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Post by Señor Sunday Friday on Jan 27, 2009 18:11:35 GMT -5
The house loomed in the forest, tightly enclosed by great trees that seemed a tad darker and a tad more sinister than the rest of the Dark Forest. The house looked as if it had been there for ages and it was covered in rot and wear from time that the house had surely seen a lot of. There was an aura of foreboding around the place, the air colder and dry on the property, light dying before it got too close so the building appeared trapped in a never ending twilight. Creatures moved inside, creeping and lurking about with snarling mouths and growling throats, in bits of the house there were marks from creatures' claws that had managed to find their landing there. Despite all of this there was the distinct smell of blood in the air as fresh as if it had been spilled only a few minutes prior even though nobody had stepped foot in it for ages, well nobody except those who went to the portal hidden within. People like Efram who didn't belong here at Twilight Moon Academy but on the other side of the portal in that world that so few actually knew of and even fewer who actually went there.
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Post by Arual on Jan 27, 2009 18:22:18 GMT -5
Maddie was stumbling in the forest with blurry eyes from a flood of tears streaming down as she chased after Efram as he left her. She didn't know what she was doing, but she followed him into the forest, and her mute mouth opened as she gasped for air.
Why was he leaving her like this? Why couldn't he tell her, well, besides the obvious communication problems? She was scared, and all Maddie could think to do, even as she tripped over a thick root and covered the front of her body; all the way beneath her chin and onto her right cheek, in dirt- she continued as fast as she could to trail the one she loved so much. The air was hot and heavy today, only getting worse as she went farther and farther in, the cushioning ground under her feet was surprisingly moist.......
A house? "-!" the young woman went to call out Efram's name, but he knew that he would never hear her- not her voice, at least. She had her mouth open- a faint and very odd noise ejected out from her throat- but nothing she wanted to happen. It was useless. Maddie darted with a fumbling run as a start, and opened the door.
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Post by Señor Sunday Friday on Jan 27, 2009 18:53:36 GMT -5
The house was dark and at the opening of the door there was a plume of dust that went into the air, it was like nobody had even been into the building at all but there was the distinct sound of hurried footsteps inside the house as well as the moving of other things inside, like the place was... no, that was impossible- nobody could live in a house like this. A few floorboards were broken through with dry rot and the air was cold enough to see your own breath, a terrible contrast to the forest outside.
"Oh! Do we have a visitor?" came a cheery woman's voice and then there was a face to go to the voice, she walked through the doorway and into the foyer looking at Maddie with a smile on her face, her eyes large, round and black- they were buttons sewn onto her eyelids and her hair was like yarn that had grown from her skull, her clothes were torn with massive wounds underneath the tears that slowly oozed crimson in a steady stream onto the floor, "Oh, sweetie! Come in and rest your feet!" she said, "You look so worn out! Tell me all your problems!" she said, walking over to Maddie with a worried expression on her face and she tried to usher the girl over to one of the chairs in the sitting room, "I'll get you some tea! Jerry! We have a guest!" she finished the last bit with a shout.
"We do? It's been so long since we've had a visitor!" A tall man walked into the room, only one button eye on this one- the entire other side of his face was completely missing and blood came from it in a steady stream, his hair was like yarn too. He held a hand out for Maddie to shake, "My name's Jerry and my lovely wife's name is Gwen, our son Alden's around here somewhere but he must be playing some hide and seek game. Please, make yourself comfortable." They seemed kind if not a bit macabre. Jerry was a tall, stately man dressed in fine clothes and his dark brown yarn hair was well combed and out of his face, he even seemed to have sideburns- well a sideburn since he only had half his face. Qwen was a slender willowy creature with tightly curled blonde hair that fell to the middle of her back and she wore a white nightgown that was soaked with blood, these people shouldn't be alive with thier wounds they shouldn't be able to bleed as much as they did. This place was wrong.
Why was Efram here?
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Post by Arual on Jan 27, 2009 19:01:45 GMT -5
Maddie was frightened, but she closed her eyes to forget about the sight she saw. Hearing the name of Efram's brother, the one person she loved so much, it made her flinch and want to open her eyes again- and unfortunately that had.
The pretty young woman swished her hands back in forth- or began to until she was ushered in and was forced to shake Jerry's hand. She'd of said a lot by now- but she never could talk.
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Post by Señor Sunday Friday on Jan 27, 2009 19:21:21 GMT -5
Gwen reentered the room, a glass in her hand and she held it out for Maddie to take, the drink inside the glass looked relatively fine, save for the slight tint to it from diluted blood and the bits of earth that were sunk to the bottom. "So then, darling... what's the cause for such a lovely visit?" She asked, waiting a few moments, "Oh, if you don't want to talk about it it's okay, don't worry." She smiled, obviously not judging Maddie by her silence.
"Nobody ever visits anymore, ever since that one day... but that was a long time ago, you don't want to hear about that." Jerry smiled with the partial mouth he had, "But anyways, I'm off to work now- you can't support a family if you don't try." He smiled, heading out to the door but before he ever made it a smear of darkness crept from the shadows of the house with glowing blue eyes and runes carved into it's forearms and it grabbed Jerry in it's maw before dissapearing off into the shadows again and fading away. Gwen didn't even seem to notice.
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Post by Arual on Jan 27, 2009 19:27:35 GMT -5
Maddie took out her notebook and wrote 'Ma'm......I'm looking for Efram. I really need to find him, do you know where he went? I swore he went through this house-' The red head added in a thicker shade of pencil the words: 'I'm mute, I cannot speak.'
She was rather uncomfortable and edgy, though she made a weak smile to Jerry in his goodbye. She looked to the water, and sat it between her legs as she wrote, not making it seem as though she wouldn't drink it eventually.
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Post by Señor Sunday Friday on Jan 27, 2009 19:55:51 GMT -5
Jerry walked in from the kitchen, straightening his tie, "Oh! Hi there!" He said, just noticing Maddie, "What's this?" He looked at the written note with his one button eye, "Oh, well I'm sure we could help you out with that." He smiled, "My name is Jerry, by the way and the beautiful young woman here is Gwen. Make yourself at home." He smiled, re-meeting Maddie for some reason. He reached for the coat rack and put on a formal jacket, he looked like he probably had some sort of important job.
Gwen smiled as if Jerry's just re-introduction was nothing to worry about, in fact she didn't even seem to notice. "Well, we don't know an Efram but we'd be glad to help you look and like I already said, you're the first person to visit us in a long time..." she sighed morosely, "Must be the neighborhood, the neighbors don't seem very friendly, do they?" Gwen walked over to the chair across from Maddie and when she did her back was visible, on her shoulderblades was a pair of eyes, wide and devoid of irises, they were just white with black specks in the center and they looked towards Maddie with what appeared to be an enraged expression, which was hard to understand since they were just eyes without even eyebrows to show emotion.
A creature moved over the floor, skittering across Maddie's feet- it was like a clawed hand with a glowing red orb on it's back, sharp points on the end of each arm. It paused before it ran through a doorway and disappeared away into the house. Following after it were tiny things that appeared to be rats but upon closer inspection they were simply black forms that were in the shape of rats, no eyes or anything on them.
Spiders crawled up to the arms of the chair, spinning silk as they began making their way over Maddie's arms, the threads stronger than normal spider silk, they were trying to sew her to the couch, they were going to keep her there and the longer she spend here with these nightmares the further away she would be from Efram and the harder it would be to find him, the two things that almost looked human said they would help but so far they made no movement whatsoever to assist.
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Post by Arual on Jan 28, 2009 11:32:37 GMT -5
Maddie was afraid of spiders- big time. (A certain character of Zawa's could relate.) She jumped out of her seat alone when she had seen the arm slink across her feet, and she had a open mouth as if to scream as she frantically push the spiders off her arms. Her large blue eyes were wide and she wrote another note. 'Ma'm, I am very thankful for your hospitality....but I have to go- I really need to find Efram. It's extremely important...' she slipped the note onto the table next to her, and stepped a few ways back from the chair she was in.
This had to be a dream! It just HAD to! Efram! Where are you? I'm scared! she thought in a panic.......her head flashing to the other door on the otherside of where she came. A few more steps..... Poor pretty Maddie was shaking terribly- like going to the Anartic in the coldest days of the year in only a pair of short shorts and a tube top.
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Post by Señor Sunday Friday on Jan 28, 2009 12:28:33 GMT -5
The creature moved from the shadows near the door, looking towards Maddie, daring her to get closer with it's hungry mouth wide open, blood dripping from it's teeth. That door would not be the wisest path to take, it slowly turned from where it stood, looking towards Maddie- the creature was too real to be a nightmare, this house was a living nightmare filled with terrors and somewhere in it there had to be Efram. He had gone into the house, that much was certain.
The shadows pulsed, living and merciless as the red clawed creature came forth next to the great mouthed beast that was already staring down Maddie. There was a staircase and a hallway, then next to the stairway was the kitchen as well and there was a screen door in the back of the kitchen but there was no telling where that would go, and the footsteps from before, the footsteps that had to be Efram's were coming from upstairs before.
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Post by Arual on Jan 28, 2009 12:42:10 GMT -5
Maddie's head lifted to the footsteps and she swallowed a hard swallow, looking back at the creature- but instinctivly bolting upstairs to the sounds of the footsteps were- hoping she'd catch him in time. Her hair- too short now to really pull away from her face, had breezed back behind her and the feeling her stomach was in the middle of her throat was all too real.
The young woman continued to storm up the stairwell, making a turn as the case wound around direction. She could see the second floor now! There was a shadow of a person- but it was a flash of their body- she swore it was Efram. That new knowledge made her push her run into a sprint, leaping over three stairs and onto the second floor to go into the room she saw him enter.
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Post by Señor Sunday Friday on Jan 28, 2009 13:03:22 GMT -5
Inside the room was a bloody mess, bodies strewn on the floor dead, they were Gwen and Jerry, lifeless and dead with a massive black specter hovering over their bodies with massive claws that stuck into the floor. It snarled at Maddie, the room appeared to be a bedroom, a child's bedroom actually. Stuck to the ceiling were little glow in the dark stars and the bedding had rocketships on it, such a mundane place turned rabid in the nightmarish place, there were only two doors in the room, the one Maddie had just walked through and then there was the closet, left open and there were walls lined with marrionettes, each one staring ahead silently but they were dreadfully realistic in their make, they looked more like people than Jerry and Gwen, and one of the puppets looked exactly like Efram. He must have gone through there.
Each puppet was a person killed, each and every one of them and the closet seemed to have no ceiling, just continuing walls up towards the heavens, lined with people-like toys that stared down at the thin pathway with thier glass eyes, following whoever it was that dared take the walkway. There were ugly marionettes and there were pretty ones, skinny and thin, some looked like scraggly old men and some looked like regular children. They were all sewn to thier places stuck to the wall by the spiders from before and they were still running accross, weaving the strong lines over the dolls to keep them forever there, trapped.
The marionette of Efram was oddly dressed though, wearing simple clothes covered in dirt and torn here and there, an assortment of little cages and bottles were lashed down about his person, as if he were carrying things in them. It was odd because Efram never carried any such things with him at all, never was he seen with tiny cages but the marionette looked so much like him and the presence of the items was unquestionable. Around him were the other marionettes of all races, there were elves and drow and fairies and sprites, there were demons and there were creatures for which had no name, they were all clothed differently, some you could tell had been from places far apart and then some looked like they could have been neighbors or siblings from how they were similarly dressed.
Tatted creatures lurked higher up, moving across the wall, their tendril fingers slipping around marionettes to keep hold of where they were, bony spindles of fingers that tore through the webbing like it were not even there. Great mouths were in their backs, biting at the air, waiting for something to find it's way into the gaping mouths though nothing dared to.
The floorboards moved and warped in the closet, pushing whoever it was that was walking upon them out of the closet and back into the room, determined to keep the long hallway hidden and secret. Nobody would be able to go down the corridor without effort.
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Post by Arual on Jan 28, 2009 15:27:16 GMT -5
Maddie was not going to give up now, not after following him all this way. She could still remember that face he made when he said goodbye and left- he looked so sad, in pain. She knew that he would tell her everything, as he earlier tried to, to her with no hesitation- but it was impossible. She couldn't let her fear stop her- or anything else for that matter!
With an effort of her own she felt a pocket of air in her chest- what would be a grunt as she pushed forward against the thing that wanted her out of there. They would not get rid of her as easy as they thought- no matter if Alden was behind this or not. She knew somehow he was- it was always Alden trying to hold Efram hostage.....trying to take over people's lives by his own powerful abilities. It wasn't fair!
Maddie pushed with all her strength to keep inside and climb through the long hallway of the closet- she was going to find Efram and going to find out what was hurting him so much. Her shoes slid back against the rest of her body; obeying the unseen pusher's action, but the redhead brought her foot back up a step to regain a strong hold on getting herself kept in instead of thrown out. She couldn't stand that look he had- the look of slavery even though it wasn't visible. He had done so much for her- and it was time to pay him back!
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Post by Señor Sunday Friday on Jan 28, 2009 15:52:17 GMT -5
The floorboards warped and tried to pull Maddie away but over time, what seemed like minutes she was deep within the corridor that seemed positively endless and there amidst the dolls was a door, intricately carved and designed, a doorknob delicate and shining. It was a heavy contrast to the entire corridor so it stuck out and inlaid into the door was a network of cogs and moving components. There were no webs over the door, in fact around the door the webs were torn meaning it had been opened recently. It would take some work to open the door while within the warping hallway but one would have to try.
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Post by Arual on Jan 28, 2009 15:57:50 GMT -5
Maddie ran to the door, her footsteps echoing behind her, though she paid no mind to sound or sight or feeling. She followed her heart- her memory- the pull that said 'Go this way! Turn left- no- the other left!' and it led her to the door. Her lungs were on fire from all this running, but the young woman pressed on, her hands turning the knob and pulling on the door with all her might. It HAD been opened, why not now?
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Post by Señor Sunday Friday on Jan 28, 2009 16:21:15 GMT -5
The door creaked open, the cogs and devices turning to reveal an alleyway, the sun wasn't able to be seen but there were lamps all about to add light to the outside world. To the left and right of the door were elevators of some sort, people standing at the entrances to the different elevators with curious expressions as they looked towards the doorway. The people were dressed strangely, rather victorian if you were to describe it as anything but there were distinct things that were different here and there. This place was a whole world it seemed and Efram was somewhere in it, he had to be and yet there was no sign of where he had gone, there was only the alleyway and what lay in the street beyond it. Efram had to be down there somewhere, he had to be, he had gone this way after all.
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