Night 64: Underground Lake

[dualistic]

[From here.]

Harvey almost ended up tripping, which would have put him face-first in the sand, but he managed to reorient himself just before his legs gave out on him. His hand flew to his chest as he tried to catch his breath and fight down the nausea. He didn't want to think about how much it would sting to have bile come up and wash over all the wounds in his mouth if he threw up. So that wasn't happening.

The area felt just as damp and cold as the last time, and since it was all something they'd seen before, Harvey didn't hesitate to move forward once he'd recovered. His destination was the dock, and the two torches that were set there made it easy for him to find it.

As he moved toward it, he glanced back at the other two. "So this time we don't even need to draw blood. I guess that works well enough." He would have preferred that the transition was smoother, but it definitely beat having to go through the fridge like they had for so long.

Comments

[toxicspiderman]

S.T. grinned at Charon's attempt at a comeback. Wouldn't be the strangest thing at one of his parties. Or the only man-eater, though he knew better than to say that out loud even in the absence of any girls. Especially not Kraken-Jaws-Cher-Mermaid hybrids lurking just under the surface. All supposition, but around here, worst-case scenarios and flights of fancy tended to come true.

So he just climbed out of the boat and waited for Scott to finish his dramatic inscription reading. "Beats a guaranteed death match." The last few words were said through clenched teeth. He could only get so many words out without taking another breath. Why couldn't they have hit this side first when he'd lost his sense of smell? Putrescine was bad enough when he was in charge of the stinkbombs.

"Hey, Boney. Want--" Nope. He wasn't getting through the entire offer. No freebies for Bonehead. Then he leaned over and vomited. Half-digested steak blended in with the scenery. Between heaves, he looked up at Harvey and waved a hand at the doors. "Pick one."

[dualistic]

The smell of rotting corpses was impossible for him to ignore, and while dealing with those zombies had prepared Harvey for that somewhat, these ones had probably been left to ferment for a while longer. He wrinkled his nose as he moved across the sand, noting one body that was clearly not human. So the monsters that got offed were dumped here, too?

Though that brought up the question of how it was decided whether someone's body ended up here or in the morgue. Maybe all of the bodies here were just for decoration, but unlike the skeletons, it was clear that these ones had been killed fairly recently.

It wasn't something that Sangamon had the stomach for, apparently. Harvey made sure to direct himself far away from that puddle of puke, although that almost caused him to stick his foot into one of the corpse's torsos. "Hey, hold it together, all right?" They couldn't really let the sight of some dead bodies throw them off, though the smell was pretty atrocious.

Harvey directed his attention to the doors. All four of them were decorated in a similar way (that is, carved into and blood-smeared), which meant that it was hard to pick between them. Did it even matter? There was no way to know the "right" answer here, so he was just going to have to choose at random.

The one closest was slightly to the left from the docks, and it seemed like as good a choice as any. "Let's pick door number two, I guess," he said as he started toward it. Was it just going to open for them once they got close enough? Harvey figured that was most likely, based on how everything else had worked here so far.

[vstheworld]

"Classy," said Scott, feeling his own stomach churn watching S.T. empty his on the beach. He didn't throw up himself, though, if only because throwing up and not being able to feel it would be super weird.

It looked like Harvey had the same idea he did. All four doors had the same warning, the same bloodstains, the same ominous overtones — why be picky? The second door was as good as the first as good as the third as good as the fourth. Either way, a lot of choppy stabby smashy stuff probably awaited them. Hopefully not death. Death was... Not good... And things.

"I guess yes," said Scott, unconsciously gulping as the three of them approached. Sure enough, the door opened with surprising ease once they got close enough. Getting back out once they were inside, however...

[To here]