Closed Neither Here Nor There: Hellfire

Well. This certainly wasn't where she had fallen asleep.

That was about all Scarlet noted at first, besides the conspicuous absence of her normal clothes. Slowly but surely, recollections began to form in her mind... a girl with red hair like hers, and one with jet black, both with grassy green eyes... another that had black hair, highlighted with red... leaving the room they were in and entering another...

"...That's right..." she mumbled to herself, "I put the girls to bed and then fell asleep... where am I...? Am I dreaming...? Maybe if I-" she gave herself a sharp pinch, and flinched. No, this definitely wasn't a dream...

"...I want to go home..."

There were other people here... but her attention wasn't on that. No, instead she looked around, toward the paths. Her eyes fixated on one in paticular, to her left.

Wha -

Oh crap this was not where Ara remembered herself going to sleep. Though randomly teleporting in the night and waking up in some different place that could totally be a different world had been a daydream of hers years ago, the reality of it happening was...

Eerie. Unnerving.

Very, very frightening.

So, she went about the standard procedure of checking if she was asleep, but after scratching at her face and pinching herself, nothing happened. Telling herself this was a dream did not induce some sort of awakening. There were other people around, but they were all strangers to her, so she nervously got to her feet and looked around, arms moving up to cross in front of her chest protectively. "This place..." she murmured quietly, eyes flicking to the other person standing up before away to examine the area. "Where..." Her voice, quiet enough as it was, faltered, and she shut up, head lowering and wishing the really simple clothing she was now wearing had pockets to burrow her hands into.

Jacob's eyes fluttered open. He shivered, the moisture from the damp grass leaching into his clothing...

Damp grass?

He snapped awake, looking around. Gone were the four walls of his room that seemed to close tighter around him every single day. What he rested on was not his tiny cot, nor was it the hard, constantly dust-coated wooden floor, but rather a clearing, surrounded with more trees than he had seen his whole life. Even more odd, he wasn't wearing what he had been when he went to sleep. Instead of being dirty and rather tattered, his clothes were crisp and pure white. Something rested in his half-open hand; a wooden bat, which he had suspected belonged to his older brother... Strange, he hadn't seen him in years...

Briefly he wondered if this was a dream, or a trick the voices he always seemed to hear were playing on his mind. Can't be... he thought, because as he looked around, he saw others. They were people he'd never seen before, but maybe if he stuck with them he would be safe... How was he supposed to approach them, though? What if they were out to get him, or what if they rejected him?

It didn't matter. He had nowhere else to turn...

"Uhm..." he started nervously, pulling himself up to his feet "W....where a-are we...?"

Marten sighed heavily and quickly, rolling himself from his position parallel to the ground into a slouching sort of upright sitting, like that of a recently-awakened toddler on a Saturday morning. Marten didn't yawn, although he was a yawny sort of person, and as he checked his eyes he noticed a very conspicuous lack of the stuff that forms there as you sleep.

More importantly, the brownish teenager had noticed that he was not, in fact, in his cobalt-painted bedroom, nor was he on the couch or even in one of the cars. He was in a dark and oddly crowded clearing, surrounded by people he didn't know and wearing curious white clothing that wasn't his. The grass had wet the bottom of the white pants slightly, although no dirt stains had been absorbed by the fabric.

He had to be dreaming. It was the only logical explanation, but somehow it still didn't fit; Marten didn't dream, or at least not often or memorably. His dreams left the lightest fog on his conscious mind, quickly evaporated by the bright sun of morning. He also never had dreams were he realized that he was dreaming, or didn't remember ever having any. Perhaps he always experienced this confusion, in every dream, every night, only to forget again upon awakening?

Marten picked at the grass. It was oddly short despite the wild looks of this place.

'...<why is everything damp.. oh, it better not- no.. wait...>'
Sitting up discontent groan and a mutter of "der'mo", Anastasia quickly surveyed her surroundings. There wasn't much to see, but one thing was for sure, she was far from home - for one, there was snow on the ground outside where she had fallen asleep; two, whose clothes were these, was this some sort of sick joke?

There were other people here - but she didn't know them. Still, they looked clueless. Kidnappings? No, that wouldn't make sense, not where she had been, buncha shmucks like that would have been whistling jaunty tunes through holes in their faces. She eyed the others carefully, while giving gazes to any landmarks she could spot - which is to say, not many, a whole of two signs dotted the otherwise bare field, and she figured they were as good a place as any to pick up.

Another was already heading for the sign to the left of them - so Anna wandered towards the one on the right to get a good glance at the tiny writing, indeterminable from a distance, all while keeping a careful eye all around her.


(( > Check sign to the right

Yes, it says either here or there, and it doesn't help much, but I still want to know which is which. :Bc ))

Upon closer inspection, the right path is labelled "HERE", meaning the other must be the "There" path.

Off in the distance, a wisp of smoke started to curl into the sky, closer to the right path. If one were to look down each path, they would not be able to see much farther than a few feet before the darkness swallowed everything.

Scarlet heard others speak, probably just awakening now. But she didn't say a word to them, no. Instead, she was far more concerned by being... completely unable to see anything more than a few feet down the path. There seemed to be only one way to find out where she was, and that was to move forward.

"I'm going this way." she said to no one in particular. She didn't know these people, so who was there to talk to?

But before she went to walk down her pathway, she looked back at the spot where she'd woken up. There next to where she had been, at just the point where she would have been unable to see it when she sat up, laid a violin of a deep mahogany color. Next to it rested a bow of similar make.

"Oh...?" she picked it up, feeling its smooth surface. It looked like hers from home... "And how did you get here...?" Scarlet played a few notes on it. Perfectly in-tune.

"Hmmm..." With both it and the bow in her left hand, she started walking down the path to the left, looking around to see what she could see.

Jacob started to shake a bit at the sight of the smoke in the sky. If the rest of this wasn't merely a dream or a hallucination, that couldn't possibly be a good sign.

He noticed a woman starting down the other path. Now, he didn't know who she was or what she was doing, but it seemed like she was taking charge with her action and, well, she was as good a person as any to stick close to... though he had to admit it was awful hasty of her to run off even before some of the others had left.

"H...Hey...!" he blurted out, almost second-guessing his, to him, bold approach, "W...where are you going...? T-the... the others h-haven't woke up yet..."

(> Follow Scarlet, checking the surroundings with her.

"Here" Anna mumbles aloud.
'<A lot of good /that/ does me.>' her mind flails to itself, but then she noticed something in the sky - smoke - it was in this direction, and that was as good an indication as any. If someone was there, maybe they could clue her in. If they were the ones who did this.. well, she could cave their faces in. At least it would make her feel better..
With a glance backwards, she slowly started creeping forward - it was darker than she had expected, but the other path didn't look much better. She half-hoped the others would follow, even if she wouldn't admit it, this was all rather startling and creepy as a whole.


(( >> Walk down 'Here' path ))

Ara looked around in confusion as the group suddenly decided to move. Well, this was... bad. She didn't know any of them, of course - they were total strangers - but some were going down one path and one had... moved towards the other. Great. Splitting up was hardly a good idea, in her opinion, but the thought of staying in the clearing alone was too unnerving, and she had to make up her mind quickly.

There was a wisp of smoke in the sky, and it looked promising - maybe a town, or a village or at least a camp with other people - so she hastily ran to catch up with the other girl.

((Walk down 'Here' path; check surroundings, freak out))

Marten scratched his head and heaved himself onto his (bare) feet. Straightening, the teen silently glanced around. People were standing around, looking dazed (like he probably did), but a few people were already leaving this odd clearing. There seemed to be two paths, with signs that dripped with an inky-looking substance that was probably red but could be green, Marten couldn't tell in the semidarkness.

The boy thought for a moment. Both sides were identical, as far as he could tell. He couldn't see past the trees, anyway. On a whim, Marten chose the side to the right. As he neared the edge of the clearing, the drippy text on the side resolved itself:
_________
l----------l
l---HERE–--l
l----------l

Yes, the text was almost definitely red. And dripping and wet.

Like blood.

Averting his eyes, Marten trotted after the other two that he had seen heading down the path. It was very, very dark in the trees; his eyes probably just had to adjust.

>Enter 'Here' path, stumble blindly through the dark, trying not to bump into anyone.

>Check the There path

The darkness of the path is absolute; if one were to travel down it, they would barely be able to see the nose on their face, let alone their surroundings. It is also very long, and, strangely, perfectly straight. The path is cool and smells woodsy for most of its length, though it starts to take on a metallic smell, like pennies, about halfway through. A dull, pinkish light starts to spread through the darkness after a few feet of travel, and once the light was bright enough to see by, it revealed the surroundings.

You are...no longer in a forest. It's more like a hallway, the walls the colour of raw meat, and the metallic tang of the air almost overpowering.

The walls seem to...pulse, ever so slightly, in a steady rhythm, like a heartbeat. The path twists a few metres ahead, the light beyond there bright and warm.

The hallway lead to a large chamber, the walls the same meaty colour, and much wider. The walls are supported by what looks like enormous bones, probably ribs, and are marbled with fat and cartage. The smell is very strong here, mixed with the sent of smoke, if faint. There is a large bone altar, covered with a charred black sheet with something under it, and beyond that, another passageway that leads to a bright light.

The floor is the same fleshy colour, and has a slight give, and is warm, like a living body. It is slightly wet as well, and if you look at the bottoms of your feet, stained with red.

>Check the Here path

The path is dark and quiet, and very long. After a few moment's worth of walking, however, the floor of the path changes from feeling like dirt, to feeling like concrete, cold and hard under bare feet. It's extremely dark, but a pale light becomes visible quite quickly, and the path opens up in it's destination.

It leads to the inside of what looks like a plain, concrete room. It's about 12-by-24 feet in size, and is full of garbage. There is a steel door on the far wall. Most of the garbage is paper - newspaper mostly, though a few handwritten things that seem like letters, and some forms, all in German. The rest is tattered old clothing, and a few gutted books. there is an overturned shoebox in a corner.

Ara almost stopped as the ground beneath her feet changed, from gritty and soft to cold and hard. It was like a dream. A very realistic dream... But dreamlike in how things changed. The concrete room was a surprise, though, and she squinted at the papers, looking around and staring at the steel door with a foreboding feeling that it would no doubt be locked. Still, she reached forward and tested it, before turning around to try and read the letters. No use - she knew what German looked like, but could read it about by the sheer power of guessing.

She needed to look at something to take her mind off of this, or she knew she would burst into tears and curl up in a corner. This was - a game, that's it. An escape the room game on this level, and she needed to beat it... The shoebox caught her eyes, and she prodded it carefully before attempting to turn it right side up.

((Test door, overturn shoebox, freak out appropriately))

...There was a small squeal of fear as Scarlet stopped in her tracks. This was... oh dear god... "I... oh my..." she looked almost ill at the sight and smell. Distinctly blood. And there was definitely something over there... she was almost completely unarmed except for the instrument still in her left hand.

"...uh... yeah..." she knew there was someone behind her. "I'm just gonna..." she quickly proceeded to turn on her heel and race in the complete opposite direction, not even noticing the "Here" sign when she passed it. All she knew was that she wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

And soon she noticed the texture under her feet change... concrete? She looked down once she realized this, and didn't see there was a person in front of her...

Anna took a moment as she walked to brush her feet over the ground, confirming the texture. If nothing else, it was familiar - but it felt so... out of place.
'<Concrete..>' she thought to herself, idly walking further down the path. '<Is this some sort of hidden old base?.. It would make sense, I suppose, but.. it just doesn't feel right..>'
Anna kept on carefully - a light shone in the distance, but the path itself was still pitch black, and she kept her arm held up to intercept any obstacles she may come across. There was nothing to speak of, however, until crossing over the threshold of light -eyes quickly re-adjusting and leaving her dumped off in a small concrete room, full of garbage. It seemed one of the people who had followed her had beaten her here while she was easing her way through the dark, but it was no matter, she was visibly freaked out and prodding and things in the room, to which Anna simply remained quiet.
'<Great, the back door, I suppose.. but... wait... what's this?'>
Picking up a couple of slips of torn paper, Anna breezed over the text. It looked like... German?! That couldn't be too good... She didn't have much time to consider past that, however, as she was suddenly bowled over by someone from behind - knocked to the ground and taking a good blow of concrete to the head. Her head was spinning dizzily, and she growled audibly.

>Test Door

The door is heavy, but not locked, but will probably take at least two people to push open. The metal is and dark, and when your hand comes away from touching it, there are black smudges on where you touched it.

>Overturn Shoebox

The shoebox contains even more papers, and a few photographs. At the bottom of the box is a black hat with a flat top and short brim. There is a silvery emblem on the front, an eagle with wings outstretched and holding a disk in its talons.

Croshaw woke up with a groan. He opened his eyes wide, feeling the grass under his fingers curiously. When he had fallen asleep it had been hot and dry...a tad humid, but certainly not wet like this. He stood up, looking himself over. The white clothes were baggy on his frame and he wiggled his bare toes to feel the grass under his feet. He shivered, wrapping his arms around himself. He looked up, noticing other people nearby and the barren landscape. As he noticed the signs and moved to inspect them, his foot brushed against a cool metal - looking down, he recognised it vaguely. His machete...he knelt down and picked it up, holding onto it tightly. He didn't know if he'd need it, but it was comforting to have something familiar in his grasp.

Reading the two signs, Croshaw frowned. It...didn't seem to make sense. They were 'here', where-ever here was...it was a relative term. If he followed the 'There' path, it'd become 'here' and the 'Here' path would become 'there'. But there seemed to be little choice. He shivered again. All he knew was that he shouldn't be...where-ever this was. He didn't know any of these other people, watching them with wide brown eyes. They seemed to be going down the Here path...so he went down the There path.

As he walked he noticed the metallic scent. He breathed through his mouth, gripping his machete tightly. He just had to concentrate on the light...that warm, positive light...it had to lead somewhere good, right...?

He felt the texture at his feet change and jumped back, lifting a foot up. Red. He shuddered and looked at the floor again. It was soft, and pulsing...like raw flesh. His breathing became slightly panicked. This...this couldn't be real...he gingerly touched the floor again, advancing carefully. He stood on tiptoes at first, repulsed. But the extra pressure on the balls of his feet only made him sink in slightly deeper, forcing him to tread properly. He shuddered, unable to resist flexing his toes on the floor, mentally making a note of the odd texture.

When he entered the main room, his eyes widened. Breathing through his mouth couldn't help him here. His body shuddered as he tread towards one of the walls reaching out hesitantly before drawing his hand back, fear over-riding his curiosity. He turns and instead, carefully approaches the bone altar, looking over the black sheet.

Scarlet scrambled back up and looked down at the girl. "Oh... oh dear." This girl didn't look too friendly, no sir... she backed a few feet away before noticing the papers on the ground.

"Hmmm...?" She set the violin she had found down next to her, and examined the papers, lifting them up to where she could see them. So they were written in German... she didn't speak it too well; she only knew a few words.

Looking up from the papers, she saw one person testing the door. "That... looks heavy. Do you need some help?" She set the papers down and took up the violin again.

Ara huffed with exertion - the door was heavy, and felt vaguely wrong. When she stepped away for a moment, she frowned at the marks she had left. This was far too creepy. The shoebox was given a more in-depth inspection, and she gingerly picked up the hat, staring at the emblem curiously. German and an eagle - not very surprising. The sound of a voice made her turn around, remembering the others in the room.

"Wha - oh, yeah. The door's heavy, but not locked. We could probably push it open all together... What do you think of all this?" she asked nervously, using a hand to sweep at the space around them.

((Examine hat))