, ripping the stone Devil apart until you’re looking at its prisoner: a shriveled, hideous creature like a bloody baby, huddled into itself and sobbing. It’s so sad, so pitiful, that your heart goes out to the hideous thing and you reach to scoop it up and comfort it. However, when you make contact with it, the twisted infant creature attacks you, knocking your head against the floor with a horrible scream of rage before everything goes black.
You wake up suddenly, still in pain.
You've watched them happen now. Every single death in this place.
Twelve. Twelve men.
They started to work on the lighthouse and every single one of them died. Accidents, of course. One fell from the tower. Another broke his neck when he slipped. Another, still, was crushed under one of the scaffolds that fell. It was a curse, they said. But that didn't stop anyone.
The captain.
Yes, that's right. The captain's still here, the voices say. You haven't heard him. He's still waiting, and waiting, and waiting...
You take the first step up the stairs.
You don't remember falling asleep but you're lying in your bed now. Pale dawn light casts a bluish hue over the room. It's cold; so cold you shiver beneath the covers, so cold that the chill seems to be coming from within you rather than the air.
The bedroom door is shut but you can hear people whispering outside of it, quiet as if to avoid waking you. You can't hear exactly what they're saying, but for some reason you recognize one of the words as your name. You get the feeling that something important is being discussed. Maybe you're in some kind of trouble. Maybe you should sneak out.
That's when you notice there are bars on the window.
All this time, you haven't moved from your place in bed. You're still huddled there with the blankets pulled up to your chin, staring wide-eyed at the room around you. Now, though, you think that you should move. But the second that thought crosses your mind, movement flickers in the periphery of your vision. You try to turn your head to look at it.
But you can't turn your head.
The coldness that was inside you somehow becomes colder. Icy. You want to move, or at least to call out to those people standing outside your door, but you can't. You can't do either of those things. Your muscles won't respond. Your mouth won't move.
And now there's a pressure on your chest. Someone is pushing down on you, some invisible person squeezing you. You can feel your ribs snapping like twigs, scraping the soft tissue of your lungs. There's a hand around your throat; you can feel it even though you can't see it. You still can't do so much as cry out. This invisible force is crushing you. Like the cold, it seems to be within you and outside you at the same time. Whatever it is, you can't escape it.
Maybe it's not something trying to get in. Maybe it's trying to get out.
The moment you realize that, you can see it now. The hand that's choking you. The body on top of you. It's no human. This thing is made of darkness. It's a shadow. You've been trapped by your own shadow.
Halfway up the stairs, you start to hear the manic wailing from down below. It's bone-chilling and startling, and you almost don't want to look over the edge of the stairs to see what it is. It's just another whisper, just another cry in your mind. That's all. You exhale. You step forward.
There's another scream. This time, you're certain that you heard it.
You tip your gaze over the side of the railing and look down into the spiral of the stairs, all the way down to the first floor. There's no one there. You shine your flashlight down to check, looking everywhere for the darkness or the eyes...or the souls you've seen for hours now. There's nothing. You continue on.
A jagged claw grabs your ankle, pressing deep nails into your skin. You scream and turn back.
You’re sitting on a curb. It’s a cool night but you feel comfortable. A sense of contentment has settled into your stomach, making you feel hopeful and optimistic. For a moment you feel that everything is okay. Things may not have been perfect for you, but they’re looking better.
That feeling quickly fades as the darkness sweeps in around you. Suddenly you’re no longer happily enjoying the night but terrified as it surrounds you and suffocates you. You can’t run. You are frozen with fear.
The forms that appear around you seem to come from the darkness. There are three of them and they’re each big and menacing. You don’t know what they’re trying to do, but the hate and disgust they feel towards you is so palpable it freezes you in place. You can’t make out their faces; all you see is the jagged black teeth in their mouths and their frightening eyes. They glare down at you and their aggression feeds out of the darkness and chokes you. You can’t even cry out for help. You know that no one would be there to help you if you could. You are alone with them.
They attack all at once, swarming you. They’re clawing at you, hitting you, kicking you. You try to fight back but they’re stronger than you are. The only thing that you can do is curl up on the ground as you try to cover your head. Each blow shocks you’re entire body with pain. Bones break and crack. You watch as your blood pools underneath you onto the sidewalk.
They keep attacking. They don’t stop even as your bones keep cracking and your skin peels away. You can’t even scream. You’re nothing. Why can’t they just let you die? Why doesn’t it ever stop hurting?
You think that it may never end.
Everything goes black.
A head of oily hair greets you, stained with crusted blood. The face is grotesque, black and red marks all over what was once fair skin. But that's not what you're staring at.
It's those black, empty eyes again, seeped in Darkness and cold. They stare into your own and you could swear that you've never felt more terrified in all of your life. The scream dies in your throat when you look at those eyes and you choke on your own voice. The hand digs deeper into your ankle and tries to pull you down the stairs.
Sara doesn't want you to go.
You stand in the middle of field. To one side, bleachers and a track. To the other, simply more field. And in front of you...
A cross. Huge, bigger than it likely is in reality, a dark relief against the bright noon sun behind it. As ominous as it ought to seem, a feeling of hope wells up somewhere in your heart. It's faint and tremulous but it's hope. Just looking at that big blot against the sun with it's rough wooden face is like you're looking at something that spells the difference between seeing some faint idea of the future.
And yet there's a cold weight in the pit of your stomach. Ice runs down your spine and you shiver in spite of the heat outdoors. This is your hope for the future so why--
The scene changes violently and suddenly. Now there's fire seemingly everywhere. A building falling apart and you're standing in the middle of it, a huge chunk of ceiling narrowly missing you. And then a hand has yours and you're being tugged along. The figure in front of you is dressed entirely in black save her hair. Her long, pale gold hair streams behind her as she runs.
The blond is speaking to you. "Somewhere where we can live in peace. Somewhere where we can be ourselves. Where we don't have to be--"
You have her face clasped in her hands, her brilliantly bright blue eyes clouded with confusion. You're speaking and your voice sounds muddled, thick, somehow unrecognizable to yourself.
"You're still alive."
Suddenly blackness clamps down as swiftly and surely as if someone suddenly shut a door. And when it comes back, your head bears a dull ache and your eyes are clouded. You're weighed down and wet with something. It's not water, that's not it. It's -- the fumes. The stench.
You're fully and horribly conscious now. Your head is pounding but in spite of it, you're blindingly awake. Awake just in time to hear the gunshot that follows, to taste the bite of --
You want to live! You want to live, you want to live! You're practically screaming it as you pull against your restraints. You throw your head back and all you can see above you now is the silhouette of darkness against plumes of grey smoke, the two stark lines above your head. The rough wood you're bound to.
Somewhere through the searing pain, a singular thought keeps reverberating through your mind.
Just like her. Oh god, I knew. Just like her, I knew!
She looms over you with those empty eyes, dragging her long nails into your legs. You kick, you scream, you plead. You cry. You call her name and you beg for her to leave you alone. Too late do you realize that those aren't nails in your flesh but screws, tiny little screws from construction that she's digging into you--
You grab your flashlight and throw it into her face. The light is blinding, making her shrink back as she wails once more. She claws at her eyes. You dislodge her and run the rest of the way up the stairs, heedless of the sounds behind you.
TURN BACK
Hands grab at you, calloused, workers hands that spring from the wall, from the very cement they helped to build for the foundation of the tower. You push past them and continue to run.
You don't look back. You don't turn around. At last, you see the door that leads into the top of the lighthouse and you slam into it with all of your strength. You throw yourself inside and close it behind you, locking it, pressing your back to the wood. With heaving breaths and pain still shooting into your limbs, you close your eyes and pray.
A gun clicks beside your ear.
You're being pushed against the wall. You can't move very well. Someone is holding you against it, and even if you could move, there's frozen terror locking up every muscle - what are you so scared of? Something terrible is happening beyond what you can quite see, a woman's voice vocalizes sporadic, pained grunts, men are talking to each other and laughing occasionally. All of this you know the way you know things in dreams without having to be told them. What the words might be, it's hard to pick out; it doesn't really matter. It matters more that you're frozen like a rabbit in a thicket, too afraid to even struggle, pushed back painfully against the wall.
The wall which is as slick and warm as flesh. It's all too hot, the smell is hot and frightening too, everything is a little too organic and a little too sticky and giving where it should be hard. Whoever's forcing you to hold still is pushing you back against that wall and it's almost like you're melting into it. Flesh seeping first into the grooves in the wood, and then the wall giving way like it's more skin backed with bone than just plain safe wood.
Try to pull away and it doesn't quite work. You're melting back into the wood, finally, under the person forcing you back into it; this place is going to keep you. It's as pathetic as a bug stuck to flypaper, the woman is still making low keens and grunts, somewhere, somewhere, the men are still there, and you're being swallowed. There won't be an opportunity to move from this place. You're here, within, further and further within. The air is hot and thick, hard to breath, hard to move; being pulled back into the heartwood, the torn ugly heart of this place. The house, the room, is taking you in itself, pulling you back in itself; the wall is slick, like it's wearing a skin of sweat, or something worse.
Like sinking beneath a pit of tar. These stinking breaths could be the last ones you take, so try to love the thick air a little; you're going to be unbirthed back into the walls, you're not going to leave. Is it because you're being pushed back so hard that it's time to move, is your head so hard to lift because you're tight with misery all over and can't move, or is it that you're like a figure being pressed into a soft lump of clay, rising and molding around you? So hard to lift your head because you're being crumpled up and pulled back, bones broken if necessary to make your limbs fit neatly in aperture you're being fed to. There won't be any leaving, though even if you left maybe it would be like a dog tied to a stake, revolving in circles - it's this place that has you, the center of your world, swallowed whole, all injuries necessary sacrifices to remain a witness here.
This room is breaking your heart. The next thing to go would best, and most kindly, be your neck.
"Morrison."
The man looks years older from just one night, his dark complexion pale and his eyes tired. A weight has settled on his shoulders that you can't describe, but you know it's there. He looks nothing like the man you saw last night. He keeps the gun pointed at your forehead and he says nothing for a long time. Your heart is in your throat; he's going to kill you.
"This is my tower," he says gruffly. "You don't belong here."
TURN BaCK
The whispers are back, clamoring at your eardrums. The light spins on its axis, blinding you.
"Get out," he mutters. "Get out. Get out."
Silence is deafening.
That is how the dream begins, a silence that is loud enough to fill your ears and dull your other senses, until it's difficult to tell when the sight of the city comes into view. When you can finally tell apart the lights of the buildings from the darkness around you, it's clear that you are high above the city, looking down on it from the air. The silence is broken by the heavy beat of leathery wings, and when you are able to perceive movement, you can tell that it's coming from you as you glide through the air. The city flies by beneath you in a blur, but eventually is slows as you start to dip down into the city proper, coming low toward the streets.
The Darkness monsters are clogging the streets in abnormal amounts, that is the first thing that is apparent. The next as you dip lower into the city is that it's not much of a city anymore; buildings have decayed and crumbled, and vines and greenery choked the streets, appearing as if nature was taking back what was stolen from it. The street lights, or at least the ones that still worked, continued to signal cars and other vehicles whose owners had long since abandoned them.
Siren's Port was dead, claimed by the night.
It's terrifying to see, but then things have to get stranger. The monsters look up as you fly overhead, and those that actually possess faces seem to look on in horror and surprise. You might even see faces of people you know amongst them, as the night had absorbed all those that thought they could live in defiance of the Darkness that took over the city. You take it all in, feeling a bit of smug pride; the Port was yours, and it was only fair, after all, since your own world was denied to you.
You come to a rest on a light pole, the bulb flickering in and out and threatening to die any moment, and it takes a moment to realize you're dangling upside down like a bat. Below, the Darkness monsters crowded around in reverence, watching and waiting. And as the light bulb of the pole finally bursts in a shower of sparks, you spread your leathery wings out wide, light dancing off of the stretched white skin like plumes of fire. It was the cue the monsters were waiting for, and they all sunk low to the ground, bowing to the lord and master of all those that dwelt in shadow.
Siren's Port was dead, trapped forever in unending Darkness... and it was all your doing.
The gun stays firmly planted on your forehead even as you try to maneuver yourself around. If you go back through the door, you'll join your friends. If you stay here, you'll join them anyway. It's all over. The pounding in your ears is your heart as it takes its final beats.
No. No, you won't do this.
Gripping your back tightly, you push against Morrison and fling him out of the way as you rush for the glass doors in front of you. He falls back with ease and you run to the edge of the lighthouse, to the railing that is your last barrier.
go away GO AWAY
TURN BACK
Pain shoots through your back and into your chest. You stop breathing.
You throw yourself over the edge and plummet towards the water below.
When: The night of Saturday, October 15th into the morning of Sunday, October 16th.
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 silence stretches longer and longer, the hours blending in together. Were you sleeping? Were you dreaming? The world is bright with pain, needle points in your limbs and in your head, making it hard to even stay awake. They've been calling for you for hours, amassing outside of the room you sit in. You can feel their presence, the shadows that stare at you. They want to be heard. They refuse to be forgotten. The door's been opened and now they won't be silent.
For hours now, they've been telling you to leave. To run. To go back.
The boat outside is missing, shrouded in the fog. Leaving now would be suicide.
Morrison's still upstairs. He hasn't come down for hours.
The light in the lighthouse is still lit.
You snap awake in bed, but it’s not your bed, even though it is. The smell of cinnamon hangs in the air, hiding the faint smell of mold and wetness. Everything is in sepia-tones and muted greens, and that seems normal. As you get out of bed, you turn towards the door. All of the cracks and the keyhole have been sealed with red tape, which burns so bright in the dull room that it is almost blinding to look at, at first. You get out of bed, reluctantly, and head towards the door. As you reach out to open the door, your NV, sitting on the table, comes to life, crackling with static, before emitting a shrill and steady series of beeps.
Beep… beep… beep… beep… beep….
It sits on your nightstand, rattling against the surface as it vibrates. You forget about the sound after a while, slowly peeling the tape away from the door so you can leave.
Once you’ve pulled all the tape down, you realize that the beeping has changed over to tinkling music, like the sound of a child’s music box. This normally whimsical sound is undercut with something on the feed, something wet-sounding, like someone breathing, whispering, mouth against the mike. It almost sounds as if the source of the noise is in the room with you, not in their recording station.
The music suddenly cuts short. A little girl begins to recite what you think are numbers, but there is so much feedback and interference, and she’s not speaking a language you understand anyway. In a moment of indecision, you stand between the door and the nightstand before you finally pick up the NV and take it with you back to the door.
The living area on the other side of the door is dark, with huge thorny vines intercrossing and growing across the walls and the windows. There are roses growing on these vines, over-bloomed and richly red like drying blood. The front door isn’t immediately obvious to you when you walk out, but it must be somewhere. You know you have to leave, even if you have to dig your way out.
The little girl stops reading the numbers and the music-box noises return, loud as ever, even though the NV is now in your pocket. It doesn’t matter, it feels like it’s coming out of your head. You feel clumsy, your limbs feel like they’ve become full of lead, and you’re practically tripping over the rug, and bumping against the coffee table. There were two cups of coffee there, side by side, recent. Steam was still rising from them before your bump upended them onto the ground. Their crash is accompanied by momentary silence. It hangs over the room and it slowly dawns on you that you are not alone. You feel sick, a combination of coffee and blood suddenly assailing your nostrils, chasing away the cinnamon smell.
You whip around quickly and there is someone standing in the doorway of the room you just came out of, despite it being impossible that there was anyone in the room with you. The bedroom is now very bright compared to the living area, and it makes this person difficult to see. His body is slim and lithe, but seems to ripple with confidence and power otherwise unexpected. You have trouble seeing his face, but what is very very clear are red scaly arms extending from the nape of his neck. They writhe and push at the doorframe, cracking the wood, but it doesn’t make a sound. You can feel your heart drop into your stomach. You’ve wronged this man somehow, but you can’t remember how, or why, or even what his name is. You open your mouth to speak but then the noise starts up again. The tinkling sound of the music-box music is distorted, warped like a record left in the humidity. He steps forward, those long red arms reaching for you, longing to draw you in. You can see his smile now, the hungry gleam in his eye. It’s like his head splits open at the bottom, all the better to devour your sins. He starts to talk to you, but he is utterly drowned out by the sound of the girl, her voice distorted and heavy. You turn to flee, to grab a weapon, anything, but that damned coffee table! You had sworn you had moved past it after you bumped the coffee onto the floor.
The little girl’s voice gets slower, and the background noises, that wet slurping and the whispering, get louder and louder and suddenly he’s on top of you and you’re trying to crawl away but he’s caged you with all of his red arms and his jaw is practically unhinged and his face is bleeding but maybe it’s your blood instead? You don’t have time to react as his human hands bury themselves into your chest and rip your ribcage apart, spraying him with more hot gore. The pain is unbelievable and your whole body shudders but you’re not dead yet. He doesn’t want you to die yet. You know you’re screaming but you can’t hear a thing, but he seems to, and between the sounds you are making for him alone and the sight of your quivering viscera, he seems positively enraptured. He reaches inside of you and you can feel the violation of it.
“I always thought of you as a heartless bastard, ey? I guess not.”
Just before your vision flashes white, you can see his arm contract, squeezing and tearing and stealing and the pain just becomes too much to bear.
It's a struggle to walk now. Limbs heavy from fatigue, there's only so much you can move without feeling the stinging pain from earlier. Your memory's foggy but there's cuts and scrapes on your arms and legs. You can only imagine what they're from, though you'd rather not find out.
It's them. It's the voices. It's this damn place...
That's not important now. What is important is --
TURN BACK turn back turn back
You just want to go home. It's unbearable.
You clutch your small bag to you with the few items you've found here with your team - now splintered and lost - and begin walking.
All you want to do is stop. You want to breathe, you want to rest. But it is absolutely important that you don't. You have to move. You always have to move, you can never slow down. They get you if you slow down for even one microsecond. The world around you is distorted beyond any recognition. It's static, heavy with something you don't understand but know very well. But that doesn't matter because you must keep moving. If you stop, you're dead.
But you really need a break. Just for a minute, or a moment.
And just like that, you've stopped. You don't know why, you didn't mean to stop moving. Yet there you are, frozen in place. You can't move your feet, your legs. Your fingers, hands, and arms are in locked at your sides, spread out like you're going to catch yourself from falling. You can barely even move your chest up and down to breathe. Oh God, no. This isn't what you want. You can't be stuck like this. It's the worst thing that can happen to you. So many bad things happened already. Please, not this. Please. You want to struggle so badly, you want to be free. That's all you've ever wanted.
"You don't deserve to be free."
You try to look up at the voice, but you can't move your neck. But you don't need to see to know whose voice that is. That deep, menacing voice.
"I've got you now, brat."
There's another deep voice. Thick, thick accent. How can they be here? Only you can be here. Terror holds you even tighter in place, gripping your insides and smothering you.
"We're everywhere you are. We're always right behind you."
Another voice this time, a woman's. She's American and so very cold. She was there that night. All of them were. You want to tell them to stop. You want to tell them to go to hell. You want to cry and apologize, even though you didn't do anything. But you still can't move. You can't even blink.
"You didn't listen to us."
No, no, no. The voices are closer now and this new one makes you feel sick. It used to be the man's voice that would tell you that everything is going to be okay.
"Why? If you just listened, we would be alive."
And there she is, right behind him. As it should be. Always together. They even died together. You can't imagine them any other way. Together they made you. Now together, they're going to rip you apart from the inside out.
"You would have killed them anyway. You're rotten and that's why we need to destroy you."
It's the very first voice again. They're all so close. Please, you think, let me go. I need to run. I need to move. But the voices are talking over each other and they're so very angry and they're coming closer and that chaotic static is swallowing you whole and you need to get out of here, please, please.
"It's all your fault!"
That young, panicked voice so full of hate is yours.
Step. Step. You pull open the door of the captain's cabin and step back into the central floor, gazing up the winding staircase. The stairs seem to go on forever, but that can't be the case. And you refuse to accept that. Determination swells in your chest; you will go home. You'll leave.
TURN BaCK
You'll go. You'll leave this place and never come back.
"I'm sorry, Dad. I thought I could do this, but..."
But now you know. Now you've seen what this lighthouse can do and you want no part of it.
This place wants to claim you for its own too.
You’re walking up the central aisle of a splendid church, cast all in gold with gold filigree inlaid on the wall, a Latin refrain of an ancient prayer wrapping the place like a consecrated bow. It's so beautiful, you think. A man could find faith here, but you know you don’t deserve it. Some wrongness about the place irks on a level too subsumed to understand. It has the feeling of a place long abandoned, like a child’s birthday party with the candles melted to nothing and two dozen chairs that were never filled.
Candles, torches, beautiful lights make it to shine like the sun in your vision, all brilliance seeming to fall on a massive crucifix in a marble tabernacle taller than some houses. Your eyes are not cast down in thought or humility, no religious contemplation or respect, but fixed boldly up at the eyes of the vividly detailed marble Christ on his cross with all the anguish of a very real and graphic death. A spire reaches up to the peak of that central dome, past the tall panels painting the dome with images of the angels in their nine choirs right to the benevolent bearded visage of God at the peak, looking down on all.
You move silently through the chapel, past the pews, and do not kneel at the altar. There are no eyes watching, no pause at all as you walk like you belong around the clothed table and right to the golden tabernacle in the heart of the marble structure, atop a silver-inlaid reliquary, nor when you finally tear your eyes from the tortured face of the Messiah to gaze on the engraved chalice adorning the small golden door, reaching a hand out to touch. You pause then with a hand outstretched just inches from that holiest of things; no. It's not supposed to go like this.
You turn, then, intending to reach for the holy water font you saw a moment ago, and stop in confusion. Where before there was only a small, understated basin on a slim pillar now stands a stoup you know wasn't there a second ago. It's a child angel holding up the basin like the crushing burden of Atlas, averting its eyes in pain. You approach slowly, heat tilting in curiosity, a hand outstretched to touch, to feel proof that all this is real.
The instant your finger brushes the cold marble the statue erupts in blinding white light, knocking you back a few feet as you cover your eyes instinctively. When you open them again the cherub statue is gone. In its place there’s only a smoking stain on the chapel floor shaped horribly like a body the size of a child. You look at it wonderingly before turning, starting in shock at what’s suddenly in front of you.
All around you, spotted randomly in the tabernacle area and flanking the altar, are holy water stoups with their faces all turned to you. Angels carved from gorgeous marble, the pure white stone stained with a curious black ash. They’re as dazzlingly beautiful as the church itself until you turn away and you can almost see horrible rotted faces, wasted skeletons smeared with ash right in the corner of your eye. There's at least a half dozen or more, some bowing reverently with eerie supplicating expressions, some with pain in their eyes, others averting their eyes. Whatever it is that they’re afraid of, you can’t see, but as you suck in a death-rattle breath there’s obviously something very wrong here. You swallow down your dread and pick your way through the maze of cold angels, stepping slowly down the chapel aisle.
The air is frigid and silent as a crypt, with a layer of dust settled over everything beautiful and, here and there, pitch-black ash. A few times, between your echoing footsteps, you swear you can hear faint, muffled scratching, but no matter what you can’t hear where it’s coming from, so you ignore it. The third time it happens, you turn back only to find a new stoup blocking the door that wasn’t there a second ago. This one isn’t like the others, all angelic and sad. It’s different.
It’s the Devil himself, carved from vomitous red stone etched with white veins and black ash caked into every slight crevice. The gargoyle Satan’s face is contorted into a vicious sneer and stares at you from under the weight of the holy water font with hateful, accusing eyes. You swallow hard and stop in your tracks, but not for long. The scratching is even louder now. It’s just unsettling enough to draw you in, until you’ve crossed the length of the chapel and bend down to see it yourself.
The cold stone turns to squishy rotting flesh under your hand, your fingers sinking in. The chapel starts crumbling around you, opulent splendor crumbling and rotting away until all that's left is a putrid hellscape almost profane in its horror, all blood splatters and decay and oh, the noise. Every angel statue is screaming, melting slowly until they burst in dazzling light. You spin around in shock, ears ringing painfully as they go up one by one, hurling broken bodies against the bloodied chapel walls. You recognize some from the Network: Castiel, blood dripping from his mouth, Anna, eyes burned out with sockets still smoking. Gabriel, head fallen back to rest on his shoulders with a broken, agonized look to the stars that will never answer him. Others you’ve never seen before, figures old and young twisted in pain and strung-up like blasphemous Christmas lights. Every single body is flanked with the enormous imprints of ashen wings.
There’s sobbing coming from somewhere. It might even be you. The walls are closing in now; this place is death paved with gold- a crypt of the forsaken never meant for you. Your gaze is locked on their faces as you turn: empty eyes, hollow cheeks, expressions contorted in confusion or desperate heartbreak.
That’s when you hear it.
The noise. You turn slowly, cold with horror, and see the Devil statue still intact, still kneeling beneath his basin full of holy blood like Atlas himself. This time, though, the eyes seem to move- following your gaze like they’re alive. You kneel down slowly and reach out with trepidation, to feel a seam at the eyes- there’s no stone there. Something is inside, and suddenly the scratching makes sense. Heart pounding in your chest, you tear into the eyes and, somehow, a piece of rock comes off in your hands. In a rush you tear away the rock, ripping the stone Devil apart until you’re looking at its prisoner: a shriveled, hideous creature like a bloody baby, huddled into itself and sobbing. It’s so sad, so pitiful, that your heart goes out to the hideous thing and you reach to scoop it up and comfort it. However, when you make contact with it, the twisted infant creature attacks you, knocking your head against the floor with a horrible scream of rage before everything goes black.
You wake up suddenly, still in pain.
You've watched them happen now. Every single death in this place.
Twelve. Twelve men.
They started to work on the lighthouse and every single one of them died. Accidents, of course. One fell from the tower. Another broke his neck when he slipped. Another, still, was crushed under one of the scaffolds that fell. It was a curse, they said. But that didn't stop anyone.
The captain.
Yes, that's right. The captain's still here, the voices say. You haven't heard him. He's still waiting, and waiting, and waiting...
You take the first step up the stairs.
You don't remember falling asleep but you're lying in your bed now. Pale dawn light casts a bluish hue over the room. It's cold; so cold you shiver beneath the covers, so cold that the chill seems to be coming from within you rather than the air.
The bedroom door is shut but you can hear people whispering outside of it, quiet as if to avoid waking you. You can't hear exactly what they're saying, but for some reason you recognize one of the words as your name. You get the feeling that something important is being discussed. Maybe you're in some kind of trouble. Maybe you should sneak out.
That's when you notice there are bars on the window.
All this time, you haven't moved from your place in bed. You're still huddled there with the blankets pulled up to your chin, staring wide-eyed at the room around you. Now, though, you think that you should move. But the second that thought crosses your mind, movement flickers in the periphery of your vision. You try to turn your head to look at it.
But you can't turn your head.
The coldness that was inside you somehow becomes colder. Icy. You want to move, or at least to call out to those people standing outside your door, but you can't. You can't do either of those things. Your muscles won't respond. Your mouth won't move.
And now there's a pressure on your chest. Someone is pushing down on you, some invisible person squeezing you. You can feel your ribs snapping like twigs, scraping the soft tissue of your lungs. There's a hand around your throat; you can feel it even though you can't see it. You still can't do so much as cry out. This invisible force is crushing you. Like the cold, it seems to be within you and outside you at the same time. Whatever it is, you can't escape it.
Maybe it's not something trying to get in. Maybe it's trying to get out.
The moment you realize that, you can see it now. The hand that's choking you. The body on top of you. It's no human. This thing is made of darkness. It's a shadow. You've been trapped by your own shadow.
Halfway up the stairs, you start to hear the manic wailing from down below. It's bone-chilling and startling, and you almost don't want to look over the edge of the stairs to see what it is. It's just another whisper, just another cry in your mind. That's all. You exhale. You step forward.
There's another scream. This time, you're certain that you heard it.
You tip your gaze over the side of the railing and look down into the spiral of the stairs, all the way down to the first floor. There's no one there. You shine your flashlight down to check, looking everywhere for the darkness or the eyes...or the souls you've seen for hours now. There's nothing. You continue on.
A jagged claw grabs your ankle, pressing deep nails into your skin. You scream and turn back.
You’re sitting on a curb. It’s a cool night but you feel comfortable. A sense of contentment has settled into your stomach, making you feel hopeful and optimistic. For a moment you feel that everything is okay. Things may not have been perfect for you, but they’re looking better.
That feeling quickly fades as the darkness sweeps in around you. Suddenly you’re no longer happily enjoying the night but terrified as it surrounds you and suffocates you. You can’t run. You are frozen with fear.
The forms that appear around you seem to come from the darkness. There are three of them and they’re each big and menacing. You don’t know what they’re trying to do, but the hate and disgust they feel towards you is so palpable it freezes you in place. You can’t make out their faces; all you see is the jagged black teeth in their mouths and their frightening eyes. They glare down at you and their aggression feeds out of the darkness and chokes you. You can’t even cry out for help. You know that no one would be there to help you if you could. You are alone with them.
They attack all at once, swarming you. They’re clawing at you, hitting you, kicking you. You try to fight back but they’re stronger than you are. The only thing that you can do is curl up on the ground as you try to cover your head. Each blow shocks you’re entire body with pain. Bones break and crack. You watch as your blood pools underneath you onto the sidewalk.
They keep attacking. They don’t stop even as your bones keep cracking and your skin peels away. You can’t even scream. You’re nothing. Why can’t they just let you die? Why doesn’t it ever stop hurting?
You think that it may never end.
Everything goes black.
A head of oily hair greets you, stained with crusted blood. The face is grotesque, black and red marks all over what was once fair skin. But that's not what you're staring at.
It's those black, empty eyes again, seeped in Darkness and cold. They stare into your own and you could swear that you've never felt more terrified in all of your life. The scream dies in your throat when you look at those eyes and you choke on your own voice. The hand digs deeper into your ankle and tries to pull you down the stairs.
Sara doesn't want you to go.
You stand in the middle of field. To one side, bleachers and a track. To the other, simply more field. And in front of you...
A cross. Huge, bigger than it likely is in reality, a dark relief against the bright noon sun behind it. As ominous as it ought to seem, a feeling of hope wells up somewhere in your heart. It's faint and tremulous but it's hope. Just looking at that big blot against the sun with it's rough wooden face is like you're looking at something that spells the difference between seeing some faint idea of the future.
And yet there's a cold weight in the pit of your stomach. Ice runs down your spine and you shiver in spite of the heat outdoors. This is your hope for the future so why--
The scene changes violently and suddenly. Now there's fire seemingly everywhere. A building falling apart and you're standing in the middle of it, a huge chunk of ceiling narrowly missing you. And then a hand has yours and you're being tugged along. The figure in front of you is dressed entirely in black save her hair. Her long, pale gold hair streams behind her as she runs.
The blond is speaking to you. "Somewhere where we can live in peace. Somewhere where we can be ourselves. Where we don't have to be--"
You have her face clasped in her hands, her brilliantly bright blue eyes clouded with confusion. You're speaking and your voice sounds muddled, thick, somehow unrecognizable to yourself.
"You're still alive."
Suddenly blackness clamps down as swiftly and surely as if someone suddenly shut a door. And when it comes back, your head bears a dull ache and your eyes are clouded. You're weighed down and wet with something. It's not water, that's not it. It's -- the fumes. The stench.
You're fully and horribly conscious now. Your head is pounding but in spite of it, you're blindingly awake. Awake just in time to hear the gunshot that follows, to taste the bite of --
You want to live! You want to live, you want to live! You're practically screaming it as you pull against your restraints. You throw your head back and all you can see above you now is the silhouette of darkness against plumes of grey smoke, the two stark lines above your head. The rough wood you're bound to.
Somewhere through the searing pain, a singular thought keeps reverberating through your mind.
Just like her. Oh god, I knew. Just like her, I knew!
She looms over you with those empty eyes, dragging her long nails into your legs. You kick, you scream, you plead. You cry. You call her name and you beg for her to leave you alone. Too late do you realize that those aren't nails in your flesh but screws, tiny little screws from construction that she's digging into you--
You grab your flashlight and throw it into her face. The light is blinding, making her shrink back as she wails once more. She claws at her eyes. You dislodge her and run the rest of the way up the stairs, heedless of the sounds behind you.
TURN BACK
Hands grab at you, calloused, workers hands that spring from the wall, from the very cement they helped to build for the foundation of the tower. You push past them and continue to run.
You don't look back. You don't turn around. At last, you see the door that leads into the top of the lighthouse and you slam into it with all of your strength. You throw yourself inside and close it behind you, locking it, pressing your back to the wood. With heaving breaths and pain still shooting into your limbs, you close your eyes and pray.
A gun clicks beside your ear.
You're being pushed against the wall. You can't move very well. Someone is holding you against it, and even if you could move, there's frozen terror locking up every muscle - what are you so scared of? Something terrible is happening beyond what you can quite see, a woman's voice vocalizes sporadic, pained grunts, men are talking to each other and laughing occasionally. All of this you know the way you know things in dreams without having to be told them. What the words might be, it's hard to pick out; it doesn't really matter. It matters more that you're frozen like a rabbit in a thicket, too afraid to even struggle, pushed back painfully against the wall.
The wall which is as slick and warm as flesh. It's all too hot, the smell is hot and frightening too, everything is a little too organic and a little too sticky and giving where it should be hard. Whoever's forcing you to hold still is pushing you back against that wall and it's almost like you're melting into it. Flesh seeping first into the grooves in the wood, and then the wall giving way like it's more skin backed with bone than just plain safe wood.
Try to pull away and it doesn't quite work. You're melting back into the wood, finally, under the person forcing you back into it; this place is going to keep you. It's as pathetic as a bug stuck to flypaper, the woman is still making low keens and grunts, somewhere, somewhere, the men are still there, and you're being swallowed. There won't be an opportunity to move from this place. You're here, within, further and further within. The air is hot and thick, hard to breath, hard to move; being pulled back into the heartwood, the torn ugly heart of this place. The house, the room, is taking you in itself, pulling you back in itself; the wall is slick, like it's wearing a skin of sweat, or something worse.
Like sinking beneath a pit of tar. These stinking breaths could be the last ones you take, so try to love the thick air a little; you're going to be unbirthed back into the walls, you're not going to leave. Is it because you're being pushed back so hard that it's time to move, is your head so hard to lift because you're tight with misery all over and can't move, or is it that you're like a figure being pressed into a soft lump of clay, rising and molding around you? So hard to lift your head because you're being crumpled up and pulled back, bones broken if necessary to make your limbs fit neatly in aperture you're being fed to. There won't be any leaving, though even if you left maybe it would be like a dog tied to a stake, revolving in circles - it's this place that has you, the center of your world, swallowed whole, all injuries necessary sacrifices to remain a witness here.
This room is breaking your heart. The next thing to go would best, and most kindly, be your neck.
"Morrison."
The man looks years older from just one night, his dark complexion pale and his eyes tired. A weight has settled on his shoulders that you can't describe, but you know it's there. He looks nothing like the man you saw last night. He keeps the gun pointed at your forehead and he says nothing for a long time. Your heart is in your throat; he's going to kill you.
"This is my tower," he says gruffly. "You don't belong here."
TURN BaCK
The whispers are back, clamoring at your eardrums. The light spins on its axis, blinding you.
"Get out," he mutters. "Get out. Get out."
Silence is deafening.
That is how the dream begins, a silence that is loud enough to fill your ears and dull your other senses, until it's difficult to tell when the sight of the city comes into view. When you can finally tell apart the lights of the buildings from the darkness around you, it's clear that you are high above the city, looking down on it from the air. The silence is broken by the heavy beat of leathery wings, and when you are able to perceive movement, you can tell that it's coming from you as you glide through the air. The city flies by beneath you in a blur, but eventually is slows as you start to dip down into the city proper, coming low toward the streets.
The Darkness monsters are clogging the streets in abnormal amounts, that is the first thing that is apparent. The next as you dip lower into the city is that it's not much of a city anymore; buildings have decayed and crumbled, and vines and greenery choked the streets, appearing as if nature was taking back what was stolen from it. The street lights, or at least the ones that still worked, continued to signal cars and other vehicles whose owners had long since abandoned them.
Siren's Port was dead, claimed by the night.
It's terrifying to see, but then things have to get stranger. The monsters look up as you fly overhead, and those that actually possess faces seem to look on in horror and surprise. You might even see faces of people you know amongst them, as the night had absorbed all those that thought they could live in defiance of the Darkness that took over the city. You take it all in, feeling a bit of smug pride; the Port was yours, and it was only fair, after all, since your own world was denied to you.
You come to a rest on a light pole, the bulb flickering in and out and threatening to die any moment, and it takes a moment to realize you're dangling upside down like a bat. Below, the Darkness monsters crowded around in reverence, watching and waiting. And as the light bulb of the pole finally bursts in a shower of sparks, you spread your leathery wings out wide, light dancing off of the stretched white skin like plumes of fire. It was the cue the monsters were waiting for, and they all sunk low to the ground, bowing to the lord and master of all those that dwelt in shadow.
Siren's Port was dead, trapped forever in unending Darkness... and it was all your doing.
The gun stays firmly planted on your forehead even as you try to maneuver yourself around. If you go back through the door, you'll join your friends. If you stay here, you'll join them anyway. It's all over. The pounding in your ears is your heart as it takes its final beats.
No. No, you won't do this.
Gripping your back tightly, you push against Morrison and fling him out of the way as you rush for the glass doors in front of you. He falls back with ease and you run to the edge of the lighthouse, to the railing that is your last barrier.
go away GO AWAY
TURN BACK
Pain shoots through your back and into your chest. You stop breathing.
You throw yourself over the edge and plummet towards the water below.