myafterlifesux (myafterlifesux) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2023-05-08 21:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, !match-up, [plot] fear gas, damien duval (notoriousness), george lass (myafterlifesux), ~2023 may |
Who: George Lass and Damien Duval
What: Dealing With Terrified Citizens As Only George Can
When: May 8th, The Wee Hours
Where: The Nighthawk Coffee Shop (Open All Night)
Rating: Language, probably
Status: Incomplete
George climbed up on the counter by the register and looked out over the crowd. "Shut the fuck up!" she bellowed. Silence fell.
"That's better," she said. "Now--"
"Oh god oh god ohgodohgodohgod, I'm dead. I'm dead. I'M DEAD!"
George scowled at the middle-aged man sitting on the floor, rocking back and forth, working himself up into another panic attack. His body lay slumped across a table. "You're not dead! I keep telling you that!"
"Yeah?" he asked, suddenly meeting her eyes in an uncharacteristic display of assertiveness. "That sure as hell looks like my body!" he said, pointing at it. "And I'm not in it. What do you call that!?"
George sighed heavily. She was beginning to think this had been a bad idea. She'd wandered into the Nighthawk for a cup of coffee about 2 a.m. The place was busier than usual, probably because people weren't sleeping. The lunatic spreading fear gas--and old-fashioned fear and paranoia--was having an effect on the city. Why people chose to go to a public place to engage in insomnia when a lunatic was at large baffled her, but she'd seen many stupider things in her career as a Reaper.
About 2:30 a gas grenade had been tossed into the building, filling it with green smoke. "Fuck me!" George had cried, and waited and wondered what horrible, fearful hallucinations would take her. As it happened: none. Maybe she was immune. Maybe her seat as far from the door as possible meant she didn't get a sufficient dose. In any case, she had a front row seat as everyone else in the coffee shop panicked. Some ran screaming. Others screamed and flailed, or went catatonic, or began attacking one another, convinced their fellow insomniacs were the source of all their fears.
George leaped up and began wading into the crowd, slapping arms and backs, or touching peoples' head like the Pope giving them a blessing, occasionally fending off flailing hands and pressing her finger to the lips of the wide-eyed, screaming individual with a gentle "Shush!" At every touch, the individual collapsed like a puppet with its string cut. She did her best to cushion their fall, but a few bumps and bruises were inevitable.
The screams stopped. For a minute. But then she faced a roomful of temporary ghosts who, while no longer under the influence of the fear gas--ghosts don't have glands to pump fear chemicals into the brains they don't have--were nonetheless rather alarmed at being, as far as they could tell, dead. It had seemed like the best way to handle things. Let them cool off while their bodies slept through the worst of the fear gas effects. In practice, they weren't inclined to listen to her assurances.
"You're just...temporarily disembodied. When the fear gas wears off, I'll put you back. You'll be fine!"
That's when George looked up to see someone standing in the doorway of the coffee shop, looking at her standing on the counter, talking to a roomful of unconscious or dead people.
"Uhhh...it's not what it looks like," George said.