lifeaftr | October Event: Crystal Clear

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October Event: Crystal Clear

OCTOBER EVENT: CRYSTAL CLEAR

Who: Everyone!
What: Your exploration takes a turn.
When: October 20th - 26th
Where: The caverns situated underneath Ensō
Warnings: Character death, body horror, descriptions of illness. Please mark any additional warnings as needed!

Part I: Attack, Attack!
Congratulations! You've successfully gone where no Storyteller has gone or can go, and woken up in the network of subterranean caves buried beneath the island's mass, along with your designated supplies: a miner's cap, a week's worth of food, and both your knapsacks and their collective contents. And the further along you go, the vaster and more sprawling these almost labyrinthian tunnels seem to get. There’s certainly evidence that civilization once thrived here - old buildings hewed from the rock of the cave walls may very well contain old tools, or even salvageable supplies. Careful examination of structures and cavern walls alike will reveal sigils resembling those carved on the doors, each of which will need to be destroyed entirely at the Storyteller's behest. Whatever was down here was advanced enough to dwell without sunlight. But that raises a rather pertinent question...

If there were once people here, where did they all go?

Fortunately, one will soon discover that there's plenty of natural light underground, exhibited by the crystalline growths on the walls. None of them appear to be dangerous, and those attracted to shiny things might even find them useful for picking up or chipping away in order to better light their way. The crystal has about the thickness and hardness of quartz, and bathes its surroundings in a luminous green glow.

The closer you come to the center of the mass, however, the denser the crystalline growths seem to become, until one has to be quite ingenious in navigating them. Eventually, they'll simply be too dense to be squeezed through, even by the smallest and most agile of your number.

That’s when they it will start to become apparent.

Something in the crystal is moving.

Huge chunks of crystal are starting to detach from the center and move slowly, inexorably, toward those unfortunate enough to have explored the caverns. Unmistakably humanoid silhouettes, distorted by awful crystalline growths, most of which have completely swallowed any recognizable features.

...most.

The good news is that the creatures can be shattered, and beaten back. The bad news? Well...

Part II: Retreat, Retreat!
Those who get close enough to the crystalized beasts to get a good look at them will soon make a horrifying discovery - the fact that, underneath those thick layers of luminescent quartz, there was once something that might have been recognizable as human. These quartz monsters aren't native to this region, or indeed, to any region of the island at all. They were formed.

Formed out of the very crystal that you explorers have been touching, picking up, sleeping on, and just generally remaining in prolonged contact with ever since you set foot down here.

Indeed, anyone who has been in contact with the crystal for extended periods of time - sleeping on it or getting dealt a swipe from one of the crystalized monsters, for example - will find that tiny, quartz-like growths have started to sprout on their skin as well. Once the virus has taken root, it will spread rapidly until it has swallowed you whole. Indeed, the unpleasant symptoms will reveal themselves within twenty-four hours of the initial exposure: in addition to clusters of crystalline growths pocking the affected areas, the inflicted will begin to experience intense stabbing pains all over as the crystal begins to grow - both inside and out.

The transformation is slow and arduous and painful, and vocalization tends to be one of the first things to go once the crystals sprout in the mouth and throat. Within the span of about three days since the initial exposure, the transformation will have sheathed most of the physical body in crystal entirely, sealing the victim in a humanoid cast of glasslike green.

It has not been confirmed if the inflicted are sentient and aware of their state of being once they are completely consumed. Whatever their intentions, those are easily overridden by the virus's innate desire to spread to as many organisms as possible.

As this is an event with a high risk of death, the Storyteller will impose death penalties for one week only. Additionally, deaths succumbed during the event count towards the character's total. There is no known cure to the virus, but that doesn't mean characters can't or shouldn't try!

Event Timeline

[ ♆ ] October 20th: Spelunking begins. Points of interest will be provided.
[ ♆ ] October 22nd: The Quartzalcoatl make their presence known.
[ ♆ ] October 24th: The final sigils are broken, and the Storyteller will return all uninfected to the Islets.
[ ♆ ] October 26th: All deceased will be returned at midday, suffering from a reduced death penalty.

Event Specifics

[ ♆ ] If your character perishes in this event, please let us know!
[ ♆ ] For those who opted out, please see the top-level below!
[ ♆ ] Item claims can be found on the OOC plotting post here!

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Frisk stops moving before Chara even halts them, having caught the crushed bits of crystal at the same moment. Surreptitiously, they slide their own chunk of crystal into their pocket, dimming the light around them by a slim margin. Every bit helps. As they draw their hand back up, it catches on their shirt and they wince. Their eyes glide to the thin cut they'd sustained prying the gem out of the wall all that time ago.]

[Oh.]

[...]

[They don't have time for it. Clenching their fist to hide the line of turquoise-hued grit, Frisk drops their hand at their side and looks up in time to read Tim's gesture. They're still, and they listen for the approach of something unwelcome. It's something they're very good at.]

[But they hear nothing.]

[They unclench their fist and tug out their knife. It feels like road rash hot in their palm, but they ignore it; their gaze instinctively goes to Chara, seeing if their Partner comes up differently.]

[They look from Tim to Frisk, pushing their palm out in a request for them to stay put as they slowly slink forward, swallowed up by the darkness.

With the dim crystals along the walls their only source of light, it's difficult to make out too far ahead of them...but it's quiet. Still. There's no shifts in the shadows, no grating noises- then quite suddenly, they still, tensing at a mass on the floor.

...]

It's fine. Whatever happened here, the fight's already over.

[A burst of orange hued light, as they hold a knife aloft. Blinking rapidly, Chara crouches- before the massive figure of a crystal creature, strewn across the ground.

There's specks of blood on the cavern for, highlighted with a dark gleam, in some places. Most of it has already dried.]

Whoever took on the thing didn't make it out without injury.

[Somehow, none of this is very reassuring, particularly since they’ve been relying on those crystals to light their way, so to speak. He glances Frisk’s way, but their glowing fragment of the stuff is gone. Stowed, maybe. Or discarded.]

[Either way, nothing about this sits right.]

You think that stuff might be - I dunno. Alive?

[He nods dubiously at the shards of green scattered across the smears of drying brown-marooon.]

Either that, or someone was carrying a hell of a lot of it when they got jumped.

[Alive?]

[Frisk swallows a wave of gritty saliva. Their eyes, having never left Chara until that gleam of yellow flashed on the knife, bear into the crystals with glazed uncertainty, trying to see something there beyond their comprehension. The blood, too. Something doesn't... feel right. About any of this.]

[Their palm burns. Frisk passes their knife to their other hand and stare down at the cut, gleaming like a trail of glitter down their dark skin.]

[Crystals, and -- the blood --]

[They suck in a breath.]

Chara. Don't touch it.

[They go to answer Tim, when Frisk cuts in before them. A note of something in their voice that cannot be ignored- the type of thing they should not be capable of, yet are.

It is the second time they have heard that voice from their Partner's lips. Surprising enough to steal their attention entirely, looking towards the other child and taking in the way they're holding themself, looking down at their hand where they--]

Frisk.

[They hope that they sound more calm than they feel; struggling against the sudden knot of anxiety in their chest, the bubble of love that pushes itself up their throat, stealing away the rhythm of their breaths.

Their Partner has been ill, the past few days. A cave is no place for it. Gradually, they've continued getting worse.

But they weren't sick until after they came down here. After they began to explore.

After touching those crystals.]

Show me your hand.

[Don't touch it.]

[Everything pulls together to form an unsettling pattern in the same moment it occurs to Chara, in the same moment they speak aloud with a nervous spurt of sound hissed out between their teeth. Frisk, who's been carrying a crystal in their hands to light the way. Frisk, the only of them to remain in prolonged contact with the innocuous fragment. Frisk, the only one of them who's fallen sick.]

[He recognizes what viruses are. He's the catalyst of most of them. He knows it, and this - ]

[He knows this.]

[Show me your hand.]

Shit.

[He lets his knapsack slide to the ground in a protracted hiss of cloth against cloth, with the loud thunk of its weight hitting stone. He still has it somewhere. He still has it - bottle of rubbing alcohol, and the last of the shreds of blanket he hasn't yet cannibalized for bandages.]

[It's not a first aid kit, but it's all he has.]

[Show me your hand.]

[Shit.]

[And then things seem like they're moving very quickly, or else Frisk seems to slow down; there's a loud thud as Tim goes digging for something, making them cringe, and Chara's soft order rattles in their head like a death knell. They slide their knife into its sheath and use their wrist to push back their damp bangs.]

[Show me your hand.]

[Frisk coughs. When their teeth start chattering again, they feel grit, cracking between their molars like bits of eggshell.]

[It's alive. It's in them. This isn't like wolfsbane poison; they can feel it, now, shifting in their blood, crystallizing their lungs into geodes. If it's alive, it's... it's probably contagious. Their gaze moves from Chara to Tim and back again, a slow panic rimmed in the swollen veins of their sclera.]

[Show me your hand.]

[Frisk snatches it back against their chest.]

No.

Frisk.

[It wasn't a question, Partner. They grit their teeth, fighting down their own panic as they step forwards.

Do you think they don't know what you're doing, Partner? Trying to stifle your own concern, shrinking away from allowing it to become obvious, what's happened to you. The game is already over, Frisk. They know.

And they're going to see their hand, even if Chara has to wrestle it away from their body.]

Your hand. Now.

[Shit, shit, shit, shit.]

[He's already bracing himself, winding one strip of blanket around his knuckles so he can wrench the remaining scraps of it into long, workable strips with the rending sound of tearing cloth. There's the acrid sting of alcohol when he uncorks the thick bottle, mercifully intact, and starts to soak the makeshift bandage immediately.]

Chara. Listen.

[If it's a virus, if it's anything like the shit that lives in his head - they can't afford to let themselves be drawn close, now, can they?]

We don't know how it spreads. It might be contagious.

[He has a bit of blanket soaked in rubbing alcohol. A disinfectant. A surface level bandaid to slap over the problem. It might help. More likely, it won't do a damn thing.]

[But he offers it out, regardless.]

[They hear the demand in forceful color; suck in a breath that doesn't expand enough, and their chest shudders with heavy coughs that feel as if sandbags are shifting inside them. Their sleeve tugs away from their mouth, this time smeared with droplets of dark liquid and a glossy sheen.]

[Their eyes leap from Chara to Tim. At the bit of cloth soaked in rubbing alcohol -- a waste. It's wasted on them. And even if it weren't, they don't dare get close enough to him to snatch it from his grasp. Faintly they shake their head, taking another step away from them both, the ground lurching at an oddly faster pace now that there's sufficient adrenaline in their contaminated blood.]

[Chara's not going to care if it's contagious. They won't care if it kills them, like it has to be killing Frisk. This is bad. Frustration and panic pushes their voice out of their throat, raw, as much of their ugliness as they can muster, because they know Chara hates it.]

Stop. Don't to͜ṳ̶̩̞̬c̳̺̗h͇̣ ̥͕͉me.

[If Frisk isn't going to snatch up the rag, they will- looking to Tim with an expression that clearly states what Frisk internally fears. It's not the expression of someone who gives a damn- it's anger, haphazardly slapped over their own panic as their world narrows completely to the two people closest to them.]

Shut up.

[They don't care. They don't c̶̪̠a̘͓̜̫ŕè. If Tim continues cautioning them, they will ignore him. If Frisk continues to step back, they will follow.

They aren't going to let this steal Frisk away from them.]

We're going to figure this out, Partner. But you have to show me.

Calm down.

[He snaps it out at the both of them, at the hideous twist of sound that stutters at the smoothness of ordinary speech, something laced with crimson and static and a lower, deeper tone humming just beneath. Neither of them are listening to each other anymore.]

[No one is listening to anyone.]

We don't know. Okay? We don't know what's happening here. But we need to calm down and think, okay?

[Deep breath. Take this slowly. Rationally. Rational, like he fucking well isn't.]

Frisk. Can we just...see it? You don't have to touch either of us, but just to know how it looks.

[The LV in their voice backfires, they should have known it would; it feels hot in their throat, and their Partner is using it so it feels hot in their ears, so that everything in them down to their stomach is just unbearably molten. Frisk shudders out a breath, clamps their jaw and shrinks at the brutal command to shut up. Shut up, Tim.]

[Shut up, Frisk.]

[They don't want him to shut up, though. In some way, Tim's voice is a grounding force among the near-panicked and higher pitched tones of themself and Chara, and it's all Frisk can do not to escape into it; like somehow, that deeper and calmer intonation can soothe off the agonizing feeling of hot, liquid concrete filling their veins to bursting.]

[It sears a throbbing path through their hand, and they hiss, gripping at their sweater. Fear leaps through them when their fingers don't respond -- when, instead, they collect a vague sensation similar to dragging unevenly-clipped nails across fabric. More out of surprise than compliance with Tim's request, Frisk tugs their palm away from their chest, holding it flat in the air and staring.]

[At the line of crystalline growths spurting through the cut, thin and patterned like frost, glowing dark orange through a sheen of blood.]

[Slowly, Chara hisses through their teeth- an angry, feral sound, that's as much about their fury as it is the fear that leaps in their chest, practically choking them. That. How do they fix that?

They don't. They don't want to consider the answer. The true answer, of course. That they don't.

Slowly, as slowly as they dare, Chara attempts to get closer. Attempts to use Frisk's surprise to their advantage, so they can- do something. Put the damp rag over it. Hide it from sight. Pretend that there's something they can do to make it all go away.

They can't do this again.

They can't continue on without them.

They c an 't.]

[Shit. Okay.]

[It looks...bad. It looks like it's literally growing out of their skin, like it's maybe - no, it's definitely in their bloodstream by now, isn't it? What does that mean for them? It's gonna keep - growing? Growing into them, out of them, until it swallows them alive?]

[His throat's dry. It convulses in a pained, painful swallow. Goddamnit.]

Okay. Okay. We're just gonna have to...clean it out, okay? See how that helps. Might just be skin deep.

[It isn't.]

[They all know it.]

Stop!

[They bark it from their gut, high-pitched and fast; there's no LV or corruption because it's nothing but the terrified plea of a child. Their hand pulls back into their chest, fingers closing tight, slicing into the crystal on their palm. Blood sluices from between their knuckles.]

[Their eyes are still jumping back and forth. Between their Partner, trying to touch them, the only one who does. Tim, trying to help. Always trying to help. Trying to be an adult that won't let two kids down.]

[Pressure builds hot in their throat. It's Frisk. Frisk is one who has to let them down.]

[It's not new.]

[There's a sudden, odd peace in that. It's not new at all. Haha. Everyone here is used to being let down. That, maybe, is what breaks their glazed eyes away from the two of them for the first time, staring almost vacantly down the corridor in the direction they'd come from. There's another path back there; the one they didn't take. The one that leads downward.]

[without that, i am not alive.]

[Okay.]

[Frisk turns on their heels and runs.]

Frisk, don't-

[They see it coming. Haha. They see it coming. The miserable tension in Frisk's shoulders that builds and relaxes as they come to a decision- and what can Chara say? Their Partner is, uh, Determined. Once they've made up their mind, heaven help those who think they can get in the way.

Frisk gaze slides back down the corridor. It's their only warning, before the other child turns on their heel. Before they bolt.]

Frisk!

[And in turn, Chara's voice loses any iteration of heated red. One child calls out with the panic that reflects their age- and another echoes it, tearing after their Partner without a second thought.

Don't do this to them. Don't leave.

They're not ready to say goodbye to someone like you again.]

[There's only the barest warning about what they're about to do before they're tearing out across the dark of the tunnel. They're fleet, agile, faster than Tim by far. Chara might be able to catch them, if they can, but Frisk has a fraction of a moment's head start.]

[He's wrenching after them without any further hesitation. Their name, the true name, rebounds off the edges of the cave, arcing along the walls in a pained, panicked swirl.]

[They're kids they're kids they're kids they're just kids they're just fucking kids and they're both doing this because neither of them feel they have any other choice and if it were anyone else if it were anyone else this wouldn't even be an option but it's Frisk and Frisk runs and he doesn't know where they're going isn't even sure they know themself where they're going but he's already falling behind the breath wheezing in his lungs]

[calling out hoping the voice of someone older might halt them - ]

Frisk, stop!

[Some people come when they're called. Sometimes it's for no reason other than because they have to; Frisk, come here. Stop. Get over here now. Sometimes it's because someone out there really cares about them, and if they're not there, how can they be loved? How can they be seen and touched and accounted for? Frisk, stop. Stop running away. Stop ruining everything. Stop making mistakes.]

[They don't stop.]

[They run, and their body clenches in on itself with every organ, crystals buzzing in their skin, tearing at their tissues as their blood surges through them. Stop won't be a choice, soon. Their ears are a little too full of static but they don't need to hear to know that Chara is pelting after them, and for all of Frisk's athleticism, they know they're not going to get much out of their body this time.]

[The U-bend comes up on them like a spray of freezing oceanwater. They skid, slam their shoulder hard against the wall, feel something in their palm smear across stone. Shaking and hauling themself forward, they take off down the slope, forcing their feet to carry them with the downward momentum.]

[They keep going, stumbling against the walls, until one time their palm doesn't catch against stone but against air, and they tip over until they're flat again on the ground. Dragging their clouded gaze upward, they spot a break in the wall, a place where the ground juts out in a peninsula of uneven stone over a vast, empty cavern.]

[Their lungs hurt. Their back hurts. It might be time to stop, soon; but not yet.]

[Gritting their teeth with determination, Frisk starts crawling towards the outcropping.]

[They trip up more than once, toes catching on the rough floor. And it's not their downfall- it's Frisk's. It's their error, and once again, they won't be the one to pay for it. It's always Frisk, it's always someone who shouldn't have to, it's always-

In their panic, their own turn is as blind and unwieldy as their Partner's. Chara hits the wall hard, crashing to the ground with a heavy thump that steals the breath from their lungs and knocks their chin against stone. Their cheek isn't stinging, but they taste the copper, anyway. Struggle to push up enough to search the darkness ahead of them.

And there's their Partner. And there's a hole.

Frisk is closer to that than Chara is to them.

The sound that escapes them is not a name. Not a warning, or a laugh. It's loud and horrid and a culmination of every fear they have, an understanding of what is currently inevitable.

Chara screams. As if it will change anything. As if they could ever change their Partner's mind.]

[No no no no no no no - ]

[They're taking matters into their own hands. They're taking matters into their own hands and launching themself right on over and he can see the way things are headed even without knowing where they are.]

[Chara screams.]

[It rips from their throat in a desolate cry, and he has to tear forward to try and - he has stop it, he has to try, he has to do whatever the hell he can to ensure that scream doesn't translate into a horrifying reality, but they're so much closer to the outcropping than he is.]

Don't -

[The screaming is new.]

[It hits them with enormous hilarity. The feeling of shells crunch between their teeth, their smile splitting and bloodied with crystals unfurling from their tongue like tender shoots of grass. They've been through this... a lot. Fire cleaving their SOUL in two, magical bones crushing their physical ones into shards. Poison creeping in their veins. That one was the closest; the feeling of rigid phalanges loosening from theirs, a guttural sound of dismay as a portal closed over their head.]

[So many times they've felt the familiar creep of darkness at the edges of their vision, of their everything, but.]

[There's never been screaming.]

[It's raw and painful in a way they can't process, can't pull apart and identify for the anguish it is, because louder in their ears is the unbalanced bassline of their own heartbeat. But then it breaks through with the hot tip of a knife. It hurts, not because there are crystals twisting up the space in their lungs, but because it's Chara, it's Chara hurting, and nothing else in the world matters more than that. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.]

[Determination.]

[The red gems set into the walls of the cavern wink down in the darkness, on the child that crawls towards the edge of the outcropping, then stumbles, then drags. A hand bent by the crystals jutting out from the joints of their knuckles meets nothing but thin air, and Frisk collapses with nothing to hold their weight, curling in on their side, blinking hazily into the gaping mouth of the tunnel.]

[At Chara, screaming. At Tim lunging down the bridge and, trying, trying, to SAVE someone the way nobody ever saved him.]

[No; now you need to SAVE someone else.]

[They should say something. Apologize, or smile. It'll be okay. It's just another number. Just one more.]

[It'd be kinder to get it over with.]

[Frisk props their foot against stone and shoves with all of their might. Slinking off the edge, into the red-flash dark, feels the same as any other fall.]

[Perhaps one day, far away from here, Chara will be capable of thinking about this calmly. And in that moment they'll find themself wondering if it made it better or worse- to see the smile on Frisk's face, but to have nothing said to them. To watch them accept the fate they had allocated to themself quietly, and without a struggle.

But by then, it would be far too late. It is already far, too late.

Chara only ceases screaming when they run out of air. They only cease when their voice cracks, when their throat throbs with pain at the noise they're making- something they haven't done for months. For over a year, perhaps. Except there's no one to call to, this time.

No one can help them. There's nothing to be done.

Frisk falls away into the blackness, and it's all Chara can do to wrench themself forward, fingernails scratching against the rock as they haphazardly get to their feet, as they rush ahead with no qualms. The phantom sensation of a hand in their own burns as they see a golden light in their mind's eye- the last time they feel. Because when one of them falls, so does the other. Because they go together.

Chara rushes ahead with every intention of following Frisk down that hole.]

[He sees it happen in slow motion.]

[He knows the intention that slams someone over an edge, and he knows the crack of rock and the trickle of dust, the patter of falling gravel to serenade the trajectory of their fall as they spiral down, down, down - into the ink-dark, a fading flash of blue and purple and not nearly enough red.]

[Chara's already pitching forward.]

[Like hell.]

[Like hell he's watching, allowing, another child to hurl themselves off that edge (Isn't that what you already promised you'd do? Are you making another mistake? Are you telling another lie?) and this one, this one, at least, he can still help.]

[His arms close around their abdomen in a gesture both abrupt and unforgiving. There's the heated blood-pound in his neck, in his temples, in his cheeks. He may very well get a knife to the ribs for his efforts, for awakening the phantom clench of fingers in hair and shirt collars jammed up to the neck with how tautly knuckles fisted into the fabric at their back.]

[He doesn't care.]

Stop. Stop.

[He doesn't care.]

[If he's breaking a promise, if he's telling a lie, if he's closing this circuit with the hot spatter of kerosene over Frisk's live fire, now dying.]

[He cares that the list of casualties doesn't leap to two, while he can prevent it.]

[And he's holding on for as long as he must, to prevent it.]

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:: body horror

Re: :: body horror

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cw: body horror; suicide

cw: continued suicide for the rest of this thread.

cw: oblique references to child abuse