InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Are you my mummy?"

Erebos (the__dark__one) wrote in paxletalelogs,
@ 2011-09-05 21:21:00

Entry tags:

erebos, tiamat

LIGHT AND DARK [Karin]
WHO: Elias + Karin
WHAT: Wherein the trouble at Pax is further revealed
WHERE: The Starbucks on 549 Newport Center Drive
WHEN: 7:58 p.m., Monday, September 4th
STATUS: Complete

Monday typically meant that the Starbucks was relatively deserted. Today was Labor Day, however, and it was slightly more crowded -- crowded enough, as it turned out, that the table at the northwest corner was already taken. It didn't help his chances that he'd arrived slightly later than he'd intended to. Grim-faced, he placed his coffee order - Tall Americano, no room - and then quietly requested that the occupants of the northwest corner table relinquish their seats. $20 dollars later, the two sharply dressed, slightly effeminate men transferred themselves to a table across the room.

Elias brushed the table off, set his carefully-prepared notes on it, then turned when the barista called his name. He felt out of sorts. Today had not been a particularly good day and he was making inefficient choices. Adjusting the strip of black silk knotted at his shirt collar, he headed back to the counter, gritted out what he intended to be a polite "Thank you", and returned to his seat again. Sitting down, he tugged his jacket straight and flipped open his notes.

Before he got through the first paragraph, he turned his wrist over and looked at the time. 7:58. He realized he was uncomfortably nervous. If he had been the only one who'd been... affected.... that night, perhaps he wouldn't have chosen to meet this stranger. But Charlie was hurt, too. And the boy she cared for, that Rylee, had been hurt worse. It was important to learn as much as possible. It was important to try to understand. With a rough sigh, he turned back to the notes he'd written for himself and continued to read while he waited.

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sheltering_sky
2011-09-07 03:36 am UTC (link)

The door swung open at precisely eight o'clock, and on slow, uncertain steps Karin Shepherd strode in. She had not known precisely what to expect of her neighbor, though the stiff formality of his communiques on the forum had lead her to guess, at least, that her appearance should fit such a tone. With that in mind she had chosen black trousers - a flattering but inexpensive Editor cut, accentuating her waist, giving her shape enough to downplay the weight she had lost in recent months - and a black button-up blouse, its deep V too narrow, she hoped, to seem immodest. She recognized Elias the moment she saw him, his bearing giving away what his appearance did not; though she had only seen him in passing around the building, he was a hard man to miss.

Feeling neither thirsty nor hungry she bypassed the counter, striding to his table on sharp, clicking heels. She paused flush to the able, her hands clasping tightly at the black clutch she held. It was small enough to contain little more than the necessities. She had brought nothing to take notes, trusting herself to remember these details; other things had escaped her of late, but the memory of the blackout and all that had happened since haunted her in ways she did not want to contemplate.

"Mr. Sandoa?" She quirked a small, off-kilter smile, quickly faded. "Karin Shepherd."

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the__dark__one
2011-09-09 03:25 am UTC (link)

Elias stood immediately.

He saw that look sometimes on Fridays, deep in the night, when the unfortunates of this city came out for what little help they could get. Always at least one of them carried the look that something or someone was breathing behind them. The woman was haunted. Beautiful. But haunted, first. Unlike his customers on Friday nights, however, this woman had something else: a deep-seated strength at her core that shone through her reserve. From his first impression, Elias immediately set her in the category of people he wanted to get to know -- and he rarely wanted to know about many people at all.

Living at Pax had challenged his typically-fierce introversion.

"Ms. Shepherd," he said gravely, gesturing to the seat across from him, by way of invitation. "Thank you for coming." The woman's clear nervousness cleared away his own.

It didn't feel appropriate to offer to buy her something to drink, but at the same time, she had come directly to the table they agreed on -- there'd been no hesitation as she passed the counter. He perhaps would have offered her the time to fetch a refreshment for herself, but it seemed unnecessary.

"And thank you," he continued, as she sat down, "For agreeing to speak with me. I think you know - just as I do - that something was very wrong that night."

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sheltering_sky
2011-09-10 01:05 am UTC (link)

Her jaw clenched, tension evident in every line of her posture. Her shoulders squared, rigid, as she gave a brief nod. His politeness pleased her; she found it reassuring somehow, befitting the professionalism he plainly put forth. It made it easier to think on these things, and perhaps easier to speak them. She prayed it would be so. Too long she had borne these things alone, afraid to put such pressure on her kin. Perhaps now she had found someone with shoulders enough to bear that weight, and knowledge enough to save her from this all consuming fear.

She slipped into the vacant seat across from him, shifting close to the chair's edge. This was not a conversation for elevated tones, she thought, nor indeed for anything that might attract undue attention. If there was some conspiracy about - and she had entertained such notions through many long and sleepless nights - she would not be the one to raise the first red flag. "Thank you for the invitation," she said. "It was a relief to see your post. I was starting to wonder if I was the only one not buying into management's excuses."

Her hands folded primly before her, resting lightly on the table. Her nails, close-clipped, their brightly buffed shine worn away in places, dug into the smooth skin of her hand. "Are you..." She sighed, exasperated by her own reticence, frustrated by her uncertainty of how to broach this delicate topic. "What makes you certain there's more to it?" she asked. It felt good to think she wasn't alone, that her visions and dreams had not been the only ones. She pressed on. "You said others have come forward?"

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the__dark__one
2011-09-11 09:18 pm UTC (link)

How deeply had this woman been hurt?

Everything about her presence in front of him suggested that there was something terrible in her past -- her very recent past, as she had clearly not made peace with any of it yet. And then she began talking. The words seemed to jump into existence in fits and starts, as if they were wrested and hurled into existence by necessity and not by will. He studied her carefully, knowing that the wrong word would scare this one away for good and he would lose his chance to learn more about what had attacked Charlie. And her little man. And himself.

But she was making it very easy to lead into the conversation. He had but to tell the truth.

"Others have," Elias confirmed. His voice was very quiet, gravely and deep. It was not meant to be heard past their table, and indeed was so low that it struggled to make it the distance to the anxious lady sitting with him. "I will keep their confidence, as I will keep yours. But I see no harm in telling you the summation of our experiences: One of us suffered from painful visual disturbances - flashes of light and afterimages of a strange creature; another of us suffered from an aural attack - whispers and conversations that were crippling; and yet another of us manifested a physical injury - a painful burn, specifically, which appeared on the skin for the duration of the night and disappeared by morning. This person also attested to witnessing a strange and slithering something in a hallway.

"I have tried to string together commonalities to each of our situations, but the only solid link I've found so far is that we were all in the lobby that night. Were you?"

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sheltering_sky
2011-09-12 12:31 am UTC (link)

Low though his voice was, Karin clung to every word. She did not have to strain to hear, did not have to ask for clarification. She understood all too well. Her lips parted on a sigh, her mouth working uselessly as she fought for even the simplest words. "I..." So quickly even that small, timid syllable died in her throat. Her heart felt as if at once it was racing and had stopped altogether. A coldness suffused her body, washing over her, lapping into her very limbs like some sentient, frozen tide.

"I was."

Her voice was so hushed it was barely a whisper, fraught with such pain as she could never put to words. All the weight in the world was in that fragmented sentence; she held nothing of it back, and did not regret her openness. "My sister came for me. We went out into the lobby. I'd smelled something burning..." She raked a hand through her hair. Stared down at the table, scarred by hands and pens and hot carafes of overpriced coffee. "Burning ozone. And there were times I didn't feel like myself." She struggled to explain. There were no useful turns of phrase for such insanity as this, but this man bore the markings of someone truly curious, not some agent of the state come to fit her for a straightjacket and a padded cell. And so she did her best to speak the unspeakable. "It didn't get better after the outage." She looked up at him, green eyes hiding behind thick lashes. "I've seen things, too. Things that sound like what the other tenants have seen. I hear them."

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the__dark__one
2011-09-15 03:28 am UTC (link)

The sound of her voice sunk through his skin and curled into a cold, wretched ball in the pit of his stomach. Her eyes woke the protective instinct that he seemed to have for those who needed it -- but he knew enough to know that he was quite powerless in this situation. Powerless, for now. Information was what they all needed, and if no one else were gathering it, then he would be the one to do it. If there were something that could be discovered, then he had reason and means to do so. Ms. Shepherd wasn't giving a lot to go on, however. Elias looked at his notes, then picked up his pen and turned to a blank page.

"Can you tell me everything -- from the very start to the very finish? The smallest detail may be important; spare none of them. First, how long have you been at Pax?"

No one else had said that something carried over from that night. No one else, except him. The visions he'd been having lately... They weren't exactly like what had happened to him on the night of the blackout, but they decidedly were not normal. He wondered if he should break his lease. He wondered if they all should.

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sheltering_sky
2011-09-17 04:07 am UTC (link)

"Next month will be a year." She reached up with one thin hand, the heel of her palm rubbing at one reddened eye. She was not on the cusp of tears, as she would later be when relating this tale to her sister; rather, what she felt was on the precisely opposite end of the spectrum, a kind of hollow emptiness and ragged fear that left her too worn out for such sensitivity. "I didn't speak to anyone til after Christmas. My family were still all back in Chicago... Fee hadn't moved here yet. At first I thought what I felt was homesickness, nothing else." She lowered her hand, lacing her fingers tightly together where she rested them on the table. "It started with the ocean. I'd go jogging there and it would sound like Lake Michigan back home. So inviting." She drew a deep breath, realizing too well how she sounded. But he asked for the story, and now he would get it.

"Then in February I kind of..." She flushed, remembering quite clearly her humiliating lack of control. It seemed she could still feel Shae's arms around her, dragging her inland, away from the surf. What had ever possessed her to think she could swim there, with the Coast Guard's boat circling as predatory as the sharks beneath the surface... "I lost it. The ocean almost had a voice, and I couldn't stay away. Another tenant pulled me to shore. I don't know what I would've done without him."

She pulled a hand through her hair, not noticing the sharp pull at her scalp when her nails caught an errant tangle. "Then the dreams started. I barely sleep at all anymore, they're so bad. I can't eat. I smell things in my apartment: sulphur, ozone, smoke. I see things out of the corner of my eye, shapes and shadows of moving things." She chewed her tongue, but she had already said too much to back out now. "Things have gone missing. I'm a very organized person, Mr. Sandoa. I'm very particular about my things. And suddenly I can't find my keys, my hairbrush, the book I was reading..."

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the__dark__one
2011-09-19 01:35 am UTC (link)

From what Ms. Shepherd was saying, Fee was related in some way. That was interesting; he was going to see Fee tomorrow about this very thing. Elias thought back to the message Fee left him in response to his forum post. Interesting, indeed. Both the ladies seemed somewhat more on edge than others he'd spoken to (although, with Charlie, it was harder to tell). He would have considered a psychological answer to the things that Ms. Shepherd was describing, except...

Elias knew the same could be applied to him. And to Charlie. And to Rylee. He rubbed the back of his hand under his jaw briefly, eyes on his notes, and weighed his options.

"You aren't alone," he finally said, deciding to tell her his own circumstances as well -- if only just to give her assurance that others were having their fair share of strangeties in their lives. "I see other places and things across my own vision -- as if a second set of eyes were overlaying across what I see as well. I have a sense of looking through dark places in the world. Some places and people, I recognize. Some I don't. Some I meet later. These are not visions and not glimpses into the future. They feel very fully present and very fully real. I am awake when it happens. And always afterwards, a headache follows. These things have happened even after the night of the blackout. They've been increasing in frequency and strength. It seems that you are also experiencing the same type of situation.

"But there is one thing that sets you apart from everyone else I've spoken with: your concerns began before that night."

Elias leaned back in his chair and stared at the wall behind Ms. Shepherd's shoulder, in thought. "Our senses seem to be involved -- your sense of smell, my sight, their hearing and touch. I wonder if the fifth sense has been affected by someone else who has yet to speak with me. Do you know anyone else who has suffered as we have?"

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sheltering_sky
2011-09-20 01:14 am UTC (link)

"No," she said, her voice very nearly a gasp. At first it seemed she could scarcely think; there were others experiencing what she did, others beside her sister who did not think her insane. There was truth to her suspicions, then, that there were forces at work here beyond their control. She could not decide if it was better or worse to know that others were similarly afflicted. She would not have wished this pain on anyone. Her fingers flexed, working uselessly, lacing tightly together and loosing in rhythm. "I thought I was the only one." She swallowed hard. The motion pained her dry throat. Her darkling eyes, their dark green deepened by the shadows smudged beneath, flicked back up to meet his own.

"What is it you see?" she asked. "Who..." She glanced back to the floor, as curious as she was afraid. She wondered if he had seen that damnable island, or what it was that dwelt there so close and so far from reach. "Have you seen any of us?" Have you seen me? she might have asked.

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the__dark__one
2011-09-21 11:53 am UTC (link)

Elias smiled tightly. Who, indeed. "I was blinded the night of the blackout. A woman helped me -- one of our neighbors. I met her again tonight, and she is one of the people I have been seeing with this... different sight. As far as I know, I haven't seen anyone else in the apartment building. Most of the things I see are places -- the alleyway behind DynTek where I work, long corridors of some place with diamond tiles on the floor, other places I have never been...."

He stopped, pressed his thumb to his bottom lip, and stared at the table for a thoughtful second. "Ms. Shepherd, the wisest course of action would be to leave Pax Letale. I would consider doing the same, myself, but I have responsibilities there that preclude the possibility at the moment. Do you have somewhere else you can stay for a trial period? Perhaps a week?"

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sheltering_sky
2011-09-22 12:11 am UTC (link)

Karin's mind raced, wondering if she might somehow put a name to his other confidante. With nothing to go on but gender, it was a nigh impossible task. Perhaps, she thought, it was better not to know. Ceasing this line of thought, her mind clutched hold of another similarly small scrap of information: places I have never been, he had said. Again the island came to mind, that damnable stretch of land whose shores she could never seem to reach. The thought of getting there obsessed her, enough that she had considered bringing it up to Fee. If anyone could brave the authorities and slip away, under cover of night or in bright light of day, it would be Fiona Shepherd. Karin made a mental note to speak with her sister on this.

Such rabbit trails consumed her for a moment, and for a brief span Karin did not realize she had been asked a question. When it registered - a beat too late, and muddled as if coming from a great distance - she immediately shook her head, dark locks shaking like a mane around her face. "No," she said. "My family are in Chicago. This is my home now. I won't run from this." The bravado in her words rang hollow; he knew what she faced, and at least a portion of what she feared. There was no-one here to impress, yet still she kept up the facade. If her voice cracked, stretched thin, it was only for a moment - or so she told herself. "I have to learn to cope. Immersion therapy, I think some call it." She laughed, a mirthless little sound. "No, no. I appreciate what you're trying to do, Mr. Sandoa, but running won't help what's happening to me."

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the__dark__one
2011-09-23 11:41 am UTC (link)

Elias shook his head once, firmly. "I haven't made myself clear if you feel that I suggest running. Although I sympathize with your alarming circumstances, I am not asking you to avoid them. Ms. Shepherd, we -- all of us -- need more information about what happened to us, and what continues to happen to us. I suggest research. Will you reconsider?"

There was the matter of expense, should this woman get a hotel. There were answers to that, too. "I have some hotel points that could offset the cost. You would be doing me, and the others, quite a favor -- although, none of them have told me that they continue to experience other odd things. It's just you and me."

Could he do this himself? But no. Dov was still a stranger, and although Elias had allowed the kid to stay at his apartment, it didn't make sense that he would go to a hotel with him -- and Elias wasn't yet comfortable enough to have the kid stay there for a week without supervision. He shook his head again. It would have to be Ms. Shepherd.

Then -- he also had two other people to speak with in the next two days. Possibly they could be convinced, if Ms. Shepherd could not.

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sheltering_sky
2011-09-26 12:07 pm UTC (link)

Research. This was a concept she well understood, but one she was unsure she could truly get behind. She wondered what Fee would say - no matter what comforting name this stranger put to it, this course of action still felt too much like fleeing the scene - but found this a question to which she had no ready answer. Of late, when this touchy topic was brought up, Fee had not seemed her usual trigger happy self; there had been as much flight as fight in her eyes, if not slightly more.

But there was more to her line of thought than she would admit to her neighbor, scarcely able as she was to admit it to herself. What was happening to her was by and large a frightening prospect: the voices, the dreams, the movements in the dark. But another, deeper part of her found it equally intriguing, a siren song that called to her more strongly than anything she had felt before. What she felt when she thought on these things was a kind of terror that bordered on lust, with all the fear and trembling of a new and dangerous love. It was this, then, that put the words in her mouth, and gave her the foolish strength to speak them.

"Mr. Sandoa..." She sighed, shaking her head. When she looked back to him her green eyes seemed not vacant, precisely, but filled with something perhaps not entirely of her. "I'm afraid I can't. Someone should know what is happening, and you seemed the right person to tell." She shifted in her chair, clearly making ready to leave. As she rose, she smiled: unearthly, sublime, and thoroughly someone else. "And who knows?" she asked. "You may learn more by my staying than if I left."

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the__dark__one
2011-09-27 11:58 pm UTC (link)

When the lady stood, so too did Elias. Her shift in demeanor did not go unnoticed, but it was the way her eyes changed that he marked the most. As she smiled, he nodded once, briefly. "Ms. Shepherd," he said, not to stop her and not to interrupt -- but to say goodbye.

The man could not allow himself to be disappointed. He could have hoped for more, but even her description of what had happened to her -- what was still happening to her -- was a boon. He would not be so ungrateful as to diminish its value by wishing for more.

Tomorrow would be a new interview, a new night of knowledge. And the night after that. And then, perhaps, he would know more than he did even now. He looked forward to that.

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	OOC! sheltering_sky 2011-09-28 12:50 am UTC (link)
	(eeeeeeeeeee that is perfect! Shall we consider it a wrap?) (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: OOC! the__dark__one 2011-09-30 01:09 am UTC (link)
	(Yes, ma'am!) (Reply to this) (Parent)