Enoch (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
warriorscribe) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
towerofanimus2013-08-13 11:55 am
warriorscribe) wrote in towerofanimus2013-08-13 11:55 am
True Darkness
Characters: Enoch and anyone (except one that's semi-closed but open to threadjacking)
Setting: Throughout the rest of the week (the first one is on his previous post), various floors
Format: Whatever works for you, I'll follow!
Summary: Enoch and the event
Warnings: Lots of angst, and a severed hand. Spoilers for El Shaddai chapter 9 and beyond. Also this is so long, holy shit.
Aug 12
Elevator
The four shadow children that had shown up yesterday proved to be patient. Enoch had woken that morning to find them clustered around his bed. It would be cute, if they weren't so unsettling, if he didn't just know something was amiss from the way Jason had said you'll see what you broke. That's not something you say when the result is harmless.
And yet, some gut feeling, some odd sense of familiarity, keeps him from striking out at them preemptively like he does any Imps he finds. Maybe he's still in bad enough shape he'll even take the dubious company of whatever these are. Either way he heads into the elevator, with any number of other residents with their own followers.
F78 - Mailroom
He doesn't realize when one more joins the crowd inside the elevator, until he steps out and it follows him. He looks at the newcomer as if asking what it's doing there. It just grins wide and trots up to the front of the group. Feeling more and more like he is leading a pack of shadowy imprinted ducks, he continues down to the mailroom.
Where he can be found, sitting slumped against the wall of boxes, cradling a broad, masculine hand, nearly identical to his own in proportions but darker in tone. The hand is open and a gold-plated hairclip, bloodstained, rests in its palm.
And he was doing so well, too.
But now he's just staring at it, weeping quietly. The newcomer shadow child wanders up and stands on its toes to get a better look at what Enoch's holding.
Aug 14, ultimately anywhere on the stairwell below F38
The hand had gone into his sauna locker. Not his trunk, he didn't want to scare any newcomer that accidentally opened the wrong one. And somehow he didn't want to throw it out. That was probably the emotional instability speaking. The hairclip was now pinning the plastic casing over the card Armaros had given him in Meridian closed. He was staring at this while the rain pounded the windows of the middle lounge, the one closest to his work floor. He had almost gotten used to the shadow children following him. At the moment, the original four had clusered around the sofa he's in, the newcomer having climbed up and onto the back to sit by his shoulder. It had been the most active and curious of the bunch, always taking a rapt interest in what he was doing. It should have been a clue, really.
"I miss him," Enoch whispers to himself.
"Armaros?" says one of the shadow children in front of him, in Uriel's voice, pointing at the one sitting on the back of the couch beside him. "But he's right there."
Enoch stares at the Uriel-shadow, and then looks back at the shadow child, fear quickening his breath. "Armaros...?"
"Yeah...or what's left of me, I guess." He says in a voice Enoch could only remember from hearing a mental equivalent in Meridian. He sounds sullen, disappointed. "Some hero you turned out to be. They shouldn't have made that card for you."
"Haven't I helped you when you needed it most, when you were about to die?" says Uriel. "Why did you leave me to die?"
For a moment, all Enoch can do is stare. The pain doesn't immediately sink in.
"I don't think you deserve that card anymore..." And with that, Armaros-shadow snatches it from his hand and rushes off. Others may encounter Enoch chasing the shadow child, desperate to get that memento of Meridian back. (Only one responder may take this. Currently:tohko_amano)
Or perhaps they'll find him having already taken it, looking very distressed at his crowd of shadow children, now in a circle and actively speaking against him. "No...please stop...I can save you." (Else)
Aug 15, Anywhere
More have shown up to follow him. Solas. Zeph. Lucifel. He might have thought it illusion if they didn't feel true the way being back in Meridian felt true. It was pure intuition and he knew that could be tricked, but it didn't change anything.
"It was supposed to be forever." I thought so too, Armaros...
"'I'm not going anywhere'. Least you could've done is return the favor..." I'm sorry, Lucifel.
"I'm dead now. Even if you restore everything, I'll be killed anyway." He didn't want to believe it. But...it was probably true. Either way, Solas would die.
"Way to get our world destroyed, Enoch. To think I actually trusted you." I'm trying to fix things, Zeph. It wasn't even his fault, but...it was his fault they were like this. Because Zo had saved him.
Enoch, his collar a lighter blue but not even noticing, leans on the wall, wherever he is, begging the shadow children to stop, his conviction wavering with each repetition until he just doesn't say anything anymore. He drops to his knees and tries to hug one, but his arms pass right through. He tries this several times throughout the day, appearing more and more distraught.
Aug 16, F101
Morning
Until he just doesn't have the energy for tears. Enoch has half-carried, half-dragged Lucifel, even worse off than he is, to Dax's sapling, his collar running mostly clear by now. He can see Princess Zelda against a tree nearby, but she seems too far gone to notice him, and to be honest, he doesn't have the energy either. He collapses with the barely-alive angel in the real dirt just as the glamour cuts out, rendering them a pair of wireframes, souls casting the barest blue and violet glows beneath their clothes. Lucifel's is much weaker than his own, and Enoch rests his hand over Lucifel's torso where the angel's soul is.
"Nice replacement," says Lucifel-shadow. Armaros-shadow wedges himself into the crook of Enoch's arm, not speaking but cooing softly, when hearing that comforting sound only hurts.
Enoch breathes shallowly, feeling the rise and fall of Lucifel's chest with his hand. Someone might be able to encounter them while they're both still alive.
After some time, Enoch realizes Lucifel has stopped breathing. There's a weak sob from him, but he can't react any more, can't lift his head, can't move his arm. He doesn't realize he's attracted one more shadow child with those that Lucifel's presence has driven away until a new voice speaks, strong and bold, female.
"My name is Ishtar, Enoch. But you will never know me by that name because you're here, playing a facsimile of my role. But instead of resurrecting me, you're trying to become me. You can't. You don't even care about people you should. Where are the voices of the Freemen?"
"That's not true," Enoch croaks.
He hears nothing more from the shadow children, feeling from them instead an overwhelming sense of disappointment.
He can still talk loud enough to be heard by someone nearby, and his presence might still drive away someone else's shadow children if his bond with them is strong enough. For however long he has left, he can at least be a guardian.
Afternoon - closed
As his consciousness grows hazier, the other shadows start picking up Ishtar's idea of who he isn't hearing.
"Come to think of it," says Gabriel-shadow, looking around, "You started families and made friends while searching for the Tower, correct? Did you love them? Where are they?"
"Um...weren't you married before Heaven?" Armaros-shadow adds. "What about your first wife and child, I thought those were important."
"You know who else you're not hearing?" says Lucifel-shadow. "Well. I guess you can't hear a voice you've never heard at all. But still, you know, He's dead too. 'Cause you're not. Just thought I'd remind you."
The color drains from Enoch's soul.
Setting: Throughout the rest of the week (the first one is on his previous post), various floors
Format: Whatever works for you, I'll follow!
Summary: Enoch and the event
Warnings: Lots of angst, and a severed hand. Spoilers for El Shaddai chapter 9 and beyond. Also this is so long, holy shit.
Aug 12
Elevator
The four shadow children that had shown up yesterday proved to be patient. Enoch had woken that morning to find them clustered around his bed. It would be cute, if they weren't so unsettling, if he didn't just know something was amiss from the way Jason had said you'll see what you broke. That's not something you say when the result is harmless.
And yet, some gut feeling, some odd sense of familiarity, keeps him from striking out at them preemptively like he does any Imps he finds. Maybe he's still in bad enough shape he'll even take the dubious company of whatever these are. Either way he heads into the elevator, with any number of other residents with their own followers.
F78 - Mailroom
He doesn't realize when one more joins the crowd inside the elevator, until he steps out and it follows him. He looks at the newcomer as if asking what it's doing there. It just grins wide and trots up to the front of the group. Feeling more and more like he is leading a pack of shadowy imprinted ducks, he continues down to the mailroom.
Where he can be found, sitting slumped against the wall of boxes, cradling a broad, masculine hand, nearly identical to his own in proportions but darker in tone. The hand is open and a gold-plated hairclip, bloodstained, rests in its palm.
And he was doing so well, too.
But now he's just staring at it, weeping quietly. The newcomer shadow child wanders up and stands on its toes to get a better look at what Enoch's holding.
Aug 14, ultimately anywhere on the stairwell below F38
The hand had gone into his sauna locker. Not his trunk, he didn't want to scare any newcomer that accidentally opened the wrong one. And somehow he didn't want to throw it out. That was probably the emotional instability speaking. The hairclip was now pinning the plastic casing over the card Armaros had given him in Meridian closed. He was staring at this while the rain pounded the windows of the middle lounge, the one closest to his work floor. He had almost gotten used to the shadow children following him. At the moment, the original four had clusered around the sofa he's in, the newcomer having climbed up and onto the back to sit by his shoulder. It had been the most active and curious of the bunch, always taking a rapt interest in what he was doing. It should have been a clue, really.
"I miss him," Enoch whispers to himself.
"Armaros?" says one of the shadow children in front of him, in Uriel's voice, pointing at the one sitting on the back of the couch beside him. "But he's right there."
Enoch stares at the Uriel-shadow, and then looks back at the shadow child, fear quickening his breath. "Armaros...?"
"Yeah...or what's left of me, I guess." He says in a voice Enoch could only remember from hearing a mental equivalent in Meridian. He sounds sullen, disappointed. "Some hero you turned out to be. They shouldn't have made that card for you."
"Haven't I helped you when you needed it most, when you were about to die?" says Uriel. "Why did you leave me to die?"
For a moment, all Enoch can do is stare. The pain doesn't immediately sink in.
"I don't think you deserve that card anymore..." And with that, Armaros-shadow snatches it from his hand and rushes off. Others may encounter Enoch chasing the shadow child, desperate to get that memento of Meridian back. (Only one responder may take this. Currently:
tohko_amano)Or perhaps they'll find him having already taken it, looking very distressed at his crowd of shadow children, now in a circle and actively speaking against him. "No...please stop...I can save you." (Else)
Aug 15, Anywhere
More have shown up to follow him. Solas. Zeph. Lucifel. He might have thought it illusion if they didn't feel true the way being back in Meridian felt true. It was pure intuition and he knew that could be tricked, but it didn't change anything.
"It was supposed to be forever." I thought so too, Armaros...
"'I'm not going anywhere'. Least you could've done is return the favor..." I'm sorry, Lucifel.
"I'm dead now. Even if you restore everything, I'll be killed anyway." He didn't want to believe it. But...it was probably true. Either way, Solas would die.
"Way to get our world destroyed, Enoch. To think I actually trusted you." I'm trying to fix things, Zeph. It wasn't even his fault, but...it was his fault they were like this. Because Zo had saved him.
Enoch, his collar a lighter blue but not even noticing, leans on the wall, wherever he is, begging the shadow children to stop, his conviction wavering with each repetition until he just doesn't say anything anymore. He drops to his knees and tries to hug one, but his arms pass right through. He tries this several times throughout the day, appearing more and more distraught.
Aug 16, F101
Morning
Until he just doesn't have the energy for tears. Enoch has half-carried, half-dragged Lucifel, even worse off than he is, to Dax's sapling, his collar running mostly clear by now. He can see Princess Zelda against a tree nearby, but she seems too far gone to notice him, and to be honest, he doesn't have the energy either. He collapses with the barely-alive angel in the real dirt just as the glamour cuts out, rendering them a pair of wireframes, souls casting the barest blue and violet glows beneath their clothes. Lucifel's is much weaker than his own, and Enoch rests his hand over Lucifel's torso where the angel's soul is.
"Nice replacement," says Lucifel-shadow. Armaros-shadow wedges himself into the crook of Enoch's arm, not speaking but cooing softly, when hearing that comforting sound only hurts.
Enoch breathes shallowly, feeling the rise and fall of Lucifel's chest with his hand. Someone might be able to encounter them while they're both still alive.
After some time, Enoch realizes Lucifel has stopped breathing. There's a weak sob from him, but he can't react any more, can't lift his head, can't move his arm. He doesn't realize he's attracted one more shadow child with those that Lucifel's presence has driven away until a new voice speaks, strong and bold, female.
"My name is Ishtar, Enoch. But you will never know me by that name because you're here, playing a facsimile of my role. But instead of resurrecting me, you're trying to become me. You can't. You don't even care about people you should. Where are the voices of the Freemen?"
"That's not true," Enoch croaks.
He hears nothing more from the shadow children, feeling from them instead an overwhelming sense of disappointment.
He can still talk loud enough to be heard by someone nearby, and his presence might still drive away someone else's shadow children if his bond with them is strong enough. For however long he has left, he can at least be a guardian.
Afternoon - closed
As his consciousness grows hazier, the other shadows start picking up Ishtar's idea of who he isn't hearing.
"Come to think of it," says Gabriel-shadow, looking around, "You started families and made friends while searching for the Tower, correct? Did you love them? Where are they?"
"Um...weren't you married before Heaven?" Armaros-shadow adds. "What about your first wife and child, I thought those were important."
"You know who else you're not hearing?" says Lucifel-shadow. "Well. I guess you can't hear a voice you've never heard at all. But still, you know, He's dead too. 'Cause you're not. Just thought I'd remind you."
The color drains from Enoch's soul.
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"That's odd."
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....Maybe it was best if they just checked their mail like normal. The little guys didn't seem aggressive.
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Either way, he keeps close to Lucifel as they descend the stairs to the mailroom, where they'll have to part ways for a moment to get to their mailboxes.
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When Lucifel got to his mailbox to check if he received something he was shocked for a moment. He didn't know who, but someone had put a charred bible in his mail. Pages that haven't been burn had been ripped out.
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That hair clip... He'd given it to Armaros in Meridian, to help boost the Fallen Angel's self esteem. He'd helped him put it on. Looking at it, the memory of that moment flashed vivid as if it had only just happened minutes ago, rather than a year. He remembered Armaros comforting him as he drifted off to sleep. He remembered feeling warm and safe, feeling at home for the first time in centuries.
And here it was now, bloodstained. Tears came to his eyes, and he let them fall, trying not to draw attention to himself by making a sound.
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Whoever sent this to him... it was a very, very, sick gesture.
The shadow children around him were looking curiously at what he had gotten. The archangel took a deep breath, trying to shake the anger inside of him off. Eventually he walked over to the scribe. Walking seemed much better a thing to do for him to calm down.
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When he heard footsteps and saw Lucifel's black clothing from the corner of his eye, he looked up at him. His eyes fell on the tattered and burned book in his hand, and he opened his mouth to say something...but couldn't think of the words for such tragic destruction, not in his own state, with what was cradled in his hands.
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"Why is he sending these things when he should be working on whatever was damaged?"
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He tears his gaze away from his gift, his eyes sweeping over the other people in the mailroom this morning. Had everyone gotten something?
If this was an experiment, what was it meant to test? Enoch may have only learned about the scientific method from a resident here but it didn't take a genius to figure out an experiment has a goal.
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However, seeing the reactions of other residents who checked their mailboxes... "We don't seem to be the only ones."
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Enoch steps closer to Lucifel, posture protective, his shadow children forming a semicircle around him.
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Eventually he looked at the book in his hands. Maybe he should get rid of it.
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Normally he might have tried to comfort those here once the initial shock and grief became manageable. But Lucifel was his first priority for better or worse.
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"Come on, take us somewhere in this place you like."
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So he just got them there with a little flick of his fingers.
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It seemed Lucifel's plight had distracted him from the shock of receiving that hand, but...
14h August
However... there was something - rather someone - else bothering him now. The voice of a certain scribe, putting all the blame on him for their world getting destroyed.
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