hadriel_logs | Event Log: Assassin

Entry tags:

Event Log: Assassin

Who: Everyone!
What: The Assassin event
Where: Throughout the city
When: April 15th-23rd
Warnings: Inevitable character death, potential horror and gore and unpleasantness. Please remember to tag for warnings in the header if it things get too bad!

The morning of April 15th in Hadriel is cheerful, with artificial light streaming through your window. Your blankets are warm, jabberjays are shrieking, and you're probably going to experience a murder attempt today.

Maybe it'll be from a stranger, maybe it'll be from a friend, but the bottom line is that everybody is after somebody and nobody is safe (...okay, twelve people are safe, but that's beside the point). Time will only tell when you'll be overcome by that murderous rage and try to kill someone else. The best thing you can probably do at this point is stay calm, keep your head high, and try not to die for the next eight days.

Helpfully, Rage will have restocked her armory for the event, for those of you have yet to arm themselves. Additionally, for a limited time only, the armory will be stocked with bear traps, tripwire (in both 'general wire' and 'barbed wire' flavor), and voice recorders. Use all of them, use none of them, just get on out there and kill each other!

Oh, and one last thing...

► This log covers April 15th-23rd.
► 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!
► Did your assassin catch up to you? Please remember to hit up our death post!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Letting the subject drop is fine with him, although talking about the event isn't a whole lot better.]

I know. It'll pass eventually though, just like everything else has.

[It better, anyway. And he just keeps waiting to see someone and instantly want to kill them, or have someone attack him for no reason, but it hasn't happened yet and maybe he'll get lucky and the whole thing will end before it does.]

[She huffs. 'Eventually' is too vague, and she's tired of that. 'Eventually' they'll get home. 'Eventually' she'll see Matt again. 'Eventually' she'll stop wanting to walk right up to each of the gods and punch them in the face. Except Delight. Delight's all right.]

Hey, nerdbrain. Question: do you think I'm pretty?

[Maybe joking around will take the edge off this murderous rage.]

[He gives an unimpressed look at her question; it would've been really creepy without the 'nerdbrain' part, but instead it's just kind of ridiculous. This whole situation is ridiculous.]

I think you look terrifying. Would that get me stabbed, or what?

[She smirks, and it probably looks more than a little weird with her makeup half done.]

If I were really Kuchisake Onna, you'd be so fucked right now.

[Brutal, bloody murder, pretty much.]

[He rolls his eyes, a hint of a grin crossing his face.]

If you were the real... Ghost lady whose name I would mangle, I would probably just be frozen in terror instead of saying stupid shit.

[A pause.]

What's supposed to happen if you don't answer, anyway?

[It's kind of awful how she wanted Chris to stumble over the words. He's a good sport about it, though. As for his question, she opens her mouth to answer, then frowns.]

You know, there's like, a ton of things you could say to get away from her, but nobody mentions saying nothing. She'd probably just get impatient with you and kill you anyway, though. Like, how dare you ignore her, do you think you're better than her or something?

[Oooh that's good, she's going to keep that in mind in case Rhys tries to get away with not answering.]

[Rude, Emily. At least he knew better than to try.]

Huh. Yeah, probably.

[That'd be his luck.]

What is it that does let you get away?

You could tell her she's average or ask her if she thinks you're pretty, and she'll get confused long enough that you can run away -- though she's really fucking fast, so I dunno. You could give her some amber hard candy and she'd be really happy and just forget all about you. Oh, and there's this weird trick where you say 'pomade' six times and she'll just run away from you.

[Look, man, she doesn't make this shit up, she just hears and retells it.]

[He listens to that for a few seconds, and okay sure the first part sounds logical enough and the amber candy is a little strange but he knows these legends often have cultural elements and he's probably just missing the context for this one. That last part, though--]

Assuming this was like, real, how would anyone have figured that out.

[She shrugs.]

Dumb luck, probably. People in folk tales are lucky like that.

[He's quiet for a moment at that, but then just decides to say what he's thinking.]

You know, we're those lucky idiots from folk tales now.

[It's weird--so, so weird, because they'd been so normal--but it's true.]

[Damn.

He's right. How else does it make sense that Emily knew to hold completely still when the elevator stopped and the wendigo was peering at her through the cracks in the wood? Or how she lit a fire with one of the flares to buy her some time to run away?

She lowers the eyeliner and the mirror she's holding, resting her arms on the table as she thinks about that for a few seconds.]

Goddamn. [She pauses.] Nobody better go tempt fate on that mountain just to see if it's true. That's how the unlucky idiots from folk tales get killed.

Give it ten years and morons at sleepovers are going to dare their friends to spend the night there.

[It's a really morbid joke, and it's not even a joke; it'll probably happen. The only fortunate thing is that the mountain is so remote that getting to it would take a lot more effort than most kids would bother with. Chris doesn't know for sure if there are any wendigos left or not, but the spirits are certainly there and the mountain is dangerous enough even without the supernatural monsters.]

[Again, he's right. She scoffs this time.] They won't make it up there unless they're mountain goats.

[It was hard enough to get up there when they'd been invited and were familiar with the route and the cable cars and the rest.

But that's good. Leave the wendigos there forever. Leave everything there forever.

Except--]

Do you know if they went to look for Beth after they rescued everyone? [Well, Beth's head, but--she's not going to say it like that.]

[He hopes she's right on that first part; there's nothing wrong with the cable cars, so they could still be used, but it is a ton of effort. It probably wouldn't be worth it except to the most dedicated of idiots, and since the lodge burned down there's no appealing place to spend a night to prove how tough they are.

Her question is a surprise and he looks over at her, then away again. He doesn't know for the sure the answer, but...]

I think um... I-I think they were going to go back. To look for Josh.

[The police had asked about him, and Chris had told them the only place he could think of to look for him. The others probably had as well.]

I-I don't... I-I got here before I had a chance to like, talk to you or anyone else after the whole thing with the police, so um... You might've asked them yourself. About Beth.

[This is all so messed up.]

[It's so fucking weird to hear about things that happened later in the night, things she may have said or done, things she should know firsthand. It's like some stupid time travel shit.

Emily hates it.

But she knows herself well enough to guess what she might've said. Or so she hopes, anyway. That night pushed her so far out of normal life.]

I bet I did. I mean, I would've, if it... God, this is shit. How do you even talk about your future self. I would, definitely. She should, like, be buried right. And the Washingtons should get all the things of theirs I found down there.

[At least that much she has done. Josh has the locket. The glasses, Emily had left behind.]

Yeah, I mean, I can't imagine you wouldn't have mentioned it.

[Partially because the police asked them so many questions; it had felt surreal and endless, even though it had surely only been a few hours. Despite his exhaustion and injuries and the mental shock of the entire situation he does remember most of what they asked him, and while some of it had been normal stuff, other parts had been...]

I um... I dunno if they'll believe us though. They didn't believe me about...

[He blinks a few times, shifting his gaze to the wall.]

They didn't believe me about how the stranger died. They wanted me to say it was one of us that did it.

[They obviously weren't taking the wendigo story seriously, which he honestly can't blame them for, but... It causes problems. What if the police don't believe them about the mines? They're obviously incompetent anyway, considering they hadn't found Hannah, so who knows. Maybe they wouldn't want evidence that contradicts the nice, simple story that at least one of the eight friends that went up to the mountain might have been capable of--and decided to commit--murder.

This is all so messed up.]

[That makes sense. Emily wouldn't have believed her friends either if she hadn't witnessed the wendigos herself. She might even have blamed them for the flamethrower guy's death, too. Which... is a problem. A death like that can't feasibly be ruled accidental.

And neither can Beth's, if all that's left of her is her head.]

Maybe... maybe if we told them we were partying too hard that night, they'd let it go.

[She hopes she sounds more convinced than she feels. If it were her being told that story, she wouldn't buy it. There's probably nothing they could come up with that would convince her they hadn't turned into killers up there.]

[He gives her a look for that, because he knows she's just trying to find some sort of possibility this is all going to be okay, but...]

Considering we already have a history of people dying when we party too hard I don't think they're gonna take that as an excuse.

[It's a little blunt but he doesn't mean it harshly; it's just the truth. They'd do a whole lot better blaming the whole thing on Josh's prank combined with trauma-induced group hallucinations, but the idea of using Josh as their way out of trouble for this is too awful to really think about doing.]

[Yeah okay, at least he's putting his nerds smarts to good use here. If she were the one who had to explain why what she'd said was wrong, she'd be even more pissed than Rage is making her.]

We're fucked no matter what we tell them, aren't we.

[She tries to hide just how much that scares her, by picking up the mirror and inspecting the side of her face that's done. Jail isn't exactly an environment Emily would do well in. Or prison, for that matter. Then again, her parents could probably fork over the money to keep her on the outside, but what would become of her life, her plans? What about the others?

Since when does staying here sound like the less complicated option?]

We're pretty fucked, yeah.

[He's come to terms with that since he and Ashley first talked about the issue, but it's still terrifying. It's not bad enough that they all went through what they did, but to have to fear being charged with murder and a whole list of other offenses is just...

He takes a deep breath and tries to think of what they have in their favor, both to reassure himself and Emily.]

But I mean, we already know the police can't do their jobs; we're American, not Canadian, so there's a whole problem with jurisdiction and they'd only have circumstantial evidence at best. And the lodge probably didn't burn enough to destroy like, some of the things that back up our story.

[Like the bodies of the wendigos, or at least the bones. And if the fire didn't spread to the basement, there are tapes and the stranger's journal and other things that can help prove they're telling the truth. But if not...]

Besides, they'd um... It'd probably be me or Mike they'd think did it.

[So Emily's probably in the clear. Chris and Mike have the most motive to have killed Josh, and they're the last ones to have see him if the police didn't believe the wendigo portion of the story.]

I'm pretty sure American police will want in on a possible murder investigation.

[Being honest, keeping it real. This, incidentally, is why Emily is never getting anything from Hope.]

You and Mike? [She frowns.] For what, almost killing me in the basement? [That would cover Mike, but not Chris, not without also implicating Ashley, and Chris didn't say that.]

Edited (html) 2016-04-27 15:58 (UTC)

Yeah. Probably.

[He shakes his head at the question, though that's another issue entirely, if Emily says--or said, or whatever--that Mike threatened to shoot her.]

No, um... After we found out Josh was behind the prank, we took him out to the shed to make sure he wasn't going to hurt anyone. That's where Mike came running into the Lodge from after you got back; the plan was he'd stay with him until morning. Then the flamethrower guy showed up, and you know what he said about the wendigos and Josh, and...

[It's hard to talk about this; but Emily knows the story from that point. Chris and the stranger went out to get Josh, and only Chris came back.]

So if the police don't believe our story about the wendigos, then... Mike and I were the last people to see Josh, and after everything we had the most motive to want to hurt him, so...

[So they're the obvious choices to blame everything on. Since Chris was also the last person to see the stranger, and had known Josh the longest and was one of the direct targets of the prank, he has the sickening feeling he's going to be the main suspect in everything the moment the police really think about it.]

Edited 2016-04-28 03:07 (UTC)

[Oh. Of course. Shit.]

Well, we'd all say we know it wasn't you. They could put us through lie detector tests or ask us all separately, and we'd all tell the same story.

[Somehow, though, she thinks even that might not be enough. But goddamn, Emily would try. And she's pretty sure the others would, too.]

Besides, Mike was the one playing fucking hero all night. [Well, once. In the basement. In regards to her.] If anyone is a suspect, it's him.

[Which may not make Chris feel any better, but it's still true. Mike was the one being reckless, while Chris took the time to ask questions and try to make things right. Well, except in the basement, but ultimately that had been Mike's choice to make.]

[He nods a little at her words because yeah, he knows the others will back him up, just as he will for them if needed, and it is a little reassuring. They're in this together, and that's their strongest defense; there are five of them with the same story, six if Jess is alive, seven if Matt is. As crazy as the story is, so many people telling it honestly makes it hard to argue with.

But that makes him wonder what would've happened if less of them had made it. If there'd only been a few of them that had gotten out, or even just one; god, what a horrible thing to imagine. A single survivor's life would be even more destroyed them theirs already are; they would've lost everyone, and no one would ever believe them, and--

Thinking about this isn't helpful. They survived. At least five of them, maybe as many as seven, made it out. They're alive, and even if their ordeal isn't over just because they got off the mountain doesn't mean there's no hope that someday they'll be okay.]

Yeah. As long as we all tell the truth, we've got a chance.

[And at least their parents are all well-off enough to afford good lawyers, especially since he knows the Washingtons will have an army of them.

At the last comment he frowns a little, understanding why she might be a little bitter about Mike, but...]

Well, hopefully they don't go after Mike either. We've all been through enough.

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