Riful's Heart.

[dramatispersonae]

[everything goes away.]

[sight, sound, taste, touch, smell - you lose yourself to the nothing that waits through the doorway. do you have a body? a mind? what is such a thing? for a dizzying moment, you might not even be sure you have a "you" to identify these concepts with.]

[then, wrenching and violent, the confusion of the senses pummels itself back inside you like seasoning pounded into raw meat, and you're left, painfully sensate, on an open plain.]

Comments

[toolate]

[well. that isn't strange at all. looking up . . .]

[amivoringyou]

[you don't see anything.]

[you can just hear it, faint, up ahead somewhere ...]

[toolate]

[... well staying here isn't helping me much. advancing...?]

[amivoringyou]

[you lose sight of Aeris between one turn of the tunnel and the next ...]

[no matter where you turn or how much you double back, there's no sign of where they could have gone.]

[toolate]

[... balls. S... SOLDIERING ON.]

[amivoringyou]

[you come to another, smaller floor, with strange, pulsing growths against one side, transparent black flashed through with a faint throb of pearlescent light. if you know your anatomy, they look like aortal passages growing out of the wall, smaller veins dug into the cave like roots.]

[there ... might be a tunnel on the other side.]

[toolate]

[... creepy... but i do like tunnels. stops briefly to eye the growths, but moves on toward the tunnel.]

[amivoringyou]

[there isn't a tunnel there, it was just your imagination.]


I told you I found something interesting for you to look at, Daae.

[the voice belongs to a man suddenly coming out of the tunnel behind you, dressed all in black - fedora, dark glasses, turtleneck, pants, shoes - with a small smile on his face. hello again, Louvre.]

[he is followed by seven black-clad, helmeted, masked guards, all armed with long pikes and spears. they quickly surround you, showing no hesitation in using them against you if you resist.]

[toolate]

[--wheeling around to face louvre, startled and tense.]

--You. What's all this for?

[amivoringyou]

Didn't I tell you ...? I'm a handler.

[a hooded figure steps out of the darkness at the other end of the floor, approaching - and it takes until he is very close, in the dim light, to get a good look at his face - and then, perhaps, you may wish you hadn't: the entire left side of his face has melted away, from burns or flesh-eating plague, and then healed that way, leaving one eye bugged out and leaving him with a permanent half skull-smile.]

Oh, yes, an excellent specimen. Do you think they could be amenable to our goals?

[toolate]

[thhhat is really creepy. backing up as much as he is able without running into the people at his back.]

Don't just ignore me! I'm not a specimen for anything!

[amivoringyou]

[Louvre smiles tightly, ignoring you, focused only on Daae.]

Care to do the honors? I've got to be elsewhere.

[toolate]

[jjjjerk. looks at if he's going to start on something else, but instead scanning for any sort of escape routes or -- anything, really.]

[amivoringyou]

Squeamish, Louvre? Ah, never mind, it's not important.

[the rest of Daae's face smiles, and it's even more grotesque an expression on his preserved skin than the skull-sunk side of his face.]

You're after Riful, aren't you? Heh. Well, you've already missed the easiest way there, but I know how you can reach her anyway. You'd like that, right? The only thing is ... it's really not something I'm interested in providing to just anyone. Part of its value is ... its rarity, after all. We just don't have enough to go around giving it to everyone.

Heh ... sorry.

[and the guards .... the guards close in.]

[toolate]

["riful" -- not relevant right now, think fast]

--If you don't want to give, then -- let's trade, I'm sure I have something--

[amivoringyou]

You? Have something I want?

That's so ridiculous I almost want to hear it.

[toolate]

What does it matter if you want it? It's a matter of use. So what's wrong if I offer this body of mine?

[amivoringyou]

[Daae laughs, a raspy, coughing sound of poison leaving the body.]

Oh ... heh ... I'd have taken that from you anyway.

[and the spears and pikes raise in determined hands, and they plunge, stabbing, piercing, bleeding --]

[you are now a tiny rabbitboy pincushion oops '-']

[toolate]

[:( well. i want points for trying, okay.]