xp_logs | Something Slender This Way Comes

Trapped in Askew World, the Slender Children's kidnapped victims come together.

The "girl" had disappeared as soon as she had dragged them into her world - a grey, twisted version of Bayville Charter High and the grounds they'd been standing on. her kidnappees were now alone, not that it mattered. They were never getting out.

"What ... what's happened?!" Rahne half gasped, half screamed, turning into a tight little circle. One minute, they'd been at school - she didn't even go to the regular school, she was just shadowing for a day, she thought hysterically - the nice, normal school. And then the girl pulled them and they were ...

Her hands twisted her shirt. "There's nay any scent," she suddenly whispered, blinking back tears. "Why doesn't it smell like anything? Where are we?" Allison and Tabitha were the only ones that smelled like they should and Rahne shrank against them with a frantic whimper. Even then, with their personal scents filling her nose, the overwhelming smell of nothing threatened to choke her.

Tabitha stood closer to Rahne, not quite touching. "Breathe through your mouth, Rahne. Give us all time to work things out and figure out who's ass needs kicked, 'k?"

Alison was pretty certain she'd just screwed up, and badly. There'd be time to worry about it later, though, because the world had just gone super wrong and that was probably more pressing than kicking herself when she was already down. She reached into her pocket, pulled out her music player, and switched it on.

The mangled, shredded mess of noise that was just barely recognizable as her own Japanese cover of Call Me Maybe did not inspire confidence. It was disharmonous and skipping and painful and Alison couldn't grab a solid enough hold on it to make more than a few sparks. Something about this place was skewing her powers or her electronics or something and her mind was running in overtime trying to fix this and she didn't know how.

She quickly switched off the music before whatever this world was could damage it.

"We can totally handle this, Rahne. Just leave it to us!" Now if she could just make herself believe that too.

Rahne buried her face in her hands and focused on breathing for a count of ten. "I don't want to kick anyone's ... their ... arses," she said weakly, voice muffled. "I just want to go home." But she slowly raised her head, noise sniffing like mad. "The lass didn't have a smell. And this place doesn't smell like anything. All I can smell is ye two. That's so far from normal that it's in another universe!"

Meanwhile...

Maya was frustrated in a way where frustrated meant really, really angry but with no way to vent or become less freaked out by this whole world.

It felt wrong in a way the natural world didn't, in a way the urban world didn't and the feelings she was getting from simply being here made her want to tear off her skin - whatever was here, it wasn't friendly and it...it was hungry in a way that wasn't natural.

She'd wandered after the kid she'd been following disappeared but she hadn't seen anyone else, not even animals, although what kind of animal could live here she didn't want to know.

She was frightened, and that just made the anger/frustration worse. She hated fear, especially when that fear was her own.

Back with the three girls, Rahne suddenly went very still for a long moment and then took a deep breath. "I smell someone else!" Her head swiveled around, seeking the faint smell. "It smells familiar like ... oh! Oh, I know who it is!" Without thinking, she grabbed onto Tabitha and Alison and pulled them forward, calling frantically, "Maya?!"

Maya looked up, she'd been examining what to all intents and purposes looked like a roadside tree but felt like nothing, which was about as disconcerting as you could get, really.

"Rahne?" She called out in answer. "Where are you!?"

Rahne didn't answer, intent on pulling along the other two until she finally saw Maya. Her nose had led her right. "Here!" she said, panting, and then threw herself at Maya, nearly knocking them both to the ground. They might have had occasional suitemate issues but Rahne could have cried just knowing they were all safe for the moment.

Well, wasn't this a surprise? "Maya? I take it they got you too, then." It wasn't a question. Okay, this was not bad. This could be okay, actually. Another person was another asset, more help in getting out alive. Now, all they needed was to figure out where 'out' actually was.

Still, the pessimism could come later. "We're glad you're safe. Come on, we need to keep moving."

In another part of the strange and twisted world, a small group of kids huddled together, clinging to each other. They had been there for various amounts of time - not long enough to be affected by the place yet, but long enough to be absolutely terrified.

Ganke Lee, 16, of Brooklyn had tried his best to keep it together. He had to. He was the Spider-Man's secret sidekick. Well, the sidekick Spider-Man's secret sidekick. No, he never actually got involved in the combat or action, but he provided moral support, and that was always in short supply for superheroes. He sure as hell needed it now, stuck for a week in this terrifying ghost world. He'd found the trio of teens he was now accompanying shortly after arriving here, and they'd stuck together since. Strength in numbers. But that strength was ebbing and Ganke worried about what would happen when it finally disappeared.

A week here and the only sounds had been the group's footsteps and their attempts to keep up each other's spirits. So the echo of happy, enthusiastic voices came as a shock. But that must have been a good sign, maybe the arrival of rescuers, because their captors (although they hadn't seem them in a while) were incapable of such sounds. The group all seemed to be thinking the same thing, so with Ganke at the head, the four of them followed the sounds.

"Oh my God, real people." Ganke could have fallen to his knees in prayer. He was right. They were real. They were safe.

The rest of the group wasn't nearly as relieved as Ganke. One of them - a little girl no older than ten - cowered back in fear, nearly crying as she begged, "Don't hurt us."

"Why would we hurt you?" Maya asked, but the words were irritated more then anything - sniveling had never been something she could stand. "Let's just find a way out, yeah? I mean - this place looks vaguely like the real world, so maybe there'll be a way out if we got to a familiar place.

All three kids looked at Ganke. Despite being there the shortest amount of time, he was also the oldest, and had become the defacto leader. As much as one could be a leader to a trio of terrified kids, at least.

"My name's Ganke," he introduced himself. "We've been here for . . . I don't even know how long. A long time. We've looked everywhere but we can't find a way out."

As Ganke spoke, Rahne's head tilted to the side a little as something really, really faint hit her senses. Normally, she'd ignore it because that was what being polite meant - ignoring the weird things about people. But this was just faint enough and just familiar enough and she slowly drifted over to his side. When it became clear that she was actively sniffing him, everyone just stopped and stared as Ganke shifted awkwardly away from her.

But Rahne finally grabbed his shirt and took a big, big sniff before she finally looked up, grinning brightly. "Ye smell like Miles!" she said, showing him his shirt like it would help him see it. "Really, really faintly but, aye, I never forget a scent and he's our friend! And pizza, I think ye got some pizza on this shirt..."

All the fear, every hint of despair vanished instantly from Ganke's face, and he lit up as brightly as Alison ever could. "You know Miles? Morales? Oh my God, you must be from the mu . . . that school of his," he rapidly corrected himself, unsure of how his compatriots would react to the truth. "Does Miles know you're here?"

Normally Maya would have taken a question like that and followed it down the path of scathing comeback, but the irritation she'd been feeling since she got here was now a dull thing, hardly worth taking the effort to express.

"Not really - you?"

"I don't know if he knows I'm here, wherever here is, but he has to know I'm gone." Miles would surely notice that Ganke hadn't texted or Tweeted or logged into WoW in however long he'd been gone. Spider-Man was on the case, Ganke was sure. He couldn't actually say that, but it was true.

"Hey, dude," Tabitha pushed herself into Ganke's line of sight. "All sorts of other kids went missing besides you. Seen any?"

Ganke nodded. "Yeah. There's a few who've been here longer than us, but . . . they're pretty sick. They're talking and acting all weird, like they've got a bad fever or something. But if you know a way out, we can get them to a doctor. Come on, I'll show you."

The kids Ganke was talking about weren't too far away - and also were making no effort to move even as the group of teens approached them. The ones who had disappeared earliest, over a month earlier, were completely still and silent, their eyes completely black, almost seeing through everyone and everything.

The ones who had disappeared right after them weren't that bad - but were in some ways worse. A few of them were muttering, looking around, their eyes not quite fully black yet but definitely getting darker. When one of Ganke's group tried to reach out for one of the mutterers she shrieked, jerking back muttering something about "home."

There were five of them all together. Whatever state they were in, it was clear they weren't moving.

Wide eyed, Rahne's head couldn't stop moving as she tried to take everything in. The children didn't look right but even worse, the fact that there was that many ... how long had this been going on? How hadn't someone noticed? And, she thought with a wave of fear, who was doing this to them?

"Who raided the discount contacts?" Tabitha asked uncertainly, edging closer to Rahne.

Alison shifted so that she was in front of Rahne and Tabby, using the little ambient noise she could pull to let little blue flickers of light appear between her fingertips. Her powers still weren't working right, but she had to try something. "We should probably run," Alison commented lightly, betraying none of the near-crippling worry she felt.

Maya paused for just a moment, watching the others with a look of slight confusion and then looking back at the strange children. It was...she didn't know. Everything felt weird, like a feeling or someone trying to speak to her when she didn't have her hearing aids in. It was frankly giving her a headache. She shook her head and took off after the others, giving Alison a wide birth as she did so. The light hurt her eyes and she could honestly see better without it.