entranceway | entry #bGllc2xpZXNsaWVz ( video/action )

[He should have known it was coming. He should have known it, when his Mirror took something of his, knowing full well what would generate. What it would do. He combs through the mansion in a frenzy, too late. The closets aren't giving him what he needs, and his focus is too fraying, too suspect to its own paranoid dips and peaks, to keep trying and risking and venturing until the correct result is administered.

He knows what's coming, and he knows there's no - no escaping what comes next, the locking up of his limbs, the arching of his back, the spasmodic jerking of every muscle, the burning in his chest and throat.

There's no one here to stop it. There's nothing he can -

A very strange video appears to the network, and its uploader is anonymous. All in all, it's about twenty seconds long, but what it sacrifices for brevity it makes up for in sheer surrealism. There plays, first, a high, piercing tone, followed by a recording of a man long gone.

The video itself entails little more than simple white text over black, torn through as the whole thing appears to be with horizontal bars of static.]

YOU TOOK IT
I SAW

BURNING

[An image flares in a brief sputter of black and scarlet, and is gone again.]

/////////////////////////
////ecps lgyckr qmutb////
///////sm ymu fkmw///////
///////wbht ymu scs///////
/////////////////////////

----ibaifjhta----

[And then - nothing.]

[[ooc: Tim will be in his "masked" state for the duration of the next two days, which you can read more about here. Anyone who wishes to decrypt that message may receive a reply, though you're welcome to threadjark in order to icly collaborate.

Those wishing to encounter Tim's masked persona will encounter them in the forest or Checkerboard Hills. Be warned that they are hostile and will attack on sight; though slightly stronger and more durable than your average human, they are not a highly skilled combatant, and will try to escape an encounter once they realize they're losing.]]

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[It is too fast, and too slippery. Hands locking over wrists, and a short, harsh bark of sound rasps out from behind the pale disc of the face they wear, muffled and wordless but undoubtedly incensed.

They only want to be out, gone from it, free. It knows the cage they wear but refuses to relinquish them, and that's when they begin to kick out, as though bruising ankles may miraculously allow their freedom.]

[She came out here with a plan of action, and frankly, it's falling apart quickly. They kick back, and she moves, trying to pin one leg to stop him, because there's no way he's not going to bolt if she relinquishes even a moment of movement. He seems... unwilling, to talk, or possibly unable. She doesn't know the full extent of this psychosis; doesn't have the time to find out, and yet, old instincts die hard. Old habits even harder.]

C'mon, we don't have to do this. I don't want to hurt you.

[It makes noise. It makes the same baseless, pointless protests that anyone else would, that the man wielding the camera does, that he does. Floundering, ill-formed bursts of sound bubbling out from parted lips, and they do not care. It never matters, and none of them know to speak in a language that makes concessions for the landscape of someone else's head.

A strangled, rasping sound bursts out from the back of their throat as they rear back, possibly attempting to slam the back of their head into hers. It emerges like the beginnings of a hoarse cough, dragging like broken glass over stone, wordless and devoid of any meaning secondary to a boiling, swelling rage.]

[Oh son of a bitch.

She's watching them intently, almost too much so, and the top of their head collides with her nose and she can't hold on, dropping her legs back into a defensive position and swinging her arm up over her face. Quickly, she tries to use that momentum to surge at them again, before they can get back on their feet, but this physical interaction is still going to hurt him, too. The more sustained contact, the more they both stand to lose.

Instead, she entertains the brief notion that the mask has something to do with the possession- not just a byproduct of it-- and goes for it directly, making the attempt to get it off his face.]

[The action, for all its recklessness, is effective. It is painful and elicits an explosion of bright stars behind their eyes but it is dark already, and it does not matter. For a moment the grip is loosened, and freedom beckons -

And then it seizes their face, and they roar.

It's a desperate, gravelly sound, almost a guttural protest of "No!", thickened and muffled as it is. They claw out blindly, clinging to the white round disc that is theirs, that is them, as much as their skin is their skin and not their vessel's dark complexion.

Don't take it, don't take it, don't take it away.]

[Alright, this has gone a level of wrong she could not previously contextualize, but she'll now refer to as Super Wrong, specifically in capitals to emphasize how Fucking Wrong This Has Gone.

She's barely gotten a hold of it when they outright scream and she loses grip, stumbling back and losing connection. Okay, definitely something to do with the mask, but she really doesn't have time to figure out the science of it. She needs to bring this fight down. So she takes the extra second to regain her footing, hands up.]

C'mon, bring it in. I don't wanna hurt you. We don't have to fight. Let's just take it down.

[It retreats. Hands up and back, as though peaceable, but - but they won't be foiled a second time, no. Grasping at their face, stolen fingertips pressing at the edges to ensure it's still there, that it won't simply fall, they shift back, back. Eye it, warily. It makes continuous noises, but none of them are worth noting. None of them inspire anything besides hot, dark fear.

Return home.

Return home.

Without another sound, they turn and begin to run, tearing through the woods, leaves crackling underfoot.]

[Oh son of a--

She breaks off into a sprint behind them, trying to follow, letting her visor take over targeting as she runs. She can't let them ambush someone else who might be more willing to hurt them. She has to be on the takedown now, but that's the hard part of someone who isn't concerned with their own wellbeing.]

[It follows.

It follows easily, and such cannot be acceptable. They will lose it in a trail of leaves and twigs. They will throw it off their scent. They swerve and dart in erratic zigzags, tearing through the bracken with reckless abandon.]

[She wants to shout at how fruitless this has been, how little she's actually done and how much she's slipped up for this to even occur. She knows, logically, that she couldn't have saved him from this with one fight, that failure is always an option, but that doesn't stop her from being goddamn pissed.

She tries to line herself up with him, take a good lunge for his coat, but she misses, tumbling into the brush with a rather loud "fuck!" and by the time she's up again, he's out of her sight. She shifts, leaning against a tree and crossing her arms, trying to see if she can still sense him close-- if he stopped to watch, she might have one more chance.]

[It nearly catches them, the edges of their skin, but they duck and they weave. Injured as they are, they are faster, and they continue to run. A crackle of up-thrown leaves and the occasional snap of a twig, and they're darting out of sight.

Farther away from the thing that would try and contain them.]

entry #bGllc2xpZXNsaWVz ( video/action )

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