[video/action] 011001010110111001100100011010000110100101101101

[postictal]

[He makes it to the last day of August before it happens.

His body seizes, fingers curling, back arching, tension clenching every muscle simultaneously in an unbearable, untenable, agonizing roar of overloaded nerves and sensory hell and electrostatic energy fizzling away in his skull in all the wrong, worst ways.

He's fairly certain that he's screaming when it happens. He's certain that he

He















Eyes open. Fingers go to face, trace contours. Unfamiliar. Not stark and white. Missing their Face. Missing direction. Missing everything. They've not been awake in...in so long, they think. Everything locked down, the body unresponsive, unwilling to cede control. Then everything ran dry, they nearly died because he did, and without the means to suppress the mechanism of their return, he - yes. He did. And as he lay there, postictal and still and trembling, they'd slithered in and taken things in their favored direction.

Something new on the floor. They snatch it up, run fingers over it, determine its function. It has a good function. They can work with this. They can send a message. They can find a way to. Require...focus. Focus and shape. Need someone, need something. Won't have this skin to themselves for long. Must make the best of it.

The video assigned to the network is odd and flickering, cut through with bars of intermittent static. White letters flit across the screen as a bizarre, warped tone shrills over the words.]
HAV
EYO
USE
EN?

////////we are alone////////
////////we are alone////////
////////we are alone////////
[The words cut out and so does the background noise. And then, briefly, seconds before the video's conclusion, a tiny line of text flares across the screen:]

aGVscGhlbHBoZWxw
[Then, there is nothing.

They roam about the castle in search of their Face, in search of something, of anything. Those who see them, those who find them - they maybe be treated as enemies. As things to be attacked and beaten down and damaged.

Or they may be treated as something much worse.

They may be treated as friends.]

[[ooc: info on the masked figure can be found here. anyone looking for an action prompt is likely to be tackled with extreme prejudice. once the night is over, tim will wake up in the mess hall the next morning with whatever injuries he might have sustained in the interim.]]

Comments

[postictal]

[It's...talking. It's saying words, a strung-together concatenation that makes perfect sense, externally, but they do not accept verbal input they disregard verbal input it is not optimal it is not optimal and they do not know its function because they cannot know its function.

It is unequipped to handle this data. Verbal input is unhelpful.

It will torque it.

It will torque it.

It avoids them and their momentum carries their borrowed body too far and nearly sends it skidding across the floor, then scrambling slowly to their feet, leaning their weight on one leg disproportionately, the other dragging gingerly behind them like dead weight.

Speech does not translate across these barrier waves or sound waves or pressure waves, so they are left with little choice but to lurch again, this time feinting to one side before aiming for its midriff.]

[justribbing]

No reaction, huh?

[ He's a little more right about that only working within a script than he'd like to be. Not that Sans gets to ruminate on what that means about whatever's happened to Tim, because that thing wearing his face like a vacantly-staring mask is coming at him again.

Sans can't help but wonder what the hell he did to his leg, when he takes a leap backwards and a shuffling sidestep just to make sure Unsafe Tim isn't hitting anything he'll regret. The feint, that shows strategy, that could be a real problem. He should run, leave this to literally anyone else.

Make it somebody else's problem.

...Except they'll probably find out the hard way, like he did, that something's wrong with him. Maybe the guy will get his ass killed, and with Ozuma out of commission, there's still no guarantees anyone dying now will ever come back.

What if he encounters Papyrus before Sans has a chance to direct him away? Knowing him, he'd try to welcome him with open arms, to tell him he believes in him, that somewhere inside that blank-faced exterior that continues to press the attack, Tim is a good and safe person.

Yeah, not happening. ]

Yeesh. The hell am I gonna do with you, buddy? Not like I can keep you stuck to the wall until help arrives.

[ He doesn't exactly have a lot of other options, either. ]

[postictal]

[Avoidance. Avoidance. Mechanical precision is required of it but hands close on empty air and makes contact with nothing. Its verbal output continues to run with lazy indolence despite the gravitas of the confrontation. Is it obfuscating? Is it employing one of many coping mechanisms? Is it human? Is it nonhuman? Is it dangerous?

Too many subsequent queries muddy the way things are arrayed and this is disagreeable. It is unsustainable.

Experience indicates that this serial loop of lunge-and-turn will yield no desired results in the long-term or in the short-term or in any foreseeable future unless the target's strategy shifts unexpectedly, and this is not anticipated but given how little of its nature is known to them, this is possible.

They must not dismiss any option.

They circle it warily, making no abrupt movements, motions choppy and slow and uneven.]

[justribbing]

[ Figured out going in swinging ain't cuttin' it, huh? Well, that works too, except now there's no question of whether or not whatever's gotten into Tim is capable of strategically altering his plan of attack. His? Its? Hell if Sans knows anymore. Could be that this ain't Tim at all, but his Shadow, all grown up and itching to watch the world burn. In which case, is there really any problem snuffing him out?

A little personal self-assessment tells him the guy ain't worth the LOVE.

Sans shuffles to keep his distance so long as the thing circles, waiting for an opening, sizing him up. The scrutiny's uncomfortable. Not half as uncomfortable as it'll be if the guy gets in a good hit or two, he can't even be sure he'll give up after a warning hit, the guy might even be playing for keeps.

How about a warning shot of his own. ]

OK. Howzabout a lesson? Yeah, I'll even give you a hint. Ever hear of a stop sign..?

[ He twirls a phalanx in the air beside his skull, pointing up. ]

You see a stop sign, you STOP, right? 'Cept these stop signs, they're special. Instead of red, you gotta think of blue stop signs.

[ One snap of his phalanges, and the ground erupts with a scattering of bones, bright cyan. Maybe Tim ain't so responsive under these conditions, but maybe he can reason. Otherwise? He might be in for a painful lesson. ]

Capiche?

[postictal]

[It continues to speak with an artless flourish to the words they do not process and do not understand because they cannot understand, they were not constructed to interpret this kind of aural input and translate it into an output that is equally comprehensible on the other end. This is not their purpose. This is not their function.

The world turns blue.

This statement is factually incorrect.

They reassess, and amend their perspective.

The present area is full of bones, discolored, disembodied, springing up and jutting to the sky like bars of a formless cage, and they have no immediate knowledge of anatomical deviation but they are fairly certain bones are not meant to be this color and they rationalize that this must be an attack of some kind but of what nature they cannot glean and they will require heuristic verification in order to ascertain a strategy and so they reach forward delicately, and brush against one of the bones.

There is -

It is simultaneously cold and hot and painful and they snap their borrowed hand back in a motion that is just as painful and they do not understand this, they do not find this amenable but they will have to plot a course around the pillarlike bolts of agony that jut out from the ground. They move back.

Their heel strikes one, and it burns low and fierce and cold.

They move forward. It hurts still.

They try to turn to assess and re-evaluate, but the slightest twitch of motion engenders another icy seep of pain, and their movements are too abrupt and they cannot understand this, they cannot withstand this, the need and desire to move is overwhelming and they cannot, they cannot, even if they grow increasingly frustrated and panicked in the process.]

[justribbing]

[ First time he gets himself hurt, Sans thinks the guy's testing the boundaries. Second time, that he's checking if the first time was a fluke. But the rest just nail home just how little of his explanation went heard, let alone heeded, and--

Heh heh. Wow.

That's, uh, hard to watch. Like being a bystander while a blind monster bangs into every damn stick of furniture in an unfamiliar house, and no one's got the heart to make him stop, lend him a hand.

Pretty sure he'd lose his if he tried, anyway. ]

Geez, pal.

[ It's not pity he feels.

But maybe it's something close. He can't just stand here and watch the guy break himself apart blundering through rows of bones (or maybe he could, and that, uh, maybe should bother him a little). ]

You really can't understand a thing I'm saying, huh.

[postictal]

[They do not understand this pattern, this sequence, this flare-and-spiral of distressed and turbulent thoughts that worm their way into their mind with its shattered and barrier-less vulnerabilities and there is an ache building with every movement, seeding down to their bones, but they have locked their expression on the target and the target is smiling and they will have to advance.

They step forward.

It burns in the same way ice would against skin.

They step forward.

The pain continues to build, a charged voltage differential that rakes over their consciousness.

They step forward.

It is inconsequential.

They step forward.

It is inconsequential.

They will raze this body and burn it and it will crumble and it will be their fault, and the primary resident will hate them for it but he already hates them so thoroughly and so completely an therefore there is no need to hold back, even as the ache suffuses the entirety of their stolen body and they are unable to control the oscillations of overtaxed and overtired muscle as they tremble and shake and advance and advance and advance and advance.

They will reach the target.

They will reach the target.

They will -

They step forward.]

[justribbing]

[ That thing advances, and Sans might have a comfortably sized barrier of bones littering the floor between him and it, but he shuffles one step back at a time, shoulders hunching like that might somehow make him smaller, less noticeable.

It's a reflex. He knows what being in their way locked on target looks like, even if he's a little hard pressed to remember under what circumstances in particular gave him his first education. Doesn't matter.

Whatever's got hold of Tim ain't letting go and sure ain't letting up.

He really could (should?) stop him. But he doesn't exactly have confidence in his ability to do it without screwing up. There's a chance it might be Papyrus it runs into next. Or the kids, and hell if that won't come with its own host of problems.

(Or he could call it QUITS. That's always an option. Few days vacation. How bad could it be?)

...nope.

He turns right around and takes off down the hall, at not too shabby of a pace for a guy who loathes exercise and wears fuzzy slippers on a stone floor. ]

[postictal]

[When it clears the obstruction, the cold leaching into their bones that aches and burns with an odd clarity, they can feel the lurching reflex to brace their body against a wall and breathe, as if that might recover some of their wherewithal.

But it is escaping. It is escaping, it has elected to flee and they do not lose things like this, they will pursue this and make it reveal its nature to them. They will force it to yield the aspects of itself it keeps hidden.

They will -

They launch their stolen skin after in pursuit, hobbling and pained, and even if they do not require breath the body they are using does and each gasp opens a fresh wave of ache through a respiratory system already taxed to the extreme on a daily basis.]

[justribbing]

[ There's a few things you just don't do in the castle. When climbing, you don't look down. When you see a lever or a button or a chain, you try either pushing or pulling it to see what happens. When you're being chased down by anything, you don't do what Sans does right now.

Which is look back. ]

C'mon--

[ Sans groans, sliding to a stop that rattles the cage-like door of the elevator shaft when he catches himself on it, only to swing his left arm back and grasp out, blindly, with his Blue Magic. Try to find his soul, whatever's left of it (if he even has one, look at his eyes) and saturate it, weigh it down with the leaden anchor of Karma. ]

[postictal]

[Something - tugs.

It is like no sensation they have ever felt. They are cold, colder than before, colder than when their skin was being bitten through by ghosting bars of blue bones, and then it is as though the viscosity of the air has quintupled. Their legs are abruptly being driven unbearably into the ground, their spine feeling as though it is being compressed, telescoping into itself beneath the yoke of gravity pushing down over their stolen shoulders, stolen arms, stolen neck.

If they had a conceptualization of sins, perhaps they would feel them seeping into their bones.

They end up on all fours, trying to drag their borrowed skin forward, trying to pursue the thing that is suddenly feeling so very far ahead of them.

It is as though their bones and joints are being ground into one another.

An agonized sound escapes parted lips, wholly incidentally and unintentionally, they - they do not vocalize. That does not happen. It was unintentional.

But it hurts.]

[justribbing]

[ It sinks to hands and knees while Sans turns to put his back against the rattling grated door, a glowing ribbon of cyan and yellow unfurling like a flame from his left eye socket. His phalanges remain fixed on the air in front of him, the right fumbles, feeling blindly by his side for the lever that summons the lift. ]

Get comfortable.

[ Two words, flat rumbling syllables he expects won't be understood. Filling the air with something that isn't the awful sound that still echoes down the hall. Sans doesn't bother to pretend to breathe. Only us creatures here, right? Beings born wrong, raised wrong, or whatever. ]

Hate to leave ya like this, but if that's catching, I don't wanna know what that does to monsters.

[ The lift arrives, creaking to a halt as he gives the lever another pull. ]

[postictal]

[What is it? What could possibly orchestrate such forces and exert such strength and walk away and leave them here.

With incredible, wrenching effort that sinks into their very bones, they pull one hand back, curl its fingers into a fist, and slam it into the ground, a brief, soundless indication of their frustration and rage and pain.

Whatever it is, it will leave them here. It will leave them here and they will hurt and their stolen body will simply persist in being trapped and helpless and helpless and helpless and helpless and helpless and helpless...

Their body curls into itself, forehead pressed to flagstones, hands wrapped over hair, knees driving into the stone with a dull, constant, resonating ache.

They are alone.

They are helpless, and they are alone.]