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

[idolism]

_{[from here]}

After what he’d already seen in the basement, the vampire tried not to have expectations for other unexplored areas, but what the doors opened onto was truly worth a doubletake. He was struck by the cold, wet darkness first--so unlike the Coliseum with its warm light and attempt at dignity.

The sandy expanse of beach he was looking at was not dignified. It was the utter opposite.

He saw the shimmer of water, the faint light of torches, and bones. Bones everywhere. White like the sand, scattered like abandoned seashells. The coldness seeping off the lake contributed a kind of putridity--a slickness, something he could almost taste in the back of his throat. His revulsion was instinctive, because it wasn’t a place he naturally belonged in. Proud creatures didn’t slink around amongst underground graveyards.

But there was something else. “There’s a figure. Something is here.” Not someone, something.

[firewhichrefines]

The first thing that hit Sasuke was almost literal: the chill of dank underground air slapped against his face, cutting away the dusty stillness of the basement's first room with a hiss of coolness that raised goosebumps. Sasuke tightened his grip on his sword and tilted his head to listen for the sound of Aigis' footsteps behind them -- but the door shut and there were none. Nothing but the whistle of air through a large space and a distant gurgle of water, quick enough to be flowing and quiet enough to be deep.

Then, Aidou's voice. Sasuke's body flickered into his draining seconds of Sharingan before he'd consciously decided, the strange environment heightening tension into instinctive response. There, a small smear of chakra in the distance.

But Aidou was right. That was no chakra Sasuke had seen in humans or creatures before, not even the tailed beasts of his own world or the moving dead here. It pulsed, eerie and unnatural, and his eyes narrowed even as he forced the sight away from them. He took a quiet step forward, sword swinging into a position that would make it easy to strike at an attack directed at either of them, and beneath his feet crunched something brittle and strangely-textured.

"Does it look likely to attack?" He asked, voice pitched low and deliberately not bothering to ask about what they were standing on. That they were down to two was not even worth mentioning -- if Aidou couldn't gather that much, Sasuke wouldn't have been here with him.