Unraveling Chloe - Part 1

[Suzthulhu]

<@Chloe_Cane> Chloe's mother had died when Chloe was fairly young, around 8 years of age, and thus had not lived long enough to really see her daughter grow up, or even to have a hint of what she would be like when she got older. Chloe had been born and raised here in Salem, and her father had been an officer in the Army. Her parents had met while he had been serving as a recruiter in Salem, and they married after dating for only a few months. Chloe was the result of their marriage, an only child, and in spite of the fact that her father had moved around quite a bit during his career, they had chosen for her and her mother to remain in Salem to give them both a steady life without the burden of constantly changing scenery, schools, and homes. When her mother became ill, the Army had granted her father an extended tour of duty here to stay by her side. After she passed, his sister and mother, Chloe's aunt and grandmother, lent a hand to take care of her when he was inevitably called back to serve his country. Almost four years ago, when Chloe was 16, nearly 17, Lt. Col. Morgan Cane was killed in action outside of Karbala, Iraq, when a roadside bomb detonated under his convoy. This has left Chloe without a family, more or less. Her aunt was unable to stay with her full time, and her grandmother was simply too old to keep up with a teenage girl. Both parents had set up generous life insurance policies, and those, combined with the military's benefits, had ensured Chloe was not destitute, nor would she be with the aid of careful financial planning and investment. Chloe had petitioned to become an emancipated minor, and after several months of court hearings, consultations with lawyers and financial planners, she had been granted the status in a timely fashion: about three months before her 18th birthday. At any rate, she had kept the house, which was paid for and in her name now, and rested on a small plot of what had been a larger farmstead outside of Salem. She didn't stay there full time, since it was a half hour's drive from the school in good weather, but kept it as an escape, somewhere to go when she needed to be alone. There were no neighbors close by, since the surrounding acreage was used for farming and pasture. The house sat at the end of a paved driveway on top of a hill, and the distant sound of the ocean could be heard on a quiet day. The house was two stories, covered on the outside with natural river stone and log cabin features. It was surrounded by large oak trees, and the yard was too shaded to worry about having to take care of much grass. Ivy vines grew up and around a chimney on the right side of the house. A black Mitsubishi Eclipse was parked in the circular driveway, and a large Norwegian Forest cat slept lazily on its hood.

<@Tobias`Brewer> The psychotronic talking box, the mainstream antidepressant, the laughing dying culture pop, the famous moldy party hop, a fantasy the way it should, the shaping things, a prostitute, a naked mix, a magazine, a picture of us in a dream. He had his iPod plugged in as he swung his undetermined sedan up the road towards the quaint, rustic tableau where madness dwelled. He expected some kind of apartment. This was a bit more than he expected from Chloe, as he met girls like her broke and in rehab. Though without mutant powers, thank the spirits. Despite being scientifically minded, being brought back from the brink by Native Americans left its indelible mark on his brain. The Aussies had something called 'dreamtime' and it was an apt name for the place where his pineal window went. But all of that was bunk, right? The car crunched over the gravel as swung it into the driveway, behind the Eclipse and got out. He had aviators on against the sun; his dark hair was windblown. "Hey cat," he said as he walked up the steps and rang the doorbell.

<@Chloe_Cane> *Mrrrrowr?* Came that cat's lazy reply. It looked up at him, green eyes half-slitted against its furry grey face. Tufted ears twitched toward Tobias before the feline became disinterested once again and flopped back down, tail darting back and forth. Footsteps approached the door a second or two later, and Chloe answered. "You came. I'm glad." She looked.. well, she looked really good, actually. She looked rested, less frazzled, and more or less calm. Her hair was down, thick and curly, to the middle of her back. She was wearing a short black skirt made of two tiers of black lace layered over solid red, and her top matched, black lace over red, tied in the center to expose a pierced belly button. Long black lace sleeves were belled at the wrists, and her makeup was done as well, eyes dark and lips red to match. She looked like a doll. "Come in!" She held the door open for him.

<@Tobias`Brewer> I came. I saw. Brew took off the sunglasses and smiled. "Hey Chloe." He walked inside, eyes already roaming around the place as he shuffled off his shoes by reflex. Black socks, dark pants, off-blue shirt which matched his irises. "Is this place all yours? I'm impressed." Maybe her parents'. He was freshly shaven today and smelled like clean, though mixed a little with the ubiquitous scent of tobacco.

<@Chloe_Cane> The interior of the house was spacious and open. The door opened to a large entryway with a high ceiling. Straight through was what looked like a large kitchen. To the left, a dining room, and to the right was the living room, which looked comfortable, loaded with over stuffed couches and recliners, an entertainment center, and a fireplace. Stairs made their way up the wall outside the dining room to a landing overhead the entryway, where presumably the bedrooms, etc were. "It's mine now, yeah. Mom died when I was little, and dad was killed overseas a few years ago. So, I bump around in here by myself, when I'm here that is." She was barefoot, toenails painted a dark blue. "It doesn't exactly fit me, does it? The house I mean. But I like it. Gives me someplace to go. It's just too damn far away from the school, and when the weather turns shitty, forget it. Get you something to drink?" He smelled good, but she didn't say anything. The house smelled faintly of amber, with a smokey afterthought. Incense.

<@Tobias`Brewer> "Sorry about your folks. I'll have scotch if you got some," he drawled, as he followed her, presumably to the kitchen. No moth today and his eyes were normal. Either the psychic tides had receded today or he was channeling willpower - anybody's guess.

<@Chloe_Cane> "Mom died for no reason. Some strange disease no one knew anything about. That one I am sorry for. At least dad died doing something. Roadside bomb in Iraq. I mean, I suppose it was pointless to some people, but he was there doing his duty and trying to help. That didn't bother me nearly as much." She lead them to the kitchen, sure enough. The kitchen ran the full width of the back of the house, and there was a small breakfast table with four chairs on one side. "Have a seat." She smiled at him before turning her back to a set of cabinets next to the double sink. Standing on her tip toes, she fished out a short tumbler with a heavy bottom, and then a taller pint glass. She put ice in both from the freezer, and then breezed past the table to what looked like a well stocked liquor cabinet. Scotch for him, Jack for her, topped off with some Coke. How she managed to keep it stocked at 19 was anyone's guess, but maybe she had a friend. Or a fake ID. Or maybe no one asked. She brought the glasses to the table and sat down. "You look rested today."

<@Tobias`Brewer> "My friend was in a Blackhawk there when he heard a thunk on the fuselage. Turns out the Iraqi forgot to arm the warhead," he said, one of the few war stories he heard. He was a pacifist but many vets had as many drug problems as he did once. He wasn't entirely clean yet but he'd kept it under control. He never stuck with prescription meds for very long. Somehow the street seemed more trustworthy. "I had a good sleep. Dreamed that I was an action hero. Cheers." He clinked glasses with her and took a sip. "You look good yourself. Did you calm down a bit?"

<@Chloe_Cane> "Your friend was lucky." She tucked one leg up under the other as she sat. She looked directly at him, either realizing there was nothing behind his eyes at the moment, or perhaps not afraid to do so. Maybe a little of both. "Cheers..." Glasses clinked, and she took a few sips from hers. "Thank you. I'm usually alright out here... or at least after I spend a few days just alone, or, well, away from so many people. I'm usually alone anyway, even at school, but there are still people around there. I come out here, and there really is no one else. I go out in the garden room and just sit. It's peaceful." The SND was missing from around her neck, but chances were it was at least close by.

<@Tobias`Brewer> "I'll say. I always have to watch myself unless I start affecting my neighbors. Fortunately, my place has high ceilings so it's unlikely." His voice was a soothing drawl as usual, effortlessly so. "Having a remote place to yourself will make it easier for you to sort out your mutation."

<@Chloe_Cane> "It does... at least it makes it easier to just not worry about it so much. But part of my problem is people, and what I do to and around people. It's easy to just come out here and not deal with it at all, but without being around anyone, it's hard to learn to understand what I do around other people." She swirled the Jack and Coke around in her glass, the ice making musical notes. "Then again, I also can't just ask someone, hey, come out to the middle of nowhere with me so I can touch you, gross you out, and then scare the shit out of you for awhile and see what happens. I can't imagine anyone who'd jump at that chance." She looked up at him again, giving her chin a little jerk. "I never asked you, if it's not prodding too much, you said you understood more than I realized. What do you mean by that?"

<@Tobias`Brewer> "I did say that, didn't I." He sipped his scotch thoughtfully then set it down. Looked at her and past her at the same time. "I used to have problems. They diagnosed me with schizophrenia when I was fifteen. There was more but I never got to read the full file. Except most schizophrenics keep it inside their own heads but not me. That was the biggest thing." He pressed his lips together. "I didn't have a full rundown of their deepest fear but what I had still did the trick."

<@Chloe_Cane> Her brow creased as she listened, and her lips pressed together as well. "You heard them too then, the other people in your head." Chloe stared down at the table for a moment, still and silent, before she said anything else. "What happened?"

<@Tobias`Brewer> "People, images, ideas. Nonstop ideas. You see something but other people don't - that's not okay with your cognition. So you make them see it. And it wasn't a bed of roses every time." He picked up the scotch again and took a sip. "Well, a lot happened. I was in consultation a lot. Had to quit a few schools - too disruptive. I used to get fucked up a lot to deal so there was rehab. And when you've got what I got and you do psychoactives and try being in a public place, it usually doesn't turn out well. So I know what it feels like." He looked at her. "That's why your story got me interested. All of us need a second chance to learn to get a grip. But it's hard to do it alone. I thought you might appreciate that you weren't alone in this."

<@Chloe_Cane> She listened, everything he said sounding horrifyingly, hauntingly familiar. It was comforting, and yet sad, to know that she wasn't alone, but that someone else had gone though this horrible thing as well. She reached a hand over toward him, and almost laid it over his before she remembered and stopped. No SND. Her hand jerked back like she'd just touched fire, thankfully, before she'd actually touched him. "Shit. Sorry... " She looked back at him. "I do appreciate it, although it's also terrible that there's been more than one person to have to deal with this." She closed her hand into a fist and stuck it between her knees. The other hand brought her glass up so she could drink from it. "How did you learn to control it better?"

<@Tobias`Brewer> How again? Well, he was at his rock bottom when she walked by with her ridiculous floppy hat. A minute later, she came back for a drink and their eyes met. And she knew. "I met some people," he said. He almost moved his arm away himself until she remembered herself. He didn't need his inner world exposed just yet. "One of them was a latter-day priest of Piltzintecuhtli. You know, the Aztec god of dreams and hallucinogens - he was a telepath himself. Also, there was a Kwakiutl shaman from the pacific northwest and a girl who did a lot of mental yoga, also psions. They had a much better handle on their shit so they helped me, showed me what to do, made me feel normal for the first time in my life. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be where I am today," he concluded, taking another sip.

<@Chloe_Cane> She didn't want to know either. Not about him. Knowing made things different, and it made friends, or people she wanted to be friends... well, it was hard to be friends with someone when everytime you looked at them, they remembered what it was like to be touched by you, and you remembered what you had seen. "Ahhh... yeah. I seem to be a little bit short on priests of old gods and shamans... and psions don't much like me either. I don't think it's much fun in here." She tapped the side of her head and twirled her finger around in the international sign for "looney bin." "I do yoga though, the physical kind, and I've tried meditation. It's a little hard for me to focus and shut everything up in there though."

<@Tobias`Brewer> "Yeah, it's hard, even for normals," he agreed. "I can give you some pointers but I'm still only learning myself." He finished the scotch and set down the glass. "Thank you." He smiled. "I don't think they ever got me to believe a hundred percent in the spiritual stuff but the techniques work - they are traditions for a reason. People like me can get the most use out of it, I find."

<@Chloe_Cane> She nodded. "It would be nice, actually. Maybe working with someone else would help." She finished her own drink and stood, taking the glasses to the sink. When she returned to the table, her expression was more serious. "I have to ask though... are you afraid of me?"

<@Tobias`Brewer> He couldn't help but smile but he answered earnestly. "No, I'm not afraid of you, Chloe. I'm reasonably cautious around you because I know what you can do. But I see enough that you wouldn't use it on purpose and as long as I don't trigger your fight or flight, I think we'll be okay." He waited a beat. "Boo." Fingers out at her, wiggling.

<@Chloe_Cane> She offered a crooked half smile. "Well good. At least maybe one of us isn't. Come on. Let's go out to the garden room. Much more pleasant out there and better for this type of stuff." She gestured to beckon him to follow, making a crooked, finger waggly gesture in return, and sticking her tongue out. She then headed out the door in the back of the kitchen, which opened out into a solarium type room. It looked like it might have been full of all sorts of plants once, but seeing as how it was just her now, the only things left to grow were ivy vines, which covered the screened in area from floor to ceiling. Sunlight filtered in, but it was mostly cool and shaded. In the center of the decently sized solarium was a pool filled with clear water and coins, built out of rock. Surrounding the pool were rock shelves of varying heights, and each shelf had some sort of deity on it, from Buddha to Vishnu to the Ahura Mazda. In front of the pool was a meditation area, a thick, comfortable cushioned mat. The amber smell was coming from this area; two incense sticks were smoking from the Buddha's shelf.

<@Tobias`Brewer> He let himself smile behind her back so that she couldn't see when he saw all the accouterments. 'This is a meditation room,' the place seemed to say. 'It is used for meditation.' The presence of so much stereotypically new age and eastern themed paraphernalia was more than he usually got to work with - well, except the lodge in Oregon and the trip into Tenochtitlan with M. Psiloc. But it was good, it did the trick and got the mind moving in the right direction, he had to admit. "You mentioned voices but I don't think you ever told me the full story. What is it in your mind that causes you the most disquiet?"

<@Chloe_Cane> There was a small silver bowl on a stool next to the doorway just inside the solarium, and she reached in as she passed it, taking a few coins from it. They were coins from all over the world, it looked like. "My dad brought all the figures back with him from trips overseas. He started setting this room up after he had three or four of them, and the collection kept growing. I just think it's pretty, and it's quiet." She tossed the coins into the pool and sat down on its edge. Her SND was sitting on the edge of the pool as well, and she picked it up, putting it on. Her fingers dipped into the water and trailed through it as she answered his question. "I'm not sure where they all started coming from. Some of them are just normal everyday thoughts, and some of them aren't. Some of them are terribly loud, and they berate and condescend. Some rant, some sing, some are just total nonsense. I don't remember which came first, the fear, or them. I think some of both, maybe. They're louder, and there's more of them when I'm upset."

<@Tobias`Brewer> "Are they you? Or someone else?" He leaned against the edge of the pool as well, looking at her.

<@Chloe_Cane> "Some of them are me. Everyone has their own inner voice, right? So some of it is me. Most of them are not me." She looked up at him and shrugged. Flicking the water off her hand, she slid down off the edge of the pool onto the mat, sitting Indian style, facing the water. "My voice is usually fine."

<@Tobias`Brewer> He sat down too, cross legged, nearby. "Meditation and modern psychotherapy techniques should be seen as part of one continuum. One bag of psychological exercises and techniques designed to force your thoughts to flow in a different direction and make the underlying electricity and chemicals follow suit. Science doesn't yet know what makes us different from others, can't describe it in an empirical way. But you can learn you know yourself on an intuitive level, learn to recognize the source of each voice, the bundle of issues associated with each one, the reflexive mental actions you can take to deal with it. A lot of people use dissociation, fear, paranoia, hallucination, self-delusion and others as blind reactions to adversity. It's much better if you learn to see them as a set of tools in your toolbox and use the correct one when necessary. You'll be a lot more in control of yourself and this will reinforce everything with confidence. Basically, your mind is a castle and you know when to fix the drawbridge or seed the garden or clean out the dungeon. Ya dig? Meditation helps you discover that castle, part by part as you focus on different pieces of it. Then we figure out how it comes together and develop a strategy to renovate."

<@Chloe_Cane> "... oh, is that all?" One brow had raised as he spoke, laying things out. "I tend to think of it more like an asylum, full of locked rooms where everyone is screaming to get out all at once."

<@Tobias`Brewer> "It takes a while," he said. "But you have to be methodical about it. If an asylum is the image you keep coming back to, we need to interview each inmate individually and see what we can do to get them to stop screaming. I can help in that regard but you'd have to trust me. You can do it without the visualization of course but I found that it helped for me. Put it in terms I could understand, you know?"

<@Chloe_Cane> "I don't think it should -be- an asylum. That's the trouble. An asylum is where they keep the crazy people. That's why they all want out. Maybe they aren't all crazy and shouldn't be locked away, you know?" She shrugged again, a confused gesture. "But I don't know what else to do with them. When I try, it's just overwhelming and I have to just make it go away." Chloe paused for a minute and looked straight into his eyes, fixing what today appeared to be an almost yellowed hazel color on his cerulean. "I do trust you. I'm just afraid of what you will see."

<@Tobias`Brewer> "I'm a vehicle," he said. "I'd be much more focused on what -you- will see." He opened his hands, palms up and his voice grew deeper, its morphine quality coating it like a drizzle of poppy syrup. "It doesn't have to be an asylum. But you can do the free-association. You just have to concentrate. Try to map out a general "shape" of your mind." But you have to let me in," he said, making eye contact. "Do you think you could do that?"

<@Chloe_Cane> His voice... she really liked his voice when he did that, whatever it was. It wasn't something she was quite completely aware of, but it was soothing, nonetheless. It was pleasant to listen to, and as she opened her hands and moved closer to him, laying them palm up on her knees, she felt warm and slightly hazy and pleased. Her pupils dilated faintly, and she took a few deep breaths and a long, slow blink before meeting his gaze again. Her mental state shifted slightly as she tried to relax and open up to him. "Keep talking to me..."

<@Tobias_Brewer> "Look into my eyes," he instructed. His pupils dialed a little wider like precise apertures as the cerulean filaments of the iris around them slowly welled up with saturated color. Somewhere deep in his brain, a glutamate resonance swirled around his mutant pineal gland as the first molecules of Dimethyl Tryptamine flowed forth. "In a few moments, you will have an experience that will seem completely real. It will be the result of your unconscious world manifested into your conscious awareness." The blue of his irises began to bleed over into the whites of his eyes and then outside them. They glowed now, whether in real life or her imagination was hard to tell. Blue sunspots in her eyes, cerulean waves lapping against the walls of her mind, undermining their conditioned defenses, loosening her constraints, lubricating the creaking static to allow his presence. "Never be afraid. We can leave any time we want to. I'm going to count from five and then, you can show me your mind and I will paint it for us. Ready?" The voice and eyes worked in tandem, until she was bathed in their suffusion, room fading from view. "Five. Four. Three. Two. One."

<@Chloe_Cane> She kept her eyes fastened on his, and evened her breaths until they breathed in tandem with one another. If felt as though she were being pulled into his eyes, blending with them, until all she saw and felt was that wonderful, beautiful blue. It was warm and it surrounded her, easing away the apprehension and fear she had felt before. His voice seemed to reverberate through her, paving the way for him to bring himself into her mind. Her body twitched, just once, and a crackle of static interrupted the transition for just a moment before the two of them came together, as though through a door. At the count of one, the view changed, sharpening into that of a lobby of some sort, like a hotel. It was quite nicely decorated, but the decor seemed to change every few seconds, from one style to another, purposefully. What would have been the reception area stood empty.

<@Tobias_Brewer> The eyes turned into two burning stars before the ghostly shape of a man assembled around them - Tobias the mental concept bore some of the flux of her surroundings. But he did something and he came into view in full detail, stabilizing into his usual form. "L'hotel du Chloe," he remarked. "Looks like it worked. Shall we take a look around?"

<@Chloe_Cane> Her mental concept was different in some ways. She looked much the same, but her hair moved as though it were alive, and her eyes were solid sclera the color of polished hematite. "I thought perhaps it was a good, neutral place. Something that could suit anyone and everyone, where they could all have their own places." She turned to look around the lobby as it again changed, looking more Greek in design. "Lead the way."

<@Tobias_Brewer> "Not possible," he said and his eyes gleamed. "I can't lead the way any more than I can write a complete summary of your inner world. This is your mind so I'm afraid you'll have to do the leading. Don't worry, I'm right beside you," he said, gesturing with his arm.

<@Chloe_Cane> She turned her head, locks of her hair darting outward like snakes, and looked down one hallway that lead off to the right of the reception desk. It seemed to go on for quite a distance, and fog drifted around it. She glanced at Tobias, hesitant, but then nodded and began to move toward the hallway. They came to the first door, painted blue. It had a name plate on it that read "Gertrude." "Gertrude. I remember Gertrude. Gertrude was afraid of snails." She reached up to touch the nameplate. "Gertrude was the first. You always remember your first, don't you?"

<@Tobias_Brewer> "My first was a prophetic cat called Behemoth," he said. He reached up as if to knock but lowered his hand as if he'd thought the better of it. "Would you like to talk to Gertrude?"

<@Chloe_Cane> "Should I?" She stood there, staring at the door. "She was just a little girl. I don't know if she remembers, but if she's here, she has to be here for a reason, right?"

<@Tobias_Brewer> "We need to get everyone on the same page," he said. "Or at least some kind of common ground. At the very least, you have to become better acquainted with them so that your existence can be less..." He sought the word. "Fragmented."

<@Chloe_Cane> Chloe took a deep breath. "Alright. Let's go see Gertrude." She knocked on the door. At first there was no answer. She knocked again, and the door opened. Sure enough, there was still a little girl in there, about six, with blonde hair, blue eyes, and skinned knees. "Hello, Gertrude. Do you remember me?"

<@Tobias_Brewer> A ripple-wave of nostalgia washed over the corridor, coloring everything in the colors of childhood, the smells of childhood, like a tide. The place was highly synaesthetic and responded to the situation. Brew stood just behind Chloe with his hands loosely behind his back.

<@Chloe_Cane> The girl looked up, looking from Chloe to Tobias and back. She shook her head. "No? My name is Chloe, Gertrude, and I remember you. A long time ago, I scared you really bad. I was trying to help, but I scared you." Gertrude's eyes got wider, and she took a step back away from the door. "You're the lady with the really cold hands, aren't you?" "That's right. I'm very sorry. I won't do it again, okay? You don't have to be scared of me, okay? See?" Chloe held her hand out to the little girl. At first, Gertrude stayed half hidden behind the door, but after a moment, she reached out and took Chloe's hand. She smiled then, and let Chloe's hand go. Shortly thereafter, she disappeared back into her room and closed the door. "So... ?" Chloe looked at Tobias and let the question hang there in the air. Was that how that was supposed to go? "I guess she's okay now? At least in here?"

<@Tobias_Brewer> "I think it's a good start. You'll need to make additional visits, I think. Healing takes time and conversation... that's odd." He plucked something off his arm and held it in the air by the shell. A snail somehow crawled up in and he failed to notice. He dropped it on the floor and it started crawling, next to another. A third snail was inching down the wall towards the doorknob.

<@Chloe_Cane> "I will. I was walking home, I was 12 at the time, just started my first period at school, ugh. Anyway, she was playing in a park and I saw her fall and skin her knees. So I go over to help her up... and I guess that's the first time the touch thing happened. She just started crying that my hands were really cold, and then next thing I knew, I felt like I was covered in.." She gasped as he picked the snail off his arm. "... snails..." Her expression was alarmed as she looked and saw the others crawling toward the doorknob. "We have to move them, get rid of them. They can't go in her room. She'll be terrified!" She started to pluck the snails off the wall herself.

<@Tobias_Brewer> The colors rippled again, painting things in maroon hues of fear. The snails left slick trails on the floor and walls as they converged on their location. The fluid began to steam, eating through the floor little by little. The wall opposite the door bulged out and two wrinkly eyestalks extended from it, filled with dead-channel static. "I think her fear is manifesting," said Tobias, backing up to the door. "Guilt, self-infliction. Reflected phobia. We need some way to discharge it, some way to dissociate them from her fear..."

<@Chloe_Cane> "Shit, shit, no no no!" She began to frantically rake her hands down the walls, trying to tear the snails off the walls. In spite of her bare feet, she stepped on them, oblivious to the fact that at least to her, the shells were cutting her feet. The manifestation of the girl's fear was sending Chloe into a panic as well. "I have to help her, I can't..." The frequency of her psychic wavelength jumped to a higher pitch, starting to unravel and disconnect.

<Tobias`Brewer> "Chloe. Chloe, calm down. None of this is real but stress makes it so," he repeated. He dreamed this world for both of them, somehow receiving her inputs on how everything was supposed to be, a projector for her slides. And the last few slides she put in were done in highly visceral emotional colors.

<@Chloe_Cane> "You don't understand. If she sees this, if she comes out here, it will just be worse..." The hallway of the hotel around them changed, but didn't. Like a camera flash against the backs of one's retinas, it would appear one way, the way it was now, red and panicked, and then flash to something even worse. The wallpaper was peeled, burning and rotting away, and something like red and black mold seeped from beneath it. Slash marks, like from some great beast, tore portions of the walls themselves, and acrid smoke, smelling of sulfur and heat, seeped through the markings. The walls flexed outward and back, as though they breathed. Someone, -something- stood at the far end of the hall otherwise empty hall; Chloe was not there. Then, another flash, and the scenery returned to the emotional reds, and there was Chloe, standing frozen in place, staring at Tobias with a stricken expression. "You should go now... you have to go now. I can't stop this." Her voice was a whisper, barely audible, and their surroundings flickered again, to the horror scene, and back.

<@Tobias`Brewer> About a year ago, he had read House of Leaves. That left a dark impression on his mind and whether it was that or the horror films from last week or the much scarier possibility - entirely the work of Chloe's psyche, they were in a little over their heads. "Yes you can," he whispered. "And you'd better. Because I have no idea what we're dealing with. His eyes filled up with cerulean light again as he thought quickly. He extended his hand and a piece of chalk materialized in it. Without turning his eyes from the end of the hallway, he began drawing a rectangle in the wall.

<@Chloe_Cane> The hallway interior flickered again, to the ripped, rotted, and torn scene, and remained there. In this place, it was silent save for the ominous sounds of breathing. Somewhere, Chloe screamed, the wail echoing from everywhere at once. The figure stood at the end of the hallway again, and a voice came from it, or, from somewhere in that direction. "GET OUT GET OUT GETOUTGETOUT! You don't belong in here. SHE'S MINE LITTLE BITCH is MINE you won't save her CAN'T SAVE HER!" The figure warped closer, halfway down the hallway now, and its taunting grew louder. "I am HELL TOBIAS. She is MINE AND I WILL keep YOU here WITH HER! LITTLE BITCH IS MINE!!!" The figure looked familiar, the shape, the hair, writhing like snakes.

<@Tobias`Brewer> You didn't think this through. M. Psiloc's voice, violet eyes from underneath his mushroom-like sombrero. What you were and what she has become aren't analogous. 'I'm starting to realize that but I'm kind of in the middle of something.' The figure could have been a child abuser, a bad authority figure, an embodiment of some childhood wound inflicted from without. He hoped. The medusa-hair killed that hope before it was fully born. He recognized the general impression it made all too well. 'Some of them are me,' she said. It wasn't the fears they had to worry about. It was their gatekeeper. "Right..." he murmured as he scraped the chalk against the wall faster, trying to complete the damned rectangle. "Whatever you say, babe. It's not her we're trying to save." The shape was finished and he tried to imagine some sort of exit for them, a way out of the trip gone bad. He didn't have time to check if it was actually one - through, he leapt.

<@Chloe_Cane> "MINE!!!!" The thing leapt for him, or rather, warped to him, as he jumped through the exit. It was Chloe, or, rather, some part of Chloe. The naked form was quite possibly dead; its skin looked dry and ashen, and it was covered with scars from old and fresh injuries alike. The eyes had gone dead white and clouded, but gleamed with an alien, terrifying hunger and horror. The scene around Tobias warped, pulsing, like the way a pebble disturbs the surface of a still pond, and a low bass tone surrounded him just before he made it out. It was so low, in fact, that it was more felt than heard, vibrating through his whole body. The Chloe-thing shrieked with rage as everything shut away, trapping her there. Outside her head, Chloe sat in front of the pool of water in the garden room, her knees drawn to her chest, arms wrapped around them. She rocked back and forth, staring up at the vines growing overhead, stuck in a repeating loop of apology. "I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry..."

* @Tobias`Brewer came out of spinning vertigo, not unlike a flashbang where the mind gets stuck on a single visual, which fades, superimposed on what's actually going on. He fell to the stone, out of his sitting position, dry heaved and sat up, blinking. "Chloe," was the first thing he said and he turned to the girl, seeing her awake but catatonic. He reached out for her but yanked his hands away almost as fast, checking if her SND was still around her neck. Only once he made sure it was, he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook. "Chloe. Chloe!"

<@Chloe_Cane> "Sorry, sorry..." She rocked harder for a second while he gained his bearings. When he touched her though, she froze, the last 'sorry' only halfway out of her lips. Slowly, her chin lowered to let her eyes meet his, and for a second, it seemed like she didn't recognize him, perhaps still lost, making her way back from wherever she'd gone when things went all Silent Hill in there. Blink. Recognition dawned, and she came back to herself and flung her arms around him. "You're still out here! Ohthankgod, I'm so sorry, she's, I'm... I mean, I'm so glad you're alright... I'm so sorry." She buried her face in his neck and hung on for dear life.

<@Tobias`Brewer> "Yeah. I'm still... Just... relax. Everything is fine. Nothing is fucked. Nothing is fucked," he repeated, his arms going around her by reflex. His chin pressed into the top of her head, his eyes open, frowning. This was going to be tougher than he anticipated. Did he really think that he could waltz in there and make it all better through simple visualization exercises? Still, the enemy showed its face. She was her own enemy. He rubbed her back and thought. There would have to be greater preparation next time. Next time? Next time? Am I playing white knight or do I know what I'm doing?

<@Chloe_Cane> Chloe took several deep breaths and finally turned her face against his chest to talk. "I should have... warned you or something. But I didn't think she, -I- would do that. I didn't think I would panic like that, in there. She is what I am when I let everything out." The Chloe-thing was responsible for the broadcasts in some way, or rather, her manifestation of herself when she used the ability, how she saw that part of herself. She pulled back a little to look him over, one hand reaching up to brush over the side of his face. "The SND keeps the broadcast from leaving my head, but I didn't think about what would happen with you in my head. No one's been in there before. Are you sure you're okay?"

<@Tobias`Brewer> "Unless your twisted sister has the ability to jump, I'm fine. I got out just in time." She said voices. She never described them. Again, he reprimanded himself for not asking her about the voices in advance. "My fault. Should have prepared." He was silent for a moment and looked down at her. "So that's what you have to put up with every day huh?"

<@Chloe_Cane> "Pretty much, yeah. I uh, take a lot of meds. Some days are worse than others, you know." She shrugged and carefully extricated herself from his arms, feeling as though she might overstay her welcome there. "Next time, we can try something to see if I can keep her quiet for awhile while we work. Right now, I need to take something before the headache hits." She started moving to the kitchen, looking back over her shoulder. "Stay for a little longer?"

<@Tobias`Brewer> He gave her shoulder a parting squeeze as she stood. Part of him wanted to get back in the car and get away from all this psychiatric drama. But, though his mind could list the reasons for and against, the real one that mattered, the human side of things said you can't just take off on someone like this and he was already too involved to be able to stroll out casually. "Does anyone else know?" he asked, rising and following her into the house.

<@Chloe_Cane> She stepped back into the kitchen and rummaged around in the cabinets for a glass and a prescription bottle. Pills rattled around as she opened the bottle and shook one free, popping it into her mouth. She opened the refrigerator and took out a pitcher of water, filled the glass, and used it to down the pill. She shook her head. "No. Like I said, you're the first person who's been in there. First to see me there. Most telepaths, psychics, say they can't read anything from me, or it makes them feel sick to try." She finished the glass and set it down, placing both hands on either side of the sink and looking out the window. "Then again, I have never just let someone in either. Too scared." Looking over at him, she half smiled. "If you don't want to go back, I will understand." The label on the bottle read THORAZINE, Take One By Mouth for Migraines. May Take One No Less than 4 Hours Later, Not to Exceed 2 in 12 Hours.

<@Tobias`Brewer> "I used to be on Thorazines. Made things worse later. Couldn't handle it." He held the bottle in his hand as if remembering, turned it around in his palm and set it down again. Looked at her. "I've never seen anything like it," he admitted. "But I'm not an expert, I learned from them but I'm just a..." Fuckup. "Dilletante." He looked around to see if she'd left that bottle of scotch out in the open from earlier. "It's like this. If we're going to do this, you're gonna tell me everything about her. Right now I can't tell if it's your trauma or if it's the source of all your power. Maybe both. We need to be prepared."

<@Chloe_Cane> "Dilletante or not, you are the first person who has made a suggestion to help that did not involve psychically, or medically..." She gestured at the bottle, "lobotomizing me and shutting me down. I don't want to be a zombie. I have a personality, I am a person, and I want to live a life. I'll be twenty in December and for nearly seven years now, I have dealt with this. It's time to try something new." The scotch bottle was out on the bar, along with anything else he could have wanted. She filled her glass with water again; alcohol with thorazine was the worst combination she could have gone for. She wasn't stupid enough to do that. "Alright. I'll tell you everything, but let's at least go somewhere better for conversation. Help yourself to whatever you want. Mi casa, tu casa." She headed out to the living room then, and flopped down on one corner of a large sofa.

<@Tobias`Brewer> When she went to the living room, he surreptitiously took out a 100mg tramadol and popped it in his mouth, following up with scotch. It was something he still fought against, making good but not total progress. The drug addicted psychiatrist, he thought with an inner smirk at his own expense. Could he be even called such? He studied the field, yes but to do what he attempted after many nights thinking about the procedure, swatting away hopes that it could revolutionize mental health nationwide. Something that's not been done before, not on a scientific basis. 'But is she your subject or a friend?' No. His mentors left their indelible impressions on his mind. And now his bullshit detector sounded like them. He sat down across from her. "Okay. From the beginning. But slowly. This might take some time to go over, days, maybe weeks."

<@Chloe_Cane> She waited for him to emerge from the kitchen before she began. "Well, I told you that my mom died when I was eight. It was some strange, rare genetic disorder. I think she may have been like us, a mutant, and it killed her. But it happened so fast... I mean one month she was fine, and then two months later, she was dying in a hospital. Ultimately, her organs hardened and shut down. The doctors attributed it to some disease related to her keratin production, but there was never a clear diagnosis. She just... was gone." Chloe pointed up to a picture on the mantle of the fireplace across from them, of a woman who looked remarkably like Chloe, down to the same odd eye color that looked like it would change on any given day as well. "That's her. Anyway, my dad, he deployed a lot for the Army, so his sister and my grandmother stayed here to help take care of me, so I wouldn't have to move around so much. So I could stay in school and all that."

<@Tobias`Brewer> "Did anything change after she died? Like in your head or..?" He sipped his drink, knowing it would be another full hour before he felt the rush break through the enteric slow-release coating. He nodded. School was a target rich location for fear vectors.

<@Chloe_Cane> "No. I mean, I was sad. Of course I was sad, I missed my mom, and my dad too, but he was able to take a good bit of time off to stay here with me, and the Army extended his orders here for another couple years. He didn't actually start deplying again until I was 10. By then, we had more or less gotten used to life without her, as much as you ever do." The thorazine worked relatively fast, but not quite yet. Besides, she was used to the single doses now, and it tended to make things just pleasantly fuzzy and warm. "Then, he was gone for around six months at a time. When he was home, we had good times. He and I were pretty close. He always made sure he was home for my birthday. It was more important than Christmas, he said." She smiled, and gestured up toward another picture of a handsome man in his Army dress uniform. "I loved my aunt and my grandmother, too. They weren't mom, but they never tried to be, and even though my grandmother was getting up there, she was never too old or too tired to read to me, even when I got older."

<@Tobias`Brewer> Pretty normal family life with enough support to compensate for the death of a parent. Could the power have been the culprit then? Too soon to tell. "Okay. So far so good, then." He nodded for her to continue.

<@Chloe_Cane> The good memories were good. Then, her expression became less happy, more troubled. "I kissed a boy once, at my 13th birthday party. His name was Michael. Michael Kirkman. He was very cute, and after I had opened all my presents, we were all outside getting ready to light off some fireworks. He told me he thought I was pretty, and he kissed me." She watched the beads of condensation roll down the side of her glass. "He was the first boy I ever kissed, and he was the last boy I ever kissed. One month later, Gertrude happened, and then everything changed. Touching people, that was the first thing I lost."

<@Tobias`Brewer> "Gertrude happened, didn't she," he agreed, drawing out the answer. "You didn't just touch and scare her. You kept her. A piece of her mind. What I saw in there was remarkably detailed for a 13 year old memory."

<@Chloe_Cane> "Yeah." She sighed. "I keep a little bit of everyone I touch that way. Gertrude was first. And her snails. Then my aunt. She was here when I came home that day. I was upset, and I hadn't put two and two together yet. Aunt Mabel. She was scared of getting old. She hugged me and asked what was wrong... and then she was scared of me. After that, she didn't really want to be here with me anymore, but she lied and said it was because her son needed her." She looked more melancholy now, and drew her knees up against herself, a protective posture. "Grandmother was an accident. She was afraid of going blind. Her name was Catherine. But she... when it happened, she didn't blame me. She and dad were the only ones who didn't, but it didn't help. My dad is in there, too."

<@Tobias`Brewer> "What did they do?" he asked. "When they found out?

<@Chloe_Cane> "What did they do? What do you mean what did they do? What would you do if you found out your child had some mutation that meant that not only could you never hug her again, or even accidentally get too close to her, but that she was also quite possibly dangerous? They didn't blame me because it wasn't my fault, but it's not like it was all hearts and flowers and purple unicorns." She frowned and shook her head. "Sorry. I didn't mean to snap. For awhile, they didn't really do anything except keep telling me it wasn't my fault and that everything would be alright. But then dad said how he thought it might be best if I was homeschooled, just in case... and I just felt alone. The homeschool teacher's name was Jackie. Sharks. She was also the first victim of the other thing."

<@Tobias`Brewer> Now they were getting to the crux of the biscuit. 'The other thing,' which, he believed, was intimately tied with what came after him in the projection. His voice was modulated to sound like something you could lean on. "Can you tell me about that?"

<@Chloe_Cane> "I love your voice, when you do that. It's nice." She relaxed a little, and finished her glass before setting it on the coffee table. "I was angry, and lonely, and I just wanted her to fuck off, honestly. One Tuesday morning, she came by to give me a test, calculus, and I didn't want to do it. Thirteen, hormonal, going through something no one could explain to me... and she would not just shut up and leave me alone. I remember thinking, that I wanted her to be scared, just something that would shut her up for one god damn minute, but I didn't want to touch her again. I thought about like, just screaming at her or something, to see if just acting nuts would do it, and suddenly there was this sound... you heard it, that vibration. Only it was coming from me. It pushed through and out of me, and it was like I was looking at myself from inside me, and I was scary, as terrifying as I could be, to show her. I think that's where it started. It's changed some over time, as I've gotten older... but that's where it started, I'm pretty sure."

<@Tobias`Brewer> "Did you feel the presence of..." He gave her a knowing look. "When it happened? Or did that come later? Like, do you remember it as a moment of separation? You mentioned that you were watching yourself from inside. What did you feel when you used your uh. Your terror-beam."

<@Chloe_Cane> "The freakshow broadcast from hell?" She smirked. "I didn't feel it like an outside or separate presence. I knew it was me, just, something coming out of me. Honestly? It feels satisfying, like a release of some sort, but not of something that's been built up. It feels like whoever gets caught in it, at least at the time, deserves it. And then after, once I learned what it was doing, I feel horrible. I feel like a thing."

<@Tobias`Brewer> "I know. You know better most of the time. But not all the time." Maybe it was the Thorazine but she was acting quite lucid and sane - a far cry from the state he found her in the first time. Or last time. Or the picture inside. "I guess what I'm trying to figure out is - how much of your fragmented persona and your mutation are one in the same. Do your problems come from trauma associated with the mutation or is it part of the power itself. That will be key, I think." He shook his head and smiled. "Listen to me talk, I'm barely a grad student for fuck's sake. Trouble is, no psychiatric specialist would take this on using my methods. I doubt I could write a dissertation yet but I know it works. I -know- it."

<@Chloe_Cane> The thorazine did tend to quiet the voices up. It also, in much larger doses, shut -it- up quite well. It was something she planned on mentioning for next time, but had kept to herself for the moment. "I think the one was the result of the other. I wasn't always crazy. But the more people I kept with me, the more the broadcast happened, before I learned to control it better... the more fractured I got." She got up and moved to sit next to him, putting one hand over his. "Tobias... I have been to shrinks. Twenty-four of them at last count, and 16 psychics, 10 neurologists, 5 telepaths, 3 witches, and a voodoo priestess, who told me that all my problems could be solved with leeches and animal sacrifice. -They couldn't help me.- Maybe you can."

<@Tobias`Brewer> He put his other hand over hers and lifted it up. "The thing is, Chloe. If so many people failed to help you, there's a good chance that I won't be able to do anything either. But I want to try. Number one, because you're my friend and number two, this is the first time I'll be able to apply something I've been trying to study for years now. Just remember you need to be prepared for the possibility that the goggles do nothing. You know? Less disappointment that way."

<@Chloe_Cane> "I know." She squeezed his hand. "Even if it doesn't work, I doubt it will make it worse. And it's nice to have a friend." Looking down at their hands, she smiled. "Can we sit like this for a little while before you go? You can stay if you want, but if you need to go, sit with me for a few minutes at least."

<@Tobias`Brewer> "I think someone likes body contact," he said and prodded her side with one hand. The perceptive side of him couldn't help but notice the possibly burgeoning attachment and he wasn't sure how he felt about it. But when you haven't been able to experience... for six years. "C'mere," he said, opening his arm and draping it around her shoulders. "You're resilient and you're taking steps to make yourself better, however scary that is. I'm proud of you."

<@Chloe_Cane> "Maybe. I'm still dumbfounded that the SND works. It was all I could do not to wander around randomly poking people." Her skin twitched at the prodding, and she snorted, but soon leaned against him and enjoyed the contact and warmth. "Well, one thing at a time. We will have to see if we can make it further in than one memory before we declare success."

<Tobias`Brewer> "Agreed. Hey, you're gonna be okay right? Because I have some errands to run. In the meantime, I think you should get in the habit of writing things down - memories and stuff. It'll help with recall." He squeezed her shoulder again and stood up.

<@Chloe_Cane> "Yeah, I'll be fine. Call me when you want to go dumpster diving again." She grinned and stood to show him out.

[Suzthulhu]

Parts 2 and 3 available here:

http://www.cobaltacademy.net/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=310

http://www.cobaltacademy.net/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=311