Obi-Wan knows how to use (theforce) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-08-04 01:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | !hotel, !something wicked this way comes, *narrative, helena wayne |
Who: Helena
What: Turning back time
Where: Hotel -> Something Wicked This Way Comes
When: Currentish
Warnings/Rating: Some language, some violence, creepies.
She never swore not to visit other doors. Oh, she could see the reasons why they shouldn't, but her "therapy" was in another door and if anyone caught her, that's exactly what Helena would say. She had to go see her therapist. No one wanted to deny her that, did they? Lying was almost becoming second nature to her.
It wasn't the lie of "oh yes, I'm fine," that lie was no longer needed, but the lie about where she was, where she had been, those slid from her fingertips to the screen like fat little water droplets off oil. By far, the hardest person to lie to was Selina (not Bruce, but only because Helena had no interest in lying to him, and if he were to press hard enough, he'd likely get the full truth out of her, not that he ever would) which almost made it easier not to talk to her. No talking meant no lying, and no lying meant no discovering the truth.
It could have been messy, except she had chosen one story and stuck to it. Bruce thought she had been gone a month, Dick likely thought she'd been gone since the last time they talked (and hadn't that been a gem? She still remembered it, two years later and unlike Eddie, Dickie hadn't bothered to apologize) and the rest fell somewhere in between there.
She considered contacting Gwen, or the Captain, but she had looked back at those days of entries. Gwen hadn't contacted her and it was easiest to believe that it was because Gwen didn't want to. And if Gwen didn't want to, then maybe she should just stay out of the other girl's life. As for contacting the Captain, well, that was something that the girl-that-was would have done.
Helena wasn't that girl anymore. She wouldn't force, wouldn't press, wouldn't chase half the goddamn universe to find out the answer to a question that no one wanted her to have.
Instead, she fit the earbuds of her iPhone into her ears and hit the play button as she stepped out of the DC door and went wandering. Vessel by Zola Jesus. She hummed along as she wandered the hallways, footsteps light, almost a bounce when she lifted off her heels. Bad form, but she didn't care. Marvel, Silent Hill, they'd both left her altered, stronger, better, different, why not add a bit more to her repertoire?
The first door she opened led to a plantation, no hum of electricity when she popped the earbud out, just the slow steady whine of cicadas and swish-swish of blades through sugarcane maybe. Maybe later, when she was feeling more social justice warrior than she was at the moment. (Those days would come back, she was sure, when she felt like fighting that fight, but it wasn't slinking around under her skin at the moment and she was not going to push for it.)
There was a time to push, (a second open door, this one to huge green spaces, mountainous, but it didn't look at all populated to her, nope) and this was not the time to wear a skin she wasn't ready to. It was hard enough to settle into the face that didn't want to scream, that didn't want to break skin and shatter bone, that existed in the trials of her body, that could survive the twinge of yearning muscles that had gotten stronger fighting the monsters of a so-called demon's nightmare and were now forced into more mundane tasks.
She could survive. Silent Hill had given her that.
The last door was dark when she opened it. A banner, held between two poles, lazily swung back and forth.
Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show.
Carnivals reminded her of clowns. And clowns of the Joker. She smiled and tucked her iPhone into her pocket, the wires of her headphones wrapped around it. Bingo.
The door shut quietly behind her.
There were no lights on. Nothing to indicate that it was in use, but she waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness before she started moving through the booths, past brightly colored booths and games meant to attract people's money, past what looked like a dumping booth. There were cages in the back, no doubt for the animals of the advertised circus. She avoided those in case they were anything except abandoned.
There was a giant tent in the back for the circus and she avoided that too. She walked over the abandoned merry-go-round, her hips fitting between the bars used to hang on, rubber soled shoes barely making a noise on the metal flooring. It reminded her, reminded her --
Of a little boy kept in a cage --
Laughing with her parents --
Cotton candy --
and she slipped out the same way she came. It wasn't hard to keep her body up all night (she had done worse in Silent Hill) and when morning came, she bought a ticket. She wandered past the same booths she had the night before, when they were quiet and dark but were now alive. Screaming children ran past her, sharp barks of laughter mixed with general chatter.
A red haired man tried to lure her into the Mirror Maze but she shook her head and turned away. No mirrors. She didn't break them anymore, but she couldn't go there.
Where she stopped instead was the Carnival, horses and mermaids and seahorses painted brightly, but the lights were out and a sign hanging on a chain to the entry said OUT OF ORDER.
"That's broken. Best stay away from it, Madam," came from a voice to her left. Her head jerked sharply to regard the man in the suit, tattoo's visible on his hands and on his neck above his collar.
"Any idea on when it's going to be up and running?" She asked, glued on a smile to make it seem nicer.
"Not yet."
Helena frowned as she turned back towards the carousel. "All right." Years ago, she might have avoided it, but not anymore. Not with that vague unsettling feeling on the back of her neck.
She gave the man one last look, the corners of her mouth faintly jerking upwards before she headed out. There was something going on there, she could feel it.
The rest of the day was spent wandering around the town. The people were nice enough, smiling and dipping their heads to her, but she didn't engage any of them beyond the niceties and bided her time until the Carnival was once again dark.
Sneaking in wasn't hard. Some of the members were still walking around though, and she was careful as she moved from shadow to shadow until she was back at the sign. It wouldn't hurt, would it? Just a moment to feel young again. She stepped over the chain and walked up to the carousel, quiet as she slipped between the animals on the poles until she found the one she wanted, a pretty, shiny black horse, newly painted.
A smile, the closest thing to something real that she'd given anyone in the past few years pulled her lips upwards as she grabbed the pole and slid on, but she must have knocked something because as soon as she was on the horse, the lights and the music came on, slow and warped, and the carousel started going backwards.
"What the--" She should get down, get off, it was going to get attention any second now, but then the tattooed man was there, with her, stepping onto the platform.
"No, stay," he said. And that feeling was back, like ice mites crawling up the back of her neck.
Nearest weapon? Nothing that could be removed. Her own strength then. The carousel had made one circuit. She slid off the horse.
"No, I just -- wanted to remember. I'm sorry." Lies and lies. She wasn't sorry. She hadn't been truly sorry since before she'd come to Silent Hill. Everything after was a lie. The man grinned.
A second turn.
"You should stay." He repeated, and he gave her that grin that sent off warning klaxons in the back of her head. Were his teeth less dirty now? Something was --
"I don't think so," she said, feet settling arms width apart, all semblance of niceness gone. And still he smiled that smile and yes, his teeth were less dirty and there was less gray in his hair and --
A third turn.
She bolted. Dodged between animals suspended from poles, past the gathered Carnies (were they all fucking out?) past their knowing hungry eyes and out, out into the darkened town.
She caught her reflection in a shop window, barely lit by a single candle hanging from a lamp.
Fuck.
Double fuck.