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]

[ 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. ]