INTRO 001: BEGIN

[706mod]

INTRO 001
NAVIGATION
⩕ ARRIVAL

It’s arrival time. Or is it? For some, this situation seems eerily familiar. In fact, this has happened before, you are sure of it. The voice makes the announcement and the door rolls open. You hear the frightened voice and it begins again.

There might be memories of this place but things will seem… off. As if walls are a slightly different colour, corners a bit sharper, the door handles a bit higher. If you explore the rooms of interest you will find a few things have changed.

The cooler with the tongue is now gone, and in its place a locked door with a strange device placed next to it. It looks like an intercom. The yellow message on the wall has changed, it now reads:

There’s sunshine, daisies, and tulips too
Just remember that when you’re feeling blue ☺

The writing is clearly different than the previous message.

The room with the tube is mostly the same, except the rusted cabinets are now shiny and brand new. The tube’s liquid is now dripping a rust colour fluid.

Any items collected will be somewhere nearby.

⩕ ODE TO BEVERLY

After exploring the new (?) developments something strange is now happening throughout the complex’s floor. A shrill crying. It sounds hysterical.

It leads you to the bathroom with the shattered glass. The sound is coming from the drain of a sink.

There’s broken words, too jumbled to really understand. But the hello from earlier? Definitely the same voice.

As your face nears the sink suddenly long black hair springs from the drain, shooting up and strangling and snaring any bit of you it can. The more you struggle the more it becomes aggressive, cutting in to your skin, peeling away flesh. All the while the shrieking and wailing grows to thunderous levels.

The only way to escape is with outside help. But your rescuer has to be careful not to also get caught.

The hair or whatever it may be seems intent on blood.

⩕ THE CHASM (PART ONE)

Some of you might have escaped the hair with most of your important parts in place. But any open wounds will freely flow blood and not seem to want to staunch. Any materials found seem to be useless in treating the cuts. And when your droplets of blood hits the ground it hisses as if like acid and then unexpectedly the floor around it cracks into a hairline split. The more blood that is dropped the more the cracks appear.

Throughout the following days and nights the cracks randomly split wider and deeper.

Investigating further you will notice that the same nausea you might have experienced before is now back-- and wait! Did you just see a pair of eyes inside those fissures?

Somehow you know in your gut that the only way to stop the progression of the splits is to drop more blood in to it, but not your own. In fact, this idea takes hold despite your better judgement. It is a compulsion. Better find a willing volunteer or perhaps it will come down to a fight.


⩕ HELLO GOD? IT'S ME 7░ ░

Something odd happens many hours in to your stay. Those of you who have found a walkie will receive a broadcast. It is a man speaking. It sounds like an old recording. Soft conversation is happening in the background overlaid with a hum of machinery.

Obviously I am a man of logic. In this day and age how could someone not be? Our primitive instincts are only a tool for survival so our higher minds can concentrate on things like advancement and discovery. This a belief everyone should have. Or isn’t it? It frustrates me that few are on this level of thinking. Too many are preoccupied with that in which cannot be seen. What cannot be hooked in to.

His voice then says your number. You are certain that you have never met this person, but he definitely just addressed you specifically.

I know you are reasonable. Tell me what you believe in? In this moment, what do you believe?

As you answer, you get the distinct impression that the entire complex stills to listen. But whatever frequency he was using is now dead. The question seems to be one to ask one another, broadcasted far and wide.

⩕ ⩕ ⩕ ⩕ ⩕ ⩕ ⩕

⩕ The Chasm will continue to grow throughout the next month. It becomes more and more cumbersome to navigate but the blood does seem to help to keep it at bay.

Comments

ode to beverly

[gunslung]

Stay away!

[ Suffocating, bleeding, stinging-- somehow all of this feels familiar, feels like something he's absolutely been through before. And even if it hurts-- and God, it hurts-- Teddy has a feeling that it won't last forever. In a way, death almost feels like coming home; funny, given Teddy's never been particularly religious or nihilistic, but after slicing his hands in the strands of hair and realising the futility of it all, what point is there in struggling? ]

It isn't... [ He hisses, letting out a cry as the stranger's hands force the hair's aggression (the hair, he thinks; is the hair real? And what was the voice that had been crying earlier? He knew he had to find who it belonged to, knew that he promised someone he'd find them, but why did it matter?). It digs in harder, slicing away bits of Teddy's forearms with the fine precision of a woodworker, and he shudders as his blood flows and flows and dyes the sink red. ] ...it's not worth it. It's [ a wince; the more the man tries to help, the more the hair sinks into him, cuts into him, and fuck it's going to get to bone soon ] not worth it.

Don't let it get you, [ a shaky breath ] too.

[ If only he had his hatchet. Where the hell did it go? ]

[freightcars]

[ Bucky doesn't even so much as acknowledge the protests; there's no way in hell he's leaving Teddy to his own devices, no way he's going to take that hit to his conscience. He's got too much debt tipping the scale to let this go even for a second.

The hair cuts into him though, like razor wire shredding through his calloused palm. It's rapidly apparent that brute force isn't going to work. ]

Hang on- just hold on-

[ And then his eyes search frantically- land on the shattered mirror above the sink, and the shards of glass that hang from it. He moves almost on instinct, fueled by adrenaline and experience. With a swift motion he tears off his useless and empty left sleeve. Uses it to wrap around the thick end of a glass shard.

And then begins an arduous hacking, a rough and haphazard slicing of the strands, cutting his forearms nearly as much as he manages to actually break through, but it's working. ]

[gunslung]

[ It's different when the glass cuts him, the pain that it brings sharper and more focused than the frantic slides and shaves of the hairs. Teddy opens his mouth, his brows tilting outward, but strangles whatever sounds of pain threaten to leave his throat.

There's a mess of blood spilling over his arms, soaking into the dark strands and oozing down the sink. Bucky's slices effectively create a crisscross pattern as he shears more and more off.

Teddy shuts his eyes tight and grits his teeth together.

He was probably better off without the help. ]

[freightcars]

[ He's doing what he can, pal, he's only got the one arm to work with and the hair keeps thrashing, tugging, pulling Teddy left and right. He might think he'd been better off without the help, but that might as well have meant better off dead and Bucky'll argue that until he's blue in the face.

Either way he seems to find his rhythm, because in a few more anxiety-laden bloody moments the last of the hair is cut away--at least in the sense that it's not frantically tugging at him anymore, it's just hanging limply where it tangles in sharp strands around Teddy's skin. It's an improvement, at least, it's stability, and Bucky breathes heavy at the sight of it. ]

It's okay, it's- I got it off at the end, but we're gonna have to get it untangled and stop the bleeding- how you feeling? Lightheaded? Can you count back from ten?

[ Humans start to become iffy on their chances at about two liters of blood; he's not sure how much Teddy's down at this point, but if he's too bad off he won't be able to wrap his head around even basic countdowns. It's a decent gauge. ]

[gunslung]

[ Whatever panic Teddy might have felt in insisting the stranger not risk his safety to help him fades at the question like clockwork. How is he feeling. Strange how Teddy isn't sure how to answer that. The question should be easy to ace, but even though his mouth opens to answer I'm fine, the words never seem to make it out his throat, like he's not allowed to lie.

Allowed. What does allowance matter?

He digresses, however, and answers what he can: ] Ten, nine, eight... [ And in this fashion goes down until zero. His voice is detached, syllables careful like the auditory version of feet on a tightrope. Somehow, the concept of emotional affect in a question about feelings doesn't seem like it'd draw a very accurate response.

He looks at the state of his forearms and the blood that dribbles long and sticky to the floor, then observes, very quietly: ] You cut my arm up.

[freightcars]

[ Teddy counts back, and every digit sends a little layer of relief running through him. He's functional, passable, definitely salvageable. Barnes exhales slowly, lips pursing into something apologetic, and he shrugs an armless shoulder, gestures to it vaguely. ]

Sorry, I'm uh- it was a little hard keepin' it still long enough to-

[ It's a piss-poor excuse, frankly he'd just been so frantic... he could've done better. He's better than that. So he circles back around to: ]

I'm sorry. I can dress it- bandage it up, but we gotta cut off the stuff still wrapped around it. I can do it without cutting you again if you don't move- if- you know, if you want me to try. Or-

[ He tosses the shard in his hand, flips it so that it's shirt-sleeve-hilt out, the sharp blade of it held tentatively between his fingers so as not to cut himself. ]

You can give it a shot, if you want.

[gunslung]

[ Teddy takes the shard with a brief nod of his head, though his first attempt to slice the hair off his arms has the strands sliding over his open wounds instead. He hisses; the pain is unexpected and awful, because as light as the pressure might have been, the thinness of the hair means they sting when they rub into his flesh. But the easy way the strands move at least tell him that they aren't wrapped as tight as they appear.

Pulling them off his arm proves easier than cutting them off, what with their untimely demise upon being sliced from the source. Teddy almost wants to peer in and see where the hell they came from, but that probably isn't the best idea. ]

Do you have bandages? [ The man offered to wrap it up. It's a sensible question.

Teddy probably just sounds a little more curt than he intends. ] The last time I looked around this place, I don't think I saw any.

[freightcars]

[ Teddy does a hell of a better job than One Arm McMurderFace over here. They're gone quick and easy, and at the question, Bucky, nudges him gently and slides a hand over to take the shard back. He doesn't have a real bandage, he imagines they'd be hard pressed to find anything here that'll meet the mark, but- ]

Just this.

[ He works his sleeve free of the thing one-handed, manages to get it off in more or less one piece. Brings it up to his teeth to tear it so it's open rather than a circle, and holds it out again. ]

Tie it on, tie it tight, it'll stop the bleeding. Not exactly the most sanitary, but...

[ They got what they got. ]