entrancelogs | i've got demons running 'round in my head [open]

"Did he?" Jay's shadow cocks his head. "I bet Jay's pissed off to hear that. Ended his life's work on a lie. That's the only thing you did that was worth anything, wasn't it? But it wasn't worth much at all, really. What was it Alex said? You did nothing but make everything worse?"

"Shut up," Jay manages. It's muffled by his hands, but it's directed at the shadows rather than Tim.

For Tim, he peers through his fingers. Tim says it's okay, because of course he would. He's been living with this his whole life. He's been locked up and operated on and released back into the world. He's lost time and lost jobs and lost bottles of pills. This is normal for him.

But he turned out kind of okay, didn't he? He's not like Alex. Not entirely, anyway. He hasn't turned a gun on Jay. Attacked him a couple times, but nothing lethal.

If anything he's less like Alex than Jay is.

He hisses through his teeth, buries his head further into his hands. He forces himself to breathe.

"Yeah. Yeah, you did."

"Fuck these guys, anyway," he mutters, with a tight, brief smile that's too strained to really be genuine, but - but he's trying here, isn't he? "They're all saying shit they know will get under our skins."

He straightens, and looks his shadow dead in the yellow-flaring eyes.

"Okay," he says. "Okay. Is that it? Are you done? So Jay's fucked, and I'm fucked. Any other big, impossible secrets we can get outta the way? Or are you gonna leave us alone now?"

"It's not that simple," his shadow snaps, but it seems...disappointed, oddly, that its words aren't having a more grandiose effect.

Through the haze of barely suppressed panic, he hears Tim tell the shadows to cut it out. He doubts it'll do much good, but he appreciates the gesture.

There's an odd pressure against his forehead, and he realizes it's the camera. It was still in his hand when he brought it up to cover his face. He's not ready to put it down.

(Thank god he started sleeping with it in his hand.)

It's not that simple, Tim's shadow retorts, and Jay's own chimes in: "Yeah, that's not really the point. We're not here to shock you, Tim. We don't want you to be scared of us." It tips the camera away from its face for a moment. "We're just like you."

"I get it, okay? Whatever, great. You're us, we're you, fine!"

"Sure, sure," the shadow hisses, the words coiling out like streams of smoke from its bared teeth. "Are you ready to accept yourself, Timothy? Liar, coward, murderer, poison, a failure in every sense of the word...are you willing to accept how much you hate everyone else for having lives the way you never did?"

"I never said I hated - !"

Tim shakes himself abruptly, ducking to hook one hand unsteadily over Jay's shoulders instead. Later. He'll deal with it later.

"Come on. Let's get outta here."

Jay stiffens for a moment, but it's alright. It's just Tim. They're leaving. Even if the shadows follow them, they're leaving.

Slowly, he brings his hands down from his face--

--just as his shadow reaches up, wraps bony fingers around one of Jay's wrists and pulls. His eyes don't have time to adjust before there's a lens (not like the one from the Mansion, like his old one) inches from his face.

"Hey, bird-brain."

Jay shoves him away. "No. No, we're leaving."

"You can't go now!" The shadow whines, falsely petulant. "Where else am I gonna get my footage? What, am I just gonna have to sit by myself in a hotel room for the months, waiting? You're my best lead. This is too important."

It grabs onto Jay's arm with its free hand, attempting to yank him out of Tim's grip. Jay pulls back, but the shadow's persistent.

"People have to know, Jay! They have to know w̷ha̴t̕ you ar̴e!"

"You can get the fuck away from him," Tim growls. He has no idea if these things are actually vulnerable to any sort of attack or if it's only the person they're based off who can hurt them, but at this point, he doesn't give a shit. The shadow is thrusting a camera into Jay's face, and Tim -

Tim has had enough.

He rears back and makes to slam his fist into the shadow's jaw.

It connects beautifully, and there's a satisfying crack as Tim's fist grazes the viewfinder screen inches from its destination.

Jay watches, silent and stiff, as the shadow doubles over, its attention flying first to the camera. There's a split second where its face falls, where there's a moment of weakness and--

he moves,
because it threatened him because it threatened them

--Jay's hands are wrapped around its throat, and the shadow is looking up at him with its mouth agape, shock roughly plastered over terror (on his face that's his face), and Jay doesn't know how he got here. He doesn't know why he hasn't let go.

"Jay, Jay - Jay, no!"

"You think you can keep him safe from all this?" His shadow's hands snake out like slicks of oil, wrapping around his wrists before he can seize at Jay and tear him away from the creature as he strangles it. Can shadows even breathe? His knuckles sting, his breath aches, but he can't -

"You think you can keep him unsullied? This is what you do to people, Tim! You drive them to this! You make them like you!"

"No. No!" He doesn't know who he's addressing. All of it, just all of it. "You don't know that!"

With those words, Jay's grip on the shadow's neck finally falls slack, and his double scrambles back across the floor, broken camera still clutched in one hand. A frantic smile tugs at his lips, like it's unsure whether to laugh or worse.

"You're fucking monsters, both of you," it wheezes, still inching backwards. "And you're n͞ȩvér g̶òin͜g t́o ad̴̖̺͕͖̘m͕̟̻̦it̸̜̯ ̴̬̳̭̥t͇̪̙͖̙̮̀h̺̠͍ạ͓̬͈̹̖t͏͉̜̫̠͔͚͎ ̼̥̰̟͈ͅt̟̳̳̥͉͈͞o y̮̲̳o̜̥̟̩͖̮̮u̹͔̟̲̺r̠͚̫͎͚͜ͅs͎̠e̦l͕̠͜v͏è͇̤̥̞̙s̺͕̞̦̙͓̪!̺̗̟̣"

There was something wrong with its voice before, but now the sound has started degrading rapidly, like someone dragged a magnet across the tape.

Shit.

No, no, this isn't -

It's starting to distort. It's starting to flux into something else, and Tim twists at the implacable grip with one final tremendous wrench, ripping himself free from the shadow's grasp. He slams a foot into the thing's knee, but its shrill, flurrying laughter is like knives against his eardrums.

"Jay, we gotta go!" It's like shouting through a raging gale. "Whatever it is, it's - I don't think this is supposed to happen!"

"This wasn't supposed to happen," Tim's shadow hisses, a mocking echo.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

The shadow heaves itself onto all fours, twitching like something out of Jacob's Ladder. When it moves, it pulls the area around it with it. The picture drags and distorts, limbs multiply and reset, and for a moment, a wide patch of flesh glitches out of view, exposing a muscular system of tangled black tape stretched over a wireframe.

When it looks up, it's wearing the mask.

Of course it is.

Jay scrambles to his feet and bolts.

Nope. Definitely not supposed to happen.

Whatever this is, it sure as hell doesn't befit the standard lookto this shit. Tim's shadow starts to laugh, a hissing symphony of hideously amused sibilance.

It's time to go.

"The hell is that?" he manages, breathless, over his shoulder.

"That's not me," he wheezes in return, like that's the part that needs clarifying.

He can hear that thing gaining on them, and from the way Tim's breathing (just Tim; Jay's fine, he's just fine), he doubts they can keep this up for much longer.

He spots a door leading off from the hallway and grabs Tim by the arm, tugging him toward it. The steam looks significantly thicker in there, which could either help them lose their pursuer or make the chase much harder. Or trap them at a dead end.

Jay allows himself a little scrap of hope.

“Now is really not the time for denial, Jay!” Tim snarls. He’ll deal with his own shdow’s bullshit later, assuming he gets the chance. Jay’s leading with a grip around Tim’s arm, and for now he lets it happen, lets him weave through the clouds of thick, gaseous white.

Whatever Jay’s shadow just ruined into, it’s probably looking for a fight.

“What do you have on you besides a camera?”

Jay presses his back up against a wall and frantically feels through his pockets, rambling as he does so. "No, I mean I'm not...I can't, I know that's obvious, but I'm not, like, a twenty-foot tall...I guess, metaphorically or whatever, but--pocketknife."

He retrieves the knife, tilting it so Tim can see (not that that's particularly easy, with this fog).

"That's it. Didn't even give me a spare card for this thing." Annoyed, he lifts the camera to indicate the 'thing' in question before shoving the folded knife back in his pocket.

There's an echoing squeal from the hallway, laced with static, like a radio being tuned. Jay hisses through his teeth, flattening himself back against the wall.

"Great. So we can put ourselves down for two pocket knives and a lighter." And a camera, not that he's anticipating that will be especially helpful. It sounds like there's a dial tone screeching after them, which might be amusing if it weren't such an obvious indicator that they haven't shaken their pursuer just yet.

He shoots Jay a frustrated glower.

"Don't put the knife back!" he hisses. "You've got to...accept this thing or something, I dunno, but if we have to beat it down first, we're gonna have to do what we can."

"Alright," he snaps, also trying to keep his voice low. "If you actually think it'll help."

With some reluctance, he shifts the camera from his right hand to his left and awkwardly unfolds the pocketknife. This footage is gonna be shaky as hell, if it even comes out at all. At least he's finally out of the wrist brace.

Tim says he has to 'accept' his shadow, which he guesses lines up with what they've been saying. "What does 'accept' even mean here? It's not like I'm gonna run up and give it a hug, or--"

With a piercing hiss of static, the shadow's claws (claws? did it always have claws?) curl around the doorframe, and its white-masked face peers into the room, obscured by thick clouds of steam.

Jay's voice catches in his throat, and he tries to still his breathing.

There's a low, mechanical click, and two narrow cones of light reach from the eyes of the mask like headlights--like searchlights. They sweep across the room slowly, carefully.

It hasn't spotted them yet.

Edited 2017-11-22 16:31 (UTC)

“It’s better than nothing, right?” Any further suggestions are abruptly cut short when long, clawlike appendages work through the dense cloud of perfumed steam and curve around the door with a menacing click. The yellow of its eyes aren’t just for show anymore - the twin beams sweep across the space with slow, searching morons, and Tim unconsciously tries to worm back.

It won’t have to look long. Just until it sees the only two living things in the room.

Two knives and a lighter...and a building made of wood. He glances down at the lump in his pocket and draws it out, displaying the lighter to Jay with a meaningful lift of eyebrows.

If they can lure it somewhere dry enough...

What's Tim--oh.

If the shadow wasn't right there, Jay would have some harsh words for that plan. Sure, they're in a building made of wood, but so's everyone else. If there was even remotely a chance of fire working, they'd have to keep it from eating up the whole bathhouse. Granted, water's in good supply, but still. Still. Jay glares back at him.

(Still. It might work if they're fast enough.)

Jay bends down, feeling around for something to throw, something to catch the creature's attention for a second. It works in movies; no reason why it wouldn't work here.

Jay slips against the wet tile, catches himself against the wall.

The noise is enough.

The creature's gaze locks onto Jay instantly, and his own eyes widen in response.

"Go, go go go go--!" he blurts out as he stumbles back to his feet, bolting off at an odd angle. Distract it. Draw its attention. Maybe Tim can, can do something, can run, whatever.

Shit.

The floors are too slick and slippery. The thing that used to be that mirror image of Jay swings its too-bright gaze around, throwing Jay into sharp and skeletal relief for a blazing second. It's enough for that to make Jay the new target - as always.

(It's every chair he tripped over, every light he turned on, every time he knocked on the house he meant to break into, every beam of flashlight cutting through the uniform dark and telegraphing his position.)

"On me, asshole!" He tears out from his crouch at a dead sprint. The lighter presses into his palm with hard edges. He just needs to find someplace dry, somewhere dry enough where he can set it all alight, weaken the floor around it or bring down the walls and ceiling -

The sound catches its attention, sending the lights swinging around to face Tim. Straining against the doorframe, it reaches for him with one crooked limb, and for a dizzying moment it looks like it might succeed. Instead it swings wide, claws burying into a chest of drawers.

The shadow lets out a low huff of frustration, a vast machine releasing steam, before straining to look at the splintered remains of the furniture. The air around it shifts impossibly, and it clips forward, now close enough to pick the pieces up, manipulate them.

The door is clear.

Jay sprints toward it, pocketknife unfolded (and praying he doesn't slip a second time). He rounds the vast bulk of the shadow closely enough to have a terrible idea.

He abandons his first idea, because this isn't Shadow of the Colossus, and even he's not stupid enough to try to make that work. He's exactly stupid enough to try his second idea, though, and he reaches out to nick the thing's ankle with his knife on the way to the door.

The hit lands, somehow, slicing a ten-inch gash in the creature's skin. The wound drips black tar, and the way the shadow screams is nearly human. Jay's stomach lurches.

~~Not so easy this time, is it?~~

The shadow twists to look at him, and there's a moment of blinding eye contact before Jay bolts out the door, spots dancing across his vision. Need to find somewhere flammable, but not too flammable. Somewhere they can contain the blaze before it spreads too far. Tim probably knows better about this stuff, if he's honest.

The vast, mechanical spiderlike sprawl of the thing should be unnerving, but it makes sense, doesn't it? It makes sense with everything it claims to be and the way Jay inserted himself into a narrative and now is really not the time to be thinking about the symbolic meaning, particularly as one massive, clawed hand slams into a chest of drawers with a splintering of wood and barely misses him.

A spurt of something black and oily erupts from the scar Jay's knife leaves across the thing's ankle. Its shrilling prickles at Tim's neck and raises gooseflesh on his arms despite the adrenaline storming his system, despite the pressing, thick-scented humidity clouding everything else.

"If we can get it moving up," he hisses to Jay as the other man closes the space between them, "we can take out the floor from under it."

Jay nods furiously. "Long as there's nobody below us." Tim's got a point. Use the height of this place to their advantage. If only they could've done this back in Tartarus.

He runs down the hallway, measuring his steps to make sure he doesn't lose Tim. He slides to a stop at an intersection, looks down each hall, and--

"Stairs, c'mon!" He motions for Tim to follow.

There's a sound of splintering wood behind them as the creature claws at the door, trying to force itself through.

"That's it! Stay right on our asses!" he belts back at the malformed shadow as it tries to work its way through a doorway far too small for its swollen frame. Pretty soon, he's certain the pieces of wall are gonna start crumbling and breaking to accommodate it. That's fine. That works fine in their favor, because this place might have a nice and pretty little aesthetic, but everything's downright fragile when it comes to combat.

He snatches up a splintered chunk of wood, some remnant of the shattered dresser, and hurls it at the creature before tearing up for the stairs.

"High as we can get," he pants to Jay. "If anyone's underneath - they're just gonna have to run."

The creature is bending low, still trying to fit through the doorway, when Tim heaves the piece of broken furniture at it.

Due to either lucky or unlucky timing, depending on whose perspective you take, the chunk of wood nails it across the face. A crack splits the mask from the jawline to the left eye, and the shadow screeches, lunging forward. The air buzzes for a moment, and if either Jay or Tim look back, they will see the space around the shadow split and smear as it clips forward, freeing it from the doorframe. It bounds toward the staircase.

Jay sprints up the stairs two at a time, glancing back at every landing to make sure Tim's still following. Lungs aching and throat stinging, he stops for a second at the entrance to a floor Jay neglected to count, wheezing, "Get downstairs! We're--the ceiling's coming down!"

He continues his ascent, attempting to repeat the warning every few floors, but he knows he's losing track. He knows he's not being as careful as he could be.

He can hear the scrape of the shadow's claws behind them.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject