revivalproject | Nowhere to run from all of this havoc

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Nowhere to run from all of this havoc

WHO: Kaz (who will eventually be an avatar of The Eye) and various people
WHERE: Temba
WHAT: October event
WHEN: 10/16 - End of October
WARNINGS: Probably this entire log will be riddled with CW but specific threads will have specific warnings so read at your own risk

For Tony
Between the giant eye floating above the entire city then a voice and something both speaking and a truly bizarre feeling which rocked through Kaz at the same time, and it was no surprise that Kaz lost consciousness. When he next woke it was to the sound of gunfire. Kaz knew that sound, though, and knew that he needed to find cover quickly. He recognized the sound of gunfire but it was coming from several sides. This wasn't one or two people firing. This was a warzone.

The sound of gunfire and deeper explosions that Kaz knew were mortars was barely muffled when Kaz found a way inside. The building he was in was barely more than the skeleton of a building and the roof had caved in on one side so that the floating eye was still visible beyond it's edge.

For Kyle
It felt like Kaz must be a mile underground by now. The way before him was getting narrower as he walked but the way back was either blocked off after a few steps or had become too narrow to walk through inexplicably. Just the tunnels themselves gave Kaz an unnerving feeling of being buried alive.

Now he came to what appeared to be some sort of chamber. It wasn't much of one and the walls weren't stone. They were the same as the things as the tunnels, just raw earth. If anything the chamber reinforced that feeling of being buried alive worse than the tunnels did.

For Kavinsky
The fire had come on slowly with blackening walls and smoldering plaster. But whatever had caused the ignition, Kaz watched as parts of the building he was in burned. It was smoke at first. Smoke that made Kaz's eyes water and his throat hurt from coughing. He wasn't able to find a window to get air so he was forced to lean against a wall and be lost in a coughing fit. But the wall was becoming hot to the touch so he had to blunder away blindly.

When he did find a window, the heat from the fire had broken out the glass, so Kaz gasped at the air it was letting in. It was still hot though, so it felt like trying to breathe in the hotter air from a furnace.

For Felwinter
It would have been a forest at night had their been folage on the trees, any sound beyond Kaz's footsteps or things like a moon or stars. Kaz couldn't use his cane on the soft forest floor so his limp was much more obvious as he tried to pick his way forward, being careful where he placed his feet.

Then something, maybe a sound or maybe a twig snapping that Kaz's feet didn't snap, made him pause midstep. Now the feeling the sound elicited made him look behind him. He wasn't sure what caused that feeling but he knew with absolute certainty that something was stalking him. The gloved hand around his cane tightened and Kaz was now being less cautious about where he put his feet as he picked up his pace. Soon he went from a slow walk to jogging, fast jogging and finally outright running. When he started running his limp was very obvious and now slowing him down considerably.

Open
Kaz could not see three feet in front of him for how thick the fog was. The ground was firm enough he could at least use his cane here but everything had the echoing open quality of being outside. Others might have the urge to raise their voice, but Kaz kept his voices volume as though he were talking to someone nearby. After all, he reasoned, being loud wouldn't do anything about how thick this fog was.

"Hello? Is there someone out there?"

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This was a nightmare. It was one that played out over and over again, for years, the stench of blood thick and the crack of gunfire tearing through his skull, and that wet, aching, searing, dense void clutched around his exposed heart. All Tony had to do was wake up. At first, he squeezed his eyes closed tighter, until stars appeared behind the lids and he had to risk taking a breath that tasted like gunpowder and rot, until he could force his eyes open.

The sky stared back down at him, its unforgiving, mechanical pupil hazy from smoke and a spray of dirt. Tony had been trying to send a text, just a second ago, but it was gone now, he knew that much, reaching urgently for it like it was somehow his lifeline and finding nothing. Silence. The next breath Tony took was a stuttering gasp that seared through his chest like the smog of the battlefield that was still raging around him was mustard gas, and he shoved himself upward despite the bullets that he could hear overhead and thumping into the dirt too close to him, and he clutched at his heart. What flesh there was under his hand gave way like butter, so smoothly that Tony hardly noticed at first while his wrist sunk too far into the hole the was already there, and was scorched, sending his arm leaping away again and Tony scrambling backward through the dirt like he could get away from himself. Every new, panicked breath he panted now made the heat in his lungs grow more intense, and he couldn't stop the hiccups as he tucked his chin down, trying to see.

There was a hole. A dire pit where his breastbone should have been, and inside there was only a radiant darkness, a flame that licked wickedly higher, up into his throat and pouring out and up toward his neck as he gasped his shock. It was surrounded by the scorched fringe of his shirt, mostly burnt away by the intensity of the heat that still crawled across the fabric, slowly eating its way toward the seams and leaving ash staining his skin, his chest flecked with embers like shrapnel that glowed with his broiling heart. His skin, though, it didn't burn. Tony raised his hand to inspect where his wrist had touched the fire, and found only the mud and blood of the battlefield, Tentatively, he touched his fingers to the skin around the flames, where it felt like putting his hand into the forge, but instead of blistering pain he found the skin of his chest slick and malleable, smooth under his fingers and bubbling only to drip in pink rivulets down his front.

To his right, the ground burst upward with a roar, sending a cascade of dirt across him as he flung himself to the side, arm over his head. Whatever this was, he couldn't stay here. He scrambled away from the explosion, shoving himself up onto his feet to go bolting across the battlefield and ducking into the first chance of cover he found. It was a building, looking thoroughly shelled already, and Tony charged in through the doorway to throw his back against the wall, the sprint leaving him gasping and the dark fire pouring out of his mouth.

Another person burst into the building Kaz was using for cover. Kaz first saw they weren't armed then it caught up to him that the other person looked wrong somehow. Upon seeing what was apparently flesh dripping like melted candle wax around what looked to be an empty hole over the spot where Tony's chest should have been, well. It was an understatement to say that Kaz was disturbed.

"...Stark? What happened to you?"

For all of the surprises that this place already had for him, the voice was not one of them. This nightmare was supposed to be his, from a place that was very far away, and when other people appeared it in, they rarely were in any condition to talk. And yet, Tony knew someone was here, a presence that he could taste, somehow, on the air in a slow, deep breath that tempered the fire in his throat. "Kaz," he acknowledged evenly, finally tangling the dream from what was feeling horribly more real as he spoke, "There was a bomb. Wasn't there?" His hand went to his chest again, touching lightly this time, where it wasn't sticky with blood from the mine that had left his heart full of shrapnel, but where it burned steadily. Blinking quickly, trying to spread his fingers to cover the damage (was it?), Tony redirected, "Where are we?"

On the other hand, Kavinsky was almost perfectly at home with the fire. Some of the voices he could hear behind the doors were familiar. Hearing them in distress made him conflicted. On the one hand, he should go to them, try to help. On the other, he'd already tried that and was unsuccessful. He'd never even been one much for 'helping' so that he felt the urge at all was something of a miracle.

Something was wrong though. Everything was really fucked up. He felt like some part of him was missing, like there was a gaping hole inside of him, but he couldn't explain it in words. He just knew he was missing something, like he was stifled. At the same time, he was aware of how dangerous he was right now, full of barely contained fire and flame and potential. There was an itch that needed to be scratched but he hadn't figured out how to satisfy it yet.

Dressed in a tank-top, jeans, and sneakers, his clothes left his arms and face bare to see that there was something wrong with him. Or, to be specific, something wrong with his skin. It didn't have the right texture or look to it; it was more waxy than anything.

He pressed a hand to the wall as he walked and when he pulled away there was a blackened print left behind on the wallpaper, a warning that his touch was dangerous. As he made his way towards Kaz, he smirked, the waxy texture of his face shifting disconcertingly.

"You okay?" he asked, but his tone was condescending. "You need a moment to catch your breath?"

This looked like Tony Stark, and sounded like Tony Stark, but from the hole in his chest to the weird way he asked the first question and Kaz was sure this was not Tony Stark.

"I don't know. Something broke the world and I passed out. When I came to, all hell was breaking loose."

Kaz used his free hand to gesture all around, which was meant to indicate the battlefield they found themselves in.

"...A bomb did this to you?"

Kaz doubted that very much since that didn't account for the melted wax flesh. But it seemed important to draw attention back to Stark.

Kaz did not turn to look at Kavinsky. He had enough breath back to be speaking over his shoulder.

"You don't want to try to taunt me."

The smell of freshly turned dirt is actually rather pleasant: a clean, fresh scent that is very much pregnant with life. The air in the tunnels below ground had no such redolence. As Kaz moved into the chamber he would find it filled instead with the hot green stench of things burst open on lonely highways. The walls of earth were slick with the stuff of broken garbage bags and leaking coffins and broken sewer pipes.

The far end of the cavern had another exit leading further into darkness. Huddled close to it, hugging the wall, was a naked human figure. It was crouched low, but even so it was possible to see it was emaciated nearly to the point of starvation, with long skinny limbs wrapped around its body, its skin visible only in shockingly pale flashes as it was absolutely covered in filth. As Kaz approached it turned its head, one eye rolling hideously to meet him, glaring white. Its mouth fell open and fetid breath wafted out.

"Kaz," it crooned in a thick, clotted voice. It unfolded itself and stood, tall and gangly and lacking even the most basic human grace. Truly the only thing familiar about it was its hair; even clotted with filth it was deep red and curly.

"Kaz," Kyle repeated, taking one tottering step forward. He kept his hands pressed over his stomach, hunching forward slightly as he cradled it. Another step forward.

"It's so good to see you," he whispered. "You don't want to be topside right now. Oh no. It's better down here. Safer." He shuffled forward another step. The light in the cavern was not good, but the closer he got the more Kaz could see. Kyle's flesh was not only covered with slime and ordure but also running sores. His face pulled in a terrible rictus as he tried to smile, revealing teeth that were rotting out of his head. One hand fell away from his belly and stretched toward Kaz, fingers reaching for his face.

"Come sit with us. I can show you my friends. Sit, Kaz. It's so... nice."

From the hall beyond the cavern came the soft sound of buzzing flies.

When the smell hit Kaz, he reflexively put a gloved hand over his nose and tried to breathe through his mouth. But he knew this particular disgust that all living things have and what caused it. So when something actually spoke to say his name, his eyes widened with shock. How could anything at all be that badly decayed and still be alive? The fact this used to be a person and more than that a redheaded person who also knew his name put him on a very short list.

It didn't look like it could possibly be alive, but this had to be Kyle.

Horrified, Kaz stumbled as he backed away from the hand reaching for him. Maybe others might say something to try to reason with Kyle, but whatever this thing before Kaz was, he very much doubted reason would work on it anymore. Kaz stumbled again and his back hit the raw earth of the chamber's wall. He could feel the urge to puke climbing up his throat, felt the panicky way he was starting to hyperventilate sieze his lungs. He was starting to tremble too.

Kyle didn't hurry, was indeed probably not capable of it in his current state. He just shuffled closer, mouth a skeletal grin, outstretched fingers searching. The nails were black and peeling. Watching Kaz begin to tremble he chuckled, the sound sly and rotten.

"Come on, Kaz," Kyle said. "Sit. You won't have to worry about anything anymore. You won't be hungry. You won't even want to move. You'll just... rest. In the dirt and the shit and the slime."

He advanced further, horrible grin widening at Kaz's immobility. His terror was as sweet as dandelion wine and Kyle wanted to gorge on it. His voice began to rise as he began to laugh, the sound a shrieking cackle devoid of any real mirth.

"In the filth Kaz, sit with us, you can rest, you can rot Kaz, you can feel yourself rot, you can feed the others and feel them in you, Kaz..."

Tottering forward Kyle pulled his other hand away from his belly. The skin above was red with lines of blood poisoning, the flesh of his thighs and groin dark and gangrenous. But the belly was the worst: a churning horror show of white in red.

Maggots were eating Kyle alive.

He shuffled forward another few steps. There was obscene plopping sounds when stuff dripped and drabbed off of him as he moved. His cackling rose higher and higher as he reached both hands toward Kaz now, fingers brushing harmlessly over the shoulders of his coat.

"Let me show you, Kaz! They're hungry, Kaz!" He was screaming now, screaming through his laughter. "Rot with us, Kaz! Sit and rot, it feels NICE, Kaz! Feed them, feed the fucking hive you fucking sack of meat!"

From the only exit came the buzzing sound again, louder than before.

That urge to puke was getting worse the more that this thing masquerading as Kyle revealed. Kaz was humiliated to be visibly shaking now. A wave of gibbering panic broke over him and since he could not retreat anymore, Kaz was quite literally a trapped animal that only knew it was afraid.

But when an animal is trapped it was also at its most dangerous.

So Kazsqueezed his eyes shut and once again reached into himself for the memory of a giant, mechanical eye looking down at the city. This time he was offering his will up to it gladly, with only the thought of getting away from the thing that Kyle had become, regardless of how much of his own sanity was striped away in the process.

This time when Kaz opened his eyes they had gone from panicked black to a green that glowed as if he had LED lights shining behind his irises. He no longer blinked but instead saw. Every part of the creature before him. Every secret buried deep in Kyle's psyche. Every whispered thought. Kaz was not in the driver's seat, so to speak, any longer and the gloved hand also fell away from his nose.

"N͟ơ, T̢he C̨or̀r̢u̷pti̶oǹ w̢iĺl͏ no̷t have҉ ̨yo͜u͟,͏ or͟ Thȩ ̵F͟le͟s͞h̷, Kaz ̧Br͟e͢k̢keŗ.̧ Yo҉u a̧re ͠m̡i̵n̡e i͘nstead͝.̶"

While it was Kaz's mouth that moved, what came out was not Kaz's voice. Or rather not only Kaz's voice. It was many voices, some male and some female, but all of them speaking the same words at the exact same time.

The dreaded sense of wrongness was like the paranoia that had seeped deep into his metal body for the decades, the centuries that he had spent on the move, hiding, running, suddenly swelled several-fold. It dispersed as quickly as it came, but never completely vanishing, a lingering sense that draped over him like a mantle, an unease that clung to his very being.

I don't like this, Felspring whispered within the comm of his helmet. Something's happened. Something's not right. They were hardly words that needed to be said. They both knew each other well enough to know what the other thought.

He was on the move now. He had to move, had to... It was more of a sensation than an actual directive, but put into words it would have made no sense to him. He had stared at his hands as though he could see through the worn gloves he wore, and yet they were somehow not enough, the helmet he wore was not enough. They'd know.

They can't know.

They won't know.

He moved quietly through the woods- when did they enter the woods? Were they not in the city? but it seemed that no amount of cover drove away that feeling, that sense of being watched, and the strange light, that great Eye could still be glimpsed through the snarl of twisting tree limbs. It was distracting enough that his attention drifted, the silence he had born in his favor broken by a single misstep, the offending twig easily crushed beneath his boot. He had not initially meant to stalk anyone, but the atmosphere made him tense.

He heard the movement ahead, Felspring noting that the figure had picked up speed somewhat. "Wait-" he started to call out, stopping himself just before he adjusted the volume of his tone, as though something seized his circuitry, an irrational decision to stay silent gripping him.

Do not give yourself away, it seemed to warn, and it wasn't the voice of his Ghost, but it felt like his own.

'Something broke' sounded correct, and reassuringly manageable, though what might have already been broken beyond repair made his mouth dry, and he stared out beyond Kaz at the murk of the battle and the oppressively watchful sky. Kaz only drew his attention back with the question, making Tony blink rapidly again to focus, then look down at his chest, lifting his hand cautiously away where he still kept it between him and the kid. "No--ah, no, it was--it's fine," he stumbled, shocked then that he had even admitted that much to Kaz, and pressing his hand more firmly where it sunk too deeply into his chest, the skin molding without resistance into the recesses between, and the jagged points of his bones.

"It it's broken, we have to fix it," he said decisively before Kaz could press any further, and turned to peek through the crack in the brick to the hazy street. There didn't appear to be any troops out there, their shouts and sound of gunfire constant but a distant background. "Where did all of these people come from?"

If Felwinter was intending to call out to Kaz, he didn't do so loud enough to stop Kaz's flight. It did, however, tell Kaz that someone had been stalking him. Kaz slowed to a stop in a small hemlock tree grove. He was breathing hard but short of making that sound, he kept his back to Felwinter.

"It would make for a better ending for you to show yourself now."

Tony's behavior, especially pushing his hand into the hole was creeping Kaz right out. It wasn't outright terror but a low-level disquiet that was causing worry for Kaz though he couldn't exactly say about what he felt anxiety over.

"That's another piece of this shitty puzzle I haven't figured out yet. For the moment all I've got is 'stay off the streets and out of their line of sight.'"

Kaz tried valiantly to look Tony in the eye beside him, but that hole kept drawing his gaze.

"...so, what were you doing before the shitty puzzle?"

That should have been a straightforward question, but something kept nagging at Tony, making his focus dart, trying catch what felt like it was tugging at him, and he only managed to mutter, "Uh...," before he had to swallow thickly with an audible click in his throat. Squeezing his eyes shut, he swept his free hand through his hair to tug at the short strands at the nape of his neck harshly enough to ground him.

Why did it matter? Maybe it would tell them something about why this was happening, and get them out of here. Eyes still shut to knit together a thorough memory, Tony reported, "I was in the shop. The armor's almost done, just have to keep changing the wiring in the helmet, and I can't afford to trash it, so it's a process, you know--" That part wasn't sounding important. "Then it got dark, and there was a--noise--..." he offered, the hand at his neck twitching to try to demonstrate the static that sparked through the network, "and this voice. I don't know where it was coming from, it was everywhere, and when I went outside there was that thing, that big eye, like when--" He opened his eyes then, first to look out at that awesome presence, then to slide cautiously toward Kaz. "That eye was there before, but I was at the forge, not this place." Tony finally let his hand drop from his neck, not looking confident that he had provided any helpful clues, and looked to Kaz with hopeful inquisition.

Kavinsky snorted. He wasn't very convinced, if at all.

"Uh-huh. What are you going to do?" He wasn't scared of other people on the best of days and today was...not the best. He felt powerful, but there was something gnawing away inside of him, too.

"The way I see it, I've got the upper hand." And he wasn't just talking about the gun tucked into the back of his jeans.

Silence responded to Kaz's suggestion, perhaps all the more unsettling with the stillness that settled upon the grove. There was no sound to further betray the idea that there was someone out there, no errant rustle of leaves, no panting of breath.

Felwinter stood unmoving in the shadows just beyond the grove, statue-still. Stop and stay. Do not reveal yourself. But you have the advantage. The thoughts were conflicting, finally eliciting the faint creak of leather as his fingers curled into a fist as though to stay his building frustration.

The voice that finally responded had a vague metallic echo to it, definitely familiar even if it had been some time that the two had spoken before.

"...you sound so sure of yourself."

That explanation wasn't much of an explanation at all. Kaz looked up at the roof of the building as though he could see that giant floating eye through it when Tony's non-explanation turned toward that.

"This isn't the first time I've seen it, either."

The first time he had, it was holding back the reality that was made by Billy's magic. It sounded like Tony's memory of that was addled about that, though.

"I don't remember being anywhere in particular, certainly not on a battlefield."

Kaz looked back up at the roof again.

"There is some correlation between where we are and that thing up there."

When Kaz did finally turn around to look behind him, his eyes had gone from black to a green that glowed as if he had LED lights shining behind his irises. He no longer blinked but instead saw. Every part of the creature before him. Every secret buried deep in Kavinsky's psyche. Every questionable deed.

"Because while you may think you have the upper hand, I still see everything about you, Joseph Kavinsky."

Kaz still had a rough texture to his voice. But the more that he spoke, the more an eerie, echoing quality was under it.

Of course it wasn't the first time, it couldn't have been that easy. Tony was already looking guarded, and he frowned then in warning, not interested in hearing about where Kaz had seen the eye before just yet. They had other options to explore, surely. Kaz not being 'anywhere in particular' did not help that exploration at all, though, and Tony wasn't going to let him bring their focus back onto the eye. Abruptly, he demanded, "Let's ask somebody." It was so simple, that should have been their first instinct, shouldn't it?

Tony pressed against the wall to try to see through that crack again, searching the street for anyone else. It was a wide avenue, with a battered and burned treeline bisecting it, and far across it another row of shell-shocked buildings. Tony stared, sure he saw a flicker of a shadow, some kind of movement across the haze, his shoulders jumping in a startle as a fresh hail of bullets echoed through the hollow towers.

When Kaz did finally turn around to look behind him, his eyes had gone from black to a green that glowed as if he had LED lights shining behind his irises. Those strange eyes found where Felwinter stood unerringly, though that should have been impossible thanks to the gloom that was shrouding Felwinter. Kaz no longer blinked anymore but instead saw. Saw every part of the creature before him. Saw every secret buried deep in Felwinter's psyche.

"I am. Because I will see you, either way, Felwinter. If you try to hide, that will mean you were planning, originally, to do something to me."

Kaz reflexively ducked down a little as more gunfire sounded, which was probably a pointless reflex since the wall between him and the street wasn't bulletproof.

"If you are going to break cover to ask someone out there where we are, you'll be riddled with bullets before you make it three steps out of the door. I doubt asking someone else for directions back to Temba is worth it."

"We can't exactly stay here," Tony growled back, less irritated by this suggestion than he was the reminder that the rest of Temba was out there somewhere, and they couldn't be the only ones who suddenly found themselves in the middle of this battle. They might have even been the lucky ones. With his hands still pressed to the wall, not yet giving up on the street outside, Tony turned over his shoulder to consider the room they were in more closely now that he was fully awake and the nightmare was proving insistently real. There were doors leading off toward the back, and on the opposite side of the caved in roof. There was a staircase, or what was left of one, clinging valiantly to the wall leading up. With a sniff, Tony peered back out at the street, and how the buildings were arranged across from them--a tight row, like townhouses, pressed up against each other.

"Come on," he encouraged, pushing away from the wall to approach the battered stairs and stand where the foot of them should have been, hands on his hips and looking up to where the first step actually began overhead. "I'll give you a boost."

Kaz gave the partial staircase a dubious look, but Tony was right; they couldn't stay here. Kaz let out a sigh of resignation and moved to stand next to where Tony already was.

"If this thing collapses under our combined weight, I'm blaming you for originally having this idea."

'A boost' meant cupped hands on Tony's knee. Kaz didn't think that would mean coming into contact with melted candle wax flesh?

Kyle stopped, eyes narrowing at Kaz. Where before there had only been terror there was now something else, and whatever had crawled inside of Kyle and made a home there didn't like it.

"Yes," he muttered thickly, both hands now reaching greedily toward Kaz. "Yes, come here, you belong here." The glowing green eyes unsettled him in a way he couldn't articulate, but the urge to drag Kaz down, screaming, into the filth with him was so much stronger.

He did not know how much the thing that Kaz was now could see. He didn't know exactly how much of his nice-boy-next-door façade was now brutally transparent; Kyle was an angry, hypocritical man responsible for the destruction of a major metropolitan city. He'd murdered a man before he hit puberty. There was a significant part of him that deeply enjoyed violence, and craved conflict like flowers craved sunlight.

Kyle was not as good a person as he liked to portray.

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Nowhere to run from all of this havoc

Desolation Tony // some body horror right away

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Desolation | cw: slight body horror??

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Corruption | CW: body horror, disease, wounds, bodily waste, insects, dead things

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cw: maggots, still more body horror, just assume all of this thread is gross

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Felwinter the Stranger

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