➤ GHOSTS OF THE LIVING. Zoey’s pretty sure she stepped through the fucking looking glass. Because this is not where she had been just a moment ago, when she’d leapt off her motorbike and gone racing into her dad’s flat looking for him, her satchel clanking and rattling as she ran.
But now she’s here. Wherever here IS. She had just enough time to see a town and the forest surrounding her before the fog rolled in. Rolled in from the forest itself which seems wrong in a deeply visceral way. Before she can do more than pick a direction she’s enveloped in it, her skin crawling in warning.
Fuck. Fuck fuck FUCK.
She can’t stay here. With the way her skins crawls and how on edge she feels... she can’t stay here. So she starts moving, with a quick prayer to the fucking gods that she’s going the right direction. She can’t see much of ANYTHING, so it’s a crapshoot.
It’s disorienting, and she loses track of where she is, of how long she’s even been IN the fog. She’s wandering. She’s lost. She thinks she’s headed toward the town? But she’s not sure. Not until she hits concrete, stumbling a little.
“Fuck, I’m dizzy,” she mutters under her breath, trying to gather herself and push past the dizziness, the light-headedness, the nausea turning her stomach. To keep moving. Find somewhere she can take shelter in.
There’s movement, off to her right, and she pivots sharply, reaching for a dagger that isn’t there anymore. “Fuck!” Someone took her weapons. It must have been when she arrived here because she had them in her dad’s flat. Not that that’s ever stopped her. Keen ice-blue eyes search the fog, to try and find whatever it is she thinks she saw. Knows she saw. Is pretty sure she saw. She doesn’t feel right so maybe it’s all in her head after all.
But she’s still feeling on edge. Uneasy. If her skin was prickling in warning before it’s practically SHOUTING with how intense the prickles are. Something is very, very wrong with this place.
“Who’s there?”
➤ A BIT OF EXPLORATION. Well, it doesn’t look like she’s leaving any time soon, so she might as well explore. Learn a little more about where the fuck she is. (Where she is, is apparently a town called Mathias. Which tells her nothing.) Gather supplies. Map the place out. Find somewhere to call home for the moment. So she can settle in and try to figure out what the fuck is wrong with her powers. Some of it is still in working order, her skin still prickles in warning, she still knows little things before they happen... but her visions have been nothing but fog and blood and darkness and danger. Which tells her NOTHING. And yes, sometimes her visions are vague but never... like this. Never this... fucking useless.
It’s frustrating, and she can’t help but wonder if it’s something Mathias has done to her. Which makes her wonder about Mathias itself. What IS it? Is it some sort of genius loci? A town lost in time, removed from the rest of the world? And how did they all end up here?
There’s nothing she can do about it right now, though, so she explores. Pokes around. Despite the fog. She makes a point to spend as little time as possible out in it, moving from building to building like a wraith.
She starts with places like Poe’s Clothes and the General Store, looking for supplies and a few changes of clothes since she’s going to need them.
Then it’s the school house. It’s smaller than Zoey’s used to, but she takes the time to explore its rooms thoroughly. Looking over the school books, it’s interesting. There are science books with signs of use in a lab... but no lab in the school. Yet one more piece of Mathias that doesn’t make sense.
The Grey Gull follows, and she can’t help but hop over the bar to pour herself a drink from... one of the bottles that she’s pretty sure is moonshine. She downs the finger she poured herself and coughs. “Oh yeah, that’s moonshine.” And then she pours herself another glass before setting it down and hopping on top of the bar to perch on the edge of it.
The Historical Society is next, and thankfully she has a flashlight in her bag because it looks like the electricity is out. There’s no order to anything, but she looks for a while, trying to see if she can find anything of interest. There’s no real order to the newspapers either, but there are a few dating back to the 1800s. She notices a pattern as she looks through the newspapers, too. None of them are produced in Mathias itself. She doesn’t know if it means anything. But it’s interesting.
She ends with the library. Both because books, and because it’s a good way to find out about somewhere you’ve found yourself. Particularly when it’s weird as shit like Mathias is. She makes her way past the books at the front – nothing published after 1990. Interesting; there were newspapers that were older – and keeps going until she reaches the leather-bound tomes, the familiar smell of old books filling the air, and begins searching through them.
The burnt bit at the back of the library is interesting, too. And weird. Was it set on purpose? Was there something in these books that needed to be burned? While that is a very good question, and something she’s curious about... but it’s the hole in the floor and passageway leading to a stairwell that draws her attention more immediately.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” she murmurs thoughtfully. Does she dare go down it?
[OOC: feel free to find her at any of the places mentioned or anywhere in between.]
➤ TO SEE AND BE SEEN. The town hall gives Zoey the creeps. This TOWN gives Zoey the creeps. The sort that usually tends to lead to portents and blood. (And death. Sometimes death.) There have been moments where she’s wanted to crawl out of her bloody skin. As it is she’s tense and on edge, the itch of restless energy eating at her. But she doesn’t leave. There’s no point, since the entire fucking town is creepy as shit.
So instead she stands at the bulletin board, reading the notes and things that have been stuck to it. Committing the bits of information that have been posted there to memory (as well as jotting them down in a journal. Just in case this place fucks with her head).
There’s something under the bits of paper, though. A symbol. Something that makes her skin crawl a little as she leans in to take a closer look. To try and figure out what the symbol is. And as if it KNOWS she’s looking, a strange breeze ruffles the papers, revealing a little bit more. Letting her see what it is that’s painted there.
An eye. It’s an eye. An ornate, three-lobed eye painted in still-wet red... And the moment she draws closer, almost reaches out to touch it there’s the coppery taste of blood on her tongue. And she immediately jerks her hand back. Painted in blood. “Fuck.” She knows that symbol. How could she not, with what she grew up reading.
Why the fuck is it here? What does it mean, that it’s painted on the bulletin board? Does He have his eye on this place? Nothing good can come of this symbol being here if it means what she thinks it means. No matter what form He’s in.
The sensation of being watching, of being studied with great interest crawls along her skin, in time with a sharp prickle of warning, and Zoey turns, slowly, warily. There’s nothing there, as far as she can see, but the feeling doesn’t ease. In fact it intensifies. The desire to run, to try and escape whatever it is that’s watching her (and she thinks she knows. She’s afraid she knows), is intense, but she forces herself to stay. To finish writing down all of the information that’s been shared on the bulletin board.
And then she draws the eye symbol, making a note of where she found it. In case she finds it again.
Zoey Westen | Original Character
➤ GHOSTS OF THE LIVING.
Zoey’s pretty sure she stepped through the fucking looking glass. Because this is not where she had been just a moment ago, when she’d leapt off her motorbike and gone racing into her dad’s flat looking for him, her satchel clanking and rattling as she ran.
But now she’s here. Wherever here IS. She had just enough time to see a town and the forest surrounding her before the fog rolled in. Rolled in from the forest itself which seems wrong in a deeply visceral way. Before she can do more than pick a direction she’s enveloped in it, her skin crawling in warning.
Fuck. Fuck fuck FUCK.
She can’t stay here. With the way her skins crawls and how on edge she feels... she can’t stay here. So she starts moving, with a quick prayer to the fucking gods that she’s going the right direction. She can’t see much of ANYTHING, so it’s a crapshoot.
It’s disorienting, and she loses track of where she is, of how long she’s even been IN the fog. She’s wandering. She’s lost. She thinks she’s headed toward the town? But she’s not sure. Not until she hits concrete, stumbling a little.
“Fuck, I’m dizzy,” she mutters under her breath, trying to gather herself and push past the dizziness, the light-headedness, the nausea turning her stomach. To keep moving. Find somewhere she can take shelter in.
There’s movement, off to her right, and she pivots sharply, reaching for a dagger that isn’t there anymore. “Fuck!” Someone took her weapons. It must have been when she arrived here because she had them in her dad’s flat. Not that that’s ever stopped her. Keen ice-blue eyes search the fog, to try and find whatever it is she thinks she saw. Knows she saw. Is pretty sure she saw. She doesn’t feel right so maybe it’s all in her head after all.
But she’s still feeling on edge. Uneasy. If her skin was prickling in warning before it’s practically SHOUTING with how intense the prickles are. Something is very, very wrong with this place.
“Who’s there?”
➤ A BIT OF EXPLORATION.
Well, it doesn’t look like she’s leaving any time soon, so she might as well explore. Learn a little more about where the fuck she is. (Where she is, is apparently a town called Mathias. Which tells her nothing.) Gather supplies. Map the place out. Find somewhere to call home for the moment. So she can settle in and try to figure out what the fuck is wrong with her powers. Some of it is still in working order, her skin still prickles in warning, she still knows little things before they happen... but her visions have been nothing but fog and blood and darkness and danger. Which tells her NOTHING. And yes, sometimes her visions are vague but never... like this. Never this... fucking useless.
It’s frustrating, and she can’t help but wonder if it’s something Mathias has done to her. Which makes her wonder about Mathias itself. What IS it? Is it some sort of genius loci? A town lost in time, removed from the rest of the world? And how did they all end up here?
There’s nothing she can do about it right now, though, so she explores. Pokes around. Despite the fog. She makes a point to spend as little time as possible out in it, moving from building to building like a wraith.
She starts with places like Poe’s Clothes and the General Store, looking for supplies and a few changes of clothes since she’s going to need them.
Then it’s the school house. It’s smaller than Zoey’s used to, but she takes the time to explore its rooms thoroughly. Looking over the school books, it’s interesting. There are science books with signs of use in a lab... but no lab in the school. Yet one more piece of Mathias that doesn’t make sense.
The Grey Gull follows, and she can’t help but hop over the bar to pour herself a drink from... one of the bottles that she’s pretty sure is moonshine. She downs the finger she poured herself and coughs. “Oh yeah, that’s moonshine.” And then she pours herself another glass before setting it down and hopping on top of the bar to perch on the edge of it.
The Historical Society is next, and thankfully she has a flashlight in her bag because it looks like the electricity is out. There’s no order to anything, but she looks for a while, trying to see if she can find anything of interest. There’s no real order to the newspapers either, but there are a few dating back to the 1800s. She notices a pattern as she looks through the newspapers, too. None of them are produced in Mathias itself. She doesn’t know if it means anything. But it’s interesting.
She ends with the library. Both because books, and because it’s a good way to find out about somewhere you’ve found yourself. Particularly when it’s weird as shit like Mathias is. She makes her way past the books at the front – nothing published after 1990. Interesting; there were newspapers that were older – and keeps going until she reaches the leather-bound tomes, the familiar smell of old books filling the air, and begins searching through them.
The burnt bit at the back of the library is interesting, too. And weird. Was it set on purpose? Was there something in these books that needed to be burned? While that is a very good question, and something she’s curious about... but it’s the hole in the floor and passageway leading to a stairwell that draws her attention more immediately.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” she murmurs thoughtfully. Does she dare go down it?
[OOC: feel free to find her at any of the places mentioned or anywhere in between.]
➤ TO SEE AND BE SEEN.
The town hall gives Zoey the creeps. This TOWN gives Zoey the creeps. The sort that usually tends to lead to portents and blood. (And death. Sometimes death.) There have been moments where she’s wanted to crawl out of her bloody skin. As it is she’s tense and on edge, the itch of restless energy eating at her. But she doesn’t leave. There’s no point, since the entire fucking town is creepy as shit.
So instead she stands at the bulletin board, reading the notes and things that have been stuck to it. Committing the bits of information that have been posted there to memory (as well as jotting them down in a journal. Just in case this place fucks with her head).
There’s something under the bits of paper, though. A symbol. Something that makes her skin crawl a little as she leans in to take a closer look. To try and figure out what the symbol is. And as if it KNOWS she’s looking, a strange breeze ruffles the papers, revealing a little bit more. Letting her see what it is that’s painted there.
An eye. It’s an eye. An ornate, three-lobed eye painted in still-wet red... And the moment she draws closer, almost reaches out to touch it there’s the coppery taste of blood on her tongue. And she immediately jerks her hand back. Painted in blood. “Fuck.” She knows that symbol. How could she not, with what she grew up reading.
Why the fuck is it here? What does it mean, that it’s painted on the bulletin board? Does He have his eye on this place? Nothing good can come of this symbol being here if it means what she thinks it means. No matter what form He’s in.
The sensation of being watching, of being studied with great interest crawls along her skin, in time with a sharp prickle of warning, and Zoey turns, slowly, warily. There’s nothing there, as far as she can see, but the feeling doesn’t ease. In fact it intensifies. The desire to run, to try and escape whatever it is that’s watching her (and she thinks she knows. She’s afraid she knows), is intense, but she forces herself to stay. To finish writing down all of the information that’s been shared on the bulletin board.
And then she draws the eye symbol, making a note of where she found it. In case she finds it again.
➤ WILDCARD.
[Choose your own adventure!]