ph_logs | Catching Trains & Walks Through Dark Forests ( OTA )

Catching Trains & Walks Through Dark Forests ( OTA )

Who: Ellen Ripley & YOU!

What: To ride a train, or not to ride a train, that is the question.

When: Early January

Where: Train, Lockwood Forest

Warning(s): N/a, tbd?

All In a Day’s Work

Perhaps mining isn’t the kindest labor Ellen Ripley could have chosen for herself, but she doesn’t care. She needs something. A purpose on this cold, unforgiving rock– if Pumpkin Hollow can be classified as such. It’s dubious her new home exists on any celestial body she’s familiar with, and yet she finds herself pitching eyes upward to probe the clear black sky. For clues, for hints of life elsewhere, for the star systems who’d raised her. Nothing. How lonely.

Into the mines, then. To be swallowed by a new, impenetrable dark. A starless void of dust, rock and precious ore. The maternal drone of an intelligent computer is replaced by the rhythmic clang, clang, clang of her’s and other’s tools. Star systems replaced by a maze of intravenous tunnels. Hauler ships worth multi-millions, responsible for carrying several billion tons of crude oil in their breast-shaped modules, reduced to archaic mine-carts. The drone of men around her– that much hasn’t changed a bit. The utter lack of advanced technology stumps her at first, borne of a time long before her own. But she adapts. Hard not to. What else has she but time, after all?

Her work takes her all the way to Cranes Ridge, a sprawl of dry mountains tucked deep within Lockwood Forest.

When she rises out of the ground, caked in dust and smattered in ore and oil to catch the train home, she finds the sun has gone down. Not unusual, given her long work-hours. But nevertheless perturbing.

The train welcomes her by unhinging its sliding jaw, allowing her entrance into a narrow yet comfortable cabin. It kicks up sparks as it leaves the station. Coughs clouds of black smoke into the still night air. You find her seated in one of several empty rows, wiping her face with a grey cloth.

All in a day’s work.

ALT. No Way Home

Up, up, up out of the ground she climbs. Hauls her belongings to the foot of the train station. She awaits its arrival; a squeal, a kicking of sparks and cough of black smoke clouds as it slows to greet her. She waits. Shuffles from left foot to right. Drops her bag, picks it up again. She spends a great deal of time looking at the stars. They eye her knowingly, pulsating their yellow aura. Speaking their unintelligible language. A deep frown cuts Ellen’s face horizontally.

She waits.

No train, no sparks, no smoke.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Wrenching her bag from the ground, Ripley starts with an irritated fervor down the stairs and into Lockwood Forest. She’ll see her own way home…

BONUS. Wild Card!

Hit me with whatever you've got!

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At some point in her trek down the mountain, she'll hear a voice call out from above, "Slow down! You don't want to step off the path!"

There's someone sitting on the branch of a tree nearby. The sunshine yellow shirt they wear might make it easy to see them, despite darkness of the hour.

Chris continues to speak, in a light and friendly tone, "I've taken quite a few falls, and I'd hate to see you tumble down the mountain."

A night forest's silence is utterly unmatched. Marked by a stillness in the trees and the ecosystem's slumbering purr.

Ellen Ripley, the sole harbinger of noise in this wood, pounds feet against the ground in her perilous journey home. Cracks sticks, ruins the snow's untouched sheen. Fwomp, fwomp, fwomp. The silence works its way deep into her tissue, into the membrane of one trillion cells, and she is disturbed.

So when the stranger's voice peels out into the silent darkness, cracking it like porcelain, the way lightening splits the sky into a dozen shimmering pieces, she screams.

Trips, too.

Her ass hits the cold, hard ground.

"Christ-!"

Wild eyes find a sunny yellow patch in the trees. She scrambles for the pickaxe at her belt and finds--

Not a monster, not a ghoulish figment, but something human. An androgynous, tree-perched friend.

"Fuck!" She's up on her feet in an instant. Thwacks her work tool hard into the trunk, a frustrated instinct as opposed to an attack. It splits the bark rudely. "Isn't it a little late to be climbing in the trees?"

Chris does feel bad when she trips and falls, but it was only a short distance. They watch with a little alarm as she approaches with the pickaxe out, but they're up high enough that she'd have trouble reaching them. A small flinch from Chris accentuates that thwack of the tool against the tree trunk, more from the noise than anything.

All the same, Chris is glad they did not approach her this morning, to pass on any warnings. 'Stay away from your job for the day' likely wouldn't be taken with any more grace than this.

"Well, no. It was necessary to be here at the time. You need an escort through the forest, don't you? It's dangerous at night."

Chris is wise to have waited, for she would have heeded their warning with as much caution as she'd give a small crack in the ground. Besides, anything that could happen in the mines she knows damn well how to avoid. Check the airlift hydraulics daily, never store detonators in the same magazine with other explosive materials, never drill into any hole that has contained explosive materials, and so on, every threat addressed in a bible-thick handbook.

What could she possibly have to worry about?

The woods, however, are a different story.

She hasn't stepped foot in a biome like this in... Well, ever. Spacefaring hinders it. She knows the woods how a blind man knows the color green.

"Necessary?" Ripley caws, almost offended-sounding. "What makes you think I need an escort? I'm perfectly capable of handling myself."

As if to accentuate her point, she yanks her pickaxe out of the tree to rest it on her shoulder.

Chris knew, thanks to their strange powers, that the train wouldn't wait for her tonight. That because of that she would be facing a lonely trek back into town... and avoiding the entire reason for being on the mountain is the sort of scorched-earth alternative that panic advocates for.

They've been burned by a scorched-earth alternative in the past.

They've also suffered due to demonic fuckery to do with this very train.

And so, here they are -- having climbed the tree while it was still light out, and taken a nap until waking at the sound of Ripley's approach. Chris leans in and down, longish hair swaying like a curtain, and tap into their connection with the between.

Their eyes glow a stark, sullen red out of the darkness as they say, "More eyes to watch for predators, of course. And I can provide that advance warning that you'll need to handle yourself, ma'am."

Ripley watches them swing, a true creature of the wood if she's ever seen one. Or maybe it's just dark out, and she's too tired to consider what a real forest-dwelling creature ought to look like.

They've certainly got the eyes for it, like two tocsin bulbs in which to probe the darkness. She frowns. Takes a step back with pickaxe gripped firmly in her hand.

Is this thing going to kill me? An important question. One she's afraid she doesn't know the answer to- not yet. And isn't that the scariest thing?

Wind whistles through cracks in the trees. It exacerbates her silence as she weighs whether or not she'd like to die in this depressive wood. Whether or not she really needs a guide to herald her to safety, or if she can navigate perfectly well on her own.

"Oh, fine." The woman relents. "You'd better get down from there quick before I change my mind. And you'll be taking up the front."

Chris jumps down, rolling a short distance as they land in order to distribute the force of impact, and jumps to their feet to brush dead vegetation off their clothes. (Very normal clothes... that sunshine-yellow blouse was made from a secondhand dress, light brown linen pants cover their legs, and winter boots are on their feet. The strap of a canvas shoulder bag is slung across their chest, so that the bag itself rests against one hip.)

"My name is Chris Freeman."

They neither ask for her name, nor give any platitudes. They simply nod in acknowledgement of her terms and move to the path so they can walk ahead of her.

"I haven't heard of any particular monsters being reported in the woods, but it happens a lot. And I'd rather you not be a hero, since I'll be back in my body tomorrow even if they kill me." Chris glances back and smiles. "With one foot in the grave anyway, being dead here is hardly a handicap."

Really reassuring, Chris. A+ on coming across normal.... not.

Obliging her demand, Chris Freeman spearheads the long walk home. Plunges onto the tree-lined path with an air of casualty Ellen finds disturbing. It's a good thing they don't ask for her name. She isn't sure she wants to give it.

"I wouldn't be surprised. On my first day here, I saw something strange by the tree line. Disappeared into the woods." She shrugs, hoisting her work bag securely onto her back. The accessory reeks of metal ore and dirt. "I haven't seen it since."

Great, she's got a wacko to walk her home and monsters to look out for... How fortunate. Best to keep a healthy distance.

"So, what, you're like a half ghost?"

"Some percentage thereof," Chris answers. "I assume you've gotten the spiel about how we only temporarily die here on the island? I was dealing with the same thing even in the world I came from."

They scan the path and the woods to either side as the pair descend, watching and listening for any sign that they've gained an unwelcome third party to their group. (Technically, Chris themself is an unwelcome second party, but they'd rather that than meeting this woman as a ghost. Because guess what, they can see ghosts!)

"I'm more used to city living, but the island has become more and more comfortable as I spend time here. How are you settling in?"

"I have. Curses, gods and demons, the whole slew. You're the first ghost I've had the pleasure of meeting, if that's really what you are. I can't say I ever believed in them. Never believed in Gods and demons, either. But it's hard to deny the existence of something when it's staring you in the face."

In this case, the back of the head.

Snow and sallow leaves squish underfoot. She'll be damned if she slips again-- certainly not in front of her new company, and so Ellen proceeds down the mountain in careful steps. One in front of the other. The air is cold and stale. On each exhale, she expels a cloud of dragon's smoke.

"Alright, I suppose. The mines keep me busy. I've met a few locals. Nice people. I'm not thrilled to be here, but what can you do?" She shrugs.

"And the technology is archaic."

Lambert would be proud of her griping, she thinks.

Chris huffs out a little laugh at the comment about technology. A lot of the newcomers say that. Hell, Chris has had that thought themself.

"There are some that have left, but... that way means returning to the death they've been avoiding. For most of them." Chris gives a little shrug. "This island is full of ghosts who can't move on. They got stuck with the rest of us when the barrier came down. I--"

Bare twigs rattle against each other, as something moves out there in the darkness. Chris stops, and peers out into the gloom surrounding them, one hand slipping into the bag at their hip.

"I think we can move a little faster and still be safe," Chris says after a moment, glancing back at her to meet her eyes. Their expression should show they are clearly unsettled by the sound and not being able to determine its source.

She dislikes the idea; her, a ghost floating aimlessly through some unknown void, unable to process what'd happened in a previous life and so resigns herself to beginning a new one. New house, new job, new community. What the Hollow lacks in technological advancements, it makes up for in simplicity, really. There's so little expected of her. The entirety of her wage goes into groceries, necessities, perhaps some taxes but very little.

There exists no Company to stare blistering into her. To garner her earnings and demand the most of her time.

No space, no cryo-sleep, no vast intricate freighters to call home. She's stationary here. A dead woman walking.

And the crux of it all, forever unchanged; a new battalion of creatures that plod through the dark after her.

"So what's that make me?"

Snap. They still. Ripley doesn't like the look Chris gives her. They're unsettled. And if they're unsettled, something tells her she should be to.

"Could be anything. A wolf, a possum, raccoon--" Regardless, she doesn't want to find out. Ellen hurries after them, falling into step beside Chris rather than at the rear. Safer this way, she thinks. If something creeps up behind them, there's half a chance it'll go after her.

"How'd you know I'd be out in the woods, anyway?"

Chris relaxes, just a little, at the lack of an immediate attack. There's a nod of acknowledgement for her words -- and Chris is personally hoping for something relatively harmless like a raccoon. Their guard remains up, though... the sullen red glow of their eyes moving in a side to side sweep as the pair continue to walk.

And the first question they answer was the interrupted one: "Here? You are what you make yourself. Though, the demons do delight in trying to make us their playthings."

Chris hums over that second question, and says, "Sometimes I dream of things to come. Not clear and linear and removed, like a movie, but in snapshots where it feels like I'm there."

Step after quiet step, and straining to hear if there's another set of feet coming after the pair of them...

"I woke up this morning with a very strong feeling that the train would leave without you, and what I dreamed would happen... if you were alone."

She scoffs. "Like hell any demon's gonna make me into some doll."

The idea is so ridiculous it almost beckons a laugh from the woman. The kind one might let ring out in an uncomfortable situation, to self-soothe in the absence of any real immedate comfort. She can't, after all, simply snap her fingers and be gone from this wood.

So they walk. Walk and walk and walk, passing rows upon rows of impressive trees. Their branches loom oppressively above head, stripped of their Autumn leaves and looking more like a creature's hands than anything else. Ripley throws her chin upward every once in a while to check them. To look for any shifting, black masses. Any tails or teeth or sharp claws that might steal through the dark after them.

Then, she listens. Really listens to what Chris says.

A chill chases up her spine. She bristles.

Falls into a slow-stepping rhythm.

"...And what happened in your dream?"

"I think it may have been the Tristitia. It looked like you were dancing with something that trailed rags... and the second time I saw your face, you looked gaunt and you were crying."

A figure waits in the distance, clad in dark rags, with an empty, caved-in chest that aches for what the living can give it. The hood pulled over its head casts a long shadow, hiding the face within... or if there is any face at all.

"You said a name. Emmy? Amy? And the rags wrapped around your throat. Then I woke up."

Perhaps that chill is more real than imagined.

"The Tristitia?" The word is nonsense to her. She rolls it around, a marble between her mind's fingers, and comes up with nothing.

An attempt is made to picture the scene; hand in hand with a twist of rags, her head tipped back in despair. It dances a predator's dance, body gesticulating in the wind, luring her with its saccharine scent. Promises of loved ones. A vow to give, if only she'd offer up something in return.

Cold rips through her skin. She frowns at Chris.

"So you thought you'd pay me a visit. Well, let's hope that dream stays where it belongs."

"It would happen that way if you were alone. Now you're not, so things may change."

Chris walks on, careful to keep pace with her. It's a cold, cold night and they have a long walk through a dark, dark forest to get through.

"The Tristitia draws out your grief and trauma... feeds on the empathy for her own grief... and then leaves you catatonic. At night, in this cold? Even though she leaves you alive, you'd freeze to death in these conditions after."

"My hero," She says dryly, nevertheless appreciative to have avoided getting her face maimed by a ghost, thanks to Chris.

Despite their reassurance, every muscle in her body tenses, ready to throw her clear out of the way should any phantom, monster or otherwise show sign of appearing. But the whipping cold makes concentrating harder than it ought to be. It gnaws at her lungs. Stiffens her joints like rust to a piece of steal.

"'May' isn't exactly a definite, is it?"

The wind bellows a dying animal's noise.

Long, black fingers sprawl slowly across a tree trunk up ahead.

Twists of leaves, like a tattered shroud, lift from the forest floor.

"No, it's not," Chris agrees. "I can't promise I'll get you home safe. All I can promise is that I'll do my best."

The creature waits, having learned patience from the many times it tried to take prey from the town. There are old drifts of snow, frozen over and hard, narrowing the path where it hides, so those walking on the path will have to go in single file.

One alone is best. Two is not ideal -- the Tristitia can attack, can incapacitate... but the other might grab her prey and make a break for it. They'll run, and leave her with only a few scraps of the grief and empathy she feeds on.

Chris gives a little shiver and tugs at their gloves nervously. The town is still quite some distance away. The pair have been lucky so far, but will their luck stretch as far as it needs to?

Ripley chews her lower lip.

A promise to do their best; that's all she can really hope for, isn't it? Eyes more able than her own? Company in this nightmarish wood? Granted, trudging through the forest at night wasn't one of Ellen's better ideas, but she's tired, covered in grease and wants for nothing more than to sink into bed-- hike be damned.

Now, she might not reach her bed after all...

A path wide enough for two diverges into narrow hinderance, flanked on either side by icy husks of snow. Ripley taps at one side with her boot. Hard as stone. Too tall, too slick to walk on.

They're stopped, shoulder to shoulder.

"Who goes first?"

"Hm..." Chris considers, and their eyes flash with that red glow for a moment. "I think I ought to go first. If you don't mind keeping watch behind us?"

Ripley nods, sliding into place behind Chris. "So long as you keep an eye out in front of us."

The air here is oppressive. Colder, somehow. Energy fluxes from an inexplicable point between the trees.

Chris nods, "Yes, of course."

They walk along that narrowed path, extra careful out of worry that the refrozen snow continues on the ground, and shiver all the more as the icy walls rise higher on either side. The walk is quiet, until the halfway point. (Too far to turn back?)

'Come to me...'

Chris hears the Tristitia as a voice in their head. Past experience has taught them that an attempt to resist will make that voice louder, and cause pain. And at the moment, well... the only way out is through.

They exhale a heavy breath and say quietly, "She's up ahead. Waiting for us."

Icy walls climb, climb, climb; at first to their ankles, continuing on a steady upward slope to their knees, waists... She can place a hand at either side and press as if she were a rat in a maze. To escape would mean to jump hurdles over these slippery barriers; easer said than done.

She's up ahead. Waiting.

Ripley breathes vexed air through gnashed teeth. "She picked a damn good place to do it. I don't suppose an axe to the face would do any good?"

"It wouldn't kill her, but she's got to be solid to grab us. An axe to the face would damage her body." Chris considers, and then nods, saying softly, "Do enough damage and we can drive her away, or make a run for it when she's too weak to chase us. That's how Taran' saved me when she went after me."

Chris gives a wry smile. "Of course, the easiest thing would be to let her grab me and make a run for it alone while she's occupied. I won't hold it against you if you decide to do that rather than axe her in the face."

Catching Trains & Walks Through Dark Forests ( OTA )

No Way Home

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Time for a creature appearance? >:)

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