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 Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2012 4:51 pm
Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft
▶ Workday morning at The Aimes Atlas
By the time he reached The Aimes Atlas, Clarkson wasn't sure what to do anymore. The offending bottle, ensconced in its brown-bag prison, was held close by his side, just shy of his thigh - and if he stood really still, he fancied he could feel the minute vibrations of tiny fangs tearing away at crumpled paper. In the delusion brought on by alarm, he had somehow imagined that bringing it to work would solve all his problems: he would get a photograph of it, to place in the classifieds - the original owner of the bottle would see it, and take it off his hands. In the cold light of mundane workplace reality, it had quickly dawned on him that presenting a mysterious bottle with an eldritch feline form of pure light prowling around its stem to anyone was probably a really bad idea. Panic, perhaps. Or maybe widespread fascination. An expose - and what would come after? Unscrupulous collectors with cosh-wielding thug-minions? Shady scientists sweet-talking strange experiments? Or just a lot of attention. A whole lot of attention. The last thing that Philip Clarkson could ever want was attention. He hovered by the photographers for just a second…and moved on to his desk, depositing his burden upon it with a shaking hand. In the paper bag on his table like that, it looked for all the world like another uninteresting lunch. Perhaps an apple. He looked around.
The tables around him were empty right now - most of the crew had left on their beats, and the click-clacking of typewriters that characterised the news-place was currently only intermittent, the staccato accompaniment of a distracted drummer. He was alone with his misery - alone with his mystery. He eyed the bag with the thousand-yard stare of a shell-shocked soldier…then he was abruptly properly shocked - he'd thought it was mere fancy, but even as he watched, little shreds of brown paper were being ripped away from the inside. Certain of his solitude - and very much less certain of the state of the bag or his sanity - he seized the package, wrenched the crumpled top apart, and pulled the bottle out….
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Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 2:03 pm
Long, pale fingers danced quickly against the keys with carefully honed precision. Atop the bridge of his nose rested a set of reading glasses, thin and silvery in frame. His work today consisted of editing an article on the migration patterns of certain birds -- a real bore, even for a slow news day. Only lunch and already he was mentally exhausted with this piece, having to rewrite most of it alongside his notes not because it was part of his job description as editor but because he didn't trust anyone else to do it right even with guidance. Skipping meals was far from standard for Alfons but being late due to finishing up work was. It always worked out for him, because his lunches were usually quite small, tidy, and quickly eaten so he could resume his duties. That was how he preferred things. Quite a few people that preferred to keep working would eat lunch at their desks but not even he was that desperate. The idea of dropping crumbs or dribbling liquids near pristine tabletops, complicated mechanisms, and stark white papers made his stomach uneasy. No, he wouldn't stand for it, not at his work space.
Narrowing his eyes, Alfons glared daggers at the initial page which was now covered in red ink from all of the changes he had to make. Everyone in this place was so clumsy with their words and this journalist in particular was notorious for using horrible similes when they were absolutely unwarranted. "This particular species' feathers," he read aloud while cringing, "are known to glisten when the air is humid, not unlike a woman's clavicle whilst she is serenaded." A loud scoff sounded from his area, breaking the otherwise quiet atmosphere. It was followed by the sound a crumpling paper, then furious typing. "--are known to glisten in humidity, like morning dew. You hackneyed c**k." The latter sentence was not typed into the article, but the loud ding of the type writer setting itself announced the end of that particular page and, thus, time for a well deserved break after slogging through complete garbage.
Alfons slid his chair out from beneath the desk and set it neatly back under once he was on his feat. He plucked up the crumpled paper from the floor, set it into the waste bin in the corner, adjusted his stacks of paper neatly and tucked into one of the desk's drawers where a brown bag of his own lay waiting, neatly folded up and clipped shut. Inside were standard staples of his diet; a sweet bread bun made specifically without the use of dairy products, a small container of minced vegetables consisting of carrots, celery, radishes, cucumbers and shredded lettuce, as well as a thermos of pomegranate juice. Lunch collected, he removed himself from his work station and began walking down the aisle toward the proper dining area. As he moved through, his brown eyes wandered listlessly past the others who were still nestled behind their desks. He didn't pay them any mind, even taking two steps past Clarkson before he had to double take and stop himself.
It felt like his heart skipped a beat. A look of abject horror rose to Alfons' face and what little color he had drained out instantly. His entire body tensed up, going rigid, and his lunch slipped out of his hands onto the hard floor with an obvious thud. Alfons' mouth fell open in a silent scream, breath caught in his throat. The familiar shape of the bottle in his coworker's hands sent him reeling, the man's long legs back peddling until he bumped against the nearest wall. There were more of them.
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Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 1:30 am
If Clarkson had had a medical history of heart disease, this tale would have been unceremoniously truncated right here. As it were, he did not, and his heart only felt as if it had exploded in his chest at the telltale thud of a rather more substantial lunch bag hitting the floor. The electrified panic flowed through his veins: he lunged for the paper shell, attempting to stuff the bottle (see-through tiger protesting all the way with swipes and soundless roars) back into its prison - his shaking hands ripped it right down the centre instead. Capital.
Shock-muddled, at a loss, Clarkson did the only thing he could think of: employing the time-honoured method of simply thrusting the bottle behind his back, he spun on his heel to face the jury, wide-eyed and thin-lipped like a thief caught in flashlight.
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Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 8:19 am
Though Clarkson's methods of misdirection were tried and true, the ever effective hide the stupid thing behind your back like a five year old trick, it was too late. Alfons had already laid eyes on the thing and its familiarity sent waves of anxiety all across his spine. He felt sick. The last time he had seen one of those bottles, complete with the strange shapes in aura, he had been tracked down and nearly killed by some huge nasty beast that broke right through his house's wall. He couldn't count the number of times the bottle merely existing caused him to reel and faint and that was how he felt now -- like he might keel over and lose consciousness.
Instead, he sat on the floor, back against the wall, staring wildly between this coworker he barely knew on a first name basis, the thing he knew was hidden behind his back, and the small bits of paper shreds lining the desk. His jaw hung uselessly while one hand shook and pointed at him with a single finger. Alfons tried to speak but all that came out at first was a quiet wheeze that slowly raised in pitch until it became too annoying for even himself to bear, at which point he grimaced and leaned forward, eyes widening further.
"Th-th-that-- wh-where-- wh-why d-do you have th-that?!" he spat. "That" was spoken with such reviled understanding it would have been impossible to miss the fact he knew exactly what it was. The coloration was different, save for the stopper on top, and while his fright filled bottle had been surrounded by some sort of dark monstrous aura -- and oh, those gleaming red eyes filled with the deepest hunger -- the fact that Clarkson's bottle was of such a bright and seemingly friendly color did nothing to assuage Alfons' opinion of the bottles and the child that resulted from his own.
They were nothing but trouble.
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 4:50 am
Clarkson had opened his mouth to defend his position (i.e. deny everything) as soon as he'd set his eyes on the editor...but as he watched the man slide to the floor, he closed it again. He had thought he'd been alarmed, but the state Wieczorek was in transcended mere human panic. The prolonged wheeze, certainly, had more than a touch of the supernatural about it. Weighing up in the revulsion in his question, Clarkson very carefully slid open a drawer and neatly shut the snarling tiger within.
"You know what it is?" he asked. The small part of his mind that wasn't gibbering in terror was almost impressed at how well he affected the casual tone of someone who wasn't still freaking out inside.
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Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2012 12:04 pm
"Of course I bloody well know!" Alfons shouted, hands quickly clamping over his mouth as his angry voice echoed in the nearly silent room. Following it, there was an actual silence that lasted no more than thirty seconds of he and Clarkson staring awkwardly at each other while he kept his mouth covered, brown eyes (or, eye, since the other was covered haphazardly by his fluffy blond hair) threatened to bug out of his head. Once the familiar sound of typing resumed, Alfons let out a quick gasp for air and all but tumbled forward, pushing himself off the floor. He then set to work on straightening his shirt and tie, wiping any disgusting floor crumbs off his hands onto his pants and then quickly ridding his pants of them as well.
Adjusting one of his suspenders, the tall, skinny man cleared his throat and attempted to look poised. However, his eyes never left the drawer which the bottle was now held shut within. "I've got one. Err-- had one." He fumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose and sighing. "You're better off getting rid of the thing. It's no picnic in the park, let me tell you. If you think that little monster you've got now is where it stops, you are sorely mistaken, sir, and I'd recommend trashing the thing now before it leads some god awful beasts into your house so they can trash that instead." He was, of course, speaking directly from experience. The freshly repaired wall in his kitchen fully attested to that experience.
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Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 9:35 am
Now that the man seemed more sedate, he slowly opened the drawer and slipped the bottle out again. Looking around to make sure they were relatively isolated, he set it on the table, keeping a guarding hand on it (though the cool flash of little fangs against his skin again and again was quite disconcerting).
"I found it on a street corner - tripped over it, actually. I thought it was a perfume bottle. Would've returned it, but didn't know where to start. It wasn't always like this - it was just a bottle, you could see a tiger head in it, but I thought it was just some clever etching, you know. Then, last night...well," a helpless gesture at the furious transparent beast.
"Yours anything like this?"ex o ex Snoof And finally. XD I'm so very sorry for my black-hole collapse, but I'm finally back RPing! Thank you so much for bearing with me. <3
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