dear_mun | he moved back in send help

[And what do they beg for, those poor souls who cross paths with the Operator? What did Alex ask for? Zeke? Amelia? Zero? Evan and Vinnie? Dr. Corenthal? Milo? Noah? Thage?]

[Who else has to die, to break, before the doors he uses to cross over are barred for good?]

[Her eyes well up with tears against her will. She blinks them back, watches him loom closer. And even though some part of her wants to run- [(you evaded him before! you can do it! you can make it! don't give up!)- she's tired of trying to escape.]

[She nods once, softly. Yes.]

[They begged for what never would be. Once something is learned, it cannot be undone. Once a mind sips at knowledge, its tastes cannot be forgotten. That's the marvel of the human mind; no matter what it may suffer, the answers and truth lie in those impressions. Nothing is ever truly forgotten.

And that's why hardly anyone ever lives.

But the Operator finds this intriguing and familiar. He stalks closer to her, a limb reaching out for her, growing to an inhuman length and revealing spindled, white fingers.]

[There is no forgetting. Not really. Dredge deep enough into the recesses of memory and even childhood terrors can be reawoken. The fear of the dark. Falls. Bumps in the night that can't be explained by anything that makes sense.]

[No one can ever truly escape.]

[She closes her eyes. Braces for whatever comes next.]

[Long, pale white fingers slither down over the girl's scalp. Chilling as death itself, and practically pulsating with a blizzard of cold, disorienting static to seep into the girl's mind.

He doesn't intend to kill her. No. Of course the Operator can never make things so simple, but his motivations are not meant to be explained to the beings that won't understand them.

Instead, he seeks to drape the darkened core of his very presence around her mind. To grasp it, to feel it, to know it so completely that perhaps she could be... persuaded into a few errands.

She's free to fight him. She's free to make him work for that kind of control, as he looks into her memories. It won't be easy, of course, as hardly anything outside a comfortable and oblivious existence ever is. But he's intrigued by this young girl.

And the games they might still play.]

[What those who've escaped from the void never can put into words is how it feels. It's death by millimeters. Pieces of you, cut away and swallowed by shadows and static. Drowning in the darkness, smothered by something so alien that reality itself recoils at its presence.]

[Her eyes fly open, staring into the middle distance. A scream dies halfway out of her throat. Those are her memories. (Friends. Family. School. Childhood. Happiness and bitter disappointment and abject terror.). She fights its control with every scrap of will at her disposal.]

[But it's not enough. She stands, jerkily, like a puppet with half of its strings cut.]

[The minds of humans were interesting, for how individual some of them could be. A good lot of it was the same song and dance, with comradery, fellowship, the things they sought out in their lives outside the infection. The Operator wasn't interested in that. He was more intrigued by the individual fighting of each one, the way they chose to try and combat him (man alive, Evan had been something else, coming at him with a baseball bat).

He looks down at his handiwork, watching the young girl carefully. This was where courage landed you. This was where you ended up, if you resisted.

Or perhaps in Tim or Alex's cases, if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

His voice came as a soothing whisper, almost alluring.]

findmore

bringmore

tome.

youwillbe

rewarded.

N-

[No. But there's not enough time to get that second letter out before she staggers violently to one side. She shakes her head, trying to clear the static out of it. Then there's a nod. One reluctant nod.]

[Evan fought with a baseball bat. Robert and Zero and Amelia believed that if you said it could be defeated enough times, it would come to pass. Zeke had a shotgun. All of those things, and it amounted to nothing in the end.]

N- n-

[Even as the girl nods yes, she keeps trying to get that word out. No.]

[Ah, this is fairly remarkable in itself. That last shred of human autonomy, that final bout of steeled up will, salvaged for such an occasion as this. Humans had fascinating ways of guarding themselves, the Operator could almost appreciate it. At least, he could for the entertainment purposes.

Still, insubordination wasn't something the Operator could ever get used to. He had taught plenty of proxies this very same lesson.]

whatwillbe

willbe

mychild

["What will be, will be." Que sera, sera. That earns a particularly unhinged-sounding laugh. But that's all. The constant attempts to refuse die out in a few moments. The girl's eyes flick up to look at the Operator. Then she looks back down at the ground.]

[Apologetic.]

[And there it is, a true moment to savor for any predator of the Operator's caliber. That moment of surrender, that moment of fighting. No use resisting, she learned, as they all eventually did. It was a lesson the abomination enjoyed teaching often.

His bone white fingers, growing to inhuman lengths, ran over the top of her hair as if praising a favored pet. Soothing, cool static followed in the wake of his touch.

The closest he would come to kindness in the ones he broke and controlled.]

[She twitches once, a full-body shudder more akin to a seizure than anything else. She staggers a few steps forward and shakes her head to clear out any lingering cobwebs. For a moment, she thinks to run. Run... run where?]

[She has to find someone. Find them and bring them here. She doesn't want to, but it told her to. And she won't- can't- defy what it says. It'll just hunt her down again. Like that night in the woods.]

...find more.

he moved back in send help

no subject

no subject

no subject

Lemme know if this isn't okay? 8D;

'S okay! And creepy. brb, turning on the hall light.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject