[PALACE GAME - LAN WANGJI RUN]

[laughitoff]

Everything is red. You are dying, somewhere far beyond pain, the very essence of yourself going to pieces. You’re shattering so badly you don’t know if you’ll ever find all of yourself again, if you’ll ever put yourself back together. There are teeth on you, ripping, tearing, devouring. There are teeth inside you, carving their way out, and those are worse.

This is a memory, happening at a remove. It is not yours. This is not happening now.

Everything is grey. You wake up in a prison cell, eyes wide, the ceiling flat and blank and unfamiliar above you. For a moment you simply think, no. You think, Please, wasn’t it over? Wasn’t it enough? You consider closing your eyes again and refusing to get up, until oblivion reclaims you. Even if you’re no longer dying, everything hurts.

This is a memory, happening at a remove. It is not yours. This is not happening now.

What is happening, then?

You–

–sit up.

Comments

[strikingchords]

[he'll take his hands away and pet it again, eventually. his eyes are dry. it would take someone with a discerning eye to read the expression on his face.

he puts the bunny back after a few more minutes of petting and heads to the front of the cavern again; are the ghosts returned to full activity?]

[laughitoff]

[The ghosts are clustered around the crumpled fox in a desultory sort of way.]

[strikingchords]

[all right. he'll make a second hole in the ground with three uses of Heresy just outside the entrance of the cave, then: once to create a new protection circle etched into the ground, another to carve away a slab of stone, another to make the space underneath it. he marks this stone Pain with Bichen's edge. you could read it as either another grave, or a safe with a label.

places the two memories down there and covers them up again. he might put the sword there later too; he's still deciding.

assuming all that goes fine, he'll head back inside and move to go through the right door.]

[laughitoff]

[Right hall.]