entrancelogs | You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack;

Who: Angel and YOU!
Where: Around the mansion as he gets his bearings and ~~lurks in hallways~~ looks around.
When: Evening, 9/29.
Rating: PG for now!
Summary: Angel arrives in Wonderland and is pretty sure that it's yet another cracked-out hell dimension.
The Story:

Angel’s first thought upon waking had been ‘hell dimension.’ The change of scenery had been sudden, the last thing he remembered being just about every monster imaginable crawling their way up through the that hellgate and preparing to let loose on Los Angeles. Their numbers had been thinned considerably. Gunn had been wounded, bleeding out but still standing, still ready to fight. Spike and Illyria were there, prepared to fight alongside him as they went forward to face impossible odds. Lorne was gone. Wesley hadn’t made it. It had only been the four them. Four against the forces of Hell and all that the pit had to offer.

It hadn’t mattered that they wouldn’t win. They were going to go down fighting. That was what people like them did. They were supposed to be champions. If nothing else, they would die like champions, throwing off Wolfram & Hart’s yolk that they had so willingly put on just a year earlier. That whole year had been wrong in so many ways. They had been able to fool themselves into thinking they were using this opportunity to do good, but Cordelia had seen right through it. Hell, even Spike saw through it. Trying to defeat an enemy from within the belly of the beast meant you had been swallowed.

So they’d decided to claw their way out. Hell or high water, they would brace themselves for the counter attack and go down fighting – but it would be one hell of a fight.

“Personally, I kind of want to slay the dragon.”

He couldn't remember anything after that. Climbing up on the beasts back, and then— and then what? This place? If he was dead, truly dead, this was one hell of an afterlife. He’d been killed in a back alley, buried in the earth only to rise again. He’d been impaled and sent to hell for some untold number of years, tormented mercilessly until some power had seen fit to bring him back. Death wasn’t exactly new for him, but this place was like nothing he’d ever seen before.

Hence ‘hell dimension.’ Had someone opened a portal, meant to take him and his allies out of the fight? If that was the case, it would have taken one heck of a bump to the head to knock him unconscious for the duration – either that or a doozy of a spell. He’d been to some pretty strange places in his long life, but this one was singular. Walls all but lined with mirrors that held no reflection – no change there, he surmised – with a décor that was strongly reminiscent of a funhouse. Or maybe Lorne’s place.

He grunted softly, rubbing at the back of his head as he began the slow and awkward shuffle down the corridor he’d found himself in. The countless doors reminded him of the hotel, except—

Except these rooms weren’t empty. Not all of them, at least. He could smell people beyond them, some human, some otherworldly, but all of them alive, breathing. He could hear their beating hearts from a distance, and it was distracting. He was injured, his clothes tattered and bloodstained, soaked through from the storm that had been raging when the battle began. He would heal quickly enough, but he would feel a whole lot better a lot faster if he found something to eat. The smell of blood and the faint but tempting thud of so many heartbeats would ebb away once he had. Something told him he wouldn’t be lucky enough to find a friendly butcher or a stray pig anywhere nearby, though. That presented a bit of a problem. And what about the allies he’d left behind? Were they here, too, scattered?

Damn it. He hated portals. Nothing good ever came from portal jumping.

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He wasn't used to people asking him that, to be honest. Maybe it was because he spurned offers of help so often that he'd become deaf to them, or maybe it was just because he tended to duck away from a fight scene once the battle was over and run off into the shadows to handle his injuries on his own. He never really allowed himself many opportunities to accept help in the first place, if he thought about it.

"I'll be okay, but--" It took him a moment to change gears, to shoo away the initial brush-off he would have given just about anyone who tried to approach him back at Wolfram & Hart in their last weeks there. He had no idea where he was or what he was supposed to be doing here. He could afford to be polite. "Thanks. I'm a quick healer."

Still, it was enough to make him frown and look down at his chest, pulling some of the torn cloth of his shirt to allow himself a better look. It was nasty, but he'd seen worse. Short of a stake to the heart or a beheading, he was pretty damn well invulnerable. Didn't mean cuts and stabs didn't hurt, though. He winced.

"I guess I wouldn't hate some painkillers if there are any to be found around here, though."

Carlos nodded thoughtfully, and decided against questioning the man's comment about being a quick healer. He doubted that was a question he'd get a straight answer on if he asked on a first meeting. Plus, this was as good a time as any to test what Cecil had told him about the closets giving them whatever they ask for.

"Are you allergic to certain ones? And are there any that you have a tolerance to?"

Truth be told, he had a tolerance to just about all of them, thanks to his vampire constitution, but of course he couldn't just come out and say that. Whatever this place was, it wasn't Los Angeles -- and despite the prominence of vampires and demons alike, most people were still shocked when confronted with the reality of the darker side of the city.

"No allergies." If he'd ever had them, they were gone now. That was something humans had to worry about, not him. "But the stronger, the better. I've got pretty high resistance."

Carlos nodded again and turned to knock on the door leading into what was hopefully an unoccupied room. When nobody answered, he opened the door, and was encouraged by the fact that there wasn't any indication that somebody had lived in it recently.

He went straight to the closet, reached inside, and, much to the delight of the scientist, pulled out a bottle of Valium. There were even pills inside! Carlos reigned in his curiosity and went to hand the bottle to Angel.

"I hope Valium is strong enough for you. I'm Carlos, by the way."

He blinked owlishly at the pill bottle as he accepted it, turning it over in his hand before looking towards the closet. Had he just--?

"This came out of there?" he asked, skeptical as he moved to get a better look at the closet itself. Empty, if appearances were to be believed. "Neat trick. How'd you manage that?"

He paused as the scientist introduced himself, giving a reserved nod. Fine. No reason not to be polite. "Angel."

"I believe anyone in Wonderland can do it, though sometimes you get living things if you're not careful. Supposedly, it's magic that allows us to do this."

Carlos frowned a little as he added, "The downside is that they don't provide anything that will send us to our original dimension, world, universe, however you want to call it."

"Living things. Like--?"

He cut himself off, watching the other man expectantly. Like animals? People? Or something that you'd rather greet with a broadsword, like monsters? Some of them were good people, but there was no denying it -- demons and magic were a pretty common combination.

"So the house itself provides for people, in exchange for keeping them here against their will." He frowned. "Some getaway."

"According to one source, it could be as big as a bear."

He had a suspicion of who got attacked by bears on accident. If he was wrong, then he'd be pleasantly surprised.

"That's what I've been told so far, though I'd be surprised if that was the sole reason we're here. I've also been told to be wary about mirrors. Apparently, our reflections are sentient beings who can view us at their leisure, but we can't do the same."

"A bear."

He rested his hand against his chin for a moment, thoughtful despite his skepticism, index finger crooked slightly over his mouth as he considered what else that might imply. Closets capable of conjuring bears. There was some magic he just didn't get.

It was the part about mirrors that brought him back to attention. Interesting.

"Any idea what that might mean for someone without a reflection?" You know. Just out of curiosity. He wasn't asking for himself or anything.

"A tricky question."

Carlos gave it some serious thought. Sometimes, Night Vale logic helped in these situations.

"My guess would be that they'd have a mirrored version of themselves regardless. These reflections, from what I've been told, are our opposites in obvious or subtle ways, and were created by the Queen of Hearts. Since they were created, having a reflection or not might not make a difference at all."

He shrugged.

"I could be wrong, but that's my guess until I can gather more information on the matter. Or someone else discovers it."

"Our opposites."

It was vaguely uncomfortable to stop and think about exactly what that might mean for him. If these Mirrors of theirs were allowed to contact other people, able to walk free and wreak havoc...

He'd been quick to draw conclusions about what would qualify as his 'opposite,' and it hit a little closer to home than he would like.

"Do they ever cross over, or are they stuck on the other side?"

It couldn't hurt to ask.

"Well, we can communicate with them by writing on the mirrors, but as for them physically affecting something here," Carlos trailed off to think about it. After a moment, "I've heard from one person that these mirror versions are only sent here when the Queen of Hearts wishes them to be here. I suspect that there's a dire consequence to whoever disobeys that rule."

"Of course there is." He resisted the urged to sigh, though there was an edge of exasperation to his voice.

"If that means I don't have to worry about my mirror coming into contact with anyone for awhile, that's good. I can hazard a few guesses about what it might be. Wouldn't be pretty."

Maybe it was a stretch to assume so, but given his previous experiences with alternate dimension and what that meant for the thing inside -- he felt it was a safe enough assumption.

You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack;

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