Encounterlogs
Marcuss Odd Encounter Sr Legion
Marcus is sitting on his couch amidst the cluttered coziness of his living space, half-attempting to locate the remote when an unnerving presence makes itself known. The room seems to shimmer as an apparition, reeking of brimstone and tragedy, materializes with an ominous request. This ghost, a tormented soul, pleads with Marcus for help; he speaks of a master—Samael, the Prince of Fire—and suggests that by aiding him, Marcus would be fulfilling some dire need of his own. The interaction is disturbing, yet compelling, as the spirit reveals his own horrific scars and the promise of a brief respite if Marcus were to agree to his terms.
Confronted by a being so pained and desperate for release, Marcus, though visibly disturbed and hesitant, is stirred by a mix of pity and a dawning sense of duty. His questions reveal an underlying fear of being ensnared in a similar fate, and yet, reluctantly, he consents to meet with Samael. The spirit eagerly accepts the agreement, yet Marcus is adamant that there be no physical contact, his apprehension and unease palpable. As the spirit fades with a haunting message, Marcus is left grappling with his decision, the severity of his potential sacrifice dawning on him, and the eerie sense of a dark path unfolding before him.
(Marcus's odd encounter(SRLegion):SRLegion)
[Mon Jan 15 2024]
In the cluttered but pleasant living room
Nearly every surface in this room has something on it. Clothes, trinkets, candles, decorations, long forgotten beverage cans. There are clear walkways and places to sit, and it is obvious that while this room is cluttered, it is very much an organized mess. Beyond being discomforting to a clean freak, it is cozy and warm, inviting its inhabitants to lounge and stay a while.
It is afternoon, about 25F(-3C) degrees, and there are a few dark grey stormclouds in the sky.
(Your target encounters a ghost who's fixated on some past tragedy from their life, they need to either give the spirit some sense of closure, or send it on it's way through more violent means.
)
Marcus is sitting on the couch, idly texting someone or another, his phone vibrating periodically in his hand. The latest thing he reads has him re-pocketing the device with a shrug. "Whatever," he mutters to himself, half-amused. "Goth neckbeard." He gropes around for the remote, and finds it not where he expected. Partially rising, he checks under his butt. So the search begins.
As Marcus texts, there is something in the room that seems to shimmer: like a discoloration in the air, passing through the wall, and with it, the smell of brimstone and black smoke. Marcus can't see what it is directly, but with his keen senses he can smell that brimstone and more than that smell something -different-. It pricks at his nose, as if it sends the hairs on the back of his neck raising, and then it is as if he can almost but not quite hear a whisper.
Marcus is midway through lifting the cushion he'd been sitting on for evidence of the lost remote when he catches that unexpected whiff. His nostrils flare and he drops the cushion where he found it. TV will have to wait this time. Instead, the man's eyes swing towards the kitchen. It's about then that he notices the disturbance in the air, and the additional, uncanny smell that wafts just above the scent of sulfur. He pauses now, rendered more cautious. His head cants to the side when he thinks he hears something, but otherwise he doesn't move, standing before the couch and daring to execute only subtle movements. He gives the curtain to the south the whale-eye, showing some sclera.
And then the shimmering: more of it, increasing, and then, out of the corner of Marcus' eye, a glimpse of something. Of some person? Perhaps. He can't quite see it, he would swear that just out of view he caught the edge of a man, standing there. Now he hears a voice. It's different from the one that whispers to him. "I was sent here to you," the voice says. "We heard -- my master heard -- your need." Is there something in that voice that's pained, that's tortured? Something about it feels just -not quite right.-
And then the shimmering: more of it, increasing, and then, out of the corner of Marcus' eye, a glimpse of something. Of some person? Perhaps. He can't quite see it, he would swear that just out of view he caught the edge of a man, standing there. Now he hears a voice. It's different from the one that whispers to him. "I was sent here to you," the voice says. "We heard -- my master heard -- your need." Is there something in that voice that's pained, that's tortured? Something about it feels just -not quite right.-
When Marcus looks up, there is then some shimmering: more of it, increasing, and then, out of the corner of Marcus' eye, a glimpse of something. Of some person? Perhaps. He can't quite see it, he would swear that just out of view he caught the edge of a man, standing there. Now he hears a voice. It's different from the one that whispers to him. "I was sent here to you," the voice says. "We heard -- my master heard -- your need." Is there something in that voice that's pained, that's tortured? Something about it feels just -not quite right.-
Marcus turns his head swiftly to try and chase the fleeting vision in his peripheral, but it seems to him that whenever he tries looking directly at the apparition, it vanishes. It's like staring too directly at a single star in the night sky. He turns back where he had been looking and shifts his eyes more deliberately to the side in order to reproduce the angle and see whatever he can see. But even his mundane vision is not particularly sharp; he has even less capacity to focus on something like this.
Marcus licks his lips uneasily. When he dares to speak, it's very slow, very over-enunciated. "Who is your master? What need do you mean?"
"My master..." Marcus' question produces a response, as the apparition now comes into view. It is a man: he is emaciated, bald, and he seems washed out, as if a barely-colorized, faded movie print. The wall can be seen distantly behind him, and his eyes are hollow. He is naked: completely naked, and his body is emaciated, showing scars upon scars. Lash marks predominate, but he has been burned and cut and branded. Indeed, sigils: arcane runes, unrecognizable to Marcus, seem to be scarred into his very flesh, like they were carved there. "He told me you have a need," he says. "I have a need, too."
Marcus's dark eyes widen significantly as they take in the impossible, and a little sound escapes the man, even through lips as tightly pressed as his own. There's a whistling, keening whimper, and then a smack of those lips as he takes a half-step back. This is not a man who is accustomed to such sights -- they are still new and deeply disturbing to him. He tries to step back further and his shins just bump into the couch. The mundane world is still there, even now. "What's -your- need?" he asks, still trying to keep his voice level.
Wide, haunted eyes look at Marcus. "I need to be free," the spirit whispers to him. "I need some relief." Some of the wounds on him weep. "My master told me that if I brought you to him -- if I showed you the true path -- I would be given a year and a day to heal." Low, red blood trickles down from some sore, and as the spirit says these words to Marcus, the look in his eyes is full of some haunted horror. He takes a step towards Marcus. "Please," he urges Marcus. "You must do as he asks."
Marcus swallows thickly. His calves are pressed against the couch. He has nowhere to go, at least not in the backwards direction. Instead, he slowly sits down again in the wake of the entity's approach. It's a physical sign that Marcus has accepted that he is engaged in this conversation, for now.
"I have some questions," he says, not daring to blink, whether it's fear that the thing may depart if he does so...or that it may do something far worse.
Firstly, the obvious question is posed. It's not the first time he's asked, but Marcus reiterates it just in case he can get more this time: "Who is your master?"
The second question: "If I do, will he do to me what he's done to you?"
And lastly: "If I don't, will I get punished anyway?" His nose crinkles, and he squints. He seems to view the spirit with fresh eyes now. "You look terrible," he says to him. There's a touch of pity in his voice, of empathy...but there's a streak of meanness, too, the way he suddenly points it out.
Questions, questions: "I serve Samael, who is called the Prince of Fire," the entity says. He looks behind him with fear: as he turns, Marcus can see scars on the spirit's neck, as if from being hung by a rope, dug in deep to pale flesh. There is a low, scared shiver from the spirit, and then he turns to look back at Marcus. "Not if you bargain wisely. I rejected him," he says. "Again and again, but then they came from me, and on the gallows I asked for his help: in those last moments before the rope was to snap." He shivers. "And the price was high."
"Samael." Marcus seems to know that name. His features twitch with grim recognition, a flicker of a frown. "I know Samael -- from the abandoned trailer. There were some kids there summoning him. He offered to help me, even back then. I almost accepted it, but...he was choking Rachel." His own fingers probe softly and distractedly at his neck, as if testing for the burn of the hangman's rope, or at least imagining it. Having stared for quite some time, Marcus is forced to blink his watery eyes, now. Through the film of tears of physical irritation, he still stares at the spirit.
"I want to help you," he says to the ghastly figure. "You're...so pathetic. How could I not?" Wow. He just -had- to throw that in there: a potentially cruel jab tossed carelessly into the mix, half-disguised as sympathy. Yet still, he does seem sincere in his desire to aid the tormented ghast. "I'm just afraid the cost will be high for me, too. And...that'll make me on his side. The side of people who do things like...this." He gestures over the scarified form of the apparition. "And he'll...put me up to things like that." But he's not saying no. He's not burning bridges. And eventually, he says, more quietly:
"If you took me to him...would that mean the deal's already made? Or could I just...talk?"
Long, long silence. "There's nothing good in the world." There is some hollow certainty in the spirit's tone, and Marcus might have the sense that the wretch would cry, had someone not slowly burned out his tear ducts with white-hot iron needles. "There is just different kinds of evil: those who do it and those who have it done to him," he whispers. "And no bargain is made until it is made," he says. "I am supposed to get you to come to him. That is my task," he says. "Just..." He looks up. "Please."
Marcus pulls a tense face, his features wrenching in a highly uncomely fashion. There is naught but the twist of pity in that face now, at those words. Well, pity and...anxious indecision. That part is acted out in his body language, the way he shifts and his fingers drum nervously and noiselessly on the fabric of the couch. The silence Marcus subjects the ritually tortured creature to stretches just as long as the last, then a stretch longer. Eventually, it's broken by Marcus's deep but defeated voice:
"I'll go see him."
The wretch's face seems to light up, pleased, happy, and he steps towards Marcus. It's like he wants to embrace the man, all full of scars and puss and weeping sores. "Thank you," the ghost tells Marcus, and the sound of relief, the voice of joy is high. "I need it. Thank you!" he says. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
Marcus only shrinks back against the couch. A familiar whine is uttered from his throat. He is very uneasy about making physical contact with the entity -- if such a thing is possible. "You're welcome," he mutters darkly to the woebegone creature, his voice already tinged with looming regret at his decision. But he keeps his eyes open and ahead, watching for whatever comes next. "Please don't touch me. You're...like a leper or something."
Pain flickers in the spirit's eyes, and then it steps back. "I'm sorry," the ghost says to Marcus, and it's too-quick, as if the apparition is expecting some torment, some punishment from Marcus. The reaction is so quick -- a flinch -- that it perhaps may make Marcus doubt himself. Is that the role he plays? Is he the torturer or the tortured?
Marcus winces, too, and hard. A familiar expression falls over his watchful, wary eyes. Guilt. "Sorry," he mutters. "I just...I'm not used to seeing things like y--any of this." He corrects himself before letting yet another thoughtless remark roll off his lips. Of course, he doesn't raise a hand against the apparition. Granted, he probably wouldn't know how if he wanted to, but there's no indication that he does. "I'm glad you're free, at least for a while," he says genuinely, his voice low as ever. He is reluctant to eke out the next words, but they come: "How do I...go to him?"
Whispers, from the apparition, who is beginning to take a step back. He's not gone, yet, but he is translucent, near the wall. "He will find you," the spirit tells Marcus. He looks around the room. "But you know he will need an offering," he says. "And you know already what that offering will be -- don't you?"
Marcus's myopic eyes widen with alarm as he watches the departure of the figure. "Oh, no, no. I didn't agree to an offering," he says. "And no, I don't know what it'd be, anyway." Perhaps he does, perhaps he doesn't -- but from his tone he seems to suspect something particular, and something grave. He starts speaking more quickly, lest the being vanish before he's said his piece. "You said yourself no deal is made yet! All I agreed was that I'd talk to him. If he doesn't want to talk to me without an offering, that's...that's..." That's what, Marcus His eyes flick left and right as he runs through options of what to say next. Eventually, he settles on, "That's something he'll have to take care of on his side!"
Torment flickers in the wretch's eyes as he looks at Marcus. "Believe me," he tells the man, his voice haunted. "I wish I had made an offering that wasn't myself." A slow trickle of blood runs down his chest from some wound. "You think you can bear the torment," he says. "You think it's noble, to take it on yourself: but it isn't." He pauses. "The ones who sacrifice themselves are the losers in the end. There's always someone else," he says. "And then they, too, can find another, and so on. It's the last man who holds the bag, and you do not want to be me."
"I'm not sacrificing myself or anyone else!" Marcus grips the edge of the couch with tense fingers. "I don't care about being noble or a martyr. I'm just...in a minefield, trying to dance around the mines. And maybe, maybe talk to the one who put them there in the first place, so that I can..." But his voice trails off. He licks his liips. Maybe Marcus doesn't actually have an idea of what he's really after. Like a dog chasing a truck, he doesn't know what to do with it now that he's starting to catch up. Now that it's -letting- him catch up. "If he wants to talk, we can talk. If he doesn't want to without a sacrifice..." He uses a different word than the leprous ghost used. "...Then he can just...not talk to me after all. You did your part."
The apparition is there, half-in and half-out of Marcus' trailer. "He is going to find you no matter what," he says. "You made your bargain to meet him: to free me," the wretch whispers. "But it never ends," he confesses to Marcus. "It is always worse." He looks over his shoulder, as if imparting some secret. "Every bargain is fair: he says it, always. Each one, individually -- but together they are the road to Hell."
Marcus glares at the spot where the tormented spirit is starting to fade. He opens his mouth, and a few possibilities of what to say seem to dance superimposed on his tongue. He wrestles with them, and chooses one. "Get well soon." He mutters it monotonously, and it's difficult to determine whether it's an insult, a grim joke, or a sincere, if clumsy and trite, sendoff. He never stops watching. Without intending to do so, Marcus continues to squeeze the armrest of the couch, hard.
Get well soon, indeed: the spirit is gone, but the smell of brimstone seems to linger, with dark smoke around the corners of the room. It is hard not to have visions intrude on Marcus' mind. What torments did that wretch endure? Is he imagining him, trapped in some infernal pit, as laughing, goat-headed demons press hot irons to him? The pain: it's hard not to imagine Marcus' own torments. The wretch was not so gelded as Marcus, but he had scars there, too, cuts and burns that must have reduced him to terrified howls.
Marcus claps his knees together in such a way that would be very uncomfortable for most men.
What sort of torments might they visit on him? Fears impose on Marcus, now: isn't it better to make a bargain? After all... if what the wretch said was true, the bargain always gets made. It is the terms that change. It's hard now not to imagine the wretch, noose around his neck, beseeching the Lord of Fire for salvation. What did he have to sacrifice?
Some greater fear, perhaps, swims into view: is it Marcus the Prince of Fire has his eyes on? Or is it another? The wretch discussed an offering. He would not demand Rachel, would he? And if it is true for Marcus that he cannot escape his fate, is it equally true for the girl he cares so much for? How far, how long, does this chain descend?
Marcus drags his hand down his forehead, scratching as he goes, irritating some scabbed-over, still-healing crow-claw scratches. His eyes are dark and haunted as they stare at the spot where the spirit departed. Then, he tears them away. He looks at something else -- a nail on the wall, maybe left there by a previous owner. He fixates on that, no doubt to clear his mind.
Of course Marcus has. Everyone is a pawn, once they allow themselves to be placed on the board. The nail on the wall is answerless, hanging there, just empty, but only so much can distract him from his doubts. What is he doing to himself? What is he doing to those he cares about? Visions rise again, Marcus bound to the wheel in Hell, every stroke some torment. Surely that is not the end... surely.
Marcus expels a long, lung-hollowing breath, and releases his hard grip on the couch's armrest, only so he can clasps his hands together at his lap just as firmly. He has long since lost interest in the nail, his eyes unfocusing, but now he turns to face forward and closes his eyes, his head bowing. He rubs his thumbs together nervously as his hands knit.
Prayer is as much a state of mind as it is anything else, and as Marcus settles down to pray it's hard to find a good one. He is assailed by doubt: it is as if fear is an army, laying siege to the tower of Marcus' self-confidence, and prayer a thin and reedy shield against their assault. Still. There is virtue in prayer, even in dark times, and as Marcus thoughts rise to Heaven he finds at least perhaps some tiny core of strength to cling to.
When Marcus confesses his fear, it is like some tiny little star sparks in his heart. It is fitfull and distant -- feeble, like a flicker of a match in a dark night. Still... it is something. It is a tiny thing, an ember to cling to when it seems as if the man is adrift, alone, on a cold and friendless sea.
That flickered, tiny ember, and then -- as Marcus prays -- it's gone. It's as if he had a moment of hope, and then some cold wind passed through his heart and blew it out.
Marcus opens his eyes and unclasps his hands. He stares straight ahead at the TV. There's nothing on, but he stares anyway, with a dull resignation.
Confronted by a being so pained and desperate for release, Marcus, though visibly disturbed and hesitant, is stirred by a mix of pity and a dawning sense of duty. His questions reveal an underlying fear of being ensnared in a similar fate, and yet, reluctantly, he consents to meet with Samael. The spirit eagerly accepts the agreement, yet Marcus is adamant that there be no physical contact, his apprehension and unease palpable. As the spirit fades with a haunting message, Marcus is left grappling with his decision, the severity of his potential sacrifice dawning on him, and the eerie sense of a dark path unfolding before him.
(Marcus's odd encounter(SRLegion):SRLegion)
[Mon Jan 15 2024]
In the cluttered but pleasant living room
Nearly every surface in this room has something on it. Clothes, trinkets, candles, decorations, long forgotten beverage cans. There are clear walkways and places to sit, and it is obvious that while this room is cluttered, it is very much an organized mess. Beyond being discomforting to a clean freak, it is cozy and warm, inviting its inhabitants to lounge and stay a while.
It is afternoon, about 25F(-3C) degrees, and there are a few dark grey stormclouds in the sky.
(Your target encounters a ghost who's fixated on some past tragedy from their life, they need to either give the spirit some sense of closure, or send it on it's way through more violent means.
)
Marcus is sitting on the couch, idly texting someone or another, his phone vibrating periodically in his hand. The latest thing he reads has him re-pocketing the device with a shrug. "Whatever," he mutters to himself, half-amused. "Goth neckbeard." He gropes around for the remote, and finds it not where he expected. Partially rising, he checks under his butt. So the search begins.
As Marcus texts, there is something in the room that seems to shimmer: like a discoloration in the air, passing through the wall, and with it, the smell of brimstone and black smoke. Marcus can't see what it is directly, but with his keen senses he can smell that brimstone and more than that smell something -different-. It pricks at his nose, as if it sends the hairs on the back of his neck raising, and then it is as if he can almost but not quite hear a whisper.
Marcus is midway through lifting the cushion he'd been sitting on for evidence of the lost remote when he catches that unexpected whiff. His nostrils flare and he drops the cushion where he found it. TV will have to wait this time. Instead, the man's eyes swing towards the kitchen. It's about then that he notices the disturbance in the air, and the additional, uncanny smell that wafts just above the scent of sulfur. He pauses now, rendered more cautious. His head cants to the side when he thinks he hears something, but otherwise he doesn't move, standing before the couch and daring to execute only subtle movements. He gives the curtain to the south the whale-eye, showing some sclera.
And then the shimmering: more of it, increasing, and then, out of the corner of Marcus' eye, a glimpse of something. Of some person? Perhaps. He can't quite see it, he would swear that just out of view he caught the edge of a man, standing there. Now he hears a voice. It's different from the one that whispers to him. "I was sent here to you," the voice says. "We heard -- my master heard -- your need." Is there something in that voice that's pained, that's tortured? Something about it feels just -not quite right.-
And then the shimmering: more of it, increasing, and then, out of the corner of Marcus' eye, a glimpse of something. Of some person? Perhaps. He can't quite see it, he would swear that just out of view he caught the edge of a man, standing there. Now he hears a voice. It's different from the one that whispers to him. "I was sent here to you," the voice says. "We heard -- my master heard -- your need." Is there something in that voice that's pained, that's tortured? Something about it feels just -not quite right.-
When Marcus looks up, there is then some shimmering: more of it, increasing, and then, out of the corner of Marcus' eye, a glimpse of something. Of some person? Perhaps. He can't quite see it, he would swear that just out of view he caught the edge of a man, standing there. Now he hears a voice. It's different from the one that whispers to him. "I was sent here to you," the voice says. "We heard -- my master heard -- your need." Is there something in that voice that's pained, that's tortured? Something about it feels just -not quite right.-
Marcus turns his head swiftly to try and chase the fleeting vision in his peripheral, but it seems to him that whenever he tries looking directly at the apparition, it vanishes. It's like staring too directly at a single star in the night sky. He turns back where he had been looking and shifts his eyes more deliberately to the side in order to reproduce the angle and see whatever he can see. But even his mundane vision is not particularly sharp; he has even less capacity to focus on something like this.
Marcus licks his lips uneasily. When he dares to speak, it's very slow, very over-enunciated. "Who is your master? What need do you mean?"
"My master..." Marcus' question produces a response, as the apparition now comes into view. It is a man: he is emaciated, bald, and he seems washed out, as if a barely-colorized, faded movie print. The wall can be seen distantly behind him, and his eyes are hollow. He is naked: completely naked, and his body is emaciated, showing scars upon scars. Lash marks predominate, but he has been burned and cut and branded. Indeed, sigils: arcane runes, unrecognizable to Marcus, seem to be scarred into his very flesh, like they were carved there. "He told me you have a need," he says. "I have a need, too."
Marcus's dark eyes widen significantly as they take in the impossible, and a little sound escapes the man, even through lips as tightly pressed as his own. There's a whistling, keening whimper, and then a smack of those lips as he takes a half-step back. This is not a man who is accustomed to such sights -- they are still new and deeply disturbing to him. He tries to step back further and his shins just bump into the couch. The mundane world is still there, even now. "What's -your- need?" he asks, still trying to keep his voice level.
Wide, haunted eyes look at Marcus. "I need to be free," the spirit whispers to him. "I need some relief." Some of the wounds on him weep. "My master told me that if I brought you to him -- if I showed you the true path -- I would be given a year and a day to heal." Low, red blood trickles down from some sore, and as the spirit says these words to Marcus, the look in his eyes is full of some haunted horror. He takes a step towards Marcus. "Please," he urges Marcus. "You must do as he asks."
Marcus swallows thickly. His calves are pressed against the couch. He has nowhere to go, at least not in the backwards direction. Instead, he slowly sits down again in the wake of the entity's approach. It's a physical sign that Marcus has accepted that he is engaged in this conversation, for now.
"I have some questions," he says, not daring to blink, whether it's fear that the thing may depart if he does so...or that it may do something far worse.
Firstly, the obvious question is posed. It's not the first time he's asked, but Marcus reiterates it just in case he can get more this time: "Who is your master?"
The second question: "If I do, will he do to me what he's done to you?"
And lastly: "If I don't, will I get punished anyway?" His nose crinkles, and he squints. He seems to view the spirit with fresh eyes now. "You look terrible," he says to him. There's a touch of pity in his voice, of empathy...but there's a streak of meanness, too, the way he suddenly points it out.
Questions, questions: "I serve Samael, who is called the Prince of Fire," the entity says. He looks behind him with fear: as he turns, Marcus can see scars on the spirit's neck, as if from being hung by a rope, dug in deep to pale flesh. There is a low, scared shiver from the spirit, and then he turns to look back at Marcus. "Not if you bargain wisely. I rejected him," he says. "Again and again, but then they came from me, and on the gallows I asked for his help: in those last moments before the rope was to snap." He shivers. "And the price was high."
"Samael." Marcus seems to know that name. His features twitch with grim recognition, a flicker of a frown. "I know Samael -- from the abandoned trailer. There were some kids there summoning him. He offered to help me, even back then. I almost accepted it, but...he was choking Rachel." His own fingers probe softly and distractedly at his neck, as if testing for the burn of the hangman's rope, or at least imagining it. Having stared for quite some time, Marcus is forced to blink his watery eyes, now. Through the film of tears of physical irritation, he still stares at the spirit.
"I want to help you," he says to the ghastly figure. "You're...so pathetic. How could I not?" Wow. He just -had- to throw that in there: a potentially cruel jab tossed carelessly into the mix, half-disguised as sympathy. Yet still, he does seem sincere in his desire to aid the tormented ghast. "I'm just afraid the cost will be high for me, too. And...that'll make me on his side. The side of people who do things like...this." He gestures over the scarified form of the apparition. "And he'll...put me up to things like that." But he's not saying no. He's not burning bridges. And eventually, he says, more quietly:
"If you took me to him...would that mean the deal's already made? Or could I just...talk?"
Long, long silence. "There's nothing good in the world." There is some hollow certainty in the spirit's tone, and Marcus might have the sense that the wretch would cry, had someone not slowly burned out his tear ducts with white-hot iron needles. "There is just different kinds of evil: those who do it and those who have it done to him," he whispers. "And no bargain is made until it is made," he says. "I am supposed to get you to come to him. That is my task," he says. "Just..." He looks up. "Please."
Marcus pulls a tense face, his features wrenching in a highly uncomely fashion. There is naught but the twist of pity in that face now, at those words. Well, pity and...anxious indecision. That part is acted out in his body language, the way he shifts and his fingers drum nervously and noiselessly on the fabric of the couch. The silence Marcus subjects the ritually tortured creature to stretches just as long as the last, then a stretch longer. Eventually, it's broken by Marcus's deep but defeated voice:
"I'll go see him."
The wretch's face seems to light up, pleased, happy, and he steps towards Marcus. It's like he wants to embrace the man, all full of scars and puss and weeping sores. "Thank you," the ghost tells Marcus, and the sound of relief, the voice of joy is high. "I need it. Thank you!" he says. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
Marcus only shrinks back against the couch. A familiar whine is uttered from his throat. He is very uneasy about making physical contact with the entity -- if such a thing is possible. "You're welcome," he mutters darkly to the woebegone creature, his voice already tinged with looming regret at his decision. But he keeps his eyes open and ahead, watching for whatever comes next. "Please don't touch me. You're...like a leper or something."
Pain flickers in the spirit's eyes, and then it steps back. "I'm sorry," the ghost says to Marcus, and it's too-quick, as if the apparition is expecting some torment, some punishment from Marcus. The reaction is so quick -- a flinch -- that it perhaps may make Marcus doubt himself. Is that the role he plays? Is he the torturer or the tortured?
Marcus winces, too, and hard. A familiar expression falls over his watchful, wary eyes. Guilt. "Sorry," he mutters. "I just...I'm not used to seeing things like y--any of this." He corrects himself before letting yet another thoughtless remark roll off his lips. Of course, he doesn't raise a hand against the apparition. Granted, he probably wouldn't know how if he wanted to, but there's no indication that he does. "I'm glad you're free, at least for a while," he says genuinely, his voice low as ever. He is reluctant to eke out the next words, but they come: "How do I...go to him?"
Whispers, from the apparition, who is beginning to take a step back. He's not gone, yet, but he is translucent, near the wall. "He will find you," the spirit tells Marcus. He looks around the room. "But you know he will need an offering," he says. "And you know already what that offering will be -- don't you?"
Marcus's myopic eyes widen with alarm as he watches the departure of the figure. "Oh, no, no. I didn't agree to an offering," he says. "And no, I don't know what it'd be, anyway." Perhaps he does, perhaps he doesn't -- but from his tone he seems to suspect something particular, and something grave. He starts speaking more quickly, lest the being vanish before he's said his piece. "You said yourself no deal is made yet! All I agreed was that I'd talk to him. If he doesn't want to talk to me without an offering, that's...that's..." That's what, Marcus His eyes flick left and right as he runs through options of what to say next. Eventually, he settles on, "That's something he'll have to take care of on his side!"
Torment flickers in the wretch's eyes as he looks at Marcus. "Believe me," he tells the man, his voice haunted. "I wish I had made an offering that wasn't myself." A slow trickle of blood runs down his chest from some wound. "You think you can bear the torment," he says. "You think it's noble, to take it on yourself: but it isn't." He pauses. "The ones who sacrifice themselves are the losers in the end. There's always someone else," he says. "And then they, too, can find another, and so on. It's the last man who holds the bag, and you do not want to be me."
"I'm not sacrificing myself or anyone else!" Marcus grips the edge of the couch with tense fingers. "I don't care about being noble or a martyr. I'm just...in a minefield, trying to dance around the mines. And maybe, maybe talk to the one who put them there in the first place, so that I can..." But his voice trails off. He licks his liips. Maybe Marcus doesn't actually have an idea of what he's really after. Like a dog chasing a truck, he doesn't know what to do with it now that he's starting to catch up. Now that it's -letting- him catch up. "If he wants to talk, we can talk. If he doesn't want to without a sacrifice..." He uses a different word than the leprous ghost used. "...Then he can just...not talk to me after all. You did your part."
The apparition is there, half-in and half-out of Marcus' trailer. "He is going to find you no matter what," he says. "You made your bargain to meet him: to free me," the wretch whispers. "But it never ends," he confesses to Marcus. "It is always worse." He looks over his shoulder, as if imparting some secret. "Every bargain is fair: he says it, always. Each one, individually -- but together they are the road to Hell."
Marcus glares at the spot where the tormented spirit is starting to fade. He opens his mouth, and a few possibilities of what to say seem to dance superimposed on his tongue. He wrestles with them, and chooses one. "Get well soon." He mutters it monotonously, and it's difficult to determine whether it's an insult, a grim joke, or a sincere, if clumsy and trite, sendoff. He never stops watching. Without intending to do so, Marcus continues to squeeze the armrest of the couch, hard.
Get well soon, indeed: the spirit is gone, but the smell of brimstone seems to linger, with dark smoke around the corners of the room. It is hard not to have visions intrude on Marcus' mind. What torments did that wretch endure? Is he imagining him, trapped in some infernal pit, as laughing, goat-headed demons press hot irons to him? The pain: it's hard not to imagine Marcus' own torments. The wretch was not so gelded as Marcus, but he had scars there, too, cuts and burns that must have reduced him to terrified howls.
Marcus claps his knees together in such a way that would be very uncomfortable for most men.
What sort of torments might they visit on him? Fears impose on Marcus, now: isn't it better to make a bargain? After all... if what the wretch said was true, the bargain always gets made. It is the terms that change. It's hard now not to imagine the wretch, noose around his neck, beseeching the Lord of Fire for salvation. What did he have to sacrifice?
Some greater fear, perhaps, swims into view: is it Marcus the Prince of Fire has his eyes on? Or is it another? The wretch discussed an offering. He would not demand Rachel, would he? And if it is true for Marcus that he cannot escape his fate, is it equally true for the girl he cares so much for? How far, how long, does this chain descend?
Marcus drags his hand down his forehead, scratching as he goes, irritating some scabbed-over, still-healing crow-claw scratches. His eyes are dark and haunted as they stare at the spot where the spirit departed. Then, he tears them away. He looks at something else -- a nail on the wall, maybe left there by a previous owner. He fixates on that, no doubt to clear his mind.
Of course Marcus has. Everyone is a pawn, once they allow themselves to be placed on the board. The nail on the wall is answerless, hanging there, just empty, but only so much can distract him from his doubts. What is he doing to himself? What is he doing to those he cares about? Visions rise again, Marcus bound to the wheel in Hell, every stroke some torment. Surely that is not the end... surely.
Marcus expels a long, lung-hollowing breath, and releases his hard grip on the couch's armrest, only so he can clasps his hands together at his lap just as firmly. He has long since lost interest in the nail, his eyes unfocusing, but now he turns to face forward and closes his eyes, his head bowing. He rubs his thumbs together nervously as his hands knit.
Prayer is as much a state of mind as it is anything else, and as Marcus settles down to pray it's hard to find a good one. He is assailed by doubt: it is as if fear is an army, laying siege to the tower of Marcus' self-confidence, and prayer a thin and reedy shield against their assault. Still. There is virtue in prayer, even in dark times, and as Marcus thoughts rise to Heaven he finds at least perhaps some tiny core of strength to cling to.
When Marcus confesses his fear, it is like some tiny little star sparks in his heart. It is fitfull and distant -- feeble, like a flicker of a match in a dark night. Still... it is something. It is a tiny thing, an ember to cling to when it seems as if the man is adrift, alone, on a cold and friendless sea.
That flickered, tiny ember, and then -- as Marcus prays -- it's gone. It's as if he had a moment of hope, and then some cold wind passed through his heart and blew it out.
Marcus opens his eyes and unclasps his hands. He stares straight ahead at the TV. There's nothing on, but he stares anyway, with a dull resignation.