The shower was hot and the pressure was good and without Lily waiting on him he took a much longer shower than the one before work. His muscles ached and the world lost focus as he drowned under the streaming water. Nox's whole body relaxed and the pain echoed through it. It knew what it was missing. It hurt, it mourned. It didn't pressured Nox into ending it.

He wasn't sure how he was supposed to live like this. He knew that the earbud was only a bandaid. And he knew that he needed more than just Lily and his family to survive, but he didn't dare think about who he needed. Nox was no longer sure that Raffe wanted to share a life with him. He hadn't wanted to look for a place with him. He hadn't wanted to anything together. Nox had always pressured him, always flirting, always being the one to act. He should just let it go. It was the rational thing to do.

But Love wasn't rational. And Nox remembered loving Raffe to the ends of the earth and back even after he walked away. And then Raffe was gone. They hadn't spoken in months, and when Raffe did text back more than an acknowledgement it was never about them. Nox needed to talk to Raffe.

He climbed out of the shower dripping wet and wishing he'd just fall and crack his head open. It would be an accident. But his luck was not there. And if he felt guilt, it would be the feeling running through his body now. He didn't want to die. He didn't want to end his life -- not really. But it was hard to go on when every breath burned his lungs, when the world seemed dark and dim.

Time held no concept in his head without his wallet or watch, stark naked in his bathroom alone Nox didn't know how long he stood there staring into the mirror trying to remember what it felt like to be alive.

Age: 21
Birthplace: Chernobyl
Nickname: Nazik
Reborn god: Nergal, Babylonian god of plague, disease, and death
Powers: Channeler & Whitherer

Check out the newest character class.

Whitherer

The dream world was something really didn't understand.  It was a dream, but it wasn't.  At the same time it was very real and could have an effect on those in it.  Marta could go there, and wasn't supposed to go without Elyse to go with her, but he knew she was testing her boundaries.  More than that, she was testing her abilities.  One such excursion had led her to a cave in the woods surrounding Moscow.  The only thing he remembered her saying about it was that she didn't like it and neither had Splash.

Marta hadn't gone in, and Ricky was grateful for that. But whatever was there, Marta thought wasn't actually in the dream.  She felt the evil there was in the real world and the dream affected it.  She said it was a reflection in the real world.  Honestly, some monster had probably holed up there.

Ricky knew that he probably shouldn't come alone, but he wasn't sure who he could really trust in the Atharim - especially since he was Marta's guardian. He probably could have asked Marisol, but he didn't want to bother her with this.  Especially if it was something from his end. She'd been brought in pretty quickly, and even if she seemed to be handling it well, he didn't want her to be in danger.  That was a strange thought.  He knew she could handle herself. He had resolved that today was just to investigate and find out if their was a threat.  Then he'd work out a plan to neutralize it if there was anything there.  When it came to the dream, Ricky trusted Marta, but she could also embellish a bit.  Marta had been able to figure out approximately where the cave would be in the real world, by once again entering the dream, finding it and then coming back out.  So Ricky moved through the forest alone in the Moscow winter, because the girl he took care of thought there was something dangerous out here.  One thing he missed about Mexico was the heat.  This place was cold, and he wasn't used to it.  An investigation.  That would be it.

It was long after midnight when Kaelan first stumbled across the article, some obscure piece of fringe research buried in the unindexed corner of a forgotten academic database. The screen glowed pale blue in the dark of his bedroom, casting a cadaverous light on his face as he read, lips parted in breathless silence.

Radiotrophic fungi, the paper claimed. Black, spore-heavy, and thriving on ionizing radiation. It grew in the husks of things long dead: reactor walls, collapsed turbines, and as this paper described, within the hollowed, bone-white corridors of Chernobyl’s sarcophagus. A fungus that consumed death itself and called it nourishment.

Kaelan leaned forward, fingers twitching over the holographic keyboard. Photos accompanied the study—false-color imaging of a thick, pitch-colored growth pushing out of the reactor chamber like coagulated tar, fibrous and slick, pulsing with a hideous vibrancy. The idea gripped him with talon-like fingers:

What if it could change things?

What if it merged with the local wildlife, rabbits, foxes, wolves, and mutated them, not merely into sickly, broken things, but into creatures enhanced, biologically rewritten by radiation and rot?

He envisioned it then, eyes glassy: a new species born from decay, black-eyed and deathless. A fusion of natural instinct and the mutagenic dark.

And somewhere deep in that treacherous mind of his, a plan began to form.

It took longer than he liked to secure clearance, even with Paragon’s pull, a web of forged credentials, scientific white lies, and whispered promises of published papers in reputable journals. He presented himself as a benign researcher specializing in adaptive mycology and post-nuclear ecology. The oversight committee—tired, bureaucratic, distracted—approved the proposal with a stamp that echoed in his memory like a coffin lid closing.

Still, he could not shake the sensation that excited him, crossing into something the earth had long buried for good reason.

The flight to Kyiv was long, uneventful, and drenched in fog. He spent it staring out the window with a growing anticipation blooming within him.

The next morning, an old military van carried him north through the withered countryside, where entire towns lay in ossified stillness, abandoned decades ago, their windows blind and broken, their doors hanging open like the mouths of dead animals.

Chernobyl emerged not as a place, but as a wound in the land.

They arrived at the edge of the exclusion zone just after dusk. The sun had dipped below the horizon, and a dull, bruised twilight cloaked the trees. Forests here grew too fast, too thick. Some trees had bark split open like infected flesh. Others leaned at strange angles, warped by the invisible hand of radiation. Birds did not sing. The silence was alive, vibrating beneath the skin.

Kaelan stepped from the vehicle, his boots crunching over broken glass and soil that smelled faintly metallic. His breath misted in the cold air, though the weather was unseasonably warm.

A dosimeter hung at his hip, ticking softly like a heartbeat.

He stared at the horizon, where the reactor dome loomed over the trees—ancient, vast, and shrouded in scaffolding. A modern sarcophagus encased the old one, but Kaelan swore the very structure breathed.

A handler, a man in a gray suit with sunken eyes and a voice like paper, escorted him through the outer gates. “You will remain within Zone One,” the man said. “You are not to approach the core or enter restricted tunnels. Do not remove your mask. Do not touch the wildlife. Do not speak to the locals.”

“Locals?” Kaelan asked, surprised.

The man did not answer.

They passed a field where flowers grew too large, their petals black-veined, slick with morning dew even though it was nearly evening. A fox watched him from the edge of the brush, its eyes glassy and wrong.

Kaelan clutched the strap of his pack tighter. Somewhere in it was the sterile container meant for fungal samples.

You came here for samples, he reminded himself, but a twinge of nerves began to creep up his spine.

But Chernobyl had its own voice, and even now it whispered to him from the reactor’s shadow. The black fungus was waiting. It always had been.

And he had come, like a pilgrim to a rotten altar, eager to partake in its communion.

But tomorrow, with the sun, he would explore more. In the meantime, he spent the night in the shack of a shelter.


((This thread is open if anyone is interested.))

Emily thanked Ana for the information. That was one less thing to worry about anyway. Upon arrival at the hopital she found the detective with two policeman and made it though their barrier after showing ID. Rachel was there, but she also wasn’t. Not in a way Emily could recognize anyways. The detective filled her in. No drugs as expected. Emily was fine with that. She wanted Rachel out of here now. 

Rachel seemed okay when she signed her out, but then started freaking out in the car on the way. She constantly muttered about needing Lucio, and even though she was concerned about it. She was more pissed off. Pissed off that someone would hurt her sister and pissed off at herself for not picking up on it faster. She had thought Rachel’s odd behavior was just her coping with the break up. 

She arrived at the location Ana had sent her and got out of the car, summoning her magic. If Pirozzi showed up, he’d face her wrath. For now though the most important thing to do would be to get Rachel inside. Hopefully people were ready - she might need help if Rachel started to freak out again.

Cruz was boring. There were so many men around that could feed their desires, so many who had the money and weren't children. It wouldn't be hard to manipulate one into taking them in. And even if they didn't want to Esper could handle it for them. It was almost as good as done.

They just had to find the right one.

Roza looked around. So many choices.

There was a man at the far end of the bar -- alone, though he looked like he was waiting for someone. While that was doable, it might cause more problems down the line.

A woman at the opposite end of the bar could do, but she seemed to be eyeing the bartender so probably not a good match, even though it would work either way, Esper had that way about her.  

Roza didn't care about willing, she cared about what was good for her and Esper -- they were all that mattered now.  The Carnival be damned. Though the words did sting a little when she thought them. She tried not to miss home. She knew it was for the best. But now she had to find just the write mark.