hadriel_logs | Event Log: The Hills Are Silent

Entry tags:

Event Log: The Hills Are Silent

Who: Everyone!
What: The Silent Hill event
Where: Throughout the city
When: June 15th-20th
Warnings: Silent Hill comes to Hadriel, and with it, a few personalized monsters

On the morning of June 15th, a thick fog rolls into Hadriel. There's nothing quite terrifying about it yet, but it manages to drain the city of color, forcing a grey backdrop onto everything behind it. Feel free to go try to check it out if you want, just be careful, because it won't be too long until the sirens start blaring.

There's not exactly a reasonable explanation for where the sound is coming from: Hadriel doesn't have a speaker system, or any warning sirens in place for when something horrible happens. But you'd better find cover quickly, because shortly after the sirens start wailing, the city begins to change. Walls and furniture start to peel, revealing a bloody, hellish version of the city that you once knew. In addition, the monsters from the bestiary will roam the city, as well as a few other monsters that might hit a little closer to home.

Some characters may run into monsters which embody their own sins or insecurities. Some characters may be pursued by their friends' hellish mirrors. One thing is clear: you don't want any of these things catching you. Luckily, it isn't long before Hope makes a post, declaring the god temples as safe zones from all the creatures that are now loose upon the city.

The sirens will fade within a few hours, and the city will fall back to normal, the monsters will retreat back into the fog as if they were never there, and everything seems to be fine again, as if that terrifying experience was just some kind of twisted dream. You can tell yourself that, if you like... but that won't help much the next time the sirens start again.

► This log covers June 15th-20th.
► Feel free to make your own logs as well!
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► Any number of things could murder you here. If you wind up on the unfortunate end of Pyramid Head's chain, please remember to hit up our death post!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Watching the fog roll in from his apartment high above the city, Carlisle feels relatively safe for a change. The gods -- or someone else, in this case -- are doing something awful, and it's best not to wander too far from the sanctuary that is his current home. A part of him doesn't want to know the sordid details, doesn't feel the need to know anything beyond that the gods are looking to feed on the cattle once more. He thinks of the fireflies, how something that had felt so good could be so twisted; he remembers the dreams, the nightmares he relieved, his failures set as a spectacle for others to see. It makes him ill, all of it.

Well, he'll be no part of it this time. He's going to wait it out, hole up in his apartment until the false deities have grown bored with their schemes. There might be people he can help out there, may be some way he can be of service, but traipsing into a situation of low visibility in a city where, less than a week prior, there had been giant spiders wandering around, sounds foolhardy, at the very best -- especially when it's the dead of the night.

Settling at the table by his window, Carlisle blows the steam off his cup of tea, a drink he'd made in the hopes of calming his nerves before attempting sleep. The gods haven't stocked the stores with anything worthwhile in that department, but he'll take what he can get when it comes to soothing his anxieties. It's apparent he needs whatever remedies he can get as he pulls the cup to him, and a drop of ink falls into the cup with a plop.

Surprised, he pulls the cup from his face, drawing a hand across his mouth; when he feels no ink trailing down from his lips, his hand moves to his nose, only to find it's dry, as well. Yet that did happen -- the proof is in the cup, spreading and darkening his drink as another drop plummets into the mixture from above.

Carlisle's eyes trail upward to the ceiling, following the droplet. As it turns out, his apartment isn't the sanctuary he thought it to be after all.

Less than thirty, panic-stricken seconds later, there's a solid, frantic series of knocks on Kate Galloway's door. It's clear who is rapping so desperately a moment after as Carlisle calls to her in a whispered yell, as though he's afraid for his life, yet worried he'll disturb the other residents of the Spire.]

Kate! Kate Kate Kate Kate Kate Kate Kate Kate I'm sorry open the door open the door open the door Kate open the door Kate Kate Kate open the door—

[ For Carlisle's sake as much as the monster's, it is a very good thing that Kate needs no more than three hours sleep a night. She gets up early and goes to sleep late without complaint, enjoys the dead hours of the world where her flat is silent sanctuary affording her time to work - to revise her knowledge of power systems, which is largely useless here outside of the monitors she places on doors and windows to alert her to any cave beasts roaming too close to her flat or the clinic, or simply to work out without fighting or running around the city.

Tonight she's opted for the latter, the fog rolling across the city leaving her with a distinct sense of unease. This place has shown no indication of weather beyond the dimming and brightening of the cave to mimic an earth day. To suddenly do so-

... Well, she's been expecting the other shoe to drop for a while. The months since her arrival have been largely quiet, except for a couple of notable exceptions.

She's in the midst of weighted squats - well, she calls them weighted, tins aren't exactly dumbbells, but they'll have to do - when someone starts using her door as drumming practice.

And there's the voice of her neighbour, sounding distinctly panicked and quiet.

So, this is the shoe she was waiting to see drop, then? It isn't just her own worry?

She places the tins on the coffee table and grabs a knife from a shelf before yanking open her door. ]

What-- [ and then she sees the thing creeping up behind him, all liquid darkness and a slow, cold sense of horror pools in her stomach.

No, it isn't horror. It's guilt. That heavy, cottony feeling of guilt that she is far too intimately acquainted with.

But she's also pretty acquainted with ignoring it, so Kate does her thing and throws the knife at it, grabbing Carlisle by the wrist to drag him inside. ]

Edited 2016-06-16 08:13 (UTC)

[The knife hits its mark, but sinks into the oozing mass with little effect. Still it creeps, moving toward the threshold as Kate pulls Carlisle across it.

He's a jittery wreck, his hands shaking -- if there were a door in front of them, he'd still be knocking on it.]

Kate, there is something in my apartment.

[An astute observation from a disturbed man.]

[ oh, well fuck. Why this. Why are knives useless that is her thing. She slams the door shut instead, grabbing her keys and locking the hell out of her door because what the fuck. ]

You think? [ it's outside the flat as well as in it. ] The hell is it? [ and why did it bring that horrible feeling of guilt with it? She grabs the bag of weapons she keeps on a peg and belts up, all straps and business and efficiency. The knife may have proved useless but the bag is a comfort. She's not completely unprepared. ]

[Carlisle just stands there as Kate prepares for battle, stupefied from terror.]

It's something. In my apartment.

[ Yes, he said that already.]

[ yes. That's great. And helpful. Except not. So have the flattest glare it is possible to receive from a tiny pink haired lady. ]

Have you seen it before? Know anything about it? [ There's a stress to her words that is all impatience she needs to keep in check and god, snap out of it, Carlisle. Her hands are on her hips as she glances around her flat, trying to formulate some sort of plan.

Creepy, goopy thing outside. Eighth floor is too high in this towering building for her to even consider jumping, and she doesn't know if Carlisle would be able to survive that when she is wary of broken limbs at the thought. They could hunker down and stay in here, but how does she know if the door will hold? Thry have to get out, go to the temples, as much as she is loath to admit that. The gods claim they are, at least, safe.

Which means they're going to have to force their way past it somehow, ]

I— [something in him snaps as he formulates this response]— what kind of a question is that!? Yes, I saw it! It's in my apartment!

[His eyes dart to the door, where the inky abomination is starting to seep under the gap between it and the floor. Carlisle takes several steps backward in response, nearly tripping over the coffee table.]

No no no! Go away! We don't want any!

[Don't ask him what he means by "any," because he doesn't know either.]

Edited 2016-06-16 09:14 (UTC)

[ OH GOOD GRIEF. Carlisle you are a smart man you must know she means before it turned up there, right?

This guy was not meant for a crisis, was he? She exhales loudly and he's suddenly panicking, backing away from the door as the ink starts to seep through into her place.

Well, weapons didn't work last time, but if it's liquid... Could it be absorbed? It's worth a shot, so Kate unzips and tosses her jacket at the slowly creeping mass in an attempt to see if that would slow it down further. ]

Listen. [ and her voice is a clear, hard snap. There is no time to be anything but authoratitive. She has to make the decisions and get them both out, because clearly he is not in the right frame of mind to help. ] We're getting out of here. I'll try and- [ she really doesn't know how but- ] make it back off and you run.

[The ink coils around the jacket, the fabric soaking some of it in. For a moment, the ink's progress seems to halt. Then those coils take hold, and start pulling the jacket under the gap beneath the door. At least it is momentarily distracted.

Carlisle's eyes dart to Kate, then back to the door as she keeps talking. He could take her up on her offer, leave her here while he bolts for safety. Even if she hadn't suggested it, he could have made her do it, compelled her to.

Isn't that why you're here?

He shivers, stiffening as he answers that voice at the back of his mind; it's his own voice, twisted somehow by guilt and remorse.]

No! That's-- that's not—

[He tries to cover, wondering if he's losing his mind.]

M-me running means I'll end up alone with it later. I'd prefer if we both ran.

[ so would she, honestly. At least the jacket seems to have distracted it, even if it now means that she'll be in the fog with nothing more than a t-shirt and jeans for warmth. Kate glances between Carlisle and the door, watching him as he seems to stutter and rethink what he's saying. Almost like he isn't talking to her at all.

And then, barely a few seconds later, a voice begins to echo in her head. It isn't hers, although it is female and has her accent and is as familiar to her as the need to breathe.

Kat... Why?

The voice of her mother sticks in her throat and she visibly hesitates in moving any closer to the door, in starting the plan. ]

I- [ she chokes back whatever words wanted to come out, leave them to build on the lump in her throat, because her mother's voice has far, far more to say.

You kill, now? What happened to my child? And she cannot refute it, cannot say she works in the clinic now and she doesn't kill any more, because there are dead cave beasts in Rage's temple thanks to her and is that really any different from killing anything else? ]

Edited 2016-06-16 09:53 (UTC)

[Carlisle's eyes dart to Kate as she cuts herself off, words dying in her throat. In a moment of clarity, his own apprehension is pushed aside by his temper and grim determination to survive.]

Oh no, you can't panic too! What am I supposed to—

[It's his turn to go silent as his eyes are drawn to the door. With the jacket gone, presumably pulled into the hall between the two apartments, the inky creature has started trying to seep under the door once more. A long tendril reaches toward them, joined by another; they both take the shape of hands, their spindly fingers grabbing, clambering along the ground toward the two of them, slowly pulling the rest of its bulk through the crevice.

Carlisle is breathless as he finds his voice, stammering as fast as his tongue will allow.]

I t-take it back. Panicking -- perfectly acceptable response.

[He grabs one of those tins from the coffee table and hurls it at the hands, completely missing every single one of them by a wide margin.]

[ Carlisle's voice snaps her back to reality, enough to drown out the whispering pleas of her mother and get her to concentrate on the thing advancing under the door, its fingers clawlike and dripping with ink and the whispers of the dead.

That... Was a terrible shot, by the by. But it does help her, gives her time to think and ignore the guilt.

She's good at ignoring guilt; she did it for years back in The Agency. ] Think we can wash it away? [ it looks, acts like a liquid, so... It would make more sense than throwing things at it, at the very least. Kate grits her teeth and moves forward, intending to finally open the door so they can run for it. ]

[Carlisle shoots Kate an incredulous look. Wash it away? Really? His eyes trail to those hands again, the bulk behind them forming into a tangled mass of bodies. They don't have time to think on this.

And yet, he can't help but think that this is the most asinine plan he's ever heard of, right up there with go get Kate to help with an inky abomination. One would need something stronger than mere water to get the stains out of the floor -- a proper scouring stone would be nice, but it's not as though they can simply ask for the monster to remain still while they—

His gaze makes its way back to Kate, who is heading for the door, and he realizes that no, he absolutely doesn't have time to ponder whether or not this plan will work, nor does he have time to come up with a better idea. He conjures two globes of water, balls held together in his hands by some invisible force, and pushes them together to make a single, sizable orb of liquid. Repeating the process twice more, he's left with something that will definitely leave whatever it hits completely drenched.

... Drenched, but not dead, nor completely washed away. With that thought ever-present in his mind, he gives Kate an unsure nod. This had better work, or so help him, he's going to be very unhappy when he's dead.]

[ She doesn't expect it to die, just to be distracted... injured? Could you call it that? Whatever. Just be immobilised long enough for them to scarper out of the flat and downstairs where they won't be completely trapped.

And, yes, Carlisle's power surprises her - god, she misses being able to just see powers with one simple enchantment; there would be a lot less of that surprise if only things worked like they did at home - but there's no time to comment, because oh god that body is looking very fucking familiar and they need to go. Now. Before she can't ignore the guilt any more - it's getting stronger and stronger, voices escalating rapidly

and fuck that's Uncle Joe now, asking why Marc is dead and why she failed to protect him like they always taught her to.

She opens the door with a yank and lets Carlisle do his thing. ]

[The door opens, and the mass on the other side makes Carlisle hesitate, all thoughts about how stupid a plan this was and how he was going to die thrown to the winds. The hands that have been reaching under the door aren't the only ones, as several more are stretching off the main bulk of the ooze that's blocking the doorway. Some are strong and muscular, and some lithe, delicate. Other tendrils coil off, starting to form into other things: a foot here, the handle of a weapon there, maybe even some antlers befitting of a hat made for a mighty hunter.

And then come the voices, two intertwined to the point where they cannot be separated; they speak in Des, the language of the Below, their voices dipping in and out of his mind.

What have you done, lad?

Carlisle stammers, his eyes locked on the dark monstrosity.]

I- I...

[left everything we built behind

not much left of it as it is

He trembles, his body seizing up with the guilt and fear that plague him.]

Th- that's-- that's not—!

[What good are you?

It takes Carlisle several seconds to pull himself out of his stupor, and several more to even work up the nerve to speak out against the voices he's hearing. They sound like his uncles, but those aren't their words -- they're his, ones he's turned on himself time and time again. Still they continue, the body before him continuing to manifest as the inky hands reach for him.

should have saved us the trouble

they might still be alive if not

no use for someone like you

better off dead

better off dead

we'd all be better off

His body coils tighter and tighter, his breath held, panic giving way to long-buried resentment -- and then the wire snaps, lashing out at everything in its path.]

I DIDN'T ASK FOR THIS!

[Carlisle waves his hand as he roars, flinging the ball of water that's been floating before him at the inky creature. For all his doubts, Kate's idea to wash it away absolutely has merit: the abomination loses much of its viscosity, its body unable to hold itself together with the additional liquid. It dissolves, running down the stairs, spreading all over the floor in the hallway.]

Edited 2016-06-22 13:19 (UTC)

[ oh come on, please don't freeze now. Kate half considers getting a bucket and filling it with water as the seconds tick by and the thing keeps growing, keeps morphing into shapes that mean nothing to her but must mean everything to him. it is getting so freaking large now, and even though all its attention seems to be on Carlisle, she can still feel the overwhelming, cloying sensation of guilt in her gut, can still hear the whispers of why did you let him die why did you let my boy die in Uncle Joe's voice as she backs off and starts heading for the kitchen in the hope she can get something to soak this inky abomination before it suffocates them both in its growing power.

and then Carlisle finally pulls himself together - or snaps in half, she's not quite sure - to attack it and thank christ. Thank christ it works and thank christ he actually managed to do something. She doesn't waste time, grabbing his wrist again and this time dragging him out of the place. ] Let's go. [ fast, faster, faster! she has had way too much of her family's voices in her mind, reminding her of all her failings as a daughter and sister. ]

[Carlisle doesn't object as Kate grabs his wrist and pulls, his legs moving automatically. He's on autopilot as they race past the remains of the ooze, its tendrils already trying to reform. They're halfway down the first flight of steps before he finds his voice, those others that had been echoing in his head finally fading.]

W- wait! Where are we going?

No idea. The temples? [ maybe? The only thing she wants, right now, is to put as much distance between themselves and that monster as possible. Because she's good at getting rid of things that require bullets and knives, but that thing feels nothing of either, keeps growing despite it all. She doesn't know how to deal with that, has never had to deal with things that don't respond to her brand of physical violence.

And, because they're not going nearly fast enough for her liking, the obvious solution is to physically pick up Carlisle and carry him down the stairs. It's faster than having to slow herself to his speed, even if she has to split her focus and use her stamina for strength instead of pure speed which means it's still slower than she could really go. Especially when he's a lanky tangle of limbs and the curve of these stairs is dangerously tight. ] Ask me when we're away from that thing. [ because one of the problems with diluting viscous liquid is that it can move much faster, right? It can drip down the stairs quicker than its full form could. ]

To the temples!?

[He hisses that through his teeth, as though the idea were another amidst the many terrible ones he'd heard that day.]

I mean, they're supposedly safer, but I'll be damned if I'm going somewhere the false gods can have an influAUGH WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

[He's halfway through that complaint as Kate scoops him up bridal-style, his long limbs dangling over arms like a freshly killed carcass behing hauled back for a trophy. His complaints pick up.]

I know how to run! I don't need you to—

[And then he catches sight of the ink forming along the ceiling, manifesting in every crack and crevice in the spiral stairwell, trying to rejoin the sludge that has slipped down the steps behind them. He conjures another ball of water for himself, sending it toward the ooze to dissolve it once more.]

You know what? Nevermind. You run, I'll do this. Team effort.

[ Maybe you do, Carlisle, but you can't deny that the time required to run these stairs is halved when Kate carries you.

... Team efforts sound like a good plan, too, when the thing starts manifesting and there's the whispers of thoughts she's trying to ignore stirring once more. ]

Nearly- [ They're several flights down now, Kate's breath starting to come uneven and ragged because this is effort, despite all appearances to the contrary. But there's an exit in sight, thank fuck. ] -there.

[ The fact that she barrels through the door, kicking it open with hardly a second to pause? Eh, that's normal, right? ]

[Carlisle winces as she makes short work of the door with him in her hands and only one foot. Remind him to never make her angry.

He tosses a few more watery balls at the doorway of the Spire as they leave it behind, making a puddle just beyond the threshold. That should slow the monster down.]

Okay. All right. We should be good now, right? Right. Should be just fine. You can put me down now, before people see this indignity.

[ don't bring in monsters designed to claw at all your guilt and we won't have this problem.

but Carlisle does get to stand on his own two feet again. if only because that was a fucking exertion of effort and she needs to pull herself together before moving on any further. ] Right. [ and then, because she needs to think about something other than her family's whispering voices; ] Your aim needs work. [ the water bombs were fine. that tin, though, was awful. ]

[He cuts her a look as he waits for her to catch her breath.]

I was trained in healing, not in lobbing things at oozes.

[ is she going to have to teach you the art of aiming, Carlisle? But her breath is back so time to get down to business. ] Right. We need to find somewhere safe. ...Least safer.

If our homes aren't safe, I don't believe anywhere to be.

[Not terribly encouraging, Carlisle.]

What about the clinic? Not that I believe monsters would have scruples with attacking a refuge for the ill.

The Top Floor of Spire 4

yesss i am so ready

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whoops, cw: vaguely suicidal thoughts

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