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

[clawandscars]

So undignified.

[He snorts. There's something that niggles at the back of his mind, picking someone up, and carrying him against his protests to be put back down. There's no face or name attached to the memory, just the sensation of carrying another wolf on his back. The question brings a scowl to his muzzle.]

I don't know. Someone I can't remember.

[Is it weird to admit he can't remember anything right now? He has no idea if this is just him that's experiencing it. But he doesn't like that he can't fully remember the girl. She seems like she was important even if he can't remember anything about her but her screams.]

[sweariff]

But they seemed important. Right?

[Just a guess. The lighting in these corridors is horrible, too bright in some places, close to blackout dark in others, and finding your way when you're already dealing with what's turning out to become chronic pain makes things all the more difficult. That struggle took more out of Bigby than he wants to admit, but it might show anyway with the way he walks — slow and careful, not quite limping but taking deliberate steps and leaning with his hand against the wall to help him keep his balance as they walk into a part of the floor where the lighting is particularly bad.]

I'm getting that, too. It feels like my brain's been on ice. I remember little things like voices, but nothing huge like faces or names. [Well, except for Gren's. The fact that he of all people is the first person Bigby's been able to remember in his current state is either very sad or very telling of a multitude of deep-seated issues he's not even qualified to touch with a ten foot pole.] Wouldn't be so bad if I knew there weren't important things buried under all the petty, irrelevant crap, and if I had half an idea of how to start digging to get to it.

[clawandscars]

Yes. She was very important. She's always so sad when she screams. Like she's upset something bad happened to me.

[Why else would she scream out in that way, in the pitch that only wolves could hear? Something had happened to him before he had come here and she had been horrified by it.

Tsume is going slow too, the blood soaking through the makeshift bandages. He notices that Bigby seems to be struggling to keep moving at a normal pace. He doesn't look or smell hurt to Tsume, but what does he know? This place is strange and seems like it's designed to hurt.]

I can't remember anyone. None of my pack Just sensations that remind me of things.

[sweariff]

[It's a weird kind of full body pain that simultaneously drains him and makes him feel like every nerve in his body is on fire. It started when he woke up and while it's come and gone in waves since then, it's shown no signs of letting up. Still, the fact that it isn't constant must be a good sign. Maybe he's only been partially mutilated instead of entirely, assuming that's what happened since he can't see anything that would outwardly indicate injury. It's gotta be internal.]

But you remember enough about her to know she meant something to you. That's a big deal. [His fingers twitch as his hand slides against the wall, feeling for the sides of a door or a window, or the depression of something that may have been there.] If you can still remember that, it means you can remember the rest, and that whatever— this is, it isn't permanent.

[At least, he hopes so. There's a face in his head that just won't go away, a woman with skin as white as snow and hair as dark as night. When he thinks of her, he doesn't just want to get out of here — he wants to level this building to the ground and scatter the goddamn ashes to make sure whatever happens to him never happens to her, and he'll do anything to make it happen.

Too bad he can't remember her name. Yet.]

I need to get back to my pack, too. [It comes unprompted, as if he's going at this stream of consciousness style. Maybe he is. Being around the first thing he's felt connected to here in a way that isn't just surface level will do that to someone, he supposes.]

[clawandscars]

[He's glad that whatever this is likely won't be permanent. He knows there's a girl who isn't human and a pack somewhere out there he belongs to. But beyond that is just a deep, gaping void where his memories should be, everything all dark and fuzzy.

The mention of a pack makes Tsume look sidelong at Bigby, giving him a hard up-and-down stare. There's that puzzlement again.]

Why do you look human?

[It's not just the scent that marks him as wolf. It's something in the way Bigby moves, that way animals have of moving with a certain grace that makes human beings look like bumbling oafs by comparison. It's also something in the way he seems to approach things. He'd known just how to calm Tsume after the hair monster had nearly killed him.]

[sweariff]

[Bigby doesn't answer for what feels like a long time, though in reality it can't be longer than a minute, maybe two. You can't give an easy answer to this question, especially when the details are still slowly revealing themselves at a snail's pace — steady and reliable, but excruciatingly slow. He remembers his home, his...family (regrettably so, but not for the reasons one would imagine; the truth's more complex than that) and what he really is, what he's always been, what he always will be no matter the form or the magic it takes to maintain it.

It's explaining it to someone who might not get what a Fable is, let alone the Big Bad Wolf, that's the hard part. So...he opts for the honest, most straightforward route.]

Because I am human. Sort of, right now. [...Which really isn't that straightforward at all, come to think of it, and you can tell he knows by the way his eyes narrow, already too tired for any of this.] It's...complicated. Whatever your nose is telling you, that's what you should believe.

[He's guessing that it must be sending Tsume some pretty mixed messages right now, though. Maybe not the best advice to give.]

Hey. Does the name "Hesse" ring any bells, or the Black Forest? [If the answer to any of those questions is yes, it would solve a lot of problems.]

[clawandscars]

You're really bad at answering questions, you know that?

[It was like listening to a riddle or something, answering a bit while creating more confusion. He's a wolf that looks human. If he had more of his memories, this would actually make a lot of sense, but at the moment, Tsume is still confused.

The question about names doesn't jog anything at first. Then a memory comes unbidden to his mind at the mention of a forest. He's traveling through one, cloaked in his human illusion. There's an owl with no scent above him. Something's not right with it. He mentions this to someone at his left, someone he can't see the face of.

The owl stares down at them, blank eyes creepy. 'An owl that's suspicious. Wolves that look delicious. They all wandered in and got lost as one. Well done!' It flies off after Tsume leaps up and tries to catch it.]

The Forest of Death...

[He says to himself. The owl had tried to make sure he and whoever he was with had never left. To make sure the forest lived up to its name. A dead thing whose spirit had never left his final resting place, a ghost who tried to make sure the wolves died too.

He gives an all-over shake like he's got a coat full of water, shaking the memory off. What a thing to remember in a place like this.]

No. Neither of those names mean anything to me.

[sweariff]

Because this isn't one you can explain easily. [That comes out a bit snappish, but as with any hard truth, Bigby doesn't spare feelings when there are more important things at stake.] If you could trust me this far, you can trust me a little longer.

[—But then Tsume says something that freezes all of Bigby's frustration, and his expression shifts into one of surprised curiosity. The Forest of Death. Not what he had in mind at all, but he's heard the Black Forest being called similar things before, he thinks. Of course he's a major reason why, but not the only one. You venture deep enough inside any place you aren't welcome in and you'll find more than enough things inside that not only want you gone but want to pick and poke and study you for fun and personal interest, and that not even accounting the ones that are hungry. You don't enter someone's home unannounced. You especially don't enter without bringing dinner. That's the way of the forest.

Bigby watches the noticeable shift in Tsume's posture, the shaking that could read as an uneasy tremble just as much as a tic, and wonders how much the two of them have in common and if it's enough to allow some leeway for the one important, very vital thing they might not share.]

Long time ago, I used to live in the Black Forest. Wolves like you weren't rare. Actually, most of the animals who lived there were like you. [This is the only way he can broach the subject in as honest a way without sacrificing the most important parts of its secrecy. If Tsume is a Fable who just doesn't remember he is, maybe this will be enough to jog his memory. If he isn't, he's at least getting more of the story.] Where I live now, it's not like that anymore. Animals can't talk.

[He looks down at Tsume, expression serious and searching.]

Do you remember anything about where you're from?

[clawandscars]

[Some people think animals can't emote very well, but there is a definite frown on Tsume's face. He doesn't like having to rely on other people. Trust has never come easy for him. He doesn't trust people and so they don't have to trust him in return. He doesn't remember yet how he learned to do just that with his pack on their journey to find Paradise together.

He hesitates a long moment at the question, lining up the piecemeal memories of what he remembers about his home all in order to make sense of them all. There's a grim picture painted in his mind.]

It was a dying place. Desolation everywhere. No mountains or forests anymore. Everything had been ruined by the humans. So the wolves that were left hid among them. There was a way to create an illusion to look human when they were near.

[It's much to his frustration that it doesn't work here. Life is easier when he can pass as human. There's less questions and people don't fear him quite as much. He just looks like any other teenager trying to survive a post-apocalyptic world on the edge of death.]