entrancelogs | who have i become? i'm still old enough to die young [open]

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who have i become? i'm still old enough to die young [open]

Who: Alex Kralie and you
Where: All over the mansion's interior
When: April 1st and April 2nd
Rating: PG-13 probs. there's some self-harm and thoughts of suicide in here, plus someone is getting murdered
Summary: Alex's inability to cope with his own emotions (or the lack thereof) causes problems
The Story:

kitchen; open; i'm static like a dead tv screen ( emotionless )

He opens the lighter with a quiet click and watches the stilling flame with complete disinterest. He shuts it again.

He has a purpose to fulfill. All's quiet in his head, at long goddamn last. No voice urging him on. No screams, no static, no tearing of stark white claws into the folds of his brain and carving them into jelly. It's quiet now.

It's his turn to burn.

He spends his flat moments gathering the requisite materials: a box of matches and a knife from the kitchen, lighter fluid from one of the closets. Whoever stands in his way will be dealt with accordingly. He has work to do.

[ooc: Evelyn has dibs on Taking Care of Alex but anyone else who wants to encounter him in his emotionless zombie state is welcome to!]

entrance hall; open; let this stranger have their death wish ( hyper-emotional )

He makes it as far as the entrance hall before panic creeps up on his chest and closes a tight fist around his throat, and he drops against the nearest wall and clenches his fists tight, jaw aching as he grits his teeth.

He killed them. He killed them. He killed them. Brian laughed, Sarah sighed, exasperated until he came up behind her with a chunk of rebar, Tim hadn't even wanted to be there, Seth was just trying to help when he left him to that thing underneath, Jay just wanted the goddamn tapes.

It doesn't matter. He did what he had to, like a hero. That's what he is. That's what he has to be, a hero, a hero, that's what he - what he -

A rage-filled sound tears its way out of his throat as he swings around and slams his fist into the wall. Then he does it again. And again. And again, until the skin of his knuckles is cracked and bleeding. Why didn't he end it right then, after? Who was he kidding, thinking he could escape when he should have slit his wrists and been done with it? Those are the rules, Kralie. You don't just get out and escape this shit forever and ever, you don't get to abscond with your sanity after getting touched with that blank-faced horror.

He deserves this.

third floor; closed to evelyn; if i pass on, then it's a mercy kill

He's compiled a list of potential threats, and cuts through the mansion with crisp, cold efficiency. The steps are cleanly outlined in his head, like something he's done a thousand times (has he? Maybe he has) - first step, kill the targets. A quick blade jabbing in and out of their neck should accomplish this nicely. Second step, burn the evidence. The jug of lighter fluid sloshes in one hand, the sharp tang of gasoline stinging his nostrils and causing his eyes to water.

But it doesn't matter. He has a list. He has a target. First, there's the kid that isn't a kid. Second, there's the one who somehow obtained knowledge of who he was and what he did (didn't they know he had to do it?), and third, there's Max. The thought should make him hesitate, but it doesn't. She knows about what hounds him, what haunts him, and there's only one solution to that. Kill her, kill the others, and then himself.

It's what's necessary.

He stops in front of one of the rooms and, without hesitation, uncaps the lighter fluid and begins to pour until it soaks through the carpet.

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What, she can't see he's busy? He glances at Max dispassionately. It's the work of the moment to slip the box of matches into his pocket, keep the knife low at his side and out of sight. She wouldn't suspect anything.

"Max," he says evenly.

Any other time of day, he would've felt guilt, or concern, or regret. What a refreshing change of pace it is to reach down to claw some socially-acceptable reaction out of himself and find...nothing.

Nothing except the patient realization that, as someone who knows about his past, Max has been put in a rather unique position where she has become a danger to him and everyone else.

Someone should take care of that.

He's doing something, rummaging through drawers, when she interrupts him. But she can't tell what- and is it really important right now? She wipes at her eyes, gasping for breath again as sobs well up and force themselves through her chest and throat.

She tries to piece it together. There had been that weird video on the network a few days ago, some lady literally losing her head. Is... is this an event? Does it fucking matter, because event or not, everyone back home is still dead!

No... no, they're alive right? They died in some other reality, some other timeline.

Still died, though.

She braces herself against the doorjamb, desperately trying to regain control and get her memories in order. What the fuck is wrong with her?

"I... I don't feel good, Alex..."

...huh. Now this is interesting. Looks like she's pretty much falling apart at the seams. Alex's grip on his improvised weapon tightens by increments. She's vulnerable, and she's talking to him like she can trust him.

That's cute.

"Gosh, I'm sorry," he says, barely managing to inflect the words with a modicum of something resembling pity. "Maybe you oughtta lie down for a bit."

If he can catch her off guard, it means she'll struggle less. He takes a step closer. One, and another. He tries to arrange his features into something vaguely sympathetic, trustworthy.

Through tears and sobs she sees him approaching, like he's going in for a... hug?

Alex Kralie does not hug.

But maybe he's starting to come around. Like maybe he's actually going to learn how to be a sympathetic and emotionally stable friend one day, and this is a step in the right direction. She doesn't back away, too caught up in her own dumb thoughts. Rooted in place, unmoving like a picture. Fighting down even stronger sobs.

Even Alex died because of her. She saw it happen on the network - what do you even say to something like that. "I'm so... s-sorry," she mumbles out, words catching on her incessant hiccups and sobs.

"It's all right," says Alex, smooth and calm, almost pleasant. "It'll be all right."

Because he'll make it all right.

Now hold still.

The knife comes up sharply as he brings it back, preparing to swing, aiming to plunge it into Max's neck. It'll be quick and clean. She won't feel a thing, and neither will he. It's the way it should be.

There's a glint of metal in his hand.

Then she feels it in a moment of hesitation: that instinctive pause as the world seems to shift, whenever she's in danger, whenever something terrible is about to happen just one moment away.

Time seems to slow by a tiny, tiny fraction.

No! she screams in her head. I don't have it, I don't! The power is gone, she can't rewind, she won't, she won't, never again, she doesn't have it she doesn't she doesn't-

For a second it's all too much, and she forces every bit of it away with an overriding thought. I can't rewind. And suddenly all of the fear, and guilt, and sadness fade away.

She stumbles on her own feet, falling backward into the hallway. Tears still cover her face, but the whimpers and sobs are gone. "What- what are you doing?" she asks, bewildered as she pushes with her feet, scrambling further into the hallway.

Edited 2016-04-02 04:20 (UTC)

Under any other circumstances Alex would have raged impotently, fuming at how she skipped out from under such an easy solution. Now, he simply adjusts his grip on the knife's handle and continues to advance, calm and patient. So she delayed the inevitable for a few seconds. Big deal. He'll get to her eventually.

"It's all right," he says, in placid monotone. "You trust me, don't you, Max? I'm going to fix it."

All she has to do is stand still, first. That's not too much to ask, is it? He pauses briefly, and forces the corners of his mouth into an unmistakably false smile. See? You can trust him, Max.

Her hand brushes against her bag as she works her way farther from him, eventually banging her head against the wall behind her. Her vision blurs as the impact sends sharp pain through her skull.

She loses her concentration. With one hand she desperately rummages through her bag, trying to find the small cylinder inside.

But at the same time, she thinks about rewinding - what's the harm, really? What's there to be afraid of? No fear. No worry. Just the power to fix things. Memories flood back - skittishly dancing on the edge of time, watching a roaring train plunge toward her best friend, then slide backward, roar forward again, back and forth, countless times.

Her other hand clutches at the back of her head, as she lets out a jagged, tight cry of pain and frustration. She feels the emotions waiting on the edge of consciousness and lets them flood back in. Time travel is wrong- time travel will get people hurt- she should be afraid of it.

Finally she finds the pepper spray, and her hand tightens around it in pain and desperation. She tries to ignore the blur in her eyes as she waits for him to step closer, closer.

She's not buying it, is she?

Ah, well. In a few minutes it won't matter anyway.

Alex stops short again. She's pinned here, trapped, but if he strikes now she might retaliate. Nothing fights harder or fiercer than someone who's cornered.

He lets his eyes flicker shut, then open again, wide and unnerved. A subtle tremble enters his tone.

"Max?" he says, brokenly. "Max, I - what's - what's going on - ?"

If he can get her to drop her guard, just for a moment -

Well, a moment's all he'll need.

It's hard to buy into the whole I'm going to fix it thing when he's waving that knife at her. And even now, as he asks her what's going on, she looks up and stares at the knife he's holding.

Her eyes haven't finished watering up from the ringing pain in her head, but she struggles slowly, warily, to her feet. "...Fuck you. That's what's up," she stammers. Her hand remains closed on the pepper spray. "God, Alex, you... you son of a bitch."

She brings her hand up again to wipe at her face, to see him better in case he tries to move again, while fighting down the pain and wondering what the fuck happened just minutes ago. It almost felt like she was about to rewind then... then something happened, she isn't sure. It's all so much, and she spends too long wiping at her tears.

The false expression slides off his face like oil, resolving back into its blank, empty intent.

Blank. How fitting.

See how it is, when you let those bothersome things override your rationality? Max is fragmenting, spilling apart, and Alex is calm and rational. He'll fix this, and move on to the next. Chara, that's the kid's name. Yes. They're next. And then the last. Everyone who knows has to die, and then finally, at long last, it'll be his turn. He'll turn the knife on himself or set his skin bubbling with a match and a shower in gasoline.

But can he expect her to understand it? No. Of course not.

"You never told me you felt that way," he says flatly, and he tears toward her with the knife extended to ram itself into her midriff.

"Because you-" she says, stopping short as she finally lowers her hand and sees him charging at her. The knife out and low, harder to dodge than his earlier overhead swing. But she's angry instead of sad this time. That gives her an odd sense of precision as she slides along the wall, away from the hand with the knife, and lashes out with her foot, right at his groin.

She's still pretty clumsy though, and the knife slices into her shirt and hoodie. The fabric is thick enough to help protect her, but she still cries out in pain as the blade leaves a shallow cut along her side.

She stumbles again and ends up on the floor. Whether or not her kick connects, she needs a moment to scramble back onto her feet. At least she finally brings that spray out of her bag.

He should've been more precise. He should've waited more selectively. The silent admonishment runs through his head even as an involuntary cry tears from his throat and he crashes against the wall when Max's kick hits.

There's nowhere to run. She can't escape, even if she can struggle. Alex grits his teeth against the pain, pushing away from the wall to right himself.

"You're making things difficult," he says, tone strained but even. "You're good at that."

She just has to complicate things, doesn't she? Can't just trust that Chara is rotten to the core, she has to risk everything on the sentiment of a murderer. Has to rip the awful truths from him even when he says it's dangerous. She has to die. There's no other way.

"You'll be first." There's a glimmer of scarlet on the blade as he brandishes it. "And I'll be last."

She'd expected (with no small amount of satisfaction) that he would take a lot more time to recover after her haphazard kick connected. But he's more resilient than she thought, and she eyes him warily through tears of pain. She clutches at the wound in her side and her head won't stop throbbing.

At least the hallway is stretching out behind her, now. She backs away steadily, careful not to trip over herself again.

"...This can't be happening. We- we're friends." As if that ever seems to matter here, in Wonderland.

Her vision blurs again and she blinks rapidly, but at least this time she doesn't bring up her hand. That was a mistake.

He cocks his head, looking at her with something that might be construed as remorse if he weren't already completely empty.

"You think I want to?" He doesn't. He wishes to god he doesn't have to. He spent hours, days, nights holed up in his room back home, nails digging into his scalp as he fought away the revelation that he didn't want to admit to himself.

That he would have to kill them. All of them. And then himself.

"I don't want to die, Max." His balance is still off from that kick she dealt him, but he tightens his jaw and keeps advancing. "I don't want you to die."

His eyes lose their focus for a moment.

"But I'm not afraid."

Max doesn't want any of this either. Later, when she's had more time to think about it, she might realize what all his rambling means. But now it's pretty nonsensical to her. "You're trying to... t-to stab me," she says, incredulous at the disconnect between his words and actions.

She notices his balance being slightly off, but she's too scared and in too much pain to make a move. Instead she continues to back away, and starts shouting in desperation. "Help!"

"Shut up," he says, but there's nothing behind the words, just a tone of vague admonishment. "I told you how it spreads. It's like a virus. And now you know."

It's how it has to be. Why can't she understand? She's smart, she's capable. She has to understand what's necessary here. It's not so hard.

He aims for her neck this time.

"Please hold still. I'll make it quick."

She tries to dodge without falling flat on her ass for once. But that doesn't actually go so well- she twists to one side and leans back slightly, trying to keep her neck out of the way of the knife. But it cuts deep into her shoulder and near her collar bone, instead.

She brings up her hand on the opposite side and sprays the pepper spray right at his face, with definitely more liquid than the instruction manual ever suggested.

At the same time she cries out in pain, eventually dropping the spray as her other arm goes limp. She stumbles back while clutching at her shoulder, wide-eyed and in shock.

Run run run! her mind rages in full overdrive, but her body doesn't follow for the moment. She cries out again, as the pain gets worse and worse.

The knife cuts into flesh, but it goes no further. He doesn't see the bottle until it's too late, and whatever he has to say next is swallowed by a wordless cry of agony as his eyes begin to burn on contact with the spray.

He would be screaming obscenities at this point, but that would just be pointless noise. Anything beyond the purely reflexive, the grunts of pain as he claws at his eyes and screws them shut, would simply serve as an alarm to anyone nearby.

He needs to get up. He needs to finish this. But he can't fucking see, and the knife has slipped from his grasp. Fuck. Fuck. Where is it.

In a haze of panic and shock, Max sees the knife fall. She should... she should kick it away or something. Take it so he won't be able to use it on anyone else. But it's on the floor near him, and she doesn't want to step any closer.

Sh-shit, she whispers against the pain. First with hesitation, then with growing resolve, she backs away. A moment later she breaks into a run, still clutching the wound on her shoulder.

Time to get the hell out of dodge. She runs to the nearest stairway, and in a few moments is out of sight as she climbs upwards.

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who have i become? i'm still old enough to die young [open]

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Hope this is okay lol

always

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