BONFIRE LIGHTS IN THE MIRROR OF SKY.

[wastemods]

WHO: Everyone in game.
WHAT: Our first event log!
WHERE: Anywhere in the world core.
WHEN: After the storms begin.
NOTES: Expect surreal horror and possible violence. Please use common sense when warning for other content.

Photo by drainrat

PREVIOUSLY, ON THE WASTEYARD.

The world remains divided into a land where either a hazy sun shines muted light above or a full moon casts silvery shadows below. They hang fixed, as if nailed in place, more like theatrical props than far-off heavenly bodies. And you can still see only one of them, depending on which side you arrived.

Meanwhile, the storm rages.

On both sides of the world, the rain starts and doesn't stop. The temperature drops, transforming torrential rain into icy snow. Gusts of wind become gales and spin detritus into shrapnel, man-made disasters turned natural. Shadows spin wildly—almost comically—in cyclones, before bursting into nothingness; if you aren't careful, the winds will snatch you, too. Out here, the only protection you might have is cooperating with each other.

Indoors, it's certainly warmer, but that just means water doesn't freeze. Buildings flood with chilly water that rises no matter how many stairs you climb. Architecture groans under the pressure of earthquakes, sending more water cascading through the ceiling before it disappears into cracks below. Is anywhere safe?

Well, yes. One place, splintered into many. The mirrors in ash-gray frames stand sentinel, scattered throughout the world. They emit warm light from the other side; sunlight spills moonside and moonlight reflects sunside. Water impossibly flows around and away from them, leaving behind untouched earth that stays still and silent. Standing in front of them gives you a respite, a tiny bubble of safety to wait out the worst.

INTO THE LABYRINTH.

Once you plunge indoors—unless you're really that determined to take your chances in the storm—you'll find every building with electricity experiencing a brownout. The overhead lights flicker and radios crackle with static, warbling broken news reports and tunes. They eavesdrop on strings of Morse code and private confessions on ham radio. If it's ever been broadcast on the airwaves, public or personal, you might hear it if you tune to the right station; you might even hear yourself, replaying a conversation you've had or will have. And sometimes the audio seems pointed, preternaturally so, as if tuned to your own thoughts and words.

Meanwhile, the waters continue to rise. The halls stretch long, seemingly infinite and twisted into knots. In some of them, no matter how far you walk, it seems like you never get any closer to the end; in others, you hit one dead end and can't stop hitting dead ends, no matter how many times you retrace your steps. None of that's unusual.

But if you delve deep into dark enough recesses (whether accidentally or intentionally), the world calms. The water recedes. Mirrors materialize in the dead ends, scratching out an "X" in the frame before your eyes. If you touch one, the glass falls away in ribbons, flowing like quicksilver and fleeing farther into the darkness. It reveals a hole on the other side, so deep a black it looks flat. Wherever it goes, it's so dark you can't see the other side.

And that's when you hear a sound like someone inhaling and then exhaling, steadily breathing around you. No...you feel it. A presence that has no form no matter how hard you look, but follows you in creaks and groans. It feels like being stalked by a monster in a maze.

Running from it only intensifies the feeling. Attacking makes it even worse. Calm acceptance is the only way to lessen or even neutralize it, but that's something you'll have to discover for yourself. In the end, there's no way to defeat it. You have to trust your instincts and believe it's there, despite the fact that you can't see or touch it.

CHANGING SIDES.

Elsewhere, it starts as a smell.

As the ground shudders and cracks, the stench of rot comes from the fissures. Mirrors and windows melt off walls, and a strong sense of vertigo comes and goes, like cresting waves. Looking out a window shows buildings and bridges breaking off of the labyrinth and drifting—or plummeting—away. They dissolve into nothingness as they vanish into the abyss, like they were bathed in acid. The already fragile world is falling apart.

It comes with a pervasive sense of wrongness, perhaps ironic in a world where everything is already wrong. But that's when it happens: You look up and realize you're no longer where you started. The sun or the moon, whichever you expected, is no longer in the sky. Instead, on the horizon lies its opposite.

It's a phenomenon unique to areas with high concentrations of ash mirrors and hallways, particularly when there's someone else on the other side. Sometimes the instability flips your positions, so one of you is now in the dimension where the other previously stood, while other times it drags you both together into the light of the sun or moon. It's like you resonate, magnets attracting or repelling each other in little pockets of peace.

THE LOCKED ROOM.

Amidst the chaos, as the world shifts and there's no telling where or when you are, you slip through a crack. Or maybe you're a weirdo who climbed through the hole left behind a mirror.

In either case, the fissure is both literal and metaphorical, influenced by the unstable world and your actions. Maybe you step through a door, crawl through a crevice, close your eyes, or do something else to take you between here and there. Whatever the case, you find yourself in a room unlike any others you've seen in this distorted world. Well...once you look closer, anyway. On the surface, it may just be another kitchen, ballroom, or cellar.

But in these rooms, it doesn't matter which side of the divide you were on. Not only because you can't see whatever lights the sky, but because they lie between dimensions. There are no windows and no doors; you'll only find walls the same mottled gray as everything else in this place. Attacking them gets you nowhere. Any damage is there and gone, like the erased moments between flashes of a strobe light. There is no easy way out.

But there is a mirror. Hairline cracks run through its surface, shattering a single reflection into multitudes. Set in an ash-gray frame like so many others, it's left somewhere in the room, whether hanging on a wall, haphazard on the floor, or leaning against some furniture. It emanates the skin-prickling sensation of being watched. Turning away doesn't help; you can feel it gazing at your back.

The haunted feeling only subsides when you stare back. And you should stare back, because these mirrors are your escape route. Staring into them will reveal someone on the other side with the same predicament. Surprisingly, you can hear each other when you speak. It even comes translated if you don't speak the same language, although your mouths still sync to your native tongues. It's like a poorly dubbed movie.

Touching the mirror gives you the impression it's somehow leeching off you, trying to fill those cracks. Try to pull your hand away and you'll find it's a little difficult, like unsticking your tongue from a cold pole. Moreover, you'll feel a compulsion to tell the truth, to do something real.

THE GREAT ESCAPE.

For those of you left behind where the sun and moon still shine, keep an eye on your own mirrors, especially broken ones that seem to be influenced by something invisible. They display a room that most decidedly isn't your own, acting more like a window than a mirror. And whoever's inside, trapped, might call on you for help. You won't be able to hear them, though, so how are you with body language?

Meanwhile, for escapees...

No matter how you escape the rooms, you might notice something a little strange once you get back to the labyrinth. Well, stranger. For a brief window of time (one that grows longer with each room you escape), you'll discover the sun and moon occupy the same sky. The area you've entered is a temporary nexus of sorts, one that fuses the dimensions into something that almost seems stable.

It feels right, but the world isn't strong enough to hold itself together for long.

( COMPANION OOC POST )

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Comments

[sorrypardonyesthankyou]

Ruth can't decide if that's disappointing. If they knew who'd lived here before...but at the same time, being locked up with long-dead bodies wouldn't improve this experience.

Her hand curls around the edge of the frame, the wood smooth under her fingers, her knuckles brushing against the strange glass of the mirror.

"Wouldn't be sanitary. No." It's tired, but there's a sliver of humor cutting into the words. Sort of. She tells herself not to reach out in search of details he hasn't told her, some history or future for the metal counters she assumes are all around her. "Are you? Pardon. Okay."

[snikthatch]

It's a little strange to be so close to Ruth but unable to smell or sense her, almost like talking to a very high definition video image, or something projected in the Danger Room. But Logan knows she's there, in reality, even if the reality isn't exactly here, so he tries to make the lie convincing.

"I'm all right, kid."

He reaches up to touch near where her hand is brushing the glass, brushing fingertip against the smooth surface. It feels warm, almost comforting. Like it's ok just to be there. He grunts a little at that, surprised. The mirrors haven't felt anything except threatening before. This is new. And interesting.

[sorrypardonyesthankyou]

And she can't call him on his bullshit, really.

Even if he doesn't sound all right to her, she can't really tell. How much of it is the fact that no one's all right? How much is the fact that she isn't? There should be a million different futures branching out from this conversation, threading their way out before her and telling her everything she wants to know, but they've all knotted together. The universe is tangling and tearing around her, and she's stuffed it in a box in the corner of her thoughts.

There's quiet, then, for a moment or two, but her curiosity isn't so far repressed as her senses. "How'd you leave before? Please. Since we're..."

She waves a vague hand, as though to say since we're stuck here, the cue dangling from between her thumb and forefinger.

[snikthatch]

Logan pulls his hand back from the mirror and rubs his finger and thumb together, thoughtful.

"Broke the mirrors," he replies, assuming she means leaving the room and isn't referring to some other kind of leaving, discussion of which is probably better suited over a few glasses of strong liquor.

"Don't recommend it. Just breaks everythin', like you've broken the universe as well as the mirror. Dumps you out in the storm. Found my way back inside and before I knew it I was stuck in another goddamn part of this maze, so now I'm.. wherever here is."

[sorrypardonyesthankyou]

She breathes out, not quite a sigh nor quite a laugh--just something sharper than usual. It fogs the glass near her mouth. Breaking everything is both impressive and so thoroughly a Wolverine choice that, once he says it, it's impossible to think of a world where he didn't.

"Didn't try that. No. Yes. Just...yes, trying to see." And that hadn't been a good idea, either--but it had worked on one side, at least. Her knuckles bump against the mirror's surface, the texture slightly off. More like tape than mirror--sticking--but still more like mirror than tape. "Looking for doors out. Pardon."

But she's not excited at the prospect of trying that again.

[snikthatch]

He watches her navigate the feel of the mirror. How much more terrifying must this place be, if you can't even see the cracks that are coming towards you? Having to take it on faith that things are still whole, until the world falls out from under your feet. And what she'd told him about the place making them sick if they used their powers --

Logan reaches up a hand again, to touch the mirror near the place where her hand is. Again, that warmth, that feeling of being pulled.

"You want me to tell you about the room you're in?"

[sorrypardonyesthankyou]

At her gut...no, she doesn't want that. Ruth wants the opposite of that, having to navigate this room by someone else's say-so and trust that she won't be led astray. Even knowing who's giving the directions--Mr. Logan's only going to try to help, she'd be a fool to imagine otherwise--doesn't help.

But they have to get out of here somehow. And breaking the mirrors sounds like it won't do any good.

"Please yes." She swallows, moving to the side so he can see the rest of the room a little better. Her hand shifts, too, fingertips lightly pressing against the glass and drawing away again, the odd pull of the glass a weirdly tempting fidget.

[snikthatch]

Even through the mirror he can hear the hesitation in her voice. Logan gets it, not wanting that vulnerability, but it's not as if either of them have a choice. She needs to know what's around her if they have any chance of finding a way out that won't just dump them back out into the flood and snow.

He moves to stand in front of the mirror, peering into her room through the webbing of cracks that runs through the glass.

"There are.. a couple big metal tables runnin' through the middle of the room. Ovens on the wall opposite this one, hoods and industrial fixings. Pots, trays. Lotta metal." Logan shifts, tilting his head, trying to see around a corner that isn't there. "No windows. No.. no door."

[sorrypardonyesthankyou]

"Any cupboards? Pardon." She's already thinking about the possibilities. There might be food. There might be knives. Something in here could be useful, even if the room itself isn't. Because--well. No doors. No doors doesn't help either of them.

And neither does the fact that peering into the morgue is a risk probably not worth taking.

[snikthatch]

Logan rubs his forehead with the heel of his palm, resisting the urge to lean against the mirror. He's not entirely sure it's a good idea.

"There's one near the ovens. At your 7 o'clock."

[sorrypardonyesthankyou]

Ruth considers that for a moment, then turns, the pool cue skidding before her. (Just in case. Not a lot to bump into here, but--just in case. She hates this feeling, her cells wondering if she's about to wander off the edge of a cliff. At the worst of things, back at home, she could at least manage walking. Wandering around, hoping for the best...it hasn't been like this since before her mother died.)

Inside the cupboard...well, for that, she cheats, letting herself find the enormous can of boiled potatoes, the uncooked oats next to it, and...a box of cake mix? A weird mix, but some of it's edible. There's a pair of kitchen shears, too, and they seem sharp. Those, Ruth takes first.

When she comes back, blood's dripping down over her lips. "Have to yes, to get you on the other side of the mirror. Yes. Probably won't find much to eat over there."

[snikthatch]

Logan watches her walk across the room, seemingly confident but still gripping the cue. He wonders what it must be like for her, without her powers. He didn't take enough time to know her, before; there had been so damn many of them, kids appearing from every corner of the goddamn place until he'd been longing for the days when it was just a handful of misfits knocking around the mansion.

The blood running down from her nose when she turns back draws his eye like a flag, testament to how much this is costing her. Except she doesn't have a healing factor to keep her going.

She says something, but he's too distracted to listen.

"Goddamn it Ruth, does that happen every time you use your powers?" He points to her face, his words a snarl. "That's what you meant before about feelin' sick, about this place not wanting us?"

[sorrypardonyesthankyou]

She doesn't expect his anger--frustration? guilt--but it isn't quite surprising when it comes. Watching somebody bleed is probably upsetting.

(Ironically, she'd felt far worse when they'd first met, like the world might shift sideways under her feet at any moment; by comparison, she only has the start of a headache. But that wasn't quite so noticeable.)

"Yes. Pardon." Which reminds her--she sets everything down and pulls a bloody handkerchief from her pocket, dabbing away at her nose. At least it's mostly the blood now; throwing up, she thinks, had been worse. "Before I knew...yes, thank you That was worse."

Ruth feels calm, a sort of tranquility that's cousin to the certainty in that last meeting in Brooklyn. The difference here is that she has no idea what's coming--trying to find out is like sorting through shredded paper with a hangover--but there's a similar knowledge of the important things. Mr. Logan will cover his concern in adamantium and growling. They'll find a way out. And she might bleed a little more, through no fault of their own.

[snikthatch]

It's frustration and anger both, coming roaring back like a brushfire over the too-dry tinder of his patience and fatigue.

"Damn it!" He pushes himself away from the mirror and paces, short savage steps, back and forth across the floor of his cage. And it is a cage, it's always a cage, trapping him in bullshit set pieces and glinting mirror shards while someone he cares about about suffers on the other side of a window he can't break through. At least when it's chains and shackles there's something he can destroy --

He knots his fists and pushes out his claws, swings at the nearest metal table and slices through two of the legs, sending it crashing down onto the dusty concrete. Stands over it, head down like a run-down horse, just breathing.

Futile. Stupid.

Then he lifts his head and looks back over his shoulder at Ruth.

"Ruth. We're gonna get you out of here, darlin'. Or I'm gonna die tryin'. Can you lift your mirror off the wall?"

[sorrypardonyesthankyou]

"Don't die," she says evenly, after he's sloughed off a little impotent rage. (She doesn't watch, choosing instead to listen to his breath and the sharp clash of metal against metal.) "There's still a need for you. Thank you."

But, all question of death aside, she thinks she can do what he asks. Ruth runs her fingers across the glass, smooth but almost hungry as it pulls at her, and finds the edges. It's wide, but not impossible, and when she lifts it, it's not too heavy.

"Pardon. What are we doing?" she asks, after a moment or two.

[snikthatch]

While Ruth's lifting the mirror, Logan tries to haul himself back under control. As always it's like fighting against something that wants to escape, snapping and snarling its teeth in his soul. He pulls in his claws, takes some deep breaths. Tries to tell himself it's stupid to keep doing this, that he knows better than to scare the kid and trash the room like an animal.

He opens his eyes and looks over at Ruth when she asks her question. The view from the mirror has changed, now it's mostly taken up by her body and the room swinging behind her.

"Just keep turnin'," he says, "so I can see more of the room. Maybe I can see a door or a way out."

[sorrypardonyesthankyou]

"Hm. Yes." She can do that. More effective, though, if most of the view isn't her torso. Ruth sets the mirror down and turns it, hefting it back up again so it's facing away from her.

Now she's gone from the view, a disembodied voice whose chin bumps the top of the frame. "Gonna kick up a fuss when I do the same for you? Pardon. Last person...yes. Last one got mad when I didn't take the door."

She doesn't mention Ellie's name. The specifics don't really matter. What matters is that eventually, she might have an exit--and he won't. And as she shuffles in a tight circle, it's all too easy to ask the things she might not otherwise.

[snikthatch]

Logan watches the view in the mirror, trying to ignore the way it sways queasily with Ruth's footsteps. He's watching for doors, windows, even a damn crack in the plaster at this point. He's distracted, however, by what she says.

"Wait, what do you mean you didn't take the door? Stop," he gestures with a hand, then remembers she can't see it, "put the damn mirror down."

[sorrypardonyesthankyou]

"That's not how you taught us. Pardon." She's obedient for now, setting the mirror's edge on the floor and leaning it carefully against one of the many counters. Once she's sure it won't fall, she sits down, cross-legged, in front of it. "No, no. You don't walk away from your team."

Hopefully he won't argue this one, too. Ellie was hard-headed enough.

[snikthatch]

Logan looks at her, sitting eerily in the mirror-window, her floor now three feet above the ground in his room.

"I.." he begins, then stops. She has, he realises with a sinking feeling, a good point. He growls, paces a tight circle, then comes back.

"I'm not your team, kid. I'm your team leader. I can take care of myself in this place. I'll be okay."

[sorrypardonyesthankyou]

"No. Pardon, no. You're not." She's not entirely sure why she's saying it--itself a strange feeling, to say something and wonder why--but it feels like it needs to come out. It's steady where he's not, waiting quietly like a stone at the bottom of a pond. "Not anymore."

Team leader is like headmaster; it stops meaning anything when the structure around it is gone. Two people might be partners, but Ruth doesn't think they're a team that needs a leader. Not at this point--not for the sake of a broken mirror.

[snikthatch]

Logan's surprised by her words, but he's more surprised by the fact that his first feeling on hearing them is, unmistakably, unhappiness. He hadn't realised how deep it had gone. Had assumed that being headmaster to the school had just been a job like any other, and he's lead teams before, even ones that didn't want to be there. He's had fights and mutinies and worse. But this feels.. different. More like rejection.

As always, anger rises up to fill the crack in his mental foundation, burning through the sadness. Something about it feels wrong, more wrong than usual, but he ignores it.

"Sorry, Ruth. You," he snarls, pointing a finger at her, even though he know she can't see it, "don't get to decide that. I need to take care of you. That's what's goin' on here."

[sorrypardonyesthankyou]

"No," she says again, and this time, it's decisive. Revelatory, even - to her, at least. Mr. Logan is someone she's admired, if distantly, and respected - and before this conversation, maybe she would have spoken about him differently. But right now, she knows the only answer left for her. "No. I'm not your student anymore."

Everything is changed, not just their surroundings.

[snikthatch]

On some level, he understands. Before they'd left, she'd been trying to find her independence. He remembers the smell of her kitchen in her apartment, the bright potted plants, the way she'd moved easily around the space she'd made for herself. Even though their conversation had been difficult and, in hindsight, a sign of worse things to come, he'd felt proud of her in that moment. Proud she'd been able to scrape up that much of a normal life for herself.

Now, though, it grates against him. Something about her being hurt sends him back to being her teacher, her protector. The man who stood up to Scott because he was sick and tired of seeing unprepared children put on the firing line.

But he does understand.

He stands in front of the mirror for a few long breaths, turning his thoughts over in his head, examining the places where they're fractured and weeping something darker than blood.

"Fine. You're not. But you're.. someone I care about." He looks at her, sitting there so small and calm. The truth pushes up against his tongue. He lowers his eyes down to his hands. "I failed you once, Ruth. I can't.. I can't do it again."

nb: suicide references

[sorrypardonyesthankyou]

"Thank you. You didn't fail me." That much is obvious to her. His part to play wasn't what he expected--that doesn't mean he failed when he played it. (Failed. Will fail. It's the same thing, if she succeeded in having her bath, at least when he comes from.) "That was something else."

The world, and the people in it.

No, she tells herself. Not that. Something in her mind. Something stopped working. The future stopped working--but time obviously continues, with or without her, or Logan wouldn't be here, talking like it's his fault she was going to pull a blade out of its razor. Something in her was broken, in ways beyond anything had broken before.

"Me," she says, because the truth seems to pull at her until she says it. "Yes. Pardon. Something broke."