Island Church (??? World)

[scribble_puppet]

Voices

Crackling

Headache

Ash

Amber blinks.

White dress

Charred bars

People in robes

Torches

"SHIT!" She scrambles up, briefly tangling herself in the trailing sleeves of the dress that she has never worn before.

A brief flash of horrified realization- someone else changed her clothing- flickers in her brain before she takes in the greater horror.

She's in a cage. Suspended over a large brazier filled with wood. The woman is there, and Johnny, and people she doesn't know, all holding lit torches. The circle symbol is patterned on the floor. The woman is chanting something. Everyone is focused on Amber, with strange, reverent expressions.



Amber screams, rattling the cage door.

Comments

[hollow-way.livejournal.com]

Mom.

Friend.

It's not a lot

but it's two connections to the world (technically more than one world)

two reasons not to destroy and die.

With a rattle, some of the chains loosen.

She reaches forward, grimacing in pain as the links in her chest drag against her insides.

[futures_of_ash]

Rachel took the girl's hand and smiled, proud of her. One part done?

She gave Amber's fingers a gentle squeeze, sending a bit of strength through that connection as well. "Come on, we can't stay here. We're going t have to go find the problem to fix it. Come down?"

[hollow-way.livejournal.com]

More rattling, clinking, and some wet sounds.

Red splotches hit the ground.

Amber cries out.

Her feet touch the plastic floor.

don't... think i can go anywhere. She weakly jerks her head toward the "wings."

[futures_of_ash]

Rachel didn't even glance at those wings, instead she laid both hands on Amber's shoulders, anchoring her to that creaking floor. "Those aren't yours Amber, leave them here."

[hollow-way.livejournal.com]

they're kind of... in me.

[futures_of_ash]

"Your mind. You choose what's part of your body here.Remember how it feels to be without them."

[hollow-way.livejournal.com]

they've always been there. just didn't know before.

[futures_of_ash]

"Bullshit." Rachel said simply. "It's hard to hide things like that from yourself. Your subconscious would have known, so if they've always been there you would never be in small spaces in your mind. Yet when ever I visit we're in tunnels."

[hollow-way.livejournal.com]

they were inside.

[futures_of_ash]

"No" Rachel wasn't going to let that drop at all Amber, she just wasn't. "They were part of the parasite that claimed a bit of you to live in."

[hollow-way.livejournal.com]

it's the same as me, isn't it?

something inside that she couldn't control

like a reflex

like a heartbeat

would i be me if it weren't there?

[futures_of_ash]

"No, no it's not." Rachel reached up to stroke Amber's cheek, ignoring all the blood and chains. "You are who you are despite what was planted in you. You're a strong woman, Amber."

[hollow-way.livejournal.com]

i don't know...

The touch ripples through her, warmth like growing, resting, healing- not the warmth of burning, shed blood, withering.

The outlines are faint in her mind, but she can see the separation- the chains are through her and around her, and the origin is in her, but no more her than if she'd swallowed a rock.

clink-rattle

splch

Wrenching pain as something is pulled from her, skin and veins and muscles tearing, bones cracking.

She is on the floor, gasping for breath, bleeding, a hole in back.

She is free.

The chains rattle again, now the wings for a small, twisted thing like a mummified fetus. It struggles and squirms, reaching for Amber.

[futures_of_ash]

"Yes you do." Even if only deep down. Amber wouldn't hate her hand, her writing so much if she truly thought it was a part of her.

She stepped back just enough to give the girl room for her separation, and as soon as the girl was on the floor she helped her stand. Best to get a little distance between the new wounds and the previously snug parasite. "Told you."

[hollow-way.livejournal.com]

"...feel real light," she comments. Lack of a major parasite will do that!

"where we going?"

[futures_of_ash]

"Where we went last time." Rachel decided, slinging an arm around the girl's waist and waiting for the subway car they were in to rumble to a stop. "See if we can do anything else there so it can't come back."

[hollow-way.livejournal.com]

WHOA HI THE ARM ON WAIST AMBER WAS NOT EXPECTING TO BUMP INTO YOU

She is working very hard at not being to leany on Rachel. STRONG LIKE STEEL HERE.

"it's

"um

"yeah."

The station is dim and empty, a place with buzzing, fizzling lights and grungy tile. A few ancient bits of litter lie on the tracks, but otherwise there isn't even an intact advertisement or scribble of graffiti to signify other people.

Amber gestures toward a stairwell. "One we need is down more."

[futures_of_ash]

She was actually reassured by the deserted quality, after all this was Amber's mind. There shouldn't be other people within it. As for the arm around the girl's waist? Well, she'd just survive something very, very damaging. Strong like steel or no that was something to worry about.

"Alright, then we go down." Deeper into Amber's mind. "Can you tell if there's anything ahead that's likely to attack us?"

[hollow-way.livejournal.com]

She shrugs. "Dunno." She's not usually introspective to the point of knowing her mind's ins and outs.

Especially not with a squatter in there, too.

The next level is darker and grimier. Red trickles around the tracks, pooling in depressed spots and cracks in the concrete. One end of the tunnel is scorched black.

"Three guesses which way," Amber remarks dryly.

[futures_of_ash]

Well, she could understand others not knowing their own minds as well as she knew hers. They weren't cracked telepaths after all. "If you feel anything odd, let me know?" She'd keep an mental eye out as well but Amber was the best monitor in here!

"Into the deep and the dark of course." Rachel actually laughed. Warm , tingling laughter was good for frightening places! "That's where light is always needed most."

[hollow-way.livejournal.com]

"If you wanna see that shit." Amber does not particularly WANT to see that shit, but... there's want, and there's need, and she knows the difference.

So she moves to the edge of the platform and climbs onto the floor of the tunnel.

"Stinks," she announces. "Like the rest of that place."

[futures_of_ash]

"Have to see it." Rachel admitted with a sigh. Line of duty went to some rather nasty places on most days. Anyone trying to sell the glamorous life of a hero needed to be shot! On the upside though, that meant she'd seen worse places!

She hopped down lightly next to Amber and shuffled some of the litter with a booted foot. "We can take care of that, unless you want to keep the smell later."

[hollow-way.livejournal.com]

"Why the fuck would I want that?"

[futures_of_ash]

"Some people are weird?" Rachel offered. "Some keep things like this is reminders, or other reasons like that."

[hollow-way.livejournal.com]

"Rather forget all this shit."

There's a light at the end of the tunnel, wavering and eerie. It flickers on the edges, picking out slick spots of red- some blood, some other fleshy things. The walls seem less like concrete and brick, and more like some bodily interior.