Brontoforumus Archive
Activity Boards => Forum Games => Topic started by: Friday on December 19, 2009, 03:44:34 AM
-
You awaken. Your body aches. Rubble surrounds you. Where has your new master gone? You will find him.
**********************
You wake up. You first thought is, He's gone. Your second thought is, Maybe that is for the best.
**********************
You wake up. The sound of the girl crying softly has awoken you. Groaning, you roll out of your bed and put your bare feet down on the cold floor.
"Jesus, can't she get over him already?" you mutter.
**********************
You are crying softly into your pillow. You miss Wolfy. You wish he would find you. Davey promised he would leave a note. Why hasn't Wolfy come to find you? He promised he would take care of you.
**********************
You are already awake. The Other is near. It will not be long now.
**********************
"Hey, old man," you say, smiling softly. The figure you are adressing whirls like a cat, rifle at the ready.
"I'm afraid your bullets won't work very well on me," you say, grinning through rotted teeth.
**********************
Select player.
-
oh my god she's making us choose :ohshi~:
awesome
-
So, guessing here:
1. Max the Dog
2. John(Us) talking about Benny?
3. Nicole durr
4. Recurring Miniboss
5. Someone talking to Survival nut? Since seem to know most of the characters, this could be Benny, which implies said nut is hallucinating and has contracted the worms.
Going with four to continue having it make stupid decisions, despite five making me really curious.
EDIT: c.f. Brentai's post because I can't count.
-
Cutest Puppy Ever.
-
What, no player 1 jokes yet?
-
Well, seriously, the answers are
1 Max
2 Either Jessie or Jack
3 David
4 Nicole
5 Jack's Other
6 Benny
3/4 are appealing seeing as how we haven't really seen much of those characters since the first death despite acting like Nicole is the most important thing in the world for no adequately explained reason. Also hopping into Nicole's head might give us some insight on what's actually going on in there for once.
-
I think Jessie would play well but she'd basically just end up being Wolfy with tits. David is a boring jerk and The Other has too much conflict of interest. Nicole and Benny are appealing but I am just worried that getting too much insight into their heads will spoil the mystery.
In other words:
DO THE RIGHT THING
:advice:
VOTE FOR THE DOG
(http://anotherdimension.pyoko.org/max.jpg)
GUISE I AM PRETTY EXCITED ABOUT THIS
-
SUCK IT LOSERS I VOTE 5
-
hahahahaha
-
Holy crap, 3 ftw
-
DO THE RIGHT THING
:advice:
VOTE FOR THE DOG
I did!
-
As much as I love the dog, we already have CPE. I wanna see what the god damn hell happened to Nicole and David.
-
I really want to find out what happened to Nicole and David too. I hope they don't split the votes too much.
Nicole's actual perspective seems like a bigger change of pace over Wolfy, so I'm voting for that.
(man this is cool)
-
Top two should be invovled in a second vote-off.
-
I switched my vote from Benny to Nicole, so that might be my fault. :nyoro~n:
-
Recounting the poll. Nicole vs Benny.
-
...? why does Nicole have 7 votes and Benny only 1 when it was previously tied 5-5
I DON'T UNDERSTAND YOU PEOPLE
-
I voted for 2 then Nicole :shrug:
-
So I spend three days reading through the first two acts of this, impressed out of my skull pretty much the entire time, and then I get to this part and miss the Big Important Vote by just a couple of hours.
GRR. :painful:
-
Heh heh. Well, welcome anyway! Always glad to have some fresssssssssh blood.
-
oh also looks like our favorite creepy and cute little girl won the vote. Update upcoming... sometime. IT'S CHRISTMAS GIVE ME A BREAK
-
You are crying softly into your pillow. You miss Wolfy. You wish he would find you. Davey promised he would leave a note. Why hasn't Wolfy come to find you? He promised he would take care of you.
You roll over onto your back, wiping your face with your hand. Sniffling, you try to get yourself under control, or else David will hear you and get mad again.
Footsteps. Too late. You close your eyes and pretend to sleep.
"What's wrong?" comes David's tenor voice. He sounds, as usual, somewhat irritated, as if he'd rather be elsewhere. Not like Wolfy, who was always patient and happy to be around you.
"Nothing," you say sullenly, knowing from experience that David does not want the subject of Wolfy brought up. After all, it was his idea to leave.
David lets out a long sigh. "Bad dreams again?"
You nod. Though true, that's not what you had been crying about.
"Well, you're safe now. Go back to sleep, OK?"
"Okay," you gulp.
David lingers for a moment, then leaves, muttering under his breath.
You lay on your back staring up at the bare wooden roof. Cracks and shadows make hideous faces in the dark. It's scary, but nothing like what you've seen in recent times. You just wish you could go back to when Davey, Jakey and Wolfy were all together. You felt safe then, despite all the monsters, because you knew Wolfy would protect you and Jakey would help you if you got hurt.
But now it's just Davey, and he doesn't seem to like you that much. It's true he's been taking care of you, but he does it almost grudgingly, like it was a chore.
You think back to when you left Wolfy all alone in that house after the dogs.
********************
It's quiet. You're alone in your small room, in your small bed. Wolfy and David are asleep just down the hall from you. You can't sleep. You awoke several hours ago, gripped in a sudden, nameless fear, atop your covers, only a small flimsy nightgown between you and the chill air. You know what's going to happen before it happens, but can't move. A huge invisible skeletal hand has you pinned to your bed, where you can only sweat cold beads of moisture that roll off your skin like oil on water.
And then --
Footsteps.
Oh no. He's back.
You try to scream, to let out a shriek, but your mouth refuses to unhinge. The best you can manage is a cold grimace in the dark.
The door to your room creaks open, slowly. You can hear him breathing at the threshold.
You thrash and flail internally. On the outside, you are frozen.
Slow, soft footfalls coming into your room. You can hear him muttering now.
we are many we are one
No no no no. You can't be scared. You'll die if you're scared. Move. Please move. Please please please please move. If you could just break this terrible silence you could banish him back to the darkness.
we are many, we are one. we are many, we are one. the red star shines. now comes the offering of blood.
The voice is faint whispers that crawl on your skin like snakes. Or worms.
the blood shall cleanse, the blood shall feed. we are many, but she is one. she will be cleansed. by the many shall we become the one.
A shadow above you. It's holding something in its hands. A fireplace poker, pointed downward at you. It raises the poker high above, to thrust down and pierce your flesh.
The One Shall Become The Many. We Are Many, We Are One.
You scream.
"WOLFY!"
The figure, poised to thrust downward, suddenly freezes as your voice pierces the night like an icicle shattering glass. The sound of your scream echoes in your ears.
The figure shudders. Gasps. Recedes.
A minute later, David runs into your room.
You tell him everything. He listens with a blank face.
You finish. David is looking at you with clear eyes.
"You think it was just a dream," you say to him.
"No, no I don't," he says back.
The silence stretches.
"We can't stay here," he finally says. "Jonathan is... not himself right now."
You nod slowly. "He's still healing from Spot," you say.
"He's going to get better," David says, sighing. "But until he does, we can't stay here, with him. It's not safe. He might hurt you, without meaning to."
You nod, tears falling onto the bedsheets.
"We'll have to leave. Tonight," David says. "I'll leave him a note, so he can follow us once he gets better. Is that OK?"
You nod, again slowly. You don't want to leave Wolfy here alone, but you are scared.
"Come on, honey," David says. "I'll take care of you. Don't worry about a thing."
He holds out his arms and you slip gratefully into them.
*********************
You turn your mind away. You don't want to think about it anymore.
And Wolfy hasn't come. He promised he would take care of you, and he hasn't come.
You don't want to be with David anymore. You're scared he'll get mad at you and leave you all alone.
You turn away from the waking world, and back into your dreams. They are odd, and scary, but sometimes you can see Wolfy in them. Sometimes he is with a strange girl. Other times he is walking through a deep mist. The dreams don't make sense, but they are some comfort to you when you can see his face. See he is still looking for you. But they are just dreams. Wolfy hasn't come.
And there is someone else in your dreams. Someone who also watches Wolfy. Someone red.
And he is no longer asleep.
*******************************************
You awaken. Your body aches. Rubble surrounds you. Where has your new master gone? You will find him.
**********************
You wake up. You first thought is, He's gone. Your second thought is, Maybe that is for the best.
**********************
You wake up. The sound of the girl crying softly has awoken you. Groaning, you roll out of your bed and put your bare feet down on the cold floor.
"Jesus, can't she get over him already?" you mutter.
**********************
You are already awake. The Other is near. It will not be long now.
**********************
"Hey, old man," you say, smiling softly. The figure you are adressing whirls like a cat, rifle at the ready.
"I'm afraid your bullets won't work very well on me," you say, grinning through rotted teeth.
**********************
Select player.
-
Oh man, it's like that part in Final Fantasy VI where everyone falls down a waterfall.
-
Kupo!
-
Voting dog!
-
"Hey, old man," you say, smiling softly. The figure you are adressing whirls like a cat, rifle at the ready.
"I'm afraid your bullets won't work very well on me," you say, grinning through rotted teeth.
"Let's find out," the man replies, and pulls the trigger of his rifle, firing a burst of metal into your skull.
Your head snaps back like a broken toy as blood and chunks of skull fly outward in a reverse spiral of ruin. You smile with dead lips to the heavens and fall to the ground. Pine needles scatter under you.
The man approaches your body carefully, rifle held poised, smoke trailing from the muzzle. You wait until he's within a few feet, then reach out lightning fast to grab his ankle.
You raise your ruined head and grin gapingly at him. "Surprise!" you gurgle through blood.
The man jerks away and puts several more rounds into your torso. You jerk and spasm on the ground, laughing like popping bubbles.
After he's finished firing, you lay still for a moment, then rise up stiff as a board, never moving your feet. Your terrible grin remains frozen in place. Your missing eye glows red. Your face has partially reconstructed itself; enough for visible, if grotesque, features to be seen.
The man stares agape at you, his rifle slowly lowering.
You spread your hands.
"Toldjer," you giggle.
The man takes a step back, then another. He turns and runs.
You sigh.
***************************
You watch the door open from the other side. He slams it shut behind him and peeks out the peephole back where you were.
"Whatcha looking at?" you ask softly.
The man whirls, nostrils flaring, eyes wild. He sprays wildly, putting several more rounds into you and the walls of the empty house.
You laugh. "Man, you're dumber than him. Don't you get it yet? You can't shoot me dead."
"What the fuck are you?" the man asks.
"That's not really relevant," you say dismissively. "What's relevant is what information I have for you."
The man eyes you warily.
You idly pick at your face, waiting.
"Who are you?" the man asks.
"I told you, that's not important," you reply, flicking away a bit of grime from your face.
The man is silent for a long while. Finally he raises his rifle again.
"You're a monster," he says.
You smile. "True, but that's hardly the point, is it?"
The man looks confused. You take a step forward, lifting one hand outward toward him. Pointing your index finger.
"I can see that I'm going to have to do this the hard way, Kyle," you say, softly. Slowly. "I'm here to help you, Kyle, I'm here to tell you things. To ... enlighten you, Kyle."
Kyle presses back against the door he shut against you. He empties the rest of his clip as you advance. The bullets rip into your flesh like divers slicing cleanly into the water. Somewhere, under you, behind you, a voice is yelling.
"Get away from me!" Kyle screams.
You continue forward, your features changing. Assuming another guise, another form. Your fingernail begins to turn red.
"What the FUCK ARE YOU?!" Kyle says. He is shaking all over.
"I am you," you reply.
Your finger delves directly into his right eye socket. Kyle screams and slumps to the floor.
You stand over him, bringing his impaled eyeball to your mouth. Your teeth close around it with relish.
"Jesse is gone," you tell the sleeping man at your feet. "She has left to find Jon. You should go after her. You should find her. You should keep her safe from him. I know where they are going."
You lean down to whisper in his ear.
When you are finished, you go to the entrance to the bunker. Your business here is concluded. Now it's time to have some fun.
**************************************************
You awaken. Your body aches. Rubble surrounds you. Where has your new master gone? You will find him.
**********************
You wake up. You first thought is, He's gone. Your second thought is, Maybe that is for the best.
**********************
You wake up. The sound of the girl crying softly has awoken you. Groaning, you roll out of your bed and put your bare feet down on the cold floor.
"Jesus, can't she get over him already?" you mutter.
**********************
You are already awake. The Other is near. It will not be long now.
**********************
Select Player.
-
jesus
-
You wake up. You first thought is, He's gone. Your second thought is, Maybe that is for the best.
You stretch and yawn, rubbing sleep from your eyes. Part of you just wants to lay back down on your cot, close your eyes, and drift back into the peaceful rest you were just experiencing. It's been quite a long time since you've gotten any good sleep.
But that nagging little certainty keeps pulling at strings in your mind, keeping you from relaxing. Something is amiss, or soon will be. You've got to take charge now, or else you won't get a chance, later.
You swing your legs under you and slowly stand, blinking hard. You're not entirely sure how long you were asleep. A long time, it feels like.
There is a soft knock on the door. You lick your lips to wet them and reply.
"Yes?"
"You awake?" comes a muffled voice on the other side of the door.
"Yeah," you reply.
The door slowly opens, casting a dim light into the storage room you were sleeping in. Despite its dimness, you squint your eyes against it.
Shawna stands framed in the doorway. Her face is neutral.
"You want something to eat?" she asks.
"Yeah, that'd be great," you reply, though you're not really too hungry.
Shawna stands there, looking at you. You begin to wonder what she's looking at.
"What happened to your eye?" she says, finally.
Oh.
"I don't know," you reply. "I woke up one morning and it was like this."
"Really?" Shawna shifts in the doorway. "No offense, but it looks horrible. You should cover it up."
You nod, refraining from telling her that she was the one who came into your bedroom while you were barely awake.
Shawna stands there for another second or two, then turns. "I'm making more beans. You'd better get used to them, they're pretty much all we have around here."
You crack your neck back and forth and stretch, sticking your arms straight up and out. You stand and follow Shawna out of the room.
"Where are the boys?" you ask her when you join her in the kitchen.
"Dunno. Still not back yet," Shawna says without looking at you as she opens a tin with a can opener on the stove. "Daddy spends a lot of time out there, prowling around. He's probably taken your friend with him."
Something inside you tells you different. You don't how you know, but you know Jon is gone. If he was closer, you could feel him.
Feel him?
Yes. Despite the weird implications, you know this is nonetheless true.
A moment of anger and fear rises in you.
He left me. He isn't going to take care of me after all.
No. You push the emotion back down. If Clark left, he must have had a good reason.
You watch Shawna work in silence. She seems to be a fairly competent cook. Her long black hair is unkempt and tangled, but you can tell that it would be quite pretty when cleaned and combed. Though her initial reactions to you and Clark were negative, she seems to have accepted you, for now, at least.
Maybe you could stay here. Clark can take care of himself. You've got food, shelter and supplies here.
***************************
1. Stay. Clark will be back for you, when he's ready.
2. Decide to leave.
-
3
edit: fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff i quit
-
2. Decide to leave.
You take a long look around.
Bare walls, scant furniture. The only carpeted room is the living room, and even though it was obviously designed to feel like a home, it feels fake. You can tell the concrete is just behind the carpets, the bad wallpaper. The window lets in some scant light that hovers in the air of the dining room like a wisp of cloth. Shawna dumps a can of beans into a pot and stirs it wordlessly.
You are beginning to see why Shawna thinks of this place as a prison.
And then there's Kyle. He's a good enough guy, but something isn't entirely right up in his mind. Something is loose, and always has been. Even when you were a little girl, you could tell. Locking his family in a bunker "for their protection." He may have been right to do it. Shawna might have sneaked off and be dead right now if he hadn't, but... still.
Your mind goes back to a hunting trip your father took you on, when you were maybe twelve or thirteen. It's something you haven't thought about in a long, long time. Your father forced you to go. You didn't want to, but you didn't have a choice. Unlike most teenage girls your age, you didn't whine and complain, but instead endured it silently.
Kyle was there, of course. You were down in the Sacramento Valley, hunting fowl. Waiting for them to fly over the imaginary line that separated the wildlife preserve and the rest of the world. Most of the birds had wised up, gotten smart. They stayed on their side of the line. But once in a while some hapless fowl would wander over the line and into the gauntlet of men with guns laying in wait for them like snakes in the grass. What a sport.
You remember waiting for ages and ages in that tall grass, cold, wet, miserable. Holding your gun in your hands because your father made you. You had no intention of using it. The rain was steady and light and splattered on your face and ran down your cheeks and arms and the back of your neck and plastered your hair like spaghetti in long strands under the hunting cap you wore.
"Having a good time?" Kyle asked you, grinning from ear to ear like a fucking idiot, his eyes dancing. It was clear you were not, and it was equally clear that he knew it. Right then, right there, for the first time, something clicked over inside you, and you knew what it was to hate. Really hate. You'd been angry before, and upset, but this was cold. Dark. Venomous.
You turned to Kyle and smiled. "The time of my life," you replied, and he saw the hatred in your eyes. Something flickered back at you in his, and for a moment, you briefly imagined him turning his gun on you.
Instead, just at that moment, a great white bird, like a feathered angel, suddenly came flying overhead, drawing fire from your father, who was sitting a few hundred feet off.
The bird flew on. Kyle turned to sight it. You had to stifle the urge to tackle him.
Kyle took his time. Slow. Level. You could see one eye in profile. It was cold, calculating. Adjusting for distance, wind, rain. Slow, sure, the wheels in his mind ground very fine.
And then he fired. And the goose fell out of the sky like an angel plummeting from heaven. A few feathers lingered in the air, floating slowly downward like snowflakes in a soft storm.
Kyle stood and motioned to you. "Come on," he said.
You followed him. Because what else would you do? You were only twelve or thirteen.
Your father used a dog. You could hear him barking, almost feel him straining at the leash, desperate to run off to find the downed bird. Kyle said he preferred doing it himself. Said it was part of the fun, part of the sport. Sometimes he'd even wade up to his neck in the pools of murky water. You'd never witnessed him fail to return with the bird. He joked about it, said he had the nose of a bloodhound.
This particular bird was not one of the hard ones to find. It was laying splattered on the mud in a terrible and magnificent display of random and senseless violence. Red and white and dark brown. Kyle bent over and held it aloft like a trophy, grinning at you as the blood and rain ran down his bare arm.
He had blown the head clean off. He held the thing by the remains of the neck, the lifeblood of the bird running down and through the cracks of his fingers. In that instant, the sun came out from behind a cloud and painted the entire scene crimson and orange and you could actually feel the memory being burned into your eyes and brain.
And then the moment passed, and everything was normal again. The hate you felt was gone. The vision of something terrible was fading. All that was left was a girl alone in a cold field of grass and water and dead things.
It was the last hunting trip you would go on. The next time your father asked you, a year later, you refused. Your father insisted, as you knew he would. You insisted back. Coldly, quietly. The angrier your father got with you, the colder you became.
You didn't know it at the time, or even years later, but at some point you realized that final hunting trip was one of the strongest driving forces you would ever experience that would shape you into the person you were today.
The strongest, of course, being your experiences at the cabin.
Kyle was the past. Jonathan was the future. You would find him.
All that remained now was to escape. You're not going to bother talking to Kyle. You know what would happen, what he would say. Pointless to try.
So all that's left is to figure out a way out of here. Kyle must keep an extra key to the exit in his room.
You glance at Shawna. Should you... try to knock her out, or something? No, she's probably no threat to you. You don't want to hurt anybody.
I wonder what your father and little brother would say about that, ha ha ha
You wait until Shawna is finished making the beans and eat them in silence. Afterward, you head to the rear of the complex until you are outside Kyle's bedroom door.
Locked, of course. Damn. How are you going to get out of here?
You stand silently in front of his door for several minutes. Wait until Kyle gets home, trick him somehow? You don't like that idea. Something inside tells you that you need to leave as soon as possible, and Kyle might not be back for the whole day.
Break down the door, maybe? But it looks pretty solid. Hinges on the other side, too. Maybe you could --
"You're leaving, aren't you?" comes a voice to your left.
You spin in surprise.
Shawna is standing there, blank faced.
*******************************
1. "Yes."
2. "No."
-
1. "Yes."
Shawna's face does not change. She simply continues to stare at you. You stare back.
Shawna nods. "I thought so. To be honest, I'm glad. You don't belong here."
You raise an eyebrow.
"Here," she says, and hands you a key.
You reach out and take it. Shawna reads the question on your lips.
"It's the master key to the bunker. I stole it from my father a while ago. It opens every lock in here. He thinks he lost it out on one of his walks."
You rub the key between thumb and finger. "So this whole time, you've been able to leave, whenever you want?"
"Yeah," Shawna says. "Pathetic, isn't it? For all my talk. I actually did leave, once. Got about a mile from the house. Saw one of those... things."
You shrug. "Maybe it's better that you stay here."
Shawna sighs. "It's been too long. The government, the army, whatever. They're not coming."
You shake your head. "You don't know that. Maybe they're just busy in other places."
Shawna raises a hand. "You should get going. I'm going to go into my room now. I won't bother you further."
She turns to leave. You put a hand on her shoulder. "You're going to get into a lot of trouble with your father for this," you say gently.
Shawna shrugs. "So what? What's he gonna do, shoot me? I almost wish he would."
She walks down the hall. You stare after her for a moment, then turn back to the door.
Should you go in? You're not sure. Part of you wants to, but all you'll find in there is keys to locks you can already open, probably. And you don't want to invade his privacy. After all, he took you in.
Eh. You'll see what there is to see in the armory.
You approach the heavy iron door and open the lock. The door swings open slowly, and you step inside the concrete hall, lined on both sides with weapons.
Rifles. Ammo. Handguns. Shotguns. Boxes of bullets and shells. What looks like a bazooka. Knives, arranged on the walls in patterns. A large bolt action sniper rifle with telescopic lens hangs over the rest of the rifles like a King seated above the court. You can tell it's heavily customized. You vaguely remember Kyle bragging about it, some far off day ago.
You're most familiar with the shotgun, so you select a pump action 12 gauge. You sling it over your back by the strap. It's black and heavy. You take two boxes of shells, pausing to load five in from a third box. Forty-five shells taken in all.
You take a 9mm and box of clips. There's a belt with a holster for it, with a place for two extra clips as well as other pouches. You put it on and slide the handgun next to your hip. It rides high on your waist.
A short while later, you've gathered a backpack, supplies, food, alcohol and water. Should be enough for a while. You enter the bathroom and glance at your reflection in the mirror. You empty eye socket is ugly.
You return to the armory and glance around, not quite sure what you're looking for. Something is missing.
You return to the front of Kyle's door, rubbing the master key between your fingers. On impulse you abruptly open it.
The door opens inward, revealing a large, neat room. The bed is large but simple. A small bookshelf sits against the wall, lined with technical manuals and other inscrutable tomes. It's dark, but you light one of the lanterns hanging near the door.
The light illuminates the room. Something through the door to the bathroom catches your eye.
You walk into the master bath and look at a small case laying on the counter next to the sink. You open it with slender fingers.
Inside is three glass eyes.
You stand there for a moment, the implications slowly making their way up and down your nervous system. A black eye-patch hangs around the inside doorknob.
Kyle... Kyle is infected.
Shit.
How long? Does he know about the effect alcohol has? He must. How could you not have noticed his fake eye before? He must be very good at hiding it. Or perhaps you never looked very closely.
In any case, yet another reason for you not to stay. You grab the eye-patch from the door and put it on. In the mirror, you look very pale.
On Kyle's nightstand you find the keys to the panel truck. You take them and head to the exit.
The house above is empty, silent. You hurry outside, to the truck. It starts up with no problems.
Time to go find Clark.
**************************************************
You awaken. Your body aches. Rubble surrounds you. Where has your new master gone? You will find him.
**********************
You wake up. The sound of the girl crying softly has awoken you. Groaning, you roll out of your bed and put your bare feet down on the cold floor.
"Jesus, can't she get over him already?" you mutter.
**********************
You are already awake. The Other is near. It will not be long now.
**********************
Select Player.
-
DOG PUPPY ADVENTURES.
-
is it dog time
-
i would have voted puppy but i checked too late but its okay because its puppy time :perfect:
-
You awaken. Your body aches. Rubble surrounds you. Where has your new master gone? You will find him.
You try to stand but something is pinning you down. Whining softly, you begin to squirm and work your way out from under it. Dust clogs your nostrils and you snort in frustration.
Finally, after minutes of pawing, you manage to wriggle and drag yourself out from under the heavy concrete that you awoke under. You get to your unsteady feet.
An acrid red smell hangs in the air. The smell of burning, of death, of destruction. Far away, you can smell the dying of the nest, deep underground.
You don't know why your master had driven in his car so quickly and with such passion toward the foul-smellers. You tried to warn him but he did not hear you. Just as you had tried to warn your previous master of the foul-smellers growing in his mate. But you are a dog and sometimes the humans around you do not pay attention. It is a quirk of their species that you have long since grown used to.
You put your nose to the ground and attempt to sort out the myriad of smells that present themselves, searching for the one that will lead you down the path your master took. You can smell the acrid red, of course, hanging over everything, clouding out the lesser gifted noses. But you are not like them, not like the humans with their keen eyesight and inferior ears and puny noses. You have learned long ago that in almost all physical regards you are the superior. Faster, stronger (if not larger) and far better senses, except for eyesight. The human strength has always been their cleverness.
The foul-smellers do not need cleverness. They replace the minds of those they conquer with their own. And they do not need eyes. That is why your kind is the preferred vessel.
The smells register in your nose like threads leading to different balls of yarn. Your own smell. The smell of the humans in the black clothing. The smell of the one of them who was foul. The smell of death, of life, the faint smell of those who had been here many days ago.
Searching. Searching. Ranging wider and wider, finding threads, following them to dead ends, starting over. The dust chokes you.
Finally you find what you are looking for. Your master, the one who saved you from the locked room where you had thought you were going to leave the path. Your old master had perished there. He had almost taken you with him, and you are not sure why he did not. Surely leaving you to starve in the room, alone, was worse than an unknown, new path.
But he did not and now you are grateful. A kind man had found you. At first, when he had entered the room, you had growled in your mind. You could smell the foulness in him, the rot, the decay of his internal systems as more and more of his insides were churned up and replaced with the foul-smellers.
But then he had been kind to you. Not like the rest that you had smelled. And you realized that you could smell something else: The foulness inside of him was different. Choked. Restricted. The human had found a way to fight back. And not only that, but there was another smell about him. Something different, something almost sweet.
And there was a female with him. She too, you did not initially like, for she had the sickly sweet smell of them in her, too. But like your master, she also had found a way to fight it. But to her you gave not as much attention, for she was clearly not the alpha. The man lead and it was to he that your subservience would be offered. The female may have a higher station than you but it was not to she that your loyalty was due.
Your thoughts are inappropriate. Now is not the time for memory and review. You must find your master. You have found his smell, and now you will follow it. You begin to follow his path.
A ruined diner. You are not sure what the word diner means, but you have heard the humans refer to these places as such. It seems to be a place where they gather to feed. It seems idiotic to you that one should limit themselves to specific places to eat, but humans are a strange race and you are not intelligent enough to guess at all their reasons.
There is a dead Faceless in the kitchen. Even you think of them as such, long before you heard your new master refer to them. For the description was apt. The smell of him tells you that the foulness inside him is not entirely extinguished. You are careful to skirt around him as you pass.
The trail eventually leads you to an apartment complex. Some time has passed since your master was here. You are not sure how long, but hours, at least. You must have been asleep under the rock for some time.
The smell of the foul-ones is all around you. You whine softly, afraid. But you must go on, or risk losing the trail. You enter the complex, carefully staying in the shadows of the walls.
Almost too late your nose alerts you that you are not the only one staying in the shadows. Ahead of you, one of your own kind, corrupted now into a Shadow, steps out from under a staircase and growls.
You bare your teeth. This thing before you was once your kind, but now it nothing but darkness, a slave to the foul-smellers within it. Unlike the rest of the strange world you now find yourself in, these creatures you understand perfectly. They are the Shadow, the dark reflection that lurks in every one of your kind.
The Shadow takes a step forward. Your growl deepens. The thing in front of you, you know, will not turn aside at a mere show of force. You will have to fight, or flee.
You do not relish either prospect. Fighting runs the risk of losing more than your life. And running will make you lose precious time, make you find your master's trail once again.
But perhaps you have one advantage. Your intellect, meager as it is compared to a human's, is superior to these things. They are cunning hunters, you know, but they cannot match your problem solving abilities or quick adaptations.
You scan the area. There is a broken window nearby. You quickly make a sprint for it as the Shadow leaps to follow.
You hop through and into the interior. Here there is a dead Shadow. Ignoring it for now, you press yourself up against the wall under the broken window.
The Shadow comes in through the gap exactly as you knew it would. Too late, it sees you beneath it. You quickly lunge upwards, biting and snaping at the vulnerable belly, and the source of the foul-smell within it. Your position and leverage upend the Shadow in mid-air, causing it to land sprawling in the room.
Before it can recover you dart in and snap at the thing's neck. Your bite is quick and lethal, severing the main artery that supplies the lifeblood to the head. Before the tentacles can twist to entwine you, you have dashed backward and away, blood on your teeth.
But the thing is not slain. It rises and growl/hisses at you once more. The lifeblood bleeds from your wounds but does not slow the creature. You have scored the first blow but you are unsure if any amount of blows you are capable of inflicting will destroy this terrible thing.
It lunges, quicker than a human could dodge. But you are not a human. You twist away, snapping empty air. Your instincts tell you to lunge, now, while you are on his flank, to use your full bodyweight to pin him to the ground and sink your teeth into his vulnerable neck. But your intellect knows that this would be suicide, or worse. You cannot fight these things in the traditional way. You turn and flee.
The Shadow follows. The black rot smell of him looms like a spectre behind you. You dash down the hall and into a bedroom. The Shadow follows you in, cornering you now. It lowers its maw and issues forth a gleeful hiss.
You return the hiss with your own growl, barking sharply once. The Shadow lunges.
***************************
1. Dash to the side, escape through the door.
2. Meet his lunge.
3. Jump up on the bed, then over him to escape.
4. Jump up on the bed and fight from the high ground.
5. sssssssssssssssss
***************************
WARNING: Poor choices will result in Max's death. Or worse.
-
(http://anotherdimension.pyoko.org/questioningdog.gif)
#3 because it's about time Friday made us walljump over something horrible. From the text, the cavine doesn't seem able to predict attacks coming from odd angles, so it might not be expecting a move like this. The question is whether it can get the tendrils up quick enough to grab us before we are airborne.
-
Well, we DID just use the same trick on it, so.
-
Yeah, but these things aren't exactly quick learners.
#1 might be a safer bet. As a border collie, we certainly get a racial bonus to dashing around something that is trying to trample us. It'd be quicker, for sure. I think it would be easier for the tendrils to get us on the ground though. And going over the top might disorient it enough to give us more of a head-start on the getaway.
-
3 is the obvious choice here
-
The cavines have tendrils coming off their *backs*. They're probably very good at striking upwards, where our soft belly will be, and hopping up on the bed first will give it that much more time to react.
#1 takes advantage of the lunge and puts distance between us and it. We can't fight it and we need to get as far away from it as possible. We are as fast as it and can likely think faster to lose it.
-
What are you doing on that computer? You're a dog. You can't even type.
-
god dammit listen to me I know what I'm talking about here
-
romosome has made this choice easy
-
1. Dash to the side, escape through the door.
You quickly dart to the side as the Shadow's maw unfurls and then constricts like an octopus swimming in the space you had previously occupied. As you dash toward the door, several tendrils extend from the back, reaching for you even as the Shadow begins to turn to block you.
You flatten yourself as best you can and go under them. One lightly tears into your shoulder, flooding your nose with the sudden smell of your own pain and blood. You reach the door, the Shadow literally on your heels. As you turn into the hall, the Shadow howls in frustration at your escape.
You quickly exit back out through the same shattered window you came in, and take off across the courtyard. You round a corner of the interior complex, seeing a gated swimming pool up ahead. You gather your speed and align yourself to leap over the high iron bars.
The fence clips your feet as you soar over the top of it, just barely. You spare a quick glance over your shoulder. The Shadow is also leaping, but is not quite as agile as you. It slams into the bars of the fence with an agitated hiss. But amazingly, the tendrils latch onto the black metal rods and begin to pull it up and over the top.
Across the scummy water, covered in fallen leaves, the gate to the enclosed area stands open, swaying slightly in the mist. A bad smell is coming from the pool. There's a floating corpse, bloated and ruptured open, facedown in the water. You circle around the pool and head for the exit.
As you run, something suddenly rises up out of the water to your left. A single tendril snakes out of the main mass of the Faceless and wraps around your leg before you can react. The dripping Faceless begins to drag you into the water even as it leans forward and blasts you with a jet of hot air, noise, and rotting water from its empty maw. More vines are emerging from the water, reaching for you. Behind him, three more Faceless come rising out of the water like nightmares from a faded dream.
The Shadow is closing. Hissing. Hissing with a terrible finality.
You twist, roll, and bring your fangs down on the vine that holds you in place, then tear your mouth sideways, ripping the tendril free. The Shadow leaps over the corner of the pool toward you, vines writhing in anticipation.
You roll over onto your back and pedal your legs furiously.
The Shadow lands directly on top of you, but before it can bring its tentacles to bear, you've kicked and pushed it off and away, directly into the Faceless and the water.
Both Shadow and Faceless roar as they crash into each other, both vanishing in a vortex of swirling water, rot, and vine. You roll away and get to your feet, slightly limping. The wound on your shoulder burns like hot coal. You exit through the gate even as the Faceless in the pool pull themselves face-first, fish-like, onto land.
You run madly, desperate to put some distance between yourself and those who hunt you. All thought of the trail, your master, your previous life, anything, is all washed away in the hot chase. Your survival instincts are blazing and all else is drowned under a frothing torrent of red flight.
You've left the apartment complex. Up ahead are several houses. A crashed and burning helicopter has demolished one of them, and plowed a great rut in the front lawn. You can see several bodies laying strewn around the wreck. You pass it by, hardly noticing it.
You continue to run down the empty, foggy streets, deeper into the residential neighborhood. Finally you find yourself at what seems to be a park. Vague memories of your master taking you to this place, or a similar place light up in your head. Chasing a ball. Returning with the ball in your mouth, tail wagging. Dropping it at your master's feet so he could throw it again.
You wander through the long green grass, now untrimmed and unmaintained. Several wood tables and benches litter the area, some positioned under tall oaks and one under the weeping branches of a willow. In the fog, the tree almost looks like some giant tentacled monster.
You spot a cluster of bushes and drag yourself under them to hide. You can't run any longer. You can only hope the Shadow cannot smell your blood.
Minutes pass. The fog drifts slowly over the field from your vantage point. Nothing. You begin to lick your wounds as best you can, running your tongue over the hot areas, bringing a measure of soothing coolness.
Another worry seeps in your mind. You can both smell and feel the foul-smellers within you. Shortly after you bit that crawling thing in the store, you have felt what was in it now within you. You do not understand fully what this means, but you suspect that in time it will corrode you. For now, you eat a few mouthfuls of grass and cough and spit up, the only thing you know how to do. It doesn't help much.
You lay your head on your paws and whimper softly. You suspect that if you are not able to find your new master, you will be lost.
You must return to the apartments and pick up the trail again. It is your only hope.
But you are so tired, and alone, and afraid. You wish the world you find yourself in could go back to the way it was before all of this foulness and terrible death. Back to when you could play on bright days in the park, or chase rabbits on long walks. Back to before the wiggling, hissing noise began to grow in your mind.
You close your eyes. Perhaps a short nap will do you some good.
*************
It seems hardly a moment has passed when you are awoken by a soft sound in the distance. You perk up your ears to listen.
The sound is quiet, beyond the range of a human's ear. But you can hear it. Strangely, your nose tells you nothing. You carefully crawl out from under your bushes and glance around. Empty, foggy grass. The sound is directly ahead, under the Willow tree.
You can identify the sound now. It is a human child, female. She is crying. You are vaguely uneasy.
************************************
1. Investigate.
2. Ignore and return to the apartments to pick up the trail.
3. sssssssssssssssss
-
1. Investigate.
You cock you ears forward and listen for a bit longer. The crying is disjointed, but somehow regular. Soon you are able to ascertain that it seems to loop about every eight seconds, skipping backward like a record. You begin to head in the direction of the noise.
As your soft footfalls press into the damp grass of the park, as the mist eddies and swirls and parts before you, as your paws brush the dew from the blades of grass, as the sense of unease and the strange, regular, almost buzzing heartbeat grows in your mind, as your nose begins to smell the sweet stench of decay, you walk toward the crying. The lost child in a lost world.
The Willow tree looms before you, its tendrils swaying gently. Beneath it, sits a small child with dark and tangled hair. Her clothes are rotting and torn, pretty blues and browns now stained with blood and rust. She is crying in that strange, looping cadence. The sound is like fingernails in your mind.
A sudden breeze toward you and your sensitive nose picks up the smell of them, of they, of the ones who have taken this world and bored into it like a worm into an apple, eating it from the inside out, the smell of death, the smell of the shadow, the smell of the Other. You raise your hackles and growl without thinking, an instinctual response you cannot repress.
The crying abruptly ceases.
The girl begins to turn, slowly, rotating not with her waist or legs or neck, but pivoting on the ground like a wooden fixture, impossibly smooth, as she raises her face to look at you.
You bare your teeth.
The face is perfect. Like paper, impossibly white and impossibly without flaw. The eyes are burning coals in a sunken mire. The mouth is a thin and cruel line. She blinks.
You blink.
She is standing before you, less than three feet. You blanch away and try to run, but your feet seem so heavy.
She raises one hand and extends the index finger. A long red fingernail extends from it. As you watch it seems to lengthen, elongating like a sword from the scabbard. You try to move, to run, to turn your head, but the heaviness is upon you entirely now. The best you can do is whine softly, awaiting your inevitable fate.
Suddenly, the creature before you (The Red Girl) shudders, like a weed bending in the wind. She opens her mouth to reveal an endless black and red pit, and the sound that issues from it is like a black wind of agony. It is literally painful to hear. You shut your eyes against it.
Then the sound stops, and you open your eyes to see another girl standing between you and the first. Her back is to you. Her dress is similar to the other, but her hair is smooth and clean, and there is no blood on her.
"No," she says. "This one is mine."
The first girl cocks her head, ever so slowly. Her eyes bore into the eyes of the new girl.
"He isssss one of usssssss, one of usssssss, one of usssssss, we have claimed him, yessss, you are not welcome here, interloper, one of ussssssss."
The second girl puts her hands on her hips, defiant.
No. He is mine.
One of usssssss.
You are the unwelcome one. Begone from here.
One. of. usssssss.
Begone!
The second girl stamps her foot and the other blanches and begins to fade. But before she does, her eyes shift to you.
One of usssssss.
Then she is gone, drifting away in the fog.
The second girl turns to you and places a gentle hand behind an ear. The heaviness is lifted and you fall gently to the grass. The girl kneels down with you, stroking your head and neck with her hands. She leans down and whispers in your ear.
You do not know me, but I know you. Max, Max, my Max, find my Wolfy and bring him safe to me. This I beg you. I fear for him alone in this lost world without me.
You whimper and slowly lick her hand.
Awaken now. There is not much time.
You open your eyes.
You are laying under the Willow tree. You get up and shake yourself. There is no sign of either girl.
Suddenly, something catches your eye on the trunk of the tree. You head over to sniff it, curious. Someone has cut something into the living wood.
Sniffing for a bit, you inwardly shrug and begin to trot off, the memories of the strange and frightening dream quickly fading. Behind you, the words upon the trunk of the tree go unread.
But despite this, a sudden thought pops into your head, unbidden by any conscious stimuli:
How's your mom? :)
*******************************
You continue back to the apartments, hoping to once again pick up the trail of your new master. In a broken and empty room you find his footsteps. They lead north. You begin to follow --
A man steps into the room. You had not smelled him. This is worrisome to you, but now more immediate action is required. You sniff once, cautiously --
This is not your master. This is a stranger. He is wearing something over his face, and is holding some kind of long object in his arms. Before you can focus your eyes on it to determine what it is, he speaks.
"Holy shit! What the fuck is a dog doing here?"
At the voice of a human your ears begin to perk. Perhaps he will help you to --
Another man comes into view. Why can you not smell them? Is something broken inside you? The second man speaks.
"You know our orders. Poor thing is probably infected, and even if not we're doing it a favor. Let's kill it and keep searching. We don't have a lot of time before the hammer comes down."
He raises the long object in his arms. You suddenly realize what the object is and also that these men will not help you.
******************************
1. Run.
2. Barge past the two men and run.
3. Bite at them sso they drop their weaponss.
?. Kill them. They are soft and weak.
-
Running away is asking to be shot. Lunging forward between them so they have to turn around and re-sight is probably our best bet.
Biting might work but...bad things could happen. It could be our only chance at survival though. Dunno if I'm willing to risk it.
-
Weeeell, I would'a voted for 2, but polls were closed by the time I noticed the update.
-
Yeah, I'll leave the polls open longer next time. It's not like I'm updating frequently or anything.
Going with 2.
2. Barge past the two men and run.
You weigh your options quickly and decide on your course. The objects that the men carry, what they call guns, can bite from a great distance. Running away will not help you, you must confuse and bewilder them before you pass from their sight.
The spring into motion, dashing forward but not leaping, squeezing your way through their legs. One of the men is tripped up by your momentum and his weapon comes alive in his hands, the sound of the gunfire like hail in your ears. You can smell the burning powder the men use to power their weapons, smell the plaster erupting from the holes the man has punched in the ceiling and walls.
"Damn it!" the man swears as you head for the open door. "He's getting away!"
The other man swings his rifle around and takes aim. You veer suddenly, running toward a shattered window. As your paws brush against the shards of broken glass on left on the lower sill, you feel the wind of the bullets on your flanks. You land heavily and immediately change direction. The man comes to the window and sights you again.
But you're already behind some bushes. The man fires and his bullets rip through the shrubs, but he cannot see you and his shots are wild.
Up ahead you see the pool. You don't want to go there again. You turn quickly and flee down a dirt path between two buildings. A chain link fence blocks your way at the end, too high to jump. The dirt beneath your feet is neither hard nor soft, packed down but not solid. You could try to climb over the fence, head back the way you came, or dig under it.
************************
1. Climb over.
2. Dig under.
3. Go back. Find another way.
?. Why do you turn away from my offer to help? I can help you find your master again. Trust in me.
-
fuck can dogs even climb a fence i dont know
-
You've never seen a dog climb a fence?
the answer is yes they can, depending on the dog and the fence
-
My dog used to climb the fucking chain link fence we had all the damn time
then he'd come home all happy and we'd know he'd found a bitch in heat
eventually we had to put an electric wire atop the fence
it wasn't a strong enough pulse to hurt him, you know, just make him uncomfortable/surprised so that he'd knock it off
then we turned off the wire and left it there and it worked for about 2 years until he forgot about the wire, jumped up, remembered the wire mid jump, tried to turn in mid air, hit the wire anyway, realized it wasn't on, and scrambled over with me shouting NO REX GET BACK HERE
actually now that I think of it I'm not so sure my dog wasn't a velociraptor
-
Just another of your horrible chitinous progeny that you forgot about and then adopted as a pet. :nyoro~n:
-
Clever girl...hunter.
-
U-U-U-U-UPDATE
1. Climb over.
You get a running start and leap at the fence, paws forward, raised as high as you can raise them. The impact jolts you as your paws and snout smash painfully against the links. You let out a yelp and begin to scramble furiously with your back legs, feeling purchase.
You pull yourself up. You're clear. You lunge over the top and fall to the ground. Behind you, the men.
"There he is!"
"Move! I've got a shot!"
You run desperately toward the nearest corner, knowing the fence will not stop the bite of the gun the man holds.
You feel the white hot line of the shot against your flank sear away hair and a thin strip of flesh before you hear the bang. The man has missed. You round the corner.
Another man blocks your path. He is dressed in the same black clothing, armed with the same weapon. He is startled by your appearance. You rush past him before he can collect himself.
As you are about to turn another corner, you feel a sting in your haunches. It hurts, and you whine, but it is not bad. You did not hear a bang, only a quiet pfft.
You continue on. You have the trail of your master now. Running swiftly, you leave the complex and head down a long road soaked with fog. Behind you, your sharp ears pick up the talk of the men.
"Got him..."
"He'll lead us right to him..."
"Hit him with a tracer..."
The words don't mean anything to you. You are free and you are on your way to reunite with your master.
***********************************
You wake up. The sound of the girl crying softly has awoken you. Groaning, you roll out of your bed and put your bare feet down on the cold floor.
"Jesus, can't she get over him already?" you mutter.
************************
You are already awake. The Other is near. It will not be long now.
Select player.
-
okay
but i get to be play
/me has been sacked.
-
You wake up. The sound of the girl crying softly has awoken you. Groaning, you roll out of your bed and put your bare feet down on the cold floor.
"Jesus, can't she get over him already?" you mutter.
She'd been crying off and on for a week about it. You told her that Jonathan would catch up to you, which was a lie, of course, you'd needed to get out of there. Jonathan was becoming dangerous to stay around. You'd never seen someone heal that quickly from such severe wounds. Not that you were a doctor, or anything, but you were sure he'd have died. Instead he recovered almost entirely. You made the decision to leave. You couldn't keep Nicole around him.
You enter Nicole's room and ask if she was having a bad dream. She nods, tears in her dark eyes, and you assure her everything is OK, and leave the room.
You'd spent longer trying to reassure her in the past. You know from experience it doesn't work. As soon as you're out the door, you sigh. Your greatest fear is Jonathan does somehow find you again.
You might as well do a quick check of the premises while you're up. You put on your boots and head to the exterior of the building.
Switching on your heavy duty flashlight, you swing the beam around the parking lot, illuminating nothing more than several cars. Out past the fence, in the street, you see nothing except for a wisp of drifting fog. You head around to the back.
Gravel crunches under your feet as you walk past windows and bushes lining the sides of the church you and Nicole are staying in. You mentally calculate how much food you have left. You'll probably go on another supply run tomorrow. You've got a store all picked out for it already. Last time, you only ran into a few of those things --
A sudden chill up your spine alerts you to the presence of something else. You shine your light around, but reveal nothing. There's a gap torn in the back fence, but it's old. You're more concerned with several small buildings here back behind the church. Initial exploration seemed to show they used to be some sort of private school.
A sudden soft crunch of gravel to your left. You turn and shine your light into the empty face of an infected coming around a tree. It twists itself at you, walking jerkily.
"A scout," you mutter, unslinging your rifle from around your shoulder. You sight for the guts and pull the trigger. The thing screams softly as it staggers. You pull the bolt back and fire again. This time it drops to the ground and writhes until stillness claims it.
Knowing that the drones are not intelligent enough to play dead, you finish your sweep and return inside, locking the door behind you. The windows are all boarded up on the inside. You're not too worried about a few of those things getting in. The danger is in a scout getting back to the nest and provoking an attack en masse. You could move farther out of the city, but you'd be moving away from your supplies if you did so.
Even so, staying here is getting dangerous. You can't stay in any one place for too long.
As you slip back into bed, you wonder what Jonathan is doing, and where he is.
-
sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
-
You are already awake. The Other is near. It will not be long now.
You know this because... you remember it? You are not sure. Something is strange, here. Like you are not who you are. But that is not possible. You are awake, and you are hungry. The Other, the insolent one, is near and you will find him.
You lope across buildings, through buildings, down empty streets. A passing faceless jerks upright from a meal as you pass. The body it is inhabiting is old and worn. You feel the urge to purify it, to steal the meal it is consuming for your own benefit. Its weakness disgusts you. A lesser form of life.
But you are resolved to not be distracted. You will find the Other. You will extinguish him from your mind, from your thoughts, from this earth.
You can feel him nearby. Like a small child playing hot and cold. His presence is warm and you follow that warmth. As you draw closer, it becomes easier. You imagine if he was to gain a considerable distance between the two of you, this sense would fade to uselessness. But that is not going to happen. You will not allow him to escape as he has done so many times before with your kind. He will taste oblivion.
You round a street corner to find several ruined buildings with more of those black-clad men searching them methodically. One of them turns to see you and yells to the others.
You smile.
The men begin firing their pitiful weapons at you. Small rips and tears. You barely feel the impact of them. Like wisps of wind against you. You advance, slowly, deliberately, savoring their growing fear. You can small their blood, their sweat, their helplessness. Behind their black masks their eyes grow wide as their weapons have no effect. They begin to turn, to flee.
You finally spring, catlike upon them. Tendrils extends to catch, to entangle, to crush and cut. The men scatter like leaves in a fire as you run amok through them. With a large mass of tendrils you lift one into the air above you and rip him in half at the waist, pouring him like a goblet down into your waiting mouths. Thus momentarily distracted, another soldier untouched so far by your slaughter sees this and begins screaming.
You finish your feast and toss the two halves aside. The screaming soldier is now running full bore, his weapon dropped, all thought of fight gone. You casually give chase, lazily reaching for him with an arm that punctures right through his frail torso, extracting his innards back into your maw. The empty shell of a man slumps to the ground.
You laugh. Are such weaklings to be your opponents? You will soon grow bored if this is so.
But one opponent has thus far eluded you. You snarl and lope down the street, leaving the bodies to the scavenging drones. So close now.
He is just ahead. The building he is in comes into your sight. It almost glows red with his heat, with his lifeblood. Just a matter of moments now.
He is leaving the building. You can actually see his physical form. It looks almost aflame to your eyes. Above him now. Quiet. He doesn't even know you are there. Just a quick drop and you will have him.
Behind you, you do not see the man with no face insert a long red nail into your head.
************************************
The sudden knowledge of the Other blooms in your mind like an explosion. You freeze, thoughts racing.
He is above you. You turn.
What you see makes no sense. A horrible shadow. A mass of red, swirling, twisting. It is like your eyes refuse to focus. A crawling cacophony of chaos that obliterates reason and logic loom over you like death itself. It seems to both perch on the rooftop and float in the air at the same time.
You blink hard. No weapon you possess will aid you against this thing. Or are you finally going insane? Is this the final symptom of your infection before your face implodes and you become on of the Faceless?
No. It is there. It is real. You have to --
*************************************
Now. Now. Kill him now.
But you do not move. Something is preventing you from moving. The Other would be long dead by now if you had control. But something is --
*************************************
The mass of unfocused nothing/something above you is still. The crawling stops, and a bitter screech in your mind begins to grow in volume. You are not here, you are --
*************************************
Something is in your mind. You can see the Other with eyes that are not eyes, he stands yet before you, but you cannot --
*************************************
You are looking at it, praying desperately for your eyes to focus, to see this impossible thing before you, to know what it is --
*************************************
You leer down at the Other, every sense in your being compelling you to destroy it, destroy him, feed upon his blood, his flesh, your eyes cannot see him now, something is in your mind, he begins to shift shape, grow dark, change before you into something else --
*************************************
Yes. Your eyes have focused. The thing is coming into view now.
*************************************
You drop to the ground, level with the Other. He is before you. Is he? Your senses now confuse you. Where has he gone?
*************************************
You can see him. Your vision is almost clear --
*************************************
You are looking at yourself.
*************************************
You are looking at yourself.
*************************************
You are looking at yourself.
*************************************
1. Run.
2. Kill.
3. ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
-
It's probably foolish, but you don't get opportunities like this very often.
-
Uh, just so everyone is on the same page, the italics text is the huge monster. A vote for "Kill" is a vote for Game Over.
-
1. Run.
Seeing through two sets of eyes. Feeling through two sets of nerves. On foreign, one familiar.
One foreign, one familiar.
Run.
Run.
You turn and flee.
**********************************
Coughing, stumbling, gasping. You fall. You stumble. You retch upon the ground. Your eyes burn. Your throat feels the slime of a thousand mouths. Your hands feel the blood of a thousand lives. The sun burns through the fog and lights your back afire. Violently trembling, tingling. A thousand swords into your body and mind.
Focus. It will be coming. You can feel it coming --
**********************************
You roar. You scream. The Other has escaped you. You do not know how, you do not know why. You can remember sitting above him, about to pounce, about to feel his flesh rip asunder --
And then nothing. He was gone.
The hole in your memory is like a fissure, raw and gaping. Red mist fills it. But for the moment you are not concerned. For the moment all you know is the Other is close and he will not escape again.
You come back fully into yourself and begin to move. You can still feel him, nearby, not far. He will not escape again.
***********************************
The double memory hits you like a red wave. There is a delay, you know this. Which means it is closer than you remember. Then he would already be almost upon you. You must hide somehow. But you know he can feel you, can see you in his mind, highlighted in red. You cannot hide.
You cannot hide. You are finished.
Then, a thought. It comes from within yet also from without.
He can see red, but can he see blue?
You pause, considering. But how could you --
Try it.
You slip into a nearby doorway, unsure of even what kind of building it is. The interior is dark and vague. Your eyesight is still in some kind of warped double negative. It makes no sense and you cannot depend on it.
You close your eyes.
****************************************
He is near. You can see him now. The red fire illuminates him. You close silently, mouths watering.
****************************************
It's not working. It's not working. It's --
****************************************
The red fire suddenly goes dark, switched off like a setting sun. You stop, confused. He was right in front of you. The building he has hidden within still stands before you. You snarl in frustration, sending your tendrils forth to find him.
****************************************
The vines come through the open door, the broken windows, the cracks and holes left by previous violence. You can hear him outside, feel him, pulsing, breathing, hungering. The tendril vines are red and much thicker than those you've seen before. But they are not entirely uniform in size. Some are larger, longer. Some end in blind mouths that emit their own small mewling cries of gluttony. You retreat slowly, quietly, deeper into the building, away from the searching death.
****************************************
You find nothing within. You withdraw your tendrils and roar, pushing forward with an arm to destroy the building. It groans as you wrench parts of it free, tearing into it like a lion into prey. You demolish the entire front section. Part of the building sags as foundation is removed. You peer inside.
Nothing. Darkness.
No. He must be there. He was there. You are sure of it. You step inside.
*******************************************
You have already slipped out the backdoor. You can feel and see the interior of the house (it is a house) now through his eyes, through his senses. He is searching for you but he cannot feel you. You must be very quiet. Very still. You move quickly to a tool shed rising from tall grass.
*******************************************
Your massive maw turns. Back and forth. Back and forth. Relying on your sight is cumbersome. It was much easier to just follow the heat, the flame, the red. You continue through the house, tendrils and vines trailing, probing every corner, every hiding place. Behind the couch. In the closet. Down the halls and into the empty rooms. Under beds, above cupboards, behind toilets. Leaving tails of slime like an army of snails. You come to the back door. It is slightly ajar.
You smile.
************************************
Quiet now. Very still.
************************************
A backyard filled with grass in desperate need of cutting. Dew clings to each blade from the mist. You lazily send your tendrils forth, searching, searching. They part the grass like a thousand snakes. Your sight centers on a small structure near the rear of the yard. Yes. He would be there.
You close the distance and ever so gently send your tendrils forth under the door. A smaller, more agile vine snakes up behind and unhinges the locking mechanism. The rest of you floods inside.
It will not be long now. He has very little place left to hide.
Behind the workbench. Under it. Around the shelves, knocking over several tools. An open shoebox is pushed down and clatters on the ground, spilling hundreds of nuts and bolts across the concrete floor. The tinkling noise excites you for some reason. You push over the workbench entirely. You rip open a cardboard box.
He is not here.
The realization takes a moment to sink in. He is not inside. He has escaped you once again.
Then the anger. The rage. You scream and your tendrils tense, become weapons. They flail and rip, destroying the interior. Tearing rents in the walls. The noise in incredible, echoing, chaotic. You scream again, digging your arms and tendrils into the shed itself, ripping it apart.
Finally you have spent your rage. You collect yourself. The Other has gone. Somehow, he has escaped. But it is only a momentary reprieve for him. You will find him again. You will hunt him down, and you will witness his face as he realizes his end. You turn and leave. You must escape Limestone before it is destroyed.
************************************
Standing behind the single wall left standing behind the shed, you slowly breathe and sigh of relief as the thing hunting you draws off.
As it leaves, the double thoughts, the double senses, leave with it. You could speculate why this is, or anything else, but its final shared thought abruptly reminds you of your urgent need to get the fuck out of Limestone. The whole city is going to be sterilized, and you don't want to be here when it happens.
It's time to go find Nicole.
**********************************
END OF ACT 4
SEE NEW THREAD: THE RETURN