snowblindrpg | [network] @hotstud_xxx; video/text; Night 229 [open] (cw: body horror)

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[network] @hotstud_xxx; video/text; Night 229 [open] (cw: body horror)

[There's the sound of just uneven breathing as the camera focuses on a figure. As with all anomalies, the filming warps and distorts. But the figure is very clearly an older man, his arms and legs stretched to impossible lengths and his body clad in a smart military dress uniform. Those familiar with the American military might be able to pick out that he's a marine. Those more intimately familiar would be able to identify the insignia of a pilot, and the rank of a colonel on his jacket. The figure just looms, staring toward House's camera

The feed cuts and shifts to another point. This time, the tablet has been propped up on something. House is visible (for once in a blue moon) in his eclectic hobo attire, about ten feet away. The anomaly is there with him, and they're both roughly in profile view. The doctor is clutching a wooden croquet mallet tight and breathing hard enough that his chest is visibly rising and falling as he stares up at the anomaly with wide eyes. Very suddenly, he turns his head to look directly toward the tablet camera.]

Dr. Gregory House, Day 229, 12:30 PM... give or take. Anomaly has general appearance of Colonel John House. Abnormalities apparent in the limbs, which have become elongated. Anomaly is unresponsive to verbal commands, does not attack, and makes only gurgling, moaning noises. Anomaly initially encountered this morning when subject exited Building 255, but may have previously been present at any point between evening lockdown on Day 228 to morning unlock on Day 229.

Characteristic acute MN Poisoning symptoms manifest when subject approaches anomaly. [Here, he licks his lips and wipes at his upper lip unconsciously, the memory of the blood trickling from his nose still fresh.] Nosebleed, vertigo, nausea, and generalized malaise followed by unconscious. Anomaly did not attack when subject was rendered unconscious multiple times.

[His head snaps back toward the anomaly.]

So time to see what kind of punishment these assholes can take. Testing application of rubble-coated hammer to anomaly. Take one.

[It's only a second later that House launches himself at the anomaly, swinging the hammer and easily sweeping the thing's legs. The anomaly goes down, and the doctor pauses momentarily before screwing his eyes shut and hammering down on the thing. The anomaly flails its long limbs until one of them hits House and he crumbles to the ground unconscious. The anomaly finds its way to its feet and wanders a little ways away. When House wakes up, there's blood dripping from his nose and staining the white snow beneath.

This experiment is repeated twice more with very similar results. It's then repeated with a hammer that hasn't been coated with any rubble dust, again, with similar results. The video feed finally cuts off. House adds some text a few minutes later.]

so that was my day
how's everyone else doing?
also, the southern scrap wall extends all the way
we have to go under or climb over
my vote is under so we don't get speared

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i mean our existence, blondie
our ability to be thinking people
and not mindless assholes just attacking and then melting into the snow

[It takes him a good long while to respond to that, too. Not because he's wrestling with the idea of it - the anomaly creature said they were "the same" and House's statement didn't seem to be deviating from that even if he's approaching it from a different standpoint. "Data" isn't a word he'd throw in there, even if it was part of his default frame of reference.

No, really, he's just shifting around the cramped shed space to keep away from his anomaly, feeling its effects.]

I see. These seem somewhat less mindless. Or less violently so, at any rate.

What do you make of it? Do you think they are becoming more coherent?

[Awkward yet? Certainly. All this talk while ignoring House's clear display of emotion earlier doesn't sit well with him. He wants to ask again, but knows he will not get an answer.]

[House puts a hand over his face out of Enoch's sight.]

jesus christ, you're slow
yeah
yeah, that's what i'm saying
i think tthey're becoming more coherent as we become less coherent

[And he finally manages to get far enough away from his anomaly he can think for all of two seconds:]

But what loss of coherence have we seen that hasn't reverted to normal within the week? We've been experiencing some form of oddity of perception since this began.

but it keeps happening
and it's been getting worse
have you missed us continuing to hallucinate?
the hallucinations getting worse?
some people "turned into monsters"
but you saw watson's message right?
evie showed him a vid of him just running around in the snow

Turned into monsters?

[It's the first he's heard of it. He remembered a day when he was so crippled by random bouts of fear he couldn't move but attributed it to cabin fever because it was his third night in the same building.

This is what he gets for shutting down in the face of extended isolation instead of trying harder to break free of it. He didn't even check the network.

It also doesn't help that his bar for "worse" is wonky. Thanks, Belial.]

I do seem to have missed that, somehow. All of it. I saw no one. I suppose I should have read the network.

[He can't articulate why he didn't, though. He's not sure how to explain it just made him despair more. Not to House, at least.

But they would have looked for a doctor's help, right, if they'd spent most of the day outside without care for themselves, thinking themselves mindless monsters?

If this had happened just one day later, he'd have learned something that Beckett had heard that would cause him to question everything Eve says or shows. But it hasn't quite happened yet, so he takes House at his word.]

Were any of the "turned" harmed from spending so long outside in such a careless way? Did they harm anyone else?

Edited (misremembered movements) 2017-05-25 23:18 (UTC)

[House is, quite possibly, one of the worst people to admit that level of ignorance to.]

dude
are you srs?
have you been living under a rock?
what the actual hell?

[You don't deserve answers, Enoch. House is too flabbergasted by the other man's lack of knowledge.]

I don't know how to explain it. I hadn't seen another person in weeks, and somehow contact over the network seemed all the emptier for it.

[He could go into more detail, actually. Probably will, if pressed. But he's reluctant to relate his emotions to House - especially now, when his defenses against any use of them against him are already strained to near-numbness and it won't take much more to push past that last shield protecting his composure.

If he doesn't know the science of it, Enoch is at least familiar through practice with the way his mind handles duress.]

you're depressed
talk to the clownette
she's the ex-shrink
or strange or watson
they can probably give you scripts
not interested in taking on another patient, thx

[It's a surprise, one that he wishes could be more pleasant than it is, that House doesn't use his admission as a point of attack. Unfortunately, the anomaly's presence dampens anything even remotely good about this, so he's still a little prickly. At least it's better than the defensive emotional cowering he'd taken up a second ago.]

Thank you for giving me an answer. Worry not, you'll only need to heal me if you must.

Might I trouble you for an answer to my other question, as well?

Edited 2017-05-30 05:34 (UTC)

no idea if anyone died while they were outside like that
no one mentioned it
yeah
they hurt each other
the anomalies were trying to take our lights
or did you miss escherverse 1.0, too?

What is escherverse?

[He'd actually remember the event if he'd been there.

...Though he still wouldn't know to call it that.]

[House groans, but the depression is making him moderately more tolerant to this level of apparent stupidity.]

the place where we were all andromeda or the prophet
searching for lights

I would have remembered becoming Andromeda or the prophet. How long ago did this happen?

dude

[No. He's reaching the end of his patience for someone who has been here. House can have some very mild sympathy for the effects of depression, but he's not going to indulge this further.]

go and read back about it or ask someone else
i'm out

[This wouldn't have hurt him nearly as much if House hadn't already inadvertently clawed his way into having a hold in one of his issues. This is what he gets for breaking avoidance for trying to help when the avoidance itself is to keep that particular psychological wound as closed as it can be.

It doesn't mean he wouldn't do so again, if House was distressed. So it goes.]

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