curiously | open rp post

[ despite kate telling her to stop, zarina raises her hand and tries to lower her friend's arm. already she wonders if it will lead to some answers for the many questions she gains after an encounter that she barely remembers. ]

What do you mean? What do you know of it?

[Kate's arm stays firmly raised, firmly stopping Zarina from encroaching closer than Kate thinks she should get.]

The flower ain't something you wanna stick around. They're not... [Well, safe is obvious, but sometimes the other survivors pick the petals, taking caution to do so.] Just don't get close. Things happen this time of year. The killers... They're not reasonable. More like wild animals than anything else.

[ killers that are affected are not reasonable. it happens every year. the flower itself is dangerous and affects the killers — why is it only killers? — to the point of losing their humanity.

a pause as she thinks of jed for a moment. ]

How were they affected by the flowers? Through smell? Or just... seeing it? Eat it? Why would they touch it in the first place?

Edited 2021-03-17 06:25 (UTC)

Couldn't tell you, hun. [There's just. Something about them, maybe.]

We seem to be able to more or less handle the flower with impunity, at least when we see it in trials, but... I wouldn't go pokin' around outside of one. They wither real quick after we pluck 'em.

[ they've been in trials? is the first question that comes to mind but she doesn't speak out. her last trial — no such flowers exists then, the killer didn't look stranger than usual (this time) — goes well enough. on the other hand, it's been rare to end up in one of them in the first place.

or at least that's what it feels like. it's as though the trials aren't consistently dragging her in. ]

Why do you pick them up when you're not even allowing me to get close to it?

Edited 2021-03-17 07:32 (UTC)

We ain't in a trial. [Is the obvious answer. To trust the unknown plants in a place like this is just asking for trouble, as far as she's aware. And the smell is... Strangely enticing. Maybe Zarina feels it too, a strange tug towards the plant.]

An' we pick them because the Entity I guess usually rewards us if we do. It's strange. Look, I know it don't make sense, but I don't think we should be pickin' em outside of a trial.

[ getting rewarded in a trial for handling such a dangerous flower? the entity must have so much power to deal with it — maybe. or is it distracted by them? even the what ifs she thinks about gives her no guessable answer. ]

I need to look at it. [ zarina raises her camera before kate can put in a word of protest against it. ] From a distance, don't worry. I just need an answer to something.

Just- Just don't touch it. Try not to get too close either, alright?

[Her worry shows through, and Kate grips her own arm tightly. She doesn't know what will happen. Doesn't know if it's safe, despite the fact that she truly doesn't think it is.]

[ a nod of her head with a smile following, as though it helps calm someone down. zarina hopes it does. ]

I've never encountered these flowers before, but don't worry. I've been in sticky situations before. [ hand on her friend's shoulder to give her a comforting squeeze, and then zarina proceeds to walk past kate and follows the scent.

now, an important question for kate: ] Have you ever seen them up close? Did they seem — hmm — confused and lost?

Edited 2021-03-17 09:05 (UTC)

Seen- who? The flowers? [That doesn't make much sense, the flowers being lost and confused, since they clearly don't have a will of their own. It takes a moment, but eventually Kate follows Zarina's line of thought, and she looks at her carefully.]

Y'mean the killers? The ones who are infected by it?

[ a nod of her head as they continue to walk towards a clear area where it looks as though the greenery — as little as there is — had been spared by whatever fire burned down the town. the longer she takes in the scent, it doesn't... smell as bad as the first time? how intriguing. ]

Yeah. You mentioned they were like wild animals — on the hunt whenever they see a person? Or did they have some humanity left in them when they're alone?

Never got close enough to them to tell. 'Ve got a sixth sense for danger, y'see, and I when I saw 'em acting like wild animals, I knew it was best if I didn't stick around to see what they were capable of. Though maybe callin' 'em like wild animals is too much. Even that Demogorgon is more politely behaved.

[ a soft hum leaves zarina's throat as she lets out another nod. to compare it to the demogorgon like that must mean plenty. of course zarina witnesses it first hand, but nothing after that — a memory she isn't sure she wants back, truth be told. ]

Which killers have been affected by it? [ she says, passing by rubble and brick as they keep moving forward until the smell becomes too much to the point of seeing a yellowish glow from behind a broken down wall. already her steps quicken enough until they finally arrive.

the flower, just a few more steps away for her to attempt to touch it, oozes out the very same liquid that leaves jed's body; zarina remembers the warmth it gives off against skin.

brows raise up as she asks: ] You had to pick those up in that state?

Almost all of them. And who knows if the rest of them will get caught up this year... I think there's only a small handful who haven't been effected before.

[And she hopes that Susie stays safe, stays away from the flowers.]

Yeah, we did. Only in trials, though. And the stuff leaking from it is as nasty as it looks. It sticks to the hands, it's... hot to the touch, actually. Uncomfortably so.

[ "I think there's only a small handful who haven't been effected before."

zarina doesn't understand why the cowboy comes to mind first — is he okay? he should be. he's a smart man who would know better than to handle the odd flora first hand.

it doesn't answer the question of the syringe stuck on the ghost face. it means someone stabbed him with it unless jed did it himself. from what she's seen however, he was suffering and he isn't the type to suffer in such a way. or at least that's from what she knows about the masked murderer.

no camera activated yet, instead she reaches out for a long branch — part of it still fresh wood, the other part ashen — and reaches out for the flower to see its reaction upon touch. no reaction beyond its own movements. it's... ]

... it's breathing? [ she tells herself, yet audible enough for kate to hear as she runs the branch against the liquid leaking out. bringing it closer towards her, she smells it. already zarina makes a face before throwing the stick away. ] Smells awful.

[If Kate knew of the syringe, of any of it, maybe she'd have more answers for Zarina. Right now, however, she just thinks it's the doing of the flower, of it's strange scent and the way the Entity acts during this "season" as it were.

Her hand comes up to try and fend Zarina off from bringing the substance too close to her, but she tosses the stick away just as soon.

Strange, she thinks that it smells awful.]

Y'think so? It smells sweet to me. [Enticing, almost, but it's far too much of a cloying smell to be overly so. That, and her more logical brain knows not to touch.]

There is a sort of sweetness, but it's like rotten eggs combined with something else, and then some sugar.

[ a shake of her head before she brings out her camera, looking towards the lit screen on the back as she gets on one knee while readjusting a few settings. already the flower from the screen looks clearer, better lighting, a sharper contrast on it with a slightly blurry background. ]

This has been happening ever since you arrived?

Strange, I don't smell any o'that. [But maybe it's different to each person, who knows.] Smells like an overpowerin' molasses to me. Just a little too sweet to be right.

But yeah, every... I guess year. Been here for three now, if this marks 'em right.

[ three shots, and zarina looks back towards the flower once more. how it breathes like a regular human being that needs oxygen, the way its honey-like liquids overflow and glimmer under the moonlight. a familiar sight that has her wondering: why only the killers? why are the survivors spared from whatever happens to the killers? would the same thing happen to her if she took a sip, or if it was injected in her bloodstream?

she'll figure it out later. ]

Three years... [ at least it isn't three lifetimes; an indicator of how long they've been here at least when clocks refuse to work and calendars show false dates. ] So for three years the Entity's poisoned its own killers with whatever this is.

How long does it normally last?

[It may as well be three lifetimes, with how they're here and dealing with murder as a regular part of their day. Maybe it's a small miracle that they can at least rely and lean on each other to deal with it.]

Few... weeks? [Kate cringes, but that's her best guess of time.]

You'll know it's over when the moon turns back to normal. [She points up, at the sickly yellow moon hanging in the sky.]

[ a guess is better than nothing at all. guesses always leads to hypothesizing and testing and figuring if it's right or wrong eventually despite the lack of time in the fog. a feeling, in essence. it's all zarina can follow with right at this moment as she looks up towards the sky.

already she wonders how the entity's connected to the flowers already. ]

I feel like there's already an answer to this, but did Claudette check on these?

She did. Said she'd never seen anything like it before. [Though if she thinks about it, that meant that it hadn't been around the "year" before she'd shown up. Not that correlation is causation, but it does make her wonder.]

[ a pause as more thoughts come to mind, but they're cut short the moment glass shatters against her skull. pink mist begins to materialize in the air as zarina's face and camera slams onto the dirt, only taking in the pain that begins to beat on the back of her head that's accompanied by blood slowly dripping down through brown hair.

it takes a few seconds for her to start coughing when the familiar scent of gas begins to fog up her mind; the clown. ]

[The moment the glass shatters, before the mist even materializes, Kate knows who it is. And then the sharp chemical smell invades her nose, and everything in her screams to bolt.

And she would, if Zarina weren't here. If she weren't bleeding from the skull and coughing up the anesthetic that burns both their lungs. Kate grabs Zarina's arm and pulls hard, eyes burning as she does her best to pull her away from the Clown, away from the flower, because she doesn't even want to think about what he'd do to the pair of them in this place once caught.]

[ grabbing hold of broken down concrete walls as though to stabilize herself before realizing the grip holding onto her is kate. eyes stinging from the toxins in the air while pain engulfs part of her head — the horrific, terrible laugh that sounds as though it were drowning — forces zarina to run blind, letting kate lead the way out of their immediate area and then, hopefully, back to the campfire.

she can always gather supplies later. for now, they need to live. they need to dodge incoming vials of hallucinogens that makes zarina want to fall on the ground and not move. ]

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hopesong - 2021-05-06 03:25 (UTC) - Expand