Post by The Legion on Mar 13, 2021 12:52:07 GMT -6
Julie was alone in the ski lodge, this happened more often than not now. Susie was off doing whatever she wanted, a more common occurrence than Julie would have liked. What was she doing? Who was she with? Frank didn't seem to care as much as she did. It irked her, in a way. What friends did Susie even have now? There was that Smoker that hung around the ski lodge. It just wanted food, though. Huntress was another one of Susie's friends, Julie didn't much care for her. Julie could say she didn't have friends, but maybe that wasn't true. It wasn't exactly her that was making friends. It was whoever Zarina thought Juliana Kostenko was. A survivor, a victim of a crime... She was nothing like the persona she'd built up, it was just her ideal self. Joey was with Rin, doing God knows what. She seemed to hate the Legion, so whatever Joey saw in her Julie didn't get. Rin seemed to hate her, too. She didn't care. And Frank... Frank hadn't said where he was going, maybe he needed time out of the Lodge. It didn't matter.
She was sat in the middle of the building, feet propped up on the table while she read a magazine that was left in the should-be waiting room. She'd read it hundreds of thousands of times by now, she could probably recite the pages word-by word. Princess Diana: Leading Royalty into Reality... It was a $3 magazine, 1993.
Huhm. She tossed the magazine down, she didn't want to hear about British Royalty, or why weight loss can't work, or reports from Bosnia.
It had taken a while for Nancy to finally convince herself to stray from the damn campfire. Leaving the safety of it behind, the warmth it provided, seemed foolish to anyone but herself.
If anything, remaining there was cowardly in her eyes. What was going to be done when all they do is sit on their asses, waiting for the next trial to commence? Or to just wait for something, anything to happen at all? It's something that nearly drove her mad, itching to get up and go do something. Nancy Wheeler wasn't someone that just sat down, twiddling her thumbs waiting for something to happen. She was a woman of action.
So she had spent so little time at the campfire. She had of coursed talk to a few of her fellow survivors, at least when they pushed for it. For the most part, she did what some might call a bad hobby but what she calls a hidden talent.
Nancy eavesdropped. Listened to nearly every conversation each survivor had, retained information on what seemed important and what didn't. Committed it to memory to try and use that sort of information later on. For the most part, she gained information on the different realms. Usually just a name, but sometimes she got more. A meat plant covered in gore and strange contraptions. A place ripped out of a western film, containing a gallows with hanging corpses as a finishing touch.
One that was achingly familiar. A laboratory, with a strange hole inside with corpses scattered about.
Yet there was one that caught her attention. Whispers of a ski lodge with snow that constantly fell, yet none of it ever adding to the stuff that's already on the ground. Decrepit and old, somehow not falling apart with the smallest breeze.
She doesn't understand why she's drawn to it. Why she wants to visit this place first so badly, when any other place she had heard about would suffice. It was probably... Because it seemed the least harmful. One that sounded the least likely to have a corpse hidden inside, because even if she was no stranger to it she was so tired of such violence.
So if she finds a fucking body in ice, she feels like she's going to lose her damn mind.
The place seems harmless enough at first. What she sees is about what she expected, an old ski lodge that looks like it's about to fall over. Even the snow doesn't bite at her skin, the sweater she wears providing just enough protection from the cold.
Granted... There is a bit of mystery to the place. She had never been inside a ski lodge before, with no mountains being in or around Hawkins to require such a business. So her first step inside makes it all feel... A little underwhelming, because all she sees is a desk covered in a few snow shoes, plus a few racks with snowboards on it.
Honestly? She didn't know what she expected.
There was one unexpected thing though, one that pronounces itself with the sound of crinkling paper. A sound that her eyes dart to in an instant.
There's a person, a human being, inside this lodge with her. A form she can't make out, sitting down on something as their feet was propped on the table before them.
Actually, she didn't even know if it was really human, didn't she? Maybe it was one of those killers, the owner of this realm, and she had stumbled into its liar. Maybe she had been foolish, to just come into this place without knowing what resided inside-
Her thoughts are so rampant, running so fast, that she doesn't even realize she's trying to step back outside until a floorboard creeks under her boot.
She bites her lip to keep herself from cursing, eyes remaining on the figure sitting down. Staying completely still instead of running, because maybe the creature will think it's a trick of the wind. Or, hell, maybe it doesn't even have eyes. Maybe it can't see...
Maybe if she just stands still for just a moment, everything will be okay.
Post by The Legion on Apr 14, 2021 15:41:59 GMT -6
That was one way to be taken out of a pity party, the creek of a floorboard that couldn't just be the lodge settling. She knew most every sound that happened in the Lodge now, the birds cawing (indicating a trial soon, they'd be swept out of their comfortable lodge and put into Hell). "Hello?" Julie called. Damn it, she didn't have a knife on the table. Why didn't she have a knife on the table? Throwing her magazine to the place she was sitting as she got up, "Joey, this isn't funny."
Turning around, wow. That wasn't Joey, not even beginning to come close. "Who the hell are you?" What? Huh?
She was stunned, really. No one came here unless they were Legion, so what was the woman in front of her doing? Trying to get a lay of the land to get the upper hand in a trial? It wouldn't work.
Still, that seemed stupid even for a survivor. What did she gain by having the upper hand, when Julie would always be faster than her? It didn't help a lick to know the area better, in Julie's opinion.
Julie stalked towards the figure, silhouetted by the bright outside snow. "You a survivor?" Julie questioned, sure, Julie. Keep piling questions into her. What good would that do?