Play@YSDC

There's a long corridor that runs forward into a seething darkness that settles thickly around the edges of your light. Doors line the passage on either side, nicked and scratched, and inset with strange symbols. The whole space feels somewhat humid, like the air is hard to breathe, yet cold in a way that numbs you. You can hear a whispering echoing all around you. Perhaps if you concentrated, you could make out its sound.

Kate raises a finger to her lips and concentrates on listening.

He frowns at her, shivering slightly. Then he winces, doubling over. "The whispers ... in my head." His voice sounds pained.

She can feel a pressure, too, but it's not painful for her, not yet. The whispers sound almost like trapped thoughts. "Where can we go?" "They'll bomb us in our homes!" "Is that unexploded bomb okay?" "I can't see where I'm going." "That feral dog keeps following me." "Will my husband come home?" "I don't want to die tonight." "Let me make it home to see my family." "Britain will endure ... or it won't be Britain anymore." Each thought is nameless, each in a different voice, mostly with British accents, a few foreign.

"These must be the voices of people who have come through here before," says Kate. "I don't feel pain yet, but maybe if we keep talking, we won't hear the voices any more. Well, like Winston Churchill says, when you're going through hell, keep going. Are you able to proceed, or do you need to wait for me in the kitchen?"

"I've never been down here before," he mutters, struggling to stand upright. "I've never heard any of these voices before.... There's so many of them. I can feel their ... their fear ... their loss." He shakes his head to clear it. "I won't leave you alone down here. I've left too many people to go their own way and none of them have made it out. Or if they have, they've never sent word back. We can ... we can manage it. I'm just going to be ... a little unsteady ... on my feet."

"Thank you," says Kate. "In that case, take my hand, and let's go onward."

"Thank you," he says, clutching at her hand.

There's a long corridor that runs forward into a seething darkness that settles thickly around the edges of your light. Doors line the passage on either side, nicked and scratched, and inset with strange symbols. The whole space feels somewhat humid, like the air is hard to breathe, yet cold in a way that numbs you. There are seven doors to your left and seven to your right, and a painted on door up ahead.

"You're welcome," says Kate. "I don't know which of these doors to try first. They all look the same, except for the one at the end, but that's not a real door at all. It's just painted on. But in this place, maybe there's more to it than that. Let's take a closer look at it."

OOC, Can I use Art?

OOC: Yes, you may. Results below.

She moves closer to examine the artistic rendition. It is a highly detailed work of art and within the wood grain pattern seem to be thousands of tiny screaming faces. The paint feels warm and wet to the touch, but when you check your hand there's no paint staining it. Knowing the way this place typically works, perhaps the painted door might become real, but it isn't there yet.

Kate tries to open the painted door by pulling on the doorknob, though she doesn't expect it to work. "I guess we'll have to try one of the real doors," she says. "They all look the same to me, so maybe we should just pick one at random."

There are a dozen doors, seven on one side, five on the other. He approaches the nearest one on the right and shivers. "Handle's cold and wet...." Then he turns it and pushes it open to reveal a wood-pannelled room etched in phrases, pleas, fears of bomb and incendiary, but it's what's within the room that is frightening. At least a dozen burnt bodies lie in a twisted pile on the floor, bent double on themselves, faces contorted in silent agony. There's no sign of ash or soot on the floor beneath them, nor char on the wood, which suggests they didn't burn here.

There's a plaque built into the floor: May Fear of Flame Gather Here.

Sanity Check: 1/1d6.

Kate shudders. "Not my worst fear," she says, "but it's still disturbing."

Stability roll (no points spent for seeing the burned bodies:
1d6
Hmm. It's not showing my roll, though I enabled dice rolling. I rolled on Orokos and failed.

"This seems to have been here awhile," he said, shuddering. "I don't think it's freshly made. It smells ... awful."

"Right, looks like we're going to have to try another door - and hope it isn't as bad as this," says Kate. "Let's try one on the other side of the hall."

They open the door to reveal three bodies wired into sitting positions around a table, their skin covered in lesions that look like photos she's seen of mustard gas. They stink of rot and death but thankfully there's no gas-like smell to the air. (Stability test - you lose 1).

The stranger manages to hold his composure and merely shivers. "Has mustard gas been used in this war?"

You're not aware of any being used as both sides seem terrified to reopening those old wounds, though people do carry gas masks because they fear it's going to happen. The entire nation is meant to carry their gas masks, just in case.

"Not as far as I know," says Kate. "Everyone's too afraid of it to dare use it, lest the other side respond in kind. We've all been issued gas masks and told to carry them at all times, just in case. I've got mine with me, but not everyone carries it around. It seems like all these doors have various fears behind them. Being burned, being gassed...those aren't my worst fears. I'm...I'm terrified of being buried alive. Every time I go into a shelter, I'm afraid not that the bombs will kill me, but that they'll collapse the entrance and trap me in there alive."

"Fears, yes, but not just ordinary fears," says the stranger, frowning. "Why though? What is this place *for*? It was clearly constructed for some purpose...."

"The first one said 'May Fear of Flame Gather Here,'" says Kate. "Maybe we have to find the rooms that correspond to our own fears. Do you want to try another one?"

Stability test for the gas room:
1d6
I forgot to roll the test before. I rolled it now, but I can't see the result.

He looks up at the ceiling of the room. "May Fear of Gas Gather Here...."

Then he looks over to her, "My only fear is this place now. No normal fear can compare."

"Let's listen at the other doors," suggests Kate. "That might give us some idea of what's on the other side of some of them without opening them."

Listening to the doors provides some awareness of what occurs behind it. The BANG of guns, the whistle of falling incendiaries, the slam of building collapses, the screech of brakes and crash of metal, the gasp-cry-slam of falling from a great height, and other sounds less readily identifiable.

"Maybe the one with the buildings collapsing is my fear," says Kate.

He nods toward the end of the hall, looking very pale. "The final door looks more like a door now."

"Oh, good," says Kate, going over to have a look and see if it was openable yet. "If we open enough of these other doors, we should be able to get through the one at the end. We should probably try ones that don't match our fears then, if any old doors will do. No sense frightening ourselves too much."

It does seem nearly solid but the handle doesn't yet turn.

"How can you be so brave and cheery?" he asks. "We are in the bowels of this nightmare place and yet you ... you've hardly broken a sweat. I've heard of keeping your chin up but I am astounded at your confidence." He sets his jaw and looks around. "And glad for it."

"Thank you," says Kate with a smile. "I suppose that I've always been like this. It isn't easy, but I've had some practice. I've been through over a year of the war already, and I never gave up hope, even in the darkest days. Looks like I'll have to try one of the other doors before we can get through here. I'll avoid the one with the collapsing buildings. That one might be too much even for unflappable me. How about the one with the guns? That doesn't seem so bad. At least that sort of thing would be a quick death."

"A quick death and a less gruesome one," he says with a shudder. "Why do you think these fears are here? Trapped within these rooms or, gathered here? There has to be some kind of purpose to all this? Or is it just a personal hellscape formed out of random chance?"

"Maybe each of these fears is the worst fear of one or more of the people trapped here," says Kate. "I don't think anything about this place is random. There must be a purpose, and it has something to do with the war effort, but I'm not sure exactly how, let alone how it was done. Shall we try the door with the guns?"

The room smells of gunpowder and blood with walls riddled with bullet holes. But the main horrifying sight is that of the family, husband in uniform, woman and children in regular clothes, who are chained to posts, blood leaking from bullet holes. (OOC: Stability Test).

"May Fear of Shots On Our Soil Gather Here...." is carved into the ceiling.

Kate hears a click coming from the door at the end of the hall.

"The door looks solid..." says the stranger. "This may be it. Maybe we'll find out what this is all for...."

"Yeah," says Kate with a shudder as she backs out into the hall. "I've seen enough of these rooms. Let's try the door at the end of the hall."

Stability roll (no points spent):
1d6
I can't see the roll result.

The Stranger walks with her toward the door, then stops. "Are we sure we want to do this? I've survived a very long time by never coming down here. We could retreat to the nearest lit room or building. I ... I don't think I want to know what's in there."

(I made another roll. You passed.)

"We've jumped through so many hoops to get to this point," says Kate, "and opening that door sure seems like a better idea than just going around trying to survive. Remember what Winston Churchill said: 'When you're going through hell, keep going.' Let's open it."

Thank you.

"Unless the door leads to a bomb or some other fate...." he murmured, but he follows her toward the door. Once there, he pauses, looking down at his hands. "My palms are sweaty. Somehow I'm more nervous here than anywhere else."

"I'll open it," says Kate, gripping the handle and pulling on it.

The door opens to reveal a stone hewn room with a single gas lamp sitting upon a desk at which a dessicated corpse sits. A typewriter with a single page sits in the middle of the desk. Carved in the walls are slogans: Loose Lips Sink Ships, Keep Morale High, Ladies Do Your Duty By Looking Your Best, Never Fear - with symbols that surround and link them like the lines of a spider web. Human bones stick out of the soil here and there, as well as tatters of cloth, some of which you recognise as belonging to some of those who have thus far disappeared.

"Oh," says the stranger, looking at the man behind the desk.

Both wear the same evening suit, the same tie, and both seem about the right height, though it is hard to be sure of a similarity as the corpse's face is much too dessicated.

"Oh."

"How...very odd," says Kate. "He's been down here some time." She looks at the page in the typewriter to see what it says.

The Letter says:

For those who may find their way down here, in the train station that was selected, at any of the times that was chosen, we are sorry, but we had to do it. Break morale, break one's armies. Break one's populace, break the war effort. We had to keep people from shattering beneath the fear and the only way to do so was to vent it somewhere, give it life in some small place, cut off from the world. A place where fear can saturate. A place where fear can encircle those poor bastards that end up here. I know you can never forgive us.

But perhaps, perhaps the war is over. Perhaps it is time for this to stop. Should it be, then take the gun from the desk drawer, and shoot me dead. I am the lynchpin, and with my death, all will unravel.

If the war is not yet over, we ask that instead if you wish to exit, you shoot yourself dead. You will be saved from this place, and it can continue to vent the fear and horror afflicting an entire country.

Kate checks the desk drawer.

There is a handgun inside the draw with a small box of ammunition.

Kate carefully takes the gun and inspects it, loading it if it isn't already. She keeps the barrel pointed safely at an angle toward the floor, taking care not to point it at anyone. "I think you'd better read this," she says, handing the letter to the stranger with her free hand.

"I think I have no need to," said the stranger, "for I wrote it myself, once upon a time. I made myself the lynchpin of a sorcerous effort to protect the minds and hearts of our people though at such a grave cost as the lives and terror of several people each few months. I had thought it worth the cost, but knew that to consign people to such oblivion, it were only fair that I live through it myself. I - I cannot believe I have done this. Was I right to do so? Have I won us this war or simply imperilled and slain so many fruitlessly?"

"I'm sure you meant well at the time," says Kate, "but it strikes me as a horrid thing to do. We didn't need to do anything like this in the last war. True, we weren't facing the threat of invasion then, and while there were air raids, they weren't as bad as they are this time around, but we sacrificed so many young men needlessly. I suppose this is another form of sacrifice, only now I'm one of the ones being cast into the furnace. I don't think I needed it before I came here. I've always kept my morale high, and I've also been able to improve the morale of others. I know how important morale is to victory. But is my stiff upper lip due to this place's effects, or because it's part of who I am? I like to think the latter, but I've never truly been tested until the war started. Yet even in this place, I'm still mostly unflappable. I'm sure if I end up staying here for months or years I'll go completely round the twist if I manage to survive that long, but for now I'm still able to take it. Personally, I think we can win without this place. Standing alone, we've managed to hold off the enemy. There was no invasion before the weather turned, and I think if they try it next year, they'll be sorry. We've got the RAF and the Royal Navy to defend this island. No, I don't believe it was the right thing to do. If we win because of this place, then we've become like the enemy, and we haven't really won at all."

"Could this place, my life's work, really be so meaningless? Have I ... failed?" He stares at the corpse. "If you end this place, you will end me.... Should I stop you from making that choice? But I typed the option for someone like you. I left the gun here for someone like you."

"Perhaps it did make a difference during the darkest days, in the last few months," says Kate. "Some people were thinking of throwing in the towel when France started losing, but I always thought we owed it to Churchill's leadership that we stayed in the fight. The point is, what's happening here is wrong. Yet, I cannot bring myself to take your life. That would be wrong too, and I haven't the right. I can't take my own either."

"So what do we do? We must try something!" He gazes wistfully at the corpse. "Though if that is indeed myself and not some mere representation of my own fears, it appears that I am already dead."

"I suppose that's possible," says Kate. "I want to get out of here, and I don't want to die. I'm still young, and I've barely lived. I want to fall in love, get married, and have children. I don't think I could bring myself to shoot you, but do you think you're capable of shooting yourself? Would that work?"

He stares at her, dumbfounded. "Shoot ... myself? It I were so eager to kill myself I wouldn't have lived years in this hellhole."

OOC: It is possible to convince him to do so but rather than leave it to spends, see how Kate goes in convincing him.

"You were already willing to have me shoot you," says Kate. "You built that possibility into this. It's just one more step for you to do it yourself. Why should I have to become a killer to get out of here? I never asked to be here. I'm only here because of what you did. How many others will fall into this trap if you don't? Do you really want to be responsible for more torment and death? It also doesn't sound like you gave yourself any other way out of here. When the war is over, you always intended that someone would shoot you to put it to an end. Otherwise, people would just keep getting trapped here. You always knew that for the rest of your life you would suffer in the nearest thing to hell that man can make, and then you would die. But you don't have to go to the real hell for all eternity. You can still make your peace with God. He will forgive you if you sincerely repent. If you believe in Jesus Christ as I do, when you die, you will go to be with Him for all eternity. You may feel that you don't deserve it, but none of us do. Nonetheless, He loved us so much that He suffered torment and died for us, so that we could have life everlasting."

"But suicide is a sin.... As is murder." He looks around the room. "Though I don't believe I ever did believe in God. At least not a caring and humane God. There are things in this world that would terrify us both to see them. Things that slither in the dark, beyond the sight of Man, things older than Man. I didn't create this. I tapped into something older, I am sure of it, and I twisted it to our whim."

He takes the gun.

"But you are right. You should not be made to be a killer. I always knew this would be my fate. What alternative is there?"

He looks at her.

"What will you do when this is all over? Let my last thoughts be of your future."

"Thank you," says Kate, her eyes overflowing with tears as she thinks about her future, at last coming to a resolution. "I shall enroll in medical school and study to become a doctor. I will go on to save countless lives. You're not just saving my life, but all those others that I'll go on to save in the future you've given your life to give to me. I'll marry a wonderful man, and we'll have many children who will go onto do greater things than I ever will. If you have a last message, I can take it to your family for you. It's the least I can do for you. And I can give you a farewell kiss, if you like."

"I don't even know my own name," he says. "Everything has been peeled away by my time here, but if you somehow uncover it, then tell them this: I'm sorry I left. I thought I'd found a way to help the war effort. Tell them I did help. I think I was wrong to take part in this, but they don't need to know I died for nothing." His troubled look deepens. "Be wary, Kate, not to talk to people about this. A work like this could not be undertaken alone. I agreed to sit as lynchpin, but others might disagree. Go home quickly, though time may have passed, get dynamite, and blow this place up before anyone can know its stopped. Stop at a nearby train, stay there three nights, then ride a bike or walk here to do so. It can't be traced back to you. It could be any sort of society, even the government, who has done this. Promise me you'll lay it all to waste so that it can't be redone. This place was built to do this and we had years of expectation of war to prepare. They can't repeat it easily."

He looks at the gun. "A goodbye kiss would be nice. Even if just on the cheek. Something to remember you by before I am undone."

"I'll do it," says Kate, "though I'm not sure where to get dynamite. I've never even handled it before, but I'll figure it out. With luck, the explosion will be chalked up to a stray UXB that went off later." She leans over and kisses him on the cheek. "I suppose this is farewell. Would you like to be alone for this, or would you rather I were here with you?"

He blushes slightly at the kiss. "Can you stay with me? Please? I've been alone for so long. I don't want to be alone for this." He puts the gun to his temple. "Do you ... know how to sing any songs? Last thing to hear...."

"Oh, yes, I'm a good singer," says Kate. "I'll sing one you'll not have heard before. It's a Vera Lynn song, and it only came out weeks after you went in here. It's called 'We'll Meet Again,' and I think its meaning is especially significant." She clears her throat and begins to sing:


"We'll meet again,
Don't know where,
Don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day

Keep smiling through,
Just like you always do
'Til the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away

So will you please say 'Hello'
To the folks that I know?
Tell them I won't be long
They'll be happy to know
That as you saw me go
I was singing this song

We'll meet again,
Don't know where,
Don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day

We'll meet again,
Don't know where
Don't know when.
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day.

Keep smiling through
Just like you always do,
'Til the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away

So will you please say 'Hello'
To the folks that I know?
Tell them I won't be long.
They'll be happy to know
That as you saw me go,
I was singin' this song.

We'll meet again,
Don't know where,
Don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day."

We'll Meet Again

He closes his eyes and listens to the song with a smile, letting it flow through him, and then as the last verse dies away....

The gunshot is loud in the silence. And he slumps to the floor immediately.

The corpse on the desk chair slumps forward against the desk.

And the cruel energies that suffuse this place are snuffed out like a candle flame.

She can feel her breaths come a little easier. An oppressive weight lifts from her shoulders. Everything feels ... normal.

Kate closes the dead man's eyes and leaves the room, heading back for the surface.

The corridor is as long as before, the rooms still containing their horrors, though now the stink of it rolls into the corridor as decomposition continues. She makes her way up to the building above, only to see a night sky twinkling with stars. A train trundles up toward the platform. Checking her watch, she finds that it is the train she was waiting for though some of her earlier encounters suggest she may have lost a year. The conductor steps out to check her ticket. "Are you ready, ma'am?"

"Yes, thank you," says Kate, holding out her ticket.

He accepts the ticket and she steps onto a train whose lights are dimmed. The conductor keeps his flashlight on the floor as he takes her to her seat. The darkened train reminds her so much of that place. Has she really escaped? Is she really free? The train blows its whistle and then begins moving forward. One second becomes another and soon that station is but a dimmed shape in her past. She made it. She's really free....

Kate sighs with relief as she sits down, looking around to see if a newspaper is available so she can see what the current date is and what is currently happening, so she can find out how much time she's missed.

January 6, 1942 (Tuesday)

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the State of the Union Address to Congress. "In fulfilling my duty to report upon the State of the Union, I am proud to say to you that the spirit of the American people was never higher than it is today—the Union was never more closely knit together—this country was never more deeply determined to face the solemn tasks before it", the president began. "The response of the American people has been instantaneous, and it will be sustained until our security is assured ... We have not been stunned. We have not been terrified or confused. This very reassembling of the Seventy-seventh Congress today is proof of that; for the mood of quiet, grim resolution which here prevails bodes ill for those who conspired and collaborated to murder world peace. That mood is stronger than any mere desire for revenge. It expresses the will of the American people to make very certain that the world will never so suffer again."

Japanese troops landed at Brunei Bay in British Borneo.

Australia declared war on Bulgaria.

Died: Henri de Baillet-Latour, 65, Belgian aristocrat and the third president of the International Olympic Committee.

Kate is stunned. She has lost more than a year. She realizes that she will have to feign amnesia to explain her absence, or rather to avoid explaining it. She doesn't feel any older, except for the weariness from her ordeal. She is relieved that America has entered the war against Germany, and while it is disturbing that Japan is also now at war with Britain, she knows that America is more than a match for them. For the first time, she can see how victory, not just an end to the war, can be achieved. Nobody can match America for production. She continues to read the articles in detail while she waits for the train to reach her destination.

And so Kate continues on ... to regain her old life, to explain lost time, and potentially to locate sufficient dynamite to blow that old train station up. an act that will be declared an act of sabotage, doubtless by German spies. Thankfully morale doesn't crash after the building's cessation but it does seem to flounder sometimes. Is it just the nature of the slog of war or is it that the ritual had been holding something back? Still, the war effort continues, people put their effort in, and eventually the war will be won.

THE END.