Once Dead OCT Round 1

Katerish looked down at the tiny, crumpled slip of paper, and frowned.  Veronica’s face stared back at her as she picked up her spoon and stirred her tea. “A game of tag?” Katerish mused, shaking a packet of sugar into the drink. “What kind of joke is this?”

She was sitting in a room made of luscious, redbrown wood. Or what would be luscious, redbrown wood, if her room had been lit by the sun. She had quickly found that being slightly buzzed at all times of day was deeply unsettling, not to mention distasteful, and despite her various experiences throughout her past lifetime, drugs were a recreation that she never could fully enjoy. It was sparsely decorated, aside from the various spiders’ webs populating the corners and under the bed, and there were no paintings or vases or flowers to be seen. Most importantly, it was sparsely decorated, per se, outside as well; the majority of creatures, no, contestants had preferred the upper levels, and the ones down in the basement tended to keep to themselves anyway. Both a boon and a curse; not many knew her, and she knew not many.

Staring at the paper, she furrowed her brow and took a sip of the tea. Tag was only another thing to add to her list of outlandish events that had occurred in the past two days, although it was likely the most ordinary event so far, all things considered. She rubbed her chin. Still, it was an odd choice of events to kick off a tournament where they’d get to, at the end, meet their maker. Thinking optimistically, this meant that there’d be some sort of boon for the winner. Realistically, this probably meant there’d be some sort of nasty twist to the simple tag and run game, or perhaps, more optimistic again, pointed to the incompetence of the manager. She sighed, and rubbed her temples. Everything would have been so much simpler if she had stayed dead.

Despite her misgivings, Katerish put down her tea with a clank and stood up. For all she knew, she could wait for as long as she wanted; four judges, thirty-something contestants, there could only be four winners. She may or may not be one of them, but it wasn’t going to be due to the lack of trying. She turned around and looked at the only thing on the wall, a dirty old mirror which grotesquely warped everything in its reflection. “Well, I might as well get started,” she told her deformed doppelganger. She glanced back at the tea. “Once I finish drinking.” After all, how late could she be? The note had appeared not even three minutes ago.

Katerish sat back down and was just about to take a sip of the scalding tea when she felt the tiniest of tremors shake through her room. Most likely nothing. Cupping her hand around the edge to prevent spillage, she slowly took a sip and relished the taste of the alien drink. It was cold by the time it reached her stomach, but it was pleasant in the mout-

Dust fell from the ceiling, followed and her saucer clattered on the table. The ceiling creaked.  Katerish looked up, slightly bothered. “What is that?” She stood up with a puzzled look. Perhaps it would be best to go somewhere else-

CRASH!

The entire hotel shook violently and Katerish staggered, trying but failing to keep her balance. She shook her head and tried to clear the ringing in her ears. Waving dust out of the air and clearing her eyes, she saw that her neighbour’s room had some recent ceiling work done in the form of moving the ceiling to the floor.

“What?” Katerish was thoroughly surprised, a rarity. She jumped over to the hole in the wall and tried to wave away the smoke. It was useless. Quickly slipping on her other shoe, she threw a leg threw the hole in her wall and jumped through.

The entire room was ablaze, fire leaping up from a burning piece of what had previously been the ceiling lying on the ground. She ducked back under what was left of the ceiling. Looking up at the floor above, and in fact looking up at the floor above that, she was evidently late to the party, and not fashionably so. On the floor directly above her’s, she spotted a small man dressed in a black suit, who was currently, if she could trust her eyes, breathing fire. “Fuck you, you asshole! I hate spiders! FUCK YOU!” He staggered towards the edge of the hole before falling backwards out of sight, still spouting what Katerish could only describe as Not Very Nice Things. Veronica. Katerish laughed; apparently someone had had too much to drink. Taking a peek up at the floor after that, a dark, giggling something flew over the chasm, chased by two other yelling contestants.

Well, I suppose I am late. Katerish usually didn’t like to be late in the best of times.  Frowning slightly at the fact that three minutes was too late, she looked around the flaming room for an easy way up to the drunken, screaming man. She found it, across the room. “Fine”. She sighed. Rubbing the pieces of plaster out of her hair, she backed up and charged through the wall of flame, leaving a Katerish-shaped hole in the fire. Katerish quickly climbed up the shattered wood, frowning at the splinters, and heaved herself over the edge of the broken floor, coughing from the smoke. Standing up, she brushed the dirt and cinders off her pants, and looked up.

The hallway above hers was almost identical. It had it all; the shabby carpet with the design (but burnt), the peeling wallpaper (but burnt), and the flickering, yellow lights (but sparking). The only new addition was in fact the drunken man she had spotted before, dressed in black clothes, rolling on the ground with a broken bottle in his hand and mumbling incomprehensible words. Katerish raised an eyebrow and smiled pityingly. She had met many people on her adventures, and her favorites, beside the daring adventurers and the charming scientists, had to be those who had fell upon hard times and had stories to tell. Usually they defied first impressions and had some interesting tidbit of human nature to share. Or not. Her smile disappeared.

“Fucking idiots, thinking they could trick mrummumumfhblm…” The man died off as his face was pressed into the ground, tongue lolling out of his mouth. He kicked the old carpet with a yell and his limbs flopped up like a ragdoll as if the life were drained out of them.

“Hello.” Katerish knelt down a respectful distance away. She frowned slightly when he didn’t respond. Getting bored of waiting for an answer, she tossed a handy piece of rubble at him.

“Murhmph?” He looked up from the floor with red, watery eyes and made a pitiful attempt to get up. “Damn bitsh thoug she’d get meh, eh?” He rubbed his eyes. He was respectable enough; high forehead and sharp cheekbones, although his handsomeness was slightly offput by his half-an-eyebrow and slightly smoking hair. Back home, Katerish would associate him with the wealthy scientists, but here, there was no telling what he was. “Who’re youh?” he continuted. “I don’t care. Fucking shpiders, poisoning my drinks. Never trusht the spiders.”  He groaned and gave up on standing up, flopping down like a discarded doll.  “Kill ‘em all. I needsh to find her. Goddamn arachnappesmgmmphm…”

He looked down at the bottle in his hand and smashed it against the far wall, a thin dribble of liquid trickling down to the floor. Katerish stood back, thoroughly unsure of how to deal with the drunk; she had rarely, in her long, long years of travel, seen anyone quite this intoxicated, and they usually ended up quite, well, dead soon after. She watched with an unsure smile for a bit longer as he actually managed the herculean action of standing up. Followed by the near impossible feat of staggering three steps over to the far wall, she snorted when he quite suddenly fell over once more.  Katerish rolled her eyes and strode up to the apparently sleeping man.

“Dead man, more like it,” she corrected, congratulating herself on her prediction. Heartbeat and breathing were generally a very important indication of life, and the living (well, technically dead now) skeleton showed precisely none of those symptoms. Katerish stood up, clearing her eyes of smoke and dust, and rolled the corpse over with a boot.

Her brow furled as she thought back to the slurred speech of the man. “What was that about spiders?” she wondered idly, rolling him onto his back. Veronica liked spiders, but the spiders were everywhere. Veronica was all talk and no action. Where would she hide? Anywhere, she was forced to admit. She rolled him onto his stomach. Anywhere where spiders would like to hide. Corners. She wouldn’t hide up where all the action is. She’d hide in the dungeons like the spiderwoman she is. Under the floorboards. In the walls. Could there be secret passages? Possibly, but that would be difficult to find, if they do exist. She pushed him back onto his back once more and brought him to his resting place beside the wall. Katerish looked down at the body, biting her lip. Struck by a sudden idea, she turned him around and searched through his pockets, but was disappointed to find nothing but the same piece of paper that she had been delivered herself. Veronica’s face stared at her, unwrinkled and neatly folded. Nothing.

Katerish stood there with the corpse, unsure of what to do. Then she shook her head. “Well”, she admonished herself, “you aren’t going to do anything standing here.” She looked down and kicked him. “Did you know something, I wonder? Spiders poisoned your drink, you said?” She walked back to where she had found him and looked around. Nothing in the corners. Nothing along the floor or the ceiling. A drink? She looked at where he threw his bottle, scanning the walls.

Her attention was immediately grabbed by a particularly odd-shaped pile of rubble right underneath the rubble. Almost as if it were pushed away from the wall. Katerish jumped up and sauntered over to the point of interest. Grabbing onto the large piece of rock, she heaved and wiggled it away from the wall. A small glimmer of silver was visible. Throwing the rest of the rubble away, she felt a small feeling of accomplishment. Lying on her belly, she saw the entirety of her prize. A truly unpleasant smile crept up her face like a disease.

What she saw was an open air duct.

An open air duct chock full of spiderwebs.

“You won’t be poisoning me, little creatures.” She waggled her finger at the airduct and wiggled her way in until her feet disappeared from the hallway. And then, she simply placed a hand on the metal walls.

The effect was not immediately noticeable, but it did its work. Slowly, the webs began to collect water, then frost as she absorbed the energy and heat in the duct, twinkling in the little light that was able to enter from behind her. Creaks and cracks and snaps were heard as the metal walls contracted and the water in them expanded, and then again as the same thing occurred to the wood beyond them. She lay there for only two minutes, but by the time she began to shove her way through the now-crystalline webs, flash-frozen, the temperature was far, far below anything livable for even a short period of time, particularly for the little arachnids.  

She simply kept on pushing through head-first, occasionally spitting out a frozen spider or piece of loose web, until she felt the duct widen. Placing her hands in front of her, she found and edge and yanked herself, eyes closed, out of the narrow tunnel. She heard her feet clank on hard metal, and slowly brushed the dirt and debris out of her eyes.

“Wh-wh-who the f-fuck are yo-u?”

Katerish was pleased that her reenactment of a worm was not for naught. That was certainly Veronica’s voice. Clever. Not just anyone would want to go through that nest of spiders.

Now if only she could find her. Hissing in pain, she cracked her eyes open against the bright glare of a light source. She isn’t there. She huffed. Clever, using the light. Not particularly abstract, but clever.

“Y-y-y-you killed my sp-s-spiders, you asshole. I’m going to f-f-fucking murder you.” Katerish turned her head in the direction of the sound of clanging and cursed her impaired vision. Opening her eyes a bit more, she saw a shadow in the light and took a step away.

Katerish was caught by complete surprise when Veronica tackled her. They both fell to the ground in a tangled mess. Veronica slugged her across the face, snapping her head back against the wall with a loud clang. Katerish felt groggy and tried to get her bearings, but it was impossible with the barrage of punches and elbows. Running quickly out of ideas, the grand phoenix flailed and caught an arm, and, managing to get a foot under Veronica’s stomach, she sent her flying across the room with a resounding thud. Silence ensured.

Katerish staggered up after a moment of silence, rubbing her pounding head. The realization slowly dawned on her.  Opening her newly adjusted eyes, she searched out for Veronica and found her lying on the other side of the small, circular room, simply breathing. Despite her pounding headache and split lip, her familiar smile found her face once more. What she had done had been quick and efficient. Short and sweet. No hassle. “I tagged you.”

Veronica’s eyes slowly rolled in their sockets until they were looking directly at Katerish. The harsh light gave her the appearance of a skeleton. “Shut up,” she whispered. “Just shut the fuck up and get me out of her-e-e. You f-f-uking cold-loving murderer. G-get out.” She lifted a trembling arm and pointed up at the ceiling, where a small, closed hatch was visible.

Katerish walked over to the frozen woman and, despite her protests, picked her up and carried her over to the ladder. She just may have overdone it with the cold. After unscrewing the lid (not without difficulty), both of them emerged into a tight, wooden room, which was apparently, upon further inspection and some small words of encouragement from Veronica, the basement’s broom closet. Katerish opened the door and sent a flood of cold air washing down the hallway.

“Whoosh, that’s cold. What happened down there? I was just about to get you.” He looked up, and his brow furled. “You don’t look so good, Veronica.” Barlow, who had been previously standing outside the broom door, danced away from the flow of frigid air.

“Shut up,” she whispered, “and get me some coffee. And put me d-down, you idiot.” Katerish complied. Barlow grabbed onto one of her arms and they both slowly walked out around the corner, out of sight.

Katerish just stood there for a moment, feeling a slight feeling of accomplishment. It felt good to be exploring, to be adventuring, whether or not that entailed exploring lost caves or lost airducts. It was nice to know that she was one of the few four to tag her target, and she allowed herself to pat her on the back, wondering for an instant what that would mean.

Then the moment was gone, and, dusting old ice-encased cobwebs off of her shirt, she started to amble her way back towards her room.