snowblindrpg | [network][video] @Enoch; Day 230 [open] [cw: body horror due to anomaly thing]

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[network][video] @Enoch; Day 230 [open] [cw: body horror due to anomaly thing]

[The image is distorted when it first starts, the sign of a nearby anomaly. The tablet seems to be held in Enoch's lap, the man himself hunched over it and looking quite exhausted. He's been working single-mindedly at a brain-numbing task for several days now, after all.]

Hello again, everyone. I've been searching the school almost endlessly for the past...

[He has to pause to think.]

...Oh, two weeks? I promised... sorry, I don't recall if I ever learned your name. In any case, I found nothing. Whatever the flicker of power I was told about did, it was nothing here. I'm sorry - I wish I had something better to report.

[Something shuffles around off-camera, and the distortion intensifies. Enoch looks up, too tired to be alarmed anymore. A thin line of blood trickles from his nose.]

Oh. I knew he had to be near...

[He lifts up the tablet and turns it. Through the distortion, those whose light was stolen will see a tall, elegantly-proportioned angel with flowing platinum-blond hair past his waist, and full pure-white wings, a cream-colored robe dragging on the tile of the school's floor around his feet. Those whose lights are intact will see this angel dragging its upper body behind it on a broken spine, sickly wings shedding scraggly feathers to expose bony tips, and eyes bleeding golden static.]

...It seems every time I've feared there's an anomaly near since yesterday, it's only this one. Does everyone have their familiar shadows again? He's even less threatening than his brother was, the last time they appeared like this. I don't understand this...but I feel like their behavior is a good thing. If they only watch us now...

[He looks up and speaks to the anomaly again. His voice is thick; he's clearly woozy from proximity to it. The school stairwell isn't large enough to allow the anomaly enough space to stay out of effective range.]

Are you really Michael, I wonder, or only my memory of him as we were told? I've never been sure... Did I really hear you, in that creature...?

[The anomaly lunges forward and Enoch jumps - to his feet, if the abrupt change in height is anything to go by. "Michael" draws up just short of attack, however, watching silently as Enoch takes wobbly steps back. He fails to keep the camera steady and his fingers half-obscure the camera as he navigates the stairs down backwards, facing the anomaly that remains on the landing, watching.

And then it speaks, the tablet's distortion making it fuzzy and broken:]

Why? Why must it be you and not I?

[Enoch's movement comes to a dead stop. He adjusts his grip on the tablet, a heavy breath above it as he realizes he actually heard it.]

Michael...?

[He lunges again, and Enoch turns and runs, the camera capturing nothing but passing walls and snow. At some point, he turns it off.]

[When he comes into view again, it's in the shed outside the school. His nose is still bleeding. The camera is still distorted, and the anomaly's occasional outburst of "Why, why you, why can't I have it?" is audible, yet distorted as well. His voice is strained by fear and sorrow, the tired calm gone.]

I've tried asking him...he won't tell me what "it" is...

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Zach's been following me around all day. He hasn't said anything, and he hasn't attacked.

[ And it breaks her heart, because she can't convince herself it's not really him. ]

Oh...

[His situation pales in comparison. To lose someone like that, and then to get them back in a mockery of themselves...]

I'm so sorry. I can't imagine there's anything I could say or do to help.

[He pauses and shakes his head solemnly. No, there's nothing. They don't even know anything about these anomalies' new behaviors. What can he say? He can't just leave it there when someone's hurting. Someone like him, here from the start, who's been through it all.]

...We have to endure this. We've survived this long.

[ She shrugs helplessly. She had her emotional outbursts earlier that day, and now she's getting on by shutting it all down. ]

Sure. We'll live. Probably. [ Assuming they don't get killed by these anomalies eventually. ]

He hasn't caught you yet, has he?

No, he hasn't...

[Can he even call that lunge an attack? He drew up short.]

He hasn't so much as pretended at an attack since the first. I don't know why they're acting this way...

It's pretty weird. I, uh... hugged Zach, earlier. He didn't do anything at all.

[Oh, Steph. He looks on with worried sympathy, about to say something about the attempt to hug him, before the rest of it sank in.]

Even while you were unconscious? The ones before wouldn't hesitate to...to act as the others have.

Vasquez had to come out and drag me inside, he didn't get attacked either.

I'm still not certain whether it's worrying or reassuring.

[He gives a sorrowful shake of his head. What a mess all of this is. Everything they've endured, more questions on the tail of any answers. And these things that may or may not be friends in such agony regardless of what they are.] I'm sorry.

[ She shrugs. ]

Don't worry about it.

Chr -- the one following me knocked me down earlier. She's been...asking. Same questions.

[He swallows thickly.]

When I woke up she'd backed off; I don't think they're really -- I don't think they mean to kill us. Not yet, at least.

She went through with the attack? And yet, didn't finish you.

[He heaves a breath, shaky and grave.]

Are they holding back? Do they have more...capacity to think than the other anomalies?

[There is a dawning terror in his eyes as he becomes less able to fight as he speaks, less able to fight the idea that they are regaining this capacity.]

Does she sound maddened in pain too, like Michael does?

God --

[He's been trying hard, so hard, to pretend to himself that he doesn't have these same thoughts. That it can't be Christine because it's just a mindless anomaly, no matter what it looks or sounds like. But what if he's wrong? What if she held back because she remembers him?]

Yes. Yes, alright? I can't help her and I don't know if she understands that. I don't know if I want her to be able to understand.

[For a moment, Enoch is visibly too choked with emotion to respond, between hearing his distress and another outburst from the anomaly beside him. There's a problem and he's trapped here, he can't help, there are people in pain and all he can do is listen.]

I- I don't know what to do. Where did they come from? How did they...

[He realizes how little thought is going into his words and he gives up, only some awkward sense of propriety and politeness keeping him from curling up into a ball and thus taking his face away from the camera. He's not vaguely talking to the network at large, he's talking to another person, specifically.]

I was hoping someone would have discovered something.

This isn't the first time.

[He says it as though that's supposed to make it better, when it only makes him feel worse.]

The others -- the ones who have been here longer said this happened before.

I know, I was there, but it wasn't-...they never-...

[He stops, forces himself to breathe deep.]

They didn't speak. They responded to requests, however, and these don't.

[Another forced calming breath. He cannot let his pain compound the other's. He's already done enough damage that he must now try to soothe.]

I'm sorry. I'm sorry... I can only listen. If talking will ease your mind...

[Give it to me, Michael says behind the camera, a distorted and pained wail. That will soothe me, why won't you offer comfort to me!? Enoch's breath catches and he looks beyond his tablet, immensely guilty.]

It isn't them.

[He has to insist on that. He has to go on telling himself that it's the truth, because the alternative, that Christine has been following him around in that mutilated body, is too much to bear.]

What we're seeing isn't the people they look like.

[So clearly he doesn't need to talk about it, especially not after Al dragged it out of him the night before.]

I hope so... I hope so.

[He doesn't sound convinced or comforted. Even if they aren't, they're still in pain. That's hard to ignore.

He's silent for a while, then looks back up at the tablet. When he speaks, he still doesn't sound entirely certain of it, but he says it because he must. He must help this person any way he can.]

We should be grateful that we are safe so far, I think.

Grateful. Yeah.

[Stephen's breath comes out in an incredulous, pained laugh.]

We've never been safe. What we are is alive.

You know I didn't mean- ...I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I don't... I'm not trying to make light of...

[He sighs in exasperation, dragging a hand over his face. Is he really too much of a mess to help anyone else right now? What good does any of this do anyone, then? Realizing he hasn't heard from his anomaly in a while, he glances over in its direction...and it decides to fake-charge him again. He presses himself against the wall with a yelp, dropping the tablet for a moment. It lands recording side down, giving Stephen a good view of the shack floor.]

What's the meaning of this, Michael, you're more direct than this!

[Seeing his words do nothing to the anomaly, Enoch picks up the tablet and sets it right, still unnerved from the fake-out. Enough so, at least, to half-joke in a flimsy wall of emotional defense. Because what else can he say when every time he regains some composure Michael shatters it again?]

I wonder if they aren't attempting to frighten us to death.

Edited 2017-05-26 02:26 (UTC)

[Stephen goes silent, jaw tight, as Enoch backpedals. He can hear the barbs in his own voice; knows he isn't helping anything by lashing out at someone who's trying to help.

From nearby comes a voice muffled by distance from Stephen's tablet. Stephen, just do this one thing for me. For once will you just --]

Sorry. Sorry.

[He barks it out, like he's trying to drown out Christine's plea, Enoch's apologies and jokes.]

That's not gonna be what kills me.

I know, I know. This is-...

[What can he say? Everything he does say only serves to further their pain. Silence would be worse.]

...It's awful. Worse than many things I've seen here. But we'll endure it, we must. We've endured the rest, we can endure this, end this, help them and ourselves...

[His words may speak of conviction, but his voice wavers, quiet in utter exhaustion. His second wind is spent tonight, and all he can do is hope for another.]

[Stephen draws in a long, shuddering breath. Endure. He can do that. Only, it had always been him enduring by himself, not watching others suffer around him.]

I just wish I knew what we were enduring it for.

Escape? Answers? Respite for the spirits here?

[He's dredging the responses out of his mind as it stubbornly tries to shut off, avoid the dizzying presence of the creature with a friend's face. He's crashing hard, but won't let himself go under. Not yet.]

Find a reason, as many reasons as you can, and hold on.

Yeah.

[He takes another breath; nods though his camera isn't turned on.]

Yeah. I can do that. Probably.

[Beckett is filming, as he'd promised, but he keeps the recording to a tight closeup of his haggard face. Definitely a sleepless night there, though not the equal of Enoch's exhaustion. He tries to speak reason, provide some kind of line.]

We encountered three yesterday, Angel, Rhys and I. Custom-made, like yours. It's - probably the same effect as last time, though the talking is...

[Unnerving enough to make him pause. He glanced uneasily over his shoulder.]

They haven't been clearer. Even when I've tried to tell her that whatever it is, she can have it.

[With another anguished tirade from Michael wrenching at his heart, the once unflappably calm angel now sounding crazed and agonized, much like he felt when-...

He clings to the presence of a friendly face and voice, even if while Michael is talking, he can't keep his composure.]

And she didn't-...she didn't do anything, even when you offered to give whatever it is up? How can we help them when they can't tell us what they want from us?

[Michael falls silent offscreen, and Enoch glances his way, near tears. Help them, whether they are who they appear or not, that's his first instinct on hearing such pain, and by the time Beckett replied, he's been hearing it enough it's broken through the numb shell of exhaustion utterly.]

[Seeing Enoch's agony is practically worse than feeling the same helpless frustration himself. He'd found it wrenching to keep his distance, of course, but he had Angel and Rhys at least to ground him. And he deserved what he got, too. Enoch cannot possibly.]

I... this won't please you to hear, but I'm not sure they're real. As in, I think they may be... echoes of some sort, like broken records, or like Winter is, giving the appearance of sentience and intent despite not having it. When I offered, she pinned me down and rendered me unconscious, but did nothing further until she moved off again. It made it seems as though - there is nothing to her but the demand.

But they've always been looking for something, and have killed for it before. And now that they can do all but beg us for it without killing, we cannot give it to them?

[He doesn't see Winter as not real or not a person, even if she herself says so, but can't bring himself to voice as much, with his focus so taken up by the misery of the anomaly offscreen. That's honestly as much his lack of exposure to technology as it is his usual overactive empathy, but it does mean he hits the same wall with these anomalies.]

I don't know why these wouldn't kill us.

[There's a desperate note in his voice at that. Lord, he wishes Lucita would take his throat. What a liberation that would be.] Perhaps... perhaps they have understood that the killing does not get them what they want, so they are looking for another way. They grow more intelligent. Perhaps with time they would be able to properly communicate.

[That sounds... unsettlingly like optimism. Hope. Enoch brings it out of him sometimes.]

[Enoch might be able to appreciate that if he was thinking clearly, himself. If he wasn't grasping at the same straw while also hating that he clung to it. Because if these turned out to be close enough approximations to the things they resembled?

He hasn't forgotten what Shelly's spirit had said, through Quark. The entire event was a blur but this part sticks out now more than ever, less baffling and more alarming. The implication that the anomaly wasn't unusual. The ghosts' delusions of life as they knew it had shown the anomalies as people, ones who were ill or mad or otherwise needed help, but people.]

I hope so. Eve has told us what they are not, but also has claimed to not know where they came from. If they could tell us for themselves, if we knew, we might be able to help...

Robert Miller claimed that they were transportees, like ourselves, but ones whose transition was... not entirely successful. [It's that claim that sticks with him, and is currently at the heart of his own terror. But they have had so much fragmented and contradictory information about the anomalies that he allows himself to give in to his natural inclination to doubt and question. It's a lifeline.]

But that does not mean I believe him - or that they are necessarily who they seem to be at the moment, even if they are like us. The bottom line is, whatever they are and need, it is information - information that we are already searching for. So we do all we can for them. And if they were who they seem to be -

[He wants to stay, they would understand that. But the words stick in his throat, and he achingly glances back over his shoulder again.]

[And meanwhile Enoch defaults to the path of most compassionate, discarding the idea, however comfortable, that these may only be illusions dreamed into being by the tiny metal things in their blood. The possibility of them being real cannot be ignored.

Besides, Miller's claim has something to back it up, too...]

The creature. The creature underground. It said we are the same. It questioned "why".

[A second piece of evidence is all he needs - this was, after all, straight from the thing itself.]

Even if we heard different people from the same creature, and the tablets saw none, this...

[His voice breaks off as Michael cuts in again, the audio distorting and stretching as he draws closer. "Why, Enoch, why can't I have it?"

Enoch's mouth works silently in failed reply. He doesn't know, and he's out of ways to tell him so. He glances back down at the tablet, and a drop of blood from his nose falls and leaves a tiny splatter at the edge of the camera. The mangled angel's shadow looms, and static pulls at the edges of the feed. Enoch is in a corner, and cannot back away.]

Beckett- [His voice is strained and thick, deliberately enunciated through nausea and dizziness, choked in tears. He must ignore Michael, because he only has the energy to respond to one person at a time. And Beckett said it himself - they are searching for that information. They must find it. Like Beckett does now, like he had on his search for the Tower, he clings to the goal.] -did he say anything else? His is the only account that they have matched themselves.

Edited (forgot a bit of narration) 2017-05-14 09:01 (UTC)

That doesn't mean anything. Remember Winter. Remember the Chinese room? Speaking does not mean understanding. For all we know,they stop short of harming us because that is when their protocol, their programming, stops...

[How far, Beckett? How many convenient explanations around the risk of a truth you cannot bear? He all but hears the questions and they have a very certain voice. But for Enoch, he should try to do it, for Enoch...]

Enoch, you - don't let him corner you, we don't know for sure how many times we can endure their touch before something goes permanently wrong...

[He clutches the tablet, keenly feeling the helplessness of the distance. His dulled teeth grind against each other. The sight of Enoch's blood makes his stomach feel like it's twist itself into a knot and is pounding its way up his throat.] They can't all be real. It makes no sense. That the people we most, or least want to see, are all following us here.

[He looks up at the anomaly's shadow when Beckett warns him about being cornered and scrambles sideways as he continues to speak, half-crouching, rising to avoid something on the floor- and he grunts as his head makes a dull thunk against one of the pieces of metal supporting the shelf above him. He sinks down to reorient himself, as the anomaly lingers in the corner he once occupied. If it's any consolation, Enoch is clearly not alone - a second anomaly is visible at the edges of his feed for a split second, indistinct in the shadows and static.]

I don't doubt that this may not be Michael... [He rubs his forehead, wincing. It's minor, it just hurts terribly in the biting cold, with his poor sleep and heightened fear.

And then he looks back down at the tablet, and sees Beckett's distress, and his heart feels like it could wrench itself out of his chest. How could he do this to someone suffering the same thing, to someone he'd come to care for as much as he has? He clings to the first bit of comfort to give that he can wring from his anomaly-addled mind, however ineloquent it comes out:]

Oh, Beckett, we'll survive this. We'll survive... I'll be all right, he won't kill me. We can- we can help them, whoever they are, we just- endure.

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