Pay in to Paradise

Threeblade jolted up; unaware she’d been slipping into a daze until her shoulder bumped the scratchy floor. Eyes narrowed, she placed a hand palm down on the floor and got to her feet. The room was utterly abandoned. The other people, the cans, the general trash that was the signature of dilapidated structures such as this… gone. Like someone had just scrubbed them all out of existence as one would erase a smudge on a piece of paper.

Click… click… clack

Chills travelling across her skin, she looked hesitantly towards the source of the noise. The window, why was the window open?! Then an eldritch creature came scampering in through that very opening. Six legged and covered from its two heads to the tip of its tail with scales as murky as the most polluted river. Everything about it bespoke darkness and despair and yet… there was something somehow caring about it.

In the time it took her to puzzle through that, the creature had made its way over to her. Now it stood, each head tilted slightly as it took her in. The left head, a thin reptilian maw with a mane of silky hair dark as oil, smiled and said, “Hello honey, how nice to finally meet you,” while twisting closer through the air. The right head, a gruff, imposing, ram horn, tipped visage, nodded in silent agreement.

Threeblade attempted to shuffle backwards, but found herself already backed as far back against the wall as she could go. Some instinct deep inside her flesh was filling her body with adrenaline, screaming at her to run while she still could.

“Now, now,” the female crooned, “Don’t be afraid of little old us.”

“You cannot run from the truth,” the male head rumbled, “It will follow you unceasingly as long as you still breathe.”

“But it doesn’t have to be this way,” soothed the melodic voice of the female, “There is a way to end your suffering.”

The male cut in, head raised high like a regal king, “End the life of another. You are more vital than they. Your survival is far more important than the meager existence of another.”

Threeblade shook her head, trying to speak but finding she had no voice to do so. What they asked was too abhorrent. Snuffing out the life of another… no, nothing was worth that.

“Think of all of the terror entrapping you now… think of all the uncertainty… think of all of your private fears,” the whispering voice said, slithering its way into her heart, “This act will erase all of those and more, elevating you far beyond the place you occupy now.”

“Your ordeal will be unending if you refuse,” like the cut of a whip the male's voice severed her connection with this eerie half-world.

Threeblade’s eyes snapped open, revealing the huddled forms of her companions.

Sixtrout awoke with the despair of one who has repeated the same mistake as prior, and is knowledgeable of the insufferable consequences that await them.

Immediately did she blunder to her feet, seemingly unable to shake a haze of sleep that roared in her ears and corrupted her vision with black continents of blindness.

The horribly curious spider was on its way with the utmost haste - she could hear its scuttling form sliding against unknown surfaces elsewhere in the hall. After dreadful seconds, it emerged from the doorway that lead to the library and allowed her to behold it in its hideousness.

She near-fainted in her brain's failed comprehension of the creature's form; eight legs, each pair hacked maliciously from separate species, trembled with anxiety upon the gluttonously-cultivated abdomen of the monster. It was a noxious thing, abnormally large and pulsating with a despicable energy - the same energy that was channeled through each and every of the impossible and drastically varied myriad of eyes that covered its form almost entirely.

The thing had no face, but rather watched the girl with every fiber of its vile being.

Its tongue was the worst part, and in an instant, the ever-swelling blob had shot forth in a revoltingly glorious display of the utmost perversions of nature, seizing the girl about her leg, and with impossible speed ensnaring her in a vice of slime and stench. She found herself brought towards the body of the creature, which continuously vomited vast lengths of the tongue, past the degree of possibility. Was it not in pain? Would it fill the room?

"See now what your passivity awards you," the trembling thing moaned with a disgustingly bubbliness that seemed to layer the room with dripping blobs of unbearable noise, "and see the end that watches every false move you make."

It spluttered, and the tongue seemed to grow fit to burst with whatever vile fluid pulsed through it, driving the mind to fits of insane intolerance of such a spectacle - thus constricting the girl's breathing even further. She would have gleefully accepted death in such a moment, if only the terrible pain would go.

But death would never come. Such is the rambling nature of a mind plagued by unthinkably terrible outside forces.

"Is not truth the only path of righteousness?" continued the spider amidst the hocking contractions of what passed for a mouth - an orifice strained to the utmost limit by the sheer volume of what oozed continually through it - "and do you not sin in this regard in the faces of those you would call friends? Show them the only kindness you can, and let wrath assume reason, as is only your most base nature. Destroy them - shun them - only by such an act can you show them the greatest amounts of respect, of reverence, of stark appreciation!"

The girl found herself freed, and in an unexpected burst of anger - the likes of which she never tolerated to reveal except in solitude - clenched her fists and shouted at the creature.

"Go away!" was the only phrase that found escape from her throat, marred as she was by the everpresent terror, the sole cause for her rage.

The beast hissed - a curious, lisped noise - and receded into darkness.

Nine heard the girl shout "Go away" in her sleep. He walked over to near where she was- not close, but not too far- and said, "Are you alright?" He then began to think. Everyone is having these damnable hallucinations. What could it be? Perhaps the haze is a chemical weapon of sorts...

The girl shuffled slightly in her sleep, blinked once, and lifted her head to meet Ninestone's gaze, as sap droops lazily down the trunk of a tree.

She blinked once more and her forehead creased once more in a frown. "Is it gone?" the girl was able to whisper - she could still feel the oppressive force of the monster, constricting her breathing and weighing down every word.

Clearing her throat, the girl stood up - it was not a wise decision. Black spots of miasma rumbled into existence in her vision, and she stumbled with dizziness. The moment, however, soon passed, and she was able to see that Ninestone and she were the only two awake at the moment. The rest, nestled in respective corners, seemed distressed to a level the girl had not thought obtainable in the throes of the dream-world - but then, if they were experiencing what she had just escaped from, to waken them would be merciful.

"Thanks," she breathed, now quite composed, to Ninestone. "Shall we... Shall we save them, too?"

"Yes, it would be better to wake them up." He smiled, hoping to look reassuring, and turned away, whispering "This is all going to hell." He attempted to keep his composure in front of the others. He waited for orders from the girl.

A grim haze covered the world, so, although it was no longer the nightmare realm, it wasn't quite the normal (if it could be called that) world. Black spots danced in front of Threeblade's eyes as she blinked in confusion at the sideways room. Oh, she was lying on her side. That's why everything was tilted.

The horrible ordeal came rushing back, swallowing her already fragile mind with the surging waves of fear. She clenched her eyes shut and curled into a fetal position, grabbing her head in her hands. Screams filled her ears, terrified screams of the dying choked off with water gurgles. There was the sound of breaking bones and falling bodies. It was a symphony of death pounding a war song inside her skull.

Simply end the life of another and all of your torments shall vanish.

"No! No... no, I can't... I can't do that," she whispered.

Three was talking in her sleep. Nicole walked over and tapped her shoulder. "Wake up, it's not real." Obviously sleep was the inciting agent for these visions. Something vital, yet to be avoided at all costs. Very ironic. Somewhat funny, even.

“Wha… what?” Threeblade mumbled, clouded eyes opening.

Her eyes scanned the area franticly as her heart raced, flooding her body with adrenaline. With a whimper, she bolted upright, accidently hitting Nicole’s arm in the process. Wait, how had he gotten there? He’d been gone a second ago…

“Is the window open?!” she cried, pressing her back against the wall, "Is that two-headed snake creature inside? You can't let in... don't let it near you!"

Her mind hadn’t yet realized that this wasn’t the same place as the one in her nightmare. She wasn’t seeing things as they were, hadn’t even realized that the mere fact that Nicole was here meant that thing were different. All she knew was terror.

After assuring that Threeblade had woken, the girl stepped - cautiously, for she found a peculiar fear of creaking floorboards eating at the corners of her consciousness - over to first Twelvecig and then Twocoats, urging each awake.

The darkness had still not receded, nor did it show any sign of such an activity. The night, hazy as ever, had a sentient quality, and the girl felt that if she would raise her eyes to any of the shrouded windows, she would find spectral eyes gazing back upon her.

"This is a bad place," she whispered, as if the revelation was entirely unprompted.

The ambiguous devilry that seemed to hang in the air, unspoken, now lapped gently at the minds of all present, reaching almost unbearable levels for some.

~~~

Twocoats was on his feet instantaneously, silent but casting his eyes about the hall in a panicked frenzy. At the mention of snakes, he seemed as if he would shake himself apart.

"More... More creatures? Get the window! Get the window!"

"Yes, yes, the window." Nicole walked over and closed the offending pane. "Better now?" He looked out at the sky. It was beginning to grow gray, which could mean dawn was approaching. He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms.

Over the next few tense minutes, as the sun began to rise and the omnipotent haze retreated to whatever insubstantial corner of hell had spawned it, the girl's thoughts began to turn away from the sheer horror of the demon - to what it had said.

She looked around the room at the collection of kids. Why were they here? Was there any divinable explanation?

Perhaps the beast had been - partially - correct. She was not a friendly person. She did not like people in general. She would, rather than stay here amongst them, escape to solitude as quickly as possible.

Nevertheless, the girl stood, and - seeing that the day had started, and the mood desperately needed to be broken - smiled warmly, and announced: "I think... I think, seeing that our food supplies are dreadfully low, we had best better go scavenging. Together. I could use some smoked trout right now."

"Hm." Nicole seemed almost shell-shocked at what had transpired last night. The hellish evening was almost sure to repeat itself. He raised a finger. "I am never sleeping outside of direct sunlight again. Ever. Anyone else agree?" He hoped the joke might help.

Threeblade nodded numbly from her curled-inward sitting position. She honestly didn't feel up to doing much of anything, but voicing that opinion wouldn't do any good. The hair in her ponytail was somewhat frazzled from her night of tossing and turning, so, to focus on something other than that... creature, she reached back and pulled her fingers through it a few times to get most of the tangles out.

"Looking for food sounds like a good idea," she agreed, voice rough from a combination of thirst and lack of use.

There were dark circles beginning to show underneath her eyes. She had no intention of sleeping the next night though, even if she had to prod herself constantly with needles to keep her eyes open. Normal nightmares were bad enough... but that thing? She wasn't sleeping again.

Twocoats, reluctant to leave the building and enter the wilderness outside, addressed his next comment to Ninestone. "That's... an idea, is what that is! Why can't we reverse our sleeping, and just stay awake at night...?"

The girl, seeming to grow impatient, started toward the door. "If you want to to outside at night, you may. I'm going now."

She waited a moment, still facing away from the group, seeming to frown angrily with the back of her head. Twocoats let loose a desperate sigh, and dragged himself onto his feet.

Threeblade reluctantly got to her feet. Although going outside right after such an exhausting ordeal wasn't the most appealing activity, staying here alone was out of the question. Alone... it would just be her and her thoughts. That would be even worse, in her tired state she might even slip back into sleep.

Staying awake is my surest defense as of now.

"I'm ready to go, I guess."

"Good."

The girl - quick to force open the front door - was soon outside in the stagnant air that seemed to bite at the skin and to ignore the barrier of flesh, setting one's bones tingling.

She bit her lip, turning in the direction of the forest. After a pause - striking many, for an indeterminable reason, as a second or so too long - the girl strode forth down the blearily cobbled road.

Twocoats was visibly disturbed by this. "Wait! Wait, wait," he shouted at the back of her head. "It's no good that way! There's - there's bushes on the plains, and fish in the river if we can catch them!"

His words appeared to have little effect.

The faint light of the flames before Twelve were flickering, dangerously low. He wasn't going to take a chance that the whispers would come back if he let it go out. His mind felt broken and beaten by the intense words that had been spoken straight into his very skull. His ears, regardless of their disuse so far, were still ringing.

Twelve examined the room in greater detail, noticing many key things about it that he'd not noticed before the assault on his mind. The shadows were moving, swaying like bed sheets and clothes on clotheslines outside apartment building- what? Where'd that come from? Was that one of his memories, or something he'd been allowed to keep from the start? Soon after he realized this strange recollection, he forgot it just as quickly. Forgetting what he'd compared the shadows to, Twelve stared at one of them for a few minutes. It was a shape, black, almost featureless, like a person's shadow.

It had a vague shape, like that of a woman or a man, but it was hard to tell exactly. It was thin, with its arms at its sides and short, almost nonexistant hair. Other features were too vague to determine, but it made Twelve feel increasingly uncomfortable the longer he looked at it. He moved onto another, this one appearing as a short shape, flickering without direct light, while this one was even more vague than the previous. It didn't have any discernible arms, it lacked any humanoid features, so it merely appeared as a blob. Twelve couldn't make heads nor tails of it.

The other shadows appeared to be lighter, less solid than the other two, which made them even harder to figure out their shapes. One appeared to be short, but unlike the blobbish one before, it had a clear humanoid figure. But it was still too hard to clearly make it out, and from that point on, he couldn't see enough of the shadows to tell what they were. He felt queasy.

Twelve stared at the flame on his lighter, the flickering, wobbling, indeterminate shape of fire strangely calm after the assailment on his very essence. The room was only illuminated by this source of light, a fact that made Twelve horribly afraid. The windows looked like they had been painted over with black paint, obscuring all vision inside or out. He felt a presence, like something watching him from the outside. He moved his eyes from the windows back to the lighter and tried to lose himself in that light.

When he opened his eyes, the light that greeted him was not from the lighter.

The forest - shadowed though it was - was not unnerving for its darkness, nor for the grotesque appearance of the trees and foliage that could be glimpsed in the mist-shrouded, dim light.

What implanted itself as a thing of great mystery and fear in the minds of those who walked through the natural corridors and mossy boughs of the forest was the queerness of the sounds - sounds that seemed to originate from geometrically impossible places, bouncing at unexpected and illogical angles, weaving from tree to tree, seeming to echo and reverberate about like playful children.

Muffled and subtle screeches, like those of a murder victim's last breath, were mingled with curious coo-cooing as of a mourning dove, and now and then a shrill keen or howl surged forth with physical force, blowing back blades of grass, whipping hair around the face of the girl that led the miniscule party through the darkness.

Truth be told, her fear had killed her hunger - she strove on in hopes of discovering what evil creatures spawned such nightmares as the party had experienced the night before, and in such a place - of unprecedented evil, beaten out only by that of the night itself - she hoped to find the demon's residence.

The first light of the morning witnessed by Twelve's ill-rested eyes was moreso a glaring inferno of light, blinding him momentarily before fading away into a bright beam, shining directly into his eyes. He rolled onto his side, the motion accompanied by a grunt and a sigh as the light's after-image slowly disappeared. Twelve, eyes still closed, proceeded to stumble onto all-fours and cough like he had been choked by smoke, which he probably was.
Opening his eyes, his gaze met the floor of the building he'd fallen asleep within the previous night, which he assumed everyone else did also. His hearing sounded muffled to him, everything sounding rather distorted. He stood, awkwardly in his old, mismatched, ruined shoes, the sandal having less material between his foot and the ground than the old boot he wore on his other. Jumbled thoughts ran throughout every part of his brain, whispers, words, faded images... nothing coherent, but still there, seemingly waiting... for what, Twelve hadn't a clue.
Once on his feet, Twelve searched his pockets, looking for his cigarettes and lighter, and, just in case, his knife. Upon finding the first two, Twelve's eyes searched the room for fellow people. He didn't see anyone. However, unlike the black, shadowy place from his nightmare, the bits and pieces of wear and tear, debris and the cans were still there. But where was his knife? Had someone taken it? Where was everyone?

A scowl played across Twelve's lips, his brow furrowed in anger. He didn't like people leaving without telling him, or taking his things. But all he had now was his lighter in terms of potential weapons. In a straight fight, he wouldn't win. But he'd cross that bridge when he came to it. For now, he needed a smoke.

After what could have been hours, but seemed more like minutes to those inside the forest, the troupe arrived at a clearing of sorts. Scattered about the edges of the tranquil-by-comparison grassy glade were an assortment of bushes, bearing clumps of bright red fruit.

The girl, immediately and soundlessly, plucked one and rolled it between her fingers. The berry left a pinkish stain on her skin, as if it constantly oozed a juice through the microscopic pores of its smooth surface.

She turned to her companions, face wrinkled pensively.

"Poisonous or not, would you say? Moreover, is that even relevant anymore?"

Nicole sighed. "Yes. Eat the bright god-damned red berry, see where that gets you. That NEVER went badly for ANYONE." He blinked disinterestedly and said "When in doubt, wait until something else eats it first. Another mammal. Not a bird. Birds can eat toxic things."

Blinking, the girl - evidently seeing the reason for Ninestone's statement - pocketed a handful of berries before lifting her eyes skyward.

"If turn out to be benign," she explained whilst scanning the foreboding sky.

Not a cloud was distinguishable against the gray backdrop that seemed to blanket the vast swaths of atmosphere which lingered above the forest. In spite of this, however, the sky itself seemed to be but one barrier, letting only a thin fog of sunlight filter through its bulk.

Seeing this, and internally declaring it evil, the girl averted her gaze and scanned the rest of the clearing.

"Listen for the trickle of water as we proceed," she crooned, as if she were the only member of the expedition and engaged in conversation with herself, and soon plunged into the foliage opposite the clearing.

Twocoats seemed to shiver inside. "I'm... Look, I'm goin' back, I cant keep walkin' there. It's no good. We ain't gonna starve, anyway, let's just... Go back to the hall."

Nine followed the girl, doing as she said and listening for water. The ground was mossy and littered with leaves and decaying vegetation. He began to wish he had a walking stick to keep his balance with. He tripped twice but continued walking. Finally, he tripped again, this time in his fall his hand bumping into the girl's arm. He stood up, blushing. "I'm so sorry."

The girl appeared not to notice; she stared into space, brow furrowed in concentration, as if attempting to decipher a hidden impossibility that hung from the moss-contaminated branches of the grayish trees.

"N'worries," she muttered absentmindedly - as if talking to a stranger in passing on a busy street - flicking her tongue past her upper in a manner peculiarly reminiscent of a cow swishing its tail to deter intruding flies.

Turning with sudden curiosity from the engaging mass of vegetation, the girl lobbed a question back over her shoulder. "What do you think of... This? You know. Why would you say we've been sent here?"

"This all?" He smirked, and uttered a mirthless laugh. "This is our own personal little hell, I believe, and what we've done in the past is going to come and get us. Notice how it's fucking terrible here? Yeah, it's like that in hell."
He smirked.
"True, nervous, so very very dreadfully nervous I was and am."