who: Helena and others! what: March catchall log when: All month where: Across campus warnings: Potential gore, body horror, psychological horror in dreamscapes.
[there is no predator, even as the door opens with a rusted shriek. just a darkened house, with a lightswitch close by. the overwhelming feeling is that it echoes, too big for a single person - an older style, built for a family and staff and the rest. dark woods and peeling paint, cold stone and flickering lights.
no one's been here for a long, long time. her steps leave footprints in the dust on the floor. not even mice want to live here - the air is no longer muggy, but it fills her with different emotions, ghosts that whisper across the mind. sorrow, fear, resentment. apathy, acceptance. empty wooden boxes, empty glass bottles. the vague trappings without any substance.
tick tock. something still works, but it's not in this room. not in an abandoned cellar whose light is just about to fizzle out. and when it does...
something takes Nanami's wrist in the darkness, and tugs so that she might stumble forward into a ladder.]
[ She simply stares at the interior of the dark room for a while, too haunted to carry on. Her heart's seized with a lonely nostalgia - the echoes in her mind, the emotions of the room, resonating with her own past, with a quiet home in which she spent as much time as possible at her console.
The sound of the passing of time helps her out of her stupor eventually. She carefully moves forward--
stumbles into the ladder at the touch and whirls around. ] H-hello? [ Is someone there? ]
[no response. only her own voice fading away, or the creak of wood if too much weight is placed on it. up, up! from the darkness, lest something swallow her whole, and leave her to become as empty as the shelves as the bottles. all the darkness offers is the past, the past that wants to cling like spiderwebs do, and an isolation.
the door back can't be found. there is only one path, right now. linear progress, to give her a better view of things.]
a mildly less dusty study, coming up through the floor. the curtains are open, but the windows are shut. the day is visible outside, a place in a different forest altogether. it's dark wood, the fabrics richer, old gold. the bookshelves are packed tight, but the language won't be one Nanami understands, as though meaning slips away every time she tries to read the titles.
at the desk, there's a few sheets of paper, a fountain pen, and a key - old fashioned, like the rest of this place. the globe nearby is coming to a stop, as if it was just touched.]
[ She could examine the shelves, but... well, that desk is too eye-catching, and too obviously important, to ignore. She steps up to it and touches the globe, looking to see if it's a planet she recognizes.
Then she sits at the desk - toys with the key a little bit, wondering if there's anything around here it could go to. A desk drawer, or something...
Her eyes drift to the paper. Hesitantly, she picks up the fountain pen, and tries drawing a line on the paper. ]
[it's definitely Earth, even though the map is older, less defined. someone must have made this a while ago, and it has a nice heft to it if she spins it again.
the key looks a little too big for drawers, but there's a piece of lace attached to it, a signal for something - it seems almost to beg her to take it along, a Significant Item that might as well be highlighted in a game.
her drawing a line....is accepted! the ink that comes from the pen is a deep blue, and this too can be hers to craft something on, if she wishes. everything is possible - she's not being blocked out.]
[ Nanami pockets the key without much of a second thought, and then stares at the blank page. Maybe she's supposed to do something here.
Remembering something she read once, she tries just writing a simple sentence.
My name is Nanami Chiaki.
... Is she getting distracted from the critical path again? She looks up from her spot at the desk, trying to figure out if there's somewhere she's supposed to be going next... cause right now, this place is sort of cozy. ]
[the ink stays, dries, and then something subtly shifts in the paper - her characters rise up a little in the paper, becoming embossed in it. the thought floats to her mind, a helpful stray hint, that one could run their fingertips over it and feel the characters as much as read them on paper.
it's a useful tool, if one ever needed to read in the dark.]
It's time to explore the library, though. She has to find what this key goes to... taking the pen and paper with her as well, she stands up, and starts wandering around, looking for... anything, a door, a drawer, anything that might have a keyhole.
... She looks at the titles as she goes, too, to see what type of books this person keeps in her library... it's an interesting way to understand somebody, she thinks. ]
[the titles seem like they can almost be made out, but right before Nanami will understand what she's reading, meaning slips out, water through a sieve. it's impossible to really get them, but that doesn't matter - the bookshelf seems to be a unit of its own. however, her senses might tell her that there's something amiss with it - a faint crack in the carving of it near the wall, going around something.
if one really squints, it almost looks like it might be...
[ She's a little disappointed that she can't understand what the books say... she was curious. But the incongruity in the shelf itself becomes even more interesting, really quickly.
Well, she knows how this goes in games. She pulls the switch. ]
[then she probably expected the bookcase to shudder a little, a section of the wall to change, and it turns - a secret passage revealed by the movement of it all. a little dusty, but made of wood, and seemingly nothing creepy or crawly in it.
she has two options now, the secret passage or the exit door from the study.]
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no subject
no one's been here for a long, long time. her steps leave footprints in the dust on the floor. not even mice want to live here - the air is no longer muggy, but it fills her with different emotions, ghosts that whisper across the mind. sorrow, fear, resentment. apathy, acceptance. empty wooden boxes, empty glass bottles. the vague trappings without any substance.
tick tock. something still works, but it's not in this room. not in an abandoned cellar whose light is just about to fizzle out. and when it does...
something takes Nanami's wrist in the darkness, and tugs so that she might stumble forward into a ladder.]
no subject
The sound of the passing of time helps her out of her stupor eventually. She carefully moves forward--
stumbles into the ladder at the touch and whirls around. ] H-hello? [ Is someone there? ]
no subject
the door back can't be found. there is only one path, right now. linear progress, to give her a better view of things.]
no subject
Up the ladder, then. She climbs as quickly as she can, unnerved by that lonely room, and into the next one. ]
no subject
a mildly less dusty study, coming up through the floor. the curtains are open, but the windows are shut. the day is visible outside, a place in a different forest altogether. it's dark wood, the fabrics richer, old gold. the bookshelves are packed tight, but the language won't be one Nanami understands, as though meaning slips away every time she tries to read the titles.
at the desk, there's a few sheets of paper, a fountain pen, and a key - old fashioned, like the rest of this place. the globe nearby is coming to a stop, as if it was just touched.]
no subject
Then she sits at the desk - toys with the key a little bit, wondering if there's anything around here it could go to. A desk drawer, or something...
Her eyes drift to the paper. Hesitantly, she picks up the fountain pen, and tries drawing a line on the paper. ]
no subject
the key looks a little too big for drawers, but there's a piece of lace attached to it, a signal for something - it seems almost to beg her to take it along, a Significant Item that might as well be highlighted in a game.
her drawing a line....is accepted! the ink that comes from the pen is a deep blue, and this too can be hers to craft something on, if she wishes. everything is possible - she's not being blocked out.]
no subject
Remembering something she read once, she tries just writing a simple sentence.
My name is Nanami Chiaki.
... Is she getting distracted from the critical path again? She looks up from her spot at the desk, trying to figure out if there's somewhere she's supposed to be going next... cause right now, this place is sort of cozy. ]
no subject
it's a useful tool, if one ever needed to read in the dark.]
no subject
It's time to explore the library, though. She has to find what this key goes to... taking the pen and paper with her as well, she stands up, and starts wandering around, looking for... anything, a door, a drawer, anything that might have a keyhole.
... She looks at the titles as she goes, too, to see what type of books this person keeps in her library... it's an interesting way to understand somebody, she thinks. ]
no subject
if one really squints, it almost looks like it might be...
a switch.]
no subject
Well, she knows how this goes in games. She pulls the switch. ]
no subject
she has two options now, the secret passage or the exit door from the study.]