FEBRUARY 2021 EVENT: PART TWO

[robbies]

 

CHAPTER TWO, PART 2: THE LIVING ISLAND

Everything you never wanted to see.

YOU CAN’T DO A LITTLE BECAUSE YOU CAN’T DO ENOUGH | JUST A DREAM FROM YESTERDAY | DARKNESS HELD ITS BREATH | YOUR FRIENDS WHEN THINGS GET ROUGH | COME AND PLAY WITH ME

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YOU CAN'T DO A LITTLE BECAUSE YOU CAN'T DO ENOUGH

Perhaps you’ve been on tenterhooks since you woke up to find that your friends, your family, your neighbors somehow went missing in the night. Perhaps you’ve been hitting the pavement and knocking on doors trying to find them. So far, your efforts have been for naught. There’s been neither hide nor hair of the missing, and every attempt to find them has met with a dead end.

Until February 13.

In the afternoon, a strange, unsigned message goes live on the network. What is the meaning of “Living Island”? Does it have anything to do with what’s going on? There’s no elaboration… until midnight, when every neighbor’s television set turns on at full volume, hissing static and garbled noise as the dials turn and adjust. Several disjointed clips follow, ending on a mural that depicts the same words from the post.

“Living Island.”

The following morning, you’ll find that stranger things are beginning to happen. Some of you will be woken up to the blankets and sheets being yanked off your sleeping bodies by a powerful force. Others will find that when they step out of their morning shower, a message has been written in the steam on their medicine cabinet's mirror. Depending on how quickly you shower, you may only be able to see part of the message — but running the hot water longer and allowing the steam to fill the room will reveal it in its entirety:

“LIVING ISLAND.”

As time passes, you’ll find that the same message shows up every time the bathroom steams up, whether you’re in the shower or not. The same force that turned your TV on seems to insist that you pay attention to what it’s trying to show you, and its behavior escalates the longer you refuse. Characters will find that books go flying off of bookshelves, drawers are yanked out of dressers and desks, and breakable objects are smashed. Trying to prevent the spirit from destruction won’t go your way: If you try to catch or grab something that’s about to be thrown, you’ll find it ripped out of your hands anew and smashed anyways. If you tried to take all of your chairs down from where they’ve been stacked on top of the dining room table, you’ll find they’re back atop it the instant you look away.

All that’s to say nothing of the rumbling. It doesn’t start until the end of the first day, but from time to time you’ll feel the house beginning to shake on its foundations, a dull groan as it struggles to keep itself from collapsing in under its own weight. As time goes on, this will get louder and louder until the house seems to roar of its own accord, an unyielding shriek that can’t be stopped until the force causing it backs down.

Attempts to make contact with the spirit will never go well. It does not seem to be able or willing to communicate with you beyond its own tantrums, and characters who try may find that the attempt rapidly goes out of control. Candles flare up and burn wildly, Ouija boards are ripped into pieces and planchettes go flying, offerings of food are knocked over or thrown, and the lights flicker manically in turns. While you may be able to get some sleep at night if you’re lucky, the only thing that will reduce the poltergeist activity is to pay attention to the message it’s sending you and figure out what it means.

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JUST A DREAM FROM YESTERDAY

Living Island. If ever there were a first step to stopping this madness, it’s figuring out what those words mean. But starting is always the hardest part, and with nothing else to go by than two seemingly unrelated, nonsensical words left behind by a force you can’t see much less communicate with, an already arduous task seems even more impossible. This is furthered by the reactions you get when you hit the street and start asking people if they know anything about Living Island. Most of them can only look back at you blankly, as if waiting for a punchline that never comes. Others actually take you seriously enough to consider the question, and to their credit, they do take their time racking their brains to remember where they’ve heard that name before, why it sounds so familiar. But the most you’ll get back from them is a sheepish shrug of the shoulders and a reply that it sounds like something from TV. It gets to the point where their answers blend together, each one more unremarkable than the last. Save for the one you get from the last person you haven’t asked. Living Island. I’m sorry, what was that? What the fuck did you just say? Dale Harding and Rosemary Craven might be as far away from each other as possible, doing things around town that couldn’t be more different, but their reactions are the same. When they overhear you asking what feels like the hundredth person you’ve seen that day about Living Island, they look your way — Harding in the middle of his patrol or lunch break, Rosemary in the middle of grocery shopping. Harding looks honest-to-God surprised. Rosemary simply looks confused, even somewhat concerned. That's such a... strange name. Where did you hear that from? When they hear your explanation, they go quiet, mulling it over. Rosemary’s expression turns thoughtful. Harding’s, suspicious. If I remember correctly, that was a clubhouse the children around town used to play in. I haven’t heard about it in… goodness, I can’t even remember. Years, perhaps. It’s a play on “safety island” — another name for a bomb shelter — and the name of this… stupid kids show that used to be popular. I guess they thought it was cute, calling a place like that something fun. But where is it? Well, most of the shelters in town are still in use, and children aren’t allowed in them unless there’s an emergency. The only place I can think of is… The grade school. Administration ran out of funding before they could finish it, so they just scrapped it. Closed it off and just hoped for the best. Didn’t stop people from sneaking in. I used to bust them for playing down there all the time, the little shits. Harding’s mouth twists into a sneer that doesn’t reach his eyes, which are soft and miserable, while Rosemary waits patiently for any other questions and, when you have no others, excuses herself to go back to her groceries. Now you have something even better than an explanation: you have a destination.

Finding Santa Rosita Elementary is as easy as a fifteen minute drive from North Santa Rosita to Shadyside. Getting in is a different story. By day, the school is open for business and humming with activity, so you can’t very well go barging in and not expect to be reprimanded for disrupting class. This leaves you with three options: go before it opens, wait until school is over, or come in the middle of the night. Each have their own pros and cons, but all of them will get you the same result.

After hours, the school is desolate and still. The wind, the occasional slap of a naked branch against a window, and the squeak of your footsteps on the shiny, clean floors are the only sounds you’ll hear as you navigate the empty hallways. Most of the classrooms are locked, and the ones that aren’t don’t have anything any more unique or worthwhile to them than the occasional lunchbox left behind by a student or the classroom frog croaking in its tank. In a way, this is a good thing — it doesn’t leave that many places to investigate and makes your path that much more linear as you finally, inevitably and silently make your way downstairs into the bowels of the school.

The long corridor that awaits you in the basement is, in theory, not very different from the hallways upstairs. There are lockers lining both sides, dented and darkened with age and dust. The tiles are cracked, dirt and pieces of stone kicked up from exposed areas of the floor. Seemingly, this appears to lead to a dead end. But look closely at the wall and you’ll see the impression of a door, painted to match the walls. The lock is flimsy — in fact, depending on when you find it, someone may have already broken it. All that’s left is to enter and descend down the tiny room’s only feature: a ladder under a rusty steel hatch door, stretching down into darkness.

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DARKNESS HELD ITS BREATH

CW: gore, surgery

Stepping into the old shelter, the first thing that hits you is the stale, uncomfortably moist air. This first room is cavernous and dark, and your footsteps and whispers echo in spite of how quiet you might try to be. There’s a faint smell in the air, a trace of copper and rubbing alcohol that might make your eyes water, making your mouth feel unpleasant as it hits your tongue. As you get your bearings and begin to pick your way through the dark, you’ll notice traces of another smell — something simultaneously spicy and cloyingly sweet, a scent that seems to assault your senses and leaves you with a headache pounding at the base of your skull. Thankfully, there isn’t enough to do more than make you nauseous, but the smells warn of what’s still yet to be found.

As you continue through the labyrinthine warren, you’ll begin to find signs of human presence — some of the trashed rooms may be fitted with tables and supplies one might expect to find in a laboratory, meticulously labeled with typewritten strips. Several of these boxes appear to be old, covered in grimy layers of dust, while others are fresh and clean. All of them contain medical supplies. Eagle-eyed investigators might note that the untouched supplies tend to be the type contained in first-aid kits — acetaminophen, antibiotic ointment, simple adhesive bandages — while the ones that have been opened are for heavy duty surgical work — coiled IV lines and tubing, empty syringes, surgical gloves. One room in particular seems to have been fitted out for someone’s personal use, boasting a stripped-down bed, a chair and desk, and a comfortable recliner.

The trickle of water can be heard in the depths of the shelter, and as you emerge from one corridor that filters into a large chamber, it becomes immediately obvious where you are: This is an operating theater, with a table stationed beneath all manner of lights that can be adjusted and moved. A faucet drips monotonously in the back of the room, over a sink stained with blood with bits of grey, pulpy matter stuck in the drain. A bucket filled with blood and viscera ferments on the ground beside it. There are smears of blood, both dried and fresh, on the cloudy tiles, and a cabinet full of surgical instruments is slightly ajar. Looking at the instruments, characters will find that a couple of scalpels and a pair of tongs have dotted blotches where the metal was cleaned with water; whoever used these tools last didn’t dry them before putting them away. A small table near the operating area has a turntable sitting atop it, with a record already set under the needle: a single of Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel.” There are a few other records sitting in the cabinet beneath it, including Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog,” Frank Sinatra’s “Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely,” and James Brown and the Famous Flames’ “Think!”

In a separate area of this room, an oversized desk is piled with books and empty food containers that look as though they’ve been repurposed for one reason or another. These books are chiefly on anatomy and the medical sciences, though there are a number of books on psychology and how the brain functions. Though some of these books are water-spotted and dog-eared, there aren’t any notes written in the margins, nor are there any papers to be found. You can turn this area as much as you'd like, but all you’ll find is a couple empty cigarette boxes and some broken and bitten pens; the trash can next to the desk, filled with soggy ashes, seems to suggest that any papers that might have given you a lead were destroyed before you got here.

But the lab, with all its instruments, isn’t what you came here to find. There’s still at least one more room to be found…

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YOUR FRIENDS WHEN THINGS GET ROUGH

CW: gore, surgical trauma, amputation, lobotomy, brainwashing and interrogation, mouth trauma, eye trauma, ear trauma, body horror

The missing are being held in small, sturdy cages in a single room connected to the back of the operating room, dim and dank. The cages are placed equidistant around the room, ensuring that even if you try, you can’t reach out and make contact with your neighbors. The missing will find that they wake at approximately the same time, curled up on the ground in uncomfortable positions. Unlike your rescuers, your nightmare began far earlier than when you first awoke in this room, sore and disoriented. In fact, you could argue it started the moment you went to sleep on February 9th, leaving empty beds and concerned family members behind.

With no clocks or watches available to tell the time, you may not be able to tell how long you’ve been here. You sleep and wake, sometimes to a bowl of what looks like sticky rice lying in your cage that wasn’t there before. Sometimes, an overpowering smell will fill the room, faint at first; by the time you register it, it’s already overwhelmed you and sent you into a deep sleep. And when you wake, one cage will be empty. The inhabitant will be returned the next time you go to sleep and wake up, but not quite the same as they were before. They seem heavily drugged, discombobulated — or perhaps there's something visibly different about them. Whoever has taken you is doing a lot of work in their lab — and from the smell of things, meat work — and before long almost all of you will be sporting dressings of some type or other, fresh red seeping through the sterile cloth within a matter of hours.

Maybe you should try to keep each others’ spirits up. You don’t know how long you’ll be here, after all.

All of this goes on for a while — days, although it won’t be easy to count them given that there are no windows in the room. But nearly a week later… you wake to find that the front of your cage is unlocked. Unlatched. Open just an inch. Looking around the room, you’ll find that yours is not the only cage to have been opened — all of your cages have been unlocked.

Is it a mistake? Or are you really free?

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COME AND PLAY WITH ME

CW: blood and violence

Whether you’ve released yourself from your cage, or were discovered by a well-meaning friend before you could, or you’ve simply had your fill of exploring the shelter-turned-laboratory, the time has finally come to leave. Unfortunately, if things were that easy, you wouldn’t even be around by the time the scuttling sounds begin — somewhere down the hall, in the room behind you, fleeting and sly. It’s not an animal sound, a creature picking its way through the garbage and debris littered around the shelter. No, with the way it stops and starts every time you start and stop walking, this is a very deliberate, human sound. And if you don’t believe that, you’ll see soon enough when you see the naked, bone-white figure walk into view at the end of the hallway as casual as you please, their body smooth and sexless like a department store mannequin. They turn (your) their head and stare directly at you with (your) their wide, glassy eyes crinkled in thousand-yard delight. You hear your voice echoed back at you, airy and chirpy and so indescribably wrong it makes your blood run cold.

"Hi!"

Much like the Doppelgangers you encountered in January, these ones look and move like dolls, their limbs connected with ball-joints. However, whereas those ones were near perfect imitations of you and your friends, these ones look like they just fell off the assembly line. Their faces are unnaturally flat and plastic, like all the imperfections have been ironed out of them, but they are unmistakably yours. And when they open their mouths to squeal at you before running with all the unnatural speed not having a pair of lungs affords them, you’ll find that even their voices are perfect imitations — and not necessarily of your own either.

There’s no way to tell how many of these Doppelgangers are down here with you, hiding in the dark. They’re stealthy and sneaky, only coming out to attack when they’re sure you’re alone. Even if you’re not, they’re intelligent enough to come up with ways to separate you from your group, calling to you from another part of the shelter, mimicking a voice from someone they know you’ll listen to. Even if there’s no possible way they could be in Santa Rosita.

"Help me!"

"Is that you...? Oh thank God, I've been looking everywhere for you!"

"Please, don't leave me!"

Other times, they’ll take a more aggressive approach, allowing their limbs to pop out of place so they can sprawl on the ground, imitating a heap of discarded doll parts. Once you get close enough or turn your back on them, they’ll pull themselves together and attack, speeding towards you on fours like a crab.

There are two ways out of the shelter. The first one is the hardest: go back the way you came. With the low visibility, the number of Doppelgangers, and the confusing layout of the area, you’re more likely to get turned around and go in circles than you are to find your way back to the ladder — a location made even more difficult to discern since the hatch door has been lowered, blotting out all light from the room above.

The second way is the longest but also the easiest: head deeper into the shelter, past the operating room, through the rooms filled with broken furniture and ruined floors that are very easy to trip on — especially when you’re in the middle of running away. Eventually, you’ll come to another ladder, this one leading to an open hatch that deposits you into a dark passageway. The air up here is more fresh, but not necessarily pleasant smelling. There’s only one way to go — forward.

After what feels like an hour of walking, you’ll see a light at the end of the passage. Follow it and you’ll find yourself exiting a storm drain that drops you into the heart of Old Growth, just outside of West Santa Rosita.

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OOC INFO

Welcome to the second part of February’s event! You can use this entry to top-level for the event, but feel free to utilize the log and network communities as well.

There will be a top-level posted for NPC interaction tied to the second prompt below, wherein you can request to play out your character’s interaction with Harding or Rosemary. If you would like to have your character interact with either one of them, comment to the top-level with the name of the NPC you would like to thread with. You may only thread with one NPC. The mods will respond to NPC tags until February 28th.

Any questions can go in our FAQ thread below. Try to check and see if your question has already been answered on the plotting thread first here.

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Comments

falco grice 🦅 attack on titan

[grice]

ᴡᴀᴋᴇ (for captives only! cw for body horror & war imagery mentions)
option a:

[ since the moment he’s come to the first time to all the other times, this has been a nightmare. falco has been strangely quiet but grossly attentive to their surroundings, searching for a sign that already seemed familiar somehow. he never screamed for help or cried in panic— he only sat in his cage and strained his ears to listen for something. for their abductor, for a tip off, anything they could use. every time a piece comes together, his eyes pull open wide. he presses his ear to the floor, feels the vibration, hears a distant bell. he murmurs once, softly: ]

I . . . Know where we are. [ louder and more convinced, turning his frame and gripping the chilly bars of his cell as he tries to get someone’s attention: ] I know where we are.

[ other times— he doesn’t keep to himself. he actively reaches out to his fellow captors, trying to get their gaze on him by voice at first. if it’s someone he doesn’t personally know: ]

—Hi.

[ if they’ve talked more than once, whether in their cells or out of them: ]

The food bowls— can anyone break them?

option b:

[ every time the sweet scent invades his senses, fear spikes in falco— he tries his best to hold his breath and gives his fellow captors pleading, frightened gazes, swallowing his tears as something deep between his ribs rattles like prey that perceived the coming of a predator they couldn’t do anything about. every time they fell asleep, something happened. someone was taken away, or someone was put back in terrifying, painful shape. he didn’t want it to be anyone, and thought that out loud with a drifting whimper as he spoke out loud and reached between his bars for his neighbors: please don’t go. would any sort of god hear him? he’d fall asleep against to bars in an uncomfortable slant— with a fight. he strives to stay awake until his eyes sting red, until he steals a single gasp when he needs air. his chest burns, his shoulders shudder, and his remaining eye contact with the other captors is what makes him struggle the most to not inhale, but— he doesn’t see what happens after the tickle of a cough itches the back of his throat. it goes black, so does his memory, and this time, he’s the one that goes missing.

when falco’s returned to his prison, it doesn’t and wouldn’t quell anxiety into relief, especially when something was horribly wrong. the child remains knocked out for hours after the syrupy smell has dissipated, and when he stirs, still mildly unconscious and disoriented— he can only sob. all he knew was that something hurt badly, he could taste iron in his mouth, blood and the bitter aftertang of medication. the more he came to, the more he silenced himself, blinked in the dimness of their enclosures, touched his face as he supported his heavy-feeling frame with an arm . . .

that’s when he bolted up, when his breathing had skyrocketed into a rise and fall worthy of contrast to a startled bird who’d just hit a window, and when his hands have pulled away in terror to slowly, slowly reach to his chin, either side of his mandibles where it hurt most— they felt strange. his skin felt stretched, his flesh felt numb, he couldn’t open his mouth because it felt locked and it ached and it wasn’t how it was supposed to be. it wasn’t, because it had been removed. human bone was replaced by metal within, disfiguring the natural shape of a boy’s maxilla into something pointed forward, dreadfully akin to a beak. the stitches were stiff and caked with dry blood, as they were sore and inflamed beneath tainted bandages.

they’ve done something horrible to him, as they’ve done with everyone here. the blond had held off crying for quite some time, one might even say he was startlingly mature for a boy his age. he’d talk respectfully to his elders, at times resembling a young adult who had to grow up too fast and had taken being put in a cage mindfully and aware, but this? the mutilation, coupled with powerlessness, days this way, maybe longer, the pain, no prospect of escape—

he curls up, in shock, holds his breath, and cries like anyone fresh out of a forced mandibulectomy would, though in quiescence, save for the occasional sharp drag inward or hissing between his teeth and nostrils when he breathed too fast. he had grown so used to crying in a way higher officials wouldn’t see, sometimes even ridding himself of needing to in the shivering trenches surrounding fort salva or in the tight barracks of marley that he’s sure no one else would notice, or he’d like to believe that. he wanted gabi. he wanted reiner and pieck. he wanted colt. he wanted his mother, he wanted mister erwin and miss cassandra but all he got was the empty distance between confinement, the biting cold of the pale green floors and the lonely physical comfort it offered when pressed gently against his swollen cheeks, leaving any hospital gauze clinging there soggy and wet from saliva, tears and stained by drainage. ]

ᴇsᴄᴀᴘᴇ (one tag in, please!)

[ falco hadn’t realized his cage was unlocked the next time he awakens, and neither does he think to immediately check. everything is always so dizzy when he comes to, with ripping agony where his maxilla should be— he fell asleep on his side and the pressure acting upon his new jaw had been searing. there’s only one other thing that immediately forces him react, and that was blurring movement coming from outside the cage. it’s instinctive and visceral: the disfigured boy quickly backs up into a corner of the cage and presses his back desperately into the bars behind him. he’s beyond afraid and can’t control how his lungs pull and expel, erratic and on the verge of panic, if not already panicking that something was coming for more of him— ]

ᴀғᴛᴇʀᴍᴀᴛʜ (ota)

[ it takes a while for falco to go back to school. in fact, for the remainder of the month, it’s safe to say he doesn’t. he stays home for the first few days back, resting for hours at a time in bed or couches around the house. he’s always seeking company and unwanting to stay alone if he’s awake to see it. until he was more confident to venture out, his home on 323 midwich street is where he can easily be found, and he’ll be rather glad for visits of all kinds.

a little more self assured, falco can be seen constantly loitering in active locations where people are always walking about left and right. he’s wrapped a scarf around the lower half of his face that can be easily overlooked because of the february nip and hides under a wooly beanie, so one might not even recognize him beyond the short locks of sandy blond hair and hazel eyes. the honeybees was a good place to browse. some hardy store clerks try to sell him toy rifles and g.i. joes that he silently averts from (he’s shot too many of those real ones, thanks). he’s more content in checking out the model airplanes and even has his eyes on a wham-o bird. counting the change he has in his pocket and finding the amount it actually costs takes a moment more than a native child— but once he’s sure he doesn’t have enough, he leaves the gargantuan box on the shelf and admires the invention’s vintage casing before ducking his head, almost disappointedly, and trekking slowly down the rest of the aisle. all the toys here are cool, but they’re way past his current budget, and it’s not like he’d throw a tantrum or even mildly ask his “parents” for it. back home, he didn’t even know what a toy was. seeing them around was more than enough satisfaction for him.

a trip to greene’s groceries or the smaller main street stores fits into his funds better, or just something to do and someplace new to go. he’s picked out a simple goodie from one of the vending machines, but wanders just a little farther into some aisles and . . . is that something beeping? the closer you get to the child, the louder the high pitched alarm seems to ring from underneath his clothes, even he’s looking for it now, um—

it’s starting to attract unwanted attention, especially when the clerk frowns at the child’s whereabouts: he’s more than likely wandered too close to the adult magazine sections, or unknowingly has prophylactic packages in his hand because it said rubber like his bouncy ball and the horse drawing on it was cool, cigarettes, suggestive movie posters— the list goes on. alternatively, the beeping goes off in the library just as falco gets his hands on some book he wanted to take. quickly wanting the beeping to cease before anyone dares to look, he hastily tosses either choice on the closest table. most of his face had been covered, but no hats indoors— he’s tomato red from ear to ear, pretending to be interested in a nearby comic book instead, one he’s flipping pages in too quickly to be reading. he wants to die. ]

ᴡɪʟᴅᴄᴀʀᴅ

( hmu at liberos if you’d like to plot something specific! )

[robbies]

1. It does not! Or rather, it once did, but not anymore. Looking through some of the rooms stockpiled with old survival supplies, you'll find a heap of busted machinery in one of them, covered in a thick layer of dust on the floor. The technologically-inclined among you will be able to recognize this as a transceiver, but it looks like it's been out of commission for some time. While it could be possible to repair it, there aren't any usable components around for you to make do with in the moment, so if that's a project you'd like to take on, you'll have to take the remains with you.

2. Listing them here would be ideal so we can make updates to the post as needed, but if it's something you're wondering has significance or could be used further down the line for a plot, reach out to us either on the Event Suggestions/Engagements post or through a PM so we can chat about it.

3. That is correct. The Doppelgangers will not follow characters out of the shelter. Once a character makes it up one of the ladders out of the shelter, they'll stay behind, screaming for them in whatever voice they can pull up in the moment — your character's voice, a beloved family member or person from their homeworld, a friend in Santa Rosita — to come back.

[helloneighbor]

Yeah, and I asked you where you heard it from.

[Turning to fully face Cassandra, the totality of Harding's judgement bores into her. He's carrying a plastic cup of coffee with him, takeout from the Blue Moon. His grip on it is tight, dark brown liquid welling up from the hole in the lid. There's a sharp, accusatory note in his tone, like he's unsure if this is the world's worst joke (probable, given the track record of some of these people, like the little shit-for-brains that keyed his car.]

[helloneighbor]

[Harding inhales through his nose. He feels a bit like a yo-yo, jumbled nerves that rise and fall no matter how hard he clenches his jaw or tries to force the calm over him by sheer force of will. If he acts like everything okay, maybe he'll believe it. Maybe it'll even come true.]

And what would that be? [In a better mood, he might sound like he doesn't particularly care. Right now, though, he sounds like he's getting very irritated very quickly.]

[helloneighbor]

[He considers Wrathion with no small amount of scrutiny, like he's trying (and failing) to read his mind — or barring that, at least read between the lines with what he's getting at. That smile is more phony than a three dollar bill. Harding doesn't believe him for a minute.]

Good, because you shouldn't. [He takes a sip from his cup of takeout coffee, casual and slow, but his eyes never leave Wrathion's face.] It's a half-finished bunker. There's rusty metal and old survival gear all over the place, and parts of the floor are ripped up. Lotta rats, too.

[He takes another shorter sip.]

Who knows how much worse it's gotten over the years.

Wake

[freeflight]

[ Aside from trying to force the cage door right at the start and getting absolutely nowhere with it, Levi's settled in for the long game. Something will give. Maybe they'll have a captor show their shitty face or somehow give them something to work with, and they had to be ready for to exploit that chance.

That's what Levi's focused on at the moment anyway. The entirely impersonal, dehumanizing way they're being handled and the utter lack of any time reference is all purpose driven to break them down, and he's refusing to play into that. Falco, he notices, is well prepared for this clusterfuck. Not that much of a surprise.

What he doesn't expect is the kid to say he knows their location, and that gets his full attention. He shifts with a grunt, leaning against the bars. ]

How do you figure that?

Papyrus | Undertale

[spaghettimonster]

- Open to kidnappees -

BEING CAPTURED AND OTHER SORTS OF FUN ACTIVITIES
[It's not the first time Papyrus has woken on a hard surface, though his aching body wishes it was. It's not even the first time he's opened his eyes to a dark and unfamiliar room. But it is the first time he's woken in a cage without warning, and his attempt to sit up and back away from it is quickly stymied by bar against wall and head. He doesn't hit it hard enough to hurt, but it's enough to startle him awake even further.]

Wh-what? Is this... some kind of joke?

[Over the next hour it becomes clear it's not, or at least not any quick kind of joke, and Papyrus scrabbles for other palatable theories to explain what's happening. Puzzle rooms, right? He'd talked with the alliterative puzzle guy about "escape rooms," where people do puzzles to try to escape, and Papyrus had expressed disbelief that people who failed were let out after just one hour... maybe this is a test run of something more hardcore. Yeah, maybe they just have to solve the puzzles here!]

Hmm, can anyone see any writing? Signs, or notes on the floor...? There must be clues somewhere, for what we're supposed to do!


TO SUFFER THROUGH HORRIBLE PUZZLES FOR NO REASON (cw: post-surgery, descriptions of injuries)
[If it is a puzzle, it's not one where they're the players. At seemingly random times, the room's filled with that strange smell, and one by one everyone's been taken away and returned changed. It's something from a horror movie, even more than the snowman corpse or damp trick-or-treat décor enforcers.

This time, Papyrus was the one taken, and it's even harder to remember than October. Bright light, quiet music, scraping sounds. A throbbing all up and down his torso, and when he puts his hand to his side there's something wet and yielding to what should have been braced by ribs - and the pain when he pushes a little harder is enough to make him see lights in this dark room. He whimpers and gasps for a moment.]

Oh my god. My... my bones are gone.

[Carefully, carefully, he tests the rest of that side, then the other. But his hands are moving fine, his legs, his head all feel normal - if sore from the cramped facilities.]

S-Some of my bones. In my ribcage. Can, can humans survive that...??


A SLEEPOVER THERE'S NO ESCAPE FROM
[It's hard to tell when it's night, and it's hard to sleep contently... but his new ridiculous need for rest makes it easier to drift off even without the strange smell regularly filling the room.

Still, he misses hearing a story before drifting to sleep. The old bedtime story ritual with his brother is meant for putting Sans to sleep, and letting Papyrus briefly snooze with the confidence his brother was home safe and not getting into trouble... but it's become something of a sleep aid for him too, since waking in this strange surface town and human body. It's a little awkward to just ask near-strangers for stories like that, though. So instead, after a little more tossing and turning, he offers a question to the people around him:]

What's the first thing you want to do, when you're out in the sun?

[Not if, when. Even if the timing is unclear, and there's no particular hints of how they'll get free... he has to think of it that way. That part's not as difficult as dealing with the cage or the pain - he has a lifetime of experience in waiting for freedom.]


JUST MISS SEEING MY FACE SO MUCH (cw: post-surgery, descriptions of injuries, body horror)
[This time, when he wakes, there's no new pains in his torso - though the healing wounds and gaps in his ribs still ache when he shifts the wrong way. But his face... it feels at once stiff and sensitive and throbbing, and when he puts his hand to it for a brief second he wonders if he has his own skull back. But no, the surface he touches isn't bone or skin, and under it the pressure is hot and stabbing. He hisses with the unfamiliar pain of it, and takes a minute to try to steady his nerves. Something's on his face. It feels like maybe it's growing out of his face, or something...?

After a moment or two of trying to control his breathing, trying not to panic, he faces one of the neighboring cages and knocks on his bars to get their attention. When he speaks, it's a little slower than usual, compensating for the pain of recently injured facial muscles.]

Uhhh... Hey, are you awake? I was wondering... it feels like, they put something on my face. And I'm just curious, what it is.

[The mask is something like this, smooth, and white, and stiff. Nearly everything from ear to ear, hairline to chin, is covered, besides some holes for eyes, tinier holes for nostrils, and a thin gap between the mask's lips. It may be hard to tell in the dim light, but there's red and bruising and stitches in that tiny bit of remaining skin along the hairline. Right around his eyes is darker than it should be, exposed muscles just barely visible around his eyeballs. The mouth gap doesn't reveal anything of the sort, being too small and too stiff - it barely moves even when he talks, and the opening is only about a fork's width and straw's height in size, enough to show flashes of teeth but little more.]


FIND A WAY TO GET US OUT OF HERE (cw: mannequin violence? body horror?)
[There's no way to tell what day it is, in the cages of this dark damp room. But this time, when they all to, they all come to. Whether they're all sounding off or just a few are reporting on their neighbors' status, it's clear everyone is still in the room, a first which alone makes this feel like a new day in this horror.

Investigating their surroundings turns up another change pretty quickly: the doors aren't locked tight, but slightly ajar. Maybe Papyrus really was onto something with that escape room theory, a thought he pointedly thinks to himself for the self-affirmation of success. He looks around for signs of wires, alarms, then tests pushing the door open with a surreptitiously summoned bone. It creaks a little, and he stiffens, but nothing else seems to happen. It just sits there, ajar.]

I don't want... to alarm anyone. But, I think, this is the part where we try to escape.

- Open to all -

JUST KEEP GOING EAST! (cw: mannequin violence? body horror?)
[Of course it wasn't as easy as just walking out the door, that would scarcely be any escape room worth describing as an escape. There's more mannequins, and what they lack in authentic human-like appearances, they've gained in speed, and... well. Sneakiness.

"Papyrus, thank goodness you are here! Please, you must find the way to unlock this door," says a voice an awful lot like Miss Toriel's.

It's enough that Papyrus stops in his tracks, turning to look for a door, but this hall is just lockers after lockers. Are some of them secretly a disguised door...? He gets so invested in checking them, he misses the sight of doll parts in a pile of broken furniture a few feet away].


WILDCARD / OOC
[Want a different prompt, during captivity or during the escape? Plot w/ me at the plotting post, by pm, or by plurk. FWIW, Papyrus's final escape will be with Sans, but there's a lot of twists and turns and ways to get separated along the way with others, plenty of opportunities for brief partnerships in the lab or tunnels.]

Anduin Wrynn | OTA

[shalamayne]

cw: body horror in both prompts.

(ɪᴍᴘʀɪꜱᴏɴᴍᴇɴᴛ)
[ Being snatched from his own bed had never really been given any thought. Anduin had eventually assumed that no-one would be bold enough to walk into his residence and do such a thing (and that if they had he would have awakened before anything happened). Now he knows he was wrong on all counts and making such an assumption had wound up being nothing but downright detrimental. The first few days pass in a dazed blur, though the few times Anduin had been conscious enough to be aware he had done nothing but try to keep some kind of optimism and hope going, even going so far as to speak the words out loud to those he knew were nearby.]

Our friends will be looking for us. Stay strong, we will see the outside again. [ Anduin knows it's easy enough to say and harder to believe, but deep down he knows there's going to be a way out. Either their friends will find them or their captors will mess up. One will invariably happen and Anduin knew that when that time came everyone would need to be ready to move. He needs to be strong for the others like any good King would be for their people. Just what kind of person would he be to fall into the pits of despair only to drag others with him?

Anduin's faith begins to waver when it's his turn to be dragged away, the only warning the sickly sweet and cloying smell he had come to dread. There had been nothing but pain, flickers of images he isn't sure happened or he only imagined, a result on an overly tired and fraught brain. It's only when he wakes up and finds his right arm and hand sluggish and slow to move, heavy almost. Further inspection lets Anduin know those flickers had been the truth and despite being thankful he doesn't remember all of it, he knows it's bad enough. The searing pain that accompanies the new "arm" he's been given has the young King often gritting his teeth, beads of sweat dotting his forehead as he tries to breath through the intermittent waves of pain.

Still he tries to keep spirits up, voicing his thoughts out loud when he knows his voice won't crack and betray him.]

Not long, people will know we're gone. They cannot have taken us far.

(ʀᴇꜱᴄᴜᴇ, ʟᴏᴄᴋᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴡʀᴀᴛʜɪᴏɴ)
Anduin knows that losing faith in such a faith was a bad thing, that it would only hinder him more than anything. Yet knowing such a thing doesn't stop the worry sinking it's teeth in, a worry rat that gnaws and chases it's own tail in his mind. If they aren't found who knows what will happen? He doesn't know the games these people are playing and he can't even begin to understand the why of it. Anduin just dreads the sweet scent that precludes blacking out, can't help but silently fret each time what he'll wake up to next.

It's when he wakes up again, slowly coming around to the (unfortunately) familiar dreary sensation that Anduin realizes something is different. Something has changed. It takes a few seconds for the young King to notice the cage door is slightly ajar, as if someone had begun to open it and stopped short of throwing it open.

Is it a trap? Tired blue eyes take stock of the room. It doesn't seem to be but then Anduin knows that the others have been watching them. He needs to play this carefully, if it's been an oversight by their captors then rushing will do nothing but waste an opportunity.

That and Anduin simply doesn't know if he can stand up so quickly. The cages are short, tall enough only for the young man to sit up in. No, he has to play this right and he sits in contemplative silence, rubbing his "arm" and wincing at the bright flash of pain it brings. He doesn't even know if that's normal or not but then it's not as if the arm is his to begin with.

(ᴡɪʟᴅᴄᴀʀᴅ)
[ ooc: Any other of the prompts look interesting let me know, I'll be happy to plot something! Will match prose! Also feel free to PM. Anduin will be doing a network post later in the week about needing his arm to be dealt with.]

[apodictic]

1. oh, interesting. he'll leave it then.

2. angelo will take:
- unopened med supplies
- the music records, and two of the dog-eared books (anatomy, and one on psychology)

i'm not really sure if these will be relevant to the plot at all but i can roll with it if it does.

is there anything of note in that room that was converted for someone's personal use or has it been stripped bare (just the essentials)?

[grice]

The sounds.

[ if he was correct, the distant bell would ring to signal the end of some period, the start or end of the day. which one it was, he couldn’t keep count. whenever he fell asleep or woke up again, his sense of time would go completely scrambled, but at least . . . if it’s ringing, it’s not nighttime. ]

I went to school at night, the day before we woke up here and there were things in the rooms, they didn’t belong— [ his head sags though, as does his grip on the bars. ] I didn’t have time to tell Mister Erwin.

[ there seems to be a lot to unpack, though. ]

given the face situation, gonna see a lot of skulls and lost soul sprites

[spaghettimonster]

[If the mannequin dopplegangers are meant as guards to keep them all in the larger cage of these tunnels, they're doing a very good job. Papyrus had thought he was halfway to freedom with a group of the others, but between half-rotten floors, people breaking off to look for the voices calling for help, and a rather panicked chase, he's finding himself alone by the gross lab space again.

Well. Not as alone as he'd like. Just a moment ago he'd thought he heard Undyne's voice of all voices, calling for help in a way that was so unlike her. He'd hesitated, torn between investigating and not falling for another obvious trap, only for the mannequin to ambush him from above anyway.

The flailing limbs tearing at his set his ribcage and face to stabbing pains again, and shoving it off him only gets it so far before it's leaping at him again. There's nothing for it - even though his bone magic's limited, he has to pin it down. The first volley is an unintended warning shot, veering wide from lack of practice and the lingering soreness of his everything, and Papyrus has to dodge out of the way of its lunge himself.]

Nnnn, stop attacking already.

[Even as he complains he wants to grumble even more - his voice is off, and not just from being winded. The stiffness of his face is distorting something about how his lips shape sound. But the mannequin's almost helpful for a moment, tilting its head and chirping back in an even more distorted version of his voice, Have a nice day!

At least he doesn't sound like that, he thinks, and flings another set of three as quickly as he can. One of the bones crashes with a crunch into the mannequin's arm, plastic cracking as the bone goes through.]

surgery is just a roundabout way to use the rest of your icons

[ribticklers]

[This Papyrus--is tired and stiff. Injured is Sans's first thought. And fighting one of those doppelgangers, easy to identify by its distorted mimicry and cracked arm. Papyrus. It's Papyrus. He's alive.

For now. Sans has seen too much in this lab already, and it's more than enough to get an idea as to why Papyrus would be hurt and that, though Sans can't yet see what's been done to Papyrus, would easily be enough to throw him off in a fight. If Sans makes any noise at all, he might distract Papyrus from that thing. Instead, he does the job of pinning the doppelganger down, flinging his arm down toward the ground hard enough his arm throbs faintly and the mannequin falls to the ground under the increased weight.

Sans can't keep that kind of literal pressure up for very long, of course, but it's the fastest way he can think of to make that thing stay in one place.]

[ribticklers]

[Sans isn't. That reminder, that someone alive is here, is enough to convince him to tear his gaze away from the sink and loosen his grip. His hands sting when he does, and there's some vague surprise to his expression that makes it clear he hadn't noticed what he was doing to them at all until now.

Sans chuckles, all hollow and bitter.] Y'ever heard the strategy where if you don't get your hopes up, you can't get let down later? Didn't work out for me this time.

[He'd dug himself into a hole of low expectations and still ended up with this horrific abyss to fall into.]

sayori ♥ doki doki literature club!

[hxppythxughts]

CAPTIVITY ♥ GENERAL, ANYTIME. standard CWs apply

[Sayori does not awaken elegantly to this situation. She tries to sit up too fast and bonks her head right on the metal top of her cage, she fidgets out of control trying and trying to stretch her sore limbs but simply not having enough room, she pokes and rattles every imaginable part of the cage wondering if there might be a weak point anywhere. She eats quickly when they awaken with food (usually.)

Even following some trips to the operating room — both her own and others' — Sayori tends to be a restless captive while she's not drugged. She has a hard time sleeping at all after the brain surgery, struggling to find a way to rest her head that doesn't agitate it, so she just stops trying and allows herself to drift off whenever sleep might take her in whatever position she happens to be in.]

A. [She spends a lot of time fussing over the others. Giving them reassuring smiles when she can, when it's appropriate. Catching their gaze with genuine concern when it's not the right time for a smile. And often asking softly:] How are you feeling?

[Never are you okay, because she's not that stupid. None of this is okay.]

B. [Maybe someone looks like they desperately need a distraction for whatever reason. Boredom, or anxiety, or sadness. Not in the direct aftermath of anything too gruesome, but— regardless of her own state, Sayori is on the case with a gentle offer.] Hey. Do you want to play a game with me?

C. [There's also this funny thing she does when not absorbed in conversation with the other captives. Occasionally, with her eyebrows furrowed in deep thought, she traces her finger along the bottom of the cage in short movements, as if she's writing. Those in adjacent cages can probably tell that she's tracing the shapes of letters, but of course there's no reading what she's "written" in this imaginary ink.]

CAPTIVITY ♥ HEARING LOSS. CW: eardrum trauma

[When she finally comes to after her first experiment, it's a sensation she's never felt before. It's even worse than her worst days, her body achey and heavy and simply hard to control in a way she has no point of reference for. It doesn't just feel like fog in her brain; it feels like everything is behind frosted glass, painfully inaccessible while she tries to wake up. The sounds of her surroundings are muffled, as if they're behind the glass too.

She eventually sits up, rubbing her eyes to try to clear the sleep from them. (It's not sleep, not really, but it makes her feel better to go through the same motions.) Her stomach feels a bit unsettled, so she spends a few moments just breathing deeply and hoping that will help.]

A. [The first thing to catch her attention is a sound — maybe someone speaking. Maybe someone speaking to her. It sounds fuzzy, and she can't make it out. She blinks, turning her head towards the source of the sound with an owlish look.] What?

[And that's when she notices, as she turns her head, that the sleepy muffled feeling changes direction. It follows to her right. She turns her head this way and that to test it, expression becoming puzzled, and lifts a hand to her right ear after a moment. Running her fingers over the shell of her ear, nothing feels out of the ordinary. So she cautiously inserts her pinky into her ear — maybe it's clogged? — and laughs with a nervous edge as she addresses who'd spoken.] Sorry, I didn't hear you! I guess my head's a little stuffy...?

B. [It's a little later, after a lot of uncomfortable fidgeting with her damaged ear, that she begins to wince as she rubs her earlobe between her index finger and thumb. But it's not from irritation on the outside; over the course of a mere few seconds, a fast-creeping ringing sound in her right ear goes from quiet to annoying to piercing.

She squeezes her eyes shut as it grows louder, hoping that might block it out, but it just seems to make it worse. Then she moves on to covering her ears with her hands, pressing her palms to them until she feels them go airtight. But the shrill sound overwhelms, resonating in her skull almost to the point of pain.

She stays like that for a full minute, bowed over her own knees with her hands pressed tightly to her ears and her eyes closed, face held in a tight expression of discomfort. She doesn't respond to any prompting. Only once the intense tinnitus subsides does she blearily open her eyes and look to anyone addressing her, clearly a little disoriented.] S— sorry, I just— did you hear that?

[Of course they didn't. But she's never had sounds in her head like that before. There's still a phantom tickling feeling in her ears as if vibrations from the nonexistent sound still linger.]

CAPTIVITY ♥ BRAIN SURGERY. CW: lobotomy, dissociation, self-harm mention/imagery

[It takes Sayori a lot longer to wake up from her second alteration. Her head is heavily bandaged when she's brought back, to the point that most of her hair is hidden beneath it, but there don't seem to be any visible changes beyond that. And for a while she just sleeps it off.]

A. [When she finally does wake, it's with a groan, and she doesn't start moving right away. Her head is— god, her head is killing her. Even after the first surgery, it didn't hurt like this, like she can feel every throb of her beating heart vibrating the cavities of her skull. She reflexively reaches up to touch her aching head as she rolls onto her side, but as she presses her fingers into the center of the bandaging at the front, a jolt of pain cuts straight through her skull from the tips of her fingers and her sharp yelp cuts the stale air of the room.

A full-body flinch accompanies the sound of pain; however, the sudden movement of Sayori curling in on herself like a pillbug jars her equilibrium in such a way that it sends the whole room spinning and makes her stomach turn. A cold sweat breaks out along the edges of her pale face and she closes her eyes to block out the swimmy quality of her vision.

She doesn't dare open her mouth until the heavy wave of nausea subsides. Even once it does, she doesn't sit up. She just clumsily brushes her fingertips along the edges of the bandaging, sluggish and nearly delirious as she asks of no one in particular:] What happened to me...?

B. [They went into her head.

I pop off my scalp like the lid of a cookie jar. That's exactly what they did. It was a metaphor when she wrote it. Wrote of her own hands scraping the inside of her head raw for every last drop of happiness that she could bottle up and give away. But no, here, they've actually— is that what they've done? Opened up her head and excised the happiness from it to be bottled for later use? They couldn't have, right?

It feels like it. But she can't know for sure. Not unless she takes off the bandages and rips her head right back open, and she'd probably get drugged again before she made it that far.

It would be normal to cry in this situation. She feels on some level like she wants to. But the realization brings her far away from her own body in the same way that the epiphany of Club President did; the horror is simply too vast, too personal to process at a normal emotional level. Her mind forces a disconnect upon her because it's the only way it knows how to cope with the situation: shut down and embrace the foggy oblivion of numbness, just as she does on the days that she can't bear to rise from her bed.

She spends a good amount of time simply staring into space, idly fidgeting with her bandages. When someone finally catches her attention, she fixes them with a distant, haunted stare — and then smiles, gently, sadly.] I'm okay. My head just hurts a little.

ESCAPE ♥ FELLOW CAPTIVES. standard CWs apply

[As disoriented and exhausted and sick as Sayori feels, she doesn't notice right away that there's something different about her cage when she wakes up. She discovers it when she reflexively moves to stretch her limbs — and instead of knocking uselessly into the bars this time, her feet push the front of the cage open.

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. It takes at least that long to absorb what she's looking at. And then she's scrambling out of her cage, heedless of the persistent headache and general fatigue of her battered body; this is the most awake she's looked since they were all taken.

She's quick to offer a word of encouragement to those who may not realize, or who look fearful of leaving. Perhaps they're physically struggling to leave for whatever reason; she's happy to offer a hand there, as well. All the while, she speaks in a soothing voice, lively with an edge of hope.] Hey— hey, it'll be okay, we can leave now!

ESCAPE ♥ CLOSED TO MONIKA (MAYBE SANS & PAPYRUS). CW: surgical gore, emetophobia, brain surgery mention

[Some of the captives are surely like her, though, leaving their cages as soon as they're able. Once Sayori has done all she can do for the others, she begins to explore the lab, as driven to find answers as she is afraid of finding them.

For better or worse, the operating room is her first trip. It's closest, so that's where she ends up first, and— God. What a nightmare. Nausea overcomes Sayori as soon as she steps in and sees the table. Doubtlessly the very table where they were all cut open.

There are probably useful things to find in here. She manages to grab a scalpel, which she doesn't want to use, but her conversation with Sans about the dangers of this place weighs on her heavily and it's the most weaponlike thing she sees. However, her exploration of this room is cut short, because when she looks in the sink — when she finds the discarded viscera — she can't. She can't. She can't bear to look but she can't look away either, and there are fleshy bits and gore she doesn't recognize, and— and something gray and pulpy rots at the bottom of the sink, and what part of the body is gray—?

Her free hand flies to her head. Either from the resulting pain or the smell or the realization, she can't stop herself from emptying the paltry contents of her stomach into the sink.

She's gone from the operating theater quickly after that. Until rescuers begin to arrive, she pilfers as many first aid supplies as she can fit in the pockets of the pajamas she was snatched up in. She holds the scalpel tightly in one white-knuckled hand as if she'd ever actually have the wherewithal to use it, but even when she's finally discovered and startles at the presence of someone else in the room, she doesn't move to wield it properly. Her face is still pale, her skin a little clammy.] Ah— who's there?

WILDCARD ♥ ANYTIME. standard CWs apply

[ If you'd like something different with Sayori, either in captivity or during the escape, feel free to hit me up on plurk at ceesawaseesaw or at my plotting post! ]

[sunborne]

[ might as well get to the point: ]

Why aren't they taking the mass disappearances seriously? [ he gestures to their surroundings as a whole, trying to keep his temper and wits in check. he's not going to help agatha or kiara or okuyasu or anyone else if he starts shit. ] Between them suggesting a group of more than nine people is playing a prank to giving me lectures if I try to press the subject, you've got to admit this is strange.

At least one kid is missing. A kid. For several days straight. With no response to any attempts to reach him or any concrete sightings from anyone. [ he makes another gesture with his hands, clearly frustrated but trying to find some way to appeal to harding.

his expression softens, letting the exhaustion and desperation of the last few days seep through. ] That warrants a response, surely.

[robbies]

Reactions to the characters are a tossup when they meet their neighbors. Some will be full-on oblivious to how much pain the characters are in. Others will ask if they've seen a doctor yet or if they thought of trying out jazzercise.

Ultimately, the NPCs won't react in an appropriate 'normal' way. That implies something is up! Santa Rosita is the most normal town there is. Nothing strange ever happens here. Oh no. Not at all.

If characters attempt to force the matter during the conversation, the NPC will become uncomfortable. Like how they would if a character with magic or inhuman qualities would try to provoke a reaction out of them. Be careful what you do or say, Falco!

[grice]

awesome 👌👀 thanks for everything wondermods! ❤️

[peninhand]

[ She knew that strategy all too well, it had never worked for her. The best way to get her hopes up was always to try keeping them down. Probably reverse psychology or something. She remained silent for a moment, at a loss as to what to say. Were they really dead? All signs pointed to yes, but... ]

The first time I talked to him, I promised Papyrus I'd invite him and his "family" home for dinner.

[ Was this incredibly cliche to bring the "you can't die because of a promise" argument? Yes. Unfortunately, that's all Monika has right now. The alternative is to accept they're all dead and she's not ready for that herself. ]

I still have to make true on that promise. That's why we will rescue him. [She smiles. Tries too. Okay, it's not really a smile, but it resembles one at least.] And Sayori too, then you can bring her and your "family" to the dinner too once this is all over.

[peninhand]

[ Monika was on the other side of the room, going through the books one by one, trying to see if anything in particular would catch her attention. She was pale and sported quite impressive dark circles under her eyes, a testament to the sad amount of sleep she'd gotten since she first read the network post that had informed her of the disappearances. While with Sans, Monika had forced herself to be optimistic. But the very moment he'd turned his back to do something?

All optimism had faded from her face. She had whatsoever no hopes of finding Sayori, or anyone for that matter, alive. This place was a butcher shop. They had experimented on people and they had needed books to know what to do. No surgery executed by amateurs in such conditions could result in the patient's survival. And even if she'd survived, after such horror Sayori may have decided to... To end it all. In a way, it reminded her of how she'd desperately messed with the code... But this was something else, right? This was pure cruelty. Sadism. What she had done wasn't like what had happened here... Right? Trying to find clues that would lead to whoever had done that was the only thing keeping her together right now.

Upon hearing the all-too familiar noises of someone emptying their stomach, she looked up and set the book she was going through aside. Of course, she expected many amongst their numbers would be disgusted by this room. Why, she was. Perhaps having witnessed Sayori's and Yuri's fates was why she managed to go through that with more ease than expected.

She got up and moved back, expecting to see someone from the rescue party there, when— ]

Sayori...?

[ Even bandaged, even weak and wounded, she couldn't mistake her. It was her. She was here, alive! Was it a miracle? Was it even real? She had never thought simply seeing Sayori would bring her so much joy. Not so long ago she had done unforgivable things to her... And the last time they'd spoken, she had said things no one should ever have to hear. "You're going to take everything from me." None of it had been deserved. But now it was all different. Was it because she knew Sayori was just as alive and real as she was? In part. But beyond that, now she'd nearly lost her. And as they say, you only realize how important certain people are to you when you're about to lose them.

Monika remained silent for a moment, stunned—

And then she rushed at Sayori, wrapping her arms around her. Sobbing and crying, but out of relief this time. She hadn't missed the obvious, of course. The placement of the bandages... But she didn't want to think about that right now. Or think at all. She was alive.

Nothing else mattered. ]

the truth is out

[spaghettimonster]

[There's a split second delay before Papyrus reacts, a relieved and baffled sound.]

What? You're blue now...?

[He recognizes what has happened if not how - it's the move he'd wanted to make, the move he'd tried to make. But even if it's a good time for it, if the price of regaining more of his magic was losing some of his body, in the form of ribs and maybe his face... He's not sure he would have made that trade.

Still, he shakes off the surprise enough to take advantage of the opening, letting the broken bone fragment and fade before summoning another set of eight and crashing them down on the prone mannequin with more violent intent than he's maybe ever used in a fight. The head, each limb, and two in the torso for good measure. The bones start crumpling and dissolving with the impact, but the doppelganger's thoroughly damaged.]

[peninhand]

Can the rescuers burn the place down on their way out?

skeleton icon party

[ribticklers]

[Sans watches the doppelganger even though he'd rather be looking at Papyrus. Sans is pretty sure that thing isn't getting back up with its limbs wrecked like that--but Sans would definitely call himself the more cautious of the two of them. Sans grips the thing tight and, wincing from the strain of his magic, pitches it as far down the hallway as he can, away from both of them. He's not going to have a lot more of those dramatic sorts of moves in him.

But now--] Papyrus? [Even with Papyrus so obviously right there, Sans's voice is tight with stress and some sense of disbelief. He'd seen something running around with Papyrus's face earlier, and he'd seen the operating room, and so he'd been sure-- But this has to be Papyrus. Papyrus isn't dead. He'd been so sure.]

[ribticklers]

[Sans is familiar with smiling that isn't real, of course, and he wonders how much hope Monika really has and how much she's just putting on for his benefit. Ultimately that doesn't matter; Sans has always needed people around who do that. He can't believe it himself, but there's something about the effort. And what's true, what he's sure of, is that he can't just leave things here in this awful operating theater.]

Papyrus'd cook something, probably. [He steps back into familiar if shaky territory. It's harder to talk about Papyrus with all these thoughts about what might have happened swirling around, but it reminds Sans why he's here. Even if Papyrus is dead, he hasn't actually seen Papyrus yet. He hasn't seen who did this. There are still things he has to do.] He's been gettin' a lot better at cooking lately.

[freeflight]

[ Even in the dim light, Levi's expression can probably be made out and it's clearly less than impressed by that scattered explanation. The sounds. Things in rooms. He can afford to be patient about this, though, it's not like they're in a rush here. ]

And even if you wrote any of it down, no one out there'd be reading it, right? [ He breathes out a short, heavy sigh. ] Figures.

A

[chromiums]

[ one thing about the sixties is there's no shortage of accessories to match to your outfits. lorna's found a sizable one she's stored a few makeshift weapons in for the time being (mostly knives; she can't control exactly where they go but her aim's always been good regardless of whether or not she was using her powers) and is gathering as many first aid supplies as she can fit alongside those into it.

she hears sans go quiet beside her, but is too focused on getting as many of the supplies to fit into her bag as she can to look over at him until he speaks. she looks down at the box he's uncovered, sees what it contains - or contained - and her eyes darken and narrow. ]

Yeah. We are.

[ a final few adjustments are made, with a couple more bandages tucked in and one of the knives settled so she can easily grab it when she needs to, and then she stands, nodding towards him. ]

Are you ready?