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event } in the dark we laugh together.
WHO: All kidnapped and sleeping passengers
WHAT: Baby, you’re a haunted house.
WHERE: Murdoch Tower.
WHEN: Now until Oct. 31.
WARNINGS: Add these to your comment subject lines as needed! And if you die in this dream, it doesn’t count, you’ll just wake up at the end with the rest of the gang. c:
CW: Brief reference to suicide below.
All things considered, Murdoch Tower isn’t the worst place to call home. Sure, it’s got its fair share of idiosyncrasies like any other other building; floors creak, pipes rattle, faint noises waft into the walls of homes from places unknown. And there are rumors, of course, that it’s haunted. People love a good brush with the supernatural, right? But they’re just stories - no one has ever documented any true paranormal phenomena. Local legend has it that a terrible accident left a few unlucky construction workers buried alive in the concrete of the walls many years ago, but you won’t find any record of such a mishap in any of the City’s libraries or historical records.
The one thing that is documented fact is that the building’s original owner, Jake Murdoch, committed suicide in the penthouse apartment shortly after construction was completed. A bizarre message was left behind for the staff to find, hastily scrawled instructions of some kind involving an elevator, written on the wall in Mr. Murdoch’s own blood. Since then, the penthouse has been sealed off to the other tenants, who are instructed upon move-in that the topmost floor is strictly off limits. Still, rumors are passed between tenants about a secret elevator into the penthouse that can only be accessed by following the misfortunate owner’s dying missive, though obviously, no one has ever succeeded in finding this hidden entrance.
After all - one cannot find what doesn’t exist, right?
WHAT: Baby, you’re a haunted house.
WHERE: Murdoch Tower.
WHEN: Now until Oct. 31.
WARNINGS: Add these to your comment subject lines as needed! And if you die in this dream, it doesn’t count, you’ll just wake up at the end with the rest of the gang. c:
CW: Brief reference to suicide below.
All things considered, Murdoch Tower isn’t the worst place to call home. Sure, it’s got its fair share of idiosyncrasies like any other other building; floors creak, pipes rattle, faint noises waft into the walls of homes from places unknown. And there are rumors, of course, that it’s haunted. People love a good brush with the supernatural, right? But they’re just stories - no one has ever documented any true paranormal phenomena. Local legend has it that a terrible accident left a few unlucky construction workers buried alive in the concrete of the walls many years ago, but you won’t find any record of such a mishap in any of the City’s libraries or historical records.
The one thing that is documented fact is that the building’s original owner, Jake Murdoch, committed suicide in the penthouse apartment shortly after construction was completed. A bizarre message was left behind for the staff to find, hastily scrawled instructions of some kind involving an elevator, written on the wall in Mr. Murdoch’s own blood. Since then, the penthouse has been sealed off to the other tenants, who are instructed upon move-in that the topmost floor is strictly off limits. Still, rumors are passed between tenants about a secret elevator into the penthouse that can only be accessed by following the misfortunate owner’s dying missive, though obviously, no one has ever succeeded in finding this hidden entrance.
After all - one cannot find what doesn’t exist, right?
The ghost in your apartment | OT Anyone who wants to be haunted
Such as the assault that lead to finding himself trapped within the dreams of his companions. This one was different than the last, this wasn't due to Navi's psychic tie which was perhaps the only reason Murmur found himself unaffected by the illusion.
Further downsides to being tied to a mortal meat-sack meant that it was out of commission, rendering Murmur rather unable to defend himself at the moment until he could break through whatever it was that was holding them. Then, to make it all even more frustrating, he wasn't even a creature that could naturally dream. His kind could communicate through dreams, but given that this one was manipulated to begin with he found himself attempting to break through several layers of them leaving him largely imperceptible.
A ghost. More or less. An echo of himself screaming into a shared unconsciousness where he didn't belong.
Worse yet the dream had been designed in such a way that most of his efforts to communicate would be easily disregarded as nothing more than an old building that made old building sounds. While the rest dreamed, Murmur worked valiantly to do anything to draw attention to himself. Rattling those pipes, turning on water faucets in the night, tampering with electricity.
Surely, surely, eventually someone will see him... right?
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(Last week it was a physics teacher, the week before it was a filmmaker and the week before that -
He can't remember.)
Hell he even has a girlfriend and even if she is somehow gone early every morning and late every night she texts and messages and that's worth her not being here -
(Is it?)
Because recently she has been teaching him how to zoom and she shows up yawning about her class. She teaches sound design and engineering and most of her students want to do podcasts -
(podcasts??)
"It's absolutely ridiculous. Not everything is going to become a media empire and if I hear one more line about critical throw..."
"I thought it was roll? Like what you do with dice?" He shifted the three heavy library books under his arm to unlock the door to B-Tower, "Is it not roll?"
"You are adorable." She has bright eyes and a winning smile and makes him laugh (her name? What is it - a C? An A? Both feel right. I must be more tired than I thought.)
"I love you. I think I might miss dinner again though - these kids are going to need a faculty advisor to use the soundstage. Can you put it in the oven to stay warm?"
(You are never here. You are never here and I understand you're busy but surely you don't have to always be there.
Not even Coralee and Alex would never-)
"Richard?"
"This is going to sound old fashioned but I would like it if you came home at least once this week." A pause, standing in the lobby, "I deserve that you know. To see you. I miss you. And more importantly Charlene misses you. You told me she mattered to you the way I do."
Something flickers acrose her features and standing in the middle of the lobby he is fully prepared to yell but she sighs.
"Just...just give me until tomorrow okay? Please?"
It's always tomorrow. It was with Amber, with Coralee. Alex would never...
"Honey? Are you okay? I lost the image for a moment..." she looked concerned.
"Tomorrow is fine. Charlene will make tacos. And I will break out the good wine."
"You professor, spoil me." She blew him a kiss and he grinned, "I love you."
She grinned back and the phone slipped out of his hands just as the lights on the landing flickered. Books, bag, and phone all tumbled to the floor.
Damn it. Damn it - he began collecting his things. Somehow the pipes had been getting worse and he'd had to flush them twice when the water came out brown scaring the hell out of charlene and himself to boot. And now the lights?
Somehow in the ensuing battle, keys, papers, books and book bag contents had spilled across the floor.
"Stupid lights." He growled, "stupid building. I wish someone would fix you"
Richard Strand is unhappy because despite everything all he has is faint warmth beside him at night and the fact that Charlene seens to restart every week like a little wind up toy- like a rebooting computer trying to fix itself. He wants consistency. Even if strange.
(Ghosts. I'll take ghosts and music and family not speaking to me because charlie is marrying her wife and Alex is this wonderful challenging fall wind and the world is ending...
Wait. What?)
Books. Dolphins. Charlene wants to be a marine biologist because they went to the waterpark and it had dolphins and they were so pretty. Phone. Girlfriend. AC is the most dedicated teacher he knows. And she never leaves him alone at night even if they only talk by phone.
Speaking of phone his phone has one long crack across it, splitting the screen in 2.
"...Damnit AC." Aggie? it was wrong to blame her, "Books, wallet, keys..."
Keys.
Keys.
Cue a frantic search for a keyring set with a plastic video tape hanging off of it...unaware they have been dropped and scattered somewhere in the space between the two towers.
He is the ultimate absentminded professor at the worst of times.
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He'd have to play by the "rules" so to speak until he could whittle away at the immersion. That meant working at the barriers humans put up in their minds, and if anyone was adept at barriers it was Richard Strand.
Murmur, however, was never one to surrender over something being difficult. He saw an opportunity and he would take it. The lights gave another electric buzzing as they flickered as though a storm raged overhead. One article of Richard's dropped belongings had made its way toward the hallway from whence he'd come, further than it should have reasonably fallen from his hand.
Lost keys, Richard, would you like to find them?
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Damn it.
If he went for them the door was likely to lock right? That always happened. Things happened in B tower. Fuck it.
He checked his phone, made sure it had power so he could call the super, and confidently, swallowing hard, opened the locked door to move to grab his apartment keys.
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Eventually he'll break through.
Just enough for another push. Right as Richard's about to grab them those keys go flying again out of his reach, skittering out into the hallway. Did he do that, or something else?
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Ella Lopez | Lucifer | OTA
Strictly speaking, it's not even that hard to get access to a building like this. Honestly, Ella almost feels like she could have done it in her sleep. She'd left her partner (former partner. Good old Petey had stepped over the line one too many times) holding the preverbal bag either a city or two ago, and doing this kind of thing was only a little bit more difficult considering the split and now everything that Ella made was her own. She'd maneuvered two real estate agents, to begin with, and then Ella had a series of one night stands until she managed to get her hands on a set of keys close enough to where she wants them.
Then a lock pick later, some work on the staff of the building and tada, Ms. Lopez had herself an apartment on the ninth floor. If her mailbox just happened to be on the other side of the tower block, it was simply nothing more than discretion, it simply wouldn't do to have a much younger woman's name on the mailbox of an apartment owned by a politician who was in the throes of a messy divorce. There was nothing unusual when the tiny woman swept into the lobby past the doorman and into the elevator. Dressed in the latest fashionable 'looks cheap but really costs six hundred dollar' clothing, Ella just gives anyone in the elevator a warm nod. "Hey how it's going?"
Alternate Side A, elevator:
Sometimes, Ella needs to be frosty, an ice princess that settles unevenly on her person. Earbuds are tucked into her ears, and she is definitely not wanting to talk to anyone. But as one song fades to start a new one, frantic whispering comes through instead. Frowning, the girl just reaches up and pauses her watch, but the suggestions of words (not really words, but they almost should be) don't stop coming. Dragging one of the buds from her ear, she looks around the elevator, but the sounds aren't just coming from her electronics. Instead, it's like they're all around her. With a hitch of her breath, and as her brow furrowed into concern and anxiety, Ella turns to look at the other person. "Do you hear..?"
Brief visitor to side A
He would like his job. He would like his job very very much but Rafferty likes to watch people jump through hoops. He wants him to earn the job and Rafferty has a space on the lecture circuit. He has books and he's on a talk show (How to help people help themselves., Heal yourself through dreaming, Reclaiming your power and history, Declaring yourself)
He wants that job but Rafferty wanted to make him earn it so he is jumping through hoops and when the woman talking to him says words he looks up sharply and adjusts his glasses.
"W-What?" He turns away from his phone, AC shooting him a text-
Babe? I'm actually in the apartment. I can't be here long, when are you coming back?
His teeth grit and he looks up. If it's there (it's there obviously) he hasn't heard it. Yet.
"Sorry. Did you push the button for the 9th floor?"
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There feels to be something familiar about the man, but it's not something that comes with the trappings of the building that flowed around them. Ella is normally good with places and faces but recognition is slippery as oil as it drips through her hands. Giving herself a mental shake, she instead focused on the things that were physical. Older. Nice looking but rumpled almost? He had an absent minded professor vibe on him before he even spoke and that only solidified it.
If it wasn't for the strange circumstances, Ella would have been offended that he'd not taken notice of her before but given the spiderwebbing of goosebumps all over her body, it is a problem that's taken a back seat. When he gave the ninth floor, confusion flooded her face, because as far as she knew she was one of two people on the ninth floor and the other people were an old couple. "Did you say--" but before Ella could get the question all the way out, the whispering started again in earnest and somehow more intense. Moving up onto her toes, she pressed her hand to the man's mouth to quiet him before she asked again, a little less confidentially: "do you hear that?"
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Has Richard bought it? Perhaps. His gaze is quizzical but there's an edge when he speaks again, glancing upward, "There's the obvious. We're both tired, our minds might be playing tricks on us. It's a malfunction. There are a million and one things it could be. Except this building is supposed to be the finest in the city."
His tone is slightly teasing, "Or perhaps it's the ghost of Murdoch. Come to visit the rest of us for our sins. To drag us down to the depths..."
He chuckles, "My daughter loves a good ghost story."
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"For the amount of money they poured into it, it definitely seems just like they did a really crap job." As someone who is a grifter, Ella knows that game recongizes game but there's something different about this. It doesn't feel like the whole slap some paint on shit remodel that so many places have, it feels both old and both new and entirely wholly wrong.
But one thing that crosses Ella's mind is the mention of his daughter. In all her time, she'd never remembered seeing a child, not like that. Also she's on the ninth floor, she should have heard a kid too, just being around. With a careful voice, the sort of which you use when you're not sure if someone's going to leap into attack mode, Ella asks: "how old is your daughter?"
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Elevator
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Wait. Why should she be sad about that? There's no reason for that at all. But it felt so much heavier than Ella could put words on.
--And then the thought is gone, and her eyes narrow a little bit more. With an expression that has to do with raising her nose into the air and her lip curling about 'the help' judging her, Ella raises her eyes to a more lofty authority. Stopping dead as she stares up at the extra image reflected behind her. With wide eyes, Ella spins towards it, her mouth open when it's not there. Completing the circuit, the image is still there, and the girl takes a step forward with her fingers hovering over the reflective surface.
When she speaks, Ella sounds much more like herself than she did before: "woah. What?"
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The figure mouths something, though it's impossible to say what given how blurry the reflections are. Then it will be gone, just as quickly as it had appeared.
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When the metal fogs up, Ella touches her index finger to it again, and she hastily scrawls a single word with a question mark: 'hello?'
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Senku Ishigami | Dr. Stone | OTA
Senku huffed. He tilted his head back and rolled his eyes. He turned right around and went back down to the lobby, so he could find the office. He banged on the door.
"Hey! Anyone in there? The light's burnt out in my apartment!" He didn't know how to fix something like that, or even have what he needed. "Can I get some help?"
He was certainly making enough noise to catch attention, possibly. "Come on! I've got homework to do!"
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"Third busted light today," he mumbles, with a nod of acknowledgement. "Wait here." He disappears into the darkened office and shuffles around in the supply closet for a few moments, then re-emerges with a package of fresh light bulbs in hand.
"Which unit?" he asks, as he pulls the office door shut and locks it behind him before setting off for the elevator.
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"It's 401." He responded, following after Jake. "Sounds like you have some kinda electrical issue then."
He wouldn't know anything about that.
Towards the end: the lobby.
She'd gone around and stuck notes below the doors of the apartments that she thinks are occupied, inviting them to come because Ella knows that whatever this fuckery is, it's affecting the entire building and not just her.
Settling into the middle of the lobby, Ella reaches into her bag and pulls out four St. Michael candles in their tall glass frames and lights them before setting the planchette on the top of the wooden board. "Okay cool so whoever fucked with the elevator the other night, what's up and why are you here?"
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He waits, letting her set up and hoping that someone might come along. They hadn't yet, but in the meantime he'd gone ahead and made the candles flicker and done some nice chilly drafts just to let Ella know he's circling.
Then, deciding they might as well get this party started even if no one else had an adventurous spirit it was time to talk. Moving things more tangible than flame, however, took a lot of effort so he was going to have to keep his answers succinct and to the point. Reaching out, a chilly touch on the board the planchette began to move:
S-T-U-C-K
He can only answer one question at a time, that one seemed most relevant.
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Richard adjusts his glasses and steps out of the elevator. He hates the paranormal, sure it's a part of his work - psychology tilts itself into the realm of belief often - but there is something profoundly disturbing about the board and using it. Sitting across from her uninvited, he shakes his head.
"It's not going to do anything, these so-called ghosts are probably just the building."
He's doing this for Charlene who has been waking up screaming. AC is in the bathroom and he's on his feet holding his daughter who cries and cries in his arms. That was the only reason he agreed to this. Dealing with that strange mysterious girl from the elevator.
He moves to lift a finger to push glasses up his nose before sighing, "Damn super just won't pick up the phone."
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Instead, Ella half-mutters below her breath: "for the record I'm against you." She looks down at the planchette once more and then takes a deeper breath trying to focus on the connection that she'd made with the ghost through the board. But then knowing that if the man didn't help he was only going to hurt what she's trying to do and everything is telling Ella that's a bad idea. Between the ghosts and the 'accidents' that she's been having when she's alone, it seems like everything is a bad idea and she's going to jump into stuff.
"Have you ever been to the super's apartment? It doesn't look like anyone's ever lived in the apartment for the super so that's probably why the phone doesn't work. But if you're going to be here sit down and shut up." Without waiting for Strand to comply, Ella just closed her eyes for a second before she'd asked the next question. "You're stuck here?"
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The Elevator Game
Standing up, Ella pets down her pockets. The lighter that she'd used is there, as well as her phone and the flashlight that she'd started to carry the first time that she didn't have power when she was stuck somewhere in the building. When she closes her eyes, the rules for the elevator come into her head quickly, and Ella lets out a soft sigh. Then her fingers brush the small golden cross at her neck. Oh, she doesn't think it's going to cause this to be safe or easy, but it's a bit of a security blanket so Ella does it anyway.
When she starts to move towards the elevator, Ella thinks better of it, and she goes and grabs the board with it's planchette and one of the candles low by the base. Handing the candle to Strand, she just shrugs and says: "just in case we need more light, but be careful with it. Don't need a burn on top of whatever else this creepy building is going to throw at us."
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Reaching into his pocket he pulls out a handkerchief and wraps the candle in it before taking it. Businesslike. its a myth. Its a myth its a myth...
That's just it. It is a myth but he wants to believe. He wants her to be right and to see what's at the top. Charlene is a trap, AC is a trap. There are other things -
(Other worlds then these. Stephen King how appropriate)
That need him.
And he wants to know. To explore.
"I'll be right behind you. Don't panic."
He pauses and smiles, "that's for me. Not you. You seem on top of this."
He shrugs out of his suit jacket - careful with the candle - and his phone clatters to the floor with a loud crack.
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Ella just looks at the man oddly for a long moment but she doesn’t say anything. What she does instead is pick up his phone and slip it into the back pocket of her jeans. It’s not the best place for it, but she also doesn’t want to leave it on the floor or let him have it again. She did after all see how he had been looking at it and had heard the vibrations. It was a lot.
This whole thing was a lot and Ella knows it. The less distractions the better.
When they reach the elevator, Ella punches the up button. Before it arrives she asks him: “have you ever done this before?”
TW: Industrial accident, death
The elevator looms in his mind as he follows Ella's lead, "This one- according to resources - originated in Japan and is based on a rather tragic series of events involving an elevator manufacturer and the death of a 16 year old high school student. It-"
He inhales slowly, "the elevator moving of it's own accord - it's - it's too similar not to be an inspiration behind it."
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