Rochelle's Journey: Breakdown

[Laraqua]

The boot is warm and smells of oil stains and skinned rabbits. It's hard to think why the musty odour reminds her of skinned rabbits, but it does. Something about that taxidermy shop has always lingered with her, deep in the recesses of her subconscious mind, to give her a metaphor she doesn't want. It's been days. She's sure of that. Days since Jack poked a conspiracy that killed him. Days since that woman Ash and the neurotic mother walked in through the doors of her bar. Ash had seen some kind of connection and she was such a vibrant, convincing woman. It was hard not to think that maybe the drug dealers were somehow responsible for the drowning ... or that maybe the lake was what did it. Something about her made all those horror stories seem real, believable.

Something about her led Rochelle into doing something stupid.

She'd tracked the dealers across the foggy lake as they made their way in the Indian Runner, her with nothing but a row boat, always somewhat out of sight, able to hear them even as they chugged along. She'd been so sure she'd been careful, so sure she'd kept herself invisible. She didn't even know who they were. That was the weirdest thing. Most drug dealers were paranoid but these guys hid themselves in darkened rooms and wrapped their heads in scarves or wore gas masks. It was like they knew they couldn't trust her.

They were right.

She'd followed them to a small dock further down the southern side of the lake that she didn't even know existed. She wagered that she was somewhere near where Hope House Orphanage once was, before it burned down, but she couldn't be sure. She couldn't see anything through that enormous fog as she'd paddled to the shore and dragged her row boat up the side of the embankment, far enough away from the dock that they surely could never see her. She could always follow the lake to the right and she'd find them.

Only no such luck.

They were on her out of the shadows before she'd managed to fully dock the oars. There were footsteps behind her and as she reached for her gun, there was a sudden explosion of sound and pain that arced across her head. For a moment she'd thought she'd been shot, or stabbed, but no such luck. Someone had smacked her across the back of the head. She could feel the blood congealing there even now. Everything had gone fuzzy. Maybe it'd been clear while it was happening but it was hard to think back on it. They'd shoved her in the boot of a car and left her there. She was concussed. She knew that. She had to fight not to sleep. But then the car started up and she was driven ... somewhere along a dirt road. The engine didn't sound healthy. It really didn't sound healthy as it rounded a bend. Then the engine cut out entirely.

The boot opened and she saw him there. A man in a hazmat suit, face obscured, and he yanked her out by the arm. She struggled, but she was still weak, that blow had really taken it out of her, and she was dragged out of the boot onto unsteady legs and shoved to the ground. He put a boot against her chest and dangled something over her throat ... a shovel ... then moved it so it was poised over her face.

[Kallisto73]

This was it... She was going to die. Battered to death by a masked man with a shovel. She felt nauseous, and she felt dizzy. And sooooo tired. Maybe not doing anything was the best thing. She was so exhausted. And he was so much taller and stronger after all. And she was hurt and weakened from lack of food, water and the concussion.
But then, something stirred at the back of her mind "Rochelle Ann Turley, you have never given up easily". She lifts her hands to get a hold of the shovel (

Spoiler:

grapple roll http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3436506/ I'm hoping I'm doing this whole invisible castle linking thing right. Of course,I fail to grapple the shovel

). Her arms are too heavy, she cannot hold on to it.

[Laraqua]

From somewhere out there comes a long, low sound that rises up into an eerie wail like an old air raid siren. The man looks around, then chuckles, the sound oddly muffled within the mask, and then he looks up and sees something beyond the car. His grip on the shovel slackens, and it's all Rochelle can do to try to roll out of the way, exposing the side of her neck to the blade as it drops down toward her. She catches a glimpse of red shoes from beneath the car and then there's pain and spurting blood as the sharpened shovel strikes her throat and slides off to hit the ground with a thud. The man continues to stare past her over the car and then, slowly, he reaches his hands up to grip the sides of his head.

[Kallisto73]

She sees the read shoes, and she feels the blood flowing freely from her neck. Is this the artery? Is this it? Well, she thinks quickly, remembering her first aid classes, if it were, the blood would gushing out at intervals, consistent with her pulse. It isn't, "Okay, I'm not dying just yet." She decides to take this moment of her attacker being distracted by the red shoes, to get onto her knees and scramble away, away from the car. She is unsteady on her feet, but she runs, runs, runs.

I actually don't know what to roll for here,there is no "run" skill as such. I suppose you could roll my speed against his speed on the resistance table for me to see do I get away. Unless Red-shoes just shoots me in the back, that is ;) ;)

[Laraqua]

Rochelle charges to her feet, clasping at her wound instinctively, and staggers away. She can hear the man make a low groaning sound that rises up to a scream. Glancing back, she sees him struggle to remove the mask, blood pouring down the gaps, but she can't look long as there's so many trees and scrub in the way that she has to fight through, brush through, dodging around trunks and moving through the forrest. The blood flow is already slowing, but her throat still throbs with agony. It wasn't the sharpness that hurt her the most, then, but the weight. Her head throbs with each step and his wail is abruptly cut off as she continues to run away from the path. Abruptly, a dirt path appears before her, winding back up the slope and then moving forward in a line. There's a stone well off to one side with a steel grate lodged over the mouth.

[Kallisto73]

She had got away! She couldn't believe it. She looked round to get her bearings

Spoiler:

failed navigate roll http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3439917/

. She did not have the faintest idea where she was.
She decides to check out the well.

Spoiler:

spot hidden successful http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3439927/

.
She also listens intently but can hear nothing http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3439928/.
She sits down next to the well and peers in. She also takes stock of her possessions (if she has anything on her). She looks up, she can hardly see the sky for the trees. "What time is it? What day?" she wonders.

[Laraqua]

"Hey, who's there?" demanded a male voice behind her, half a dozen yards away.

[Kallisto73]

She jumped to her feet and whirled around to look at where the voice had come from.
She also looks around to see are there any branches she could use as a weapon.

[Kadael]

"Oh, my God," Lily whispers, her eyes fixed on the blood dripping from the woman's neck. She grabs onto her brother's arm purely out of instinct. She wants to say something more, but her voice catches.

This isn't how she envisioned her first conversation outside her brother's house.

[Kallisto73]

Rochelle raises her fists and says "Who are you people?"

[Laraqua]

Pine trees don't produce the most powerful weapons although there is a piece of fencing that could be torn off with a little effort. Out of the two people facing her, however, one is holding a tyre iron and that'd likely win out of a fight with a splintery piece of wood. The man holding it has his lips twisted into a smirk though his eyes - his eyes hold a mixture of contempt and consideration - as though he were both sizing her up sexually, eyeing her off as an inferior being, and considering whether he might have to use his weapon against her. His brown hair is cut short in a crew cut and his body beneath the expensively tailored suit is obviously quite fit and strong, with the edges of a black tattoo visible around his wrists and poking up around his shirt collar. Other than that, he's quite an ordinary looking man.

"Slit throat yet you're all fight," said the stranger. "Women!" He looks down at the younger woman clutching at him. "Go tend her wounds. She's obviously been attacked by the same person who...." His fingers clutched the tyre iron tighter and his jaw clenched, then he re-directed that heavy gaze back at Rochelle. "What the fuck happened to you, and don't spare the details."

Show,Describe yourselves and what you look like.

[Kadael]

"B-but I..." Lily's arms fall to her sides with a sharp movement, and she forces herself to look at the woman's face instead of her neck. Her gray eyes are too open, and don't blink; a few of her teeth are visible like little pearls wrapped in red velvet. The utter blankness of her expression seems permanently frozen on her pallid face. It's as though she's a life-size porcelain doll, just a collectible of the man who stands beside her.

She moves forward, her legs stiff and jerky underneath the heavy velvet of her skirt. "I don't know how... I'll try..." Her lips form the words almost mechanically. She doesn't seem to be talking to anyone in particular.

The edge of a wide, black ribbon is starting to come loose from one of her long sleeves, and she tears at it, intending to use it as a makeshift bandage. As long as she doesn't tie it like a tourniquet...

[Kallisto73]

At the man's words, Rochelle's nape hairs rise. That was just the kind of treatment she did not accept from anyone. 41 years and this boy was talking down to her? She draws herself up to her full height, which is quite a feat considering she has just been slashed with a shovel. Her short dark hair is matted with blood, sweat has been trickling down her face (or are those wet streaks tears?)
She looks at the woman approaching her and then back at the man. "Well, quite frankly, I don't take orders, not from you or anyone else. So, if you will tell me nicely who you are, I may answer your questions , if not, then I guess you will have to take your girlfriend and get lost, young man."
Then she turns to the woman: "Give me that piece of cloth you have there, I will dress my wound myself, I don't exactly let strangers near my carotid artery, especially not if they don't even have names."
She now looks down at herself: her jeans are stained, but dry. Her shirt is full of blood, but that is no real surprise. There's also blood on her hands, which she wipes on her trousers. She stretches out her right hand towards the young woman, "Go on, give me that cloth."

[Laraqua]

The man's eyes flash in response to those words, and he grabs Lily's wrist, hard. "Let the bitch bleed," he says in a low growl. "She wants to get uppity, fine, but let her know her place in this. Victim. And victims don't get far in this world." He looks around, releases Lily, and laughs abruptly with a big flap of his arms. "Especially in this world. I've seen their handiwork. I've noted their choices. And I'm sure they only released you so they can run you down once more." He turns his grin on Rochelle, then lets it slip off his face with a kind of false compassion and pity. "I'm sure you'll get far with a wound like that. I'm sure you're in a position to draw a line in the sand. I'm sure you have no need for protection by someone who can actually keep you safe from them." He advances a couple steps. "And I'm sure you can fight me off, that you have strength enough to match those words, behind those paltry little fists and with all that blood loss. I'm sure you're tougher than me." He glances back at Lily. "See? This is the kinda stupidity the modern world enforces. Everyone's entitled to think they're superman."

[Kadael]

Lily glances back and forth between her brother and the woman, the scrap of ribbon still clutched in her hand. The situation taking place before her is almost enough to make her forget the revulsion. Girlfriend? Is that what people think of us?! God...

"Charles, please..." She trails off into inaudible mumbles as the cold hand of fear grips her. Charles has never hurt anybody... well, she's never seen him hurt anybody. Still, she has some idea of her brother's strength.

You always said you'd use it to protect me.

The rivulets of blood on the woman's neck are almost beautiful. That's life, dripping from her throat. Lily stares, then swallows her fear, and everything becomes clearer.

What are you protecting me from now?

"I won't let you hurt her." A step forward, and then another. "You- you should be better than this, Charles. You're my big brother."

Lily places herself between them, looking into Charles's eyes for a moment. "I love you."

[Kallisto73]

„Brother?“, she thinks to herself, „Well, maybe blood does run thicker than water, why else would she stay with him?“ She feels a slight dizziness, but at least the wound has stopped bleeding now. “But I will need some food and drink, like after donating blood. I think a lie-down is out of the question.”

“Listen”, she says, “I don’t know what your story is, nor do I know who you are. But I can tell you one thing: there’s a drug smuggling gang not far from here, they did in my bar tender, Jack. And they may have killed a little girl. I followed them to try to find out more, but they caught me. I think we should get out of here, because they will definitely come back. I have no idea where we are, but I need to get back to Silent Hill and talk to the police. I don’t know what your plans are, but if you know where we are and how I can get back, it would be great if you told me.”

The effort of speaking and standing has made her slightly breathless, she stumbles back a little, but steadies herself on the fence.

[Laraqua]

"We're on some kind of hiking trail," says Charlie, ignoring his sister's pleas yet still abiding by them. "We came down off an observation deck just off County Road since the tunnel was closed up for maintenance. We're also heading for the police."

[Kallisto73]

"Observatin Deck, okay, then we're South-East of the city. That's gonna be a long treck for me." replies Rochelle.
"You wouldn't have anything to eat, by any chance? Some chocolate or something perhaps?"

[Kadael]

Well, it always works in the movies... Lily frowns and folds her arms, not used to being ignored. At least she feels safer, comforted by the thought that Charles and the woman probably won't rip each other to shreds now.

"So we can go together, right?" She tries her best to look as young and idealistic as possible, with a wide grin and clasped hands. "Because you know where we are, and Charles can keep us out of danger..."

Wow, drug smuggling and murder? This town is so mysterious!

[Laraqua]

"If she can keep up," says Charles, swinging the tyre iron idly as he moves to pass Rochelle and continue on down the dirt path.