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

[gunslung]

The wolf is looking at him, and Teddy is looking back. He walks, hand wrapped tight around the hatchet handle but otherwise hanging loose, but stops a considerable distance from the animal once he realises it's watching him with uncertainty.

He looks over himself: his tattered clothing, the blood that drops in rivulets down his arms and the weapon in hand, and then the fact that he's holding a weapon at all. Rationally, he thinks about letting it go. But immediately opposite that idea he thinks but what if it attacks, what if it hurts me, everything hurts me, no-one can be trusted, nowhere is safe, this world does not belong to them-- and for a moment his posture seizes up, stiff and uncomfortable.

But then he relaxes. And he looks at the hatchet again, before finally letting it drop to the floor.

"I won't hurt you." It comes out blunt. Stilted. Teddy's made a decision, but that doesn't mean he knows how to sound comforting.

Blood oozes and pools beneath him, and the floor sizzles under his hands.

"Do you understand me?" Dimly, someone in his head calls him stupid, and the corner of Teddy's jaw tightens for just a tic before he calms himself down. "Are you an experiment, too?

"Everyone I've met here seems to be one, but you're the first animal I've seen."

He furrowed his brows, frowning. "...but I suppose if you aren't, you wouldn't answer me."

[clawandscars]

Tsume's long, lean body is full of tension as Teddy approaches. If he gets much closer, he'll bite him. Maybe losing a couple of fingers will teach him not to be foolish when approaching a wild animal. But then the hatchet drops. Tsume stops snarling and cocks his head instead in confusion.

Most humans wouldn't willingly throw away their weapon when faced with a wolf. This man is either very trusting or a fool of a different sort. Tsume approaches, head and tail head high, the sign of a dominant wolf. He's still bleeding all over the place. If he can just push him into position, Teddy's blood will stop the growing chasm in the floor, maybe keep those creepy eyes from staring out at Tsume.

He gives a slow nod of the head at the questions. Yes, he understands you, Teddy. This is not an ordinary animal. Still, he doesn't answer him with words. People can accept an intelligent animal. A talking one usually is a whole other level of weird for them.

[gunslung]

He gets a genuine answer, and though Teddy's first reaction is surprise, that feeling is swiftly replaced with a very small, very subtle misery.

They're taking the animals, too.

"I'm sorry," he says, and he means it. He's always felt anger at people, at humans (or at least as far back as he can remember-- which, really, isn't that far back at all), but with this wolf he feels only remorse at the fact that its fate is apparently to be stuck in the same place that Teddy's in.

"I haven't found a way out yet."

Not that he's really been working too hard to find one, really. When he's lucid, something new comes up to bother him, and when he isn't... it's too easy losing himself in flickering images of what might have been his life.

(Except it couldn't be, because he kept dying, and that's not possible for people, is it?)

The wolf understands him, which means-- "Do you want to work together?"

[clawandscars]

This human isn't like others that Tsume has met. Humans are devious, tricky creatures. An animal can't trust what they say or what they do, for humans will go back on their words always. They're a species built on cruelty. But in a place like this, Tsume can't afford to mistrust everyone. All of them are in this together whether they like it or not.

So he nods at Teddy's question. He'll work with you, strange human, for the moment. A lone wolf only gets so far in this world. Tsume knows that all too well. Even if he can't remember the faces of his pack, he knows that he had one.

Then he goes up to Teddy and nudges the back of his legs with his head. Move it, human. You need to spill some blood into the chasm so that it'll stop growing.

[gunslung]

At first Teddy doesn't understand the nudge, though he does stumble forward a half-step or two because of it. He looks down at his feet and then back at the wolf with a small frown, but ultimately supposes it must know what it's doing.

Of course, he stops thinking that when he realises a foot or two away that the wolf's leading him in the direction of the cracked parts of the floor. "Wait--" There's a moment's hesitation, a brief stiffening, and Teddy keeps his stance steady and his weight down.

He remembers the voice in his head telling him that spilling someone else's blood was the only way to fix this.

Had that been in everyone's heads?

"You're not pushing me in, are you?" he asks, turning it into a yes or no question just because he thinks the wolf can nod and shake his head, but not speak.

[clawandscars]

Tsume stops trying to push Teddy forward. He shakes his head no at the question. He doesn't have any devious thoughts of getting rid of the humans in this place yet. After all, he might need them. Or at the very least, they can be a source of food if he fails to find anything else to eat in this place. It's surprisingly clean, almost weirdly so, without any signs of rodents or even bugs.

He paws at the ground with one of his front legs, emphasizing the cut-up portions of lean muscles that are still bleeding. Now do as you're told and hold your arm out, Teddy, so some blood can trickle down in there.