hadriel_logs | Event Log: Dead Ringers

Entry tags:

Event Log: Dead Ringers

Who: Everyone participating in the event!
What: The event log for the Dead Ringers event!
Where: All around the city
When: January 16th-January 25th
Warnings: Evil doubles, so we can assume manipulation, violence, murder, and maybe some nasty words

Everything seems normal on the morning of the 16th - actually, everything seems normal about the city for the entirety of this event. Nothing is strange, nothing is obviously wrong. Well, except that the population has mysteriously doubled, and the new residents each look exactly like one of the old residents. So weird! Definitely not ominous at all.

At least until your new double gets down to business. After all, their only goal is to ruin your life, and that can take any form. Smashing your favorite coffee cup? Telling your worst enemy they're right? Kissing someone else in front of your girlfriend? Brutally murdering you and then hiding your body in a closet so they can more effectively destroy your life? The possibilities are truly endless, and the only way to protect yourself is to kill your double first. They're not really open to negotiation, after all - but they sure might pretend to be in order to trick you.

So watch your back, and try to make sure that really is your best friend and not an evil clone masquerading as them. Boy, that would be awkward. If you can stick it out until January 25th, good for you! But if you didn't manage to and your double survives until the end - well, just as a final 'fuck you', there's a chance you'll come back to life and remember every awful thing your double did. Hey, at least that'll make it easier to fix, right?

► This log covers January 16th-January 25th.
► 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!
► If your evil clone happens to take you out, please let us know here, and remember that you will not revive until the event is over.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That gets the ice alien to bark a laugh--a harsh and raucous sound also more reminiscent of Algidus than of Glacius' quiet, rumbling sounds of mirth. "If I did, this place would be nothing but a smoking crater, and we would be running free! No, my friend, though your optimism is... amusing."

But he doesn't seem like he's going to clarify, as Carlisle is moving as if he's about to get out of bed, and the ice alien wonders if he's really as weak as he claimed. He shoots him a sharp look. "Where do you think you are going?"

That laugh gets a distinctly uncomfortable look from Carlisle, and his question even more so. It's not the gentle, concerned approach that he's used to being offered by his roommate, but one more demanding, intimidating... and all-too familiar.

His brow knits, the apprehensive grin growing across him as he tries to stifle his nerves. He's worrying for nothing, he assures himself. Or he's seeing things that aren't thee, finding threads of commonality between the two aliens simply because he now has Algidus on the brain. They are very different beings, though. He knows that perhaps better than anyone, having dealt with them both extensively.

"I thought I would- I would get a drink," he says, his hands coming together. "Stretch my legs a bit." He pauses, finally working up the nerve to ask: "Is- is something wrong? Did something happen that I should know about?"

"You drink too much," the double scoffs, apparently not as concerned with being discrete--or maybe it's just that he's simply too preoccupied to put as much effort into it right now. "Besides, didn't we just agree that you need to be staying in bed? You shouldn't move around too much until you have recovered fully... and... I need you here."

In a small, enclosed space where he can be used to lure his original, and where he'll be too close to the inevitable conflict for Glacius to act out too much. He knows that saying as much won't make the clergyman particularly inclined to play along, however, so instead he trains his voice towards something more familiar.

"Stay with me just a moment longer, please. Something is indeed wrong, but I intend to resolve it soon."

That seems to give Carlisle pause, and after a moment's hesitation, his concerns for his friend manage to stifle his innate paranoia, so much so that he doesn't even scoff at Glacius' comment about his drinking habits. The softer tone fools him as his own expression laces with worry; however, there is that touch of color that hits his cheeks at the alien's earnest request. It's not often he's so openly asked to stay because he's needed. That much is usually implied, but it's nice to hear it every once in a while, especially from someone he so genuinely cares about.

"Of- of course, Glacius," he returns, settling on the edge of the bed for the moment. "I- I suppose a bit longer won't hurt. Is there anything I can do? Aside from staying here, of course."

Edited 2017-01-23 03:41 (UTC)

Glacius' double pauses, surprised and moved by those earnest sentiments--they were something that he thought a creature like him would never hear again, and even if the only reason he's receiving such kindness now is because he's preying upon a bond that technically belongs to someone else... he can't help but want to hold onto it for as long as he can. Besides, does he not deserve this as much as Glacius does? He didn't ask to be created a mockery, he wants to feel valid again...

"My mind is... troubled," the double admits, feeling his walls come down around Carlisle in that old, familiar way. "Tell me... have you ever felt that you have been treated unfairly for circumstances beyond your control?"

The topic isn't a happy one right off the bat, but Carlisle can't help that nervous snicker that escapes him. "I believe you know enough about my life to know the answer to that. I am cursed, and while some of my misfortune is on me... even I must admit that some of it is not."

He wouldn't admit that to just anyone, and even now he worries his goddess might hear such a confession; however, he also knows he can confide in Glacius, and that the alien is already aware of how grim his past -- and his future -- could be.

The ice alien nods somberly. "You and I, we don't deserve the scrutiny and suspicion that has been thrown in our faces. We should not have to prove the validity of our existence." Also a grievance that Algidus had seemed to share with the universe--for both of them were creatures cut from something more acceptable, left only with the purpose to inflict suffering. Both of them would also like very much to be more than that, however... and felt that they had the same obstacle standing in their way.

"If you were given the chance, would you not do anything in your power to change your circumstances?"

Carlisle's brow furrows again, tighter. Proving the validity of his existence sounds odd, coming from Glacius, who has always been so stalwart in his reasons for living, for being. He knows he has a purpose, isn't out to prove that he is worth the air he breathes. That is far more something Carlisle himself should be worried about... but not Glacius.

The clergyman narrows his eyes a fraction; he's heard these words before, even in the same voice... but that voice didn't belong to Glacius. He shifts on the bed, tearing his eyes away from the alien before him -- they land on his communicator on the night stand.

"It is not my place to decide such things," he mutters, "nor am I entirely absolved of blame for what has happened throughout my life."

"I didn't say that. But you are the ruler of your own life, and it is certainly not your fault you are cursed." It's not his fault humans were and always would be brutal creatures, not his fault his family and his village followed a barbaric ritual where they threw a child into a situation where he could easily be mauled--

He notices the way Carlisle's eyes break from him, follows them to his communicator, and he knows exactly what is running through the man's head. A spike of resentment overwhelmes him.

"Relax, human. I'm not going to hurt you," he rumbles out, and after a pause he tilts his head and adds on, "...Even if you wouldn't hesitate to do so to me. You and I, we are the same. And yet you would forsake me so easily. Why does Glacius deserve to live, but I do not? Do you think I asked for this?"

Human. Carlisle's eyes dart back to Glacius -- the false one, he now knows for certain -- at the term, his gut plummeting. It's too familiar, too much like Algidus: the voice, the tone, the words, the way he looks at him, is so sure of his betrayal... it's all there. He is practically the green alien in all but appearance.

Carlisle cannot begin to express his discomfort, how appalled he is by the conclusions his mind is starting to draw. He bites them back as he stiffens, his fingers curling against the sheets beneath him, his convictions rising in his chest.

"You didn't ask for this," his chokes out, "but we are not the same. You- you are a figment of the false gods, a creation wearing his face."

"Wearing his face? My friend, it goes far deeper than that. I share his flesh, his blood, his past and his memories. Everything that he is and was. I have known every painful blow and shed every drop of blood on your species' behalf that he has," the ice alien growls lowly, "And I grow tired of your betrayals. Just because I woke up one day and found that I was other does not make me lesser. We are both outcasts, both victims of circumstances we did nothing to deserve--don't sit there and try to act like you are better!"

Edited 2017-01-23 20:34 (UTC)

Carlisle was used to being afraid of Algidus: the green alien made no attempt to hide his love of intimidation, had no qualms at all with using his brute strength and impressive size to get what he wanted. He had rare moments of kindness hidden beneath his bluster, but they were so few and far between that fright was a more familiar feeling when dealing with him. Being afraid of Glacius -- or his visage, at least -- is painfully new.

Cowering as the false Glacius' temper rises, Carlisle skitters back into the bed, his limbs fighting against him the entire way. "Wh- what do you want from me?" he asks, his voice trembling with the rest of him as he wonders where the real Glacius is... and if he's even still alive. His own double had nearly done him in, after all, and while Glacius is a warrior, he's not impervious to all attacks. If his twin ambushed him...

His hands shake, his chest hurting. He doesn't want to think about this -- not now, not when he's faced with a being straight out of his nightmares.

"I already told you I have no intention of hurting you," the ice alien waves a hand dismissively. "To be honest, I'm not sure I could even if I wanted to. We are--" were? "--so awfully close, after all."

He lets that lay between them for a moment, a reminder of just how powerful the friendship that the clergyman and the alien is. But then he ends up carrying on, "All I want in this world is to take back what Glacius stole from me. My technology, my purpose, my friends. I want my old life back--I want to be the rightful one. That's it. Not too much to ask, is it?"

"Stole... from you."

There are those threads again, that knot in Carlisle's mind working itself out bit by bit, reforming in his heart. He's heard these claims before, and thought that they surely had no truth to them.

Different worlds, different times. Perhaps there's a far more embittered Carlisle out there somewhere as well, and not just one conjured by the false gods of Hadriel. How different would he be if taken somewhere else? If instead of the Tranquility, he'd found himself in an even more terrible place? Would he be all that different from the human equivalent of the aberrants Glacius has spoken of?

"I see," he utters, his eyes cloudy as he mourns the loss of someone he's sure he'll never see again -- not in the full, not like this. "You... you aren't him," he continues, not specifying exactly who he means. "You don't have to be him."

"Yes, I do," the double responds... but not as aggressively now. Instead, his voice is tinted with confusion and hurt. Carlisle speaks the words that both he and Algidus have so desperately needed to here, and yet he knows deep down that there can be no escape from his own wretched reality. Even now, he can feel the god's directives beating against the inside of his skull, clashing with what he used to be. How can one escape when their very existence has been twisted up into some new, darker shape?

"What is becoming of the other doubles right now as we speak? Once people learn the truth about what we are, we are regarded simply as dangerous monsters. If I am not him, then I am as good as dead. All of you will see to that. And if you don't, the gods will--they never keep their failed creations around for long."

Edited 2017-01-23 21:14 (UTC)

"I would turn against any mimic who sought to hurt the other them and take their place," he responds quietly. "My own stabbed me in the back and left me to die while he came here and tried to ruin what—"

He pauses, his own private wounds bleeding onto his face. Revelations about Algidus aren't the only ones he'll have today. "... what happiness I have here."

"We can still have that," the clone attempts, feeling his yearning for the life that was taken from him burn anew in his chest. Of course he knows it won't work--he is a broken thing, made in the shape of another, and no one could ever truly care for a thing like him--but he refuses to accept his reality without fighting. "My feelings for you have not changed, Carlisle. All I need is chance--do not let me be erased!

He flinches at the hurt in the false Glacius' voice, so much like the real one... so much like Algidus.

"And what would you have me do?" he implores. "Let you erase him instead?"

The ice alien opens his gills as if he's about to answer, but a sudden noise from the stairwell draws his attention--his operculum snap shut and he cocks his head up, listening intently. Maybe it's just another resident of the Spire coming home after a long day..? Maybe he can keep pretending, even if only for a few more brief minutes, that he and the clergyman can still be friends...

... But no, those footsteps are definitely drawing nearer, coming to the door to this apartment. The double hisses out a low curse, then--thinking quickly--knocks the lamps that is providing light to the room violently to the ground and liquidizes immediately. In the sudden, explosive shift between light and dark, it's impossible to see where he's gone, if he's lurking in a dark corner or if he's slipped back out under the crack in the door... and the sound has drawn his original's attention. In the very least, the double doesn't leap out to attack him on his way in.

"Carlisle?! What was that sound? I'm coming in!" Glacius calls out to his friend as he takes quick, long strides across the living room--already a stark contrast between the way his double had infiltrated unannounced. The door swings open and the ice alien moves immediately to his friend's side, guarding him as he observes the broken device on the ground.

"What happened?" He asks urgently, his green eyes fastening back on Carlisle, scanning him for any new injuries. "Are you unharmed?"

Lacking the keen senses the icy giants possess, Carlisle has no idea what it is that so draws the false Glacius' attention, his eyes narrowing as the alien looks away like a startled deer. Next thing he knows, the double has thrown the lamp on the nightstand to the ground, plummeting the room into blinding darkness. The lingering image of the room dances in front of Carlisle's eyes as the door swings open, giving him just enough light to make out the approaching form of the true Glacius.

Or at least he hopes he's the real one. Carlisle's eyes dart around, trying to find where in the shadows the double must be hiding, his paranoia back in full force as it shakes his entire frame. "N- no, I'm..."

He hesitates, not meeting Glacius's glowing eyes. He wants so desperately to keep them from fighting one another, to protect his friend from harm... yet he wonders just how much of the real Glacius the double has within him, how much hurt he must be feeling at this supposed betrayal. Carlisle reminds himself that this mimic is not Algidus, but his heart can't help but ache as though he is.

"You should leave, Glacius,' he whispers quietly, fear in his eyes. "Now."

Due to the shaking and the shifty eyes, Glacius is not at all convinced that nothing has disturbed his friend. He scans the room again, only to have his focus drawn back to Carlisle when he speaks up again. There's something in his voice that's deeply unsettling, something that suggests that much more than just his usual nerves is eating away at him. The ice alien steps closer to his friend, placing his hands on the bedside.

"Leave? No, I'm not leaving you," Glacius shakes his head, completely aware of the way the shadows shift behind him, a shape quickly taking form...

... And then a loud CRACK breaks the silence in the room, followed by a resounding shriek from the otherworldly being as his entire body goes rigid with agony. Shards of the alien's icy skin and a stream of freezing purple blood spray across the foot of the bed from a gruesome wound as a jagged, icy lance is punched forcibly through his middle. Wherever the double was hiding--likely under one of the pieces of furniture in the room-- he has seized his chance upon seeing his original's complete focus on the recovering clergyman.

Glacius, however, is not one to be done in by mere impalement. He lowers his head, glares down at the blood-slicked point protruding from his abdomen, emits a powerful growl... and then his whole body shimmers once as he prepares to liquidize and free himself. Unfortunately, his double is all too familiar with these tactics, and has brought with him something to stop the process in its tracks, something that Carlisle himself had told him where to find: he targets the most vulnerable spot of Glacius' anatomy, seeking to overwhelm his coherent thought with further agony. With his opponent's gills flared, the double's free hand loops a long and thick strand of the clergyman's fanged ivy around his lower neck and pulls it tight, digging the thorns deep into those biological vents... and the alien's voice changes from a snarl to a howl, once that quickly chokes over the blood welling up.

With Glacius' resistances temporarily overwhelmed, the double draws the lance from his middle and shoves him forcefully to the ground. The original claws desperately at his neck, trying to remove the barbs that have sunk deep into his throat while the double pounds mercilessly at his icy armor. It isn't until he's cracked through Glacius' skin in multiple places and left him beaten to pulp that he seems to stop, straightening up as seething breaths billow from his gills... and then raises his arm, allowing it to take the form of a lance again, clearly intending to end this morbid display right here and now.

One would think Carlisle is getting used to having Glacius' blood sprayed across him, but no, he isn't. He's horrified as the true Glacius is impaled before his very eyes, freezing liquid spattering across him, dotting his glasses and skin. He's so petrified that he can't move, can't think, can't breathe. It's in that moment that he realizes he made a grave mistake in not warning Glacius immediately, in hoping for a more peaceful resolution.

This is his fault, he thinks. His head aches along with his chest. "Please, don't—" he whimpers as a sharp pang runs through his skull.

Unable to see in the darkness and terrified of what is happening before him, Carlisle is absolutely immobilized by the brutality on display. He can't even tell one alien from the other in the darkness, their silhouettes melding in the light from the doorway, the only tells as to what is happening their glowing eyes and the sounds of strangulation. He has to do something, but what? How is he supposed to help with it being so dark?

"S- stop, please!" he cries, drawn to his senses by another strong throb behind his eyes. He's not trapped in the dark, not completely helpless. There must be something he can do.

He conjures a ball of light into his hand, and in the pale illumination can see one Glacius rising over the broken form of the other, his arm forming a lance... and he knows in that instant which alien is which. Even at his most threatened, Glacius would struggle to kill, and absolutely would not turn on another of his kind, not even one trying so desperately to kill him, to take his place in the world.

His fingers curl, his eyes wide with abject horror as a singular thought runs through his head in that split second. Do something. His voice rings out loud and clear, invisible tendrils of influence reaching through the room, grasping at everyone in their path.

I said stop!

Influence snakes through the room to coil around the minds of the two beings locked in conflict, and one of them, his mind already overwhelmed, acquiesces immediately to the command. Glacius' body stops shaking, his hands stop scrabbling at his neck even as blood continues to spill from his shredded gills and various wounds. Something very different happens when the words manifest in the double's mind, however.

In that moment Carlisle will know that he's touched upon something far deeper than he could have perceived with his own human senses. It's as if he's touched his fingers to the surface of a placid lake, and now the ripples spread forth, wider and wider, spreading out in every direction until a powerful current surges forth. He has touched upon the ice alien's will, an actual metaphysical force that has kept them going time and time again when their bodies have been broken--the force that has made countless abominations and would-be threats ultimately back down from their conflict-- and it will not be subdued easily. Even now a deafening reverberation has picked up, something like an alien heartbeat, stubborn and strong and full of life, pounding so loudly it seems as if it's trying to drown out the conflicting words.

All this is perceived in the clergyman's mind; with his eyes, the double stands above Glacius as if frozen in place, but his eyes still burn with intent. The thundering sound and sweeping current intensifies, and the ice alien answers back against the would-be command.

Why?

Edited 2017-01-24 04:28 (UTC)

Carlisle stiffens as his own influence wraps around him, and he fights to keep it from overwhelming him, dominating him in the same way he would anyone else who suffered under his compulsion.

Well, almost anyone. A presence makes itself known as his magic flows throughout the room, an uncontrolled current against a torrential force: it is strong and intimidating, shaking him so much that he almost buckles beneath its will. Carlisle brings a hand to his head, the sudden impact of such a flood threatening to drown him as it demands an answer.

"I won't let you do this!" he shouts over the thundering in his head, battered by both his own influence and the fortitude of the other Glacius. "I'm- I'm sorry, but I can't!"

This is the end of suffering, the double attempts to rationalize--is he arguing with Carlisle, or with himself... or both? His, and mine. Let us bring it all to a close!

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