deercountry | (open) — have you seen a little girl?

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(open) — have you seen a little girl?

^{Who: Rose Da Silva / horrormom + you!
What: Catchall — includes general & event prompts.
When: Throughout the month of November.
Where: Various places around Trench, The Tower, etc.

Content Warnings: distressed mothers / themes of missing children / religious themes & imagery / fanatical cultists (from Rose's canon as well as Trench) / event-related warnings in later prompts (sleeper farm, imprisonment, bodies, etc.) / blood}

MOM ON A MISSION

( Rose Da Silva is somewhere strange and frightening — alien in ways, like some place frozen in a time that's not hers — and her little girl isn't beside her anymore.

Rose has lived this before. And like last time, there's only one single purpose driving her: to find her daughter. The difference is that this time, there are seemingly no clues to follow, no little puzzle pieces left behind. Something within Silent Hill had called to her, guided her through its monsters and nightmares, showed her where to go. Here (wherever here even is; she's heard the name Trench but Rose thinks it must be some extension of that otherworldly place, of Silent Hill) she's all on her own. And so she keeps looking.

Through November, it's what she does: wandering the streets and shops of this place, seeking out information, searching. Like last time, she won't stop. )

^{ooc ➤ Throughout the month, Rose can be stumbled upon just about anywhere throughout Trench. Feel free to wildcard your character encountering her roaming around your district, near your home or business, etc. I've listed some specific scenarios below, but I'm 100% flexible. The titles of each section below link back to the game info about them, for easy reference!}

i. WILLFUL MACHINE
( Rose soon enough finds her way to a hub of activity, stunned by how lively it is in comparison to Silent Hill. No townspeople scrounging through the dust of abandoned buildings for scraps of food, no deadly-quiet spaces in which time seems to hang heavy and tense, before those sirens wail to unleash a nightmare.

It almost seems... like a normal place, here in Willful Machine. The smell of fresh things cooking, the bustle of civilians buying and selling from various stalls and shops. And yet, with that comes a new type of dread in Rose: this place is huge and there are many more people here. It would be much easier for a tiny little girl to stay lost.

Well, she certainly isn't shy about asking questions. You might see her — a well-kept woman in a long tan overcoat and knee-high boots, approaching various stall owners, asking to speak to whomever's in charge. No one really seems able to give her a straight answer on that, but she's not giving up; of course she isn't. Rose keeps looking around, keeps asking. Maybe she winds up at your business, or approaches you on the street as you're browsing. Her questions generally cycle between:

'Excuse me, can you tell me who's in charge around here?'
'Sorry to bother you, but have you seen a little girl? Long, black hair? She's only nine.'
'Hey, do you know where I can get a charger for this? Like an electronics place, or a pharmacy or something?', in which case she'll be holding up the cell phone that's hanging from her neck by a strap. ...This was a Prime Mom Cell Phone in 2006, okay. )

ii. DARCMOUTH
( This place feels more familiar. With its dreary haze, the fog that seems to be a permanent fixture. Like a dream — just on the cusp of becoming a nightmare. Rose makes her way through Trench's fishing district wide-eyed and alert, a perpetual chill down her spine as though in anticipation of some monstrous thing to come crawling out of the fog her way. No monsters come and no siren sounds, but she can't relax, hands shoved into the pockets of her coat, shoulders hunched upwards against the November chill, even more nippy out here by the sea. It bites her cheeks and nose, leaving them flushed red.

She wanders the docks, listening to the deep creak and groan of boats slowly moving up and down in the water, trying to ignore the heavy stench of fish and brine. On occasion she has to tuck her nose into the crook of her elbow, swallowing down a gag. If, for some reason, you are also at the gloomy district, you might see the woman who looks severely out of place yet purposeful — searching nooks and crannies, stepping lightly over a mound of fish entrails to peer into the frosted-over windows of a rundown old warehouse, its entrance locked. She's dragging her nails against a window, and then crouching to find a dusty brick, which she starts hitting the window with — though its glass is extremely thick and doesn't immediately bust. Rose doesn't stop, however, because she is absolutely determined to break in and doesn't seem to have any real concern for who might hear her doing so.

Or maybe you hear her doing something else — shouting, running — after someone, the glint of something large and shiny held in their hand (a locket with the Virgin Mary on the front). Maybe you can help stop the thief from taking off with what is clearly very precious to the woman. Rose is pretty fast, but the person who stole her locket knows the ins and outs of this place, taking turns through alleys, around trade stalls, and she has no way of stopping them. No weapon, no powers; all she can do is run.

Eventually, Rose also finds her way to the shoreline, the place she remembers coming up from. Something here... feels different, somehow; it's some awareness she can't quite explain. As though within her spirit something is stroked so gently that it's barely a touch at all, and something inside of her shudders gently in response. She won't turn away from it, no. Rose slowly makes her way down that soft black sand, eyes narrowed and teary against the sharp sea breeze. By now, she's... tired, and she aches in a way she's beginning to grow used to aching.

She doesn't know how long she walks, but at some point she comes across something lying there where ocean meets shore, waves lapping up against where it's wedged into the sand. The woman slows almost to a halt, feeling as though the breath has been knocked out of her. Then she's approaching the item she already knows she recognises, crouching to gently lift it up out of the sand.

Rose gasps, falling down onto the sand, legs tangled beneath her as something racks through her very frame; it's a reaction that physically hurts. She presses the item to her chest (it's soaked through, cold and limp against her), and wails loudly out to the ocean — a name, Sharon.

If you get close enough to see, you'll realise that what she's holding is a brown teddy bear. )

iii. CRENSHAW
( When she hears about an orphanage in this city, Rose immediately finds her way to it through word of mouth, some desperate hope still remaining in her. It's all she has, that desperation, that hope: the two mingled together into an almost tangible presence up under her sternum.

Her daughter isn't there. She looks for her amongst every single lost child currently inhabiting the orphanage — calling for Sharon and then Alessa — but her little girl isn't there.

She might show up there, though. God, she might. Maybe if someone finds her and brings her somewhere safe... And though Rose can't possibly keep watch every day, she does end up visiting the orphanage very often, perched on the cold stone steps outside of it, the bag that washed ashore with her tucked close to her feet. On her lap, she holds a couple of drawings, and she keeps looking over them — one a cheerful, child's depiction of sunflowers, the other a... much more horrific sight. The woman's frowning deeply as she examines them, brushing the pad of her thumb gently over the crayon art, seeming to be searching for something within. Some hidden clue that maybe she missed.

Beside her, a white dove sits, docile and calm, occasionally fluttering her wings and giving soft sounds as she keeps a look out. )

THE SLEEPER FARM ➤CW: EVENT WARNINGS APPLY; SPECIFICS WILL BE IN SUBJECT HEADERS

( She sees what they do — how they take people, and though Rose doesn't know where that may be or why, she knows she has to follow.

She's trembling to her core as she quickly trails the horrible thing that was maybe once a person into the black hole it creates, but she's faced horrible things before, and she will never back down from facing them again. Not if there's a possibility that her daughter is threatened.

She never sees the attack coming, but it must have caught her in the act. She wouldn't have tried to evade it anyway, wouldn't have tried to escape. She has to end up wherever this thing is taking people; there is no other option for her. And so Rose is knocked out in an instant, a willing captive. )

i. THE STALLS

( When Rose comes to again, it takes her a few long moments to try and pull herself from her thick, stunned haze. She keeps her eyes closed, though her other senses begin to pick up on the things around her, and she knows that she's been taken to a nightmare.

The sounds of machinery whir and thud and grind somewhere not far away; the potent (familiar) smells of oil and must and what she recognises as blood greet her as though she'd never left. Rose slowly peels her eyes open and stares at the room she's currently in — not so much a room at all, but a sort of stall, like what an animal would be contained in. Her heart skips a beat so hard that she gives a shaky, pained sound.

The Darkness, she immediately thinks. What those in Silent Hill had run from, hidden from in their Church, tried to keep at bay with their beliefs. Their faith..... their ugly, twisted, monstrous faith. Their fear, their cruelty. She'd helped destroy them and their Church, watched Alessa rip them apart as they screamed.

But it isn't over, she thinks. Those deformed creatures that take people here... they could be connected to The Brethren, maybe working for them. Some of those cultist people could have survived the massacre back in Silent Hill. They could have taken her Sharon again.

It's then that Rose realises she's not alone in the stall. There's someone else — and she calls out to you, her wrists bound together behind her back, shackled. Fuck, if that's not familiar, too. )

Hey! Hey, you awake?

ii. STORAGE

( Or maybe you encounter her after you've escaped from your holding pen and are making your way through the industrial, bleeding labyrinth. By then, Rose has gotten out of her own shackles and grabbed a large wrench she found lying around, holding it to her chest. There's some blood smeared across her jumpsuit and staining the soft blonde of her hair, smudged against a cheek; it's not her own blood, but she's been exploring and brushed across a hanging body or two (or three or four, it's endless, the mutilated bodies in this horrible place are endless.)

If you've had the misfortune of being hung up and are clearly alive, Rose will rush over to you; she'll help you, won't leave you behind. Or maybe you're safely on the ground and happen across the woman exploring one of the countless rooms. Quiet and barefoot, tracking blood-stained footprints across the cold ground, Rose doesn't seem to be searching for a way out. No, she's not trying to escape. Not just yet. First, she has to see if Sharon is here and she's not fucking leaving until she searches every single room.

So she explores dark storage spaces filled with tools or piles of bodies in bags, the wrench held tightly in her hands. She's afraid, of course she's afraid, but something other than fear is what drives her. She's done this before, not so long ago at all; she'd gotten her daughter back no matter what it took. At the time, it felt like it took everything, every single thing, but oh— there's more left in her; she feels it now, a certain anger she's grown to rely on rising up from the well deep within her. And she'll use it to protect anyone who needs protecting, and to kill whatever stands in her way now. )

WILDCARD / ETC

^{ooc ➤ Hit me up on plurk (skeletals) / discord (large bat#2354) / pm / Rose's plot post
Respond in prose if that's your preference, and I'll gladly follow suit!}

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It caught up to me at last].

Luz couldn't help but think that, here in the dark, too weak to even cast a light spell. They'd gotten to her, and had indeed strung her and were taking blood, but she wasn't missing innards yet. They hadn't gotten that far. Just like with Margot, Luz felt that helplessness preying at the corners of her mind, that people could just GET to her before she'd even had a chance to fight. She couldn't even use her glyphs, she felt so weak. The hum of the machinery and the sounds from the machines hooked up to less fortunate Sleepers filled the air, permeated Luz's whole consciousness. She wanted sleep, some kind of reprieve, but her body refused, drinking in every single moment.

I can almost hear the laugh of those cannibal guys. Guess they get the last laugh after all.

She was so lost in her self pity she didn't hear the woman approaching. She blinked, seeing a figure approaching, and weakly writhed against the chains.

"N-no," she moaned. "G-get away! Not again!"

Rose makes her way through more hanging bodies, trying to swallow down her kneejerk reaction of revulsion. No matter how much she smells it — that sharp copper of spilled blood, and the putrid warmth of freshly exposed organs — it makes her tissues curl.

But her determination persists, and she's searching no matter how abhorrent this is. Her bare feet are stained red with blood by now, and as she moves across the floor of this room, she's stepping into fresh blood with a slick sound. Rose swallows hard, grips her wrench in her hand as she pokes through the bodies strung up like animals in a slaughterhouse.

Then she sees Luz.

A new wave of horror racks through her frame, and Rose runs up to the girl, drops the wrench on a nearby table. Her hands come up, gently but desperately moving up to her as the girl tries so weakly to squirm away from her with those piteous moans.

"Luz! Oh god.... oh god, it's me— Rose!" She's trying to see just how the girl is hung up, shackled by her wrists or with an actual hook.

"Oh god, honey, it's going to be okay. I'm going to help you!"

Luckily its only rope, but since Luz can't get ahold of her glyphs and the staff isn't with her, she's helpless at the moment. They'd take blood from her from the looks of the pail, and were very much going to try and take more. Luz blinked, trying to focus her eyes on who was speaking to her, and once she heard the voice she recognized it as the woman she'd helped when the parasite things were coming onto the beach.

"R-rose?" She groaned, her neck craning to see her and being swiftly reminded she was still in a lot of pain. "W-why are you barefoot?"

Luz was trying to focus on small things, because everything else in the room right now, she could tell, was a potential nightmare in the making.

"Yes, it's me!" She affirms, reaching up to work at the rope tying the poor girl up, fingers shaking as she desperately tries to unknot it. "They took all my things— shoes, bag..."

...Her locket with Sharon's photo in it. Rose tries to ignore the coils of fear in her stomach; she may have chosen to come here and face whatever's within this horrible place, but that doesn't mean she isn't still afraid. Especially seeing what they've done to Luz....

But she channels that fear into something else. Action. Rose manages to get the rope undone and immediately wraps her arms around Luz to help bring her down, supporting the girl's thin body so she won't fall; she has no idea how weak the poor girl might be after what she's been subjected to.

"I've got you, it's all right. Just lean right onto me, I'll get you down."

Luz clings to Rose now because her whole world is now taking a lurch she was not expecting. Coming down from the rope her body is wracked with pain because now with her body unsuspended, moving her limbs is a reminder of all the piercings they've done on her so far. She sticks her fist in her mouth to muffle the scream, but the pain comes and comes, stinging and working double time.

When some of that pain starts to subside, Luz lifts her head and looks to Rose, breathing hard, unaware of how much of a wreck she must look like.

"T-thanks. Sorry about hanging on. Ah! D-dang. That's the worst."

Rose is so focused on getting the poor girl down, she's moving too quickly, and suddenly becomes aware of the pain that Luz is exhibiting, giving a sharp wince. God, what have they been doing to her.......

She tries to be a little more careful once she has her down, arms still wrapped around the girl as she means to help support her into a standing position. She's aware of some of Luz's blood smearing against her as she does so, and tries to keep the dry sob out of her voice, so horrified for the poor girl as she is. But right now she just has to help her. One hand lifts to the back of Luz's head, cradling it protectively.

"Can you stay standing? Do you need to sit down on the floor? I can help you sit, it's all right—"

Luz leaned against Rose at this point, because it's all she can do not to start screaming out at every little jostle. It just felt like a gash was at her back, that she was probably horribly scarred at this point. Once she was down though, she was able to at least gather herself and attempt to breathe normally.

She's not able to stand though: she'd been suspended long enough that her legs had atrophied, and she was shaky enough that she just needed support a little longer.

Please. You have...a drink of water?

It's painfully clear just how weak the poor girl is, so Rose very gently eases her down to the ground with her, holding onto her, breathing out soft, soothing words. "It's all right, I've got you."

Rose kneels beside Luz as she lowers her to sit, gently coaxing her to lean against the wall behind her for support. Part of her can't help thinking that it's surely dangerous to stay here for too long, that whomever fucking did this will be back any moment, but she can't possibly expect Luz to be able to move yet. Instead, she's looking wildly around at the request for water.

"I'm going to see if I can find some. I'll be right back, okay?" She stands and quickly moves around the nightmarish room, sliding between hanging corpses that have been drained fully of blood. She manages to find a barrel of what seems like water... maybe used to clean the floors with. Amongst the other supplies, she finds some bowls that might be used to store... whatever they pull out of the bodies, organs and whatnot. Fortunately, she manages to locate one that doesn't look used yet, so Rose quickly scoops out as much water for Luz that she can fit in it and hurries back to crouch beside the girl.

"Here you go sweetie, I found some water. I'll help you drink, okay?" Rose holds the bowl up to her face with one hand while the other gently brushes some strands of wayward hair back from the girl's face.

"Careful, now..."

Luz couldn't imagine that she looked anything close to good right about now. Her face felt heavy and her limbs barely felt like they belonged to her. She didn't want to imagine the state of her back, but at the same time she knew she was lucky. She wasn't missing an eye like Dipper or a leg like Varian, she had just been under some severe mental distress. Granted, she didn't make it feel any better: the time seemed to bleed into hours or days or however long she'd been there, and sometime when she'd been barely cognizant she's count how many times the light would flicker or make that noise it did all while the blood had been slowly oozing out of her.

She wondered how long she could do this, maintaining that, until she started to go crazy.

When Rose came back with the water, she drank up gratefully, trying not to think of what could have housed the water before it, and drank a little too deeply, having to pause and cough some of it out.

"C-crap, sorry. A little too fast."

She groaned, finally averting her eyes over to Rose and managing a small, small joke.

"Been here often?

Well. She was half joking, half serious.

Rose tries to hold the bowl as steadily as possible as the girl drinks, her other hand gently moving to the back of her head to hold there too, offering a little bit of cushion between Luz's head and the wall behind it.

It's good she's able to drink, but it's painfully clear how exhausted the poor girl is, and Rose is still frowning deeply when the little joke comes — blinking widely for a moment before she can't help the smile that curves her lips, and the quiet laugh.

"Have you always been this smooth, Luz?" Her smile widens just a tad, before her brows are knitting again, because that worry is right there continuing to press inwards. And after a moment, Rose slowly lowers the bowl to the ground again, exhaling a soft breath.

"....I need to look at your back, okay?"

"Phew," Luz said, half a word and half a noise really. "Thank you."

The bad thing was that Luz couldn't help but feel incredible drained. Sure, there was the pain, but there was also the fact that her blood had been drained that made Luz feel faint. She groaned, then looked up at Rose, grateful for the setup.

"Of course I have. Leave boys and girls sobbing messes in my wake. Just ask around."

They'd tell her they saw that dork Luz dorking it up. Obviously Luz had no SO to speak of.

Worse still, once she got an eyeful of Luz's back she'd see they've done a number on it. They'd all but flayed her skin, it was so riddled with pinpricks to seep the girl of her blood and likely also to teach her a lesson for escaping the first time.

"Is it bad?"

She's of course still learning Luz, having only encountered the girl once before this, but Rose is getting to see a little glimpse into more of her personality. She seems like such a sweetheart, silly and sweet and strong all at once — from rescuing her from monstrous fish to soaring high above the skies, to making little jokes. Rose tries to keep the lump out of her throat as she nods again, smiling with a soft amusement at the girl's words.

"I don't doubt that for a second. When we get out of here, you can tell me more about it, okay? All those boys and girls."

...She has to get Luz out of this place. She will. But that lump Rose had been trying so hard to swallow down starts welling up again when she gently examines the teen's back. God..... Anger, ache, horror, are all mingled within her, and she has to take a few moments to gather herself.

"It's pretty bad," she admits; she won't lie to the girl, but as she says it, her eyes gloss a bit. "But it'll be okay. We'll get you out of here and get you fixed up."

Rose gently cups the girl's face with a hand for a moment, brushing her thumb over Luz's cheek with a soft affection. "We can sit here for a little bit longer, but we have to move soon. I'm sorry. But I can carry you on my back if you need me to, all right?"

It was really hard to keep her spirits up, but Luz is trying. The last few days (days? hours)? had been filled with agony and horror at being here again, that she was captured. Having Rose here was a reminder that despite how doomed she felt, there were still people who would do everything they could to help you, much as how she and Lysithea had been trying to help others the first time she was here.

"That...is a lie. I'm horrible at relationships. I think...too hyperactive."

OK, come ON Luz, try not to feel depressed on top of in pain and weary. But man, she was really glad to see a friendly face and was at least starting to get some feeling back. Being told that about her back gave her just a little bit of apprehension and some assurance that she'd have scars like her older housemates.

"Thank you Rose. A...little help, please? My legs feel like weights."

"Sounds to me like the right person just hasn't found you yet," Rose offers with another little smile, giving Luz's hair another stroke. Look, she can't help being a Supportive Mom even in such a dire time as this....... But it's something she never got to do with Sharon, not just yet. Things like first loves or relationships or all the little parts of getting older.... Her daughter was a bit too young for it, but someday soon....

She bites her lip then, worried about hurting Luz further. She'll try to be as gentle as humanly possible as she very slowly turns her back to the girl and finds one of her arms, slowly easing it up over her shoulder. Then she tries to direct the other one, coaxing Luz to drape her arms over her from behind.

Rose stands then, as slowly as she dares, hoisting the girl up onto her back with a sharp exhale. She's tried to be careful, but she fears that any kind of moving around is going to hurt the poor girl.

"Shit, I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

"You'd think no one would find each other in these kinds of worlds, but it happens all the time."

Luz was definitely trying to fixate on one thing she was worried about (not finding someone) because right now that was preferable to what she had to worry about now, which was getting off the tubes that were sticking into her. Sure, it was not the best time to talk about it, but a distraction was a distraction.

Luz wrapped her arms around Rose and was brought up and Luz bit her lip hard enough to bleed because DAMN that did hurt. But Luz was also not trying to cause trouble for someone who was trying to help her.

"I'm ok."

She wasn't.

She tried to stand on her feet, but Luz was suddenly feeling nauseous and leaned on Rose.

"Sorry.

"Love found in literal Hell...? It's hard to imagine it, but I guess places like this could bring some people together," Rose offers with a quiet breath of a laugh.

Of course, the bout of gentle light-heartedness can't last long, and Rose is quietly gasping as the girl tips forwards again. She's quick to try and support her, arms going backwards to grasp Luz's body and try and help get the girl onto her back all the way.

"Here, it's okay. Just lean on me, I'll carry you just fine, okay? Can you try to wrap your legs around me?"

She knows Luz is probably spent for any strength left, but if she can just wrap her arms over her shoulders and hook her legs around her back, she can safely be carried that way, draping on Rose's back as limply as she needs to. She'll carry her, she won't let go.

"I don't know how it keeps happening! Some people are pretty lucky, or maybe it's the similarly shared psychological trauma. Either way, these crazy kids find a way to make it work!"

And goodbye small talk, hello pain. Lots and lots of pain. Once Luz is on her feet her back has a chance to remind her yes, there are some pretty deep holes there and up until a moment ago, they were syphoning her blood. It is taking every ounce of Disney in Luz not to start swearing up and down, and she at least lets one rude Spanish phrase out before.

"Lean on you. Got it!"

Because Luz knew that there was no way she was going to be able to move much. She did exactly as Rose asked, wincing through it, but once she managed, she held on tight.

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(open) — have you seen a little girl?

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