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

for nie huaisang

[weifinder]

( Considering everything, slipping out of their homes in the wee hours of the morning (he notes when they meet up, the milkman has already been by, he's fairly sure that person is in on something around here) to head toward the school is not the worst idea of the moment. His home's poltergeist seemed practically giddy when he left, if by giddy the worst thing the poltergeist had done was tinker with the kettle and happily written living island on some liberally poured out salt.

Good to know it wasn't a deterrent, and at least someone was pleased with present momentum. )

I have a feeling we're going to be in the later wave of people looking in down there. If we're lucky, the what... how many went missing?

( He glances to Huaisang, pulling his black coat close. )

Over a handful, was it as many as two?

[fanoperator]

Two handfuls, I think. [Huaisang can't say that he minds that they're in the later wave of people. The main rescue of the missing has already occurred, but Huaisang is hopeful that the two of them might pick up something that the others have missed. They have experience in these things, after all.] Daylight has put together a sort of emergency hospital in his house. I'll go and help after we... after we go and look. In case they missed anything. Or anyone.

[He shudders at the thought of it, stifling a whimper. He doesn't want to go down there. He doesn't want to be in this town, in this strange and modern place that is so often murderous.]

[weifinder]

( Wei Wuxian nods, acknowledging the statement regarding Daylight: fair enough, having a place in mind to head after is not unimportant. Particularly as that could mean sharing information, trying to understand more scope on what has been happening here.

Still, he's grim faced, eyeballing the school they're approaching from the side, not so much the front. It's easier to slink between shadows on this edge, and he's not planning to boldly go where others have gone before. Investigation without immediate censure is important, so he finds. The strange state people can be sent into here is one he'd prefer to avoid. What long term effects might it bring around? )

We'll know soon enough.

( He has faith in that, reaching out to touch his friend's arm, silent reassurance. The building looms before them, seeming taller in the early morning hours than in the harsh light of day. It's not really surprising to find the door gives under a touch; even here, it's not like they'd be alone approaching from this or that angle. )

If we do find anyone, how confident are you in helping get them out? Assuming they're not able to walk on their own.

[fanoperator]

[Huaisang shoots him a smile in reply, grateful for the touch. He's always been hungry for contact and affection, and the reassurance and approval in it is deeply soothing to him. Wuxian is here. There are very, very few things his Wei-xiong can't handle.] I couldn't carry anyone, but as long as they can limp or stagger, I can help them along. Anything more than that, we'll figure it out when it comes to that.

[He's brought along a kitchen knife, sheathed and hidden inside his interior coat pocket. He doesn't normally carry any kind of weapon, but today it seems important. Nothing about this place is to be trusted.]

[weifinder]

( He hums something of assent, given that's going to be the practical reality: they'll figure out getting anyone out of whatever they find, if they find what's expected. If anyone's left, and his assumptions these days lean toward expect everything, particularly if it's the worst.

Wei Wuxian has nothing to arm him. Frankly speaking, after dealing with the dolls, he'd need something blunt enough for trauma, but had nothing on hand. So here it goes: )

And this is considered a good schooling environment.

( These closed off rooms which are dark, due to timing, but also has so little of natural flow or anything appealing or conducive to less than a wish to be free, in his eyes. He peers into one window leading into an empty, shadowed classroom, then mock shudders, moving away from it. )

Makes me nostalgic for Gusu Lan.

( Which had felt like a different kind of hemming in, but was at least a beautiful one, compared. Nothing like Yunmeng and where he learned the bulk of what he knows; or Yiling, where he learned the darkest of what he knows.

Sounds echo strangely, but their progress is a matter of feet light with a lifetime of learning how to move quietly, for this or that reason. Once it might have been play for them both. A long time ago, for at least one of them, that changed.

When they find stairs down, he pauses, listens and motions for Huiasang to pause so he, too, can listen. Wwi Wuxian doesn't have any amazing senses right now, doesn't know if or when he ever will again, but he's still trained to listen, and he hears... nothing. No echoes, not from immediately nearby.

Then again, the trip down into an even darker hall with a heavier scent of dust and the impressions of footprints that go before them: ah. )

Looks like we're on some kind of more correct path. Ah, Huaisang, remember Dafan Mountain? Our first time, way back all those years ago.

( Some of this is lightly sarcastic from him, not aimed at Huaisang, but aimed at the idea of the time since then. He won't say he recalls much, because he does, indeed, recall more than he wants to, but it's the gap in time passed, processed, lived fully that lies between them, and he can't help but poke at it every so often, when it's more on his mind here than it was in the quagmire of events back home. Life on the road had started settling it into his bones; trapped again, solving mysteries, he's simply applying himself. )

[fanoperator]

[Huaisang trails along closely, shadowing his friend beside his left shoulder, wanting as much protection as possible.] It's very ... soulless. There are so few windows. I already feel buried.

[He twitches at every hint of sound or movement, some of them imagined, and hesitates at the steps down. He's never felt so defenseless. All his life he's been surrounded by people who can protect him. Even after the loss of Mingjue, he still always had powerful friends and powerful subordinates to protect him. Now, he and Wuxian don't even have their small charms to protect themselves.] Maybe we shouldn't, Wei-xiong.

[But it's not a real objection and he doesn't expect to be released from this. They need information above all else. If they're lucky, there won't be anything more than that today. Continuing on shyly beside him, Huaisang points the way as they continue. His ability to sense spiritual energy is much handicapped, but it's still there, and he can feel the way they need to go. Partially because it's the opposite direction of the way he feels he wants to go.]

I hope this is nothing like that time. At least then we had Lan Wangji. We had our golden cores.

[weifinder]

( He gives Huaisang something of a look, eyebrows quirked and head tipped to the side. Not because he can't empathise, but really, Huaisang. )

We're not hastening you to any grave, Nie-xiong.

( And who set up having a certain nephew and then a certain set of Lan-Wei puzzlesolvers traipsing in after. He remembers the Sword Tomb, and he knows Huaisang does too; but it doesn't chance anything about how he feels right now.

The thing is, they have no good choices. They both know it. )

We need information we gather firsthand, too. And if we're not allies of the people here, then who are we? Two normal men with an excess of intelligence that barely applies to this place and a will not to let it drag us down? A good place to start from, not a good place to be left in.

( Because they do both know they need information, and it can't all come secondhand.

Still... down it is they need to go, so at Huaisang's guiding indications, until they find themselves at... a ladder, leading into more darkness. Musty darkness. Not unmoved, but less air flows through down there than this lower hallway. )

Assume it'll be easier and more difficult. Look on the bright side! Even with that dancing fairy, if we ran fast enough, we could outpace her.

( He's deadeying this ladder, but still... )

I'll head down first. Are you feeling anything immediately there?

[fanoperator]

[Huaisang squinches up his nose, thinking that they're not particularly 'normal' even without their powers. He's also tempted to argue an exemption from the 'excess of intelligence', but that's a can of worms he has no desire to open.]

That's not very comforting, Wei-xiong...

[Squatting down beside the ladder, Huaisang closes his eyes and hovers his hand over the opening, cycling what little access he has to his golden core in order to detect what he can.]

I feel ... sort of like spiritual energy, and sort of like that poltergeist we dealt with, but it feels... awful. Wrong. A sort of awfulness like nothing we've faced before. [And they've faced all manner of unnatural horrors in their shared past.

He shudders, bucking with the sensation of slugs tumbling down his back, and he scrambles back, ducking to hide behind Wuxian's shoulder, face pressed into his shoulder blade.]