Jailhouse Rock

[Cosenticus]

Hey, Dusty, my friend. I happened to register here, and I was wondering whether you would mind participating in a fight with moi. If you would, and I do so hope (and feel) you will, then just reply and I will be appeased.

You may select a battlefield and a character. As you no doubt know, I already have mine.

Remember this quote as you write your reply, Zach:

"Life's like a play; it's not the length but the excellence of the acting that matters"
- Seneca

[ January 28, 2005, 12:07 AM: Message edited by: Orodes ]

[Dusty]

Right away, then. How about a Soviet prison?

If you've got the time, you should go ahead and post an entrance. The next week is excessively hectic for me, which was the cause for my temporary delay of Erdawn vs. JK/myself. I'll post the first attack as soon as I am able.

[Cosenticus]

I am also busy, so if I do not reply before Saturday, consider it prompt to post an entrance and I will follow. It's been a bad week for me, for I am both sick and have to work, which makes fighting a rather difficult endeavor.

[Cosenticus]

Nothing tears at the soul like a prison abandoned. Its vacated cells of torment whisper memories long forgotten, of their tenant’s oppressors’ diabolical deeds, and of the unfulfilled dreams engraved into the very stone of their occupants’ crypts. Here, where people once lived to die, entering only to seek their utter demise, there was nothing but death. The steamy stench of decayed corpses left unattended wafted through the surreal, stagnant air of the great mausoleum. With tables turned over on their sides, and the glass of windows shattered and scattered across the floor, there was little to ponder on what happened to this wondrous institution. It was a revolution—one so grand that the world never saw one with such a bleak chance for success since the rebellion started by the gladiator, Spartacus.

And history repeats itself, for the animals went mad, organizing together and tearing everything apart that they could find, literally bending steel to escape from their austere chambers. Many of the cages had their barred doors pried off their metallic hinges, falling flat onto the dusty and blood-stained floor of the vile torture establishment, and left there to inevitably hide beneath the cloak of debris that would follow it all. The floor was littered with fallen helmets and torn clothes, of both guards and prisoners alike, and the deathly silence that endured was greater than the uprising itself. Lights that long lost their spark didn’t even flicker in this Soviet madhouse.

This is what happens when you take away a man’s freedom.

Perhaps, the greatest lesson is that men were always meant to be free…
Or, that, no man will ever be free, no matter how much it is commercialized.

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A late, seasonal blast of frigid, howling gales assaulted the masonry walls and rolled through the narrow windows of the death house. The gust blew through a cell and slipped through its barred door, where it slowly traveled from the bottom to the very top, and finally dispersed into nothing. During its journey, it uncovered some of what fell beneath layers of dust, rubble, and shrapnel. An endless carpet of bones, fallen gates, splinters of wood, shards of glass, torn cloth, cracked helmets, and a multitude of other miscellaneous, combined materials that were too mixed to distinguish became the floor, for what lay beneath them was any man’s guess.

The cages within the lonely Bastille rattled in the aftermath of the wind’s strike, and tormented screams devoured the entire institution. Truly, it was as if a vein opened up from the earth into Hell itself, and the Damned were crying out from their eternal confinement, begging to be heard. Deep, black mist swarmed out from every crack in every wall, immediately covering the floor which had only recently been revealed. Slowly, it grew denser and denser, and as it did daylight grew bleaker. That’s when night settled in the awful establishment that misery built.

As the dungeon fell beneath the shade of the night, a new sound accompanied the wailing of the Damned, nearly drowning it out with its cacophonous hymn. Whoever orchestrated it was unknown, but their instrument was as clear as a candle lit within the darkness. It used chains--rattling, unforgiving, merciless chains that sang a ballad of anathema, agony, and oppression; yet also one of passion, euphoria, and parole.

Then, the chains started to slide around and move, as if they were granted legs. A garbled cry exploded from the roof of the prison…

Outside the jail, a massive thunderstorm brewed. Its roaring bolts of lightning cackled gleefully within the misty pockets up above, and the color yellow flashed over the land and disappeared once again, briefly severing the darkness with light. Then a bolt of lightning fell from the cloud towards the earth, but this one had a mission—a destiny. It fell fast and struck the soil hard, and when it did its charge ignited the land, surging towards the vile reformatory.

Then, the entrance to the death house became accessible, when the double gates slowly creaked away from one another. Finally, the prison was alive again, and it was opening up its arms to whoever seeks refuge from the storm…

[Cosenticus]

BAM! Kick it up a notch!

[Dusty]

A guard was attacked, his arm dragged between the door and the wall as the automatic system drove the bolts home. His shoulder was dislocated, the bones in his arm crushed, splintered, breaking free from the skin. His throat had been torn out and the blood had dried, gluing his shirt to his chest.

A prisoner had an effeminate air about him, perhaps because of the position in which he’d died. His pants were down. Loose skin, flab at all places on his body had rivets cut into it, patterned like fish gills and mutilating his face too horribly to describe.

One cell had more than a dozen men crammed into its diminutive dimensions, kneeling in a highly ritualized arrangement, lips wrapped around pistol barrels.

At first Solomon had been gleeful to wake to such a grim spectacle, and earnestly examined the scene, using any method of forensic science to pattern events as they had happened, but he soon became bored. He had no particular interest in leaving the prison or burying the dead. Now it was all he could do to amuse himself, probing the still-firing neurons for anything particularly interesting, dressing in the prison attire, walking around with scalpels and medical instruments in his pockets, studying human anatomy in earnest. In small ways, he began to idealize the prisoners, building small shrines of remembrance, candles and personal objects mostly, or arranging their stiffening corpses into gloried positions. This failed to be a particularly engaging endeavor, and so Solomon fell back into long sleep.

But now, with the rattle of chains echoing up to his chosen cell, he began to resurface, return to the world as it is. His eyesight was blurred and shaded by long blonde hair, but his hearing was incredibly acute and he heard the chains with piercing clarity. His tongue flicked out of his mouth like a snake’s, tasting the air and the bittersweet fragrance of new blood pulsing in the vein… the tiny oscillations of energy in a relaxing rhythm, almost like they were coming from his own body, a sensation he hadn’t felt in so long… the eager shiver running up from the base of his spine… yes, this one’s thoughts were slippery but Solomon was wide awake, life was rushing back into him though the truth was he could never die.

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For one hundred and fifty years since I first entered the prison, it’s been both a personal amusement and a shrine dedicated to my worship. Oh, they might say I infected them, but what could I have done, trapped in my sarcophagus, passing the time ‘til the End of Days while the warden drowned all memory of me in his secret bottles, praying all knowledge of my existence would pass and that I might finally die?

(Shed no tear, friend. After all, were I dead, who might be here to tell the tale?)

Trapped in the absolute darkness, propped up by the dimensions of my casket, too weak even to break out… I had no hand in creating them, and regardless they needn’t my intervention—they were monsters against whom even I pale in comparison. Rather, I satisfied the warden’s wishes and let my flesh wither and rot, and in the binding darkness, deprived of all sensation, I turned my focus toward my cerebral abilities. Leaping forward in time, freed from the surly distractions of the present, I let my consciousness rise out of my ageless husk and the coffin that trapped it, and there flex and expand like a muscle. It was shocking, even to one as old as I, how quickly I gained influence and soon dominion over the outside world, until my box and its grisly load ceased to be isolation and became my part-time refuge.

(As a child, they feared I was dumb, that the Aumelech house had married into its own one too many times, but it was not long before I gained the throne and they discovered I was at least smart enough to guess at the subject of their private conversations—the gallows gave them time to reflect.

No one laughs behind King Solomon’s back, and nothing is hidden from my gaze.)

The inmates, they understood the meaning of pride, and took it to heart. The gossipy critics of my rule often said that my unquestioned might was not the source of boundless right, and that one could not govern through fear. For all the supposed injustice they’d suffered when I’d revoked their “inalienable liberties” at spear-point, they didn’t know a ****ing thing compared to the prisoners. Don’t mistake me; few among the inmates were pillars of intellect, and more than a few couldn’t even read. And yet the unrest of the prisoners was never quelled by the decrees of the warden or the senseless brutality of his guards, but by a few notable lifers who were able to rise to positions of prominence and ruthlessly subjugate their fellows.

They knew how to rule, and their power opened the doors of perception just a crack and they, in some small ways, glimpsed my presence as I peered through the keyhole. More than once I was caught unawares and feared that the door may swing both ways, but they were never my equals, and just as the prisoners turned to them out of fear and hatred, they came to with their desires and insecurities. If I could relate to you their sentimental sacrifices: innumerable ears and noses and genitals, trophies from the prison yard and the shower room. These were safe from the prying eyes of the guards, dedicated to their great and terrible anonymous god and hidden behind loose bricks in their cell walls, bathed in the harsh flicker of ever-burning candlelight amidst invocations written on toilet paper. And with their sacrifices I could feel my own power swell, not just expand in breadth but also in potency; with their sacrifices my power became more carnal and real, no longer trapped within the simple walls of my fancy but growing to my former glory. The electric lamps flickered with each desperate bargain raised to my ears in prayer. I drew on them as a leech, as my kind do; without them I was nothing, as all gods are without their zealots.

It was not long until I’d robbed them of every shred of humanity to make up for the loss of my own. The blood that yet streaks those cell walls is proof enough of that. With the death of my worshippers and their jailers came my own reincarnation, stealing new life as their last breaths left their lungs, an artificial birth from the womb of the coffin. I was restored, and yet the behavior of those simple monsters—that which had given me new life—was forever wiped from this world. I would animate their mutilated corpses, reenact memorable scenes of casual violence or rape for my own amusement, but took no love in it; the individual actions and motivations that had made these small creatures so engaging could never be recreated with the dead.

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Solomon walked amidst the long dead, their bodies now decomposing despite his efforts to preserve the scene of mass murder as accurately as possible. Well, one can hardly hope to cheat time, he thought with mild amusement. He turned into the main corridor and walked toward the open doors, trying to follow the rattling chains but they seemed to be coming from everywhere.

“All is forgotten in the halls of the dead,” Solomon said, and his ashen skin stretched taut in gleeful anticipation, golden hair blowing back in the wind. He felt like dancing. “Your trespassing will be similarly forgotten, if you would fall silent and never darken the home of Solomon Beelze Aumelech again. If not, then your final resting place will at least have entertaining company,” he said, gesturing to the rows of corpses and drawing a serrated knife from his side, like a butcher’s tool.

[Dusty]

Bump

[Cosenticus]

Sorry for the delay, Zach. Some things happened which I was unable to predict and I have a lot of business to deal with at the moment. All of that is taken care of now, so my post will come shortly.

You may also find checking your private message box to be enlightening.

[Cosenticus]

Solomon’s grandiose fiat echoed throughout the entire establishment of dolor, bellowing from its deepest bowels to its highest towers. His order devoured the forsaken house, and as his final breath escaped his lungs his demand found life in the darkness. Time suddenly quickened, and every instant became thirty.

The caliginosity of the prison poured through every crevasse, flooding the floorboards with speed seen only in water. This is where the darkness conquered the hymn of chains that once engrossed every cell, room, and hallway. The sonata then fell silent, and faded into the grave. All was quiet as serenity consumed.

Solomon heard nothing. The House of Death wasn’t just silent, but rather quiescent—like a dormant volcano about to erupt. The Caretaker listened intently, still holding the tool of his trade, expecting an attack from whatever once sung the Canticle of Misery. He could feel it dawning, just as he could feel the storm outside coalescing and condensing, growing darker as time continued, gaining in strength as if it were going to detonate. The air even seemed heavier to him. That was when it happened. It was when time abruptly regained its speed, as if it never changed at all. That was the moment Solomon would replay numerous times, like a movie that fascinated him, or a book that captivated him.

The sky taunted the restless souls of the prison, its thundering clap rippling through the spirits of those alive and those dead. Then, the floor beneath the Caretaker suddenly started to shake, and a loud sound quickly started to ring through his ears, a multitude of indecipherable cries; but one, special tone caught his attention especially well. It was the same rattling of chains from before, but the screams of tortured men accompanied this ballad, as if sewn into the very fabric of the opera. Like Don Giovanni, it was a somber tale that would not end well.

Time accelerated once again, yet this time it was different. This time, Solomon saw everything as it happened -- as if the delay didn’t affect him. The walls further down the corridor fell forward, bricks and dust consuming the sculptures he made from the stiffened cadavers of the fallen inmates, where a cloud of dust shot in all directions. The Caretaker saw the legion of soot storm towards him, yet fascination petrified him, and a grin of enjoyment slowly grew broader into a smile of insanity. He stared in awe as the gust of debris flew past his body, rattling his clothes, his aureate hair blowing back in a thick stream as if an angel held it.

Time suddenly restored itself, returning to its normal speed. The once powerful gale became a petty spray, which made Solomon’s hair fall back into its original state. With the disappearance of the wind came the disappearance of his once profound, glorious smile of delirium. The rush the hurricane delivered vanished with it, but in its place, between the two broken walls and atop the debris, on a sea of fallen bricks, thick dust, and his art, there stood a monstrosity. A darkened creature, covered in the heaviest, thickest chains Solomon ever saw, towered before him. With massive muscles and a small head, it seemed disproportioned. Its crimson eyes permeated what its disposition and appearance could not – absolute hatred. The oddest thing of all, however, was that a concentrated, murky cloud sat beneath his feet, and flowed forward with a calm and gradual motion, as if to consume everything around it in its patient misery.

Solomon watched with attraction, and as the darkness drew closer he took a step backwards, and no more. He wasn’t afraid of it, and wanted to study it, yet he knew that only a fool would test it firsthand. The Caretaker glanced at his ruined sculptures and frowned.

“So you crushed Boris, Ivan, and Yerik. They were some of my favorite pieces.” Solomon narrowed his eyes, but neither with dismay nor anger; rather, with confidence. His dry, pale lips peeled back his ashen skin, where he then assumed a defensive position. “I’ll just have to excavate them later, and then I’ll add you. I think I’ll name you Gustav. Yes, Gustav works for you.”

At this the monster walked, where it raised its left arm while forging towards the artist. The more it marched, the more it revealed, until suddenly its arm mutated into what appeared to be a mass of chains. Closer and closer it came, step by step, foot by foot, and then he knew. Solomon discovered that the collection of steel cords was its arm, and its tendrils awed him as they pulsated while migrating from other areas of the abomination, gaining more and more girth as the marvel closed in on its target -- the artist, the caretaker -- Solomon.

As its limb evolved, the creature increased in speed, its feet thundering the floor beneath it, awakening the sleeping fire below. That’s when Solomon saw the misanthrope land before him, planting itself directly in front of the caretaker. With little reservation, Gustav’s massive fist collided into Solomon, immediately tossing him into the wall, where a metallic tendril coiled around his leg and held him. It knew what to do. It didn’t hesitate.

Absent of concern, the beast ripped the man off of the ground, where he then launched his adversary to the right. Solomon’s body tore through the heavy, stone walls without discretion, tunneling through the array of barriers where he finally found himself lodged in the cold bars of a cell door that hadn’t yet fallen off its hinges. Carmine fluid dripped from his forehead where it bore a puddle on the floor, and his bloodstained locks of caramel hair covered his face as his head hung low.

Solomon found himself trapped between two steel bars, and all was silent for a while. Then, the same incessant rattling that once dominated the Soviet Madhouse before returned to the establishment, stronger and prouder than ever, yet also different. This time, an orchestra of chains played a wicked paean throughout the entire Palace of Death.

It was coming…