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Harrow was angry, and he was tired, and he wasn’t exactly sure why he was either of these things. Taking out his frustration on the confident, hunter version of himself hadn’t entirely helped drive the feeling away. He wanted something else to swing at, needed desperately to prove himself. While he wasn’t exactly sure where this feeling came from, maybe it was a good sign. It was progress, it was growth.

Maybe he’d go back to school and actually grow a pair. Maybe he’d stop hiding and do something real with his life. But probably, he wouldn’t.

For now, though, it fueled him; kept his feet steady in the fog, a deep frown on his face as he searched the mist for another living soul, kept him from quaking in his boots. Mostly. Until the voices started.

It was his brother’s voice; long forgotten, long lost, that finally sharpened Harrow’s anger to a fine point, half-turning in place to search for a familiar face. Of course Devon wasn’t there, didn’t come out of the mist to reassure him, but his voice lingered all the same –

Unkind, today, in a way his brother never had been. Needling and picking, digging through all those insecurities, everything that left Harrow weak in comparison. None of it was anything he hadn’t thought on his own, of course, but hearing it in his brother’s voice was simultaneously impossible to believe and infuriating.

Anything else might have broken him down, but this steeled his spine. He shook his sword into its proper shape and lashed out into the mist.

Damage: 6
Total Damage: 261

Reforming her body had been something she'd done at least twice before - or twice that she could remember. Blurred, her vision slowly came back, the fog swirling around like water. "Nnn..." That pain hadn't been normal and she shuddered at the memory. How long had it been? Time didn't really exist when her body didn't and she couldn't be sure. Slowly she stretched her legs out, feeling the soreness and she rubbed at them with her hands before sitting back up.

It felt like a knife had wedged itself into her chest and her wings flapped in detest of the feeling. For all of the training the War mare endured, she had been utterly unprepared for whatever the shadow creature had been. Wobbly, but determined, she picked herself back up and glared angrily at the fog. Already the voices had picked back up and she shook her head, taking a few labored steps in any direction.

There was a strange look to her now, but with each passing step some normalcy had been regained. Well, as normal as the fog would allow for. "I'm still here..." She said, lowly. "Just like I said..." It hadn't been a lie, as a horseman she was as old as the moon, as old as the stars... and forever. Though not it was less sure of what to do. Rage deep inside felt like a fire pit full of coals, threatening to ignite and swallow her up completely.

Or she could use, just as she had always done. Iyari's mind raced but found not solace save for the same thought that had plagued her mind for so long. Revenge. Could it be it was nearly that time?

It ought to have been awful, this stifling feeling of silence and being all by your lonesome. Ruth did not quite subscribe to that supposition. She was rather at home being by herself, keeping herself separate and at a distance with the rest of Halloween. The grayness of her surroundings was met with a smile, an appreciation for the drab, for the sheer lackluster environment.

The paranoia agent caught the voices on the edge of hearing and she stopped to get a better listen. The words were raspy, the voices themselves familiar and at the same time those of strangers. It could happen, someone who might have been someone she used to know, someone who could have become someone she would know, speaking to her in this strange yet wonderful world.

The insults came and those too Ruth acknowledged but neither confirmed nor denied their verity. She simply let the words wash over her, the touch of insanity welcomed and encouraged in her life as did her family.

At this she frowned, pretending that the discomfort she now felt was a result of this strange fog.

Arrakis was alone in the fog. He heard other voices, but he didn't know where they were. They seemed to be all around him, and yet... where were they? There was a familiar note about the voices that made his stomach sink down. The fog didn't let up in any particular direction. He couldn't seem to move toward the voices any more than he could seem to move away from them. No matter which direction he walked, there they were. At the same time, though, there they weren't. They weren't there. They weren't behind him-- they weren't anywhere.

You did this to yourself, you know.

"What?" He whirled, eyes searching the fog fervently for what he could have sworn was someone speaking right into his ear.

But there was no one there. He should have known better. They weren't behind him; they weren't anywhere.

You did this to us, and you did this to yourself.

"I don't understand!" He whirled back the way he had been facing, taking one, two, three hurried steps before pausing again. "Where are you?" The whispers had sounded like his family, but he could have sworn he'd also heard other students in Amityville that he'd met during his studies, but he couldn't actually see any of them.

Silence. That silence was somehow more maddening than the whispers had been. He saw flashes of movement and turned toward them, but there was nothing there. A shadow shifted in the fog and he ran for it, but by the time he crossed the distance--a few strides and yet leagues on leagues--the shadow was gone.

Laughter echoed around him, and he shivered. He thought he felt fingers trail through his hair, but the only fingers when he turned were fingers of the white fog that surrounded him. Wringing his braid anxiously between his hands, he murmured to himself, "there's no one there. There's no one there," as he turned in what he hoped was his original direction. He needed to get out of here.

You'd like that, wouldn't you?

"What? No!" Was that Ignatius? It couldn't be Ignatius. That wasn't right. This wasn't right. He desperately needed to get out of here. Arra took off in the first direction that felt right.

Not so quick now, are you? His head snapped up as he skidded to a stop, expecting to look himself in the eyes. There was no one there. No. No no no nonono. He'd already defeated that doppelganger. That wasn't him. It couldn't be him!

"You're not real!" he screamed at the fog, "you were never real!"

Oh, now I'm not real? You killed me. You can't kill something that doesn't exist. You killed me.

Around Arrakis, whispers of "murderer".

"No! I'm not a murderder! I'm the real one! It's me! You're a--"

"A victim. You killed me."

"No!" That voice sounded real enough to be next to him, to be more than a voice floating through the fog. He twisted to look, but his movements felt sluggish. He could hear his family and friends, could hear bursts of laughter interspersed with what he thought were shouts.

"Arrakis, you can't actually reach that, you know."

"Arrakis, you're going to get yourself killed!"

(526 WC)

The fog was familiar, in a way.

Nkosazana recognized fog. She recognized fog that seemed deep and impenetrable, reaching nearly as far as the eye could see. She recognized the vague grey, settling over everything and immediately making her uneasy.

It reminded her of the Four Isles of the Four Clans, as they were now, ever since the Hunters had swept through. She had gone there, a few times, mostly to fight insanity creatures. Was this what she was in now? But she wasn't home. She thought she had been where the Hunters live. After all, she had faced that oddly familiar looking woman, a woman who had apparently decided she needed to die just because she was a horsewoman, but she couldn't let a hunter version of herself thrive...

She never got used to fog. Every time, it felt like it was going to choke her. It felt like it was enveloping her, entirely, deeply in ways she couldn't quite describe.

She shuddered, moving through the fog.

She knew, in theory, there had to be an exit. She just needed to find it, and ignore the buzzing.

The buzzing was persistent, though. It was familiar. It was unnerving. For a moment, she wondered if this was how some of the other horsemen felt all the time. Her thoughts cut off with the sound of a taunt. The taunt was from ... herself?

"Can't get rid of me that easily."

"This isn't--"

"You're still the hunted, Nkosazana. And you will end you."

She could have sworn she felt a smirk on the back of her neck.

Yuki hated this fog. He knew - or, had a very educated guess toward - the meaning of it even before whispers touched his ears. The voices seemed to come from all around him and nowhere in tandem, each time he tried to turn where he thought the sound had come there was nothing. Occasionally, a barely glimpsed shadow and nothing more.

If this was how this dream was going to end, Yuki couldn't say he'd be surprised. If it really was a dream at all. If Insanity had truly taken hold of him again, without letting him go this time, maybe all of this had just been some elaborate hallucionation of his mind crumbling away.

"You can't save anyone. Not even yourself."

It was his own voice. Yuki had been mocked by his own voice more times than he cared to try and remember. He wondered if it had ever been wrong.

"You killed us," his voice hissed in his own mind. "You deserve to be trapped here."

Perhaps that was true, too.

"I don't belong here."

"You are a fool!" Yuki felt as though that insult echoed all around him, even though he was alone. Nothing but the fog and this voice. Other whispers trickled in between, incoherent, but he knew from the tones that nothing the voices had to say were meant to be comforting. They never were. "This is the only Home you have left. Here. With us. Forever."

"No," Yuki replied aloud. His voice wavered, and his eyes searched. He had to find a way out. There had to be a way out. The disease of the mind had grabbed hold of him once and he'd come back. Couldn't that still happen now?

After her encounter with the creature behind the small door Azmodel was still stuck in that strange place in between the Dusk, the Island, and who knows what else. One thing was sure : she wasn't supposed to be there, she didn't feel like she belonged and so she kept on trying to escape.
Escape to where was a good question. She still couldn't remember much and those missing memories where a bother. She would see once she reached somewhere else than that grey expanse of fog.

Plus there was no one around to ask the way out, or what was happening. Well... The ghoul couldn't see anyone but... Weren't those voices? Either they were far away or they were whispering because she couldn't hear clearly what they were saying.
Listening more intently the Valkyrie realized she should know these voices, they were familiar...
And suddenly she could put a face on a furious murmur : the shadow wearing her face she had just defeated !
Or didn't she?
When in doubt Azmodel preferred to attack before being attacked.

So the first darker shadow slithering in the fog near her bore the -quite terrible she had to admit- hit of her sword. But instead of fleeing, striking back or just reacting the thing just stayed there, always in the corner of her visual field.

But the voices. The VOICES ! They became louder, clearer, and angrier. They kept claiming that she had killed herself.
Of course not ! She was still alive ! Right? It was hard to say in such a place but if she could get in a fight and feel pain at the injuries received then she had to be alive still ! And if they were speaking about the shadow behind the door it wasn't herself. It was only wearing her face, it wasn't her.

What could she do to make them shut up? These voices, they were driving her insane ! ... if she wasn't already.

Damage : 2
Total damage : 263

( this is intended to be pre-boss thread )


Everything felt fuzzy here.

It was an unpleasant sensation. Fog curled around Gale's shoulders, twisted through his thoughts like smoke, turning everything a hazy, pallid gray that seemed to permeate through every single thing he did or didn't do. He wasn't aware of anyone else, though he thought he saw movement.

Maybe he didn't.

Maybe there was nothing actually there.

He sucked in a breath that hurt, that chilled, and Jinhai's voice wafted through his senses, the dragon's usually calm voice low and mocking; a taunting sort of thing that made his heart sink in his chest. It felt like cold fingers were wrapped around his heart.

<< I wish I'd had a different hunter. >>

<< I wish I hadn't had you. >>

Jinhai's voice was joined by Stormy's, sweet and dripping poison with each syllable, knives against his skin.

"I never wanted you, anyway."

Bix's airy tone, laughing, jeering.

"I never saw you as anything more than a child, anyway."

One of Gale's hands came up and clenched in his hair. The other followed, his fingers closing on the pale strands, his body hunching over as he dragged in slow, deep breaths, breaths that hurt his lungs, that made his chest ache, and he knew it wasn't real. It wasn't. He'd been through this before.

This wasn't real.

"None of you are real," Gale said, his eyes closing. "I'm okay. Everything is going to be okay."

He wasn't sure if he believed it or not.