Mokley

LANTERN (redux)

hahaha it seems that way I guess. xD

Streetlight Dragonflies

Ok I posted some really short blurbs because ... honestly I'm not sure what I'm doing right now with this. x3

Streetlight Dragonflies

Duskwick

▒▒:▒▒ apm, ₰₮€₺₻₧
₠₱₭№⅍₼₥ ▒

Jeremy and David had wandered down the crackled street, through weeds and broken raised slabs of pavement, between houses vacant and gaping like reclaimed skulls. The cars were all rusted in the driveways, the windows all shattered. A buzz of insects droned in the high grasses. Far below, at the bottom of the weaving sloping road, mist rolled like something alive across their path.

There was no mistake: this place hadn't been inhabited for a very long time.

Except --

Occasionally they might pass a house that had been recently broken into.

A cold, charred bonfire pit in the middle of the street.

Graffiti, in bright purple and red, depicting complex symbols unusual to known gangs -- like something ancient and runic.

Ahead, less than a mile, the police station sat modestly along the lakeside road, its doors boarded up and plastered with graffiti and papier mache reliefs of fish and sharp-toothed monsters.

"... can we please not? ..."

A quiet, childish whisper trembled in the weeds all around them -- an echo of Jeremy's own words.

Someone, somewhere, giggled.

"... take their heads for our collection ..."

"... take their eyes for our stew ..."

"... give their bones to the lake ..."

Antlers rose up over the weeds and refuse -- followed by the shine of sharp blades and cunning bright eyes, locked on Jeremy and David.

Meanwhile...

Cheri, having turned her back on the two heroes, would find herself hiking uphill, through an old weedy strip mall, abandoned and boarded, its roof caved in and rotted. In front of what used to be a sew-n-vac shop, a half-dozen tigers lounged on the broken concrete, chewing on nondescript bones with pieces of bright red flesh still attached to them.

One of the tigers raised its head, its eyes shining a bright glinting yellow.

One by one, each of them stopped and turned its great striped head toward Cheri.

...rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

The low, quiet, rumbling growl was behind her.

A tiger crouched low, only a few feet away, its long teeth bared and eyes glowing bright as suns.

Meanwhile...

Zoro launched out of the phone booth like a tiger, poised for the tackle. He hit his target -- but quickly he would find he was the one being manhandled, gripped and tossed onto his back on the concrete.

His attacker -- or victim, however one might define it -- lost her balance in the process and ended up stumbling backward into the weeds.

"Cultist!" a sharp voice squeaked, while she scrambled to her feet and brushed the stickers from her robe. "How dare you! Urchin! When I tell you to get out of my way, you get out of my way, you hornless rat!"

In the phone booth, the call stopped and the hanging receiver blared a disconnect tone.

Meanwhile...

D pressed ignore on the call, and the phone went silent -- but the tigers didn't avert their gaze.

They had stopped growling, and no longer seemed to be agitated by sound. They climbed down from their perches, advanced through the weeds and refuse, surrounded D in a tight circle, a moving swarm of orange and black, thick fur close enough to touch.

The biggest of the tigers stepped forward with huge silent paws, its scarred face peering up at her, eyes bright gold.

D's equipment fizzled, just a little. Her auditory sensors, on one particular setting, might pick up a static of soft whispers -- though what they were saying couldn't be determined.

The visual sensors showed nothing unusual on most settings -- but the night-vision would show her each tiger glowing bright ... and over each of them stood a humanlike shadow.

Meanwhile...

The police cruiser carried Gary, Jill, Akira and Eleanor down the winding residential roads, toward the lake that shimmered in the warming sun -- and the police station, small and unassuming on the lakeside street.

As soon as they entered, they could hear the muffled noise of an old man raving in a back room: "The rot is coming! The tigers stare into our souls! Listen to the trees! Listen!"

Sheriff Chang brought the visitors into her enclosed office -- slightly messy, an old CRT monitor heavy on the desk, next to a typewriter. She gestured for them to sit, and handed them a folder full of page-sized photographs. "Tell me if you recognize any of those."

Most of them were the photos of the missing persons that had been printed on flyers throughout the town -- including Maddie, and the antlered boy, whose name apparently was Simon -- but then there were others:

A dark figure in a cloak, standing on a street corner, antlers huge and ornate.

The yellow-eyed face of a tiger, staring out of a closet while a baby played with blocks in the foreground.

The huge, spiderlike shadow of something heinous perched upside-down on the ceiling of the local supermarket.

A portrait photograph of a wild-looking boy, scruffy as a beggar, his eyes glowing, piercing yellow.

"If anyone asks you," Sheriff Chang mentioned casually, dropping into her chair, "you never saw these pictures. Maybe you could talk to Roger, too -- you've got something in common, he might tell us something useful."

In the hall, the old man's voice howled.

LANTERN (redux)

Welcome back!! :D

I too have been MIA lately -- apologies. ;-; I'm willing to get this show back on the road!

Streetlight Dragonflies

Apologies for my absence you guys!! ;-; I've been completely distracted and crazy lately. But I have a much-needed week off coming up, and I hope to catch up soon!

*hugs*

Lantern

It's neverrr too laaaaaate! We can dust this off!

(I warn you, I've been SO DISTRACTED lately and I'm in and out here like a ghost -- but I'm ... here! xD)

Lantern

@c3p-0h !!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!!11!!1!!

*SQUEE JUMP TACKLE ATTACK!!*

Streetlight Dragonflies

Ok here's a post! Just a reminder here that anyone could potentially go and stumble into whatever's happening with anyone else -- these different scenarios aren't exclusive as long as you're in the same ... uh ... dimension. :D

@Hellis I didn't mention Akira because I wasn't sure which way he was going. Let me know and I'll drop in a mention!

Streetlight Dragonflies

The Fed Zone

11:40 am, Saturday
November 6th

Sheriff Valerie Chang had stopped on the step outside the door, and she listened with engaged interest to the crazy story that spilled out of Gary's mouth. Occasionally her eyes flickered over to Jill, then back to Gary; she pressed a finger to her mouth and nodded understanding.

"Yes, yes, vines -- and a tiger -- I see, well, this is certainly a matter for the police to take care of." She grinned and smacked Gary on the shoulder with a heavy hand. "Good job. Carry on. Shoo, shoo." She swatted her hands in the air, a gesture to move along.

"Lemme go in first," insisted Deputy Marvin Wicker, who already had his gun out of its holster. He peered through the glass door into the diner. "If there's a wild animal in there, I'll take care of it!"

The sheriff let out a slow, annoyed breath and pinched the deputy's gun between two fingers, moving it so it was no longer pointing at anything breakable. "Paperwork, Marvin," she reminded him of the last time he'd discharged his gun unnecessarily. Sheriff Chang pushed through into the diner, while Marvin grumbled under his breath and holstered his weapon.

The two were inside for only a couple minutes before the door opened again. Marvin held the door open while the sheriff came out slowly, a comforting arm around Eleanor's shaking shoulders.

"He was there and then he wasn't!" Eleanor sobbed, a fistful of napkins pressed against her eyes. "We were standing outside the bathroom door, and Jeremy went to get the key, and I saw him come back -- and then he vanished! Along with a bunch of other people! Like they were never there at all!"

The Deputy cocked an eyebrow. "So did you see any vines or tigers?"

Eleanor sniffed and looked at Marvin like he'd lost his mind. "What? No!"

Sheriff Chang huffed a sigh and clicked on her radio. "Yeah we'll need to tape off The Fed Zone as a possible crime scene. Multiple missing persons. Apparently vanished into thin air. Print out another missing poster for Jeremy Lindall." Eleanor, hearing this, burst into another round of sobs.

Marvin patted her shoulder. "There, there. I'm sure he just got sick of you and ran off." He got a swift elbow to the gut for that, and he stumbled away to sit on the step.

Inside, the diner was empty ... and clean. There were no traces of vines or decay anywhere -- just plates of half-finished food and the puddle of strawberry milkshake on the floor. The bathroom door hung open, and beyond it were only the clean stalls and four intact walls, with a small high window that looked out onto the parking lot.

Everything was normal.

"Okay, I'm going to have to ask you three to come with me back to the station." Sheriff Chang hopped down the steps and gestured for Jill, Gary and Eleanor to follow. "You're going to have to squeeze into the backseat. I've got some case files I'd like you to take a look at, see if anything looks familiar." She stopped and stared at each of them suspiciously. "None of you are in trouble -- yet."

While the sheriff led the way to the car, Eleanor looked imploringly to Gary and Jill. "Did you see what happened? Do you know where my baby brother is?"

Duskwick

▒▒:▒▒ apm, ₰₮€₺₻₧
₠₱₭№⅍₼₥ ▒

Just outside the hole in the bathroom wall -- where weeds poked through shattered sidewalks, houses sat crumbling with bowed roofs and hollow windows, and cobwebbed streetlights stared dark upon a cracked road -- a silent mist rolled low along the ground.

Everything was silent. Broken. Rusted.

David, Jeremy and Cheri were alone; D and Reis had run ahead down the street, lost in the shifting fog. The diner behind them had been completely engulfed in rot and plantlife.

There was no way back.

From here, they could see the sparkle of the lake, rolling with mist. There was something floating there -- something big, like a barge, its shape indiscernible -- that hadn't been there before.

To their left was the post office, heavy with vines. Its roof had been destroyed by a crashed propeller airplane, which stuck out of the shattered tiles at a precarious angle. The inside of the post office windows had all been plastered with envelopes, glued to the interior of the glass to shut out the light.

To the right was a row of houses and a few rusted cars left in the driveways. Their siding was faded and falling down, the eaves sagging and broken ... except one. In the middle of all the rest of the decay was a single small house with bright purple siding. A vibrant garden grew in front, softly accented by little stone sculptures and musical windchimes, gazing stones and birdbaths. A little sign outside the garden gate declared, in flowery painted writing: Psychic Readings $20

A short walk ahead, at the crossroad, was the town arcade. Its huge windows were jagged and broken by the roots and branches stuffed through them; leaves and green growing things stretched through the roof and invaded every crevice, as if the interior of the arcade were its own little ecosystem. A few of the consoles inside blinked and flashed haunting colored lights, forever beeping and trilling off-key tunes. Something moved inside -- a shadow shifting across the lights.

Meanwhile...

As D rushed through the streets after the last traces of the tiger, she would find that her visual equipment tended to fizzle and switch between modes without her interference. The analyses were all wrong, citing her current location was a small village in Norway, beeping motion sensors where there were only trees, and insisting a certain small sub shop ahead was in fact an upside-down nail salon.

The sound filters, however, picked up voices that she wouldn't hear with her own ears. They were garbled whispers, several voices at once, speaking nonsense if not a long-forgotten language, fizzling at the edge of the equipment's frequency.

At D's call for Maddie, she might hear a low, rumbling growl in the alley behind the arcade.

D might get the feeling she was being watched.

Stones and pebbles on the ground began to shiver and float up into the air -- as if suddenly weightless, they hovered a few inches off the sidewalk.

The fog billowed white and blinding. An electric tension hung taut in the air.

Then, suddenly --

NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP
NEVER GONNA LET YOU DOOOOWN

Reis' phone blared noisily, buzzing and blinking.

All around D, pairs of glowing yellow eyes opened. They advanced upon her from all directions. The tigers growled.

NEVER GONNA RUN AROUND AND
DESEEERT YOOOUU

Meanwhile...

Mister Reis would hear nothing at all in the phone. It seemed completely dead and defunct, and it had just eaten his nickles. Except, after a moment ...

help me

A staticky voice crept through the receiver. It seemed to be a child, voice quivering in fright. A little sob quivered in Reis' ear.

Joao ... please ... Joao, it's dark. the water's coming in. you said you'd come back. come back ...

A sharp rapping noise sounded on the door of the telephone booth. Outside Reis' booth stood a figure draped in a ragged purple robe, its face completely hidden deep within the hood, which had been cut to allow room for the huge pointed antlers that protruded elegantly from its head. Something about the way it stood -- the slope of the shoulders, perhaps -- suggested someone young and female ... but it was impossible to tell for sure until she pulled back a sleeve and tapped on her watch significantly.

She was waiting to use the phone.

Streetlight Dragonflies

Ok guys! Last call! I'm working on my post now. :)