[log] Event: Breaking Down [open]

[snowblindmods]

Characters: anyone pulled into the Escherverse
Location: Escherverse
Date: Morning 220 - Night 221
Summary: All alone/Even when I was a child/I've always known/There was something to be frightened of
Warnings: general horror, violence warnings; make sure to put more specific warnings in the subject lines!

Comments

cw grievous injury, blood, hand issues

[thewarningafter]

[After long days in darkness, even now Stephen craves the light. He's confused, disoriented by the fog that settled over his brain and let the world leech away into this place (no Prophet now, no one to help, and if there were he would take back what they have stolen). Sometimes his every move is agony, sometimes he feels nothing; always he pushes his mangled body onward, seeping stardust.

He doesn't want this. At times he can see and understand what he has become and at those times he wants nothing more than to hide away so others can't be hurt by him. Whether he'll still feel that way when he sees someone taunting him with their light, though...that remains to be seen.]

[devoutish]

[Alfie keeps his mouth closed as much as possible, because he doesn't like the light to be visible - he doesn't know what it means, but he doesn't need to; he can guess that it's nothing good. Speaking of things that are nothing good, he sees something moving on the other side of a half-wall - something large and lumbering, dragging itself across the floor.

He tries to move silently, to get a better look - is it a person? No, surely it's an anomaly - but his cane clacks quietly against the floor.]

[rubikscomplex]

[House feels small. He feels incredibly small in this place. The Escherworld he trips into seems to be a room that stretches out impossibly far, checked block pillars rising up like sky scrapers. He's in a forest of them, heart pounding with the thought that he's going to be stuck doing this again and again, killed by horrible monsters when he sees the first trail of stardust around one of the pillars.

The doctor shrinks back, tries to quietly retreat around the other side, go unnoticed by whatever the hell that-]

Strange?

[His voice is higher than usual, pitched for the fear lancing through every part of him, some of it his own, more of it from people he can't name.]

[bywolves]

[ Royce follows the stardust.

It's glittery, like light, almost. The wretched, awful cloak monster crawls after it for a while, jittering down walls and ceilings and floors until it catches up. There's a long pause as it just watches the anomaly in front of it shift and shudder through several different painful iterations before wheezing out: ]

Strange.

[ It'd almost be funny, if they weren't where they are. If Royce wasn't slowly remembering who he is, who Strange is. ]

[spoileralert]

[ Steph can't see the thing, but she can hear it: a strange combination of things dragging on the ground and something she can only describe as sparkling.

She stays on the walls, one hand always in contact so she doesn't run into anything accidentally. ]

Hello? Who's there?

[advanced]

[Bucky has his teeth clamped tightly shut to disguise the light inside, but the soft glow of it sometimes manages to seep out through his lips anyway.

He's prowling as quietly as he can, trying to avoid a fight, trying to avoid his friends. But then he sees something coming towards him, and he knows that his luck has run out.]

If you can understand me, stay back.

[bywolves]

[ Before anything, anybody in the general vicinity of the anomaly that was Royce will feel the creeping, awful dread rise up in their throats. It curls cold and desolate around the spine and digs deep into their hearts, making it hard to breathe, hard to run. When they turn, when they go to look, all they see at first is a cloak. It's ragged and torn, and it moves unnaturally, jerky, dragging across the floor like a person might.

But there's nothing in the cloak. It's just too much fabric, void-black and making almost rusty sounds as it jitters unnaturally through the escherverse. Like knives dragging against an old metal wall, complete with horrific gurgling sounds, a death rattle of a wheezing breath, in and out, painful.

And when it gets close to someone, the hood of the cloak looks up, and there's nothing, no light, because it was stolen from him. Something took it and it wants the light back. All that's left is a gasping maw, filled all the way to the back of its throat with jagged rows of rusty, metal knife-like teeth. ]

[devoutish]

[Alfie would know that cloak anywhere, and it stops him in his tracks. He's been looking for Royce in this mess of a place, walking up walls and down upside-down staircases, but he didn't want to find him like this. The only thing that stops him from turning around and trying to get away immediately is his earlier run-in with Stephen. He'd been normal-ish, despite his appearance - he'd been able to communicate and recognize people. So instead of running, Alfie approaches.]

Royce.

[howdull]

[Sherlock is barely himself any longer.

He's shorter than he is usually, slighter too, and dressed in an impeccably tailored suit. His head, however, is a mess. An unhinged jaw that makes a loud cracking noise with each breath that sounds almost like a gunshot, and the back of his head completely blown off with brain matter and blood soaking down his collar.

He moves slowly, jerkily, and when he raises his hands there's only guns in their place. He's trying to hold onto his sense of self, but it's difficult when he hears the knives coming.]

You're nothing that can help me.

[Another one like him, missing light.]

[tidalflame]

[Zidane lopes through the twisted corridors, paying no mind to the illogic of it all.

Memoria was like this... An impossible place.

Dwelling on the impossibility won't get him anywhere.

He dashes around a corner and stoops into a low crouch when he sees a cloaked figure lurching towards him.]

Yo, you a monster or not?

cw: eye gore/injury, blood, and mental effects

[jumpthegun]

[John has always dreamed of being a taller man, maybe just a bit bigger. His size had been a running punchline in the Army... and in his life. He hadn't wanted it to happen like this. He's a dog now, a giant, black beast of pure muscle that runs ten feet long from nose to tail tip. His shoulders are at the height of a standard draft horse, and his fur glows a sickeningly off shade of green.

In his mouth--his mouth without the light--are two jagged rows of dagger-sharp, silvery teeth. Every time he tries to close his mouth, they stab into his gums. Sticky black blood drips from his mouth as he limps forward. His eyes are a glowing red. Every eye is. They litter his back and chest making sight incredibly disorienting. At least some of them have been gouged out. Stolen. Always stolen from him. It's infuriating. They took his light and his eyes. They take everything. And he wants everything back.

His left foreleg is heavily scarred, in particular, all of the eyes cut out, and he's slower moving for the injury that still oozes with blood. All around him is that green aura and for those it touches, they may begin to feel phantom pains, experience phantom tremors in their limbs. Maybe a limp that brings them to a speed that John can catch up with. Maybe just a tremor in the hand that makes holding onto anything a challenge.]

A - Positive or Neutral CR
[For those he knows, those he cares even a little for, John can usually hold back and snarl out words. His voice is a rough growl, but undeniably him when he speaks.]

Get away. Run.


B - Neutral, Negative, or No CR
[For those he doesn't know, for those he hates, and even for those he doesn't have much feeling about one way or another, it's impossible to stave off the desire to go after them. To make them pay. His light is gone and they have theirs. They have their eyes. He'll take them both.

If he sees them, he'll howl and start racing toward them, ready to bring them down to get their light between his own jaws.]

A (doing this after her light is taken, so day 221)

[spoileralert]

[ Steph is clinging to the walls, once more wandering this very strange place very carefully. She kind of wishes she could see it. She can't help wondering what it looks like, since it clearly defies the laws of physics at every turn.

Her light is gone, but that doesn't mean it isn't still dangerous. Especially when she's blind, and can't run without tripping over something or other.

She hears the snarling, and she can tell which way she needs to go, but she doesn't want to risk falling and ending up easy prey. And besides, she knows that voice... ]

John? I... I don't think I can. I can't see anything.

B (before his light gets taken by Brian)

[grimalkid]

[He's still confused by what's even going on, but he knows that a giant dog is a bad thing to appear here. And he needs to get away. Problem is, one of his legs is seizing up. He arches his back, hissing.]

Stay away! I'm warning you!

B

[armoured]

[The howl is at least warning that something is coming after him, and Al spins to immediately drop into a fighting stance. Whatever this is, or whoever this was, clearly they're not that person any longer.]

Stop this!

[He's not holding out much hope that words will work, which is why he's aiming a pretty hard uppercut at the jaw of the giant dog at the same time.]

[howdull]

[John is not the only one to have been overcome by his fear, Sherlock has also been transformed. His body and face are reminiscent of Moriarty, down to the way the back of his head seems to have been blown clean away, but he has guns for hands and he walks with the painful shamble of someone with broken legs.

His eyes narrow when John's voice issues from the beast, the sound of it allowing him to retain more of himself than he's been managing so far tonight.]

The Hound, John, really?

[He can't help the incredulous question, accompanied by the hideous crack of his distended jaw. There are better things to fear, aren't there?]

cw: eye horror, one (1) bee, mental effects

[godsspeed]

[ The form Castiel has taken here is not his true form, precisely - he feels wrong, truncated, abbreviated, like he's been compressed and whittled down into some simplified version of himself, a hasty drawing of a photograph of a reflection - and that's good, it means the humans and other mortals he encounters aren't at risk of burning away in his presence, but it's close enough that anyone who does see him will quickly come to understand just why the standard angelic greeting when manifesting on Earth is BE NOT AFRAID.

He's a towering figure, easily ten feet tall, with four black wings fanning out from his back and four heads - sabertooth cat, antelope, crow, honey bee - orbiting a blue-white flame that springs from a brazier of black and gold, hammered into the shape of an androgynous human torso. Four arms ending in clawed hands float at his "shoulders" and three rings of gold studded with dozens of blinking, shining eyes of all kinds encircle him, two above his heads and one around his waist. He has no legs to speak of, just a long wrapping of faded yellow cloth that billows and shifts as he floats above the ground.

He is awe-inspiring. He would be beautiful, if it weren't for the less than subtle hints that something is very wrong. Though still bright enough to hurt if stared at directly, his flame gutters and wavers, sometimes almost going out. A thick patina of rust creeps up his arms and has even progressed so far as to eat away holes in his chest, and his cloth wrappings are frayed, torn, and stained with something that looks suspiciously like very old blood. The cat's face hisses and snarls, wild-eyed with hunger; the antelope tosses its head and levels its horns at anything it sees, fearful and furious; the crow's feathers stand on end and its beak snaps aggressively; the bee isn't terribly expressive what with having a rigid exoskeleton face, but rest assured it's equally upset.

It's extremely disorienting, being suddenly made into this bizarre approximation of his real self - would be even if he weren't falling apart and decaying and rotting and dying in a way that angels do not. Even though he's shed his vessel, he still feels acutely the cold, the pain, and above all else an aching hunger. One thing will restore him, he knows. He needs the light that these lesser beings mortals carry with them. That will make this stop. That will preserve him.

Like some base creature, he stalks the twisting, illogical halls, his many eyes darting to and fro in search of someone to bring an end to all of this. ]

Day 221, after having her light stolen!

[spoileralert]

[ Steph has heard some pretty weird shit, feeling her way around this weird place. All sorts of animal noises, weird materials scraping against the ground.

The buzzing is new, though. ]

Is that a bee?

cw: eye horror

[absentconstellation]

A

The Cat has gotten accustomed enough to this space after his last visit that now he wanders with relative ease. He can even smell the people here, for the most part, which is a relief. He goes looking for anyone he might be able to help, or just friends he hasn't been able to visit in the waking world.

Only... is he bigger than he was a minute ago?

B

Something massive and dark lurks in the shadows. Even if you can't see it, you can feel it - an ancient sorrow, old as the stars, and the instinctive feeling that you are being hunted.

The shadows must be truly impressive to hide him, though, because the Cat is some ten feet tall now from head to front paws. He's built as much like a panther as like a housecat, but there's no mistaking those purple eyes: all 6 of them, 4 taking the place of ears, nose and mouth.

He stalks the strange halls and rooms of this space, looking for prey.

Evening of 221

[heroproceeding]

After his run in with Castiel, safe to say, Zack has... more of an idea of what's up than he'd almost like to know. To think that once they had been hunting for lights from monsters and now they've become the hunted. The concept isn't new. Anomalies have been hunting them all the past six months. But to know that it's the others now instead... That isn't even accounting for the other fears that tangle with them all, even as they travel. And no amount of experience as SOLDIER can entirely block it all out, not when it's constantly battering against the mental walls he tries to put up.

It's enough to get his heart in his throat when feels something different. Something that seems to sweep in and take over, drowning out the others, even his own. It's a deep seated sadness, like he's lived forever and seen too much of the same awful hardships over and over again. He can't place where such a feeling would come from, but it doesn't matter soon enough. Not when it also starts feeling like he's being watched from-

A glance behind him and all he can see are eyes. He doesn't know how he got so close, but he's not about to worry about that when he knows he's got to run.

"You know, much as you work that purple, I think you're going a little overboard there, buddy!"

for Davesprite, idk what all warnings yet!

[spoileralert]

[ It wasn't the intense feeling of deja vu that told her where she was. No, it was tripping and falling down a twisting spiral staircase, only to find herself upright again at the end of them with the nagging sensation that gravity had shifted more than once on the way down.

She was blind again, yes, but at least this time she had full use of both of her legs. She found a wall and stuck to it, feeling with her feet for any more unexpected pitfalls.

She was doing pretty well for herself too, she thought, when she became aware of a strange sound in the distance. She couldn't put her finger on what it was. ]

Hello? Is someone there?

blanket warning for body horror, blood, impalement + other injury, death imagery

[mrcreamsicles]

[Creaking. Stitches pulled too tight, holding together something that shouldn't have been constructed, and perhaps too inept to pull off the work aspired to—they strain with the effort, and it leads to the sound. Something dangles and sways, not attached right, brushing soft ends across the twisted flooring of the space they're in.]

[And there, isn't that what he was looking for?]

[This place is familiar, after all. Where the walls don't meet right, where the stairs twist strange directions, where gravity is a grand joke no one will explain. There were things then too that held lights in their mouths, and he knows very much that he needs one. His hands are just fine for grasping, even if half his scales are bent and dulled sequins. And he knows that face, too! He should go greet her, at the least.]

[CLACK.]

[The ventriloquist dummy hinge of his mouth snaps open-shut. He floats to the wall (that soft dragging, feathers on wood, his wing dangling down where the thread fails to hold it fast to the stump), but something louder would do better to let her know where he is. He angles his body 'til the end of the sword stuck through his chest can scraaaaaape across the wall behind.]

[He draws closer, if slowly. It's a good idea she had; he doesn't trust this space, either.]

[termineur]

A: Hunting

[ The moment he found himself in this place, all his features drained away. His entire body became nothing but shadow and darkness, and he had to fix it. Someone had stolen his very self away from him, and he had to get it back. At the very least, he had to get something back. If he had to take it from other people- well, that just meant he was more deserving, right? He had to have something, anything to call his own.

His neglected instincts kick back on, as he slinks silently towards any source of light he can find. He's already difficult to see, but he uses the opportunity to practically melt into the shadows he can find. After awhile, he's just looking for something other than the blank walls.

And- oh, yes, there's someone. He stalks them slowly, hoping to get close enough to reach his arm of black nothingness out... ]

B: Talking

[ Sometimes Sylar remembers what it was like to have a light. What it was like to talk and have opinions and desires that didn't consume him. He doesn't feel it, but he knows it happened at some point. So he croaks out some words, his voice low and thundering as it echoes through the space. ]

Hello? Anyone here?

[ He doesn't sound right, too monotone to be himself. But he hopes that it might lure someone with a light in. ]

Day 221, after having her light stolen, just to be safe

[spoileralert]

[ It's impossible not to hear that voice, echoing as it does off the walls. She recognizes it too, though there's something strange about it. Still, she turns in that direction. She doesn't have a light to be stolen, anymore. Maybe that will make her safe. ]

Gabriel? Is that you?

[0thingsonmymind]

Most people probably felt off in the spatially-disordered "escherverse," but Brian didn't have much of a problem with it. Walls becoming floors becoming ceilings didn't seem that much worse than doors leading to different places everytime you used them. With his sanity intact it was a bit disorienting, but fortunately for him when he's here he's much more focused on something else.

He needs light. They took it from him and he needs it back. Or, if he can't get his own, someone else's will do. Anyone's.

So he stalks through the hallways and stairwells, a too-tall-too-thin figure hunched over like a remnant of the anomaly that killed him. He wears an undone straight jacket, the sleeves dragging behind him and leaving trails of ice. His brown, scruffy hair has ice on the tips and his face is nothing but a black mask with only two slightly-glowing circles for eyes. He has no nose, and no mouth...at least not until he opens it. Then it opens much too wide, revealing a pure void of nothingness beyond it.

Even like this he is very good at remaining quiet and unseen. Sometimes someone might see him for a moment only to find he's suddenly not there...but instead is behind them, just out of reach.
Thankfully his presence can be felt by an unsettling coldness in the air. His presence may also bring a dulling of the senses and/or intellect, as well as possible random (minor but noticeable) personality changes.

Of course he's still carrying his tablet and filming.

[grimalkid]

[Cat-Eyed Boy notices the glowing eyes first. His own are glowing in the darkness to some extent as well.]

Hey. Who's there? [He doesn't feel the effects yet.]

cw: gore, mental affects

[24karat]

[ Somebody sounds like they're having a pretty good time amidst...everything. ]
[ The voice is an unrecognizable jumble, sounding almost as though two or three different people were speaking all at once-- every one of them is singing, utterly tuneless and without much of a grasp at all on the words to what can only be called an excuse for a song. It sounds almost like something from around a campfire at times, but the lyrics quickly delve into all manner of violence that most Boy Scout troops certainly wouldn't approve of. These tunes do not involve roasting smores, either. ]
[ Judging by the footsteps, this is all coming from one source, and they're moving along at a pretty good clip in no apparent direction. A soft metallic jingle and the sound of something splattering to the floor accompanies every step-- anyone coming across the figure's path after it's passed through will probably have no problems seeing that it's blood, and a pretty decent amount of it. In some places, the trail goes absolutely wild, with clear bursts of speed and circles making it more than a little irregular; clearly, whoever's losing it doesn't care much about it, if at all. ]

[ This person is making no attempts to hide. All the noise they're making doesn't matter-- they can be followed by that trail, and they're easy to see from down a hallway. The sound is the first warning, with the second being two glowing golden eyes rounding the corner before (CW: gore, large image:) the rest of them comes into view. The gaping chest wound is mangled and left wide open, with broken ribs almost reaching out to try and snag anything that passes by-- the worst remains under the tattered cloth mask wrapped around his head, soaked with blood much like the rest of his clothing. Sometimes, with his bouncing steps, the bottom edge of the fabric lifts just enough into the air to allow a glimpse at what it hides-- his face has been at least partially skinned, judging by the grinning rictus of far more teeth than any human should possess. It's a safe bet to assume the rest has been given the same treatment. ]
[ But there's something more off about him than the injuries, most noticeable from furthest away-- aside from those eyes, nothing else is clearly defined when he's at a distance, rendering him a vague, bleeding shape who seems to be intent on causing as much noise as possible. It's best not to stare at him for too long, either; the more focus is put on him, the harder things are to remember, a creeping fog curling through thoughts and memories to obfuscate as much as possible. If he gets too close, there's a jolt of pain directly to the chest, although muted-- at full intensity, it would feel the same as any shotgun blast, which means that it's probably for the best that it's been dampened. The location of this phantom sensation mirrors his own wound, which likely accounts for the cause of it. ]

[ Vasquez would be having a terrible time, if he could remember a damn thing other than how important the lights were. What exactly were they? Some kind of treasure, loot-- who cared? They were valuable, and he wanted them. There were others hunting for the lights, but he'd deal with those bastards when he found them-- but even that notion played second fiddle to the gouging hunger screaming out for those damn lights. ]
[ Sometimes, the song is reduced to humming-- brief chunks of rough laughter or even silence are just as common. But he's still moving, still wandering; Escherverse doesn't make him nervous anymore, and all caution's flown right out the window. ]

[harlequinofhate]

[At first it may not even seem to be an anomaly...

It has no form, shifting constantly through the impossible hallways like a fog and sometimes seeping across the shadows like a gigantic single celled organism. There are no limbs, no flesh and no face. Sometimes a sound almost like a giggle emanates from it... Or maybe it is a cry.

The shapeless monster seeks the light, maybe with light it can take on a permanent form. For now it crawls like a demon whose name and face were long ago forgotten.

Can anyone be sure they ever even saw it? Maybe it's only been the wind or a trick of the imagination this whole time.]

[loveismadness]

[she's been wandering for what seems like years, it seems like, in this impossibly terrifying universe. harley swallows, and keeps going; it's not as though there's anything else to do, in any event.

there are tears, tracking through her greasepaint.

as she enters another hallway, though, something seems almost familiar. something about the air she's inhaling, perhaps. it's horribly familiar, terrifyingly familiar, and she backs herself against a wall.

but still, she cannot recognize it.]

Is--Is someone there?

[phaseshifter]

1 - Escherverse or residential zone one, open

[ Angel and Rhys - tethered to each other via trails of crackling purple energy that circle their necks - are looking a little off-colour. Literally. Their skin, hair, and even their clothes are washed out and desaturated with the only splash of colour coming from the glowing tattoos decorating their left arms. Angel's are a sickly violet instead of her usual white, and Rhys' look like trails carved through his skin, revealing glitchy blue static underneath.

Hopefully, that's all that's wrong when someone comes across them. Those are the moments that they're somewhat lucid. They can still tell people to run. Most of the time, though, they're not exactly themselves. Another face seems to have grown over their own, parasite-like, leaving bruised and mottled skin underneath.

If you see that face, you might want to run. Especially since it comes with an overwhelming fear that you're going to be the next person to wear it. ]


 

2 - Closed to Beckett and Rhys

[ Angel still isn't dealing with this whole ferfulness thing very well. She's been quiet and subdued all morning, reluctant to talk or travel or do much of anything at all. Her headache's worse than usual. Her fever, too. It's enough to make anyone cranky.

As a result of her withdrawal from all things social, she's on her own when she notices that something is off. It seems like a trick of the light, at first - her tattoos seem a little discoloured? Weird. But as she inspects them, their violet glow gets more and more stark. She knows what that means. Eridium. It's burning through her veins again, corroding her from the inside, and if she doesn't do something she's going to die without anyone by her side and she doesn't want that not again--

Within moments she's hurtling through the doorway to the room Rhys and Beckett are in, terrified and tainting everything with her sick purple aura. ]

Help, som-- something's--!

[ Thud. That's all she manages to get out before she collapses, unconscious and face-down on the floor. ]

[headjacked]

[ Rhys feels a buzzing in his head and an intense itch crawling down his arm, starting at his neck. Resisting the urge to scratch is a monumental task. Shortly before Angel makes her startling entrance he caves, tearing red lines into his pale skin. Weirdly, freakishly , ghostly pale skin.

He's whimpering in pain, fear, and confusion when Angel cries for help, stuck deep in his own head and problems. It's only when holoJack yells her name that he snaps out off it, jerking awkwardly in the direction of the noise(s).

Then he sees her, blurry but clearly unwell. Rhys pulls himself to her side and shakes her repeatedly. ]

ANGEL! G-get up, don't -

[ Leave. Rhys is hiccoughing desperately as Dumpy circles them. ]

'Don't just shake her, numb nuts -- DO SOMETHING! HEY!!'

Fearshare ahoy!

[bookofnope]

[At first he thinks he's dreaming, though of course that doesn't last for very long.

In the first few minutes, Beckett stays still, breathing quietly. If nothing else the change is a welcome diversion from a long day in which he'd been able to think of little beyond hell and damnation and whether Norfinbury's sun would burn him when it finally showed its face. So this is it, the mad maze they'd told him about - the other side of the world. Probably not the reality behind Norfinbury, but certainly a tantalising kind of proof that everything, everything is an illusion.

When he thinks about that it makes the gnawing anxiety come back. No, thank you. He'd much rather be doing what he does best - moving in search of answers. Even if moving here is strange, walking up a spiralling staircase only to find himself back at the bottom, glancing over the edge of a platform and suddenly knowing he's upside down, grabbing for a wall for support and feeling an impossible curve under his hand. But he moves, because following his curiosity has always been what he has done when something was chasing him, most of all his own demons.]

Hello? [He calls every once in a while, voice echoing strangely in the unnatural air.]

[rubikscomplex]

[There are new fears pressing at his mind very suddenly. House has just found a place in the Escherspace to hide himself, or at least attempt it. It's the dark corner of a room that twists at gut-wrenching angles, where every inch just screams wrong in a way that he can't quite pinpoint. He's curled up, hands clutching his unkempt, graying hair. Thoughts of knives digging into his hands, a scalpel cutting out his tongue, of his head being cracked open, of his fathers orders to get in the ice-filled bath and stay there to think about what he's done have been consuming his thoughts off and on.

Well, they were on. The familiar voice calling 'hello' drives a new spike of fear through him that's different enough to jerk him out of his bubble of angst and self-pity. He sees the other man moving, a man, not one of the monsters. And it's Beckett. The thought of stepping out of the shadows is unthinkable now, even if that isn't real sunlight out there.]

The sun? Really? [Because he knows that's not one of his fears. His pasty white ass can take it. There's more than that, of course, but it's easier to be glib about something so inconsequential and alien to himself.]

cw unreality; mental health; probably others, will update as necessary!

[loveismadness]

Aw, nuts.

[she wakes up in a place where everything is very clearly wrong, in ways that are exceedingly small--and consequently, sinister. there are tall buildings everywhere; staircases that lead to nowhere, or to each other. it's like--if professor crane and jervis tetch combined their skillsets in a really hecked up way. there you go, harl. you nailed it.

she wanders, not daring to interact with anything. she pulls her hood down; the makeup is smeared around her face. maybe she should just take it off.]

Hey, uh, anyone out there? Am I dreamin'? Am I hallucinatin'? I'm gettin' a little freaked out, over here...

[she giggles, nervously. her voice echoes.]

Oy, gevalt...see, this kinda shit is why they sent me to the loony bin.

[rubikscomplex]

[The voice is like a beacon. House knows he can't trust it, can't trust anything in this place, but he's lost and terror that is both his own and other people's is nestled in his throat, choking off his air and making him want to run toward the nearest anyone that isn't a monster and cling like a child. He can feel the weight of heavenly disapproval around his neck, the weight of his father's disapproval, the weight of failure, loss, loneliness. All of the fears people had spilled the other night are vying for space inside of him.

He wants to go to Harley, but he can't. He recognizes the voice from the network. She's the Joker's girl. Daddy's little girl. The Joker might be lurking nearby, and the thought of encountering him here while House is a mess of emotions that not his own is horrifying in its own way.]

We're all hallucinating. Welcome to the club.

[House's voice is flat, but clear, coming from an alleyway she's just passed where the buildings rise up at impossible angles, mirrored in the sky a hundred times. He has his arms wrapped around himself to stop himself shaking. He can keep his voice level, but his body betrays him more readily than that with wide, terrified eyes and a hunched form, curling in on itself.]