TDM - JANUARY 2021

[robbies]

TEST DRIVE MEME - JANUARY 2021

Good to the last gasp.
CW: gaslighting, potential mentions and depictions of trauma and other problematic material, body horror, dolls, violence

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“Help me. Please, help me…”

A child’s voice, calling out for aid. There’s no rhyme or reason for when it comes to you. It’s so quiet, a whisper in the deepest, darkest corners of your mind. Were it not for the sharp, stabbing pain it pulls out of you, you could ignore it. You could even pretend it’s just your imagination.

It all happens so quickly and powerfully. Left in the dust, your brain struggles to process it all. Blacking out is the least it can do, but it’s also all it can do, and it does so before you even have a chance to fully register just how young the voice is, and how deeply, heartbreakingly lost it sounds.

When you finally awaken with your bare feet tangled in soft sheets, a layer of fuzzy fleece or slinky silk clinging to your body like another layer of skin, the sunlight pouring in from the window next to your bed momentarily blinding you, and the cries of happy children playing outside of it carrying faintly, it all becomes very clear—

Something is horribly wrong.

---

JANUARY 1st.

It becomes very clear very quickly that this isn’t a simple kidnapping. If you’re twenty years old or older, the bedroom you wake up in is very clearly a couple’s bedroom — with separate beds like a modest, modern couple of course! A similarly lost and confused stranger is in the other. They are your counterpart, for everything in this room has a matching counterpart — the nightstand and lamp each of you have beside your beds, the framed pictures on the wall, even your pajamas. If you’re under twenty years old, your room is smaller but more personalized, filled with comic books, model kits, stray baseball cards littered around the floor. Dolls, fashion magazines of people dressed from a bygone era, stacks of vinyl records neatly arranged next to a record player. And then there are the pictures. They’re everywhere in the house — in a frame on your nightstand, hung on the walls, stuck in the photo albums and scrapbooks lying on your desk or tucked away in drawers. Here you are on your wedding day, exchanging vows with your partner. Here’s you sitting in a fishing boat with one of the younger members of your house. Here’s a picture of you at ten years old getting ready for the first day of school. All of the photographs are aged, sepia, even yellowed and dusty in frames hung for a long, long time. By the time you make it down to the living room, you’ll notice that the television is on; someone must have forgotten to turn it off before they went to bed. On it, the morning news is playing. The newscaster, a man in a gray suit and horn-rimmed glasses, keeps shuffling his paperwork on his desk as black and white footage of people in the midst of celebration — throwing streamers, wearing paper hats, toasting flutes of bubbly liquid — is interspersed between his droning report: ”New Year's Eve was in full swing last night as citizens from all over Santa Rosita came together to ring in 1961. A surge in ginger ale and sparkling cider beverage sales was reported by Honeybees as early as eight o'clock in the evening, a boon for the store…“

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GETTING TO KNOW THE NEIGHBORS.

As you get acclimated, you gradually begin to learn more about this strange new world you’ve found yourself in. You’re in a neighborhood on the east side of a town called Santa Rosita located… somewhere in California (wherever or whatever that might be). The year is 1961. If it wasn’t clear enough, your neighbors are more than willing to humor you if you ask. Even if you accost them with questions and demands. Sure, you and your family are a little kooky, and you have a very overactive imagination, but the key to any good joke is playing along! And how could something like “I’m from the future, from another world” be anything but a joke? A. CLOWN AROUND. If December was a time for sweet treats and good food, January is the month where everyone is trying to unload their leftovers. Who better to enjoy them than you, the newest family on the block? Your neighbors have quite a bit of food to share: Throughout the month, they'll stop by to say hello, bringing a new sugary dish with them each time. As always, jello molds are a staple. One plate turns into three turns into five, and by the end of the first week of January, you're likely to end up with a collection of jiggling pink, green, and orange lumps taking up space in your fridge. From mountains of Whip 'n Chill to Broken Window Glass cake, you'd be forgiven in thinking that there's no end to it. And yet, there's the occasional exception. Someone comes by with a Bundt cake lathered in vanilla icing and topped with rainbow sprinkles. Were it not for the giant candy clown head topping it, it would almost look good enough to eat. "There's a rumor going around that you've been a bit under the weather, so I thought this would cheer you up!" they say, right before thrusting the technicolor nightmare into your hands, the clown's dead pink frosted eyes staring up at you. Your neighbor is quick to tell you to eat it while the icing is still fresh (you never know who might lick it off when you're not looking, eh kids?), but not that the clown itself is made out of styrofoam. That's something you'll just have to find out for yourself when you take it back inside and start chowing down!

B. SNOW DAY

What awakens you one cold Friday morning isn't the blare of your alarm clock or your family getting ready to start their day or even the chilly air that tickles your toes as they poke out from the bottom of your covers, but the sound of hooting and hollering outside your window. The sight that awaits you when you go to investigate is something out of a Norman Rockwell painting: The entire neighborhood is outside, playing and carrying on in the snow. While everyone was sleeping, Santa Rosita got four inches of snow, more than enough for the schools to close but not enough to stop everyone from enjoying it.

And enjoy it they are! Children build snowmen in their front yards while their fathers work on shoveling their driveways. Most, however, are busy erecting snow forts in their yards and the middle of the street, running back and forth as they collect ammunition for an ongoing snowball fight that takes up half of the neighborhood. Nobody is spared from their assault, not even the adults, and especially not the newly arrived ones who leave the house. Good luck getting the mail, mom and dad!

"Come on! There's plenty of snow!" one young boy yells at you over a snowdrift. "You can join my team!"

"Nuh-uh!" another boy shoots back. "You can join my team!"

And on and on it goes. Well, for the pacifists among you, making snow angels is always an option!

---

THROUGHOUT JANUARY.

CW: gaslighting, potential mentions and depictions of trauma, and other problematic material

There’s no business like show business! And business is hopping at the Starlight Drive-In, which has been boasting about its all-new film premiering on January 2nd and playing all month long. The critics are raving, the townspeople are flocking, and plans to go to the drive-in seems to be all anyone can talk about. “Make sure you get there early to see the serials,” many of them suggest, eyes wide with excitement. “I couldn’t look away!” Whether you come with your family, your friends, or simply come on your own, the lot is packed, Robbies and normal townsfolk alike beaming as they hook the individual speakers onto their cars. Apropos of the cold weather, the concession stand has added seasonal items to their menu, serving up hot chocolate and kettle corn in addition to its usual soda and popcorn. Watching a movie against a backdrop of gently falling snow while you're sipping on steaming chocolate and melted marshmallows has a certain je nais se quoi to it that even you have to admit is appealing. At last, when it's finally dark enough to start, the projector clicks on from the booth in the back of the lot and the movie begins. A. COMING ATTRACTIONS. The movie, Curse of the Doll People, is a horror flick. A real chill-o-rama, starring actors you've never heard of playing a group of archeologists who unknowingly trigger a deadly curse that sets a group of murderous living dolls upon them. The poster pasted on the ticket booth promises it'll be the most fun you'll have screaming. Unfortunately, you have to sit through several minutes of previews first. The coming attractions aren't anything special — a bunch of westerns, a romance, even a beach musical. Far from being bored to tears like you might be, the people in the cars around you are glued to the screen, popping snacks into their mouths and whispering their commentary among themselves. The movie is the reason why everyone's here, sure, but you don't just get one flick out of going to the pictures! There's also the serials, little 5—10 minute long chapter plays that tell a story in pieces. Nothing can beat those, and when the first one starts, everyone sits in rapt attention as if it were the feature presentation itself. But as the scene opens up on a sight that is instantly familiar to you, and your own face stares back at you from the projection screen, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary film. You watch your memories play out in grainy black and white footage, aired for all the world to see. Or perhaps not — though you may not realize it, the movie playing out on the screen differs from person to person. No one sees the same thing. The person next to you might see one of their worst fears come to life, whether imagined or real, practical or fantastic. You might see one of the worst moments of your life — the death of a friend, your hated enemy bringing you to the brink of death, your absolute lowest point — exactly the way you remember it... save for the way your double on the screen occasionally turns to face the audience, staring directly at you with a knowing smirk and a wink. Or the way your loved ones will sometimes go off-script, gazing at you with pleading eyes as they beg you to help them. The people of Santa Rosita will see an exciting battle between two pirate ships, swashbuckling and cannon fire in place of the traumas you're witnessing. When the serial ends on a cliffhanger, much to the disappointment of everyone around you, it's almost a mercy. "Tune in next week for the thrilling second part!" Well, you will, won't you?

---

END OF THE MONTH.

CW: body horror, dolls, violence

Aside from the horror of the drive-in, January might seem to be passing calmly... until one night, something changes. In the middle of the night, once you fall asleep in your comfortable bed (or on your couch, or with your head lolling against the kitchen table), a nightmare comes to you. The shift from whatever dreams you were having to the cold, dark void you find yourself standing in happens gradually and quietly. So too does the image that plays out in your mind's eye: From out of the darkness, a featureless mannequin stands ramrod straight, facing you with its arms pressed rigidly to its sides. It has no face, no identifying marks, no features at all. It's a blank slate in every sense of the word... until it isn't. Slowly, the material of the lower half of its face begins to split as a searing pain tears through your own, as if invisible fingers are ripping your lips off inch by inch. The slit on the doll's face widens and deepens until, finally, mercifully, its new mouth opens as yours disappears, replaced by a flat, smooth barrier of skin. Like it was never there to begin with. The pain returns, this time in your arms and neck — right as the doll's own begin to jerk. Your joints are hardening, seizing up as the doll's arms go from minutely twitching to slowly flexing. While every nerve and bone from your fingertips all the way up to your shoulders grows heavy, the doll tilts its head and looks down at its hands, as if seeing them for the first time. By the time it takes its first step, you've taken your last: the pain has spread to your feet, ankles and toes hardening and locking into place. Every part of you is claimed this way; what isn't taken by force simply fades from your body and shifts into being onto the doll's, your skin replacing its cloth body, your clothing dressing it, your hair filling out its head. Your tongue goes numb as the licks its newfound lips, coarse cloth and batting surging up from your lungs and all the way to the back of your throat. By the time it's over, you can't move. You can no longer breathe. All you can do is stare at the perfect, eyeless double of yourself standing before you. As your eyes begin to burn, the last thing you see before everything goes black is the sly curve of a smile — your smile — before the face wearing it turns away and walks back into the darkness. Luckily, you wake up to a room full of sunshine and the distant sound of traffic as the neighborhood gets ready for another beautiful day. The morning air feels cold and dry on your skin. You're you. As much as you've always been. Right?

A. DOPPELGANGER.

It's the kind of morning that makes you want to sing. Where the sky was once dull and grey, it's now a deep blue. Barring the usual hustle and bustle on the streets of Shadyside, the first sound that greets you when you wake up is the steady beat of water trickling outside your window as the snow begins to gently melt under the rays of the sun. You may even hear the chirp of a bird! January, in all its dreariness, is nearly at an end.

When you leave the room to go downstairs — or upstairs, if you slept in the living room — the house is quiet and flooded with sunlight. With how perfectly silent everything is, it's easy to mistake the calm for solitude and think you're alone.

This is not the case.

Waiting to greet you is a familiar figure. If you go downstairs, you'll see it sitting in your kitchen with its head bowed and its arms hanging limply at its sides; if upstairs, lying in your bed on its back. There's no mistaking who it is. Even at a distance, their hair, face, clothes and features all instantly recognizable, and you know who it is before you even fully register their presence:

You.

Motionless, your doppelganger looks more puppet than person. Its chest is still, not a single breath leaving its mouth. Its eyes are closed. They snap open when you get closer to it, wide enough to see the whites, as its head jerks up to look straight at you. In a staccato imitation of your voice, it chirps at you:

"Hi!"

"Good morning!"

"Hello!"

"Rise and shine!"

Your clone is a good imitation, but not a perfect one. Its movements are stiff and uncoordinated, like a marionette being commanded by unseen strings. Though its cheeks are rosy, its skin is pale and almost glossy with the texture of newly polished porcelain. None of these setbacks bother it in the very least. If left alone, it goes about the house mimicking your morning routine, though given how awkward just walking is for it, it's almost certain to do a very bad job. Still, it tries its hardest, following you all day around the neighborhood, trying to imitate your movements — all with a smile!

That is, until you become aggressive with it.

It doesn't take much to set your doppelganger off — a simple shove will do it. When that happens, its eyes will do the impossible and open even wider, its mouth yawning into a wail that pitches louder and louder. That's the point when it will lunge at you. Its hands will try to go for your throat, but not always. It's resourceful enough to improvise with whatever it has around it, whether that be a kitchen knife, a paperweight, or even a letter opener. Luckily for you, they're fragile. Just hitting them is enough to crack and chip away at their skin. With enough strength, their limbs can even come off. Unluckily, they don't stay down for long; even a severed appendage can be popped back into its proper ball-jointed place.

All the while, they never stop childishly whining and shrieking at you.

"Not nice!"

"Why are you so mean?!"

"Not nice, not nice, NOT NICE!"

The only way to shut them up for good is to keep pummeling them until they're nothing but a pile of doll parts. But be thorough — even a mouth that's nothing but a shard of porcelain can still talk.

---

OOC INFO

Hello, and welcome to We're Still Here's second TDM! Here's a few things we'd like you to keep in mind:

The TDM is canon. You can treat this as the game's first real event and pick and choose what threads you would like your character to remember when they enter the game. For characters who app into the game, the events of the TDM will be treated like a dream. Upon awakening from it, characters will find that time has jumped ahead to February 1st. You may also feel free to use similar reality and/or time distortions to explain why the family members your characters have in the TDM aren't the same as the ones they may be assigned to in the game proper. Additionally, starting today comments made to the TDM will now count towards Activity Check. Current players are permitted to use up to five comments from it for this month's Activity Check — half of the required amount to pass. The other five must be made within the game's communities.

If you would like to have January or other winter-themed content in your relaxed housing prompts, please feel free! You are not beholden to follow our prompts exactly so long as the spirit is maintained.

There is no Network prompt listed, but feel free to wildcard one for your characters anyway.

Although the TDM is canon in the sense that characters are free to remember its events when they app into the game, it does not count as an official plot heavy event, meaning that characters will not receive regains from participating in it.

A note about the drive-in theater: Players are in full control over what memories, phobias, or fears the serials before the movie will depict. You can also specify whether or not other characters will be able to see your character's serial. Be sure to label your threads with relevant content warnings if needed!

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Comments

[hardcase]

This isn't the first time I've woken up somewhere strange. I'm a wild sort of fella.

[ He flips an egg over with the spatula, letting it twirl a few times in the air before it lands back down on the uncooked side. ]

This is all rather elaborate, though. Dunno how they got those pictures because I sure as hell didn't take 'em. [ And now he drops the bacon in the pan, running his tongue over his teeth as they sizzle. At least there's good food here. ]

[callhousekeeping]

It's not a foreign concept for me, either. Just a foreign setting.

[ She watches him for a long moment, then stands to smooth down her skirt before she helpfully locates dishes to set down at the table for him. It's been a long, long time since she did anything even so slightly domestic, but she figures that she might as well have camaraderie with her fellow victim. ]

And there are pictures from different days and seasons, even stages of life. So something more must be at play.

[hardcase]

[ Once everything is done cooking he arranges his breakfast on the plate: two eggs and a few strips of bacon arranged in the shape of a smiley face. Always good to start the day off with a smile. ]

Something more is right. Forgive me if this sounds crazy, but pictures of me from my childhood don't exist.

[ He was born before cameras were invented (or long after they were gone, depending on how you looked at it) and he's changed his physical appearance enough that he's barely recognizable as the dark-haired peasant boy he used to be. ] Hell, pictures of me don't generally exist. I'm a little camera shy, is all.

[ He sits down with a fork and knife in hand. ]

[callhousekeeping]

[ While he makes himself what seems to be an all-around wholesome breakfast, the Countess is pouring vodka into a pitcher of orange juice, because "something mysterious has kidnapped you" is certainly deserving of a screwdriver. When she returns to the table, it's with the pitcher and a new mug of coffee, which she gives to him before pouring drinks into the glasses that were already on the table. ]

It doesn't sound crazy. I try to avoid pictures myself. [ After all, immortality only lasts as long as people don't know you're immortal, so she rarely allows more than a few pictures per decade. ] But I also have a flawless memory, so the photos aren't as telling as the fact that I couldn't possibly have lived the life in them. I certainly wasn't a child in the 1940s.

[ She puts down a slightly age-damaged picture of herself as a little girl, with people who are definitely her parents, but the clothing and surroundings are all wrong, decades off. When this picture was supposedly taken, the real Countess was already in her forties, frozen in amber in an LA penthouse. The picture had been in a frame on her vanity, the kind of sentimentality she doesn't allow herself in reality. ]

My parents would have been in their sixties then. So something has happened with time.

[hardcase]

Flawless memory? Must be nice. Mine's a little rusty, but I've seen a lot.

[ After a thousand years or so there's only so much that you can keep. He takes the coffee, nodding at her in appreciation before taking a sip. ]

Time's funny like that. Where were you at, then? The 20s? 30s? [ Because most people aren't immortal, though the way she talks about the 40s as if she's lived through them despite looking a little young to have parents in the sixties then piques his curiosity. ] I was a traveling magician in the Roaring Twenties. Hit some real good parties. What a time.

[ He sets down his mug and skewers a piece of bacon with his fork, taking a nice big bite out of it. He'll figure out what's going on with time later. Right now he wants to eat and reminisce a little. It's rare that he gets to sit in a house and just chill there like he owns the place. ]

[callhousekeeping]

Well... all right, you got me. There are definitely some hazy parts of the seventies, but I suspect anyone who made it through the decade would say the same.

[ His candor -- or else his very vivid imagination -- take a bit of the edge off her, and the vodka doesn't hurt either. She doesn't exactly shy from speaking about her long life at home, but it's also not something that she has to recount particularly often. When everyone around is also stuck in time, you stop caring about keeping it quiet.

And it's not like she'll hesitate to strike if her crewmate on this shipwreck here decides he needs to cross her. ]

Last I checked, it was 2016. LA. Hollywood was a ball in the twenties, that's when I made it out to California. Same old story about a silly girl just dying to be in the flickers. Didn't exactly work out, but I can't say I had a bad time.

[ She lights a new cigarette and rests her chin in her palm, elbow propped on the table. ] Travel by yourself, or were you part of a bigger revue?

[hardcase]

I've always traveled alone, and you're right about the seventies. [ He laughs at that comment; he actually remembers that particular decade pretty well, but drugs don't work on him like they do on other people. ] I hitchhiked all around the country then. There was always something wild happening.

[ So she's been alive for at least a century now, maybe longer. No use in keeping his own immortality a secret. ] I know it's rude to inquire about lady's age, but it seems like we both have the same good fortune of looking a hell of a lot younger than we are. That's a pretty uncommon gift.

[ Or curse, as some might call it, but fuck them. He has no patience for mopey immortals and their existential pain. Enjoy the ride or shut up. ]

[callhousekeeping]

That's a long time to travel alone. No friends or partners to tag along?

[ And she doesn't even mean it in a nosy way. The Countess is many things, but good with solitude isn't one of them. She can hardly imagine spending such a long life without companions. ]

A blood virus, one that someone very special gave to me. I don't age or get ill. No scars, no marks. As far as I know, I can live forever if I take some basic precautions. [ Which she absolutely never takes, but whatever. ] Are you one of us, or something else?

[ She doesn't believe he's afflicted, actually, but she does know that other things exist in the world. He can't be a ghost, since he clearly didn't die here and ghosts are the woooooorst, but he could be a warlock, or something altogether different from any of them. ]

I'm sorry, I've been terribly rude, to not even introduce myself. I'm The Countess.

[ She offers him her hand. ]

[hardcase]

I have the occasional companion, but never for long. I'm a wand'rin' star, as they say. [ Something like him is doomed to be alone. Most people can't keep up with him or tolerate his presence for too long, so he's fine with that. ]

I'm something else, and as far as I know there's only one of me. [ The fact that he doesn't even know what he is bothers him sometimes, but right now he's alright with it. Gives him a nice air of mystery. ] I think I was human once, but that's coming up on two thousand years ago. Right now I go by Randall Flagg, but if we're giving titles I've been called The Dark Man, The Walkin' Dude, The Ageless Stranger - y'know what, just Randy's probably the easiest.

[ He grins, dark and wolfish. In two thousand years he's collected a whole lot of nicknames. ]

[callhousekeeping]

Mm, I know people who aren't human anymore too, but you're certainly not like them. I prefer the unique anyway.

[ She watches him with a weighty gaze, like she can see something inside him. He's certainly not human, because she can dissect humans just by looking at them as they walk by. She can smell their emotions on their blood, their personalities. She's become so keenly aware of humanity that she can sense intentions by movements.

It has not occurred to her that she might not be afflicted anymore, so it makes more sense that Randall Flagg is certainly something she has never encountered before. Something charming but malevolent, something untrustworthy, and that's what makes her want to keep engaging. ]

Yes, I think Randy is fine. Two thousand years... what does one do for two thousand years, Randy? Surely things get old after so long.

[hardcase]

People always overestimate how bored they'd get with time like mine. The truth is, some things never get old.

[ He finishes the last of his breakfast, licking his lips as he swallows. Something about the absence of his magic makes the food taste better, probably because he's stuck in an actual human body for now. ]

And there's always something new, too. I've never woken up in a place like this. [ He takes her hand, planting a kiss atop her knuckles like a proper gentleman. ] And I've never met you.

[callhousekeeping]

Oh, there are certainly some things that would never get old. It's more about the volume of activity necessary to fill all that time.

[ Sex and murder can't occupy all the time in the world, after all. But it's nice to know that she doesn't have an eternity of doldrums ahead of her.

She smiles and tightens her fingers around his. He's good, she'll give him that. She hasn't quite figured out his game yet, but oh she knows he's good at it. ]

You've never checked into my hotel. If we get out of this, I'll be there.

[hardcase]

I guess I've gotten better at entertaining myself over time. I've taken month-long walks and enjoyed them.

[ In the absence of an oncoming apocalypse he's content to simply exist and terrorize the world with his presence.

He lets go of her hand, squeezing a little before he does. ] I'm not sure you'd want me as a guest, not unless you're fond of making company with the darkness.

[callhousekeeping]

Month-long walks, my goodness. I can only imagine what the soles of your shoes must look like. Do you not need to eat, or do you stop for food and rest over the month?

[ Her smile becomes more sinister as she laughs, like he's said something terribly funny instead of mildly threatening. His darkness clearly doesn't scare her -- if anything, she finds it a bit comforting. ]

Baby, you don't know my world. I try to avoid the light.

[hardcase]

I go through plenty of soles, it's true. [ He smirks. Souls, soles, double meaning. Ha. ] I don't need to eat, but I like to. If I see a quaint little diner along the way, I'll make a pit stop.

[ He meets her gaze, intense and unblinking. He can't truly show her what he is, not without his magic, but his eyes are dark and ancient. ] Say you heard a story on the news about a dangerous fella roaming around at night. The kind whole cities put up curfews for. A real boogeyman. If that man walked into your hotel, would you get him a room?

[ What he's describing there is a plain old killer - a monster, but human nonetheless. He's a monster of a different variety altogether, in a way that's difficult to convey, but he'll try. ]

Now, imagine another man walks in behind him, and upon seeing this new arrival that cold-blooded killer turns pale as a ghost and nearly dies of fright. Do you offer him a room?

[callhousekeeping]

Hard to beat a slice of diner cherry pie with a cup of coffee. [ Not that she indulges in it, unless it's being brought to her on a tray in her room. She eats food, occasionally, mostly during dreadful evenings with her husband. Even then, she doesn't have more than a few bites. But she understands the trappings of idealized Americana.

Cocking her head, she's quiet for a moment, though she doesn't need to think about her answer. She has spent a century surrounded by utter depravity, barely remembers life without a crushing sense of evil blanketing her. Jet black auras all around, the smell of copper everywhere.

Funny. She doesn't smell anything now. ]

We would offer them both suites, of course. It seems like they'd both fit right in with us.

[hardcase]

Then it seems like you might run one of the few hotels that actually wants me as a guest.

[ Not the only one. He's sure if he made a trip to the Overlook he'd be allowed, if not actively welcomed. And he's stayed at his share of seedy roadside motels, handed a pair of keys by a desk clerk too terrified to refuse him. ]

What's it like there?

[callhousekeeping]

Discrimination really has no place in modern business. Everyone is welcome at the Cortez.

[ Which is true. Bad people are drawn to its siren song, and they make quick work of the innocents unlucky enough to find themselves in a room. The Countess has noticed that the front desk has begun to crack down on hipsters, though.

She nods and takes another sip of her drink, leaving a ring of red lipstick on the glass. ]

The Hotel Cortez opened on August 23rd, 1926. My first husband was the founder, and he designed it himself. He had quite a knack for architecture, you know. All art deco, and I've kept it that way. Thirteen floors. We offer long-term options as well. Many of our residents have been there for years.

[hardcase]

Years? That's unusual.

[ Weeks and months, sure, but when you start getting into years you might as well just find a rental somewhere unless it's dirt cheap. ]

And what is it about this hotel that would attract fine folk like myself? There's always something.

[callhousekeeping]

It's not an easy place to leave behind. We hardly had a choice but to offer permanent residences as well.

[ And actually, the Cortez does treat their ghosts pretty well. Any ghost who wants one gets their own permanent room and they all eat and drink for free, despite the fact that they don't need to do either and it would quite frankly make more fiscal sense to get them to stop. Really, it's a wonder they aren't constantly inundated with suicides. A place in LA for the low, low cost of your soul? People would line up around the block for that deal. ]

Whatever do you mean, "something"? Do you think there's a catch?

[hardcase]

I'm familiar with the darkness, darlin', and it doesn't usually settle at random.

[ Murders and rituals and dark magic and other such events can draw a good concentration of it in, and darkness that really sticks around is almost never a coincidence. ]

I won't judge - Lawd knows I have no right to - I'm just interested, is all.

[callhousekeeping]

[ She's quiet for a moment, mostly because she isn't even entirely sure where to begin. She doesn't know why the Cortez is the way it is, why souls are trapped there. They just are. ]

All right, Randy. My first husband's name was James March. He was also known as the Ten Commandments Killer, before he died. And he built his hotel around his hobby -- killing as many people as possible, in whatever manner he pleased. And he is a very creative man.

[ She has to pause to light a cigarette. ] Notice how I said he is a creative man? It's because he's dead, but he's not gone. No one who dies on the grounds of the Cortez ever really checks out. Something about the Cortez is different. Special.

[hardcase]

You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. [ He chuckles softly under his breath. ]

Built with dark intent - that'd do it. I've heard of a place like that; like a maze, though the architect had a different name. Holmes, or something. [ He licks his lips like a hungry wolf, wishing he could feel that surge of power he usually gets when discussing matters like this. But he can remember the feeling, so that'd have to do for now. ] I'm sure I'd have been drawn towards yours eventually. Sounds like a real nice place.

[callhousekeeping]

It's home.

[ A home she misses terribly already. But she can make the most of the situation she's been dealt, she supposes. At least until she figures out who needs to die for doing this. ]

If we're going to approach this situation as a team, there's something else you should know. Something about me.

[hardcase]

'Fraid I can't relate. Haven't had a home since I was a boy, and I never liked it much.

[ Ironic that he's just been given one here, with pictures and everything, but he knows he doesn't belong here no matter how much effort someone put into making it look like he did. ]

What's that?