Encounterlogs
Roselyns Odd Encounter Sr Dean 240903
In a dramatic and tension-filled encounter, Roselyn, a seemingly ordinary inhabitant of an unremarkable apartment, finds herself caught in a sinister and otherworldly ordeal. Her tranquil existence is shattered when an enigmatic and supernatural assailant breaks into her home, rendering her unconscious and abducting her. Dragged through environments both urban and wildly unnatural, she regains consciousness only to discover herself a hostage in a grim, relentless pursuit through a forest that seems as alive and malevolent as her captor. The narrative quickly escalates as the forest and its denizens bear silent witness to this unnatural intrusion, culminating in a harrowing attempt by Roselyn to escape when her captor, a grotesque being of darkness and malice, crashes their vehicle during a high-speed chase, pinned and seething with rage.
The struggle reaches its climax amidst the chaos of a fierce gunfight between her supernatural abductor and an unexpected band of rescuers: a group of armed templars. In a desperate bid for her freedom, Roselyn, revealed to be a vampire through her reactions and inherent nature, grapples with her own monstrous instincts while surrounded by the bloodshed of the battle. Her survival instincts clash with a deeper, feral hunger, a conflict momentarily soothed by the sight of a cherished ring, a reminder of her humanity or perhaps a past life. The narrative concludes as Roselyn, wrapped in a blanket and attempting to maintain the façade of being human, is whisked away from the scene of her near demise by the templars. This rescue, while immediate, symbolizes not just a physical return to safety but also a deeper, more profound rescue of Roselyn's soul from the edge of darkness, guided by the fleeting touch of something precious she holds dear.
(Roselyn's odd encounter(SRDean):SRDean)
[Mon Sep 2 2024]
In the newly painted Living Room of Apartment 104
This small, unassuming living room is host to a few pieces of furniture and other typical living room inventory. The room is marked by age and wear and tear, but any blemishes that the current tenant could remedy have been done so. The occasional blotchy discoloration on the ceiling seems to have proven unfixable, and there are scratches in the paneling.
A fresh coat of white paint covers the walls, lending at least a little bit of brightness and comfort to the place. Though the room is mostly very tidy, a few pieces of furniture - an ugly green-glass table lamp here, an overly floral watercolor painting there - are incredibly dated and would not look out of place at an antiques store, giving the apartment a conflicted aesthetic.
It is noon, about 71F(21C) degrees,
(Your target has been abducted and is being held hostage by a supernatural criminal out to trade them for something or just use them as a shield against the factions. Your target must attempt to find a way to escape, or simply survive until they can be rescued by their allies.
)
Whatever Roselyn may have been up to in this noon-time, there is still some trepidation, and a distraught sense that has overcome her abode. It is all a bit of a blur, really. There is no clear when and where, or how and why - the unassuming living room of hers, with the spartan furnishing of it is the target of an unwanted visitor that doesn't seem to have the best intentions, for her, or for anyone. The doors are broken through, the sound of rapid breathing too close and too near. Merely a blink, that's really all it takes before she's out cold exactly where she stood, falling into someone's arms that she couldn't even see.
Hazy drift in and out of consciousness brings about just the slightest visions. Of sirens, of people - shouting. Dogs, barking. Wind is nice through her hair, the jostled movement is not, the uneven ground, oft the sensation of being dragged, through dirt, maybe mud. Her hair hurts, some parts of her are scraped. There is a car, and it isn't clear of what type but it is a truck of some sort, before the image of that fades through just the same. She's a captive, someone held hostage by who knows what, for whatever reason. They're all questions without answers that elude her - yet there is no doubt something hostile to it all.
If she had to guess? Roselyn was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. Her apartment just so happened to be the faster escape route for this person, whoever it is, and as opposed to being left as an unfortunate victim in the path of someone on the run - she's taken. Likely because as soon as someone collided into her, she looked like a corpse, and so, she was taken to 'clear evidence'. Her captive either doesn't know what sanctuary is, or can't put two and two together with their current predicament. Or maybe it is the subtle hints of where she belongs that made her the perfect victim - damn the cost, whatever it may be.
Perhaps exactly because of how corpse-like she looked in her absent consciousness, she isn't bound. There are no zipties, cuffs, or anything of the sort that would bind her in place - so when that glimpse of recognition, of presence and bearing returns to her, she'd find she's laid on the backseat of a truck that has already traversed quite far. Not out of town, not nearly there, but close - currently on a very beaten, likely very dangerous road that it bulldozes ahead with her captive, as shrouded and mystery as they are, driving to a 'supposed freedom.'
And so, the truck lumbers through the forest, its tires crunching over twisted roots and uneven ground. The headlights cut through the fog, casting eerie, shifting shadows that seem to dart just beyond the edge of sight. The vehicle shudders violently with every bump, the undercarriage scraping against jagged rocks and hidden stumps. The metal groans in protest as branches, like skeletal arms, reach out to claw at the sides, leaving deep, jagged scratches along the rusty surface.
Inside, the air is thick with tension, each jolt rattling through the cab, while outside, dark shapes flicker between the trees. They move with unnatural speed, their forms just a blur of motion, but the sense of being watched is undeniable. Eyesglowing faintly in the darknesspeer out from the shadows, tracking the truck's progress. Every time the truck lurches, the forest seems to close in tighter, the branches scraping louder, the shadows moving closer, as if the forest itself is alive, unwilling to let the intruder escape.
In essence, it is a labyrinthine tangle of twisted trees and impenetrable darkness, a place where light struggles to penetrate the dense canopy overhead. The branches above interlock like the teeth of some ancient beast, leaving only narrow slashes of sky visible, which seem to bleed out what little light remains. The trees themselves are ancient, their trunks swollen and misshapen, gnarled roots burrowing deep into the earth like claws. Their bark is a patchwork of dark, peeling scales, oozing with sticky, resinous sap that smells faintly of decay. It permeates even the inside of the truck. Or maybe, it is something else inside that smells as such.
As the ground is uneven, a treacherous blend of slick mud and tangled roots that seem to writhe underwheel, as though the forest itself is trying to trip, pull the vehicle down into its suffocating embrace. Patches of blackened, withered leaves carpet the forest floor, their edges curling and crumbling at the slightest touch. The air is thick with a damp, earthy scent, mingled with the faint, acrid odor of something rotting just out of sight.
Strange, twisted plants cling to the bases of the trees, their leaves a sickly yellow-green, pulsing faintly as though drawing sustenance from the very decay around them. Some trees are draped in a web of hanging moss, which sways gently in an unfelt breeze, like the tattered remnants of forgotten shrouds. In the distance, the faint, almost imperceptible sounds of movement echo. Not the ones of the people on track of his vigilant criminal - but other things, too eager and too interested in it all, drawn deeper from within the forest. They leave branches snapping, leaves rustling - waiting, uttering guttural sounds in punctuated, sharp shrills. The whole forest is alive with this much noise, it seems. It is all more felt, than seen.
There's a flutter of lashes that first heralds Roselyn's coming to conciousness. Slowly, the vampire's body reactivates, a rush of blood through her arms, through her fingers, as she cracks to life with the sudden loosening and contractions of her muscles. Her blues first look up, out the window on the far side of the truck, taking in the sights of the forest... There's a little pout from her as she notices she's still wearing those bright neon sneakers. And she slowly sits up, like a corpse rising from a coffin.
"The Commandante said that tests would not be had here in Haven, non? Were you given permission?" Roselyn murmurs, finding the concentration to have a voice. Those blue eyes search over her captor, appraisingly. For some reason, she's not too surprised about the situation. But she's equally not enthused.
She'd find that her captive doesn't really take note of her while Roselyn rises up from her proverbial grave as she does every day. Her dead limbs are still frigid, host to a facsimile of life that just lacks the essentials. The warmth, the kindling flame of fire. It is her assessing look, the words that, after another jostle of the vehicle, draws the attention of her captor. For the worst.Static as opposed to silence - it is actual, audible static that scratches at her ears as soon as that thing begins to turn. A growing crescendo until it feels as if her ears may actually pop where they are.
It only gets worse when the growing haze finally unveils what had captured her. Something vile, something fleshformed. Her driver is a hulking, pitch-black figure, its form vaguely humanoid but unsettlingly wrong in every way. Its skin - if it can be called that - is a void-like black, absorbing light rather than reflecting it, giving the impression of a living shadow molded into the rough outline of a man. The figure is faceless, an abyss where features should be, except for a grotesque, gaping mouth that stretches unnaturally wide across its face.
It's mouth is filled with rows upon rows of jagged, needle-like teeth, sharp and uneven, packed tightly together in chaotic layers. They glisten wetly, slick with a constant flow of black, viscous blood that drips down in slow, steady streams. The drool oozes from its lips, sliding down its chin and staining the front of its ragged, tattered clothing, which hangs loosely on its towering frame. The clothing seems to have once belonged to a man, but now its shredded and filthy, clinging to the creature's form like a forgotten relic of some long-lost humanity.
Despite the lack of eyes, the creature moves with an eerie certainty, as if it can sense everything around it - every bump in the road, every movement in the trees outside. Its head tilts slightly, almost imperceptibly, as if listening to sounds beyond the range of human hearing, its body shifting with a fluid, predatory grace. The creature's long, bony fingers clutch the steering wheel, their joints grotesquely elongated, and the knuckles scrape against the cracked leather with each subtle movement.
All that, as black blood continues to seep from the corners of its mouth, pooling on the shoulder portion of the seat it has angled its face to to see Roselyn, in thick, inky puddles, staining everything it touches. The air inside the truck is heavy with the metallic scent of the creature's blood, mixed with the musty odor of decay that clings to its form. As it drives, the mouth twitches and stretches wider, as though tasting the air, savoring the dread that permeates the forest around it - or the scentless scent of her. The forest and the creature seem bound by an unspoken understanding, a shared malevolence that waits as if eager to lash out at Roselyn at her first, crucial act.
The sight has Roselyn's eyes widen in nothing but utter fear. Instead of questioning her captor, this creature of the night falls back, thumping her head against the window. If she had breath, it would have catched. If she had a beating heart, it would have skipped. She just stares, watching this... Creature as she slowly reaches to try the door.
"You're not... Non, I don't know who you are, desole. But I must be leaving now, oui? The Commandante might just start to worry."
Sadly for Roselyn, through the small gap between the driver's seat and the door that she reaches for - something slithers to occupy the space. A wet, slithering thing - a tentacle writhing, likely erupting from the creature's back through some tatter in the clothes on its back. It wraps around the metal doorhandle first, and in a slow, languid wrap-around, it squeezes, and breaks it. The decrepit, desolate maw as she put it nestled on its face starts to spread. All the way, up to where its ears would be. A whole face split half-way, gurgling a laughter of a harrowing nature that sound anything like it.
In the retreat of that tentacle, the doorhandle melts on the ground with whatever the thing embraced it with. The coated liquid is so profoundly vitriolic, it even imparts that onto the floor of the back portion, where she is. The small hole that soon forms in the spread of a puddle drips onto the ground, leaves the path they're taking going rapidly beneath her. Just big enough to shove a foot in and nothing more.
There is still no word or intent from her captor, Roselyn is left in the dark as to where they're going - but sirens? They're heard. Far, far behind. Catching up to their measly steed, an inch at a time. It makes the thing focus ahead like she couldn't be a threat in the slightest. Boot to the metal, they try to go a bit faster, now, to little avail and more horrid protest of their engine.
"Merci, Cheri- Cherie?" Roselyn mutters, watching the dripping liquid with nothing short of disgust. She shifts in place, reaching to adjust that frilly shirt of hers. Blue eyes settle down on that hole and the ground passing beneath. "But, ah... I believe you meant to open it, oui? But if I am trapped in here with you..."
She trails off, blue eyes sweeping over the back of the truck, searching for another escape.
A look around yields that there is no escape to be found unless Roselyn wanted to try the other door. The back window is latticed, secured shut. Or so it would seem. There is rust there enough that, with enough work, she could probably rip it through, but then, she isn't very strong physically, is she? It'd take some time to work through that grate and get out to the back of the pickup. That is, if her captor would let her. It seems disinterested as of now, somehow watching the road ahead as its black blood continues its descent through the edge and corner of its mouth. Bony fingers are ruining the leather of the steering wheel - and mostly the wheel itself with harsh grip squeezing it, denting it under the weight of each digit. Right now, she's only left staring out at the rapidly approaching headlights of another vehicle as very bump jostles her up nearly enough that if she was taller her head would be playing the drums against the ceiling.
Roselyn lays back down, trying to be subtle with her movements. She may not be strong physically, but she is a flexible little thing. So a foot is extended to the other side od the truck, those awfully bright orange sneakers attempting to snake around and try this other door.
All the while, her gaze is on the creature, nose wrinkling as she finally detects that black liquid as blood. Her mouth slightly parts, fangs bared. It's instinct, really, but for a normal person, it might have been scary.
She *is* a flexible little thing, but only by virtue of her stature and feminine wiles. Nothing supernatural there in contortionism. It is, however, enough for Roselyn to open the door of a speeding truck that's likely going over 100 mph through a road where it isn't built to do so. In neither the vehicle or the road, that is. The metal is flung open, bared to all- it swings and sways, then immediaately, while Roselyn bares her fangs at her captor, gets caught on an overhanging, overreaching branch.
It gets torn off of its hinges, flips and spirals, the car wobbles, careens off - She's triggered a chain set of events that results in the untimely demise of her captor's stolen vehicles. Slammed side-ways into a tree trunk on the driver's side. The crash is monumental, horrendous, jarring sounds, sight and feeling all around. For all but the beast, that rattles like it is some weird, disturbing and currently distraught toy vibrating in place in a shrill sound of panic and trying to scramble free of the dashboard that has collapsed in on him, alongside another branch that had skewered him from shoulder to shoulder in place - yet there is no blood there. Just cracks splintering while it rears to get away. It may take a few seconds - and the forest waits. All eyes on Roselyn.
A string of expletives in French escape Roselyn as she's given the ride of her life. She slams against the roof, the floor, and the sides- It being a miracle that the vampiress wasn't thrown clear from the vehicle. She's a mess, now, blood dripping from a few cuts along her body, a large gash in her forehead.
She struggles, righting herself as she looks over to her captor. Seeing the thing in its pinned state has the fear leaving her, replaced by a sense of guilt and curiosity. "You poor wretched thing, you cannot even bleed," she murmurs, reaching around her body, checking for anything broken. Perhaps if she had a firearm, she'd put the struggling thing put of its misery. Or would have tried to.
That 'poor, wretched thing', it struggles in place while Roselyn continues to stay in the car in spite of her bruises and hurt. The unbleeding creature, with all of its viscera reserved to drip out of its mouth in perpetual, likely agony, continues unspeaking while it is pitied. That proves to be the wrong end for Roselyn, to miss her split second window of escape to crawl out of the rubble. Because the creature has no qualms about what it does next.
It's maw splits wide yet again, the hollowness of its features, the facade of a man-like form starts to shiver and quiver in the sounds it erupts in, inhuman and inhumane, while its shoulders pop and slide off of the skewer they've found embedded within them. It's body collapses sideways like a ragdoll, a puppet without any strings, crumpled and broken. Then each joint cracks in the motion of is arms, sliding against the seats to drag its bony, clawed and black digits to find purchase and start to elevate itself.
It's face turns upon Roselyn near immediately, the source of its problems; the reason why it doesn't have a vehicle no longer. The static buzzes through her ears again. A thousand voices, a thousand words, so tightly knit and wound upon one another that it sounds right in her ear drums, and a white haze begins to envelop her sight through it - where all that is left is a ring of nothing that she sees, with the center occupied only by the sight of that monster sliding a false-human form through the gap between seats like it lacks any bone, and crawling towards her with malicious intent.
It acts on it - Roselyn's throat is caught by a hand that had she can see, but can't reach fast enough to dodge. Caustically heated, skin-searing fingers leave their imprint around her throat while she's pulled closer to that mouth eagerly largening as if to devour her whole face, eat her brain or some other monstrous somesuch thing -- until headlights illuminate from a closer distance. Their ray erupts upon them through the back window. Saved at the nick of time. Their tailing bloodhounds cause the beast to throw Roselyn out the open door, and her body skids upon the dirt path. Her captor erupts from the other window, and the metal of the door, too, hissing and gurgling, making strange, off-putting sounds of heated hate and intentions of blood-curdling claims spoken in a tongueless voice that could only mean it'll fight to survive, by any means necessary.
Roselyn presses a palm to the dirt, struggling more now to stay up. She's used so much energy the past few days, with so little refueling. A diet of bagged blood and animals wouldn't let her, in any manner, have the strength to combat this creature.
So instead, she looks to the light, focusing on reactivating her body in an attempt to look human, to try and fool whoever her savior might be. Her mouth opens, voice failing, and she reaches up with a hand, wincing as she presses into those seared prints. "H-Help..." She manages to say, shaking as she looks back towards the terrifying creature. Not very poor in its state now.
Another truck pull in to the paved dirt. Then another. And another. It is a bunch of them, forming a barricade. They're all white, they're all adorned. A stylized sun on the doorways in black, with a bunch of shirtless men - tinheads, as well as other women of differing attires no doubt also the battlesquad of the temple with their bobs and ends and trinkets. They have their guns held to the sky, one-handed rambo style while another barks orders to round them up through the cacophony.
A noise that disturbs the creature, where it stands with claws out half-hunched and eager to pounce, tear limb from limb while it froths black blood and spittle in an agonizingly feral sight. A shot rings out first, and another - and soon, it is war. This whole squad of templars are upon this one fleshformed creature that has descended like the wrath of some demonic being made manifest and forcefully crammed into a human shape -- yet the bullets go amiss in it while it tracks ahead. Step by step. Clothes are in tatters, torn to reveal the endless void of its skin beneath with each forced step it tries to take. Off to the side, something else:
A pair of templars huddled behind an open door while gunfire roars above them have their eyes set on Roselyn, but she isn't the main focus here. That much is clear with how little manpower is reserved for her by her 'bretheren'. They're calling her in, beckoning, without drawing sight by noise or word but wordless encouragement instead. The beast, by then, has toppled over a vehicle and launched itself in the rubble. Lost behind it, for now, with the men that it has taken down with it. Blood is thick in the air, puddles of it, streaks of it, tainting the muted grays, greens and brows with a darker, heavier color not too easily seen or smelled upon the soil.
Roselyn looks back to the chaos, nose wrinkling again. Those fangs are extended once more as the sight and smell of blood assaults her senses. She stares, longingly at the carnage, as if she were wishing to take part, to bathe in the sanguine essence of the other members of the Temple.
But something stops the little vampiress, a glint off of the gold ring that hangs about her neck. She looks down, grasping the ring with shaking fingers, pulling it to her lips for a moment. And then she crawls towards the pair that beckoned.
The second truck is pulled into the fray while Roselyn takes solace behind the safety of the third. The templars hardly note her desire - but at least, she's wrapped around a blanket, taken away elsewhere towards the back ducking through the repetitive gunfire. It seems like it will last forever, go on endlessly until no more templars are left - but it is only one third of the battlesquad that is out of commission. Not dead - they are protected by the Sanctuary - but their target isn't.
Just a few more agonizing moments of silence, and all raises their voice in cheers, in triumph and victory. Some fire their guns to the air, a la Texan. She may see thaat one of the templars over yonder, now parading in front of the truck barricade, hold a head. Her captor's. A trophy, one that isn't kept because they're burning every bit of the corpse, down every strand of hair and body limb.
Roselyn just gives a weird, puzzled expression at the blanket wrapped around her. And when she goes to voice her concern, her gaze settles on that decapitated head and she lets out a breath, it's not needed- But she's obviously keeping up her concentration to look kind of human for the Templars.
As before, as now. Roselyn finds herself in a blur of her senses. Not in the same fashion - she is conscious, but everything transpires just as quickly as it all had happened at the beginning. Movement, sounds, sights - everything bleeds into one or the other. It must've been a long time before someone makes certain that everything of the creature was burned to a crisp and nothing else, and so, all is well and right in the world, if only smelling too much like corpse - everywhere.
Roselyn would soon find herself among her entrourage out to save the world - riding the high of their protection services to elevate herself. It is a slow way back home, but just about every direction from here would be a horrendously long drive home. Not that Roselyn needs it, cared for as she is, on her way back.
The struggle reaches its climax amidst the chaos of a fierce gunfight between her supernatural abductor and an unexpected band of rescuers: a group of armed templars. In a desperate bid for her freedom, Roselyn, revealed to be a vampire through her reactions and inherent nature, grapples with her own monstrous instincts while surrounded by the bloodshed of the battle. Her survival instincts clash with a deeper, feral hunger, a conflict momentarily soothed by the sight of a cherished ring, a reminder of her humanity or perhaps a past life. The narrative concludes as Roselyn, wrapped in a blanket and attempting to maintain the façade of being human, is whisked away from the scene of her near demise by the templars. This rescue, while immediate, symbolizes not just a physical return to safety but also a deeper, more profound rescue of Roselyn's soul from the edge of darkness, guided by the fleeting touch of something precious she holds dear.
(Roselyn's odd encounter(SRDean):SRDean)
[Mon Sep 2 2024]
In the newly painted Living Room of Apartment 104
This small, unassuming living room is host to a few pieces of furniture and other typical living room inventory. The room is marked by age and wear and tear, but any blemishes that the current tenant could remedy have been done so. The occasional blotchy discoloration on the ceiling seems to have proven unfixable, and there are scratches in the paneling.
A fresh coat of white paint covers the walls, lending at least a little bit of brightness and comfort to the place. Though the room is mostly very tidy, a few pieces of furniture - an ugly green-glass table lamp here, an overly floral watercolor painting there - are incredibly dated and would not look out of place at an antiques store, giving the apartment a conflicted aesthetic.
It is noon, about 71F(21C) degrees,
(Your target has been abducted and is being held hostage by a supernatural criminal out to trade them for something or just use them as a shield against the factions. Your target must attempt to find a way to escape, or simply survive until they can be rescued by their allies.
)
Whatever Roselyn may have been up to in this noon-time, there is still some trepidation, and a distraught sense that has overcome her abode. It is all a bit of a blur, really. There is no clear when and where, or how and why - the unassuming living room of hers, with the spartan furnishing of it is the target of an unwanted visitor that doesn't seem to have the best intentions, for her, or for anyone. The doors are broken through, the sound of rapid breathing too close and too near. Merely a blink, that's really all it takes before she's out cold exactly where she stood, falling into someone's arms that she couldn't even see.
Hazy drift in and out of consciousness brings about just the slightest visions. Of sirens, of people - shouting. Dogs, barking. Wind is nice through her hair, the jostled movement is not, the uneven ground, oft the sensation of being dragged, through dirt, maybe mud. Her hair hurts, some parts of her are scraped. There is a car, and it isn't clear of what type but it is a truck of some sort, before the image of that fades through just the same. She's a captive, someone held hostage by who knows what, for whatever reason. They're all questions without answers that elude her - yet there is no doubt something hostile to it all.
If she had to guess? Roselyn was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. Her apartment just so happened to be the faster escape route for this person, whoever it is, and as opposed to being left as an unfortunate victim in the path of someone on the run - she's taken. Likely because as soon as someone collided into her, she looked like a corpse, and so, she was taken to 'clear evidence'. Her captive either doesn't know what sanctuary is, or can't put two and two together with their current predicament. Or maybe it is the subtle hints of where she belongs that made her the perfect victim - damn the cost, whatever it may be.
Perhaps exactly because of how corpse-like she looked in her absent consciousness, she isn't bound. There are no zipties, cuffs, or anything of the sort that would bind her in place - so when that glimpse of recognition, of presence and bearing returns to her, she'd find she's laid on the backseat of a truck that has already traversed quite far. Not out of town, not nearly there, but close - currently on a very beaten, likely very dangerous road that it bulldozes ahead with her captive, as shrouded and mystery as they are, driving to a 'supposed freedom.'
And so, the truck lumbers through the forest, its tires crunching over twisted roots and uneven ground. The headlights cut through the fog, casting eerie, shifting shadows that seem to dart just beyond the edge of sight. The vehicle shudders violently with every bump, the undercarriage scraping against jagged rocks and hidden stumps. The metal groans in protest as branches, like skeletal arms, reach out to claw at the sides, leaving deep, jagged scratches along the rusty surface.
Inside, the air is thick with tension, each jolt rattling through the cab, while outside, dark shapes flicker between the trees. They move with unnatural speed, their forms just a blur of motion, but the sense of being watched is undeniable. Eyesglowing faintly in the darknesspeer out from the shadows, tracking the truck's progress. Every time the truck lurches, the forest seems to close in tighter, the branches scraping louder, the shadows moving closer, as if the forest itself is alive, unwilling to let the intruder escape.
In essence, it is a labyrinthine tangle of twisted trees and impenetrable darkness, a place where light struggles to penetrate the dense canopy overhead. The branches above interlock like the teeth of some ancient beast, leaving only narrow slashes of sky visible, which seem to bleed out what little light remains. The trees themselves are ancient, their trunks swollen and misshapen, gnarled roots burrowing deep into the earth like claws. Their bark is a patchwork of dark, peeling scales, oozing with sticky, resinous sap that smells faintly of decay. It permeates even the inside of the truck. Or maybe, it is something else inside that smells as such.
As the ground is uneven, a treacherous blend of slick mud and tangled roots that seem to writhe underwheel, as though the forest itself is trying to trip, pull the vehicle down into its suffocating embrace. Patches of blackened, withered leaves carpet the forest floor, their edges curling and crumbling at the slightest touch. The air is thick with a damp, earthy scent, mingled with the faint, acrid odor of something rotting just out of sight.
Strange, twisted plants cling to the bases of the trees, their leaves a sickly yellow-green, pulsing faintly as though drawing sustenance from the very decay around them. Some trees are draped in a web of hanging moss, which sways gently in an unfelt breeze, like the tattered remnants of forgotten shrouds. In the distance, the faint, almost imperceptible sounds of movement echo. Not the ones of the people on track of his vigilant criminal - but other things, too eager and too interested in it all, drawn deeper from within the forest. They leave branches snapping, leaves rustling - waiting, uttering guttural sounds in punctuated, sharp shrills. The whole forest is alive with this much noise, it seems. It is all more felt, than seen.
There's a flutter of lashes that first heralds Roselyn's coming to conciousness. Slowly, the vampire's body reactivates, a rush of blood through her arms, through her fingers, as she cracks to life with the sudden loosening and contractions of her muscles. Her blues first look up, out the window on the far side of the truck, taking in the sights of the forest... There's a little pout from her as she notices she's still wearing those bright neon sneakers. And she slowly sits up, like a corpse rising from a coffin.
"The Commandante said that tests would not be had here in Haven, non? Were you given permission?" Roselyn murmurs, finding the concentration to have a voice. Those blue eyes search over her captor, appraisingly. For some reason, she's not too surprised about the situation. But she's equally not enthused.
She'd find that her captive doesn't really take note of her while Roselyn rises up from her proverbial grave as she does every day. Her dead limbs are still frigid, host to a facsimile of life that just lacks the essentials. The warmth, the kindling flame of fire. It is her assessing look, the words that, after another jostle of the vehicle, draws the attention of her captor. For the worst.Static as opposed to silence - it is actual, audible static that scratches at her ears as soon as that thing begins to turn. A growing crescendo until it feels as if her ears may actually pop where they are.
It only gets worse when the growing haze finally unveils what had captured her. Something vile, something fleshformed. Her driver is a hulking, pitch-black figure, its form vaguely humanoid but unsettlingly wrong in every way. Its skin - if it can be called that - is a void-like black, absorbing light rather than reflecting it, giving the impression of a living shadow molded into the rough outline of a man. The figure is faceless, an abyss where features should be, except for a grotesque, gaping mouth that stretches unnaturally wide across its face.
It's mouth is filled with rows upon rows of jagged, needle-like teeth, sharp and uneven, packed tightly together in chaotic layers. They glisten wetly, slick with a constant flow of black, viscous blood that drips down in slow, steady streams. The drool oozes from its lips, sliding down its chin and staining the front of its ragged, tattered clothing, which hangs loosely on its towering frame. The clothing seems to have once belonged to a man, but now its shredded and filthy, clinging to the creature's form like a forgotten relic of some long-lost humanity.
Despite the lack of eyes, the creature moves with an eerie certainty, as if it can sense everything around it - every bump in the road, every movement in the trees outside. Its head tilts slightly, almost imperceptibly, as if listening to sounds beyond the range of human hearing, its body shifting with a fluid, predatory grace. The creature's long, bony fingers clutch the steering wheel, their joints grotesquely elongated, and the knuckles scrape against the cracked leather with each subtle movement.
All that, as black blood continues to seep from the corners of its mouth, pooling on the shoulder portion of the seat it has angled its face to to see Roselyn, in thick, inky puddles, staining everything it touches. The air inside the truck is heavy with the metallic scent of the creature's blood, mixed with the musty odor of decay that clings to its form. As it drives, the mouth twitches and stretches wider, as though tasting the air, savoring the dread that permeates the forest around it - or the scentless scent of her. The forest and the creature seem bound by an unspoken understanding, a shared malevolence that waits as if eager to lash out at Roselyn at her first, crucial act.
The sight has Roselyn's eyes widen in nothing but utter fear. Instead of questioning her captor, this creature of the night falls back, thumping her head against the window. If she had breath, it would have catched. If she had a beating heart, it would have skipped. She just stares, watching this... Creature as she slowly reaches to try the door.
"You're not... Non, I don't know who you are, desole. But I must be leaving now, oui? The Commandante might just start to worry."
Sadly for Roselyn, through the small gap between the driver's seat and the door that she reaches for - something slithers to occupy the space. A wet, slithering thing - a tentacle writhing, likely erupting from the creature's back through some tatter in the clothes on its back. It wraps around the metal doorhandle first, and in a slow, languid wrap-around, it squeezes, and breaks it. The decrepit, desolate maw as she put it nestled on its face starts to spread. All the way, up to where its ears would be. A whole face split half-way, gurgling a laughter of a harrowing nature that sound anything like it.
In the retreat of that tentacle, the doorhandle melts on the ground with whatever the thing embraced it with. The coated liquid is so profoundly vitriolic, it even imparts that onto the floor of the back portion, where she is. The small hole that soon forms in the spread of a puddle drips onto the ground, leaves the path they're taking going rapidly beneath her. Just big enough to shove a foot in and nothing more.
There is still no word or intent from her captor, Roselyn is left in the dark as to where they're going - but sirens? They're heard. Far, far behind. Catching up to their measly steed, an inch at a time. It makes the thing focus ahead like she couldn't be a threat in the slightest. Boot to the metal, they try to go a bit faster, now, to little avail and more horrid protest of their engine.
"Merci, Cheri- Cherie?" Roselyn mutters, watching the dripping liquid with nothing short of disgust. She shifts in place, reaching to adjust that frilly shirt of hers. Blue eyes settle down on that hole and the ground passing beneath. "But, ah... I believe you meant to open it, oui? But if I am trapped in here with you..."
She trails off, blue eyes sweeping over the back of the truck, searching for another escape.
A look around yields that there is no escape to be found unless Roselyn wanted to try the other door. The back window is latticed, secured shut. Or so it would seem. There is rust there enough that, with enough work, she could probably rip it through, but then, she isn't very strong physically, is she? It'd take some time to work through that grate and get out to the back of the pickup. That is, if her captor would let her. It seems disinterested as of now, somehow watching the road ahead as its black blood continues its descent through the edge and corner of its mouth. Bony fingers are ruining the leather of the steering wheel - and mostly the wheel itself with harsh grip squeezing it, denting it under the weight of each digit. Right now, she's only left staring out at the rapidly approaching headlights of another vehicle as very bump jostles her up nearly enough that if she was taller her head would be playing the drums against the ceiling.
Roselyn lays back down, trying to be subtle with her movements. She may not be strong physically, but she is a flexible little thing. So a foot is extended to the other side od the truck, those awfully bright orange sneakers attempting to snake around and try this other door.
All the while, her gaze is on the creature, nose wrinkling as she finally detects that black liquid as blood. Her mouth slightly parts, fangs bared. It's instinct, really, but for a normal person, it might have been scary.
She *is* a flexible little thing, but only by virtue of her stature and feminine wiles. Nothing supernatural there in contortionism. It is, however, enough for Roselyn to open the door of a speeding truck that's likely going over 100 mph through a road where it isn't built to do so. In neither the vehicle or the road, that is. The metal is flung open, bared to all- it swings and sways, then immediaately, while Roselyn bares her fangs at her captor, gets caught on an overhanging, overreaching branch.
It gets torn off of its hinges, flips and spirals, the car wobbles, careens off - She's triggered a chain set of events that results in the untimely demise of her captor's stolen vehicles. Slammed side-ways into a tree trunk on the driver's side. The crash is monumental, horrendous, jarring sounds, sight and feeling all around. For all but the beast, that rattles like it is some weird, disturbing and currently distraught toy vibrating in place in a shrill sound of panic and trying to scramble free of the dashboard that has collapsed in on him, alongside another branch that had skewered him from shoulder to shoulder in place - yet there is no blood there. Just cracks splintering while it rears to get away. It may take a few seconds - and the forest waits. All eyes on Roselyn.
A string of expletives in French escape Roselyn as she's given the ride of her life. She slams against the roof, the floor, and the sides- It being a miracle that the vampiress wasn't thrown clear from the vehicle. She's a mess, now, blood dripping from a few cuts along her body, a large gash in her forehead.
She struggles, righting herself as she looks over to her captor. Seeing the thing in its pinned state has the fear leaving her, replaced by a sense of guilt and curiosity. "You poor wretched thing, you cannot even bleed," she murmurs, reaching around her body, checking for anything broken. Perhaps if she had a firearm, she'd put the struggling thing put of its misery. Or would have tried to.
That 'poor, wretched thing', it struggles in place while Roselyn continues to stay in the car in spite of her bruises and hurt. The unbleeding creature, with all of its viscera reserved to drip out of its mouth in perpetual, likely agony, continues unspeaking while it is pitied. That proves to be the wrong end for Roselyn, to miss her split second window of escape to crawl out of the rubble. Because the creature has no qualms about what it does next.
It's maw splits wide yet again, the hollowness of its features, the facade of a man-like form starts to shiver and quiver in the sounds it erupts in, inhuman and inhumane, while its shoulders pop and slide off of the skewer they've found embedded within them. It's body collapses sideways like a ragdoll, a puppet without any strings, crumpled and broken. Then each joint cracks in the motion of is arms, sliding against the seats to drag its bony, clawed and black digits to find purchase and start to elevate itself.
It's face turns upon Roselyn near immediately, the source of its problems; the reason why it doesn't have a vehicle no longer. The static buzzes through her ears again. A thousand voices, a thousand words, so tightly knit and wound upon one another that it sounds right in her ear drums, and a white haze begins to envelop her sight through it - where all that is left is a ring of nothing that she sees, with the center occupied only by the sight of that monster sliding a false-human form through the gap between seats like it lacks any bone, and crawling towards her with malicious intent.
It acts on it - Roselyn's throat is caught by a hand that had she can see, but can't reach fast enough to dodge. Caustically heated, skin-searing fingers leave their imprint around her throat while she's pulled closer to that mouth eagerly largening as if to devour her whole face, eat her brain or some other monstrous somesuch thing -- until headlights illuminate from a closer distance. Their ray erupts upon them through the back window. Saved at the nick of time. Their tailing bloodhounds cause the beast to throw Roselyn out the open door, and her body skids upon the dirt path. Her captor erupts from the other window, and the metal of the door, too, hissing and gurgling, making strange, off-putting sounds of heated hate and intentions of blood-curdling claims spoken in a tongueless voice that could only mean it'll fight to survive, by any means necessary.
Roselyn presses a palm to the dirt, struggling more now to stay up. She's used so much energy the past few days, with so little refueling. A diet of bagged blood and animals wouldn't let her, in any manner, have the strength to combat this creature.
So instead, she looks to the light, focusing on reactivating her body in an attempt to look human, to try and fool whoever her savior might be. Her mouth opens, voice failing, and she reaches up with a hand, wincing as she presses into those seared prints. "H-Help..." She manages to say, shaking as she looks back towards the terrifying creature. Not very poor in its state now.
Another truck pull in to the paved dirt. Then another. And another. It is a bunch of them, forming a barricade. They're all white, they're all adorned. A stylized sun on the doorways in black, with a bunch of shirtless men - tinheads, as well as other women of differing attires no doubt also the battlesquad of the temple with their bobs and ends and trinkets. They have their guns held to the sky, one-handed rambo style while another barks orders to round them up through the cacophony.
A noise that disturbs the creature, where it stands with claws out half-hunched and eager to pounce, tear limb from limb while it froths black blood and spittle in an agonizingly feral sight. A shot rings out first, and another - and soon, it is war. This whole squad of templars are upon this one fleshformed creature that has descended like the wrath of some demonic being made manifest and forcefully crammed into a human shape -- yet the bullets go amiss in it while it tracks ahead. Step by step. Clothes are in tatters, torn to reveal the endless void of its skin beneath with each forced step it tries to take. Off to the side, something else:
A pair of templars huddled behind an open door while gunfire roars above them have their eyes set on Roselyn, but she isn't the main focus here. That much is clear with how little manpower is reserved for her by her 'bretheren'. They're calling her in, beckoning, without drawing sight by noise or word but wordless encouragement instead. The beast, by then, has toppled over a vehicle and launched itself in the rubble. Lost behind it, for now, with the men that it has taken down with it. Blood is thick in the air, puddles of it, streaks of it, tainting the muted grays, greens and brows with a darker, heavier color not too easily seen or smelled upon the soil.
Roselyn looks back to the chaos, nose wrinkling again. Those fangs are extended once more as the sight and smell of blood assaults her senses. She stares, longingly at the carnage, as if she were wishing to take part, to bathe in the sanguine essence of the other members of the Temple.
But something stops the little vampiress, a glint off of the gold ring that hangs about her neck. She looks down, grasping the ring with shaking fingers, pulling it to her lips for a moment. And then she crawls towards the pair that beckoned.
The second truck is pulled into the fray while Roselyn takes solace behind the safety of the third. The templars hardly note her desire - but at least, she's wrapped around a blanket, taken away elsewhere towards the back ducking through the repetitive gunfire. It seems like it will last forever, go on endlessly until no more templars are left - but it is only one third of the battlesquad that is out of commission. Not dead - they are protected by the Sanctuary - but their target isn't.
Just a few more agonizing moments of silence, and all raises their voice in cheers, in triumph and victory. Some fire their guns to the air, a la Texan. She may see thaat one of the templars over yonder, now parading in front of the truck barricade, hold a head. Her captor's. A trophy, one that isn't kept because they're burning every bit of the corpse, down every strand of hair and body limb.
Roselyn just gives a weird, puzzled expression at the blanket wrapped around her. And when she goes to voice her concern, her gaze settles on that decapitated head and she lets out a breath, it's not needed- But she's obviously keeping up her concentration to look kind of human for the Templars.
As before, as now. Roselyn finds herself in a blur of her senses. Not in the same fashion - she is conscious, but everything transpires just as quickly as it all had happened at the beginning. Movement, sounds, sights - everything bleeds into one or the other. It must've been a long time before someone makes certain that everything of the creature was burned to a crisp and nothing else, and so, all is well and right in the world, if only smelling too much like corpse - everywhere.
Roselyn would soon find herself among her entrourage out to save the world - riding the high of their protection services to elevate herself. It is a slow way back home, but just about every direction from here would be a horrendously long drive home. Not that Roselyn needs it, cared for as she is, on her way back.