OPEN POST; [ JAMES SUNDERLAND / SILENT HILL 2 ]

[redsquares]

(( out of her head, she sang ))

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[redsquares]

[The lock disengages with a click! Good job!! James raises his brows.]

Oh, clever. It meant it literally.

[Should Ivan inspect the rusted box, it creaks open to reveal a ceremonial knife. A sharp blade with an ebony handle and a skull carved into its base.]

Is that it?

[There’s also an inscription along the blade, should Ivan be keen-eyed enough to spot it:

sunder a friend’s heart in two
usher in life anew ]

[reapoman]

[ A ceremonial what now. It's hard not to spot a fancy knife sitting in the bottom of a rusted box, harder still to ignore the inscription on the blade.

He very, very tentatively reaches in to take it out. ]

"Sunder a friend’s heart in two. Usher in life anew."

[ How do you feel about that, Mr. Sunderland. ]

[redsquares]

[hm don't like that

He seems to cotton onto the notion because, a bit deadpan-]

Please don't stab me in the heart, Ivan.

[reapoman]

[ Just as deadpan, ]

I wasn't planning on it.

[redsquares]

Good. I still need mine to function, believe it or not.

[The (self-deprecating) humor is probably misplaced in a situation like this one, but it feels good to dispel the tension somehow, even if it returns a moment later.]

Whatever you actually need that for, I don’t think we’ll find it in here. Let’s head back, and hope all those figures outside will be nice enough to wait for us.

[reapoman]

[ Misplaced or no, it gets something that might be a distant relative of a chuckle out of Ivan. The tension has been successfully broken, if only for a moment. ]

Good to know.

[ He glances around at the windows, what few there are. The figures seem to be a tad less restless now that some kind of progress has been made. ]

Let's try the other doors off the sanctuary, then.

[redsquares]

[Ah, they've bought themselves a little bit of extra time, for what it's worth. He tilts a head towards the exit.]

All right. Off we go.

[To the sanctuary! And then... to the opposite door, which opens up easily enough.

Unlike the previous room, this one is filled to the brim. Crowded, even, with a relatively eerie sight: rows upon rows of mannequins, all of them faceless and grungy, yet each and every single one dressed differently. It's a bit surreal, but it's very Silent Hill.]

...Charming.

[reapoman]

Christ.

[ Is it weird for a reaper to invoke the name of Jesus? Who knows. They're in a church, so at least the venue is appropriate.

Into the creepy mannequin room he supposes, looking around for something of note. ]

[redsquares]

[It's a mood, though. And at least these aren't mannequins with four pairs of legs...

James follows down an "aisle" of mannequins, clearly more on edge than before thanks to his past experiences in this town. Nothing jumps out at them, but he does start slightly when the blade of his chainsaw accidentally bumps into one, sending it listing backward.]

Shit.

[He reaches out to steady it.]

...They're pretty light; it feels like they're hollow on the inside. What did that knife say again?

[reapoman]

[ Ivan nearly whips around and summons his weapon right there when the mannequin jostles, but he calms down pretty quickly when he realizes it was just James bumping into one. ]

It says to sunder a friend's heart... so I've got to look for one of these things that looks familiar and stab it, I imagine.

[redsquares]

Less of a puzzle and more of this place being... [Rude?] Well, symbolic, I guess.

[He doesn't know exactly how Ivan took lives to fuel his necromancy before—if knives and stabbing were involved at all—but James knows better than to ask so bluntly. He won't.

He'll just walk along, eying the mannequins still.]

See "anyone" familiar?

[They're all dressed in a myriad of ways, all modern clothing, though. How perceptive is Ivan right now?]

[reapoman]

Not as of yet.

[ Rattled as he is by the presence of the book in the other room, Ivan's as sharp as ever.

Of course, the downside is that Ivan has met a lot of people in his 600 some odd years, and that includes people in the modern era. So the mannequin will have to be quite distinctive for him to know it's right. Apart from his burgeoning friendship with James, there's really only one other person Ivan might consider himself on friendly terms with. ]

[redsquares]

[Well, luckily for the two of them, maybe the term "sunder" wasn't used randomly on the blade's inscription. Because, somewhere in the corner, there is a mannequin dressed in an army green jacket, a slate blue button-up with a belt and jeans. Even the shoes!

Perhaps it grabs Ivan's attention more so because it has a flickering flashlight sending out a weak beam of light, poking out from a jacket pocket.]

[reapoman]

[ okay but does it look like it's reached into toilets at any point—?

The light does catch Ivan's attention first, and he glances over, stepping close to get a better look at the source.

Oh.

Looks at the mannequin. Looks at James. ]

The resemblance is uncanny.

[ Hilarious. ]

[redsquares]

[NO 😭

He's just a step or two behind, stopping when Ivan finds the mannequin. Looks at it. Looks at Ivan.]

You're hilarious.

[Gestures at the flashlight. First and foremost-]

Hey, hand me that.

[reapoman]

[ He reaches over and plucks the flashlight from the mannequin’s pocket easy enough, and hands it over. ]

Anything else you want before I go stabbing this thing? Change of clothes?

[redsquares]

[He takes the flashlight and pockets it. Even if Ivan can summon up magical light, better safe than sorry.]

You think I want to wear anything that thing is wearing?

[Its clothes are dirtied and who knows where they've been, but he says it like he hasn't done far more questionably gross things in this town before.]

[reapoman]

[ Ivan raises an eyebrow, very much aware of the questionable things James has told him about so far. ]

I don't know, do you?

[ Don't answer that. Ivan isn't really expecting a response in the affirmative anyway, given how he pulls that knife back out and gives the mannequin a poke with the point of the blade. He's checking for some kind of trap, but also he's making sure this doesn't actually affect James in any way. He wouldn't put it past this place to get all voodoo on him. ]

[redsquares]

[HE WILL NOT DEIGN TO GIVE THAT A REPLY, ANYWAY

The mannequin doesn’t move. The knife’s tip hits its body from beneath the clothing it’s wearing, so its surface seems hard, at least. Breakable.

James sets his jaw, also half-expecting to feel some sting of pain, like this were some weird version of voodoo… But nothing.

But, he can’t help himself, despite the situation-]

Ow.

[reapoman]

[ Ivan gives James yet another flat look in a long line of flat looks, before giving the knife a probably concerningly deft twirl in one hand, bringing the blade down on the mannequin's chest.

He doesn't have to try terribly hard, strong as he is and as brittle as these things are. The clothes are just kind of in the way, so he slices the fabric away as well.

What we got in here? ]

[redsquares]

[Isn't he funny!

The cloth cuts away easily. The chest of the mannequin, though brittle, only cracks down the middle; a narrow fissure, which means that this might take one or two more attempts from Ivan to wrench it open.

Which might be a good thing, because at least they'll get a hint of what's to come. As soon as the mannequin cracks, water starts leaking out. A slow but steady stream, enough to soon soak the front of its shirt. A faint beam of light shines through the opening, and a very muffled, very distant... note of some kind sounds. Constant.]

Um. [He has a bad feeling about this.] What the hell?

[reapoman]

Took the words right out of my mouth.

[ What the hell!

Once he's cut enough of the shirt aside and chipped away at enough of the mannequin's body, Ivan pockets the knife to wedge his fingers into the fissure instead, pulling it apart enough to spill water everywhere, for one, but also enough that he can reach inside.

He gives James crap for reaching into any old hole around Silent Hill, but Ivan's clearly operating on the same level of "fuck it". ]

[redsquares]

[That level of "fuck it" usually gets the job done, it's true, but there's something about the water spilling out from the mannequin that has James feeling uneasy. That light; that odd sound. It's familiar, but he doesn't exactly know why.

Ivan reaches in, and it's like he's reaching through a doorway rather than groping around the interior of a closed space. In fact, the more he opens up that fissure, the more he can glimpse, reflected back, the glimmering surface of water that he's stuck his hand in — the bright, bright shine of light hazy beneath it, but growing more luminous by the second. And defying all physics, the liquid continues to spill down, run over, splattering at both men's feet.]

Ivan... I don't-

[Know if he should keep his hand in there. James sets his jaw, worried.

The light draws closer to the "surface." Its form sharpening to reveal there are two of them; twin, circular beams. That single-note droning becomes louder. It almost sounds like-

A car horn?]

[reapoman]

[ There is truly an impossible amount of water coming from this mannequin, but now that it's been cracked open, it's not like Ivan can put it back together again. Does he look like the Flex Tape guy to you? ]

Is that... a car?

[ What. JAMES IS THIS ONE OF YOUR ENDINGS— ]

[redsquares]

[ 🙂

A car? James' heart jumps up and sticks in his throat, and he steps forward enough to peer over Ivan's shoulder, just in time to see those headlights careen up and up, closer to them. The horn's starting to blare, indicating the space between where it exists and where they stand is getting smaller and smaller.]

Ivan!

[James drops his chainsaw in favor of bodily tackling Ivan out of the way. Just in time, too, because in a truly, truly bizarre sight, the mannequin itself explodes in an impossible column of cold, oppressive water, as though a dam had just broken. Like a portal's just opened up, spilling an entire tidal wave into the room.

And the car—a 1977 Pontiac Ventura, painted a dull aqua green—bursts through this display of water like an unhinged, metal sea creature breaching the surface, chassis groaning and horn screeching as it rises in the air...

And splashes right back down into the lake again, slowly, slowly sinking. A perilous few feet away from them.

Wait— lake?]

Shit!

[The room is filling up with cold, churning water, all around them, worrisomely fast. The excess mannequins go swirling away, crashing into each other as they're pushed to the room's walls from the explosive sight in the center.]