OiM - How it All Began

[Jokerman-EXE]

Henry nodded mutely. This was indeed some - I believe the technical term is, "trippy s**t."  

[SirBayer]

Arthur shuddered and instinctively twisted out of Carpenter's grasp. "Pardon my paranoia," he requested shortly afterwards, realizing dodging away from a person was generally rude. Then again, maybe Carpenter got a lot of that. "And pardon me if I don't believe you.

"Perhaps you, then, can tell me what the game around here is. What are we supposed to do? Is there a way to win?"  

[NativeForeigner]

The window escaped Henry's grasp and slammed shut. The view through the window changed back to the familiar city of Corona. Experimentally, Henry opened the window again to reveal the fantastical scene once more.
He closed the window, it was Corona.

The question now was: If they went outside, which would it be?

Carpenter let Arthur go and looked at Ro, "I'm pretty sure I already told you that, I'm Carpenter." he said before turning his attention back to Arthur.
He began to pace back and force in front of the scene the ghosts were putting on, "Believe me or not, it's still true."

He put his hands behind his back as he paced, "This isn't a game, kid, it's all real."

He took his right hand and gestured towards the ghosts, "This isn't some sort of fancy trick, these people are real, or at least they used to be."

He stopped his pacing and bent over, putting his face inches away from Arthur, "You're supposed to survive, that's how you win."

He moved to Ro's side and put an arm around him, "See these ghosts?" he said, gesturing and looking at both Arthur and Ro, "They used to be alive, like you! And now look at them, stuck 'living' the last few minutes of their lives over and over and over again. It truly is horrible."  

[Jokerman-EXE]

Henry tried to wrap his mind around what could possibly be going on, and continued to come up with a blank. Even with his recent expansion of consciousness, in the form of metacognition and recognition, he had no remote clue as to what had happened to them.  

[SirBayer]

Arthur grimaced. "What kind of... who's work is this? Why? I don't suppose you have a manager I could speak to? Or a source of fire to burn this place to the ground?" This was... what was this? Could it be true.

Not by any logic Arthur had ever encountered so far. Which meant either it was fake or they'd discovered something huge. It... could be a dream. But Arthur wasn't going to bank on that. Instead he was going to try to run the course and find out. This was disturbing and fascinating.

"Can you... offer any assistance? Or are you like the rest, just here to kill us?"  

[NativeForeigner]

Carpenter shook his head, "Unfortunately, the MADHATTER is behind all of this, but this world, well it's been around as long as yours has, maybe even longer."

He got up in Arthur's face again, "Kid, use your brain meats, does it look like I have a manager? You could always talk to the Council, but they're kind of hard to get to..." he trailed off for a moment, "Oh! You can try to burn this place down, I'm sure he has a lighter."

Carpenter pointed at Henry as he spoke, "Don't know what good it'll do, this place doesn't go away, and even if you managed to get rid of it, you'll still be stuck here, maybe even longer than you have to. Just look outside!"

When Arthur mentioned just being here to kill them, Carpenter chuckled, a normal enough sound, mild and deep, "Kid! If I were here to kill you, you'd all be dead before you knew it! You haven't even started "waking up" yet, have you? They have!" he said, gesturing towards Ro, Henry, and Andreas, "I'm here to help you."

There was a skittering sort of sound coming from Backstage and Carpenter turned, "Oh," he turned back, "I was tired of talking anyways. Head up to the tower again, don't worry about Greg, he'll be fine, should be wakin' up soon."

He gave a wave as if to dismiss them, "Just stay alive, when you get to where you need to go, Shepard'll help ya."

The skittering got louder and the ground began to rumble, "******** MADmen." Carpenter muttered before leaping back up to the chandelier.

He gave a short wave as the first of a bright-orange, beetle-like thing, about the size of a tennis ball, emerged from the stage.  

[SirBayer]

Arthur would've responded, but he had nothing to say. Instead he stared at the beetle. He spent a while staring at this beetle. It was a large beetle. Arthur didn't know much about biology, but he knew enough to say that under any normal circumstances this thing wouldn't exist.

He had a way to fight it, though.

"Run," he hissed, turned, and followed his own advice, heading straight for the stairs.  

[Venom3001]

Andreas stared at the beetle. He glared at it. He squinted at it.

"You... will... rise...." he hissed, willing it to happen, focusing his mind on it.  

[Pimped_Klingon]

Cain had no idea what to do, should he attack her while she was down? He did not want to hurt anyone, but she had attacked him. He shifted his weight, perhaps he could make a run for it and escape the house.  

[Jokerman-EXE]

Henry shivered. Again with the odd tingle.
"We need to go," he said urgently. "There's going to be more of them, and I don't think it would be good to be around when they get here."
He began to walk backwards towards the stairs, not as fast as Arthur, and waiting for the others to come.  

[NativeForeigner]

((UPDATES! FRONT PAGE! CHECK THEM OUT OR DIE!))

The beetle did not rise.
Unfortunately for Andreas, the beetle was too far away for Andreas to have any effect on it.

As everyone stared at the beetle, it began to clean it's long, black antennae.
About a minute before Arthur began to run and Henry felt his tingle, the beetle began to advance upon the four with surprising speed.

It crawled down to the dance floor and began to move across it in a rapid and erratic manner, zig-zagging here and there.

Once the beetle was considerably closer, about ten feet away, Andreas attempted to lift the beetle once more. This time he had mild success.

The beetle's body lifted slightly from the ground, leaving it's black legs scrambling for purchase. They found just enough to scoot forward ever so slightly, about an inch or so before the beetle was lifted about an inch higher, it's legs no longer able to reach the ground.

The closer the beetle came to Andreas, the higher he could lift it. He began to notice a distance to height/power ratio.

Carpenter watched as he twirled a silver coin between his fingers. He chuckled and the lights flickered.

Then he was gone.

Once the beetle realized it could move no more, it opened it's shell and spread it's wings and began to shake, releasing a loud, rapid, high-pitch, clicking noise. This broke Andreas' concentration and he dropped the beetle.

Just as Arthur hissed for them to run and Henry seconded that opinion, the walls of the stage became coated in bright-orange as it became covered in countless beetles as they made their way down from the stage and across the Dance Floor.

The beetle Andreas had dropped scurried back to them and became engulfed in the mass.

"Damndamndamn!" Ro exclaimed as he turned to run for the stairs heading back up, moving ahead of Henry, "Someone close the door!"

*************************************************************

The woman stood slowly, she seemed to be sluggish, slow. She took a step towards Cain, then another.  

[Jokerman-EXE]

Henry was too far away from the door to make it in time. "Andreas, close it, damn it!" he shouted. He made a run for the stairs.  

[SirBayer]

"Ah, crap, come on! Do it!" Arthur shouted, stopping long enough to realize he couldn't go back and help at this point. Andreas had better be able to handle himself.