Alex Kralie (
rosswood) wrote in
entrancelogs2016-02-21 01:47 pm
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Entry tags:
burn the evidence, flee the scene, always keep those fingers clean [closed]
Who: Alex Kralie and Chara
Where: The Gardens
When: Feb. 21st
Rating: PG-13 or R, most likely. This is gonna get messy. Someone is getting murdered and I am not being metaphorical.
Summary: Alex decides this murdering child can't be allowed to keep going the way they are, and takes action.
The Story:
Max is worried.
That in and of itself is enough to worry Alex in turn. Someone that talks about death in the casual sense, shrugs off threats and laughs about the consequences, well, that's bad enough. The fact that they've turned to not-so-implicitly threatening one of the few people here actually worth a damn, that's gone and made things ugly. Too ugly.
He's the hero. He fixes things. He makes them better. That's what he did back home, what he had to do. Sans is some help, but the boneman seems to be operating under the misconception that sentiment will hold Alex back. Alex scowls at the device and tucks it into his pocket, just to be safe. Sans has got no goddamn clue what Alex has had to do to keep himself moving, keep that fucking thing off his back. He's turned on every person he loved, turned them into bait, left them to rot in the halls of an abandoned building while that little slip of nightmare skipped after them, vacuumed them up into its little hell-world to play. It worked well enough. It might not be able to die, but it could get distracted, and that was enough.
Switchblade in beltloop. Device in back pocket. Camera in hand. No guns here, not from his closet, but that's okay. He doesn't need one. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, sleepless, sunken-eyed, not a wink of rest since Max sent him that text earlier. Don't do anything stupid, Alex. Don't do anything rash. Be careful. Be careful.
He'll do the rest of Wonderland a service. That's what he's doing. He'll fix this, make it all better. Make that little shit sorry they ever threatened anyone, let alone Max. His jaw clenches, expression set. He combs over the areas of the mansion, cutting a slow, steady perimeter. He holds the image of them from the network well in mind. Small, unassuming. Just a kid, Sans said, but no, not that. They're not human, are they. Not normal. They're something else. An anomaly. But they're here, and if they're here that means they can bleed. And if it bleeds, he can kill it, gut it, dash it to pieces. His fingers itch with the urge. He'll end this, make it all right again. Max doesn't even have to know. No one does.
He finds them outside, a halation of flowers around that fragile child's shape. Not really a kid. Not really human. Not really anything. It's easy to remember. It'll be easier if he doesn't have to look them in the eye while he does it. He creeps closer.
His fingers flex around the knife handle. the thin sliver of a pig-sticker that feels like nothing. The blade slips out, bright and gleaming silver. There's a power in his arms, in knotted shoulders, in a rigid back and tense jaw. He's done worse to keep himself alive. This is for the good of everyone.
It'll be all right.
It will.
Their back is to him, and he lunges, hand outstretched to seize them 'round the neck.
Where: The Gardens
When: Feb. 21st
Rating: PG-13 or R, most likely. This is gonna get messy. Someone is getting murdered and I am not being metaphorical.
Summary: Alex decides this murdering child can't be allowed to keep going the way they are, and takes action.
The Story:
Max is worried.
That in and of itself is enough to worry Alex in turn. Someone that talks about death in the casual sense, shrugs off threats and laughs about the consequences, well, that's bad enough. The fact that they've turned to not-so-implicitly threatening one of the few people here actually worth a damn, that's gone and made things ugly. Too ugly.
He's the hero. He fixes things. He makes them better. That's what he did back home, what he had to do. Sans is some help, but the boneman seems to be operating under the misconception that sentiment will hold Alex back. Alex scowls at the device and tucks it into his pocket, just to be safe. Sans has got no goddamn clue what Alex has had to do to keep himself moving, keep that fucking thing off his back. He's turned on every person he loved, turned them into bait, left them to rot in the halls of an abandoned building while that little slip of nightmare skipped after them, vacuumed them up into its little hell-world to play. It worked well enough. It might not be able to die, but it could get distracted, and that was enough.
Switchblade in beltloop. Device in back pocket. Camera in hand. No guns here, not from his closet, but that's okay. He doesn't need one. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, sleepless, sunken-eyed, not a wink of rest since Max sent him that text earlier. Don't do anything stupid, Alex. Don't do anything rash. Be careful. Be careful.
He'll do the rest of Wonderland a service. That's what he's doing. He'll fix this, make it all better. Make that little shit sorry they ever threatened anyone, let alone Max. His jaw clenches, expression set. He combs over the areas of the mansion, cutting a slow, steady perimeter. He holds the image of them from the network well in mind. Small, unassuming. Just a kid, Sans said, but no, not that. They're not human, are they. Not normal. They're something else. An anomaly. But they're here, and if they're here that means they can bleed. And if it bleeds, he can kill it, gut it, dash it to pieces. His fingers itch with the urge. He'll end this, make it all right again. Max doesn't even have to know. No one does.
He finds them outside, a halation of flowers around that fragile child's shape. Not really a kid. Not really human. Not really anything. It's easy to remember. It'll be easier if he doesn't have to look them in the eye while he does it. He creeps closer.
His fingers flex around the knife handle. the thin sliver of a pig-sticker that feels like nothing. The blade slips out, bright and gleaming silver. There's a power in his arms, in knotted shoulders, in a rigid back and tense jaw. He's done worse to keep himself alive. This is for the good of everyone.
It'll be all right.
It will.
Their back is to him, and he lunges, hand outstretched to seize them 'round the neck.
SAVE Point 1
They aren't waiting for anyone out in the garden. They're only there for the flowers. They used to like flowers, a long time ago. They don't know what's coming.
But Chara has lived by the law of "kill or be killed" for a very long time. Surprise encounters, spears lancing out from the darkness, strange skips in time or space that aren't their own doing -- they've survived every last one. The ground is soft and muddy, so footsteps don't make that much noise, but they make enough. The moment stealth is traded for power and someone lunges, they hear.
They react.
No time to think, to doubt, to assume anything but an enemy. The move is almost dancelike, wheeling around to face their attacker in the same moment they dart away, dropping to the side and rolling. It's close. Strange fingers brush against the nape of their neck, disturb their hair, graze the chain of their locket. But they close on empty air. Chara hits the wet earth, comes back up. A hand darts to their back, draws the knife hidden there as if it's the most natural thing in the world.
Quick eyes. Quick thoughts. Comprehension. A face they've only seen in a photo. A knife in his hand, too. The set, dead-eyed look of someone ready to kill. They should be surprised. Someone they've never even met before coming at them from behind. They should be questioning.
Instead, they do only one thing. Steel themselves. Feel the resolve to keep living, no matter what, surge up within them. Allow time and space to shiver as a glimmering something springs to life:
* Determination.
"Alex. Greetings."
no subject
Alex bares his teeth in a sneer, dark and intent and flinted, almost feral. Maybe he should've brought a gun.
He sees the way they look, like how Sans warned them. They're just a kid. And they are, even with that awful gleam in their gaze and that look, something that knows and is and shouldn't be, and a thousand thoughts run through his brain like knives and he readjusts his grip on the one he has and holds in front of him, protectively.
"I don't care what you are," he says, the words curling out like a growl. "I don't care. You - you're not human."
That means they have to die.
no subject
Ha. They can connect the dots. They're not stupid.
"This is because of Max."
They only know his face, his name... they only know those because Max showed Chara. Said he was a friend. Her unexpected apology makes so much more sense now. You're not evil! I don't want there to be any bad blood between us! A cheap plot to try and get their guard down. To strike at their most vulnerable moment. Then. So be it. Let her and her friend reap what they sow.
They take a step forward.
They raise their own knife. Not in a defensive stance like him. Casually. Like it's an extension of their own body. He's bigger. He's armed. But Chara isn't afraid. They begin to smile. Like they're only going to play a game.
"Come at me scrublord, I'm ripped."
no subject
"No," says Alex, coldly, levelly, "it's because you're an asshole."
That smile is all wrong, it's all wrong. But they're not faceless or eyeless, and that means they can be killed and he holds that thought in his head like a prayer, an ongoing mantra that it can be killed it can be killed it can be killed and he surges forward again, slashing wildly, inexpertly, in the general direction of their neck. Cut the throat, bleed them out. It's that simple.
no subject
Well. It's irrelevant. He won't last long.
Again, Chara moves to dodge. This time, it's slower, imperfect. His blade doesn't slit their neck, but it digs a stinging red line along their cheek, dangerously close to their eye, and slices the edge of their ear open.
Fine. So what. They're not Frisk. They don't really need to dodge. And the wide, inexperienced arc of Alex's swing leaves him wide open. They hold the sensation of pain and spilling blood at arm's length and charge in, head down and swinging blade aimed right at Alex's midsection.
no subject
Flecks of red pepper the snow underfoot. One of Alex's hands goes to his middle. The cut seems shallow, but it's long, and it'll bleed out quicker that way. He knows enough about his basic injuries to remember that.
He circles more warily, shuffling back..
"You're not human," pants Alex, his words barely slurring at the edges from fear and outrage and pain and exhaustion. "The fuck are you?"
SAVE Point 1.2
"You're already afraid of me. Look at you." The distance he puts between them. It's enough. Gives them time to reach out to their save point, to make time shiver again as they update. They can afford it. They're sure. They can make the most of this. Exploit whatever they can to the utmost, so they don't just survive. They conquer. So they know who will be paying the consequences for their words.
"Was Max the only one you spoke to? Who else warned you about me? Sans? Frisk? One of the Pines, perhaps. Indulge me that, and I'll tell you. I'll show you what I am."
no subject
His grip flexes on his weapon once more, his chest tight and quivering from the strain, like it's trying to hold him together while this thing is looking at him like it wants to cut him to ribbons. Shit, he's really starting to bleed. The red is drooling all out over his shirt and staining his jacket, his fingertips warm and slippery where they're clasped over the cut.
One corner of his mouth twitches in an utterly mirthless unsmile. "You shouldn't be so obvious, kiddo."
no subject
Chara's eyes widen. Chara's eyes widen too much. Become nothing but blackness, swallowing up too much of their face. Something horrible bubbles up from within them, oozes out in thick trails. Inky nothingness, spilling from their mouth and eyes. Painting over the blood spilling down their cheek. Erasing skin, erasing the ground where it falls, leaving solid, inky nothingness.
There is nothing human about it. They do not walk, but they advance. Get closer.
They feel like being obvious about it.
"Figured it out? How clever of you. Bask in your cunning while you bleed out." They stop. Knife raised, ready. A short lunge is all it would take to sink the blade in. An even shorter lunge for Alex, with his longer reach.
"Last chance. Sell me some names, and I will let you live. I may even spare Max, if you tell me what I want to hear. WHO TOLD YOU ABOUT ME."
no subject
The fuck is this.
His heart is pounding in his throat, his palms slippery with sweat, the knife almost dropping from his fingers as he flinches despite himself.
This doesn't end until you're dead. He strangled them, choked them, held fingers tight around those fragile necks until they were blue in the face and gasping, pleading, Alex, please, confusion dulling into stillness until that thing came ghosting along and tucked them quietly away.
He's done worse.
He'll do worse.
He doesn't care. He doesn't care. He doesn't care.
"Go suck it," spits Alex, and lurches forward to stab at their center of mass.
no subject
But. Nah. They're done with this version of events. Alex rejects them, lashes out, and the world comes to a lurching halt, trembles and shudders like a skipping CD. Chara laughs at the futility of his defiance, as the world begins to unravel itself, spool back to earlier--
LOAD Point 1.2
Might as well. Timeline's theirs to play with. Worth making this last, just to see what happens. Just because they can.
This time, their smile fades. Their shoulders grow heavier. "I'm just a kid," they mumble. "Everyone thinks I'm weird, but I'm just a kid. It keeps coming to this, over and over, and I don't know how to make it any different."
And just for kicks. Just because. They throw their head back and cry out for help. "Someone help me! He's trying to kill me! I didn't even DO anything to him!! Please!"
* But nobody came.
no subject
His eyes narrow skeptically as they abruptly fold into themselves, switching tactics. They only look human, Sans said, and Alex's lips curl back into another sneer. It'll take more than that to play to his pity. He killed his friends. He did it because he had to. Does this freak think they're any different?
His feet are already pounding against the snow and ice by the time they start howling for help, and this time he stupidly, stupidly ditches the knife entirely. It lands, discarded on the ground. Instead his fingers arc for their mouth and throat, aiming to slam his full body weight onto them and bring them to the ground in a tackle, strangling them slow and easy.
"Don't give me that," he hisses, his eyes wide and crazed. "You're lying. I know you're lying."
no subject
Lying, he hisses. They're a liar. Nobody will come. Nobody believes them. Nobody will save them.
Hands cover their mouth and keep them from crying out again. Clamp down on their thin, fragile neck. They can't breathe. It hurts. They kick and struggle, but nothing happens.
Redness swells up inside them. Like the flicking of a switch. Like they're just a whisper inside of Frisk again, like they're outside of themselves and trying to control a foreign shell remotely. Never again. They're not going to die. They're not! With clarity, with steely focus and resolve, they again seize their SAVE, wrench the very fabric of time itself back again.
LOAD Point 1.2
This time, they see what to do. This time, they understand completely.
They repeat what they said last time. They tell Alex. "I'm just a kid. A damaged one, a broken one, but just a kid! Why is it always like this? Why can't it ever stop?"
Just like the last time, they suck in a gulp of air and scream for someone. "Help! Somebody, please!! He's going to kill me! I don't want to die!"
But this time. They're ready for the charge that they're trying to bait. Their grip on the knife is resolute. When he slams into them, his own momentum will be there to push him right into the blade.
no subject
They're panting, gasping, like they've just run some kind of marathon. Maybe they're more worn out by that brief scuffle than he thought. So when they cry for help, he doesn't hesitate. He presses forward and the knife slips from his fingers
again,disregarded, useless. He'll choke the air out of them. They'll bleed and break like anything else in this hell wasteland."Don't give me that," he hisses, his eyes wide and crazed. And then he -
then he -
then h -
hk -
Alex's mouth opens soundlessly, body carried forward by his own stupid tackle, something awful dug into him right to the hilt. His trajectory slides, sends him crashing and skidding onto the snow, dark spurts of crimson leaking out from his fingers. He opens his mouth again, to groan, to say something, to do anything, this can't be happening, not to him, but nothing comes out but a wordless gurgling rasp, the iron tang of blood bubbling sluggishly from inside.
It - it fucking - it really fucking hurts, and he can't think for it, breathing is like needles under his lungs, his whole body seizing, twitching, how'd he let his guard down like this, fuck, fuck, fuck, no, this wasn't supposed to happen -
"Christ," says Alex wetly, weakly, muffled with blood and snow, "fuck."
no subject
The way he quivers is grotesque. They know what convulsions feel like. What the sear of your insides melting into something fiery and horrible is like. It's slow. Much slower than the snapped neck that turned a gnome into a sad little heap of nothing.
Their knife is gone now, hilted in Alex's flesh. There's blood pouring into the snow. That's fine. He won't survive this. In spite of their tight, hitching breath. In spite of the sweat. The blood that's matting their hair into a sticky clump, dripping on their sweater. In spite of everything, they wear their hollow smile.
"I don't need to ask what you are, Alex. We both already know."
They kick him while he's down. Literally. Drive their foot into him, just to add insult to injury. And injury to injury. What a shame nobody's privy to their inner narration anymore. It's pretty funny, isn't it?
"A corpse." Nothing more.
no subject
He fumbles for his camera, for his phone. It skitters from nerveless fingers, stained with madder, tumbling out of reach, but not before he manages to turn it on. That's it. That's it, come on. He can do this. Please. Please, he has to - he can't - he can't just die like some puppet whose strings have been cut.
He strains to form the words that would call for help, but nothing happens.
He can't hold onto the excruciating feeling of having a slip of metal stuck in himself, and pretty soon, he can't hold onto anything else, either. His body trembles, goes limp. His head lolls lifelessly to the side.
And nobody came.
no subject
But there is no happy ending. The scary little demon is not vanquished. They watch him die, alone in a garden. Entirely in vain. For no good reason, other than the decision that a child's morbid remarks were worth a death sentence. What a dumbass. He deserved every inch of what he got.
A hand that doesn't even feel like their own drags its palm across their face. The salt and dirt of their hand stings, and the fresh pain is something real. Nudges the smile off their face. Finally, they notice. No trembling SOUL rose from this body when it died. Nothing they could try to steal away. Nor did his empty shell dissipate into dust, or... whatever Wonderland does with bodies. He'll come back, apparently. Maybe he'll rise from that exact same corpse, holes and all! Wouldn't that be funny?
Chara... doesn't laugh. Doesn't feel much of anything at all. They stoop down only to pull their own knife free, and... you know what? And to take Alex's switchblade as well. They've earned a trophy.
As for the body. Hm. They leave it. Someone else's problem. CSI Wonderland's, maybe. He'll return anyway, and he'll know that Chara killed him once. Can kill him again.
Two bloody knives in their hands. A gash across their face still oozing blood, still throbbing. Mud and snow and drying redness on their sweater. Only one thing missing, as they walk away and return to the mansion.
They put the smile back on.