[log] Event: Metamorphosis, Part Three

[snowblindmods]

Characters: everyone
Location: all around town; note location in subject line
Date: Night 415 onward; note time in subject line
Summary: They break out and they wake up.
Warnings: extreme body horror, unreality, eldritch horror, absolutely definitely 100% include warnings in subject lines/before your comment if the subject line isn't long enough

Comments

cw: body horror, broken/breaking bones, severe lacerations, potential cannibalism

[rubikscomplex]

A - Karma Karma Karma Karma Karma Ch-anomaly
Out. Out. Out into the dark of the tunnels. The cold no longer bothers him. He is cold. And he knew this would happen, knew it was happening. Now that it's here? House doesn't really know what to make of it. It hurts. It's agony like this. His bones are shards of ice, continuously stabbing through his flesh. His blood trails out in crystals. He's starving.

Where the hell did they even come out of? He needs to get back to the Bunker, to Will. He needs to show the other man what's been happening. But it's a long way to the Bunker and House is slow-moving. He cracks, breaks, reforms just a little less human as the ice freezes in him at ever odder angles.

His hands are the worst, he's decided. They're useless. They're not even hands anymore. He's made fun of Strange for it and maybe this is karma. Maybe. Where his arms end are monstrosities made of ice. He wants to smash them, but he doesn't. He sees someone as he moves, tries to draw their attention.]

How long've we been gone?

B - Lost Time
[House wakes with a jolt, drawing in a sharp breath, then coughing heavily. It takes him a long moment to reorient himself. He'd been walking through Bunker Room 2 and then... nothing. His memories cut off from there.]

What the hell happened?

[It's not directed at anyone in particular, and it's something that will be repeated more than once as he gets his bearings again.]

A

[warriorscribe]

[That someone is an anomaly whose original form has been completely lost, a white puddle of ooze trailing in House's wake, collecting his blood crystals. A pair of large hands form out of it when he slows, offering the collected blood, now re-liquefied, as if it can somehow help. Let him help. Let him be useful.]

It feels like a day or two, but...I don't know. [The voice identifies him as Enoch, though very out of breath, panting with...exertion? Possibly. Hard to say. His entire means of locomotion has changed after all.] We have those memories that don't match, too. Do you need to replace this?

B - cw disease, rotting alive, respiratory distress, sundry bodily fluids

[bookofnope]

[Of course he should go see a doctor. Who else should he go see but the doctor?

It goes without saying that Beckett isn't thinking straight. He has no right to go after House. House of all people - the debt he owes House is very unusual and very deep, and that should mean something. It should matter. But it doesn't today. Today House is just another sack of blood who doesn't realize how good he has it to still have that blood warm and flowing. It's all he knows, that House wanted to die, and what right did he have to want that, and he's welcome to it.

So when he comes into the bunker, it's House that he's after first. Sound and scent betray him first - the sounds of a lurching walk, wheezing wet breath, the smell of meat gone bad, sickly-sweet fever, stale vomit. There's no escaping it, though, because a moment later he's at the doorway, peering with rheumy eyes, then grinning with a wet, leaking mouth.]

Hello, House. Have I got a case for you.

A

[termineur]

[ Ah. There's House. Gabriel can't see any of his co-kidnappees, but that's okay. They're free! And...different. And not a giant data blob. It's a disappointment, but when has Norfinbury held anything but disappointments for them? He just wishes he didn't feel so incomplete.

He walks in jerky motions, sometimes backwards and sometimes forwards. The blue lightning that chases around his body- sometimes even is his body- provides a little light for those who actually have the ability to see. He steps forward and is suddenly in front of House, glancing back. When he speaks, his voice crackles. ]

No idea. But I guess I owe you twenty bucks. Or something.

Anomaly Enoch, everywhere, cw: body horror, potential smothering/crushing

[warriorscribe]

((cw: And also potential abuse-adjacent thoughts as he tries to rationalize any harm he causes))

A: The anomaly exodus, maintenance tunnels

[He was horrified, at first, when he was able to take stock of himself. Horrified at what he'd become, at his racing heart and gasping breath, when there shouldn't even be a heart or lungs in his amorphous form and nothing makes any sense.

But he's warm. He's so warm, and he realizes his shapelessness can be used to others' benefit, and soon it is not nervousness that fuels his rapid heartbeat and shortness of breath, but a sort of constant giddiness, too much to allow for anything too complex. He drapes himself over a nearby fellow anomaly, like a big living cloak of putty. And that's all he is, to the other anomalies, because they aren't affected by his disproportionate strength.]

How are you feeling, my friend? I don't seem to feel the cold anymore.


B: The unwitting trap, anywhere outside

[He needs to find a tablet before anything else. He needs to let the others know about his transformation. Every so often, he stops and tries to rest, a puddle of liquid marble. He's almost invisible, in the snow. Someone might step on him if they don't react to the proximity to an anomaly fast enough, and when they do, or if they simply pass close enough, he reacts with a startled sound and a face - that's Enoch's face, without the months of starvation - forms out of it.]

Oh, hello! Please don't be afraid, I want to help you. Where are you going? Please let me carry you. I don't think I can move faster than you when I have a passenger, but I'm very warm.


C: An unexpected companion, any interior in Residential 3

[Something seeps under a door, into a window, or up through a trap door. Something white and shifting and looking like pristine marble in liquid form. Making grunts of effort, it shapes itself into a humanoid form, muscular like Enoch remembers himself to be. He wants to be less alarming, since he's gone looking for people now instead of technology. But it's so difficult to maintain, and trying to walk like a human leaves him wobbly. Maybe he'd better stand still and let someone else come to him.]

Hello? Is there anyone in here?

A!

[phaseshifter]

Enoch...

[ Angel's voice echoes lightly, coming from lips that don't move. She swings her head around to get a better look at him - not that the effort is really worth it, since she isn't exactly sure where to look considering his current form. ]

I feel - I have my wings back. It's awesome. [She's so happy. This isn't a perversion of everything she's wanted. Everything is wonderful.] You don't feel the cold at all? Not even a little?

c;

[headjacked]

[ It's been an exhausting emotional roller coaster these last few days, with incredible highs and desparate lows. Now's he's somewhere in the middle, relieved the Other Rhys is awake again but generally uneasy.

He's taking a stretch break, bathrobe on and gulping from a water bottle when the ooze trickles in under the school's entrance. Rhys doesn't even notice until it starts shaping itself into that familiar form. It straddles that line between obvious anomaly and friend enough to stop Rhys from bolting immediately while screaming for his inky partner.

That water bottle IS getting dropped, along with his jaw. ]

...Enoch, wh.... what the hell??

A cw also mouth/mud horror

[zunesareawesome]

[Peter can't exactly push him off, he's also sort of...a rocky, sludgy, muddy thing. He can sort of...extend parts of himself to crawl, and he's starting to try and stretch further to make sort of muddy tendrils to try and slap at him.]

Enoch, come on! Get off!

[Yeah, he doesn't feel the cold anymore, but he's kind of concerned about everything else.]

cw: body horror, references to child death

[revenantking]

[Roland Anomaly: The absolutely unsubtle crackle of a geiger counter, and the even less subtle green radium glow. Tongue and eyes and soft innards all turned to liquid, oozing out with each step, each shift, each inclination of the head. A dizziness and lethargy that seeps into others.]

A - Starting in the maintenance tunnels and ending anywhere outside, Night 415 - Morning 416

[The door finally gave. Roland finally helped accomplish something good for the people of Norfinbury.

Escape had been so neccessary that the drive to leave was utterly blinding, overshadowing the pain his body sent to keep him aware of his condition. By the time he's noticed that his formless eyes and liquid innards have begun to spill through the open holes in his skull, it is too late and too difficult to process. This was fine - he had no time to waste on his feelings - what drove him forward now was the thought that they can all get the help they need, can find the people who weren't affected by this calamity and have this reversed. Because, surely, they could solve this together...

He'd rebuilt himself before. He could do it again - and he needed everyone to know it was possible. When he staggers ahead, seeping radioactive waste, he's leading a charge, and has no qualms with trudging into inhabited areas.

He calls out to everyone he finds, human or otherwise, trying to rally them into a horde.]

B - Day 416 and on: Downtown

[Roland remembers where he knows this form from, now; it was the same state he'd found the body of his son in his nightmare of New York, his liquified eyes and brain dripping out of his sockets as Roland hugged his corpse to his chest. The horrible possibility that Norfinbury existed in his America was a delusion he'd been unable to shake the entire time he'd been trapped here. Now, in his addled state, he's become convinced of it. He's in the same America he hails from, and at last, they were all ghosts, just some more 'alive' than others.

Possessed by this thought, he scours downtown for ghosts he won't find. But he discovers that you are safe, and that makes him happy enough. His beloved citizen.

Maybe you don't know him, but that doesn't matter - he's still your President. Just stay by him. The America you head towards is doomed - he needed to guide this country away from it. He's the only one with all the cards. He's the only one who can save the world. So please, you have to trust him. You don't have any other choice.

This comes out of his mouth, is pushed out of his joints, in an inhuman crack crack crack crack crack. Like listening through telephone static, only some of the words reach you.

He pursues you.]

A

[devoutish]

[Alfie's mostly ash by now, dragging himself along and getting smaller and smaller with each step as burned bits slough off of him as he walks. He still lifts a hand at the call, though, acknowledging and agreeing. He's here. He'll come.]

A

[warriorscribe]

[Roland looks awful. He wonders if there's some way he can help? But no, there's no helping any of them. It's the others he has to help. The others who are cold and suffering and probably worried about them. He doesn't have a stomach anymore, exactly, but something that feels like the source of his hunger agrees.

But, wait...

The living white blob speaks up, short of breath as if in constant excitement. From his voice, he is Enoch.]

We'll frighten them. We need to warn them first, somehow.

A

[averytinyparticle]

[Quark is getting some air in the morning, walking around the bunker but being sure not to stray too far, when he sees the anomaly coming toward him. His first instinct is to bolt, but...wait, it has a voice? That's different. Still, his shoulders shoot up in tension, and he starts to pat at his pockets, trying to find anything he can use to defend himself.]

Don't get too close!

[He takes a clumsy step backward, but for now, holds his ground beyond that. Quark's a survivor--but nobody can say he isn't just a bit too curious for his own good.]

CW: buried alive, eye horror/blindness, suffocation

[sleight_of_fate]

A. In the Tunnels

He's blind, but the Earth sings to him now, tells him where to go and how to move with its secret language of tremors. No matter how far away it seems in these walls, he knows it. It embraces him fully, and the first thing he thinks is panic, covering and crushing as it wraps around him, until finally he gives in and there's...

Safety. Warmth. Dirt crumbles under his hands until it *is* his hands, drips to the ground in clots and puffs. Most of the skin that still shows is crusted with mud right up to where it crumbles off his body, only to be picked up by the cloud at his feet,

It should bother him far more that there are round, polished turquoise stones in his face where his useless eyes once were. He can feel his mouth, his nose, everything that shows beneath the surface of the dirt as though entombed in it, but his eyes, those are gone. The change took those, too, its price for this new bond. For treasures among the grime and soil.

This is the Earth. The Earth is always there, always listening, and it cradles him when he lets it. If he can just shake the sudden, random waves of panic, the smothering and the blindness, and give in to the music, the stones within him like treasures and the quicksand flow of what used to be his body and joints.

"This isn't the ground. I can't feel the ground. Are we still inside?" There's a dirty, rusty rasp to his voice, as if he's been screaming again. Had he been screaming again? Never mind. It's not important. Even his own voice is almost drowned out by the murmurs.


B. In Town

Rhys moves like grass rippling, like the beginning of a landslide, and he can't... *Quite*...see what had happened to everyone else but he should pick a direction, any direction and find someone. Either someone who can help him, or that he can help. He hasn't changed that much, and there's still a (stone) heart inside him, a treasure, that wants to help.

If he stands still for too long, he gets dizzy, as though everything is sliding around him. Even if he's the one who's actually sliding, because the earth doesn't stop moving even when he does. Didn't Blue always used to say that? Now it's really true. Crumble, fall, reform, rebuild, constant rolling cycle.

He can't find the others. There is silence under his feet, in the vibrations of the earth, leaving only the sad keening of the wind and the buzzing of expectation. Dirt crumbles, falls, reforms in a constant fall, but not a single ounce of mass is lost. He's already lost enough, not he's going to keep it. Keep *everything*.

In the ground, with the empty dark pull of a deep well, of a freshly dug grave. Where it's safe, and warm, but so lonely...so empty...

A

[termineur]

Hey, it's Rhys. Gabriel flickers out of existence momentarily, and reappears about three feet closer to his good friend. It is, at least, comforting to hear his voice. "Think we're in the tunnels," he says, stepping closer. "I can see- something. People. They're above us, mostly."

He reaches out as soon as he thinks he's close enough, and finds dirt under his fingers. He tries to touch, that's so important for Rhys. But the parts of him that are electricity merely zap and disappear. They don't connect, and Gabriel grunts with frustration. "Can you feel me reach for you? I'm trying."

cw super body horror, potential smothering/crushing, mouth/mud horror

[zunesareawesome]

A. New Game Start!

[Peter's confused once they emerge. He's stuck on the ground, for a second he thinks he's actually stuck but it's not...he can't get up, he's not...shaped anything remotely humanoid. It's like he's made of...something big, something rocky, sludgy, muddy, save for the only recognizable part of him, the top of his face.

Every time he opens his mouth to speak, more and more mud just...pours out of it.

It's far bigger than it should be, spreading mud everywhere.

Yeah, this isn't a good day.]

I can't--I can't stop it?

[It's more of a gurgle than anything, but his words are understandable through all the...gushing mud. He hates this, he feels trapped by this...giant rock thing he is. He's gotta move. Gotta get outta here.

If he keeps screaming, this whole place is gonna end up one big muddy mess.

Maybe you can stop him from screaming?]

B. Continue, Y/N?

[He can crawl though, and he pulls himself along, emerging from the tunnels and into the snow. He doesn't bother going around anything, why should he? He doesn't need to. So much easier than going around, he was big enough, heavy enough to mow anything he wanted over. Bits of rubble get stuck on his body when he just...razes through the open snow, but that's okay. It's starting to make him look like a moving trash pile of rubble, to be honest.

He sees you in the distance.

Despite his size, he's not as slow as you'd think he is?

He's not going to stop.

He's coming right for you.]

A

[cahooted]

[This is not good. There is so much mud here?

Flynn doesn't mind at first because he quickly realizes it is such a good nourishment for his spores and if Peter keeps moving around like this he is going to spread it everywhere?

But at the same time Peter seems rather dismayed about all this if his screaming is any indication and, well. Flynn understands. His new shape is a little disturbing and probably takes some getting used to.

He leans down, squatting in front of the shapeless mass, finding the top of Peter's head. His 'hands' in the shape of vines and roots intermingling cover his gaping mouth for a moment though he isn't sure if he can actually hold it.]

Shhh. It's okay. You're okay.

cw: body horror, horror hunger, too many eyes

[godsspeed]

Bunker, room 2

[ Castiel wakes up, and the only thing out of the ordinary he feels is an odd stiffness - the kind he's learned means that he's been sitting still for too long. After less than a year in Norfinbury, in this mortal-ish body, it's still a novel feeling to him, but it's certainly not anything to be too concerned about. He rises to his feet, aching and a little disoriented, and peers around the room, looking for some indication of how much time has passed. Given that they're inside a windowless bunker, he doesn't have much success until he remembers his tablet's clock.

He kneels in the corner, rummaging through his bag. If anyone approaches as he's sorting through all the layers of cloth he's stuffed into it, he'll ask; ] How long was I asleep?

Bunker, outside

[ It's quickly become clear that something is going on here. He's not sure what, exactly, but seemingly everyone who participated in the seance missing that much missing time can't bode well. After making the rounds and checking with everyone he can safely reach within the bunker, though, nothing immediately jumps out at him as being off, and no one has posted about anything strange happening to the network just yet.

He supposes he could just leave it lie, and wait to see if anything happens. It's possible that would be the smart thing to do, in these circumstances. But there's an impending sense of dread that's eating at him, the unease mounting to physical discomfort, and it's making it difficult to stay still.

After some consideration and checking with others - what supplies they need, anything he should try in the surrounding residences or at the high school - he straps on his snow shoes and steps outside. He isn't sure what he hopes for more - that he'll find something, or that he won't. ]

Everywhere. Anywhere.

[ Castiel wakes up, and he isr a d i a n tburning bright as day, bright as sunlight, bright as divinity. Too bright to look at, and then some. The briefest glance in his direction burns his sihouette into one's vision like staring into the sun - a writing mass of feathers and flames, punctuated with constellations of yet-brighter dots. His eyes. Dozens of them, hundreds, maybe, and the light that lances from their gaze is enough to blind in an instant. For the first time in months he can see again, no longer limited by the constraints of a human skull with its two dull, forward-facing eyes. He can stretch and unfurl and be free of the confines of that tiny, fragile form. He feels powerful.

He feels empty. Achingly so, like lungs deprived of air. He wants to breathe in, swallow up everything around him to fuel his incandescence. ]

Oh. I was right. [ His voice echoes and whispers, completely unrecognizable when compared to how he sounds when speaking through James Novak's vocal cords. He turns his too-bright gaze on the nearest person, not yet aware of how painful it may be. ] We are anomalies again.

Bunker, Outside (cw: burns, blistering/melted skin, delirium, too long limbs)

[jumpthegun]

[Where is he going?

John has no idea. He can barely see. Salty sweat and blood burns his eyes. The snow is slowly melting around him as he digs further into a snowbank, trying to cool the fire arcing across his body, across his mind. He reaches and reach and digs until there's nothing but air. The doctor's body slumps. His arms are too long, stretched, the flesh blistering and melting across it, dripping down before snapping back up and reconstituting.

He hears the crunch of something nearby and turns his head to look. He sees... he doesn't know what he sees, but he uses his hands to drag himself forward. Is it a snow goose? He thinks it is. What else could walk on top of the snow like that? It doesn't matter that there's little to no sense in that connection.

As the anomaly draws closer to Castiel, the angel might start to feel some of that fever in his own mind, the edges of delirium, of a brain wracked by more heat than it can handle. Fire.]

cw: body horror, vines, potential cannibalism, potential parasitic growth

[cahooted]

[ooc: A body folded like origami, paper growing flowers and vines and leaves and branches at its edges, words and roots intermingled. Ink instead of blood, sap instead of tears. A desire to grow and a need for flesh and outgrowths like venus fly traps.]


A. Tree of Knowledge [anomaly]

[Is it narcissistic to study yourself?

Rather than being horrified or all that bothered Flynn can't stop staring at the edges of his body because it's beautiful. After months in this dead, snowy landscape he can't get over the green of his leaves, the vibrant colors of his flowers and their petals, almost besides himself with happiness.

He needs to spread it. He needs to spread it everywhere. Fill this place with life again, make this town a beautiful, beautiful garden. He can make it better. He can fix this.

He looks over at the nearest person in the tunnel, holding up his arm with branches and vines intermingling, leaves and petals forming, and he missed this so much. Look at all this life on him.]

I'm beautiful!

[... Maybe a little narcissistic.]


B. FEED ME, SEYMOUR SNOBOS [anomaly]

He needs to grow.

Vines reach out, moving over the cold ground and it's no good. He can't feel it, the temperature doesn't bother him but it's no good for roots, no good for growing, no good for nourishment. He'll wither. He doesn't want to wither, he wants to push past the limits, the limits of this body, to be more, to expand.

Sustenance. For himself, his flowers, his beautiful flowers and the words that carry them, the words all over his body. They're important, so important.

Please, won't you help him? Don't you want to come closer? Look at his blooming edges, the contrast to the bleak icy desert surrounding you. Let him get you out of this horrible wasteland. Be a part of this.

He smiles as he approaches.


C. Aftermath

[He wakes up and his leg hurts. So does everything else, a familiar feeling these days and for a moment he doesn't want to get up, wants to just lie here in his pain and self-pity and misery, he can skip a day of traveling or two.

But there are other sensations that don't fit, that are less familiar. He's thirsty and dizzy, like he's been sleeping for too long – and that never happens in this town.

Flynn sits up, confused. What happened? He grabs his crowbar for support and pushes to his feet with a strained grunt, hobbling over to the provisions to look for something to drink.]

A - cw disease, rotting alive, respiratory distress, sundry bodily fluids

[bookofnope]

[Most of Beckett's urge to hunt is focused on people - the people he knows are out there, surviving, living, loving even, the Beast has no end of hatred for them. He's inclined to ignore the others who were transformed. Most of them don't radiate the living warmth that he wants to both take and smother.

Flynn is very much an exception. He positively glows with life. Health. Growth. Beautiful bloody flowers after almost a year of whiteout. It makes Beckett want to howl with rage. It makes him sick.

He shuffles over to the arm that Flynn is showing, coming in in a cloud, a gale of rotten-meat stench, and grabs at Flynn's wrist. His flesh feels yielding and flaking inside his glove and the power of his own grip squeezes murky fluid out of it. More fluid comes from his mouth when he speaks in a gurgling rasp:]

Stop that.

cw: body horror, potential cannibalism/electrical burns/fires, semi-blindness, coma-talk

[termineur]

[ ooc: 'A body that feels like licking an electrical socket, humming and buzzing and crackling. Eyes that can only see the electrical pulses of the bodies nearby. An urge to reach and pull out all those pulsing nerves and keep them.' Also- I'll follow writing style, so feel free change it up! ]

A - Annoyed Anomaly (maintenance tunnels)

So they're out of the room, but this isn't what Gabriel expected. He thought for sure they'd all be connecting together, but he's just as separate as he's always been. He's still missing something. And he still can't see-- or rather, he sees differently now. Little sparks of light are in the distance. It's figuring out that they're above him that makes him realize they're in the tunnels.

There's still something familiar about it. The seance- right. He's data again, he's electricity. And he needs more. And- And...he's an anomaly, isn't he?

He heaves a crackling sigh, and suddenly shifts from standing to sitting down, then to walking next to one of his previously-trapped comrades. "Hey, are you cold? I'm not cold anymore." Let's look at those silver linings, shall we?


B- Time to Say Hi (anomaly- anywhere other than the bunker)

It's clearly time to give up on being Gabriel for good. If this is his existence now, if he's so empty, he has to be Sylar. His friends won't be his, anyway- they're going to want to hang around the 'real' one, the 'less dangerous' one.

His appearance is going to make his usual ambush tactics a little harder. But he'll give it a good college try, anyway. Following the light of the electrical pulses running up and down people's nervous systems, he's able to find someone outside- or maybe even in a house. He can't really see the houses anymore, after all, and maybe he can just push his way in or zap through a window. He can hear, somehow, so as he gets closer he calls out a cautious-sounding, "Hello? Can I get some help?"


C - Getting Tired of Comas (Gabriel - any safe room in the bunker)

He wakes up in the Bunker- Room 2 again, since they started passing out for way too long- and he can already tell it happened again. With a groan, he pulls himself up to a sitting position and rubs at his eyes. Just like with any of these 'glitches,' he's not sure what he can do about it, other than continuing on.

And since he's apparently been out for awhile, he needs to stretch his legs. He'll check on his friends, ask how they're doing, then head to whatever other rooms he can reach today. Maybe he'll feel a little less useless if he offers people snacks or whatever they might need. So you might notice Gabriel coming up to you and holding out a candy bar. "Wish it were more 'gourmet', but you've gotta keep your strength up. I've heard comas are exhausting for everyone."


D- Do-It-Yourself

Just indicate who you're running into in the comment!


E - Edited Additional Outside-the-Bunker Times (Sylar-nomaly)

He finally figured out where the bunker was, but there's a problem. He doesn't have a tablet anymore. Apparently, the copies aren't important enough for them, or something. But that's okay. He'll wait.

He'll wait until someone comes outside for a Network break. If it's someone he knows well and he hears their voice, he might stay and talk- say hi, hop on their nerves a little, hopefully keep them around. If not, he'll zip quickly into the bunker, moving so fast that only his afterimage remains. Feel free to go after him.

A

[bywolves]

[ No, he's not cold, but wow he super doesn't like that light. The shivering, half-formed monster lets out an echoing, distant screech of a sound - like a sound coming from another room down the hall. It rises up and skitters away, and the parts of it that are at least somewhat solid absorb the shadows around it, fading half into the floor and wall, nebulous.

It stays far away from the electricity, in the dark, and then whispers, in Royce's ragged and pained voice: ]

... Not cold.

cw: body horror, dysmorphic thoughts and actions

[notaquaman]

A. waking up, human

Fuck.

[Nathan rolls onto his side, covering his arms over his head. He feels like he's been out of it for ages--probably has. Sure he has. He must've been. Everything feels wrong, like a night out at the club that ended in a fistfight and memories scattered like blood spatter. There's a sudden impulse to call out for his mom, as if she'll be at his bedside to grip his hand and tell him he's a reckless idiot but then smile at him and love him anyway for all of his faults. But, ah, there is no beside here. His thoughts organize, redirect.]

Aigis?

[Yeah, that's better. He groans and forces himself onto his elbows.]

You awake?

B. escaping, anomaly

[Well, this was a fucking chore. As Nathan crawls his way out of the maintenance tunnel and staggers to his feet--what should be feet, what don't feel like feet--the only natural way he can abate the unending sense of dread and terror is to make light of the situation.]

How many hostages does it take to open an exit door?

[His voice feels gummy and strange, warbling, distant, like it's being spoken from underwater or a failing transmission, a veil of static. Nathan pauses, but it's not really all that strange, is it? He looks down at his hands, and it's all unreal, but his fingers are still fingers, even if they don't exactly feel. Even if it seems he could walk out of reality and into somewhere new. Is this what happens when you die? When you're dead and stay dead? All those times he's bitten it, if he'd had a consciousness that lingered between breaths of knew life, would this be how he felt?

Nathan laughs. No, he's not dead. He's a fucking immortal, for God's sake.]

C. anywhere, wandering

[As he walks around the town, looking for anyone, maybe everyone, his thoughts start to change, to shift. He's never seen ghosts who look like this, but that's how he supposes he feels a ghost should feel. Maybe when he saw Kelly, or his brother, or that rude kid that got shot, this was how they saw themselves. But if there's nobody here to see him, is he even real at all?

There's something prickly worming in to the edges of his thoughts, an echo chamber of negative emotions. A walking poltergeist, a trail of regret and fear and envy for the living. Steam radiates from his body, but it doesn't disturb the snow beneath his feet. The closer he gets to anyone he finds, the colder they feel--but not the same oppressive cold of the terrain, but a sinking sort of cold that attaches to the bones, like pure energy being sucked from the core, something deeper than pulsing blood or straining muscles. His pace quickens at the sight of another.]

Hey. Can you see me? Can you hear me, mate?

C

[termineur]

[ Gabriel heads outside of the bunker to do his normal 'check the tablet' break during the middle of the day. They kept passing out and he wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. There wasn't much to do but keep going.

But he's ready for something to happen, and low and behold, here it is. This is clearly an anomaly, but- the words....they're more coherent than they should be. Gabriel inches towards the door. At least get it open so he has somewhere to run if he has to. ]

I can hear you, I can see you. But you might wanna stop moving. You're coming off pretty 'anomaly' at the moment, kid.

[ He pulls the baseball bat free from where it had been stuffed into his backpack. But he holds it loosely, not brandishing it yet. He'll be reasonable if this thing is. ]

cw: body horror, potential for crystals growing in wounds, open sores, intense pain and sickness

[phaseshifter]

1 - In the tunnels;

[ Her wings. She has her wings back. Everything else about Angel's current condition pales in comparison to that. She can't fly with them, not really, but even hovering a few inches above the ground feels so wonderful after all this time that she can't even be disappointed. Her wings are back. Happy tears well up in her eyes and spill over, trailing down her face and dripping thickly off her chin and leaving a glowing purple puddle on the floor.

(It doesn't matter that the tears are purple, or that they're spilling from every facial orifice, or that they won't stop. It doesn't matter that raising a hand to wipe them away reveals inhuman claws at the end of white, misshapen arms. It doesn't even matter that her face is immobile and masklike or that her neck is too long and too hunched or that everything is wrong wrong wrong because just look. Look. She has her wings back. How can she not be happy?)

She turns to one of her companions - no, her fellow escapees, they did it, they got out and they're free and she's so happy - and reaches for them. Whatever they look like now, it doesn't matter. She just wants to share her happiness with them, because she is happy, she is, and everything's going to be okay from now on. ]

I can't believe we're out! I was starting to believe we'd never be free. I was missing the snow and everything.

[ Oh. Well. The reverb effect on her voice is new, but. That's okay too, right? Yeah. ]



2 - FREE HUGS;

[ As her companions disperse across town, Angel is left alone. That's a problem, especially when everything she sees-smells-tastes is tinged with the familiar tang of eridium. It's too much like it was in the bunker. She needs to find her friends, or anyone, to remind herself that it's okay. That she's free. That she should be happy, and that all the nastier side-effects of her transformation will likely be fixed up by the administrator before too long.

She wishes she could stop crying.

Since she's looking for people, she makes a point of checking every building she passes. You never know who you might find! And she's so so alone. When she comes across a building she opens the front door - slowly, she doesn't want to startle anyone - and peers around it. Which would be a lot less of a problem if she wasn't doing so by stretching out her freakishly long alien neck, and if the face peeking inside the building wasn't an unmoving hollow-eyed imitation of her real face. ]

Hello? Is - is anyone there?



3 - CLOSED TO VARIA AND FRIENDS/THE BANG PARADE/INTERNATIONAL SHARKFUCKER'S ASSOCIATION/WHATEVER WE'RE CALLING OURSELVES TODAY;

[ It's late afternoon when Angel finally makes her way back to hot shower house. It'd have been sooner if not for her attempts to find other people, and if she's honest with herself she's kind of been putting this off.

It's just that she looks so weird. Letting Squalo see her like this isn't going to be pleasant. And Bester - will Bester still know her? Xanxus will probably laugh. Ugh. But she can't hide forever, and Squalo is probably at least a little worried about her disappearance, right? Maybe? Perhaps she'll just. Look in one of the windows. To make sure they're still there, and maybe to give her a chance to build up her courage some more. She silently floats towards the living room window and as she looks inside, her gaze settles on--

Herself. Handcuffs around her ankles, looking perfectly normal and content. Until she looks up and sees what's at the window, anyway. Both Angels scream in unison, though the scream from outside is tinged with fury. An impostor? This is Miller's doing, right? He's made copies of everyone he took and he's going to use them to hurt her friends and she has to help. She has to get inside. ]

3

[sharktrash]

[ It's been a relatively peaceful few days, whatever weird shit was going on aside. Squalo had even let Angel be (mostly) free at this point - it's not like her frame didn't make it ridiculously easy to nip any budding murder outrage, and the cuffs would still slow her down enough to make sure she can't play up the element of surprise. They'd still been spending most time in the hot water house, only moving out to ward off cabin fever and restock on food. As it turns out, it may have been a mistake. ]

[ It was really easy to find them, wasn't it? ]

[ The screech has Squalo jumping up from wherever he is, crowbar in hand, and speed to the living room. At first he doesn't realize what's going on. ]

Angel? What the hell --

[ And then he sees the shape in the window, and he can't see all of it but he sees enough, and he sort of looks between Angel and Angel for a moment. ]

What the hell?!

[ IS THERE ANYTHING TO BLOCK THE WINDOW WITH because he's gonna do just that before darting to the main door and trying to barricade it HAHA LOCKDOWN WOULD SURE BE NICE NOW, ]

CW: disease, rotting alive, respiratory distress, bodily fluids

[bookofnope]

A - Memento Mori

The others take their time. Study their forms, reorient, talk to each other and ask questions. Not Beckett. Beckett is out of questions. Beckett knows exactly what is happening: death.

His mind has gone even before the transformation really began. Sometimes in the little hours of the second night in the blank room, curled up on his side with his back to a world he could no longer see as anything but a lie. He'd been ready - not to die, but for comfortable madness. And madness had obliged him. When he'd woken into what he is now, it made perfect sense. This was all he'd been all along. Walking death. Rotting mortality. Grief. The only thing he could trust anymore was grief.

But there were others out there, and they had everything he didn't. Lives. Hopes. Worlds. And what had he been all along if not a predator.

He doesn't care where he's come from, what has been done to him, or where he's going. Only the hunt. He prowls the city, a half-corpse in a cloud of suffocating rot and a trail of steaming ooze. Looking for them.


B - This is a totally normal Norfinbury day, right?

Which is all very unpleasant, but Beckett doesn't know a thing about it. Why would he? As far as he's concerned, he's just woken up after missing another bloody day for no reason he can grasp, and it's really time to get back to the bunker. But he has supplies, he's not alone - Enoch is always good company - and he's feeling downright refreshed by the trip. The missing time is certainly alarming, but more in the general way that everything in Norfinbury is alarming. They'll get back to the bunker and... probably not sort it out, but feel better being together with the others.

That's the philosophy he starts the day's journey with. It'll be better to be together with people. Right.

Right.

B

[warriorscribe]

"I can't say this is how I expected to get any proper rest..."

He's not feeling particularly rested? In fact, he's aching from being in one position all day again. But the change of scenery and continued good company has also done good things for him, and at least the coma didn't come with nightmares. (He does not realize it isn't really sleep.)

He's even in high enough spirits he's eating before they set out, chewing on a granola bar with dried cranberries in it. He breaks it in half and offers the other to Beckett as he approaches the door with him, still in the process of also pulling his backpack on. He isn't quite organized.

There are no good days in Norfinbury. But this is a better one.

Isn't it?

cw: depersonalization, body horror, potential cannibalism

[bywolves]

[ Dark and immaterial. A form that isn't a form. A form that can almost but not quite be touched. A feeling like pins and needles. A fear of the light. ]

A. in the tunnels, anywhere (anomaly)

[ The tunnels are what he needs, right now. Dark and cold and featureless, like Royce, easy to navigate. House was right, he keeps muttering to himself as he shudder-jerks his way down through the tunnels - on the ceiling, wispy and solid all in one. He can't quite get his hands on the walls. On anybody, anything. He has to find Alfie, find Gabriel, find Ecks - find Flynn, maybe. Flynn was concerned before. He should find Flynn.

But he loses that thought near immediately. He drags himself along the ceiling slowly, laboriously, and sometimes, he feels his fingers touch the metal. It is enough. He's still here. He wants to be here, and maybe - maybe if he finds someone, he can steal them. Take them in. Make them part of him and be solid. He can't hold onto anything anymore and it hurts.

It looks like a cloak, almost, or maybe a manta ray with long, brittle, shadow-black claws scraping into the ceiling as it drags itself along. The tail can't stop moving, whipping around like wind is blowing through it. Disjointed legs judder out at strange angles, trying to find purchase and failing. It's loud. There's no way to hide, not with how static-y shadows curl out around it, not with how the distant, otherworldly sound of sobs carry down the hallway. And at one point, it falls from the ceiling into a heap, and half of it disperses - the other half melts into the ground, looking all the world like the remains of something half-eaten.

Maybe it -- maybe he just needs to find something that can give him the rest of his shape back. Something he can drag down into the dark with him. ]

B. in the houses (human)

[ And then there's this one. This one shivers as he wakes, sore and cold. He knows Alfie should be close by. Ecks, too. Where - he reaches out, patting, trying to find him, trying to figure out what's going on. He coughs a bit, dizzily trying to reorient himself. ]

A

[devoutish]

[An Alfie-shaped figure made of fire and smoke approaches, reaching a smoldering hand down to the cloak slumped on the ground. He knows Royce. He'd know him anywhere.]

Come with me.

[Let him wear you.]

CW: Body horror, potential cannibalism, what is reality??

[clowngirl]

Anomaly Harley Quinn (chaos element), in the maintenance tunnels

[It's a horror beyond what she had imagined, beyond what she had been willing to accept. Her body twists into what before was impossible... what still should be impossible. So full of form, wrought from static and raw imagination, and yet so hungry. She doesn't understand, but there is a comfort in that now. She finally acquiesces. She escapes her prison. She searches.

Does she find you? You find her but you don't. Ever-moving, ever-changing. The harder you try to make out a face in the darkness, the less you see, and the more sees you. A Cheshire grin fades from the corner of your eye. She wants you. She wants to feed upon your perception of reality itself and then fill your hollow soul with confusion and madness. She moves to block your path in the tunnels. The silence is broken by words which escape inside disjointed giggles from a gaping mouth.]

WAnNa plAy?

cw: body horror, electrical burns/fires, gore

[termineur]

[ While Sylar is zip-zapping across the town, he comes across this. Whatever this is, he can tell he's drawn to it. He grins, his body burning away until all that's left is the lightning- and a few singed bits of meat.

It hurts, but that's fine. It's not like he's going to die. ]

Play. Sure.

[ The blue lightning forms a swirling ball that becomes a cannon and blasts itself in the direction of the question. He knows he won't hurt her, but maybe he can find her that way, at least. ]

cw: body horror, potential being burned/poisoned/covered in ash to death accidentally

[ninjainviolet]

[ Sheena: A body that boils like magma. Skin cracking and bursting like the crust of the earth above a river of lava. Sparking and smoking, belching poisonous gas and hot ash and flames that engulf like a city preserved beneath an eruption. ]

A - Anomaly walking (through the tunnels).

[ Where? Where are they? Sheena has no idea. All she knows is that for the first time since arriving, she's actually warm. Too warm.

Warm as Hell, as a matter-of-fact.

A quick glance would trick a person into believing that she's perfectly normal--except for the cracking skin and sparks and gas that shoot from her hair occasionally. Ash follows her with every step, and her hand burns the walls around her with every touch, leaving a hand-shaped scorch-mark in its wake.

It feels like her blood is literally boiling, and as she watches as the skin breaks apart and reforms again and again, a flame shoots out of her hand and hits the closest person.

Who barely reacts. ]

You...That didn't really bother you, did it?

B - All about the Town - Anomaly.

[ Despite her appearance and abilities, Sheena is still Sheena, and all she wants to do is help. She thinks she's figured out a way to do so without hurting anyone and ventures from place to place, waiting for someone to show up.

And when they do, she won't hesitate to speak. ]

I can help keep you warm for the night. I think. Will you let me help?

[ ooc: A lot of options here: Non-anomalies: Stay or go, depending on time of day, of course. Going means risking the outside. Staying means risking Sheena accidentally killing you with gas, ash, or fire - (if this one, please let me know which one for accidental death you'd like/or if you want to be surprised). Or, you can tell HER to go, but she'll still stick around, trying to help anyway. And possibly kill you with gas. (Or total survival!) Of course, fellow anomalies won't be affected by her and are welcome to join her. ]

C - One hell of a nap - Human.

[ The moment Sheena wakes up, she knows something is wrong. For one thing, she had been standing in room 24, and now she's lying down in it. For another, she's pretty stiff, as though she hadn't moved for a while. And her head hurts, as though she had hit it on something.

Sitting up slowly, she starts to speak, but has to swallow a few times as it's parched and she can only squeak. ]

Coma? Again? What the hell is going on?

[ Directed to anyone and everyone around her. ]

A

[cahooted]

Surprisingly enough... no.

[Flynn slowly lowers a branched arm, still with a very startled expression on his face as he stares at Sheena.

He glances down at his body of wood and vines and paper and... pretty much anything inflammable in the book. Once he's sure he really did take no damage, he glances back up at her.]

Whew! For a moment there I really thought this was it?

[He pauses and studies her, well. Boiling body.]

... Does that hurt?

cw: memory loss / false memories, risk of characters drowning, who knows

[fiftheclipse]

[OOC: Flowing and shifting. A form that never stays the same. Memories that flow and slip. A body that drowns those who come near.

For looks, I'm picturing something similar to whatever this is in the sense of being a completely see-through shape, no internal organs, and things like hair or clothes only a vague outline. Except, as his form can't stay the same, it'll look like he's having some trouble maintaining it. Gravity getting in the way and all that. Maybe even collapsing to the ground if startled or touched. His surface is constantly moving, so mainly for 999 related reasons, facial features won't be visible at all. Yet, somehow, it's still possible to just know that it's him...

As far as powers go, your characters can also have their memories altered while too close, if you'd like. Maybe they could even trade or share memories temporarily. Junpei has no conscious control over that, so it's 100% your call. Since the drowning isn't caused by direct contact, you can choose how close "near" is, as well. He doesn't want anyone dying...]


[1] - Maintenance Tunnels

[They're free. They're really free, and yet, that's not enough. Not when there's still that awful feeling that those who hadn't been locked away might have had it worse. That they might even still be in danger. That every second wasted on navigating the tunnels rather than checking on them just adds that much more risk.

So from the very first moment, Junpei only has one goal: get back to the bunker.

Which is.. easier said than done.

It's once he's started towards zone three that he notices.. changes. For one, he can't run fast. There's resistance like in water, and-- Wait, no.

Looking down at himself, everything.. is water? That's...

There's a shape to him, at least. While he's still, it does look similar to his own body. Kind of. Maybe. But even such a small movement as his chest rising with each breath is enough to send ripples across the surface, obscuring everything. And moving something more, like an arm or a leg... No, there's nothing recognizable left to him at all.

Those still in the maintenance tunnels as well may find him.. stopped. Moving somehow. Flowing. But not making any progress towards the exit.

He needs a moment to take all of this in.]


[2] - Zone Three, anywhere

[Maybe the cold, or unexplainable lack of it, has caused him to lose his way. Or maybe he didn't have anywhere to go in the first place? His train of thought seems to flow away just as easily as his form.

He's still sure he needs to regroup. Needs to find anyone who wasn't infected. But where exactly he's headed...

For now, he'll just check out whatever buildings he comes by, hoping someone will be there. That's the easiest way to remember, right?]


[3] - Bunker, inside or out

[He's going to reach the bunker eventually, though. Whether he can really get inside or whether he has to wait at the door, he knows this is where he needs to be.

... Except... Maybe he's forgotten why.

Will others stay long enough for him to figure things out? Or will they run away and leave him even more confused? He sure wouldn't blame them for choosing the latter...]

1;

[phaseshifter]

Oh! You're - be careful. I'm dripping. You don't wanna get this on [IN???] you, trust me.

[ Angel very carefully manoeuvres around the... floaty puddle... person... guy. She thinks it's a guy? It seemed to be shaped in a vaguely guy-ish manner a moment ago, but the flowiness of its whole situation makes it kind of hard to keep track.

But. Anyway. Scooting around it, very politely, and leaving that glowy liquid trail in her wake. As she makes her way around, though, her freaky long neck allows her to keep watching Puddle Person with extreme interest.

Not that you can tell about the interest, since her face doesn't move, but shh. ]

Who am I speaking to? Is that rude to ask??

cw body horror, frostbite, freezing to death, hypothermia, mood manipulation, potential cannibalism

[holmesice]

A. Supercooled (In the tunnels)

[Mycroft's confused.

He's used to impossible things happening, yes, but this is beyond impossible. He can't tell where he begins and ends. He feels lighter than he should, yes, but it's too much, as if he's made of air. If there was ever a sensation for being incorporeal, this was it.

But he was there, even if he was an absence. He traces his fingers against the walls of the tunnel and frost appears, reaching out, crystallizing. He knows he's leaving footprints, he can feel them, just as he can feel how bitter and cold everything is around him. It's not a bad thing though, it doesn't affect him. There's a wind around him, in him, through him, there's snowflakes but he's there, in between the snowflakes.

He's the not where there is.

There's only the slightest hint of where he physically is, easier to see out of the side of your eye than looking straight on. Easier to focus on if you weren't actually focusing on him. If you really try, you can see the slightest shimmer of frost in the air, the slightest movement in a thick burst of snow.

He should be frightened. He really should. And he is?

But he's missed this. Missed the power, missed the invisibility behind the power.

He brushes past someone, ice trailing around him, despite it being difficult to tell there's someone there.]

Excuse me.

B. It's a blizzard (Outside)

[He should be more pleased, but he's just a little bit bitter about it.

Utterly comfortable, he blends in with the snow, part of it, at one with it. It's been so long since he's been anywhere near comfortable, he just wants to enjoy this before it's taken away again.

Maybe it won't be. He doesn't mind staying like this. He's finally not ill, and he can do as he pleases.

Being this incorporeal, near-invisible is both delightful and upsetting.

He doesn't mind being invisible, and yet he does. He deserves it, doesn't he? His past mistakes feel like they're haunting him, but it's not an active sorrow--it's one of bitterness, a taste that follows him around the same way the cold, wind, and frost does.

The only sign of him being there is the sensation that there's something wrong, a presence between the snow itself. A blast of cold air, colder than what should be--a swirl of snow in the distance, and maybe something vaguely walking, crunching in the snow, if you really squint.

If he's by a house, frost creeps up over the windows, covering them completely.

It's much too late by then.]

A

[warriorscribe]

[Enoch is incredibly glad they don't seem to actually affect one another, because he doesn't want to know what would happen if this liquid body froze. He shuffles out of his way, sluggish in the sudden drop in temperature anyway. He can't feel it as the biting cold it is, but it still seems to make him feel thicker.

Mycroft probably didn't even know who it was he just passed, nearly stepped on. Enoch's original form appears completely lost to this construct of pearly slime. His voice, however, despite not having a throat or mouth to create it, is still the same.]

I can hardly see you! What has he made of you?

[It's more curious than it is horrified. After all, he didn't sound like he was particularly upset, and invisibility doesn't seem to be so bad, really. He's not the horribly mangled sight that others are, that not even his dampened inability to recognize suffering can salvage.]