STORM (mirror or sun-side shenanigans edition).{open, feel free to tweak as-needed for your reply}
[ To say Will's luck here has been 'bad' doesn't really do it justice. Loneliness feels like an extra presence after this long — and he can't even measure how long it's been with anything further than how many times he's gotten too exhausted to keep going, and had to snatch sleep while hiding under a rusted table or inside a car with no engine and half its doors missing.
He still hasn't met anyone in person. And the closest he'd gotten, in fact, the one time Will had become aware of the different spheres here — sun and moon in their respective mirrors — they'd both moved. The tease of it still aches in Will's chest.
Not that he has a lot of time to worry about that right now. Sun-side now, Will gave up outrunning the rising water after five floors, and instead went sideways through the office facsimile he'd ended up in, wading waist-deep through frigid rainwater before he'd found a mirror.
He'd gone towards it out of instinct before he'd even processed the unusual fact that it's...ringed by the water like the epicenter of an invisible swimming pool. Will steps out of the wall of rainwater and, while he doesn't dry off instantly — his shoes squelch water with each step — the floor by the mirror stays dry.
He climbs right up onto the counter — because of course it's hung over a wall-length countertop — and sits on it, side pressed to the glass so he can keep an eye on the mirror and the room at large. ]
CLOSED.{closed; for ben}
[ Will is in the labyrinth. Or that's what it had felt like before — now it's one long passageway that ends at yet another mirror. He reaches out a hand to touch it on instinct, remembering the protection of before. Which means he gets to watch the mirror rip itself apart, melting away like liquid metal. It leaves a cavernous hole behind itself, a doorway with no door and no sign of what's beyond it.
Will thinks of carving his name into a mirror twenty-three cycles of sleeping ago, and wonders if this is it speaking to him again. ]
What's your name? [ he asks, and the only answer is the drawing sound of something formless breathing behind him. Will's own breath rattles too-loud in his ears. He places one hand on the empty frame of the mirror. It's smooth, not the ragged texture he'd expect from broken glass fragmenting away.
Safe to touch. Will leans his head in and sees nothing beyond it, but he can't hear the breathing anymore. It's like there's— nothing, except the beating presence of whatever's in the dark is unmistakable.
Will drags himself through.
*
Another mirror. He can't feel surprised; realizes he'd expected this, by now. Will comes forward immediately, and only thinks that maybe it's more than his own instinct pulling him by the time he's touching fingers to the cracked surface. Will thinks of Braille and wonders if the spider-webbing means anything, or if it's truly random. Is anything here random? Or is it intentional chaos? ]
What happens if I carve into this one? [ Will asks softly. He's starting speaking out loud to himself more, in the absence of anyone except the endless setting to overhear.
Except... it's not so endless anymore, is it? Not in this closed room. Will glances around — the hair on the back of his neck prickles when he exposes it fully to the mirror — and then turns back to it, fingers still gently against it.
Until he sees a form he recognizes. ] —Ben!
STORM (radio feedback edition).{open, could happen sun or moon side, feel free to add whatever twist you'd like in your reply}
[ The storm is full of snow and ice, by now, and Will dusts his shoulders and hair off as he tries to drag the door shut. It doesn't fit the frame, not quite, and instead he turns and heads deeper into the building, leave it clattering in the wind behind himself.
There's — radios in here. More than usual. They line each piece of furniture in varying states of water damage. Drifts of snow catch at Will's ankles and then his knees as he wades deeper through what appears to be an office.
A familiar voice has Will freezing, stock-still, and straightening up to listen.
Just there— through the crackling, through the howling wind coming in the window by his head, it's himself from barely two months ago. 'I already did.'
He knows what comes next. He knows it must be the radios. He knows it's not actually Doctor Lecter here, but when the rest follows in the other man's voice — 'Fate and circumstance have returned us back to this moment, when the teacup shatters,' — and is accompanied by the sound of the wind breaking something glass in the room with him, Will acts on instinct.
He grabs the nearest blunt object — it appears to be a portable hole-puncher — and runs, breathing hard, no longer feeling the cold that's turning his fingertips white and his nose red. ]
ESCAPE ROOM.{open}
[ The next time — or the time after that, or the one after that — that Will appears in the windowless room with just a mirror for company, he didn't dive into the back of the labyrinth mirror. No, this time he fell in, accidental, and it takes him a moment to orient himself despite having done this before.
He's still damp from the rainwater. That's...frustrating. Anyone arriving second and looking into their mirror will see a man seated cross-legged in front of his own mirror, staring determinedly into it with a slightly frown. Hope that's not disconcerting.
If Will arrives second, however, he wastes no time in checking his own mirror for whoever's on the other side. Enjoy a man in damp flannel and jeans suddenly staring through at you. Maybe the dusting of snow in his hair makes him look more harmless.]
{ooc; will has a plotting post over here, if you want to plan something in particular! also feel free to talk to me over at itrhymes. i ❤️ contrived character drama so lmk if you have deep desires for nonsense.}
will graham | hannibal | ota (one closed prompt, rest are open)
[ To say Will's luck here has been 'bad' doesn't really do it justice. Loneliness feels like an extra presence after this long — and he can't even measure how long it's been with anything further than how many times he's gotten too exhausted to keep going, and had to snatch sleep while hiding under a rusted table or inside a car with no engine and half its doors missing.
He still hasn't met anyone in person. And the closest he'd gotten, in fact, the one time Will had become aware of the different spheres here — sun and moon in their respective mirrors — they'd both moved. The tease of it still aches in Will's chest.
Not that he has a lot of time to worry about that right now. Sun-side now, Will gave up outrunning the rising water after five floors, and instead went sideways through the office facsimile he'd ended up in, wading waist-deep through frigid rainwater before he'd found a mirror.
He'd gone towards it out of instinct before he'd even processed the unusual fact that it's...ringed by the water like the epicenter of an invisible swimming pool. Will steps out of the wall of rainwater and, while he doesn't dry off instantly — his shoes squelch water with each step — the floor by the mirror stays dry.
He climbs right up onto the counter — because of course it's hung over a wall-length countertop — and sits on it, side pressed to the glass so he can keep an eye on the mirror and the room at large. ]
CLOSED. {closed; for ben}
[ Will is in the labyrinth. Or that's what it had felt like before — now it's one long passageway that ends at yet another mirror. He reaches out a hand to touch it on instinct, remembering the protection of before. Which means he gets to watch the mirror rip itself apart, melting away like liquid metal. It leaves a cavernous hole behind itself, a doorway with no door and no sign of what's beyond it.
Will thinks of carving his name into a mirror twenty-three cycles of sleeping ago, and wonders if this is it speaking to him again. ]
What's your name? [ he asks, and the only answer is the drawing sound of something formless breathing behind him. Will's own breath rattles too-loud in his ears. He places one hand on the empty frame of the mirror. It's smooth, not the ragged texture he'd expect from broken glass fragmenting away.
Safe to touch. Will leans his head in and sees nothing beyond it, but he can't hear the breathing anymore. It's like there's— nothing, except the beating presence of whatever's in the dark is unmistakable.
Will drags himself through.
*
Another mirror. He can't feel surprised; realizes he'd expected this, by now. Will comes forward immediately, and only thinks that maybe it's more than his own instinct pulling him by the time he's touching fingers to the cracked surface. Will thinks of Braille and wonders if the spider-webbing means anything, or if it's truly random. Is anything here random? Or is it intentional chaos? ]
What happens if I carve into this one? [ Will asks softly. He's starting speaking out loud to himself more, in the absence of anyone except the endless setting to overhear.
Except... it's not so endless anymore, is it? Not in this closed room. Will glances around — the hair on the back of his neck prickles when he exposes it fully to the mirror — and then turns back to it, fingers still gently against it.
Until he sees a form he recognizes. ] —Ben!
STORM (radio feedback edition). {open, could happen sun or moon side, feel free to add whatever twist you'd like in your reply}
[ The storm is full of snow and ice, by now, and Will dusts his shoulders and hair off as he tries to drag the door shut. It doesn't fit the frame, not quite, and instead he turns and heads deeper into the building, leave it clattering in the wind behind himself.
There's — radios in here. More than usual. They line each piece of furniture in varying states of water damage. Drifts of snow catch at Will's ankles and then his knees as he wades deeper through what appears to be an office.
A familiar voice has Will freezing, stock-still, and straightening up to listen.
Just there— through the crackling, through the howling wind coming in the window by his head, it's himself from barely two months ago. 'I already did.'
He knows what comes next. He knows it must be the radios. He knows it's not actually Doctor Lecter here, but when the rest follows in the other man's voice — 'Fate and circumstance have returned us back to this moment, when the teacup shatters,' — and is accompanied by the sound of the wind breaking something glass in the room with him, Will acts on instinct.
He grabs the nearest blunt object — it appears to be a portable hole-puncher — and runs, breathing hard, no longer feeling the cold that's turning his fingertips white and his nose red. ]
ESCAPE ROOM. {open}
[ The next time — or the time after that, or the one after that — that Will appears in the windowless room with just a mirror for company, he didn't dive into the back of the labyrinth mirror. No, this time he fell in, accidental, and it takes him a moment to orient himself despite having done this before.
He's still damp from the rainwater. That's...frustrating. Anyone arriving second and looking into their mirror will see a man seated cross-legged in front of his own mirror, staring determinedly into it with a slightly frown. Hope that's not disconcerting.
If Will arrives second, however, he wastes no time in checking his own mirror for whoever's on the other side. Enjoy a man in damp flannel and jeans suddenly staring through at you. Maybe the dusting of snow in his hair makes him look more harmless.]
{ooc; will has a plotting post over here, if you want to plan something in particular! also feel free to talk to me over at