Haunted House GP

[londoncallingmods]

 The house doesn't exist, that's the first thing anyone who might find themselves inside it would want to know. Now, you might ask how one could find themselves inside something that doesn't exist, but you'd honestly be better off asking yourself how you could leave something that doesn't exist. After all, ideas and concepts can't be burnt or broken, and you can't breakdown a door that's not there- Or was there and then decided to be somewhere else for a while...

 

You wake in a house though, a house that doesn't exist. A house that defies the laws of reality. There are corridors that go on for days, rooms full of nightmares, and millions of doors that lead you anywhere but out. Trapped inside with you are dozens of other people, all searching for an exit, or an explanation.

 

Behind every door you'll find your darkest fears, maybe even memories you've tried to forget, or secrets you never wanted to share... 

 

(OTA! Here is your first of two Halloween gps! This one is, of course, set in the haunted house where your pup can run into anything you can dream up! Deadly traps! Spooky monsters! An existential crises! Top level your pups waking up or running into danger, and then go ahead and tag other players! Since this is all magic-y and spooky don't worry too much about time lines and who bumped into who first. Only rule is that your pup can't escape until November 1st! Have fun! Also, because there are two GPs going up this week, both are open to new top levels for two whole weeks! And, of course, you can keep tagging long after that if you want. :D I'll post reminders daily on slack.)

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[harrowgate]

A sudden stranger, a sudden kindness, jolted Felix momentarily out of the silent screaming terror of his confusion. He put up both hands to keep the other man at bay, but the chased-animal look slowly faded from his eyes. Still, he couldn't fully believe that this was reality... and didn't want to believe that it was madness.

"Tell me what you hear," Felix demanded in a desperate whisper, not knowing if the river stalked only him.

[logan_echolls]

Logan looked confused, but fell silent as he listened for something out of the ordinary.

"I- I don't hear anything," he admitted, finding there was mostly silence now that he'd escaped the sound of his father's booming voice.

"You hear something though- What is it? Is it bad? Is it dangerous?" he asked.

[harrowgate]

A flash of sheer panic crossed his face, and his fingers curled as if to grasp at something that might support him. There was nothing, though, in this endless corridor of flickering green lights and darkness but Felix and the young man who had found him.

And the ceaseless rushing of the river.

Try as he might, Felix could not find the bright faith of intellect, the certainty of knowledge and words, on which he propped up most of his public persona. Dimly he knew he ought to have a fine and well-spoken answer to the other man's question, confident and wry all at once. He knew that he knew how to craft such a thing, but that glittering sharpness of wit was beyond his reach now.

"Only if he holds you under for too long," Felix answered in a hollow whisper.

[logan_echolls]

Logan looked back over his shoulder, as if expecting to see something. His time with Torchwood had taught him not to rule out any threat, no matter how crazy things seemed.

"Then we should get out of here," he decided, squaring his shoulders and standing up straighter.

"I'm Logan," he said, turning to look at the stranger again. He knew that look too well, he'd worn it himself more than once, and he felt for the guy as he offered his hand to him. "You look unsteady, you need help walking?"

[harrowgate]

Felix pulled back from the offered hand. His back bumped the nearest wall and he gasped softly, then took a slow breath. Irrational, his fear insisted that if he allowed Logan to touch him, he would be dragged down into the invisible, inevitable river. Felix lowered both hands as if to show that he could push that fear back down.

"I can manage. You're right, we should go, I just... I don't know where." As far as he could see, there were only two directions: forward into darkness, and back toward the sound that caused his heart to race and his mind to cloud with terror.

"My name is Felix. How did you get into my nightmare?"

[logan_echolls]

"Hate to break it to you, but I don't think this is a nightmare," Logan replied, watching the nervous looking man a moment longer, then starting to scope out the hall.

"I came from the right, so we really don't want to go back that way. Let's head straight on- I mean, this place has to have an exit, right?"

[harrowgate]

"It doesn't have to do anything," murmured Felix distractedly. He could hardly hear himself over the sound of the river, but to Logan, the hall was quiet.

Dragging himself up from the wall, Felix struggled to clear his thoughts, push past the shadows clouding his mind with terror. "I don't... I don't recall which way I was going."

[logan_echolls]

"That's alright- We'll just start walking, you can tell me if anything we pass looks, uh, familiar or whatever," Logan suggested, remarkably calm in the face of such strangeness.

Though Logan wasn't the violent wild-card he'd once been. He'd grown and changed so much.

[harrowgate]

Felix might be feeling particularly addled, but he wasn't so far gone that he couldn't tell when he was being humored. He gave Logan a nearly reproachful look, but did not argue. If only the other man knew just what a feat it was to have pre-empted an argument from Felix Harrowgate.

His first steps were slow, but steady enough to keep upright. "You really don't hear the river?" Felix asked breathlessly as they started down the dark hall.

[logan_echolls]

"Like running water? No, sorry," Logan replied, shaking his head a bit. "Now and then I feel like I can hear..."

He cut himself off, wetting his lips as he tried to decide how much to share.

"...I hear a voice. Shouting for me- Or, well, at me, I guess. Though now that you mention it, I did think I could hear the ocean before. I just figured we were near a beach. ...Does that mean something to you? The water, I mean- Is it important?"

[harrowgate]

If he thought he could summon the breath for it, Felix would have laughed at that question. Was it important? How could that question possibly be answered?

"It means something," was the response he finally managed, throat tight and voice tense. "The voice you hear... you know who it is. You know why it's shouting. Don't you?"

[logan_echolls]

Logan was silent for a moment, then sighed, rolling his eyes in an effort to make it look like none of this bothered him.

"Yeah- Yeah, I do."

[harrowgate]

"Something that's followed you. Someone that's haunted you," Felix persisted despite Logan's careless attitude. Logan had made the unconscious mistake of asking about what Felix was experiencing. His questions had earned an answer -- though Felix's answers were not always direct.

[logan_echolls]

"But we're not talking about me, we're talking about you," Logan replied, maybe a bit sharper than he meant it to come out. "I'm not scared of what I can hear, not that scared anyway. ...You're terrified though. I can tell."

[harrowgate]

"Imagine being haunted by something that neither lives nor dies nor cares if you do," Felix replied, sharp himself, and far more self-aware than he had seemed through his fear. He hated that this stranger knew his private terror, and it put him on the defensive, which meant he was poised to strike out -- despite Logan's compassion and help. Maybe even because of it.

[logan_echolls]

Logan was silent for a moment, then wet his lips before speaking.

"Then I'd suggest we get moving," he said finally. "I've made it this far in life, okay? So have you. No reason to think we wont make it to tomorrow, right? So let's get going."

[harrowgate]

Felix was ready to agree, ready to move again, when the lanterns suddenly extinguished, plunging the hall into darkness. A short, choked sound escaped him as, for Felix, the sound of the rushing river surged in his ears, louder than ever before.

An instant later, bright pale green lights exploded in a sickly halo around the both of them. Each was no bigger than the palm of one's hand and shaped rather like a small flower. There were dozens hovering in the air, as bright as Felix's magic could make them, as the wild-eyed wizard himself struggled to breathe through the seizure of terror.

[logan_echolls]

"Oh good, now there's magic," Logan sighed. "Because this totally wasn't weird enough already."

[harrowgate]

The witch-lights glowed brightly, but at least seemed to keep Felix from completely losing his shit. His brow twitched in faint amusement at Logan. "You use what you have at hand, I'll use what I have," he answered. For the first time, Felix almost managed to smile. "If you don't object, I'll be bringing these with us."

[logan_echolls]

Logan eyed the lights, then shrugged. "I'm not about to object to anything that might help," he decided. "Come on, let's get going. Something tells me we don't want to linger here."

[harrowgate]

"Yes," agreed Felix breathlessly, and squared himself to start again. Any direction was better than standing still, where the river could find him. He made a vague come-along gesture and started down the hall, directing the small glowing-green chrysanthemums to float over their heads.

"I see I'm not your first wizard."

[logan_echolls]

"No, you are- Just kind of used to weird stuff these days," Logan admitted, shrugging one shoulder and speaking in that bored California drawl he always defaulted to. "Since I got to London, I've, uh, been working with someone who's kind of a magnet for weird."

[harrowgate]

"Weird for you," Felix noted absently. "Entirely normal for some others. This is a foundational spell." He gave a flick of his fingers toward the witch-lights. "Barely any magic at all. So, Logan, I'm afraid I must enquire what defines weird for you, before continuing further in this conversation."

[logan_echolls]

Logan glanced over, studying the guy and then shrugging as he decided there was no harm in sharing.

"Alien stuff, mostly. Overlapping timelines- Parallel universes. I'd go into detail, but, uh, I don't think it's a story you tell over lunch, you know? The basics are pretty simple though. You're familiar with the idea of parallel universes, right? The idea that every choice you make creates separate time lines or whatever, you know? Well, it's like that, except in my case all those time lines kind of merged. I lived a bunch of different lives, made a bunch of different choices, and now- I kind of remember them all."

[harrowgate]

"My word." Felix wasn't sure what else to say to that, but at least he didn't seem abjectly terrified any more. Instead, he was curious, if a bit unsympathetically clinical.

"How do you remain sane? All of those lives living concurrently in your mind."