Yelena Belova (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
musicdied) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
apocalypsehowcomm2021-08-24 01:56 am
musicdied) wrote in apocalypsehowcomm2021-08-24 01:56 am
Open Log
Who: Yelena Belova and anyone
When: Mid-August up to just before the event
Where: ADI housing and the surrounding neighbourhood, the railyard
Summary: Getting the lay of the land, and investigating the phantom crash.
Warnings: fire, destruction of home, mention of insects, mention of potential death and corpses, paranoia
ADI Housing - C2
It's a solid few hours between when Yelena is first deposited in one of the maintenance ducts in ADI headquarters, and when she turns up at the apartment - shared, she's been warned, and while that's less than ideal, she's dealt with less privacy before - she's been assigned to. This once, she takes no pains to be silent, though neither is she overly loud.
If there's no one immediately in evidence in the common area of the apartment, she'll set about exploring, committing the layout and location of various useful items to memory. If one of the apartment's other residents is in evidence, or else when they make an appearance, she greets them with a small smile and a, "Hello. I think we're to be roommates."
(And, ok, maybe only half of the other residents of the apartment will think she's harmless for even a second, but half is better than none.)
ADI Housing - General
After she's acquainted - or reacquainted - herself with her roommates and washed the cobwebs and dust from her hair, Yelena sets out to acquaint herself with the grounds of the housing complex and the area just beyond. The first evening, she's concerned mainly with the major landmarks: the apartment blocks, the fitness and laundry facilities, the gate and the bus stops, the nearby grocery store. The next few evenings, she can be found wandering the grounds and the nearby neighbourhood with less apparent intent - just stretching her legs, if asked. (Just cataloging the surveillance equipment; she's seen high-security facilities with far fewer cameras.)
Over the course of the first two weeks she's there, she establishes something of a routine, alternating running and swimming in the early mornings, visiting the gym at night. Occasionally, after curfew, she might be found up on the roof of one of the buildings. It's not against the rules - she's checked.
Railyard - August 21-24
It doesn't take any convincing to get Yelena down to the railyard after the crash that has, apparently, gone unnoticed or ignored by the majority of the town. Including, apparently, the people who work in that selfsame railyard. After the third repetition of "I just started here", she abandons questioning to those less physically adventurous in favour of inspecting the rusting tracks and decaying train car. She slips in through the half-fused door, the beam of her heavily-weighted flashlight bobbing as she scrambles over detritus best left unidentified, and struggles not to cough at the haze of dust and ash in the air. That the burnt-out hulk is ancient is clear enough. So too is the fact that it was once a sleeper car, and she supposes it's fortunate that some long-ago rescue crew has already removed the bodies, even if no one's bothered to haul the car away.
(Or would it not have been here yesterday, if anyone had taken it into their heads to explore the railyard without the impetus of the crash?)
She runs a finger carefully along the lip of the washbasin, then turns her attention to the walls, squinting at the ruined posters. After a moment, she pulls her phone out of her pocket, and starts recording. Most of posters and playbills are destroyed beyond any use, but some few might yield more information on closer inspection, somewhere that feels less like a tomb and doesn't force her to take shallow breaths.
It doesn't take long for the theme to become apparent even in the few posters that remain.
Something - maybe the creak of fire-and-rot weakened flooring, maybe the scuttling or chittering of disturbed vermin, maybe just a shift in the air - alerts her to another person's presence, and she glances sharply over. She relaxes only a little when she spies another person, and not anything particularly sinister.
"It's strange, isn't it?" she says. "This still being here."
Wildcard
Hit me with something, or pm me/pp me at![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
quantumvelvet if you have an idea you want to chat about.
When: Mid-August up to just before the event
Where: ADI housing and the surrounding neighbourhood, the railyard
Summary: Getting the lay of the land, and investigating the phantom crash.
Warnings: fire, destruction of home, mention of insects, mention of potential death and corpses, paranoia
ADI Housing - C2
It's a solid few hours between when Yelena is first deposited in one of the maintenance ducts in ADI headquarters, and when she turns up at the apartment - shared, she's been warned, and while that's less than ideal, she's dealt with less privacy before - she's been assigned to. This once, she takes no pains to be silent, though neither is she overly loud.
If there's no one immediately in evidence in the common area of the apartment, she'll set about exploring, committing the layout and location of various useful items to memory. If one of the apartment's other residents is in evidence, or else when they make an appearance, she greets them with a small smile and a, "Hello. I think we're to be roommates."
(And, ok, maybe only half of the other residents of the apartment will think she's harmless for even a second, but half is better than none.)
ADI Housing - General
After she's acquainted - or reacquainted - herself with her roommates and washed the cobwebs and dust from her hair, Yelena sets out to acquaint herself with the grounds of the housing complex and the area just beyond. The first evening, she's concerned mainly with the major landmarks: the apartment blocks, the fitness and laundry facilities, the gate and the bus stops, the nearby grocery store. The next few evenings, she can be found wandering the grounds and the nearby neighbourhood with less apparent intent - just stretching her legs, if asked. (Just cataloging the surveillance equipment; she's seen high-security facilities with far fewer cameras.)
Over the course of the first two weeks she's there, she establishes something of a routine, alternating running and swimming in the early mornings, visiting the gym at night. Occasionally, after curfew, she might be found up on the roof of one of the buildings. It's not against the rules - she's checked.
Railyard - August 21-24
It doesn't take any convincing to get Yelena down to the railyard after the crash that has, apparently, gone unnoticed or ignored by the majority of the town. Including, apparently, the people who work in that selfsame railyard. After the third repetition of "I just started here", she abandons questioning to those less physically adventurous in favour of inspecting the rusting tracks and decaying train car. She slips in through the half-fused door, the beam of her heavily-weighted flashlight bobbing as she scrambles over detritus best left unidentified, and struggles not to cough at the haze of dust and ash in the air. That the burnt-out hulk is ancient is clear enough. So too is the fact that it was once a sleeper car, and she supposes it's fortunate that some long-ago rescue crew has already removed the bodies, even if no one's bothered to haul the car away.
(Or would it not have been here yesterday, if anyone had taken it into their heads to explore the railyard without the impetus of the crash?)
She runs a finger carefully along the lip of the washbasin, then turns her attention to the walls, squinting at the ruined posters. After a moment, she pulls her phone out of her pocket, and starts recording. Most of posters and playbills are destroyed beyond any use, but some few might yield more information on closer inspection, somewhere that feels less like a tomb and doesn't force her to take shallow breaths.
It doesn't take long for the theme to become apparent even in the few posters that remain.
Something - maybe the creak of fire-and-rot weakened flooring, maybe the scuttling or chittering of disturbed vermin, maybe just a shift in the air - alerts her to another person's presence, and she glances sharply over. She relaxes only a little when she spies another person, and not anything particularly sinister.
"It's strange, isn't it?" she says. "This still being here."
Wildcard
Hit me with something, or pm me/pp me at
no subject
What a fucking mess. He focuses on what they could potentially understand, rather than what they probably can't. "You could not get to the bag on the pulley?"
no subject
She shakes her head, and snaps a few more pictures of the posters, and the strange, splotchy mold colony that appears to be attempting to eat the tiger on one.
"The pit was too wide, and it was in the very centre. If we'd had something to pull it over with, maybe - that is probably how it was put on. Or there was a mechanism to move the pulley over, somewhere we weren't able to find."
no subject
He frowns, shakes his head. "Too late to do anything, anyway, probably. If the body didn't react to you being there, it was already dead." That's meant to be a comfort. Yelena couldn't do anything, but maybe there was nothing to be done. If a body is dead, then it needs nothing.
There is the possibility that when the doorway opens again, a new body will be added. "Was there any other sign to show the doorway was open. Something to look for elsewhere." Or should he start hovering around a playground?
no subject
She’s aware of how cold that sounds. She’s also aware that he might be the one person who won’t judge her for that coldness.
“The slide was out of place, when it was there. In a clearing, with no buildings nearby, and no path. Like it had just been dropped there. A lure, but not one that is somewhere it might be easily noticed.”
no subject
"And you have not been able to find it again?" It was moved, or didn't ever properly exist to begin with and it was all a magic-induced hallucination, or it only appears at certain times of day or of the month... magic makes everything so much more difficult, dammit.
no subject
It's disquieting, and leaves her off-kilter. It's nothing like what she experienced under the Red Room's control - her perception had always been her own, nothing had ever blurred the stark reality of the horrors she'd seen or inflicted - but there's an unpleasant similarity in the questioning of herself.
"I don't know if it or whatever put it there thinks, or thinks anything like a human if it does, but if I were to guess at a reason, I would say that something does not want anyone who makes it out to go back prepared."
no subject
But he has another suggestion, too: "And then show me where you saw the slide. Maybe we can both keep watch. Just in case."