[closed] What will you gain, making your life a little longer?

[radiopalkiller]

Who: Philip [radiopalkiller] and audience (read: Evelyn O'Connell [nascensibility], Will Graham [notyourteacup], Ned (The Pie Maker) [wordvomit], The Once-ler [thneedifestdestiny] & Peter Rumancek [gadjos])
Where: Philip's room (5/499) & assorted Wonderland hallways
When: 11/19 - 11/23
Rating: R for graphic violence, animal death, people death & naked werewolves
Summary: If one death opens a door for darkness, then seven deaths rent a wrecking ball and tear down the walls. Two gunshots, two zombies, one stab, one fall, and one sip of poison later, and Philip is once again caught vividly reliving things he would much rather leave behind for good.
The Story:

His head jerks up, not for the first time in the last hour. Shadows stare back at him passively, from all the corners the lamplight doesn't reach. Three in the morning. Four, at most. Philip doesn't bother to check his watch for confirmation. Another sound in the distance. Wonderland never lies silent, but tonight it whispers ominously, tonight he swears he can hear it groan with the voices of ice and stone.

Tonight is colder and darker, and blaming it on the oncoming winter does nothing to reassure him.

'It definitely has lost weight. This one is so special, so central to what he is doing, he can't stand to wait long, and he doesn't have to. Tomorrow afternoon, he can do it, or tomorrow night. The next day at the latest. Soon.'

Philip turns the page, and watches the book slip through his hands, along with the last of his desire to keep reading. From its permanent paper prison the large moth looks at him accusingly. It's enough to drive him from the sofa, but sitting up feels heavier than it should. Philip exhales, and his breath fogs the air. Darkness swallows his frown as the light goes out.

Comments

[radiopalkiller]

It rumbles inside the walls, earth and rock shifting as it burrows free, a steady drumming sound in its wake as metal groans underneath its weight. The last time he looked back into the darkness Philip saw its maw, already too close and coming closer, a tube of muscle and teeth, devouring anything in its path.

Now he looks back and sees nothing.

Instead a door in front of him slams into the wall, and he barely has time to jerk to a halt. To stumble back, turn, and run again, but the sound has him transfixed. Not the giant mutantion come to drag him into darkness, not the Tuurngait out to make him one of their own. None of the faces that have haunted him, nothing to fear, except another mutt.

Philip rubs his eyes. Raw and weary they may be, but no amount of blinking stops them from seeing anything than a dog, a large dog, an ordinary dog that shows neither the mine's breed nor its decay.

It makes no sense to him.

He tightens both hands around the pickaxe, and stands ready to end it.

[gadjos]

The wolf's been waiting for this. Everywhere, ever since this started, ever since Wrong Moon has been pulling at it, it's been nothing but threats. Magic pulling at him, making him want to run, a steady beating in his ears that tell him to fight fight fight because if he doesn't he will die, and Peter keeps tearing him away from everyone. Away from the male and the two females, when all it really wanted was to put the threats down.

And then it would stop.

The wolf is in charge now, and this new threat appears. He could smell it in the stairs, smell the adrenaline and fear, the testosterone, the despair.

Blood, and another dog. Death.

That growling amps up a notch or two, like a rabid hound a second away from attacking.

Don't is the first coherent word Peter's been able to form in his mind since the wolf took control. It causes the wolf to snap and snarl in displeasure, fighting against the weak bid for control. Seriously, don't, just don't, just don't-

The wolf lunges forward regardless, teeth aiming for the nearest arm holding that pickaxe, aim skewed slightly by the tug of control from the man inside of him.