[closed]

[northcliffpass]

WHO: Farogil, Colin, ???
WHAT: something wicked this way comes
WHEN: two different evenings in late September
WHERE: in their respective homes
NOTES: warning for spoops

The air grows cold.

------

Faro is sitting at home, finishing his dinner, when he breathes and exhales mist. The room looks the same as it did before, but any lit flames no longer emanate warmth, and there's a feeling of indescribable wrongness that permeates everything.

Colin, several nights later, is drawing water from the creek. The evening is appropriately chill for late September in the mountains, but what doesn't track is how all the birds and insects have suddenly fallen silent, and how a light sheen of ice has formed on the water.

------

There is no one else around, and in fact, it's difficult not to feel as though no one else has ever been here, that one is completely alone in the world.

Comments

[keenly]

This is...

Colin steps back as the ice forms over the water. There is something unnaturally silent about the world around him. The songs of the birds, the frogs, the crickets, they were all as much a part of this experience as the water. This is unnerving. It may become alarming, in a second when he's able to process it.

[northcliffpass]

When he looks away from the creek, there's nothing there. When he looks back, there's a white, translucent figure standing over the water. As soon as he sees it, it begins to glide in his direction, tendrils of light floating behind it like fabric scraps.

[keenly]

Nope. Nope, nope nope.

Colin stumbles backward, spilling some of the water he has gathered over the grass. A few seconds after he realizes this thing isn't going to stop, he finds himself running toward the city gate. And, before he's there, stopping to look back and try to read the situation like he can. Do disembodied spirits have feelings? Dead people? What is happening, here?

[northcliffpass]

The spirit follows him, picking up speed, its arms outstretched until--

--it passes through him entirely. For the few seconds that they've merged, it's so cold it feels like Colin's very blood will freeze; his mind flashes with the thought of something that goes by so quickly it's difficult to parse, but it's desperately unpleasant, terrifying. Tragic.

The figure continues away from him as if he weren't there. It follows the road, however, and if Captain Lance hadn't traversed this area recently, he'd be in danger of running into it as well.

[keenly]

His mouth opens wide as if to scream, but nothing comes out. He is blinded, tortured, frozen.

Then, it's over. Colin looks up in bewilderment at the ghost, shaking uncontrollably. He tries to take a step forward, but his knees give way and he falls, head ducking as if he is afraid of the spirit turning back. He can see the feet, but no more.

[northcliffpass]

The spirit continues forward until it's out of sight, disappearing into the evening mist.

[sampler]

Anxiety isn't new to Farogil. But it's never hit so suddenly, never been so heavy, never included a chill in the air and frost from his breath. He stirs the last of his stew... perhaps those mushrooms he bought were bad?

[northcliffpass]

The room goes colder, unbearably so. It's not until Faro looks up from his meal that he will see the translucent figure standing in the center of the room, human-shaped but with no discernible face, hovering there silently.

[sampler]

Can't be the mushrooms that's making him so cold. He's been eating at the little side table in the back room of his shop rather than taking his meals upstairs, so when he looks up it's towards the hearth to check if his cooking fire's gone out and-

He gasps, shuddering in fear as he reels back against the wall away from the spirit. There's a door to his left, he could flee through his storefront. But he's frozen, staring back at the being, with wide-eyes.

With a tiny, cautious voice, he asks, "...Nelda?"

[northcliffpass]

The figure gives no answer, still and cold as a stone. Then, compelled by some invisible stimulus, it glides forward towards Faro, straight through the table and through him, out through the wall behind him.

For the brief second of contact, the world turns so cold that Faro feels frozen, a flash of a thought or an image intruding into his mind that's so hopeless, so terrifying that it's impossible to grasp. Whatever it is-- and it was something, though he can't know what-- it's very, very bad.

But now it's gone, and the room feels normal again.