Archive of Our Own ^beta

BURIED - Before you knew anything, you knew pressure. That bubbling, boiling weight beyond what words could spare. It was not merciless, and your life was often spared from such an affliction. But, now that everything you once knew has ended, it’s only natural that you would return to this. You just didn’t remember it being so…sticky.

DESOLATION - You wonder if you’ll forget even this, with time. If it’ll join all the other memories to slip through your fingers. If you can mourn something you’ve never felt except through its absence.

DARK [Becoming: Failure] - You try to grasp the origin of the sensation, only to find that you cannot grasp anything at all. As you become aware of your complete lack of visual stimulus, surrounded only by a crushing nothingness dragging you into its depths, you begin to squirm and thrash in fright.

STRANGER [Nightmare: Failure] - You’d hyperventilate, but you don’t know if you can breathe. You don’t know what you are, who you are, where you are, what’s going on, why everything is so suffocating, you don’t even know what you don’t kno-

EYE - Wake up.

TERROR GAINED: Light Your Way Through

Light Your Way Through

Know the extent of your suffering, so that its grasp might tighten.

Temporary Bonuses:
+3 EYE: Senses awakened
+2 HUNT: It’s eat or be eaten.
+1 SHADOW: I am.
-1 DARK: I can’t see everything.
-1 SPIRAL: I hear whispers…
-2 WEB: Struggle quickens the fall.

Escape Point: Light your way out.

TUNNEL - Eyes you didn’t know you had shoot open, and several things immediately become apparent as your vision rapidly adjusts to the low light level. You’re trapped within a dark, tight, circular passageway. It’s only just wide enough for you to fit into. The walls are reddish, ridged, and pulsate rhythmically. They’re coated in a sticky substance that weighs you down. You’re positioned upside down, slowly inching further down, and blood is rushing to your head.

1. [Buried - Locked]
2. [Shadow - Becoming 14] “Who am I?”
3. [Spiral - Marked 12] “Who are you?”
4. [Dark - Touched 8] Call for help
5. [Eye - Glimpsed 4] “Where am I?”
6. Thrash around uselessly

YOU – “Where am I?”

EYE: 0
Dice: 1 + 2 = 3
+3 Senses awakened

Total: 6 vs 4

CHECK SUCCESS!

EYE [Glimpsed: Success] - As the words slip out your throat, so too does knowledge in - you are trapped in an esophagus. You’re heading towards a stomach.

END [Witnessed: Failure] - You’re going to die.

FLESH [Touched: Failure] - …..

YOU – Panic seizes you.

STRING FOUND: Escape

1. [Buried - Locked]
2. [Flesh - Locked]
3. [Shadow - Becoming 14] “Who am I?”
4. [Spiral - Marked 12] “Who are you?”
5. [Eye - Glimpsed 3] “How far am I from the stomach?”
6. Thrash around uselessly

YOU – “Who are you?”

SPIRAL: 0.5
Dice: 4 + 1 = 5
+2 It answered my question
-0.5 I hear whispers…
-1 It’s hard to think

Total: 6 vs 12

CHECK FAILURE!

SPIRAL [Marked: Failure] - You’ve asked this question before, haven’t you?

1. [Shadow - Locked]
2. “What the fuck does that mean?”

YOU – “What the fuck does that mean?”

WEB [???: Failure] - In response, your lips briefly twist into a smile that isn’t yours.

CORRUPTION - Your nose recoils as the smell of overcooked meat begins to waft towards you.

1. [Buried - Locked] ???
2. [Shadow - Becoming 14] “Who am I?”
3. [Spiral - Locked] “Who are you?”
4. [Eye - Glimpsed 3] “How far am I from the stomach?”
5. Thrash around uselessly

YOU – Thrash around uselessly

WEB - You slip loose from the walls, but only tumble further towards your fate. Struggle will only quicken the fall. Not like you can do much else, of course.

CORRUPTION - The stench is almost overpowering, now mixed with the distinct smell of decay. Your mouth practically splits open, and whatever you’d eaten before this comes spilling out. Your throat burns.

ESOPHAGUS - The walls begin to pulse more rapidly.

BURIED [Unaware: Success] - Deep within you, your heartbeat quickens.

1. [Shadow - Becoming 14] “Who am I?”
2. [Buried - Becoming 13] ???
3. [Spiral - Locked] “Who are you?”
4. [Eye - Witnessed 5] Search for something, anything that might help
5. Thrash around uselessly

YOU – Search for something, anything that might help

EYE: 0
Dice: 1 + 4 = 5
+3 Senses awakened
-1 It’s hard to think
-1 Who are you?

Total: 6 vs 5

CHECK SUCCESS!

EYE [Witnessed: Success] - This esophagus pulses directly in response to pain.

DESOLATION - …..is that so?

BURIED - The freedom of the fall shall not claim you. Let us dance with it in agonizing harmony.

SLAUGHTER - Yes. Yes. Let us dance.

1. [Desolation - Locked]
2. [Shadow - Becoming 14] “Who am I?”
3. [Spiral - Locked] “Who are you?”
4. [Buried - Grasped 9] Dance
5. [Slaughter - Unaware 1] Dance
6. Thrash around uselessly

YOU – ...Dance.

SLAUGHTER: 1
Dice: 2 + 3 = 5
+3 It’s hard to think
+2 Quickened heartbeat
-1 Just vomited

Total: 10 vs 1

CHECK SUCCESS!

SLAUGHTER [Unaware: Success] - If fighting it makes it worse, then we must try a different approach. We must best it with its own song. The steady pulsing of flesh ripples all around you, a ceaseless rhythm that must be matched. You close your eyes. There is nothing to sense but the tune of agony. It must be played, and you are to be its instrument…Do you hear it? Can you hear the music echo through your skin?

1. Yes
2. …..

YOU – …..Yes.

BOND STRENGTHENED - SLAUGHTER is now Level 2

SLAUGHTER - Good. Good. Good. Let it embrace you as you would an old friend. It doesn’t matter if you know the steps, just move to the beat and let your worries bleed away. This place cannot hold one who is free in their heart.

HUNT [Grasped: Success] - You feel yourself begin to…sharpen.

SLAUGHTER - As the pulsing accelerates in pace, so too does your dance. You feel your joints begin to move in unfamiliar ways, but despite it all…it doesn’t feel alien. Not quite.

EYE - You open your eyes. A red tempest of your own making surrounds you. You are spinning, twirling, twitching and twisting in an unnatural blur. You can move freely now, as the wet muscles that once constrained you part through your edges like butter.

EYE [Touched: Success] - As if it was always there, the route best optimized for escape from this hell begins to shine within your mind.

DESOLATION - A flickering light of hope…what would you burn to keep it alive?

END - All candles melt eventually.

LONELY - Silence.

SLAUGHTER - The mutterings of the others cease within a blink. There is movement, there is satiated hunger, there is music, and there is the need to survive. Nothing else. Your elegant frenzy, now guided by the light at the end of the tunnel, slowly ascends through the meat. Inch by inch, tunnel by tunnel, it all dulls in comparison to your singular, blinding purpose. You must carve your way out. Time never existed here, not truly, but however long it takes to achieve this is lost to you as your edges - eventually - meet no resistance.

FLESH - As if startling awake from a dream, your limbs freeze - now softened. The dancers have left, your limbs abandoned to their tangled state. Your lungs suck in every bit of fresh air they can get, hacking and wheezing. You are your own obstacle.

EXTINCTION - But obstacles to progress exist only to wither. You pry your arm loose, hooking it into the edge of the opening, and heave yourself through it.

TERROR LOST: Light Your Way Through - You lit your way out.

BOND STRENGTHENED: EYE is now Level 1.

BOND STRENGTHENED: FLESH is now Level 1.

STRING ACQUIRED: Escape

NEW: By plucking a string, you may strengthen a bond of your choice by 1 level.

CORRUPTION - You hit the ground with a sickening splat. Mucus and viscera coat you like a second skin, and you lie shivering in a barren landscape. Was escaping such a fate worth the misery of this formless, writhing “freedom”?

VAST - Well, now! There’s no need for comments like that! In the grand scheme of things, no one can truly change anything. Everyone is free to do as they please - it’s only natural that you should seek a position befitting this. Now, rise, and let us do what little we can.

1. Stand u-

YOU – No.

VAST - Excuse me?

SHADOW - You cry. It is all you can do, and all that could ever be expected. You weep in pain both physical and mental as the events that transpired explode within you. You let out a tearing screech, trying in vain to wrestle understanding from the grasp of the universe - of yourself, of what you even are, of what the hell is happening. Of what you did to deserve such a fate. You wail for a heaven that isn’t there. You scream for help - from someone, anyone, anything at all.

SHADOW [Grasped: Failure] - …..

LONELY - But nobody came.