Path of the Vampire forum

Title: Eerie Purse
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Characters: Myk, Fleur

Myk must post first, outlining a story on the following theme (feel free to get creative):

Setting: A haunted factory
Backstory: The group crossed paths after approaching the scene of a disturbance (some or all characters).
Occurance: you meet a group of hired mercinaries who offer to pay you if you break into a heavily guarded area and assassinate an important individual.
Variable: It`s an abnormally cold night.

Participants: 2
ARES: no
Speed: very slow
Chapter: no
Minimum Words Per Post: 300
Maximum Words Per Post: none

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This thread was generated via the Roleplay Matchmaking System.

The subconscious is defined as existing or operating in the mind beneath the conscious; it is the layer of awareness that one experiences unknowingly and unwillingly. Within the subconscious, memories are stored waiting to be brought forward into the conscious or waking world, but while the mind sleeps, the subconscious rules all. Amidst the dreaming realm, one’s imagination works on overtime mass-producing thoughts and images that would sometimes clash with realism. Concocted out of fears, memories, desires, and anxieties, this dreamy patchwork drapes heavily over logic and understanding, clogging all the senses with those fibres of uncertainty and unpredictability. Creative minds can weave the most fantastic dream tapestries and are prone to getting so lost in these vivid images that being able to distinguish between reality, phantoms, and fantasy could be a difficult task.

As Myk slept, his capricious mind stitched a strange scene around him. He found himself in a forest at night confronted by a mirror. At first it was caliginous, like twilight upon misty moors that painted objects navy against an indigo blur, but as time passed, his pewter eyes adjusted to the murk. He saw the outline of the free-standing mirror resting forlorn in the clearing and took notice of how the wooden frame had been carved into romantic swirls and finished with gold leaf. It was an antique, rather than styled to be, with its toughened silver mirrored glass being freckled with countless age spots. As Myk approached, he hadn’t been expecting to see a reflection, but there was something staring back at him from the other side of that glass. At first it appeared to be nothing more than a shadow that grew larger as he closed the distance, matching his all-black attire. With more time, however, Myk realised that he was looking at someone he knew, but had never met.

Staring back at him from the speckled mirror was a perfect white face surrounded by flaxen curls and two blue jewels for eyes. The man in the mirror had the facial structure and beauty of an aristocrat. Those high sharp cheekbones along with its long straight nose, and a high flat brow gave him a contemplative, older feel - as though he belonged to the period of Charles Dickens and the Bronte sisters. Although the man didn’t smile, his lips were slim and curved elegantly enough to give the impression that he was approachable nevertheless. He was dressed in a three piece black suit, reminiscent of the uniforms of butlers in the 1800s. It was all of these cues that caused Myk’s expressions to soften, for his body to drift like a ghost toward the mirror and place his palm upon the surface. He opened his mouth to speak, but it was too late.

Soundless, weightless, painless relief broke with the skin of sleep in a sudden bite and a subsequent yell. Myk rose with a start and kicked at the rat which had taken the opportunity to gnaw at his exposed toes. Seeing as how the Telepath had laid as still and cold as a corpse, it was only natural that the rodent would think that it had been graced by the divines to find such an easy meal. It was not so pleased to realise that the corpse had stirred, yelled profanities at it, and - indeed - aimed to attack it when it had only managed to take a little nibble, and so the fat black rat retreated into the dusty darkness with a squeak. Myk’s toes curled in on themselves as he raised his knees to his chest, dragging in dirt and chips of rusted metal under his feet; the scarlet freshness of his blood caused the contents to mash into an uncomfortable paste.

It was typicality that convinced Myk not to wonder where he was or how he’d gotten here tonight, even as his dreary pewter eyes made a lap of the room he was in. Four walls disappeared into obscurity behind the plethora of crates, boxes, and machinery. The smell of metal was heavy in the air, but the Vampire’s sensitive nose knew the difference between the element and the red stuff. Judging by the sheets of steel that were stacked in thick bunches all around him, he had definitely woken up in some kind of factory. How long he’d even been here was a mystery too. There was no way to definitively discern the answer, and he lacked a concept of time in the real sense of things; a problem that only seemed to get worse with age. He thought he recalled the night before and had gotten into the habit of spending his mornings and early evenings with the German, so it was beyond him to fathom up an explanation for this.

He couldn’t tell if he was alone or safe, so he couldn’t stay where he was even if he didn’t know where to go. His body creaked and groaned as he moved; even scant movements across the floor caused his paper-white skin to ripple, for lean muscles to yawn and growl under the effort. He fought the temptation to close his eyes again, to drift away and find a dream that would take him far from this. Instead, he gathered his weight - as minor as it was - and sat atop his own knees. Vanity made a hand reach for his face and explore his cheeks, his eyes, his lips; examining their condition. There was little pain in the area - as a matter of fact, his whole body seemed to hum sweetly and there was a faint tingling in his nerve endings - but he had to check to be sure.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t find a mirror to address the situation for certainty, but he was aware of what he could feel and he trusted this. Tresses the colour of bone gushed around his fine features, over bare shoulders and down an elegant, exposed back. As cold as he was, the frigid temperature of the air on his naked chest and arms hadn’t really alerted him to the fact that he was without a shirt. At least he was wearing pants; the black leather covered his lower half like a second skin from his hips right to where his porcelain ankles peeked out at the ends. The rest of him appeared to be in immaculate condition, all things considered. His talon-like nails still glimmered like knife edges, extending a good two inches from his fingers, and, despite it all, he hadn’t lost any of his jewellery. Although Myk didn’t know it, his make-up had sustained the test of time too; framing his eyes in a heavy set of lashes, eyeliner, and glittering peach eyeshadow.

Standing proved to be something of a struggle, however; where angular legs warred against the command to carry him as the world teetered under his feet. Four times he attempted to lift up from the calf muscles and find his footing, and four times those legs collapsed beneath him when his brain performed a 360 spin inside his own skull. He felt the urge to vomit as he sat back on his calves and clutched his hand over his mouth. Pewter eyes may have been a bit lost as he considered his options, but they were as sharp as arrowheads when he heard a sound of movement nearby. The first sensation he could place, as the dregs of a dreamless sleep pulled away from him entirely, was the tug on his ears pulling him to the sound of something falling off a nearby shelf. The metal in his eyes dropped across the short stretch of concrete toward the door, zeroing in on the source, but there was nothing there. Hopefully it was just a rat, but the goosebumps on Myk's arms suggested otherwise.

==========AUTOMATED RANDOM EVENTS SYSTEM==========

The smell of fresh, hot blood fills the air from somewhere nearby.

There was something off about the night, though Fleur couldn't pinpoint the reason for such a conclusion. She read omens, felt feelings and tugs and stirrings in her stomach, a tingle that led her along, from one place to the next, whispering to her in words she couldn't quite grasp, possibly in English, possibly in a language that had died out eons ago, possibly pure nonsense. She lay in bed, eyes on a watermark on the ceiling which had grown overnight. The tenants above her often overfilled the bathtub, and despite the fact that the spot had become an eyesore, she couldn't say that she cared. The water only stained the ceiling, after all, never once dripping down onto her head -- that would have bothered her, that would have required action. She contemplated sleeping the night away, chasing dreams that had slipped through her fingers. Dreams meant a lot to her; dreams gave her access to the wildest of scenes, and she frequently found herself chasing after someone just out of reach. Phantom laughter encouraged her to try and try, even after countless failed attempts. Yes, dreams meant a lot to Fleur. For once, she had peace. No spirits haunted her there, and that felt absolutely wonderful. Dreams never hurt her in the way people had hurt her.

She couldn't stay in bed. George muttered about her laziness, which turned to him barking orders at her to get up and do something with herself. Wasn't she bored? Didn't she realize she was wasting eternity on an average mattress in her stuffy apartment? He was right, of course, so she chose not to chase an argument; in the end, she was a pacifist at heart, and anger never did her any favors. Fleur considered herself a rather simple person, and while others might have found that boring, she found it lovely. By being herself, she'd found wonderful people. She'd found friends, though they eventually slipped away. What mattered most was the fact that for that short period of time, she'd known contentment. But while she was content letting her mind drift, George was not, and the man never hesitated to voice his displeasure. Dorothy hated him, but Fleur couldn't blame him for his grouchy demeanor, not after everything he'd been through in his life.

"Well? Get up, you lazy ****," George grumbled, trying and failing to kick the foot of her bed. His foot passed right through, and he blamed her, as if she'd been the one to murder him. "Are we feeding the ducks again? I like them more than you."

"Yes, well, I like them more than you too," Fleur replied, always preferring terse responses. George grunted at her, then floated down the hallway to the living room, where he could harass Dorothy and watch the evening news.

Fleur still felt off, so she dressed in a pale grey tutu, a long-sleeved, black-and-white top, and her kitten flats, then began a search of her apartment, trying to find a reason, trying to quell the feeling that she was missing something. She'd searched her whole apartment several times over, within the last three days, ignoring exchanged looks between George and Dorothy, hunting something she must have lost, had to have lost. She found crumpled bills in her kitchen drawer, a blue highlighter buried between couch cushions, and a pack of matches she used to light the candles on her ritual altar. She'd found the matches out on the balcony, lost in a potted plant, though she couldn't fathom how they'd moved from inside to outside. And wasn't she so lucky that it hadn't rained.

"What are you looking for, Flower?" Dorothy stood in front of the television, the news playing to her back. Fleur, forgetting the fact that Dorothy was a ghost, tossed the matches to her, only for them to pass right through. "It's one of those nights, huh?"

Those nights were the nights Fleur felt disconnected, thoughts racing from one point to the next. Fleur collected the matches and placed them on her altar, then she did a small twirl, eyes scanning over the front room. Content that she hadn't forgotten something, she went to collect her umbrella from beside the door, then motioned for the ghosts to follow her. George made a snide comment about the weather, focusing on the fact that the weather channel hadn't called for rain. How they found their way from Sanctuary to an office building near the infamous slums was beyond her, and she chose not to question it, not when she had a feeling that what she needed was inside.

"What do you think it is, jerkface?"

"Why you snot-nosed heathen!"

"Be quiet. I can't concentrate," Fleur frowned, ending their bickering before it had the chance to progress. She spent several minutes trying to pick the lock, failing each time, before she finally smashed the glass window with the handle of her umbrella. "It's not here," she announced, turning away from the building.

"You had to set off the alarm to figure that out? You're insane," George complained. Dorothy tried to stomp on his foot, but they'd never been able to harm one another. "Why don't you try breaking into every building in a two-block radius?"

"That's a great idea. Let's try it," Fleur nodded, already moving along to the next building. George fell back, not wanting to walk at her side anymore. "Nothing, nothing, nothing." She'd successfully broken windows at several facilities before being forced into an abandoned factory to avoid the police. She found a dusty clipboard hanging from the wall in a dusty office, so she smiled to herself. "This is it."

"It's a clipboard with a bunch of loading documents on it. It's junk, Fleur," Dorothy sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. Fleur flipped through the pages before nodding to herself. She'd been looking for the clipboard of useless papers. "Did you hear that?"

"Someone's in here. Let's blow this joint, psycho," George huffed, motioning for the two females to lead the way. Fleur shook her head, handling her clipboard like a shield, her umbrella suddenly her sword. "For ****'s sake."

Fleur went in the direction of the noise and found a can of green beans rolling along the floor. Dorothy bent down to watch the can slowly roll into the wall, making a dull sound against the metal. Something was amiss. Fleur collected the dented can from the concrete floor and inspected it. Why would someone leave a can of green beans in an abandoned factory?

"Boo."

Fleur whirled around, but no one was there. She dropped the can of green beans, the harsh sound of a gun going off and the scent of blood drawing her in, leading her away. A man was slumped against the metal legs of a conveyer belt, a gunshot wound to his right temple. He'd killed himself.

"Time to roll the **** right out of here!" Dorothy tried and failed to grasp Fleur's right hand.

"Language, you ****," George grunted. "I'm with her. This place is bad juju."

Fleur nodded, but didn't move from her spot.

The air was stagnant and cold inside the factory warehouse. As Myk moved to get up from the floor and seek out the source of that noise, he felt like the air was actively working against him. Had he the need to breathe, he might have felt suffocated as each inhalation brought a syrupy gas into his lungs. Of course Myk didn’t need to breathe, but his body still choked on the invading substance and the foreign feeling of being drowned by ice water that smelt like salted copper pennies. His chest tightened, bound by the urge to force out the briny, metallic air. As he exhaled, his head began to throb, and once again his grasp on stability failed and left him swimming. He floated like seaweed caught in a heavy storm before clinging to a rack of metal parts. As his minor body weight shoved against it, he knocked over a can of paint that went rolling onto the factory floor. The whir of rolling metal awoke something nearby…

Myk hadn’t noticed it at first. Levitating a foot off the dull, concrete flooring the pearly-white translucent object shimmered with a hazy bright blue. Yet, it came slowly into focus like looking through a telescope, but this phantom was close, very close. Its whisper was like the soft susurration of the wind in the trees, then as the ghostly orb drew nearer, more sharply focused, the whisper became an eerie rasping voice, moaning and groaning right into the Telepath’s ear like a gargantuan, glowing moth. As Myk tried to shoo it away, it only persisted in seeking his ear like it was desperately trying to get a message across, yet couldn’t speak. He stepped away from his make-shift buoy and drifted back into the unknown, pewter eyes focused on the orb that seemed intent on burrowing its way inside his head through his ear canal.

Walking backward, the Vampire expertly maneuvered around crates and boxes until suddenly, the shimmering object vanished from sight. Darkness clouded his vision for a moment. Cold, charged air crept across his arms and teased the fine arms there like antennas to stand to attention. Then it started with a slight shimmer again, as if the air in front of him was being warped and twisted. There was a flash of pale, silvery light, and a man appeared before him. Dressed in old-fashioned worker clothes - a crisp, white button-up shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows and tucked underneath a pair of navy overalls. A silvery ragged line was drawn across his neck and he had gaunt, soulless eyes. He took a handgun out from behind his back, held it to his crown, and fired with no hesitation. The sound of gunfire came a moment later, then the flash - like a typical thunderstorm. He was lying on the ground then, a pool of blood surrounding him, but then he was gone in the next blink of the eye.

“What in the holy ever-loving **** is going on here…” the Telepath muttered quietly to himself.

To Myk’s surprise, another gunshot could be heard at the other end of the factory, along with a mix of voices. The distance made it difficult to distinguish exactly what was being said, but he discerned the tenor range to be appropriate for a pair of females and a man - an older man. Of course the Telepath wanted to investigate this further, but he couldn’t be certain if he was just being tormented by yet more phantoms. So he decided he would take his time and call upon his very own spirit aid.

Something was very wrong with the factory. The voice she'd heard sounded masculine, and the eerie feeling of his presence unnerved her. She felt as if she'd stepped through cobwebs, and the feeling remained, even after the person had fled. The feeling alone had her scratching her arms, as if her own touch would chase the feeling away. Her mind supplied the word ghost, but she shook her head at the thought. There were others in the factory, or there had been, at least. Everything told her to leave, from the chill to the sound of hurried footsteps on the cement. People were alive there, and likely responsible for the gunshot. But the question became why there had been one gunshot and not multiple gunshots. Perhaps one shot was all the person needed -- that made sense to her, so she ran with the thought. Perhaps she'd imagined everything. Another possibility. But the can of green beans she held told her otherwise. Yes, something was very wrong with the factory.

Fleur looked down at the can of green beans, the can cold and rough in her hands, the paper announcing the contents had been torn so that only the picture remained. She'd hated canned green beans. Fleur hesitated to put the can down, thinking it was a part of some greater design, a sign that she could read, an omen. Before the gunshot, she'd heard something else fall, the thump coming from another direction. Fleur moved the black mask from over the lower portion of her face and inhaled the stale air of the factory. The metal, some tinged orange, where the metal had begun to deteriorate, smelled metallic, and she picked up the smell of paint, as if someone had meant to fix the peeling paint. The broken glass in the office door said something different. Whatever attempt had been made to repair the factory was half-assed at best. She heard the hurried footsteps, followed by the sound of conversation, the words echoing in the open space of the factory, completely enveloping the stacks of wooden crates creating some type of messy maze, the corners sharp, the some crates creaking under the weight of crates stacked upon one another.

"Oh ****. Rodney is down!"

Fleur turned her head so her ear faced the sound of the man's voice. She heard a multitude of emotions in the words, the man desperate, frightened. She had to assume the worst, that Rodney was deceased. Fleur leaned down and dropped the can of green beans on the floor, then balanced her clipboard atop the can. Suddenly the old documents seemed less important than deciphering the puzzle she'd unwittingly discovered. She followed the small pathway, slowly making her way through the maze, though she quickly lost track of the way. A man approached her from the end of the row of crates and she found herself pleased to have met him. His navy overalls marked him as a worker, or so she thought. Finally, someone who knew something about the odd factory. His footsteps made no noise on the floor, but it was concrete and his shoes might have made his steps especially light. Dorothy fell back, while George stood to Fleur's right, both of them uncharacteristically quiet.

"Do you know a way out of this maze? I'm lost." She didn't hesitate to tell the truth, unable to deceive the man. He focused on something over her shoulder. Eyes empty, face blank, he opened his mouth in a silent scream. Fleur glanced over her shoulder but saw nothing but wooden crates, too many wooden crates.

"Hmph. This useless sack of ****," George complained, floating toward the man. Instead of missing George's approach, the man looked right at him. Fleur saw his attention shift, the eyes focusing on George, seeing, where they'd once been unseen.

The man turned his head to the side to reveal a gaping hole in his skull, then he walked through the crates, disappearing behind the wooden boxes. The noise that followed was like a radio tuned to an unused station, as if someone were searching for music and couldn't quite locate it. Fleur heard something stutter to life, likely a conveyer belt, followed by a bell sounding.

"He was a ghost," Fleur helpfully supplied. Dorothy basically clung to her, the chill overtaking her when Dorothy touched her hand. "Let's keep going."

Nothing could describe the gruesome scene she saw when she finally reached the end of the maze. She opened her mouth to address the people she saw, but they focused on assembling something on the conveyer belt, working without any of the items. One corpse was fresh, the blood still flowing.

"Welcome home."

"Oh my god! Dorothy shrieked at the voice, while Fleur watched the factory come alive

==========AUTOMATED RANDOM EVENTS SYSTEM==========

Fleur spots a human figure lurking nearby, but quickly realizes they can see clearly through the figure!