Entry tags:
Shrike's Heart (#1)
The woman before you is beautiful—fair of features, with lovely golden skin and luxurious long black hair, petite. You have the immediate and distinct impression that she's just let go of your hand, and she steps back, and smiles.
It's not quite a happy smile.
"I'm sorry," she says. "There's just nothing I can do, as things are. But the way is there; it just needs to be lit."
You open your mouth—maybe to say something, or to express confusion—but you have to cough, and taste something metallic, spattering black blood onto the ground in front of you. Then you realize—blood seeps from opening wounds in your arms, your chest, your stomach, your face. It rims your eyes and trails from your nose and you feel like you're dissolving—
—and you fall through the ground like it's the surface of a lake, and go down, down, down.
> Wake Up
It's not quite a happy smile.
"I'm sorry," she says. "There's just nothing I can do, as things are. But the way is there; it just needs to be lit."
You open your mouth—maybe to say something, or to express confusion—but you have to cough, and taste something metallic, spattering black blood onto the ground in front of you. Then you realize—blood seeps from opening wounds in your arms, your chest, your stomach, your face. It rims your eyes and trails from your nose and you feel like you're dissolving—
—and you fall through the ground like it's the surface of a lake, and go down, down, down.
> Wake Up
Re: > START
Re: > START
Re: > START
The voices get louder too, though, as you walk, occasionally parsable as distinct words in a wide array of uncanny voices—the odd thing is, they feel different and memorable, but trying to describe what sets each one apart feels impossible. ]
Isn't it easier? Not to feel
[ —and then the comprehensible bit is lost to cacophony. ]
Re: > START
the answer is yes.
but he's going to keep going.]
Re: > START
The voices rise in an overwhelming crescendo, but the louder they get the more impossible it seems to turn from your path. And then you see the hole.
It's only the rush of water that gives it away, in the darkness—a wide, circular hole in the ground ahead, the dark water falling down the edges in sheets, the roar blending with the voices until it's overwhelming. You can't turn away from it.
It's... nothing. The end of the world, maybe. ]
Re: > START
can he look around the hole, or is this it?]
Re: > START
edifices, jutting out of the darkness. or, you think, anyway. It looks like architecture, kind of, except that it's larger than any man-made structure you've ever seen, and it... feels uncomfortable to look at. It doesn't make sense, and looking at it too long brings with it a sense of doom and despair.
also, there's some people collecting near the edge with you. ]
Re: > START
Golly gee.
Guess this is the place to be.
[he huffs a halfway annoyed laugh.]
Is this why the one thing I heard was "it's easier to not feel?" Obviously, yes.
[this is mostly to himself.]
But it's impossible not to. So, figure it out.
[time to glance around. as much as he can?]
Re: > START
as you stand there, fixed in place, the voices demand your name. it's not a request. ]
Re: > START
But for you, you can just stick to Jason.
Re: > START
What was your name? You can't remember, anymore.
But then, at least, you see something. ]