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

[thotsandprayers]

Ah, it's a bit late to ask something like that of me.

[The frown on her face isn't terribly sad, thought it could probably be considered wistful. She's thinking of days long past, they almost feel like they happened a lifetime ago or to someone else because in a weird way, they kind of did.]

I've dedicated most of my life to helping others, so it's rather difficult to put myself before or on the same level as those who are suffering.

[That's...not entirely true given the stuff that doesn't feel like a lifetime ago. But it's also not entirely untrue either. She's complicated! But in a screwed up way, she's still helping others and helping herself by kind of...not being as much of herself as she could be.]

[peninhand]

We have a saying where I come from. You can't really help others unless you help yourself first.

[ She was no psychiatrist, but that was no good way to think at all. Unless you helped and loved yourself, you wouldn't be able to help and love others. Which was probably why she'd screwed up so poorly back in the "game."

She would ask for more details, but... Now was hardly the time for being nosy. Instead, she was going to try being optimistic and helpful. Thus she placed a hand on Kiara's shoulder and offered the woman her arm, so she could help her stand and walk home. ]

Well, if you can't put yourself on the same level than the others who are suffering, I'll do it for you! Until you remember how to care for yourself as much as you care for others.

[thotsandprayers]

[Well, she certainly does love herself, but that's actually sort of what inhibits her from truly loving others these days. Whoops.]

And I suppose that if I try and protest or decline, you won't accept that for an answer?

[There is a somewhat amused smile on her face, while she takes Monika's arm, accepting the offer of assistance. She has had several terrible days in a row, so she probably wouldn't protest too much. After all, there are much worse fates than having someone help her out. Though she won't actually voice that thought because it would be in poor taste given everything else that's gone on.]

[peninhand]

[ Thankfully, Monika was too tired herself to take notice of what was going on through Kiara's head. In a way it was a shame. She could probably relate to some extent... But on the other hand, she would probably find issue with some of Kiara's, hmm...

More extreme views. ]

Nope!

[ She smiled brightly, a smile that was doing a pretty good job at hiding how tired she herself was. She'd probably go straight to her own house and sleep for days on after that. ]

So where's your house anyway?

[thotsandprayers]

[Sleeping for days does sound pretty appealing, Kiara's clairvoyance can't see the future (and she doesn't have it right now anyways), but she's pretty sure there's something like that waiting for her.]

Ah, it's on Loomis Drive. 105, I believe.

[It's been a long few days with much more pressing matters on her mind, so she had to take a moment to think about that one.]

[peninhand]

Let's go then! Just lemme know if I'm too quick.

[ Unlikely— Monika is going at a snail's pace. In part because she doesn't want to hurry Kiara and cause her unnecessary pain. In part because she herself is exhausted and could probably use some help. Someone carrying her home, ah, what a dream it would be!

Alas...! They're in a horror game, not an otome! Woe is them. ]

[thotsandprayers]

It's all right. I'm not sure if I could manage a quicker pace anyways.

[Okay, she probably could go a little faster than this and not get shocked, but she does appreciate what appears to be consideration for her condition.

Anyways, she'll follow along a little before speaking up.]

It's quite kind of you to see me home, really. If there's any way I can repay your kindness someday, please don't hesitate to ask.

[Kiara's been told a few times to not think of it that way, like she owes her friends for their help, but that really doesn't stop her from offering to return the favor.

Though she does hope nothing like this happens to anyone else any time soon.]

[peninhand]

There is a way, and that is for you to get a lot of rest!

[ Funny as it would be to go full Don Corleone and say that someday she may need her help, it wasn't her style. Not that she was that selfless. She knew if she did need help someday and Kiara turned her down, she would probably be severely disappointed... And reconsider whether or not to help her in the future.

But she really wanted to try and be as selfless as possible. Thinking like that... It was kind of awful, wasn't it? That was what she wanted to avoid doing, again. You shouldn't expect people to help you back. Hopefully if that day was to ever come, she'll have managed to better herself by then. ]

We're nearly there!

[thotsandprayers]

[She almost laughs at that one too. It's such a simple thing, she can surely do that. Unless her house is going to get overrun with zombies or reindeer monsters or something again. Kind of hard to rest if that happens.

...or if the teenager living in her house had a seance and the ghosts wrecked the place. That'd create issues with her resting too.]

Not to worry, I think I can manage doing that much. I've had plenty of practice, so it won't be too hard.

[Oh, but there's the issue with Papyrus being a victim of whatever happened this month too. She won't mention that, but that'll probably keep her a little busy with things too.

Sorry, she'll try and rest as much as she can, but it probably won't be a lot.]

[peninhand]

[ Thank goodness Monika doesn't know that Kiara is Papyrus's "wife," otherwise she would indeed think twice about dropping her home. But hey, that means she'll be invited to that dinner she promised Papyrus! That's... Something?

She stops when they're at her house's doorsteps. ]

Here we are!

[ Now Kiara can get some rest. But what if the abductors try something and no one's around...? She should stick around for a bit just in case. Sans is taking care of Papyrus and Sayori, or so she assumes. Of course, she can imagine Kiara won't accept, so time for a half-lie. ]

If you don't mind, I'll stay a bit to use your kitchen. You can go right to sleep, I just promised Okuyasu waffles for tomorrow morning and I'll never make them in time unless I get started right away.

[ She wasn't going to get her own sleep before... A while at this rate. Or not, she didn't know if she'd even manage to do Okuyasu's waffles. Odds were Kiara would find Monika having inadvertently fallen asleep head first in a pile of freshly baked waffles. ]

[thotsandprayers]

[She'd ask if this is really the time for waffles, but yeah ok. Given that Okuyasu was down there with the rest of them, if that'll help him feel better about things then who is she to raise the issue?

Though she imagines there's something more to it than just that since she can't imagine the trip home for Monika would cause that much of a delay. Wanting to stay and make sure she's all right, perhaps?

If so, she thinks that's really quite kind of her. Kiara's not...entirely worried because she can't imagine there's a second abduction waiting for her, but still, it's appreciated!]

Not to worry, that's quite all right. Please, feel free to use whatever you need.

[Though given Louis' disastrous seance, she has no idea what the kitchen might look like. Still, if she does find Monika asleep in that pile of waffles, she'll try and move her to the couch at least. Probably a better place to crash than in someone's breakfast.]