Encounterlogs
Seths Odd Encounter Sr Irene 241102
On a chilling night on Elm Street, amidst the faint drizzle and the looming silence of a waning Halloween, Seth finds himself unexpectedly entangled in a peculiar encounter. The moment takes a turn when a small, sorrowful cat catches his attention, shortly before a woman of ghostly pallor and puritanical attire appears from the shadows, soliciting Seth's help to rescue her cat, named Hobbes, who is tragically stuck and unable to return to her. Despite the night's eerie silence and the woman's oddly detached demeanor, Seth agrees to help, driven by a mix of compassion and an unsettling intrigue. As he attempts to free Hobbes from a briar patch, he discovers the cat unnaturally cold to the touch, igniting a sense of foreboding that something is amiss.
The narrative thickens when the woman, observing from a distance, reveals to Seth that she no longer has a home, alluding to a mysterious past marred by tragedy and loss. Seth, moved by the woman's plight and the cold, scared Hobbes in his arms, accepts the responsibility of caring for the cat, unaware of the deeper connection forming between them. The ghostly flames that had previously driven Hobbes away resurface, engulfing the woman in a spectral fire, marking a harrowing climax as Seth realizes the ghostly and otherworldly nature of his encounter. In a desperate bid to escape the nightmare erupting before him, he flees with Hobbes, leaving behind the fiery apparition of the woman, a lingering spirit on Elm Street. This odd rendezvous on All Hallow's Eve leaves Seth with a new, enigmatic companion in Hobbes, and a haunting memory of a sorrow that transcends time, burning as silently as the ghostly flames that consumed the mysterious woman.
(Seth's odd encounter(SRIrene):SRIrene)
[Fri Nov 1 2024]
On Elm Street
It is night, about 62F(16C) degrees, and the sky is partly covered by dark grey stormclouds. It's raining. There is a new moon.
(Your target has been flagged down by someone who wants their help getting their cat down from a tree.
)
Seth ducks out of the shop, stuffing his hands into his jacket as he peers about. His breath fogs in the night air, fast, and he seems particularly watchful, gaze darting in one direction and then the other, to scan the street lights as they illuminate the path up and down Elm Street. "Fuck" he mutters quietly to himself, squinting and listening, "It's quiet. Is it over?" He pulls out his phone with one hand, tapping away at it for a moment, cold, numb fingers attempting to pull up any news.
"Mrew," comes the sad little sob of a nearby cat. "Mrew, mrew, moow."
And there, in the dark, two bright yellow eyes stare down at Seth, a void surrounded by barely visible black fur. "Excuse me?" comes a voice, suddenly behind him in the pitch dark of Elm Street, although no footsteps have betrayed her arrival. The woman is wearing a long, puritanical black dress, buttoned high up to her neck, with sleeves cuffed to her wrists. A coif covers her hair, which is drawn back into a bun -- a lot of effort has evidently been put into her Halloween costume. "Would you mind helping me, sir?" At least she doesn't look injured. It seems like the Dungeons & Dragons episode of this Halloween is over for now.
"Oh, hey there" Seth says to the cat, squinting through the darkness at the dark, fluffy orb at his feet. His brows furrow softly, and he reaches out to stroke it, but the movement is interrupted by the words of the woman just behind me. He jumps, startled, and whips around to find the source. His expression goes from surprised to mildly perplexed as his eyes adjust to the soft orange glow of the street lights, and she comes into view. "Oh uh..." he hesitates a moment, setting his jaw, it's been quite the night already, but after a moment he manages to muster a friendly smile, "Sure thing. What's up?"
"My poor little cat," says the woman, just as the yellow-eyed void in questions skitters across the street, "he's stuck, and I fear he cannot come back." There's a quiet sadness to her pale expression, but her words are spoken in an almost robotic monotone, with a feminine rasp and a certain distance, as if she were reciting this speech on a theatrical stage, rather than to Seth directly. "Will you help him? It is too late for me to help him." The hour is late indeed; it's just struck past midnight, as All Hallow's Eve turns to November. She studies him with intent consternation as the cat, true to her words, starts trying to push through a nearby briar thatch which he is much too thick for.
Seth's brow furrows once again as he stuffs his phone back in his pocket. "Oh, 's your cat then? Stuck? What do you mean-" He cuts off his words as the cat makes their hurried exit across the street, and he turns towards them, "Oh, he's - he's getting away" he says, adjusting his stance as if he's about ready to run off after the feline. He blinks as he watches them try to push through the briar patch. -Now- the cat is stuck. But didn't she say it before that? "Uh - don't worry, I'll get him for you" he says with a glance back to the woman, before darting off across the street. "Easy there, you'll hurt yourself" he coos gently to the cat as he comes to a stop, squatting down and attempting to reach out and wrap one hand around the rogue creature, while the other does its best to push the thorns carefully out of the way, so as to not hurt them, "Cmon, we'll get you back to your owner."
Cats are wriggly things; this particular void seems wrigglier than most. However, the reward of dealing with such wriggly (and often sharp-clawed) creatures is that they're often at least warm and soft. This one is not. When finally Seth manages to make contact with its fur, he finds the creature to be ice cold, and even should his fingers sink beneath layers of dark floof, the creature's moving body is akin to permafrost.
Yellow eyes turn back to stare at Seth, as the stuck cat wails and mrowls. The presumed owner, the pale woman in the puritanical black dress, merely watches from down the street with a persistently worried look, hands clasped in front of her. "He was frightened by the flames," she tells him now -- presumably meaning Gontharian's dragon-fire? "I am afraid our bond is no longer what it was. He has been wandering ever since, my poor, poor cat. The Nightmare."
Seth draws in a sharp breath of surprise as his fingers first make contact with the cat, but after a moment he, now more reluctantly, plucks him up and pushes back to his full height, turning back towards the cats owner with the cat itself wriggling in his hands. He squints both ways down the road and makes his way quickly back over to the woman, "It's - it's alright" he reassures the feline, before looking up to the pale woman, "The Nightmare...?" he asks her, but after a moment, adds, "I- your bond? You should just... take him home, don't let him wander the streets. I'm sure he'll come around in time."
He's a good cat. He turns to bite Seth's wrist, as cats are wont to do, and his pupils widen within those bright yellow irises, ears flattening against the back of his head. But the little hiss of displeasure he lets out is quiet and brief; aside from wriggling a whole lot, he doesn't seem too motivated to hurt the man carrying him back to his owner. Sharp claws dig into Seth's flesh, albeit more for support and out of sheer habit than as a serious warning.
"I no longer have a home," the pale woman says, finally locking eyes with Seth as he approaches her. Even now, her haunted and worried gaze appears to be staring straight through her. "Men like you made sure of that." But she looks between his arms, and then towards her ice-cold, fluffy black cat, and eventually the various countercultural piercings he wears, as well as the black pentagram on his red shirt. After a pause, she amends her statement. "Perhaps not men like you. The men in power, friend." She stays sad-looking and perfectly still; she has not moved from her spot since she first showed up to solicit Seth's help at all. In fact, no sound of footsteps had announced her arrival to that spot prior, either.
"His name is Hobbes. Please take good care of him. He will be a good familiar to you, if you nurture this bond." Making no move to reclaim him, the pale, puritanically clad woman lets her ghostly blue-eyed gaze fall to the ground at Seth's feet, with the forlorn grief of acceptance in her flat monotone.
Seth draws in a sharp breath as the cat attempts to bite him. He draws his wrist away quickly and adjusts his hold, but he isn't rough, and as those claws dig into his clothes and skin he simply bears the pain, hushing the creature gently and reaching out to pet his head. "It's alright" he coos again, "I won't hurt you. You'd have hurt yourself in that briar patch. "@line
Seth looks up to the pale woman, and meets her eyes. His own widen a tad as they focus on her haunted gaze, and he pales a little himself, especially as she continues to speak. He opens his mouth to say something in response to her, but for a moment no words come out, and he simply gapes. Then, eventually, he seems to find a statement. "I'm sorry" is all he manages to croak for a time, nothing else adequate seems to come to him, until eventually he adds, "Hobbes... is a good name."
Seth draws in a sharp breath as the cat attempts to bite him. He draws his wrist away quickly and adjusts his hold, but he isn't rough, and as those claws dig into his clothes and skin he simply bears the pain, hushing the creature gently and reaching out to pet his head. "It's alright" he coos again, "I won't hurt you. You'd have hurt yourself in that briar patch. "@line
Seth looks up to the pale woman, and meets her eyes. His own widen a tad as they focus on her haunted gaze, and he pales a little himself, especially as she continues to speak. He opens his mouth to say something in response to her, but for a moment no words come out, and he simply gapes. Then, eventually, he seems to find a statement. "I'm sorry" is all he manages to croak for a time, nothing else adequate seems to come to him, until eventually he adds, "Hobbes... is a good name."
Some pact has been sealed here in the dark, between this leather-glad youth with the pentagram T-shirt, and the pale woman in the buttoned-up, puritanical dress. She doesn't lift up her gaze from the pavement anymore, still standing still, with her hands clasped in front of her. But the sound of her cat's meows appear to soothe her as they draw nearer still, even though she makes no move to reclaim him yet.
Then, the flames return -- the ones she'd warned Seth had frightened her cat away. These are not dragon-fire, but a ghostly flicker that starts to engulf her form, eating its way up her dark dress towards the melting flesh of her hands, and eventually her neck, withering away her hair and her eyes.
Hobbes starts to wriggle and yowl in Seth's arms once more, turning his back to the ghostly fire, digging his claws into the man's leather jacket. His yellow eyes widen with fear, and his dark hair stands on end, that much larger and fuzzier-looking. But the permafrost of his body starts to die away the longer Seth holds him there, as if this human touch were tethering him back to reality, away from whatever Nightmare his former owner had alluded to.
The woman's screams can be heard all around in the night. They do not flow from her lips, but echo as if from ages past. Abruptly, a burning arm snakes out from her body, as a spirit of embers steps forth from where she once stood. It seeks to touch the black pentagram on Seth's chest, and the yowling cat he holds.
Entirely lost for what more there is to say, Seth lets a silence linger for a moment as the pale woman stares down at the pavement, and he looks up at her. There seems to be some finality in her words, and by this point he can tell at least that he's being given a cat, even if nothing else makes sense. "Thank you. I'm - I'm sorry" he eventually says. He's not completely sure why he's apologising this time, but the words seem the only right ones.
Then, those ghostly flames begin to crawl up the pale woman and engulf her in suffering, and Seth is frozen in place, even as Hobbes begins to try to claw his way away. His wide green eyes reflect the fire, and he stares, mouth agape, at the conflagration before him. It's only as that fiery arm begins to reach towards him that his freeze turns to flight, and he staggers back into the road, clutching Hobbes tightly and protectively, "No!" he shouts, anger and fear joined in his tone as he backs away and makes to run, "You - can't!"
To whatever extent it is that Seth fully understands what's going on right now, what is at least clear is that the being before him -- the pale woman -- possesses some sort of power, far greater than his own. But what she seems to lack is the ability to move much from the spot where he met her, on Elm Street, and she stays bound to the same spot as he attempts to flee with Hobbes. Their meeting this night was likely born of pure chance, in the right time, the right place, as the modern, pentagram-shirt-wearing youth crossed the path of her and Hobbes' grief.
So appears that he is right, that she can't. She stares after him through bony eye-sockets melted of all flesh, her dark puritanical dress now a plume of tattered embers, no more than a ghostly skeleton consumed by ghostly fire, and some spirit that lingers here still. But it stays watching him for long, long after he departs, while he clutches his new, void-black familiar -- no longer stuck between worlds in the Nightmare.
The narrative thickens when the woman, observing from a distance, reveals to Seth that she no longer has a home, alluding to a mysterious past marred by tragedy and loss. Seth, moved by the woman's plight and the cold, scared Hobbes in his arms, accepts the responsibility of caring for the cat, unaware of the deeper connection forming between them. The ghostly flames that had previously driven Hobbes away resurface, engulfing the woman in a spectral fire, marking a harrowing climax as Seth realizes the ghostly and otherworldly nature of his encounter. In a desperate bid to escape the nightmare erupting before him, he flees with Hobbes, leaving behind the fiery apparition of the woman, a lingering spirit on Elm Street. This odd rendezvous on All Hallow's Eve leaves Seth with a new, enigmatic companion in Hobbes, and a haunting memory of a sorrow that transcends time, burning as silently as the ghostly flames that consumed the mysterious woman.
(Seth's odd encounter(SRIrene):SRIrene)
[Fri Nov 1 2024]
On Elm Street
It is night, about 62F(16C) degrees, and the sky is partly covered by dark grey stormclouds. It's raining. There is a new moon.
(Your target has been flagged down by someone who wants their help getting their cat down from a tree.
)
Seth ducks out of the shop, stuffing his hands into his jacket as he peers about. His breath fogs in the night air, fast, and he seems particularly watchful, gaze darting in one direction and then the other, to scan the street lights as they illuminate the path up and down Elm Street. "Fuck" he mutters quietly to himself, squinting and listening, "It's quiet. Is it over?" He pulls out his phone with one hand, tapping away at it for a moment, cold, numb fingers attempting to pull up any news.
"Mrew," comes the sad little sob of a nearby cat. "Mrew, mrew, moow."
And there, in the dark, two bright yellow eyes stare down at Seth, a void surrounded by barely visible black fur. "Excuse me?" comes a voice, suddenly behind him in the pitch dark of Elm Street, although no footsteps have betrayed her arrival. The woman is wearing a long, puritanical black dress, buttoned high up to her neck, with sleeves cuffed to her wrists. A coif covers her hair, which is drawn back into a bun -- a lot of effort has evidently been put into her Halloween costume. "Would you mind helping me, sir?" At least she doesn't look injured. It seems like the Dungeons & Dragons episode of this Halloween is over for now.
"Oh, hey there" Seth says to the cat, squinting through the darkness at the dark, fluffy orb at his feet. His brows furrow softly, and he reaches out to stroke it, but the movement is interrupted by the words of the woman just behind me. He jumps, startled, and whips around to find the source. His expression goes from surprised to mildly perplexed as his eyes adjust to the soft orange glow of the street lights, and she comes into view. "Oh uh..." he hesitates a moment, setting his jaw, it's been quite the night already, but after a moment he manages to muster a friendly smile, "Sure thing. What's up?"
"My poor little cat," says the woman, just as the yellow-eyed void in questions skitters across the street, "he's stuck, and I fear he cannot come back." There's a quiet sadness to her pale expression, but her words are spoken in an almost robotic monotone, with a feminine rasp and a certain distance, as if she were reciting this speech on a theatrical stage, rather than to Seth directly. "Will you help him? It is too late for me to help him." The hour is late indeed; it's just struck past midnight, as All Hallow's Eve turns to November. She studies him with intent consternation as the cat, true to her words, starts trying to push through a nearby briar thatch which he is much too thick for.
Seth's brow furrows once again as he stuffs his phone back in his pocket. "Oh, 's your cat then? Stuck? What do you mean-" He cuts off his words as the cat makes their hurried exit across the street, and he turns towards them, "Oh, he's - he's getting away" he says, adjusting his stance as if he's about ready to run off after the feline. He blinks as he watches them try to push through the briar patch. -Now- the cat is stuck. But didn't she say it before that? "Uh - don't worry, I'll get him for you" he says with a glance back to the woman, before darting off across the street. "Easy there, you'll hurt yourself" he coos gently to the cat as he comes to a stop, squatting down and attempting to reach out and wrap one hand around the rogue creature, while the other does its best to push the thorns carefully out of the way, so as to not hurt them, "Cmon, we'll get you back to your owner."
Cats are wriggly things; this particular void seems wrigglier than most. However, the reward of dealing with such wriggly (and often sharp-clawed) creatures is that they're often at least warm and soft. This one is not. When finally Seth manages to make contact with its fur, he finds the creature to be ice cold, and even should his fingers sink beneath layers of dark floof, the creature's moving body is akin to permafrost.
Yellow eyes turn back to stare at Seth, as the stuck cat wails and mrowls. The presumed owner, the pale woman in the puritanical black dress, merely watches from down the street with a persistently worried look, hands clasped in front of her. "He was frightened by the flames," she tells him now -- presumably meaning Gontharian's dragon-fire? "I am afraid our bond is no longer what it was. He has been wandering ever since, my poor, poor cat. The Nightmare."
Seth draws in a sharp breath of surprise as his fingers first make contact with the cat, but after a moment he, now more reluctantly, plucks him up and pushes back to his full height, turning back towards the cats owner with the cat itself wriggling in his hands. He squints both ways down the road and makes his way quickly back over to the woman, "It's - it's alright" he reassures the feline, before looking up to the pale woman, "The Nightmare...?" he asks her, but after a moment, adds, "I- your bond? You should just... take him home, don't let him wander the streets. I'm sure he'll come around in time."
He's a good cat. He turns to bite Seth's wrist, as cats are wont to do, and his pupils widen within those bright yellow irises, ears flattening against the back of his head. But the little hiss of displeasure he lets out is quiet and brief; aside from wriggling a whole lot, he doesn't seem too motivated to hurt the man carrying him back to his owner. Sharp claws dig into Seth's flesh, albeit more for support and out of sheer habit than as a serious warning.
"I no longer have a home," the pale woman says, finally locking eyes with Seth as he approaches her. Even now, her haunted and worried gaze appears to be staring straight through her. "Men like you made sure of that." But she looks between his arms, and then towards her ice-cold, fluffy black cat, and eventually the various countercultural piercings he wears, as well as the black pentagram on his red shirt. After a pause, she amends her statement. "Perhaps not men like you. The men in power, friend." She stays sad-looking and perfectly still; she has not moved from her spot since she first showed up to solicit Seth's help at all. In fact, no sound of footsteps had announced her arrival to that spot prior, either.
"His name is Hobbes. Please take good care of him. He will be a good familiar to you, if you nurture this bond." Making no move to reclaim him, the pale, puritanically clad woman lets her ghostly blue-eyed gaze fall to the ground at Seth's feet, with the forlorn grief of acceptance in her flat monotone.
Seth draws in a sharp breath as the cat attempts to bite him. He draws his wrist away quickly and adjusts his hold, but he isn't rough, and as those claws dig into his clothes and skin he simply bears the pain, hushing the creature gently and reaching out to pet his head. "It's alright" he coos again, "I won't hurt you. You'd have hurt yourself in that briar patch. "@line
Seth looks up to the pale woman, and meets her eyes. His own widen a tad as they focus on her haunted gaze, and he pales a little himself, especially as she continues to speak. He opens his mouth to say something in response to her, but for a moment no words come out, and he simply gapes. Then, eventually, he seems to find a statement. "I'm sorry" is all he manages to croak for a time, nothing else adequate seems to come to him, until eventually he adds, "Hobbes... is a good name."
Seth draws in a sharp breath as the cat attempts to bite him. He draws his wrist away quickly and adjusts his hold, but he isn't rough, and as those claws dig into his clothes and skin he simply bears the pain, hushing the creature gently and reaching out to pet his head. "It's alright" he coos again, "I won't hurt you. You'd have hurt yourself in that briar patch. "@line
Seth looks up to the pale woman, and meets her eyes. His own widen a tad as they focus on her haunted gaze, and he pales a little himself, especially as she continues to speak. He opens his mouth to say something in response to her, but for a moment no words come out, and he simply gapes. Then, eventually, he seems to find a statement. "I'm sorry" is all he manages to croak for a time, nothing else adequate seems to come to him, until eventually he adds, "Hobbes... is a good name."
Some pact has been sealed here in the dark, between this leather-glad youth with the pentagram T-shirt, and the pale woman in the buttoned-up, puritanical dress. She doesn't lift up her gaze from the pavement anymore, still standing still, with her hands clasped in front of her. But the sound of her cat's meows appear to soothe her as they draw nearer still, even though she makes no move to reclaim him yet.
Then, the flames return -- the ones she'd warned Seth had frightened her cat away. These are not dragon-fire, but a ghostly flicker that starts to engulf her form, eating its way up her dark dress towards the melting flesh of her hands, and eventually her neck, withering away her hair and her eyes.
Hobbes starts to wriggle and yowl in Seth's arms once more, turning his back to the ghostly fire, digging his claws into the man's leather jacket. His yellow eyes widen with fear, and his dark hair stands on end, that much larger and fuzzier-looking. But the permafrost of his body starts to die away the longer Seth holds him there, as if this human touch were tethering him back to reality, away from whatever Nightmare his former owner had alluded to.
The woman's screams can be heard all around in the night. They do not flow from her lips, but echo as if from ages past. Abruptly, a burning arm snakes out from her body, as a spirit of embers steps forth from where she once stood. It seeks to touch the black pentagram on Seth's chest, and the yowling cat he holds.
Entirely lost for what more there is to say, Seth lets a silence linger for a moment as the pale woman stares down at the pavement, and he looks up at her. There seems to be some finality in her words, and by this point he can tell at least that he's being given a cat, even if nothing else makes sense. "Thank you. I'm - I'm sorry" he eventually says. He's not completely sure why he's apologising this time, but the words seem the only right ones.
Then, those ghostly flames begin to crawl up the pale woman and engulf her in suffering, and Seth is frozen in place, even as Hobbes begins to try to claw his way away. His wide green eyes reflect the fire, and he stares, mouth agape, at the conflagration before him. It's only as that fiery arm begins to reach towards him that his freeze turns to flight, and he staggers back into the road, clutching Hobbes tightly and protectively, "No!" he shouts, anger and fear joined in his tone as he backs away and makes to run, "You - can't!"
To whatever extent it is that Seth fully understands what's going on right now, what is at least clear is that the being before him -- the pale woman -- possesses some sort of power, far greater than his own. But what she seems to lack is the ability to move much from the spot where he met her, on Elm Street, and she stays bound to the same spot as he attempts to flee with Hobbes. Their meeting this night was likely born of pure chance, in the right time, the right place, as the modern, pentagram-shirt-wearing youth crossed the path of her and Hobbes' grief.
So appears that he is right, that she can't. She stares after him through bony eye-sockets melted of all flesh, her dark puritanical dress now a plume of tattered embers, no more than a ghostly skeleton consumed by ghostly fire, and some spirit that lingers here still. But it stays watching him for long, long after he departs, while he clutches his new, void-black familiar -- no longer stuck between worlds in the Nightmare.