video; @unknown

[redshiftnpc]

[ The communicator bobs, turns, points at the floor. There’s muttering from a voice some of Anchor’s residents will recognize. When the camera rights itself, it’s a close-up of Creepy Joe’s face, the eye that was formerly sealed shut now open and writhing with tiny flower-like tentacles. His other is steady, crazed blue.

His mouth is still twisted, his lips still curving upward on the ruined side of his face, not quite hiding teeth too long and sharp for a human mouth. There’s movement behind and between his teeth, though it’s hard to see what it is until he opens his mouth--more tentacles, tiny flailing things growing from the insides of his cheeks, the roof of his mouth, his tongue. They make him lisp hoarsely as he talks.]

Don’t go down. Don’t do it. You’ll open the way to worse things, worse things, worse.

[ He glances behind him, and in spite of the close angle, some at Anchor might also recognize where he is. In his little hole in the wall, where he was recording the actions of Anchor’s new residents. ]

Trust me. I came back, didn’t I? I came back to help.

Comments

[redshiftnpc]

Yes. [ He walks to the little cupboard, stroking the glass lightly with his good hand for a moment before pointing to the ruined side of his face. ] Stops this. Can't get worse.

[writtendestiny]

[She hums softly, moving to examine the medical supplies instead. Some of them look familiar, but she isn't any kind of healer or doctor.]

Do you know what it is? [Poison looks at him, and waves a hand briefly up near her eye to add explanation to her question.] How it started?

[redshiftnpc]

The eyes did it. [ He presses his fingertips against the cheek on his ruined side. ] Took me, did it. Don't know what. But it talks to me.

[writtendestiny]

[That's... hum.

He did say that she didn't have to worry, that they had an understanding, that he'd make sure it didn't go after her. It must be some kind of parasite.]

What does it say?

[redshiftnpc]

Wants me to let it have more, wants me to stop... fighting. [ He shakes his head. ] Says it can protect me. I don't trust it.

[writtendestiny]

I don't think I would, either...

[Not when it starts to take over your body like that. She keeps trying to picture what he must have looked like before, trying to ignore the ruined side of his face and mirror the one that isn't. He was just normal, like them.

The implications of that are not comforting.]

Protect you from what?

[redshiftnpc]

The eyes. Others who want... to hurt me. Us. It knows, when I'm afraid. Harder to control then. [ He shivers. ] Protect me from it happening again, the shooting and the killing.

[writtendestiny]

[The eyes again. Poison sighs softly, wraps her arms around herself for a moment and then lets them drop again. Her fingers flex, fidgeting, and she shakes her head.]

I'm... trying to understand. [And she hates it when she isn't able to grasp what's going on, but this is so much all at once.]

The eyes did... this to you, but it wants to protect you from them?

[redshiftnpc]

[ He pauses, like he's never really thought about it before. The fingers on his ruined hand twitch. ]

...It... I don't know why. It says it's my friend. Sometimes I don't believe it. Sometimes I do.

[writtendestiny]

[Poison, who has never had a parasitic orgamism living in her brain, doesn't have much experience of how one might think of it being a friend. It's a strange thing to think of.]

Does it hurt you?

[redshiftnpc]

Yes.

[ He shivers. ]

It doesn't mean to.

[writtendestiny]

[She wants to ask 'how do you know', but holds it back. Her lips press together and she looks at his arm.]

Would it hurt me?

[redshiftnpc]

I won't let it.

[ Which is probably not reassuring. ]

[writtendestiny]

[Her expression flickers. She looks at the writhing little tentacles in Joe's eye socket.]

I know, but that isn't what I asked.

[redshiftnpc]

[ He doesn't answer right away. When he does answer, he retreats from her first. Covers his ruined eye with both hands. ]

Yes.

[writtendestiny]

[Ah.]

That's what I thought.

[So it isn't a benevolent, or even benign thing. It's like a malignant disease.]

Are there others?