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xansmenagerie · 1 year

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The Naming of Names

Another Mel fic: while nicknames aren't required for MotW Crooked characters, it just felt right that she would have one. Plus Fidget and Oyster came into my head via nicknames first...

It all starts when she's a mere four years old. According to family legend, it took only half an hour for her to rebelliously tell the teacher to call her Mel after hearing her name mangled repeatedly; what's more surprising is that she starts insisting on it at home as well, until after a while only her grandparents call her Melpomene (unless her mother is very annoyed).

It drives Thalia with her less malleable name quietly insane, especially when Achilles follows suit with 'Ace'. This is a bonus, as far as Mel's concerned.

It is perhaps a little telling that she always phrases it as, "Call me Mel," though; Melpomene is still there under the skin, watching the world through Mel's eyes.

Flash forward many years to a somewhat less dingy than it used to be flat in south London - not even Seth can make a mess faster than Mel can tidy it away, especially with Mason helping. Or, as she now has to remember to call them, Fidget and Oyster; since the Incident where a Mel who was only supposed to be "ferrying the boys back after a night out" ended up having to pick an otherwise unreachable lock to release two of said boys from the building they were trapped in before the security guard came round, she's been firmly brought into the gang, and that means getting to know and use their nicknames.

It wasn't much of a surprise to Mel to find out that the main purveyor of said nicknames was indeed Fidget, with a mind as restless as his fingers and a constant drive towards mischief. She's quite fond of him, in an entirely platonic way, but is dreading what nonsense he's going to come up with for her. Lanky Dave has already ejected Fidget from her room once while she was out chauffeuring Crystal to an event - which was sweet of him, but Mel is beginning to suspect she might have to gently break his heart at some point - and honestly if Fidget's been caught in there once rooting around for ideas he's almost certainly been in there several more times.

It would be worrying if she didn't understand Fidget so well; as it is, she knows he's camper than a row of pink tents and is driven purely by the itch of trying to work out her nickname. It's mostly harmless, and if he gets too annoying then the threat of telling Oyster certain ouzo-loosened truths around Feelings will probably get him to back off for a while.

The door to Mel's room bursts open. Mel, sitting on the sofa out in the common area, fixes Fidget with a very stern glare as he bounces over all puppy-dog eager. Before she can say anything he exclaims a joyfully amused, "I've got it!"

"Don't give it to me then," Mel replies in time-honoured tradition - Fidget might not be one of her blood siblings but she'll be damned not to think of him as a brother by now, terrible feed lines included.

He's too busy being smug to retaliate. "So, you need to find a more secure place for your passport-"

"It was in a lock box in the bottom of my underwear drawer, how secure does it need to-"

"Anyway," Fidget cuts across her indignation, "I've been doing a bit of research down at the library since you told me there was no way on earth you'd answer to 'Greek', and when I saw your full name it clicked."

Mel rolls her eyes. "Go on, what are you trying to lump me with now?"

With an air of triumphant finality, Fidget says, "Muse."

It stings in a way Mel doesn't expect - her gran sometimes calls her that too and the reminder of her old life is jarring - but she has to admit that on a scale of terrible nicknames it does work for her. She still waits a moment to see Fidget squirm before giving him a slow nod. "Fine, but don't you dare explain it to the others, alright?"

"Alright, Melpomene, aka Muse," he says cheekily, and her traitor heart sings a little to hear her name pronounced properly by someone she cares about, "I promise not to make your life a tragedy by telling anyone your secrets, at least this one."

Fidget gives her a brief, fierce hug, then heads to the kitchen for the inevitable celebratory coffee. Muse settles back into the sofa cushions with her book, rolling her new name around in her head until it settles. She thinks she likes it.

(She does smack Fidget when he puts that damn Steps song on for the seventh time in two days, mind. There are limits.)

#mel is nominally the sensible one #motw #short fic #writblr #writeblr

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coldshrugs · 3 years

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20 First Lines Meme!

No one tagged me but I saw @cassandra-pentughasst and @red-hot-chili-tiefling do this and it looked fun so I’m pretending I was tagged.

The challenge is to list the first lines of your 20 latest fanfics.

Since I mostly write short fic, my first lines work overtime in establishing setting or mood, imo.

I’ll tag @apostatetabris @lavampira @impossible-rat-babies if y’all feel like it 💗

Untitled UB Goes Camping Fic that I just started today

"Did we bring a map?" "Yep." "Compass?" "It's with the map." "Tents? Sleeping bags?" "Yes." "What about swimsuits?"

WIP that I may never finish of Mason doing some roof pining

Mason tried not to smoke this week. He really did.

Prompt fill: Alone, Finally

The walk from the station to Alma's apartment is an unusually talkative one considering her partner in conversation is Mason, and there's a rush to their steps that she's not sure which of them initiated. It doesn't really matter.

Prompt fill: Sea Change

Alma sits alone on the dock of the lake, and for once- for just a moment- she’s well and truly alone.

Prompt fill: Harsh Whisper

“Are you sure you can handle it?” Aeran asks from Ephyra’s side, the words coming out so quietly she almost thinks she imagined them and starts to get annoyed with herself over them. “There’s an exit on the west side of the building if you can’t get back through this way and I’ll be-”

Negative Phototaxis | Alma Greene/Mason | 625 words

He wouldn’t even look at me. Alma sighs under the weight of her conflicted heart and grabs the fresh pot of coffee to refill her cup.

Prompt fill: Something About [Her]

Ephyra’s heard the story so many times she’s bored with it: during her first week of life, her mother attempted to soothe her crying with a hand gently warmed by magic and the spell broke upon her skin.

Prompt fill

Life at sea isn’t so bad, Effie thinks as she leans against the railing of the main deck, relishing the fine, salty mist in her face. As long as she doesn’t have to walk too far, and when she’s not receiving glares from the crew for stumbling into their work formations. ...And now that her wounds are healed enough for the bumps into the walls and rails to only kind of, sort of sting.

Prompt fill: How Dare You?

“Are you gonna finish that?” Aeran eyes Effie’s last roll. They’re tucked into one of the quieter corners of the Spire’s dining hall, having lunch before they split for training.

Prompt fill

The rural farming community of Gralle is a fucking mess. The formerly well-worn dirt paths are ripped up as if some wayward farmer started sleepwalking while tilling the fields; milk jugs are overturned, leaving rancid clots in the door of one of the barns; a brood of hens and their chicks lay dead outside their hutch, bodies a little mangled but uneaten.

WIP of the BG3 crew

“If I never see a goblin again, it’ll be too fucking soon.” Ulysse groaned as they made for the ruin’s exit on weary legs.

Blood, entrails, and pungent homebrew squelched underfoot, already taking on the stench of rot in the hot afternoon sun. The party couldn’t bother with being disgusted - they were already covered in the stuff.

Prompt fill: A Kiss on the Temple

Julian Devorak is going to die.

Cleo knows this.

Boats and Birds | Cleo Espree/Julian Devorak | 1.7k words

Cleo's eyes blink open to a thick canopy of tropical-looking leaves, shimmering pink-gold light winking through here and there. The air is thick with magic, but there's no real hostility here.

Prompt fill: Drastic/How Dare You?

Cleo came to the market for vegetables, milk, and, if she's lucky, that delicious spice mix from Firent that elevated her stews from "pretty good" to "Cleo, what is this recipe?" She did not come to the market to run into Julian Devorak yet again, but that seems to be a hobby for her lately.

Prompt fill: Crave

Pixies make for decent company, to be sure, but like the rest of the fae folk, they adhere to stiff archetypes. Conversation, though entertaining at times, is predictable but it's all Urianger manages these days since his friends are busy or... reasonably displeased with him.

Prompt fill: Sunbathing

Astarion smiles more in the daylight, Ulysse notices, marble-white skin creasing into lines around his mouth.

Starving | Ulysse/Astarion | 800 words

“You didn’t do it,” Ulysse whispered, fingers combing through recently-mussed curls. Astarion lay on her chest, a novel experience but not an unwelcome one.

Saccharine | Ulysse/Astarion | 250 words

“If you promise not to kill me,” she pulled back with a smirk, hips pressing into his, “you may drink from my neck. I know you want to.”

If his heart still beat, it would’ve skipped at the invitation.

Wayfarer WIP that’s not been entirely posted to tumblr

The tavern is crowded for such a small town, as if every person in a ten-mile radius of this backwater decided they craved cheap ale and the sound of the off-key bard in the corner.

WIP in which Julian moves in with Cleo

"Are you sure you want to do this? I can-" Julian pauses to reposition the precarious stack of boxes in his grip, "I can make other arrangements. Mazelinka really doesn't mind having me around, no matter what she says. Or I'm sure Pasha could make space. And I do have my own place back in South End, you know!"

"Mm, is that so? The landlord just let you skip out on rent for three years?"

#long post #azia writes

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crqstalite · 3 years

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wip whenever.

just for me because i really, really got back into writing this weekend. should really get some more kaidan/kodee content out, makes me happy. especially fluffy stuff.

no content warnings. post...me1 i think? i wrote this months ago. i have no idea where it was going because i got burnt out towards the end of it.

Were flowers too much? Would she even appreciate them? Was she allergic to flowers?

Kaidan sighs, deciding against the carnations, and the attendant looks relieved when he steps away. Whether she was even the type of woman to like flowers, he didn't know. In fact, other than that she had an unhealthy tendency to get herself hurt and a possible caffeine addiction, there wasn't much he did know about her. Kaidan wasn't about to assume something that could make her like him any less. He gives the pink bundle a second look, before continuing to the elevator. He'd been checked out of the hospital within a week of the Geth attack, mostly minor injuries that ended with his forearm in a cast. The same had gone for the rest of the crew, worst being a suit rupture from Tali that gave her a fever. The same couldn't be said for Shepard, unfortunately. Taking the brunt of Sovereign's corpse when it'd come down, she'd been kept for observation and further treatment. She kept assuring him the whole time on their way out of the mangled council chamber that she felt fine, and that she was more worried about him and Garrus.

He'd remind her of that a few years from now, if they still kept in contact, how she'd passed out on the transport back to the hospital. And still, even with her floating in and out of even being able to see apparently (Anderson had to ask her three times how many fingers he was holding up, and even then it took her a solid two minutes to answer with 'four' instead of three), she kept asking where the rest of her crew was. That wasn't unusual considering the past few months aboard the SR-1, she'd grown close to everyone, but it proved difficult for the doctors who actually came looking for him and the others a few hours later. Apparently just to put her mind at rest and let her be sedated long enough for surgery. According to Dr. Chakwas, Shepard wasn't about to take no for an answer, even with shrapnel in her side. The woman was a trooper.

He steps out of the elevator, careful to check every number written beside each door. He wouldn't lie, his heart had sunk so far when C-SEC officers and Anderson had come to find them after the fight with Saren's corpse and he hadn't seen Shepard. Maybe out of concern for his commanding officer, maybe out of devastation to lose a friend like her. More than a friend, he wasn't completely sure how she wanted him to recognize her. Yes, there were regulations, but he'd never met someone quite like her. Someone who saw past his defective biotics, and instead saw someone she thought was worth her attention. Was worth spending a night together, was worth laying her life on the line to save over another soldier. To think she might've died before they got to know each other any better, he'd felt empty. Then she'd appeared again, clutching her side with a triumphant grin on her face, and everything had been set right again. She'd lived to fight another day, and after Chakwas had informed him she'd be ready for visitors in a few days, he'd been able to sleep a little easier.

He pauses beside one door, then backtracks three. Hesitating, he's not sure whether to knock or not, to do anything to announce his presence first. His hand hovers over the control panel, pressing open.

He's greeted by laughter, genuine laughter from Shepard and someone else sitting by her bedside. There are already flowers on her nightstand, bright yellow and pink in a glass vase. Kaidan thinks about leaving, wondering if he was intruding on a moment between friends or something more. He's not quick enough to make the decision himself, because Shepard's eyes light up as soon as she notices him, her tone soft but loud enough to carry, "Alenko, didn't expect you to drop by. Good to see you."

The other person still has the remnants of a grin on her expression when they turn to him, a curly mess of hair tied up in a bun at the base of their neck. Their eyes glitter green and blue, an eyebrow raising at his arrival. His words are caught in his throat before he responds, "Good to see you're awake and well, ma'am."

"Ma'am? Jeez, how old are you?" There's a giggle in the feminine voice as she gently jostles Shepard, only pulling another smile onto his friend's scarred smile. He strides further into the room, lingering closer to her bed so that the door closes behind him.

Shepard shakes her head, a loose afro of dark hair standing out against the stark white pillows. Other than just before Ilos, he'd never seen her hair loose from it's regulation bun before, nor had he actually seen a full smile from her. He sort of wishes she'd do it more often, "Oh shush, Lali. That's what you say when you actually respect someone higher in the chain of command than you."

"Just because you always had first pick of bunks when we were kids, doesn't immediately mean I'm gonna call you ma'am wherever I go, Dee." The other woman sticks her tongue out at Shepard, and she rolls her eyes, her attention returning to Kaidan, "So pretentious. Ma'am."

"Kaidan, I told you about my sister?" She asks, ignoring her sister for the moment, and he nods, "Citlali Velasquez. Citlali, Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko."

"So you'll give him the title, but not me? I see how it is." Citlali crosses her arms, mock pouting at her older sister before he can greet her properly, "Flight Lieutenant, actually. Recently promoted."

"Flight Lieutenant Citlali Velasquez, then," Shepard deadpans, "Look, you've been here all morning, don't you have duties to get back to?"

"I'm on leave for the next two days, you really think I wasn't going to come check on you, my dear older sister?" Citlali asks sarcastically, pulling her jacket from off the back of her chair. Her eyes dart to Kaidan, looking him over surely, "Trying to get rid of me, huh? Here I thought I was funny."

"And you are, but I'm pretty sure you scared Tali and Liara off when they were here earlier," Shepard responds, reaching over for what he thinks is an omni-tool to hand to Citlali, "Stop forgetting this in here, would you? Pulled that up thinking it was mine the other day."

"Yeah, yeah," She snaps the band around her wrist, the orange UI lighting her face before she swipes it away, "Don't have too much fun without me, dad still wants to see you before you go back on duty."

"I'm still not going anywhere, not for at least another week, Lali. I'll see him then." With a sound of agreement, Citlali nods at him, and then leaves. Shepard looks nearly relieved, her features softening and gesturing for him to sit where her sister had been, "She's been here since I got admitted properly. My mom's still out on tour right now, my stepfather's trying to jailbreak me. At least Mason keeps his distance."

"Family problems?" He asks.

"No, far from it. I stay in here any longer, I'm either going to lose my mind, or this room is going to be filled with flowers. I don't hate the things, but this is like the sixth bouquet someone's brought me. I asked Mason to take a few, I'm not sure what he did with them," She acknowledges his confused expression, "Mason. My younger brother?"

"Right." He'd have to make a better effort to keep all the names in her family straight, "Feeling alright, ma'am?"

"Fine, honestly. Apparently they're just waiting to remove the stitches, then I can get out of here. Good thing, my stepfather might actually make good on his threat." She says, adjusting the pillow propped up behind her so she can face him, "What brought you all the way here? Not saying I haven't missed your company as of late, but I figured the crew was still recovering themselves."

She's eyeing his cast with a look of concern she really should've saved for herself, "It's fine, really. Just figured I'd come by when you weren't too out of it."

"Thanks. It's been a little lonely with only what I think are Citadel sitcoms. If my sister doesn't, they'll drive me crazy first," Shepard gestures to the set up on the wall, "It is good to see you, Kaidan."

#kodelyn shepard #oc #original character #wip whenever

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sarissophori · 3 years

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Forebode, Chapter 6

Hindel and Barrens ran to the excursion room, donning their environment suits and helmets. On impulse, Barrens grabbed his shock rifle and slung it over his shoulder.

“Mind telling me what’s going on, captain?”

Hindel synched her helmet in place, locking it for a seal.

“The Wanderer crew” she breathed. “It infected them, made them kill each other.”

She turned to Barrens. “It turned them into those things on the moon, and the same thing’s going to happen to us if we don’t space Talgold!”

His eyes went wide. “And how the hell do you know that?”

“Just trust me, and follow me!”

Suited up, they took the lift down to the hangar. Barrens unlatched a service dolly from the wall and rolled it over.

“Which room?” Hindel said.

“First on the right.”

She went to the door and hit the release, opening it with a hiss. Hindel gasped. There was no body inside. The cadaver bag was shredded to pieces, filled with shallow pools of blood and bits of flesh. Wet streaks were on the floor and walls, a particularly long, dark streak under a vent port with its cover torn away. A mangled environment suit lay discarded nearby.

“Oh God no…”

“Christ” Barrens said. “We better warn the crew.”

Hindel alerted her flight officers by her personal com, who then sounded the alarm throughout the ship. Ensign Komev’s voice carried on all decks: “Attention all hands, attention all hands, class-three quarantine procedures are in effect. All crew except search and rescue are to report to their quarters immediately until quarantine is lifted. Search and rescue are to suit up and report with weapons to the hangar; repeat, search and rescue to the hangar.”

Davis, Duvin and Farzen suited up, armed themselves without knowing why, and met Barrens by the open pressure door, seeing for themselves the mess left behind, grimacing.

“Holy fuck” Duvin said.

“What the hell happened here, sarge?” Farzen said. “Where’s the body?”

“Through the vent” Barrens said.

“I thought he was supposed to be dead” Davis said.

“He was” Barrens said. “For a while.”

“What do you mean ‘a while’?” Davis said. “What the hell’s going on here, sir?”

Barrens took in a breath and sighed. “We encountered something on the surface; mutants, monsters, whatever they are. The growth we found in the wreck? The captain thinks it infected the Wanderer crew and turned them into what Talgold probably is now. If you can breathe it in or have to come in contact with it, we don’t know; that’s why everyone’s in quarantine and we’re in suits. Like it or not, it’s our job to take care of it.”

“Of what?” Farzen said.

Barrens paused, staring off for a brief moment before turning to his team.

“A lot of blood, a lot of gore. I couldn’t explain’em to you if I tried, except that they’re as though as they are ugly, and they scream.”

His men looked confused, and not really reassured. Barrens set his shock rifle to its maximum setting, implying for them to do the same.

“I’m not gonna lie, this could become a shit show real fast, but if we can fry this son of a bitch or pin him down somewhere, there’s a chance we can kill it with no casualties.”

“What’s the plan, sir?” Farzen said.

Barrens glanced over the room. “Well, he’s using the ducts. If we can get the bridge to seal off the junctions after we clear them, we might be able to corner it, or funnel it towards the airlock. Good enough?”

“Yes sir” Davis said. The rest muttered approval.

He contacted the bridge.

“Barrens to Captain Hindel: we’re going to search the vents, starting in the hangar and working up the decks. We need you to manually close off all junctions behind us as we go, and steer it towards the airlock.”

“Will do” Hindel said. “Keep in touch, sergeant.”

“Aye ma’am, Barrens out.”

He turned to his team. “Ready?”

They nodded, and began their methodical clearing of the hangar vents; two teams on either side of a room or hallway, one opening the vent and the other peering inside, panning their light and rifle, going slow. From the main hangar bay doors to the pressure rooms behind, they found nothing beyond Talgold’s initial bloody mess.

“Junctions A-1 through A-10 clear” Barrens said. “Hangar bay swept.”

“Roger that” Hindel said. “Closing off.”

A dull locking thud echoed from the walls. The SAR team went up to C-deck, Barrens manually locking the lift in place under their feet as they stepped off. They spread out at the level’s terminus and slowly combed their way down, tense but prepared, clearing and sealing the galley, the recreation room, utilities, lavatories, showers and cryo-chamber. Again, no contact.

“This bastard’s really good at hiding” Duvin said.

“You’d think with all that blood, he’d leave some kind of trail” Farzen muttered.

“Barrens to bridge, are you picking up any blockages anywhere in the ship?”

“Negative” Tajmaran said. “Maybe he’s not in the ducts?”

“I think we would’ve found him by now if he wasn’t” Barrens said. “Either that, or he’s up in A-deck with you guys.”

There was a pause on the line.

“I’ll keep scanning, and let you know if I find something” Tajmaran said. “Bridge out.”

“I feel safer already” Davis said.

With C-deck locked, the team went up and searched through B-deck, sweeping the ladder wells and the compartments around the elevators, checking every corner and compartment.

“Rooms and vents around B-terminus cleared” Barrens said.

“Closing off” Hindel said.

“Primary and secondary cargo next” he said to his team.

“One bay at a time, no splitting up.”

Cautiously, quietly, they paced the curve of the main cargo wing. It was spacious by design, though the Wayfarer’s days of hauling freight were well behind her. Still, its importance meant that it had been built with secondary vent covers in case of sudden vacuum or pressure loss, adding an extra little layer of tension for the SAR team as they opened the first cover, only to have another to clear; but still, no Talgold. Even so, their readouts were steadily rising the further they went without finding him.

“Primary cargo cleared” Barrens said.

“Closing off” Hindel said.

“Moving on to secondary” he rasped, motioning his men to move forward.

The secondary cargo bay, tucked behind the primary one, was basically a compartmented room for smaller hauls, humming with vibrations from the nearby engine block. The emptiness amplified it into an ominous drone. Multi-tier racks and shelves cast shadows that hid the walls and corners, making their sweeps slower, more cautious.

“How many hiding places does this ship possibly have?” Davis said.

“Too many” Duvin said. “If the threat of infection’s so damn high, why don’t we just leave it and get in the escape pods?”

“If you want to wait the year or so I’d take for a rescue ship to show up cramped up in one of those with no food or air, be my guest” Barrens said.

As Barrens and his team swept their way through the ship, the rest of the crew sat waiting in their B-deck compartments, their gazes focused on the door or off to some far point. No one spoke at first beyond soft murmurings, but as time and nerves wore on, and no updates came from the bridge, Mason exhaled.

“I hate this; sitting around, doing nothing, not knowing what’s going on.”

“So does everyone else” Ausmith said. “I’m sure the captain will inform us of what’s happening when we need to be, or when our quarantine’s been lifted.”

“Easy for you to say” Mason said. “You already have some idea of what this is all about, being the shuttle pilot.”

He looked over to Han and Varrez. His face was drawn, and he raised his voice.

“You do too, don’t you? What’s the captain so afraid of?”

“That’s enough, Mason” Hornens said. “Don’t start this.”

“Start what?” Mason said. “Look, I’m not trying to start anything, I just think it’s time we were told what’s going on. Am I the only one?”

“No, you’re not” Ausmith said. “But the rest of us don’t know much more than you do. We may as well ask you what engineering got from the Wanderer’s flight recorder?”

Mason shrugged. “Can’t say. Hindel ordered it sent directly to her as soon as we decoded it –but that’s what I mean; there’s way too much secrecy over what’s been going on lately.”

Mason looked again to Han and Varrez.

“What happened down there? How did Talgold die?”

Varrez said nothing. She didn’t even look at him.

“The captain insisted we keep it confidential” Han said.

“Sure she did, sure” Mason said, getting up from his bunk, raising his voice again.

“Why wouldn’t it be? Why not keep us in quarantine the whole way home, if that’s what’ll take? All I want is a few little answers, is that so much to ask?”

“Calm down, Mason” Hornens said.

“I’m not gonna calm down!” Mason said. “This is bullshit, and you know it!”

There was a loud thump over Mason’s head, ending his ranting. A ceiling panel bulged, buckled, and gave way, collapsing at his feet. A scrambled mass of gore fell with it, shrieking and flailing wildly. Mason jumped back, and everyone else sprang away from their bunks.

Aside the obvious bone and limb-twisting deformations, the eyes of Talgold’s corpse hung limply from their sockets, replaced by tendril-like feelers. His drooling jaw was split into mandibles, showing new rows of teeth lining his gaping throat. He shrieked again, gurgling his blood-caked spittle.

Varrez screamed and bolted for the door. The others stumbled after, but the creature was able to corner Mason. It swung its arm and slashed him with a serrated vine-like growth, throwing him to the wall. The creature leapt at Mason and began mutilating him, slashing him with claws and spines, opening as many wounds as it could. Blood spray slapped the wall, and Mason cried desperately for help while vainly shielding himself with mangled arms.

No one helped. They were banging on the door, prying at it, yelling for anybody to hear. Varrez in her panic kept hitting the door release, despite knowing that quarantine protocols had it firmly locked.

Hornens smacked a com-display on the bulkhead, opening a channel to the bridge.

“Captain, Captain! Open the door, it’s in here with us! Captain, can you hear me? Open the goddamn door!”

“I can’t!” Hindel said. “Barrens has to override it from the outside!”

“Get him, hurry!”

“I’m on it, hang on!”

Having torn Mason apart and shredded his major organs, the creature turned its attention to the screaming mass of victims it had to choose from, and closed in.

Ausmith grabbed a fire extinguisher near the door and sprayed at it, slowing it, though not stopping it. Yelling, he attacked it with the empty bottle but was swatted to the deck, blood gushing from his mouth, his jaw hanging limply by its tendons. It was his turn to be gored, buying the others precious few seconds with his losing struggle against their infected crewmate.

Barrens and his men rushed to the door and overrode the lockdown, standing aside as the others spilled out into the corridor a screaming tangle of hysteria. The SAR team formed up and leveled their shock rifles, firing at the abomination just as it finished mutilating Ausmith. Static rounds struck it in the torso and shoulder, making it wail and crawl away, slipping back up into the ceiling for escape, leaving blood dripping from the vent.

“Recovery!” Barrens said.

His men moved in, Davis standing guard under the vent while Duvin and Farzen checked their casualties.

“Mason’s gone, real gone” Farzen said, his voice high and shaking.

“So’s Ausmith” Duvin said. “Fuckin’ Christ.”

“Get the rest to safety!” Barrens said. “Leave the bodies!”

“We should check them for injuries first” Davis said.

“Do it!”

Davis nodded and sprinted out to the corridor. Barrens contacted Hindel.

“Mason and Ausmith are dead. Talgold’s still on the loose, so we’re coming up to A-deck. Seal off everything behind us, and I mean everything!”

“Will do” Hindel said. “Bring them up!”

Barrens called for Farzen and Duvin, and they rejoined Davis in the corridor. The civilian crew were huddled and shaken, but fairly well composed considering.

“Any of them hurt?”

“No sir.”

“Good. Farzen and I will take point. You and Duvin have the rear.”

The SAR team escorted the civilian crew swiftly to B-deck’s terminus, splitting up to use both elevators; Davis and Duvin taking Han and Varrez, Barrens and Farzen taking Hornens and Walsh. The creature that was Talgold, far from being killed or satiated, crawled out from one of the ladder wells and lunged at them, screeching as it attacked. Farzen pivoted and fired, aiming wide and missing. It lashed at him and struck him across the helmet, shattering his faceplate and sending him reeling. It grabbed him and threw him over its shoulder, going for the rest trapped in the elevator; it slashed at them, tearing a jagged gash along Walsh’s arm. Barrens pulled him back and fired point-blank into its toothy throat, forcing it to retreat as the doors closed, their elevator ascending to A-deck.

Breathing hard, Barrens shouted and banged his fist against the doors.

“Farzen, Farzen goddamn it!”

Walsh held his arm and hissed through his teeth as the entire sleeve turned red, and blood began dripping from his fingers. Hornens looked at him warily, leaning away.

“That’s a pretty bad cut, doc.”

“It’s nothing” Walsh said. “Absolutely nothing.”

The elevators opened to A-deck, locking in place as Hindel prepared to seal them off from the rest of the ship. Junctions were closed, covers were slid over the ladder wells, and primary power was cut for good measure. Only A-deck would be allowed to function at full capacity. The engines groaned, shuddered, and faded out, leaving the Wayfarer to float listlessly in orbit over a dead world, all but dead herself.

The survivors filed out into the terminus, stunned and scared, but glad to be alive. The elevators closed and sat motionless. Blunt thumping, followed by soft scratching and low growling, could be heard below their feet.

“Gather them up” Barrens said to Davis, now the most senior of his men.

“We’re moving as far from any entry below deck as we can get. Main Fore’s right behind the bridge, right?”

“I think so” Davis said.

“We’re moving there, then.”

“Yes sir” Davis said, looking around. “Where’s Farzen?”

“He…didn’t make it.”

Hearing that from the sergeant was a shock to him, but Davis’ training quickly suppressed it. Any words he had were stuck in his throat, and swallowed back down.

“I’ll go get Duvin” he said.

Hindel ran out from the bridge to meet them, sweat dotting her brow, her environment suit disheveled.

“Is this everyone?”

“Most” Barrens said. “Farzen was killed by the elevators.”

“I’m sorry to hear that” Hindel said.

Barrens nodded. “Dr. Walsh is wounded. I recommend isolated treatment in sickbay.”

“Of course” Hindel said. “In the meantime…we’ll think of something we can do.”

While most of the surviving crew were taken to the forward compartment by the bridge, Walsh was confined to sickbay and left to the care of Dr. Han. Wearing a hazmat suit, he cleaned and bandaged Walsh’s arm, after taking blood and tissue samples for study.

“Think that’s a good idea?” Walsh said.

“Given our situation, or yours rather” Han said. “It couldn’t hurt to figure out the infection’s rate of spread, growth, or consumption of living tissue. Don’t worry, I’ll have my eyes on it.”

“I’m sure that’s what the science officer on the Wanderer thought” Walsh said.

“They didn’t know what they were dealing with” Han said.

Walsh chuckled. “Neither do we.”

Han didn’t respond as he finished cleaning and wrapping the wound. “If you need anything, you have mine and the captain’s coms.”

“Don’t worry about me” Walsh said. “Quarantine’s actually pretty comfy, once you get used to it.”

“Oh? Then I’ll just take my samples and be on my way.”

Han got up to leave, but Walsh stopped him.

“There is one more thing, if you don’t mind.”

He lowered his voice, and sighed. “If it seems I’ve started to…turn, as it were, and I’m beyond help or saving…could you talk to Sergeant Barrens about, well, you know?”

“It won’t come to that” Han said. “But I’ll pass it on.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

With that, Dr. Han left sickbay.

#story #sci fi #science fiction #horror #forebode #sarissophori

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seokoloqy · 6 years

Text

X-Files / jjk pt. 1

Genre: Grim Reaper!AU

Pairing: Jungkook x Y/N

Warning: minor charactor death

Word Count: 2.5K

Part 1/ Part 2

Summary: There is a sliver of heaven that is cloaked in darkness, a territory, belonging to those who conquer and destroy the innocent souls entangled in their sticky web of cruelty and deceit. To be free of the monsters would mean a price, a promise, for something in return; the price of another innocent life in place of yours. The weak, pitiful minds of men can be manipulated to believe that immortality can be achieved through the sacrifice of others. The slaughter of innocent lambs to fuel the fire of their selfish desire brings out the monstrous creatures trapped within every man. Where blood is spilled, death will follow with a vengeance for justice. He will inflict pain on men who foolishly believe they have the power to control life and death.

“We’ve got a case.” Your monotone partner in crime, Detective Min Yoongi, tossed a file down onto your desk and took a long sip of his freshly brewed coffee. “Here’s a copy.” He said, shoving another folder into your purse without permission.

You picked up the thick folder filled with the gruesome photos of a killer’s latest victim. You spread the contents of the folder out on your desk and read the new report aloud.

“According to an eyewitness, a man was spotted in a cemetery standing over a young girl with an axe in hand when out of the blue another man appeared behind him like,” you looked up at Yoongi quizzically, he gestured for you to continue. “...magic. The strange man then proceeded to grab onto the unsuspecting man’s neck and suffocate him to death.”

The story became stranger as you continued to read. Witnesses say the victims are all grabbed by the neck as if they were being strangled, but photos of the victims tell otherwise. They were all decomposed corpses by the time an officer was at the scene within the hour. It was impossible and unexplainable for someone to rot so quickly as if they had been dead for years. The man behind these bizarre deaths was nowhere to be found after the events nor could any of his physical features be described. It was like he did not exist.

You sat in mortified silence as you stole a glance at Yoongi. He seemed to be heavily focused on the corpses in the photo as he took another sip of his coffee. He really believed the whole story, magic and all. Finally, you broke the silence.

“Yoongi, why do you trust eyewitness accounts from complete crack heads? No one appears out of thin air and completely sucks the life out of someone. It’s- It’s science fiction! Why do you always insist on taking cases plucked right out of an X-Files episode? Can’t we do something, I don’t know, real?” It wasn’t the first time your partner dropped a case on your desk that sounded like a wild goose chase. There was a vampire out stealing blood from hospitals, some ghoul terrorizing the nightlife, an extremely hairy man that looked like a werewolf prancing around town, it was a never-ending cycle of supernatural with Yoongi. There was a reason he hadn’t been fired yet, he was extremely good at his job when he wasn’t out hunting cryptids. These were only the cases he took on during his free time.

“I have an idea of what it could be, but not its motives.” He said, ignoring your rant. He pushed aside the police records and the coroner's autopsy reports to pull out a photo torn from a book. It was a skeleton in black robes carrying a scythe.

“The grim reaper.” You scoffed, grabbing your bag and making your way to the elevators. You have had enough of his nonsense for one day and wanted nothing more than to relax at home with a glass of wine.“So, what? He’s coming to take people’s souls?”

You stepped onto the elevators with a sardonic laugh and pressed the ground floor button. Before the doors could close, Yoongi pushed the doors aside with one hand and looked at you from under his dark fringe.

“Laugh all you want, but I’m not joking Y/N.” He scowled and released the elevator doors. He still clutched the photo in his hands. It was a reaper and he was sure of it whether Y/N would believe it or not.

Daylight was approaching and just as the sun rose over the horizon a panic set into the quiet town. The mangled and tortured body of Cornelius Mason Cavitch, otherwise know as Eli to his peers, was found buried in a shallow grave dug up in the town cemetery. The town was already buzzing with the news of Eli’s horrific death by sunrise. His grieving family could not step outside without hearing about the way their son’s body was found rotting in the Earth with his heart missing from his gaping chest. The town was in mass hysteria. Who could do something like this? Was it a stranger who drifted into town undetected? In a small town where everyone knew everyone, crimes like these didn’t just happen to star high school athletes like Eli. The town buzzed with only one question after Eli’s death. Would it happen again? And it did.

The same town, the same crime brought up the idea that Jungkook was dealing with a serial killer. He despised them for what they did. Taking away the innocent lives of men, women, and children too quickly and creating the unnecessary work of cleaning up the mess of bodies they left behind.

As he walked the path towards his destination he heard only the crunch of his footsteps and soft rainfall as he walked on the dead grass of the town cemetery. In the Halfway everything was dead. It was another plane of existence where life did not exist. Only the dead or soon to be dead could be found in the Halfway. As a reaper, Jungkook could exist in the Living and Halfway planes of existence.

As Jungkook strolled down the dead path he spotted the latest victim of the town’s infamous killer. There she was, kneeling in the freshly dug grave with her hands and fingernails covered in soil. She thrust her hands back into the muddy Earth and let out a sob that echoed across the emptiness of the graveyard. No one in the Halfway could save her and no one in the Living would dare to either.

Do not interfere with death. A reaper’s number one rule, but it was impossible for Jungkook to resist the temptation. These heathens deserved to die at the hands of their greatest weapon. Jungkook refused to be a slave to those who inflict pain and suffering onto undeserving souls. He would rip the souls from the bodies of the damned and throw them into the flaming pits of Hell where they would rot for all eternity.

“Please...don’t.” The girl sobbed to no one he could see. She pleaded with the invisible man and begged for her life. It was just her luck that a disobedient reaper was strolling up the path to greet her. She would see him come up behind the man, a wave of relief would flood over her as she sees her hero, then Jungkook would enter the land of the Living and wrap his hands around the thick neck of her would be killer and suck the life out of him. The girl would scream and the fear she once felt for the man laying, dead, on the cold ground would come back stronger than ever. She would be terrified of Jungkook because he was death and death was feeling rebellious.

“Let us help you with this case! It sounds fun.” Jimin grabbed onto your blazer and pouted with his puppy dog eyes which were easy to fall for. Jimin could get you to buckle under any circumstance with those brown eyes begging for attention. It worked when you were children and it worked now at 21.

“I don’t know how you can help. It’s going to be hard without a real suspect.” You sighed, rubbing your temples and slouching back into the worn out couch. Yoongi wasn’t going to let go of this case anytime soon and you weren’t getting anywhere with it. There were no solid leads and the girl who was rescued from the scene couldn’t form coherent sentences for the officers to get a good enough understanding of what had taken place.

“Oh, come on Y/N that’s quitter talk and you’re no quitter.” Hoseok slapped you on the back and gave you an encouraging smile. You could tell he was trying to uplift your sour mood.

Working with a man who believes in the supernatural was proving to be hard work. You had only been partners with him for several months after his last partner had been murdered while they were tracking a suspect who caught wind of their investigation. Yoongi was reluctant to take on a bright-eyed and ready partner so soon after the incident and would distance himself by sending you on coffee runs often. Until one day you had proven yourself by catching a killer in under a week. You were unsure if proving yourself to Yoongi was any better than bringing him coffee every day and being ignored as he buried himself in casework. Now he trusted you with all his unusual cases and had you working from dusk till dawn chasing after everything that went bump in the night.

Reluctantly, you handed the file over to Jimin and sat back while he scanned the documents and photos. There were a few gasps and gagging at the sight of the rotting bodies. Jimin had snuck a few peeks over your shoulders to look at other crime scene photos before but none of them compared to the ones in his hands. Their bodies were rotten flesh, almost slipping off the bone and paler than paper. Their eyes caved in until they were just dark crevices. Their faces were unrecognizable and skeleton-like with hollowed out cheekbones.

“What the hell could do something like this?” Jimin questioned as he continued flipping through the photos. On cue, a photo of Yoongi’s grim reaper fell out. Hoseok reached down to grab it, he took one look at the picture and laughed.

“Is this what you’re looking for, Y/N?” Hoseok reached out to pass you the photo but it was snatched from his hands by Jimin. Hoseok gave him a warning look.

“Sorry,” Jimin muttered. “But I think I know how to find your killer.”

After a ridiculous 30 minute Google search of grim reapers, Jimin declared he could take you to what the internet called ‘the Halfway’ through some dark web magic he read off a website.

“You’re insane, Park Jimin! There’s no way in hell some random spell you took off the internet written by twelve-year-olds is going to work.” You groaned. “And since when did you start believing in this nonsense too? I thought you were the one who nicknamed Yoongi the witch hunter.”

Jimin stared at the website intently and did not acknowledge you until your rant was over. He calmly turned towards you with his puppy dog eyes and smiled. “We should at least cover every option Y/N.”

You had no idea how you ended up sitting in a circle surrounded by candles and strange symbols, holding hands with Jimin and Hoseok. You reluctantly agreed to follow along with their plan, no matter how ridiculous, just to cross off the possibility of the killer actually being a grim reaper.

“Close your eyes, Y/N.” Hoseok whispered and concentrated on the foreign chant falling from Jimin’s lips.

Rolling your eyes, you played along and relaxed yourself thinking you’d be there for a while. You focused on the strange words Jimin repeated from the glowing laptop screen. He never stumbled over any words or slowed down to pronounce them. It sounded like he had recited it before, but that was ridiculous. Jimin never took interest in magic or the supernatural. The closest he’s ever gotten was dressing up as a vampire for Halloween when they were children but that was it.

As your thoughts drifted Jimin finished his spell and there was an eerie silence following.

“Jimin? Hoseok?” You called and there was no response. Their hands were gone and left you with a cold loneliness. You opened your eyes to find your same apartment but there were no lights, the candles were unlit, and Jimin and Hoseok nowhere to be found.

“Ha-ha,” you mocked, looking around your apartment for any sign of the two boys. It was quiet in the living room so you tiptoed into the kitchen expecting to find them crouched behind your counter, but they were not there.

“This isn’t funny guys. I’m not going to fall for your dumb prank so easily.” You called into the echoing darkness.

The moon had risen overhead and shone behind you, casting a white glow around the room. There was nothing but silence in response and the eeriness sent a shiver up your spine. Not even the bustling nightlife echoed in your ears. You rushed to the window and looked below where there was no one in sight walking the streets or cars whizzing by. You had forgotten about Jimin and Hoseok when you raced out the door to figure out what had happened to everyone. There was no way that a silly spell Jimin found on the internet could have been real. It was impossible.

“Hello? Anyone there?” You called out to no one. The sound of your shoes crunching the dead leaves under your feet responded to your desperate cries. The usually vibrant trees outside your apartment complex were all bare and stripped of leaves. Street lamps and store lights were lit but not a soul in sight. A blue glow from the cafe sign illuminated your path enough to see the empty streets.

“Where is your reaper?” A voice answered from the dark alleyway. You spun around towards the source of the voice and a man walked out from the shadows. You stood stricken by the scowl on his face. The brown hair pushed away from his face displayed the dark expression he wore.

“R-reaper?” You repeated.

Could this man be as crazy as Yoongi and Jimin? He didn’t look suspicious in a white tee shirt and blue denim jeans.

The man surged forwards suddenly and he stood in front of you intimidatingly. Close enough for you to feel the heat radiating off his body and the smell of his cologne stung your nostrils. You lifted your hand to shove him away and tried telling him off for invading your personal space. Before your palm could touch the fabric of his shirt, he leapt away as if you would give him the plague.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He hissed, grabbing hold of your wrist.

His hand sent a shock throughout your body and everything was numb. You could feel yourself grow weaker like the life was being drawn out of you. You fell to your knees, unable to support yourself any longer. Air could not reach your lungs. It had you gasping for breath desperately. Soon the world turned into a blur.

As soon as Jungkook realized that you were not dead, he released your arm immediately. How could someone belonging to the Living be in the Halfway? He wanted to reach out and ask you how you ended up in the Halfway but if he touched you again he would risk killing you. His only choice was to call the angel.

Your face hit the pavement and just before your eyes shut, you heard a deep soothing voice whisper, “You’ll be alright, sweetheart.”

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1hp-1mp · 5 years

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so here’s the exact transcript for the voice over for the review i wrote on the blair witch game, the video won’t be coming out until next month to co-incide with the 12/13 other games i’m doing this halloween. but i wanted to share this here.

blair witch is a psychological first person horror game about a man and his dog who get lost searching for a missing boy in the infamous woods in burkitsville Maryland, this review will contain spoilers.

atmosphere the opening moments of the game are fairly light-hearted even when the other members of the search party are talking about the legend of the blair witch, everyone is joking about but the tone changes quite quickly, as the radio chatter dies down and the sun fades from sight. the game seems lonelier and emptier and this forest certainly has it's moods, radiant and beautiful, murky and mysterious and then dark and lonely, but the whole game i felt like I was waiting for something, everything was set up, the music played these harrowing pieces, the forest was dark and empty but these weird and confusing events started taking place and suddenly the immersion is totally broken for me. After the first hour had gone there were only a few brief moments where the atmosphere of the game was really noticeable, my biggest gripe against the game was how long it dragged out certain sections and how often i was ripped out of the spooky forest to relive war trauma or bad interactions with his girlfriend. everything that could distract you from where you were did, be it reading texts and chatting to jess on the phone or my furry comrade, bullet the service dog rolling around in the leaves and barking two feet away from me, the game just didn't stay consistent. no harry masons.

scares the game alternates between traditional jumpscares and being weird. there were two main types of enemies, the tree people who you could defeat by shining your flashlight on them alan wake style, at first they were pretty frightening, but once you understand what you have to do, they just become an inconvenience. later in the game, in the iconic house in the forest there was another type of enemy that was genuinely frightening until it became overused, the camcorder you find reveals them as glowing red on it's small screen but you can't point your flashlight at them because that enrages them and you die, however in the final part of the game player character ellis ties his flashlight to his camera so you have to turn both off so you don't anger these things and then... you can't see. it seemed like the only option i had was to bump into walls in pitch black darkness and die a few times until i made it out of that area, this was just irritating. the jumpscares were used pretty sparingly and most of them didn't feel too cheap, the most frightening part of the game for me was the foggy forest with things running around in the low visibility and using the camcorder to identify the monsters and avoid triggering them like walking around in a minefield blind. the moments where bullet leaves ellis and what i'm assuming is his ptsd strikes, were alarming to begin with because i thought i would die, but then it was just over and nothing became of it, the weird events were just par for the course because that's what bloober team do, in their other games like observer this worked fine but it feels crammed into this, suddenly transitioning from day to night and things changing form and shape are all really tiring ideas that they themselves have overused, ultimately in it's short run time blair witch startled me a few times and that's about it. still no harry masons.

sound design. the sound design was great, these drawn out haunting pieces sound ancient and evoke feelings of isolation and despair as you explore the forest, mixed with low rumbles and outdoor ambience or lack thereof and you've got what would have made a great atmosphere, the voices in Ellis's head all sounded pretty good through headphones. every leaf crunch and splosh as you stepped in a puddle sounded realistic enough. that's one harry masons

gore. the tapes you find throughout the game, mostly obscured any gore in violent scenes and even when ellis was asked to rip the skin off of a deers body to make a symbol, it was done off camera which felt odd, since there was a lot of detail put into the ripped apart body right in front of you. it's the jarring gore that's supposed to surprise the player but seeing the corpses of two men i'd never seen alive didn't really hit home at all. a few mangled corpses of people and animals left laying around the forest were expected really, nothing like they described in the original film or anything that really seemed ritualistic like you'd expect which was disappointing. that's still one harry masons.

story. ellis goes into the woods with his service dog to help local search parties find missing boy peter, after finding peter's cap and following the trail things suddenly go south as ellis starts blacking out and experiencing hallucinations and time distortions. the game's subplot of ellis' ptsd clashes hard against the vague paranormal goings on in the forest and the abilities of his magic camcorder that turns back time, not to mention the killer on the loose. the story is a mess of a lot of different ideas that push the blair witch scenario to the back and it all feels so very unnecessary and doesn't fit in with anything the original blair witch project established to begin with. it didn't feel like the beings of the forest were messing with you as much as it felt like your character was falling apart under pressure that wasn't there. the final score 1 out of 5 harry masons.

blair witch starts off very promising but by the later game becomes is steady downhill decline into a forced madness of weird mechanics, seizure inducing visuals and unnecessarily drawn out sections with little to do but wander around and wait for it to end. i did not like this game.

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