Playing Hide-and-seek(Marianne/minerve)

[Hentaispider]

The shadow is coming closer, and in its featureless face you can see a smile. As you momentarily freeze, your mind seeking an escape from the dead-end alley, your gaze touches your hand. Seemingly unguided, it has found chalk from somewhere and drawn a very real looking doodle of a knife on the chipping bricks of the wall. Dropping the chalk, you reach out for the knife and...

The very real body of the shadow lies on the filthy asphalt of the alley, slowly evaporating in thin wisps of dark smoke. Your conscious mind suddenly registers the approaching sirens of a police car, and you see something dark coming closer to the alley, seemingly to block your way. As you blink and turn around to look for some sort of escape, your eyes suddenly fall on a door slowly swinging open on the corner, though you can't figure out how you didn't notice it before - doors don't appear from out of nowhere, as far as you know.

 

[Minerve]

Re: Playing Hide-and-seek(Marianne/minerve)

“What can I do now?” I just whisper. I want to shout, to let it all out but I cannot: enemies are everywhere, surrounding me. I cannot let them know how desperate I am. These shadows, these men who tried to kill me: it’s all I know. “What can I do now?”

I see that strange door, coming from nowhere, like them. Is it the door where they come from? Or… a way to escape from this dangerous world, put here by… I would like to run; I would to run until I cannot breathe anymore. I would like to run from them, to run away from here, to escape from myself; I would like to be free and alone with no shadows after me, with no men trying to rape me, with no spies spying me all the day, with no knives to hurt me, with no lies: just me on a mountain maybe, watching all the day sunsets and sunrises, and all the night stars shining so brightly. I would like to never cry anymore, to never bleed anymore.

But I CANNOT. And I am surrounded by them: they want me dead, they want my corpse lying on the ground, abusing it and eating it after. They want me unhappy, scared, dead…

I see that strange door: who put it there? Why? Was it for them or for me? But I am surrounded and I cannot escape; I would like to run, but they could catch me; I would like to cry, but they could laugh of me and stab me in my back; I would like to be alone and happy, but I cannot because they are here. The only way I have is definitely that door coming from nowhere: where will she lead me?

I do not want to think about it: I have to fight, or to flight. And both of the answers can be found behind that door. So, I run to her and open her. And then…

Spoiler

My first post... I dunno if it's what I should have write: tell me please. If I make big mistakes, please tell me too ^^"

Just so you know: i write "her" and "she" about the door. It's because of the paranoïa of the character, I knew I should have spelled "it" 'cos a door ain't living.[/spiler]

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Playing Hide-and-seek(Marianne/minerve)

As you rush through the door, it swings closed behind you and you find yourself in a pitch-black room, and a dustcloud raises up around you, surrounding you with musty smell, like that of old books, and causing you to sneeze. Almost losing your balance, your leg instinctively swings forward to stop you from falling, only to hit a cardboard box laying on the floor and causing another cloud of dust to rise. Fumbling around, your hand hits a lightswitch, turning on a dim lightbulb hanging from the roof and lighting the room.

You seem to be on an antique bookstore of some sort. All the walls are lined with shelves that are filled with books; a closer look would suggest that they're all biographies of all kinds of people: the shelf in front of you is titled "kindergarten teachers" and through some strange coincidence, you spot the name of your own kindergarten teacher amongst them, a name you had half-forgotten. There are more books on boxes that cover most of the floor, and there seems to be a narrow doorway ahead and to the left, leading to another dark room.

 

[Minerve]

Re: Playing Hide-and-seek(Marianne/minerve)

Then, I arrive in a black room. I’m afraid and panting so heavily that any enemy could hear me even through a wall. So, I just wait a little bit.

Whatever is hiding in this room is not alive, either I should already be dead, right? I try to calm down and to breathe less loudly but suddenly a strange smell makes me sneeze, what is not a great deal. Almost falling back, overwhelmed by both fear and the violence of the reaction, I just step back to keep my balance but push something laying on the ground and more dust come to try to kill me. I stop by breath and close my eyes and steps back again.

I hit a wall this time but find an interesting thing, for once: a light switch. I turn it on and a mere light illuminates the place. It seems to be an old forgotten place: books, very used are here. Biographies? Who could read that? Who could buy that? One shelf keeps my attention: “Kindergarten teachers” and especially one book, which title has got a long ago forgotten name still roaming somewhere in my mind.

But I do not have time to lose: I go ahead, to the next doorway. I’m still chased by enemies and I do not have time to understand what is going or to overthink. I just push the door.

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Playing Hide-and-seek(Marianne/minerve)

As you step into the next dark room, the light behind you is enough that you can see more shelves and more boxes on the floor. Still ahead, there's another open door, and you can see some light coming through it, likely from a yet another room past it. The air around you feels heavy, and the entire place feels oppressing.

 

[Minerve]

Re: Playing Hide-and-seek(Marianne/minerve)

Another darkness. Still darkness. What is the aim? What is the goal?

I step further into the unknown and I get closer to the danger and surely Death.

I try to breathe, with difficulty. My chest feels oppressed as I walk toward the next door. I do not care of shelves and books and dust and rust and time and space. I just want to know what is behind and who is behind me.

I just push the door…

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Playing Hide-and-seek(Marianne/minerve)

As you step through the doorway into a well-lit room filled with yet more bookshelves and start pressing the already open door further against the wall with all your might, you notice a counter and another door - this one closed - at the other end of the room. The counter is manned by a strange looking man wearing an ancient looking jacket and a top hat. When he speaks, his voice sounds like a book would sound like, if it could talk. "A customer? It truly is strange for someone afraid of dark to arrive through the back. Come closer, and let me take a look at you to see what I have that you need."

 

[Minerve]

Re: Playing Hide-and-seek(Marianne/minerve)

Once inside, I see still the same shelves and the same old books everywhere: it should not be a problem as I love books but the oddity of all these rooms and all that happened recently, they are worrying me.

Just then, I see a weird man, strange in everything: his gaze, his look, his voice and the place where he is. Because he is HERE… But I do not know where this place his, I am not even sure, this place does exist. He is surely an enemy.

Actually, I can see only one path: he is an enemy and he is going to murder me! He will hit me in the face, he will rape me and when he we will have finished, he will take books and choke me with pages and pages I will have to swallow but…

No. Instead of trying to run or letting him do it, I can still kill him. Just protecting me.

I can feel the chalk in my pocket and the knife in my left hand: I drop the weapon which is too small and not powerful enough and take the chalk. I face the door and begin to draw a katana.

Once I finish the drawing, the katana appears on the door and I just have to pull it out: how the HELL has that happened!? Why have I done such a trick? But it does not really matter for now: I put the chalk back in my pocket and, totally pissed off and scared, I take correctly the cold arm in my hands and charge my enemy, the katana upon my head, ready to cut him in pieces, screaming all my anger and my fear.

Spoiler

I use two madness dice.

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Playing Hide-and-seek(Marianne/minerve)

Spoiler

Discipline: 4, 6, 5
Madness: 4, 6
Pain: 2, 2, 4, 4
Pain wins, discipline dominates

As you press the chalk against the door, your entire arm tingles. The chalk moves smoothly on the wooden surface, quickly creating an outline of the dangerous weapon. As soon as the outline is complete, a steely color fills it like a rock raising from under water, quickly forming into a katana, which you then easily pull out of the wood, despite how solid the wood was just a moment ago.

As you turn towards the papery-looking man, he looks surprised. The katana slices through the air, missing the man by fraction of a centimetre as he ducks under the counter, only to emerge moments later with a wicked smile, holding a book you know to be your biography in his hands. "Now drop the weapon before someone gets hurt, my lady."

 

[Minerve]

Re: Playing Hide-and-seek(Marianne/minerve)

He just dodges the strike very quickly. At the moment I could kill him, he shows to me a book: my biography… What could I do? To cut my future and my past in pieces? To destroy it? It could be a really useful tool…
So let’s negotiate: I step back a little and stay on my feet in the case he would like to attack me.

“What do you want, you devil?”

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Playing Hide-and-seek(Marianne/minerve)

The papery looking man lowers the book - your book - and gestures for you to lower your sword. "Now, young woman, there's no need for such hostility. What did you come here to buy, and what are you willing to pay for it?"

 

[Minerve]

Re: Playing Hide-and-seek(Marianne/minerve)

“What are you talking about? I am not here to do anything… I was running from some people who tried to kill me. And you tried too.”

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Playing Hide-and-seek(Marianne/minerve)

The man hisses loudly, his hiss like slowly turning page of an ancient tome. "Thieves and hooligans. Get out! Get out of my store!" The man drops the book onto the counter and gestures angrily towards what seems to be the front door of the shop.

 

[Minerve]

Re: Playing Hide-and-seek(Marianne/minerve)

Not able to understand what the enemy is doing, I begin to walk towards the door, the katana still in the hand but I stay at range to attack him.

Suddenly, before I get away of the range, I turn back to face him while slashing with the weapon.

Spoiler

I use 2 madness dices to attack him again.

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Playing Hide-and-seek(Marianne/minerve)

Spoiler

Discipline: 5, 5, 3
Madness: 2, 1
Pain: 5, 5, 3, 1
Marienne wins, Pain dominates. Despair +1.
Despair: 1 Hope: 0

The paperman doesn't even have time to react as your katana slices through his papery neck, cutting it easily until hitting a hard spine and snapping in two. The sudden resistance causes you to stumble and slip; the broken katana in your hand hits the table and you instinctively use it for support. As you regain your balance, you can see that the papery man is dead and unmoving, his corpse terrifying in how unliving it looks, as if it were never alive to start with. The broken katana has pierced your biography and gotten stuck in the counter; you might still be able to remove the sword, but almost certainly not without damaging the book even more.