The Hatching

[Lovie the OG]

((OOC WARNING: This RP contains horror elements that may be considered morally messed up by some. Please take caution before reading, and I promise that we are not deranged lunatics.))

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The voices tore at her from every angle. They bounced off the walls and slithered across the floor, but all seemingly coming from the same direction. The girl shut her eyes and covered her ears with her hands. She wished for the voices to stop; to leave her alone. She had no where to run and nothing to hide behind, for she was shrouded by cold darkness and knew that whoever the voices belonged to could see her, even if she could not see them.

She whimpered softly and desperately tried to shut the voices out, the ones that grew louder and denser as the minutes went by. They were cold, unhappy voices that possessed daggers, which stabbed at the girl's fast beating heart. She could feel them prying at her from every which way as they also clawed at her thinning nerves. They told her meaningless things; words that came in harsh, splintering gasps. As the prying became persistent, the voices grew razor-like teeth and fork-shaped tongues. The girl dared to take a look and nearly screamed, as before her demon-like snakes appeared. As she was still in darkness, it was as if a spot light shined on these creatures, their tongues flicking all at different times, creating a musical hiss.

The snakes themselves were all of different sizes and colors. Together, they seemed to create a rainbow, one of which was hazed with evil. Their deep red eyes made sure to tell of their unsavory souls, all of which targeted the same child. Why they wanted her, they did not entirely know, but it was a wish from their master, and as it was, they served to please their master. And so they gained momentum, and slithered towards the frightened girl, who was bound by shock. The hissing intensified, as did the voices that clouded the girl's mind. The spot light on the snakes began to dim, and soon the snakes became emerged in darkness.

The girl curled into a ball, hugging herself as closely as she could, terrified as to where the snakes might be. She sobbed into her knees, knowing that this would be the end, that They finally found her again, and this time were planning to do away with her for good. All at once, the voices and the hissing intensified to a degree of near despair, and the girl felt it in her bones. The evil the girl felt before was clearer now, and it reigned closer. She could feel the velvet-like bodies of the snakes begin to touch her, their tongues flicking across her skin. She whimpered small cries of help, though knowing no one was near to lend any.
Through the hissing of the snakes, a faint, "Come with us, darling," rang out, and it slithered into the girl's ears and brain; into her nerves and bones and skin. Her nails and toenails vibrated with it and it also seemed to coil within her hair. It made her eyes leak and caused her mouth to quiver. Her being as a whole shook, and she felt her heart trying to keep up with her terror.

Within minutes, the snakes made a cocoon around the girl, their bodies entwined with one another and making an impossible escape. Some skated across the girl, moving from arm to leg and back again. One coiled around her shoulders, its tongue flicking at her jawbone. The girl sobbed endlessly, and found herself drifting away. She found her body trying to shut down; to retreat from the terror. Her mind endlessly wandered, and hazed clouds shrouded any clear thinking. The voices were there and thick like tar, obscuring all ways for her to calm herself.

Suddenly, through the thickness of the tar in her mind, a clearer voice rang through. It was a calmer, gentle voice that spoke above all others. It encouraged her to let herself drift away; to not worry. It promised of a good awakening, and that warmth and light would soon come. The girl could sense the goodness in the voice, and trusted it. She let herself go, to drift into a sleep, the voices in her head slowly dying away, as the other one soothed her. She left consciousness.

---

The girl awoke to find herself in a bright place. The sun shined thoughtfully overhead, and sand was the bed that she layed on. She looked around and was surprised to find that it was the beach near her house. Then it came again, the same gentle voice. It was still in her head, but it seemed more than that, as well. It spoke: "This place, one of which you are familiar with, is the place that you will wish to visit in the morning when you awaken. You will find here something that you have been looking for, although unawaringly. It will help you achieve your heart's desires. Remember this and you will not regret it."


The girl could feel a smile from the voice, and as she went to question it, a blurred haze whipped through the atmosphere. It picked up the sand and circled around her, the gold of the sand obscuring her vision. And then she awoke...

---

Claudia sat up in bed, sweat dripping from her face. She hastily looked about her room and found nothing to be unordinary. It was all just a dream... She thought. She maneuvered herself from under the covers and made her way to a dresser on the other end of the room. She quickly changed clothes. That voice...it seemed so real. Claudia looked out the window, which faced the direction of the beach. She could be there in under an hour.

The beach looked how it did in her dream, except there was something off about the sand. It was noticable upon arrival, as if a sand storm had come through. Claudia walked along the beach, examining the difference. As she neared the end of the beach, she noticed an odd placement of seashells that trailed along the surf and disappeared into the grown up, nearly wooded area that declared the end of the beach. She followed it and ventured into the wooded-like area. What she was looking for, she didn't know, but she was positive that the voice in her dream was truly trying to tell her something; to show her something.

"...It will help you achieve your heart's desires," it had said. Revenge she thought.

 

[Villamvihar]

The first strange thing that attracted the eyes were the shadows. Not the patches of sunlight that filtered through the unnaturally twisted branches of trees, nor the roots which seem to slither along the ground like snakes, nor the dead undergrowth that looked as if acid has been spat on it and not even the strange, thin fog that only existed in the woods. It was the shadows, because they moved. Of course, such a thing would be easily dismissed as an optical illusion or perhaps even a hallucination when it was known that even if shadows did move, they moved with the Sun. These, however, have forgotten about the rules that have been written into this cosmos and instead of following rays of light or even the guidance of certain objects, they slithered around on the ground as if they were made from hundreds of snakes.

Reptillian, but also metallic scales touched each other at every opportunity, grinding against their siblings to create the illusion of the shadow that would be cast by the twisted trees. This trick of senses was perfect, except that it was not, because the nature of such animals dictated that they keep moving lest they freeze to death or worse, thus they created giant streams, whirlpools which drew the eye towards them. All of this so that the reptiles could keep warm, absorb light, turn it into fine, thin mist which would warp the forest even further to turn it into a safe haven even with all of its bizarre characteristics. The second most obvious of these was the feeling that the place eminated.

Despite the completely normal, geometric growths of trees that had every one of their branches in right-angles and were perfectly perpendicular to the ground, there was an otherworldly aura lurking around the forest. Perhaps it came from the usual, pitch black colour of the leaves, the perfectly normal and sickly green barks of the trees, the lack of any animals or maybe the occasional, soft sounds that sounded like the deep hissing of a snake. But all of these things were so ordinary that they should not have created this strange feeling that creeped up one's spine like a bug with hundreds of thousands of sharp, rusty pins instead of legs. These rusty pins too, were unusual in the fact that they carried venom which slowly coiled around one's veins, spreading through them numbness that started at their toes and fingers, then advance to their very mind.

Or maybe that was just the weight of the air that hung in this place, for the air was not just a gas, but instead a corpse that was hung from a gallow and allowed to rot until the scavangers of nature stripped it to the bone.

And from that feeling came the realisation that this forest was nothing else than an execution ground, a graveyard dedicated to a murderer, but not an ordinary kind. No, it was dedicated to someone who had no idea of humanity, a person to whom the concept of burial was foreign, so as such, instead of blessing the bodies of their victims with soil, they harvested their parts and used them to make such a gruesome display that seemed like a forest at first glance. People would dismiss it as just a creepy forest, yet when they were confronted with the truth, they would get lost in it, then impaled by the sharp roots made of nails, or perhaps even one of their fellows who went insane from the weight placed upon them. Not many could stand this stench of death for long, after all, because it warped the world around its fingers so that it might use it for its own, nefarious purposes.

However, for those who were marked, the forest was like home. Such was the case of Claudia as well, who, instead of seeing a frightening phenomenon that would mercilessly gut adults then use their blood to write warning messages onto the trees, saw a road to their aim. Through the curse of this place still lingered around them, the fear still in the front of their minds, they would keep going on regardless, no matter how awful the journey would seem. But then again, these visitors had no choice; if they would not move their limbs by themselves, then their limbs would keep on marching regardless their will. If they somehow managed to resist that, then the snakes would gather around them, then bind them so their master might come for them by himself, then devour them so they may not resist his rule.

Either way, they would serve Raxgandr. Just like this girl, who could not resist his call, who was lured here by the sweet promises of his dream. But would she find him first, coiled around his tree of insanity, or would the mad forest claim her first? That was not for Raxgandr to decide, because if the girl was not strong enough to even make it through here, then she could not be his priestess and servant.

 

[Lovie the OG]

[BCOLOR=#000000]Her mind was breached with a terrible sense of morire, which sought to destroy her well-being. Her mind became a torn cocoon that developed hazardous thoughts, of which told her things that she could not fully comprehend. Yet, as she felt the horrible doings that the forest threw upon her, she had a sound determination to see through to the end; to land at her destination, of which glowed within the depths of her soul, as if she knew exactly what she sought, although she knew that to be blasphemy. She had never wandered into this abominable forest, for she had always felt a strange vibe radiating from the trees that resided within it. She had thought it strange whenever she witnessed people wander into the forest as though it was like any other, but she had not bothered to raise questions. Now she knew. She knew that this forest seemed ordinary to the outside world, but it resided to share its secrets with a select few that it deemed fit. She was one of the ones to be chosen, one of the few that would ever see the forest in its true form. The form that held an overpowering darkness that seemed to get darker and seemingly more impassable as she ventured forth. The air was dense and heavy, and the ground was mesh, which seemed to possess tongues as she walked; the feeling as though her feet were being licked by cold, dead tongues. Her skin felt like it was melting off of her bones, but she dared not to look, the fear of becoming a part of the forest's floor beating in her heart. [/BCOLOR]

[BCOLOR=#000000]She pressed forth, seeking the voice that called her; that pounded in her head every minute, helping her to cease the forest and to close in on her target. She could hear the voice bouncing off the forest's floor and off the trees, as well as in the atmosphere. It was all around her, and she followed it faithfully. She let it guide her, as well as the map that seemed to have been branded in her head. As she reigned in on her designated area, her heart began to pound against her chest; faster and faster, and as hard as a hammer. She could hear her heart in her ears as she felt blood rush through her veins, as well as intrude into her mouth. She forced the copper-tasting fluid back down, while also trying to convince herself that all was well. She had a goal set in her mind and she wouldn't let anything ruin it, and the help that she was hoping to receive, she knew she would gladly accept. The help, though, was one of which she did not know. She felt an uncanny feeling towards the help, unsure of its demeanor. Yet her desires told her to seek the help; to abide by it. In her mind she sought a luminous appraisal; a savoring compromise, but her instincts told her better. The contract that she was signing with every step was one that held many threats and possible heinous solutions. Though these inclinations planted themselves within her conscious, she did not wander from her dignified objective, and soon she honed in on the area that which she was certain the voice called her from. [/BCOLOR]

 

[Villamvihar]

The girl was strange. The girl was young. The girl was afraid. The girl was strong. At this realisation, even the trees opened their gaping mouths to smile an impossible grin that then cut through them like a bloodied chainsaw cut the heart of its victims. But of course, that was merely an illusion of the senses, a trick of the light in the thick mist, a garbled string of words that happened to form a coherent tale because of its composition yet... It clearly was not. With a creak that was the dying scream of thousands of souls embedded into the bark, ancient trees lost their grip on even more ancient soil, their pitiful attempts at grasping for survival coming across as spine-chilling croaks. Fracturing branches swung high into the air, their sharp ends cutting into unseen fabrics which wove a deceptive net of invisible spider-silk in the air, concealing the truth from view. But the girl would find it, and the real nature of the place was glad for that, because it could finally reveal itself:

This was no forest.

It may have looked, felt, smelled and even tasted like one, however, it was a nest of incredible proportions, a hand that would deliver a newly born child to this world, or perhaps the arm that would lift an orphan from the ground to hug them with the loving embrace of a mother. It followed, then, that this place was like a womb to whatever lurked here, a safe place where it was protected from the harsh outside forces of nature while it developed, a realisation which caused the scenery to shift into a nightmare of flesh. The trees? Umblical cords. The roots? Veins piercing the flesh. The mist? Embryonic fluid. The invisible sky along with the deathly screams? A parent's words to their child so that they may understand them as they are born into this world. The feeling of being at home? The safety of layer upon layer of skin cushioning a fetus. There was only one part that did not match up to this parallel, however, which was the thick, black feeling wrapped up so that it appeared as a present, yet it was clearly a weapon of murder.

And as the girl continued towards the source of all this, she could feel the darkness thickening around her, holding her strong, safe, just as if she was returning to where she came from, yet was moving so far away from it. It was a strange feeling, to be cradled by something that did not even have a body, it was an otherworldy sensation that would creep through her skin, then make her shiver with the cold of the air so she would forget about the pair of eyes which watched her until she crossed the final border and the world exploded into mania.

Disarray.

Scattering.

Dementia.

Insanity.

Or any other of its many names, but the lawless chaos dissolved as soon as it started, only to be replaced by a voice.

"I see you have listened to my call, Claudia," said the voice that came from behind the poor girl, serving as the last test to measure her strength. When she would turn, a creature of terrible wonder would appear before her, a disgusting hybrid of flesh, bone, machine and mind, a serpent known as Raxgandr.

 

[Lovie the OG]

As she took her final steps, Claudia could see the change that happened before her. The strange sense of being inside a womb presented itself to her, but not by itself. She was embraced by the developing darkness that radiated from the heart of this place and continued to slither along her chilling skin; seeping deep into her flesh and into her veins and pumping heart. She came to a halt just as everything changed. Before her, Hell rose from the ground - fire ripped out of the ground and lashed out angrily towards the girl, sizzling with a snake-like hiss. Humanly flesh fell from the tree branches and landed around her, the smell of rot drowning out the smell of the fire's smoke. Thunderous popping sounds erupted around her, as though giants' necks were being broken. From afar, the screams of a woman losing her child swiveled in the air, and harshly landed at the poor girl's ears.

Claudia clenched her fists by her sides and squeezed her eyes shut, hoping for the scene to be over quickly. She came to realize that much of what the forest showed her were dark illusions, that all of it was a test to prove her strength. As far as she had come, she wouldn't let even the Devil himself throw her off. When she let her eyes open again, the hell she had seen was gone and the abominable "forest" was back. Except this time something was different. Claudia felt a new air that she hadn't felt before - that someone or something was in the area with her. Before she could grasp onto the new feeling, she heard it. The voice. The same voice that had, and had been, calling her. Except this time it was closer - it was with her, and she could feel the words on her ear.
"'I see you have listened to my call, Claudia,'" the voice spoke softly, but Claudia could feel the evil that came with it. She turned to face the speaker of the voice.

And she nearly crippled.

The thing was unlike anything she had seen before. It was a horrid mess - flesh and bone rolled out over the creature, twisted with machinery that shouldn't have been there. The pieces that made it up shaped themselves in the form of a serpent - a giant, disgusting, abominable, and unworldly serpent. The forest and the hell that Claudia had seen seemed like a subtle memory compared to the creature. With the sickening image of the thing, also came the intelligence that it held so well. It rung like bells on Christmas Eve, singing with a strange debonair. But it was a taunting song - haunted with the creature's madness, yet it was also strangely calming. Claudia couldn't wholly grasp the thing that stood before her eyes, and she simply didn't want to. She took a step back, her legs shaking as she did. She closed her eyes and hesitated,
"Y...yes. You promised..."
She lowered her head and took in a deep breath, and tried desperately to calm herself. You can't let this beast make a coward out of you, Claudia. You've come too far, and now you have to take a chance. She then clenched her fists, and raised her head to force her eyes upon the creature once more, "Just help me," she choked out.

 

[Villamvihar]

"Your claim of a promise is bold." Raxgandr's voice was even, calm, rational, but at the same time, it was just a little bit too much of these, as if he was passing the judgement on a criminal or intent on ripping the heart of a blasphemer with serene fury instead of talking to the girl before himself. As he spoke, the leaves on the trees, if one could call the poor, burned remnants of... something that hung from the disfigured branches leaves, shook, with some of them finally giving up on their miserable lives. They fell towards the ground, which gave the serpent's statement some false sense of importance as they withered, their shreds bursting into flames with a sickening pop that sounded as if someone broke their neck.

"You are the first, girl, and I have called many," said the world serpent after a meaningfully long pause, its voice now carrying the edge of a sword primed to kill, a pair of scissors that closed in on Claudia's throat in an attempt to decapitate her in one single movement. "What makes you think that I will help you?" he asked, even though in truth, this young girl's resolve had already impressed Raxgandr, and he would have accepted her right now if she had been an adult, but alas, she intrigued him too much to care for his usual methods. This girl, this young thing arrived before him despite everything that his birthplace had to offer, she successfully bested a trial that made many a greater person flee in panic before they could even reach the edge of Raxgandr's abominable forest, so he was curious about a human for the first time in his life. He simply just had to trial her to see what made her so strong.

And as such, the world serpent waited for the young girl's answer, his colourless eyes boring into hers with a murderous intention, while underneath his skin, a bone shifted from one place to another.

 

[Lovie the OG]

Anger. Out of all other senses, this one rose to the top, smothering the long-time sense of fear. She clenched her fists, so tight to the point her nails dug into the skin of her palm and she felt light trickles of blood form under her fingers. She rolled the demeaning question over her tongue. "What makes you think that I will help you?" Claudia peered into the heartless eyes of the beast. "You'll help me," her voice grew deeper and more relentless as she continued, "because you seem to have no other choice. Residing in this despicable place of a "forest" and calling out to any human who'll listen. If not for your memacing appearance, I would call you pathetic. A coward. Who needs some one else to do its bidding, which I'm assuming you wish for me to do. Well, the only way you'll ever get anything from me is by helping me first." She spat at the creature, no longer caring about its grotesque figure. She came here for a reason, and she wouldn't let some ugly, thrown together monster tell her otherwise. She was young, she knew, twelve years, in fact, but she also understood her own ambition, and if her small appearance didn't have effect, she relied on her words to.

She stood in front of the disfigured creature, smoldering with rage and uncanny thoughts. She thought about killing the thing. She knew it would be impossible, but she conquered up an image in her head of her driving a sharpened stake into the serpent's heart, if it had one. She thought about tampering with its machinery and disengaging it. Turn him off. Claudia looked at the thing's eyes. She thought about digging at them with her nails and tearing them out, leaving dark holes in its taunting face. She thought all of this, all while gaining a power she didn't know she had. It grew slowly, but she felt it coursing through her veins. She felt steady and balanced. Her face felt smoother than it had been, free from the clutches of weariness. What she felt was the power to overcome fear.

 

[Villamvihar]

The forest stared back in silence. There were no eyes except Raxgandr's, but the forest was still scrunitising Claudia with more than one sense, or at least that was the feeling she would get as Raxgandr's otherworldly attention settled on her, pushing a sharp knife against her throat as if it was a mere murderer. Yet there was much more beyond that simple knife than just intent to kill everyone that would get in one's way, there was a plan, a mighty hunger, complicated ideas, abstraction, terror, heart-gripping fear and most importantly, an oppurtinity. This girl was very brave to stand up to a horror like the abomination that stood before him, something that he could acknowledge... then use. Claudia smelled of revenge, of the desire to terrorise, to punish the world for something that she personally percieved a slight towards her, whether she knew that she was displaying it or not.

"Very well," said Raxgandr, seemingly lowering himself to the level of Claudia or below by submitting to her, however, the forest around them kept its warped shape. A slight breeze made its way between the dead trees, coiling around the twelve-year-old girl as if it was a gigantic snake, or perhaps, a terrifying fate that awaited her and would constrict her until the end of her days.
"Sign a contract with me, human, and my power is yours." Ha. As if! The words were carefully chosen so as to imply submission, but Raxgandr was doing anything but that. The one before him was nothing more than a puppet with so many strings that he could pull and the forest responded to his emotions. The branches of trees started slowly growing in the background, their ashen back bulging with cancer as they reached for each other like long-lost lovers, only to entwine in a twisted embrace that suffocated all of them. The air's scent subtly changed, becoming heavier and as Raxgandr descended to meet the human girl's eyes with his own, his form pulsed with blood that would terminate in moving machine parts.