OK. OK. She could... well, she'd survived a lot longer than most people had, so that had to be worth something. And she'd done some basic first aid training when she was doing the Marine side of things in case someone accidentally got shot or whatever. Maybe didn't apply just so well to uh, being ripped open by a... whatever the fuck the Chimera was, but it was better than nothing.
The tremors in her hands starting to fade, Charlie tuned out Esther behind her, trying to have a conversation with the thing. It just... god, that voice triggered the whole uncanny valley response in her, and for a brief moment she wondered if it'd been the whole reason humanity had even developed one. She'd read once that like, that musta meant there was something that kinda looked like a human but wasn't way back when, and... well, shit, maybe that was it.
But she discarded that idea with a soft sigh, focusing on cleaning the big gash in Evan first. If there were more Chimeras out there, humanity wouldn't have made it to this point.
"Sorry if it stings, uh... shit." Alright, uh... alright, stitch it up. She'd never been good with a needle or thread, but even shitty needlework was better than nothing. As for bandaging it up, well, she had plenty of stuff in that little box with the Russian on it. Probably wouldn't need to resort to makeshift stuff unless Esther's little chat went south, but... she'd be a little conservative anyway, just in case.
OK. Big boy was stitched up. Now for the other two.
Shallows Low
Pull the pin, see the light. (Day 4, private)
Moderator: SOTF U Staff
-
Applesintime
- Posts: 836
- Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2020 11:57 am
- Team Affiliation: Ben's Crabs
The initial adrenaline and shock was wearing away, his general dissociation failing to numb the pain of each puncture of the needle as Charlie worked. It was messy, too quick, and they’d probably tear open if he moved around too much. At this point, it was probably just theatre.
Still, at least with the bandages on, there was a sense that he might make it. Like they were planning for him to continue, to leave this warehouse and this island and this insane little game Janus-Hayes was playing with their lives. If this were only a little game, he’d snap right up as soon as the bandages were on, his little hitpoint bar slowly refilling from a sliver of red to a replete green. It pushed him to persist through the pain and mental fog, and remain as present as he could.
In doing so, he was aware enough to acutely feel like a burden.
“Charlie. Thank you.”
The very least he could do. The rest of his repayment would probably come from the gun he could no longer safely use.
“My gun. Can’t risk the recoil ripping these open. Use it, if you have to. I have a backup.”
His - Zandah’s - Obrez stuck out of the pocket of his parka. Evan drew it from his pocket slowly, focus now returning to the conversation happening on the other side of the room.
He listened to them intently; it helped to keep his focus on what felt like the greater goal - answers. If he was going to die, he wanted to know why. More than that, if there were answers to be found, he wanted someone to take that knowledge back home with them.
If that meant he died putting a few more bullets into that thing, then so be it.
Still, at least with the bandages on, there was a sense that he might make it. Like they were planning for him to continue, to leave this warehouse and this island and this insane little game Janus-Hayes was playing with their lives. If this were only a little game, he’d snap right up as soon as the bandages were on, his little hitpoint bar slowly refilling from a sliver of red to a replete green. It pushed him to persist through the pain and mental fog, and remain as present as he could.
In doing so, he was aware enough to acutely feel like a burden.
“Charlie. Thank you.”
The very least he could do. The rest of his repayment would probably come from the gun he could no longer safely use.
“My gun. Can’t risk the recoil ripping these open. Use it, if you have to. I have a backup.”
His - Zandah’s - Obrez stuck out of the pocket of his parka. Evan drew it from his pocket slowly, focus now returning to the conversation happening on the other side of the room.
He listened to them intently; it helped to keep his focus on what felt like the greater goal - answers. If he was going to die, he wanted to know why. More than that, if there were answers to be found, he wanted someone to take that knowledge back home with them.
If that meant he died putting a few more bullets into that thing, then so be it.
SOTF: U
Evan Keane: "I guess my world was always gonna end, somehow."
SOTF Supers:
August Hanlon - "This never felt like much of a Gift."
Evan Keane: "I guess my world was always gonna end, somehow."
SOTF Supers:
August Hanlon - "This never felt like much of a Gift."
The one who had wounded it asked a question; the other human took a different approach.
It took a moment to approximate the meaning. Their words were new and old at once; every concept it was met with had to be recalled, from the memory of the others.
“Friend?”
The word came with an emotional response. Hate, frustration, grief, it recognized. They were bonded, this human and the one it had previously accosted. That knowledge would further account for the ferocity of her attack in response.
They were adept at finding patterns. Associations, connections. Chimera could not help but find them now, as well. Once, in the earliest time it could recall, it was not alone. Their language was simple - scent, light, electrical signals. In the simplest terms, they could know one another.
Here, even with these new words, it was alone.
“Friend. Loss. Meaning. You must know why. I can speak of this.” It replied, slowly. The unconscious association brought with it a sorrowful tone.
Information could be exchanged. Chimera hoped its explanation would be enough. At least, it bought it time to recover.
“You are weak. Fragile. You adapt in action. Not in form. Not in mind. You are human. You will be human. Always.”
It raised its left arm, gently.
“I adapt, in action,” it gestured, as a human might do in conversation.
“In form,” The scales and fur on its arm shifted slightly, turning from an off-white to a metallic blue, then to a deep gray.
“In mind.” It glanced to the PDA on Esther's wrist, and then locked eyes with her.
“I should not fear you.” It bowed its head, not entirely knowing why. The word shame felt relevant, somehow.
“All of this: Waking alone. Caged, studied. Pieces taken from me. Finding ourselves here. This place, these structures. The computers you carry. Survival of the Fittest. Chimera. All of this is your doing. I did not understand. My thoughts were simple. I felt fear.”
The oldest instinct.
“If I understand, then I do not fear you. I knew this, before I understood what it was to know. I followed, I watched, I consumed. I changed, adapted from you, your strengths, your weaknesses, your language.”
Tiny strands of sinew attempted to weave together inside Chimera, slowly mending the hole in its body. The wound extended well beyond the puncture. Its body was stable, but not functional.
They could not make such an injury with their limbs. Instead, it was the collective knowledge of humanity that had punched a hole through Chimera's chest, rupturing organs and shattering bone.
“I understand now. Your intelligence. You think. You speak. Coordinate. Build. Learn. Grow. Destroy. Dominate. Together, far greater than one. You live as one, die as one. Survive as many others.
You remain frightening to me. I am alone.”
It cocked its head, and glanced back towards the other humans in the opposite end of the room.
"What is it you want?" It mimicked Esther's voice, perfectly, before replying to the initial question.
“I want to find my friends. They are out there. In the oldest sense-memory, I was once we. Then we were displaced. Something unnatural. After, there was only cold and darkness. Then I woke alone, in your wilds. Humans captured me. There must be others.”
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Dr Adjective
- Posts: 139
- Joined: Fri Oct 28, 2022 9:22 pm
- Location: i am living in your walls
She understood. She didn't necessarily forgive, didn't necessarily let go, but Esther understood. Chimera was an animal at the end of the day, no different than her. She'd been afraid and lashed out, so had... it? They? She wasn't sure of the pronoun to use. The creature before her was intelligent, articulate, clearly a person in the ways that mattered, so "it" felt wrong. Referring to a being as if it were an object. "Them" it was.
So they had been afraid. Actions taken in fear were not necessarily automatically to be forgiven, but leeway had to be given. They hadn't been in the sort of blind panic that Esther had been in when she'd opened fire, but was that so many levels removed from the headspace of a creature in a completely unfamiliar place, surrounded by beings only familiar in their resemblance to past tormentors? Yes. She understood. It was the first step towards letting go of the kernel of hatred she'd been nurturing thus far.
But what Chimera said next threw her. They spoke of being alone. Of their own friends. Of course, even Janus-Hayes had admitted to discovering the creature, not creating it the way they had created Vermiculus from scratch, or created the Revenants from the remains of humans. Of course then, it stood to reason that they were not the only one of their kind. But no... wait... Janus-Hayes had discovered them here. And to hear Chimera tell it, that was after they'd been "displaced". So something bigger than both of them was potentially at play. Were the others of their kind here in Siberia too? Or had they been displaced alone?
And yet, to begin her line of questioning on that whole topic, one query stood out above all others. She had to ask.
"You're right," she began.
"We live in a society, we... cooperate, for the most part, to do more than our bodies can do alone."
For the most part. Esther pulled a face as she said it, thinking on what global society could be if not for the stranglehold of profit over the human spirit.
"But we're individuals."
Not the most elegant segue. Esther was not one for eloquence.
"My name is Esther," she gestured towards the others, "she's Charlie, and he's Evan. Do you have a name? Janus-Hayes call you Chimera, but I don't wanna call you what they do. Those fucks are my enemy as much as yours."
Now if she could just carry that notion a little further, perhaps they'd have one hell of an ally...
So they had been afraid. Actions taken in fear were not necessarily automatically to be forgiven, but leeway had to be given. They hadn't been in the sort of blind panic that Esther had been in when she'd opened fire, but was that so many levels removed from the headspace of a creature in a completely unfamiliar place, surrounded by beings only familiar in their resemblance to past tormentors? Yes. She understood. It was the first step towards letting go of the kernel of hatred she'd been nurturing thus far.
But what Chimera said next threw her. They spoke of being alone. Of their own friends. Of course, even Janus-Hayes had admitted to discovering the creature, not creating it the way they had created Vermiculus from scratch, or created the Revenants from the remains of humans. Of course then, it stood to reason that they were not the only one of their kind. But no... wait... Janus-Hayes had discovered them here. And to hear Chimera tell it, that was after they'd been "displaced". So something bigger than both of them was potentially at play. Were the others of their kind here in Siberia too? Or had they been displaced alone?
And yet, to begin her line of questioning on that whole topic, one query stood out above all others. She had to ask.
"You're right," she began.
"We live in a society, we... cooperate, for the most part, to do more than our bodies can do alone."
For the most part. Esther pulled a face as she said it, thinking on what global society could be if not for the stranglehold of profit over the human spirit.
"But we're individuals."
Not the most elegant segue. Esther was not one for eloquence.
"My name is Esther," she gestured towards the others, "she's Charlie, and he's Evan. Do you have a name? Janus-Hayes call you Chimera, but I don't wanna call you what they do. Those fucks are my enemy as much as yours."
Now if she could just carry that notion a little further, perhaps they'd have one hell of an ally...
SOTF: U
Esther Ježek
Status: Deceased (Vaporised)
Last equipped with: PPSh-41 submachinegun (3x 35 round box magazines)
Last seen: The Docks. In a warehouse.
Ⓐ
Step One:
-> Step Two: 
-> Step Three: 
-> Step Four: 
-> Step Five: 
-> Step Six: 
-> †
One Room Death Game - Charlotte Torres & her opossum plush (subscribe to Goblin Town!)
Esther Ježek
Status: Deceased (Vaporised)
Last equipped with: PPSh-41 submachinegun (3x 35 round box magazines)
Last seen: The Docks. In a warehouse.
Ⓐ
Step One:
-> Step Two: 
-> Step Three: 
-> Step Four: 
-> Step Five: 
-> Step Six: 
-> †One Room Death Game - Charlotte Torres & her opossum plush (subscribe to Goblin Town!)
A name. Identifier. A way to be called to, referred to.
What identity had it held in its mind, what dim flicker of sentience existed at the very beginning?
How long had it been?
Where was home?
None of these words belonged to it. None of their sounds, or the inscriptions of them, or the pictograms of the other humans, were adequate to explain what it had once known.
One of the only things it had known, once a mind and thoughts had formed.
The Chimera looked pensively to the ground, its expression an instinctive impression of a human's. It could not translate what it knew, or process it in a way this one could understand. It scarcely understood itself.
Others were watching. Those fucks. Perhaps, in time, they would understand what it was about to say.
It looked to the one named Esther, and past to the ones named Charlie and Evan.
"My name:"
The Chimera's bare skin, not covered in fur, began to change colour slightly. Iridescent like its blood, shifting in the dim light. Patterns in the dried blood on its chest reacted in response. Its eyes refracted light, rather than absorbing it, a flickering pattern of deliberate signals.
Its gaze drifted far at first, as it opened its mouth slightly. A harmony of tones left its throat, a low thrum overlaid atop an almost mechanical trill. The smell of ozone, metal, and decay briefly passed through the air, as did the conspicuous tingle of static. The Chimera's response brought with it a sense of vertigo.
Anything alive to witness it felt a distinct feeling of unreality brought on by sensations at the edge of perception. Though none of them could see it, nearby instrumentation registered a sudden spike in ionizing radiation; momentary, but well beyond the expected levels of the radioactive tracers used to track the Chimera.
It ended its reply staring directly into Esther's eyes. Humans were well-adapted to read emotions, and it communicated in that language as well, saying as much in their wordless language as it was able.
There was no name to call itself, yet it knew how to call to its others. Their environment was chaotic, demanding, volatile. They could not afford to compete with one another, and coordinated at distance. It knew they would be far, and in innumerable forms. Whatever the form, they could always communicate pieces of a greater harmony, a signal intelligible to all of their kind, no matter how simple or complex.
Adaptation was survival, the only path to thrive in a world far more uncertain and dangerous than this one. Apex predators, as influential in their point of origin as these humans had now become.
They should not coexist.
What identity had it held in its mind, what dim flicker of sentience existed at the very beginning?
How long had it been?
Where was home?
None of these words belonged to it. None of their sounds, or the inscriptions of them, or the pictograms of the other humans, were adequate to explain what it had once known.
One of the only things it had known, once a mind and thoughts had formed.
The Chimera looked pensively to the ground, its expression an instinctive impression of a human's. It could not translate what it knew, or process it in a way this one could understand. It scarcely understood itself.
Others were watching. Those fucks. Perhaps, in time, they would understand what it was about to say.
It looked to the one named Esther, and past to the ones named Charlie and Evan.
"My name:"
The Chimera's bare skin, not covered in fur, began to change colour slightly. Iridescent like its blood, shifting in the dim light. Patterns in the dried blood on its chest reacted in response. Its eyes refracted light, rather than absorbing it, a flickering pattern of deliberate signals.
Its gaze drifted far at first, as it opened its mouth slightly. A harmony of tones left its throat, a low thrum overlaid atop an almost mechanical trill. The smell of ozone, metal, and decay briefly passed through the air, as did the conspicuous tingle of static. The Chimera's response brought with it a sense of vertigo.
Anything alive to witness it felt a distinct feeling of unreality brought on by sensations at the edge of perception. Though none of them could see it, nearby instrumentation registered a sudden spike in ionizing radiation; momentary, but well beyond the expected levels of the radioactive tracers used to track the Chimera.
It ended its reply staring directly into Esther's eyes. Humans were well-adapted to read emotions, and it communicated in that language as well, saying as much in their wordless language as it was able.
There was no name to call itself, yet it knew how to call to its others. Their environment was chaotic, demanding, volatile. They could not afford to compete with one another, and coordinated at distance. It knew they would be far, and in innumerable forms. Whatever the form, they could always communicate pieces of a greater harmony, a signal intelligible to all of their kind, no matter how simple or complex.
Adaptation was survival, the only path to thrive in a world far more uncertain and dangerous than this one. Apex predators, as influential in their point of origin as these humans had now become.
They should not coexist.
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Dr Adjective
- Posts: 139
- Joined: Fri Oct 28, 2022 9:22 pm
- Location: i am living in your walls
The being before Esther was not an ally.
No single thing she could put her proverbial finger on told her that, of course. But the effect was clear. The Chimera's response, like if a poorly-trained AI model had tried to recreate whale song, wasn't simply unpleasant on the ears, it was a window into a reality that she could just barely conceive of. A reality where coexistence was tolerated for the species, and abhorred for all else. A reality of chaos, yes, but not the chaos Esther believed in. An infinity not of possibilities, of freedoms, but of threats, collapsing all possibilities down to a simple inevitability.
Maybe some day, with the right carrots and sticks, humanity might find the future that Esther dreamed of.
But that would never happen if the creature before her broke containment. Found its "friends". Brought its reality to hers. Humanity could no more achieve its potential with Chimera interference than the rest of the world could with American.
But if the explosion last night and the announcement that morning were to be believed, then the Chimera had survived an entire power plant going up around it. What exactly could she do with the gun that won Stalingrad and a grenade that she couldn't even properly identify. Shrapnel, high explosive, hell, it could even be gas for all she knew. At best, she could try and dupe the monster into letting it go off near a wound, but the girl strongly doubted she could play off that kind of deception even if the creature had no idea what a grenade was. Maybe if it ate the grenade somehow... no, that seemed even less likely.
So, one last option, the technique of the few and the weak: to play two powerful forces off against each other. If she could be convincing enough, if somehow some borrowed zeal might serve to sell the Chimera on easing off her fellow captives and turning its considerable attention onto Janus-Hayes instead. Maybe it'd buy them all some time, maybe it'd just get them all killed faster, but at least in neither case would anyone be getting eaten alive. And just in case it didn't work, well...
Esther's hand drifted towards her pocket. She turned slightly away, concealing the motion just a little. Her focus passed across to Charlie and Evan. Her fingers teased the casing of the little grenade she'd been given, located the pin. Just in case.
"Charlie, you should probably go find Soldier Boy,"
It wasn't a completely invented excuse to get her to safety, Carl had destroyed his PDA and might be short on vital information.
"Is Evan gonna make it?"
Esther's finger curled around the pin of the grenade, and she turned back towards the Chimera, unable to help her eyes drifting towards the inviting wound in their midsection, summoning up images of ramming the grenade inside and running for cover.
"Listen, I... I want us all to get out of here alive. To all find our friends and get home. But if any of us are gonna fuckin' do that, it's not each other standing in our way, it's the corporation."
Hopefully, nothing would betray how selective she'd been in her words there.
Hopefully.
No single thing she could put her proverbial finger on told her that, of course. But the effect was clear. The Chimera's response, like if a poorly-trained AI model had tried to recreate whale song, wasn't simply unpleasant on the ears, it was a window into a reality that she could just barely conceive of. A reality where coexistence was tolerated for the species, and abhorred for all else. A reality of chaos, yes, but not the chaos Esther believed in. An infinity not of possibilities, of freedoms, but of threats, collapsing all possibilities down to a simple inevitability.
Maybe some day, with the right carrots and sticks, humanity might find the future that Esther dreamed of.
But that would never happen if the creature before her broke containment. Found its "friends". Brought its reality to hers. Humanity could no more achieve its potential with Chimera interference than the rest of the world could with American.
But if the explosion last night and the announcement that morning were to be believed, then the Chimera had survived an entire power plant going up around it. What exactly could she do with the gun that won Stalingrad and a grenade that she couldn't even properly identify. Shrapnel, high explosive, hell, it could even be gas for all she knew. At best, she could try and dupe the monster into letting it go off near a wound, but the girl strongly doubted she could play off that kind of deception even if the creature had no idea what a grenade was. Maybe if it ate the grenade somehow... no, that seemed even less likely.
So, one last option, the technique of the few and the weak: to play two powerful forces off against each other. If she could be convincing enough, if somehow some borrowed zeal might serve to sell the Chimera on easing off her fellow captives and turning its considerable attention onto Janus-Hayes instead. Maybe it'd buy them all some time, maybe it'd just get them all killed faster, but at least in neither case would anyone be getting eaten alive. And just in case it didn't work, well...
Esther's hand drifted towards her pocket. She turned slightly away, concealing the motion just a little. Her focus passed across to Charlie and Evan. Her fingers teased the casing of the little grenade she'd been given, located the pin. Just in case.
"Charlie, you should probably go find Soldier Boy,"
It wasn't a completely invented excuse to get her to safety, Carl had destroyed his PDA and might be short on vital information.
"Is Evan gonna make it?"
Esther's finger curled around the pin of the grenade, and she turned back towards the Chimera, unable to help her eyes drifting towards the inviting wound in their midsection, summoning up images of ramming the grenade inside and running for cover.
"Listen, I... I want us all to get out of here alive. To all find our friends and get home. But if any of us are gonna fuckin' do that, it's not each other standing in our way, it's the corporation."
Hopefully, nothing would betray how selective she'd been in her words there.
Hopefully.
SOTF: U
Esther Ježek
Status: Deceased (Vaporised)
Last equipped with: PPSh-41 submachinegun (3x 35 round box magazines)
Last seen: The Docks. In a warehouse.
Ⓐ
Step One: -> Step Two: -> Step Three: -> Step Four: -> Step Five: -> Step Six: -> †
One Room Death Game - Charlotte Torres & her opossum plush (subscribe to Goblin Town!)
Esther Ježek
Status: Deceased (Vaporised)
Last equipped with: PPSh-41 submachinegun (3x 35 round box magazines)
Last seen: The Docks. In a warehouse.
Ⓐ
Step One:
-> Step Two: -> Step Three: -> Step Four: -> Step Five: -> Step Six: -> †One Room Death Game - Charlotte Torres & her opossum plush (subscribe to Goblin Town!)
Esther asked it for a name. Evan assumed it’d reply with something bizarre, but not - whatever that was. It felt wrong, in every way. The strange feeling in his teeth from the sound. The smell, and taste of metal. The brief wave of heat pulsing through the room, and the way its skin shifted as it spoke.
Nope, fuck that.
Janus-Hayes was a known quantity, a very modern kind of evil. An emergent property of a world that wasn’t at all optimized towards kindness or compassion.
The Chimera was something else entirely. It didn’t belong here.
Though he still was wracked with pain and the pins-and-needles feeling of adrenaline leaving his system, he at least felt vindicated in ventilating the monster when he had the chance. It was easy enough to tell in Esther’s tone what she was asking them to do - leave, while they still could. Make it, if such a thing was still possible. Deal with the people who let this thing out of whatever cage they’d found it in.
He smirked, and shuffled to his feet as best as he could. One of the stitches felt like it was beginning to tear as he did so - of course. As he did, he caught a glimpse of Esther’s hand in her pocket, the tiny glint of a steel ring jutting outside with her finger curled around it. If he wasn’t imagining things, it was a hand grenade.
Another spike of adrenaline, a head rush that threatened to cast him back down to the ground. Evan held steady, and spat blood and bile to the floor. It wasn’t clear to him what was bleeding that he was now tasting it, but that probably wasn’t a good sign.
“I think - I think I’ll get as far as I need to, Esther.”
He put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder, and gave her a compassionate look, steadying himself for whatever came next.
Nope, fuck that.
Janus-Hayes was a known quantity, a very modern kind of evil. An emergent property of a world that wasn’t at all optimized towards kindness or compassion.
The Chimera was something else entirely. It didn’t belong here.
Though he still was wracked with pain and the pins-and-needles feeling of adrenaline leaving his system, he at least felt vindicated in ventilating the monster when he had the chance. It was easy enough to tell in Esther’s tone what she was asking them to do - leave, while they still could. Make it, if such a thing was still possible. Deal with the people who let this thing out of whatever cage they’d found it in.
He smirked, and shuffled to his feet as best as he could. One of the stitches felt like it was beginning to tear as he did so - of course. As he did, he caught a glimpse of Esther’s hand in her pocket, the tiny glint of a steel ring jutting outside with her finger curled around it. If he wasn’t imagining things, it was a hand grenade.
Another spike of adrenaline, a head rush that threatened to cast him back down to the ground. Evan held steady, and spat blood and bile to the floor. It wasn’t clear to him what was bleeding that he was now tasting it, but that probably wasn’t a good sign.
“I think - I think I’ll get as far as I need to, Esther.”
He put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder, and gave her a compassionate look, steadying himself for whatever came next.
SOTF: U
Evan Keane: "I guess my world was always gonna end, somehow."
SOTF Supers:
August Hanlon - "This never felt like much of a Gift."
Evan Keane: "I guess my world was always gonna end, somehow."
SOTF Supers:
August Hanlon - "This never felt like much of a Gift."
-
Applesintime
- Posts: 836
- Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2020 11:57 am
- Team Affiliation: Ben's Crabs
Charlie quietly scoffed when Esther asked the Chimera its name. It was, honestly, a little teeny bit interesting but she was done with that thing. Whatever it called itself, whatever it thought of when it thought 'me' seemed irrelevant compared to the man bleeding in front of her and the stitches she made.
And then it spoke, but not with its voice. Something worse, something that made every single hair on Charlie's body stand up, that made her feel like she was stuck falling forever like a bad dream, that made her all too aware of how her organs felt. If it wasn't for Evan, she might have just cut and run there. Left Esther to talk as much with the lava lamp. Charlie'd managed to suppress that instinct with the sight of her patient and the now-sloppy stitching work she was doing, but... God. It was something she never wanted to hear again.
It was the kinda noise that Cthulhu would make. What the end of the world tasted like - how did sound taste like anything?
"Y-yeah, I think he'll be alright. Oh, hey, hey, steady!" Charlie stepped back a little, helping Evan as he pulled himself up to his feet. That bad stitch looked a little compromised. When they got out of here she might have another crack, because uh, whatever the hell that was was pretty bad for your concentration! But, uh... ok, she wasn't, Esther wasn't proposing they team up with the Chimera, right? Right?
She'd set the gun down next to Evan while she patched him up, so she crouched down and picked it back up, feeling a little better with it in her hands again. God, she wondered how its owner was doing. What would Carl be doing right now, were he here? Probably not talking much, that's for sure. For now, she just sorta glanced nervously, between Evan and the calm look he had, the Chimera and its weird... everything, and Esther and the hand in her pocket.
"Big island, but, uh, we can probably find Carl somewhere. Just, uh, just look for the trail of crayons." She let out a nervous little laugh, a little high-pitched.
And then it spoke, but not with its voice. Something worse, something that made every single hair on Charlie's body stand up, that made her feel like she was stuck falling forever like a bad dream, that made her all too aware of how her organs felt. If it wasn't for Evan, she might have just cut and run there. Left Esther to talk as much with the lava lamp. Charlie'd managed to suppress that instinct with the sight of her patient and the now-sloppy stitching work she was doing, but... God. It was something she never wanted to hear again.
It was the kinda noise that Cthulhu would make. What the end of the world tasted like - how did sound taste like anything?
"Y-yeah, I think he'll be alright. Oh, hey, hey, steady!" Charlie stepped back a little, helping Evan as he pulled himself up to his feet. That bad stitch looked a little compromised. When they got out of here she might have another crack, because uh, whatever the hell that was was pretty bad for your concentration! But, uh... ok, she wasn't, Esther wasn't proposing they team up with the Chimera, right? Right?
She'd set the gun down next to Evan while she patched him up, so she crouched down and picked it back up, feeling a little better with it in her hands again. God, she wondered how its owner was doing. What would Carl be doing right now, were he here? Probably not talking much, that's for sure. For now, she just sorta glanced nervously, between Evan and the calm look he had, the Chimera and its weird... everything, and Esther and the hand in her pocket.
"Big island, but, uh, we can probably find Carl somewhere. Just, uh, just look for the trail of crayons." She let out a nervous little laugh, a little high-pitched.
We do more than our bodies can do alone.
“Janus-Hayes. Our enemy.” The Chimera replied.
“Janus-Hayes.” It repeated. In Esther’s voice, it added: “the corporation.”
It cocked its head, as it attempted to comprehend the nature of the entity. Not singular, not Esther or Chimera or Evan or Charlie.
“A corporation. Humans, incorporated. More than human, and less. No longer human, and still human. Janus-Hayes.”
Something tugged at the corners of its mind. Sense-memories of pain, and discontinuation. As if its own mind had been incised and cut away from itself, then stitched back together.
Janus-Hayes wasn’t only a group of humans. Their association was deeper, somehow. Integrated, formalized. Acting in service of a single purpose. Memories returned, of the labs, and the identically clothed humans. The unique words they used, the deference to superiors and indifference to inferiors. Efficiency, at the expense of constituent parts.
A superorganism, with its own adaptations and vulnerabilities. Holding in itself - themselves - an understanding of other humans that overrode their innate desire to preserve other individuals.
Was that why it remembered hearing others, when it had first awoken? Their signal had still been received, through metal and rock. What had become of them? Were they part of Janus-Hayes now, or merely consumed for sustenance? It had been spared, only to be released here. Did this make it part of Janus-Hayes?
At a frequency too high for the humans to hear, the Chimera whimpered.
It realized then, it was mistaken. Humans were not the apex of this new ecosystem. Perhaps at one time, but no longer. This was beyond their comprehension - an entity that by its nature, would consume all.
Including the Chimera.
It felt a surge of fear. A consequence of all it had learned, the glands it had grown, and the fibers of thought it had woven together. Adrenaline surged and was suppressed and surged again, as the realization of what it had encountered continued to pervade its newly-formed consciousness.
What more could they do, that it did not know of? What were these creatures, who seemed so simple and fragile on the surface but capable in such excess? How could they have given birth to such an entity?
I should not be here.
The incorporated entity had to have understood what brought it here. Chimera could not believe its presence was owed to their actions alone, but their knowledge was surely vast. Such a creature wouldn’t respond to its existence, or acknowledge it as an equal. The Chimera had once underestimated the humans, and would never do so again.
Only if it - if they - existed on the same terms, could they challenge Janus-Hayes.
It spoke with urgency, with something almost approximating a kind of panic.
“Janus-Hayes. The incorporated organism. Are there others!?”
Esther had barely a moment to respond, before it continued.
“It must be dissolved. Understood, then annihilated. We cannot do this, as we are.”
The Chimera reached out, and grasped Esther’s arm. The joints in its grasping limb began to calcify, ensuring its grip could not be broken. It would reconstitute itself once more, preserving the human’s conscious elements alongside its own. In this, they could coexist to their mutual benefit. Given time, the Chimera knew they could form a new entity.
“It is more than our bodies can do alone. We must incorporate. Chimera. Esther. Evan. Charlie. We will get out of here alive. Find our friends. Get home.”
It leaned forward, the enzymes that had previously been working to seal its chest wound now rapidly reversing the process. Iridescent blood began to trickle down the creature’s chest. They would have to come closer, and remain still. Avoid unnecessary injury or fear. It did not know how it could explain, but hoped the human understood.
“You must not resist.”
“Janus-Hayes. Our enemy.” The Chimera replied.
“Janus-Hayes.” It repeated. In Esther’s voice, it added: “the corporation.”
It cocked its head, as it attempted to comprehend the nature of the entity. Not singular, not Esther or Chimera or Evan or Charlie.
“A corporation. Humans, incorporated. More than human, and less. No longer human, and still human. Janus-Hayes.”
Something tugged at the corners of its mind. Sense-memories of pain, and discontinuation. As if its own mind had been incised and cut away from itself, then stitched back together.
Janus-Hayes wasn’t only a group of humans. Their association was deeper, somehow. Integrated, formalized. Acting in service of a single purpose. Memories returned, of the labs, and the identically clothed humans. The unique words they used, the deference to superiors and indifference to inferiors. Efficiency, at the expense of constituent parts.
A superorganism, with its own adaptations and vulnerabilities. Holding in itself - themselves - an understanding of other humans that overrode their innate desire to preserve other individuals.
Was that why it remembered hearing others, when it had first awoken? Their signal had still been received, through metal and rock. What had become of them? Were they part of Janus-Hayes now, or merely consumed for sustenance? It had been spared, only to be released here. Did this make it part of Janus-Hayes?
At a frequency too high for the humans to hear, the Chimera whimpered.
It realized then, it was mistaken. Humans were not the apex of this new ecosystem. Perhaps at one time, but no longer. This was beyond their comprehension - an entity that by its nature, would consume all.
Including the Chimera.
It felt a surge of fear. A consequence of all it had learned, the glands it had grown, and the fibers of thought it had woven together. Adrenaline surged and was suppressed and surged again, as the realization of what it had encountered continued to pervade its newly-formed consciousness.
What more could they do, that it did not know of? What were these creatures, who seemed so simple and fragile on the surface but capable in such excess? How could they have given birth to such an entity?
I should not be here.
The incorporated entity had to have understood what brought it here. Chimera could not believe its presence was owed to their actions alone, but their knowledge was surely vast. Such a creature wouldn’t respond to its existence, or acknowledge it as an equal. The Chimera had once underestimated the humans, and would never do so again.
Only if it - if they - existed on the same terms, could they challenge Janus-Hayes.
It spoke with urgency, with something almost approximating a kind of panic.
“Janus-Hayes. The incorporated organism. Are there others!?”
Esther had barely a moment to respond, before it continued.
“It must be dissolved. Understood, then annihilated. We cannot do this, as we are.”
The Chimera reached out, and grasped Esther’s arm. The joints in its grasping limb began to calcify, ensuring its grip could not be broken. It would reconstitute itself once more, preserving the human’s conscious elements alongside its own. In this, they could coexist to their mutual benefit. Given time, the Chimera knew they could form a new entity.
“It is more than our bodies can do alone. We must incorporate. Chimera. Esther. Evan. Charlie. We will get out of here alive. Find our friends. Get home.”
It leaned forward, the enzymes that had previously been working to seal its chest wound now rapidly reversing the process. Iridescent blood began to trickle down the creature’s chest. They would have to come closer, and remain still. Avoid unnecessary injury or fear. It did not know how it could explain, but hoped the human understood.
“You must not resist.”
-
Dr Adjective
- Posts: 139
- Joined: Fri Oct 28, 2022 9:22 pm
- Location: i am living in your walls
She was vaguely cognisant of Charlie and Evan's affirmative responses, but in the end the other two humans would have to forgive Esther for being focused on the figurative elephant in the room. The absurd situation she found herself in, perhaps the least physically threatening and the least charismatic of the so-called contestants being called on by circumstance to try and reason with something not quite a reasoning person, nor quite a wild animal. To calm the beast and convince the mind behind it.
The mind at that moment seemed to be occupied with puzzling out what a corporation was. Not in the sense that she might get into an acrimonious argument with political science or economics majors over, but the most literal foundational sense of independent entities forming a conceptual union with a broadly singular purpose and direction. Like an organism, but even more explicitly capable of abandoning tissues and organs that weren't of value to it, adapting to changing influences to best thrive. In a sense though, that's how she'd come to think of entities like Janus-Hayes: as wild animals that had evolved to be the most competitive, for their given definition of competition. Kind corporations that cared about their staff or their communities didn't thrive, corporations that didn't thrive got consumed by ones that did, the law of the jungle turned them into uncaring predators by necessity.
Rather abruptly, the tense stillness was broken. Over the faint sounds of Charlie and Evan's motions echoing from the near-distance, an urgent voice. She began to answer, to explain her thesis of corporate entities as competing animals in the wilderness of a capitalist market economy, but the Chimera didn't stop. Like her, they wanted to dissolve entities like that. Unlike her, it was not out of an ideological objection, but a primal competition. Kill or be killed. Perhaps at the end of the day, positioning herself as humanity, that's where her ideological stance originated too. Not that any such high concepts occupied a moment's thought in Esther's mind at the moment a swift, strong hand took hold of hers.
She merely shrieked in surprise.
Then she began to struggle, finding not the slightest success in pulling against what was not opposing muscle, but a grip as passive and unmoving as a handcuff.
The Chimera spoke of incorporation, a perversion of how she'd described human group cooperation. Not a pack, or tribe, but a superorganism. Esther's memories flashed to how Carl had spoken of the Vermiculus, how it had subsumed others into its collective. This seemed... different, in a way. The Chimera spoke in terms of we, of alliance. Did they mean to retain her, or at least her mind, as a part of themself? What would that even look like, feel like?
The Chimera admonished her not to resist. Instinct insisted she should continue, but only a few seconds of fruitless struggle proved that it would be a waste of effort anyway. Something connected with her trapped left hand, and immediately Esther felt a sensation unlike any she'd experienced before. Struggling to see the process behind the creature's own arm obscuring it, she could only feel. Reach out with her fingers, and... beyond them? Something not entirely warmth, but at least an absence of the omnipresent cold, seemed to enclose around her questing digits. A dull pain blossomed around the end of her wrist, paradoxically beyond the confines of the slender human flesh that ought to be reporting it. A foreign urgency crept into her thoughts, a desire for the human to hold still, a sense akin to carefully holding a fragile object of value, needing to handle it but fearing that it'll break in one's grasp, like a frightened rodent resisting help.
The way that it felt, the feeling of security, the promise of her consciousness leaving the island even if perhaps her body would not, was a tantalising offer. Esther Ježek did not wish to die. She was afraid to die. Afraid to leave so much unfinished, and afraid to simply cease to be, to lose consciousness and never regain it.
But she was also afraid of what collaboration meant. It'd be easy to simply allow it to happen, to chase the fleeting hope of living on.
Wasn't that the slow march of control she'd always railed against? Accept something a little worse, a little less tolerable - but still tolerable - or it'll get a lot worse. Accept the new normal, or face the consequences.
The normal of corporations playing kill-or-be-killed in a jungle of their own making was a bad normal. A normal she could still envision a way out of. Eventually she would become the Chimera, so much moreso than any worker became part of the entities that exploited them. She would lose even the fundamental freedom to resent, to react with her own thoughts and feelings no matter how doomed any actions that followed may or may not be.
Even a slave still had the freedom to hate their slavery.
Esther turned her head towards the others. Mouthed the word Go.
Humanity could correct course and set itself free, but not if the Chimera and their kind were allowed to intervene. So, logically, emotionally, ideologically, only one option remained to Esther. Direct action. Maybe what followed wouldn't be exactly what she hoped, but even the worst would be better than the alternative.
"You would make us like a God,"
Esther wasn't sure where those words came from, entirely. Some of them were her own. None of them sounded quite like her own voice. She cast her eyes down to where her left arm ended and the maw in the Chimera's chest began. Only one option, and she knew what it was.
"Sorry,"
Her right index finger flexed open. The pin slid out easily.
She assumed the fuse would be around three seconds. That'd be plenty.
Her grip relaxed, and an audible crack accompanied the release of spoon, beginning the timer.
No. Not sorry. Fuck you. Fuck you and die. With a snarl not-quite human and a strength not entirely her own, Esther lurched forwards and buried the armed grenade as deep into the beast's chest cavity as her frail muscles could manage.
"No gods. No masters."
The mind at that moment seemed to be occupied with puzzling out what a corporation was. Not in the sense that she might get into an acrimonious argument with political science or economics majors over, but the most literal foundational sense of independent entities forming a conceptual union with a broadly singular purpose and direction. Like an organism, but even more explicitly capable of abandoning tissues and organs that weren't of value to it, adapting to changing influences to best thrive. In a sense though, that's how she'd come to think of entities like Janus-Hayes: as wild animals that had evolved to be the most competitive, for their given definition of competition. Kind corporations that cared about their staff or their communities didn't thrive, corporations that didn't thrive got consumed by ones that did, the law of the jungle turned them into uncaring predators by necessity.
Rather abruptly, the tense stillness was broken. Over the faint sounds of Charlie and Evan's motions echoing from the near-distance, an urgent voice. She began to answer, to explain her thesis of corporate entities as competing animals in the wilderness of a capitalist market economy, but the Chimera didn't stop. Like her, they wanted to dissolve entities like that. Unlike her, it was not out of an ideological objection, but a primal competition. Kill or be killed. Perhaps at the end of the day, positioning herself as humanity, that's where her ideological stance originated too. Not that any such high concepts occupied a moment's thought in Esther's mind at the moment a swift, strong hand took hold of hers.
She merely shrieked in surprise.
Then she began to struggle, finding not the slightest success in pulling against what was not opposing muscle, but a grip as passive and unmoving as a handcuff.
The Chimera spoke of incorporation, a perversion of how she'd described human group cooperation. Not a pack, or tribe, but a superorganism. Esther's memories flashed to how Carl had spoken of the Vermiculus, how it had subsumed others into its collective. This seemed... different, in a way. The Chimera spoke in terms of we, of alliance. Did they mean to retain her, or at least her mind, as a part of themself? What would that even look like, feel like?
The Chimera admonished her not to resist. Instinct insisted she should continue, but only a few seconds of fruitless struggle proved that it would be a waste of effort anyway. Something connected with her trapped left hand, and immediately Esther felt a sensation unlike any she'd experienced before. Struggling to see the process behind the creature's own arm obscuring it, she could only feel. Reach out with her fingers, and... beyond them? Something not entirely warmth, but at least an absence of the omnipresent cold, seemed to enclose around her questing digits. A dull pain blossomed around the end of her wrist, paradoxically beyond the confines of the slender human flesh that ought to be reporting it. A foreign urgency crept into her thoughts, a desire for the human to hold still, a sense akin to carefully holding a fragile object of value, needing to handle it but fearing that it'll break in one's grasp, like a frightened rodent resisting help.
The way that it felt, the feeling of security, the promise of her consciousness leaving the island even if perhaps her body would not, was a tantalising offer. Esther Ježek did not wish to die. She was afraid to die. Afraid to leave so much unfinished, and afraid to simply cease to be, to lose consciousness and never regain it.
But she was also afraid of what collaboration meant. It'd be easy to simply allow it to happen, to chase the fleeting hope of living on.
Wasn't that the slow march of control she'd always railed against? Accept something a little worse, a little less tolerable - but still tolerable - or it'll get a lot worse. Accept the new normal, or face the consequences.
The normal of corporations playing kill-or-be-killed in a jungle of their own making was a bad normal. A normal she could still envision a way out of. Eventually she would become the Chimera, so much moreso than any worker became part of the entities that exploited them. She would lose even the fundamental freedom to resent, to react with her own thoughts and feelings no matter how doomed any actions that followed may or may not be.
Even a slave still had the freedom to hate their slavery.
Esther turned her head towards the others. Mouthed the word Go.
Humanity could correct course and set itself free, but not if the Chimera and their kind were allowed to intervene. So, logically, emotionally, ideologically, only one option remained to Esther. Direct action. Maybe what followed wouldn't be exactly what she hoped, but even the worst would be better than the alternative.
"You would make us like a God,"
Esther wasn't sure where those words came from, entirely. Some of them were her own. None of them sounded quite like her own voice. She cast her eyes down to where her left arm ended and the maw in the Chimera's chest began. Only one option, and she knew what it was.
"Sorry,"
Her right index finger flexed open. The pin slid out easily.
She assumed the fuse would be around three seconds. That'd be plenty.
Her grip relaxed, and an audible crack accompanied the release of spoon, beginning the timer.
No. Not sorry. Fuck you. Fuck you and die. With a snarl not-quite human and a strength not entirely her own, Esther lurched forwards and buried the armed grenade as deep into the beast's chest cavity as her frail muscles could manage.
"No gods. No masters."
SOTF: U
Esther Ježek
Status: Deceased (Vaporised)
Last equipped with: PPSh-41 submachinegun (3x 35 round box magazines)
Last seen: The Docks. In a warehouse.
Ⓐ
Step One: -> Step Two: -> Step Three: -> Step Four: -> Step Five: -> Step Six: -> †
One Room Death Game - Charlotte Torres & her opossum plush (subscribe to Goblin Town!)
Esther Ježek
Status: Deceased (Vaporised)
Last equipped with: PPSh-41 submachinegun (3x 35 round box magazines)
Last seen: The Docks. In a warehouse.
Ⓐ
Step One:
-> Step Two: -> Step Three: -> Step Four: -> Step Five: -> Step Six: -> †One Room Death Game - Charlotte Torres & her opossum plush (subscribe to Goblin Town!)
Though he’d motioned towards the exit, neither Evan or Charlie had started to leave by the time the Chimera started speaking again. He couldn’t speak for her, but the fact that they had it cornered, and that it was still actually talking to them was too compelling to leave be. He had to remind itself that all of that was in light of the fact that he’d put an elephant gun round straight through its chest, and it seemed to be doing better than he was. Until it was truly dead, they couldn’t possibly afford to count it out.
Esther mentioned Janus-Hayes, and that they were a threat. Something about how she’d phrased it set it off, rambling in a way he’d seen in himself so many times before. Panic, trauma even. It was hard to imagine something like that feeling such human emotions. What had Janus-Hayes done to it?
It grabbed her. Said their names. Pledged some kind of a pact to escape together, but not in the way they wanted to. Evan wanted to pull Esther away, to run and leave that grenade behind for the malevolent alien to contemplate.
Blood was seeping through his fingers, held to his chest in a vain attempt to keep his wound closed. He shouldn’t have been moving, but he couldn’t help himself. It didn’t seem to be an option to not help Esther, or to watch this entity’s rapid emotional implosion.
Except it wasn’t just holding her hand. Some part of it seemed to be rapidly changing, growing onto - no, into - Esther’s skin. It pleaded with her not to resist.
If they were anything alike, he knew that meant she was going to.
The grenade’s fuse began to smoke and sputter, moments before Esther shoved it into the creature’s chest.
*crack*
There wasn’t time for an amen, sister, nor enough time to get out of the kill radius of the grenade. They’d lingered too long.
Evan turned to Charlie with a fateful look in his eyes, before immediately tackling her to the ground in a bear hug.
Esther mentioned Janus-Hayes, and that they were a threat. Something about how she’d phrased it set it off, rambling in a way he’d seen in himself so many times before. Panic, trauma even. It was hard to imagine something like that feeling such human emotions. What had Janus-Hayes done to it?
It grabbed her. Said their names. Pledged some kind of a pact to escape together, but not in the way they wanted to. Evan wanted to pull Esther away, to run and leave that grenade behind for the malevolent alien to contemplate.
Blood was seeping through his fingers, held to his chest in a vain attempt to keep his wound closed. He shouldn’t have been moving, but he couldn’t help himself. It didn’t seem to be an option to not help Esther, or to watch this entity’s rapid emotional implosion.
Except it wasn’t just holding her hand. Some part of it seemed to be rapidly changing, growing onto - no, into - Esther’s skin. It pleaded with her not to resist.
If they were anything alike, he knew that meant she was going to.
The grenade’s fuse began to smoke and sputter, moments before Esther shoved it into the creature’s chest.
*crack*
There wasn’t time for an amen, sister, nor enough time to get out of the kill radius of the grenade. They’d lingered too long.
Evan turned to Charlie with a fateful look in his eyes, before immediately tackling her to the ground in a bear hug.
SOTF: U
Evan Keane: "I guess my world was always gonna end, somehow."
SOTF Supers:
August Hanlon - "This never felt like much of a Gift."
Evan Keane: "I guess my world was always gonna end, somehow."
SOTF Supers:
August Hanlon - "This never felt like much of a Gift."
-
Applesintime
- Posts: 836
- Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2020 11:57 am
- Team Affiliation: Ben's Crabs
They should have left. Charlie should have taken the cue to get out of there while they still could, or blow the thing to pieces before the Chimera decided that actually, it was hungry and ripped them apart. Although, given the chance to talk to it, she couldn't shake the feeling that hunger or anything primal wasn't much of a motivator to it anymore. It seemed enraptured by whatever Esther was saying, about how Janus-Hayes was the true enemy. Personally, at the moment she'd rank the Chimera at around the same threat level, and she didn't see the point in whatever this conversation was, although the idea of Esther converting some space bear whatever-the-fuck to Marxism was a really funny one and oh god what the fuck was it talking about.
It was... panicked. Frightened. Of Janus-Hayes. Join the club, buddy, but it was almost humbling to see how at the end of the day, it was just as frightened of the corporation as they were of it. The Chimera was frightened of capitalism. There was a joke in there somewhere. Charlie couldn't tease it out just quite yet, but there was a crack to be made once this was all over and they were away from this whole situation. She knew they should get away, but concern for Esther and fear rooted her to the spot.
A shriek left her mouth when the Chimera grabbed Esther, rambling on about how they couldn't do this alone and that they'd need to incorporate. It wasn't afraid of capitalism, it was learning from it. Or trying to, anyway. This corporation seemed even less palatable than Janus-Hayes, though. She was happy being on her own and she certainly wasn't going to let Esther or Evan get incorporated into that thing. They'd already lost people to the Chimera, to Vermiculus doing whatever the fuck it was doing to assimilate Chevy before it skullfucked him. They weren't 'our' friends, they were their friends. Her friends. She was Charlotte goddamn Vandermeyer, not some weird fucking amalgamation of three people and a Chimera. She would live, escape, on her own merits, and if dying meant not being with the Chimera then so goddamn be it.
She made to raise the handgun, just as she remembered what was in Esther's pocket and was now in its chest wound. Attagirl.
They should have ran. But now it was too late.
Even still, Charlie started to turn, looking towards the exit of the room, barely recognising that apologetic look in Evan's face. He tackled her to the ground, arms wrapped around her, shielding her body with his own. The back of her head hit against the floor with a grunt of pain, her eyes closing as a headache started to throb and pound.
Then the room filled with heat and light and sound, too much of everything, so much of everything.
It was... panicked. Frightened. Of Janus-Hayes. Join the club, buddy, but it was almost humbling to see how at the end of the day, it was just as frightened of the corporation as they were of it. The Chimera was frightened of capitalism. There was a joke in there somewhere. Charlie couldn't tease it out just quite yet, but there was a crack to be made once this was all over and they were away from this whole situation. She knew they should get away, but concern for Esther and fear rooted her to the spot.
A shriek left her mouth when the Chimera grabbed Esther, rambling on about how they couldn't do this alone and that they'd need to incorporate. It wasn't afraid of capitalism, it was learning from it. Or trying to, anyway. This corporation seemed even less palatable than Janus-Hayes, though. She was happy being on her own and she certainly wasn't going to let Esther or Evan get incorporated into that thing. They'd already lost people to the Chimera, to Vermiculus doing whatever the fuck it was doing to assimilate Chevy before it skullfucked him. They weren't 'our' friends, they were their friends. Her friends. She was Charlotte goddamn Vandermeyer, not some weird fucking amalgamation of three people and a Chimera. She would live, escape, on her own merits, and if dying meant not being with the Chimera then so goddamn be it.
She made to raise the handgun, just as she remembered what was in Esther's pocket and was now in its chest wound. Attagirl.
They should have ran. But now it was too late.
Even still, Charlie started to turn, looking towards the exit of the room, barely recognising that apologetic look in Evan's face. He tackled her to the ground, arms wrapped around her, shielding her body with his own. The back of her head hit against the floor with a grunt of pain, her eyes closing as a headache started to throb and pound.
Then the room filled with heat and light and sound, too much of everything, so much of everything.
-
Dr Adjective
- Posts: 139
- Joined: Fri Oct 28, 2022 9:22 pm
- Location: i am living in your walls
Though she had more than enough regrets to dwell upon, in the approximately three-point-five seconds remaining to Esther, and insofar as her thoughts were fully her own, she was hopeful.
She hoped it'd work. She hoped Evan and Charlie would make it out okay. She hoped that the future she was helping to secure would arc towards liberation. But most of all?
Esther hoped they'd remember her. That her fate, unlike her father's, could be known.
And then?
Esther Ježek looked the Chimera straight in the eye, and exploded.
P025: Esther Ježek, Deceased †
She hoped it'd work. She hoped Evan and Charlie would make it out okay. She hoped that the future she was helping to secure would arc towards liberation. But most of all?
Esther hoped they'd remember her. That her fate, unlike her father's, could be known.
And then?
Esther Ježek looked the Chimera straight in the eye, and exploded.
P025: Esther Ježek, Deceased †
SOTF: U
Esther Ježek
Status: Deceased (Vaporised)
Last equipped with: PPSh-41 submachinegun (3x 35 round box magazines)
Last seen: The Docks. In a warehouse.
Ⓐ
Step One: -> Step Two: -> Step Three: -> Step Four: -> Step Five: -> Step Six: -> †
One Room Death Game - Charlotte Torres & her opossum plush (subscribe to Goblin Town!)
Esther Ježek
Status: Deceased (Vaporised)
Last equipped with: PPSh-41 submachinegun (3x 35 round box magazines)
Last seen: The Docks. In a warehouse.
Ⓐ
Step One:
-> Step Two: -> Step Three: -> Step Four: -> Step Five: -> Step Six: -> †One Room Death Game - Charlotte Torres & her opossum plush (subscribe to Goblin Town!)
They had only just begun to weave themselves together, when Chimera began to feel sensations in the human as if it were its own. A sense of relief became immediately recognizable in its own mind, as it understood it would no longer have to fear the humans. Their relationship could develop beyond predator and prey, beyond adversaries, greater than the sum of their constituent parts.
In her, it could also feel lingering fear. Twitching, in the limbs that were still her own. Heart rate, rapidly increasing. Adrenaline. It experienced cold air stimulating her exposed skin, and the feeling of warm steel gripped in the palm of her other hand.
It could feel the object, before it saw it. A device that began to spill smoke into the air between them. She reached forward, almost in acceptance of their incorporation. It felt no pain as she forced her limb into the Chimera’s chest cavity. It didn’t matter, as the tissue would be soon repurposed.
She apologized, and it did not know why.
It only felt calm, and elation that she had not resisted. In this horrifying realization about the nature of their world, Chimera had nevertheless found a way to bridge the gap between them. No longer would they be a source of nourishment and education, and no longer would it be a rival predator seeking to usurp their presence here. Soon, its own awareness would fade away into something they would create together. It hoped the others would join them, too.
Fear no gods, bend to no masters, it thought.
No. It heard those words. Those were her words. They weren’t said in agreement. She spoke them in defiance.
Why?
In that one single moment of understanding, when their minds had begun to connect, the Chimera realized it had made a terrible mistake.
The RGD-5 Hand Grenade exploded violently, ripping apart the Chimera and Esther in a fraction of a second. A small hole was ripped through the thin steel wall of the warehouse as the explosion scattered blood and gore scattered in every conceivable direction. Hundreds of pieces of shrapnel ripped through the area, tearing through steel and wood and flesh.
As adaptive as it was, the Chimera could not withstand the detonation inside of its body cavity. The iridescent blood of the creature quickly lost its luster and faded to deep red as a cold breeze quickly swept over its still remains.
X00 CHIMERA - DECEASED
In her, it could also feel lingering fear. Twitching, in the limbs that were still her own. Heart rate, rapidly increasing. Adrenaline. It experienced cold air stimulating her exposed skin, and the feeling of warm steel gripped in the palm of her other hand.
It could feel the object, before it saw it. A device that began to spill smoke into the air between them. She reached forward, almost in acceptance of their incorporation. It felt no pain as she forced her limb into the Chimera’s chest cavity. It didn’t matter, as the tissue would be soon repurposed.
She apologized, and it did not know why.
It only felt calm, and elation that she had not resisted. In this horrifying realization about the nature of their world, Chimera had nevertheless found a way to bridge the gap between them. No longer would they be a source of nourishment and education, and no longer would it be a rival predator seeking to usurp their presence here. Soon, its own awareness would fade away into something they would create together. It hoped the others would join them, too.
Fear no gods, bend to no masters, it thought.
No. It heard those words. Those were her words. They weren’t said in agreement. She spoke them in defiance.
Why?
In that one single moment of understanding, when their minds had begun to connect, the Chimera realized it had made a terrible mistake.
The RGD-5 Hand Grenade exploded violently, ripping apart the Chimera and Esther in a fraction of a second. A small hole was ripped through the thin steel wall of the warehouse as the explosion scattered blood and gore scattered in every conceivable direction. Hundreds of pieces of shrapnel ripped through the area, tearing through steel and wood and flesh.
As adaptive as it was, the Chimera could not withstand the detonation inside of its body cavity. The iridescent blood of the creature quickly lost its luster and faded to deep red as a cold breeze quickly swept over its still remains.
X00 CHIMERA - DECEASED
It took everything he had to keep Charlie from getting up. He’d seen footage of grenades going off, the way that tiny puffs of dirt got kicked into the air for yards around. It wasn’t just the blast that could kill, but the tiny shards of metal thrown in every conceivable direction.
The explosion wasn’t as loud as he’d expected. A dull thud, followed by the crashing sound of metal shelving giving way and ice falling from the roof of the building.
He was swimming in so much pain from the now-definitely-ripped-open stitches that he couldn’t tell if he’d been hit. Once it felt safe, he rolled away from Charlie and onto his side.
It was gruesome. The air tasted of metal and gunpowder, and he could see pieces of bone and flesh scattered in every direction.
Sharp pain returned to him, this time from his side.
“Oh. That’s not good.” he muttered, looking down at his barely-treated wound. It had opened, for sure, but was joined by several others. A twisted shard of steel was embedded in his side, with a deep red splotch now spreading across his abdomen. All across his legs, red began to spread further from where he had been peppered by shrapnel.
Walking was going to be - difficult?
It wasn’t going to be happening again, for him.
Evan looked to Charlie, checking to see if he’d managed to protect her from the blast. None of the blood on her looked like it was hers, but it was hard to tell.
“Charlie? You… you hurt? You okay? Please. Get up.”
The taste of copper joined the barrage of unpleasant sensations nearly overwhelming him. Evan turned his head and spat to the side, dark red blood. He slid completely onto his back, now lacking the strength to keep upright.
“Charlie?”
The explosion wasn’t as loud as he’d expected. A dull thud, followed by the crashing sound of metal shelving giving way and ice falling from the roof of the building.
He was swimming in so much pain from the now-definitely-ripped-open stitches that he couldn’t tell if he’d been hit. Once it felt safe, he rolled away from Charlie and onto his side.
It was gruesome. The air tasted of metal and gunpowder, and he could see pieces of bone and flesh scattered in every direction.
Sharp pain returned to him, this time from his side.
“Oh. That’s not good.” he muttered, looking down at his barely-treated wound. It had opened, for sure, but was joined by several others. A twisted shard of steel was embedded in his side, with a deep red splotch now spreading across his abdomen. All across his legs, red began to spread further from where he had been peppered by shrapnel.
Walking was going to be - difficult?
It wasn’t going to be happening again, for him.
Evan looked to Charlie, checking to see if he’d managed to protect her from the blast. None of the blood on her looked like it was hers, but it was hard to tell.
“Charlie? You… you hurt? You okay? Please. Get up.”
The taste of copper joined the barrage of unpleasant sensations nearly overwhelming him. Evan turned his head and spat to the side, dark red blood. He slid completely onto his back, now lacking the strength to keep upright.
“Charlie?”
SOTF: U
Evan Keane: "I guess my world was always gonna end, somehow."
SOTF Supers:
August Hanlon - "This never felt like much of a Gift."
Evan Keane: "I guess my world was always gonna end, somehow."
SOTF Supers:
August Hanlon - "This never felt like much of a Gift."