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Doors Verse ([info]doorsverse) wrote in [info]doorslogs,
@ 2013-10-18 21:51:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:plot: halloween

Who: Everyone!
What: The Halloween plot
Where: Passages → The RMS Mauretania
Notes: This is a group log, so anything goes as far as adult content. Please provide locations and warnings, whenever appropriate, in subject lines. Characters may only be in one place at a time, not in multiple threads simultaneously, and you must post using the “doorsween” anon account. This post is anonymous; no names, accents, or defining fonts, please. Lastly, comment with "dibs" on threads you intend to hit, and feel free to exit your characters from threads at any time.



The Mauritania is a ghost ship.

Launched in 1938, it's been decades since she sailed the oceans, and yet the doors of Passages open onto the night-darkened deck of a ship that is barely afloat. She tilts, she lurches, and she is cobweb-lined from her deserted bridge to her silent deck. There is no land to be sighted from any railing, and no light save that from the stars overhead. The promenade winds around the upper level in ominous silence, and haunting music can be heard beyond the doors that lead into the ship's interior.

Promenade; Elevator: It's a curious thing, this ghost ship's elevator. Opulent and splendid, it takes up the entire center of the grand entrance, and it is meant to carry passengers down into the belly of the ship. But it doesn't work just right. Sometimes, the elevator drops impossible lengths. Sometimes, the elevator stops altogether for hours at a time. Yet somehow it's always empty and awaiting new passengers.

First Class; Baths: The upper-level, with its height and distance from the ocean, feels safe and bright. Classical music can be heard in these halls, though there is no orchestra and the ballroom is ominously dark. Laughter leads passengers to the one mostly-lit area in first class, where a swimming bath leads to smaller, more private Turkish bath. The lights here are quiet, flickering and barely there, and shadows dance elusively in the depths of the pool, while ghostly laughter can be heard in the private bath stalls.

Second Class; Theater: Down a level, the second-class floor is louder than the elite first-class floor. Here the air is thick with cigar smoke, and glasses can be heard clinking from the open doors to the smoking room. But it's the theater that draws passengers on this floor. It is cramped and entirely dark, save for the monochrome film on the screen, hauntingly devoid of sound, where a collection of terrifying collages and darkly sexual imagery fill the screen.

Third Class; Dining: Claustrophobic stairs lead down to the narrow passages of the cramped third-class rooms, where the air is heavy and thick, and where the lights flicker and cast the hall into windowless darkness. Here, the ghostly gears of the engine room can be heard sputtering dangerously, and the sensation of the ship's tilting is most pronounced. At the end of the hall, the dining area gives the illusion of windows where none exist. Chairs are pushed aside to allow for dancing to soulful and intimate music, while ocean water teases shoes and heels.



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Re: dining area
[info]doorsween
2013-10-21 01:57 am UTC (link)
Real?

The question wasn't as unexpected as actually being questioned was, he was waylaid by that. Nobody had asked him anything since before his father had died, and the boy with scissors for hands found himself quite unprepared for responding. He hadn't anticipated anyone having the desire to interact with him, much less converse with him. There was no use for a voice in the empty attic, which had been empty for years now. Even when his father had still been alive, there wasn't very much to say. His father had done most of the talking, you see. His father had been a man with incentive, he'd taken care of things.

Did he even have a voice anymore? Did those kinds of things go bad? Did they rot and fall out? Did they grow over with green like all of the food in the cupboards had over time? Did his voice have a shelf life? Did his heart?

All of this wondering was why he only watched her in silence that was growing increasingly awkward. Despite his every intention to not be strange, he knew that he was not succeeding. The stainless point of his index blade shivered nervously against one of the metal rings on his pants, and it made a sound like a dungeon's windchime.

"Yes." When he finally spoke, the pause was not a gateway of confusion. The fact that he spoke at all was a testament to his complaisant nature. There was no uncertainty on the matter, because he knew that he was real. It was something that he'd wondered about for a long time now, and he'd come to this determined realization after years of hypothesis spent at the attic window. There was too much pain in his life for it to not be real.

"I'm here," he explained further. As if that explained anything. Standing in the haunted lounge, he thought that he could feel the music ghosting around him like water streaming past an offensive rock. Again, he was struck by what he perceived to be his otherness. He knew that people were looking at him, they always looked at him. In this setting, it was probably expected of him to be dancing. He didn't know why there was comfort to be found in doing what was expected, but it seemed like a good idea.

He had a talent for moving forward, his strict clothes didn't really allow for moving backward, after all. And once he thought of something, it didn't occur to him to not think of it, or not act on it, for that matter. Which is why he reached for her hand with his gnashing knives, oblivious of the peril that presented. He'd seen several men take the hands of women for a dance while he'd been standing here quietly, and he didn't know that asking was a required strategy.

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Re: dining area
[info]doorsween
2013-10-21 02:22 am UTC (link)
She thought he was strange. Strange wasn't exactly ugly, but maybe that meant she just didn't understand. Because you could never be ugly once you were real, not to someone who understood. She thought about that, because she'd never considered that maybe something could be ugly to one person, while not being ugly to another. She considered sucking the tip of her ear between her lips as she thought, but she refrained. She still wasn't sure if that was okay, and she didn't know who to ask. Except maybe she could ask him. If he was real, he might know the right answer.

She believed him when he said that he was real. She had no reason not to believe him. "Did it hurt?" she asked. "Did becoming real hurt?" She knew the answer was that becoming real could hurt, but maybe he'd say differently. She wouldn't mind at all if his answer was different. She stepped closer. "I don't want it to hurt. I want to be real very much, but I don't think I want it to hurt." And all those sharp things he had, those looked like they hurt. Maybe being real was different for everyone, and maybe she only needed to become shabby and faded. That didn't seem so bad now. It seemed a lot better than knives and scissors. At least she thought those were knives and scissors.

"You're here. I'm here too," she said, because being somewhere didn't make her real. She was already here, but she wasn't real at all. She had just finished making that observation when he moved forward with his knives. She thought the knives looked like they had hurt to add to him, but she didn't realize they could hurt her. She couldn't remember ever being hurt before. She didn't think he needed to ask either. No one asked when they picked up toys. They only asked real things about being picked up and handled. She'd noticed the dancing, too, and she thought she might like to dance like the real girls in the room.

She moved forward when he did, her smile soft and stitched pink bright. Her finger just touched one of his knives, and she felt something rend. It didn't hurt, but she felt the strangest pressure, and she looked at her hand. Stuffing was poking out of a tiny hole in the velvety brown skin. "Ow?" she asked belatedly, because it seemed the real thing to do. She was willing to not mind being hurt, but she wasn't sure what it meant if it didn't hurt at all. She didn't think it was good.

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Re: dining area
[info]doorsween
2013-10-22 05:44 pm UTC (link)
Edward was no stranger to the danger that his would-be hands presented. Deleterious digits sprouted like sickles from a savage garden. His body, hidden away beneath the bondage and shackles of black leather and steel rings, was a canvas of pink and white scars. Even his face, the only visible part of flawed flesh, was a massacre. Old cuts were now grooves and divots, pale gouges in a leper's bedsheet, sewn over with scar tissue. Every gesticulation brought the penchant for blood, he'd had to replace several eyes during his life in the attic. Although his father was long gone, the man had planned ahead in this. He'd segregated a jar of absinthe to soak the marbles that became Edward's corneas. Maybe his father planned to make more children, maybe that's why there were so many eyes saved up in that jar. After his father died, though, Edward put them to another use; replacement. Sadly, there was only one left by this time, so Edward tried to be ever mindful of his face when he remembered to do so. His modest lack of speech only made things more complicated, sign language had dire consequences if he wasn't tip-toe careful.

They say that the proof is in the pudding, but in bunny's case, the proof was in her stuffing. Her belated cry of pain made Edward pull back. Carpenter claws skittering together in a metallic clang. The ghostly flaneurs were witnesses, but they did not seem worried or concerned; the costumed just kept on dancing. It seemed that the partygoers were too soaked in gin or just too apathetic to care that he'd just gouged the young woman. They weren't going to run him out of the party with fire on the end of angry pikes.. that was a relief. She did not bleed like him, but Edward did not assume that to mean that it had not hurt. He knew first hand just how badly a touch could hurt. Taking a step back to ensure a controlled distance, the boy lowered his hands to his sides. The scissors twitched, restless scythes of self-loathing. He scolded himself and lowered his eyes.

"I'm sorry." His voice was soft and child-like, inexperienced with conversation, but plenty familiar with apology. "I.. forgot that I hurt people." How could he have forgotten something so glaringly obvious? He'd always hurt people, and although it was without intention, the result was the same. All he had to do was touch them. Even his best intentions brought ruin and tears. The rabbit girl was not crying, but Edward also knew that being hurt did not always involve tears.

He thought that even if he could not touch her, he could at least answer her question. "It didn't hurt when I was made, that felt good. The hurt came later." He hung his head, scraggly black hair spilled into his face, and the words were whisper soft.

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Re: dining area
[info]doorsween
2013-10-22 10:22 pm UTC (link)
She had no memory of hurt. The concept was familiar, and she feared it, so she must have known about it somehow. But she couldn't remember the actual sensation. The only thing left behind was the dislike of it, and none of the experiences. But she knew her finger didn't hurt. Whatever she associated with pain, this wasn't it. "It didn't hurt," she assured him. "It was supposed to. That's why I said ow. But it didn't hurt because I'm not real." She was poking at the stuffing that was peeking tauntingly from between the slice of velvety brown skin. "Do you have this?" she asked, sticking her finger out for him to examine the stuff inside her. Once she was real, maybe she wouldn't have fluff anymore. He didn't look like he was filled with fluff at all.

"Did it happen all at once?" she asked of his becoming real. He said it didn't hurt when he was made, but was that the same as becoming real? She didn't think so. Maybe he wasn't real at all. "Why did the hurt come later?" she asked, concern and button eyes going wider. "Nothing is supposed to hurt once you're real." Some part of her that existed before the soft pink interiors of her ears knew that was nonsense, but she wasn't going to listen to that part of her. She wanted to be real so badly. That was all she wanted. "Is that why you have all those marks?" she asked, pointing her damaged finger at his face and forgetting to cover up the hole that the fluff was trying to escape from.

A fluff of fluff fell to the floor, and she looked down at it. It was proof of everything, and she stared at it sadly. "When you're real, someone loves you, and nothing hurts ever again." She looked up. "That means it was supposed to hurt now. When you cut me, it should've hurt, unless I'm already real. This can't be real. I can't be real," she added, her tone turning despairing. "This is lonely, and real shouldn't be lonely."

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Re: dining area
[info]doorsween
2013-10-26 02:13 am UTC (link)
His eyes were a quiet, sapient black. Like the beginning of time, with a depth so infinite that it didn't seem like there should have been able to have been anything beyond the darkness. But there was life. He seemed very afraid of nothing at all, nervous of the people that surrounded them and nervous of the furnishings, probably nervous of the air too if he let himself get that carried away. There was a lot to worry about when he wasn't in the attic, he was just now realizing.

He'd already hurt the girl with the rabbit ears, even if he hadn't actually hurt her. Her hand looked like the pillow he'd once had. There were enough bad dreams over the time in the attic that the pillow hadn't lasted very long. By the time it'd been stabbed beyond the point of functioning any further, his father had been dead and gone, so there was no way to procure another pillow. Which was a shame, because he liked soft things like pillows. He did so wish that he'd known about things like death and forever and away, so that he might have planned better for all of his future pillow needs while his father had still been around. In any case, his life was a pillow-less one these days.

He studied the disparate nature of their hands. Hers spilling fluff and his purely cutlery. When she asked if he had cotton on the inside as well, he stared back at her in frozen, awkward silence for another full moment. "I don't know.. but maybe," he prevaricated gently. It seemed like a good idea not to commit to not having stuffing, because this was the longest that anybody had talked to him since his father had gone away, and maybe she wouldn't go away so fast if she thought he had fluff inside. It was a white lie, which didn't seem that dangerous at all to him on most days. He could vaguely recall lying to someone before he'd ever come to this party, although he could not remember who it was or what he'd lied about. He thought that he'd lied not to hurt someone, and his knives flicked self-consciously with the awkward recollection of just how often he hurt people. All the time.

"The hurt came later because life is painful. That's what being grown up and real is about."

He frowned when she pointed at his face, going quiet again, and one of the scissor blades shot up, self aware. He touched his cheek before he could remember that he wasn't supposed to, and the pointed scissor gouged him briefly. Wincing, he dropped his would-be hand, and blood dripped from the miniature cut on his visage, very red against chalky skin that never saw a true day's sun. He stared at her again, and more of that awkward silence preceded any kind of explanation that he could think to come up with. "I'm sorry," it seemed reasonable to apologize for hurting himself because he didn't want her to be afraid. "It doesn't hurt," he lied. "Maybe I'm not real, too." He was very lonely, after all. And if real wasn't supposed to be lonely, then what did he know?

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Re: dining area
[info]doorsween
2013-10-26 02:36 am UTC (link)
"That isn't what they said," she protested, but she had no idea who they were. She only knew that real was supposed to not hurt ever again. Becoming real hurt, but after everything was perfect. She forgot all about not sucking on the end of her ear, and she tugged it between her lips and worried it wet. What if it had all been a lie? What if there was only this, and nothing more? Or worse, what if becoming real hurt more than everything else did? She could barely let herself think about it. "I'm alone now, and I need someone to love me, so I can be real," she explained again. Maybe she hadn't done a very good of explaining the first time. Maybe that was why things were wrong. "Maybe you're still becoming real. Maybe that's why it hurts still."

She didn't want to think about what it meant that she was filled with fluff, because she was almost positive he was lying to her about being filled with fluff himself. "Does someone love you?" she asked, because that was the most important thing when it came to becoming real. She remembered very clearly that they had told her that. She remembered too, in a fuzzy and cottony way, that the people who were supposed to love her were all gone now. They'd all gone away. Did that mean she'd been real once, and she just wasn't real now? She had no idea whatsoever how that would work, and she missed him raising the bladefingers to his face, while she was thinking about it.

She had moved onto the other ear, which she never sucked on, but which was now tucked into her mouth with the ear that was faded and perpetually damp.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, because she knew about bleeding. Somehow, she knew people who bled died. That clashed with her entire concept of being real. It clashed loudly, like cymbals. She'd known someone who had bled, she realized, but she couldn't remember at all. Had that person made her real? But his bleeding was more important, and she moved closer to him when he lied. "Keep your hands down." She sounded unsure about the word hands (shouldn't they be paws?), but she kept on. She tugged and tugged fluff from her sliced finger, and when she had a nice little ball of fluff built up, she pressed it to the cut on his face.

"You bleed. That means you're real," she told him. There was awe and sadness in her voice. "You don't remember how it happened?"

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