\ Haven:Mist and Shadow Encounterlogs/Rachels Odd Encounter Sr Trevor 240505
Encounterlogs

Rachels Odd Encounter Sr Trevor 240505

Rachel was deeply immersed in her gaming session when Frederick, a visibly shaken and average-looking man with incongruously dyed deep blue hair, burst into her room, visibly panicked and seeking refuge from what he believed to be supernatural phenomena. Though initially startled, Rachel's reaction to the intrusion was unorthodox; instead of calling for help or ejecting Frederick, she brandished a switchblade not in aggression, but as a means of cautious introduction. Despite the tense beginning, their interaction took an unexpected turn as Frederick revealed his belief in the existence of the supernatural, including ghosts, vampires, and notably, werewolves. Claiming to have captured a transformation on video, he sought refuge with Rachel, possibly seeing her as a beacon of belief or simply the nearest haven in his flight.

Rachel, exhibiting an atypical mixture of skepticism and intrigue, engaged Frederick under the guise of interest, coaxing him into sharing his evidence. Her demeanor - a blend of earnest curiosity and strategic manipulation - enabled her to view Frederick's damning footage, a clear video of a supposed werewolf transformation. However, Rachel's intentions were far from simply indulging a frightened stranger's fantasies. She skillfully steered the conversation towards the implications of Frederick's discovery, only to pivot swiftly, immobilizing him with a mysterious suggestion that preluded a deeper revelation. Rachel, turning confessor and executioner of Frederick's memories, gently dismantled his discovery, persuading him to forget everything he witnessed and urging him towards a new life devoid of supernatural entanglements. Thus, Frederick, who entered Rachel's chaotic domain with a monumental secret, exited bereft of his monumental discovery but burdened with a new, if oblivious, lease on life - a poignant testament to the hidden depths and capabilities residing within Rachel.
(Rachel's odd encounter(SRTrevor):SRTrevor)

[Sat May 4 2024]

In a cozy, corner to corner nerd-dom
This room is an exercise in organized chaos. Cardboard boxes are scattered across the floor, each one carefully labeled with subjects like "Psychology Textbooks" and "Plushie Collectibles." The walls are bare, save for a white poster that carries farewell notes, hand-drawn images, and signatures, supposedly from the "Thomas Jefferson High School Pokemon Go Team." A sturdy bookshelf segments the room, waiting to be filled with evidence of academic rigor. On the smaller half of the room, there is a twin-size bed covered in mismatched blue-and-green sheets; on the larger half of the room, a wood desk with plenty of drawers, sure to play host to unnecessary knick-knacks. There is the persistent hum of a gaming rig - sometimes, a vintage Gamecube, others a monstrous multi-monitor setup.

It is afternoon, about 75F(23C) degrees,

(Someone in Haven has found out about the supernatural and is freaking out about it. They're at risk of exposing the secret, hurting themselves, or hurting others. Your target and their allies are tasked with containing the situation.
)
It's a warm saturday afternoon. The sun is shining, beating down on the streets of Haven. But, Rachel has found herself inside, in the middle of what looks to be a very intense gaming session. Controller taps, button mashing, and she's battling away. Beating up on some opponent probably miles and miles away from her. She's good, hitting combos left and right - she seemingly is about to finish her opponent off.. when..

An average sized man, with the most average looking features. Green eyes framed by a round glasses. Brown hair, that's been dyed with a deep blue. It doesn't really look right on him, it's too deep a blue, and his brown hair is much too light. He's scrambled into the room, shutting the door behind him. As if that'd save him from a ghost.

He looks disheveled, panicked even, when the door slams shut he slumps to the ground, panting heavily.

Rachel had been far too engrossed in her game to notice footsteps advancing upon her door. She does, however, turn the second that the door slams.

"Right."

The correct response is to scream. They're in Repentance House. No one's in the building, at current, but someone on the streets might hear.

She hangs her head, nodding to herself. It conveys 'of course,' as if she were only mildly inconvenienced, and this were a daily occurrence.

It follows that what's next is indubitably and perhaps irretrievably the wrong course of action. She reaches into the bag that she still has slung over her shoulder. When she stands, there's a little black rectangle in her hand, which soon reveals itself to be a switchblade.

"Hi." She shows him the flat of her blade. "Rachel. And you are?"

The man is still panting from the floor. His panicked green eyes are taking in the room, textbooks, plushies, woman, poster, woman with knife, be-, woman with knife? Shit. Immediately his eyes lock onto the knife, and he tries to shy away, pushing himself against the door. Caught between a rock and a hard-place of his own doing. "P-please," he cries out, "Don't hurt me!" The words are squeaked out of him. "I'm Frederick."

Rachel eyeballs the man. "Okay, Frederick." She's still got the knife, but makes a concession, backing away with both hands held up. "I'm not hurting you. Not if you stay over there." Her chin points out the door which, quite obediently, he's already pressed flush against. "Do you want to tell me what you're doing in my room?"

Her line of questioning is curt. There's something in her face, though, that speaks to kindness. It might simply be a consequence of her youth.

"Okay, okay!" Fredreick didn't really seem to plan on moving from this spot anyway. Judging by the sweat, and the panting it seems like he sprinted all the way around campus and bursted into the first room he could manage to open the door of. Rachel might have not locked the door properly. Who knows?

"Y-yeah, I can.." he sucks in a breath. "I was right! I was RIGHT!" Right about what specifically? "Ghosts, vampires, all that? They exist!" It's a weird revelation, he's scared but excited at the prospect at the same time. He doesn't really seem to know what to do about it. Apparently, whatever he saw, or, well figured out, made him sprint halfway across campus.

This, too, would summon from any reasonable person a particular response. Maybe laughter, or the tried-and-true favorite of "you're insane." As we've established, Rachel isn't reasonable.

She purses her lips.

"Do you want a Sprite?" she asks. Without turning her back to Frederick, or removing her eyes from him, she bends down. A big paper bag is in her arms. From it, she produces - as promised - an enormous two liter bottle. "I have Doritos, too. I was going to have them with... a friend, but I don't think he'll want them anymore."

"Sit." This time, she tilts her head toward the beanbag chairs. "Have a drink. Calm down. You can tell me about ghosts and vampires after you've put something into your system."

With how even keel she is, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that Rachel's humoring the man.

The man slides up the door, pressing himself against it still. He spares half a glance to the door, and carefully, very carefully picks his way across the room to the beanbags. "Um, no, that's okay, I don't.."

He really is a wreck, there's no sound but he jumps, almost leaping out of the beanbag. "Okay, yes, Sprite please."

Rachel sits the paper bag in front of the man for him to delve into at his convenience. She hugs the Sprite over to her desk, upon which sit, of course, red Solo cups. As she pours, she talks.

"So, ghosts." A glance is thrown over her shoulder. She caps the bottle.

Distance maintained, she settles upon a beanbag chair that's nearby, but not close, so she still has to lean forward to give him his beverage.

It fizzes, drops of liquid hitting his skin.

Look how normal this is, Frederick. Look how safe it is, here in this room. Rachel's no ghost. Rachel's no vampire.

"Do you want to talk to me about what you saw?"

A shaky hand reaches out, taking the cup from Rachel. Each drop of liquid that hits his skin almost makes him drop it. He's nervous, jumpy. He manages to take control of the thing, taking in a breath in a weak attempt to steady himself.

There's a sip, then another, followed by massive gulps. The cup is downed rather quickly, a small puddle swishing at the bottom. He lowers it, placing it on the ground.

"Well, not so much ghosts, as.. werewolves. I just know they all exist!" He's looking at Rachel now, the drink apparently hit the spot in calming him down, only a little. "I-I.. I knew they all existed, people always said they were a fairytale, folklore. I never believed them!"

He needs a second. So he takes a second.

"There was a full moon recently, right? I went into the forest a couple of days ago and setup some cameras.." Suspicious, but it got the job done. "I checked the footage, and.. I saw someone! They changed!"

Bingo. Frederick's given Rachel exactly what she needed. He's kept evidence. That won't do. "Can I see?" Rachel asks. She feigns wide-eyed interest. "I mean, I know that sometimes people catch this stuff on footage and they think it's Bigfoot, or whatever, but it's really just a blurry shot with some guy in a big coat."

"It'd be *so* cool if there were really werewolves out there." She's laying it on a bit thick, even throwing in upspeak, to sell herself as the average college student. By now, her knife's down, set a foot or so away from her. They're talking. It's civil.

"I don't have all the footage on me, it's at my computer at home." Fredreick explains. Rachel is about the same size as him, generally speaking, even though she had a knife he doesn't seem particularly scared of her. It made sense, a random man bursting into a woman's room? It's scary, for her, probably. "But.."

He lifts the Sprite, finishing up the last dregs, wiping his mouth on a sleeve of his long sleeve sleeved shirt. The empty cup goes down, and out comes a slightly cracked iPhone. "Here.. I have some of it here."

Swipe, swipe, up comes the gallery, and he's tapping on a saved video.

The video is paused on the thumbnail - it's a forest at night - a green filter over it all. Night vision. He really was prepared.

"You just have the footage? That's it? You going to send it off to the, uh, paranormal... enthusiasts society?" That's not a real group. She's made it up off the top of her head. Frederick gets the point. Did he, or did he not, inform anyone else of his findings? Will he?

She scoots in closer, wiggling, so her beanbag is just by his. A tap, so the video starts playing. She's watching carefully.

Anyone in the know would understand that Rachel's looking to establish whether the video's clear enough, legitimate enough, that mainstream media would find it interesting.

Frederick was clearly prepared. "Only this one," he mutters idly, watching the footage with intent.

The quality of it is great. It's clear, except for the greenish, slightly grainy night vision mode.

The footage starts. It's of a slight clearing in the forest, plenty of trees in the background. It's a high up angle, like a security camera - peering into the clearing. It's just that for a while, nothing, silence. Then eventually, a man - walks in. He's big, judging by the height of trees, he could be about six to six and a half feet tall. The man wanders further into frame, slow, lumbering steps at a time. What is that? It looks like he's holding his stomach, hurt, maybe? Then nothing, the man stays like that for a time, and Rachel might think that's the end of the video, or the frame is frozen. Then, slowly does the man transform. His hair begins to stand up on end - growing thicker first around the arms, then the hands, then up to his neck. His nose elongates, and eventually, he turns into a wolf hybrid.

"See?! Look! I told YOU."

"Oh wow, yeah. That's--" Rachel lifts her eyebrows. She throws in a sharp intake of breath, an exclamation, a hand over her mouth, all at the perfect moments. "That's crazy. There really *are* werewolves." Her hand, as they watch, closes on the top half of the phone, as if she's trying to angle it better for herself. The grip's iron tight.

"Hey, Frederick. Look at me."

She says this like she's trying to impart something of importance to him. "You can make a lot of money off of this stuff. Just have to get it to the right people, you know?"

Someone is agreeing with him? Especially a pretty woman? That's a shock to Frederick, he's usually pretty secluded, working on some experiment to find out whether or not all this stuff is real. "You believe me? You don't think I edited it?"

Eagerly, he looks from the phone to Rachel, meeting her eyes. "You really think so?" There's a boyish excitement to him now. Going from panic to excitement in a span of about ten minutes or so. "You can get in on it if you want! If you know anybody, or a forum somewhere for people like this."

"I do. I believe you." Rachel looks vaguely apologetic. "Don't get up until I tell you to." It's an odd thing to say in the middle of this conversation. Presumptive, too. Why should it be her place to command him? He'd find, though, that if he tries to stand, his legs don't cooperate.

"Don't be scared. This'll be better for you. I promise."

"Give me your phone," she urges gently. Her hand's still on it. His is, too. He'll be made to let go, one way or the other. "You're going to be okay."

"O-okay.." Frederick lets his hands go limp and the phone is easy enough to take, then he relaxes into the beanbag. No attempts to escape. Why would he? Someone just believed him! "Scared? I just made probably one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time. I'm excited!"

Okay? Why would he not be okay? He doesn't even seem to catch those words, he's focused on Rachel and the excitement of his discovery.

Rachel could simply get on with it. She could make him do as she wants. Except the human in her connects with the human in him. Frederick should know what's coming.

"You're right. There are ghosts and demons and fairies and werewolves. Probably more, too." Her ensuing explanation is heartbreakingly gentle. "But I can't have you running around talking about them. And-- you don't want that either. Trust me."

"I was in your shoes, once. I found out about the whole..." She holds her hands out, palms up, as if she were showcasing the entirety of the universe. In a way, she is. "God, all of it. The whole conspiracy theory. And I wish every day that someone would take it away from me." So...

"You're going to forget." She gives Frederick a lopsided smile. "When you leave this room, you're going to forget everything that you saw. You're going to erase all the footage you have. You're going to find a new hobby. Move away from this town. Be happy, off in a big city, or in the middle of nowhere. Anything you want."

"You're going to be free."

Frederick came in here a nervous wreck. His whole shattered, ghosts, vampires, werewolves were all real! It's an earth-shattering revelation for most. Most would probably be that same nervous wreck, and some wouldn't. They're the stronger ones, and usually the strong survive.

It's a twist, Rachel thought Frederick was the danger, but, in reality Rachel was never in harms way. From his beanbag, he looks at her, dumbfounded. She might have oversold it a little too much, and now she's just fucking with him. The annoying nerdy guy who's heard it all before. "Y-you.. you don't believe me."

"You're.. you're just making fun of me." The man stands from the beanbag, a little awkwardly, the beans shuffling around inside with a squish as they settle back into place. He doesn't stomp, he's sad, and he shuffles towards the door. It may have been hypnotism, it may just have been the words.

He came in with an earth-shattering revelation, and he's leaving without one. Except, he's not.

The door twists open, and Frederick exits.

That's his earth-shattering revelation after all. Freedom.