Shrike's Heart (#3)

[idolpro]

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

Comments

Re: > START

[handpuppets]

[ WHAT IS THIS INDEED.

You stand, and find your footing amongst the dead. Water might soak into your shoes, but it doesn't feel cold, here.

It doesn't feel like anything.

The whispering just at the edge of your hearing grows a little more distinct. It's like they're coming from somewhere, a little ways away. It feels like you should follow, eventually, but it's not urgent. ]

Re: > START

[purrrnicious]

[Yes but not being knee-deep in corpses is urgent. She wraps her arms around herself and starts moving as fast as she can (short of a run) for the sound of water.]

Re: > START

[handpuppets]

[ You absolutely yeet over the sea of corpses. They stretch for some distance—all real-seeming, distinct faces, still and ashen in complexion. Some seem like total strangers, or perhaps vaguely familiar at best.

Mixed in with all of them are the bodies of your fellow idols—you might see your own face mirrored there, though for whatever reason, it seems wholly unfamiliar, if unsettling.

The sound of water grows louder, though, so you're surely heading in the right direction; so do the whispering voices at the edge of your hearing, snippets of conversation and different voices going in and out—

—going to be alone in the end; everyone is—

Someday, I'm getting out of this place.

to know the world is to— ]

Re: > START

[purrrnicious]

Shut up, shut up!

[Folding back her ears and curling in on herself, nearly stumbling.]

Re: > START

[handpuppets]

[ They do not shut up; the babble of overlapping voices never ceases. You stumble forward, and—

...step onto rough but solid stone, under an inch-deep or so layer of water, which feels neither cold nor warm. The sea of corpses is finally behind you. Ahead, you can make out a vague outline of something that seems like... a cliff face, or maybe a building made of hewn stone? It's difficult to tell, in the dark. ]

Re: > START

[purrrnicious]

[She stops once she hits water, trying to catch her breath, getting a little angry at how panicked she feelings.




And then like. Lifts one leg and shakes the water off her foot.

And then the other.

. . .And then the first again.]

Re: > START

[handpuppets]

[ You shake it all about.

Yeah, that's definitely a... a building, of some sort, you think, impossibly—incomprehensibly large, maybe, and—there's something about it that feels uncomfortable to look directly at. But there's still the sound of running water, definitely from ahead—which might mean a way out of here, if there's an uphill or downhill somewhere. ]

Re: > START

[purrrnicious]

[She sniffs, scrubs the back of her hand roughly across her eyes, and marches towards the building thing.]

Re: > START

[handpuppets]

[ You realize there's something surrounding you, like you're in the center of a ring of more structures—impossibly large, maybe they're... buildings, or—faces? But it's unsettling, uncomfortable, in a visceral way, to contemplate for too long.

But you keep marching on, because how else are you going to get out of here? The voices grow louder as you continue, 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.

They rise in an overwhelming crescendo, but the louder they get the more impossible it seems to turn from your path, as oppressive as it feels. 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. Regardless of where you intended to go, you find yourself walking right up to the edge—allured, almost—frozen on the precipice, unable to advance or retreat. ]

Re: > START

[purrrnicious]

[She really doesn't like the voices, and if the roar of the water falling down even has a hope of drowning them out she'll lean further over the edge.]

Re: > START

[handpuppets]

[ You lean further over the edge, but—the pressure of something, at least, keeps you somewhat fixed in place. Maybe it's the enormity of this place, the vastness of nothing on the other side of the hole, or the pressure of... a feeling of being watched by something very large, all around you.

The voices fill your ears, and then there's just one, and a moment of silence around it—a woman's voice, or maybe a girl's.

Give your name. ]

Re: > START

[purrrnicious]

[Wow heart do you realize how many triggers you're hammering here.

She doesn't hesitate and gives her name as]



Kohime.

Re: > START

[handpuppets]

[ listen imagine dealing with this 24/7,

Your voice emerges, but the words are muffled, garbled, warped, and swallowed into the nothingness that surrounds you.

What was your name? You don't remember, anymore.

But then... ]