I live at the end of a five and a half minute hallway...

Ftaires! -=011=-

2008-04-04T17:26:11Z

And here I was thinking this was all a dream.

Fuck.

Ftaires! -=010=-

2008-02-11T17:58:20Z

-=Voice Post=-

[When the mic clicks on, Johnny's voice floods the speakers. He's mumbling something, slightly incoherent, and repetitive. He sounds contemplative, tired, and scared -- the usual for Johnny, really.]

As I wal[   ] inside my mind,
a little girl I once did find.
In [   ] darkness she did wait,
inside her eyes the whole of fate.
She uttered one word under her breath,
to me, one word that echoed [     ]...

I'm in a building with two-thousand floors...and when they all fall down...

Hnnn.

Known Some Call Is Air Am.
Known Some Call Is Air Am...¹

Look to the sky, look to yourself and remember: we are only God[  ] echoes and God is Narcissus.

Heart may still be [   ] fire in hearth but I'm suddenly too cold to [    ]nue, and besides, there's no hearth here anywa[ ] and it's the end of [    ]. [    ]sday? Almost noon? And all the buttons on my corduroy coat are gone. I don't know why. I'm sorry [     ]. I don't know what to do.

I don't know [    ] to...

I do[ ] know...

I...

I...

I will tear it to Pisces.

-=/Voice Post=-

[¹ OOC: [ ] indicates where Johnny is mumbling too much for whatever part of word there makes it unintelligible. Known Some Call Is Air Am is Johnny sounding out "Non sum qualis eram", Latin for "I am not as I was" -- so if your character knows Latin, feel free to comment.]

Ftaires! -=009=-

2008-02-08T18:56:34Z

-=Voice Post=-

[Johnny apparently just woke up, as he sounds very groggy. Some of his words are rather mumbled, and might take a few re-listens to understand.]

Hmm. Sleep. A curious, evasive enigma. Yet booze and Elena seemed to help. Elena I think you're my night light okay?

...I mean, if Reno won't kill me. It wouldn't do me any good to get killed by...Yeah.

Nightmares, still, in that bizarre half-sleep that you have before after you're not really asleep but before you wake up. The worst sort. So real.

My dear Zampano, what have you lost?

-=/Voice Post=-

Ftaires! -=008=-

2008-02-07T19:58:19Z

...
     The stench of rot, fills my nose, clenches the back of my throat...
     A howl...
     More like a shriek, or a scream...
     Calling...?
     I locked the door. I locked the door. I need more locks. There is no such thing as enough locks.
     My windows crumble.
     I hear it moving. Creeping. Lurking. Waiting.
     Waiting.
     Waiting.
     Always there -- always there -- ... always ...
     Scraping against the windows, against the ground, against the walls of my very existence...
     The floor disappears.
     Yet before I fall, everything that's happening, supposed to      happen, was going to happen, yet never happened at all...
     And I...
     --My dear Zampano, what have you lost...?
     ----mother...
     Why did God create a dual universe? So he might say, "Be not like me. I am alone."
     Known some call is air am.
     It is dark, and it is damp, and the reality around me shudders and heaves as if breathing, as if alive.
     Nothing can stop it.
     The house.
     The house.
     The house.
     It is immortal. It is everlasting. It consumed, consumes, is consuming.
     Everything.
     A paradox of existence, not even supposed to exist, and yet...
     I'm here.
     I'm here.
     In the house. The house.
     And Lude's dead...Clara English...Whatever happened to Clara...Thumper...Elena...Reno. Hojo.
     Facsimiles.
     But why?
     A terrible thought could have a terribly long career.
     Careening.
     Careening.
     Closer.
     Just out of sight, now -- over your shoulder, beyond the corners of the screen, where I can't see it, where you can't see it -- waiting, waiting, and when I know I should be running, I'm not running, and it's here, it's claws -- or are those fangs...
     jugular...
     and then...
     and then...
     I...

Ftaires! -=007=-

2008-02-07T07:00:48Z

Little solace comes
to those who grieve
when thoughts keep drifting
as walls keep shifting
and this great blue world of ours
seems a house of leaves
moments before the wind.

...

I can't sleep.

Not surprised.

Ftaires! -=006=-

2008-02-06T17:52:20Z

I wrote a new footnote. I think it puts a certain perspective on things and helps me understand better.

Anyways. Elena. I thought of a list of some things I'd like next time you're over.

-Candles and/or firewood
-Booze
-Some string and some bells if possible
-Measuring tape. Also, if possible.

I swear I'm forgetting something, now.

...Did anyone else hear that thing though...?

I knew it was here.

Now it is only a matter of time.

Ftaires! -=005=- Part the Second, in which Johnny rambles.

2008-02-05T23:42:37Z

Purgatorium is the house.
The house is owned by a family.
The family is in a documentary.
The documentary is in a book.
The book is written by Zampano.
Zampano is blind as a bat.
Zampano is dead.
...
Prolix--your word...
My dear Zampano, what have you lost?
Mother.
...
Women, women, it's always women.
Thumper.
What was I writing before I came here...?
Oh.
Right.
In that hotel room.
...
     With a little luck, you'll dismiss this labor, react as Zampano had hoped, call it needlessly complicated, pointlessly obtuse, prolix--your word--, ridiculously conceived, and you'll believe all you've said, and put it aside--though even here, just that word, "aside", makes me shudder, for what is ever really just put aside?--and you'll carry on, eat, drink, be merry, and most of all, you'll sleep well.
     Then again. There's a good chance you won't.
     This much I'm certain of: it doesn't happen immediately. You'll finish, and that will be that, until a moment will come, maybe in a month, maybe a year, maybe even several years. You'll be sick or feeling troubled or deeply in love or quietly uncertain or even content for the first time in your life. It won't matter. Out of the blue, beyond any cause you can trace, you'll suddenly realize that things are not how you perceived them to be at all. For some reason, you will no longer be the person you once believed you were. You'll detect slow and subtle shifts going on all around you, more importantly shifts in you. Worse, you'll realize it's always been shifting, like a shimmer of sorts, a vast shimmer, only dark like a room. But you won't understand why or how. You'll have forgotten what had granted you this awareness in the first place.
     Old shelters--television, magazines, movies--won't protect you anymore. You might even try scribbling in a journal, on a napkin, maybe even in the margins of this book. That's when you'll discover you know longer trust the very walls you always took for granted. Even the hallways you've walked a hundred times will feel longer, much longer, and the shadows, any shadow at all, will suddenly seem deeper, much, much deeper.
     You might try then, as I did, to find a sky so full of stars it will blind you again. Only no sky can blind you now. Even with all that iridescent magic up there, your eye will no longer linger on the light, it will no longer trace constellations. You'll care only about the darkness and you'll watch it for hours, for days, maybe even for years, trying to believe you're some sort of indispensable, universe-appointed sentinel, as if just by looking you could actually keep it all at bay. It will get so bad that you'll be afraid to look away, you'll be afraid to sleep.
     Then no matter where you are, in a crowded restaurant or even some desolate street or even in the comforts of your own home, you'll watch yourself dismantle every assurance you ever lived by. You'll stand aside as a great complexity intrudes, tearing apart, piece by piece, all of your carefully conceived denials, whether deliberate or unconscious. And then, for better or for worse you'll turn, unable to resist, though try to resist you still will, fighting with everything you've got not to face the thing you most dread, what is now, what will be, what has always come before, the creature you truly are, the creature we all are, buried in the nameless black of a name.
And then the nightmares will begin.
...
I hope I actually managed to type all that before I came here. Whoever finds my body -- assuming that I'll be dead by the time I figure my way out of this place, or the thing'll get my like it did the old man, maybe...They'll heed the warning.

Probably not, though.

The human mind is too curious.

It's cold.

But isn't that what Navidson said?

"It's freezing in here."

OOC: Huge quote from House of leaves is huge, and copywrited Mark Z. Danielewski. Please don't sue me kk.

Ftaires! -=005=-

2008-02-05T21:36:43Z

Notes to self, again:

-Name of house is Purgatorium, confirmed ... sort of.
-Some of my delusions hate my other delusions.
-Why can't my imaginary friends just get along?
-The women I think up, are really fine.
-And they bring me tasty sandwiches. And blankets. Although of course, this is all me rationalizing how I likely went out and found these things...But hey. They came with a pretty and smart lady. What sort of guy would complain about that?
-Should've never taken that damn phone call.

Ftaires! -=004=-

2008-02-04T17:58:04Z

...Referring to footnote ⁷, I note that I am officially screwed.

Ftaires! -=003=-

2008-02-04T02:36:12Z

Notes to self:

-I am officially crazy. (Refer to footnotes 1, 5, 6)
-The house is named Purgatorium. (See footnote 2)
-Some things never change. (see footnote 4)

Tired.

Unable to sleep.

Typical.

Amendment:

Some of my delusions are creepy.

Ftaires! -=002=-

2008-02-02T14:53:50Z

...There are strange things in the darkness.

Although I can't say I should be surprised.

The fact that there are computers here, is well, ... crazy ... but, since this place really shouldn't exist in the first place ...

Perhaps conjured up by the house to taunt me?

...There seems to be traces of people. Real or delusion remains to be seen.

In an effort to keep myself calm ~~who can stay calm in a place like this?~~ I've taken up a ruined house and with scraps I found I am making it habitable.

Thankfully, I have also found lengths of fabric I can approximate to marking by the inch, and pinning down to the walls and floors.

I wish I had some duck tape.

...Or you know, a gun.

Not that it helped Holloway any.

Ftaires! -=001=-

2008-02-02T00:47:04Z

This is not for you.

...

It got me, it got the old man.

Focus.

...

God fucking damn it, if only I hadn't taken that phone call.