A Game of Obeyance

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Jason: I knew something was watching us… I knew it.  I mean, I didn’t know, but I had that feeling, that weird fuzzy tickly feeling that someone was looking at me.  I woke up in the night half dozen times, my eyes darting around before I was fully awake.  It was really chilling to realize WHY my eyes were darting around… they were looking for someone.  Maybe in a nightmare something was stalking me and I brought the idea into the waking with me before my brain could tell reality from fantasy, but that rationalization didn’t stop my heart from thundering.

Tarah: You ok honey?

Jason: I’d sat up suddenly enough that I woke my wife.  I told her something had freaked me out… that my heart was racing.

Tarah: Nightmare?

Jason: I told her no, this was something else.  Something… real.  Physical.

Tarah: Definitely reflux, I get that sometimes.  A nice splash of stomach acid up the pipe will seriously kick you awake.  Take a Tums next time we get enchiladas. 

Jason: “totally collected” is how I would describe my wife.  I’m kind of an indecisive mess, but she always had her shit together, or faked it well enough to convince anyone.  Which always made her first instinct a thousand times more practical than mine. I was so jealous of her, but luckily I had her to tell me what to do, I never seemed to know…  I loved her a lot.

Tarah: Just lie down and count your breaths, it’ll go away.

Jason: When she said that, I realized what I was feeling. It was like, apart from Tarah and me, something else in the room was silently breathing. Something close.

Pip: Here, stop it.

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Luca: Yeah, we’re getting a second voice here.

Pip: This is labeled Jason Dryer, Vile Observer victim seven.  It doesn’t mention anything about a womans voice.

Luca: Tarah Dryer was victim six. The paperwork says… um… eesh… there wasn’t much of her left so the reclaiming was done using just Jason.

Pip: So what is this, what are we hearing?

Luca: the new machine picks up more.  It catches memories usually, other voices, pieces of important sounds… but it can also hear layers beneath… we had a few recordings of demon possessions and we could actually hear the demon in a layer underneath the victim.  

Kat: What does a demon sound like?

Luca: I don’t know, they didn’t let any mortals listen for more than a few seconds.  A Demon’s voice is really dangerous.  

Kat: How interesting.  beat Do I get to know why I’m here yet?

Pip: No not yet.

Luca: Pip, you knew we’d find something else on this tape didn’t you?  How?

Pip: I’ve been… hearing things… kinda.  I was down here in the archives and I just felt… Look, I’m a seer ok, I am mysterious and clairvoyant and shit, lets just move on.  Play more.

Kat: This was my day off.

Pip: Play tape.

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Jason: It happened a few more times in different ways.  A sudden jump of fear that hit me before I realized where it was coming from.  I think the next time was when I was working late on an audit report for… nevermind it doesn’t matter, but I was on my laptop late.  I’d started working when it was bright in the apartment but had zoned out and before I realized it the only source of light was my laptop light glowing in my face.

Then there it was.

That horrible feeling something was watching me.

I suddenly found myself scanning the dark corners of the apartment, my eyes finding a thousand hiding places, but unable to really see because of the blasting light of contrast in my eyes.  Instinctively I slapped the laptop shut, but that just plunged everything into darkness.  I got mad… like mad at my own body… the way… You know when someone startles you, even if it was by accident you can get this really strong anger reaction right.  Like “fuck you for causing my body to jump and release adrenaline.” It’s not reasonable but it happens and now it was happening to me and I was just angry at my own body… because… there was nothing right… there couldn’t be?

But my eyes were adjusting and… something wasn’t right.  I could see the door to the hall, the chair, the closet door, the bookshelf…

As I went my mind is doing this mental checklist of all the things I will find.

…the blanket on the chair, check, the automan, check, the basket with the cat toys, check, but…

What is that?

We start to hear small voices and whispering and giggling that plays through the following

There was something else, something my mental inventory scrambled to explain, a small round shadow I had no explanation for.

It moved.

Just a little, but it definitely shifted… did it… did it blink?

My brains started scrambling: It’s the cat… It’s too big, it can’t be the cat and oh right the cat died three months ago it’s the cats ghost, but Miso was my friend… if that’s the cat’s ghost why am I so scared…

I opened the laptop and brandished it at the shadow, the light suddenly glaring out of excel spreadsheets and emails.

There was nothing there… wait… that’s not true…

There was like… an outline… a glow… like when you glance into the sun and then look away and blink… that light trace thing… 

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Pip: the whispering?

Luca: Yeah.

Pip: That’s not a Vile Observer thing. He doesn’t need to whisper to terrify people. 

Kat: oh so this is a personal type thing.

Pip: Yes, of course it’s personal, I’m… I’m doing something, can you just follow me for a minute? You need to listen to understand.

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Jason: That same night… I got the feeling again while wrapping up that project… This time with all the lights on of course, but after the panicky scramble to find what was watching me… my eyes settled on the little circle camera at the top of my laptop…

I taped it over, but noticed another staring at me from my phone.  Our personal assistant thing was listening, our smart tv was staring… I spent the next half hour taping over and unplugging things…

Tarah: Honey… you need to take some time off.

Jason: My wife, always so confident and calm, padded out into the kitchen to get a drink of water and saw me freaking out and just smiled and told me I needed a vacation.

I sent in a request for PTO and went to bed.  

I woke up feeling pretty good, I’d actually gotten some sleep for the first time in a week without waking up all panicked… but it was still early morning.  I smiled realizing I’d get to roll over and go back to sleep, but when I rolled over… I noticed Tarah wasn’t there.  Her spot on the bed had the sheets pulled back and was empty.

I got up, only a tiny bit of worry that grew only slightly when I found all the lights off.  If she’d gotten up she would have turned on the hall light right?  The bathroom was dark, the office was dark… the second bedroom… ah there, a thin line of light slid out from beneath the guest bedroom door…

I knocked, and I had my hand on the handle, started to turn it… maybe got the latch half way when I heard her voice inside.

Tarah: Jason-Don’t open the door.

Jason: I almost just opened it, but something in her tone of voice… or maybe that it was Tarah who had her shit so together and had MY life so together… I froze.  “Is something wrong honey” I called in trying not to sound nervous.

Tarah: terse Do not.  Open.  The door. beat Okay babe?

Jason: I… ok… I won’t but… is something wrong?  Do you need anything?

Tarah: I don’t need anything, just for you not to open the door.

Jason: That’s just a little alarming is all… Tarah, I feel like I should come in.

Tarah: Jason, you trust me right?  You believe I have your best interests at heart.  I know this is strange, but you have to just trust me and not come in.

Jason: I did trust her, I did believe she had my best interests at heart, but… I mean… what was happening?  This terrible sinking feeling, different, worse, more gut wrenchingly horrible than ever … I … I started to turn the handle again.

Tarah: Jason!  Stop.  starting to waver If you open the door something horrible is going to happen, ok?  

back to strong but pleading 

You have to trust me.  I know its really strange, but you have to do this for me.  

repeating instructions You have to step away from the door and go sit in the living room.  You have to stay out of this room until the sun comes up and everything will be ok.  But if you come in something really bad will happen.  

Jason: I could feel myself cracking… I think I was crying.  “What is gonna happen?” I could hear my voice shaking.

Tarah: That doesn’t matter, because you’re going to do what I asked and go sit in the living room.  No matter what you hear, you’re going to sit there ok?

Jason: I’m calling the police… Is someone in there with you?

Tarah: You can’t call for help Jason.

Jason: I thought she meant that… that if I called for help something bad would happen… that this sword of damocles she was talking about would fall, but I hurried back to the bedroom and got my phone but… when I picked it up… something… something was wrong… it felt… soft.

We hear giggling and squishing

Jason: The phone stared up at me… eyes bulged from the screen, pressing and straining, like they were fighting to look out and see, the whole thing was the consistency of a hardboiled egg and bounced wetly as I dropped it to the ground.

I ran for the front door when I heard Tarah scream.

Tarah: screaming JASON!  Do what I asked you!  If you open that door we are going to die.  Just fucking sit. In. the living room.  

Jason: Something was leaking onto the hardwood under the front door.  Black red liquid was oozing onto the floor mat… the windows were plastic’d over… someone had run cables all over… black worms slithered into big black bricks of outlets jammed into all our wall sockets.

The living room was FULL of cameras.  Video cameras that looked old, movie cameras, I think one of them was clattering with actual film.  They were all aimed at the couch.  A single dirty ring light illuminated a spot right in the middle.  The spot I was supposed to sit in.

We hear whispers and giggles

Tarah: Just sit down.

Jason: Please if I can’t come in, will you please come out, can you come out because someone’s here… or someone’s done something to us, or they are going to… will you please come out honey?  Is there someone in there making you say these things.

Tarah:  I am all alone in here, no one is making me say anything.  I know this is strange and scary, but you just need to obey.  Just do as you are told.

Jason: The window glass seemed like it was bulging in at me.  I could hear giggles and laughter and she just kept telling me not to worry and to sit on the couch…  So… I did.

I could… I could explain it, maybe.  She was so in charge of our lives… and, I’d always been told what to do, domineering parents and a subservient job… Maybe I thought this was an Orpheus thing… like as long as I didn’t look back we could get out of hell…  I could try to explain myself, but the truth is I was scared.  Scared of disobeying her, scared of what I’d see… in the end just being watched was horrible, but I guess I thought fighting back might make it worse.

Tarah: Scream of pain

Jason: a few minutes later I started hearing her scream… she sounded like she was being hurt… I started to get up, all the camera lenses in the horrible, macabre set up around me, dilated, or focused… I went to the door, reached out again… but my hand was shaking like a leaf… I stopped even before her voice told me to.

Tarah: through gritted teeth I told you to stay away and sit you stupid fucking loser, is there NOTHING you can do without me holding your fucking hand the whole time?  You can’t even SIT?

Jason:  Tarah please just tell me whats going on.

Tarah: How the fuck is this so hard, do you wanna die, do you wanna die, do you wanna die, do you wanna die!?!?

Jason: Her screaming and yelling literally chased me back to my spot on the couch and I just sat and cried as the camera’s zoomed in.  

The extending lenses made me think of excited dicks.

The illuminated spot on the couch made me think of cuck porn.  I felt revolted and violated, just like whoever was doing this to us wanted… or was Tarah doing this?  Was she finally sick of me and punishing me for being such a stupid weak, burden… I hated myself so so much… but not as much as I was about to…

Tarah: scream the scream is suddenly cut off.

Jason: I knew it was over.  The cameras went to wide shots.

Jason: I went to the room.  nauseous  It was just red… all red… the whole room…  There was someone there with her… what was left of her…  I don’t remember really what he… it… looked like, I couldn’t take my eyes of what was left of her…

Vile Observer: Jason… you’ve been a delightful participant.  

Jason: It looked at me. Its eyes were closed, but It looked at me. Then It patted me on the shoulder.

Vile Observer: I thought for just a second there you might actually save her.

Jason: Save her?

Vile Observer: fading to Terah’s voice: Yes.  Save her.  You just had to open the door.  Men must learn to stand up for themselves mustn’t they?  A man must be king in his castle, mustn’t he?

Jason: But… but…

Vile Observer: Honestly I think I’ve done you a favor… she was a bit overbearing wasn’t she?

Jason: I want to tell you I attacked it… that that is how I died, but you’d know.

Voncid: I would.  Your heart gave out.

Jason: I was so weak.

Voncid: Being soft and kind is not weakness.  Following someone you love and trust does not make you less of a man.

Pip: Ok, turn it off…

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Kat: I like how you can hear that HORRIBLE horrible shit but it’s the old man’s voice you can’t stand.

Pip: Oh piss off, Kat. The old man’s voice I’ll never get to hear again, only to be replaced by the sound of my torturer?  Yeah I’ve got my limits.

Kat: extra grumpy Ok, so are you gonna tell me why you’ve gathered us here for this nightmare?

Pip: I’ve been doing some readings with these new cards Cid made for me. Remember the Peepers case.

Luca: Yeah.

Kat: The one where the girl at that college got stalked and pulled out a window?

Pip: I think they are the whispers on the recording. I am like ninety percent sure when we run this back it will match the sounds in that other case, and if it’s them, that draws a line from the Peepers to the Vile Observer and from the Peepers to Charlie.  Charlie being stalked by peepers is why Owen took him into the Ardent for safety in the first place. It’s all connected.

Luca: the shadow Jason described, the spherical one.  The Peepers? Ok, whatever they are, are large fleshy eyeballs with gangly arms and legs, that could have been what he saw.  Plus the cameras plus the eyeball phone. It’s something, but it’s kinda flimsy.

Pip: I know, but it’s all I’ve got.   All the Order cares about right now is tracking down the entities that turned and empowered Charlie and the cult that planned the attack on the Ardent.

Kat: definitely priority number one, so many other cases just gathering dust, it’s basically monster open season right now… 

Pip: ok, so if we know the Peepers were very likely Charlie’s first contact with the other-side…

Luca: but they’ve never been able to find them.

Pip: right, but if there is a connection between the evil eyeballs and the Vile Observer… maybe I can get some order muscle to help me do what I’ve decided I’m going to do next.  

Kat: Are you serious?

Pip : I am trapped in the dark.  I feel like I’m being followed.  The cards have been telling me I’m surrounded, that we are all trapped and the vice is tightening and I can’t fucking stand it.  So I’m going to god. Damn. do something.  These things WANT us to just sit, and wait, because acting is too scary right?  Well I’m not going to just sit in the dark and wait for the people I love to get gutted in the other room. So Kat, you can either get on board with Team Pip’s Plan, or you can go sit around with all the other agents, and wait to be useful. 

long beat

Kat: What is your plan, then?

Pip:  I came to hide in the Ardent to stay safe from the Vile Observer. And it works, barring any god-like entities giving it access. But if I leave, it will come after me. So I’m going to give it an opening. And when it comes, I’m going to catch it and then when we have everything useful it can give us, I’m going to fucking kill it… I need you two to help me figure out… you know… how.

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