Re: THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN CANCELED [S!1][ROUND TWO: ETA CARINA]
03-14-2013, 12:53 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.
Saint and Owen ran as a fresh peal of screams echoed from behind them. There was the sound of gunfire punctuated by the occasional piercing scrape of rusty metal and a sickly wet sound, like someone cleaving a hunk of meat, as the screams gurgled to a stop. There was something coming, but in a weird way it felt like it was already upon them in the air itself. There was this tension, this sense of something heavy and oppressive hanging over them; something mocking and cruel all around them. Saint’s heart was pounding, her head thumping, her lungs burning as she pushed herself as fast as she could. This wasn’t like home, where a brisk jog would see you safe from the shambling hordes. That wasn’t even in the same league. Normally she knew how to run, how to pace herself, but that was forgotten in the panic; her instincts overridden by sheer unbridled terror. All that was important was to get away as quickly as possible.
They turned a corner and the vault door was in sight, it was unfortunate that she could not keep up this pace. She desperately needed to stop, to take a moment to catch her breath or else collapse. She took it, leaning on the wall while she gulped down huge lungfuls of air. Owen didn’t stop. He didn’t even seem to notice. He was too fixated on his own escape, perhaps gripped by the same intangible terror that she was. He did come to a stop as he approached the vault doors; he slammed his hand down onto the biometric scanner and gave the password with no sign of breathlessness. The heavy vault doors took a second to analyse and then the heavy doors started to slide open.
From somewhere back down the security corridor there was a scream. Well honestly the screams hadn’t really stopped but this scream in particular wasn’t a scream of terror or of pain, but of frustration. The sound of gunfire had finally ceased and now the security team (or whatever was left of it by this point) that had been left to hold of whatever it was that was coming towards them was left with no option except maybe to throw their guns at them. Within moments the tone of that scream had changed, accompanied by the squelch of cut flesh it spoke of agony that Saint didn’t want to imagine and then came to a sudden stop and what was left was ominous silence.
Saint was running again, as much as she could. Ahead of her the doors of the vault opened just enough for a person to fit through, and Owen without hesitation squeezed through that gap. Once he was through it seemed that some of his wits returned to him and he looked around trying to work out where it was that Saint had gone. He turned and saw her struggling towards the vault, and without hesitation he started back towards her.
Moments after he turned back the doors reversed, began to close and almost instantaneously they had slammed shut upon him. But no, it was less than moments; it was almost as if it had happened at the very instant he had thought of going back for her. It was inexplicable. There’d been no use of the console that controlled the vault doors and even so the doors shouldn’t have been able to move at such absurd speed. It was impossible but yet there it was.
For a second Owen just stood there, too stunned to form a response to the impossibility of what had just happened, then he started hammering furiously on the doors and shouting Saint’s name. It was pointless of course, the doors were thick metal slabs and the vault was entirely soundproofed, but he wasn’t thinking about that. He was thinking of whatever it was that had been chasing them and of Saint trapped on the other side of that door. The thought made his stomach lurch and renewed his futile efforts; until some part of his brain surfaced above the ambient terror and he ran to the secondary scanner, placed in the vault for just this contingency. He slammed his hand down and said the password and yet nothing happened. He tried again, attempting to modulate his tone, to drive the fear out of his voice in case it was messing up the thing’s voice recognition. Each time it was futile and each time it was harder to hide that panic.
Eventually he stopped, and sunk slowly to the ground. He was too late now. He wasn’t a natural optimist but he had trouble believing that even the most hopeful person could still believe that she was still alive. Though he hoped and wished it were not the case he could not convince himself; she was dead. She was dead and he was trapped, now more than ever. It was like a nightmare.
----
Maria and Yaelja found themselves in an empty guestroom. It was tidy enough; the bed was made, the surfaces were clear and the furniture straight, but yet everything was covered with a thick layer of dust and the wallpaper was faded and in some places peeling away. The windows had been boarded up; a little of the exotic starlight filtering in through the cracks; just enough to make the room look odd and otherworldly. It looked like nobody had been in here for years.
“How…” Maria hesitated, not because she was unsure what to say, but because in some weird way speaking had felt wrong. Everything was silent; the everyday background noise of the world seemed to have vanished almost entirely. Words pushed out into that void seemed to wither and die in the dead air. It was just silence and yet it was eerie how overpowering it felt, Maria only broke it again with hesitance. “How did we get here?” They had intended to find Kriok and dissuade her from participating in this heist, and then something had happened. Neither Maria nor Yaelja were exactly sure what it was that had happened; it was all something of a blur. There had been some shouting and a lot of running and even though they hadn’t ascended any steps they somehow found themselves here, in this part of the Inn that Maria had never seen before. It made her shiver.
Yaelja responded with an equally confused muddle of greys. She looked just as uncomfortable as Maria felt.
“I think we should go.” Maria said nervously. “Maybe it’s not too late to stop Kriok?”
With just a touch of hesitation she made her way to the door and slowly pulled it open. The hallway was just as unsettlingly bleak as this unoccupied guestroom only more so. It was dark, lit only by the occasional dim bulb overhead; the wallpaper was greying and peeling away where the walls were not scorched. In one direction was an upturned maid’s trolley near spotlighted by the light fixture above it. Around it the walls were a crusty red where blood had dried. In the other were doors left hanging eerily open as far as the eye could see. Directly across the door to the opposite room was likewise hanging open, and silhouetted in the dim light standing next to the bed was Owen. Maria was sure it was him immediately; there was no mistaking that wild hair. She was about to call out to him when he raised something in front of him, light caught on the blade but before she could think he plunged it down.
The person who had been sleeping there began to thrash and kick completely soundlessly as Owen raised and plunged the knife again and again. It was all Maria could do to stop herself from screaming at the top of her lungs. Yaelja darted past her, pushed the door closed and for good measure leaned against it to ensure it would stay that way.
“That can’t be him.” Maria said in a whisper, more to herself than to anyone else. “It can’t be him. It can’t be.” She repeated uselessly. It was obvious that she’d misinterpreted what she’d seen; it was just someone else with wild hair. One of the guests they had picked up in Eta Carina most likely. She’d known Owen for years, for longer than she could remember. She knew him and he wasn’t like that. He was quiet and brooding sometimes yes but that wasn’t a crime, he was just a reserved individual. It was obviously not him and yet, Maria found herself muttering that denial again and again like a mantra, as though she were trying to convince herself. There was something that didn’t ring true; something that just wasn’t right. He was always so private about his office; she couldn’t remember a single time in the many years she’d been here that she’d actually seen what was inside. And he never talked about himself, where he was from, how he came to own the Traveller’s Rest or whether he’d founded it or even really what he thought about things. Sometimes she felt like she didn’t know him at all, but yet that couldn’t be him, she said once again.
Yaelja was trying to get her attention; the sensation of tree-bark conveyed a desire to focus on the situation at hand but Maria wasn’t listening, at least until the thud of whatever that thing was (which couldn’t be Owen) trying to open the door with more force than Yaelja had been expecting. She stumbled to the ground; the door swung open and there stood Owen; no longer in silhouette, there was no mistaking him. His suit was stained crimson with splatters of blood. His face was more drawn, his eyes marked with heavy black bags and his expression was blank; as though he was completely disconnected from his actions, from the world itself.
“Ah, Maria there you are.” he said. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Maria couldn’t respond. She’d known this man all her life, if this was real and if that was not, then what did that say of her life? She stepped backwards almost instinctively, while Yaelja scrabbled to her feet and started looking for something that could be used as a weapon; only all the drawers and cupboards were empty. Maria eventually managed to construct a response: “Me?” a single syllable hanging in the silence was the best she could manage.
“Yes, of course.” ‘Owen’ replied. “Some of our guests are just so uncooperative; I need you to hold them down for me.”
Maria continued to back away in horrified disbelief, only coming to a stop when she reached the foot of the bed and there was no more backwards to be had. “What? No!”
“Alas Maria, you don’t have a choice.” ‘Owen’ said.
“No! I said no!” Maria yelled. “Leave me alone. This isn’t real. You aren’t real.”
“Neither are you.” ‘Owen’ replied. “And you really don’t have a choice. You are mine Maria. You owe your very existence to me. You will do as I command.” He held his hand out to her as his blank expression shifted into the perfect semblance of a reassuring smile. Gingerly, unable to understand exactly why she was doing so, Maria took his hand and he led her from the room, completely ignoring Yaelja. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’ll save you for last.”
----
Owen sat sprawled out against the impenetrable vault doors, his body limp as though he had just given up entirely. Despite everything he still wasn’t sure what was going on out there. It would be an easy assumption to make that some kind of dangerous creatures had invaded from the outside, but it wouldn’t make sense as to why such wild creatures would be found roaming the streets of Eta Carina; unless of course they had been moved on again. Theoretically it was possible. If they were somewhere where there weren’t many buildings the Inn could possibly have retained the same form due to having nothing to blend in with in which case the transition could have happened totally without his notice.
But no, there was more to it than that; something about the Inn was different. He didn’t need a connection to the building to notice the change in the atmosphere. Which wasn’t to make mention of the vault itself; Owen was trying not to think too hard about just how confined he was. It wasn’t that he was claustrophobic, but that being trapped in here hit a nerve. It undermined a point of pride and with the way that it had happened he suspected that it couldn’t just be a coincidence. The only conclusion he could reach was that someone had done it on purpose; utilising the semi-unreal nature of the Inn for the express purpose of making him feel small and pathetic. Though he couldn’t conceive of who or how anyone could directly manipulate the fundamental nature of the Inn, and with such finesse.
He needed to be out of here; in order to have any chance of combating whatever was happening to the Inn and fighting off whoever was responsible he needed to be in his office. Instead he was stuck here, in this harshly lit room no more than a couple of metres deep. In the centre of the vault there were stacks of what appeared to be gold ingots, though Owen had had trouble believing that the vault could contain anything so mundane. He and Saint had come to investigate not long after their arrival in Eta Carina, while everyone else was getting things set up. Owen had picked up one of the ingots and suddenly it was as though he was somewhere deep in the countryside amidst a couple of tents and a roaring campfire, his, or rather someone’s, family gathered around him. He’d dropped the ingot before the scene had played out, but it was enough for him to figure out just what they were. They were the things that the consciousnesses that made up the inn held most dear; their most treasured memories given physical form.
Eventually Owen climbed to his feet and walked over to the pile of treasured memory ingots. He couldn’t escape from here, but perhaps the illusion of escape would be an acceptable refuge until this vault inevitably crumbled around him. Also the possibility that he might be able to escape into one of Saint’s treasured memories and see her again didn’t hurt the cause. He tried the ingots one by one; each was different but there were recurring themes; the innocence of childhood, or in the case of whose who most likely didn’t have a good childhood; the freedom of early adulthood, companionship which as a category ranged from holding hands at sunset and stolen glances to more intimate moments. Eventually he found something he recognised; an almost empty street-corner café.
He was looking into his own disconcerted eyes. It hadn’t quite clicked that he would be looking at things from her point of view, but this was her memory so it made sense. Watching himself explain the workings of the inn, he was disappointed. This wasn’t what he’d wanted. He supposed that there was probably no way to get exactly what he wanted. The memory of him stopped and after a second Owen got the impression that he was being stared at; not that Saint was being stared at, but that he himself was being stared at.
“We really are pathetic aren’t we?” The memory of him asked. “Trapped in increasingly smaller boxes. Look at us; can you even remember what we used to be? To think that we could be caged; once we’d have considered it laughable.”
Owen was stunned. This had to be the work of the same thing that had trapped him in the vault in the first place. Now whoever it was was mocking him to his face. “Who are you?” He asked coldly.
“You really want me to answer that? I thought that was a secret.” The memory teased. “But you told that bald chick didn’t you, Owen? How sad it makes me to see you mourn her. How sick it makes me to see you stooped to their level. I have to wonder if I’m still even in there.”
Owen threw down the ingot and yet as the memory faded he couldn’t seem to dispel his own grinning face from his mind. As much as he hated it, it had been right. He was Owen now. He wasn’t even Mister O any more. Owen would be stuck in this safe until the last sleeper was dead and the inn was no more, but Owen was never his name. He’d made his mind up; he was getting out of here no matter what.
Saint and Owen ran as a fresh peal of screams echoed from behind them. There was the sound of gunfire punctuated by the occasional piercing scrape of rusty metal and a sickly wet sound, like someone cleaving a hunk of meat, as the screams gurgled to a stop. There was something coming, but in a weird way it felt like it was already upon them in the air itself. There was this tension, this sense of something heavy and oppressive hanging over them; something mocking and cruel all around them. Saint’s heart was pounding, her head thumping, her lungs burning as she pushed herself as fast as she could. This wasn’t like home, where a brisk jog would see you safe from the shambling hordes. That wasn’t even in the same league. Normally she knew how to run, how to pace herself, but that was forgotten in the panic; her instincts overridden by sheer unbridled terror. All that was important was to get away as quickly as possible.
They turned a corner and the vault door was in sight, it was unfortunate that she could not keep up this pace. She desperately needed to stop, to take a moment to catch her breath or else collapse. She took it, leaning on the wall while she gulped down huge lungfuls of air. Owen didn’t stop. He didn’t even seem to notice. He was too fixated on his own escape, perhaps gripped by the same intangible terror that she was. He did come to a stop as he approached the vault doors; he slammed his hand down onto the biometric scanner and gave the password with no sign of breathlessness. The heavy vault doors took a second to analyse and then the heavy doors started to slide open.
From somewhere back down the security corridor there was a scream. Well honestly the screams hadn’t really stopped but this scream in particular wasn’t a scream of terror or of pain, but of frustration. The sound of gunfire had finally ceased and now the security team (or whatever was left of it by this point) that had been left to hold of whatever it was that was coming towards them was left with no option except maybe to throw their guns at them. Within moments the tone of that scream had changed, accompanied by the squelch of cut flesh it spoke of agony that Saint didn’t want to imagine and then came to a sudden stop and what was left was ominous silence.
Saint was running again, as much as she could. Ahead of her the doors of the vault opened just enough for a person to fit through, and Owen without hesitation squeezed through that gap. Once he was through it seemed that some of his wits returned to him and he looked around trying to work out where it was that Saint had gone. He turned and saw her struggling towards the vault, and without hesitation he started back towards her.
Moments after he turned back the doors reversed, began to close and almost instantaneously they had slammed shut upon him. But no, it was less than moments; it was almost as if it had happened at the very instant he had thought of going back for her. It was inexplicable. There’d been no use of the console that controlled the vault doors and even so the doors shouldn’t have been able to move at such absurd speed. It was impossible but yet there it was.
For a second Owen just stood there, too stunned to form a response to the impossibility of what had just happened, then he started hammering furiously on the doors and shouting Saint’s name. It was pointless of course, the doors were thick metal slabs and the vault was entirely soundproofed, but he wasn’t thinking about that. He was thinking of whatever it was that had been chasing them and of Saint trapped on the other side of that door. The thought made his stomach lurch and renewed his futile efforts; until some part of his brain surfaced above the ambient terror and he ran to the secondary scanner, placed in the vault for just this contingency. He slammed his hand down and said the password and yet nothing happened. He tried again, attempting to modulate his tone, to drive the fear out of his voice in case it was messing up the thing’s voice recognition. Each time it was futile and each time it was harder to hide that panic.
Eventually he stopped, and sunk slowly to the ground. He was too late now. He wasn’t a natural optimist but he had trouble believing that even the most hopeful person could still believe that she was still alive. Though he hoped and wished it were not the case he could not convince himself; she was dead. She was dead and he was trapped, now more than ever. It was like a nightmare.
----
Maria and Yaelja found themselves in an empty guestroom. It was tidy enough; the bed was made, the surfaces were clear and the furniture straight, but yet everything was covered with a thick layer of dust and the wallpaper was faded and in some places peeling away. The windows had been boarded up; a little of the exotic starlight filtering in through the cracks; just enough to make the room look odd and otherworldly. It looked like nobody had been in here for years.
“How…” Maria hesitated, not because she was unsure what to say, but because in some weird way speaking had felt wrong. Everything was silent; the everyday background noise of the world seemed to have vanished almost entirely. Words pushed out into that void seemed to wither and die in the dead air. It was just silence and yet it was eerie how overpowering it felt, Maria only broke it again with hesitance. “How did we get here?” They had intended to find Kriok and dissuade her from participating in this heist, and then something had happened. Neither Maria nor Yaelja were exactly sure what it was that had happened; it was all something of a blur. There had been some shouting and a lot of running and even though they hadn’t ascended any steps they somehow found themselves here, in this part of the Inn that Maria had never seen before. It made her shiver.
Yaelja responded with an equally confused muddle of greys. She looked just as uncomfortable as Maria felt.
“I think we should go.” Maria said nervously. “Maybe it’s not too late to stop Kriok?”
With just a touch of hesitation she made her way to the door and slowly pulled it open. The hallway was just as unsettlingly bleak as this unoccupied guestroom only more so. It was dark, lit only by the occasional dim bulb overhead; the wallpaper was greying and peeling away where the walls were not scorched. In one direction was an upturned maid’s trolley near spotlighted by the light fixture above it. Around it the walls were a crusty red where blood had dried. In the other were doors left hanging eerily open as far as the eye could see. Directly across the door to the opposite room was likewise hanging open, and silhouetted in the dim light standing next to the bed was Owen. Maria was sure it was him immediately; there was no mistaking that wild hair. She was about to call out to him when he raised something in front of him, light caught on the blade but before she could think he plunged it down.
The person who had been sleeping there began to thrash and kick completely soundlessly as Owen raised and plunged the knife again and again. It was all Maria could do to stop herself from screaming at the top of her lungs. Yaelja darted past her, pushed the door closed and for good measure leaned against it to ensure it would stay that way.
“That can’t be him.” Maria said in a whisper, more to herself than to anyone else. “It can’t be him. It can’t be.” She repeated uselessly. It was obvious that she’d misinterpreted what she’d seen; it was just someone else with wild hair. One of the guests they had picked up in Eta Carina most likely. She’d known Owen for years, for longer than she could remember. She knew him and he wasn’t like that. He was quiet and brooding sometimes yes but that wasn’t a crime, he was just a reserved individual. It was obviously not him and yet, Maria found herself muttering that denial again and again like a mantra, as though she were trying to convince herself. There was something that didn’t ring true; something that just wasn’t right. He was always so private about his office; she couldn’t remember a single time in the many years she’d been here that she’d actually seen what was inside. And he never talked about himself, where he was from, how he came to own the Traveller’s Rest or whether he’d founded it or even really what he thought about things. Sometimes she felt like she didn’t know him at all, but yet that couldn’t be him, she said once again.
Yaelja was trying to get her attention; the sensation of tree-bark conveyed a desire to focus on the situation at hand but Maria wasn’t listening, at least until the thud of whatever that thing was (which couldn’t be Owen) trying to open the door with more force than Yaelja had been expecting. She stumbled to the ground; the door swung open and there stood Owen; no longer in silhouette, there was no mistaking him. His suit was stained crimson with splatters of blood. His face was more drawn, his eyes marked with heavy black bags and his expression was blank; as though he was completely disconnected from his actions, from the world itself.
“Ah, Maria there you are.” he said. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Maria couldn’t respond. She’d known this man all her life, if this was real and if that was not, then what did that say of her life? She stepped backwards almost instinctively, while Yaelja scrabbled to her feet and started looking for something that could be used as a weapon; only all the drawers and cupboards were empty. Maria eventually managed to construct a response: “Me?” a single syllable hanging in the silence was the best she could manage.
“Yes, of course.” ‘Owen’ replied. “Some of our guests are just so uncooperative; I need you to hold them down for me.”
Maria continued to back away in horrified disbelief, only coming to a stop when she reached the foot of the bed and there was no more backwards to be had. “What? No!”
“Alas Maria, you don’t have a choice.” ‘Owen’ said.
“No! I said no!” Maria yelled. “Leave me alone. This isn’t real. You aren’t real.”
“Neither are you.” ‘Owen’ replied. “And you really don’t have a choice. You are mine Maria. You owe your very existence to me. You will do as I command.” He held his hand out to her as his blank expression shifted into the perfect semblance of a reassuring smile. Gingerly, unable to understand exactly why she was doing so, Maria took his hand and he led her from the room, completely ignoring Yaelja. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’ll save you for last.”
----
Owen sat sprawled out against the impenetrable vault doors, his body limp as though he had just given up entirely. Despite everything he still wasn’t sure what was going on out there. It would be an easy assumption to make that some kind of dangerous creatures had invaded from the outside, but it wouldn’t make sense as to why such wild creatures would be found roaming the streets of Eta Carina; unless of course they had been moved on again. Theoretically it was possible. If they were somewhere where there weren’t many buildings the Inn could possibly have retained the same form due to having nothing to blend in with in which case the transition could have happened totally without his notice.
But no, there was more to it than that; something about the Inn was different. He didn’t need a connection to the building to notice the change in the atmosphere. Which wasn’t to make mention of the vault itself; Owen was trying not to think too hard about just how confined he was. It wasn’t that he was claustrophobic, but that being trapped in here hit a nerve. It undermined a point of pride and with the way that it had happened he suspected that it couldn’t just be a coincidence. The only conclusion he could reach was that someone had done it on purpose; utilising the semi-unreal nature of the Inn for the express purpose of making him feel small and pathetic. Though he couldn’t conceive of who or how anyone could directly manipulate the fundamental nature of the Inn, and with such finesse.
He needed to be out of here; in order to have any chance of combating whatever was happening to the Inn and fighting off whoever was responsible he needed to be in his office. Instead he was stuck here, in this harshly lit room no more than a couple of metres deep. In the centre of the vault there were stacks of what appeared to be gold ingots, though Owen had had trouble believing that the vault could contain anything so mundane. He and Saint had come to investigate not long after their arrival in Eta Carina, while everyone else was getting things set up. Owen had picked up one of the ingots and suddenly it was as though he was somewhere deep in the countryside amidst a couple of tents and a roaring campfire, his, or rather someone’s, family gathered around him. He’d dropped the ingot before the scene had played out, but it was enough for him to figure out just what they were. They were the things that the consciousnesses that made up the inn held most dear; their most treasured memories given physical form.
Eventually Owen climbed to his feet and walked over to the pile of treasured memory ingots. He couldn’t escape from here, but perhaps the illusion of escape would be an acceptable refuge until this vault inevitably crumbled around him. Also the possibility that he might be able to escape into one of Saint’s treasured memories and see her again didn’t hurt the cause. He tried the ingots one by one; each was different but there were recurring themes; the innocence of childhood, or in the case of whose who most likely didn’t have a good childhood; the freedom of early adulthood, companionship which as a category ranged from holding hands at sunset and stolen glances to more intimate moments. Eventually he found something he recognised; an almost empty street-corner café.
He was looking into his own disconcerted eyes. It hadn’t quite clicked that he would be looking at things from her point of view, but this was her memory so it made sense. Watching himself explain the workings of the inn, he was disappointed. This wasn’t what he’d wanted. He supposed that there was probably no way to get exactly what he wanted. The memory of him stopped and after a second Owen got the impression that he was being stared at; not that Saint was being stared at, but that he himself was being stared at.
“We really are pathetic aren’t we?” The memory of him asked. “Trapped in increasingly smaller boxes. Look at us; can you even remember what we used to be? To think that we could be caged; once we’d have considered it laughable.”
Owen was stunned. This had to be the work of the same thing that had trapped him in the vault in the first place. Now whoever it was was mocking him to his face. “Who are you?” He asked coldly.
“You really want me to answer that? I thought that was a secret.” The memory teased. “But you told that bald chick didn’t you, Owen? How sad it makes me to see you mourn her. How sick it makes me to see you stooped to their level. I have to wonder if I’m still even in there.”
Owen threw down the ingot and yet as the memory faded he couldn’t seem to dispel his own grinning face from his mind. As much as he hated it, it had been right. He was Owen now. He wasn’t even Mister O any more. Owen would be stuck in this safe until the last sleeper was dead and the inn was no more, but Owen was never his name. He’d made his mind up; he was getting out of here no matter what.
Heaven Help Us | Make Room!!!! | I'm Not Okay (I Promise)
Hang 'Em High | The Only Hope For Me Is You | Zero Percent | Early Sunsets Over Monroeville | DESTROYA | Demolition Lovers | To The End
Surrender The Night | Disenchanted | The Ghost Of You | Party Poison | Vampires Will Never Hurt You | The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You
Hang 'Em High | The Only Hope For Me Is You | Zero Percent | Early Sunsets Over Monroeville | DESTROYA | Demolition Lovers | To The End
Surrender The Night | Disenchanted | The Ghost Of You | Party Poison | Vampires Will Never Hurt You | The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You