[network][video] @Enoch; Day 241 [open] [blood and bones and human skin leather, Hell Tower]

[warriorscribe]

[Enoch speaks from behind the camera as it is raised from pointing at his feet, having turned the video function on in some amount of haste. The camera pans over the grisly scene of building 264, and all of its "blood, broken bones, scattered teeth, human skin turned to leather and used to decorate the walls". There are prophet symbols all over the cubicle walls and the walls of the building itself.]

Look at this...what did they do, all in the name of some "prophet" who was only a frightened, blinded girl? [He speaks to someone farther behind the camera:] Quark, perhaps you should go back up to the bridge? This place is... I don't want to subject you to it.

[When Quark has gone, after whatever discussion ensues, he resumes talking to the network.]

The air here... [He swallows heavily.] It's awful, thick and foreboding. Oh, it's like breathing vileness in all over again... I should follow him, get out- no.

[He tucks the tablet into his makeshift belt and goes outside, finding a spot away from the door and beginning to dig in the snow, unslinging his backpack and bringing out a large, flat piece of scrap metal to act as a crude shovel to help.]

I can't leave it like this. This is wrong, to leave these people like this. I can't bury all of it, but-

[He's interrupted as he hits ground beneath the snow. He can't dig through it no matter how hard he tries.]

...That isn't ideal. But it must suffice.

[He returns inside, shuddering as the atmosphere rolls over him, and begins gathering as many remains as he can carry at a time, moving them to the grave he'd just dug in the snow and clearing out snow that had fallen in. He tears a piece of leather off the wall and reveals a prophet symbol, which he pauses at with a wordless noise of surprise.

He comes back to this uncovered eye after finishing his crude grave and the doors have locked for the night. His breathing is heavy from the labor and distress as he removes the camera from his "belt" and switches it to the internal camera to show his face. Despite all the activity, the oppressive atmosphere and gruesome task has him looking sickly pale, the healthy flush draining from his face rapidly.]

I wonder why...what significance did covering these eyes have, and why human skin? Why such a macabre scene? I hope I've brought some comfort to whoever belonged to those remains I buried...they must be suffering in here.

((Anyone else staying the night here is free to come down and drag him upstairs where it's marginally less hellish. Or just announce their presence because he thinks he's alone in here.))

Comments

[warriorscribe]

[He leans against the section of wall beside the piece when Beckett continues to protest, not wanting, of course, to lean on the stretch of leather itself. He knows he's trying to protect him, and that knowledge alone, given what Beckett has said about his kind (whether Enoch takes it all at face value or not), is heartwarming. It's enough to make the air feel a little less oppressive for a moment, strain melting away into some form of calm, fueled by fondness.]

I appreciate it, my friend, I truly do. But I would not want to take you out of your way for something I could do now. And, in any case, whatever you're trying to shield me from, I would rather face it than sit here and do nothing. Which is worse, that which might help or doing nothing for fear it won't? If the spirit this once belonged to protests our examination, I will gladly stop for their sake.

[bookofnope]

[It's not Enoch's strength that he doubts, looking into that steadfast face. Of course he can do it. But he shouldn't have to. Beckett sucks in a ragged breath through gritted fangs. How does he explain - ?

If he can't, maybe he's wrong to try to. Enoch is still thinking of helping, of course he is. They each hold on to sanity and selfhood in their own way, don't they?]

All right - all right, as you say. Who knows what the owners of these skins might have wanted. We need the knowledge. Can you detach the sheets from the wall to examine them all over? What about the other remains? You can tell ages from teeth, and sometimes health. If you are methodical about the examination.

[Examining the human materials as just that - materials. Easier said than done.]

[warriorscribe]

Of course. Age I might be able to tell, but would you be able to tell me what to look for otherwise?

[Easier said than done, indeed. But Enoch, at least, seems to have found an approach that allows him to do this, with his apology and signs of respect, with the care he detaches this sheet from the wall, knowing it is not bound for immediate burial like the other. He makes an immediate observation in the removal itself, just the act of laying it out gently and carefully. He throws himself both into the work and respecting the former owner to distract himself from the memories the feeling in the air drags up.]

...Strange. We don't have much hair to remove to begin with, but this was cleaned perfectly, and isn't discolored in the slightest. Has the process changed much?

[bookofnope]

Any materials other than the teeth, to begin with. Fillings, braces, and so on. Always valuable to asses the level of medical technologies available. I'd need equipment to tell you about dietary habits and such.

[Just like Enoch, Beckett has his approach to this grisly task, and his is tried and true, ages old. One doesn't thrive as either a vampire or an archaeologist by having an aversion to dealing with the dead.]

Tanning has changed, yes - most everything has, from your time, [this with a note of wry fondness, from one old immortal to another.] But completely hairless and no discolouration. Noted. What is the texture like? Is it hardened, supple? Does it smell of anything?

[warriorscribe]

[The change in tone, Enoch meets with a brief little smile at the tablet, looking up from the leather for a moment. Of course it has changed. What did humanity do but improve on everything they could? Even the tiny machines in their blood, abused as they are, were intended...

Beckett continues and he returns his attention to the leather in his hands, lifting a portion to briefly sniff at the underside, the side that had been facing the wall and not the bloodied room. It demonstrates, to at least partially answer Beckett's question, a flexibility, but only so far as old-fashioned vegetable tanning can manage. He comes away from that with a grimace, unable to keep from imagining for a moment the chaos this building must have been during the slaughter that preceded them.]

It...it seems the way leather should. It isn't the same as cow or goat leather, of- of course, and I've never encountered leather left in such a cold environment for so long, but...if this town existed thousands of years ago I would say this is the sort of skill and effort a tanner might put forth for something going in a palace or noble home. It's...unnerving, in this context.

[He hopes that his idea of "excellent" is Beckett's "mediocre" and that this fanatical tanner wasn't ludicrously skilled in working with human skin for...no apparent reason. There's been nothing else in the town, after all, to suggest that was ever normal.]