Post by threnody on Jan 26, 2019 5:43:35 GMT -4
~ THRENODY ~
- Learn To Fear The Dark -
Spoilers contain insight into the all-too human mind behind Threnody.
Read spoilers at the risk of your immersion.
Read spoilers at the risk of your immersion.
Weekends were a busy time in all of Tokyo, and nightfall did nothing to stem that flow- if anything, the fall of evening meant a greater bustle hurrying towards bars, hotels, pachinko parlors, and all manner of other places meant for more adult pursuits. Innocent destinations remained open, of course, milking their teenaged and more wholesome patronage for everything they were worth and doling out evenings full of games, karaoke, and snacks in return.
The alleys connecting most of these destinations were themselves, for the most part, full of business both legit and illicit, hawking all manner of wares, some enough to leave passing schoolgirls at the start of their weekend blushing and laughing between each other as they pretended not to see.
But not every alley was so thoroughly populated. They were tempting shortcuts, but in recent weeks, the most isolated lanes had become even more so, as stories of hauntings and attacks started to spread through the populace. It would have been easy to write off the stories being shared- kuchisake-onna and teketeke were urban legends that had no real hold on public zeitgeist any longer- but for the fact that there were real, published newspaper articles detailing attacks on victims who bore wounds matching the legends of the vicious dead they claimed to have encountered.
Even so, the rumors were in their infancies, and were little more than a curiosity to most of the population of the city, akin to claims of alien abduction cropping up a bit more frequently than expected. It wouldn't be at all strange for someone out of the normal flow of gossip- say, a student at a prestigious school nearby- to miss this little rumor entirely.
And all the more shame for it, as were such students to have heard those rumors, the lone woman with gorgeous black hair to her waist, a stylish long jacket, and a common-place surgical mask wandering the ill-lit, empty alley might have been more than enough cause to find another way to the karaoke parlor at the other end of the lane.
The hunts in this area had gone well so far. Taroko was careful by nature- cowardice of the purest variety, manifesting as caution rather than naked fear, kept her from overplaying her cards or overhunting any particular locale. She'd left one boy in a public restroom in the outskirts, covered in shallow slices that had bled enough to soak into discarded rolls of toilet paper after forcing him to answer whether he preferred red or blue toilet paper from the stall next to his a few nights back- red had been a fun answer, and he'd stopped laughing awfully fast once she got to work. A girl in the suburbs had been driven to run past a police booth bleeding from a nasty slash across her belly- far from lethal, but she'd tell everyone who would listen about the half a girl that had rushed on her arms alone and "nearly cut her in half." With both Ana Manto and Teketeke having had recent re-introduction into the public eye, tonight Taroko opted to play out Kuchisake-onna instead.
Within the long coat, she hid a pair of wicked-sharp kitchen shears. She had no intention of using them, but knew enough about terror and panic to be confident that if she lunged with them, nobody would even think twice about slashes left in their wake, no matter if it was actually being delivered by a small, sneaky mantis blade curled up her sleeve. The goal, after all, was to maim and terrify, not to kill. If she was going to give life to the old legends starting to slip from the culture, she needed to deliver coherent victims who could confirm the correlations to the stories she was mimicking while delivering wounds to corroborate the same, and that meant that control was a necessity. Scissors were dull and clumsy and it would be all too easy to open a jugular or some such- her own weapons had far more finesse, which meant far less chance of accidentally killing her poor, tortured missionaries.
The rumors had started to spread already, of course, with the police reports trying not to admit how closely she'd stuck to the legends in question, but the victims would talk it up themselves, whether in attempts to warn people how not to share their fate or else simply to reap the macabre benefits of surviving a ghost attack- it was a fantastically unique story, and who wouldn't want to be known for surviving something as deadly as the legendary Teketeke ghost?
Tonight, she was on the lookout for someone foolish enough to wander down the increasingly abandoned side streets. It'd be wonderful if she could find someone slow enough to let their face be sliced open as the legend went, but even if they just escaped covered in slashes screaming about the ghostly pale woman with the split-cut mouth, that alone would be a fine result for an evening's work.
All that was left to do was that classic hunting tradition- the wait.
Within the long coat, she hid a pair of wicked-sharp kitchen shears. She had no intention of using them, but knew enough about terror and panic to be confident that if she lunged with them, nobody would even think twice about slashes left in their wake, no matter if it was actually being delivered by a small, sneaky mantis blade curled up her sleeve. The goal, after all, was to maim and terrify, not to kill. If she was going to give life to the old legends starting to slip from the culture, she needed to deliver coherent victims who could confirm the correlations to the stories she was mimicking while delivering wounds to corroborate the same, and that meant that control was a necessity. Scissors were dull and clumsy and it would be all too easy to open a jugular or some such- her own weapons had far more finesse, which meant far less chance of accidentally killing her poor, tortured missionaries.
The rumors had started to spread already, of course, with the police reports trying not to admit how closely she'd stuck to the legends in question, but the victims would talk it up themselves, whether in attempts to warn people how not to share their fate or else simply to reap the macabre benefits of surviving a ghost attack- it was a fantastically unique story, and who wouldn't want to be known for surviving something as deadly as the legendary Teketeke ghost?
Tonight, she was on the lookout for someone foolish enough to wander down the increasingly abandoned side streets. It'd be wonderful if she could find someone slow enough to let their face be sliced open as the legend went, but even if they just escaped covered in slashes screaming about the ghostly pale woman with the split-cut mouth, that alone would be a fine result for an evening's work.
All that was left to do was that classic hunting tradition- the wait.
