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HAWKINS HOSPITAL FIRST FLOOR NEARBY: [member="Liya"]
The flickering of the fluorescent light beckoned Shule as he quietly shut the door behind him and left the Specimens Lab behind him for now.
Paint plastered and shriveled at the corners of the walls, where the tiles had long since fallen and disappeared. Mold gathered at parts where tubes were leaking either water or waste in a steady drip, drip, drip. It clattered against the brushed floor, scratches, pocket marks and blood stains spread in royal quantities and only underlining that this was not a peaceful place of healing. Not when the scratches were light and shaped in the form of sharp nails digging in as people were hauled off.
It was the cough that brought his attention back from the musings to the now. Stupid, but it was his head that kept him off-balance and difficult to focus.
He looked back from the tubes and that was when he noticed the man.
At first glance Shule assumed he was a Miraluka. Instead of eyes, there was uninterrupted skin folded just above the center of the nose and running up. But it were the jagged scar tissue at the temples that tipped him off. This one was no Miraluka. Just a man, old, bend, fingers broken and twisted, now hunched over as he sat in his shattered wheelchair.
"Harry... is that you?" Voice tired and he looked up, somehow staring right at him with a silly smile showing black teeth. "Haaarry, I am so glad you are are back, I missed you, you know."
Shule looked back impassively, before glancing to the door the old man was sitting next to. "That is not my name." He wanted to go past, but the old man's hand suddenly gripped itself tight around his wrist. "No, no, nono, Harry, don't go there. There is pain there. She is insane, she will hurt you, Harry, please."
As if the touch burned the old man suddenly retracted his hand, retreating back behind the blankets.
"I am so tired, Harry. Can we go to sleep now, please?"
A bright smile when Shule's hand went down and rested on his shoulder, he even leaned into the touch for a brief moment. "I feared the worst when you ran into there..." Oran looked down, before shaking his head slightly. "Go to sleep, old man, you have earned your rest." Before he could reply, the jagged glass shard already cut through the jugular in one broad swipe. Crimson flowed, the man struggled for only a brief moment and then he slumped over, slowly falling down and crashing against the floor.
From the blankets something rolled out.
Something the man had been cradling.
Shule knelt by it, before realizing what it was- the remains of a... cat, perhaps. Difficult to say under its conditions, but perhaps this was the mystery of the man's Harry. "Poor man." Oran mumbled, before brushing the shard against moldy fabric and leaving red behind. He rose up and pushed the second door open.
Zahori managed to push the bones aside to see the togruta trapped in the well with her. She had only seen a blue skinned togruta once before. It was an odd sight for her but she thought nothing of it. "I'm Zahori." she answered, grunting a bit as bones began to poke in her sides. "Who are you?" she asked. "Any idea where we are?" she continued.
In the meantime, Zahori began formulating a way out of her current predicament. She began climbing her way out of the well, using the bones for leverage as best she could. She could here the cracking of old bones breaking apart as she shifted her weight. The air was growing thin. Escape was necessary for survival.
There was the Firrerreo in the midst of battle with his fellow Lion comrades. It was just another battle with the vile Imperials of whatever nation it was. He couldn't recall if they waved the flag of the First Order, the Galactic Empire, or the newly christened Sith Empire. Those details he couldn't remember. All he did remember was the yelling of men, the screaming of guns, the red painting on the floor, and the littered dolls across everywhere. It was a gruesome fight, and the only fight Corr could only remember. All because of that one handheld explosive; that one grenade thrown by a down Stormtrooper he had reaped.
His face consumed by orange colors and solid fragments.
Halron gasped as he woke up from that memory he always dreamed of. The memory of him putting on the mask as his healing regeneration, he naturally possessed, disfigured his mouth and nose. He did the usual habit when waking up from that dream. Touching his face, hoping that the mask wasn't there; however, this was reality, and his face could feel the metal that implanted his face and he could hear the way he breathed with it. Anger filled his heart which was the usual as he would put it to work with whatever was going on today.
But he wasn't in his quarters when he noticed the room illuminated with orange. A color he hated with a passion. His moved his head and was hit with confusion which would turn into curiosity and, perhaps, fear. Strange lanterns with faces contained the lights, and there was odd symbols he had never seen before.
Where am I?
The obvious question anyone would ask. He immediately jumped out of the bed and realized that his weapons were stripped from him. That, along with everything around him, meant that he was karked and not in a good place to be in. He walked cautiously to the lanterns and symbols to inspect them, hoping to get something out of it which would be very unlikely. But what could he do? His instincts and brain, in a panic state, told him to do something. But he didn't dare to speak; not yet anyways.
Needing to do something other than wasting his time on inspecting his surroundings, Halron grabbed one of the lanterns that would be his candle in the dark. He approach the doorway of the room he was in with intent to illuminate the hallway and look both ways.
HAWKINS MEAT HOOK- Onyx and [member="Causstik Rahn"]
His movement stopped. Looking down at his chains he launched his arms forward, using the force to rip the chains from his hands and feet. Bringing his legs over and standing, he eyed the man who had saved him. Walking over he examined him. Trandoshan, Onyx had never actually met one of them before despite his many trips to their home-world in his early training years. He looked at his own person as well, noticing he was missing his sabers and blaster. His armor was also missing, though he still had his mask. He smirked, good, he'd use it well.
He also had a key. He eyed the key and then to his savior, an arm still chained to the wall. He walked over and unlocked him, "Thanks for the help," he said calmly. He began to walk around the room, taking note of the only exit at the far right. "Any idea where we are?"
He sensed something sinister, something terrible was happening here. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he knew this wouldn't be an easy situation to get out of.
_________________________________
ONDERON- THALIA FARIC
Thalia Faric sat quietly at her normal booth in the small, run-down bar on Onderon. Sipping away at the drink before her, she eyed the various occupants. They were all like her, hunters or scavengers trying to make a living on the back-wash planet. She sighed as she continued to drink her sorrows away.
It wasn't long ago, maybe a few weeks, that she had lost her one true friend: Darren Onyx. He finally got his way off planet, something she knew would one day happen. But she always dreaded that day. Whether Onyx knew it or not, she couldn't deny she had grown fond of having him around. It was a new feeling to her. He was the first person in her life who truly showed her some compassion and sympathy and in turn Onyx had opened up to her, telling her many things he never told anyone. Not even his closest and longest friends knew what Thalia knew.
Behind her, a few booths back, a group of hunters started laughing. The young assassin tuned to face them. They were watching something on their holopads. Having nothing better to do, she stood and casually walked over. "You boys enjoying yourselves?" she said seductively, eyeing the pad.
"I'll say," one of them spat, "We always look forward to this event!"
Thalia's heart suddenly sank. On the screen was Onyx. He was in a strange room with someone else. It was filled with dismembered corpses and blood, Onyx and the stranger seemed unaware they were being captured for entertainment. She stood up and started towards the exit. She wasn't gonna let this fly, not one bit.
Lark nodded as the man refused the glass, noticing for the first time the claws the man bore. Interesting, Lark thought idly, cutting away at strip after strip of raw, fleshy meat. And that's all this man was. No matter what kind of man he was before this grisly fate, no matter what kind of beliefs and emotions he ever felt, all he was now was a slowly decomposing piece of meat. Lark felt like a butcher slicing apart a pig, his sleeves up to near his elbows were covered in red and black blood.
He could sense an anger emanating from Vulps, one that Lark would have shared with him a few moments ago. But Lark felt nothing but cold. The ones who trapped them here would pay. Not for what they did to this man, Lark didn't care about that. But if they captured him, that meant they might know who he was. He would slaughter anyone who knew to much about him.
After a few more minutes of cutting, Vulps finally pulled the keys out from the body. Any more digging might have left the man in two pieces, the flesh around the exposed ribcage was only a few threads thick. One powerful pull would separate the two halves of his body without much trouble. "Well then Vulps, let's see what awaits us within this haunted locus."
[member="Oran Shule"] / [member="Liya"] - Whatever was following Shule in the dark was either deaf or uncaring, as it stayed among its precious specimens as the man slipped out of the room. After all, what use had it for the living? Shule’s escape brought him in to the slip-corridor, a hallway reserved for nurses, orderlies, and doctors to transport patients who were either difficult, dying, or dead when they needed to be kept from more innocent eyes in the main corridors. So when he found the old man in a worn-down room, it was from one of TWO doorways. And Liya is standing outside the other.
The nurse Liya shows selfless concern for stops shuffling when she hears a voice. It’s been so long since she heard a kind voice… And then all the sudden a beeper goes off at her waist, loud and consistent and unforgiving. The nurse looks down, mystified. The words ‘Mr. Alterez - Room 7 - No Vital Signs’ scroll across her personal alert unit.
The man bleeding out from his throat, slashed by a shard of glass by a stranger passing through, lost his pulse. The loss of pulse alerted the nurse. And now the nurse… She turns around, blood dried around her mouth and nose, her eyes a sicky, jaundiced yellow. The scream that comes out of her is inhuman, her hands curling in to animal-like claws as she starts sprinting - lop-sided and grotesque on a broken ankle - towards Liya. First she’ll kill the girl. And then she’ll tend to Mr. Alterez.
[member="Zahori Denko"] / [member="Asheda Tyr"] - A few feet from the mouth of the pit, Lily Hawkins squats, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet as she giggles quietly to herself. She can hear them, talking to each other. Their confusion fuels her, gives her hope they might make worthy sacrifices to her gods. They love confusion, fear, pain - rather run-of-the-mill, in Lily’s opinion. Which was why she had to make finding people to give them FUN!
She stops herself from another manic giggle, clapping a hand over her mouth as she reaches for one of many large knives she’d placed at the mouth of the pit for one such game.
There was only one way out - to climb! Ladders of bones, push past foliage of sinew. Push through small cracks, wiggle through tunnels in the side of the pit. Up, up, up! But they weren’t really going fast enough for her liking. Humming in consideration as her hand floated over her deadly options, she settled on a smaller knife - one that was sure to get through the canopy of ribs and femurs and scapulas to reach the bottom. She flung it as hard as she could.
In the pit, a knife falls as if from the skies, missing Zahori’s climbing figure by inches. Now, it seemed they were on a timer.
[member="Jorryn Fordyce"] - The pit beneath the hole Jorryn ripped open in the floor could be classed as such - a room long past its usefulness, locked from the outside (though not the inside) by Bill so only he could get up to the attic where he plays his longer, less hands-on games. It used to belong to his great-grandfather, a man long in the dying. Now it’s dark, lit only by the soft light that filters under the door in the far wall. Dust puffs up under Jorryn’s feet as she lands, indicating months and months of disuse. Wallpaper is peeling off black-mold wood. There are no windows despite this being the second floor. One gets the feeling the Hawkins didn’t like Great Grandpa much.
Luckily for Jorryn however, Bill has a tendency to put things down and forget about them. And he forgot one of his many karambits. The wicked looking knife is also covered in dust, barely visible carpeted in grey. But it’s there for anyone looking.
All the sudden a loud *CREAK* sounds outside the door, loud enough to be like a gunshot in the otherwise perfect silence of the massive house. The shadow of someone walking by the door filters by, male mumbling heard as the stranger passes Great-Grandpa’s room and continues on, slamming a door behind him further down the same hallway.
[member="Venthis Zambrano"] - The sting would remain, the mans skin left smothered under slime and bile from the stagnant filth he hoisted himself out of. His game had now begun - much like the 19 other Contestants. The Pool was a lonely place, something that seemed as though it should remain mostly forgotten. So many lives needlessly lost right down there in that horrid basin, the morose memories could actually be felt under the sweltering gloom of it's destitution.
The first blow of the Sledgehammer against the door yielded no results, only sound.
BANG!
It echoed louder than the weapons of War Venthis would have no doubt become so thoroughly accustomed to in his colorful life.
BANG!!
The echo was nearly deafening, but another blow seemed to loosen the barricade. Four more and the blockage was broken, the metal door swung open wildly, clanging with untamed violence on against a hallway wall before falling loudly on to the dusty and debris laden floor. He'd made it through, but the journey had just begun. The hall ahead was dark, windowless, torn and tattered from a time long removed from now. At its opposite end a light illuminated what appeared to be a locker room of sorts. A steady glow broken frequently by a pacing figure, just whom or what it was however, Venthis would need to investigate personally.
[member="Zul Grimm"] / [member="Kyle Raymus"] - It is debatable as to whether or not slaughtering the boars was a mercy. Lately it seems that Hank prefers less conventional flesh, leaving the wild pigs to their own devices in their filthy environment. They were hungry - so hungry. But now it didn’t matter. They lay in heaps around the two men left behind, slowly cooling on the tile floor. It is now deathly quiet, but the chains of the two men still shackled to the ground clink along each other as both move.
In that deathly silence, a droning, deafening chime starts. It’s meant to catch attention, and if the boars were still alive they’d be able to tell you what it meant. A shaft at one end of the huge pen opens, and four medium-sized tank-like droids come rolling out. They hum steadily, seemingly innocuous as they vacuum up blood and guts and boar waste. Or at least, that was their original function. They’re old and poorly-repaired, barely cleaning up anything anymore.
The one thing that DOES work, are the devastating electrical boar-prods jutting out from the front, back, and sides of each droid. The shock is enough to put a man down for an hour. It used to keep the boars away from the droids, but it’ll sure make the day worse for the two in the pen if they don’t get out. The fences surrounding the pen aren’t too high - a short climb. They just have to manage to unlock themselves if they’re still shackled, and then escape without slipping, tripping, falling, getting electrocuted. Piece of cake.
[member="Jacob Crawford"] - He was weakened, all were weakened. The Force behaved in very curious ways here on Maena - a World with more than a dozen different Religions and hundreds of Cults and Abominations. The pencils were merely a jest. Lucky for him The Headmistress had not been present or his knuckles would have been beaten raw and bloody - his eyelids chewed off from his face or his mind rendered useless and shattered.
But while she was not there in that moment, there was never a move made at her School without her knowledge.
The man stirred, and the door was sealed.
The room was silent, desks tipped over on to their sides or tops, chairs thrown in to every corner. The chalkboard was splintered, part of it resting on the floor behind an oddly clean teachers desk with a row of nine grey Maenan Ash Apples resting on the edge of it's surface. The clock was ticking down, what exactly to? Who could say at this point. But there seemed to be 12 hours and 54 minutes remaining. . .
Bash as hard as he may, throw what he would, the door would refuse to open - the window too strong to break. But there was something else, one. . . minor detail just now noticeable on the opposite side of the room.
A black and white furred Porg, connected by it's arm to the top of a long counter that seemed to have once been a waist-high book cabinet. It wasn't clear, exactly what the significance was but the sensation seemed visceral, almost too natural to be comfortable. What. . if. . . something. . . . was hidden inside of it??? Now, Jacob, if only you had something sharp. . something. . . . pointy. A pencil perhaps?
[member="Xin Boa"] - Just another day for Hank. There was a peace in the rhythm of butchery for him, a sureness that never wavered. It was always the same. Things back at the Hawkins Manor were chaotic to say the least, and there was always solace to be found at the Meat Hook. This was to be a particularly large shipment, and he had many animals (for that was how he thought of them, even now) to prepare. He never asked questions when people made orders. Credits were credits.
Finishing up yet another separation, he put aside the perfect cuts and went for another carcass.
A sureness that never wavered…
Always the same…
Hank wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but there was order to his day. There was something strange… Small beady eyes rotated in a horrid face, following the shine of bright tile through blood, as if something had been dragged underneath rows of corpses instead of through his neat hallways… Like head tails…
A sound somewhere between a suspicious grunt and a threatening growl emanated through the room. Heavy, solid footsteps thudded over tile, sending small vibrations around wherever Hank stepped. He would find whomever was disturbing his order, and he would butcher them whole.
In his disturbed, suspicious state however, he’d left the door to his workroom open. Big, shiny, perfectly sharpened knives gleamed on the table. It was possible there was only one way in and one way out of that room...but the knives...
[member="Aria Vale"] / [member="Greta Kohler"] - Dr. Hawkins felt, to put it simply, jilted. He’d worked very hard to build his reputation! All he wanted was to make people beautiful… He studied the stars who flitted around the top levels of Maena, changing their faces, tucking their stomachs, having absurd pieces of plastic tucked in to their backsides for a rounder shape. He loved the perfection of it! Oh, how he worked! Oh how he tried!
And yet no one would give him a medical license! Absurd! He didn’t need something as primitive as schooling to become a doctor. He had talent! Vision! That was more than half the hacks up in the higher levels could say for themselves.
Sighing, he stalked towards the Operating Theatre in which Aria & Greta had come to consciousness. He had a surgery to do!
Hopefully his Orderly hadn’t chosen to play some stupid game again. The key to one’s gurney straps in the stomach? And the key to the operatory in the other one’s shoulder? Preposterous!
He wondered what he’d do with the women. Maybe switch their organs and see if they kept working? Switch their faces. Both had extraordinary bone structure.
They were running out of time.
[member="Vulpesen"] / [member="Lark"] - Somewhere, Eloise Hawkins was grinning. Surely these two had earned their detention. There was, of course, the momentary pause before pressing one’s hands in to something so disgusting, but they went about their survival with the sort of focused acumen common of all those willing to do whatever it took to survive. She would pay special attention to these two, she thought.
Her focus turned elsewhere, for a moment.
The clock was, of course, still ticking. The keys, about ten in total mounted on a ring, would most likely come in handy later if one of them didn’t mind holding on to the blood-slick mess. One of them opened the door, and trial and error wouldn’t take more than a few seconds.
When the door to Detention swung open, the two would find themselves in a long, pristine hallway that extended out in either direction. The far wall was mostly windows, giving them a view of the courtyard nestled in the center of the square building. No one was down there.
The hallway rocked, as if a jolt of pure energy had coursed down the length of a nerve. Nothing happened.
It came again, nearly earthquake-like in its intensity. From the end of the hallway from which it came, a door opened up, light spilling out. Walk towards it, or go another way?
[member="Darren Onyx"] / [member="Causstik Rahn"] - There was a lot of shouting going on where the Rogue Master and the Pirate were being toyed with. In bars across the New City, in dens spanning the Slums, audiences leaned in as small, flying cameras started closing in on the confrontation. This was what the audience lived for - arguing! Violence! Would two contestants kill each other before Hank even found them!?
A few raucous bouts of laughter cascaded up from the back of one bar in particular at the ‘heads-up!” joke from the Pirate. Oh, that was a good pun!
But the yelling attracted more than the New City’s audiences. It wasn’t just the ‘willing participants’ of this year’s season that were trying to escape. All the sudden, a veritable wave of bloody, broken, scared men and women of all species flooded in to the room.
YOU GOTTA HELP US! HELP! DO YOU KNOW THE WAY OUT!They streamed through, panicked - the sort of crowd most people would NOT want to be in when the poodoo was hitting the fan. They were even noisier than the argument. They would surely bring down much worse on our intrepid pair if they didn’t get out.
[member="Imogen Daniels"] - She was not simply being filmed, oh no, this was being broadcast to an entire city. Her suffering, and that of all those with her, would be seen by nearly 400 million Sentient Beings. Live or die, she would entertain. Of course, her death would be far more appreciated.
That space was so tight it could almost be suffocating, barely enough space to squeeze your shoulders between, just narrowly tall enough to stand - or something slightly akin to standing. Imogen was trapped, left alone in a place she could barely even recognize through the small slats worked in to the metal of the door.
The door of locker Thirty-Seven boomed loudly from her kick, it's echo amplified in her small prison. She did it again, but this time something replied.
Like nails over the chalkboard the bite of a blade scathing the outside of her standing coffin whined, and what light was flooding in quickly dashed away in to the darkness of a large shadow standing outside.
"Well. . . well. . . . welllll. " Said a voice so sickeningly, it's tone very nasal. Through stuffy nostrils a breath was inhaled very deeply. "How somethin' so pretty get caught in a spot like this?" His eyes were bloodshot, what should have been white. . . a gross sort of yellow. "Lemme see if I can't. . . cut you out of there."
The first stab came suddenly, penetrating the metal with frightening ease, the tip of a very large and foreboding blade pressing so far in to the locker that had Imogen not wedged herself to the very back it would have plunged in to her chest. The metal wiggled up then down, scraping and crying until it was free enough to be pulled out. Then again the locker was stabbed! It really was not looking good for Imogen Daniels right now!
[member="Halron Corr"] - Will be in DM post next turn - feel free to keep posting.
Zul continued to lay in his oddly warm liquid prison, maintaining his breath as he sensed another person nearby. The bone shards that were telepathically held by his doppelganger dripped with blood, though there would not be a single drop of it on the doppelganger that stood, because there was never a physical entity there to begin with. The doppelganger's eyes were his eyes as he scanned the area around him. There was only the lone figure that he had sensed as well as the bodies of dead boars around him. Since it appeared that the man had no idea of Zul's actual whereabouts it was up to Zul to get himself out of his predicament. Using his doppelganger, he would search for a way to free himself, having to resort to his own wit to figure out how to escape his restraints.
The doppelganger floated over to Zul's location in the trough, looking around as he searched for what held Zul. A mechanism for which what appeared to be a slot for something narrow to enter lead into the sarcophagus of blood and flesh. The doppelganger would hold up one of the bone shards in its hands as it looked at the slot before raising it up and stabbing it into the mechanism. It would take a few moments of jamming the shard of bone around, but once it had searched, something had clicked. The restraints holding Zul would release as the doppelganger vanished. A blood-soaked, gauntleted hand would shoot out of the trough of blood and flesh, like the undead awakening from a heavy slumber as it gripped the edge of the trough. Another hand would follow as Zul pulled himself from underneath the surface, his chest heaving as he drew breath. He was by no means entirely free, but enough to escape his initial bloody prison.
The air was rancid; rotting and decayed flesh, bits of flesh that had been left around for who knows how long. However, it was still breathable and that's all Zul cared for. He would pull himself up as he slowly stood up straight, blood dripping off whatever non-absorbant components to his attire he wore and soaking the fabric of his robes. They did not make much of an impact on his appearance as he wore all black, but the wet sounds of drenched cloth slapping against the floor was heard as it trailed a carpet of blood behind him. Zul would hold his arms out as he let the blood drip, having escaped harm with relative ease thanks to the distraction provided by his doppelganger. He would turn and stare at Kyle Raymus in silence as he called out asking if anybody were there before turning away.
He was not one for conversation and the only thing he cared about was getting out of this festering hellhole. His attention would turn to the sound of something else approaching. He would be answered as a quartet of droids wielding shock sticks entered the area. He would glance down as he found his ankles were still shackled. Bone would not suffice in breaking out of that. He would glance up as he watched the droids slowly approaching before taking a look around in his environment. A simple Force Jump would be more than enough to clear the area, but he was grounded until he broke out of his shackles. He reaches a hand out to will the Force to break off one of the prods from the droids. If he is successful he would bring it to him in an attempt to see if he could not break his shackles. If he failed...Well he would need to come up with a Plan B quickly.
The music beneath every word beat like a ticking clock. A go faster. A you're running out of time, Aria.
She could feel fury brewing, and she let it simmer. In time. For now the underlying sense of urgency was building fast, and not knowing what would happen once time was up only made the threat greater.
"Here- feth." She swore through clenched teeth as she tried to point to her injury and rusted chains got in the way. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. "My stomach. I can't tell what the wound is." Head lifted as far as it would go, she fixed the brunette with her gaze, alert and knife-sharp. Aria did not give out her trust easily, but something gave her the idea that choosiness wasn't a luxury she had available and this was a risk she could stand to take.
Fingers climbed over the side of her bindings, and Aria carefully ran her nails along the metal in examination. The Sith was willing to bet the chains weren't in good condition but they had her pinned securely all the same - but there would be some way to undo them.
She caught a groove in the metal. She tested. She could have sworn it was shaped like a lock.
"There's . . ." Aria glanced back to the tools aside her gurney. None of them looked particularly pleasant, and none of them looked particularly like they could open a lock. "There's a key somewhere. You didn't see a-" she'd tried turning over, and her stomach flashed again with pain - "ow. Oh, feth - can you tell what the injury is?"
(After all, she'd suffered her fair share of injuries, but a key buried in her abdomen wasn't one of them.)
"Oh- you're not hurt, are you?"
Aria wouldn't deny that concern for the other woman's condition came very much as an afterthought. She was a selfish creature in every sense, but she didn't forget about others for worrying the most about herself. And besides- it was looking more and more like they'd need two of them in order to sort this mess out.
Hawkins High - Second Floor Classroom Nearby:[member="Imogen Daniels"]
Jacob was frozen in the moment, senses on alert for when and where the next pencil would be thrown. But then nothing happened, just the eerie silence that continued to fill the classroom. He wouldn't openly admit it, but the place was already beginning to give him the creeps. Perhaps it was because his proficiency with the Force was currently diminished.
He shook his head. There had been a lengthy period of time when he was without the Force entirely, he managed then and could do the same now.
With a great deal of caution, Jacob slid out from the desk wincing as he felt how stiff his legs were. Taking a moment to stretch his legs, Jacob gazed around at the state of the room. It looked like a warzone...or a child had thrown a particularly nasty tantrum.
Slowly, Jacob moved towards the desk immediately noting how tidy and clean it was in comparison to the rest. As if it was piece of a stage setting, to catch one's eye and draw them towards it. Which it certainly worked on Jacob, his hands hovering over the apples, wondering why exactly they were.
His paranoid mind right now immediately suspected them to be poisoned, or were just false props to tease and torment. Jacob had no doubt he was going to be hungry soon, and there wasn't exactly going to be a plethora of food available. So, he grabbed two of them and shoved them in his pockets. Thankfully whoever had kidnapped him, allowed him to keep his jacket - meaning he had plenty of room to store stuff. Albeit the items he had in there previously were now gone.
A moments glance lingered up towards the clock, ticking away steadily and yet something told Jacob it wasn't just simply telling the time for the sake of it. Rather, their time was limited.
With that in mind, Jacob turned to the door. Any attempt to use the Force was pointless right now, perhaps he could wait to see if his strength returned, but there wasn't going to be any good with wasting time right now. So he charged at it, slamming his shoulder into the door. Only to almost bounce off it from the momentum.
Nothing happened, other than having a sore shoulder.
Jacob cursed, realizing raw strength wasn't going to work here. Instead he returned to the desk, picking up the small lamp and began to search. His attention went to the drawers, two on either side, but three of the four were locked shut. Jacob pulled open the one that wasn't, bringing the lamp up to peer inside.
It was full of reports; quizzes, exams...there was a lot of them. All of them were named, and the vast majority were written out as either Jacob or Imogen. He frowned, wondering what the meaning of it was - just some oddball of a mind game?
He shook his head, looking deeper into the drawer and finding a handful of sharpened pencils tucked away at the back. Jacob grabbed them all, sliding the lot into a pocket. It's when he stood up, that he finally caught sight of the Porg, hanging there like a lifeless doll...certainly not one of the things Jacob expected to see. Something caught his attention, the faintest sound that he could've sworn sounded like someone calling out, slamming against metal, but he passed it off as his imagination.
Not a few moments later the sound of a foot kicking against metal echoed down the hallway outside. Jacob froze, eyes snapping towards the door. His breath hitched, waiting to hear if it repeated to ensure he wasn't hearing things. Then it rang out again, only for a new sound to join it - of something sharp stabbing through metal.
A scream immediately followed, and Jacob recognized the voice.
Imogen!
Jacob moved towards the Porg, scooping up the discarded pencil he had thrown. The small creature's position was far too of an oddity to not be a clue, sitting there at the other end of the room - opposite the door itself. He didn't hesitate for a second as he plunged the pencil into the Porg's stomach.
It took at least two more pieces of stationary before Jacob could get a good enough ways in before he could dig his fingers in and find what was hidden within. He cared very little for his actions in that moment, even whether the Porg was still alive or not. Imogen was in danger, and he needed a way out.
A key was hidden, buried within its stomach.
He didn't miss a beat, dropping the broken pencil and rushing towards the door; snatching up the small lamp as he passed the desk. Hands shaking; adrenaline coursing through his veins as he slid the key into the hole and turned. There was an agonizing pause as the locking mechanism seemed to not react, until it clicked over and unlocked the door.
Jacob practically kicked it open, moving into the hallway. The sounds of a blade piercing through metal echoed out again, this time much clearer to him.
"Imogen!" His voice carried down the hallway as he ran towards the source. Probably a foolish move, running straight towards someone with a large blade.
The noise sounded as if it had been created by a chest the size of a large whiskey barrel. There was no structure to the noise, but it managed to carry a note of confusion. Chains rattled and those thudding steps began again at a slower tempo. Xin realised the butcher was after him. The thought of going for the room where the boy had been taken never even occurred to him.
That approaching noise heralded a burst of speed from the nautolan. A surge of adrenaline managed to push away some of the dizziness and bring things into focus, bring his impending death into focus.
The light changed and Xin looked over his shoulder to see an arm that actually looked rather like a fat joint of meat reaching for him. Podgy fingers caught the fabric of his trousers but Xin wriggled free and rolled sideways underneath several more dangling forms. Had the butcher expected him to be dead? The one who had been slaughtered before him hadn't been but most of these bodies were.
Perhaps he didn't care either way. Xin emerged from under the forest of meat trees. The edge of the deathly threshold was crossed but his pursuit was still there. As he pushed himself to his knees and then feet he heard something metallic clatter to the floor. It was a long pole with a spike and a hook at the end. It was likely for pushing the meat hangers around on their rails. It would do. Xin couldn't see an immediate exit so he took up the makeshift pike and pushed himself back between the bloody trees. He waited for the full, wet thuds to pass him.
Xin forced his way back out. His chained hands gripped his spear and he stabbed true. It was like hitting the flank of a bantha. The spike struck into a wall of gristle, fat and muscle on the butcher's back and held fast. It grunted and span around. Xin lost his hope. It clattered noisily to the ground, spike now tipped in crimson.
The butcher didn't strike him hard. It was just a swift backhand to the jaw. Still, it send an explosion of pain through his head as his teeth clattered together. The outlaw had already suffered more blows to the head than anyone should. He went tumbling back down, chains rattling as they struck to the floor. He slipped and he slid but he managed to get his feet back underneath him to make another attempt at fleeing.
Kyrel was unaware of the mess that he had gotten himself into He was in his castle on Mustafar one day and then the next he had been in a deep slumber quietly fading in and out of consciousness and every time he felt pain all over his body, and swore he saw a large man talking. He couldn't make out what he was saying due to being awake the next and then the next being asleep. But when he did finally awake he looked around, the room was barely lit with what looked to be some carvings, and propaganda plastered all across the room and he could even see a figure leaving, whether that was the man or perhaps another captive like him was remained to be seen.
He could feel the pain increasing whenever he tried to move and then looked down, his dark robes were covered in blood, and that the chair he was in had his arms and legs wrapped in what looked to be barbed wire restraints and every time he had moved more blood was dripping out to create a small puddle on the floor. He had to think quickly as he was starting to bleed to death the more he struggled, and even if he didn't move he would still bleed whether it be a matter of minutes or hours it mattered not. He still needed to find a way out of here. He looked frantically as he even tried to reach out with the Force, and surprisingly felt nothing, it was like this place was blocking such things out. For the first time, he felt fear creep upon him, but he knew that he would not give up. He finally saw a little pin within his robes, and if he could reach for it he can finally be free.
He inched his fingers for it on the hand the pin was on, but with each slight movement, drops of the crimson liquid came out and added more onto the puddle below, he gritted his teeth in pain but finally he reached it with his fingers and vigorously began to cut into the wire, it felt like an eternity but was able to free one of his hands, with his free hand he was able to get the other hand out due to his discomfort as well as both his legs. Finally able to get out of the trap he was in, and now he felt dizzy he needed something to patch himself up, and now that he couldn't use the Force, for now, he needed to get out and find a way back to First Order Space.
He looked all around the room for anything, bandages, patches, even clothes would do, and with each corner, he could find nothing, he either found nothing or things that disturbed him beyond belief that gave him a sense that whoever comes here never checks out. He then finally found a couple of rags, which he tore into four pieces to stop the bleeding on his limbs. What he also noticed was missing was his Lightsaber. He needed to find it before he looked for a way out.
He staggered his way out of the room, blood still all over him, and leaving a slight trail than what he had wanted to. Thankfully the rags would stop the bleeding and give him the time he needed to get out and seek help. He walked the halls that were filled with more propaganda as he saw one of the lanterns missing. It made him think whether it be the man that he saw ranting in his bouts of consciousness or the shadow that he swore he saw leave the room. Even now he could hear footsteps both behind and ahead of him. Gulping slightly not wanting to know what was behind him he chose to walk forward following who could possibly be ahead, and so he continued onward wandering blindly in the darkness, he decided to take a lantern to light his way and to offer him some slight comfort in the midst of all the madness.
The tips of her fingers were a hairs breadth away from the woman's sleeve when the beeper went off. She pulled her hand back, but stepped up closer, the concern clear on her face. She had no idea where she was or what had happened, but someone was hurt and everything else could be sorted out after that....
So when the woman turned around and shrieked, Liya was right beside her. She reared back, blinking in surprise and back peddling immediately. She had been stubborn with Gideon.... no, she would not learn how to fight. No, she would not spar with him. If he was that intent on it, he could hit her if he wanted, but she would not fight back against him. She was done with that life. She would never raise her hand against another person.... never again. The fact that she didn't remember any of it, the life of a Sith, of a murderer? That didn't matter at all.
The slow move toward the woman had meant that there were no problems picking her way across the debris strewn floor. The frantic back peddle on the other hand offered nothing of the sort. Her heel caught on a molded blanket and she fell backward right before the woman's hands would have clawed right through her face. Scrambling back, Liya looked up in horror at the bloody mouth and crazed eyes. Her hand flashed out, using the Force without even realizing it- pulling something into her hand. It was hard, oddly tacky, but her fingers wrapped around it just fine. She didn't look at it, didn't think, just closed her eyes and swung.
His eyes shuttered, but the imagery didn't change. Confident his eyes were indeed open, he tilted his head upwards slightly. Was he crazy? He knew he was an avid drinker, but this predicament completely transcended a traditional, blackout drunk hangover. He had no knowledge as to his current whereabouts, nor did he have any recollection as to how he may have gotten there. As he began to sit up, he felt a sharp pain in his neck. Raising his hand in an effort to soothe the area, he felt a small bump. Immediately, his heart rate elevated.
This wasn't a hangover. This was survival.
He grunted as he lifted himself to his feet, glancing about in the darkness. He edged his feet forward, moving cautiously to avoid any obstacles on the floor. Though he was sure the nature of his presence did not bode well for him. Like a child in the dark, he held his hands forward, roving slowly to detect anything immediately in his way. As he moved his left hand left, he heard the sound of metal scraping metal. He moved his fingers around the object he just moved, while nudging his foot forward to find the boundary of what he was at.
It felt like a scalpel. He wasn't overly aggressive with it, as he didn't want to contract anything. Continuing to get a feel for his surroundings, he kept forward. Then, a flicker, of both light and sound. With it, a glimmer of hope. But like the light, it didn't last long.
A rung in the old ladder gave way as Jorryn's hand fell, splinters stabbing in her palm as she made a desperate grasp forwards in the blackness of the tunnel. The tips of her fingers scratched against the old wood, almost close enough to save her from the fall but not far enough. Fortunately for the Sith, she had not been too far from the bottom of where the trap door led. The sense of dread quickly alleviated itself as she found herself seated on the floor of an old room, one that had not been used for some time. Dust kicked up from the floor, making breathing harder than the musty smell that had already lingered in the room.
Jorryn quickly tore a strip of cloth from her pants as she held it up to her mouth to prevent breathing in the toxins of this disgusting environment, taking small relief in the darkness that prevented her from seeing how decayed the room around her truly was.
Jorryn surveyed the room as her eyes adjusted to the dark, wiping away the sweat from her forehead as the chiller air ran along her skin. The room had been a bedroom once upon a time, not that you could tell easily from the stained mattresses and rotten dressers. One thing in particular caught Jorryn's attention, a knife stabbed violently into the foot of the old bed. Jorryn rushed to the blade, and yanked it from where it had been embedded with her free hand. It tore from the rotten wood, like it was supposed to be a part of the furniture. That and the thick coat of dust covering the blade told Jorryn that it had been there for a very long time, dried blood and chipping along the edge told her that it had been used for the man's projects.
Wiping the blade along her pants to clear the muck dulling the blade, Jorryn made her way towards the door and the light shining under it. Her hand reached up towards the handle, using a few fingers on the same hand that held her new weapon, before the loudness of metal and wood creaking came from beyond it.
"I told her, I said 'Lily, don't you touch my cure,' but no she had to go ahead and rifle through my things anyways. MY things!"
Instinct took over as Jorryn ducked beside the door and clenched tightly to the blade in her hand, ready to pounce if the shadow racing across the floor stopped in front of her room. The lull in the man's mumbling told her it was the same figure from the video playing in the attic, though anger ruined his cadence this time around. The creaking under the floor boards passed where Jorryn was stooped as she began to lower her knife, before it stopped a bit further down the hall.
"Old man'll set things right, he always knows how to talk to Lil. Won't listen to me, she'll have t'listen to him. I want my things back, I need my damn things back."
The loudness of his voice growing as her neared the door, rising in both pitch and anger. A similar creaking to early made it's way through the air as he opened a new door, before a slam that shook the rotting foundations of the hallway.
Jorryn waited to ensure he wasn't coming right back out of wherever he had went into before even beginning to crack the door open. The hallway was lit with an amber bulb spotted with dirt and flickering every few seconds from age, doors on the right and left with no discerning details aside from the ageing that had rotted and splintered the paint that once covered them. She looked down the hall to where the lunatic had gone into, a faint buzzing and mumbling coming from beyond the door. Desiring nothing but to get out from this retched place, Jorryn made her way over to the door that the man had come in from. For an old door the lock on it still managed to do it's job, preventing Jorryn from making a quiet escape no matter how hard she pulled on it.
Breathing out heavy with exasperation, she looked helplessly at the lock before turning back to face the door where he had entered. A knot began to form in her stomach as she looked at the only route left to go, wanting to avoid the desperate sounding madman. Unfortunately with this door not opening and the only thing in the old room being the attic, she knew she had nowhere else to go.
Walking slowly and low did little to cease the creaking of the old wooden floor as she prayed that the door in front of her didn't swing open to greet her with a raving madman drooling from the mouth. She pulled the door open shockingly easily compared to the other one, leaving it only cracked open to view inside.
Sitting in a wooden dining chair was a bearded man, with long matted hair and tired looking eyes. The visage was ominously different than what she imagined the voice belonged to. This was a tired old man, too close to either death or spice, and the voice, though mad, had had a young cadence behind it. He sat staring at whatever had been seated on the recliner facing away from the door, lights flickering from an old screen as the lunatic began to speak to someone.
"Please gramps. I'm making a masterpiece for you, one that will elevate you to a spiritual level you haven't felt in a long time, and it's almost done." His voice cracking with a mixture of sadness and anxiety as he pushed the words out. "But I can't finish if Lil keeps taking my medicine." The pitch hit a note of anger, but quickly turned to a scared beg as he began to finish his request. "Can you talk to her, please. You will be so proud of what I have created and all that's stopping me is her."
There was no answer, but an ecstatic grin grew on his bearded face from the shaking weariness it had been. "I can borrow yours? D'ya mean it?" His excitement bordering on infantile as he made his way towards the chair before leaning back, this time holding a syringe in his hand. "I promise you I'll get you a new one before you even feel anything, I'll get all my stuff back from Lil and you'll be good as gold again." He said, giggling between every few words before making his way out of the room.
Again, Jorryn waited a few minutes before creeping her way into the room slowly. She held the knife tightly as she came around the recliner sat in the middle of the room, her eyes leaving it only as the screen came into display. On it, there was a young child with a happy family in front of a wooden house. It was a home movie of happier times, though Jorryn didn't know for who. Her gaze turning back to the chair as she rounded the right side and drove her knife towards whatever figure was steeped into it.
Her hand stopped before it struck, as she saw a figure sitting in the chair. It was an older man, disgusting in many ways. His nails grew long and broken, on gnarled hands that lay on the arm rests of the chair he sat. His stooped back, buried deep into the chair, had obviously not been raised from it's position in a very long time. Withered hair covered his weak shoulders and gaunt face as his gaze was fixed onto the television in front of him, glassy eyes remained unblinking into the film in front of him. His chest didn't expand and he drew no breath, as Jorryn knelt in front of him.
After Jorryn had determined the figure was dead she began to rifle through his pockets, finding little but lint and gum wrappers. The Sith almost threw up as she continued to search the man, only to finally notice the blackish purple stain that was the inside of his arm. Decayed skin showed many puncture wounds that festered from poor treatment as pus oozed from a recent wound, presumably where the lunatic had removed the needle from. Standing up quickly and covering her mouth with the cloth to prevent herself from gagging, Jorryn surveyed the room for any clues as to where she could go next.
The raven-haired woman swore through clenched teeth as she pointed out the source of her pain. Her abdomen. More precisely, somewhere in her stomach. Somehow, Greta didn’t have any good feelings about this. Moving over to the target region, she lifted her companion’s clothing in a bid to have a closer look at a possible source of her pain. A second or two later, she found it. “I don’t see a key anywhere, but I think I may have found the source of your pain.” Gently fingering the rough and hastily done stitches, she continued. “I’m no doctor, but I’ve received my fair share of stitches in the past, and these looked fresh to me.” This particular wound did look comparatively newer than the rest of the others the woman had suffered before. Greta’s mind worked through her thoughts as it has always done, and all of a sudden a eery though came through that sent yet another wave of shaves down her back which came along with a burst of pain from somewhere along her left shoulder.
“Yes, I’m hurt as well. Somewhere along my left shoulder" she gestured to yet another burst of pain. Freshly-stitched wounds. Operating theatre. Primitive dirty tools. Amber orbs glowering in rage as she tried her best to stay calm. “I’ve no idea what sick game we’ve landed ourselves in, but if my guess is right, someone has hidden our freedom in our wounds." Greta looked around the room once more, and saw no sign of anything that could possibly help them to dull the pain. Reiterating the fact that she was no doctor and certainly no surgeon, she said “I’ve never done any form of surgery before, but I think I’ve got to open up your wound if we are to have any chance of getting free.”
This was karking insane, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
As the pile of bone and other human remains where pushed away Asheda was able to finally stand upright, coming face to face with her would be rescuer, "Umm, I am Asheda Tyr" 'where in the world are we', fuck if I know? Looking around she tried to gather answers for herself before replying to the woman, "A well I guess, probably a dumping ground for, umm dead people, oh force are we in some serial killers lair, no that cannot be right, that sort of stuff only happens in holo dramas... right"?
She was unsure if the woman had heard her as Zahori was currently scaling up the side of the well, using the bones present as some sort of climbing equipment, morbid much. Asheda shrugged to herself ans started to shift through the bones, skulls and other questionable human parts accumulated in the deep pit. "Hey wait up a se....." a sharp swooshing sound of an object flying past her face stunned the young Togurta, halting her, the blade just grazing the left Lekku, "wa... wa... whaaaat! is someone trying to kill us?!
Kyle looked up. There was a man in front of him. The one that diced the board. But now he emerged from the trough,blood dripping from him, with a distinctive "Plink. Plonk." The man gave Kyle a nod,simply acknowledging his existence. Kyle immediately felt the other man's cold personality. Whatever this man was, however evil he may be. Whatever he did before, they had to work together. Kyle was about to speak as droids, old, unstable and rusted, rattled into the pen, electric rods poking in every direction. Kyle acted instantly. He grabbed the stake and hauled himself, and the massive stick of wood onto the fence of the pen. From there, he watched the droids use their pokers on the air around them. As one passed, Kyle swiped the stake at the poker. It came off clean, power cell intact, but it dropped straight into the mass of droids.
"Karabast" Kyle exclaimed in disappointment as the poker was instantly surrounded by the droids. Kyle tossed the stake into the side of one of the weird machines, puncturing its rusty side. The droid spun in circles before calming down and slowing to take a rest. For eternity, or until it was repaired. Kyle climbed down from the safety of the fence. A foolish move, that might cost him his life.
He charged down towards the broken droid, grabbing one of the electric pokers and pulling it out, wrenching it from the droids innards. No luck, the poker was broken, it's power cell smashed. Another one was pulled out. Same result. Kyle desperately needed a weapon more suitable than a decayed old wooden stake, which was heavy and unwieldy, useless in a fight against a sentient opponent who is even slightly ready for a fight. Kyle pulled out a third rod, this time he succeeded in carefully extracting it and keeping it intact. Suddenly, a droid rolled out from the side, hitting Kyle straight in the side. Luckily the machine was meant for blade back boars, and so the electric rods were widely spaced. Kyle wasn't shocked by the electricity, but the droid mangled his side with its sharp protruding machinery, a gear taking yet another chunk of Kyle's flesh. The pain was unbearable. Kyle leapt back, hitting the fence behind him. Blood leaked out of the admiral's body. Horrible pain stopped Kyle from being able to move properly. He tossed the rod over the fence and climbed over moments later. He managed to get a weapon, but payed for it in blood and flesh. His movements were now all followed by horrifying pain. Each step was punctuated by a jolt of shocking torture. But Kyle survived yet another ordeal. He looked around for the man who was with him moments ago. Kyle didn't really care about the well being of such a cold soul, but he could be of some help.
As the head of the hammer smashed against the barricaded door, the loud bang released and echoed throughout the swimming pool. Pieces of the door shattered and dropped to the ground, though it took several hits for the door to finally crumble and then to fall from its hinges backward.
It revealed a corridor, filled with darkness. The walls tattered, with various cracks and mold. Though on the other side was a brief shimmer of light which was clearly interrupted by some... thing. He squinted, holding the sledgehammer tightly in his hands. Priming it over his head, ready for a swing before slowly making his way down the corridor silently. He slid next to the doorway, peering his head around the corner to see what was in there, quickly tucking his head back in.
He had no idea, what was behind the thin layers of walls between them.
[member="Jorryn Fordyce"] - If the family’s feelings for Great-Grandpa were dubious, their feelings for Gramps were not. It was apparent that they had loved him. Still loved him. Heard his voice even though he’d left their mortal plane a few weeks past. The Hawkins were known for a freakish longevity despite their harsh living, and Gramps had been no exception. The purplish stain that had spread and festered slowly through the dirty cotton of his overshirt had eventually been his demise. It was the medicine that kept them going - that perfect...blissful...medicine. It gave them the lifespans of alien species despite their humble human origins, a few extra decades past 100 in which to learn and grow and torture everyone around them to various degrees. It explained, perhaps, some of their familial tendencies. Time was the enemy of all, and the Hawkins were no exception. What all that extra time did to the minds of everyone who took the medicine - physically, unknown. Mentally - it made them strange, bloodthirsty, prone to abstractions and strange obsessions. But it made them LIVE. It made them immortal - at least in their opinion, even with Gramps rotting corpse as proof that wasn’t the case. It was no wonder that the children born in to this manor were odd of their own accord growing up around those monsters before they even started taking the medicine themselves.
Each generation more twisted than the last.
Bill spent a lot of time visiting Grandpa, trying to decide whether he’d take the medicine. There were risks after all. Closer to everlasting life, he’d have more time for art and games, life’s unique pleasure. But he could end up like Gramps too - obsessed. Those that took the medicine tended to start overdoing it. And overdoing it was suicide, though it didn’t seem it at the time. Inject someone with medicine who’d already had too much...and they’d just keel over and die.
Each time he sat with Grandpa, he worked a little more on his map of the manor. It was enormous, different sections added on with each generation as their dirty money grew and their expendable income expanded. You needed more room when your family members lasted forever. Bill sketched every detail in pencil, every secret passage, every nook and cranny. It would be useful to have it all drawn out when he planned and set-up one of his more elaborate games to play with his subjects. But Grandpa had made him angry last time they’d sat together! That man never let him talk - always yapping too much himself! He’d thrown the paper on the table in anger, stalking out.
It was still there, barely any dust on its surface which indicated it couldn’t be out-of-date. Bill had circled several areas he considered important, perhaps stashes, though none were labeled except a cache on the far side of the house in a room labeled as “Study” on the first floor. Scribbled in tight penmanship was “In Case You Change Your Mind.”
Grandpa’s room was on the second floor of a manor that sprawled languidly in all directions, filled with secret places all over, strange architecture built over decades. This piece of paper would be invaluable to anyone who picked it up, a road map of alternate routes if one proved too dangerous. And a way to plan an escape route or find something Bill thought was important.
Which would prove useful sooner rather than later as the door to the room slammed open with a BANG! that rattled the frame. Great-Grandpa was a hideous sight. He was decrepit, loose skin on old bones, tufts of hair running wild off an age-spotted scalp. He’d found the regimen, the one that kept him alive without killing him, even as he got addicted to the medicine. He’d outlived even his own son, that bag of rotting flesh sitting on the armchair - all pathetic and dead. Useless!
“What ther kark you doin’ in here!” he yelled, his voice gravel and screech. And then he brought forward something that LOOKED like a blaster, but didn’t shoot plasma. A huge gout of flame belched out of the thing towards Jorryn, making the large can that hung off it more obvious as fuel than it might have been at first glance. Now it was obvious why everyone hated Great-Grandpa - he tended to burn parts of the house down. “I’ll turn you karkin’ crispy girl, come here!”
[member="Xin Boa"] - Some people said that Hank had slowly, gradually, carefully started to look more like a boar than a human. His nose had turned up and widened, his skin leathery, a bristly beard rough under his wife’s fingers. And the noise that came out of him when the hook dug in to the flesh on his back was more animal than human - closer to a roar than a scream. He twisted, reaching towards his shoulderblades, the cleaver he’d held in his hands clattering to the floor and skidding away.
He, of course, had another. And he ripped it from the loops of his belt, hefting it in a too-tight fist as he came down where he’d last seen the Nautolan.
The first swing cut through a carcass’ arm, a waste of good flesh. He would have done that with such careful precision if he’d been given the chance! The second swing came down more accurately, aimed for head-tails. As far as he knew, the aquatic species did not carry anything overly important to their survival within the organs cascading from their heads, but he just wanted to cause pain. Maybe hurt the insolent creature enough to make him pass out. He’d harvested Nautolans before - there were a lot of hearts to sell in there. Whether or not he’d severed anything, he pulled the cleaver back, letting out another roar as the alien got his feet underneath him and starting scrambling for a way out.
Hank started shoving through carcasses, heading for the wall where the button for the racks was. His meaty fist slammed against it, and all the sudden every whole meat product started moving along the electric rails they were hanging from. In a serpentine pattern - meant mostly to keep meat rotating through a large space in equal temperature, fresh as possible - they would spin through the room, no doubt disorienting to someone trying to escape the storage area.
Speaking of multiple hearts, it might be difficult to hear over all their beating. But maybe, just maybe, Xin would make out the thud-thud-thud of heavy machinery in another area off to the left - a beacon to at least exit this dizzying battleground.
The notes purred on, the depth and broadness of the sound somehow fathomless. Rich notes that crooned over the gentle stab of a needle as vinyl spun slowly on turntable. The music flooded the Operating Theatre, setting the stage for another perfect opus The Doctor meant to perform on the two women he had slabbed out on operating gurney’s. A Maestro required no less than the best to create their finest Art with. Aria and Greta? Perhaps they would indeed be the perfect flesh to pervert - to make. . beautiful.
Vanity.
It really was one of the finest Sins.
During his days at Graves Sanitarium for the Mentally Unstable, he’d seen his fair share of delicate beauties enter broken and shattered and leave much more whole. The symmetry of their ailments made much more delicate. Much more. . distinctive. Of course mental scars and institutionalized abusive deformities was a far cry from the true marrow of the ideal.
Everyone hurt on the inside - but the outside, that’s what truly mattered. Just look at how much good The Doctor had done for his own Orderly now? All better. All fixed. Maybe not? A few more surgeries perhaps! But as close to perfect as possible.
He would do this for Aria. He would do this for Greta. Why should they suffer when he could make them new.
Through the eerie echo of the music that spun, a scream so ghastly sobbed out from somewhere beyond the walls and doors. Another patient - lesser than these two specimens - pleased by what they were receiving no doubt.
From the elevated seating all of New City was being shown the early struggle of the two Sith women. Cameras hidden amidst the motionless shadows of lifeless strangers - The Doctors audience.
Sewn wounds rest inflamed and grotesque upon each of their bodies, keys hidden under skin drawn tight from lives of combat, conquest and pride. If they wanted to avoid the knife of The Doctor, then their own flesh they would have to cut!
Be quick sweet pretty’s, your Surgery starts soon.
[member="Kyrel Ren"] / [member="Halron Corr"] - One hall, for two frighteningly capable men. But what they knew of War did not apply here. The weapons that made them deadly, the armor that made them strong, even The Force seemed too unnerved to grant it’s Users the full breadth of their capabilities. By design? Perhaps. Little details taken in to account to strip men and women of the things that made them whole and return them to the bottom of the food chain where all living things had began.
Babes in the woods, as Kyrel and Halron’s particular captor would say. But neither Kyrel or Halron would meet him yet. No. . . not. . yet. . .
One had inspected the room, the other didn’t - a telling sign. Of course, for these men, nothing was provided in that womb of retro nostalgic horror they’d awoken within. Rather it was full of imagery, the worst kind, the bloody kind. Scenes of grotesque murder that was for no cause and had no reason - pure entertainment. That room had been full of neon bulbs that twinkled, grinning Jack-O-Lanterns, stickers and posters. Baubles, buttons and arcane savagery.
Bill Hawkins was a special sort of monster.
Halron had ventured the furthest, but it seemed Kyrel would be soon approaching his rear. The door they left, slammed shut, it’d never open again - pity - but at the opposite end another opened, and from the inside a. . . woman?
Well built, thoroughly beaten, nailed to a chair. Her skin was a shade of violet, her race not immediately discernable. She’d tried to whine out more than a painful yelp, but the barbed wire that gagged her mouth simply tore deeper, and choked her throat with blood in a way that had become entirely unyielding.
There was no door out of here. There were no pictures, or Maenan Iconography. Simply a cherry keg of speeder fuel, and a box of matches on an otherwise empty table. Just above, three words written in alien blood.
Burn. The. Girl.
[member="Kellyn Muir"] - Kellyn had found a Scalpel, shaken from the sudden knowledge that somewhere along the way, somewhere out there in that massive Galaxy - he had been taken. Stolen away from Faction and Friend. Brought in silence to the edge of the Galaxy that frightened even the most daring and reckless Spacers and Fringe-Pilots. Maena, the Jewel of Madness. The New City, the largest Gem. 600 Cities built one-on-top of the other. A place where Monsters, Maniacs and Murderers came to hide - only to be turned victim themselves.
Safety was an illusion here.
Available at a Premium for the Richest at the very top of the Volcano.
Kellyn wasn’t here for pleasure, passion and sinful playtime though. He wasn’t here to experience the lust and depraved bedlam that knew no bounds. He was here to entertain!
There was a scuff of movement that sent a number of Medical Trays clattering on the ground then the wet cries of someone large, someone pained, someone changed. So miserable the sound, so tearful the noises of his misery. Alone scurrying the dark, avoiding the agony of surgery - why did The Doctor want to make him hurt so? Why must he be changed? Elevated? Reborn? Again and again made over with cuts and slices. Another piece lost, three more gained.
Until he was as he is now, an abnormal freak mutant, something neither dead nor fully living. Shuffling around in misery wreathed in the sort of blackness not meant for men to endure.
Then the sound, the moving of metal - that subtle scrape and push of a foot searching in the darkness. The Orderly knew it intimately. A light flickered back on, a cone of white intensity that hit the floor first, then stabbed and slashed upwards and around as The Orderly swung his flashlight, shielding himself in the darkness behind the vivid glow, while sweeping light and shadow across the room.
Kellyn had but a moment to make up his mind! Duck and avoid the danger. . . or face this abomination with little more than mere scalpel and force of will. . . ?
NEXT DM POST SOME TIME TODAY:
Jacob
Imogen
Venthis
Zul / Kyle
Zahori / Asheda
Oran / Liya Please feel free to continue posting before we post - we will work with whatever you guys keep throwing at us.
HAWKINS HIGH LOCKER NEAR: [member="Jacob Crawford"]
The air around Imogen had begun to decrease - an ever present reminder of how tightly she was stuck, and how using her energy in such a way would only make it more difficult. She was fueled though by her fear - clawing at her insides as it pushed her to kick harder - an echo of a bang resounding around her.
After a few more kicks, Imogen had to pause, taking in a deep breath - lungs filling, chest constricting under the pressure of her lungs taking in air. They filled up the space, burning through her chest and making her rethink her options.
Screeching metal had her wincing, its onslaught sudden and followed by a voice- unfamiliar and chilling, making her blood run cold. While she had wanted to draw attention to herself, in hopes of being freed from her prison, this was not the attention she wanted and Imogen knew his intentions were not pure.
Her eyes watched the shadow of the man carefully, her mind bringing her back to a time on her home planet where she was often in the same situation. Men and women alike looked down on her - a freak that needed to be taught a lesson, or better yet dispose of her completely. This man was the same - addition of a nasally voice, biting words, and ill intentions. It was all the same. Imogen knew if she wanted to get out of this alive, she would have to trust her instincts.
She went to speak out, say something to the man when the words fell off her tongue, replaced with a scream. Loudly, it echoed throughout locker 37 and down the hallway she was in, metal of the knife coming within inches of her chest. Watching on in horror, her eyes stared at the blade as it disappeared only to reappear again once more.
Imogen tried shifting, keeping herself pressed against the back of the locker so as to avoid the blade. Trying as she might, she attempted to create a Force Shield to protect herself but she was weak, and the results were poor.
It covered her chest, vital organs weakly protected with one more layer - easily enough to pierce through should her attacker come close enough.
When the knife went out Imogen took her chance, kicking the locker once more - a feeble attempt of hitting the man with the jagged metal of the locker, a result of his own doing, pieces mostly sticking in but a few having been pulled out along with the blade. A curse left the man's lips and she knew she had done something, nothing life threatening she was sure but enough to warn him she wasn't giving up easily.
The knife came back in with even more power, fueled by the man's rage and anger - Imogen wasn't as lucky this time. He had successfully sliced her thigh, blood rising up and pooling out, her once pale skin starting to stain red.
It was then that she heard someone approaching, calling her name.
Jacob?
It seemed he too had been taken by whoever brought them here, put them in these situations to taunt them - an entertainment piece to those more sick and twisted.
The knife was withdrawn once more, the man's attention being turned towards Jacob, which had Imogen’s blood running cold all over again.
As an attempt to call out to him, to assure it really was him - that she wasn't just hearing things, but to also warn him of the man her voice rang out, echoing around them.
“Jacob! Watch out!”
With his head turned to the side, she could see more details of his face and the sickening grin that formed as he took in the situation.
