"All that we see or seem..." - November 4th, 1888

[mouthbreathing]

Date: November 4th, 1888
Time: 12:30 AM
Location: Second floor hallway
Characters: Warsman and ultimately Robin Mask, but also open to everyone! [OPEN/CLOSED]

Summary: Warsman reacts less than positively to the fungus' spores and finds himself overwhelmed by paranoia in the hallway, taking it out (aggressively) on those around him- including the one person he trusts more than anyone.
Warnings: Event-related horror, violence.


In the hallway, Warsman staggered.

The fear beat against his skull in a brass knuckle one-two, and in between the thuds he could feel his own heart kicking at his throat like a frightened horse. His head had been a dreamy hurricane of stranger's faces and jeering voices only a few minutes before but now he wasn't sure if he'd even opened his eyes at all. What time was it, even? Deep down, he knew he was at Aungier House- he knew he was in the hallway- he knew he was by his bedroom--

But there were so many shadows, so many dark gaps in his vision for things to hide in while he was distracted, and he'd seen so many things in his dreams... he'd spent so many years wrestling (boxing) that it seemed inconceivable to imagine a world like the one he found himself in now that wasn't about to turn on him. More alarmingly, he felt slow and stupid, as though he'd been drugged, and that thought only frightened him all the more; he hadn't had a sensible thought since he'd awoken. If he'd awoken.

He fell drunkenly against a wall with tendrils at his back, but his senses were almost totally self-absorbed. All he could hear was the harsh, shallow sound of his own breathing, that metal ko... ho... sigh that seemed to haunt him day and night and that now commanded his full attention in its inhumanity. But if all he could hear was himself, didn't that mean that just about anything could creep up on him? And with the state he was in, he was perfectly, painfully vulnerable.

Something flickered in the corner of his vision. Warsman's eyes flared a searing red through the darkness and he rounded on it fiercely, fists raised. "Show yourself-!" His voice cracked like old china.

Comments

[puppy_lancer]

Lancer too stumbles through the house, half fatigued and half wanting to tear something apart. He has to get to his mistress, but he doesn't know if she's even here. After all, this entire place might just be a dream.

He stops in his tracks when he hears a voice. Unlike the whispered snatches or general clamor ringing at his ears, this one is clear, though strangely echoing.

"How about you come out first? Unless you're an Assassin, you shouldn't hide in the shadows like some coward!"

For the moment, he doesn't even notice the inconsistency in his own speech.

[anachronisticbilliards]

Shirogane doesn't really have a better grasp on the situation. His sleep was fitful, full of dreams of losing himself in a mask and of building-sized metal titans pummeling one another. Then there was whatever this plant-thing was...it had to be a plot. Something was out to get them all.

He really wasn't in the best frame of mind when he saw Warsman there. Something about that figure was unnatural, which only heightened Shirogane's aggressive stance. "...Org?"

[gentlemanliest]

Robin was used to dreams of implacable noise and panic and fury. Even the most fierce and iron-willed of soldiers would, at some point, find themselves waking with wracking cries, drenched in sweat. But this was his first in years- and more disturbing than any he had ever had before. Searing hot pain in his chest and his vision fading in a dizzying flurry of bubbles. Eyes going dull and bloodshot as every vein erupts- he could feel the prickle of each- and bleeds out. Bitter cold and a spreading numbness that crept up over his body until there was nothing left of him but the sound of ringing metal. He awoke in a frenzy, clasping at his body through the quilt to make quite sure that it was still there, that he existed.

With heavy legs, he forced himself to his feet. He couldn’t stay in here. The darkness was oppressive and lighting a candle wasn’t a task that he trusted his hands, trembling and damp and fading from- no, they were real. He flexed them, making each finger move separately before allowing himself to be convinced of their existence.

It was the sound of a door opening and closing that made him look up and, to his shame, he did so with a short gasp. Warsman? He needed to see him. Maybe doing so would ease the flood of unfamiliar images and sounds reverberating through his ears.

Robin paused by the door, only for a moment to rake a hand through his hair. His mask. How foolish of him to forget it. The thought slipped unbidden into his mind and then away again before he could fully register it as alien and he opened his door without stopping to consider it.

“Warsman?”