snowblindrpg | [log] SUTEKI NA AFTERNOON, FURACHI NA MIDNIGHT YEAH [closed]

Stephanie had drifted off into a feverish sleep when a soft voice woke her up. Steph, it called teasingly, Steeeeeph, wake up! Mom bought donuts.

She groaned and rolled over, one eye cracking open at the mention of food. It took a long time for her blurry vision to clear, but she knew that voice.

"Becky?" That's right, it was Becky, her best friend. They were having a sleepover - must have been, for Steph to be asleep.

Come on sleepy head, they're fresh.

She yawned, and finally opened both eyes wide enough to see the figure looming over her.

It was her father, wearing blue and orange and a kerchief over his face, gun pointed directly at her.

You were always a disappointment, Stephanie.

She sits up with a gasp, ready (if not willing) to fight for her life.

Earlier, Mami had felt okay. Not great, but okay, for the first time in a long while. The leftover crafts found inside the house, while nothing impressive, managed to get her mind off of the bleak reality that was the group's day-to-day. She had been able to sit down and sort through what had been left behind without intrusive thoughts about survival or her personal failures crowding in to eat away at her spirits and darken her mood.

Then the blizzard came to seal them inside. Cabin fever set in, and Mami succumbed by inches.

For her, it began with minor distortions. Hearing voices and seeing faces that didn't really exist.....glimpses of angered or despairing expressions, snatches of broken sobs and harsh accusations, each one belonging to a person she believes she had killed. Vivid enough to make Mami noticeably falter at odd moments (going silent mid-conversation, looking away to stare overlong into empty space) but not break down. Just a growing strain that made her head ache and her mouth dry up, something she passed off as sour daydreams brought on from stress and poor sleep.

Then it got worse. The hallucinations changed, turned monstrous. She began to see Witches and their familiars instead of furniture, the others in her group, dead air. Her surroundings morphed into the inside of a magical barrier, glowing and shifting, pulsing like a sick heartbeat. Sometimes only for an instant, sometimes for longer. Erratic, insane, frightening. That's when she started keeping her knife in her sleeve or otherwise always close at hand, her body language and overall demeanor becoming more unstable as her control began to fray.

By nightfall, Mami has taken her knife to the walls of the place in the house that she's claimed for herself. Fully in the grip of a hallucinatory trance, she carves strange sigils again and again, only to stab them furiously with the blade tip upon finishing the intricate symbol. She hisses names that no one else knows. Tears roll down her face unheeded. One hand claws absently at her throat, leaving deep scratches.

She's standing over Stephanie, her breathing tight and afraid, unarmed (for the moment) save for how both hands have curled into fists. She doesn't see the older girl she's been traveling with.....not quite. The image of another creature has been overlaid, so vivid that she could almost swear that it's what real and the flickering glimpses of Stephanie is the hallucination.

Still, the lingering confusion makes her hesitate. Right up until Stephanie moves oh so suddenly.

Some part of her knows that she ought to run. Ordinary humans can't do anything against a familiar, let alone a full-fledged Witch. But a larger, stronger, louder part screams that running won't save her, it's too late for her to be saved. It shrieks frantically that she should fight, kill, destroy the threat. Even if it's futile. Even if she will doom herself by trying. She doesn't deserve to live anyway, so what does it matter?

When Stephanie jolts upright, Mami swings a fist at what she believes to be her enemy's face.

Steph's head is what moves first, before she even hears the gunshot. She twists and falls, from a propped upright position into one from which she can give a high heel kick at her father's belt. She knows that there's a smoke bomb there, in the shape of those stupid little pellets that cover his chest.

"No," she tells him furiously, turning again so that she can stumble to her feet. She won't die today.

The familiar is fast, squealing at her in its alien tongue, but that's no surprise. They're living curses that aren't bound by human limitations. What Mami believes to be the familiar's scissors (actually Stephanie's heel) plunges into her upper shoulder and sends her skidding backward.

In her mind, she feels the sting of a blade wound instead of a deep bruise. A hand placed instinctively over the point of impact comes away wet with imaginary blood. She can smell it, feel it seeping out, see it stain her clothes. And she knows that she can't let the familiar gain the advantage of height.

She flings herself forward in a tackle.

Imagined smoke fills the room, and Stephanie doesn't quite understand why she can still see her father perfectly, as though there's nothing obscuring her vision.

She tries to run, but she expects bullets, not the sudden burst of faceless assassins leaping at her like wild animals. She goes down, knocking her nose on the floor hard enough to create that strange taste in her mouth. She twists again, trying to turn around and kick the men off of her.

Her years of traveling alone, and pitching a tent in the middle of some wilderness just as often as paying for a bed in town, have made her a very light sleeper. The thunder wakes her as it carries into the hours before dawn; at first, she thinks she’s only woken from a dream, but then that distant, unmistakable sound comes again and she lies still, listening. She feels strange. Wide awake, but somehow detached, she feels the thunder pulling her right out of this world and back into vivid memories of her own.

To ground herself, she tries to pull her thoughts back to present, real things: the chilled air, the stiff weight of her ragged blanket, the dull ache in her empty stomach, the dusty smell of the floor, the other smells and soft sounds of the house. But after it all, she still thinks of rain.

She uncurls and sits up, knowing she’s not going to fall back asleep. Pulling her blanket around her shoulders, she listens for anybody else stirring, and whispers carefully into the darkness:

“Anyone else awake? Anyone else hear that?”

Edited 2015-08-20 04:50 (UTC)

Stephanie has slept poorly since she stopped sleeping on a bed. Perhaps it's a sign that she's spoiled, but she just never got used to hard floors and ventilation shafts as beds. The thunder brings her close enough to wakefulness that the ever-present ache in her back wakes her the rest of the way up. She's almost back asleep again when she hears Freya's whisper.

"What?" she whispers back, still not quite awake enough to have absorbed the question.

Inwardly, she's surprised and embarrassed by the way Stephanie's voice startles her—she hadn't realized she was so tense. One ear turns towards Steph involuntarily, then Freya turns her head a moment later to look at her properly. Her eyes have adjusted to the dark as much as they're going to, and she can make the other girl out well enough.

"That sound. The thunder... can you hear it?"

Of course, it's just her luck that total silence from outside follows her words. She knows she isn't imagining things, and waits for the sound to come again and back her up.

Edited 2015-08-22 18:11 (UTC)

There's not many places to hide alone for long in a one-story house with five people in it, especially when every one of those five is succumbing to hallucinations and paranoia. Freya's fought a losing battle all day against her own worsening madness, and one of the few clear thoughts left in her head is that she needs to get as far away from the others as possible. She's not sure whether they're friends or enemies anymore, and she doesn't trust her self-control or her own perceptions.

When she ducks into the room Mami's in, she's still overwhelmed by the smell of blood and the sounds of battle, but when she takes in the sigils carved on the wall and the sight of Mami clawing at her throat, her shock at the other girl's state is enough to pull her briefly out of her own.

"Stop! Stop it!"

She can't remember her name, and that frightens her, but she knows she recognizes her—for a moment, she remembers that this girl is a friend, and that's enough to make her go to her side and reach out for her hands, to pull them away before she does any more damage.

Alphonse hears the noise from the other side of the room, but everything seems to be getting fuzzy and strange. He gets to his feet and sways, before staggering towards her slowly.

"St...eph?"

No. No, that isn't Steph. For a moment, he isn't even truly sure who Steph is, because the sight in front of him is driving all other thoughts out of his head. The broken and charred body of the thing he and Ed had brought back is staring at him. Bones crack audibly as it tries to get towards him, spilling blood all over the floor.

Why couldn't you save me...

Al freezes. And then he screams.

The sigils are what Al notices first.

The second one, especially, seems familiar to him. The patterns writhe and twist on the wall until they reform into a human transmutation circle. He doesn't recognise the girl drawing them, not at the moment, but he knows deep in his soul that things are about to go horribly wrong.

"STOP!"

His voice is cracked and desperate, a despairing plea to someone that he isn't even sure can hear him. He rushes forwards and tries to grab her hand, tries to impossibly smear the carvings with his other.

Al has got used to seeing Freya and not associate her with his own demons, but something seems to be subtly different tonight. He is awake when she calls, not that he is surprised to be. Even though he has to sleep now, somehow, he tries to fight it off as long as possible each night. This isn't the sleep that he's missed, this is dreamless darkness and it reminds him of his body rejecting his soul.

He turns his head to look at her, his eyes bright pinpricks of light in the darkness. For just a second in the gloom, she transforms into something else. Something bowed under the weight of pain and sorrow, something that used to be smiling and full of life.

"Ni--"

The half name escapes him as a gasp before he forces himself to reality again, though it feels difficult.

"...yeah, I heard it. Do you think there's a storm coming?"

Those glowing eyes in his dark face trigger memories of battle and fire and cruel voices, and her hand itches to reach for a spear she doesn't have; but an instant later, she recognizes that those eyes belong to Al, her friend, and not to one of those mindless creatures. She closes her hand around the edge of her blanket instead, and hopes that he didn't see her flinch.

And there's that name again: "Nina". Who is this Nina person? She sets that thought aside and just tries to breathe easily, to bring her heart rate back to normal. One ear turns towards the wall as she listens for another peal of thunder.

"Perhaps. ...It might be nice. Some rain would melt some of this snow."

She twitches her nose, and sighs.

"I can't smell any rain, though. It's too damn cold—I can't smell anything."

"Yeah, I hear it."

The rumbling of thunder is not something they've heard here before and that makes him more nervous than it should. Anything unexpected in a place like this has to be treated with caution, after all.

He sits up from his sleeping spot, listening carefully, hyper-aware of his surroundings.

"Must mean there's a storm coming. Which means more snow." As if they weren't having enough trouble traveling without it.

Ed doesn't sleep well in this place, does not often dream, but when he we does they're vivid, dark dreams. He hates sleeping, but knows it's a necessary evil, and curls up on his side of the too-cold house, striving for rest.

He wakes with a start, however, sitting up gasping for breath, sweat stippling his forehead. The thunder isn't too loud, but it's a sound so foreign to this place, he's sure he's imagining it. He turns -- perhaps some of his companions heard it, too? "Hey, did you --"

There's blood everywhere. The walls, the floors soaked in it, and a strange, distant hissing sound. "Wh- What? Al? Freya? Guys?" He pushes himself up, back pressed to the wall, and that's when he sees it -- the finely drawn lines of a transmutation circle. In the center of the room, at the middle of the circle, he sees it -- a slumped figure that is not quite human at all, with shifting bones and skin, gurgling and hissing falling from what might be a mouth.

"Al? Al?" Edward screams, the sound raw and sharp, as he stumbles forward tripping over something, which is no doubt one of his travel mates' sleeping spots. But when he looks upon it, he can only see a shattered, broken suit of armor. Angry tears pour down his cheeks, and he staggers backward, sliding down one wall, burying his face in his hands, gripping and pulling at his hair, breaths coming in tight, wheezing gasps.

For just a moment Al tries to remember what the smell of a storm is like. He can remember being little and standing on tip-toe to sniff the air through the open window, and then sneezing at the electric tang hitting the back of his nose. He feels a sudden wash of nostalgia and wistful pain so strong that he can't talk for a few seconds.

He wants his body back. He wants...

"M-Mm. I guess it would be a good thing if the rain came, I hope it was thunder you heard."

He lifts to his feet and goes towards the door so he can listen for any further peals of thunder.

She goes tense when she hears Ed's voice and sees him sit up—even though she's grown to trust him, for some reason the fear and hostility he showed her in their first meeting is what comes most strongly to her mind now. She pushes those thoughts down at once, though, and shifts her sitting position so she can look at him properly.

"Snow? Surely thunder means it'll be a rainstorm, doesn't it?"

She doesn't know why she's so sure it'll be rain, but she is. It feels right.

It's actually Al that Ed trips over.

But it's not the same scene that Al sees, not by a long way. He sees Ed tripping over him, younger and smaller than he is now. He's just got his automail leg and he hasn't quite learned to walk on it yet. Every step is agony for him, the nerve endings raw and even bleeding through the automail connection with how hard Ed is pushing himself... pushing himself for Al.

"B-Brother! Brother, please don't do this, you don't-- I can wait, I--"

He wants to cry himself. He wants to so badly, but he can't. He can't cry, and Ed is hurt, all because of this stupid body.

She notices that pause before he speaks. It's extremely difficult to read body language under a suit of armor in the semi-darkness, though, so she dismisses it as the boy just waking up. When he gets up to go to the door, she watches him, then stands up a minute later herself and follows him over there, still wrapped in her blanket. So she won't wake up the others, she keeps her steps soft, and her voice low once she's by Al's side.

"I'm sure it was. I'd know that sound anywhere."

She shrugs.

"Of course, the rain will freeze, if it stays this cold. All the snow that's left will be covered in ice..."

"I didn't think about that, I've never been somewhere this cold when it rained before."

He sounds a little more concerned now. He's wrapped up in trying to hear anything from the outside so he doesn't notice the soft click of her claws on the floor, only jumping a little when she ends up next to him.

Will you play with me..?

He recoils slightly, voice higher in discomfort.

"That could make travelling harder, and definitely more dangerous."

She starts to nod, but the sound of his voice shifts her thoughts away from practical things, and she looks up at him through her hair. She wishes she could see his face.

Why hasn't he shown her his face yet? Something whispers in the back of her mind. What does he have to hide?

"Alphonse... is something wrong?"

"No, of course... nothing's wrong, I guess I was just worried about people going out in so much ice, I don't want anyone to get hurt."

He's speaking too fast for it to be natural or believable, but he just can't seem to make his voice slow down or his tone lower from where it keeps creeping higher and higher. The thunder rumbles again and he can't shake the sudden feeling that he is back in Shou Tucker's house waiting for the truth to sink in.

One of her ears turns towards the door at the sound of thunder, but her eyes stay firmly on Al's face. He sounds so scared—and it's a shock to realize that she's never heard him sound quite like this before. Even when they faced those monsters a few days ago, he didn't sound like this.

"Al, please—you really are an awful liar."

She tries to smile, but it flickers and fades. She unfolds one hand from her blanket and moves to place it on his arm.

"What's the matter?"

The hand on his arm makes him flinch visibly, underscoring the deep rumble of thunder with the soft clinking of his armour as he pulls back a little bit. Yet even when he has pulled back, the clinking never stops, though it would be too dim inside the house to see him trembling.

"It's..."

He feels light headed and detached from reality, it's so strange, and it loosens his tongue a little bit as he tries to ground himself.

"You just remind me of someone I used to know."

[log] SUTEKI NA AFTERNOON, FURACHI NA MIDNIGHT YEAH [closed]

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cw: minor self-harm

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so late to this game.

cw: blood

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never

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