[NoSuchThing]

Richard Malloy had three kids, a daughter fifteen years old who was just discovering an interest in boys, a younger son who loved to play video games with his dad, and a newly born daughter of just three months. In order to support these children he and his wife, both of them primarily unskilled workers, both work multiple jobs. In order to care for their youngest, Helen Malloy has been on maternity leave, leaving Richard to be the main provider for the family. Perhaps this explains why he fell asleep at the wheel on the morning of June 3rd 2017.

His car strayed out of his lane, forcing a coach into the barrier in the centre of the motorway. The coach turned over, skidding across the road to block three lanes. Richard Malloy died instantly, twenty of the occupants of the coach suffered a similar fate, including the driver. A sudden blockage on a major motorway doesn’t end so simply however. Eight more people were killed when their vehicles collided with the wreck, and the ensuing pile up led to the injury of scores of people and the destruction of eighty vehicles.

It was the worst road accident in American history.

The emergency rooms of nearby hospitals were overwhelmed, with dozens people in critical condition, and many more with cuts, abrasions and contusions. It was one of the worst disasters in San Francisco since the ‘Great San Francisco Earthquake’.

In the confusion and chaos, many miracles went unnoticed and bravery unappreciated. When one particular doctor pulled several critical cases into the ICU no one thought anything of it, questions only came when each of those patients made a full recovery, more than a full recovery in fact. Several of them came back from the brink of death. By that time it was too late, the doctor in question was on none of the hospital’s personnel files. Some praised God, other’s called it luck, but those few patients were amongst the luckiest of all the victims of the disaster. If luck is what you would call it…

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Persephone Dean + Claire Elliot + waking up + music

Alice was in a nightmare, a chaos of torn metal and painful screams. The air had been filled with the smell of smoke and burning flesh, the highway a jumble of crushed cars and panicked survivors. She watched dreamily from her vantage, everything seemed so far away, like she was watching it through the wall of a fish tank, sounds muted, experiences hazy. Sirens mumbled their way into her consciousness, and the bright red blur of a fire engine pulled up a few feet away, the black jacketed men and women jumping from the cab and grabbing axes and hoses. Two of them were heading towards her, their mouths opening and shutting. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they looked scared. One of them hefted what looked like a massive pair of bolt-cutters. Everything seemed so far away. She wasn’t a participant in all of this, simply an observer. It was like watching a found footage movie on the TV, in the same way that a dream often feels like some sort of on rails experience. For some strange reason this nightmare didn’t feel so horrifying. Despite the scene before her, the smells, the sounds, it didn’t seem at all unpleasant. The firemen were further away now, they looked like they were shouting at her from the mouth of a well. One of them braced himself, and the dream twisted so suddenly back into a nightmare as an awful searing pain radiated out from her chest. Alice began to scream… …and woke up. She stared at the ceiling for a moment, at least it was only a dream. A strange one it was true, and she wondered what could have been on her mind to prompt such a horrible scenario. With a grown as of a Vampire Countess waking from slumber, she sat up. She wasn’t in her room. That much was clear, and the presence of gently humming machines and the IV by her bed confirmed that this room was in a hospital. She wasn’t alone in the room, there were another three beds, two of them, she could see, were occupied, but the fourth was obscured behind a curtain. “Shit…” Was that nightmare more than a nightmare? She looked down at her chest, expecting to see bandages, scars, stitching, anything. The hospital gown was all there was. Her body appeared entirely devoid of scars, cuts, even bruises. What had happened?.

© seadra of gs

[Deleted]

WORDS: #

TAGS: Alice Morrow , Persephone Dean

There was something innately wrong about how content she was in this space of nothingness. Was this death? It hadn’t been what she expected at all.. She’d grown up in a non-denominational church with her folks, but her faith was less than lackluster ever since the the twin towers, less so when she and her father put her mother into the ground. But to simply have nothing in death? There had to be something, anything.

“Dad?” she took a step forward through the space that resembled no color she could put her finger on. It wasn’t dark, wasn’t light.. It didn’t exist. “...Mom?” she hesitated to ask, but it came out easier than she thought it would. Still she received no answer, no sign, no sound. After a while of walking in one direction she decided to stop. There was no end, so why continue onward? A small huff came out of her nose and her shoulders slumped without knowing what else to do.

In the middle of her directionless thought, she felt a sharp, very exact pain on her side and hissed before lifting her shirt a little to see her rib cage with her dream catcher along it. “Ow.. weird,” she put one hand on it then gave a little scratch. Nothing happened for a little bit, but she still felt a strange sensation there.

Then, suddenly, the entirety of the tattoo glowed like hot, orange metal and burned through her skin. Claire curled over and shouted loudly at the pain in shock, but it didn’t stop there.. the all-seeing eye on her collarbones and sternum shone through the fabric of her chest and the dragon that ran up one side of her back burnt the shirt that pressed against her shoulder blade in its shape. She was on the ground now, writhing and crying out as she smelled her own burning flesh until the tattoos lit so brightly that everything became white. Then, there was nothing again.

Her head lulled to the side in the hospital bed but her body underneath the sheet remained motionless. Tired, heavy eyelids barely lifted and her pupils attempted to adjust to the bright room but remained glazed over. Everything was blue and white.. there were a few beeps here and there from machines around. “Hnn..” the groan in her exhale was hardly audible, but her eyes stayed open and she swore she could see the blurry outline of someone else sitting up beside her.

NOTES: Waking up. 
WEARING: Lots of this

＃ENY ADOXOGRAPHY

[Persephone Dean]

Crossing Paths

There was a strange, muffled static sound – loud and unnerving. It was also dark, pitch black in fact, and Persephone panicked for a brief moment before she realised that her eyes were simply shut. With an unexpectedly great effort, she opened them. Instantly her vision was flooded with a painful white light, pupils frantically adjusting to this sensory overload.

The static was diminishing, thankfully. As her eyes slowly became accustomed to taking in the light of the room, so too did her ears begin to pick up the sounds. Hums of machines, distant footsteps… an expletive?

Although a rustle of sheets caught Persephone’s attention, she was feeling incredibly cautious and so willed herself to stay motionless. She lowered her eyelids subtly – open just wide enough to peek at her surroundings – and tried to work out what the hell was going on. Her heart began to thud, a horrible feeling beginning to make itself present.

She had no idea where she was.

The panic returned as she struggled to collect her haphazard thoughts. She was Persephone. She was twenty years old. She lived in San Francisco. She was a waitress.

Yes, that was it. She’d been on her way to work. The information provided no answers, but it was still comforting. Jesse had been driving – he was always willing to do favours for her. The young man bored Persephone to tears but she fed him just enough conversation to keep him sweet without giving him any ideas. She wondered why he’d taken her here – wherever here was – and whether he’d left her here alone.

She shifted her head slightly, looking for the source of the sheet rustling. Whatever this place was, it had a clinical, impersonal vibe. Perhaps Jesse’s inane wittering had finally driven her mad and this was a mental institution. The thought simultaneously amused and concerned her. After all, it could be true.

There was an array of equipment. Some beds. People in the beds, donning the same shapeless hospital gown that Persephone realised she herself was clothed in.

She searched her memory again. A fruitless search that served only to panic Persephone further. The mental picture of sitting in the back of Jesse’s truck was all she had in terms of what she could only assume was a recent memory. She’d been looking down at her boots, scrutinising scuff marks. What the hell had happened?

Maybe, just maybe, somebody within these four walls could give her an idea. She chastised herself briefly for panicking before gently propping herself up on her elbows to survey her roommates.

ψ

[Deleted]

WORDS: #

TAGS: Alice Morrow , Persephone Dean

She tried to focus more on the figure that sat up when hearing her mumble something and got close to coming to a clearer image. As soon as the lines were about to sharpen in her view, something much closer obscured it - another figure that somewhat sat up between Claire and the other woman. Now her face scrunched in greater confusion. Did they know something she didn’t? Did she know either of them?...

Claire took a moment to shut her eyes again, rolling her head over to the other side and opening them to the sight of a hidden bed privately covered by a curtain that hung from the ceiling. Once again her heavy head returned to where it’d been with a thankfully much clearer image of the closer woman. What was this place? Why was she here? “...Am I dead?” she asked her with a dry, whispering voice in hopes to get any kind of answer.

NOTES: Waking up. 
WEARING: Lots of this

＃ENY ADOXOGRAPHY

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Persephone Dean + Claire Elliot + awake + music

The others in the room seemed to be coming to their own senses, at least from what she could see. Fighting against the softness of the pillows, Alice sat up. The girl directly opposite her was dark haired and pale, though the cut of her hair suggested that it was supposed to be styled rather differently from how it was now. “If we’re dead then this is a really screwed up heaven…” Glancing around, it became obvious that there were no personal effects here. No phone, no clothes, nothing. The last thing she remembered before this room was an awful, all-encompassing pain. There had been screams and the smell of smoke in the air, this room couldn’t be any more different. It was empty, clinical, but somehow just as horrifying. At least here there were other people. “Were you guys in… you know…” She trailed off awkwardly, not quite sure how to ask the question. After all, what she could remember had been horrifying. Twisted metal and torn flesh, she hoped that these two hadn’t been there. She stuck her legs over the edge of the bed, wincing in anticipation of pain, but surprised to feel nothing. If anything, she felt great. Had it really all been a nightmare? It couldn’t be, she was in a hospital…

© seadra of gs

[Persephone Dean]

Crossing Paths

Persephone fought back a reaction to scoff at the raven-haired girl’s question. She was entirely unconvinced of the existence of an afterlife and the idea had not actually even crossed her mind. Instead, she’d been focused upon the potential that a co-worker had driven her insane. Now that she thought about it, perhaps the question was not so idiotic by comparison.

A small, almost child-like girl with startlingly blue hair piped up. Persephone noted that the girl shared her belief that they weren’t in fact in a (very underwhelming) kind of heaven.

Her hesitancy in the follow-up, incomplete question piqued Persephone’s interest. She seemed to know something – something important that could explain why they were here. Persephone’s eyes flitted between the two girls, appraising them the most basic level. The one with blue hair seemed young, but perhaps not quite so young as her appearance would suggest, and her voice had the tone of one who was used to affecting cheer in the face of adversity. The black haired one was pale, like Blue Hair, and looked older. The confusion Persephone felt was reflected quite strongly in Black Hair’s face. Really, it would be impossible to get much of a read on either of them at this point, given the current situation.

“In what?” she pressed, consciously trying to suppress her sense of urgency. The words came out calmly, but only just. She ran her hand through her hair, inspecting the mass of curls distractedly. Whatever answer she was looking for, it wasn’t contained in her follicles.

“Anything you know could be useful,” she said softly. “Either of you. I don’t think we’re dead, but in terms of where we are and why…” Persephone shrugged, letting a little vulnerability show on her face. “I, personally, have no idea.”

ψ

[Deleted]

WORDS: #

TAGS: Alice Morrow , Persephone Dean

That wasn’t quite the answer she was expecting but it did shove an anchor into her mind and tether her heavily down to reality with its blunt honesty. It made her try and wake up more, slowly raising herself and curling forward to rub her hands along her face. A crinkling sound made her look down at her chest and she felt beneath the gown against her collar. Her hand pulled it down a little further and revealed a thin bandage that had been put there. But nothing hurt there.. so what was it? Claire made a face and carefully peeled off one end to reveal the top of her tattoo.

There was nothing wrong. No reason why there should be a bandage there to cover it. She was perfectly fine, actually more so.. the skin looked healthier and the ink seemed new instead of nearly five years old. ‘Were you guys in… you know…’ Claire’s face lifted up, back still curled forward, and then looked to the darker woman who answered with her own confusion. Her memory searched for answers. The empty place she’d been, the burning glow… but there was something else, someone yelling in her ear and pulling her by her arms. “..The crash,” she whispered to herself and then met eyes with the younger girl.

“Yeah. that’s-- that’s what happened, right? I think I was on the interstate..” her voice was soft-spoken much like her demeanor and she kept searching, remembering glass and gravel on her back, screaming against the pain between it and the fire she was being dragged from. At the recollection of it she reached back to feel another bandage along her shoulder blade. Her brows furrowed and fingers began to peel it off only to feel smooth skin beneath with no pain. If she was this healed, then-.. “How long has it been?”

NOTES: Soz Rebel you'll have to change these notes yourself.
WEARING: Lots of this

＃ENY ADOXOGRAPHY

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Persephone Dean + Claire Elliot + confused + music

Alice felt some relief when it became apparent that she wasn’t the only one who remembered the crash. Presumably that was why they were here, though the complete lack of injury did not quite match up with her memories. She remembered pain, awful pain, throughout her entire body, yet couldn’t find a hair out of place now. Had she… they, all been out that long? Nothing seemed wrong with the others either. “We must have been out a while, I mean… I remember everything hurting, but now… I… like… I feel great… I don’t think I’ve ever felt this good.” Alice lowered herself to the floor carefully, half expecting her legs to give out underneath her. They absolutely failed to do so, and she stood confidently. “I don’t feel any older.” She glanced around the room, seeing nothing other than a clock, machines, and a few charts. “You’d think they’d put a calendar in here or something. Do either of you guys have a phone or something?” She rummaged in the drawers beside her bed, there was nothing, not even clothes, let alone her phone or other belongings. There was a vase of flowers on top of the drawers, but not a lot else. Not that there was anything for either of the other women. Alice didn’t really have anyone to visit her, she supposed Will would, but would he even know? Who would think to tell him? She checked the chart on her bed, that was dated at least. June 5th “Hey, this says it’s the fifth…” She trailed off as she realised what that entailed….

© seadra of gs

[Persephone Dean]

Crossing Paths

The girls seemed in agreement that there’d been a crash. With Black Hair’s mention of the interstate, Persephone was beginning to think that she must have been involved too. It would certainly explain the apparent amnesia. Considering that she must have had a pretty severe head injury, Persephone was even beginning to echo Black Hair’s query of how long it had been... until Blue Hair found the date.

From Blue Hair’s expression, it seemed like an impossibly short number of days had passed.

“June 5th?” she blurted, eyes wide. “That means it’s only Monday…”

How was that possible? It seemed like there wasn’t a single scratch between them.

She looked around for her own belongings, pulling open the drawer to find at least some of the clothes she’d been wearing on Saturday. Her black skirt was folded carelessly underneath her leather backpack (heavily damaged, but contents intact). The shirt bearing the café logo was nowhere to be found, but that wasn’t too upsetting. Her boots were gone too. After Blue Hair had finished her own search empty-handed, Persephone was quite pleased to have anything at all.

“You got anything?” she asked Black Hair.

It felt childish to keep referring to the others by hair colour. Persephone slid the drawer shut, curiosity satisfied for now, and settled into a cross-legged position on top of the bed.

“I’m Persephone, by the way,” she announced, flashing the warmest smile she could manage at each of her companions.

ψ

[Deleted]

WORDS: #

TAGS: Alice Morrow , Persephone Dean

Claire continued to watch the one that seemed comfortable with speaking her thoughts which, in this situation, was greatly appreciated - a leaderly like quality. ‘We must have been out a while, I mean… I remember everything hurting, but now… I… like… I feel great… I don’t think I’ve ever felt this good.’ Now that she mentioned it, Claire didn’t hurt anywhere that she remembered being burnt. Then the girl positioned her legs over the side of the bed. “Hey, wait, I don’t think that’s such a good idea-,” she worried and leaned forward with a hand holding out for her to stop but she’d already stood up on the ground successfully without any problem. The confusion on Claire’s face was plain as day.

Well, it seemed since they were both getting up, she should too. Slowly, Claire stood and walked to the small set of drawers by her bed. ‘Do either of you guys have a phone or something?’ “I did. Hope it’s here,” though she doubted it survived. First drawer had nothing. second, nothing.. third-- two sealed baggies. Her fingers worked to open the first which contained her set of keys that had been covered in ash - some of which still was encrusted all around them. “...keys,” she said half to them and half to herself. ‘You got anything?’ “Not yet. But It’s definitely not June 5th.. that has to be wrong. Doesn’t make sense,” she was convinced - completely throwing the date away and picking up the second bag that contained-- “H-hey, it’s here!”

Claire set the keys on the top of the drawer and stood to pull her phone out of the blackened zip bag. Her hands went to work brushing off all the soot she could from it and turned it around to look at the screen. It’d been hit in one spot, sending cracks throughout, and the plastic was heavily deformed and melted on the bottom, but maybe it still worked. She held her breath and reached her finger to hit the power button. When lights flicked on she widened her eyes and looked down for the screen to load but was only shown a shattered image. “...No luck. It’s busted,” she showed the two the screen and sighed, sitting on the edge of her bed.

‘I’m Persephone, by the way,’ Her head turned and saw the girl’s smile so she tried to exchange it with one of her own - though it wasn’t nearly as warm or confident. It was pretty obvious this whole situation of strangers wasn’t her strong suit. “Uhm.. Claire,” she tried a smirk and tilted her head further to see the front door of their room. Both of these girls seemed just as confused.. younger, too. Which made her the natural ‘leader’. Great. Her mouth scrunched at the responsibility she felt to try and keep the situation as calm as it was now regardless of how absolutely terrifying it was to have been in that crash only to wake up here. “Stay here, okay?” she stood up and looked to the both of them, walking across the room to the door and taking a deep, tense breath before opening the door a crack and trying to peer outside. Not a sight.. not a sound.. where was everyone?..

NOTES: Soz Rebel you'll have to change these notes yourself.
WEARING: Lots of this

＃ENY ADOXOGRAPHY

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Persephone Dean + Claire Elliot + confused + music

Not wanting to be left out, Alice piped up with her own name, though the older woman, Claire apparently, was already moving to the door. Alice moved away from the side of her bed, totally ignoring the request to stay where she was. After all, she’d been in the same accident, and she wasn’t just going to sit around while someone else found out what was going on. She couldn’t see past the other girl’s back out into the corridor, though she could hear something, a brief murmur of voices before the click of a door closing. Footsteps padded softly down the hall, away from their door. It sounded like a nurse had just come out of the room opposite. “Can you see anything?” Her whisper seemed very loud in the sudden silence of their room, the machines had simply faded into the background, becoming almost a soundtrack to the scene. She stepped back to allow Claire space, then looked over to Persephone. She didn’t seem half as perturbed as the older woman. Alice was still holding the chart, she looked at it again, “I mean, it’s got some notes on it here, from when I was brought in… I think…” The chart was written in typical illegible doctor’s handwriting, but she could still make out some of what was written. “Why would they update it for two days then forget about us?”

© seadra of gs

[Persephone Dean]

Crossing Paths

Claire’s response was hesitant and awkward – Persephone could already feel her interest in the girl waning, but tried her best not to disregard her entirely. She had a dangerous habit of deciding people’s importance before they really had a chance to prove themselves, and already Claire was somewhat redeeming herself by taking the initiative and looking out the door. Alice, on the other hand, concerned Persephone. She seemed reckless.

Perhaps that was only in comparison to Persephone. For all her warm smiles and faux confidence currently plastered across her face, she was feeling unbelievably cautious. She was more than happy for the other two to wander off and assess the situation without her, so long as she wasn’t left completely alone.

Apparently the other two weren’t convinced that the actual date was June 5th. Persephone frowned, she’d been halfway to accepting the idea – the situation was strange enough as it was. She still had absolutely no memory of the crash. Her damaged bag was the only indication that she’d been involved.

There was no point checking to see if her phone had the date. The battery had been at 2% when she’d left the house, aiming to sneakily charge it at work. Alice’s chart was all they had.

“What did they say?” she asked, tilting her head with interest. “How bad were you when you first came in?”

She needed evidence, proof that either there had been a miracle… or there hadn’t.

“Maybe there’s another page… another chart…” She was grasping at straws here. “You know how disorganised hospitals can be,” she added with a grin, trying to cover up the fact that she very clearly had no idea what was going on.

She was, in fact, in a very uncomfortable position indeed. It seemed like she was actually the person in the room who knew the least about the situation. Relying on these strangers seemed like her only option at this point.

ψ

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Persephone Dean + Claire Elliot + confused + music

“Uuuhhhh…” Alice scanned the chart, doing her best to decipher the writing that was so cramped and messy it could almost be a different language. There was something noted down that looked like it might refer to when she had entered the hospital, at least it was dated two days previous. There were only a few notes, something she either couldn’t read or didn’t understand, and then another note in medications administered. “I… was on morphine…” She looked up at the other two, “that doesn’t sound good… don’t they only use that when people are dying or something?”

© seadra of gs

[Deleted]

WORDS: #

TAGS: Alice Morrow , Persephone Dean

The hospital hallway seemed innocent and legitimate enough that it only itched Claire’s curiosity and confusion more. Everything was too perfectly normal for such a bizarre situation.The only thing that didn’t match up were the dates on the charts and their recovery for having been in such a serious crash. “..Not clearly,” she shook her head a small bit with her eyes still trained in the crack of the door, voice hushed to keep from drawing any attention to their room.

“If they forgot about us, we wouldn’t be here. Unconscious or not, someone has to come in and refill fluids, right?” she’d already shut the door as quietly as she could and had begun to return closer to the other two with tense and uncertain steps. “Morphine?” she’d looked between the two - Persephone from her question and then Alice from her answer. Claire didn’t know medicine, hell, she was the entirely opposite side of the brain. Still.. she felt herself agreeing with Alice; it didn’t sound good.

Her mouth scrunched with a thought and she stepped back to her own bed, searching for a chart nearby and found one tucked into a small pocket at the foot of it. The same dates, the same handwriting, the same everything about Alice’s chart as far as concrete information at a swift glance.. but then the term ‘3rd degree burn’ caught her eye. Not burn. Burns. A list was below the diagnoses labelled ‘affected areas’ and she stopped when she’d read more than three major areas of her body. The length of those remaining made her stomach twist. “...the hell is this,” Claire swallowed, her face turning a sickly shade of white and developing a small sheen in the light. No matter how long it had been, it wasn’t possible.

Slow, extremely hesitant strides led her to the yellow sign on the wall near the front door that was hung above a larger, chrome drawer that opened outwards to reveal a deep trashcan; bio-hazard waste material where doctors or nurses would throw away used needles and other supplies. Her arm reached down, gripping a thick, plastic bag roughly the size of a shoe, and lifted it high enough to be able to see. Some bits of the bandages were still relatively white (or at least peach).. but most were covered in the deepest red, purple, or black.
It really had only been two days.

“We need to leave,” Claire’s gaze was strangely focused and determined through her silent panic as she lifted her eyes to look to the other two.

NOTES: Soz Rebel you'll have to change these notes yourself.
WEARING: Lots of this

＃ENY ADOXOGRAPHY