thespherelogs | It's where my demons hide, oh it's where my demons hide.

Who: Everyone
What: The August nightmare log.
When: August 13->28th
Where: All over.
Notes: Please check the plotting/notes for the plot and it's specific timing here! Also please run things by other players if you're doing them!
Warnings: Demons, creepiness, possession.

August Nightmare Log: Demons

Days 1-3

Like so many bad things, this nightmare starts in the middle of the night. It starts with the sensation that the private domes and moves outwards from there. For the first two-three days of the nightmare, you experience the sensation of being watched, even if (especially if) you happen to be alone in the space. As the feeling intensifies, characters see things out of the corners of their vision, and if they turn around, or look quickly, whatever they thought they saw is definitely not there. The things that they see are nothing more than vague shadows that could be anyone (anything) but if there ever was it’s gone when they look. As the times progress, people start to hear whisperings in guttral, perhaps dead languages but the sound is too faint for anyone with the ability to speak them to hear. It’s mostly just gibberish whispering from far away.

On the third night, something new comes along. It’s a discordant sound that has no natural reference. It’s frightening, but also beautiful somehow in it’s sound. If nothing else, it’s definitely interesting. Of course it probably gets less interesting and more annoying the longer it goes on, or if you happen to know just what exactly it is. However, the sound of it ushers something new with it on day four.

Days 5-10

Between days four and ten, the Unsound has done what it’s supposed to do, allegedly and it’s begun to summon demons into the Sphere domes that are affected with the nightmare. During the day, the Tall Pauls are more shadow than anything else, but at night they solidify. They solidify and become more frightening. For the most part, all they do is watch. Tall Pauls are described as: looking like a gnarled tree made of shadow, with large and hungry of eyes, and the twisting length of its too long arms and branch-like fingers and the crazed over-sized smile. (Basically? Slenderman. We’re kinda talking Slenderman here only with a face.) They will watch, they will loom and they will terrify and fed off that sort of fear. Tall Pauls only wanna be your friend, and sacrifice you when your ready for it! Hopefully it won’t get to the point where you’re ready for it.

Tall Pauls will particularly bother sleeping people, children and those who have seen demons before, or those with the magical ability to shove them away. Go nuts.

Night of the Tenth Day->Day 14

Beginning on the night of the Tenth day and running til the fourteenth the Tall Pauls will be joined by their more terrible cousin: The Helvation. The Helvation is described as: “It's tall, hunched and black with gnarled teeth and hair. It looks old, ancient, as it slowly tilts its head the children finally see it, drop the camera and scream. And I don't know why I didn't notice this when I first viewed the tape. Perhaps I was tired, maybe I was asleep, but the creature... it looked like one that appeared in my dream last year, one that stood at the side of my bed” With the further description of the demon in her nightmare, edited for content (dream animal death). “And there was this woman standing at the end of my bed, she had long black hair and she was hunched over. But when she turned to face me, I could see that she had this crazy maniacal smile on her face. A twisted smile that literally stretched from ear to ear as if she had no cheeks, just this mouth - a dark mouth. [...] I wanted to scream but my voice was stuck in my chest. And it looked like the woman was laughing, her shoulders were going up and down. That smile…

“But all I could hear was a baby crying. I realized she wasn't laughing, she- she was changing into something bigger. Something wet and dark and horrible was coming. And this time, it wasn't coming from under the bed. It was coming from within the old woman. She- she turned and started crawling up onto my bed. Hitting me beneath the covers, my arms to my sides. Like I couldn't move. Her mouth opened wide, peeling back and the- the dark thing started to crawl out of the old woman. And I knew with absolute certainty that once it left the old woman, it was going to enter me.”

The Helvation will start by being creepy, doing what the Tall Pauls did times a thousand. However, it’s more violent in what it does. And it’s goal is the possession of the character. However, no more than one person may be possessed in a scene due to the nature of the singlar Helvation. Fighting off the demonic possession is going to be extremely difficult, and only possible for those with magical or psychic abilities or those who are divine. However, even that fighting should only be partial, as the demon is fed by the ability of the Sphere. No one should be possessed the entire last four days, and removing someone from the affected areas will definitely remove the possession. However, the possessed can use the network if the player is so inclined.

Any personal abilities that characters have are turned off by the demon, instead leaving them with super strength and telepathy is based particularly about character’s guilt and things that are in their pasts. (This is something else that players choosing to do this scene should talk about in advance. It can be feelings of guilt or history of the person possessed, just spilling the character’s own guts as it were, or surface reading from a second party.)

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Rhys?

That- that can't be true.

[She'd seen his good qualities but not as many as his bad ones before now and she isn't sure what to do with this information except deny it.]

It is. I used my stun baton to overload the power core. That sent the station plummeting to Pandora's surface.

[His voice is oddly cold and monotonous, a stark contrast to his usually peppy--if awkward--conversations with Enis.]

[His tone startles her but she doesn't let him hear it. She won't give him any opening that might suggest that what he says affects her.]

Why?

[There's a sharp laugh from him.]

To save myself, obviously. I abandoned my friends up there, too. I didn't make sure they could get out. And when I finally got to the hangar of escape pods, I took the last one.

[It sounds horrible with the Helvation's spin on the events.]

You just left them?

[Enis felt ice slide down her throat and settle into her stomach. She shouldn't care if Rhys has done any of this but she does. His words are cold and she feels them like daggers against her skin.]

How could you do that?

I had to escape. It wasn't my concern whether they survived or not.

[A half truth, really. But Rhys can't take control of his own mouth to explain that his friends were more than capable of taking care of themselves. It's as if he's trapped in his own mind, watching this demon spill his deepest insecurities.]

This isn't Rhys.

[Enis tries to sound firm but there is a seed of doubt in her voice. She knows him. Not just because he's her boss but because they were close. They were closer than anything she's had before. She knew what he liked and why he dressed the way he did. But there is always a seed of doubt because her father had taught her that there are very few very good people in the world and what's the chance of her finding one of those?]

I am Rhys. I'm the part that stays hidden, the part people rarely get to see. No one can keep their secrets forever, though.

Yes but there are two sides to a reason. Like why... why did he let those people die?

[Enis feels like she's now grasping at straws and its suddenly difficult to breathe.]

Counterpoint: Why risk my life to save theirs?

Counterpoint: Are you really leaving people to die by choosing to live and not die with them?

I chose to crash the station. There was probably another way to escape. I chose the way that would cost the most lives.

I don't believe you.

[But her voice is shaking now. Enis doesn't know and not knowing tightens something invisible in her chest.]

Go to hell.

[With that she cuts the feed.]

[Rhys desperately wants to explain himself. He knows he'll have to once the nightmare is over. For now, he's stuck watching the demon ruin his life.

Anyone watching him will see his mouth twist in a cruel, self-satisfied grin.]

It's where my demons hide, oh it's where my demons hide.

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