Aleksandra Makarov ❅ Maržanna (koliada) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2017-10-29 21:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | chernobog, marzanna |
gorgeous eyes shine suicide
Who: Alex & Matt.
What: Exploring the key rooms.
Where: Fourth floor.
When: Oct. 11, midday.
Since the keys appearance on her floor, Alex had not done much in the way of investigation. Instead, she was still trying to wrap her head around everything Matt had told her on her first day at the lab. She'd come promptly home and watched the videos he'd supplied her in secret—the one of the woman around whom flowers had miraculously bloomed, another of a man who died on the operating table, and so many in between. Then there was that nagging memory of the woman and the smoke creature in the woods. Chernobog... and Marzanna.
Alex pulled her laptop closer, a glass of white wine in one hand as she browsed the Pax network while seated comfortably on the immaculately white couch in her living room. Despite not being one to physically explore the hall, she'd closely followed the explorations of others. Test subjects, all of them, in so many ways that they weren't aware of. As she scrolled, Alex briefly wondered if these keys were another test, or if something else entirely was happening. She sipped, reading, unable to discern one way or another. The rooms sounded insane, the concoction of some harebrained lunatic mashing together bedtime stories.
The more she thought on it, the more she drank, the more she decided she needed to know for herself. She grabbed her phone and texted Matt.
Come downstairs?
Matthew didn’t see the text for some time. The mid-week break from work left him feeling exhausted, particularly after exposing all that had gone on to Alex. His stories had been so bottled up within him that now that they were out, he felt deflated, and even more so he had to face the questions Alex had which were equally exhausting. But she knew and he was glad of that, it did feel better to have someone to confide in, so maybe her new job wasn’t the end of the world after all.
Still, Wednesday afternoon found him on his couch, dozing while the tv droned on, and it took him a moment to realize his phone had chirped in the other room and another moment before he found the energy to go get it. It was a handful of moments on top of that before he found himself outside Alex’s door, cringing at the sight of the keys hanging overhead.
He knocked on Alex’s door and stuffed his hand in his pocket as he waited, eyes glancing uneasily at the various keys all the while. She did not leave him waiting long; her ghostly presence opened the door, then held it wide for him to head inside.
"Have you been following what's happening on the network at all?" The question was blunt, much like Alex herself. She closed the door behind Matt, waving him into the living room, where she'd added another wine glass. Plucking it and the bottle up, she glanced at Matt with a raised brow.
“I’ve seen what’s been posted,” Matthew said, his voice tired as he nodded at the wine and took a seat on her white couch. She poured him a glass and offered it out to him, then retrieved her own. “Haven’t googled any of the stories people are talking about or anything. But I have googled Chernobog.”
The mention of the black god stirred something deep in Matthew, something that was satisfied, but Matthew only found himself shyly broaching the subject. He could still recall the feeling of lust and happiness when Chernobog came across Marzanna and to think that Alex may be her… his cheeks colored. “There isn’t a lot of information on him. Like, nothing. But he was a devil in Fantasia so there’s that but… definitely not the guy from the dream.”
Alex swirled the wine in her glass gently, remaining on her feet for the moment; she orbited him all the same, one arm crossed over her chest and tucked into the opposing crook of her elbow.
"What do you think about going in one of the rooms?" It wasn't that she wasn't interested in what Matt had to say; she was making her way toward it, in her own time. She sipped her wine. "People are saying they're strange, yes, but you said... There's something in all of us? What if that's what's causing these things to happen?" She raised her free hand before he could interrupt.
"Just listen. I watched the tape, and... those things were amazing and terrifying and clearly... There's something at play here that we're not understanding. But no one, not even this Vidal, is capable of hanging all these keys in one night, much less having them cause these..." Her hands gesticulated for a moment as she groped for a word. "These mass hallucinations."
“Maybe the deities are doing it,” Matthew said thoughtfully. “Maybe they possess us at night, or they have enough powers to put all the keys up without us knowing. I mean, who knows what we’re doing when we’re asleep, you know?” He looked at Alex thoughtfully before leaning forward slightly. “Have you had anything happen? Beside that dream you had; any other dreams? Any weird things?”
Her silence and another long, slow sip was reply enough; then she nodded.
"The other day I was in the gym. I ran into someone I thought I knew from back home, but he said... It's not a big deal." She raised a hand, waving off any unspoken questions. "What is is that... When I was picking up weights, my hands froze around them." The hand holding the wine glass and the empty one came level in front of her, the latter palm up. She stared at her hands as though they were separate entities; she'd still not quite understood how any of that came to pass.
Alex's gaze flicked toward Matt. "You said you...became transparent?"
Taking in a deep breath, he nodded and reached forward to snatch the bottle of wine and fill his glass. “I could see myself, but I could see through myself as well. Tom couldn’t see me at all. I was able to pass through things, like a ghost. I wasn’t…” He shook his head and looked away for a moment. “It wasn’t like in the dream. I wasn’t smoke or anything. But maybe it’s only a little at a time. Marzanna...she was cold and ice. Maybe a little like what happened at the gym.”
Alex bobbed her head in agreement. "So, like any good researchers, we should find out more." She sipped her wine, putting the glass down on the coffee table. "We should go try out one of those keys."
“Uh, I don’t know about that, Alex,” Matthew replied, immediately furrowing his brow and shaking his head. He clutched the wine glass and took a deep drink from it. “I mean, what if I go invisible again? Or if you turn into an ice cube? What if we’re experiments just as much as everyone else?”
She shrugged. "Only one way to find out, right? And besides, where's your sense of adventure?" She took a step closer, holding out a hand; her mouth curved up on the left side.
Alex nodded back toward her front door. "What's the worst that could happen?"
Matthew sighed but took Alex’s hand, allowing her to lead him towards the exit of the apartment. “I could turn into smoke and never be solid again,” he began counting off. “You could turn into a block of ice and never become human. Maybe Chernobog and Marzanna will both take over our bodies and never let us go. Maybe we’ll make everything turn to winter. Maybe…”
"Maybe you should stop being a pessimist," she replied cheekily; a moment later, they were in the hallway, keys swaying above them. Alex kept her hold on Matt's hand as she looked up.
"Also, congrats, you're the one who's gonna have to pull one down. Which one looks good?" She pointed to a slightly hairy key hanging from a beaded plum. "I've read some pretty bad things about that one. What about..." Her eyes moved over the hallway ceiling, eventually landing on a pale blue key. Somehow, it seemed to emit a soft glow.
"How about that one?" Alex pointed with her free hand.
Matthew frowned, glancing at Alex with a scowl (she merely grinned back in response), but reached up to pluck the key free nonetheless. “It is nice to look at,” he murmured, holding the key delicately in his hands because somehow he felt it should be gently held. Quietly, he offered it to Alex. She had dragged him into this, she could find a door to open. “Have you heard anything about this key?”
Alex took the silvery-blue key without hesitation; nothing except its color marked it as odd. She shook her head in answer to Matt's question.
"Not as far as I've seen, just yet," she replied, fingers curling around the hooked edge. Tapping it against her lips, she turned back toward her own door; without a second glance back toward Matt, she inserted it it into her lock and pushed the door in.
The interior was completely white. Not the clean, sterile environment she'd built up around herself, the thing that she'd absent-mindedly brought home from the lab, but a clear snow that erased all signs of a horizon. Alex lingered in the doorway, eyes trailing up toward a star-filled sky. Her mouth gaped open.
"Are you seeing this?" She leaned against the doorway, but turned back to Matt. After a moment's pause, she held her hand out toward him. Matthew reached forward and grabbed her hand.
His grasp was warm, hers was cold, but not any colder than usual which was a silent relief for the man. She wasn’t turning into the winter goddess from his dreams, at least that’s what it seemed, and he let out a sigh of relief that could be visibly seen in the cold air coming from the doorway. “It’s like the dream,” he replied. “Well, almost. The winter landscape and all, but there’s something different about it.”
Alex made a soft sound, and pulled Matt forward with slow, precise steps. Snow crunched underfoot, feeling as real and as cold as any Chicago winter. The only exception was that there were no buildings to outline the horizon, nothing reaching up to disappear into white clouds. Her breath fogged before her, there and gone, though she could instantly feel the drop in temperature in her chest. She didn't, however, feel the need to wrap her arms around herself, nor did she shiver.
"It's definitely familiar," she murmured, turning about to see if she could mark anything by which to track their passage. A glance behind her showed her apartment door, standing impossibly alone in the middle of nowhere. She glanced up; she could not read any of the constellations. Alex frowned.
Drawing her eye back to the horizon, she noticed a small dot that was making its way through the white film that distracted their gazes. She pointed.
"What's that look like to you?"
Matthew squinted as he stepped beside Alex, his hand tightening around hers. “A person?” He asked, completely not sure. “Or maybe it’s some trees? I can’t tell how far off it is, the snow’s too thick. Should we…” He frowned and looked down at Alex. “Should we walk towards it?”
Alex shrugged. "It's that, or wander the wild wonderland of snow around us, or go back. And it's too early for the latter." For the first time since stepping through the door, she shivered; it wasn't due to the cold. Instead, her mentioning wandering brought back to mind her dream, the dream she'd supposedly shared with Matt about this Chernobog and Marzanna.
"The Chernobog you told me about before," she started, pressing them forward. "This is where he's from, right?"
Matthew followed Alex’s lead but kept scanning the surrounding area. “I mean, I’m not sure if it’s here specifically but it certainly feels like it. It was cold and wintery in the dream when he met Marzanna, but I had other dreams too where he was in unique places that were completely different from here.” He held out his free hand and caught a snowflake that quickly melted into his palm. “But this place certainly seems the most… right.”
They walked with cautious steps, slowed by the snow that continued to fall through the sky. The figure in the distance seemed to grow no nearer.
"It reminds me of that dream. The woman trying to get through the ice, because it was the only way home." Her voice was withdrawn, clinical, but just underneath ran a small stream of emotion. "She was very sad, trapped here. That's... That's the word for it. It's a trap." Even that did not fully describe the landscape. Alex turned the thought over and over in her head, falling quiet.
Suddenly, she could see a person standing at the edge of an island—not closely, but enough to start making out detail. A woman, clothed in such a way that she had to have been freezing, and holding something. Alex's eyes followed the line extending from the woman's hands toward...
"What is that?" Alex exclaimed, pointing toward the beast that strained against its bonds. A second silver chain went upward, winding away into the starry sky. It seemed attached to one of the burning nodes therein, and it did not look as though it would hold.
Matthew had been watching Alex, listening to what she said about her end of the dream. She had, more or less, avoided the topic of the dream they had shared and he ate up anything she had to say about it. Both reveling in the fact that they had shared a dream and finding comfort that he wasn’t entirely insane. But her exclamation drew his attention forward again and his footsteps faltered.
“I don’t know…” he replied and shook his head. “I mean, it’s a dog of some kind, obviously but...this feels like a dream.”
Snow scattered itself across Alex's brow, sticking to her skin before melting somewhat. Her body temperature wasn't high enough for a scenario like this, but despite Matt's words, it all felt real enough to her. Her eyes followed the chain back down from the glittering orbs in the sky, landing on the beast once again. She flinched, watching it open great jaws, saliva hitting the ground with a sizzling hiss. Added to that were tremendously overdone claws; altogether the thing looked like it was made for destruction. It strained against its bonds.
"I think we should turn back," she said, already stepping in that direction. "This might've been a bad idea." The creature strained at its lead, and the woman standing next to it was doing little to contain...was it her pet? Was she its guardian? It's keeper? Alex suddenly had little desire to find out, and the door to her apartment seemed so far away.
Matthew’s eyes were on the woman holding the leash and for a moment, he didn’t move. “Are you sure? I mean, we don’t have to bother the animal but maybe we could find out something. Maybe talk to the woman...find out more about Marzanna and Chernobog.”
The beast did not pause in its struggle, and the woman standing next to it seemed impassive to her charge's intentions. That, combined with how far away they both seemed, did not encourage Alex to further her initial suggestion to seek answers.
She tugged Matt back. "I'm not going any closer to that thing." Her words seemed final, but further encouragement soon presented itself; the longer lead that trailed upward toward Polaris snapped in a shower of silvery sparks, and the beast began to run toward them.
“Okay, let’s go!” Matthew replied, agreeing as soon as the dog began his fast movement toward them. He was turning, gripping Alex’s hand too hard, and tugging her along as his longer legs pulled him forward as he ran. Alex’s apartment door was behind him and too far away, he cursed and tried to run faster, all but dragging Alex. She did her best to keep up, her shorter legs and the snow suddenly impeding their progress. Her door, standing alone without the help of walls, was in their view, but it did not come closer at their behest.
The animal behind them—more beast than familiar pet—dug its claws into the snow, ripping the white from the ground into the air. Alex made the mistake of glancing back, her eyes going wide at the sight of the beast tearing loose behind them.
"Faster, Matt, faster!" Alex did her best to move, but between the ice under her and Matt's pace, she found herself slipping and sliding in too many directions.
He didn’t respond, too focused on running forward and getting away from the creature. He kept his hand wrapped around Alex’s and with his free hand reached, reached as far forward as he could, for the apartment door. It was out of reach and then just beyond reach, his fingertips brushing over the doorknob when suddenly he was falling forward and onto the carpet of the hallway, spit from the winter landscape and left in his complex.
“Alex?” He nearly yelled her name, scrambling as he realized he wasn’t holding her hand anymore. She'd been half-flung across the hallway, where she caught herself with palms out, sliding halfway down into a squat before turning and landing completely on her ass. Given a full view of the hall and her own apartment door, it was clear that they were unharmed and out of danger; even still, she could feel her heart moving a million beats a minute inside her chest.
She held her hands out for him to come help her to her feet. "Well, that... I'm not sure if I was supposed to be expecting something, but that was most definitely not it." Even with the terror of what they'd still experienced cascading over her, she found herself grinning and almost on the verge of giggles.
Matthew was instantly at her side and helping her to her feet. A crooked smile on his face, his glasses crooked, and his eyes all for Alex. And he wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol, the adrenaline, or just the fact that after the first flustered moment they shared long before seemed to be presenting itself again, but Matthew found himself caught in the moment and pulling Alex to him rather than letting go of her hands. Then he kissed her, a hard, rushed kiss on her chilly lips that lasted only a moment before reality returned to his brain and he pulled away. Her eyes were wide, her whole form stunned. “Oh,” he muttered, stepping away as his cheeks flushed red. “Oh, I’m sorry, Alex. I didn’t… I mean…”
A hand had gone to her lips, her baseball-sized eyes on his face. "No, it's... I mean... It's OK..." She wasn't sure if it was—the mixed signals she was receiving were no indication of what he wanted. And between what had just happened, plus the brief drinking in her apartment beforehand... There was no way to be certain he was being honest with her, or even with himself.
"It's fine. That was a...traumatic experience," she offered, trying to coax him down with an explanation. "Let's... We could just go in my apartment and talk about it, or... If you think you should go home..."
Matthew nodded and stepped toward her apartment door, clearly intending to go with her and not just hide in his apartment. He pressed his lips together, staring at her apartment door for a moment, and scrunched his face as if it physically hurt him to surpass his shyness, as if it was physically painful to wait until he got inside Alex’s apartment. Because, after all, maybe she wouldn’t want him to come in after his confession. “I meant to do it,” he whispered and his face altered. It still looked as if he were in pain, but not by what he had said, this time it was more by how Alex could react. Cautiously, he glanced at her. “I...I’ve wanted to do that. I’m sorry I sprung it on you. That wasn’t fair.”
Alex paused in the middle of the hallway, considering the situation. Then she took Matt's hand, and all but pulled him into her apartment.
"OK, one, we're not having that kind of personal discussion out in public, however not public an apartment hallway might seem," she offered, dropping his hand gently as she made her way back into the living room and grabbed up her quarter-full wine glass. Taking up the bottle as well, she refilled herself.
"And, two, I'd be lying if I said I hadn't wanted you to do that. You know you send a lot of mixed signals, Mattie?" Her eyes flicked up from the pour to Matt's face, the smile on her lips by far the most gentle of the night.
Matthew remained by the door, his eyes wide and his stance ready to flee if necessary, but her words made him only freeze with gentle surprise. He had thought that perhaps that ship had sailed, that he had overstepped a boundary by kissing her, and a small smile registered on his face. “I’m sorry,” he repeated and blinked. “About the mixed signals. I just...didn’t know what to do the last time. It surprised me, I hadn’t thought you felt that way, then I felt like I messed it up and hurt you and lost my opportunity.”
He shifted on his feet and glanced at the door before taking a step further into the apartment. “Back then I was happy for it, and now too. I’m not… sending mixed signals now, am I? You understand that...you know…”
"Sit," she said, motioning at the couch. "You look like you're trying to flee the apartment. You don't have to stay, Mattie, if you're uncomfortable, but if we're gonna talk about this, we're going to do it in a civilized manner. With wine." She pointed the mouth of the bottle at his empty glass, her brows raised in question.
Matthew moved toward the couch, taking her words to heart and accepting that she at the very least was not going to send him on his way. He picked up his glass from before and finished what wine was left before holding his glass out for Alex to pour more. “Alright, then let’s talk. You go first.”
Alex filled his glass, smirking, then put the bottle down and seated herself across the couch. "Ladies first, huh? Fine. I should think how I felt about you was relatively obvious, considering I'm the one who kissed you first back in Baltimore. And then you were so... I guess, taken aback, that I thought I'd overstepped. You were always punctual about reviewing my reports first and giving me feedback, not to mention the late nights in the lab..." She shrugged. "Gives a girl ideas, Mattie."
Matthew let out a withheld breath. “I’m sorry,” he said again and clutched his glass of wine. “I mean, you’ve always been observant and you were definitely, ah, correct...I just...I’m not good at this.” He waved his hand, indicating the both of them. “I don’t know how to flirt. I’m not any good at that. But this… your coming here, ending up at my job, not running back across the country after hearing what I’ve done or seeing that—that thing in that snow place. I just didn’t want to be shy anymore.”
Alex watched Matt's face for a moment, a long sip of wine underscoring the look. Then she smiled; a simple, soft smile, followed by a nod.
"I like that. No one can choose for you, but you, after all." She passed the glass from one hand to the other; her now free right hand went to settle on his upper arm. "How about this—we'll start small, and see where things go. You can be my date to this Halloween party later this month. I'm not spoken for, yet, and if you're not, either..."
“Wait, you want to go to that?” Matthew asked, sitting up straight and staring wide at Alex. His heart was racing from a mixture of the wine, his joy that she wanted to go with him, and the tremor from even considering attending the party and what could possibly go wrong. “After all that happened with that key? The crazy shit that’s happening in the hall? You still want to go?”
Alex shrugged. "I'm here, aren't I? We both are. We might as well have a good time." She took another mouthful of her wine. "Besides, it seems like its a big deal. Probably something we don't want to miss out on."
“I mean… we could do something else together? I could take you out to a Halloween party somewhere else. Or… or we could binge watch Stranger Things at my place.” He looked at her, not wanting to let go of the opportunity to take her out, to start slow as she suggested, but also feeling certain that something would happen at the apartment hosted party. He let out a breath and frowned. “Unless you really want to go...then I guess we could…”
Alex rolled her eyes, swatting at Matt's arm. "You know, we could do all of those things. It's still early yet, and we can still go to the Halloween party." Her face adopted a more serious expression. "Even if... Even if we're working for him, Matt, it's clear no one has any idea what it is he's doing. And we cannot sit here and expect we'd be safe. We have to go and see what's happening, we have to know." Her hand squeezed his bicep.
"We'll go for a little bit, and if nothing happens—if it's just another stuffy Halloween party—we'll go back up to your place and watch Halloween movies, OK?"
Matthew seemed to brighten at this suggestion and he gave a nod, smiling at Alex. “You’re right. We can’t just sit here and expect to stay safe. We’ll go and hopefully it’ll be boring so we can come back here and watch movies…” His smile turned into a grin as he met her gaze and color rose on his cheeks. “Together.”
Alex nodded. "Mhm. Now, we're going to finish this bottle of wine, together, and we can see what's on TCM if you want? Maybe some classic horror flicks?" She raised her glass, arching a brow in Matt's direction as she reached for the remote.
Matthew nodded, raising his glass to mirror Alex’s movement.”Sounds like a plan.” And it was, better than one where they mulled over what they had seen beyond the door with the blue key or what could happen at the party. Either way, they could mull over all of that later, together.