[M] IC Untwinned

[DoughGuy]

Rated M for Violence, gore and other M stuff

OoC here

In a corner of Untwinned, south of the faerie forest and east of Grendel Nator Hill magic began to gather. What had been a pile of ordinary rocks glowed with grey energy before fading, leaving behind a very changed pile. Half of the stones had been bleached white, the other half had been burnt black. They rose into the air and formed a spinning circle of alternating colours. Black and white light began to emit from each stone in a triangular wedge towards the centre. The wedges twisted with the circle's movement becoming a descending spiral of colour, the very centre of which became a grey dot. From this bot tendrils emerged, but not into the world of Untwinned, instead they travelled through the portal itself, questing for those who had been chosen.

Those chosen had no idea they had been selected. For now they went about their daily lives, unsuspecting of what was about to befall them.

[Preach]

Jackie was jogging. In a rare reprieve from her normal obligations, she was actually jogging for fun rather than for training or because she had to rush to get somewhere. She'd put on her dark running leggings, a bright blue running tank top, a well-worn blue and grey hoodie, her favourite neon orange sneakers, strapped her combo music-player/phone to her upper arm,-none of which she was allowed to wear in actual competitions,- and headed out. At first, she'd barely covered any distance - she kept bumping into people she was friends with, or acquaintances with, or had seen generally around, or had never met at all, and chatted with them for a bit, but once Jackie got further away from the main area of campus and paid more attention to her 'runnin trax mix 2.2xjjh' playlist, it became a lot easier to develop a good pace.

The athlete had a lot on her mind. She needed to beat her current track record to get a sponsorship, which would be a massive windfall financially. She needed to get back in time to shower so she could make her shift as a waitress so that she would have enough time to go to the long-awaited football game against her university's rival school, so she could cheer on her friends who were playing, and she also needed to call her mom since it'd been, like, nearly four days since they'd last spoken. Gradually, as she ran, her worries were all left behind. Jacqueline soon realized she'd run a lot further than her intended 3 miles, a lot deeper into the less inhabited areas of campus. But Jackie wasn't worried - she would just take a breather and head back to her dorm. She stopped running, stretched out, re-did her ponytail, and crouched down to re-tie her right shoelace. Then, her phone started ringing, and, without looking at who was calling, Jackie detached the device from her upper arm and answered.

"Hello?... Oh, hey! Yeah, I'm good, you?... Yeah, yeah, what's up?... Nah, not going, can't make it in the end!... Yeah, nah, not happenin'..." She laughed, "Sorry! But, you know how it is - or, apparently, you don't!" She laughed again. "I'm just messin', just messin'..."

From her position, low on the ground, distracted, and looking down, she would never see what was coming until it was too late.

[Soulio]

Micheal sat in his office, looking over a file of one of his patients. He was preparing for a session tomorrow.
The clock on his phone tolled, signaling the end of his day.
He gathered his things, and left his office, waving to his secretary goodbye. He got into his car, and turned on the radio, and drove home.
The drive was not too long, but today it felt long. His day had been busy, and exhausting. His patient today had blown up on him, and nearly attacked him, but Micheal managed to calm him down before having to defend himself.
He sighed, and put on one of his favorite songs.
Ten minutes passed, and he pulled into his driveway.
After walking inside, he went down to his basement, and did his daily routine of practicing his fighting styles. He spent an hour punching a punching bag, going through the motions of random karate styles, and simple exercise.
His body ached, and he stopped.
His age was catching up to him. He was slower, and couldn't go as long as he could ten years ago.

He went back upstairs and began making himself dinner, and became completely engrossed in the task, completely unsuspecting of what was to come.

[Bee Bear]

Hitchhiking was always hit and miss, and today was unfortunately one of the "miss" days. Suzie was walking along beside a highway which only saw a car pass by ever few minutes or so. Her ragged old cowboy boots kicked up the dust on the side of the road as she trudged on in the heat. She adjusted her Stetson hat and wiped some sweat off of her chin before it dripped. It was so goddamn hot and not even her lucky denim shorts were enough to attract a passing motorist.

All she wanted was a ride into the nearest town and a nice cooling blast of cool air conditioning on her face. A juicy, fat pocket to pick wouldn't be unwelcome either, but she'd take what she could get. Her own wallet was looking rather flat lately and she needed to make a plan - fast.

Perhaps the scruffy looking man following some feet behind her would have continued on his way if he'd known how broke she was, or perhaps he was more desperate than she was. She did have a backpack, after all, and he didn't. Whatever the case, he waited for a clear lull in the already sporadic traffic and then made his move.

Suzie heard fast footsteps behind her and turned just in time to catch a forearm to the chin. Her head was knocked back and she started to fall but was caught up short by the man who attacked her's grip on her backpack, which was still attached to one of her arms.

"Let go!" he hissed at her as he yanked at it. She held on for dear life and swore angrily.

"You let go, fuck-tard!" she indignantly yelled back. "Do you have any idea who you're dealing with?" With that she gave one hard pull and ripped the pack out of his grip. She made a fist and slammed it into the wannabe mugger's scruffy, bearded chin, then kneed him hard in the groin.

Needless to say he didn't do much fighting back after that.

He was rather smelly so she didn't bother searching him for any valuables when she had him writhing in the dirt, lamenting his life decisions and looking very embarrassed. She did give him a thorough verbal thrashing on top of the physical one before she was on her way.

"Damn amateur," she muttered as she continued down the road.

[Kiall]

Clint was very nervous, he was also very itchy. He was nervous because there was a police officer directly behind him in line at the gas station. He was itchy because there was currently a pound of cocaine duct taped to his chest. A box of hot pockets was clutched in his hands as his eyes swiveled to glance at the cop. He couldn't help but notice the sunglasses he was wearing. Why would he be wearing sunglasses? it was dark out! Was he a reptilian? A spy? Were those glasses in fact highly advanced scanners? Did he know about the cocaine? Were they onto him?!

Beads of sweat began to form on his bald head, thick and vaguely yellowish like broth. He had to get out of here, quick and stealthily there was no room for error here! With a scream he threw his box of Hot Pockets at the cop and bolted banging his head against the glass door before running out into the dark New York night.
~~~
A couple hours later Clint found himself back in his dingy little motel. He scratched at his chest, his skin irritated from the duct tape. He had dropped off the drugs and had gotten his payment. He was now hunched over his laptop a sheet of crumpled aluminum foil over his head. Due to the electromagnetic scanner that was put in every computer since the early nineties by the government to monitor the identity of computer nerds and hackers, aluminum foil was one of the few items capable of short circuiting the scanner keeping his identity safe.

He heard the microwave ding and wincing from the burnt fingers grabbed the Hot Pocket inside. He hated Hot Pockets, but the chemicals inside combined with stomach acid burned out any of the traceable minerals found in every other food. Chewing and grimacing he went over his research, he was onto something big. He had heard about the Montauk project the Illuminati's secret government funded project to create psychic soldiers.

However his research had suggested something even greater. This project was actually a means to open a portal in space-time, to an entirely new dimension. No doubt to plunder its resources, perhaps even to steal highly advanced weaponry? Or use that realities own unique physical laws against the populace of earth?! The definite purpose eluded him but the ramifications were scary. This was going to be dangerous… He was going to need to find a new motel. "Agh!" he suddenly yelped a blazing hot bit of sauce had dropped onto his shirt, "Son of a…bitch," he muttered grabbing a napkin.

[Jeremor]

"Making the first incision."

The mortician spoke to himself in the cold grey walls of the morgue. His only company was the corpse laying on the metal tray in front of him. In his gloved hand was a shining scalpel, sparkling under the big round light positioned overhead. The man on the table was of a middle age, skinny, and covered only by a towel over his lower half. His skin was already taking on a grey pallor that would need to be corrected before the night was through.

Bending lower to the body, Melvin Nocens closely observed the way his scalpel slid along the skin and bit in deep. It wasn't some perverse ritual. He looked close to see how the skin reacted to his razor, to make sure his cut was straight and of a steady depth, and many other reasons that fluttered through his brain. He paused only to push his glasses back up his nose and brush a stray hair out of his eye.

"Subject, male, appears to be in his late 50's." Melvin spoke, none but the dead to hear him. "No external wounds. No signs of blunt force trauma. Straining around the eye sockets, enlarged and bloodshot..."

He continued listing off things he saw just like that. His voice monotone, unfeeling or caring, as he performed his autopsy. Not that he was a pathologist, of course. Melvin was nothing more than a funeral mortician in a long line of morticians. But, if there was one thing he had a passion for, it was learning. Most especially learning about death and the causes of it, the many ways that it takes and leaves it's touch. So, he gave his own autopsies of the corpses that passed through his room.

"In the opinion of this physician," He stood up, pulling his gloves on tighter and laying away the scalpel. "The subject choked to death on a wad of half-chewed food."

The autopsy concluded just that simply, Melvin's final analysis given, and then the real job began... prettying up this lifeless husk so that the living could look at it one last time. The Nocens boy enjoyed that part too. It made him feel like he was bringing the dead back to life.

[Aureyon]

"Hello little bird", the young native spoke softly to the beautifully colored bird that had landed on the large rock beside him; often times the animals of the jungle thought it safe to come close to the strange native man as he had lived in the jungle nearly all his life, he had grown accustomed to the ways the nomad, and as such he had a closeness with the animals that many others did not. It had been this way for as long as he could remember, and as far as he knew it would remain this way.

Aedon had always been about the Amazon, living off the land that provided him food and water, and taking what was only necessary to survive, for he believe that to live in harmony with the wild... one must be willing to forsake all civilized restraints and live as an animal would. And, so he did live this way, refusing to take more than he needed and giving back what he did not use. It was the way of the wild, and he was the Wild.

Even now, as he spoke to the little bird, he could feel the gentle hum of its life force connecting with his and he could imagine what the creature was saying to him.

"Do not fear the humans in the village. They will not harm one that contains such beauty", he stated softly with a sense of compassion. He had often believed that the animals were speaking to him, but to those who could not understand them, he would seem odd or estranged. The animals, however, had a consciousness all their own and each had their own unique language in which they could speak, and if one had lived among them long enough, they too could learn their language and be as one with the creatures of the wild.

As of now, he had to deal with the villagers threatening the wildlife around him, they were greedy and took more than is needed to survive; This he would not condone, he could not...

[DoughGuy]

The first tendril found Jackie, still talking on her phone. It snaked up from under the ground, sliding up her leg and back to the nape of her neck. Insubstantial as it was she wouldn’t feel a thing. The tip split into two and the pair shot forward, plunging in her ears. For her there would be a slowly growing buzzing noise, at first unnoticeable, but growing in pitch. Her phone call was soon drowned out as it shot to painful levels. Then the noise changed, no longer a buzzing it resembled the pounding of drums and cheering voices. Scarily familiar to the cheerleader. With a crack the ground below her opened up and she dropped down. Just as quickly the earth sealed up again, swallowing her whole.

The second tendril found Michael as he was cooking. It rose out of a countertop behind him and also split in two. Both halves turned clear and transparent before it shot forwards and wrapped itself around his head, the tips touching his irises. As he cooked the world began to shine and sparkle with bright flashes. It was almost like his own personal lens flare. A minute after it began they became so bright and so fast he couldn’t see. Unable to see he couldn’t react as the earth cracked below him and swallowed him up without a trace.

The third tendril found Suzie, who wasn’t having any better luck with the cars as she walked. In fact the cars soon disappeared altogether. The tendril appeared out of the ground to her rear and struck her right in the back, attaching like an anchor to the ground. As she trudged on in the heat it slowly became harder and harder for her to move. If she were to look at her skin she would see that it had turned a shiny grey and hard to the touch. There was a sudden pain as the transformation hit her organs. For a second she was frozen in place, a solid steel statue. Then the ground opened up and she dropped like a rock.

The fourth tendril found Clint hunched over his computer. It grew out of his tinfoil hat in an accidental irony and rolled down its side onto the back of his head. It continued to grow as it wrapped itself around his neck and slid up his chin. Turning transparent it entered his mouth as he chewed and slid down his throat with the contents on one bit. At the bottom of his throat it split into two and one shot down into each of his lungs. With his next breath his feet evaporated into the air. The second turned everything below his knees to air. His third and fourth turned the rest of his legs and groin into nothing. His body flopped down onto the couch and his tinfoil hat went rolling onto the ground. Two more and his arms and torso were gone and his head followed his hat onto the ground. With only his head left the ground cracked open slightly and he was completely gone.

The fifth tendril found Melvin still hunched over a corpse. As he looked away from the body it rose out of the cadaver’s heart, splitting into two, and struck his eyes before he could react. The scene before him instantly changed. No longer was he in the morgue, but on a barren plain with dark, storming skies. There was a flash of lightning and a figure appeared before him, a tall, thin being in a dark hooded cloak. In its right hand was a scythe as tall as it gripped by a skeletal hand. It twisted the scythe’s blade toward sits own throat and made a slashing movement. The hood collapsed as a skull tumbled from within onto the ground. Melvin would feel as if his own throat had been cut though there was no blood. As he looked at his own body he would see the flesh had disappeared and he was a bare skeleton. Then the scene was gone, and he was back in the morgue, whole and human. He had a second to figure out what had happened before the ground beneath him split open and he fell.

The final tendril found Aedon as he was still holding the bird. It split into dozens of tips, each one striking a plant or tree around him. The final two struck the bird and Aedon himself. Suddenly the forest came to life, literally. Faces opened up on the trees, plants grew legs and the bird was gifted a human voice. All of them began speaking at once, a cacophony of competing voices all clamouring for attention. The plants rushed him with their new mobility, crowding around his legs and trying to climb his body. He felt himself shrinking and growing rapidly, one second he was a child again, the next he was an old man. His body flashed through every year he would age to in quick succession, his entire life lived in a minute. And then it all stopped, the plants dropped to the ground unmoving, the faces on the trees froze mid word, and the bird’s voice reverted back into song. Aedon had just enough time to check his body was his actual age before the ground beneath him grew a face of its own, and swallowed him whole.



As the earth closed around them everyone found themselves falling through vertical shafts through the earth. Each person was alone and could do nothing to move as they fell, only hope they’d survive whatever was at the end. The shafts were quite large and well lit, though there was no visible light source. Suzie found she was human once again, no longer made of steel and Clint’s body had been returned to him. Michael and Jackie also found their sense had been returned to them as normal. Objects from each person’s life, from every year they had lived, drifted by before being smashed against the walls of disappearing into the darkness below.

The fall seemed to take hours yet when a light appeared below it felt like seconds had passed to the travellers. It quickly resolved into a spinning black and white portal which twisted and warped as objects passed through its surface. For a while the portal remained a constant distance from them and seemed to be observing them. The grey tendrils slithered up through the air and wrapped around each person’s waist. Though they were insubstantial to touch they managed to grip everyone and pulled them down into the waiting portal’s surface.

Once through they were tossed out of the Untwinned portal and onto the hard earth in front of it together. Behind them the stone circle collapsed with a crash and the stones tumbled away, none landing on the group. Above them the sky was an ugly grey which threatened rain. There were dark and light spots among the clouds but they were few and far between. The ground was a dark brown and bare of any grass, flat for miles around. A few trees surrounded them, twisted and gnarled trunks with few branches and even fewer leaves.

To the north, and barely visible, was a faint blue light. To the northwest a much brighter white light shone, just visible over the hills in between. It blazed with a comforting warmth and those who looked upon it would feel at ease. To the east and west there was nothing but hills, rivers and trees to be seen. To the south large mountains in the distance, their tops glowing a scary red.

The only movement in sight was a yellow shape to the north, slowly growing bigger as it moved towards the group. For now it was just an undecipherable blur.

[Aureyon]

Aedon found himself falling through the Earth, a slight sense of fear engulfed his heart in its icy grip before he forced it from the organ and he calmed his body. Whilst the fall sensation wasn't pleasant, it wasn't exactly and unpleasant feeling either. He had always knew that his time to die would come, and if it was now, then he knew that his life had been well lived and as such he had no fears of what lay beyond.

However, fate or destiny, whichever controls his life, seemed to decide that it would not be his time just yet and he was thrust onto the earth once again, but this earth felt different to him; Looked different too. As he stood, rather shakily he eyed the four cardinal directions and saw the hills and forest to the west and his heart yearned to go there; to feel the consciousness that this new place had to offer.

It was then that he noticed the strangers around him, and his eyes fell on each one of them, examining them and their strange clothing. They did not look like any of the people he had seen in his native village, and neither did they look like the missionary that had visited him in his younger years. They looked odd, a variety of colors, and clothing. They were interesting to him, and a smile found its way to his face.

"Greetings, friends. It is fortunate to be in this place with you all. You all look quite strange to me. I am Aedon, of the Amazon.", he stated kindly, his brilliantly white teeth shining in what little light hit them.

[Preach]

"Haha, no way, do you really think so? No way!" She chatted away, completely unaware, trying to tie her shoe with one hand. As it wasn't working, Jacqueline nestled the phone between her ear and shoulder as she tied her shoe again. The phone connection became fuzzy, she wasn't able to hear what was being said anymore.

"What? Hey, could you speak up? I can't hear you!" Mumbled buzzing was all she heard as a reply. She tied her shoe.

"What? What did you say? Ah!" She grabbed the phone and brought it away from her face as the noise got louder, then she realized that the phone hadn't been making that noise. Jackie looked around, disturbed - where was that coming from!? It was so loud! She brought both hands to cover her ears as if that would help, but it didn't, and the sound was as if she was suddenly standing on the sidelines of a big game - it was so loud! Then suddenly and helplessly she was falling down into a black abyss.

Or rather, a lit shaft. But she was still falling. She braced, huddling into a little ball and pressing her phone against her chest . At least she could hear, now. But she was seeing all sorts of things from her past -Was she dying? Is this what dying was like?- a teddy bear, a bike, a letter, all things she recognized that were floating around only to violently disappear. But then, there was a light! The light at the end of the tunnel?! Oh, man, she really was dying, wasn't she?! Jackie was mildly amused by the thought, not disturbed at all. How had she died? She hadn't felt anything! But the light, it wasn't just a light, it was black and white, and it wasn't moving any closer, until suddenly she was grabbed by what looked like a tentacle -She'd never heard about this part of the afterlife before- and pulled through.

Jackie flew for a few moments, before crashing with a grunt onto the hard ground and rolling a bit, simply from the momentum. Hitting the ground hurt - does that mean she wasn't dead? She retained her braced, balled-up position as multiple somethings thudded against the ground around her. Only once the falling noises had stopped, Jackie cautiously un-balled herself and slowly stood up.

Oh man... this definitely was not a part of campus that she recognized. Who were these people? She'd never seen them before, that was for sure. She pouted as she looked around, completely at a loss for where she was. On a flat field... That'd be good for running. Glancing at her phone, she was relieved that it was fine. No signal, though... Where was she?!

A voice caught her attention - her blue eyes looked up to see a huge, friendly-looking buff dude. Jackie smiled back, her friendly instincts kicking in. "'Eyyy! Aedon! I'm Jackie, of the BSU!" She did a thumbs-up with her free hand, then kicked at the floor idly, looking away from the huge dude to check out who else was here, though a smile remained on her face. It looked like a pretty diverse bunch. "So, haha, you don't know any of these guys either?"