ArchivedLogs:Stuck in Reverse

Stuck in Reverse
Dramatis Personae Howl, Chelsea
In Absentia	2013-11-05 Chelsea crashes the Morlock homestead. Howl helps out and sends her on her way.
Location Underground
The tunnels are dark. It's easy to lose time down here, as what light there /is/ is nearly constant. In the unpopulated tunnels, some old incandescent lightbulbs glow steadily, one placed every twenty feet or so - enough to see by, though not enough to mimic daylight. Nonetheless, when you live down here, you get used to it. The one other thing there is, right now, is the steady, dull sound of wood tapping on stone, along with a slow shuffling sound; likely, it brings to mind someone walking with a limp and the aid of a cane, but once he's actually illuminated, one can more easily see Howl, using a sawed-off broom handle as a walking stick, and carrying a jug of water that sloshes in its confines as he walks. He's also wearing a blanket as a sort of cloak; it's dark in the tunnels and, as the year wears on, the air grows ever colder. The sound is so quiet could be a phantom echo, but just from one of the side tunnels near Howl's rounds, a soft whimper emerges. It could almost be dismissed as an animal sound if not for the telltale sounds of someone trying to muffle crying. Foxy ears perk at the sound of that whimper, and at first the man doesn't seem to react, but ears do swivel to face the sound. His hearing isn't any more super than a regular person's, but the shape of the ears do help to focus on particular sound sources. A moment passes before he does decide to investigate, heading down in the direction of that sound, but lifting that stick of his up so that he can use it more offensively, if necessary. In the dim light from an old, dying fluorescent, combined with the sparking of some exposed wires in the corner, a gruesome sight is revealed. It looks like a piece of the ceiling caved in from the tunnel above, leaving chunks of concrete and other debris all over the place in this section of tunnel. Among the debris is one massive chuck at least a meter across, with several pieces of rebar sticking up from it. Skewered on the exposed bars is a monster. Or at least to some people she'd be called that. A black girl in her early teens struggles, face up, to lift herself from the bars piercing her neck, chest and gut, but she can't get the angle right. The aspect that might be considered monstrous is her extra limbs. She has an extra left arm growing out of the same shoulder socket as the original, and two extra right legs. Her 'clothes' are not much more than a blanket wrapped around her, though a backpack is laying off to one side in the mess. Her extra limbs are pretty obviously extras. They jut out at odd angles, jammed in next to the originals, and are more than useless, they actually hinder her attempts to un-skewer herself. Though it's debatable whether she could do it anyway, given the angles involved. Blood pools in sticky puddles all around, under the girl's concrete slab. She gasps and chokes when Howl comes into view. "Please," she croaks. "Please don't go..." For a long moment, all Howl can do is stare, his mouth opening and closing helplessly several times before he can so much as make a peep. After an initial gasp of shock, though, the words come out in a long stream, though perhaps unfortunately for the girl, his initial outburst is Welsh. "{Oh my god, what happened?! Oh god, what should I do...}" He's clearly fretting, going by his tone, but he's chewing on his lip with pointy teeth, and, despite his attempts at maintaining composure, actually starts to pace back and forth in a small circle. "{No, Hywel, you have to calm down, if you can't handle yourself in a crisis then nobody will take you seriously.}" A deep breath, there, and he closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "{Calm down. Calm down. You're probably confusing her, speak English.}" Finally, he detaches himself enough from his external internal monologue to turn to the girl, though he can't bring himself to actually look /at/ her. "{Oh god, there's so much blood...} I-- I am sorry, I-- sometimes I forget. English. I am sorry. I am not sure what I should do." Holding his hands out helplessly, he kneels near the girl's legs, looking at the floor beneath himself in his continued attempt not to actually look at the girl herself. "You-- you must stop moving. I think. Do you want some water?" From the tone of his voice, he's obviously struggling to fight back a stronger outburst. The girl swallows hard, and squeezes her eyes shut in a failed attempt to stem the flow of tears. "Fuckin... luck... foreigner..." she chokes out as Howl paces. She tries to shake her head at the offer of water, but immediately regrets it as the bar in her neck tears the skin at the front of her throat. Essentially stuck like a turtle, the girl reaches out her good arm, the one not inhibited by extra limbs, and croaks, "Just... /pull/..." Howl recoils when the girl holds out her hand, gnawing on his lip again and shaking his head several times. "I-- I am not sure that is a good idea, your wounds will start bleeding freely and I do not have anything to bandage them with." And while it isn't showing in his tone, if the light were just a bit brighter, one would see that Howl himself has also started crying. Not exactly sobbing, but there is a definite flow of tears as he struggles to hold himself together. "I know it hurts but-- but you need a physician. {This isn't good...}" He shakes his head a few more times, pushing himself back to his feet with the aid of that walking stick. "I will come back. I will find help." "No no no no," the girl gasps. Apparently that syllable is easier to say. "Please don't go..." She tries to suck in a breath impeded by both the bar in her throat, and the one in her chest. "My ability... will heal..." She blinks, and seems close to passing out. "Your.. oh! Oh my goodness I'm sorry," Howl stammers, just continuing to shake his head, shaggy hair going all over the place. He sets down that stick and jug, then, and bites his lip as he leans over again to take the girl's hands, and forces a weak smile. "Just.. just be careful. I've got you." The girl grabs onto Howl's hand, and actually manages to help a lot. The boy probably couldn't have just lifted her off the bars, but she gets her useful leg underneath, and shoves upward, while pulling with her arm. She comes off the bars with a sickening *schlurp* sound, and tumbles forward onto her hands and knees, letting go of Howl. She vomits onto the dusty tile floor, but the wound at her neck is already closing, right in front of Howl's eyes. Once that ordeal is finished with, Howl jumps backwards when his hands are released, though he does quickly kneel down to pick up his things again. Once those are gathered, though, he just sort of stands against a wall opposite the girl, chewing on his lip quietly as he looks the scene over, while also avoiding actually /looking/ at most of the things there. "Thank God, you're alright," he murmurs, mostly to himself, but after a moment or so has passed he does take another hesitant step forward. "Would.. would you like some water? I'm afraid it is warm, but it's drink... you can drink it." In just moments, the girl coughs, and spits a bloody wad onto the floor, but that seems to be the end of it. She struggles to her feet, balancing on her good left leg. The triple-right-leg seems usable, but when she moves, it looks like a huge burden for her to haul around. Her extra left arm dangles from the back of her shoulder, leaving both arms fairly useful, but she obviously favors the right hand. Once fully upright, she tries to pull the tattered remains of her blanket around her middle, tucking it in under her arms, like a bath towel that reaches down past her knees. So many knees. She nods at the offered jug, and approaches skittishly. "Thank you for not running away. I'm-" It seems like she has to think for a moment, like maybe she hasn't had to make introductions in a while. "I'm Chelsea." Howl even goes so far as to uncap the jug before he passes it over, nodding gently at the introduction as he runs a hand over his hair. And while he does look a bit uncomfortable, nonetheless he proceeds to ask, at least gently, "I am sorry to have to ask this, but what were you doing down here? It's..." He pauses, there, cutting himself off before he says something he probably shouldn't. Thinking the matter over, eventually he settles on, "It's not safe. Why don't I walk you out?" "It ain't safe up /there/, Fuzzy. I've been living in tunnels for almost a year." Chelsea drinks long and deep from the jug, and gasps when she comes up for air. "Thank you so much for that. I'm not going back out again, but I can take off if this is your turf or whatever. I just wish I could thank you somehow..." She thinks, and then remembers her backpack, half way across the room. She hobbles over to it, scoops it up and rummages inside. She holds up a mostly full 16-pack of duracell AA batteries. She holds it like it's pretty special to her. "I found these last month... I could... split them with you, if you want? I would have died, I think. If you hadn't come along." Eyes widen a bit, but Howl shakes his head a few times, holding up a hand - Chelsea may notice that he has dulled claws - to gently push the batteries away. "That's very generous of you, but there's no need. I only did what anyone else would have done." He lifts his hand to scratch the back of his neck, looking back in the direction he'd come from, and letting out a quiet sigh. "These particular tunnels have a tendency to be... /particularly/ unsafe. It really would be best if you were to find somewhere else. I /am/ sympathetic, but… there’s simply no way of getting around it.” He chews on his lip quietly for a moment, once again looking down that tunnel, and ultimately lets out a sigh that he at least /attempts/ not to make too audible. “I could probably assist you in getting out, at least?” "/Not/ everyone would do that, Fuzz." Chelsea's lower lip quivers slightly as she stares up at the unacceptably tall man. "That's why I live down here. Like living on the street wasn't bad enough. When 'lefty' here showed up," She reaches over and thwaps the forearm of her extraneous limb. "Even the street rats wouldn't put up with me. I live down here, ok?" She's relatively close to tears. "So just point at your turf, and I'll go the other way. Sorry to bother you…" She sniffs, and looks up and down both ends of the tunnel, trying to decide which way might be best. Aw jeez, that was clearly not the reaction Howl was going for, because the man, unacceptably tall as he is, is suddenly actually blushing a bit as he stammers, waving the hand holding the stick in small movements - avoiding actually damaging anything /with/ said stick. “There are /other/ tunnels, that aren’t connected with these ones…” He bites his lip, frowning a little bit, and shuffles his feet. “Just… if you are going to stay here, it would be best if you stayed on that side of this area here.” He points, with the stick, in the direction opposite that which he’d arrived from. “Any further in from here and you’ll just as like find yourself in more trouble.” Chelsea turns and uses the movement to clumsily hide the wiping away of narrowly avoided tears. Nope! No crying here. She sniffs again and pulls a corner of her weird body-wrap to wipe her nose on. Definitely not crying. She does look a little confused with Howl's directions though. "Wait, what? That's yours, so I should stay over here?" She takes a few steps in the direction he pointed, watching Howl for his reaction. Howl nods gently at Chelsea’s questioning. “Yes, just over there. I… don’t mean to suggest you should skulk around in this dismal setting,” he adds, gesturing to the grisly remains of earlier events, “but see it as somewhat of a warning that you’ve gone too far, if you get my meaning.” He looks, then, back towards his own ‘turf’, and lets out a small sigh as he turns back to Chelsea. “I am sorry if it seems I am abandoning you. I will see about bringing you some water, if I can. Another blanket, perhaps. It has been getting cold at night, as of late.” The line of her mouth hardens, and she nods at Howl's explanation. She looks back down at her bag, stuffs the batteries away, and retrieves a headlamp which she straps on to her head. "Ok, yeah. Well, thanks again. For saving me." She frowns, looks up at the handsome man again, and then just nods. With that, she turns, slings her backpack up and heads down the approved section of tunnel.