((Open RP)) Rosies RP Prompts

This is a weekly article, delivered to you every Wednesday. These articles are intended to be a fun exercise as well as a good resource for role-players to explore Character Development so please feel free to post your own characters reaction to the weekly prompt. So be sure to stay tuned to this blog for future installments!

Your character has lost consciousness, what happens to them while they are left senseless and what do they dream about?

Serena;

Serena drove the firebird quickly up the steep curving hillside for about a mile and a half of what consisted of the driveway. The sloping green field was high with wild grasses, wheat and bramble, and as the rough dirt track tilted shockingly upwards as the earth fell away from the narrow lane to the lake and rocks below. At the very top of the ascending cliffs sat the seven story Victorian Mansion and in just the short time it had taken Serena to clear the debris from before the main gate a fierce storm had moved in from the north west.

Dark and rain heavy clouds moved in, casting long shadows over the quickly falling night time landscape. It had not been her intention to take so long in town but the locals had been very unhelpful and running her few errands had taken more of her time than she had ever expected simple chores could. When she came back to her car, arms laden with goods she had noticed the boot on her car and the parking ticket affixed to her windshield. Liberating her car from motor vehicle lock up had taken even more of her time and settling her parking ticket with the Sheriff had been a less than pleasant experience.

Serena had a feeling she would be spending a lot of time watching movies alone at this rate. The grocer and his wife had over charged her, the hardware store owner had been abusive when she asked the difference between the flack and decker model versus the merits of the big pac tools model of the sander she was looking to buy. The post master shoved papers at her after ignoring the bell for forty five minutes, and every local she met did not return her smiles and greetings or openly gawked at her whispering behind her back as she walked by.

The only one whom had been at all kind to her had been the Bank manager over at the first national, a nice young man maybe a few years older than she was, whom commuted to his job at the first national from a neighboring town nearly twenty miles away. He had opened her money market account while talking with all the alacrity of a motor boat. His tie was crooked, his hair was balding, he had a barbeque stain on his light blue dress shirt which he kept blushing and apologizing for and all around he reminded Serena of an over grown golden retriever of a man all to friendly and naïve to notice much of anything and who might on occasion eat the upholstery of a chair if you left him alone for to long.

He had introduced himself to her as Bob Randall and he had talked her ear off for at least an hour after his quitting time of five o’clock, he liked sports and when she had inquired into the local football team he had lost it in recounting last Fridays game with such vivid detail Serna found herself wondering why the man hadn’t been given a job as a professional announcer for sports span network.

Part way between his narrative of one particularly thrilling play he declared he was hungry and that he would treat her to dinner if she would accompany him, she accepted and he guided her into the small mom and pop circa 1950’s dinner two blocks away from the bank. The Parkway Dinner over looked the middle of the town and one of the rivers flowed silently at its back giving the dinners a great view out of both sides of the old boxcar building. They took a seat in one of the booths where between the drawn blinds she could look out over the river at the stunning view of the distant lake and the copse of woods which pressed close to the town of Brook Haven on one side.

She had ordered the spicy pumpkin soup and he had gotten an order of onions rings, two hot dogs, hash browns, a side of coleslaw and a never ending cup of coffee. She joined him only in the coffee and declined the offer of cake or pie when Bob had asked, however when the bill instead of the desert menu came from the frowning and rude waitress Bob had looked more than a little dejected. His spirits rebounding quickly Bob then moved on to a stirring commentary on the diet of the current team of ginger root as some sort of far eastern delicacy which had been really putting a spring in their running backs step that season. Serena could only smirk at this and try not to spurt coffee out of her nose.

She paid her half of the bill and as they left the cozy dinner, Serena made a note to look around one last time before they closed the door. The entire patronage of the dinner was staring at them as they left. Indeed it had caught her attention when they had come in that some of the regulars had watched them enter, and even during Bob’s wild gesticulations and recitations of every play the local team had made she had observed that one or two or several of the dinners had been staring or seemingly to have just looked away from them. However this statement of incivility was more pointed, each and every dinner young and old stared after them with such a look of malice and ill will that Serena could not help but let her fingers curl into a fist reflexively.

Young and old eyes stared back at her dull with unwarranted anger, mouths in thin lines or open scowls, hands suspended from any and all motion to give full attention on their departing visitors. Men and women, those in suits and those in over alls and T-shirts glared daggers at her while she quickly escorted Bob out of the dinner feeling the point between her shoulder blades twitch as she turned her back on them and left the room.

Bob, as with everything else seemed blissfully unaware of the angry mob they left behind them, Serena admitted to herself that while Bob had been exuberant not even an entire order of Franciscan Monks during mornings silent prayer could be as angry as the hornets nest they had just left behind, (after all monks didn’t play high school football). However as they walked back to their cars in the bank parking lot Serena thought it prudent to ask her new found friend a few questions.

“Bob, did you notice anything unusual back there just now?” She asked turning to him as a gust of sharp wind buffeted her hair around her face making her drag it back behind her ears into a tight ponytail.

“Not really, other than Nancy didn’t bring us the desert menu, I was really looking forward to a piece of their coconut custard pie, or maybe a slice of their fresh apple or blueberry, although the key lime also looked really good….” Bob rambled looking back at the dinner hungrily.

“You didn’t notice that everyone was looking at us?” Serena said interjecting his rambling bakery heavy breathing with another question.

Bob looked confused for a moment “No, not really, was I supposed to notice something? I’m sorry, you look very nice, and did you do something new with your hair? You seemed to have more of it a moment before… I wouldn’t worry about people staring at you it happens to me all the time. I just figure it’s because I’m such a snappy dresser!” He finished with a wide grin and a tug on his now coffee stained lapels.

Serena could only smile at this and with one last furtive glance back at the cheery lights of the dinner she shook off a cold shiver of dread as she and Bob had parted with promises to meet again soon at the up coming football game that Saturday night and both went on their separate ways.

Now here she stood some time later, still feeling the eyes of the restaurant patrons on her with their malicious glares and she felt suddenly wary of the darkness which surrounded her as she looked up at the crumbling old house. Shrugging off the momentary chill however as the rain drops began to fall she began loading up her arms with the goods from the back of her car and quickly running up onto the creaking and cracked wrap around porch she slipped the house key into the lock and went inside.

With her arms full Serena had a hell of a time fishing out the penlight from her jean jacket pocket, but finally when she managed to do so she flipped it on and held it tightly in her teeth as she made her way through the dark and dreary house. The electricity to the old house had been turned off several years before so she had expected her first few nights in the old mansion to be dark and cold. She had come prepared with hurricane lamps and lanterns, a few blankets and a bundle of store bought fire wood. She had even been prepared for the dust and mildew of the place dodging the thick cobwebs and leaving a trail of disturbed dust behind her.

As she slowly made her way through the foyer past the central stair case with its old fashioned curved banister and threadbare oriental runner now faded and torn in several places, Serena let her dark blue eyes move cautiously over the spaces before her. The boards of the once elegant herringbone floors creaked noisily beneath her feet and she could see by a sudden flash of light through one of the central windows that all the old furniture still remained, shroud covered and ghostly in the front parlor.

Her arms still encumbered with the burden of her goods Serena made her way deeper into the parlor to her left, skirting around the formless shapes of the furniture. She noticed the door to the narrow servants passage stood ajar, but after listening a long silent moment she nearly gave upon on listening when BOOM! A large clap of thunder over head startled her making her drop her goods where she stood in the middle of the room.

After her heart slid out of her throat and he breathing turned back to normal she picked up her fallen goods and placed them on a coffee table which stood before the fireplace. Her dark eyes scanned the room once more and found it was wallpapered in the old hand painted style of small flowers and vines now very much past their glory and barely decipherable between the streamers of brown water stains which curled and marred the parchment, causing cracks in the paint of the wainscoting. Hung on the walls where several black shrouds covering the many mirrors and picture frames which held ghostly faces staring back at her through the thick grime of the many years of dust and neglect.

As the rain outside went from a splattering of fat drops to a driving torrent the evidence of the leaking roof made itself known to her as the water oozed its way down the glistening wallpapered wall making the floor beneath her feet slick and spongy with wet bone chilling water. She switched her penlight over to her non-dominant hand and lifting her fingers she traced a line over the face of a long dead relatives photograph, the light from her penlight dancing over the small chubby face of a smiling toddler dressed in a unisex christening gown made her smile and still trembling loose fingers dropped the light as another thunderous blast sounded near by.

She cursed at herself for being so easily frightened, she had not been so jumpy since she was a child and as she was bending down to retrieve her penlight she perceived a pair of black feet standing just behind her their large shape only a feet or two behind her and muffled by the still thick Persian rug which covered the floor. She thought of the open servants’ passage door she gasped and began to straighten up and turn around before a heavy blow just behind her ear rocked her sideways into a cloth covered table. Her sight dimmed, her vision crowded with blurring black her fingers grasped fruitlessly at the tables edge as she fell, and the last thing she saw as her world turned to black was a pair of dark long fingered hands reaching slowly toward her.

Jake;

Jake left his house very early that morning; the sun had not yet risen and darkness still clung to the land, especially in the deep forest where he doubted any sun at all ever touched its inner sanctuary. As the night had gone on he had a nagging sense of urgency that had distracted him making him forget to even lock up his place behind him as had been his Boston custom. However calling to Shelby his sheep dog to join him and quickly putting on his favorite leather jacket he made his way down the few squeaking steps of his large farm house porch and down his driveway while Shelby trotted up.

Stuffing his hands deep into his jean pockets after patting Shelby’s head he walked onward south toward the old Mansion house road. It was to early yet for the birds to be chirping yet but the woods where alive with so much noise and glimpses of foxes in the bushes, a family of deer standing in the orchard heads bowed eating the fallen fruit and even a large old raccoon darted across the road in front of a very excited Shelby who was contented with only barking occasionally than with darting off after these wild new friends.

The rain the night before had done nothing to quell the heat of the day before, but all around him he saw signs of the coming fall and the remnants of the downpour which had kept him company through out the insomnia of his night. There where several mud puddles for Shelby to jump in and drink from, the tree’s and bushes still dripped with sparkling fresh water, and the distant waves of the lake still showed that the wind which had carried the storm hither last night had just made landfall on the opposite side.

Jake tried to calm the nagging tug of his mind that something was amiss, the quickness of his breath, the pounding of his heart in his ears and he tried to slow his pace but as he came into sight of the old gate he knew deep down in his gut something was wrong. Jake had been gifted with foresight, but he had never paid much attention to his skill beyond calling it his gut instinct. It was a skill which helped him in his work as a journalist, when interviewing shady politicians and he was never out scooped. This time however he had wished his gut instinct had been wrong.

Quickening his pace he jogged to the open perimeter gate which had been locked shut, over grown with weeds and the way barred by large stones. Now he saw the gate was not only unlocked, but all of the debris had been cleared from in front of it, the weeds gone, the fallen tree removed and even the large boulders placed inside the large hole in the fence closing the way he was going to take himself.

Jakes green eyes looked up now without an obstructed view to the large old Victorian mansion which sat hauntingly at the top of the craggy hill, he began to run. Jake had been a long distance marathon runner almost his entire life, it was an activity that he enjoyed and something he had very nearly given up when he had been with Elise, but now his speed and skill served him well and within moments it seemed he stood before the house. There was a beautifully restored firebird in the driveway, the doors still stood open but the engine was still cool when he laid his hand over the hood. He looked inside and saw several boxes of sundry goods and a few suit cases like someone was moving in to the old house, but with the door standing open and the keys still dangling in the ignition Jake could still not shake the feeling that something was severely wrong.

Then at the very top of the porch stairs framed in the dark doorway of the house stood a dark tall figure carrying a woman over its shoulder. The man was indistinct to Jake from this far away although Jake had perfect vision and he was unable to get a firm impression of what the man looked like, what it was wearing, even the dimensions of its face.

All the little hairs on Jakes neck crawled as he saw the large shadowy figure bend low and dark long hair of the woman brush the threshold as it tried to fit through the doorway and somewhere deep down Jake knew this guy could not be allowed to escape with the woman even if it meant sacrificing himself to do so. Picking up a baseball bat which had been stuck into a box in the car Jake took a step forward and shouted.
“Hey you, stop right there!” Jake managed to get out, causing the thing which he had thought at first a man, though tall and indistinctly dressed in black or something but this was not like any man he had ever seen. This creature for that was the only word for it was more like something one would see out of the corner of your eye, indistinct and something you couldn’t quite focus on and it moved with a strange sloping elegance of something should slide or slither rather than a man with a natural humanoid gait.

The creature stopped, and seemed to look at him, what could be called its head turning toward him and tilting oddly to the side as if interested in studying him. Jake felt a throbbing in his head as the creature looked at him a building pressure just behind his eyes. A pain so acute it was almost enough to drag Jake to his knee’s however rushing forward instead was Shelby, baring her teeth and barking fiercely. The creature seemed to screech and in a defending motion threw up its long arms as if fending off a blow. This motion caused the woman to tumble down onto the porch seemingly lifeless as the creature fled deep into the woods.

Jake grabbed Shelby making sure the dog would not pursue the strange creature, but affectionately hugging and petting her he then rushed up onto the porch to the crumpled body of the young woman as he heard her moan. He took the steep stairs two and three at a time before he fell onto his knees beside the stranger as she groaned and rolled over looking up at him with a pair of the most breath taking blue eyes he had ever seen.

((Again, I loved the story Lady C, such a vivid image you paint with words. So, this is my Seer version of my main, whom has surprisingly gotten a lot of RP time recently. So, I am inspired to write about her.))

Quote:

Your character has lost consciousness, what happens to them while they are left senseless and what do they dream about?

“Courtney.” came the soft feminine voice, “Courtney, dear wake up.”
Courtney's eyes fluttered open and she focused her blurred vision on the woman standing over her. She was buxom, dressed in form fitting black and purple, with flowing purple hair.
'Purple?' Courtney thought to herself.
Courtney tried to sit up, but found that she was in a hospital bed, she was lying underneath white sheets, and the bed had thick leather straps, but they hung at the side. She could smell the sterile air, mixed with drugs and other less pleasant aromas of the hospital all about her.
“M-Mother?” she asked, her voice heavy with sleep still, “Can't I sleep a little longer?”
'My mother doesn't have purple hair.' Courtney thoughts swam in a confused haze, 'Its red like mine.'
“Don't be silly dear child,” replied the silky voice of Shalice Tilman, “Its time for your medicine.”
Courtney's blood ran cold, and she started to shake. Why was her mother making her do this? Didn't she love her daughter?
“N-No more medicine,” she said weakly, finding it hard to sit up, the white sheets tangled her limbs. “Please mother, I'll be a good girl, I promise.”
Courtney shrank away as the woman known as Praetor Tilman, as well as Mother, placed her cool pale hand on her forehead, she felt the mental probe and gritted her teeth so she wouldn't cry out. Touch, as any psychic knows, intensifies the connection. Courtney could feel the tendrils of energy flowing into her mind, feeding on the psychic energy there. She wanted to scream, to tear Shalice Tilman's hand away, but instead she closed her eyes, and kept her mouth shut. Her fingernails dug into her hands, her left hand started to bleed.
“There, there dear child,” Praetor Tilman said, “Don't worry, soon you will be with your sisters. One big happy family, all working to keep Praetoria safe. You and your sisters will stop bad things before they happen, isn't that nice Courtney?”
Courtney didn't trust herself to speak without screaming, so she just nodded her head. Then the “feeding” was done, as that is what Courtney had come to thing of it as.
“Call me CJ,” Courtney said to Praetor Tilman, and added, “Mother.”
“Now that isn't a proper name for a young lady,” Shalice Tilman said in her sweet voice.

“That isn't a proper name for a young lady.” said the smiling red haired older woman standing above a small eight year old Courtney. “I don't mind that your little friends call you CJ, but I named you Courtney after your grandmother.”
Eight year old Courtney stared up at the kind face of her real mother. Red hair cascaded around her face to fall freely at her shoulders, she had bright thoughtful green eyes, and a wide sincere smile. The sun shown through a window behind her, trees visible beyond the window. Courtney could hear birds singing. The house was set on the outskirts of the town of Bangor, in Maine. The Devouring Earth were threatening the town, and many were scrambling to protect it. None of that matter to young Courtney.

The sterile smell of the hospital broke her memories. But, it was like she was there, safe with her mother, her real one. The one who didn't try and steal her psychic energy. She was in the bed, harsh artificial light glared down on her from the florescent bulbs overhead. No windows were in this particular hospital room deep within the Mother of Mercy Psychiatric Hospital. She was dressed in a hospital gown, and held down to the bed by thick leather straps. Her gown was damp with sweat, and she felt the drugs coursing through her body. She shook with fright, and prayed that Shalic Tilman would not come today. Then the door opened and a man in a white lab coat entered, he wore a surgaical mask, so Courtney couldn't see his face. He held in his hand a large syringe, the tip of the needle dripped a clear liquid. Courtney struggled in her bonds, whimpering as she had learned long ago, pleas went unheeded.

A strong hand shook her shoulder again, the strong smell of something was in her nostrils. She shot up to a sitting position screaming “No! Please no more!”
Renato Angeles looked down at Courtney, dressed in her Seer Taboo costume, the scanner visor at her side, but the dim lighting of the Paragon City sewers didn't hurt her eyes overly much. Concern was clearly etched on his handsome face. CJ never thought she would be so relieved to smell a sewer in her life. She reached out and hugged Renato fiercely, burying her head in his strong shoulders.
"A dream," she muttered to herslf, "nothing but a dream."
She could hear the rushing water in the distance, feel the rough concrete she was lying on. Memories of the fight with the gang called the Freakshow came flooding into her mind. She'd been hit with a eletrical blast that surrounded her and held her fast, then despite the fact she was still able to try and stop them with some of her mental abilities, they had overwhelmed her. She wasn't back in the Mother of Mercy Psychiatric Hospital, she wasn't in Praetoria, she was here, beneath the City of Paragon, fighting for her life against cyberneticly enhanced teenagers, and at this moment she couldn't be happier.

((Once again a challenge, and a good one. Thanks again for taking the time to not only post these prompts, but to write something to inspire us as well.))

((Very well written Mind, I hope get some more background on Courtney and more info on her powers sometime soon. Very vivid indeed. I only wish we got more responses on this as I'm thinking of publishing my writing to my DA page at this point. ))

((That'd be a shame, as they have been a fun read so far. :/
Still, no reason you couldn't do both!))

((I also gotta say I loved the portrayal of Shalice Tilman in your story Mind! That was one hell of a nightmare/memory.))

Hm. I might get in on the next run.

((Same, unfortunately I have a good concept going for this particular theme but I didn't want to post outside of what is originally intended.))