221/The Phantom Tollbooth

The Phantom Tollbooth
Date of Scene:	09 August 2023
Location:	Obsidian Tower - Dark Laboratory
Synopsis:	This here dark spooky passageway is a toll dark spooky passageway. Also, hugs, monsters, and The Haunting Of Hill House references.
Cast of Characters:	Pyrite, Hotaru Tomoe

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Pyrite has posed:
    Obsidian Tower is not a safe place. Whether it's political maneuvering, backstabbing from co-workers, or the frightening rumors of disappearances, suicides, and spontaneous insanity among those who work in the lower levels. The truly frightening things are higher up, not lower, but that does not mean that the sub-levels aren't their own form of Hell on Earth.
    Among these many rumors, there is one that seems almost mundane by comparison to the tales of horror, or the people who tell said stories only to seemingly have no recollection of the events the next day. It is said that the tower is haunted by a ghost.
    A quaint fiction relative to the whispers about problem employees being 'replaced' with someone else who looks exactly like the problem employee, who seems human but just... Isn't.
    Whatever the reliability of the other rumors, it is the story of a ghost that is most accurate to reality.
    Now, recently enlisted as a Dark officer of some kind, with the clique that surrounds the intern named Darien Shields, a pale girl with long black hair and bright red eyes wanders the halls. She is mostly confined to the lower levels, but sometimes things happen elsewhere in Obsidian facilities. Haunting-like events, consistent enough to make even the skeptical think perhaps there is something going on.
    Now, a small group of researchers hurrying through a passage in the laboratories of the R&D department come around a corner and the lead member of the group immediately halts, causing the others behind him to nearly collide with his back. Standing half-way down the corridor that has no reason to be as long as it is, and usually isn't that long, is that young girl, in her military uniform. The overhead lights flicker or just go out completely for seconds at a time, casting the corridor into deep darkness. The girl's red eyes appear to be glowing in the dark in those half-moments.
    She waits, hands behind her back, standing at attention, smiling at them.
    The group of adults who are familiar with many horrors, who are not bound by the Veil, still choose as a group and without discussing it to find a different hallway to walk down.
    The sound of the girl's amused giggle chases them all the way down their detoured path.

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
Hotaru Tomoe was... many things. Weak, delicate, sickly, soft. And, honestly? In Obsidian tower she was likely the LAST person ANYONE expected to be 'safe' within the halls.

Yet, she was. For all the monsters, the creatures, the creations that roamed the halls, few actually threatened her. Sure, they'd not let her pass, lock doors, keep her from going places. But... actually stopping her? There were few.

As such, she had gotten a little bit... welllll... she had a bit of a history, accordingly. Namely, while she was scared of many things... she found the eery, the strange, the... macabre *fascinating*. And so when she'd heard rumor of a strange ghost appearing in the hallway of the tower, one with a horrifying girl, a monstrous creature the likes of bloody mary...

Being the wise, delightful child she was, she had to go see this almost certain death. And when she finally came down the hall, when she saw that weird girl with red eyes... the military uniform... Her eyes lit up. She made her way towards it before holding her hand out towards them. "Hi!" she said. Then paused... wait... "Pyrite?" she asked. "You got new clothes!"

Pyrite has posed:
    Oh, that's interesting. Someone who knows her name. As Hotaru approaches to within hand shaking range, Pyrite suddenly slips well within personal boundaries, face to face with the older girl, and lets out an interested, "Hmmmm~?" She tilts her head, looking the other girl in the eye, but at an angle. She's shorter, so she has to stand on tip-toes. Even if she isn't touching the floor anyway. Still with her hands behind her back, the hungry ghost says, seemingly out of order for whatever conversation they're about to have, "But you only met me as Himeko at that picnic. How could you know me as Pyrite too, Tomoe-senpai?"
    She stares unblinkingly, for a few more seconds then sways backwards, just sort of slide-drifting to her original position. "Then we must have met before then. And you didn't realize I was also Himeko Soryuu until I told you. Naruhodo, naruhodo~. Were you in the meeting when Hematite-senpai introduced me? Then you are either Riventon-san or the other one who was with him? The quiet one? Ne! Am I right? I'm right, aren't I? Ne? Neee~?" she presses insistently.
    "Ah!" she lets out as she looks up at the ceiling. The lights stopped flickering when Pyrite stopped ghosting them up. "But you would have seen me in this uniform then too... Hmmm...." She moves her arms around to her front and folds them as she leans backwards far enough that she's just floating parallel to the floor in mid-air, making thinking noises.

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
Hotaru Tomoe blinked a few times. Wait... did... did Pyrite not know her as Firefly? She thought EVERYONE knew her as Firefly. Well. Everyone on their side. But she supposed that was likely only true in their division. "Oh... ummm, yes. We met. I was Firefly. I... know I look a lot different. I'm sorry, I thought Darien-senpai would have told you. I'm Takashi-senpai's assistant. Kind of. I don't think we've ever had a full, official introduction, have we?" she asked sheepishly.

"But yeah, we met then! And then met later. But I wasn't really sure who you were then, until Darien-senpai told me. You're like his little sister, right? There aren't a lot of people our age in Obsidian and you looked really sweet, so I'm happy I finally get to formally meet you," she said, holding out her hand.

... Yes. Sweet. That's... a name that could be used. Innacurately. But there was, technically, no legal reason one COULDN'T call her sweet.

"And yeah... I guess you were wearing a uniform then. But... you look different somehow, now. More confident, maybe? Did... something happen?"

Pyrite has posed:
    The floating girl is suddenly behind Hotaru, putting her gloved hands on the older girl's shoulders and hopping up and down excitedly. "Oh! Oh, yes! Firefly! Was that ever said? I don't recall. I met you at the picnic, with Usagi, and those others." The girl floating in the air in front of Hotaru straightens herself up and puts her feet groundwards at least, before floating forwards again and taking the extended hand with a smile and squinted ruby-red eyes. The Pyrite behind Hotaru is no longer there.
    "Excellent, excellent. We bonded over our pain. A bond of suffering and despair and the joy of Destroying Everything that was formed when our eyes met! I am Darien-Onii-san's younger sister, and also Hematite-senpai's apprentice, and now I am also Himeko and Pyrite, acquaintance of Hotaru Tomoe. Ne!" Her cold, fragile, somehow 'unsolid' grasp tightens despite the lack of substance to her.
    "I get stronger when I eat. Bad dreams. Monsters. Light. Souls. It lets me remember. I remember so much since Nephrite-san's Shadow told me all those secrets." She giggles excitedly. Her grip grows even tighter, to the point it might be slightlypainful.
    "Ne... There's a toll for passing through this hallway. I thought what I would do is, I would take life force from those who wish to pass, and by so doing become stronger and remember more things! You want to help me, right? We can be friends, like the Usagi, and you can feed me, and then one day neither of us will hurt anymore! Won't that be great, Tomoe-senpai?"
    Her face presses in closer and closer while she speaks, until she brushes just pass Hotaru's cheek, and whispers in the other girl's ear in a tone that is an empty void, a Creature walking around when it should be in its Grave.
    "You'll let me eat you, right, Sennnnn-pai?"

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
Hotaru Tomoe nodded, smiling up at the girl. Wow, she was... fast. Confusing, disorienting. But fun! The way she moved, making Hotaru glance back, only to be in front of her again! It made her giggle with glee. It really was like having a spirit around! It was half of the fun of being around so much dark energy.

"Well... I don't know if that's entirely what we bonded over. I don't like suffering. But... I do like you. And I don't think I want to destroy everything. You're part of everything. So is Hematite-senpai and Takashi-senpai. In fact, I like a lot of things I wouldn't want to destroy. And ummm. We can be friends if you want. I mean... we don't have to just be acquintances," she said sheepishly.

"You... can eat bad dreams?" she asked softly. "I... have a lot of those. It tends to be when the dark energy is strongest. I... usually feed it to Yochu-chan when that happens. Ummmm..." She looked down at the hand. It... probably would hurt. If her hands were... real. As they were, Pyrite might be able to feel how cold they were. "Please... careful. If you damage my hands, daddy will have to fix them. But... hmmmm... a toll?" Alas... her new kohai called her Senpai. After that... how could she say no? "A little energy... Well... I guess... that's fair. Just a little bit, though," she said. "And no biting. I... need the body parts I have left."

But a little life drain, what could it hurt? Though...

The moment she started, the first fleck, and she would *feel it*. There was something in there. Something dangerous. Even in comparison to her. As she took a little nibble of Hotaru's life force, she could feel whatever was inside the girl trying to come *after Pyrite.* No, not just intending to go after her.

That momentary instinct that whatever that thing was, it was planning to take everything that Pyrite was. Devour her. Swallow her soul whole, take all that energy for itself...

But... but surely it couldn't do that... could it?

Pyrite has posed:
    The dead don't change. Not really. They may appear to, add a variation upon a repetition, incorporate something into their routine, but the base creature's nature doesn't grow. Thought remains stale, emotions stagnant, and perception of the world filtered through the lens of the trauma of their own death. Himeko Soryuu, the girl who just wanted to be safe with her mother, but who was instead offered up to creatures of Darkness to keep her out of the hands of mortal men, spent five-hundred years in isolation, unseen, unheard, and ignored by all. Somewhere during that time, she broke. She broke repeatedly, and she broke hard each time.
    To continue to exist, not-whole, in death is to be driven steadily towards madness.
    Only madness allows one to cling to the world with such tenacity, to dig into the corporeal and hold on until their nails break and the flesh rots away and the bones crumble to dust but they still have a grip on the place they no longer belong.
    Himeko Soryuu, the girl who was murdered, cursed, and then left to fend for herself for five centuries, is definitely driven by madness. But Himeko Soryuu, the walking death curse, was split from herself some time ago, when she had fully forgotten who she was, and begun to resent the living for ignoring and abandoning her.
    That Himeko, the Dark Himeko, fed on life and light and hopes and dreams and steadily made an entire ward of Tokyo into such an absolute graveyard that even its name has rotted away from official records, and even memories of it have withered away into so many dried up nightmares. It did not make her less lonely. It did not fix her madness. It did not let her pass beyond.
    But Dark Himeko is who was cut from the shadows and taken from her shrine by Hematite. The one who wants to hurt the world that hurt her so much she can't even remember all the times that she shattered like glass upon mountainside. The broken pieces of her, put back together in ways never meant, never seen, by her own maddened hands, is who stands here now. Able to exist in multiple places at once. To do things that warp reality, that induce madness in others, as she whispers in their ears how nice it would be to just let themselves slip away and end the pain forever.
    That is the Himeko Soryuu, now Pyrite, who presses in close to Hotaru as she is given permission to feed. 'No biting'. 'Don't break my hand'. Restraints. Fetters. Restrictions like those placed on her by Darien when he freed her from her shrine. Accepting is agreeing to a contract with Hotaru. More constraints in exchange for a broader range of options.
    The dead don't change.
    Being who and what she is, Pyrite does not hesitate to seal the contract by placing ghostly lips to Hotaru's ear, and whispering unintelligible, madness-words, that only make sense to someone on the border between life and death. She coaxes out the life force by talking it into abandoning its host, just a little bit, rather than tearing it out like she normally would.
    Silence lies heavily against Pyrite when the Thing inside of Hotaru starts to come for her. The death curse, not sane, reflexively tries to spread out to eat the thing that is attacking it, just like it did when Hematite approached it originally. There are no screams or growls or hisses or madness-words, just a thing that hungers, and that only hungers more as it is eats, against a power with its own bottomless appetite that links this reality and one where an unspeakable monster seeks a vessel.

Pyrite has posed:
    But the curse cannot stretch far enough. It isn't ready yet to attempt such a meal. Not strong enough to contain it. Too big. Too strong. Too much attached.
    Silence lies heavily, and for a moment, the part of Pyrite that is conscious looks around and finds that Silence, and considers attempting to tip it over to fall to the ground. No time. The other monster is closing in. As much as the Death Curse would just lash out regardless of its ultimate fate, mindlessly trying to eat what it cannot, and then being eaten in turn, Pyrite has already been restrained twice over. She can do nothing more. She was given only a nibble. She cannot die a second time here, nor affect Hotaru Tomoe in any other way, even if she had the capacity to do so. Which she does not.
    But as she pulls away from Hotaru, red eyes flashing with madness, erratic giggling emerging from her grinning mouth, she has gained something even so. That's two secrets she has learned in someone else's soul.
    She just floats there, stares, and giggles. There's a visible aura of black around her now, distorting the air. She may be weak now. But one day, she'll be So Tall, that she can look down upon the world and encourage Silence to fall on it.
    The dead don't change.
    Curses even less so.

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
Hotaru Tomoe had only a moment to consider... okay, maybe this was a bad idea. But... she was her kohai. She wanted to be a good senpai. So much more than she could even realize. It meant so much to her to do her best. To try.

Then she felt it... That thing coming up. Whatever it was. "P-Pyrite-chan!" she yelled, the fear coming off her. Not of her, but for her. Fortunately, Pyrite pulled away...

Hotaru stood there, staring up at the other girl, reaching out to touch her arm, but then pulling back. "Are... are you okay? I-I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have... I... I didn't hurt you, did I? Are you safe?" she asked.

Within her, the seed calmed. This was its vessel. Its host. While it couldn't rise up yet... couldn't devour yet... One day, it planned to as well. The messiah of silence would rise. Would silence all. And curses did not frighten it.

Caught in the middle between Curse and Messiah, Hotaru stared at the other, in her eyes, child. Concerned that she could have been hurt. "I'm... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have... I... I should go. I'm sorry. I didn't think it would... I thought it would be like the dark energy and not... I'm sorry," she said, pulling away from her and trying to flee. Something Pyrite was likely used to. But not of others fearing for her safety, not their own.

Pyrite has posed:
    The aura condenses into Pyrite's core. As Hotaru turns to leave, the floaty feeling of Pyrite landing on her back like a feather with arms that wrap around her midsection might give pause. "Tomoe-senpai... You are very interesting to me. I think I can learn lots and lots from you. You are very tasty too." She has her head turned to the side against Hotaru's back. She just kind of slips around to the front, and looks up at the older girl with big, innocent, glowing red eyes. She tilts her head to the side and gives a slightly sad expression. "Or can't I?" There's no way she's separating from Hotaru now. They have so much in common. The fact Hotaru doesn't realize how much they have in common is irrelevant. Pyrite doesn't know more than a sliver of the things she actually knows. The information is there, she has access to it, but she can't acknowledge or act upon it, because that isn't how she works. She can only repeat, over and over, the part of her existence that is allowed to her.
    But maybe, with enough exposure to others, Pyrite can break the rules. About the dead. About curses. And most importantly about what she can do without permission.
    "Please, Senpai?"

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
Hotaru Tomoe stopped when she was hugged. Of all the reactions she expected... that wasn't one of them. "You... don't think I'm bad?" she asked softly. She'd hurt a lot of people, accidentally. Done a lot of bad things, when that happened. The girl pulled back in time... but what if she had pulled back a second later.

"Learn... from me?" And there it was again. That burning desire to be as good a senpai for her kohais as her senpais were for her.

She looked down at the child and, while she SHOULD, logically, have been frightened... she wasn't. She'd... seen a lot of strange things. Ghosts weren't what frightened her. She actually LIKED them. But that was because, on a weird level, she didn't believe in them. She did, but didn't.

But this girl... well... "Okay. You can learn from me. I'll try to teach you what I can. But... no more nibbles. I don't want to hurt you. Do... you want to have some tea with me?" she asked, reaching down and gently ruffling her hair. Well, if she could. "Kohai?"

Pyrite has posed:
    Pyrite's slight Mona Lisa smile comes back as she shakes her head. "Mm-nn. Everyone and everything is bad to someone, somewhere. It doesn't mean we're wrong or invalid. We are what we are." She squints her red eyes to slits then. No more nibbling... That's... Fine. The contract is revoked then. No more life force from a regulr source, but because a contract was imposed over the one she has with Darien, and then was rescinded, it has weakened the first contract. Like an insect that landed in a spider-web and then escaped, the web itself has lost integrity, and might even be in tatters.
    Friends. Yes, all those positive things people say about friends really are true. She wants more friends like Usagi and Hotaru. And she definitely wants to learn from her senpai. "What is tea?" she asks. She knows. But it's information she can't access. Can't act upon. Because the dead don't change. Curses even less so.
    She may think she is being freed from constraints, but perhaps, with the right encouragement, whatever Pyrite is becoming can be something capable of choosing its own destiny, and choosing friends over vengeance.
    They'll just have to wait and see.
    Her smile brightens as she slips away to try to hold Hotaru's hand and walk-float by her side. "Let us find out if I have a stomach yet." she says excitedly. Maybe she'll even have blood, finally!
    She's already learned so much.