eyemind | event } in the dark we laugh together.

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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?

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Vessels were useful. They allowed one to walk among mankind unnoticed and safely contained. It protected both the inhabitant and the mortals among whom he was hiding. Unfortunately being bound to a sack of meat and bones also came with some inconvenient downsides. One of those being some rather significant... limitations. There were some things that could still break through those usually impervious walls.

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?

If a person can be happy and unhappy at the same time, that person is Richard Strand. Happy because he has a great job that lets him live moderately comfortably at Murdoch tower. He has a great kid who has decided arbitrarily that she wants to be a marine biologist this week -

(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.

Edited 2021-10-16 19:56 (UTC)

It was almost sweet, this life that Richard had invented for himself. Too bad that none of it was real. No girlfriend, no child, not this child anyway. Of course he didn't know that, this dream world was as solid as reality and played by similar physics. Physics that made it more difficult for Murmur to break down the walls to let himself be known.

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?

Side A-Open to all

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..?"

Damn it Damn it Damn it. He finally set the bag down and frowned. At least his laptop had remained secure but the likelihood that someone would grab it seemed more and more frequent these days. Pressing his lips together he looked up and spotted his keys that he in his stupidity had probably kicked farther away than he meant to.

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.

Richard Strand has very few problems in his life (besides unsettling nights, his mysterious girlfriend, and his budding marine biologist daughter who looks deeply confused when he mentions dolphins and how pretty she thought they were - Daddy it's all about sea horses.) but one of the few problems is Michael Rafferty, tenured professor of his department.

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?"

It was an ordinary day of course, university student Ishigami Senku was just coming home from class to his apartment. An ordinary apartment. He turned on the lights and...

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!"

The other person in the elevator didn't seem too interested in interacting with Ella either, even when she spoke up about the strange whisperings. They might have looked troubled, but mostly they seemed more inclined to try to avoid her like she was crazy. That was, of course, because they weren't "real" in the sense that Ella was. Should she look up again she might just catch a glimpse of one too many figures reflected in the brushed metal of the elevator doors.

Ella is nosy. Ella Lopez putting her nose in places where it doesn't normally belong is in her make up in every iteration, and now is no exception. Only this time, her nosiness doesn't come with the intention of her being nice. Instead, her attention is definitely focused on the man with a more criminal eye. He dressed nicely, sure but Ella understood the way that fashion could act as armor and costume inherently like she was right now. That doe-eyed gaze wandered over the man and she tilted her head to one side.

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?"

The elevator operator looking at her like she was crazy definitely made the iron in Ella's spine sit up and take notice. The response to that is something far closer to aggression than any sort of fear or sadness--

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?"

After a few bangs, the office door is yanked open to reveal Jake, Murdoch Tower's head of maintenance. He's fairly nondescript - mid-30s, short brown hair, average height and build, blank expression - and not known for being especially chatty or friendly. What he is known for is his quick and efficient work, a testament to why he's in charge of maintenance, ahead of some of the more senior employees in the department.

"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.

Things certainly did happen. Thing was? Things would happen in A tower as well, it just took a little more pushing to get them through. Murmur was very good at pushing at the cracks in reality. It's what he was made from, after all, that which existed in between it all.

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?

"Yes." He's more sure now, "The speakers in our side of the building whisper like this when it gets dark sometimes. It's just ..." bits of old songs. people screaming. bad bad bad dreams., "I'm sure it's a simple malfunction. Maybe something seeping from our side of the building to this one."

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."

Richard almost faceplants when the keys go skittering out of the way. He lands, hand on the tile floor as he glares back at the building. He's not that clumsy. He's out of shape. I have to stay ready. For what?

Stopping in the middle of the lobby he shakes it off and slowly, slowly walks towards his keys again before rubbing at the bridge of his nose.

When AC crawled into bed tonight they were going to have sex. Not make love, sex. Fuck. That would help, a good reminder of why the two of them were together. No. the walls were too thin.

Heedless of his keys for the moment he stared upward at the thirteen floors of his building and wondered if this would ever end. Pressing his lips together he moved to bend toward the keys again.

"Sure." Senku said with a bit of a shrug, befitting a young adult as he leaned against the wall in a casual way.

"It's 401." He responded, following after Jake. "Sounds like you have some kinda electrical issue then."

He wouldn't know anything about that.

When he keeps talking against her hand, Ella definitely has an entirely visceral response and crinkles up her nose as she looks at him askance. Wiping her hand off on her coat, the woman just meets his eyes, and it's clear that she doesn't find this amusing. Somewhere deep in the back of her mind, there's something wrong and there's a reason why that something wrong was very bad indeed. She turns to look at the back of the elevator, and she reaches out to glide her fingers against if, almost like she expects it to be different in some way.

"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?"

For several long moments the figure doesn't move, simply looming there eerie and motionless. Then it lifts a hand, pressing it against the reflection just beneath where hers wasn't quite touching. It was already cold, freezing even. Should she choose to test it out she'd find her hand leaving a frosty outline on the unnaturally cold metal.

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.

This time it wasn't the keys that went skittering, but the phone. Straight out of his pocket to launch viciously against the wall, conveniently right when another message came in. The phone chimed as it went flying, covering the sound of the lobby door behind him letting out a gentle click as the lock slid into place.

That should keep him distracted for a few moments.

Ella touches it, checking to see if it feels as cold as it looks, and she lets out a low his when it's freezing. Her eyes go wide and then she steps over to where it's colder and blows against it. Hell, if elevator man is acting like none of this is happening, then Ella's going to act like he's not there.

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?'

What the fuck.

Richard falls to his knees - hitting them hard with a wince. Snarling to himself he glances at it, then glances upward towards the top of the tower. What the hell was going on?

The Tower.

The Tower is a living breathing thing. He's always felt it, some sort of building- some sort of something large and cavernous. He always expected something around every corner but now...

Now his heart gently taps against his chest. Harder and Harder, pulse pulse pulse against the ribs.

"What the fuck are you doing." Sweat beads in his hair and down the back of his neck as he rises, staring upward, "What the fuck are you doing?"

At the building? At the ghost? Who can say?

Richard never knows when to be quiet. He'll talk his way through anything (Grant meetings, classes.) because he knows that he's right. He knows he's right here even with the messages and the words. When she pulls away he gathers himself looking flustered and adjusting his glasses. He caught something about crap job and ignored it in favor of mentioning his daughter, "...6." He beams, then with ease he pulls out his cracked phone, "She wants to be a marine biologist this week. Every week she wants to be something different. Always has."

(She can't decide who or what she is.)

Unlike - well. If he had his druthers Charlene would call herself Charlie. Charlie would love art - grabbing crayons in her chubby fist and scribbling dinosaurs and flowers and him, a big circle with glasses and babbling about how he had great big glasses. She'd take classes even with Elementary school being too boring because he could relate. She'd like peanut butter crackers and nutella and she dipped fries in chocolate shakes because she was insane...

(Charlene always says yes)

She goes to school a few blocks away. I teach at the university. You haven't seen her? My Charlene's quite independent." he puffs out his chest, "She's at home right now, trying to figure out if she wants turkey or Swedish meatballs."

(No decisions. NEver any decisions..)

Despite everything else that she is, Ella also cannot help but to be at least a little kind. She may not want to, but there are certain things that simply just bring that out in her. As someone who had lost her mother, she had empathy for parents without children and children without parents. There weren't any kids here, and Ella knew it. There especially weren't any kids on the ninth floor.

Six year olds, especially ones with father's who don't shut up like this guy isn't, who were independent, they were never quiet. They weren't quiet and they certainly weren't as silent as the carpeted tomb of the ninth floor is. It doesn't matter how much their father's eyes light up, or how he seems like there should be one, Ella knows that there's not. There can't be.

But Ella shifts her face into a bright smile, as she tilts her head a bit, and enthusiasm floods into her voice. This is like a shadow of the real Ella, but it definitely feels authentic. "She sounds really cool! I'd love to meet her. I'm your neighbor on the ninth floor!"

Elevator man deals with way too much to be worried about someone talking to their reflection in the door. Writing back wasn't going to work for him, not like this... but now that she was paying attention there was a solid line of communication. He knew Ella, out of all the residents, was his best bet.

They need to talk away from the dream.

The hand slams against the reflection again, this time ice crackling along its surface much like it would a frozen window. It's the best he can do in here, Ella.

It had taken her more than a few days to locate one in the building as she systematically broke into apartment after the other in order to find what's in her hands. It's a Ouija Board even if it doesn't look exactly like the ones that Ella remembered from her teenage days. Of course her abuela would have kicked her ass for even looking at one, but what else was there to do at slumber parties but play with one, watch movies or practice kissing on each other? Really, her grandmother wouldn't have approved of any of those things, so it's a good thing Ella was slick enough not to get caught.

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?"

For a moment, Ella swears that she could see a hand there in the glass, and then she gasped out loud as the ice cracked. It looked like when someone punched out a window, and with the men that Ella dated, she'd definitely seen more than one punch out one when they were fighting. Letting out a streaming mix of praying and swearing in Spanish (which sometimes had a surprising amount of crossover if you think about it) she touched the cross around her neck, and then remembered the other side of the building. Was it someone over there fucking with her? Cause if it was they had another thing coming.

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event } in the dark we laugh together.

The ghost in your apartment | OT Anyone who wants to be haunted

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Ella Lopez | Lucifer | OTA

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Brief visitor to side A

Senku Ishigami | Dr. Stone | OTA

Elevator

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Towards the end: the lobby.

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