Melancholy Conton; Idle Quiet

[Admiral Frog]

"Sweet dreams Father. If you can manage it." Abbie called after the priest, waving as if he could see her. After realizing how foolish she appeared, she put her hand back into her lap and gave her full attention to Orson. Abbie wasn't all that found of having the odds stacked against her when it came to falling asleep. It was the only thing in this world that was a complete cure for headaches, sickness and practically every kind of ailment out there. Except for, of course, insomnia. Though she suffered minor insomnia, she knew that after the day she just had, it would become full blown.

"Ye of little faith in my potential sleeping habits...." Abbie twiddled her thumbs and clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. She got to her feet, signaling Orson that she was ready to be, "put up for the night."

"Wait. What did you say?" Abbie looked at Orson quizzically. "Wha...what do you mean possession? Who said anything about being possessed?"  

[Jikial]

"You did, before you tried to escape to the library. As I recall you met Jeremy in a gray world and he tried to crawl inside you. That's possession, or at least it sounds like it."

He gestured for her to follow him.

"You aren't the first to describe this experience, but you are the first to describe a different world in which that took place. I don't know what that means though. That world could've always been there, or it could mean that whatever is happening is getting worse."

He sighed as they walked, he was taking her beyond the altar, opposite the way the preacher went.

"I'd like to think it's always been there, Jeremy was just in the right place to use it, at least that would mean that it's not getting worse."

The tiredness in his voice tried to come in during the ending of his sentence causing him to falter on "worse" as if he had something in his throat. It was not easy to tell, but the poor detective was winding down in more ways then one, most of them incurable by a good night's sleep.  

[Admiral Frog]

"He didn't try to crawl inside of me Orson. He did. I felt it." Abbie put her arms around herself and shivered in the memory of what had happened to her. "It felt like death crawling under my skin. At least, I think it did..." She added, following obediantely behind the good detective. The gray world he refered to was a place she never wanted to go again, but with everything happening around her, she assumed it wouldn't be the last time she ever saw it.

"Why do you think my experience is different?" She reflected on that question for a brief moment and realized the logical answer for that is, 'how the hell should I know?'

Abbie had fallen behind Orson and scurried closer to him as if he was a beacon of warding for all the madness in the world. Consequentially, she did feel a tad bit at ease in his presence. "Don't answer that." She recognized the tiredness in Orson's voice right away, it wasn't hard to miss. She knew exhaustion quite well as if it was a freeloading friend taking space in her apartment. "You should get rest too. You sound like hell."

 

[Jikial]

They had come to a stop in front of a door down a dimly-lit corridor in the Sunday-school section of the church.

"I'm almost convinced hell is easier than this," the detective spoke without irony, he opened the door to reveal a small dormitory, it had a bunk bed, nightstand, dresser, and a nightlight. On the bottom bunk, a sleeping teenager, or a tall kid. The aforementioned Cassidy.

"Father had a few rooms converted for the homeless who had families. Figured it was better for them to stay together than to be put in the shelter," Orson's voice was clear despite being a whisper, "Ken fully believes that you should love all and trust none, so he figured the families would appreciate the separation."

He didn't let on where he was going to sleep.  

[Admiral Frog]

"If you're a lawyer yes..." Abbie said in response to Orson's remark. Abbie wasn't the type to make jokes or play with heavy sarcasm, in a time like this, however, it seemed appropriate. "But I still pray that that is not true..." She almost whispered, her voice soft but still cutting through the stillness of the night.

Separation wasn't as devious as people would like to think, when applied to the right circumstances. In this case, it was necessary. Just as the phrase, not all people are bad, it is true for the other way around, not all people are good. A person desperate enough will do stupider things for even the smallest of rewards. Abbie was starting to piece together that this priest of Orson's wasn't just a man of the cloth, but also a clear headed thinker. In just that alone, Abbie could appreciate and respect the guy.

Abbie stepped into the room and took a quick look around before turning back towards Orson. She whispered as to not wake the other sleeping occupant. "I am guessing that is Cassidy, my bunk mate, and you wont be staying in here." She paused to shift her body weight to the other side. "And... this is goodnight then?"

 

[Jikial]

"I'll be in the next room over. This is Cassidy, yes."

He paused and looked her over.

"Goodnight."

He left her side and went to the next door, where he paused before opening it.  

[Admiral Frog]

Without another word Abbie looked her bunk mate over once and then up at her new sleeping arrangements. She hadn't been on a bunk bed since she was eight years old. She vowed to herself if she never slept on another bunk bed again it would have been too soon. However, here she was, reaching for the ladder on the side of the bed and climbed up. "Don't you dare break on me..." She whispered, keeping her voice as soft as possible.

Though she should be, sleeping just didn't seem necessary. Abbie sat with her back against the wall and took off her shoes, sitting them beside her. Her thoughts wouldn't stop bothering her and though she fought them best she could, they clouded her ability to feel exhaustion. Too many unanswered questions, too many decisions she thought she had made that were not the ones she should have made. Like, why did she get up out of bed this morning? Why did she move to Conton? Why didn't she have a V8? What with all the nutrients, certainly it had ghost warding properties? Before she knew it though, her eyes felt as if they were injected with lead. They fluttered open and closed until even that was exhausting and she fell into a light sleep.

 

[Jikial]

[This is the beginning of a dream sequence. You can have her wake up at any time during it.]

Heart. Beat. Heart. Beat. Heart. Beat.

Stood alone in an alleyway south of the border with my head in my hand and god on my shoulders.

Heart. Beat. Heart. Beat.

Feel the turn with wispy growths growing in a sleeper hold.

Heart. Beat.

Red fills the walls and the insects that it draws.
Fear runs the night when nobody's left in sight.

Heart.

Feel it drawing through you.

Beat.

Coursing through your veins.

Heart.

De{Beat}stroy{Heart}your{Beat}life{Heart}for{Beat}the{Heart}time{Beat}is{Heart}near.

God.

Is.

Dead.

And.

Life.

Is.

Burning.

Tumble.

Down.

And.

Roast.

In.

Embers.

God is dead.
GOD is dead.
GOD IS DEAD.

God is dead.

[Dream sequence over.]

Only to wake to the sounds of people screaming.  

[Admiral Frog]

Abigail awoke suddenly, her head hitting the wall she had fallen asleep against. Her head ached, like a thousand tiny needle pricks to her exposed brain. She massaged the back of her head, wincing slightly at the pain. The nightmare she had been having must have been a contributing factor to it, because her entire body ached as if the entire experience had been physical as well as spiritual. Either way, whatever she had been experiencing was just a prelude to the melodrama to come. She took a quick look around the room, her ears perking up to the screams echoing through the once empty corridors. Abigail sat up, the stiffness in her back just as bad as the pain in her cranium. She looked around and then silently walked down the ladder, her feet landing on the floor below.

“Crap…” She whispered, and reached up for her shoes which she had left on the mattress. Slipping them onto her barren feet, Abigail reached for the door, her hand trembling and her heart racing. “Please don’t let this be happening again.” She had to wonder though, where was Orson? If there was screaming, why hadn't he come to wake her? At that moment, turning the door handle seemed like a bad idea. Instead she took a few steps away from it and turned towards her bunkmate whom she almost forgot about.

 

[Jikial]

The screams subsided, and it was easy to forget about someone who wasn't there.

Abbie stood alone in a quiet room, the darkness outside broken only by streetlights in the distance. It wasn't the grey world, it wasn't the despair of possession.

In fact, but for the change in circumstance and the recent screams, it was normal.

Another sound, distant enough to come from another room, yet loud enough to sound as though it was right outside the room began. It was a steady creak, something that would be heard on a swaying ship on days of old. It was sounding from the main room of the church, from where Abbie came.  

[Admiral Frog]

At least for vanity sake, her supposed bunkmate had not seen the latest Abbie blunder. Though leaving a good impression on a total stranger was the least of her worries right now, at least it was something she could check off of her list. Though that did raise the question as to where the stranger had taken itself too? It wasn't morning and it wasn't a decent hour for a human being to be strolling in the dark of night, especially not with all the disappearances and crazy goings on out in Conton. In fact, that thought alone rose another question: did she just see the last of her bunkmate all together?

She was tired. Worn down. Down trodden. Exhausted. Bereaved. A whole plethora of things all at once it was a wonder she could even gather the strength to move at all. Something in her however called out for strength she wasn't aware she had had until earlier in the day. Like a lamb to the slaughter, Abigail turned the handle to her boarding room and thrust open the door. She walked silently down the hallway, careful to keep her footsteps from echoing too loudly. 'I don't remember this corridor being so long...' She thought to herself, eyes bouncing off every wall into every darkness it had to hold. If whatever was happening to her didn't end soon she could see herself well on her way to being one of those crazy people who thinks the aliens are hiding in the shadows waiting to abduct them.

Before long, Abbie had stepped into the belly of the church, the way that Orson had taken her when he brought her to her room. She heard his voice ask: 'You stupid idiot. Why did you even leave your room?' It made her insides laugh, but her facial expressions remained emotionless. Whatever was making the eerrie noises in this church was here and Abbie crossed her fingers and prayed to God that it would just be the sound of an old building and her own vivid imagination.

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Jikial

.

 

[Jikial]

The old building had shifted, as if it were someplace completely different, yet exactly the same. Little details had changed; the pseudo-gold and brass had tarnished, the wooden pews were aged, the stained glass was warped and dimmed, and all the while the slow creak continued its swaying rhythm.

It took mere moments, but for what felt like an eternity the noise began to focus. No longer did it fill the church with it's sonorous ache, it began to have direction and formation. It was coming from above Abbie, from the ceiling.

Before Abbie could even lift her eyes the creaking amplified in sound only to be interrupted by a more tumultuous snap followed by a thundering thud.

A corpse had fallen from the ceiling in front of Abbie. The coat it wore was enough to know who it was even if the face was twisted away from her. It lay more broken on the ground than it had probably hung, but still just as dead.

A piece of paper, rectangular, almost matching the empty frame on the chipped altar, fluttered and flitted its way down and landed on top of the corpse with the picture side down.  

[Admiral Frog]

The changes to the church were not subtle, and despite having seen the church's main hall once in her life, she could recognize immediately that she wasn't in Kansas anymore. As cliche as that was. That dreadful creaking noise would not cease, though it was not all that extreme in terms of sound, it was like pins and needles. She found herself covering her ears at time, not because it hurt but because it was frightening, it was like covering your face at scary parts in a horror film. However, this wasn't a movie. This was happening. At least, so she thought.

The unnerving snapping noise was a lot to take in all at once, there was only one thing that could even make a sound remotely close to that and she didn't want to assume it had come to that just yet. The object hit the floor in front of her and at first it couldn't have been real. This was just a bad dream. One of those terrible things that happens when you go to sleep and any moment now she was going to wake up. When she didn't, Abbie began to shake with terror and froze in her spot, unable to find a voice to scream with. "Oh God." She took one fleeting step back, leaned against one of the pews and dry heaved.

With nothing left in her stomach to give up, she wiped the corners of her mouth and looked back at the body. There, sitting on top as if it were a birthday candle for her to blow out, was a piece of paper. She reached for it, hand shaking and hurried away from the body. Quickly she flipped it over.

 

[Jikial]

A young boy smiled up at her from the picture. He was maybe a year or two older than Hank, and it was unquestionable who he resembled. The lost boy and the broken corpse were once son and father respectively, and now neither was anything more than a memory, lost to the dire second-hand of the universal clock.

But this nightmare wasn't over.

Abbie could very well hear the horrible bone-popping, joint-snapping plight of the corpse behind her, it was moving. While the noise was terrible, the sudden onset of silence could do more to most than listening to all the corpses in the world dance. That was when Abbie felt a presence behind her.