Dririmancy - Verna v. Mr. Clean and the Heebie Jeebies

dririmancy

Morning, 27th of May.

On the 27th of May, Verna Gardner found a reinforced door wrenched and battered by a great force and a scattering of blood-drops. Verna Gardner found the laboratory she had so painstakingly put together, overseeing equipment and deliveries, battered by other great forces, wrecked and wracked. The police haven't kept her informed. With René gone, and Carmen the only other staff, strange as it is much of the paperwork for the lab's insurance might have fallen to Verna. It's a twilight place she's occupying, work-wise, and if she's been looking for another job, one that isn't blood-splattered and torn to pieces, who'd blame her? Days have passed since that day. It's been almost two weeks. Still no word.

There may never be word. This isn't a kind world.

On the 27th of May, Verna Gardner called her friend and tried not to scare her, and to Marie's credit she didn't go onto a selfish diatribe, but seemed far more concerned about Verna than she was about where she was going to drop the kids. She didn't mention them at all except to say, "Maybe another time will be for the best. Verna, you don't think you're in danger, do you?"

Gossip circle being what it is Verna found herself with a few concerned facebook messages or texts.

Curtain opens on June 5th, a Thursday. Nine o' clock in the morning.

Verna Gardner, where are you and what are you doing?

[Where-ever you are and whatever you're doing, roll a Perception + Awareness please.]

Verna Gardner

[Perception 3 + Awareness 1!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 3 )

Verna Gardner

Verna is, of course, looking for a new job. It's not an easy process even in the best of times, and this is not the best of times. Still, not having a place to go every day does give one a lot of time.

She doesn't have much to do, with dwindling funds. No outings for coffee and breakfast, no -- she's living on the cheap at home and doing requisite job searches around nine o' clock each morning, if she's not still asleep.

Today, she's being a good girl and doing what she should -- namely, sending off her resume one more time to someone in the hopes of receiving a callback. So far, no luck.

Her friends get texts back, saying she's all right. A bit scared, but fine, really. And she doesn't want to worry Marie overly much either. But yes, she does think she's in danger doesn't she? After all, people around her have started to disappear.

dririmancy

Verna is alone. Nine o' clock in the morning is not a time people usually pinpoint as the time when someone on their own just gets a bad feeling, as if something were watching them, but Verna knows that creeping crawling sensation. Her kitchen or living area or bedroom is suddenly alive with a sensation of presence; the air practically hums with it. Or maybe that's the airconditioner? This isn't rational, but can't she just feel the air thickening, can't she just feel it like the empty vessel of her apartment is suddenly being poured full of awareness, and she is not alone.

The knowledge that something else is in her apartment is strong, even if it's based on nothing rational. Maybe she heard a sound? But it has all to do with feeling -- this little hum of strangeness.

Someone on her grave.

Her phone lights up or buzzes with another text. When she checks it, it's from Marie, and only four letters. Tomo

Verna Gardner

Creepy. Verna looks at her phone, jumping at the noise (it might be the police, it might be a call-back, it might even be the disappeared) but finds it to be Marie. Tomo?

Tomorrow?

She texts her friend back, and then goes to make sure the blinds are shut, and to check out the house. She must have heard something. And with her paranoia about people breaking in and stealing everything including herself? Yeah, she goes for her purse and that bottle of Mace first.

Verna Gardner

[Perception + Alertness]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

dririmancy

The blinds are shut if Verna shut them. If she didn't, she shuts them now, keeping the light (and peeping eyes) out.

The day is full of sunlight, early morning sunlight -- the kind as thin as a wafer, bite into it and it'll snap, promise of a nice day.

But Verna is (paranoid) sharp. As she moves away from that window, she hears something behind her; when and if she looks, she'll see that the blinds are open. The little chain to open them is swaying, but she did just touch it.

Verna is a neat and orderly young woman, isn't she? Doesn't like dirt. Fastidious, yes? Dainty, concerned with appearances. Her place is unlikely to be messy or to have things out of their place -- isn't it? Or perhaps she's one of those messy creative intellectual types, pulling order from chaos.

Either way, she notices where her order has been disturbed.

Can feel the prickling of some strangeness welling up between her shoulderblades, can almost feel breathing but there is nobody breathing except her, when she notices that a closet door is ajar and some paperwork she knows she put down right there is now a good three inches from where she left it.

She doesn't hear footsteps. Her door is locked and chained if she locks and chains it.

Her phone makes another sound from the other room (?), because she's just received another text. Probably Marie replying.

Verna Gardner

Verna lifts the Mace can aloft, but doesn't look to confront whoever must be there. Instead she tries to quietly sneak off to her phone, the other weapon in her (pitifully small) arsenal.

[dex + stealth = sneaky sneak to the phone!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )

dririmancy

Whoever it is must be there doesn't seem to notice her, or if they do now is not the moment they choose to come lunging out from the closet or from the other room, all dressed in black with a battering ram ready to take her away with them the way they took Dr. Andrássy and Dr. Jacobs -- or the way they take girls whose houses they invade. She makes it to the phone without any problem, as far as she can see.

It's still lying right where she left it.

Verna Gardner

Verna picks up her phone, glances at it on her way out of her bedroom. She's not staying in the apartment, even though she's only wearing her pyjamas and socks. She knows someone is here, and she's not going to pull the horror-movie trope of inspecting the house by herself.

She is going to get the heck out.

At least, that is the plan, as she tries to make her way out as silently as she can.

dririmancy

Tomorrow. Ill pay you.

Marie's return text.

Verna is still quiet. The front door is right there. To get out, all she needs to do is unlock the door and run, then call whoever it is she's going to call.

[Mystery NPC roll]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 5 )

Verna Gardner

[Strength! Because physics majors totally lift!]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (2, 9) ( success x 1 )

dririmancy

The door does not open. Implaccable. Immovable. Stuck. It doesn't even rattle.

Verna Gardner

Verna peers through the peephole of her door, trying to figure out what might be on the other side, and then runs to a window instead. No longer trying to be quiet, she lifts the shades and then the glass, and tries to push out the screen -- security deposits be damned.

Verna Gardner

Verna's heart races, her breath she tries to keep down because hyperventilation isn't just a long word, but she's thoroughly afraid of being locked in this place with something else. Surely they must have found her, they are after the research she took or the knowledge she possesses. It must be that.

In any case, her senses are sharp, even one which she would consider foolish -- the sixth.

[Awareness + Perception! WP!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 6, 6) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

dririmancy

The peephole reveals nothing but a blurred world view. There's nobody holding her door in place, and if there were -- wouldn't she be able to open it regardless? Wouldn't it budge a little? Wouldn't she feel some give? There's nobody in the hall or nobody on the front step. That sense of a presence, of being watched, has not left, but perhaps it is being swept under by the surge of adrenaline. Verna wants to get out.

Wants to get out now. The shades clatter as she lifts them and it's so bright outside. She can see a van idling on the street, a van for a company that does carpet-cleaning and floor-washing.

The screen doesn't want to be pushed out, but she can do it. Taste the acrid air that puffs out of it when she shoves. Nothing interrupts her except for her phone again, another text, and...

...oh, it is a foolish sense. The sixth. It tells her something is around but something can't be around. It tells her she is watched but she can't be watched. It tells her that something is right behind her, but nothing is there. It tells her that something is touching her, but nothing is touching her. The air is cold just here, as she climbs through the window, and there is a pressure on her shoulder, on her arms, and she can hear (she doesn't really hear; this is a metaphor) something lapping at her like a dog with a waterdish. Like that apartment of hers wants her to stay.

Like if she stays something terrible will happen.

Like if she stays it'll squeeze terror from her heart as if her heart were a lemon and the air wants to make lemonade.

She wants to be aware. The van gives her the heebie jeebies, too, though for no discernable reason -- it's just a hunch. Doesn't take a lot to get heebie jeebies looking at a van. Is there a driver? Maybe she catches a movement in the passenger-side mirror, which is down. Flash of something.

Verna Gardner

Marie can wait, the text reading can wait. There is someone in her apartment, and the anxiety gripping her provides for strange sensations. That van. Cleaners? Bet it really contains battering rams and other horrible equipment. Once outside, she starts at it, at the movement in the mirror. They see her.

She turns and runs to her car, cursing the fact that her keys are still inside. Who would be around to help? She tries to keep apartments between herself and that van as she makes her way to the apartment office. They should be open at this time in the morning. There would be people there. Hopefully people not too put off by her pyjama-clad self.

dririmancy

[Mystery NPC roll.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

Verna Gardner

[Willpower!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 4 )

Verna Gardner

[Dex + Ath!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2) ( fail )

dririmancy

[Damage.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Verna Gardner

[Soak!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 5) ( fail )

dririmancy

As Verna runs to her car, she feels drained, energy slipping from her, and there's a touch of numbness up and down her right (not left) arm -- for a moment. That sense of presence thickening the air remains clotted, tied-up, bound by the boundary of her house, but the wrongness of the van is still a red flag. These are all just instincts; all things the brain tells her because the situation she seems to have found herself in is dangerous. Later, perhaps she'll analyze them.

Now, though. Verna runs to her car, certain that the people in the van see her, and then she darts toward the other buildings, intent on keeping them between her and the van --

and her heel comes down on a sprinkler, hard, and her ankle bends, and she falls hard, not on the grass triangle she was darting across but on the sidewalk, slam, cement jars her shoulder and her ankle hurts a whole hellova lot and she can feel pain singing through her hip too and ow.

The van door opens, slams closed again, as she's picking herself up.

Footsteps coming her way. Man's voice, sounds hard, "You all right lady?"

[3 bashing to poor Verna. :(]

Verna Gardner

Well, this can't get much worse, can it? Pain spikes through her -- twisted ankle, bruised shoulder and hip. Now the 'cleaning' van driver is walking toward her.

"No! Stay away from me!" she yells, brandishes the can of Mace to point it at his face. Stay away from her, man; she looks blind with pain and very scared. A cornered animal.

Verna Gardner

[Int + Alertness!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Verna Gardner

[Scratch that, diff should have been 9]

dririmancy

"Lady, lady, lady," the van driver says, clicking his tongue. His head is Mr. Clean bald and he has a ratty nose, pink, some freckles across his cheeks, eyes as blue as a lake. He looks like he's in his late twenties, early thirties, and he looks strong, too. He's got coveralls around his waist and a white teeshirt on beneath. His hands are up and he slows when he gets near her, but not near enough for that can of mace's contents to reach him -- he hopes. "I'm not going to hurt you, jesus. Do you need some kind of help?" His tone says he thinks she needs some kind of help all right, but he's wavering between 'crazy broad' and 'what's wrong with you are you hurt' gallantry.

Verna Gardner

[Perception + Subterfuge!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

dririmancy

The man doesn't seem to have any immediate designs on her well-being, but there's something he doesn't want her to know. A familiarty, albeit a passing one. Verna can read it in the way he looks at her then darts a glance back to his van, the way he stays well back. But he seems to be as surprised as she surely was to take such a fall to have seen her do it, seems genuine enough in his concern.

At least not as if he's going to haul her off to interrogate her about What She Knows. There's a caution to him.

Verna Gardner

He is being cautious of her? Must be the Mace and the wild-eyed fearful display she's pulling. A girl that close to losing it just might spray him. But still, the way he seems to know her...

She stands on her one good leg, holding the twisted ankle up. It's going to be a painful limp anywhere she goes. If she makes it to the apartment office, this guy will just follow her, likely. He'll try to tell everyone she's overreacting or going insane, or perhaps not even let her get that far.

"Who are you? Why are you here, and don't say you're with the cleaners. Your friends are in my apartment, aren't they?"

dririmancy

"In your apartment? No way, lady. I don't got no friends in your apartment. That the one you climbed outta the window of? Something wrong with your door?"

His hands are still up, but he takes a tiny step towards her, blue eyes fixed on her face like that'll help calm her. Makes another clicking noise with his tongue, as if she's a chicken or a wild animal.

[Char + Emp. Shhh, lil' lady.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 6) ( success x 1 )

Verna Gardner

[Perception + Subterfuge!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )

dririmancy

There's a mixture of honesty and dishonesty going on here. He knows what apartment is hers. He doesn't know anything about friends in her apartment, but there's a blankness to his eyes that isn't the blankness of incomprehension. There's no menace in the question about the door -- nothing in his demeanor or his tone to indicate communication with somebody inside who stuck it in place.

Verna Gardner

He takes a tiny step towards her, and she takes a tiny step back on a twisted ankle, wincing at the fresh pain. She's very much not ready to trust him yet. That van, those people in her apartment, they are bad news.

"S..somebody was blocking my door from the outside, trying to lock me in. They were in my apartment rummaging around in my things. Who are you?"

She doesn't so much as drop that can of Mace an inch.

dririmancy

He starts to bend down, slowly, slowly.

Her phone. She dropped it when she fell and it's lying near his feet.

"I am with the cleaners, miss. Is this your phone? Are you telling me you think there's somebody in your apartment? You want I should go check it out for you?"

Verna Gardner

On the one hand, he seems to be at least partially telling her the truth. On the other, he is hiding something.

She reaches out for her phone, apparently wanting to keep him at arm's length by the way she holds her arm out, and that shoulder aches with pain again at the movement, but she will deal with it if it means keeping him that much farther away from her.

And she doesn't stop looking directly at him, still fixes him with the spray in her other hand.

Worry crosses her face when he asks if she wants him to check it out for her. Yes, she wants someone to check it out for her. She doesn't want to have to face that apartment alone. But this man just isn't right.

"I heard something in the other room, and my... my papers had been riffled through. I tried to get out the front door, but it wouldn't budge. They might not still be there. I thought you were with them. I mean, a van outside? Cleaners? It's almost cliché."

dririmancy

His fixed on her baby blues dart down once he has her phone in his hand, and staring at him as she is, it's unlikely Verna won't see that he checks whatever her last message was. The one she hasn't looked at yet. When she reaches out for her phone he ignores her hand for a second, looking cautiously at her can of mace which is still way too carefully directed for his liking.

"Hehhh. Uh, I guess. You a secretary for somebody important or something? Look, I'll go knock on the door and see if that scares 'em. There's no other way out of your apartment right? Just the front door and the window you came spilling out of? I don't think anyone's had time to sneak on out..."

"Then maybe you can put some ice on your ankle."

He gingerly hands her the phone.

[If we can't get by on our charm, let's try getting by on our Manipulation. Manip + Empathy: Shhhh shhhh. Relax.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

Verna Gardner

"Sure. You go. Go knock," she says, assenting to that much.

He looked at her messages, but her own eyes don't flit to her phone just yet when he hands it over. No, she watches this guy like a hawk. She's playing nice, but not too nice.

"You wouldn't know someone named Jon Marc would you?"

She tries to read his face then -- it's an attempt to figure out who this guy is really with. Jon Marc isn't a common name. He's keeping an eye on her apartment for some reason, isn't he?. And the texts he just read were from Marie. Maybe he's a friend of that horrible man, trying to figure out why Marie keeps trying to contact her?

Maybe the person in her apartment and this guy are separate evils.

dririmancy

[>.> Manip + Subterfuge.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 3 )

Verna Gardner

[Percept+Subt! + WP because :P]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 7, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

dririmancy

[No ties allowed. Re-roll!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Verna Gardner

[Percept + Subt! + WP]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (6, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 6 ) [WP]

dririmancy

"Nope," he lies. "Know a John and a Jonathan and a Mark." He continues to lie. No: he probably does know somebody with those names. But it's all attached to the one big lie he is telling her right now, the lie that has his eyelids flickering and the muscles of his face freezing into an unconvincing to Verna, who sees right through him like he's glass, expression of nonchalant blankness. "Never a Jean Marc did you say? Sounds French. I'll be right back, okay lady?"

Cautiously, he turns, like he expects her to throw her -- well, not her shoe, since she's not wearing any -- but to throw something at him. Then he trots over to her front door.

Verna Gardner

Once his back is turned, she glances at her text, and then thumbs in 911, ready to fire off an emergency if needed. If what's in her apartment and this guy are indeed separate evils, maybe she can play a game of let's you and him fight.

He trots, she hobbles, so of course she's going slower. Part of that is to keep her distance, too. She's a bag of nerves, but she's been that way from the start, hasn't she?

Of course, letting him in on the fact that she knows he's a lying sack of manure wouldn't be good at this juncture, not with her ankle wrenched. The only things she has going for her is what's in her hands. A phone and some pepper spray. How very ideal.

dririmancy

Tomorrow. Ill pay you.

Lemme know how much. 1 pm ok?

-- are two of her last texts from Marie. The one she'd seen, the other no. Hadn't her phone buzzed twice since she last looked at it? The man didn't have time to delete anything, not with Verna watching him like a hawk.

What is the man doing? He's knocking on her door. Loudly. He looks over his shoulder at Verna again, edgy and not content to let her sneak up on him so - just let's say - when he turns around she'll spray that can right in his eyes.

He barks, "Hey! You in there! Get on outta there!"

[NPC Manip + Intimidation.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 3 )

dririmancy

The apartment is silent and the man reaches for the doorknob. He's going to try and open the door if Verna doesn't stop him.

Verna Gardner

Oh what is she going to do? This guy knows their plan now. And if she starts texting out a warning, he'll see and likely understand what she's up to.

Verna hobbles her way down the sidewalk to see the guy trying for her doorknob, and she's not going to stop him. She's out by the street next to the parking lot, so there's not much she could do other than yell at him, and truth be told she does want him to go first.

Something was definitely in there.

dririmancy

[Mystery NPC roll.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 9, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

dririmancy

[I SWEAR TO GOD MYSTERY NPC. *flail*]

dririmancy

[Baldie Strength.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

dririmancy

[Mystery NPC.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )

dririmancy

[Baldie.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

dririmancy

He turns the knob and pushes or pulls and the door doesn't move at all. His expression becomes bemused or bewildered, as if he just got smacked in the face by a wet fish or worse a wet flipflop left out by the public pool on a hot summer day, vague smell of chlorine and cold and the water's suspect anyway and nobody wants that smacking them across the face.

Then he puts his shoulder to the door or he puts his back into it and the bald man with the blue blue eyes is very, very strong, and Verna can read it in the shape of him, in the force he exerts, and then the door opens. In or out. He looks at it for a second like it's a stranger, frowns over his shoulder at Verna again, and pokes his head in.

Just his head.

[Mystery NPC roll, and Verna, plz roll Percept + Awareness again.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 6, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

Verna Gardner

[Perception + Awareness!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )

dririmancy

Bad.

Bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad. Bad, wrong, bad, something off, something wrong, something strange, hair on the nape of her neck rising and the morning's progressing and beginning to get warm and there's dull pain in her ankle and up and down her side and that's somewhat distracting but she still gets that sixth sense telling her bad bad bad.

Like don't look under the bed or something there will get you bad.

Verna Gardner

Verna swallows hard and steps back on her wounded ankle. Her body is reacting to the wrongness the way a gazelle might get spooked by the faint scent of lion. But she doesn't tell the man to stop.

It's just stress. It's all from hitting the ground and being scared out of her wits, and it's all just chemicals anyway. She needs to calm down.

That's what she says to herself, of course. She's also not going anywhere near her apartment when it feels so very bad.

Her unlikely 'savior' tries at the door, and it does the same as before, until it gives. He slides his head in, and for a split second, she's sure he's going to pull back a bloody stump. Something is in there.

dririmancy

He pulls his head out again. Does Verna see the door waver? Does. There is no bloody stump left behind. The door wavers, not-quite-creaking, but that could be the wind, or just natural forces - he'd just let it go, after all.

"Looks all clear," he says. He looks her over. Then looks back at the apartment, standing hunched just outside it. A moment passes and finally he shrugs, then heads inside.

Swallowed. (Disappeared. [Vanished]) No more Mr. Clean.

Verna Gardner

[Percept+Alert!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )

Verna Gardner

Verna creeps up on her door. It takes a while, with each step a reminder of her inability to walk ten feet without faceplanting. Along the way she calls out: "Hello? Sir? Do you see anything?"

She wants to keep a line of communication open, even if this guy is the bad news she suspects.

If he gets the gun to the head by her apartment breakers-in, all the better, right?

dririmancy

The door has not closed again.

The door stays open even as she approaches it and does it move again -- wavering, just so? As if someone were behind it? Verna is sharp, sees no shadow that would indicate someone hiding behind the door, ready to close it and grab her, and she can hear the other man moving through the apartment. She can hear him pounding on the wall now and then. Knocks and rattles to scare off a cougar, or a product of an over-active imagination.

He comes out of her bathroom and ever notice how a man with no hair has ears that'll be noticeable no matter if they stick out or stick close to his skull? This guy has nice ears but they're a little sunburnt. The rest of his head isn't but the tops of the ears, well, you forget about that place.

"Seems like everything's on the up and up," the man says, though he looks pale and a touch unfocused. "Didn't see anything strange."

[Let's try to lie again, Baldie.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Verna Gardner

[Perception + Subterfuge = detect lies!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Verna Gardner

It's strange the things you notice when you're being paranoid. The door wavering like it does spooks her, makes her not want to go through. Something is there, making it waver like that.

The man has sunburnt ears.

Her carpet looks a bit dingy, and she should give it a good cleaning.

There are all kinds of details to notice, but the thing that stands out to her mind is that door, which she backs away from.

"What's behind my door? Can you see?"

dririmancy

[Let's have some stealth + dex for sneaking up on the door. Why not?]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )

dririmancy

The man is a little spooked as well. Verna can see it rising up in his blue blue eyes then being tamped down again as he approaches the door, stealthy-like. Not very, very stealthily, but stealthily enough, trying to move like a panther when he's more of a bear.

He gets closer to her door and closer, craning his neck and ...

Then he laughs. It's a blood-letting sort of tension-release laugh, layered with a touch of condescension. "Nothing there, lady. Musta been a cat got in or something."

Verna Gardner

Verna laughs as well, a tittering thing that provides some icing for the fear. She's not totally convinced.

"Cat. Sure," she says and gives him a nod. "That must be it. Maybe a bird?"

It reminds her of the bird she found underneath her windshield wipers, and the strained smile from her tiny laugh slides away.

"Thanks for checking my apartment out. I think it's okay. You can leave," she says, and that last bit is a bit harsh, but well -- this guy knows Jon Marc and was spying on her apartment, right?

dririmancy

[How much did this NPC notice?]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 7) ( success x 1 )

dririmancy

Maybe a bird, she says, and he glances back at her bathroom again, a frown line between his eyebrows. Looks back at her with suspicion clear in them - or, rather, not suspicion, but that teetering on the precipice moment some people get when they're hard up against a coincidence they can't bring themselves to believe in. He swallows whatever it is has him looking at her like that down; finds his balance. Says, not ungently, "You sure you gonna be okay alone and stuff? Sick off work I guess?"

He hasn't stepped through her door yet. Planted solidly.

Verna Gardner

"No, not sick. Though I'm going nowhere on this ankle," she says, and she's still standing with all her weight on her one good foot to prove it.

Something about the way he looks at the bathroom, there -- she matches his frown with worry in her eyes.

"Is there something wrong with the bathroom?"

Most normal humans might well not ask such a question, because perhaps a stranger might find their bathroom mess to be too overwhelming. But Verna's entire apartment should be immaculate. She leaves places better than she found them. Any oddity would stick out like a sore thumb in her place.

dririmancy

[Self Control. Not to - blush I guess?]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 1) ( fail )

dririmancy

[All right then.]

dririmancy

He looks caught-out and frozen and then he starts to blush. He starts to blush very, very hard, pink crawling up his neck in a visible wash of colour, cheeks turning ruddy, even the top of his head gets suffused in pink and it is a weird contrast with his eyes but makes them stand out all the bluer and the sunburn on his ears doesn't look as red now in comparison. This is a blush. An epic blush. A blush that is accompanied by a stammer, "U-uh, I-i," and eyes tearing up with fury because of course the nightmare is one realizes one is blushing and can't stop it, "Uh... just the-" He's embarrassed that he was looking. Something about a woman's bathroom. "In the tub, lady, I saw the..." He clears his throat. "The ... you know, feathers and blood."

Verna Gardner

Verna's eyes go wide. "What?"

You know that moment when a conversation is going very well, and then all the sudden the bottom falls out? Someone admits to having spit in everyone else's food, or asks what the assembled think of National Socialism as a solution to the excesses of Congress? This is that time.

That 'what' comes out low and angry, a startling departure from Verna's usual politeness.

"There is a dead bird in my bathtub?"

dririmancy

"I- " He pauses, giving Verna a look limned in sharpness blinking away the tears although he's still as pink as anything ever blushed itself into pink. "I didn't see the dead bird no. Just the... some feathers and the b-blood." He clears his throat. "In the tub," he repeats, helpfully. "That's why I said maybe it was a cat..."

Verna Gardner

Verna looks as though she's going to be ill. Another dead bird? Inside her apartment this time? What the hell is this, some kind of morbid prank? Do the thieves of everything happy in her life like to leave a little macabre calling card behind when they go riffling through her papers, is that it? Why? It makes so little sense.

"Well I don't make a habit of killing animals in my apartment," Verna says, obviously a little ticked off. Not at the man, more at the situation itself. "Someone... something left that there. Cat or... whatever."

She looks over at the door to her apartment as though it's going to act weird again. Maybe it'll slam behind her and stick closed again the moment she steps through or something equally bizarre? It's preposterous. Just nerves. That's all.

Anxieties about hobgoblin doors thus quashed, she hobbles her way inside the apartment, to go look at the feathers and blood for herself.

dririmancy

The bald man seems out of his depth. He doesn't know what to do with this situation and he feels that, perhaps, it has come time for him to fade. He steps toward the door when Verna hobbles in, angry and hobbling and on a mission. Though he'd exhibited some unease that Verna saw clearly, clear as if unease was a word written across his face, the unease doesn't seem to be about the door. He lingers though. Calls after her, "I'll let myself out I guess? Be in the van if you need anything..."

By then, Verna is in her bathroom. He'd left the light on, although it's a tad yellower than usual, as if the lights were getting ready to burn out.

There is her tub. There is the curtain. Everything in its place.

There is something dark, seen dimly through the curtain. A shape, small, on the porcelain, though to see what it is she'll have to get a lot closer, swipe the curtain back.

Verna Gardner

"Right. I will scream if I need anything," Verna says and laughs nervously. It's a joke, she tries to tell herself.

She peeks out the bathroom door once she sees that little shape. Mr. Clean wants to leave, but she gives him a worried last glance before hobbling on in and swiping the curtain back. She completely expects to find the remains of a broken sparrow.

Verna Gardner

[Perception + Alertness!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )

dririmancy

There is no broken sparrow.

Per se.

Verna looks closely and she can see in the bit of dampness left over from last night's or this morning's shower a troubling of light and how it falls, as if something lay there for a while. There are a few drops of blood, one of them quite gelatinous and thick. The dark shape- well. Once the curtain is wicked back, it shrinks into a suggestion.

There are little sparrow feathers, not many but enough to be noticeable, trailing toward the drain.

And the drain...

... it looks ... full of- brown hair, or something. The bird? If she looks closer, she'll see that is not so, but for a moment- the way the hair (because it is hair, knotted and gnatted, coming up out've the drain) curves it looks like a little talon reaching up.

Verna Gardner

Oh, disgusting. It looks like the drain overflowed, bringing up hair and bird bits. How awful.

But right at the moment, there are worse things to think about. She puts down her can of Mace, and turns her attention to her texts.

JM has someone watching my apartment. Cleaning guy with bald head, you know him? He saw your text when I dropped my phone, and he definitely knows JM.

You're not safe to wait till tomorrow. Not safe at my apartment.

dririmancy

No response.

No response for quite some time. That sense of watching, of a presence, that's gone; gone with her nerves, gone with her adrenaline, gone with the dull pain of her fall and the realization that her pyjama bottoms ripped. Gone, gone, gone.

The cleaning van is gone by noon.

Around 12:30, Verna gets a text from Marie. A simple one.

Ok. Getting the kids. Thnx Verna.

And that's the last she'll hear from Marie for days.

For ever?