JERICHO ● SEPTEMBER 2025 EVENT/TDM

[uruz]

TDM & EVENT: JERICHO

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Prologue: New Characters

You've been plagued with a reoccuring dream, as of late. Every time you sleep, the dream returns to you.

It always begins the same way: As a breath held for too long. As a pressure at the base of your spine. A silence that presses against the skin like confession, like prophecy. A ripple moves through your bones. A tide builds and pulls at your feet, familiar by now. You dream of a black, soundless wave, thick like oil and starlight, swelling across the horizon line. You've seen the wave before, countless times, always rising. With every night, it never reaches you. You always seem to wake before it does . . . That is, until tonight.

The wave moves slow, deliberate— like something ancient and alive. And when it finally crashes, there is no harsh impact. Only warmth. Only submersion. Rather than drowning, you are being claimed with saltwater that's sweet with myrrh. The darkness embracing you pulses with desire. Then, a voice envelops you.

"Come home."
It dribbles with honey-like promise, like a truth you've always known, whispered now from within your marrow more like temptation than a request.

"You are mine. You always were."
The voice offers purpose. Worship. Belonging. And when you wake . . . You wake changed, with a mask on your face you did not choose. Elegant. Sacred. Too important to remove. You have been given a gift. A new beginning.

Welcome home, new Vessels.

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Sink Down Like Precious Stones

( content warnings: drowning, body horror )

Vessels awaken within the dreamscape as the black wave recedes from their skin like velvet falling off the bone, their masks in place over their eyes and left afloat in the watery expanse. All around them, the ocean stretches infinite and lightless— so still it mirrors the sky above, indistinguishable from the void. Far in the distance, massive obsidian walls curve inward, enclosing this vast seascape like a forgotten temple basin. And there, at the far horizon, one glow pierces the dark: a low-burning fire flickering within a half-sunken structure of impossible architecture— arched, ribbed, as though built from marble and cathedral glass.

This is a test, and it begins with belief.

Those with unwavering faith— whether in Sleep, another god, or even themselves— will find the surface beneath their feet holds firm. The sea becomes glass, and they may rise, and walk. But those adrift in doubt begin to sink. Precious stone creeps over their skin. Joints stiffen. Flesh cracks. Breath slows. It is not death, but it is close and might as well be hell. Your only salvation lies in your own conviction . . . Or the mercy of another Vessel who happens to walk.

Those who drown will not die. They will loop this moment— sinking, blackness, return, sink again— until belief takes root in some way. Alternatively, they may awaken in a later dreamspace . . . Changed.

NOTES:

• Pale white fish as well as glowing jellyfish may be encounted. The fish stare at vessels as they drown, and jellyfish may leave behind a shock that could temporarily stop the process of crystalization. But only temporarily— and their stings are excrutiating.

TOKEN EFFECTS:

• Magic becomes volatile— spells flicker, overcharge, or fizzle unpredictably when cast on or near the ocean.
• When you cast, your veins glow from beneath the skin, but not with light. It's writhing. Like something trapped under glass.
• When channeling magic, your mouth may fill with brine and blood.

OFFERING EFFECTS:

• The water responds emotionally— thrashing with fury or calming with yearning depending on the Offering's state of mind.
• The sea amplifies desire and instinct, making base emotions harder to suppress— rage, hunger, longing all churn just beneath the surface.
• The black water feels too warm, too alive, clinging to the body like memory; any stillness invites visions of Sleep's embrace, both reverent and consuming.

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You Taste Like New Flesh

( content warnings: body horror, psychological horror, compulsion, unreliable reality )

The ocean path ends at a palace carved of pearl and spun silk, impossibly perched where water meets nothingness. Whether you have traversed the black sea on trembling feet or simply awaken seated at an impossibly long table, it makes no difference. You are here now, and welcomed, suddenly in attire fit for a gala. Around this table sit countless Dream-Vessels, many silent and still, faces unreadable in the flickering candlelight wearing generic, six-eyed masks. The table stretches beyond sight, arching beneath creeping vines that twist like ancient veins overhead, blooming with strange blossoms that beat with energy. Flames dance atop dozens of candles— some burn on brass holders, others hover, like fireflies caught mid-flight, their shadows flickering and shifting with an otherworldly rhythm. Around you, phantasmal forms shimmer on pedestals: Sleep's ancient Guardians are eternalized through memorial, monstrous and magnificent, lost to time yet enshrined in reverence. On the highest pedestal stands a still living One, silent and watching the feast with somber eyes. Sleep's voice whispers in your ear, encouraging a glance to, perhaps, see what you may become.

"Feast, My Dear Vessels. Until you taste like New Flesh."

The foods before you don not come unmeddled with. Each bite pulls memories from your bones to the surface— moments buried or erased, but these are not just yours. The banquet feeds on shared history, stirring secrets tangled between you and the others here. To eat is to open a door: to risk awakening something dormant, to invite others inside your buried truths, to forge bonds or betrayals that can never be unseen.

Eton Mess: Crushed meringue, tangled cream, and berries that bleed like bruises when bitten. Sweetness melts quickly, leaving your tongue cold. As you eat, a memory rises— but you don't experience it alone. The person nearest you sees what you see, hears what you hear, feels what you felt. Together, you can alter one key detail, and that change ripples outward, shifting how you both remember the event.

Deviled Kidneys: Spiced and seared, the metallic richness clings to your mouth, as if tasting old blood. Eating summons the echo of a painful or violent memory, but your partner experiences it with you.

Roasted Lamb in Mint Sauce: The sweetness of the meat is cut by mint sharp enough to sting the throat. Your act of consumption awakens a craving, but not in you— in the Vessel sharing this dish. They feel an inexorable pull toward your memory, even without knowing what they seek. The bond persists until the craving is confronted.

Honey Scouse: A thick, golden stew heavy with warmth, but beneath the sweetness, something cloying curls around the edges. Every shared spoonful spreads a slow, creeping influence between you and your partner: intrusive visions, subtle compulsions, small lapses in agency. Neither of you can tell whose thoughts belong to whom.

Starpit Fruit: Plum-sized and faintly glowing, the juice leaves your fingertips dusted in silver, like handling starlight. When bitten, the fruit releases the memory of a forgotten wish, not to you but to the person beside you. They see it clearly— and know exactly what you once wanted most, even if you had buried it.

Marigold Brandy: A golden spirit served warm, glowing faintly as though sunlight has been trapped inside the glass. When lifted, it releases a soft, floral scent. The first sip draws you and your partner into a shared burst of joy— a memory that makes you swell with happiness. The sensation is so immediate, so electric, that when the memory breaks, your bodies ache to move, to speak, to draw more positivity to light. You may feel an irresistible pull to get up and dance on the wide palace floors, even if no music is playing . . . And if others nearby drink as well, the effect multiplies.

Saints Breath Chalice: A dark, wine-thick cordial served in tarnished silver cups etched with symbols that shift when stared at too long. The liquid smells faintly of frankincense and something sweeter— blood-warm and alive. Drinking it floods you and your partner with the overwhelming sensation of being inside someone else's celebration, a memory that belongs to neither of you: a vast mass of black, with branching antlers and six, glowing red eyes. It reaches to sink its claws into your chest as she sings: One. Beloved. We were meant to be. It is impossible to tell whether you're witnessing joy or manic worship. There is chanting you cannot understand but somehow already know, drums that sync with your heartbeat until you can feel nothing else. Your limbs begin to twitch, then sway, then move without conscious thought, drawn into a dance you do not remember learning. If more than two people drink, your movements synchronize perfectly, your breath matching theirs, until the room seems stop to watch.

The table awaits.

NOTES:

• Feasting becomes addictive. The more a character eats, the harder it is to stop. Gluttony may cause physical consequences: nosebleeds, twitching fingers, warping speech, uncontrollable confessions, or dripping nectar from their mouths.
• Those who refuse to eat at all begin to starve in a dream-sense: they lose color, smell burning, and feel the weight of Sleep's gaze. Her wrath isn't immediate— but it grows the longer you reject the feast. She takes offense.

TOKEN EFFECTS:

• Each spell cast after eating releases parasitic energy— manifesting as flowers, thorns, parasitic insects or rot— either from their own body or from someone they recently touched.
• Casting warps your limbs temporarily: too many joints, fingers curl the wrong way, nerves burn like wires.
• Touching others leaves sigils burned into their skin. These will briefly carry over into the waking world during next month's event. Runecasters will get the innate feeling that this symbol has a meaning summed up as "The Night Does Not Belong To God". How they interpret that is up to them.

OFFERING EFFECTS:

• The act of devouring awakens an overwhelming desire, often physical, but sometimes emotional or spiritual. This desire clings to another Vessel at the table, creating obsessive attachment or aggression.
• The more they eat, the more their monstrous traits subtly emerge.
• Consuming another Vessel's memory (if shared or touched) grants a brief glimpse of their deepest fear or weakness.

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There's Something In The Way You Lay

( content warnings: sexual content, voyeurism, body modification, omegaverse traits, loss of agency )

Beneath its pearlescent halls, beyond the banquet of flickering candles and dream-Vessels who eat in hollow silence, a spiral staircase winds downward. Its steps are damp and velvet-slick. The further you descend, the warmer the air becomes— humid, cloying, thick with the scent of sweat, salt, and incense. The sounds reach you first: Slaps, gasps, the wet chorus of bodies and perverse intimacy. Laughter, muffled sobs, the echo of whispered names long forgotten. At the base lies a corridor of "private" rooms. Their doors swing open with dreamlike invitation. Inside, the scenes unfold: past dream-Vessels lost in tableau— arched backs, bitten lips, mouths open in prayer or obedience. Some are alone, coiled in worship. Others tangle in groups, indistinguishable where one body ends and another begins. Vines bloom across the ceilings, watching. The walls glisten with breath. You see their faces, but you can't quite distinguish what or who they are. You may not remember choosing a role, but the dream has chosen for you. α or Ω— and with the naming, your body changes. There is no shame here, only devotion made manifest. This is how Sleep is worshipped now: through cruelty and surrender, through the giving and the taking of flesh.

NOTES

• Masks may optionally offer a sort of glamour for Vessels who wander into these chambers— they will not be able to recognize each other. How much of that, whether it be appearance, voice, and so on, is up to you.
• Past dream-Vessels perform for no one, eyes vacant, movements perfect, as if only a ghost of a memory. Player characters may interact with them and even partake in intimacy with them, but be warned: they are emotionally absent and may cause symptoms of succumbence that could be remedied with a proper, player-character tether.
• Tools hang on the walls: Rods of all sizes, slick with heat. Collars that hum with low, seductive voltage. Blindfolds that intensify physical contact, There's no need for cuffs or chains when there are vines that seem to respond to the α party's mood— tightening, flowering, or reaching for skin. You are free to come up with your own items.
• α perks:: Instinctive claiming (done through biting, rubbing, branding, etc), an almost predatory focus and obsession for those who interest them, pack gravity (the ability to attract one or more vessels at once), emitting a scent that ignites heat/rut in others, darker urges surge and a commanding voice.
Ω perks: High pain tolerance, instinctive yielding, emotional synchrony with those being watched, self-lubricating, hypersensitive, scent tracking, intense need to please or be filled emotionally, physically, and spiritually. When touched, glowing runes bloom across the skin.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• Spells cast during acts of intimacy may provoke a heightened sensation of euphoria for both caster and whoever is affected by the spell.
• Magic may manifest as misty appendages— extra hands, tongues, eyes, etc.
• Divine energy becomes volatile when passed through the body— ecstasy may border on agony, or vice versa, and Tethering becomes impossibly euphoric.

OFFERING EFFECTS

• Flesh becomes malleable mid-act— bones bending, jaws unhinging, skin blooming open, etc.
• Animalistic traits emerge: tails, claws, growls, tentacles, scent glands— all begging to be used.
• Feeding and Tethering are indistinguishable— hunger becomes worship, and worship becomes need.

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I am not worthy

( content warnings: body horror, violence, gore, parasitic/invasive feeding, death )

Wherever you are, the palace begins to rot. First slowly, then all at once: vines swell with black fluid, splitting at the seams. They burst from beneath marble tiles, coil up pillars, slither across frames and vacant thrones like arteries choking a heart. The candlelight flickers. One by one, the flames throughout the palace float upward . . . And die. No smoke. No warning. Just wet silence. Then the Dream-Vessels begin to fall. They do not scream as they do. They collapse like marionettes, limbs askew. Their flesh splits open along wounds that should not exist— a rip at the neck, teeth marks prying open the ribcage, a bite that swallows half a torso. Bones jut like sculpted ivory. Entrails slither across the floor like garlands. Some burst mid-air, as if the dream demands spectacle. Others fold in on themselves until all that's left of them is a mound of flesh.

"I am not worthy."

One voice. Ten. A thousand—layered, glitching, sweaty. It echoes from the walls, the bodies, the seams in the floor. The corpses twitch in time with the chant, jerking violently. Some snap backwards, eyes wide, jaws unhinged. Others explode— blossoming in gore, raining viscera. From the heaving pile of ruined Dream-Vessels, something forms.

It lurches into being: stitched from tongues, teeth, torsos. Weeping. Wailing. Worshipping. A monstrosity of raw flesh and faith: all failures made meat. Its eyes (are they eyes?) blink out. Arms claw outwards, too many to count. Its scent is of copper, sweat, and sorrow.

When The Abomination chooses to feed, it seeks not flesh, but the softest rot inside you. An appendage uncoils from its writhing mass and unhinged jaw— veined, slick, and trembling like a violated root. It drives itself into your mouth, splitting your lips with obscene tenderness, and sinks deep into your throat, locking you still.

What it draws out is not blood. It siphons your doubts, your fears, your most secret self-hatred. Your inadequacy. Every buried shame. Your hate. Your negativity. Every flinch of unworthiness. Every moment you believed yourself unlovable, unseen, too small. It gorges on what you hide from even yourself, and the more you try to resist, the sweeter your sorrow becomes. The last thing it takes is your life force, and then your viscera, leaving you wilted and shrivled like a hollow log.

This death is violating and feels painfully slow. You're drained raw of your vitality until you're but a brittle husk that breaks to dust in the wind. It seems near impossible to destroy, always reforming into bits and pieces left smudged behind. Perhaps your best bet it to run, or attempt to wake yourself up from this nightmare.

One's voice repeats in choked sobs: I am not worthy.

NOTES:

• Wounds from the beast linger. You may wake bleeding or marked.
• If devoured, characters will awaken the following month extremely fatigued during the first 3-5 days of the month. They may also sporadically rigurgitate black sludge. Characters who die and are already in the game may requesta plot clue, that will be a vision your character will dream of before awakening.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• Magic recoils violently when used on The Abomination, backfiring with psychic screams or ripping into your flesh.
• Your hands glow uncontrollably, burning what you touch— even those you love.
• Magic becomes hungry; it demands pieces of your body to function. A tooth. A nail. A rib (and so on).

OFFERING EFFECTS

• The rage it stirs in you is monstrous. You begin to shift uncontrollably— flesh blooms, bones crack under strain.
• Your body begins moving before you decide to. Twitching toward The Abomination, and toward the scent of despair.
• During the chaos, you may develop a fixation with another Vessel's flaw. You can smell it on them. It entrances you . . . To the point that you may feel the urge to feed them to The Abomination.

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OOC NOTES

➤ Welcome to Somnia's second TDM, which doubles as our third gamewide event!

➤ This TDM is considered game canon. You are free to have your character remember as many details as possible.

➤ Only new characters are free to experiment with the Vessel options to your liking; this is a dreamscape, so multiple/different situations for you to really test which option you like most is possible. Current characters must remain as their chosen Vessel type unless you requested a switch, which can be done on the Taken page.

➤ All TDMs take place within a dreamscape, meaning characters can interact with the setting without needing to apply. Come have fun with us!

➤ Veteran players, I ask to please refrain from making post-event threads for the time being! We have some important information to take into account in next month's event when characters are slated to "wake up". At the very least, please wait for the information to be offered on the next plotting post. Thank you everyone for your patience!

➤ Please comment on the TDM's INVITE TL if you are a new player interested in joining the game, but don't yet have an invite. Current players or the mod may reach out to extend an invite. Once you've got one, please don't forget to comment on the Invite page so you may properly link it in your reserve and app.

➤ Questions? Please direct them to the designated questions comment linked below!

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Comments

ellie | the last of us | new player.

[goty]

a | SINKING DOWN.

The airiness of dreaming-- everything is there, but she can't feel it-- recedes with the sensation of something on her face. Her mask is simple, functional, and it feels right. She doesn't question it as she sinks into the umbral sea.

She knows how to swim. That thought rises to the top of her mind, absurdly. Struggling to claw her way forward, to keep the blackness of the water out of her mouth, you'd think she'd remember by now.

Desperate to survive, she claws at any passerby, wet fingers slipping off an ankle, reaching for an outstretched hand.

b | LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH.
CW: memories of CANNIBALISM, CHILD ABUSE. Threads using this prompt may involve memories of GROOMING, STARVATION, MURDER.

Ellie has perhaps a pathological suspicion of food offered by strangers. Does she know this creature watching her? She dithers too long, and feels herself going weak. Has it really been so long, since the boar, since the lambs? Gotta be.

She relents, reaching for the nearest thing that can't possibly be made with human remains: some kind of strawberry desert (she is far too American to know what Eton Mess is).

The memory that rises to the surface is the one she was previously entertaining: David, in that frozen hell. A soft-spoken old man, calmly explaining why he'd trapped her, at the age of fourteen, in a cage. He's trying to help her, he says. But as he speaks, all she can see is the table behind him, where they'd just butchered a dead human body.

But in her dream, she holds a gun. Her finger shivers over the trigger, barrel pointed at that rotten old man's head.

c | UNWORTHY.

Fighting, finally, something Ellie knows. Her whole life has been a bloody, torrid ruin. When the screaming starts, excitement runs a shock through her body. Her fingers find the shard of glass she hid away at the banquet, a broken goblet used to make a shiv. She's ready. She waits in silence, striking only when the creature has chosen another target.

Whoever you are, running from the monster's hunger, Ellie darts from shadow to attack in your defense. Maybe you're already fighting the monster. Maybe you've already succumbed. It doesn't matter; any fight is good for her. Her shiv dives into the beast's rotting flesh, her high voice ringing out: "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you-"

d | WILDCARD.

[I'm cool with anything o/ feel free to mix & match prompts, or come up with something new. PM this journal if you want to ask me something.]

a.

[vixenish]

[ and a hand she will find.

Lortel is only as strong as your average, passingly fit seventeen year old girl; hauling another person bodily out of the water is no small thing!

but she holds on tight, and tugs with all her might, trying to pull whomever this poor person is onto the thick glass on which she herself stands. ]

[goty]

[Once Ellie has momentum behind her, she moves in concert; this isn't her first time almost drowning. It isn't her first time being saved. It's slow going, but she makes it out.]

Jesus. I- I know how to... [to swim. But the words are lost when she realizes they're somehow on top of the surface of the water.] This has gotta be a dream.

[vixenish]

It is.

[ Lortel crouches down, observing her to make sure she's steady. it's her faith that forms the glass; it is inches thick beneath her feet and completely steady. as long as Ellie stays near her, she won't risk falling back in. ]

A dream, I mean. Though ... unlike most dreams, this one will have rather severe consequences.

Take a moment and catch your breath.

[goty]

[Ellie feels the tug of jealousy at this girl's composure. Joel would give her so much shit for whining, for freaking out. She grits her teeth and forces her breathing to steady.] Then this is a shitty dream.

[She drags her hands down her face.] Okay, okay, fine, it's a dream. How do we get the fuck outta here?

a

[merged]

Sharon nearly slams her heel down the instant fingers close around her ankle, a sharp shriek tearing loose before recognition stops her cold. Not a monster, not some nightmare hand trying to yank her beneath the black depths, but another Vessel. Breath still tight in her chest, she crouches, grips the girl's wrist firmly, and hauls her upward. The water parts, then stills, and soon the Vessel's feet settle atop its surface as if it were solid glass, just like Sharon's own.

[goty]

Ellie stands with the same confidence found in a newborn deer-- she was drowning, now she's walking on water. She looks into the face of her savoir and feels a sucking awkwardness in her chest. "Th-thanks," she manages. "What the fuck is going on."

[merged]

Sharon feels a sudden gratitude that her own first plunge into the dream had been calmer; just an endless painted orchard, confusing but safe, no threat of drowning, no immediate struggle. Just confusion.

This girl, though... she's dealing with so much more.

"You've been chosen by Sleep to be one of her vessels, congrats," Sharon says, sarcasm dripping from her voice, but she immediately catches herself. That's not going to help right now. She exhales, shaking her head. "Sorry, bad habit. I'm Sharon, and, well... this is a dream. Not a good one, either."

[goty]

Pretty girls snipping at Ellie while she's dripping wet isn't totally out of left field for a dream, except she's actually shivering. She can feel all of this in a way you don't when you're actually asleep. If it's real life, then... Ellie can't keep holding onto this girl, can't embarrass herself, them both. Loneliness isn't an excuse for shit, or Joel-

She doesn't want to think about Joel.

Ellie lets go, and takes a cautious step on the surface of a black ocean. "You're gonna have to say that first part again," she says. "And, uh. I'm Ellie."

b!

[hexrot]

[ jayce has noticed the girl beside him for some time now and recognizes her mistrust— not only does he not judge her, but he is the very same, mostly out of the fact that he's a veteran vessel. jayce pretends to eat for as long as possible, occasionally putting something on his plate, prodding at it, filling a goblet, but stalling actual consumption. just— observing, and wishing widely to be elsewhere despite his fancy white tux and clean shaven face. unfortunate for the girl, the sweetest looking dish had to perhaps be one of the worst. it's a good thing that it isn't on jayce's plate, not like it mattered— the girl beside him is the one to hit him foremost. he has to steady himself and is thankful for being seated, for a moment.

what he experiences is infuriating. if there's something he hates and has tried to fight against, it's those who manipulate the vulnerable under the guise of protection. occasionally, jayce glances sideways— a young woman, but still too young to be forced to hold a trigger. it makes him taste bile, reminded of silco, and a little boy dead by him own hand because he shouldn't have been in a drug lab in the first place. should've been havinng a childhood, being a kid.

gods. and the longer jayce stays quiet, the longer his lips work tight together, visions eating at his conscience and urging him to say something, or to eat something— the anxious tapping of his finger against the table eventually leads him to quietly murmur: ]

Men like that don't stop unless you make them.

[goty]

[Hours later, in the timeline of that memory, there would be fire and her ax, heavy with blood. Ellie feels her own gorge rise, a swell of bile at the back of her throat. She chokes it down like always. Reassurance is almost painful. Her first reaction, learned from Joel, is to strike out and hopefully kill that vulnerable feeling.]

I fucking didn't ask you.

[But unlike Joel, guilt always catches up. Ellie grinds her teeth over the taste of stomach acid and thinks, and all her thoughts are: but he's right. They agree.]

I mean, I killed him. Whatever.

[hexrot]

[ the response is harsh, critical, defensive; jayce sits firm, if not a touch guilty for following the urge to press to begin with. he's almost close to sure he could've a similar, kneejerk reaction if it was something that was under his skin, so he can't blame her. won't blame her. stay silent, but if she's the one adding more . . .

jayce takes it like an olive branch. ]

I don't usually say good, but, [ you know. from kneading his temple to free the stress that's built up there, he waves his hand. ] good.

[ he's not going to be a fucking hypocrite; he's killed even if he's never wanted to, killed when he's made the choice to. when cornered to. he's by far going to play saint. god, he needs another fucking drink that doesn't give him the giggles, but the brandy might be tempting him.

luckily, they've got regular mead. he's just going to fill his cup and— offer the rest to ellie. ]

[goty]

[What makes Ellie feel sick is how this guy doesn't know the half of it, but that's a truth that, on most days, Ellie keeps even from herself. She still remembers the feel of it-- not his tacky blood on her hands, but his living hand, folded over hers. She breathes in, she breathes out. It's all over now. It's all over, and there's nothing to worry about, because it's done. There's no reason to still feel anything.]

[She wants to break something.]

[She considers the glass, and takes it very carefully, but even then, her body feels distant from herself. Pain would complete the circuit, make her feel whole again, but there's nothing to fight.]

You gotta eat something. So we'll be even. [These are, she's decided, the rules.]

C

[sculptedash]

Fighting the monster had wound up being a futile effort for Ash. Her new powers had failed her when she needed them most, any attempt to call on shadows had wound up back firing on her. ...And outside of those she didn't have a whole lot of strength to really speak of on her own.

She's about to try and make a break for it when she sees the other girl make a dive at it and start stabbing.

"Woah! We've got a badass here!" She says with a hint of excitement behind the the worry in her tone. It does inspire her to move to pick up a chair and take a swing at the creature with it.

Re: C

[goty]

Ellie's first scattered thought is that she's being mocked, but it's fleeting. In a fight, the only thoughts that survive are about fighting. It isn't bravery that moves Ellie. It's instinct: you fight, and then you fight, and you just don't stop, even when you have nothing to live for, no joy in life, no reason to keep going. You don't stop. She's never allowed to stop.

Black blood makes her hands slick. Her shiv digs into the creature's flesh, and when she pulls her hand back, the shiv stays. Weaponless, she's knocked back into a wall, hard enough for her teeth to rattle. "Fuck-"

[sculptedash]

This was a case of game recognizing game. Ash was all for someone willing to do gory violence on a monster. It's not long after Ellie gets knocked off that the chair connects and shatters against the monster. Unfortunately it doesn't really do much to stop the monster itself.

"Shit-" Is about all Ash can say before an arm slams against her and she finds herself sprawling against the ground near Ellie.

"Okay. We might need a better plan."

[goty]

"Fuckin' run?" They have nothing to gain here, now that both of them are free. Danger is its own reward-- for the first time since all this started, Ellie feels like she's really alive again. "I'll distract it. You go."

b (lmk if u need more)

[sadpoem]

[Don't.

[Sunny doesn't speak it - Sunny rarely speaks anything, but the murmur burns with his trepidation. He doesn't want to hear the gun fire, see someone die. There's a body on the table. There's a body on the table.

[He pulls his blindfold down over both his eyes, but it doesn't block the vision. Sunny trembles.]

[goty]

[Ellie looks through the eyeholes of her mask, glaring. There's a long pause, as though she's daring this kid to speak. She was that young, once, but she wasn't that naive.]

What?

[sadpoem]

[If Sunny is naive, he's not as much as he'd like to be. He cut Aubrey with that knife; he dreams about guts.

[And he isn't as young as he looks, but he is afraid, and he thinks Ellie might be too. She speaks, and he flinches, eyes going to the calm, strange, terrible old man. Sunny waits to see if he reacts.]

[goty]

[Ellie doesn't want to be doing this right now, sharing her memories with a stranger. She'll fight it out if that solves things faster, but this kid isn't saying anything.] Man, whatever. [She'll just leave if she can. She begins to turn away.]

b+d | wildcard.

[opheliac]

[during the banquet, there's a lot going on. vessels (dreamlike or non) are drinking, eating, dancing, and chatting away amongst themselves while dealing with memory sharing beyond their control. and who is to say what ellie is doing during all of this—talking, drinking, dancing, or finding a way out?

either way, the next time she gets up and decides to move around, if she is not careful or distracted, there is a chance she will step on a loose cobblestone. if or when she does, something below it pops, and pink glitter will sprinkle all over her attire. what a childish joke! who could have done this?! who should pay? well. there is a colorful looking individual who is sitting not too far from this incident, casually playing with a yo-yo as the toy drops and zips back into her hand. how suspicious.]

[goty]

[In a moment, Ellie is wielding a knife. It's a big serrated steak knife, sharp and mean and stolen from the banquet table. It's her first answer for unwelcome surprise. Something changes, and she's stabbing at empty air. She only realizes later, once the adrenaline has worn off, that she's covered in glitter.]

[She sees the figure off to the side, complete with brightly colored yo-yo, and all but rolls her eyes. Then she really does roll them, because why bother being polite? She holds up her free hand to shout-] How's this shit come off?

[opheliac]

Beauty products. [she says plainly, lifting her head to reveal herself wearing a blindfold with a playful sneer attached.] — But what kind? I'll leave that up to the mystery. It's no fun if someone gives you all the answers.

[jinx slouches more in her seat, flicking her wrist to let the yo-yo trail for a few seconds.] Besides, you need a bit of color, and this is an improvement. So you're very welcome.

[goty]

You're an asshole. [She says it with no malice, but maybe some fatigue. This is all so stupid. Her life is so stupid. Will it ever have a purpose?]

[Not here.] D'you do this to everybody?