Logs:P: Continue underground ambulation at least 3x weekly. Assistance recommended at 1x per week to address navigational impairments until pt can safely complete routine unassisted.
| P: Continue underground ambulation at least 3x weekly. Assistance recommended at 1x per week to address navigational impairments until pt can safely complete routine unassisted. | |
|---|---|
cn: (un)dead animals | |
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia
|
2024-05-18 "Maybe they'd let us make more distinctive patches of mold." |
| Location
<MOR> Below New York - Morlock Tunnels | |
Buried beneath the bustle and noise of New York's busy streets, the world underneath the city is a quieter place. Quieter, but far from deserted. Occasional ladders, often rusting, ascend to the city above and are evidence that at one point these tunnels had been in use, or had been planned for it; perhaps by way of maintenance, or access to subways or sewers. These stretches have been abandoned by civic infrastructure for some time now, though, but occasional scraps of evidence -- discarded food wrappers, piles of tatty blankets or moldering old mattresses, sometimes voices carrying echoes through the dank concrete -- give evidence that someone still uses these tunnels. The rumbling of subway trains sounds frequently through the walls, many of the train routes accessible through various doors and openings. At the moment, this tunnel looks much like the last, in that it doesn't look that much like anything at all. It's pretty dark, and it's somewhat wet. Zack's dim night-vision headlamp is bobbing a red halo over the grimy walls, over a tunnel branching off to the right, over an unidentifiable lumpy pile along the wall. His boots, jeans, and tee are all old worn but in sturdily good condition, clothing in better current repair than he is, face drooping off his bones a little more than it should and his arms kind of gone weirdly lumpy like there is more flesh missing beneath his not-elastic-enough skin than there should be. He's pulling a wagon along behind him, heaped higher than seems stable with a large assortment of food (dumpstered, but all also much fresher than he is), and the wet scrape of its wheels echoes oddly off the dank concrete. "Hm." He's backing up a few steps, tipping his head to face the tunnel they just passed. "Wait is this the third tunnel to the right or the fourth -- hmm." He's inspecting the walls just a little closer. "We should put up street signs. Does that patch of mold look familiar to you?" "Hm?" Gino was keeping a few steps ahead of Zack -- upwind, as much as that matters in the generally not-great smellscape of the tunnels -- but he pulls up short when he hears the wagon stop, turning to look over his shoulder. His clothes are somewhat less well-kept -- though there are colorful patches sewn along the shoulders and neck of his Hawaiian shirt, even these have begun to wear thin, spikes poking out through the frayed fabric -- but his skin seems too big for him too, though maybe the ridged formations on his face just give him an inherently raisiny look. "Third," he says, "We're in the right place." He comes a little closer, though, as though he is also checking out this patch of mold, though what he says is, "You think they'd let us put up street signs? I feel like they get off on their tunnels being fucking unnavig...ate...able. Maybe they'd let us make more distinctive patches of mold." Zack is still inspecting the mold a little longer, a little bit closer; perhaps his droopy lids and slightly clouded eyes are not greatly helping the current vision situation. "That one looks a little bit like Sonic the Hedgehog." This settles it enough for him to follow Gino's lead again, though, Sonic The Moldhog evidently not the mold he was looking for. "-- can you bonsai mold. Train it up to point the way." Gino laughs -- "Yeah, it does," before he starts back down the tunnel, his flip-flops echoing in rhythmic synchrony with the wagon wheels. He shrugs, then fussily picks some loose threads from his spikes when his shirt refuses to settle back to normal. "Beats me, I'm not a mold expert. Drew a smiley in the stuff in the shower once. I was like, yeah, wow, we really need to clean." He looks over his shoulder, a little past Zack, like he is considering going back and putting a smiley on Mold Sonic, but then just faces forward again. He stops as he reaches the tunnel -- "This feels like the right tunnel," he says, though he's giving the lumpy pile in the distance a dubious look. "...is the pile new?" "How many hours they say it takes to become an expert at a thing? Give it a bit, we'll be mold experts." Zack is trudging along after Gino again, but stops at The Right Tunnel (vibes-based.) He peers down the tunnel with an intent contemplation that, ultimately, ends in a complete unwillingness to commit to either agreeing with or contradicting Gino. Instead he's dropping the handle of his wagon and shuffling further down to prod at the pile with a finger. "Uh, well, I wouldn't say new," comes kind of absently. Zack is breaking off -- actually, just don't look too closely, shoving the large wet lump into his mouth as he continues to prod. After some time the lump -- it's sort of vaguely racoon shaped, now, though he hasn't returned it enough substance to have particularly definable features or much integrity -- kind of rouses itself. Shambles lopsidedly away from its perch. Probably it won't get far, it doesn't have much by way of intact legs. "Did come from thattaway, though. Once upon a time. That's promising, probably our food it was scavenging." Gino trails Zack toward the pile, but as soon as he realizes what it is he is stepping sharpish back again -- "Cool, cool," he says, "I'll just let you do your thang." Pronouncing it the gay way doesn't entirely eliminate the awkwardness of watching his companion eat a piece of rotten raccoon (and Gino, unfortunately, did watch that) but he waits it out politely. From a distance. "You can tell? Or are we following it back? Shit, just like Disney." He picks up the wagon handle, squinting after the raccoon -- when he raises one eyebrow there is a quiet but unpleasant grinding sound from his spikes. He tilts his head up, maybe looking for manhole-cover pinpricks of light somewhere in the gloom -- "Way too small to use a ladder, right? We're not near the subway though. Maybe homie broke his legs falling down a grate." "Oh, yeah, I can tell." Zack's mouth is a little full still but he is politely covering it as he gets back up. There are new small misshapen dents in his arm, now. He swallows, and gestures toward The Right Tunnel (raccoon/vibes-based) once more. "Oh he definitely won't get far, poor guy, but we're on the right track now for sure." Newly confident, he's forging ahead, only to be met with a sharp SNAP and a wet thud-crunch somewhere deeper in the gloom. For a moment he's silent. When he moves again it's a little more shuffly than he'd been. "Oh yeah!" Oddly, this is more cheerful than before. "This trap is definitely one of ours." "Told you I knew where we were going!" This is quite cheerful considering how abruptly Gino froze at the sound of the booby trap, even the wagon seeming to squeak with alarm. He starts walking again, now trailing Zack; as they are passing the late-late raccoon he suggests, maaaybe facetiously, "C'mon, grab that for later." | |
