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Morgan Freeman ([info]sweetwaterkill) wrote in [info]paxletalelogs,
@ 2010-10-08 00:41:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:coyote, eris, mania

Who: Dorcas & OPEN
What: A girl explores the building...
Where: Starts on the first floor.
When: October 7th, 6 AMish
Warnings: Very little likely. Maybe some language.



Dorcas had managed to unpack her camera while stocking her bookshelves full of her books and collected items of... random. She had old surgical tools, a human skull, some fish bone and leaf fossils, one dollar figurines of Hellsing characters... That sort of thing. But then she had found her camera and found that it was the best opportunity to document the building.

So today, she had dressed in blue and headed down to the first floor to work her way up. Starting in the lobby, she started taking very strategic pictures of the room - ones that captured as much of the room as possible then a few of the smaller details. Yeah, she could get this done by the end of the day, working up towards the tower...

At the moment, she was taking pictures of the urns... Having read a previous statement, she was not going to open them. She didn't want to throw up in the lobby. Although she did sort of want to steal one for a souvenir; she just wasn't sure it would get added on to her rent or something.


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[info]eristic
2010-10-08 07:24 pm UTC (link)
((sorry for the double post, I completely missed that it was posted at 6 am))

Charlie had been unable to sleep - the building's physical change was creeping her out, although certain floors felt suspiciously like home, which was something she was incredibly unfamiliar with. So she'd thrown on some clothes, grabbed her bike helmet, and gone riding through the small hours of the night, clearing her mind of everything that was going on.

Stepping back into the lobby (fucking sand everywhere, it was like a goddamn Indiana Jones movie come to life) she took a few steps in and immediately spotted a woman in a blue dress she'd not met before. Whether she was new to the building or was just a casualty of Charlie's carefully executed plans to avoid everyone was something that was beside the point. The woman was photographing everything. What, is she going to sue the landlord or something? Shrugging, she turned away from the scene, not needing to interrupt her for whatever reason. She stepped off to the side, taking a closer look at the drawings that looked like five-year-olds could have done them. OK, maybe a ten-year-old, but Charlie wasn't a curator of any sort.

Her eyes fell on one of the jars reputedly holding organs, or so said the notices on the forums. She was fairly sure she could believe that - after all, the weapons that had sprung up on her floor were real enough - but curiosity was eating away at her brain and she found herself reaching for one that had the head of some sort of bird. It was a little weighty, and would certainly sell well at the pawn shop she'd found recently. No one was going to miss it, right? Not like it belonged to anyone...

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[info]sweetwaterkill
2010-10-09 04:44 am UTC (link)
Dorcas wasn't about to sue the landlord... It was research. She'd been told that the change in the building had appeared over night so really, she needed to keep some kind of pictorial evidence. Of course, even better would be to take trinkets from each floor to keep as well. When Charlie reentered the building, the purple-haired girl looked at the biker chick for a brief moment but then focused on her pictures again.

Curiosity was a killer and that was what made her watch the woman with the canopic jar. She didn't know the god name of the falcon-headed one because it was way too fucking complicated to remember but she remembered that it represented the west and that it usually contained intestines. It took her a moment of breathing, of building up courage before she went over to the other woman.

"Um... C-could you d-do me a favor and take a picture of the inside of that jar? I... Um. Well, I don't want to get sick if it actually has an organ in it." She could only pray to whatever deity was up there that this woman would be compliant and perhaps kind.

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[info]eristic
2010-10-09 05:37 pm UTC (link)
She'd been about to satiate her curiosity, one hand setting down the bike helmet and poised to pull the head off of the jar, when the woman's voice eked out a request that was barely intelligible; still, she jumped a little, not expecting the question. Charlie turned on one booted heel and spared a glance for her - her brightly colored hair would make most think that she was a little more confident than her speech let on.

"The hell do you need a picture of the insides of the jar for?" Her face showed her obvious disgust at the idea, lips nearly sneering. The hand about to open the jar moved away, as though a physical denial of the woman's request. That didn't fit in with Charlie's original idea of what the woman was doing with photographs, but instead opened up a new unneeded menagerie of what they could be for and she wasn't about to give voice to any of them.

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[info]whiskey_jack
2010-10-10 04:46 am UTC (link)
Oh great, Jack mentally groaned as he stepped into the lobby of Pax Letale, it's still Return Of Revenge Of The Mummy in here. His head still throbbed from the garbage-pail cocktail of chemicals he'd imbibed over the past two days; he'd headed for the Hills immediately after his encounter with Kami on the stairs at the eighth floor landing, with the intent of going on a right bender to get his mind off of her. A resounding success, if the blurry memories and empty bottles in the back of his car were any indication.

Well, the bender part was a success, at least.

As his eyes adjusted to the weird interior light, he noticed a pair of women in the lobby. The dark-haired one looked as rough around the edges as he felt; the other, with her neon purple hair and blue outfit, was entirely too bright for this early in the day. They were standing near one of those clay jars with the animal-head lids. The ones that contained GUTS. His stomach roiled unpleasantly as he recalled the smell of what he'd found inside the one he opened. Oh, no. No way in HELL.

"Uh, excuse me, ladies," he started, removing his Wayfarers, his voice ragged as a crumpled velvet shirt. "Everything you've heard about what's inside those jars? ABSOLUTELY TRUE. I strongly advise leaving them sealed. Trust me. Your stomach will thank you."

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[info]sweetwaterkill
2010-10-10 04:55 am UTC (link)
Dorcas wanted to step back and run away at the way the woman turned on her, the way the woman spoke... It was clear she was about to get a denial just from her body language. Only Dorcas didn't get a chance to explain before there was another person. A man. That made her squeak a little and she pressed up against a firm part of the wall. Great. Well at least he seemed a little more friendly than the woman did.

She licked her lips looking between the two and holding her camera tight to her chest. "Um... I... I need a picture. Scientific integrity demands the most evidence possible. I w-was told all th-this appeared over night s-so I wanted to get p-pictures. The organs in the urns are p-part of that." Dorcas reached up, twisting purple hair around one finger, looking sheepish, "Only I'm a-afraid I don't have a strong enough constitution." Her gaze turned on the woman, "You look like you'd be better at handling... everything really."

Hopefully, the woman could take a compliment and wouldn't just throw it back in her face with some insult although she was used to that.

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[info]eristic
2010-10-11 02:08 am UTC (link)
It was like having cartoon angels on her shoulders.

Do it. Don't be a wuss.

No, Charlie, it's wrong!

Back and forth went the bickering in her mind, which painted a smirk of sheer amusement on her face.

The newcomer, another Charlie didn't know, was obviously dealing with a hell of a hangover, if there was any indication from his voice. She'd never been good in dealing with anyone telling her what to do, if her prison record was anything to go by. And making a guy puke wasn't going to get her arrested. Besides, the woman was starting to stoke her ego, as much as Charlie had one - something told her it would be so much more fun to open the jar. You know, shits and giggles and all that.

"Fine," she replied to the woman, though her eyes were on the man, dancing in a teasing manner. "They're fucking dead organs, it's not like it's gonna jump out and bite me." With one quick motion, she turned her attention to the jar (now positioned between the three of them), placed a hand on the falcon's head, and twisted the cap off and up - a small bit of cloth poked out of the wide mouth, linen that the organ had been wrapped in. It was almost kind of anticlimactic. There was something of a sickly-sweet smell, like perfume and sweat mixed together, but nothing attempting to climb out of the jar like Thing from the Addams Family. Glancing at the woman, Charlie held out her hand for the camera.

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[info]whiskey_jack
2010-10-14 09:22 pm UTC (link)
That mischievous glint in the dark-haired woman's eyes didn't go unnoticed; Jack recognized it for what it was, and shot her an equally mischievous smirk. He knew he'd have done the same thing, though in his own honest-I-didn't-mean-to faux-innocent way. This girl was a woman after his own heart. So instead of crawling off to his apartment (which he had barely even set foot in since moving here), he steeled his gag reflex against the smell of the uncapped jar, leaned against one of the columns, and waited for the purple-haired girl's reaction.

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[info]sweetwaterkill
2010-10-15 05:51 am UTC (link)
"Thank you," she told Charlie with full appreciation clear in her voice. Dorcas was... weak. She would admit that easily. And she was indeed truly thankful that there was someone stronger than her readily available. And then the jar was opened between them... The smell was an atrocious clash of things. Herbs and balms and something that might have been flesh if she knew what entrails smelled like. "Oh god," she muttered and handed the camera, ready for a picture, to Charlie. She didn't say which button to press since it was kind of damn obvious.

Once the camera was out of her hands, she covered her nose and her mouth but it was far too late for that. She wanted to vomit, wanted to faint but held on as best she could. It would just be so damaging and embarrassing to pass out in front of two strangers. "So foul..."

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[info]eristic
2010-10-15 06:37 am UTC (link)
Charlie took the camera in her free hand, without even looking at it or at the woman. She kept her gaze locked with the man. This guy, he was smirking back at her and she had to say that earned a point of respect in her book. A guy who could take a joke was all right with her. She glanced at the woman for a moment and felt a flicker of recognition, a similar spark that she'd had with Samuel. Charlie was fairly certain she'd remember someone with bright purple hair, but since it was dye, it was easily changeable. Still...

Bring the camera up to her eye, she let her gaze focus into the camera for a moment before snapping a picture of the wrapped thing. It wasn't going to amount to much - a small dark hole, illuminated by the flash, showing something wrapped up inside the jar. The smell was starting to grow on her a little; the scent of death.

Fuckin' poetics, she thought to herself, and then there was another thought... Organs... Blood... A field, covered in these... She shook her head; they were the same thoughts from a few nights ago, when she and Sam had explored the building after it had first changed. The thoughts scared her and made her feel like a psycho, which was why she had been trying to avoid this and the fifth floor as much as possible. She glanced back up to the woman.

"Just a pic of 'em inside the jar, or you want me to take 'em out, too?"

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[info]whiskey_jack
2010-10-19 03:24 am UTC (link)
Oh please dear god don't let her take the damn guts out of the jar, Jack thought, fighting down the building nausea. He had to hand it to her, though -- she was HARDCORE. Hardcore what, he hadn't decided yet, it being too damn early in the day and his hangover being too damn spectacular to think. He almost felt bad for the purple-haired girl, who was clearly having issues with the smell too. Almost, because she did ask for it. Oh please dear god don't let her puke, he added mentally. He wasn't sure he could keep his own revulsion under control if she spewed.

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[info]sweetwaterkill
2010-10-19 03:35 am UTC (link)
Dorcas was really ignoring everything but her task right now so if there was any sort of return recognition from her... she has pretty much squashed it. All she wanted to do was get this part over with and move on to another floor. Oh dear god how she wanted to move to another floor.

She pinched the bridge of her nose as the smell started to get worse. It made her think of laughter. She didn't know why laughter but that's where it was. Laughter and horror and a strange soft squishing noise with a hint of buzzing like a million flies. Oh god, she could feel the bile rising up in her throat.

Breathing wouldn't help so she closed her eyes, "No, let's not and say we did... I'd... rather just cap it and go find something with a better smell." She wrapped her arms around herself and drew herself inward, focusing on not throwing up... She needed to be distracted. So badly.

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[info]eristic
2010-10-19 04:04 pm UTC (link)
"Pussies."

On second thought, Charlie was actually glad they'd both vehemently denied her suggestion. The...feelings, if one were to call them that, were getting stronger the longer she held open the jar. She wanted to...hit something, and not necessarily out of anger, but just to feel the bones in her hand smash against someone else's flesh. Setting the camera on the pedestal from where she'd gotten the jar, she grabbed the lid and screwed it back on, cutting off the smell though it was certainly still present in the room.

She swapped the jar for the camera, and then took a few paces towards the woman, the inkling that she knew her from somewhere still nagging her in the back of her mind. Like...she was a distant relation or something, but Charlie had no idea who her family was and didn't really care, either. She held out the camera, her face carefully stoic.

"So, what, you're going to figure out why this is all happening?"

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[info]whiskey_jack
2010-10-20 08:33 pm UTC (link)
Jack, meanwhile, had pulled a corner of his denim shirt up over his nose and mouth to block the noxious smell. The poor purple-haired girl was clearly in too much distress for this to be entertaining any longer. And he'd thrown up enough in the past 24 hours.

"I think moving on to another floor is a fantastic idea, whether any figuring out happens or not," he offered. Stepping closer, he put a comforting, reassuring arm around her blue-clad shoulders, then dropped his makeshift breathing mask just enough to flash both women his patented Smile That Broke A Million Hearts. "I'm Jack, by the way. Jack Mallory. Just moved in a couple days ago." His smile became a cheeky smirk. "And I'll totally cop to being a pussy."

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[info]sweetwaterkill
2010-10-21 02:35 am UTC (link)
Dorcas took the camera from the other, tougher woman. She'd take being called a pussy because, well, she was. Dorcas was not brave, had never been brave. If she had been, perhaps her life would have turned out differently. She had been about to answer Charlie when the man, Jack, put his arm around her shoulders. Her cheeks turned a very bright red color and it looked like she just wanted to shrink and disappear.

When she finally tried to speak again, it came out as a horrible stuttering of the letter D. For a moment, she simply clutched her camera and swallowed hard. Breathe. Breathe. Okay. "D-Dorcas. Dorcas Carrigan. I j-just moved in too. And... And I don't know if, if I can figure it out. B-but if someone gets hurt a-at least we'll have evidence for a l-lawsuit."

Clearing her throat, she added, "S-so I'm going floor to floor. Just s-started."

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[info]eristic
2010-10-21 04:41 pm UTC (link)
Jack's smile brought out a smirk on her face, a flash of amusement that was gone as soon as it had arrived. Wrong stop, moving on - and then it came back at D-D-D-Dorcas' embarrassment at having Jack's arm around her shoulders. Charlie would have had a much different, more physical reaction, but Dorcas' was much, much funnier. And didn't cost Jack a broken nose.

She sighed. "Charlie. They should just hand out nametags or something, would be faster..." The last bit muttered, her mouth shrank into a hard line. "Feel like we should just be able to sue on account of them changing everything up without our knowing...I mean, who leaves real organs lying around in jars? Probably some morgue somewhere missing a few pieces of a customer.

"Though, so far, this is the only floor that I've been on that's been this...gross," she added, after a beat. "The others don't seem too bad. Mine went all medieval." Her voice was still straightforward, but the fact that the woman seemed familiar to her made her stick around and talk more. Unusual for Charlie, certainly.

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[info]whiskey_jack
2010-10-22 05:41 am UTC (link)
"Mine went all Sherwood Forest," Jack snerked. "No weapons, no stench, no guts in jars. Just trees. Nice wood floors, though." His smirk stayed in place as he studied Charlie. Yeah, she was definitely hardcore, he noted for future reference. Hot, too, but not the kind of girl you mess with.

He looked down at Dorcas -- Dorcas The Explorer, he mentally grinned -- and rubbed her shoulder. "So, Dorcas, you get enough photographic evidence down here? Ready to move on?" His voice was soothing as velvet. "The second floor actually smells pretty nice. I think they have some kind of incense burning or something." With a bit of a grimace, he pulled his shirt back up over his nose again.

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[info]sweetwaterkill
2010-10-22 12:28 pm UTC (link)
It was very, very lucky for Jack that she was not a violent person, yes.

"But if they started handing out name tags, I'd write 'Inigo Montoya - you killed my father. Prepare to die' on mine and we'd be no better off," she said softly, hoping the joke made sense. Only if you imagined it as one of the Hello My Name Is tags. "I s-suppose we could s-sue if we could prove psychological d-damage but o-otherwise it'd be the morgue and associated families suing for the o-organs but the whole b-building would need to b-be on board for the other bit I think... It's b-been awhile since I read my parents' law books th-though."

"M-mine's very... discomforting, really. It's n-nice, smells f-fine but I keep hearing l-laughter and I think I'm alone on m-my f-floor." She bit her bottom lip. Jack was making her extremely uncomfortable and she didn't know how to deal with it to be perfectly honest. So, instead Dorcas just sort of stepped towards the stairs and hoped he would give up, "You guys d-don't have to c-come with me. If you d-don't want to."

Her own stuttering was starting to annoy her... Trials of being shy and under-socialized.

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[info]eristic
2010-10-22 07:49 pm UTC (link)
She wasn't really headed anywhere except bed; the long bike ride had worn her out, especially since the original idea had been to help her sleep. She was headed upstairs anyway...

"I'm headed upstairs anyway, and I don't know about the two of you, but I haven't tested the elevator since all this shit started and I'm not about to," she responded, possibly the longest sentence she'd uttered yet. It simply echoed the thought in her head, added to the hope that she'd remember from where she'd seen or met Dorcas before. Worst came to worst she could always just ask.

"Laughter? That's not creepy at all," she commented, and without waiting for someone to make the first move towards the stairwell, she started the procession with a quick turn on her heel once she'd collected her bike helmet.

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[info]whiskey_jack
2010-10-23 06:50 am UTC (link)
Jack was many things -- an asshole and a jerk, primarily -- but he wasn't stupid. He knew full well that he was on the verge of either a punch in the face or a knee to the groin. He was also very, very tired, much too tired to persist with either woman; he hadn't slept since he left Pax Letale two days ago. The exhaustion seemed to catch up to him all at once, and it hit him like a bus. Yep, time for hungover bad boys to finally go to bed.

"I'm not testing the elevator either," he stated, dropping his hand as Dorcas made a tentative escape from his clutches and Charlie headed in a no-nonsense manner toward the stairs. Stifling a yawn, he trudged after them, grateful that he only had to schlep up to the third floor.

He just couldn't keep his mouth shut, though. "...Laughter? Inconceivable!" he grinned, not wanting to let Dorcas' Princess Bride ref slip by unacknowledged -- then sobered as he recalled the laughter he'd heard on the eighth floor, with his hindbrain tingling and Kami's anger sharp and raw. That shut him up.

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[info]sweetwaterkill
2010-10-25 03:54 am UTC (link)
Dorcas wasn't exactly the kind to hit a guy. Honestly, she would have more than likely started crying if he persisted. Thankfully, Jack let up on the touching or anything else. "No, definitely not going for the elevator," she started after Charlie, apparently the only one who had gotten up at this hour and thus was a little more energetic. "Although it would be interesting to see if its theme changed with each floor..."

She glanced at Jack, a flicker of a smile there but she was still too uncomfortable with him for anything else. "It's l-less c-creepy than organs. At least everyone sounded cheerful rather than crazy insane." Dorcas stayed close on Charlie's heels like maybe the woman could protect her better than Jack. Maybe it was that lingering familiarity that made her feel more comfortable.

"Wh-what floors are you both o-on, if I may know?" Dorcas's tone was almost ridiculously polite like she was afraid the minor question would insult them.

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[info]eristic
2010-10-25 04:14 pm UTC (link)
The door to the first landing swung open easily, despite the aged look it held - the sand and stone continued upwards, until it hit the second floor. The floors suddenly became marble, and columns climbed to hold up the third floor from crashing down. Lighting suddenly flickered rather than holding still like proper artificial lighting; Charlie had walked past this and the sixth floor numerous times and had always felt a pull towards it, but had done her best to avoid the floors entirely.

Since the Egyptian one made her feel like killing something, she didn't want to know what the other floors might do. Still, she found herself pausing for a moment, looking at the door to the second floor. Dorcas' question broke her reverie, causing her to glance back.

"Seventh. Like I said, it went all medieval. Walls went wood, weaponry everywhere. At least I know I have something at hand if somebody tries some home invasion shit," she replied, her tone as impassive as ever.

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[info]whiskey_jack
2010-10-26 01:28 am UTC (link)
Behind them, Jack raised an eyebrow at Charlie's remark. Yeah, hardcore as hell. He mentally made a note to stay on her good side. Never know when being acquainted with a heavily-armed biker chick might come in handy. Besides, he liked her snarky sense of humor.

"I'm just one floor up, on three," he answered Dorcas, pointing up the stairs and returning her smile in as non-threatening a manner as he could. "Like living in a forest. There's some carvings on some of the beams, and the outer wall is stone, but not too bad. Now this floor," he nodded at the entrance to the second floor, "looks like a set from Clash Of The Titans. All marble, like the stairs here." He grinned at both women. "Yeah, I checked 'em all out. At least up to the eighth floor."

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[info]sweetwaterkill
2010-10-26 02:30 pm UTC (link)
Dorcas paused at the change to marble. Now this was more familiar. More interesting. Certainly more comfortable anyhow. For a moment, she forgot her question and stepped up to the door leading to the second floor. Settling her hand on the cool marble and then her cheek, she felt sort of drawn to it like a moth to flames.

Her gaze flicked to Charlie and she smiled a little, "I just buy things like that. Instead of an umbrella stand, I have a sword stand." Not that she actually knew how to use them but they had been sharpened and they were ready for slicing. To Jack she asked, "Why were you up on my floor?" Like the whole thing was her's only it wasn't? Though she wasn't expecting them to follow, she opened the door to the second floor and started in enough to take a couple of pictures of the whole area.

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[info]eristic
2010-10-26 04:07 pm UTC (link)
She almost (almost) did a double take at Dorcas' comment and the purple-haired woman definitely just went up a few pegs in her book. A sword stand? Righteous. She actually returned the smile. That added to the unknown familiarity started...what, was this a potential liking? Like, girl talk and sleep overs and painting nails? She shook her head, pushing all of that away and followed her into the hall that felt, well, quite welcoming.

"Yeah, this has got Rome written all over it," she acquiesced to Jack's description. It all felt like...well, not home, exactly, but perhaps...a bit like the masses that the nuns had the orphans attend from time to time. A gentle sense of calm pervaded her, though in the background danced the thoughts from before. Blood. Killing. The joy of slaughtering one's enemies on the battlefield, screaming defiance and anger and rage and hate and... Strife. Something in that word encompassed it all and for once she stopped denying it for just a moment.

She, too, turned to look at Jack as Dorcas did, unaware of the accusing stare she was giving him. Trespassing where he was unwelcome; then she started wandering around, looking at the elaborate carvings on the walls. Stories that she felt like she knew a hundred times over - a hand went out to touch them, running over the cool marble.

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[info]whiskey_jack
2010-10-26 04:51 pm UTC (link)
"Hey, I didn't mean anything," Jack started, hands raised as he edged his way past as far against the outer wall as he could get. "I was just checking things out. Y'know, out of curiosity." He watched first Dorcas and then Charlie enter the second floor, but didn't follow them; he wasn't prepared to deal with hostile women again, not in the state he was in, and besides, he'd seen it.

To the purple-haired woman he added, "The eighth floor was as far as I got. It's funny, that floor felt... I dunno, familiar, almost like... coming home." He shrugged. "Didn't know you were up there."

An uncomfortable feeling settled into his gut, as if he were intruding on something personal; he decided to heed it. "Welp, Charlie, Dorcas, it was a pleasure meeting both of you," he nodded. "My bed is calling. Have fun exploring -- maybe I'll see you around."

((OOC: Exit Jack, exhausted and weirded out, stage up. XD))

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[info]sweetwaterkill
2010-10-27 12:54 am UTC (link)
With that smile, Charlie suddenly didn't seem so bad. She would covet that smile and keep it all to herself like a treasure. Weird thing to think but hey. She almost corrected Charlie in that it would be more Greek but managed to stop herself before even opening her mouth. After all, she wanted to keep the woman happy. She was not the confrontational type. Things just slipped out of her mouth.

Instead she spoke to Jack, "Yeah... Understand that." Which she really did but hadn't until just now. So weird. She waved a little as Jack decided to depart, absently saying, "Goodbye Captain Sparrow." Well it was either that or Skellington and he looked more like a Captain Sparrow than he did a Jack Skellington. So shut up.

When Jack had made a fair distance from them, she looked at Charlie again then up at the ceiling like there was something there. Dorcas shook her head sharply, shaking that feeling of absence from her mind away and asked the question that she really wanted to know, "Have I met you before?"

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[info]eristic
2010-10-27 03:34 am UTC (link)
She gave no acknowledgment to Jack's departure, instead intent on the hall itself. Maybe kicking herself a little for not having gone to this floor earlier, because maybe the rest of it wouldn't seem so bad. She was still feeling a little psychotic, but...as though she had some control over it. Though reconciling the idea that these thoughts were coming from her and not some foreign entity was still beyond her grasp. At the question she turned on her heel, one hand still on the wall. It dropped slowly, fingertips skimming the marble.

"I was going to ask you the same. You don't seem like the biker type," she started, taking a few steps forward like a predator sizing up its prey. Before she had been impassively volatile and mischievous; now she was acting quite different. There was nothing fun or comical in her movements or speech. "You act weird, but not druggie-weird. And unless my convict-detector is broken, I seriously doubt you've done any jail time." A question sprang to mind - Dorcas was the second person she felt familiar with, the first being Samuel.

"Have you...recognized anyone else? Like...I dunno, deja-vu or whatever they call it?" Because that was exactly what she was feeling right now, a weird sense of having known her. And not just as friends or even for a lifetime, but...for a very, very long time.

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[info]sweetwaterkill
2010-10-27 04:27 am UTC (link)
Dorcas really kept expecting something to come out of the walls or the ceiling or one of them. The feeling was starting to be a little overwhelming and it seemed to come radiating off Charlie for some reason. She chewed on her bottom lip, watching Charlie quietly, hands clasped in front of her.

For a moment, she was afraid of the way Charlie was approaching her. And then she just wanted to laugh and draw butterflies on her cheek. And then she wanted to make a dress out of cake and make a man cry and-- a lot of things. All the wants were distracting her from the words and Dorcas fought to pay attention. "No, not a biker... Never done jail time," she confirmed. Dorcas was just weird and shy.

And now her answer was going to be very disappointing. "I haven't met any other people actually... I'm... a bit of a hermit to be honest." That was an understatement. With her hesitating words, she had started further down the hall, looking around and occasionally snapping a picture. She was sort of gravitating towards the altar at the end of the hallway.

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[info]eristic
2010-10-27 06:47 am UTC (link)
A frown creased her face, disliking Dorcas' answer. "Yeah, me too." Well, less of a hermit and more of an avoider. Alas, there wasn't much more to be said on that topic, especially since Charlie was lax to start chit-chatting needlessly. Especially since she was starting to feel a bit, ah, restless.

She followed Dorcas' gravitation towards the altar at the end of the hall; her eyes, however, lingered on the walls. The friezes depicted battle, men and women in certain, ahem, poses though there really wasn't anything lewd, animals...people turning into animals...a man holding a lightning bolt, chariots and all manner of things one would expect from the ancient Greek time period. Most of it meant nothing to Charlie, and yet she felt as though she had had a hand in some of these stories. Which was complete nonsense, of course.

And then she looked at the altar, actually looked at it. And it was like, bam, articles of the past, your past, hey there, lookit me. Come over here and touch me. The little want in the back of her mind, the desire she felt when she had been boosting cars. Only now it was something that was...well, hers, and not something that she was stealing. She started on a bee line towards the altar, and though she hadn't seen it yet, she was fixated on a particular object that was already in her mind.

Once there, she didn't even have to sift through the items - they were all laid out quite nicely, anyway - but near the back was a rather strange object. An apple, molded out of what seemed to be nearly pure gold. It was solid to the touch, and hard rather than the malleable texture that pure gold had. Her hand hesitated above it for a moment before picking it up, feeling the weight in her hand. Not that it was hers, necessarily, but certainly something she'd used before. Before? When? She'd never even seen such a thing in her life.

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[info]sweetwaterkill
2010-10-28 04:34 am UTC (link)
Well, she couldn't please everyone with her answers. Dorcas was generally an honest person and honestly, she didn't deal much with people. It was only the strange comfort that came with being with Charlie... Like maybe they were distant family or something.

Occasionally, she snapped a picture of the art on the wall but it didn't interest her so much as the altar did. Pieces of the friezes made her want to laugh or break them or paint over them with crayons. Like maybe they were the lies people told to make themselves look better. And Dorcas... Dorcas knew the truth somewhere. It felt like she had all the secrets of the universe bouncing around in her head somewhere that she just couldn't touch.

Charlie reached the altar before she did. Dorcas was going at a more leisurely pace. It wasn't going anywhere, was it? She watched Charlie and sidled up to her to peer at the golden apple but she didn't want it. Slowly, she turned to look at the items. Though it was an afterthought, she took a picture of the altar, of the golden apple. Her main concern was a set of two figures.

One was a man who appeared to be in a frenzy and the other was a boy with a ram's head. Their names were somewhere in the back of her mind, wriggling like worms. One half of her mouth went up in an empty smile before the figure of the boy slipped out of her hand and broke on the floor. She wasn't particularly heartbroken. "I'm not sure I like this place anymore," she said softly, voice wavering with indecision. "There are icy fingers in my brain and they're tearing me apart." Wait, what?

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[info]eristic
2010-10-28 06:59 pm UTC (link)
She tossed the apple from hand to hand like a baseball - it was...a gift, of sorts. A little something for those who had...done something to her, but she couldn't put her finger on what. All she knew was that they had pissed her off, and one didn't piss her off without consequences. Besides, the fallout of this simple action would give her sooo much fun... Her eyes glanced at Dorcas, and then to the statues - now those were weird. When Dorcas dropped the statue, the pieces flowing over the floor in a small shower of dust, a ghost of a smile showed up on her face and she was hardpressed to not send the rest of the objects on the altar flying.

"What?" She gripped the apple tighter in her right hand, turning to look at Dorcas with a...yeah, it was an angry expression. Not angry at her necessarily, but just angry to be angry. She half-wanted to tell Dorcas to can it, to just start screwing up everything in the hall because they could, it was their right, perhaps even a divine right, and that destruction would lead to more... "The fuck are you talking about? God, I want...I just want to hurt something..." Her fingers were growing white around the apple, the stem of it cutting into her palm and a small rivulet of blood started dripping from her appendage to the cool marble floor. Just a few drops, little bitty things that were barely unnoticeable, but she could smell the coppery tang. She wanted more.

The apple, gold stained with red, fell from her fingers, bouncing with a metallic sound against the floor and Charlie took a step away from the altar.

"Yeah, yeah, let's..." She brought her hand up to her face, smearing blood on her forehead before she realized what she was doing, and she wiped it off with the heel of the same hand as best she could. "Let's get out of here." That was supposed to be followed by a quick turn and brisk steps back towards the stairs, but she found herself staring at the dried blood on her hand, a manic grin on her face.

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[info]sweetwaterkill
2010-10-29 06:16 pm UTC (link)
When she met Charlie's eyes, there was nobody home - not in Dorcas's head anyway. There was like some piece of her that made her human and normal that had just flitted away. It wasn't even bothered by the angry look on Charlie's face like the woman could just punch her in the mouth without a single warning. And she wished she could tell Charlie what she was talking about but not even she knew...

"Please, cousin!" She didn't know why she called the other woman her cousin but Dorcas did not stop to think about it, "If we stay here then the others will find us and we'll be in so much trouble and then it'll be dark and mazey again. And I don’t want to get lost and have the butterflies pour from my mouth again with lies to save my skin!" She grabbed Charlie by the wrist and started tugging her down the hallway, other statuette still in her other hand with her camera. He was coming with her one way or another... Why was she thinking of the statue as alive?! "Please please please..."

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[info]eristic
2010-10-30 08:58 pm UTC (link)
Her eyes tried to meet Dorcas', but there was nothing there, at least, not a person. She let herself be dragged along a few steps before wrenching her wrist free, pulling back with a strength that wasn't Charlie's. The manic grin was still in place, but there was something hateful about it.

"You fear, dear cousin?" It wasn't even a question that they were family; it was a given, something that had been known since before man even walked the earth, before he'd been formed from clay and other materials, before he'd taken his first breath. They were older than that, older than the stars themselves. "What have we to fear?" But it was almost as though Charlie wasn't speaking, it was something speaking through her, like it had stuck a hand in her and was using her like some obscene puppet.

"Fear is for sobbing men and children, who don't know what lingers in the dark. I want to stay - I like it here...I am free here." What the hell was she saying? Part of her wanted to punch Dorcas in the face, just to see what she'd look like with a bruised eye, or blood running from her nose. Charlie fought back the grin, putting hands to her head and her teeth gritted to fight back a scream. A scream that was of pure unadulterated joy.

Her eyes opened and stared at Dorcas - Charlie was afraid, very afraid, but whatever was using her was most definitely not. After a moment - did Charlie move? She seemed...physically unstable for a moment, but she hadn't even moved - she reached out to grab Dorcas' hand again and started running down the hall, almost as though she were forcing herself to, moving quickly towards the landing as she felt some kind of carnal bloodlust rising in her throat. She didn't know what she might do if she stopped, if she paused for a moment.

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[info]sweetwaterkill
2010-10-30 11:27 pm UTC (link)
Dorcas pulled at her hair, whining loudly as her fingers twined into purple locks, "They don't like me because i Kn0w ThiNGgsSs anD mAke thEm d0 thInGs!! BecaUsE i'M olDeR!" That was simply a paranoid reason for being fearful but considering what it felt like she was channeling, that was a lesser symptom. Dorcas was naturally paranoid anyhow and she had every right to be, damn it.

She looked up from between her arms, face sort of smooshed between them but not really helping the dark look that was on her face. "SsOmtimeS iT's the THIngS in thE liGhT thAt haVe to BeFeared. YoU forget. but i never forget. never ever." This needed to end. They needed to leave. The desire to run was Dorcas's translated by whatever was holding onto her brain with the wiggling tendrils that made her belly run cold. They were so many colors with an underlying blackness to them...

When Charlie grabbed her, Dorcas followed that run going blindly where her cousin she led. No stopping. Only running. And even once they were back on the landing, she was headed upwards to the next floor to create some distance between them and the marble. Third floor, forest floor. Once she hit that landing, she collapsed and to be honest, she started to cry very hard.

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[info]eristic
2010-10-31 01:38 am UTC (link)
The thing in Charlie was almost insulted at Dorcas' comment, whatever it was about forgetting. But Charlie wasn't about to let it voice it's opinion, and instead just kept running until she was out of the hall. Then she realized that she had left her bike helmet next to the altar at the end of the hall.

"Fuck it," she muttered under her breath. She wasn't going to go back in that hall if someone offered her a million dollars. Dorcas continued up the stairs to the third floor, and collapsed - Charlie just stared at her for a moment before shaking her head and continuing up to her own floor.

Counting the steps helped her regain what felt like lost sanity. She had no idea what the hell had just happened, and she didn't want to think about it. She added the second floor to her list of things to avoid, and she hit the seventh floor after step seventy eight.

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