Food, Water, Shelter, Will

Karina Razumovsky. Kerry's fine. I guess I'm the best at keeping alive. I'll do my best to keep it that way. ((RP blog affiliated with Operation:Nexus. Status: ALIVE))

[chell-arts]

[ kerry razumovsky, survivalist ]

[ultimatebloodsport]

Search.3 ✖ Lullabye ✖ Matthias, Takara and Kerry

[primafaciegirl-blog]

Takara doesn’t offer much resistance as she feels Matthias move her, pawing his callousey hands all over her damp head- sure, carefully, but uninvited all the same. She shifts, anticlimactically really, once she realizes who these meaty hands belong to- its so obvious- and distinguishable on her sticky, sweaty face, are two thin lines of tears, not drying, with how wet she already is. 

Matti’s voice is what finally gets her to turn her head, having not moved since Leroy’s announcement echoed down the hall. She clears her throat and shifts herself away from him a bit, as if quietly telling him it hurts.

“ ♪ ♫…So he’s-  he’s really dead?  ♪ ♫“ She  rumbles out, quiet and from deep within her chest, like a held breath finally releasing itself into these softly song words. 

“ ♪ ♫ I’m fine. Of course I can stand. I…. that criminal- b-beat my head, pushed me down! ♪ ♫ “  Her voice sang out in a nearly musical rhythm now, just by habit, despite the jarring lack of any attempted rhyme in her voice, and the hoarse way that it scratched.

She taps her cane against the wall, then around the immediate hallway, for any sign of a clue or another person hiding from her. It doesnt seem very calculated, really, just a desperate attempt to look like she’s on top of things and ‘fine’.

[everyday-kerry-blog]

A banging at her door woke her up- Apollo. Not really her first choice for an alarm bell, but someone needed medical attention. Had someone been attacked? For a moment, Kerry weighed her options. This might be a trap... But no, she was the only one she knew of with pertinent medical training. And this was Apollo, after all. He was too smart to pick her for prey. Kerry loaded a yellow backpack up with some makeshift medical supplies and made her way to the scene.

An announcement came on as she made her way through the halls- Oh, god. Was she too late? No, Loic, he said it was, not Takara. That wouldn’t help matters... She’d have to put any investigation on hold, for now, though. As she rounded the corner to the newest found wing of the facility, she saw a few people already starting to gather at ER7- 5 was her destination, though.

She entered the featureless room, making a beeline for the injured debater. “I’m here, I’m here...” She nodded curtly at Matthias and knelt down beside Takara. Kerry gave her head a one-over, squinting. It was definitely bloody, albeit with oddly-colored blood as all theirs had been. It was damp, too, possibly chalked up to Takara’s afflictions. But... she didn’t see anything indicating any kind of injury she’d seen. “Takara... What happened, exactly? I’m having trouble finding a wound...”

[everyday-kerry-blog]

Fire & Rain || Riley

[designedinterior-blog]

Not a shark, then. At least it seemed like they didn’t have to worry about normal animals in here. Riley sighed, leaning back to look at the synthetic sky. Just another case of the absurd version of reality that had taken hold of the building, nothing more.

Kerry’s explanation, however, caught her attention. She sat up straight and paid close attention as she described the incident. Sitting still, she watched, and listened, and thought. 

“This is happening.”

It would have been difficult to come up with a statement more obvious than that, but she felt that it needed to be said. The wish for everything to turn back to normal was understandable, but would only make matters worse. It would lead to denial. Kerry had described a flash and a burn, and had yet to even suggest the word ‘fire.’ But then again, what she had described was something that would sound absurd if the subject of her tale was assumed to be fully human.

Absently, she picked at the feathers on her arm. Thought about everything she had seen since waking up in the facility.

…Scary. Kerry had a valid point. Sudden, painful, drastic changes were scary, regardless of whether you knew what was happening or not - but not knowing only made things worse, the mystery aggravating what was already a goddamn shitshow of a situation. But this was something that was happening, and that was a given. Finding out why would be difficult, near impossible, in their current situation. It may not even help. Finding out what, though… might be worth a try.

“…That flash.” She looked at Kerry for a moment. “Try it again. Not on your hand. Over there.”

She pointed across the water, in a direction away from both Kerry’s hand and Riley’s face. Safety first.

[everyday-kerry-blog]

‘This is happening’... It had seemed like a fantasy from the start. A bunch of people getting kidnapped and experimented on was bad enough, but whatever they were doing, and the lengths they were forced to go to- no one could have prepared for this. “...Yeah.” That was the best response she could come up with. It was all she could really do to sum up her thoughts

Kerry turned her attention to the designer’s directions. “I don’t know if it will happen again. I was just sitting there...” She adjusted herself so she was seated on the ground, propping herself up with her hands. “And I had to cough, so...” Kerry gave a small cough.

A flame shot out from her mouth.

Kerry’s eyes widened at the flame lit up the area around them for a split second, then snuffed out back to darkness. She stood frozen in disbelief for seconds that hung in the air like hours as what happened raced through her head. The flash, the heat, the burn... It felt like fire because it was fire. “Well. That’ll uh... heh, that’ll do ‘er,” she tried to joke, without much conviction. “...You can’t blame me for that not being my first thought, right?”

Out of curiosity, Kerry tried coughing again, this time louder and with a longer exhale. The flame stayed active about a foot in front of her mouth as long as she exhaled. As it dissipated, a smell like rotten eggs lingered in the air. “Yeurgh, that reeks. It’s like gas or something.”

[everyday-kerry-blog]

Waterfall || Ayumu

[eternalsnapshot-blog]

Most people considered everything that Ayumu did rude, and they weren’t really wrong - he was a delinquent, after all, and had been responsible for his share of breaking and entering, his share of vandalism, his share of graffiti, et cetera. Generally, he just didn’t care much for etiquette, or politeness in general. He did and said what he wanted to, opinions of others be dammed. 

 His scowl only deepened, camera eyes zooming in so that he could get a better look at her face. “Fuckin’ bullshit. Nobody goes ‘oh, shit, what if I get hungry later and need ta drink an entire like, fuckin’ twenty bottles of water at once’ Seriously, tell me, what the fuck are you doin’ with these?” He was about to question her further when suddenly his head felt like it was burning, a pain that was almost but not quite as bad as the accident, and he dropped the bottles as he put both hands to his eyes, screaming incoherently for a few seconds before it started to fade. 

“FUCK!” Ayumu yelled, “Fuck, that hurts like a fuckin’ bitch, fuck! Fuckin’… fuck!” This display of eloquence over, he breathed heavily for a few seconds, as his skin began to peel away only to be replaced with scales so green it felt like just looking the colour alone could poison you, After a few seconds, he took one last deep breath before looking up at Kerry. “Well, ain’t that just fuckin’ great. You… you okay? Wait, stupid question. Ya need any help?” 

[everyday-kerry-blog]

After the pain had passed, Kerry... didn’t feel THAT different. The feverishness was back; she felt like the temperature especially around her head had gone up something like ten degrees. The only outward physical change she could feel were her teeth. Her gums were tender still, as the once small fangs in her mouth had morphed into long, sharp teeth that protruded slightly over her lips. Kerry clacked them together, then looked over to Ayumu. “I think I’m okay... It’s just k-”

As soon as her eyes made contact with the photographer’s, Kerry felt herself seize up. She’d thought it was over, but that pretty clearly wasn’t the case. She nearly fell to the ground as she feels herself lose control of next to all of her muscles, like they were all cramping up at once but couldn’t do anything about it. Her eyes squeeze shut and her brow furrows. Kerry dropped to her knees, groaning and taking in sharp breaths all the while, before she finally feels the effects subside.

Despite the second wave of pain, nothing else had really seemed to change in her, at least that she could discern. Her eyes re-opened, glancing down at her body. Same ol’ Karina, from the neck down at least. She gave it a few more moments, not wanting to press her luck, before speaking softly. “...It... seems fine for now. What about you?” Her gaze stayed down at her body, trying to see if she’d missed something.

[everyday-kerry-blog]

Fire & Rain || Riley

[designedinterior-blog]

Riley had seen the room with the pond once before, in a fit of aimless wandering following the announcement. Things had calmed down a bit, she had calmed down a bit, and she remembered the serene atmosphere of the silent water and the moon’s reflection. After the pain and the chaos of the last few hours, maybe she could simply sit down for a while and imagine a situation in which she was not sprouting feathers.

Honestly, she was surprised to find that she was almost getting used to that particular part of the experience. Now that the initial shock of suddenly experiencing what was likely the worst pain she had felt in her life had worn off, she was free to deal with all of the residual baggage that had come along for the ride. And she would deal with it, in time. But for now, she was content to sit down and do absolutely nothing and think absolutely nothing until she became bored enough to leave.

She pushed open the door to the simulation room expecting to see nothing but a river and empty field, but was instead was met with – a figure in the darkness, a pair glowing eyes. A point of light in the midst of a dim room did no favors for perception, but she could remember two with that particular condition - Matthias and Kerry. The answer to which it was came when the figure spoke, if the offered knife hadn’t made it clear enough.

Riley quietly sighed through her nose and set the styrofoam cup she’d been carrying down in the grass. There went her plans for the afternoon.  

With an air of calm detachment, she sat down cross-legged beside Kerry and took the knife and bandana.  Working quickly, she soon had cut several strips of cloth, which she held out to Kerry. It was dark, the surface she had to work with was terrible, and she was not accustomed to cutting cloth with a knife. The cuts were not perfectly straight, which had bothered her as she was making them, and was still bothering her now – but it had hardly seemed like the appropriate moment to take her sweet time with it.

“What’s the problem?”

She almost sounded bored as she set the knife down in the grass and reclaimed her cup, eyeing Kerry’s submerged hand. Too much had happened today already. There could be a shark in the water currently chomped down on it, and she wasn’t sure if she would even be surprised.

[everyday-kerry-blog]

“Thank you...” Kerry didn’t answer the designer’s question immediately. Instead, after taking the cloth back from her, she took a few moments to breathe. Her breaths felt hot, like they were lingering in the air or cutting through the lower temperature in the room. Taking her hand out of the water, she began wrapping it up with the strips handed to her by Riley. The cuts weren’t perfect, but they just needed to be smaller so she didn’t have a big lump of fabric on her hand. It was hard to see in the dark, even with a small bit of illumination from her eyes, but she was confident she got the spot that was hurting; on the side just below her index finger.

Kerry gave the strips one taught, final pull before breathing a sight of relief. She figured she did owe Riley an explanation for the sorry state she was in. “I don’t... I don’t know what happened.” She looked over her bandaging job, gingerly running her thumb over where she’d been hurt. The pain hadn’t exactly subsided, but with someone here she felt the need to seem like she was calmed down, helping expedite her actually calming down. “I was just sitting in here a few minutes ago, trying to get my bearings from the- the thing. I put my hand up at one point to cough-” She raised up her hand to act out what she was saying. “And there was a flash, and it just. Hurt. I don’t know if it was another effect or...”

She trailed off. She didn’t know what to think. “It’d just felt like I burnt it, like I stuck it over a boiling pot. It still feels that way.” Kerry sat still, cringing to herself for a few more moments. Riley seemed like one of the most stable people there- she was one of the first people she’d talked to when they’d all woken up, and since the start had been a calm, level-headed voice when the trials started up. She felt like an idiot making a scene like that in front of her of all people. “I’m... sorry you had to see that. I’m not supposed to panic like this. It’s... scary, is all.”

[everyday-kerry-blog]

Fire & Rain || Riley

The survivalist bit down on the makeshift bandanna she’d been using. She couldn’t hold it in her left hand- that one held her knife. She couldn’t hold it in her right hand- She had it dunked in one of the rivers, because of the constant, seething pain it was in.

Kerry herself couldn’t understand what had happened. It wasn’t an effect that had happened right away- Those she had been dealing with for a few hours, and she couldn’t say she was used to them, but she felt like she had something of an idea of what had changed in her body- mostly, it felt like an escalation of what had been going on before. She needed a break- she needed to cool off, so she went to the simulation room, set up to seem like a cool, starry night near a river.

Then- Pain. The only thing concrete was a sudden blaze of light and the pain she felt on her hand immediately afterwards. This was the first time she felt herself in a real state of panic. Instinctively she had ran over to one of the small rivers in the field for some kind of relief, and it thankfully seemed to provide some, but every time she removed it the pain started slowly coming back. The closest she could remember was the few times she’d been burned starting a fire.

Her knife wasn’t steady. She knew she couldn’t make a straight cut on the cloth, and she only had so many bedsheets. Kerry couldn’t stop whimpering and swearing under her breath. It felt like a burn, so she was treating it like a burn as best she could. She had no kind of ointment, and she knew it was going to blister. All she could do was wrap it up. It wouldn’t make the pain go away, but she hoped having pressure on it could at least do something.

She couldn’t tell who it was but someone was there. She looked up, her luminescent eyes piercing the room’s darkness. “T-take this, please take this- I need to wrap this up,” she spoke with her jaw clenched. Kerry held the handle of her utility knife to the newcomer, the blade in her own hand. “I just... MMF... I just need a few small strips cut.”

[everyday-kerry-blog]

Waterfall || Ayumu

[eternalsnapshot-blog]

Ayumu had no deep thought process, emotional or logical, behind his expedition to the snack room. He’d just… gotten hungry, and so, still with his clothes flecked with paint, he’d gone towards the snack room, in the search of something he liked. Maybe… some instant ramen. He wasn’t a guy with high tastes or anything - and when given a world of options to choose from, his creativity suddenly dried up. Instant ramen was what he ate while he was out on photoshoots: it was quick to make, impossible to fuck up, and easy to carry around. No downsides. 

He was thinking about what a practical and brilliant foodstuff instant ramen was when he caught sight of Kerry. Someone he’d initially avoided as much as possible - he didn’t want to be around a so-called survivalist. Ugh. The idea that people would willingly eschew the wonders of technology and civilization in favour of the uncaring fallibility of nature made him sick. 

But on the other hand, considering how almost everyone else in this shithole had proven themselves to be unstable or arrogant or irritating or otherwise unpleasant, Ayumu figured that if he wanted any sort of halfway decent company he’d need to swallow his pride and try talking to people. The choices of whether or not to say something to her was made for him when she spoke up. 

With a scowl, he tilted his head, a soft click sounding as the shutters on his eyes closed, the lights changing colour as he took a succession of photographs through slightly different lenses. “What the fuck do ya need all this fuckin’ water for, exactly? Ya gonna fill up a fuckin’ inflatable pool or somethin’ similarly fuckin’ stupid? Wouldn’t put it past any a you fuckers.” Despite his aggressive tone and words, he still stooped down to grab bottles of water. because hey, might as well be helpful.  

[everyday-kerry-blog]

She wasn’t sure, but Kerry thought she might have heard a click coming from the boy’s direction. Was he using those eyes of his to take a picture...? She guessed there was no harm in it, but most people would consider that kind of rude. Then again, they’d probably consider most of what the photographer was doing to be rude. 

Kerry glanced down at the waters she was holding. Would it be good to show her hand as it was? She’d be more than happy to share the water in an emergency, but... “They’re just mine. I’m gonna drink them, I just, uh.” She shrugged. Lying wasn’t one of her strong suits. “Figured I’d get a bunch now.”

Despite his tone, the guy seemed agreeable enough. Her papa always said to judge people based on their actions and not their words, and if that was the case maybe he wasn’t as rough around the edges as he seemed. “Thanks, though. Feel free to take a couple if you want, too.” She chuckled. “Obviously I’ve got plenty.”

Hm. Kerry smacked her gums. Were they... sore? They weren’t sore a second ago, despite her fangs... And then it kicked in. Kerry’s composure was lost, and she found herself dropping the water in her hands all over again as she clutched her head in pain. Slamming her shoulder into the wall was all she could do to stop from keeling over. Ellen’s voice came over the intercom, but she could pick up little more than white noise. The entire world felt fuzzy. She looked to Ayumu desperately, just trying to find some kind of anchor of normalcy.

[everyday-kerry-blog]

Waterfall || Ayumu

What could they do? The worst scenarios had been playing out in her head ever since the trial. Clearly they had resources, clearly whoever was holding them was a pretty advanced organization. Government-backed, maybe? Was it something they could even hope to fight against? Kerry didn’t think of herself as a stress eater, but a snack at a time like this would be helpful.

"Bottled water,” she said, scanning her bar code. Out of the wall came a bottle of water. As she went to grab it, she looked down at it. Right now they were in a pretty ideal situation, basic-needs-wise; water, food, and shelter were plentiful. But... could they introduce a scarcity? In a survival situation, a fight for resources is one of the worst scenarios you’d have to deal with. Kerry eyed over the machine.

“...Bottled water,” she spoke into the microphone again, once again scanning her code. Out of the wall, yet another bottled water appeared. Okay, that worked. “Bottled water.” Another one. “Bottled water.” And again. Could she speed this up somehow? “Uh... 24 pack of bottled water.” The machine rumbled for a bit but, lo and behold, out popped an economy pack of bottled water.

Kerry picked up the waters and began carrying them out. Maybe it would be worth it to start hording some supplies... After all, she already ran into a scare with her medical supplies running low. That was a mistake on her part. One she didn’t want to repeat. She was the one with survival knowledge, if people died because of her she-

Fuck, fuck, shit, the plastic holding the water was really weak. Though she tried to hold on to the sides, a rip in the container caused bottles to tumble out to the ground and start rolling everywhere as she entered the hallway. With a cringe and a groan, Kerry kneeled over to begin picking up the waters.

She heard footsteps. Her attention turned from the water to whoever was joining her. It was the photographer- the one who didn’t seem to like her. Or... maybe she was just reading him wrong? “Um, hey,” she called. “Could you help me out real fast? I was trying to get these to my room but the thing broke.”

[calico-blackwood-blog]

Earie I Calico + Riley + Kerry

Calico had stayed mostly holed up in his room after the motive was released, processing what he had heard. Voices, cries, people he cared about– but one voice had stood out above the rest; a screech, more than a shout, a sound he recognized and one that shocked him to his core.

Where is he? Where had he been? Is he okay? That room is all a simulation, isn’t it? Is any of that real? How do they know?

Questions pounded in the boy’s head, some of them which he wasn’t sure he wanted answered. He poured his anxiousness into carving, and by the time Leroy’s voice came grating through the speakers again he’d completed 3 projects.

Calico’s body carried him down the hall, mostly on instinct, some part of his brain wanting to confirm the truth even if the majority of it wanted to stay far away. 

Sure enough, there was Arielle, sitting in front of the movie screen. She looked peaceful, as though she had merely fallen asleep while watching a film… but the dark marks Calico could see on her neck and the fact that an announcement had been made confirmed it. She was really dead. It wasn’t as gory as Lacey’s death, and it wasn’t someone he’d talked to much, but still…

The boy backed away, legs shaking, face pale and stomach starting to feel queasy. The shock wasn’t as strong as the first time, but his fear persisted and he couldn’t help the tears that were starting to pool up in his eyes. He really needed to stop crying. They had to investigate, right? He reached into his pocket to grasp his comfort stone and turned to the person nearest, looking away from the body.

“U-um… w-would you mind lookin’ around with me…?”

He tried to keep the fear out of his voice, but he was clearly scared and shaky.

[everyday-kerry-blog]

There really wasn't a lot of avoiding this one. If you wanted to get someone to kill someone else, you threatened someone close to them, and who closer than a family member? They say there's no counting on emotions, but with that kind of leverage it wasn't a matter of "if" but "when" there would be another body. To think she was just sitting here alone herself not a few days ago…

There was Calico as well, the wood carver with by far one of the strangest conditions of them all. Kerry wasn't the best at reading emotions, but she could tell being here was making him uncomfortable. Dead bodies kinda had that effect on people.

"Yeah.. But maybe it'd be best if we didn't investigate in here," she noted. If not for his emotional state, at least because of everyone else searching the room. She mulled over what else they could do. "It could make sense to check Arielle's room, see if there's anything that could point us in the right direction…" As luck would have it, Kerry noticed Riley at the scene as well. It had been a while since they'd talked at length, but they'd got on well enough last time if she remembered right.

"Hey, Riley,” she called, approaching the designer. “You were Arielle's roommate, right? If it's not too much to ask, would you be okay with us looking around your guys' room?"

[bibliotheca-apollonis-blog]

Ignoring is Bliss | Open

[bibliotheca-apollonis-blog]

“People should be nervous,” Apollo snapped back, “If they weren’t concerned with the implications of this bullshit I would worry for their sanity! Whether or not monsters are dumb brutes, people think of them as dangerous, and if we end up looking like them then we will be thought of as dangerous, too. And then that’s it. Someone kills you and puts your stuffed head on the wall as a trophy. Assuming you aren’t murdered or executed in here first.”

Well, he straightened himself up. He had to remind himself to take deep breaths and try to calm himself down. If he hadn’t made it obvious already, his paranoia was running rampant at the moment and he needed to settle it. At least get it under control. A little bit of paranoia was what had kept him alive the last few years, but too much shut him down completely.

“Besides,” he sighed, “Some of them are animals, but others are smart. Have you ever seen the kind of damage a particularly brave werewolf can cause? One got into a town south of Rixheillé last year. It… was not pretty. The fears are not unfounded. Not that I am expecting us to go mad and become a monster in mind as well as body - but I have not ruled it out.”

He reached up to gingerly touch one of the horns again, as he had just a few moments earlier. He half hoped it was gone, but no such luck. He thought the bleeding might be going down; he wasn’t sure. “I do not know how you intend to treat things such as - what was it? - tails, feathers, and rainclouds. I would like to believe you could work some miracles, even small ones, but miracles are just fiction.”

[everyday-kerry-blog]

Kerry preferred not to think about the worst of the cryptid cases. She'd heard about things like Wendigo attacks in the woods, and for the longest time they scared her to death. Her Papa, though, said that despite what everyone thinks, Humans are apex predators, and have been since they learned to hunt. No animal or cryptid would attack one unless it was starving or provoked, according to him. She couldn't act like he didn't raise a clear possibility, though. "More nervous than necessary, then."

His spiel wasn't doing anything to calm her nerves, though. Was that really all he could do, pick apart what she was saying to find reasons to be hopeless? "I know I'm not gonna be able to fix something like this, but-" In a series of rapid motions, Kerry reached into her bag, grabbed an antiseptic wipe, tore it open, and started dabbing the discharge around the base of Apollo's horns. "There are small things that we can do to help, like sanitizing an open wound so it doesn't get infected, because having horns is bad, but having horns and having a staph infection is even worse. What's also extremely helpful is keeping spirits up, making sure people know that even if the situation is dire, there's always a sliver of hope you can hang on to, so why don't you do yourself and everyone else here a favor, stop being a pessimistic sack of shit, and and at least pretend to take after my sunny disposition, so that even if we DO all die in here it's not while listening to someone go on and on about how we've all become hideous monstrosities, which is a fact we're all catching on to pretty quickly?"

What she said turned over in her brain for a moment. Back to what her Papa said. Provocation. "...I'm sorry, that was mean."

[calico-blackwood-blog]

Onion plays Capture the Flag

[everyday-kerry-blog]

Doctor My Eyes || Matthias

55°F - Kerry's dinky little thermometer on her compass wasn't always the most accurate, but that would still place the movie theater as the coolest room in the facility. She'd been doing well ignoring the heat she'd been feeling up until recently, probably because she had something to keep herself occupied, but as soon as there was a lull it hit her like a sack full of very hot bricks. A movie might help distract her a little, but the air conditioning was definitely the main reason she was here.

She didn’t really care which movie was playing. Kerry had her headphones in and was listening to some of the music she had found around the facility. There was a baggie of ice on the back of her neck and a one-liter bottle of water next to her, both retrieved from the snack room. She decided to wear her swim top from earlier, along with a pair of cargo shorts. Right now she wanted as little insulation as possible. She didn’t bother to wear the bandanna over her mouth, since it was just another layer of clothes, and she didn’t figure too many people would be interested in the 10th showing of You’ve Got Mail.

It seemed she was wrong, though- the door opened and another pair of glowing eyes met hers when she turned to see who it was. Matthias had seemed to be living up to his surname with his changes- Fur was covering his body, and whatever was happening to her eyes seemed to be happening to his as well. Kerry took off her headphones and wiped her lips off as the fighter entered. “Didn’t know you were a Tom Hanks fan,” she joked, a bit weakly.

[bibliotheca-apollonis-blog]

Ignoring is Bliss | Open

[bibliotheca-apollonis-blog]

Apollo frowned at her. “Hmph. I spoke to soon.” He wiped at his face with the back of one gloved hand. Had to stop crying. It was getting annoying. “At least those things are small. You aren’t slurring like a fool. Yet, anyway. Who is to say these things won’t continue?”

He had gotten standing now, and was trying to stop shaking. His body was out of his control right now, it seemed; moreso than usual. He knew he was experiencing shock, he’d felt it before and recognised how it felt. And he hated his body for doing this to him. He felt like he should be above this. He wanted to order himself to stop, stop being so goddamn weak all the time.

Especially because of the implications of these changes. He’d heard the stories. A great grandfather of his had once been a hunter. There had been trophies on the walls of his mansions, trophies long burned to ashes, that had sported horns much like the ones growing from his forehead, and wit fangs much like the ones filling Kerry’s mouth.

He leaned forward, almost conspiratorially. He dropped his voice, not that there was anyone else in the room to overhear him. “You know what’s happening to us, don’t you?” he said darkly, his eyes wide with paranoid fervour.  “You’ve heard of them, haven’t you? Monsters. Cryptids. The things that lurk in the dark places of the world, killed without a second thought when they get too close. They’re- they’re turning us into them, aren’t they? And you think you’ve really got some first aid trick that’s going to save us from this?”

[everyday-kerry-blog]

Kerry glared annoyedly at Apollo. The look seemed to intensify with her eyes the way they were. "Could you please drop the theatrics? You’re going to make people nervous with that kind of talk." That was a little harsh. In a survival situation, fear was easy to come by but hard to dispel. She tried to pull it back a little bit. "People really want to chalk them up to be more than they are, but it's a scare tactic. There are plenty of Yetis and Hippogriffs in north Alaska, and we hardly have to worry about those. You treat them like any wild predator."

What he was saying made sense, though. She knew the government had been experimenting with Cryptid DNA since the 1960's. The idea was that bad things in a human's DNA- things that caused cancer, Alzheimer's, that sort of thing- could be replaced by the DNA of cryptids who had stronger parts, making your body change around those new genetic blueprints. She'd never heard of any of it coming to fruition though- had gene therapy really come this far under her nose?

Probably best not to bring that up just yet. She had to keep reminding herself, Apollo was a distraught mess a moment ago, and still isn’t looking too great. "I'm not saying I'll reverse these changes. I don't… know if anyone can, except whoever's holding us. What we need is to try to treat the symptoms the best we can until we can figure out a way to escape."

[bibliotheca-apollonis-blog]

Ignoring is Bliss | Open

[bibliotheca-apollonis-blog]

“Your… mouth,” Apollo repeated, and winced at the sound of his own voice. Even that made the headaches worse. Everything made them worse. He almost didn’t care about the horns - right now he wanted his goddamn head to stop hurting. “Y-Your voice sounds fine. You must not have fangs or anything. Feh. What the hell are you complaining about?”

He’d certainly dug up his standoffishness, but it hadn’t gone very far. It was his best defense, and he’d never let it out of his sight. He was still trembling badly, and still crying despite himself, but emotionally he was feeling a little steadier. Maybe. He tried to stand up, and had to really lean against the wall to keep himself from falling. He supposed there was no way to keep others from seeing him, so, no matter how shrunken and miserable he felt, he could try to maintain some shred of dignity.

“Hmph,” he sniffed at her, “Unless you can fix… whatever the hell is going on with my head right now, I doubt you can help me.” But no, he quickly rethought that. “…Unless you have some very strong aspirin. I would like that very much.” One gloved hand was keeping him upright. With the other, he gingerly touched a horn. He didn’t like the way it felt.

“How… how are the others?” he asked. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He hadn’t gotten a good look, but if the blood leaking down his cheeks was any indication, the spots where they had split the skin was probably pretty ugly. He could imagine it: raw skin, shredded and flaking around the bloody hole in his head where the two small horns had pushed their way out. And if his was that ugly, he shuddered to consider what sorts of hellish symptoms were happening to the others.

But before Kerry could respond, he noticed something. He squinted at her, leaned forward, even though the motion made the pain in his head flare. “Razumovsky… Are you aware th-that your eyes are glowing?”

[everyday-kerry-blog]

“You must not have fangs or anything.”

There was a beat. Kerry tilted her head and looked down to her bandanna. “...They’re just not that big. Gums are tender but… I’ll live.” The teeth WERE an adjustment, but it was kind of like keeping gum in the roof of her mouth. Mostly it was making it hard not to drool, and unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) that was something she’d resigned herself to as soon as it started up again.

Kerry reached down to her the bag on her shoulder- She hadn't bothered to get on her familiar utility vest, since she felt like wearing more than one layer of clothes world burn her up. Sure enough, she did have some packets of aspirin left. She had kind of hoped to keep a few packets to deal with her back, but so far the pain wasn't much worse than maybe a short fall. Directly on her back. Onto concrete. ...She was fine. She was fine, she was fine, she was fine. She had to focus on helping the others. Kerry placed the packets down on the table next to Apollo's tea.

Before she could give an update on the others, Apollo finally seemed to notice the change to her eyes and leaned in to her. In turn, she tipped her head back, trying to regain some of her personal space. “...It’s that noticeable, huh?” She rubbed the bridge of her nose, not really trying to cover up but obviously embarrassed, and stepped away from the historian. “At first I thought it was just the light but… It seems like they’re producing light on their own. Any other day I might think that’s useful.” She shook her head.

“Apollo, you don’t seem like someone who likes sugar coating, so I’ll just say it.” The girl deftly took a seat in the chair next to him. “I have no idea what the hell is going on anymore. Before most of what was going on to everyone seemed like it could be explained as a reaction to something or other. But some people’s bones have been broken, tails and fur sprouting from their bodies, Xue Luo has an actual physical raincloud over her head, and...” It took her a moment, but she fluttered her hand over her eyes. “I’ve always been worried about running into a situation I wasn’t ready for but this all seems just... impossible.”

Kerry took a deep breath in. This probably wasn’t helping. The guy was just sprawled out shaking on the floor, a little hopefulness might be worth it. “Some people are going to need help, but no one seems like they’re going to die from what they’ve got. If we can just work together, watch each other’s backs, we’ll be okay.”

[bibliotheca-apollonis-blog]

Ignoring is Bliss | Open

[bibliotheca-apollonis-blog]

The unfortunate consequence of screaming in terror was that other people tended to hear those screams, and the better ones among them would come and try to help. Well, there was no helping Apollo unless they could push those horns back where they came from, and maybe get him the mother of all aspirins.

He didn’t look up when Kerry entered, and between that and the fact that his headache left him barely able to think, he had no idea who owned the voice. He did know that he wanted them to go away, or wake him up from this terrible nightmare. 

“D-d-d-…” The words weren’t coming to him. He was shivering, could feel himself going pale, and the pain forced tears to run down his face with no control at all. And his legs itched! He felt almost detached from it, like this was all happening to someone else, and that he was only watching. He must have looked so pathetic at that moment, he thought. So much for any sort of image he had tried to build up so far.

They’d just see him for who he was. Weak. Withered.

“D-don’t look at me,” he muttered miserably, finally finding the words. Absently he found himself scratching at his shins through his pants. He finally looked up and blinked away water. His face had, impossibly, gone paler than it usually was, but his eyes were ringed with redness. Was that… Razumovsky?

“Wh-what’s wrong with you,” he said. A statement, not a question, his voice was too weak to even form a question right now.

[everyday-kerry-blog]

Apollo didn't exactly seem in pain, but he was definitely shaken up. Normally he seemed standoffish, but right now it looked like he was embarrassed just to be seen. She didn't want to exaserbate him, or make it seem like she was here to take advantage of his disoriented state. Kerry gently raised her hands at her chest, trying to keep a distance.

He'd started idly scratching at his legs. Maybe he had a rash of some sort? Some of the other students were showing signs of things sprouting from their skin, so a rash didn't seem out of the question at all. But then, some of the other kids had rainclouds over their heads. That's not exactly something they teach in survival training.

She briefly considered pulling down the bandanna around her mouth to just show him what was wrong with her. Hell, though, who wanted to see that. “It's... My mouth is just weird right now. Don't worry about it, I'll get myself fixed up in time.” She'd been running out of the first aid supplies she came in with, and though she could probably fashion some things around the facility into supplies, she'd really prefer to save that as a last resort.

"What about you, though? I've only got the know-how to fix basic injuries, but if there's anything I can do, I will." She tried to speak in the most encouraging voice she could, but it was hard. The more she saw, the more it seemed like she couldn't help, and she'd just have to let people's mutations work themselves out over time. She had to try, though.

[operationnexus]

The test will begin in 3, 2, 1…

part one of some fanart drawn by amy!

[bibliotheca-apollonis-blog]

Ignoring is Bliss | Open

Apollo had been pretty scarce since the trial, and that was on purpose. It was hard to believe that the whole murder thing had actually been real, and between Butler’s death and then Grey’s execution, it had made for a very, very long day. The twenty-four hour span that had seen two deaths had felt like months. He’d crashed after that, slept a long time.

He thought he’d been desensitised to death and murder. It was hard to top what had happened to him. But somehow… somehow it was still frightening. It reminded him forcefully that, for all his facades of arrogance and detachment, Apollo Brandt was 17 years old. He was a kid. He hated having to acknowledge that.

With his chronic health problems Apollo had declined to participate in the laboratory’s fun new exercise. He probably would have skipped out on it even if he had been fit and able-bodied. Instead, he wandered the now-empty second area of the facility, for he hadn’t actually been up there yet. Sounds of shouting and activity emanated from the simulation room as he walked past, be he had no interest. Instead he landed in the canteen.

It was awfully nice being able to order his own food and not have to rely on preset options. He could have some semblance of comfort food, and boy, did he ever need it right now. He ordered something small: two heavy slices of hot, handmade egg bread - or at least an approximation of it - smeared with blackberry jam, and a mug of black tea. His breakfasts were often like that.

He sat down, closed his eyes, and took a bite. He exhaled. It was pretty low quality, but it almost tasted like home. He missed home. He missed his home that didn’t exist anymore, that he could never return to. But he also missed his mansion on the hills outside Rixheillé. Missed the rosy sunlight that streamed in in the morning through the grand, arching windows to wake him from sleep.

And then the lights went out.

The next few minutes were a blur but when they came back on his head hurt worse than before. Was that- was that blood? Something hot was running down his face and his head throbbed so intensely it forced tears from his eyes and churned his stomach.

He rose from the table and stumbled forward, the room swimming. He was going to fucking puke. He made it to the scanning machine and peered into his reflection in the metal. Oh god, he was bleeding, and- and those were-

Horns.

Gingerly he touched the protrusions - they were sensitive, like a new tooth. He realised he was hyperventilating. The room was twisting, he couldn’t see straight.

His screams of terror were audible in the halls. He sank to the floor, shuddering in pain and shock.

[everyday-kerry-blog]

'She looked in the mirror but didn't recognize what looked back,' said probably a million of the cheesiest poets and writers on the planet. That that was exactly it. Maybe a little more in a literal sense, but that wasn't her face she saw while she was getting her first aid kit from her bathroom. She had fangs. Honest to god fangs. Not to mention whatever was wrong with her eyes- They seemed to be radiating a light of their own, like a cat's in the dark but without a light source.

Kerry wanted to act like the change to her apperance didn't matter, and maybe she was just wearing the bandanna again to catch the inexplicable beads of saliva around the corners of her mouth. It did, though. She felt like some kind of mutant- Hell, judging by their settings, that's probably exactly what she was.

She still had a duty though. She had to protect this little group, because right now it's all she knows exists. In a survival situation, your duty- everyone's duty is to keep each other alive if you know how to. So she stalked the halls- more of an effort than it was before with her aching back- trying to see if there were any stragglers who weren’t at the Capture the Flag game that she might be able to assist.

As she was passing the kitchen, she heard a yell. Well, that's a start. Kerry dashed into the room to find the source and saw Apollo on the ground. It took her a moment to notice the horns now sprouting from his head.

"Apollo..." It could have been he was just in shock, but she couldn't tell if anything else was wrong that floored him like that. 'What's Wrong' would sound dumb. His horns are what's wrong, doy. She had to assess the situation before she could help, though, so she cautiously approached the classicist to see if he'd notice her, and maybe see if there was something she could help with.