entrancelogs | OPEN | here come the night

Entry tags:

OPEN | here come the night

Who: Adam Milligan (

halfwinchester) and whoever else might be admiring Ewaymas!
Where: Around the mansion.
When: Dec. 13, anytime from late night to mid-afternoon.
Rating: G for now!
Summary: What the hell's with all this Christmas stuff? At least one newcomer is out and about looking at the changes.
The Story:

_{[Very rarely does Adam sleep through the night--or at all, if he's being honest. When the light fades and the mansion gets quiet, it's the perfect time for thoughts of his time in the pit to creep back in, and almost every night begins and ends with him sitting wide-awake until he's too tired to mount a defense. Sometimes he likes to ward away his nightmares in the bathroom. It's smaller in there, and reminds him of the times he'd hidden there when he'd been sick with the flu as a young child.

That night, he's counting spots on the ceiling of his room when the snow starts to fall, and it's the first thing that grabs Adam's attention before the noise starts. Snow? Had that been in Wonderland's weather report? By the time his curiosity wins out over his apprehension, the noises outside his door have long since stopped.

He creeps into the hallway in bare feet to see what going's on. Christmas decorations? Is it Christmas?

The mansion looks beautifully done up in the late hours of the night, and for a while Adam looks around until the pull to return to his room grows too strong. He can be found downstairs inspecting the giant Christmas tree once daylight breaks, dressed for the weather in a heavy sweater. His breakfast is an apple, which he eats while poking at ornaments on the branches.

For once, he has something to do in the mansion that isn't simply "avoid angels." It's strange enough thinking it's already December. A lot of the time it feels like he just arrived, soul broken and all.]}

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The cracks?

[Souji reaches to adjust a pair of glasses he isn't wearing and then tries to play it off as scratching the bridge of his nose. Smoooooth.]

Were you here at Halloween? When the roots took over?

_{[Now he really thinks this guy is a little weird, as if he hadn't already, what with the hair and the talk about crawling into television screens like the evil girl from those Ring movies.

He waits a beat, but not entirely out of bemusement. It takes him a second to remember if it had been Halloween. October? He'd gotten here in October? Sounds right, maybe. He hadn't exactly kept a calendar of all his days spent thrashing around in fever dreams.]}

Yeah. When people were possessed. That time?

_{[People like him. Another reason he doesn't spend much time thinking about his first month in Wonderland is because of his time spent alongside his Mirror.]}

[Adam, you are just thinking what no one else is willing to say.]

Yeah. [Souji'd had to share with his Mirror as well. He'd rather not remember it.] It was the roots that caused it, remember? The ones down in the cracks now look the same. If they are, that means they're still inside Wonderland and things will break again.

_[Sullenly:]

I remember.

_{[And he still has the scabbed skin on his abdomen to prove it where the roots had dug in and his Mirror had tried to play doctor.]}

You mean you've never seen them before then?

_{[The way people talk, it's like they've gotten used to inexplicable effects happening around the mansion; he'd assumed the roots fell under that category, that they had just been something the long-term residents had known about and filed under "weird stuff that happens." Maybe not.]}

Never. They're new.

[He's seen Wonderland break down before, but the roots are totally new.]

But it isn't the first time things have gotten messed up.

_{["New," huh? Around Wonderland, crappy news falls on a gradient and this is somewhere between "a sign of impending doom" and "something out of a bad sci-fi film."]}

Well, that's great. I'm guessing everything happening all at once isn't a coincidence.

_{[Is he supposed to be relieved they're in this together, or even more resigned to some awful fate? Adam's leaning toward the latter.]}

And your special powers don't give you any hint what's gonna happen if they come through the floor?

They're not that kind of power.

[Souji tilts his head, one eyebrow raised, but not offended.]

Do you have a problem with people having powers?

_{[He'd mostly been sarcastic about the comment, so Adam's not exactly shocked to get a negative response.

He can't even really fault the guy for asking if he's some kind of special snowflake bigot, either, given that that's how the train of logic seems to go in this place. Unlike at home where mentions of the unnatural would be met with a hell of a lot worse, here people with supernatural abilities and monsters strut around like it's normal, like questioning them is the weird part. The girl Lena had certainly seemed to think failing to embrace the supernatural right off the bat is a sign of a personality defect.

For Adam, though, having a "problem" with it implies he has any kind of say over the stuff, which he doesn't. Just experience. Experience he can really do without.]}

Is that what it looks like to you? Like I've got a problem? _{[Adam's not any more offended than Souji. At least this guy gets points for not letting a bug crawl up his ass.]} I know a little bit about powers and usually it seems to end with a lot of people dead. And when stuff goes down, it's because monsters with chips on their shoulders decided to show off.

_[Basically.]

[Well...Souji can definitely see that. Even in his world, people with powers got a little out of control, and most of their powers didn't even work in daily life.]

Is that how you ended up in Hell?

_{[He doesn't think there will ever come a time when even a mention of Hell doesn't sharpen his attention. He lowers his chin a little.]}

More or less. I had a life before this stuff got in the middle of it. One of the monsters hanging around here took the wheel, actually, a lot like these Mirror guys of yours. He screwed up, so down we both went.

_{[He gives the barest summary without much emotion; in fact, there's a thin layer of sarcasm turning the words into something more cavalier than they should be.]}

That's the short version. Never seen it for yourself? Good for you.

Which monster?

["Monster" is a pretty relative label, though Souji thinks Adam has a pretty good excuse for using it.]

_{[This isn't the jolly Christmas story most people would probably care to hear, but this isn't exactly home, now is it?

He gestures at Souji's hair.]}

Well, they're not fair-haired and they don't play the harp, but I meant the angels. I've been hearing they're stuck here the same as everyone else.

_{[And if this guy's been here as long as he says, he must have heard about them. Right?]}

[Souji glances up at his hair again and puts a hand on it, but then gets distracted by the conversation and lowers his hand.]

I've met a few of them. You were a vessel?

[Gabriel told him about those, but he made it sound like it wasn't that terrible a thing. Souji had his doubts and Adam is increasing those.]

_{["Vessel" is a surprisingly specific word, and Adam's surprised to hear it. A split second ripple of emotion passes across his face before it's gone.

So he does know about what angels do to people. Maybe Adam shouldn't be so surprised about that fact.]}

Yeah.

_{[Even this simple response sounds doubtful, and regretful, and uneasy all at the same time.]}

I wouldn't recommend it unless you like being burned up inside out.

[That confirms some of Souji's suspicions.]

Sorry. That sucks.

[Really, what else can he say?]

_{[Not much, Adam knows. No one wants to really try and imagine someone else's personal horrors when they have their own troubles and tragedies. If Souji were a proper inhuman monster with special powers, chances are sympathy for a human would be the last thing on his mind, anyway.

This is an improvement on Adam's usual company.]}

Yeah. _{[It's fine, is what he means.]} So... you know, if you like your health I'd be careful around them. That's all I can say.

_{[No Christmas miracle-performing angels, these ones.]}

Yeah, I will.

[All he's ever really experienced from the angels in Wonderland is getting chalk cleaned off of his shirt and being given beer. But he's sure they're capable of a lot more.]

Is that why you're so careful? [About coming out of his room, about talking to people.] Because they're here?

_{[Adam is silent for a time. Sure, the guy's asking, but does he really want the honest answer? Is he just that curious or morbidly curious?]}

Do you know what Hell looks like?

_{[He can't help but answer the question with another question. If Souji knows, then he shouldn't need much prompting to understand why.]}

[Souji's curiosity borders on nosiness, but he's capable of minding his own business if told to do so. He just has no problem with butting in until that time comes.

He considers his answer and his tone when he finally speaks is circumspect.]

I know what the goddess of the underworld looks like in her true form. [That's the closest analog he has for the kind of place Adam's referring to.]

_{[Well, that's new. Adam tilts his head, eyebrows lifting. He can honestly say he hadn't been expecting that.]}

There's goddesses?

_[Wait.]

Of course there are.

It might be different in your world and mine. But in my world, I met Izanami.

_{[Oh, right. The parallel dimensions stuff. It's a little too Twilight Zone for his tastes when Earth and all of its bullshit is so complicated all on its own.]}

I have no idea who that is.

_{[It's a calm confession on behalf of a supernatural novice. He's not sure he'd like himself if he was a supernatural expert.]}

[Souji's not surprised.]

She's a Japanese goddess. She helped create the earth and gave birth to a lot of the gods and to the islands. Then she died and went to the underworld, where she rotted away.

_{[A... Japanese goddess? Isn't the whole "created Earth" thing supposed to be a part of God's resume, or is that just another holier-than-thou lie the angels tell to make themselves feel better?

He doesn't really get it, to be honest, but he doesn't pretend to. Making sense of conflicting cosmologies is outside his pay grade.]}

And you rub elbows with her? That have something to do with your powers?

_{[What else is he supposed to call them? He barely even knows what a vessel is, and he's apparently one of them, a spare shirt in Michael's closet.]}

She awakened them.

[Sort of. There's a fine line between "gave them" and "awakened them" apparently.]

In the end, we killed her. Me and my friends.

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