lifeaftr | January Event: Fade to Black

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January Event: Fade to Black

JANUARY EVENT: FADE TO BLACK

Who: Anyone and everyone!
What: Your true self comes to roost
When: January 21st - 23rd; January 25th - 28th
Where: All over!
Warnings: Dark subjects such as violence and self-destruction are likely to come to the forefront - please mark your content accordingly!

Down in that Darkness

This log is primarily for the Shadow and Light portions of the event, for ease and convenience. Your Shadow can be either the Persona-inspired sort - a "brutal, bitterly honest recreation of a character's worst flaws, darkest fears, and deepest secrets" - or the edgier, more laughable variant. The Lights, on the other hand, will do their utmost to convince their real selves of their best qualities, no matter how little they want to hear them.

Remember that the Shadows will be present from January 21st to January 23rd, and the Lights will be present from January 25th to January 28th.

On January 25th, we will post a separate log for Rejection Rooms!

Some useful links, for reference:

[ ♆ ] OOC Event Post
[ ♆ ] Rejection Room Sign-Ups; remember to note your interest in these as soon as possible!
[ ♆ ] Deaths Page; death penalties have been reduced for the duration of this event, but still do let us know if your character dies regardless!

Event Timeline

[ ♆ ] January 20th: The monthly Storytelling occurs.
[ ♆ ] January 21st: Shadows of both initial variants appear.
[ ♆ ] January 23rd: Shadows of both initial variants disappear.
[ ♆ ] January 25th Lights and Rejection Rooms appear.
[ ♆ ] January 28th: Lights and Rejection Rooms dissipate. Those still trapped in their Rejection Rooms by the event's end will suffer a character death.

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Shin is the first name to cross her mind. It's instantaneous-the few memories she has of him from her youth are foggy. She's not entirely sure if she was even scared of him back then. Before he was twisted by his own experiment. Before he took an interest in her because everyone else was dead and he scared her, he really scared her, for so many weeks, months, years he scared her, but then-

She can't even say she dislikes him after she felt his suffering firsthand, no matter how much of her fear remains.

Not that she gets to think about that question for long. He throws out another one and she wishes she could be somewhere else. It's hard to not shrink back at the look-it feels too cold to be Tim. Looks closer to the way scientists would glance at her and she hates it.]

I don't know, but he's very nice to me. His kind heart reaches me, even if-

[Even if he knows she's unsuitable and wants nothing to do with her. He makes an effort every single time.]

"Even if what."

[It closes the word out harshly, a cold click of teeth, turning a question into more of a sharp demand. It takes another slow drag of its cigarette, smoke uncoiling from between its teeth as it looks at her, unblinking, and does not look away.]

"Don't interrupt yourself on my account. Even if. What."

[It's not something she wants to say out loud, least of all to this version of Tim, who must already know. He must feel it. It must've been on the tip of his own tongue and it's like before-where she has to say it and she doesn't want to, but-

His eyes are on her and she hates it. It's not comforting-all the kindness she's used to is missing from that gaze and she wishes this were the original Tim. A Tim who tries to make her say things, but it's never like this.

But dwelling on that won't change anything. These versions are persistent and it's better to say it. No matter how quiet her voice is because he knows. Deep down he has to know. It's not a secret.]

He knows something in me-it's bad, but he still reaches out. His heart's good like that.

"The people you surround yourself with are too nice to force it out of you. They never make you say anything that they don't want you to. Not really. They could, but they don't, because most of them are too nice to bully a child."

[Another draw from its cigarette. Another low, smoky breath of nicotine, exhaled from between its teeth.]

"I'm not held back by such quandaries."

[It jams its free hand in the pocket of its jeans and starts sauntering forward.]

"What d'you mean by 'something,' hm?"

[Something in her chest gets tighter and it's hard to breathe when he asks. He keeps asking and she almost doesn't see him move forward, too busy concentrating on the bracelet around her arm because her heart's beating too fast and-

It was hard enough to admit it to Kravitz, who dealt with death. The elves were another story entirely and now he's making her say it.

Or maybe he doesn't know. Maybe he truly doesn't get it. It would explain this situation, if he didn't. The possibility is there that their lives don't line up as neatly as she thought. Maybe-

If he doesn't, then admitting it to this darker side of him feels like a mistake and she shakes her head.]

It doesn't matter. It's okay.

"I think it matters a whole lot, kiddo." [It draws the word out, the word tumbling over itself a disyllabic waterfall dripped over with arsenic and rancid with something barbed and stinging, that simple twisting of a term of endearment into a weapon.]

"Unless you're saying that you don't matter. Wouldn't be shocked if you said it, you know. You've all but said it aloud. I'm not sure if you think you're fooling anyone, or if you're just too stupid to realize just how many people have picked up on that little game of yours."

[It's still walking forward, eyeing her coolly.]

"Think it's a fun little game, do you?"

[Having her thoughts laid bare, spewed out like the shameful secret it is, makes her heart beat faster and faster and faster-it's going too fast. Way too fast. And this is the point where she should run. Definitely run. Run to-

Where? There's nowhere. No guarantee that camp is safer than hiding in the woods. And he's-

Not wrong. The time she dedicates diverting and withholding isn't calculated by any means, but she does it. He's called her out on it before. Tried to get her to speak, tried to understand her, when she did was push him away and now it's manifested like this-as something cruel and turned him into a man she can't make eye contact with.]

It's not a game. It's not-it's not fun. If people know about me, they might not look at me or hold my hand anymore.

"You think they'll only love you if you're not broken?"

[Its words are a whisper, layered over an undercurrent of something dark and dangerous. The Shadow's stare is chilly. It takes another long, slow draw from its cigarette. Its eyes lid, briefly.]

"That's funny. That's real cute. Considering all the broken people you surround yourself with, like it's your instinct. What makes you so certain that you're the worst of the bunch?"

[It lifts two fingers of its free hand, and taps at the center of its chest.]

"When you have this little number front and center?"

He's not bad.

[Saying that to this version of him is strange, when all the words coming out of his mouth feel like ice and there's nothing gentle in his tone. Hearing him calling himself the worst is rough in a way she didn't expect and it's instinct to defend someone that's been kind to her. Even from himself.]

He might be sick-

[With the same disease as her. Maybe something different. But she knows about the pills in his pocket and what it means to have them.]

But that doesn't mean he's broken.

"You have no idea."

[Something flares up across its features, briefly, warping Tim's expression into something bright and savage with a horrible and vicious pleasure.]

[It can drop the minutiae. Pretending it's him. She already knows it's not; her choice in pronoun was deliberate enough. So it plows on, ferocious, eyes glinting with some hungry and unabated instinct.]

"You have no idea who we are. Who he is. Who I am. What we are, and what we represent, and what he pretends has not shaped him from the very beginning. What things live in his head."

[It's terrifying and the joy this person is getting out the situation only solidifies her fear more and more.

It's him, but it's not. It's him, but it's someone else. Someone different, wearing his face, and she's not sure if it's talking about a ghost, a monster, a-]

I know he's 'Tim'-that's who he is. Who else-

[She's trying to make eye contact again-like looking at him will offer a clue as to what's going on.]

Who are you?

[There's a word Alex used, once. You're the source. Its fingers work into a fistful of fabric across its shirt front, squeezing, kneading it every tighter between its worn knuckles. There's some sort of festering, ratcheting element to its voice, escalating to a feverish pitch.]

"Did you know that nearly everyone Tim has ever met has ended up dead, or worse?" [It's not a straight answer, not right away. But when it says worse, oh, it really, really means it - it really means worse.]

"Did you know that he's the reason that they ended up the way they did?"

He wouldn't hurt people.

[Comes the quick response, unsure of where this is going. Tim's giving his all to build community resources and protect the children under his care-it couldn't be his fault if people ended up dead around him. It's a sad coincidence, maybe. How could it be his fault?]

That's not how his heart is.

"He killed more than one of them."

[Its eyes glitter. Its fingers dig into the front of its chest with a sudden, vicious intensity, before its hand falls away and it snaps the cigarette from its mouth, a hiss of smoke uncurling from behind its parted lips like a haze of static.]

"He killed them. Pushed one of them off the second floor of an old school. Bam." [It claps its hands together, like a crack of lightning, flesh on flesh.] "Poor bastard got to lie there for days with a broken back. Died there, slowly, in pain, because his best friend," [it drags the words out cruelly,] "thought to murder him."

[No matter how badly she wants to say it's a lie-

It doesn't sound like a lie. It's able to recall the memory, sound effects that make her jump, and all. But it's hard to believe, impossible to imagine Tim murdering someone.

Tim, pushing a person off anything, when she knows him as the kind of person to hold out a hand. To pull someone back up. Maybe it's a mistake. Maybe he pushed a scientist or a doctor or someone that hurt him bad and-]

Who's them?

"You ever meet a friend of his called Brian? Real nice guy. Real nice, until he met Tim. See, Tim has this imaginary friend that he never tells anyone about. He hates thinking about It."

[It. The word gets a sort of emphasis that makes it sound akin to some great and terrible god. Maybe that's exactly what It is. Either way, the Shadow would never claim to understand It. No one does. No one ever has, and it's likely that no one ever will.]

"And that friend likes to hurt people. And Tim?

He's the reason that It can go out and do it."

[Brian is a name she hasn't heard in a long time. It's been months since she last played with him, shoving chalk onto their hands and feet to press against the wall because they were trapped in that cave.

And this imaginary friend-this malicious thought that's manifested itself in Tim-

But she doesn't know for sure. It says 'Tim's the reason,' like he has a choice in the matter. But a forceful imaginary friend implies otherwise.]

It's not Tim's fault. That's 'someone else.'

"It came from him."

[It bares its teeth at her. Its cigarette sits forgotten, caught between two fingers, unspooling a slow spiral of smoke upward while its tip smolders quietly, silently. It looks at her with its words locked in that intense, feverish hiss, words snapping out between the gusts of consonants.]

"And he knew how to get rid of It. He knew that the only way to keep It from infecting everyone was to put the gun to his head - " [It forms a gun with its hand, presses index and middle finger up beneath its chin with the thumb protruding out.]

"And pull the trigger himself."

[That's cruel.

Even if something grew and twisted in him for whatever inexplicable reason-

It's not him and she shakes her head, trying to absorb all this new information, and failing miserably.]

It's not 'infecting' people now. It's not here. It's not his fault. He shouldn't have to-he doesn't need to die.

"How do you know that?"

[Its lips are peeled back in a snarl that is very, very unlike him - even in Tim's lowest and most miserable moments, even at his angriest, he was never this graceful, oiled thing; he was never so controlled. Tim's anger is vicious and self-destructive and sobbing and messy, not this quiet, contained, poisonous thing.]

"How do you know he hasn't bled It straight into your soul, just by knowing you?"

Everything's warmer because of him. My heart feels that way.

[This version of him, on the other hand, makes her feel less so. The expression on his face, the way he moves, the words that spew out of his mouth, as if everything needs to be an attack.]

It's not in me. I would know something like that.

"He lived with this for his entire life, and never knew what he was. A pathogen. A virus, spreading Its touch wherever he goes. He wanted friends. He wanted a normal life. And he got it. And he killed all of them, one by one, because he couldn't just take the one way out that he knew would spare everyone's lives."

[It makes an abrupt motion, jabbing a clenched fist up to its neck. The cigarette's tip burns inches from the skin of its throat, an orange glow softening the shadows around its Adam's apple.]

"He stabbed another one in the throat. Did you know that? He cut into his neck, and when that wasn't enough, he started beating him into the ground. He didn't just kill someone, no.

He had to murder them."

[When he puts the cigarette near his throat, her gaze lowers further until she's not looking at any part of his face anymore. The tree behind him is more appealing and she instinctively moves to cover her ears when he goes into vivid detail about-

Things she didn't know about him. About the thing controlling him. About how scary it must be to live with something like that and know-

There's a bad part in him that people couldn't see. That he couldn't tell them about. That ruled his life with an iron fist and-

It's still not him. The dark version even said it. He wanted friends. He wanted to live normally. Bad people don't want that kind of thing and it's sad, too cruel, that he couldn't have it. That people died-that his friends died because of something that happened to grow in him, maybe because of doctors or scientists or-]

It wasn't him.

[She says with some shaky confidence, mostly due to her own fear. Due to this Tim's presence.]

That scary thing in him-it should go away, but not him. He doesn't-I don't want him to. He's my friend and-

[He deserves more.]

He should get to have 'friends' and live 'normally'-that thing isn't here. It's not hurting anyone in this place.

"It doesn't go away. It doesn't ever go away. Do you understand that?"

[The Shadow is frenzied, ignited with a strange and horrible fervor that burns the cigarette against the side of its neck with the soft sizzle of singeing flesh. It doesn't seem to notice. Its eyes have glazed over, as though fixed on some distant point, and it rattles on and on and on, cursed with a talkative fluidity that has never been Tim's instinct.]

"You think he wanted this? You think that what he wants, what you want, has any bearing in what happens? He looks at you, and all he sees is himself. A scared little thing that was all alone, that grew up in white walls with no friends but the made-up kind, except that you never hurt people simply existing."

[And he did.]

[Drowning out that sound of sizzling flesh is all she can do. Her fingers wrap around her ears until his voice digs through her barrier and she slowly pulls her hands back, eyeing the wound on his neck.

He says she never hurt people and something in her throat tightens again. She didn't, but she almost did. Following the orders of someone that terrified her, letting herself be loaded into a machine that blinded her, so he could save the world that's what he wanted, but she knew-

She knew what would happen. Knew Seto was out there, alive, and didn't run away. Didn't want to leave her only source for medicine, when it would've been the better option for anyone. If it weren't for him, her body would have been the catalyst for more death because her heart wasn't right from the beginning.

It's not the same-it's nowhere near the same, but she understands how it feels to know something's bad. Something untouchable and incurable. Something painful.]

It can be like that, if he doesn't leave. It's different here. This place-he can be very happy.

[They grew up the same way. If there's a chance for her, there's a chance for him too.]

I'll keep safe. I'll hide him when he gets scared and the bunny-they can make sure that scary thing won't come back. We can find medicine for that kind of thing.

January Event: Fade to Black

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cw: allusion to suicide

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cw: self-harm

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