TILT - Log 4: Survival Horror
Apr. 4th, 2024 11:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsEmily and Marie wake in the world of Silent Hill.
Emily’s hair started to flicker and move with orange and yellow sparks as fear spiked inside her. This was not where she’d been and a quick look about told her absolutely nothing about where she’d ended up.
She wanted her Mum.
Rogue came to groggily, and immediately groaned. This did not look like what they had been promised -- not at all. In fact, this place looked dirty and smelled like smoke. Rogue glanced over at Emily, who she'd really only met recently. Would the girl panic? "Alright... we gotta figure out where we are. This sure don't look like Kansas but it's just as grey..." Turning her head around, she tried to determine where they were but other than a weird looking warehouse, surrounded by old boxes, chain link gates, and other random old garbage, it was impossible to parse out. "is this ... a maze? What is this?"
Emily looked at the older woman with slight suspicion, they’d only just met and now…now they were here. She didn’t even know where here was.
“I don’t know,” she said, voice no more than a whisper in the still air. “Can we go home? I don’t like this game.”
Rogue was still poking around. As she got close to the edge though, a thick fog seemed to come and obscure all. It went away when she got back to the path. "Well sugar, hate to beat the Wizard of Oz thing but .... we gotta follow this hear brick road. I think it's the only way out which is kinda oddly specific..." Her voice trailed off a bit when she heard that damn mumurmering again. "You want me to go on ahead a bit while you stay here? See what I can find?"
Emily’s eyes widened at the suggestion and she frankly shook her head. She punctuated her denial by moving closer to Rogue and grabbing onto her hand, something she wouldn’t normally do with a semi-stranger.
“That’s the last thing I want.”
Who separated in a suspicious and unknown place and wandered off into the mist like the worst horror movie protagonist in the world? Dead people, that’s who.
“I’ll just, I’ll stay with you if that’s alright?”
"That's fine," Rogue responded, a bit surprised by the intensity of the hand holding. "Let's go then. Just. ...stay behind me, alright? I don't want ya to get hurt."
Walking into the misty type maze, she kept scanning the room, trying to figure out what was going on. From what she could tell, there was a clear path, so she tried to follow it, ensuring Emily was safe behind her.
Rogue wasn't as cautious as she could be, knowing her powers could kick in so what happened next really threw her. Out of nowhere, a monster appeared, so disgusting that its very presence turned her stomach, as did the smell. "Oh gross," she screamed, throwing a punch that immediately hurt and tingled all the way inside. Rogue's eyes opened in horror as she saw the damage on her hands. "Oh no no no no no," she said to herself, letting go of Emily to try to put both hands on the monster. Although she was able to throw it, and be confident in its yelps that it got hurt badly, the matter remained that that was difficult and not easy to do.
"I can't use my powers," she cried out. "What about you, girl? Can you?"
Emily had backed up when Rogue had dropped her hand, trying to give the older woman space to do whatever it was mansion residents did. She’d seen the posts on the journals about ‘X-men’. But now she licked her lips and tried to feel for the space that felt different to how her powers had felt for so long, the space that felt Infinite but also so small it could be missed if you didn’t grab it at just the right moment and ‘pull’.
It was there, but just out of reach like a fish descending into deep water to avoid the fisherman’s hook.
“I can’t reach it,” Emily replied, a hint of apology in her tone. “Is that normal?”
"It shouldn't be..." Rogue was worried now and slightly grateful that Logan had always harped on her the need to know how to fight. They were now in a large, open room. It was still dark, but now there was a ..poem? What the heck. Rogue got closer to the wall and frowned. It read like a poem, and talked about how a false imprisonment and something something .... what? "Ah crap, girl. I think .... I think this is a puzzle?" Rogue sighed. "I always fail at escape rooms too...."
Emily was not a particularly loud girl at the best of times but since finding the poem scrawled on the wall she’d retreated even further into silence. She gripped her elbows with her hands as if trying to give herself a hug and took another look around them before stepping closer to Rogue with a grim look in her eyes.
“I think I know what this is.”
***
"Did you know some video games are collectible now, like comic books. How fucking stupid is that? I mean, the code hasn't changed. There's no mint condition. A decent emulator can put every PS era game into a crappy laptop and run it just as well these days, and yet, some idiots are shelling out hundreds for perfect condition copies of 'Silent Hill'. Do you know what they're spending all that money on? Cardboard. Fucking cardboard that doesn't have any cracks or wrinkles or cum stains on it. It's not really rarity, it isn't even the real product itself. Cardboard. That's why I'm rich and they're poor, Miss Coriander. Because I know how to make them want to buy my cardboard and leave what is really valuable to me for cheap."
***
“It’s Silent Hill,” Emily said, looking around at the mist and moving closer to Rogue as she spoke. You couldn’t kill those things that had come out of the mist, only run from them if she remembered properly. “And we’re, I don’t know? Maybe this is all part of the game?”
"Silent Hill...." It sounded familiar but Rogue really didn't play much video games. She was happier with a book and a cheesy Hallmark movie. "Okay, well good to know it's a game then. That means there's rules, right? So if we follow this maze...as ...foggy as it is, we should get to the end, right?" She hoped she sounded more confident than she actually was. "Jus'..... keep behind me, alright? I ain't trustin' this place and no powers makes for a harder go at it."
It took them what felt like the better part of several hours to make their way through what was apparently a maze based on what Emily could only think was Silent Hill. The scenery didn’t change much, the fog making it almost impossible to tell which way they were facing, or where they should go.
It wasn’t until things started to slowly change, and the fog suddenly gave way to what looked like walls made of steel and a dull red glow that Emily thought they might be reaching the end.
“Do you see that up ahead?”
She’d noticed the fork in their path, two ways seemingly the same in looks.
"Yeah." Rogue squinted a little and without thinking, tried to access Logan's powers, annoyed when they were shut off. "Man, I can't use anything," she grumbled. It didn't seem fair that the powers themselves were being blocked from her own brain, but that made sense. Now though she couldn't really sense which was the right way to go. "I'll just .... yeah, let's just go down one and see what happens, alright?"
“Left side.”
Emily let Rogue go in front of her, knowing the older woman had way more training than she did and unwilling to make mistakes that might hurt them in the long run. Scouts hadn’t exactly prepared her for worlds based around popular horror games but she supposed if it was anything like the game they’d come across a puzzle soon enough.
She probably should have kept that thought buried deep because it wasn’t long until the area in front of them opened up to reveal several people seemingly held aloft with nooses and a conspicuously empty one in the middle of the room.
“That doesn’t look good.”
"Nope...it doesn't." Rogue swallowed thickly as she glanced around. The room was giving her anxiety, just seeing the nooses, and the dark and the mist and .... yeah, she had never much liked horror and now she definitely didn't like it. A flash caught her eye, and she walked towards a wall, brushing off some dust as words came into play. Reading it quickly, she almost wanted to puke. What was this about someone being innocent, someone taking the crime.... someone sacrificing? She turned her head, glad that Emily wasn't looking at her or hadn't even noticed this weird prophecy. The only games Rogue had really played were Super Mario, but even she knew that if there was a message, it usually meant it was a puzzle. A puzzle... an empty noose...
It clicked and Rogue bent over and vomited.
“I don’t have any tissues.”
Emily moved to stand to the side of Rogue, and after a moment she reached out and placed a hand on the older woman’s shoulder. She wasn’t sure what had set off the vomiting but she felt it was probably not a good sign.
“I usually carry them but I forgot this morning because we had to rush and mate, you do not want to be late for this kinda thing, but I’m sorry I don’t have any. Um. I don’t really want to know why you’re vomiting because I feel like it’s not something I’m going to love but well, I should ask anyway and so. Ahh. Why are you vomiting ?”
There was no sense beating around the bush.
"This involves a sacrifice... a self sacrifice. Ya can't do this one. "
“I can do it,” Emily said, voice cracking and trembling as she got it out. She wouldn’t make anyone make that kind of choice, not when she could step forward instead. “I don’t mind, you’ve had a lot longer to get attached to who you are.”
Rogue shook her head. "Ain't going to work that way. Y'all do good now."
As far as final words went, these were pretty lame but Rogue knew how teenagers thought. they were impulsive and there was no way Rogue would ever let Emily come to harm.
Without a second thought, she jumped onto the chair, threw her head in the noose and kicked the chair, hoping that she had ruined it right so that sheer was facing away from Emily.
Rogue hat contemplated her death many times before but this..... this was never how she'd imagined it. Suffocating.
At least she would die knowing Emily was safe.
Emily stared in shock at Rogue’s body, the scream she’d been about to unleash dying stillborn in her mouth as her hand reached in a futile attempt to somehow stop the older woman.
She was alone now. In Silent Hill.
***
"Hey! Who let a cat in here?"
Sharon froze in mid-creep. She'd been seen.
Or rather: she'd been freed from the burden of stealth.
Unfreezing, the cat abruptly changed direction and accelerated. She accelerated all the way up the leg of the nearest operator, onto their terminal, and directly into an open can of soda. While the woman swore at the liquid foaming its way across workstation Sharon did what came naturally and paced across the drenched keyboard, entering a string of "m,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,./" into the command window before an enraged hand came flying her way. Flailing, Sharon pinwheeled to the floor -- and made sure to take two of the three monitors with her.
***
[placeholder]
Emily’s hair started to flicker and move with orange and yellow sparks as fear spiked inside her. This was not where she’d been and a quick look about told her absolutely nothing about where she’d ended up.
She wanted her Mum.
Rogue came to groggily, and immediately groaned. This did not look like what they had been promised -- not at all. In fact, this place looked dirty and smelled like smoke. Rogue glanced over at Emily, who she'd really only met recently. Would the girl panic? "Alright... we gotta figure out where we are. This sure don't look like Kansas but it's just as grey..." Turning her head around, she tried to determine where they were but other than a weird looking warehouse, surrounded by old boxes, chain link gates, and other random old garbage, it was impossible to parse out. "is this ... a maze? What is this?"
Emily looked at the older woman with slight suspicion, they’d only just met and now…now they were here. She didn’t even know where here was.
“I don’t know,” she said, voice no more than a whisper in the still air. “Can we go home? I don’t like this game.”
Rogue was still poking around. As she got close to the edge though, a thick fog seemed to come and obscure all. It went away when she got back to the path. "Well sugar, hate to beat the Wizard of Oz thing but .... we gotta follow this hear brick road. I think it's the only way out which is kinda oddly specific..." Her voice trailed off a bit when she heard that damn mumurmering again. "You want me to go on ahead a bit while you stay here? See what I can find?"
Emily’s eyes widened at the suggestion and she frankly shook her head. She punctuated her denial by moving closer to Rogue and grabbing onto her hand, something she wouldn’t normally do with a semi-stranger.
“That’s the last thing I want.”
Who separated in a suspicious and unknown place and wandered off into the mist like the worst horror movie protagonist in the world? Dead people, that’s who.
“I’ll just, I’ll stay with you if that’s alright?”
"That's fine," Rogue responded, a bit surprised by the intensity of the hand holding. "Let's go then. Just. ...stay behind me, alright? I don't want ya to get hurt."
Walking into the misty type maze, she kept scanning the room, trying to figure out what was going on. From what she could tell, there was a clear path, so she tried to follow it, ensuring Emily was safe behind her.
Rogue wasn't as cautious as she could be, knowing her powers could kick in so what happened next really threw her. Out of nowhere, a monster appeared, so disgusting that its very presence turned her stomach, as did the smell. "Oh gross," she screamed, throwing a punch that immediately hurt and tingled all the way inside. Rogue's eyes opened in horror as she saw the damage on her hands. "Oh no no no no no," she said to herself, letting go of Emily to try to put both hands on the monster. Although she was able to throw it, and be confident in its yelps that it got hurt badly, the matter remained that that was difficult and not easy to do.
"I can't use my powers," she cried out. "What about you, girl? Can you?"
Emily had backed up when Rogue had dropped her hand, trying to give the older woman space to do whatever it was mansion residents did. She’d seen the posts on the journals about ‘X-men’. But now she licked her lips and tried to feel for the space that felt different to how her powers had felt for so long, the space that felt Infinite but also so small it could be missed if you didn’t grab it at just the right moment and ‘pull’.
It was there, but just out of reach like a fish descending into deep water to avoid the fisherman’s hook.
“I can’t reach it,” Emily replied, a hint of apology in her tone. “Is that normal?”
"It shouldn't be..." Rogue was worried now and slightly grateful that Logan had always harped on her the need to know how to fight. They were now in a large, open room. It was still dark, but now there was a ..poem? What the heck. Rogue got closer to the wall and frowned. It read like a poem, and talked about how a false imprisonment and something something .... what? "Ah crap, girl. I think .... I think this is a puzzle?" Rogue sighed. "I always fail at escape rooms too...."
Emily was not a particularly loud girl at the best of times but since finding the poem scrawled on the wall she’d retreated even further into silence. She gripped her elbows with her hands as if trying to give herself a hug and took another look around them before stepping closer to Rogue with a grim look in her eyes.
“I think I know what this is.”
***
"Did you know some video games are collectible now, like comic books. How fucking stupid is that? I mean, the code hasn't changed. There's no mint condition. A decent emulator can put every PS era game into a crappy laptop and run it just as well these days, and yet, some idiots are shelling out hundreds for perfect condition copies of 'Silent Hill'. Do you know what they're spending all that money on? Cardboard. Fucking cardboard that doesn't have any cracks or wrinkles or cum stains on it. It's not really rarity, it isn't even the real product itself. Cardboard. That's why I'm rich and they're poor, Miss Coriander. Because I know how to make them want to buy my cardboard and leave what is really valuable to me for cheap."
***
“It’s Silent Hill,” Emily said, looking around at the mist and moving closer to Rogue as she spoke. You couldn’t kill those things that had come out of the mist, only run from them if she remembered properly. “And we’re, I don’t know? Maybe this is all part of the game?”
"Silent Hill...." It sounded familiar but Rogue really didn't play much video games. She was happier with a book and a cheesy Hallmark movie. "Okay, well good to know it's a game then. That means there's rules, right? So if we follow this maze...as ...foggy as it is, we should get to the end, right?" She hoped she sounded more confident than she actually was. "Jus'..... keep behind me, alright? I ain't trustin' this place and no powers makes for a harder go at it."
It took them what felt like the better part of several hours to make their way through what was apparently a maze based on what Emily could only think was Silent Hill. The scenery didn’t change much, the fog making it almost impossible to tell which way they were facing, or where they should go.
It wasn’t until things started to slowly change, and the fog suddenly gave way to what looked like walls made of steel and a dull red glow that Emily thought they might be reaching the end.
“Do you see that up ahead?”
She’d noticed the fork in their path, two ways seemingly the same in looks.
"Yeah." Rogue squinted a little and without thinking, tried to access Logan's powers, annoyed when they were shut off. "Man, I can't use anything," she grumbled. It didn't seem fair that the powers themselves were being blocked from her own brain, but that made sense. Now though she couldn't really sense which was the right way to go. "I'll just .... yeah, let's just go down one and see what happens, alright?"
“Left side.”
Emily let Rogue go in front of her, knowing the older woman had way more training than she did and unwilling to make mistakes that might hurt them in the long run. Scouts hadn’t exactly prepared her for worlds based around popular horror games but she supposed if it was anything like the game they’d come across a puzzle soon enough.
She probably should have kept that thought buried deep because it wasn’t long until the area in front of them opened up to reveal several people seemingly held aloft with nooses and a conspicuously empty one in the middle of the room.
“That doesn’t look good.”
"Nope...it doesn't." Rogue swallowed thickly as she glanced around. The room was giving her anxiety, just seeing the nooses, and the dark and the mist and .... yeah, she had never much liked horror and now she definitely didn't like it. A flash caught her eye, and she walked towards a wall, brushing off some dust as words came into play. Reading it quickly, she almost wanted to puke. What was this about someone being innocent, someone taking the crime.... someone sacrificing? She turned her head, glad that Emily wasn't looking at her or hadn't even noticed this weird prophecy. The only games Rogue had really played were Super Mario, but even she knew that if there was a message, it usually meant it was a puzzle. A puzzle... an empty noose...
It clicked and Rogue bent over and vomited.
“I don’t have any tissues.”
Emily moved to stand to the side of Rogue, and after a moment she reached out and placed a hand on the older woman’s shoulder. She wasn’t sure what had set off the vomiting but she felt it was probably not a good sign.
“I usually carry them but I forgot this morning because we had to rush and mate, you do not want to be late for this kinda thing, but I’m sorry I don’t have any. Um. I don’t really want to know why you’re vomiting because I feel like it’s not something I’m going to love but well, I should ask anyway and so. Ahh. Why are you vomiting ?”
There was no sense beating around the bush.
"This involves a sacrifice... a self sacrifice. Ya can't do this one. "
“I can do it,” Emily said, voice cracking and trembling as she got it out. She wouldn’t make anyone make that kind of choice, not when she could step forward instead. “I don’t mind, you’ve had a lot longer to get attached to who you are.”
Rogue shook her head. "Ain't going to work that way. Y'all do good now."
As far as final words went, these were pretty lame but Rogue knew how teenagers thought. they were impulsive and there was no way Rogue would ever let Emily come to harm.
Without a second thought, she jumped onto the chair, threw her head in the noose and kicked the chair, hoping that she had ruined it right so that sheer was facing away from Emily.
Rogue hat contemplated her death many times before but this..... this was never how she'd imagined it. Suffocating.
At least she would die knowing Emily was safe.
Emily stared in shock at Rogue’s body, the scream she’d been about to unleash dying stillborn in her mouth as her hand reached in a futile attempt to somehow stop the older woman.
She was alone now. In Silent Hill.
***
"Hey! Who let a cat in here?"
Sharon froze in mid-creep. She'd been seen.
Or rather: she'd been freed from the burden of stealth.
Unfreezing, the cat abruptly changed direction and accelerated. She accelerated all the way up the leg of the nearest operator, onto their terminal, and directly into an open can of soda. While the woman swore at the liquid foaming its way across workstation Sharon did what came naturally and paced across the drenched keyboard, entering a string of "m,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,./" into the command window before an enraged hand came flying her way. Flailing, Sharon pinwheeled to the floor -- and made sure to take two of the three monitors with her.
***
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