but a strange light in the sky was shining right into my eyes

[singmod]

JANUARY 2024 EVENT

PROMPT ONE — THE AURORA: NASCENCE: Following the strange dream at new year, a three-day Aurora takes place. During which, Interlopers discover a possible ally in the mysterious woman heard in the static and heard in the dream — potentially earning new abilities.

PROMPT TWO — ADUST: The Interlopers find out what happened to the owners of long-destroyed Milton House in the form of hauntings.

PROMPT THREE — THE VISITOR: Interlopers find themselves with an unwelcome visitor — a shadow doppelganger here to make everything absolutely worse.

THE AURORA: NASCENCE

WHEN: January 13th - 15th.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: potentially disturbing dreams; dreams of being burned alive; some minor supernatural horror; some minor ‘ghost’ horror/hauntings; death of npcs in various ways including suicide, murder or exposure to elements.


In the middle of the month, it happens. A herald. The noise starts: faint at first, but then growing louder. An ethereal, high-pitched chorus of sounds difficult to place. There’s a kind of electrical buzzing with it all, a low, endless hum punctuated with cracks and pops. The sky is alive with sound, and with it comes the swirling streaking of colour against the inky black of night: The Aurora has come.

Much of what happened previously happens again: Streetlights, illuminating the town’s roads; lights in stores and homes will come alive, buzzing and flickering at times. Previously abandoned cars will turn on, their headlights blaring. Electronics that had previously seemed broken flick on — and whilst there are no broadcasts available on televisions, and the radio waves only drone on in static, both only occasionally blaring standard emergency broadcasts. Any computers and phones will turn on, but will have no internet or reception. Instead, Interlopers may find texts and emails — many of them unsent. The everyday lives of their users stored within, now readable.

There are still some instances of the ‘ghosts’ from the previous Auroras, but they are now only faint outlines, and far fewer in number. However, whilst the Aurora would usually only last until the next morning on sporadic nights over the month — this time it will last for a full three days. The world is plunged into darkness, a seemingly endless night with only the Aurora to light the skies.

On the second night of lights and noise, a voice calls out to you: static-like, and distant — as if someone speaks over a radio. A woman’s voice. It is the same one you’ve been hearing for a few weeks now, but finally it is far stronger than the scant whispers of name and the word ‘help’. She is far clearer now.

“You.” she says. She may whisper your name, too. “I see you.” You’re unable to speak back, the communication is only one way. She sounds upset, but there’s something more… a kind of wonder, perhaps.

”It’s not just a regular aurora borealis, but then you probably worked that out already, haven’t you? It’s so much more than that. Everything is… changing.”

”I don’t know how you can go back. But— but I can help. Maybe. Maybe I can make this place easier, somehow. I need help, but I’m stuck—” There’s frustration in her voice for a moment. ”It took from you. Took you away. It doesn’t always have to take. We can take, too. Sleep. I will help you take back. You will survive this. You will not go into the Dark. This is not the end.”

You have no idea what that means, for the most part. But you might just end up taking the chance and doing as the woman asked, even if it’s difficult with the noise and light with the Aurora. Sleep, and a dream may come to you.

FREE RUNNER: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape. You dream you are a magnificent stag, galloping through the snowy woods with ease. You seem to go on and on, never tiring, never slowing. You feel like the wind, or perhaps the very wind itself carries you. Not once do you stumble or fall, even when the snow is thick and deep, or the ground is shaky and uneven beneath you. You feel free.

When you awaken, you feel the most refreshed you’ve ever felt since you first came here. For the final day of the Aurora, you are bursting with energy and even when the lights in the sky fade — that revitalised feeling within you remains. There’s something within you that understands: you are the Free Runner. The ground will yield beneath you, your energy will not desert you, the wind will carry you.

LIGHT BRINGER: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape. You dream of sitting by a lonely campfire in the mouth of a cave at night, warming your hands. As you sit, a strange feeling comes over you, a desire to reach out to the flames. And so you do, reaching with both hands into the fire — gripping at the white-hot embers. It burns you, and for a moment there is blinding hot pain as the fire suddenly explodes around you, consuming you whole. But the pain soon stops. The fire doesn’t burn you. No, you have become the blaze — your body warmed. You burn bright enough that the darkness around you turns into day.

When you awaken the next morning, you feel warmed and comfortable. As if even the coldest of winters couldn’t reach your bones. The warmth remains even when the Aurora ends, and you are left with the innate understanding:you are the Light Bringer. The power of flame is at your very fingertips. You master the light, life, warmth.

AURORA CALL: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape. You dream you are standing in the very sky itself, at the Aurora’s height. Colour and sound twirls around you, within you — and you feel it curl into your body. Your head fills with noise, a chorus of voices calling out, snippets of conversation echoing within you. A woman’s voice calls to you, it is the same voice that spoke to you before you slept: “Don’t you understand it now? We are all connected. The Aurora connects us.”

And you do, you do understand it.

When you awaken, you feel connected to the world around you. To the very people who live amongst you. You feel less lonely, a kind of kinship with others. You have heard the Aurora’s Call and you have answered it, unlocked a connection with your fellow Interlopers. You will be heard.

NOTHING: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape, but only for a moment. The edges of your vision begin the blur with black, slowly closing in until everything goes dark and you fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. You awaken, and although you feel rested, as if the dreamless darkness has helped you feel a little more ready to take on the day — nothing else about you has changed.

ADUST

WHEN: From mid-month to month end.
WHERE: Milton House.
CONTENT WARNINGS: fire; house fire; death of a child/children; hauntings; ghosts; mental manipulation; illusions of burning/being burned; potential injuries via falling/unstable building collapsing.

There is a reason why it is advised to avoid Milton House other than the simple fact that it’s a miracle the house is still standing. Once one of the largest buildings in the town of Milton, it is now a former shell of what was once a fine and grand house. It has lain in ruin for many years, dilapidated and host to a great deal of fire damage.

While he is in town, Methuselah will not speak of the place, but he often looks sad when it has been brought up in conversation. “A great tragedy.” he will say before falling into a pensive silence. “A blackened mark on the town’s memory.” He does not wish to say much more of what happened: sometimes there are things that are just too painful. He will continue to advise the ruin is left alone, out of respect, and the fact that the place is a danger.

Of course, advice will not stop anyone from attempting to get into the ruins and exploring the house, even if it is in fact highly dangerous.

The sounds of voices and whispers may be enough to pique anyone’s interest. You're sure you heard something, maybe you should go to check it out?

It is true in the fact that the house itself is incredibly dangerous structurally: floors and stairs may give way and you’ll find your foot (and half of you) falling right through the floorboards. Damp and rot that have long since set in, and it will be dangerous to breathe in. But you’ll find that the house itself is pretty ordinary: this was once a family home. Just about the entirety of the house and its contents aren't salvageable, but you’ll be able to find out a little about who once lived here.

There are faded, half-destroyed photos that show a family of five: a father, mother, and three young children all under the age of ten. The father with warm, beaming smiles, the mother has kind eyes, the two oldest boys with toothy grins much like their father, the younger girl looks shy, wanting to hide against her mother. They look happy. Just a typical family. In a world where so many strange things are happening, it feels so strange to look upon these family photos and around this home to realise that they simply lost their home in a house fire.

But as you hold a family picture, or some half-destroyed trinket: a toy, a shoe, a book, a vase, you’ll find the item will suddenly catch alight, bursting into flames in your very hands. The flames do not burn you, and as you discard the item, it will fall to the floor as if nothing had happened.

Then, it comes to you. Here and there. Different sensations that stop and start suddenly: the house groans and creaks around you; the smell of smoke enters your nose; the sound of fire cracking and popping with a roar fills your ears; the sensation of heat against your skin; the clawing and suffocating feeling in your lungs that makes you cough and choke; the sounds of terrified shrieks of children echoing above you. Feelings flood you: fear, panic. When you next turn around, the entire house is aflame around you, and you can’t tell if this is real or if you’re reliving some terrifying memory.

You need to leave, get out of here. For some, it will be what comes naturally. You’ll have to fight through the flames and escape the house before it burns down completely around you. You’ll have to fight your way out, find an exit not already consumed by flames — through a window, perhaps. Crashing out of the house and into the snow, you’ll look back and see Milton House just as you entered it: nothing more than a half-burned ruin.

But for others, there will be another pull. You are drawn upstairs, to the screams of children. You need to get to them, to help them, save them. You will battle through the flames, heading towards the ruins of what was a child’s bedroom, or towards the bathroom. Inside either, you will find a figure cowering, engulfed wholly in flames: one in the bathtub or one in the closet. You recognise them as the two sons from the family pictures.

Mom. They will call you. Or Dad. They weep, terrified of the flames. I’m scared, I’m scared. I want the fire to go away. Help me. Stay here.

The tragedy of Milton House is before you. More than just a fire. What is more tragic than the death of a child? What silences voices? Breaks spirits? Leaves one helpless to act in the wake of such a passing?

There is something to be done here. You are not so powerless. Calm the child. Offer gentle assurances. They will get out. They are safe. You are there for them. You will stay. Embracing them will set you alight. Too hot. Too bright. It will hurt, but you won’t burn. But don’t let go; holding them will eventually calm them down enough for the flames to grow dim, to slowly ease their spirits to rest.

Soon enough, the flames will go out and the child will disappear, leaving you alone in a decaying, dilapidated room.

In the churchyard of Milton, there is a family grave by the name of Barker. Three lie within it: Thomas it reads, and his beloved sons, Patrick and Christopher.

THE VISITOR

WHEN: The month of January.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: erything absolutely worse.
THE VISITOR — CONTENT WARNINGS: supernatural beings; dream-related horror/disturbing dreams; doppelgangers; themes of depression; themes of self-harm; themes of isolation; potential themes of suicide.


It seems the dream of the New Year and the Aurora dreams are not the only odd sleep-related instances occurring this month. You first notice that something is off when a strange dream pulls you from sleep. The dream may feel like any particular dream you have, whether it be a usual nightmare or strange concoction your brain has conjured up for you this night. Maybe it’s a dream you’ve had before, maybe it’s a new dream entirely. But no matter the dream, there is one thing that is odd about it. In tiny moments within the dream, you notice that there is something different, something that feels out of place. Something is there that shouldn’t be.

A figure, tall and silent, entirely made of shadow stands lurking in the background. It looks human, but there is not much more that you can really describe further. It is a sad, unsettling presence.

When you awaken, eyes bleary from sleep, and you look about the room, to the bottom of your bed, for a half-moment you see that figure standing there silently. That unsettling sadness permeates the room, and after a few seconds of blinking and sitting up — the figure disappears. Perhaps it was just some trick of the mind, some half-awake illusion.

But the next time you sleep, it appears again. The same figure, the same emotions surrounding it. And when you awaken, it stands at the bottom of your bed once more. Only this time, it lingers, and you find yourself staring down the figure before it disappears once more.

Over the next several days, the presence continues to linger more and more. It stands silently in the corner of the room of your home; it hovers by the window, staring out into the snow; it stands in the middle of the road as you go about your business. More and more, it is there. Always standing, always watching — silent and sad.

No one else seems to notice it, only you. And over time, the shape of it seems to change — the vague, undefined shape of it slowly shifts into something you recognise. The same hair, the same height, the same way it holds itself: it is exactly like you. A perfect doppelganger, a second shadow. And with it, it exudes an oppressive sadness, a particular kind of loneliness. It is suffocating, bleeding into you.

It makes you withdraw from the world around you, from the people around you. Perhaps you stop spending time with others, retreating into solitude. You hide from others, keep to yourself. You find yourself not sleeping at all or perhaps sleeping too much. Perhaps what little you already eat becomes nothing. The shadowy doppelganger draws ever closer to you, close enough to touch you - ever hovering at your shoulder. Its presence bores down on you, making you feel small and more and more alone even with its ‘company’. No one else can seem to see it but you, mentioning it to others will earn odd looks, or even concern. It seems you and your double are alone together.

Hopefully, those around you will notice the change in you. How you stopped reaching out, how you’ve stopped taking care of yourself. Hopefully they will see something isn’t right and reach out. You are doomed to the doppelganger's company otherwise.

However, those around you can push the shadowy double away, and can break its influence and hold over you. Genuine care and concern for you will have it shrinking back. Perhaps it is a kind word, perhaps it is the gentle but insisting coaxing to eat. Perhaps it is an attentive ear to listen to your thoughts, to how the presence has made you feel. Maybe it is even the simplest of touches, an embrace or the holding of a hand, the grip of a shoulder. Continued connection with you will slowly have the visitor’s power diminish.

And hopefully it is done before it is too late, or it may be all too easy to fade into the Long Dark.

FAQs

THE AURORA: NASCENCE

1. Aurora Feats are now unlocked! Please see the following page for more information. Aurora Feats are completely optional.

2. Interlopers will only receive ONE Aurora Event. The only time this is available is this month. After January, players will have to wait for the next Feat round for another chance at an Aurora Feat.

3. This Aurora will last a full three days. It will be a period of only night.

4. For more information on the ghostly loops seen during the Aurora, see this previous event, under 'The Aurora: Aftershocks' prompt.

5. For new players who would like a little extra context regarding the woman can look at December's Tales From The Northern Territories, under the 'New Happenings in December' section.

ADUST

1. Characters will not be physically burned in the fire, but only feel as if they have been. The effects of this illusion will last a short time after they're out the house before they will fade.

2. The only real injuries characters can sustain will be from fall damage, or if the floor gives way and their feet go through, etc. whilst in the house.

3. The children cannot leave the house. They will be too scared to leave. In addition, they are tethered to the house, given that this is where they died. Simply being calmed/comforted is the best way to help them and they will disappear after that.

THE VISITOR

1. An Interloper's Visitor can't be seen by anyone but the Interloper themselves.

2. The Visitor can be spoken to, but it will not speak back. It cannot be interacted with and is intangible.

PLOTTING POST

Comments

[friendsfordinner]

Hickey, on the other hand, lies every damn day of his life. His lies come effortlessly, without hesitation, quick and simple. You'll be with dad soon. Everything's going to be fine. There's nothing to worry about.

As the hand lets go of the faucet, Hickey decides that he kind of wants to see where this thing is going. After all, gods are benevolent to their followers. Maybe whatever's in charge here wants to see how he'll do. His hand shifts so that he can rub the boy's shoulder, lightly pushing him closer to Hickey and Raju. Granted, now he's close enough to snatch that hand if the kid goes for the faucet again. But Hickey keeps that to himself.

"Just close your eyes. The fire'll go away soon."

There's no comfort in his words, no comforting tone. Hickey's saying this like it's an objective fact. Close your eyes. The fire will go away. It's as easy as that.

[load_aim_shoot]

The boy stares, scared and hopeful, eyes wide. He swallows. He squeezes his eyes shut as the flames grow, as he shudders, as the other man rubs at the small shoulder. Raju thinks to join him, make the faint press of his fingers a little more firm, more reassuring. But the idea of reassuring now sets the truth churning in his stomach; what something like this takes is always gone. It’s up to the boy to be strong without it, now. That’s never going to go away.

But this boy hasn’t learned that. And he won’t, yet: the other man’s voice doesn’t bother to reassure, because it already is sure. There’s no doubt in it, and the boy looks like he’s trying to believe too, like he’s trying hard. The man rubs his shoulder, and the flames crackle on the boy’s sweater, and the furrows between the boy’s eyebrows smooth out. His small fingers uncurl. His terrified grip relaxes. He lets out a very quiet breath.

Everything is very quiet, suddenly. The noise goes away all at once. The roaring of the wood, the popping of the embers, are all replaced by distant sighing of wind, by nothing but the faint setting noises of an old place. Raju shifts backward to look, fingertips falling away from the boy, and then he tugs the blanket away from the both of them in one furious gesture to shake it out for embers that aren’t anywhere, eyes wide. Then his gaze lands back on the tub, empty now and dirtier, more covered in age and soot and a large spiderweb stretching between a wall and the tub’s corner, and his eyes grow wider. The truth of this place, evident all at once. And the older truth churning still in Raju’s stomach has no place to go, stirred up here for— for what?

“Another dream.” Raju’s hand closes on a half burnt chunk of wood. It crumbles under his tight grip, obviously old, and fast and hard as he can Raju throws it into the tub, where it shatters in the place where the boy— where the hallucination had been curled against the old faucet.

“If this is her idea of ‘help’ too I will shoot her between the eyes.”

cw: talking about being burned

[friendsfordinner]

As everything fades away, Hickey lets out a sigh of relief. Thank fuck. He'll act cocky and like he knows everything, but there was still that hesitation. Was this real? Did that kid exist? The fact that it wasn't is a goddamn relief. At least, a goddamn relief to him. He tenses as he hears Raju throw something into the tub. He's not taking it well.

"Course it's another dream," Hickey says, looking over his hands, double-checking that despite the pain, he's not burned. "You smelled it, right? Smoke, fire, things like that. Y'know what you didn't smell? The smell of flesh burning."

Hickey knows that smell. He knows that smell of burned flesh, the way it can bubble and burst, searing and blackening into nothing. It's a smell that once you smell it, you can't forget.

"Who're you talking about? This her. Who're you going to shoot?"

[load_aim_shoot]

The smell of flesh burning. for a second Raju's eyes widen, then his jaw clenches. He'd missed it. He'd hoped the boy was well enough to save, and he hadn't thought about what he wasn't smelling. He gives a very small nod, acknowledging what he hadn't noticed, looks down and away.

Then he looks back up with a breath in through his nose, smelling nothing in the place but rot, and studies the other man closely. There hadn't been time to think much about him before. At least, Raju realises with bitterness, he'd believed there wasn't. But now, in the moment before everything stirred up by that hallucination washes the thought away, he thinks: Clever. Clever enough even among all that chaos to notice what isn't there. Raju should have noticed too. He shouldn't have missed it. Next time — and there will be a next time in this damned place — he has to remember.

The question gets him looking away again, sighing. It's embarrassing to have said it at all, to have acknowledged her out loud. But now he has to, doesn't he? Raju's move to his feet is quick, his pacing across the little room impatient as if he's trying to go somewhere.

"From that dream," he says, words abrupt, gaze moving from the wall down to his hands as they move over one another, heel of his hand to tips of his fingers and around and back again, feeling what isn't there. The fire should only just have ended. There should be soot, smoke. But of course, there shouldn't be. This place has his senses lying to him. "With that creature, the three skulls. And then— after that."

When she spoke outside a dream, while he was awake. He must sound mad, asking. "Do you remember? How else do you explain any of this? She's the only part of this place that seems to have some kind of will."

[friendsfordinner]

Clever, yeah. But also unlucky. After all, you wouldn't know what burning flesh smells like unless you've smelled it before.

Hickey puts his hands in his pockets as he listen to Raju, mostly so he won't have to touch anything in this room. Because now that they're not worrying about a kid burning alive, Hickey's noticed that everything in here is...kind of gross? This house is literally falling apart. Everything's smokey and burnt and kind of nasty. He doesn't want to touch that!

"I remember," Hickey says, with a little nod. "But she's just one of many. Were you here when that deer was? Or when we got something from that boar? There's more to this world than just her."

[load_aim_shoot]

Raju's grimacing when he glances over, obviously not liking to hear it. Those things are...

The creature from the dream was one thing. The skulls dripping with light, all the knowledge and fear and... everything else it had brought with it. Unexplainable, but dangerous. There's something about the danger which makes something like that easier to face. But talking animals bringing gifts isn't anything, it isn't only strange, it's ridiculous. But it's real. At least, if Raju hadn't seen them, enough others did hear and see and speak of it in the same way that he can call it common knowledge, the idea that it was real. He even has the fruits of one of those gifts in his pocket. At least, that's where Francis had said that he'd gotten the fur, and he... he at least seems like a sensible man.

It's impossible to be sure of anything, in this place.

"But she's the only person." Raju rubs his hands over one another again, and his steps slow, and his grimace has unhappy self-realisation in it this time as he looks over. If those animals could speak that means they must have had thought, and will, and so the ability to influence something, too. The other man is right again.

He shakes his head, pacing again. "They weren't involved in the dreams anyway, were they? The hallucinations. What was all this supposed to be for?" Raju spins on his heel, throwing a hand out toward the dirty, offensively empty tub. "We were made to think that boy was dying. Why? Was he ever real? Or some kind of... some damned metaphor. Why show us any of this? Why put us through this at all?"

[friendsfordinner]

"People don't matter," Hickey points out. "I've met gods that aren't people."

Or at least, he's met a god that's not a person. Because of course that bear was a god. Of course tuunbaq was godly. What the fuck else could it be?

Raju starts pacing, Hickey stays still, as if by standing perfectly still he could conserve his energy. As the other man asks his questions, there's a small frown on Hickey's face. He keeps himself calm, adding all the details together, frowning still before he decides,

"If I had to guess, I'd say whoever's in charge wants us to know something. Maybe...maybe the boy dying had something to do with why things are the way they are here. This is the only house burnt to a crisp. Everybody else just vanished."

[load_aim_shoot]

Raju nods even as he clarifies: “Not quite vanished. Rorschach told me the first crop of us found bodies here, all of them looking toward the east.” He keeps pacing, watching his hands move, eyes unfocused and thinking. “But you’re right. It could be. All the other houses are in good condition, and this one was never fixed.”

Raju’s sigh is angry. He doesn’t like it, needing to go through that, needing to be put in mind of—

—of a boy, on a day that changed—

“She could have told us, if it was important. Or told us it wasn’t real. Showed it differently.” It wouldn’t have reminded him if he had already known that the boy, if he was ever real at all, wasn’t going to live through it anyway.

There’s no point in feeling one way or the other about thinking that. Easier to resent it and keep scowling at the tub. Easier to keep trying to puzzle some of this out.

“Or they could have.” He looks at the other man again, scowl flickering into something hesitant, unsure. “You, ah…”

How can he even ask about this? How can he expect an answer, in all seriousness? But the things he’s seen here…

Raju’s steps slow again. He watches the other man, mouth open to speak. His heel jitters on the ground. “The gods you… say that you’ve seen. Was that somewhere here, or…”

[friendsfordinner]

"One was at home," Hickey answers, with a little shrug. "The other ones were here."

Raju hesitates. Hickey doesn't. When he talks, he speaks with the utmost certainty. Of course this place has gods. Why wouldn't it? All of this, everything they've seen and suffered through, of course there's some divine purpose behind it. Everything's too much to be a coincidence.

"Here, we'll start with the obvious one first. Were you here when that boar showed up?"

[load_aim_shoot]

Raju’s eyebrows twitch closer together. The confidence is odd. Maybe it’s only odd to be on this side of it. In his real life—

At home, that is, nothing more than half a world away, things were… Simple feels like the wrong word to use for it. But understanding was simpler than this. There is a problem, a solution, and the movement toward it. That’s the way the world is. Problems other men would balk at and give up before solving Raju would dive into, not hesitating, not slowing until whatever needed to be was done. But the world isn’t that way, here. This place goes beyond that. This place feels sometimes like a dream, even when Raju knows that he’s awake.

And here: confidence, in the face of that. Confidently leading Raju in a direction he doesn’t like going in, to make a point Raju isn’t sure that he likes, either. Raju pulls a face, looks up at the old burnt ceiling with a sigh, feels his foot jittering again as his fingernails, too long now, move slowly over the back of his hand. But liking doesn’t matter. Not if there’s even a chance at hearing some real explanation for this impossible place.

“I was here,” Raju confirms, the grimacing expression faded to a frown and close attention as he watches the other man’s clever confidence. “But I didn’t see it. Only heard people talking. Ridiculous stories, but most of them the same.”

[friendsfordinner]

"They're only ridiculous if you weren't there," Hickey points out. There's a moment before he continues.

"A large, ridiculous boar, something that could speak. I asked it for something, one of those fancy coats that I've seen in various houses, something that repels water. It vomited it up."

Hickey shakes his head, chuckling slightly as he points out, "I'm not an idiot. I know that an entire bloody coat can't exist in a boar's stomach. It'd kill the thing. But that's what this beast did. Still have the coat—it's useful, more useful than anything I'd ever own. What d'you call that if not a god?"

Something that saw him as worthy, who gave him what he wanted. Who could materialize that exact item out of it's...well, it's stomach. An unconventional god at best, but still a god.

[load_aim_shoot]

For a moment Raju's quiet, still frowning at him, thinking. "Hardly proof, is it?" he murmurs and turns on a heel and starts pacing again, more slowly this time. What kind of proof would he even ask for? What is it that makes a thing a god? It's never something that he's had to think about. Everything else in his life, up until now, until here, had an explanation. Even when that explanation was terrible it was there in front of him. He could see it, understand it, and know how to react.

He hates this place.

Thinking it isn't enough.

"I hate this damned place," he says, voice low and emphatic. One loose fist bumps its side in an irregular rhythm against his thigh. But hating it doesn't matter. Follow the thread of thought the rest of the way through. He wanted to hear what this man thinks, and doesn't understand the whole of it yet.

"You believe they're all gods? Every... creature or... being we've seen or heard about here? Because they can do things we can't."

[friendsfordinner]

"What else could they be?"

It's an honest question. Because as far as Hickey's concerned? Gods, demons, devils, they're all the same. It's power. Power is what matters. He looks over at Raju with a look of curiosity on his face. Raju hates this damn place. Hickey tolerates it. And he's loving it even more now.

"D'you think an actual, normal boar could do something like that? I don't think so."

[load_aim_shoot]

Raju breathes out something not quite a huff, not quite a sigh, expression set into hard, troubled lines. "I don't think anything here should be the way it is. The ink pens, the motor cars, the..." Other things, the ones he can't even figure out what they're supposed to be, machines left here and there that don't do anything but are clearly something, built of material he doesn't recognize, of glass and screws and intricate insides, left casually like they belong, like whoever died and left them expected to come back and use them, whatever they were. Things he doesn't have the words for. "...everything I see in this place that I can't explain, should I call all of those gods too? Just because I can't understand?"

His words come quicker near the end, tone demanding, and he sighs as he finishes, moves to rub a hand over his mouth but stops to look at the soot and dirt and bits of old wood over his palm before it touches him and grimaces, rubbing his fingers together. "I'm sorry. It's been a... strange day. I don't mean to be rude. I can't prove they aren't gods, can I? Just like I can't prove there wasn't a boy dying right there. Where would you even begin?"

[friendsfordinner]

"Nothing rude about it," Hickey says, with a little shrug. It's not his fault if this man can't see what's in front of him. It's not his fault if this man's scared. Besides, he's new, yeah? Or at least, new enough. Give it enough time and Hickey's certain he'll understand what he's trying to say.

"Though there is one aspect that'll help you with that boy. I saw him too, yeah? It's easy enough for one person to hallucinate, but two? That's harder."

He can't explain the boy. He's got no idea who he was, how he vanished, all sorts of things like that. But that boy certainly was there.

There's a moment's pause before Hickey chuckles and points out, "Though you're right about those motorized vehicles. Never seen anything like that before coming here."

[load_aim_shoot]

Raju's nodding at the comment about the boy, fist still tapping at his thigh and gaze far away, thoughtful, when the other man comments on the motor cars and Raju turns to him, his still serious expression splitting into a relieved smile. It's something no one else seems to notice here, even though they should. "It's strange, isn't it? Everyone focuses on the hallucinations, the dreams, but nothing here is what it should be. I'm sure even the engine is different, but... I never looked at the engines before. I can't be sure, not really. Not yet."

He taps the backs of his knuckles against his palm, frustrated. The need to know, to know everything, to figure out everything, it'd served him better at home than here. But it's only more difficult here, that's all. He's never let something like that stop him before. The frustration only makes him want to know more. That this particular frustration always makes him think of Akhtar fixing things like this all day in his family's shop, who'd be able to tell him all the differences at a glance—

That doesn't matter. It's another part of this place's mystery, and Raju is going to figure it out. He'll stop thinking so much about the things that he can't have, eventually.

He takes a slow breath, shakes his head, smiles at the other man ruefully. "I'm Raju." He holds out a hand, considers its dirtied palm, then holds out the other one instead. "Thank you for, ah, calming the boy with me. I know it wouldn't have been your first plan."

Raju sighs, grimaces at the tub. "Not that it mattered. We may as well have just left him." The frustration on Raju's face turns troubled; he doesn't like the idea, the thought of hearing those cries and going the other way. But it wouldn't have made a difference anyway, would it?

[friendsfordinner]

When Raju offers his dirty hand, Hickey obviously pauses for a moment, looking down at Raju's hand with an air of slight disgust. That vanishes immediately when he offers his clean hand. Hickey takes his clean hand (or, well, cleaner hand considering that they're in a burnt house in a city with no running water) and heartily shakes it.

"Hickey," he says with a nod. "And course it mattered. Everything we do here matters. It might not look it at the start, but I'm sure our actions will bear fruit in the end."

And at least they know that ghosts are here and how to send one away. See? A step in the right direction.

"At the very least, we now know there's not much of use in this house."

[load_aim_shoot]

I'm sure our actions will bear fruit in the end, Hickey says and Raju gives him a quick smile, one that looks polite and a little tense, taking it as meaningless encouragement. Then again, maybe Hickey does actually believe it. It's hard for Raju to do the same, considering the lack of results: the boy is gone, and the fire was here so long ago that it was never a danger at all.

Then Hickey goes on and Raju drops his hand, looking up, looking around. "I suppose not. There might be something of use, if we become desperate enough for supplies. But right now, why don't we get the hell out of here?" Raju smiles a little, the humour fading as he looks around again, takes a breath. He should smell fresh soot, and... and cooking meat, like Hickey pointed out. He only smells rot. It's... frustrating isn't the word. There's too much, too much happening for no clear reason, and no cause. But there's nothing he can do about that here. The dirty tub reminds him of... of what the boy had reminded him of, when he'd thought the boy was real. Raju only realises it when he says it out loud, how deeply he wants to leave.

"You're alright?" he checks, before they do. "Touching the boy hurt at the time, but—" He sighs, frustration coming back into his voice. "—I think that must have been as real as the rest of it."

[friendsfordinner]

"Getting the hell out of here works for me," Hickey huffs. Because yep! This house is falling apart! Better they get the hell out of here before it falls apart entirely. He gestures for Raju to follow as they make for the exit.

"And yeah, I'm fine. A bit rattled by all of this, but it's not the worst thing that's happened to us, yeah?"

It certainly isn't. Considering all the mental nonsense they've had to deal with, a ghost boy is a bit of a relief.

[load_aim_shoot]

Raju grimaces. He thinks about it as he moves down the stairs he'd run up so frantically, as he walks past the debris of a life that used to be lived here, past a sweater covered in mold thrown over the back of a chair, past a mug half-shattered on top of an unsteady table, past the family photograph that had burst into flames in his hand when he'd arrived, for no reason at all. So far as 'worst' goes, Raju isn't convinced; a threat would have been preferable.

"Maybe next time one of your gods will give us something that's actually real to deal with," he says sourly, then gives Hickey a quick smile, his huff of air sounding very, very faintly amused to make up for what he hadn't meant to be a dig. Everything rescuing a boy whose life had forever changed had stirred in him is still here, if fainter, but the boy is gone and the fire is gone and none of this has any real place to go.

"I'd rather be facing something I can fight," Raju goes on, hearing shattered glass crunching beneath his shoes as he walks ahead of Hickey to hold the front door open for him.

[friendsfordinner]

"Wouldn't we all?" Hickey brightly laughs as he follows Raju out towards the door. Once they're outside, he stretches, grin on his face as he looks up to the sky. The actual sky, the fresh air, so much better than that burned and bloody household.

"I think I'm going to check on a few of my traps out here. Care to come with? Or do you want to head back to town?"

[load_aim_shoot]

Raju stands in the cold, the fresh air freezing the inside of his nose and mouth even more out here, and watches Hickey grinning. But Hickey wasn't caught up in it the same way Raju had been, was he? He's the one who had been able to comfort the— whatever the boy had actually been, even though it had been Raju's plan. Even though the plan had been useless too, whatever Hickey says. It seems impossible, the idea of smiling that way.

Raju smiles anyway, quick and polite, at the offer. "Can I take you up on that later? I need to practice trapping eventually." But not today. After so long spending so many days not even eating meat, the step of killing it himself is one he isn't ready to take yet. Especially not on a day his stomach is still churning with what the apparition had left behind in him when it'd disappeared. Not today.

"But, ah, it's the town for me, I think. Good hunting. And thank you."

[friendsfordinner]

"You as well," Hickey says, with a little nod. As far as he's concerned? He'll happily teach what little skills he knows with everybody else. And Raju seems sensible. He's got a good head on his shoulders. He's someone Hickey wants in his court.

So he gives Raju one last look, one last grin, before turning to head back towards the woods.