Atrophy

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

@Surtr IncHey, I'm gonna be outta town for the weekend pretending to be a good family member. Unless I'm back early Sunday, I probably won't be able to write anything up until Monday or Tuesday.

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

Hopefully nobody is going to need medical attention, because the camp nurse...

...just got fired.

_{I'll just go on ahead and show myself out.}

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

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_{@Junkmail@Surtr Inc}

The Campsite - Female Cabins.

---

Scott’s roar shot through Penny’s head like a piercing migraine, but she did not relent on the makeshift flamethrower. With each step he took towards her she took two back, always ready for the swing, the distant worry of the can exploding in her hands pushed to the back of her mind. Scott’s yelling was drowned out by the blaring of a horn, and from her peripheries she could see the headlight’s of Dexter’s car glowing bright. Good idea. Really wished he would have gone through with it before she had put herself within chopping distance. Her eyes narrowed; her head buzzed. The car was accelerating faster than it should’ve, but if she jumped now—the vehicle flew past her as she dived to the ground, pinning Scott into a tree.

It should’ve killed him.

Her lighter and hairspray disappeared into the tall grass as she ate dirt, her arms and knees catching her fall. Pushing herself up with a curse, she felt her vision momentarily swim. She could see a girl...Claire, right? Claire jogged over to Evel Knievel himself as he tried to stand up after his little stunt that, possibly, probably, most definitely saved Penny’s life. For a moment, Penny’s vision blurred, and it was as if she was witnessing a ghost image of Claire reaching Dexter before it even happened. Rubbing her eyes, Penny helped herself up. She was dirty but, aside from slight dizziness and a few scratches, rather unharmed—disregarding her burnt fingertips and loss of a thirty dollar bottle of hairspray.

“No shit,” she said in response to Zoey, following after the other girls as they made their way back to the female cabins.

Billy had watched the entire encounter through the edge of the blinds on the window. He had wanted to stop his sister from what he had thought would’ve been utter suicide, but something had held him back. Literally, he had seen in the reflection of the window a shadow figure appear from behind him and lock its arms around him; yet instead of freaking out and shouting in fear he had felt an extreme calm come over him, as if he had just taken a hit of some fantastic weed. It told him that everything would be alright and that there was no need for him to do anything. Everything worked itself out in the end. He remained, almost transfixed, it that state of elevation until Penny ripped open the door and held it for Claire and Zoey to drag Dexter inside.

“Is that dude okay?” said Billy, snapping out of his stupor.

Penny ignored his question. His sister leaned against the wall, her eyes tightly closed and a look that he recognized as one of her hiding pain on her face. He had learned lately that if he saw that face the best thing to do was to not ask. It always led to an argument, and getting into a shouting match wasn’t the best idea at the moment. He jumped with the others while the door creaked open, but was hit with a wave a relief as Britney entered and formed an escape plan with the others. His body tensed ever so slightly as they heard the noises from the next cabin over.

“I can get the boats set up,” he suggested. He motioned for his two friends and they made their way out the door.

“Wow. So brave. We should, like, give you a medal or something,” muttered Penny, her eyes still closed. A permanent frown had been fixed on her face since she heard the ruckus that could only mean that Scott Reese was somehow back. Pushing herself off of the wall, she slowly opened her eyes. The world had stopped stuttering. She assumed that whatever chems from the aerosol seemed to no longer be bothering her. Rubbing her wrists, she turned to the other girls.

“I’ll go spread the word. You bitches make sure that your boytoy there,” she nodded towards Dexter, “makes it to the boats in one piece. I still gotta chew him out for almost killing me. And make sure my lousy, piece of shit excuse for a brother doesn’t leave without the rest of us.”

With that she headed out the door and began the short walk to the boy’s cabin. She had no weapon with her. If it was Reese terrorizing the other kids, she doubted that anything she could do would be able to stop a beast capable of surviving a car wreck that would’ve paralyzed anyone else. Spread the word and run, that was the plan. She quickened her pace as she saw two girls, one limping, the other supporting her, exit the cabin, breaking into a light jog to catch up to them.

“The bridge is out. Take her to the boathouse,” said Penny, grabbing Kimberly lightly by the arm. Her eyes snapped to the cabin as she heard the sound of wood being split. As she took off for the door she spun around and shouted behind her, “Spread the word.”

---

^{@FernStone@Prosaic@Surtr Inc}

The Campsite - Male Cabins.

---

He was here. He was here to kill them. The girl she was helping bolted, grabbing her friend and leaving the others behind. Leaving Rita behind. Of course they’d leave her behind. None of them knew her. Even the nice girl—Tuyen—was being dragged away by somebody else. Martin was using himself as bait, and they were letting it happen. They were letting him get himself killed. Rita tried to cry out, tried to react, but she couldn’t do anything. Her legs had turned to jelly and she slumped against the wall, shrinking into herself as she awaited to hear the sound of metal splitting meat.

Instead she heard a thunk and felt someone pull her up off of the ground. She whimpered and peeked out through her fingers that were covering her eyes. A blonde girl in a muddy dress gripping what looked like a splintered, wooden stake began to drag her towards the back door, taking just a moment to whisper “boathouse” into the ear of the man helping Tuyen. Rita allowed herself to be pulled along, the touch of the other woman bringing some strength back to her legs. She leaned against Penny as she felt the fresh air touch her skin; it was only when they had reached the outdoors that Rita realized that the blonde had been whispering to her the entire time.

“...I know it’s scary and it seems impossible, but you fucking got to pull yourself together and make it the rest of the way yourself, okay? You’ve made it this far, and it may not feel like it, but you’re strong, really, you’re strong. You’ll make it there if you head that way for a few minutes. Just keep running and don’t look back, okay. My brother Billy will be there. He’s an idiot and an asshole, but he’ll help you get to safety. After I make sure those two are fine I’ll be right behind you. You got this. Just go.”

Rita nodded, breathed, and went.

Penny watched the mousy girl for a second to make sure she could move on her own. Then, her hand tightening on the splintered piece of door that she had to defend herself, she turned to go back inside to help Min with Tuyen before Reese’s bloodthirst turned towards them. She closed her eyes as she counted to three, and then walked through the threshold—the world buzzing with movement around her.

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

Wrote up a real shit post the other day that's gonna go into heavy surgery tomorrow.

Or maybe I'll just dump it in a shallow grave and cover it up with an entirely new post. I 'unno.

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

@Atrophy

TOGETHER, DEXTER AND PENNY GONNA MAKE IT ALRIGHT.

WHAT A DAY. WHAT A LOVELY DAY.

@JunkMail

HELL YEAH, WE SPORK NOW BABY!

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

I'd like to change my abstraction please
powerlisting.wikia.com/wiki/Spoon_Man…

@JunkMail

If that's the case, I'm definitely making one of my characters have this abstraction. Then we can finally settle the silverware wars for real.

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

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^{@FernStone@Prosaic@Surtr Inc}

The Campsite - Male Cabins.

---

Rita knew that Martin was trying to calm her down and trying to be nice. It didn’t help, obviously, her heart was still racing and her body was still shaking, but she still felt obligated to thank him. To say something nice in return, to pretend that she believed his empty promises so that the others and him wouldn’t worry about her. Her lips parted with a crack, and a voice came out.

“Everything is going to be okay,” she repeated slowly to herself; her eyes casting a look of irritation towards Martin. Her tone was uncommonly bitter. “I knew you were a loser, but I didn’t take you for being a fucking idiot, too.”

Her eyes grew wide and darted back and forth as she covered her mouth with a hand. She had not intended to say something like that; it had just slipped out. Clearly, the pressure must’ve been getting to her, cracking through and poisoning her filter. She forced an apologetic look onto her face and, slowly, as if she was almost fighting to get the words out, tried to set things right.

“I’m...sorry,” she said. Her voice was strained and forced, not unlike that of someone who had been crying, but to her it felt different. Heavier, if that was possible. “I, uh, I didn’t mean it.”

"Hey guys, can ya'll give me a hand?"

Anything to get away from this moment. Rita forced herself to stand up, catching herself against the wall to steady out her shakiness. Yet, despite her confusion on what had just occurred, her mind felt more at ease; she was still terrified, yes, but the panic attack had been kept at bay. If anything, staying next to Martin was more horrifying than getting split like a log. At least with the latter the only person who got hurt was her. Losing her one friend because...she pushed the thought away.

Lightly she stepped into the other room with slow, uncertain movement, making great effort not to look at Martin’s face, before she was on the opposite side of the bedframe from Kimberly. She gave the other girl a nod but did not say anything, worried about what else might slip out from her tightened lips. Grabbing the edge of the frame, she prepared herself to move to it wherever Kimberly was going.

---

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The Campsite - Female Cabins.

---

“Oh, shit.”

The sound of Billy’s alarmed voice drew Penny to the window. Her desire to cry had been shifted into a quiet fury—she had been thinking about Scott Reese, superdouche extraordinaire, and how the kid would’ve been locked up years ago if daddy hadn’t been the one with the keys. It seemed absolutely unfair, utterly unfair, that he could have gotten away with all of his bullshit while she was hounded by the cops for the slightest infraction. She could still feel the cuffs cutting in to her the last time they had found her out at the mountain. And now, in the shadow of the mountain, Scott Reese was going on a freaking killing spree; somehow, she still felt like his dad could play it off as “boys will be boys”, the prick.

Billy turned away as the axeman split another girl in two with a shudder. He had seen how quickly Scott had moved to catch up to that girl; there was no way they would outrun him, and unless he moved away from the one road off the island there was no way they would sneak past him. His mind began churning for other possibilities—no boats on the docks, but they could possibly swim as long as there was no undead kids in the water waiting to pull them under. Staying put could also work, but with the amount of women Scott was slaying it was only a matter of time before he came to the girl’s cabins to rack up a few more kills. He ruffled his hair. Damn it, he wasn’t an ideas man, he was an opinions man. Why wasn’t anybody else trying to come up with something?

Unbeknownst to her brother, Penny was coming up with an idea. Her stomach knotted as she watched Scott butcher another girl, and her eyebrows knitted into a look of determination. She spun from the window and quickly riffled through the room for her bag, grabbing something out of it before shoving the bag to the side. She patted her leather jacket, feeling the small object in her pocket, before making her way towards the door. She stopped once she felt the handle, in part because Billy had spoken up.

“What the hell are you doing?” he said, the concern in his voice apparent.

“Probably going to get myself killed,” she said, her eyes thin.

“Are you seriously going out there?” said Billy, standing up to stop his sister.

“Better to burn out,” she muttered.

Reese was moving—shit, he had spotted other people. She threw open the door and ran after him. This was a horrible idea; damn near suicidal. But Penny would’ve killed herself anyway if she let herself become yet another bystander, yet another victim, instead of trying to stop a massacre before it became even bloodier. She couldn’t not understand how Billy could just hide and wait for it to all passby. These people here—she could now see Claire and Dexter and whomever else were with them—they weren’t her friends, she didn’t like them, but they were still people. They didn’t deserve to get killed; especially not by Scott Fucking Reese.

---

The Campsite - The Campfire.
@Surtr Inc@Junkmail@PharaohAtem

---

She wasn’t built to run—and smoking didn’t help, either—but the adrenaline coursing through her veins was enough to give her the energy she needed to bolt across the field. In her right hand she had grabbed her lighter, a little pink BIC; her left hand was holding the can of hairspray she had snatched from her bag. She’d seen enough videos of people making impromptu flamethrowers to act as pest removal in regards to wasp nests, and what was Scott Reese but one unnaturally giant, grey skinned pest? She was in striking distance now. They both were. Surely he had heard he coming now.

“Hey, dickhead!” she screamed, flicking the lighter and spraying the aerosol. One more orange light appeared that night as flames erupted from the spray, tossing themselves towards Scott’s head. Ideally he would set on fire, although she had her doubts about it. If it at least blinded him, even temporarily, it’d be long enough for the others to get away. A small victory. As she began to torch the giant, Penny felt her eyes begin to strain and focus on his arms, readying herself to dive out of the way the second he moved to swing his axe.

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

<Snipped quote by pokemad1>

keep talkin like that am imma be tuckin' you into bed with a kiss and a bed time story

@JunkMail

Am I the only one whose mind swapped the T in "tuckin'" with an F?

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

Late to the Party

---

Earlier that evening…

---

“She stole your weed, man.”

“Yeah,” said Billy, a blank stare on his bespectacled face as he looked after the mousy girl as she scampered away. He rubbed the scruff on his chin and then turned to his two friends, giving them a shrug. “Yeah, but it’s cool. I think she needs it more than I do.”

He drank the beer Suzie had given to him. Rather, it was his beer that he had given to her, that she in turn had been so kind enough to pour him a foamy cupful. It was bizarre to think that the girl was a part-time bartender, although his joke about how great she was at giving out head had put him on her shitlist until last month. Probably not something he should had said in front of a girl’s parents, hindsight being twenty-twenty. Especially if that girl was someone who had given him a walk to first base out of pity when he was seventeen, and never anything else. His apology had cost him most of his good weed and a bottle of Grey Goose, although her mom still won’t make eye contact with him. Which was fine. He wanted to bone Suzie, not Suzie’s mom. Not that Suzie’s mom wasn’t bone-able; he was just a gentleman.

“I left my bag in your cabin, right?” he said to Suzie. “I think I got some more. Let’s go,” he said, motioning to them to follow as he took off through the woods, his red solo cup carelessly being dropped on the grass.

The issue now was Layne, the genius that had pointed out the obvious fact that Rita had stolen his bowl. Billy had grabbed Rita in the first place solely to get another girl there. Layne was Billy’s best friend, but he was also a hangeron who couldn’t take a damn hint that he wanted some alone time to bust out his moves with Suzie, so he had planned to distract him with a girl. Any girl. He had tried to see if Penny would be up for the task but, well, it must’ve been her time of the month, because the idea made her pretty furious. Whatever. Even if he didn’t get laid tonight, he could still get totally baked and hammered with his friends. That was good enough.Maybe preferably, even. He didn’t have to try then.

Of course, all of this planning and worrying fell to the wayside as he opened the cabin door, his eyes catching a glow of orange in the dark. He cleared his throat and flipped on the light switch, forcing the slender woman in a yellow summer dress to turn her head and drop his bag. Everything spilled out onto the dirty wooden floor—his shirts, his polka-dotted drawers, his bong, his toothbrush, and an unopened box of condoms. He sighed and folded his arms over his chest, blocking his two friends from coming into the door.

“What are you doing with my stuff, Penny?”

---

Moments before…

---

What she was doing was stealing his phone charger.

She had not spent her night drinking cheap booze, getting high on bad grass, or trying to stick her tongue down throats like the rest of the dumbass kids here were trying to do. A night in the woods with these people were not her definition of a good time; she would’ve had more fun waxing her legs than hanging with these dirtbags. But, it had provided her with an opportunity and an excuse for a reason to go check out the woods at night, and that was what she had been doing since she had gotten there—stomping around beyond the fence, being snapped by twigs and bit by bugs while she looked for anything that the idiot police could’ve missed. If she got caught, she’d just say that she had been throwing up. Being around these people made her sick anyway; it certainly wasn’t the fact that she had been chain smoking since sundown.

But the flashlight on her phone had nearly drained all of her juice, and only a suicidal idiot would walk around the woods after dark with no light (whereas, apparently, a lone girl doing it with a light was a genius investigatory breakthrough). Penny had traunched back to the cabins, being certain to avoid the campfire where some bitches were already turning it into drama class, and had checked her bag to find her phone charger—which she hadn’t packed. So, she had gone to Billy’s cabin to take his...and that’s when her idiot brother happened to show up, right smack dab in the middle of her grand heist.

She was about to simply answer his question when she looked down and saw the box of unopened condoms. Yeah, no way was she going to let an opportunity to humiliate him like this slide. Grabbing the box, she held it up to her face and studied it, before shooting her brother a quizzical look.

“Like, I don’t know what is sadder,” she said, her voice like nails on a chalkboard as she spat out her cigarette and stomped it out beneath her boots. “The part where you’re so delusional that you totally thought that you’d somehow get laid more than a hundred times before these expired, or the part where you haven’t gotten laid once.” She tossed the box up and caught it. “Actually, I think I might have a guess as to which is more pathetic.”

“Is that Penny?” shouted Layne, his voice too hopeful all things considering.

“No, Layne. It’s not me.”

“I ran out,” said Billy, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, sure,” said Penny. “That must’ve totally been it; it’s just really weird, though, cause I never see you bring any girls back home, and your roommate never sees you bring any girls to your dorm...I mean, help me figure this out. Like, when are you screwing all of these imaginary women?.”

“You really think this much about a siblings sex life?” asked Billy. “You’re gross.”

“What?” said Penny, not expecting her brother to turn the humiliation conga line on her. “No, you’re gross.”

Neither of them seemed to notice the commotion coming from the campfire outside.

“Yeah, no. It’s you. Definitely you.” Billy nodded affirmatively. “Yeah, you’re super gross.”

“Uh, Billy,” came Mandy’s voice from outside.

“Shut up. Oh my gawd, I’m going to go drink some bleach or something to get that image out of my head. God. Shit. What the hell is wrong with you?” said Penny, her voice turning into a small roar. “Oh my gawd, you are the worst.”

“Seriously, how can you even say that when you’re in my room going through my dirty laundry looking for, what, contraceptives?”

“Those clothes were dirty?”

“Hey, Billy, man, I think—” Layne wasn’t able to finish his sentence.

“Yeah. Gym bag. Haven’t been washed in weeks. Maybe if you smoked less you would be able to smell ‘em.”

“If I smoked less?” shouted Penny. “That’s rich, coming from fucking Shaggy over here. I can’t believe a loser like you is going to try and stand there and give me advice on how to live my life. Jesus, you sound like mom.”

“You’re so gross I bet you think about mom having sex, too.”

“Billy!” said Penny, Layne, and Suzie, simultaneously.

---

^{@FernStone@Prosaic@Surtr Inc}

The Campsite - Male Cabins.

---

This was beyond her. Plans? Rita had a plan to be spontaneous and outgoing, and Claire had shredded it. After that, she didn’t have any plans.

She didn’t even know how she ended up in this cabin, huddled against Martin with her hands pushing back her greasy hair, her heart racing a thousand miles a minute. This was the worst night of her life. She’d go back to Texas. She’d take the embarrassment. Anything, anything would’ve been better than this. She wasn’t built to cope with situations like this. Nobody was built to cope with situations like this. And and and, and the teacher! They could end up like the teacher? Split in two by some murderous monstrosity? Why would someone bring that up? Why would someone suggest that? She could feel her fingers pushing into her skull; her skull that the monster would cleave in two. This was bad, bad, bad.

She needed to calm down. Calm down. Calm down. Think straight, breath, breath, in through the nose, out through the mouths. Panic only begot more panic. Relax. The only way to survive was to relax. Don’t think about the blood—on the axe, on her sweater. Don’t think about the monster—outside, hunting. Don’t think about dying—excruciating, and alone. Don’t think at all, just breath, breath, breath. In, out, in, out, in...better. Okay, now, try and help the others think of a plan. Anything. No such thing as bad ideas. On three. One, Two…

The sound that came out of Rita’s mouth was a mouse-like squeak. She slammed her hand over her mouth and grabbed onto Martin’s arm, her nails digging into his skin. Her chest was heaving; a sweat had begun to break out on her forehead. She bite down on her hand, the pain distracting her from the world around. Ignore everything. That was the answer. Ignore everything and try to calm down. Relax. Relax. Relax. It was easy, just try to relax.

What a fucking laugh.

“Hide. Just hide,” she muttered.

---

Now. The Campsite - Female Cabins.

---

“What!?” Billy said, finally raising his voice and spinning around to confront his friends. “It was just a joke. Don’t...be...so...holy.”

It was decently far, but his vision was clear and he wasn’t nearly high enough to be hallucinating something like this. There, by the campfire, was Scott Reese, resident Chad and general buzzkill, doing what he did: ruining the night. Only it wasn’t in his typical format of getting too drunk and trying to fight people, unless he had drank something that made him transform into a goddamn Frankenstein’s monster. But really, the most disconcerting part wasn’t Scott’s display of what happened when someone took too many steroids, but the part where he was ripping an axe out of his philosophy professor’s skull.

Actually, nah, all of it was pretty fucked up.

He grabbed Suzie and Layne and pulled them inside the cabin, shutting the door and killing the lights. He motioned for them to get down, which all but Penny, who had not seen the attack, did. His sister, however, was not ready to end their argument. She stood defiantly with her hands on her hips and a sneer on her face.

“What the hell are you doing?” she asked.

“Penny, shut the hell up and get away from the windows,” said Billy, his normal tone replaced with one that was both alarmed and commanding. He scuttled around the floor and dropped the blinds of all of the windows; Penny, who was never used to seeing her brother be serious, realized how he wasn’t screwing around and haunched down on her heels.

“What’s happening?” she whispered.

“I think Scott Reese just fucking killed someone,” said Billy in a hushed tone.

“What?” Penny scouted over to the window and peered through the blinds. Her eyes grew wide and she pressed her back up against the wall. “Holy fucking shit, I knew that kid was nuts.”

“We should call the cops,” said Billy. Billy pulled out his cell; it lacked bars, but maybe there was still a chance the call would go through. Of course, it failed. Gotta love rural America.

“They’d just end up helping him anyway,” muttered Penny bitterly. Billy could hear what sounded like music being played; Penny’s eyes snapped to the window, but she didn’t move to look.“Now what’s happening?”

Shifting towards his sister, Billy peered through the blinds. “A girl’s trying to catch his attention.”

“And what, lead him away like the fucking Pied Piper?” said Penny through her teeth, letting her head fall back against the wall. “I hate this town.”

“We’ll wait until he passes and then make a break for it,” said Billy, keeping one eye peering out the window. “Keep low, keep quiet, stay outta the light. Get to a place where we can call the cops.”

“I hate this town, I hate this town, I hate this town,” said Penny, a mantra to try and keep herself calm as she gripped the bridge of her nose and tried not to cry.

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

@Surtr IncI'm sure I broke something in here somewhere.

Billy Lawson

╚══════════════╝

"It can’t get no worse, man."

[ Age 21 | 6’3" | Norwegian-Welsh | He/Him | 150 lbs ]

Serenity

APPEARANCE

"Your mom thinks I’m handsome. And she’s makes a fantastic breakfast, too, champ."

Billy looks like he could be attractive if he put in the effort, but he never felt the need to really go out of his way to look good. He’s tall, with lanky limbs like a basketball player, but has the athletic build of someone who has never lifted a dumbbell in their life. His dark blonde hair is cut in a popular short on sides, long on top style and kept messy. Not in the “spent fifteen minutes trying to look like I got out of bed” messy, but the “yeah, I just actually got out of bed and thought this would work” messy. His eyes are blue and have the glossy look to them of someone who is perpetually having an allergic reaction, stoned, or both. His skin is lightly tanned and blemished with moles, but it is in good condition. He’s trying (and failing) to pull off a wispy beard. There’s a large tattoo that says “Shrug Life” in thick , cursive script spanning between his shoulder blades, and a little triforce on his left wrist.

His clothes fit him loosely, and he dresses almost exclusively in schlocky, ironic tees and khaki shorts or blue jeans. Tan, worn down work boots are his go to pair of kicks. When it gets colder he busts out the heavy flannels and the trapper hat, but to see him in an actual winter coat is a rarity. He wears a thick pair of black glasses that he’d be next to blind without—the idea of something going into his eyes spooks him, so contacts and lasik are a no-go. He’s the kind of guy that carries around a messenger bag. It’s made of blue canvas, littered with patches and stickers from bands he hasn’t seen live, and the butt of many jokes.

Billy’s tall but he slouches so much that nobody would ever describe him as such. He moves to the beat of his own drum, which happens to never be playing anything faster than a funeral dirge. His lack of a sense of urgency carries through to his deep voice. It is slow and clear, so he’s easy to understand, but it has that stereotypical stoner vibe to it as well, man.

PSYCHOLOGY

”Jesus dude, speaking of mothers. I don’t really think cocaine would be my jam—kinda prefer to open my mind than accidentally kill a stripper—so I’ll pass on the Freud junk, thanks."

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Billy wants to become a critic. Movies, video games, food, travel, whatever, he just wants to be paid to tell people what they should like and to get free shit. It’s an honorable goal.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Life is tough, but ultimately it is good. Things aren’t always as bad as they seem, and with every door that closes a window opens. So relax, indulge yourself a bit, have some fun while you’re young, and know that people can bounce back from just damn near anything. There’s nothing more narcissistic than being a worrier.

SECRETS ⫻ Billy lied to the doctor about how bad his glaucoma really was so he could get medical marijuana, which he in turn will occasionally sell to his peers.

DESIRES ⫻ Don’t tell anybody, but he’d really just be happy with buying a house, getting married, having two kids, a dog, and a big lawn he can mow. He doesn’t even want to move out of Farmer’s Hill. He already has a job lined up that could make this a reality—being a critic could be something he just did on the side for fun.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Heterosexual, but Candyland has more game than he does.

FEARS ⫻ Hard work and putting in an effort. People work their entire life just to, what, retire when they’re too old to enjoy any of the money that they saved up? Screw that. Technically, he’s terrified of commitment.

REPUTATION ⫻ Billy’s dad runs a pretty honest auto shop, so most people in town just know him as Rick’s lackadaisical kid who sometimes is behind the counter. His peers at the academy know him as a geek and an unreliable flake, but he brings the beer so he’s kinda essential.

PET PEEVES ⫻ Pretentiousness. Probably because it makes him realize that, at the end of the day, he’s also an ostentatious jerk.

QUIRKS ⫻ Billy tends to say dude a lot, bro. Even if that dude is a chick, man. It’s almost as if he’s bad with names, son, and just inserts whatever he feels like, buddy. Also, like his sister, he seems to not know how to shut up, although he is decisively less confrontational than her.

BACKSTORY

”Oh, yeah, boss, it was real dark and mysterious. Certainly didn’t spend my entire life in a small town trying not to die from boredom or anything like that."

Billy was born in Farmer Hill, and as far as he cares he’d be fine with dying in Farmer Hill as long as they have fast internet and access to a VPN. His dad runs Lawson’s Body Shop, a car repair place that was open by his grandfather decades ago, while his mom works at a flower shop to get away from the boys in the garage. Billy is the oldest of three. He has a sister, Penny, that is two years younger than him and a brother, Henry, that was five years younger than him. He fought a lot with Penny while they were growing up, and Henry was always the tagalong little brother.

Most of Billy’s youth was spent playing with friends and trying to avoid putting in any effort at school. He was a pretty normal, if geeky, kid, preferring video games and movies over hockey and tag. He didn’t get great grades, but he did good enough to fly under radar. He was one of the first boys to hit his growth spurt, so he was always too tall to be picked on. His love life was nonexistent, but then again so was the case for most of his friends so it was never really a point of concern. He smoked weed for the first time when he was fourteen and kept that shit hidden from his parents for an entire seventy-two hours. When he was sixteen he started helping his dad out at the shop, and when he was seventeen his brother disappeared.

Alright, that last one might be a bit atypical, if not for it being Farmer Hill. The last time anyone saw Henry he was walking home from school. Obviously, his family freaked out, as did he, and the police did their investigation. Henry was never found, and they ruled that he had runaway—the preteen had been getting bullied at school. The Lawson’s hired a private detective to try and find Henry, but all that came their way was zero leads and plenty of bills. Eventually they too, like the rest of the town, moved on. Billy’s mother and father got rid of any pictures of Henry and pretended like he never existed, while Billy, after a grieving period, came to the acceptance that his brother was most likely dead than in hiding. Only Penny was unable to move on, but even she knew not to mention her little brother around her parents.

Due to being tied up in the investigation, Billy entered Grand Ridge a year late to study film, but he quickly fell into the routine college experience of barely going to class, smoking weed, drinking warm PBR, and trying too hard to get laid. For all anyone can tell, he seemed as if the year off had been enough time for him to recuperate. Heavy self-medication helps, too, and Billy almost never starts a day off without a proper wake and bake. Now he’s got one more semester to go before he’s done with the academy, and he intends to go out having fun.

SKILLS & TALENTS

"Kid, I got a backup plan if Ebert doesn’t respond to my emails."

Gaming ⫻ There was a period when Billy thought he was going to become a pro gamer. That was when he was thirteen and before his mom took away his system for a year because she got tired of hearing him scream obscenities in the middle of the night. Now he has to live with the small victory of being the Soul Calibur II champion over at Arcade Blues. Bastard only plays Maxi.

Cars ⫻ Repair, specifically. Dad’s a mechanic, so Billy’s been helping him with that kind of thing since he could walk. He’s currently restoring a 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit. He’s been restoring that damn car for the last two years. It doesn’t need as much work as he claims that it does.

ABSTRACTION

"Okay baby, it’s naptime."

SIGIL & LOCATION ⫻ A spiral on his upper right arm.

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Daydream, the ability to to lull someone into a sleep-like state.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Billy’s abstraction allows him to finally get other people to stop stressing out so much and take a break. It just happens that his way of getting people to relax is by hypnotizing them and forcing them into a dreamstate while their body (literally) falls unconscious. Billy can cause a person to fall asleep within a 30 meter range, and he can keep them asleep for as long as he is actively focusing on them. If he leaves the range or loses focus his target will groggily wake up a few seconds later. He can only make one person fall asleep at a time, and an intense of enough pain will force them awake.

People trapped in the daydream actually do have dreams, although they are influenced by their emotions and state of mind—Billy has no control over them. People who are primarily experiencing a positive emotion, such as happy or peaceful, will have nice, pleasant dreams like spending time with loved ones, flying, going to places they’ve always wanted to visit, and so on. Neutral emotions, like boredom, tend to have mundane dreams, like going to school, work, or dreaming that you’re waking up. Negative emotions, like sadness or anger, tend towards more towards extreme dreams or even nightmares, often tortuous or violent in nature.

IN THE PRESENCE OF THE MOUNTAIN ⫻ As well as being able to keep one person asleep, Billy is able to channel a dreamscape around himself—anyone that comes within a 3 meter range of his physical body will immediately fall asleep. Once he is no longer in range, they will again awake a few seconds later.

AURA SENSING ⫻ Billy’s aura, true to his abstraction, allows for him to see if someone within the range of his ability is sleeping. His aura has to be activated, but it takes only a modicum of attention to channel.

LIMITS ⫻ (DO NOT FILL THIS OUT, I WILL PROVIDE IT FOR YOU)

WEAKNESSES ⫻ (DO NOT FILL THIS OUT, I WILL PROVIDE IT FOR YOU)

OTHER

"Nah, I think we’re good bro."

Definitely not repressing anything in regards to his missing brother. Nope.

Penny Lawson

╚══════════════╝

"I’m not going to say that I’m surrounded by idiots, because the idiots wouldn’t understand that the idiots I am referring to are them. That’s what makes them an idiot."

[ Age 20 | 5’7” | Norwegian-Welsh She/Her | 110 lbs ]

[Disgust]

APPEARANCE

“Oh, yeah, it’s totally what’s on the inside that counts. Totally. I mean, because I’m pretty sure it’s DNA that determines how hot someone is, and the entire continuation of the human race is dependent on us being attracted to one another so that we can reproduce. So, yeah, definitely, it’s what’s below the skin that matters. Christ, seriously?"

Penny’s actual appearance is hidden beneath a veil of makeups and creams. Her skin is made a light tan with spray and concealer. Her hair is dyed a lighter blond than her natural color, and waves are constructed with hot curlers and precious hours wasted in front of the mirror. Her eyebrows are meticulously plucked, her lashes are curled, and her blue eyes are lined. Her nose is small, and her lips, thinner than she would wish, are kept glossy and hide a big, Invisalign smile. Her chin is pointed, and her ears are pierced. Penny has a slender build; she’s more like the fields of Kansas than the hills of Montana. She doesn’t really work out much (and it shows). Seemingly her frame is kept small through cigarettes and diet soda serving as meal supplements. Her right arm is a colorful sleeve of flowery tattoos and a bright wand tattoo is on her inner left forearm.

Penny’s outfits varies—her closet is stuffed to the brim with clothing—but she favors colorful, bold dresses and skirts whenever she can get away with them, often paired with a leather or jean jacket weather permitting. She has another closet dedicated to knee-high boots that cover varies shades of brown, black, and gray. She’s particularly fond of a pair of knock-off Ray Ban aviators and almost never leaves home without them; even at night they can be seen pushed up to the top of her head like a makeshift headband.

She has a severe case of resting bitch face, and walks as if she is always in a rush. Her voice is high pitched, nearly grating, and somehow always manages to sound as if she is exasperated. She tends to stand askew with her hip jutted out and her arms crossed over her chest, perhaps in some subconscious way to make herself appear more curvy than she is.

PSYCHOLOGY

"I’ve been told I’m an asshole. Which is really nice, because generally most women like me would be pegged as a bitch. I think it’s really cool that I’m breaking through those gender stereotypes. I’m like the Susan B. Anthony of dickheadedness."

MAIN GOAL ⫻ She’s going to school for advertising, but she’s not truly passionate about it. She cares more about getting a career that can take her outside of “Farmer Hell”, but she is determined to make everything right in regards to her little brother before she leaves.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ She thinks Private Joker put it best, “I’m in a world of shit. Yes. But I alive. And I am not afraid.”

SECRETS ⫻ Penny knows a trick to pulling more tickets than she won out of the arcade machines in Arcade Blues, and she’s damn unashamed that she has been using that to get an unlimited amount of tootsie rolls and stickers.

DESIRES ⫻ Justice. She cannot accept the fact that Henry, her younger brother, just “ran away”, and she holds a personal grudge against the police in charge of the half-assed investigation. An unhealthy amount of late night fact checking on the various missing persons cases in Farmer Hill paints a picture of either a very large cover-up or, what she personally believes to be the case, severe incompetence. Irregardless, there should be consequences.

SEXUALITY ⫻ She’s straight and, like most kids raised in extremely Christian families, believes that sex is very naughty and a sin, which is part of the reason why it is so hot. Love, however, is a completely different subject, fitting somewhere in the realms of elves and dragons.

FEARS ⫻ Having children. She sees how unhappy her parents are, not to mention how much children cost, the way they ruin your body, and how they leech off of you for eighteen years. And then what if something happens to the kid? As a mother, it’s your fault, regardless of circumstances. Plus, it’d suck not being able to smoke menthols or drink wine for nine months.

REPUTATION ⫻ Oh, it’s not really good. Being a jerk to just about anyone tends to make people not view you in the best of lights, oddly enough. Plus, her distrust and straight out contempt of authority figures, not to mention her inability to to leave the disappearances of Farmer Hill alone, has painted a fairly large scarlet letter on her chest.

PET PEEVES ⫻ Fake pleasantries. She cannot wrap the idea around her head why people would offer that they should hang sometime when they hardly even talked in high school, and why bother asking someone how they are doing if what is really meant to be said is that you see that they happened to have gone to the bathroom at the same time as you.

QUIRKS ⫻ She’s loquacious. Especially when it comes to talkin’ shit.

BACKSTORY

"Aw, geez, I can’t think of a single reason why I act up like this. Golly, if only there was one small, minor event that may have really gotten under my skin and made me really see how useless others could be. I just, I just can’t think of any. Wow. Guess I’m just being too emotional again. How stupid of me."

Detentions and visits to the “Princi-PAL” were a daily routine for Penny in her formative years. The middle child of two working parents, she was the prototypical example of someone starved for attention, and she seeked it in the form of distracting her classmates and disrupting her teachers. In junior high she attached herself to the popular crowd yet never quite carved her way into the circle, becoming the girl who would hear about the parties they had over the weekend the following Monday while sitting with them at lunch. By high school she was determined to finally make her breakthrough, which she would succeed by using expensive clothing, fancy makeup, and acting with disdain towards everything. If experience taught her anything, people were desperate to be liked by those who hated them.

And it kind of worked for the first two years of high school. She went through all of the motions that she assumed made girls popular: cheerleader, drinking, senior boyfriend, bullying, general bitchiness, etc. She was even able to use her older brother Billy to win her brownie points with the older kids by stealing his actual pot brownies to give out. And then her little brother Henry disappeared, and with it so did the little delusion she was living. That was four years ago.

She was always close to her little brother, primarily because he was her only real friend pre-high school and she was stuck babysitting him post-ninth grade. They used to walk home together, but at her insistence they were exclusively to walk separate once she entered highschool cause no way could someone adult like her, like, be seen walking with a dweeby kid, gawd. And it was during one of Henry’s lonely walks home that he disappeared, and it was because of this that the police questioned her, and her family blamed her, and her friends whispered about her. What a shit sister, right? Got her own brother killed because she wanted to look cool.

But...she could deal with that. It wasn’t until the police had declared Henry missing with no leads and they, and the town, and her friends, and her family, stopped talking about her missing brother and pretended like everything was hunky dory that things were flipped on their head. Penny couldn’t possibly understand how anyone could be satisfied with the results of the investigation, and the more people told her that she just let it go and move on the more bitter and jaded she grew. By junior year she stopped trying to fit in, becoming too outspoken and volatile to sit with the cool kids anymore, who had grown tired of her one-woman crusade against the incompetence of Henry’s investigation.

Billy told her one day that she had become an asshole. And she was okay with it. If being one meant that the lazy police in Farmer Hill got put on blast and actually did their job, then good. If being one meant that her parents open their damn eyes, then good. If being one meant that her dumbass brother Billy stopped doing drugs and started asking questions with her, then good. And if being an asshole meant that she alienated everyone in this garbage little town and made them hate her, then great—because she had been wrong. People didn’t give a shit about those that hated them. No, people gave a shit about those that they hated. And if they thought of her, her little brother wouldn’t be too far from their mind.

But she’s still going to school because once she cracks this thing open, she’s getting the hell outta town.

SKILLS & TALENTS

”Pass isn’t an option for this one, is it? Sure, sure, everyone is a special snowflake, but by the end of the day you’re still being pushed off the street by a snowplow and turned into a pile of dirty snow that will slowly melt in the sun and drain into the sewers to mix with piss and shit. What I’m trying to say is that it doesn’t matter that the most impressive thing I’ve ever done with my time was learn how to tie a cherry stem into a knot."

[Arguing] ⫻ There’s something remarkable about someone that’s so stubborn that they could convince someone that their blue shirt was red just by unrelentingly unleashing a torrent of words their way until they simply breakdown and give up.

[Double-jointed] ⫻ The useless ability to freak people out by bending joints far beyond where they should bend. Good for winning bets and pretending to be that dead girl from the Ring for Halloween.

ABSTRACTION

"My mom keeps saying that my bad attitude pushes people away. I wonder if she saw this coming."

SIGIL & LOCATION ⫻ Penny has a symbol appearing to be a pair of handcuffs just beneath where her neck meets her collarbones.

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Repulsion, the ability to telekinetically force people and things away from her body.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Penny can force almost anything that enters a five foot radius around her to rapidly move away from her. Thing reflect back in a straight line from her until the effects of gravity or other interference stops them. This means that if she repulses something that is on the ground, it will only hit things that are level with the ground and the moment it hits something with enough force it will stop. She’s only capable of forcing objects that have a weight equal to or less than twice her weight away from her, so she’ll lose any match of chicken that she plays against a speeding car.

The velocity and distance at which an object blasts away from her is dependent upon its size; the lighter an object is, the further and faster it travels. Small objects (less than a pound) likes coins, paper clips, pens, and etcetera, act almost like a weak 9mm bullet, traveling fast enough to penetrate skin, clothing, thin walls, doors, and glass. Medium objects (more than a pound, but less than fifty) like computer monitors, baseballs, bricks, and so on only go about 30 meters before quickly succumbing to gravity, and tend to only have enough force to dent metal, knock the wind out of someone, and possibly fracture or break bones. Large objects (more than fifty, less than her peak) like desks, bags of cement, and some people can be sent back 3 meters. The force is about as strong as an incredibly fit person’s push, so it’s largely only effective at moving large things out of her way, bracing doors, or keeping people forced against walls.

There isn’t a limit to how many objects she can force away from her at once, but she does have to direct the repulsions. This means that she has to know an object is coming at her or within her range for her to repulse it, and she actively has to focus her mind to push it away. Therefore, she isn’t constantly blowing the dirt and trash at her feet away (unless she consciously decides to), nor is she able to push away an incoming projectile if she doesn’t know that it was fired at her in the first place.

IN THE PRESENCE OF THE MOUNTAIN ⫻ Penny is able to assign an attraction to any object that is also within the presence of the mountain, meaning that objects she repulses will no longer travel in a straight line but instead change their trajectory towards an item or person of her choosing (again, she has to be aware of their presence). The basic limits of her range still apply, and her “heatseekers” are rather dumb—they will try to take the most direct path to the target, regardless of objects in its way.

AURA SENSING ⫻ Tied directly to her abstraction, Penny’s aura allows her to sense the mass, velocity, and trajectory of any moving object that enters her field of view, even if it were moving faster than her naked eye could see. This gives her enough time to react to incoming objects and determine if her ability can affect it. In a way, it acts as a limited danger sense, however the aura is an information overload that can be detrimental to her mental and physical health. After using it for five minutes she starts to experience splitting migraines, nosebleeds, and vision loss, and if she goes with it on for longer than ten she will start to experience blackouts. If she toggles it off before the five minute mark she can recuperate fairly well, but there is a cool down that is directly correspondent to how long she used it for, meaning that if she was channeling her aura for three minutes she would have to wait three minutes before using it again. Once she goes beyond the five minute mark the cool down greatly compounds, tripling once it hits five and doubling itself every minute after that.

LIMITS ⫻ (DO NOT FILL THIS OUT, I WILL PROVIDE IT FOR YOU)

WEAKNESSES ⫻ (DO NOT FILL THIS OUT, I WILL PROVIDE IT FOR YOU)

OTHER

"I think I’m all talked out."

She still goes out at least once a week looking for any clues in regards to her missing brother.

And if anyone was wondering, the concert was great. Even if the seats were about as comfortable as sitting on a knife, the beer I got at a bar afterwards was nine dollars, and the opener was just one guy breaking a guitar while some lady played a saxophone in a way that mimicked music class on the day they give everybody recorders.