Broken Space

Delia had gotten off easy in the end - it had taken so long to find Elf that even though Will had seen through her delaying tactics she had gotten home after Bran and Ephram had become very involved discussing everything that had happened that night. (This was what Delia chose to believe they were very involved with and she could generally find something to think about rather than have to even begin to contemplate other options.) She went to sleep cuddling a squirmy kitten close and snuck out early the next day. She felt fidgety and antsy and so abandoned Elf to breakfast in the kitchen and went for a run. It was the fact that she had barely started and was at the beach that first startled her, and secondly that the bottom of her sneakers were smoking and smelled of burnt rubber.

It was weird. So she tried again and this time she ran along the beach and now that she was paying attention she could see everything blurring. She ran round the entire island twice in rapid succession, and then she was forced to make her way at speed back to the compound because her shoes were ruined and also she was starving. But this did not stop her racing there at full throttle, bursting into the kitchen causing Elf to squeak pathetically and flee as Delia wondered just how hard it was to get melted rubber off the kitchen floor.

[ooc: slowtime v soon but LT welcome on speedy Delia :)]

Things are getting pretty weird. Not that there's a better way to describe a day, or a week, that starts with getting knocked out of bed because your girlfriend's sprouted wings, especially when that morning finishes off a night where your best buddies can now both change into stuff and the stone you thought was dormant is very much awake again and hungry for blood.

But there's more to it than that. It started when his eyes started tingling. It was the weirdest thing, they just started burning a bit from the back, like when there's a wind blowing too hard in your face--only there wasn't, just a flicker of something silver, and then things were back to normal for a bit.

Only it keeps on happening, and every time the flashes of silver get a little stronger, a little thicker, until he thinks he's not imagining them anymore. How could he be? How could he imagine a long, straight, shimmering line of flickering silver stretched across the island in front of him and out to the west, across the water?

A Straight Track. Silver, not gold, but a Straight Track all the same.

"Fuck," he whispers, rubbing at his eyes. "David, this is so your department. I'm not supposed to have this shit." Not all the the stinging is from the Sight, but it's a good excuse. "Where the hell are you, man?"

[Sad!Alec is sad. Open to anyone, though especially wanting Finno and Calvin.]

Bright was never really the kind of person who attracted weird shit. Ephram getting all mixed up with weirdness and magic and King Arthur's long lost son he could totally get, because Ephram was like, a magnet for drama. But Bright, for all there had been some pretty serious things in his life, really wasn't. Crashing Colin's truck? Totally his fault for being drunk. Getting fired? Also his fault. Hannah dumping him? Definitely his fault, and none of it had anything to do with any cosmic conspiracy except that Bright was fundamentally not the brightest crayon in the box.

Which is why, when he woke up on the first of November and the island made sense, it was really, really weird.

Previously, Bright had thought getting fired by your mom was probably the strangest sensation the universe could offer. But understanding calculus was way, way weirder. He was thinking in equations. He even tracked down Spot to ask him some random math questions, some pretty theoretical, which he managed to answer without even breaking a sweat.

Just now, he was out by the side of the compound shooting hoops. Which is invariably made, not just because he had a damn good jump shot, but because this sudden new part of his brain knew things like trajectory and velocity.

He thought he could probably even spell 'velocity'. Awesome.

Despite the strangeness of the previous night, the day after Halloween begins rather like any other day. Robb wakes up with a wet wolf nose in his face telling him in nonverbal but certain terms that he's been a slovenly layabed for as fully long enough and that now is for getting up--rises, dresses, shuffles outside to take care of some morning business, still yawning, and finally goes looking for something to eat.

This is where things start getting strange. He blows across the top of his morning cup of tea to cool it, like every other morning. Unlike every other morning, the tea freezes.

Experimentally, he tries this a few more times. Through the course of the morning he discovers he can freeze not only tea, but wood, metal, air, water, and pretty much anything else, and not just by breathing on it, but by touching it and thinking hard. And then, the more he practises, thinking less hard.

The possibilities seem vast but not entirely useful, and he stands in front of Summerfell thoughtfully, making miniature icicles extend from one fingertip then break off to fall to the ground. It's interesting, anyway.

Tory swears he's imagining it all. He's standing under the spray of the shower, having all but sweat through his monk's robes at the Halloween party. Not the most romantic way to end what has been a very romantic evening with Colin, which is why he hit the shower before bed. Colin, perfect as Tory thinks him, is probably immune to the heat and already asleep with three or four kittens curled up beside him.

Which is why it's so weird. Tory can swear he hears Colin's voice in the shower, though he can't quite make out what he's saying. Probably some trick of the sound of the water echoing off tile and wall and whatever else.

He shuts off the water and it's gone. Maybe he's tired, since he can't be drunk - he didn't drink anything for Colin's sake. He steps out of the shower, and as he's toweling his hair he can hear it again. Shaking his head and tucking his damp hair behind his ears, he finishes drying off and wraps the towel around his waist. He decides it's too late to be modest, and Colin's probably asleep anyway, as he opens the door and pads into their room.

Far beneath the soil, buried deep, there is movement--slow but sure, clawing toward the surface of the earth, inch by agonising inch. Dirt moves against bony, flesh-tattered fingers, ever further upward. And then--

Stone, a barrier, and instinct impulses movement, seeking along its surface. At last, an opening!

And from beneath the compound, beneath the dry earth of the island, the dead begin to rise and move.

The day had dawned and most of them did, bright and fair and with birds singing. But as the afternoon wore on, the sun creeping steadily toward the horizon and the sea, the sky darkens, and the trees go silent and eerie as the birds disappear.

It is autumn, then, for all that this island has no seasons. All Hallow's Eve--not unheard of, and if strange things are meant to happen it is surely the night for it. But as the sky above turns grey and the shadows lengthen across the sand, far off in the distance, the baying of far-off hounds can be heard.

And then, with the wind that sweeps in from the farthest reaches of the sea, they come--tearing through the Walls between Worlds, wailing and howling in a mad rush of burning red eyes and shadow-fur, with the horned Huntsman at their head; they who had chased their prey in this way, this night, for centuries and more on end.

The Huntsman has been known by many names, and at times by none at all. He sits tall atop a wheeling white horse with eyes of fire, his head a garish mask at one moment, at the next an empty skull, always with horns like an elk's jutting from the sides. The hounds--the Hounds of Hell they have been called, and the Dogs of Darkness--are huge white beasts, ugly things, with crimson eyes and crimson ears taut upright, their baying the stuff of shivering nightmares. The Huntsman holds an ancient horn in his hand--he lifts it, and its fierce, bloodcurdling call cuts through the night like a burning sword through snow.

It is full dark now, and all the clouds are the silvery coats of the racing pack, and the wind is the howl of their voices as they chase across the sky.

[Even though this is for a specific part of the plot, do feel free please to tag in--there is a sort of 'main thread' involving Delia but everyone is welcome to see the Hunt, react to it, do gathering, whatever.]

What do you get when you combine one already creepy compound and two party addicts with way too much time on their hands?

One amazing party.

The entrance to the Compound has been lined with black and fake cobwebs, and an old tape recorder playing a casette of scary sound effects on a loop. All lights have been covered up, and the only lights one can see are at the end of the hallway.

The end of the hallway is the Lobby, and it's been turned into one hell of a party room (no pun intended). The walls are also covered in black, with the harsh fluorescent lights covered with sheer fabric and mounted squares of colored glass. There's a bar, a non-alcoholic fruit punch for the kiddies, a table full of appetizers and bowls of sugar cane sticks and other sweet things. There's not much left in the basement anymore--Bright and Johnny scoured the shelves and hijacked everything that could be used for a speaker system and begged Alec and the Doctor to help.

Well, Johnny begged. Because he's not above begging a Timelord to play the Professor from Gilligan's Island when it comes to wanting a kickass sound system.

Music from someone's forgotten ipod is now blaring, the bass so loud it makes Johnny's chest vibrate--the perfect volume, in his opinion.

And what would be Halloween without costumes? Because otherwise Johnny Storm wouldn't be the devil his sister always accused him of being and just be a man in a red catsuit, carrying a pitchfork with sparkly red horns on his head--and that would just be silly.


[Set to Halloween Night, naturally, but as we're all going to be gone...pre-play to your heart's content!]