deeper and deeper we go, where there is no light [open to multiple]

[postictal]

[Takes place after the events here.]

They drift without purchase and run without purpose.

Something is missing.

They are not whole. But they are and they must be; they can see themselves, they can hear the warped susurrus of their thoughts as they run without running, spun and torn from the body that is not theirs, except for the times where it is.

But where is it. Where are they.

It is too dark and they run, sluicing through forest and trees, searching for the splash of red on brown and black that is their friend, or even the slash of black and the pale glow of white that would denote the thing that follows them, the thing that they hate. But there is nothing. Simply black, endless, a formless landscape stitched over the murmur of a ragged-torn mind. Trees loom, jagged. Always those burned-black sheathes of wood and leaves, stretching ever upward, obscuring all light, branches to sky.

They run in a blur of gray and white and black, their form ashen, their face bright and smooth, dark eyes staring.

There is something ahead.

There is something ahead, and they slam into it, feral and frantic and afraid.


L̙͖̦̫ͩͬͦ̏̀o̸͕͇̒ͨͦ̉o̰̺̠̳̮̤͗͑ͯ́k͖̯̑̏̔̇͂ͬ̉ ̷͈̉͆́̋̇̓̊b̋̃͒ͬ̅ͯ͆ë̗̩̖̺̹̎͐͒̓̿̈h̘͂ͦ̄̍̄̐͆i͙̳̤͛̌ͥͧ̈́̃n̖̠d̯̺̥̗ͪ́̆ ̯̺͈̟ͫ͆̈̃ͫ̏̇ỹ̹̣͙̂ͪ̅͟o̗̯̟̗u̬͉̼̼͓͇͑͢ͅ

[ooc: Tim's other self has currently been detached from his body and is now roaming about the dreamspace - mostly in the interest of avoiding the cats, who are curious as to what they're about. They'll come into your dreams. They'll come into anyone's dreams. Or you might end up in theirs. It's up to you, really. They're not likely to be pleased about it either way.]

Comments

[biscuit_powered]

"Get off me!" Asmodia's mind sparks with unanswered, half-formed questions that fizzle out into panic that doesn't allow her to complete non-vital thoughts like who is this and what do they want. That it's not an animal, that she doesn't feel claws and teeth tearing into her, is little comfort. She convulses, tail striking his legs like a whip as her hands come up to dig into the fingers wrapped around one of her horns, trying to pry them off.

[postictal]

This is not right. This is not normal. The thing is beastly, tail slapping against their legs as it writhes beneath them with the frantic desperation of a trapped thing. They cannot hold it like this forever, not as it rages with the express purpose of unseating them.

They seize the curled horn with both hands, their grip made a point of strategy as they use the handhold to lift the thing's head from the ground and slam it back down, hard and repetitive. Still it. Still it.

[biscuit_powered]

The first blow stuns her momentarily, bright light lancing across her vision at the impact of head against stony ground. It doesn't seem satisfied with her momentarily failure to struggle, though, but lifts up her head to bash it again. She flings a hand up to scrabble at its face, fingernails encountering something hard and ungiving, and then her head hits the ground again and she thinks she can feel something wet on her scalp. This can't be how it ends, she will not end like this!

Her component pouch remains strapped to her belt and her hands find it as she writhes, trying to twist from its grip. She bites her tongue at the next blow, but there, her fingers find the nutshells and drag them out as she practically jabs a hand into his gut with the magic gesture and shouts, "Confound you!"

[postictal]

Again. Again. They will ram it downward until it stills, and then they will observe its nature. They will see what it is, and what they must do with it.

It makes some sort of straining movement beneath the weight of their body thrown over its own, but it is not until an out-thrust hand stabs into their abdomen that they deem it worth their attention.

By then, it is -

They are -

What is it -

They lurch back, hands coming sharply before their eyes to deflect an invisible blow and crack across their face with its hard, smooth surface, the momentum of which brings them heavily to the ground in a startled, twitching sprawl, back to ground, face to sky.

They -

They cannot move. They cannot rise. Their thoughts have fallen into a disordered, muted, vertiginous swirl, their limbs askew.

It has -

It -

It has done something to them.

[biscuit_powered]

Her patron must be watching over her; Asmodia can't quite believe that she fired off the spell successfully, nor that she was lucky enough for it to have the desired effect. She doesn't stick around to see if he'll get up and try again, but scrambles to her feet. Get away, get away, get away! Sparing only a wild-eyed glance over her shoulder, she bolts down the mountain trail...or tries to. It's as though her limbs lack any strength; hard as she pushes herself she might as well be running through mud as through air.

[postictal]

They struggle to roll to their feet, but their limbs respond sluggishly, fingers scrabbling through gravel and loose earth.

This is not the woodland through which they arrived.

Their quarry, at least, is moving equally slowly, slow enough that they may scuttle forward on elbows and knees to hook fingers around its ankle to tether it in place.

[biscuit_powered]

They'll soon find it's no longer woodland at all. The cry Asmodia lets out as fingers wrap around her ankle echoes against unseen walls in the darkness, and as she falls forward she bangs into something hard and smooth, hands flying out to grab hold of it. She anchors herself on the desk, papers going flying, and tries alternately to yank and kick her leg out of her attacker's grasp. "Let go, let go!" she yells. This thing, what is it, why doesn't she recognize what it is, and where are the others?! "Help, I'm in here, help!" she cries, but none of the others come, it is only her and this assailant in the darkened office off the false Hall of Breaching, surrounded by puddles of viscous black liquid and neatly stacked piles of human bones amidst the general debris. The place reeks of death, and she wonders if this thing is one of the devils that inhabit it...or one of their earlier victims.

[postictal]

They have shifted, inexorably, again. They flinch sharply as the thing struggles against their grip, their gaze jerking up and dipping down again in agitated turmoil. They know this, they know this. That was how it operated, shuffling their surroundings in the space of a scuffle, elongating falls, wrenching space and time around in a looping, terrifying, burning, impossible construct.

Their foot slides through one of the pools of thick, gelatinous liquid on the floor, leaving a dark streak on the dark ground. They know the shape and length of bone, its forbidding glow against the icy void that comprises their general awareness of their surroundings.

They scrabble upward for a better handhold upon the thing, frantic. Perhaps if they destroy it, stamp it out, the thing they know is always with them we are always with you will stop, will stop, will stop -

[biscuit_powered]

"Get off!" it's an animal's snarl that escapes her as she claws at the desk, refusing to go down. Trapped, trapped here with this thing in the dark and the stench of a place that isn't a place. She remembers the walls closing in on them, and so they are now -- she remembers the creeping noises, and the screams of the others trapped here echoing from the other rooms, and the feeling of being watched, always being watched --

She doesn't know how to help herself, but she does. She makes a convulsive movement, losing her grip on the desk as a twisted, ugly word in a language spoken by the damned wrenches its way up her throat. Something shapeless and dark appears over the two of them, but it's her attacker on whom it focuses.

tw: severe mental distress, minor body horror

[postictal]

The effect is abrupt and immediate and terrifying.

They scramble backwards, away, their movements frantic and desperate as they scuttle over the cold of the smooth, slick floor, a hot knot of terror drawn tight in their chest. They shrink away, hands reaching to cover their smooth, pale shape of a face, as if hiding the fearsome thing from their sight would be a sufficient means of evading its eyeless sight.

fou
nd
you

forever
Their back arches in a shivering, paroxysmal movement that seems to be their non-verbal equivalent of an horrified, inhuman scream.

It tilts its head smoothly to one side as it watches them, its blank visage somehow managing to communicate dismissive indifference. They cannot look at it, but nor can they look away.

Gently, almost lovingly, its arms extend, unspooling toward them, stretching forth with limitless reach, to wrap them in its icy, inescapable grip.

you will be
fixed,
it assures them.
just as
you were meant to be



comecloser
They do not have time to work their stolen body's jaws and throat to make an appropriate sound of overpowering, paralyzed despair.

They do not have time to do anything.

The inky dark of its body expands and enfolds them with pulsing alacrity, and they shudder into silence.

[biscuit_powered]

Asmodia's face contorts into an expression of disgust and -- yes, pity as she watches the creature recoil from whatever its own mind has conjured to kill it. She takes the moment to put more distance and the desk between them, knowing that there's still a chance it will not die from this, knowing now that she can hit it again with her magic if need be, and again, and again, she remembers now, she is not helpless --

It is an ugly death, for how clean it is. That's always how it is with this spell. There's no scream this time, only the twitching of a dying body. She's glad, as she always is, that she can't see what her victim attacker sees. Asmodia lets herself breathe a sigh of relief when the body stops moving; she remains trapped on this hellish demiplane but she can allow herself the luxury of a moment of relief, can't she?

Except....

Cold dread twists in her gut and she doesn't even know why at first, only that something is wrong as it can be. It's not until she looks up from the dead body that she sees -- something looking back at her. The wispy shape that formed at her command a moment ago is forming again now and she knows full well what it is but still can't look away, can't convince herself that it's hers to dismiss when it forms into something she doesn't even recognize. This isn't right, that isn't her fear before her. It's not Asmodeus that reaches for her but something primally wrong with arms that outstretch --

"No --!!" The cry is choked off, unfinished as the dream spirals away to nothing in the absence of its dreamer.