openhanded: (animated) (☆build it bigger than the sun)
sorey not sorey | ɢʀᴀɴᴅ sʜᴇᴘʜᴇʀᴅ ([personal profile] openhanded) wrote in [community profile] recolle2018-08-26 01:55 am
Entry tags:

[closed] take me to the hospital

WHO: Sorey and everyone who signed up for ghost hunting! (Sora, Tatsuma, Sakura, Xiaolang, Elliot, Eren, Andrew, Elda, Roji, and Suzu.)
WHERE: North of Enprise, at the site of an old sanatorium.
WHEN: Saturday, 8/25.
WHAT: GHOST HUNTERS: RECOLLE EDITION
WARNINGS: It's spooky af! Please let me know if something needs to be added.



[I.]
[After delivering the details in the earlier half of the month, all that remained was to prepare for the meeting. Sorey gets there early, meeting his charges at the designated spot. The small gravel road cuts through the woods and ends here. A chain link fence rusted and ruined by years of disrepair partially obscures the gray-white gaunt building at the summit, looking pearly and effervescent in the lingering light of early evening.

What? There are kids here and they have a curfew.

Sorey explains why he chose this location once they're all gathered.]


This is Greendale Sanatorium, home to a number of tuberculosis patients during the height of the "white plague" that swept across the nation in the twentieth century. It was built sometime around World War I, and operated until the early 70's. It was briefly converted to a nursing home and then abandoned completely more than thirty years ago, now. That makes it older than most of us here today.

Before science knew any better, it was believed that people who breathed fresh air would have a better chance of recovering than those who didn't. Unfortunately, thousands of people still died. Some of them were abandoned by their families, never to return. The disease was a slow one and extremely painful, so it's no surprise that there are a ton of stories about the spirits who linger.

We are about to enter the final resting place of many people. If you'd rather go home, I don't blame you, and I won't think any less of you.

But if you want to stay, make sure you've got a flashlight. It's gonna be dark in there.


[II. the west wing]
[After making sure they all have flashlights (and snacks, if they need them), it's time to venture inside. The moon only gives them so much light as pass through the first floor. This wing is in terrible condition, which is expected, but it's still pretty bad. Ancient beds, broken doors and windows, bathrooms cracked and exposed, rusted pipes... And there are x-ray chairs thrown over moth-eaten beds for the most critical patients. Occasionally they find a sign of a more modern visitor, like a gathering of broken beer bottles, but for the most part it's more and more dilapidated junk.

There is an eerie coldness piercing everything, like someone holding a breath and waiting for something to happen. But it never does.

They move onto another wing, cautious and slow. This appears to have been the recreational part of the hospital, containing outdoor areas to rest as well as a library. However, some kind of old flood has destroyed the majority of the books here, so they're too faded and torn to read reliably. If puzzled through, the group will notice that the books and newspapers all date between the late 1910's and the 1950's. None of them mention Retrospec. It's the everyday minutiae that one would expect from the news back then, and the fragmented novels available are dry if anything.

There's a distant sound of someone or a few someones coughing, but it's probably nothing... right?]



[III. playground and second floor]
[The other side of the first floor has the most unfortunate discovery as of yet: a nursery for diseased children. Ruined toys of cracked wood and moldy cloth lay abandoned on the floor, scattered; a broken door leads to a small and unimpressive playground with all the equipment broken or tipped over. The low swing hangs by one single rusty chain, the other broken and dragging on the ground.

Someone giggles in the silence from behind the group. Turning to look won't reveal anyone, but there's a brief glimpse of light for the ghost-sensitive, a tiny spark in the night. (Or an outline, for those who can't see ghosts.) And then it's gone.

The stairs in the center of the compound are steel and sturdy, though a bit squeaky and slippery in places. It's important to watch one's step! When they get to the second floor, though, it's worth it. The second floor has more hospital rooms and beds like the ones on the first floor, but there's also a massive hall like a sunroom-- the open air pavilion. Nowadays most of the windows are broken, but they were once propped open so that the patients could linger in the fresh air rolling in from the woods.

Those with resonance can see some of those sickly spirits laying in bed, so still that they might be part of the scenery. They stare blankly ahead and don't respond to anything. For those without the ability to see ghosts, they'll only see faint outlines... but there's definitely something there.

You are not alone.

The coldness from earlier shifts into a feeling of being watched. Maybe it's the people laying in their beds, waiting for something to take them. Or maybe it's something else?]



[IV. haunted]
[The third level is unreachable for now because of some heavy debris in the way of the door. As the group turns back, however, they can hear someone pacing. The faint image of a nurse dressed in an old-fashioned uniform shifts into existence (or an outline of her, for those without sensitivity). She paces the hall slowly, stopping before each patient's door to inspect the clipboard in front of their room, then checks something and put it back. She does this again and again, even though there's no clipboard except the ghostly one in her hand. She's just going through the motions. Sometimes she stops so that she can cough, but then she's moving again.

Trying to communicate with her won't do anything, and she's unfazed, unseeing-- trapped in the endless cycle she remembers, much like the rest of the patients in the hospital.

As the group wanders back through the pavilion, there's audible screaming from downstairs that has a strange echoing quality to it. The screams are not ones of terror, but those of pain. But the worst thing is the sudden silence afterward.

Not long after this, there's giggling again. Softly-glowing orbs like fireflies glimmer in the air around the group-- though, again, only faint outlines for those who can't see ghosts. They dance and wait, as if beckoning the group to follow... down, down the stairs they go, and the feeling of tension only grows.]



[V. the east wing]
[The orbs lead to the easternmost pavilion on the first floor, which has the carvings of a chapel and faith center for the sanatorium's patients. The orbs continue inside... and as the last visitor crosses the threshold, the doors slam shut and refuse to move under any pressure. The pews have been toppled and broken, the altar desecrated by time. However, this gives a clearer view of an old locked door beyond the altar. The orbs wiggle furiously around this door and then disappear inside of it, vanishing entirely.

It'll take some force, but they certainly have enough muscle to pry the back door open.

Breaking in reveals a small, dark room where the ashes of unclaimed patients have been interred in rusty metal cans. There are at least two hundred of them, maybe more, sitting on creaky shelves. The amount of dust suggests they have sat here forgotten for fifty years. The hand-written labels on the cans list the names of people who lived and died before 1960.

And like that, the tension drops. The entire hospital falls silent. No more creaking floors from pacing upstairs, or screaming, or the distant sickness of forever-patients. These spirits have been found and perhaps appeased by this discovery.

Moonlight streams in through a metal door in the back of the room. Jiggling the handle causes it to pop off entirely, therefore freeing the group and providing a way back outside.

It's after ten now, and certainly time to go home.]



[ooc: Sorry this is late! Feel free to make your own toplevels, etc. Lmk if you have questions, and have fun!!]
unlightmusic: (✙ they've started again)

i

[personal profile] unlightmusic 2018-08-29 03:28 am (UTC)(link)
[Nothing like a good paranormal investigation to run away from recent personal problems that have arisen in her life. Despite Suzu being obviously engrossed in the lecture, she's been awfully quiet and subdued compared to normal, even factoring her adhering to the request to be respectful. She fiddles with a strap of her eyepatch absently as she walks along with the group, glancing over towards Xiaolang and speaking her first words of the night when he asks the question:]

Mmm... Not really, though it's been a while. My brothers and I go on nightly explorations like this a lot. It's mostly to find cryptids or extraterrestrials, though... y'know, like Mothman. Or the chupacabra. [She smiles sheepishly.] Kuronii's really into those more than ghosts, for some reason...
cardcaptured: <user name=fleeting> | DNS (This silly song I sing)

[personal profile] cardcaptured 2018-09-05 01:33 am (UTC)(link)
[As soon as the question leaves his mouth, he realizes it was kind of silly to ask, at least when it came to Suzu. He wasn't QUITE aware of how deeply her love of the supernatural ran, but he knew, to an extent, how much Kuro seemed to have liked it, so he'd be more surprised if she said otherwise.

He nods at her response, his expression a little too earnest than one would usually expect from that sort of answer, shouldering his bookbag some.]


Well, they're probably a little more easier to spot than ghosts, when you think about it. Spirits usually aren't visible to the naked eye, unless you have the ability to see them, like Sorey does.

[A beat, and then--]

... have you guys... ever found anything like that on of your trips, though?

[NOT THAT HE BELIEVES IN MOTHMAN OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT!!! okay, maybe he does like....... a little. the evidence wouldn't lie!!]
unlightmusic: (✙ usagi stream)

[personal profile] unlightmusic 2018-09-09 11:11 pm (UTC)(link)
[Well, Suzu is glad she wasn't expecting to see anything; she's had enough disappointments for the month. EVPs and poltergeist activity are fair game, though.

However, Suzu didn't expect Xiaolang to express interest in the Kiryu trio's cryptid hunting---A pleasant surprise, really. She actually manages to smile... albeit, rather smugly.]


Heh heh... I got some photos. You wanna see? [Hopefully the glow of her phone won't be too much of a bother to others.]