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

[freightcars]

[ He could hazard a few guesses himself, some of them might even overlap Bigby's. He doesn't take the time to voice them, though. At this point, it won't do them any good. ]

Last thing I remember... [ He starts and then stops, fuzzy. Frustrated. ] Think the last thing I remember is getting- going to sleep.

[ Which is skirting the truth a little, but the fact that things are spotty, that he doesn't remember anything after? Not good. ]

What about you?

[sweariff]

[That's about as thorough an account as Bigby expected. His isn't much better.]

Not much. I was outside, talking with someone. It was...raining. But I remember the sun was out just a little, and there were cars, and—

[He cuts himself off, trying to smooth out these jagged fragments of memory and reorder them into something more manageable. It does pay off, because he's able to remember something new — or something old, but made clearer.]

...New York. [He says the name slowly, wonderingly, but adds with growing decisiveness:] I was in New York City. That's where I live.

[freightcars]

[ Well would you look at that. That, at least, earns him a little more favor in Bucky's book. ]

I'm form Brooklyn. [ He responds, the slightest tone of amusement in his voice. The first positive emotion he's had all conversation. ] That's not where I was before I woke up, but-

[ He figured it was worth mentioning. ]

[sweariff]

Manhattan. [It's all coming back now. He feels himself smiling again, a bit more genuine this time, and mostly because it proves that whatever was done to his head isn't permanent.] It's...not my favorite place, I think. Now, though, if you asked me where I want to be, I'd take the worst parts of Midtown, even Times Square, any day of the week over one more second here.

[It's the 80s, man.]

[freightcars]

[ He huffs a laugh, a cynical sounding chuckle, dry but with at least the trappings of humor. ]

I'd almost rather be in Jersey.

[ Almost. Ha, ha. Nothing about this is funny, though, is it? He sighs to himself, lets his head fall back and thump against the wall. ]

[sweariff]

[He hears that sound — both of them — and once again reality does a u-turn to smack him in the face.

Yeah, no, fuck off, reality. At least let them have this.]

No, you don't. What do you think they do for fun over there every weekend?

[Wow, l a m e. But even if he can't allow himself to be optimistic, he doesn't want to give the sickos in charge of this the satisfaction of knowing they were able to break him, or any of them, down.]

I wouldn't be surprised if that's where we are right now. 'course, it would be easier to tell with a window.

[freightcars]

[ He can't help the little head bob of acquiescence that he gives at the mention of a window. Somehow, he thinks even just the sight of the sky might do wonders for his mental health right now.

Which means, of course, that there aren't going to be any to be found anywhere.

After a long pause, he thinks to ask: ]

Got a name?

[sweariff]

Bigby Wolf. I'd like to pretend that guy didn't just call me by the fucking label he stamped on my neck, so just Bigby is fine.

[Truly today has been a day of charming meetings and magical revelations.]

You?

[freightcars]

[ There's no denying the way an eyebrow shoots up at the name, which is rude as hell. Fortunately for them both, these walkie talkies have no video feed. Nobody sees his critical expression except, perhaps, any hidden cameras stashed about the place.

He would be absolutely 0% surprised to find out that was the case. ]

James Barnes- Bucky. People call me Bucky.

[ It's an important distinction, he thinks. If people start calling him Sergeant Barnes or Mr. Barnes here, he's going to lose his fucking mind ten times faster. ]

[sweariff]

[Unfortunately, Bigby himself has no such filter.]

Do I have to? I just sitting here thinking you sounded more like a Jim or a Jimmy. [Not really, though, because those names imply some degree of happiness and Bucky sounds like he's farther along on the edge than Bigby is, which is clearly why teasing is important now more than ever!!]

[freightcars]

[ Well, it's working. It draws a wry scoff from him. ]

Haven't heard that since grade school.

[ Which is even bigger than it sounds, considering grade school was nearly a century ago. Coincidentally, that's about the last time anyone heard any real degree of happiness in him, so Bigby's not so far off.

He's had a few dames call him Jamie over the years. That didn't stick either. ]

[sweariff]

Well, we could try to bring it back, make it mean something again. Or I could just call you what everyone else does, but fair warning, that name's a letter off from sounding like something I'd say when I'm pissed off. Which I am, right now.

So I can't guarantee that won't come up in the future, especially if I'm in a really bad mood. [There is a 95% chance of this happening.]

[freightcars]

Rather be a Fucky than a Jimmy.

[ He answers bluntly, though there may be a detectable note of amusement in the tone.

He doesn't know who you are, Bigby, but he's coming around to you already. Granted he'd be happier if they never met and instead kept plugging away back home doing the daily grind, but as far as strangers you meet while kidnapped in a psychologically terrifying insane asylum style office building?

Not so bad. ]

[sweariff]

There you go again saying things you're almost certainly not going to be able to take back. Of all the bad habits to have, you pick the one that's the most exploitable.

[• Bigby will definitely remember this.]

If it's torture they're after, they lucked out by picking us.

[freightcars]

[ He snorts again. Yeah, of all the people to pick, he thinks maybe their captives might have made a few bad choices here. If nothing else, they'll sure as hell be the biggest pain in the ass prisoners in the facility, from the sounds of it. ]

Make a deal with you, Bigby.

[ He starts, walkie talkie an inch or two from his mouth. Pauses, then plugs on. ]

You help me find a way outta here, you can call me whatever the hell you want. I'll get it tattooed over the serial number.

[sweariff]

...I rest my case. [Wow.] You know I was going to do that anyway for nothing, right?

[And now he has an extra special incentive to work even harder, as if the promise of survival wasn't good enough. God.]

Fine. Consider it official in the eyes of the law. [Literally. Moving on:] Before, you said something about this happening to you before. What did you mean by that? This isn't the first time they—

[He doesn't even know if he should finish that. Suddenly, this guy's dour mood seems so, so much more appropriate than it already was.]

[freightcars]

[ Yeah, he figured that would be the case. Not a single sane soul in their predicament would do anything other than try their damndest to escape; what it means, though, is that if Bigby finds away he'll at least think twice and maybe remember to radio Bucky to tell him the route out.

It's a battle bond, and if he's good at forging anything, it's that.

Except that question puts something of a damper on his mood, and he's got to think long and hard about how he's going to answer.

He opts for a halting, edited version of the truth. ]

I was a POW in a nazi prison camp. [ And if it sounds like he's being a little too straightforward, it's only because that's a damn softball compared to the reality of it. He almost seems detached about it. ] It was a hell of a lot like this. They used to-

[ A beat. ]

It was a scientific experimentation and advancement facility, not- not just a camp. When I first woke up, I could'a sworn...

[ That he'd been back in a Hydra plant, two seconds from a reset and a freeze. ]

But it's not that, it's not them, I figured that out.

[sweariff]

[...Wow. Okay. That's a lot to work with. Bigby falls silent, letting Bucky speak until he's absolutely sure he's finished, and even then it takes him another few seconds to figure out how to proceed with this...this. What can he say, except—]

...I'm sorry. I can't even begin to imagine how being there— how going through that must have felt. But I wouldn't wish those kinds of scars on my worst enemy. [It's straightforward, but so was Bucky, and after all of that, he deserves the same courtesy.] When— When was this? It's okay if you don't want to go into detail, but it's been...years since the war. I didn't think those kinds of Nazis were still active.

[If Bucky says they're not behind this, Bigby believes him, but he's still curious. Something about Bucky's wording feels a little off. POW... Does that mean he's an active soldier?]

[freightcars]

[ He'd wave away the apology if they were face to face; not so easy to do that over walkie talkie. It's not hard to talk about, conceptually speaking. Compared to the rest of the bullshit, it doesn't even feel like oversharing. It might be more of an answer than Bigby expected out of the question, but something something honesty something something policy, right? ]

Yeah, it's... been a while. [ He answers with a little huff, sounding almost self deprecating. ] Seventy-something years, I think, it's-

[ Apparently sharing half the facts was easier than talking about the whole how are you still around seventy years later aspect. ]

It's a long story.

[sweariff]

[...You know, the fact that he's talking to what might be the world's oldest man doesn't bother Bigby all that much. Compared to what's happening right now, and what he knows in his heart that he's experienced before even if he can't immediately remember it, this doesn't seem all that weird.

Which probably accounts for how conversational he sounds.]

Forty— no. Hang on. [Give him a minute. Like, a literal minute.] Forty-one. Halfway close.

[Ever since he met Tsume, it's been getting easier to pull up the — in his own words — petty, irrelevant little details that don't seem as important as the bigger ones he's forgetting, like people and chunks of his past. But the more he thinks about it, the current year is a pretty damn important detail, and this just proves it.]

But, yeah. I'll bet. For someone who's gone through a metric ton of shit, you at least sound like you've aged pretty well. [There's that!]

[freightcars]

[ As foggy as he'd been on the details at first, a few key things came back. The date, for instance, both of the war and from where he'd come? Those were easy enough, they weren't personal memories so much as fact based memories, so he's reasonably confident he's not cracked in the head.

So forty brings him pause, and forty-one doubly so. ]

You sure about those numbers, pal?

[ He'll circle back around to the aging part, sure, maybe, but he's focusing on that for now. It's 2018, and the war ended sometime back in the forties. Then again, hell, maybe he's crazy after all. Going under and coming back out again does a number on your synapses, let alone the fog of arriving here. ]

[sweariff]

[No.]

I don't know what I'm sure of anymore, but I have to be on this. It's 1986.

[...]

Let me guess — you're gonna tell me I'm full of shit.

[freightcars]

[ Alright, so Bucky's nuts but he's not that nuts. ]

Not in so many words...

[ But yes. Exactly. ]

2016 for me, I'm thinking one of us might need an updated calendar.