Motel California

She hasn't felt like this in a while. This out of control, this pulled by her abilities. Not since before her sister started showing up for her back in Massachusetts. When she was trying so hard to avoid her powers completely and try to be normal. It just caused them to spiral completely out of control.

But as similar to that as this feels, it's still different. It's guided. It's directed. She knows what happens at the end of her fugue state. She's aware enough to know that even as she pads her way down the stairs, the chill down her spine grows stronger. The whispers grow louder. And the scream is already building up in her throat.

It's been a while since her last dead body. A very long time, even. Since she carried Stiles out of the tunnels and found Scott crying over her best friend's lifeless body.

All the other times, she managed to just call the police with an anonymous tip before actually stumbling upon a possible body, or, with Dahlia's help, she managed to actually help a couple of people before it was too late.

Like tonight. It's too late and she knows it. And in this place, there's no police for her to call. All she can do it scream. All she can do is warn the others that there has been a death, to mourn the life that has been taken. While selfishly hoping that it's not a familiar face that she finds staring back at her this time.

Lydia makes her way to the bottom of the stairs. Her footsteps are silent since she's wearing socks along with her pajamas and a robe. Her face is pale as she makes her way through the darkened lobby. Her hair is down, covering some of her face, which is barely visible since the only source of light is the moonlight shining in through the windows and front door.

Still, she sees it. The white, knee-high socks, the black dress, the apron. And the blood. It's glistering in the moonlight and the voices are screaming at Lydia now. So loud. This is it. It's the source. It's what she had to find. There's a knife sticking out of her chest and her lifeless, pale face is turned away from her. Her eyes are wide open and with the way she's laying down, it almost looks like she's watching the moonlight by the fireplace. Even though the fire is no longer burning.

Lydia's hands are shaking and she kneels next to her. She recognizes her, of course. She never spoke to her before, but she's seen the woman coming in and out of rooms. The maid. She never knew her name.

And now she has to scream for her. Even though she doesn't want to. Her eyes are tearing up and her heart is beating fast. She wants to reach out, to feel her pulse, to shake the other woman awake. But it's pointless. And with every passing second, the voices get louder. And it hurts. Her head feels like it's about to explode. There's a pressure building up inside, bubbling it's way up her throat. She knows she won't be able to hold back.

With a deep breath, she clutches at her ears, closing her eyes tightly before she lets it go and screams. A banshee scream. Powerful. Strong. Firm. A wail. Mourning, but also a warning for those who are still breathing. There's danger. And she can feel it. Death isn't just around the body in front of her, it's all around this room. This was a murder and the murderer is still out there.

[A couple of hours after this.]

>> Can you come by?

Since her break down with Scott, Lydia has been managing to pull herself together a little more. She's around a lot less these days still, choosing to pick up books from the library and lock herself in her room with them so she isn't around people. So she's not risking running into him. But she's doing slightly better.

It doesn't mean she's doing well, however. Every now and then, her chest gets so completely tight, she feels like her heart is being squeezed and she needs to allow herself to just feel for a while. Other times, she's mostly numb. Not completely shut down, but just enough that she manages not to feel anything.

Still, there are three people that she makes an effort to check in with: Scott is the one she talks to the most often. Followed by her sister and... Allison. Who she hasn't heard from in a few days.

Lydia checks her messages on the communicator, sighing softly as she sends a simple Allison? as a follow up then makes her way into the restaurant. She eyes the man in the corner booth for a moment, ignoring the pull to go talk to him that she feels. It seems to be getting stronger every day. And makes her way to the buffet so she can pick up something to it.

She plans on taking the food up to her room, but she does take a second to look around the restaurant as she walks, both to make sure there are no familiar faces around. And to check if she finds her elusive best friend.

[Set later the same day after this and this.]

Much emotion, many feels: A Scydia spam.( Read more... )

Open; Nighttime

[ Alex was still making it a point to smoke outside. Even if there were no 'no smoking' signs around he was used to it being illegal so he didn't even try. Besides, Thomas didn't need the second hand smoke. It was on one of those late night nicotine sessions that he noticed something out in the snow. He flicked the ashes pushed his way up. Blood foot prints heading his way slowly without the snow packing down. his jaw dropped as he held the cigarette between his fingers.]

Let the Midnight Special shine a light on me. Let the Midnight Special shine a light on me. Let the Midnight Special shine a light on me [ He started to sing low as he closed his eyes the cigarette snapping between his fingers.] Let the Midnight Special shine a ever loving light on me.

[ After he sang the words he opened his eyes the bloody prints gone and the cigarette out on the snow below him as he just held the snapped filter. He stood up still staring out at the vast snow. Remembering Scott's message about monsters in the hedge. So he backed up towards the door. ] Fuck this shit!

[ He spoke as he tried to open the door finding it stuck he yanked two more times before it finally opened.] Just cold, cold doors stick all the time.

Closed to Thomas.
[ Alex made his way into the room, not caring that it was nearly 1 am. He flipped the lights on and made a b-line for the closet. His coat thrown off on the bed. Throwing open the door loud he stepped inside and yanked down the card board box he had not showed the first day, throwing it open he dumped it on the bed. The beautiful white handled pistol falling on the bed with the clip and bullets as Alex started to load the bullets. His eyes were wide and he was pale as could be even for him.

He had left around 9:30 saying he was going down to the bar. Now he looks like he's seen death itself. He hadn't loaded the clip in when he heard a scratching on the other side of the wall beside him. Wide eyed he looked at the wall. ]

Network; locked to Banshee sisters
You two okay? Something funky's going on with the wiring or something. Maybe rats who fucking knows with old buildings like this. Still, I wanted to make sure your both okay.

[By now, Stiles has explored every inch of the motel that he has access to -- multiple times. He hasn't spent a lot of time sleeping, and the fatigue from it makes him miss his Adderall. It's something he hasn't taken in almost a year and a half. In addition to keeping himself busy trying to figure out a way out of this place, the last two nights have been filled with knocking sounds, strange odors, and at a little after 4 this morning, the lights had flickered on and off in his room for about twenty minutes.

Fucking poltergeists. Little pains in his ass. Or his head, as the case may be.

His gun is tucked into his pants like it usually is when he's up and around and not in his room, and today his intent is to end the nefarious little spirit causing problems around the motel. He hops on the elevator on the seventh floor because he's not in the mood to take the stairs right now, and it descends to level four, where it pauses and he moves aside to let the next person on, too. He just isn't anticipating Lydia being the one stepping onto the elevator when the doors open.

And when he sees the dazed, distant look on her face, he pauses because he realizes what's going on. She's in a fugue-like state.]

Lydia?

[OPEN HOTEL SPAM - THURSDAY MORNING/EARLY AFTERNOON]

[Allison needed another tattoo.

It was starting not so differently from the others, only this time when the images and itches to sketch it out came to her, she knew there was something else going on. Now that she knew there were things she'd forgotten, a whole life she had no clue about, these impulses were no longer casual.

Thursday afternoon, it gets worse than its ever been, so she finally grabs the complimentary pad and pen on the desk in her room and spends hours in front of the fireplace, curled up in one of the chairs drawing. Her efforts are punctuated with gentle cursing and several wadded up sheets thrown in or at the fire, resulting in some trash scattered near her seat.

When she's done, she sits back and stares at the stylized arrowhead she's sketched out in painstaking detail: a tactical arrowhead, shaded in grey (silver, it's a silver arrowhead, she knows this somehow), and stamped with an engraving of a fleur de lis.

And she has no idea what it means.]

[ELEVATOR SPAM FOR PACKLESSALPHA (CW: possible NSFW content in comments)]

[After she's grabbed some food in the restaurant, Allison heads into the elevator to go back to her room. She feels weirdly exhausted, and she needs a nap.

She doesn't realize she's not alone until she punches the button, the doors slide shut...and she glances to her left to see an all too familiar face that's still haunting her sleep.]

Jesusfuck!...

[Private Video » Lydia Martin]
Do you feel it? It's loud and cold.

[Afternoon Spam » Stiles Stilinski]
Dahlia has been Debating, with a capital D, whether or not she should talk to Stiles or not. The whole thing is Very Messy and she's not sure he, or any of the rest of the pack, needs it added to their already full plates. He needs to know. But Lydia won't like it. She'll be mad. And Dahlia's sure he'll tell her. But it's bugging her. A lot. Gnawing at her, threatening to eat her alive from the inside out if she doesn't do something about it.

She wrestles with herself over it as she eats breakfast this morning. As she walks around the hotel grounds outside--being sure to heed Scott's warning and steer clear of the maze; she feels weird vibes from it anyway. She finally decides she can't just...keep avoiding everything in her life--her new life, her second life--just because it might be hard.

So she marches upstairs to the seventh floor--the stairs take longer and she gets to avoid just a little while longer--and down the hallway to #712. The knock that comes to his door is light, but firm. Somehow conveys she means business and the seriousness of the conversation to come. Or maybe that's just in her head.

[Late night spam » OTA]
Dahlia is somewhere between the spaces of awake and asleep when she hears a low, deep moan followed by a higher-pitched ting! ting! ting! like someone banging a stick against a steel pipe. But it's not outside, it's not in the world that she's hearing these things, but in her head. Loud, like drums banging and wind howling inside her head. Except it's not drums or wind, it's...

She throws the sheets back and doesn't bother changing from her nightgown--compliments of the staff upon arrival, part of the few sets of clothes they offered since they didn't exactly have their own wardrobes here--or putting on shoes as she walks out of the room. The door to #730 is left wide open, with no signs of struggle or Dahlia inside the room at all.

If someone comes across her, they'll find her wandering mindlessly with a very blank look on her face--recognizable by pack as a fugue state. She can be found in the stairwell on any floor from the 7th down, in the lobby, the library and headed toward a door that leads down to the basement. Whether she actually makes it into the basement depends on when someone finds her and pulls her out of that state.

If she makes it in, she'll slowly make her way down the stairs. She doesn't notice the stairs are damp under her bare feet, but once she's downstairs, she goes to the far wall and just stand, staring blankly at a spot on the wall. If someone finds her down here and cares to notice, there are old, faded initials carved into the wall near where she's looking.

It could have been worse. Rey didn't like thinking that--it seemed like an open invitation, it felt like she was all but begging for things to get worse--but it really could have been much worse. Being stuck somewhere was nothing new to Rey, though in the past it had been mostly her own choice to stay in one place, waiting for something to happen that never would. She didn't like being trapped, of course, did anyone like being trapped?

Still, it could've been worse. She had a place to sleep (which usually meant the floor of her room; the bed was so just too soft, but it was a warm room and a sturdy roof over her head) and best of all, she was fed. Every day. Several times a day. And it was given to her without her having to spend hours risking life and limb for scraps of twisted metal to trade for it, and usually it was more than a few mouthfuls.

Yes, the restaurant was Rey's favorite place, without question, but often it presented a dilemma: she didn't know what a lot of things on the menu even were. Often, her method of choosing something to eat was to close her eyes and jab at an option with her finger. So far it yielded some interesting results. One day she was given a platter full of what had once been the spiny legs of a crab (whatever that was). It had taken her hours of fighting the carapaces open to crack through the shells and strip out the meat inside of them; by the time she was done she felt like she'd waged a very small war. Then, there was the bowl of some pearly white grains and vegetables in a wonderfully fragrant sauce--that hadn't been particularly strange as far as the food itself, but instead of a fork or spoon she was given two sticks and her requests for any sort of cutlery had been ignored (to be fair, that hadn't presented nearly as much of a problem as the crab's legs, since she'd just tipped the bowl up and used the sticks to shovel the grains into her mouth, and while that had earned her some odd looks from fellow diners at least that day Rey had left the restaurant happily full and without nicks and scratches on her fingertips and knuckles).

Today's experiment was burnt cream, and it was without question her most favorite yet. After her first bite she'd had to work hard to pace herself and not stab through the hard bit on the top to just scoop it all out in big spoonfuls. It might have been the most delicious thing she'd ever tasted, so she took her time with it, small bite after small bite.

[Scott has kept to himself since he talked to Stiles last night. He's expertly avoided everyone today, eating meals later than usual and keeping to his room the rest of the time. He doesn't know how to process everything that he's had dumped on him in the last 24 hours.

Stiles was here. Properly aged and guarded. Which meant he'd been wrong about Thomas. Had been giving some brainwashed kid empty, useless hope, that wasn't his to give him in the first place. He felt bad for that, guilty in a way he'd never imagined possible.

He needed to talk to someone and...honestly? The best person for the job, the only one who knows exactly how he feels and what's going on in his head...is Lydia. So, he heads up to her floor and knocks on her door lightly.]

Good evening, Esteemed Guests!

[E. Poe shows up on the screen of everyone's black and white communicator screens.]

We're welcoming new arrivals today. Please do come by the lobby after dinner to meet them. Some of you might find familiar faces.

[With a wider smile, he disconnects the video.

Anyone who does come by the lobby today will find the keys and the names of the guests laid out on the counter as follows:


Jordan Parrish - room 241
Stiles Stilinski - room 712]

[She's taken a couple of days to regroup. Between Allison that isn't Allison and Stiles that has no memory of them, or of home, she's had a lot to work through. Because the two of them are the two people she misses the most now that Dahlia has been around again. And she wishes they were there, whole. Because even though Stiles is-- everything feels so wrong with him.

So for the most part, she's been doing her best to avoid them. And pretty much everyone else. The only people she's been proactively seeking are Scott and her sister.

After two full days, however, she feels like she needs to do more. She needs to come up with a plan to help Stiles and-- she needs to make sure that Allison isn't just in the same situation as him. Because if she's somehow been kidnapped too and her memories were replaced, then she and Scott need to do something about it soon.

It's still early in the morning when Lydia makes her way over to the restaurant for breakfast. And about half an hour later, she heads for the library where she plans on spending the rest of the day with research.]

[The wounds he'd sustained the previous night were healed now, but he hadn't gotten around to taking off the bandages on his arm and around his ribs, and the one on his arm is visible.]

Consider this a public warning: Everyone should stay out of the maze behind the hotel. It's dangerous. Like....had a run-in with a dragon last night, stay the hell out of there,dangerous [He manages an incredulous scoff as he shakes his head.] I know how this might sound, but just remember we all woke up in a cable car with no memory of how we got there and we're stuck in a hotel we aren't even allowed to know the actual location of. [He pauses and presses his lips together for a moment.] I just thought everyone should know.

[Stiles (Thomas)]
Are you okay?

Good morning, Guests!

[E. Poe shows up on the screen of everyone's black and white communicator screens.]

We're welcoming new arrivals today. Please do come by the Lobby after lunch to meet them. Some of you might find familiar faces.

[With a wider smile, he disconnects the video.

Anyone who does come by the lobby today will find the keys and the names of the guests laid out on the counter as follows:

Jean Grey - room 531
Jordan Parrish - room 241
Daisy Johnson - room 730
Dahlia Martin - room 730
Lydia Martin - room 217]