Between the kindness of strangers and the rumble of the road

[foolishwren]

Who: Aoko Nakamori, Crow Hogan, Harry Mason, Heather Mason, Henry Townshend, Kaito Kuroba
Where: Route 38
When: Nighttime, August 31
Summary: Campfires are interesting places. Even more interesting when the people sitting at one are a detective's daughter, a guy who plays card games on motorcycles, an internationally-wanted jewel thief, an agoraphobic photographer, a ... Heather, and a mild-mannered novelist who's probably the only mature adult there.
But you can't have a campfire without stories, and with such a crowd as odd as this one, there's sure to be a few worth telling...
Rating: PG for spooky stories
Log:
The dog days of summer are a special time of year, regardless of whether or not you're young enough to still associate them with the last days of freedom before fall and academia set back in. And while Johto's pace of life seemed to stay the same year-round regardless of season, there was still a little something in the air on that last night of August.

The sun had long since sunk below the treeline, leaving in its wake a warm night that still held the barest hint of the autumn ahead.

But the fire chased that little ghost of a chill away nicely, small though it was from where it flickered in the center of the little hollow they'd set up camp in, and what the fire didn't do, the sleeping bags would. It was a small site, hardly more than a pine-needle-and-root-floored clearing walled in by thick trunks.

In fact, the fire's flickering light hardly even extends through the gaps between the trees.

... Which is why Heather's got a staticky, softly-glowing Pichu held in the palm of her hand like some kind of squishy, living lantern as she squeezes her way back into the fire's light, stepping carefully over friend, Pokemon alike before dumping a pile of sticks next to the fire.

"Boom. That's enough for the rest of the night, I think. Outta the way, Cooj."

Shoveling the fluffy canine monstrosity that had (along with a few puffy bags of marshmallows) been taking up most of her sleeping bag aside, Heather flopped down with a hearty huff, still holding her father's Pichu and looking around at the rest of the travel party with a wide grin.

"SO! We still gonna do the stories?"

Comments

[bakaitoukid]

[sooooomeone has settled comfortably around the fire, Aipom perched happily on his head. HE DOESN'T WASTE MUCH TIME BEGINNING HIS STORY, leaning backwards with a hum and a devious little smile curling up the corners of his lips]

Has anyone ever heard the one about the girl in the scarf?

[foolishwren]

.... _{[Ohoho. She's pretty sure she's heard this one before, but if she's right, man it's a classic.]}

I think so, but go ahead.

That's a good one.

[bakaitoukid]

[Gives Heather a look, and starts]

It takes place at an all-girls camp, where a group of three friends were sent for the summer. Cabins were arranged in groups of four, and of course, the three friends were all assigned the same one.

[a pause]

And the fourth bed was given to a strange girl with mousy brown hair. A girl who always wore a lime green scarf tied around her neck.

[SUDDENLY, his voice is high-pitched and girly] "Oooooh~ What a cute scarf that is!"

[and then suddenly, it is lower, but still girly] "Thank you..."

[and normal again] The three friends all admired the scarf the new girl wore, and they immediately inducted her into their group. From that moment on, the four girls did everything together-- swimming, hiking, archery-- they were practically inseparable.

[another beat] But after a while, the original three noticed something strange. The girl never, ever took off her green scarf. She would wear it whenever they went swimming and return with it soaking wet and sticking to her skin. She'd wear it when they went hiking, even when it was really hot outside.

[HIGH-PITCHED AGAIN] "Oooooh, why are you always wearing that scarf? You never take it off!"

[and lower, but still girly] "I need it, that's why..."

One night, the mystery became too much for the original three. [HIGH-PITCHED] "She's wearing that scarf for a reason, and I simply must know what it is!"

[and normal, though his voice dips into something more ominous] So one night, the three friends decide to wait for the girl in the scarf to fall asleep. Once they were convinced she won't wake, they sneaked up to the side of her bed, leaning over her, staring suspiciously at the lime green scarf wrapped around her neck.

[a pause] Slowly, one girl reached out to take the end of it, carefully unraveling the scarf from the sleeping girl's neck. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears in anticipation... finally, after months of wondering, they were finally going to figure out what the strange lime green scarf was for.

[another pause] But once the scarf was removed, the most unexpected thing happened. [LENGTHY, OVERDRAMATIC PAUSE... and then he finishes up his story with a firm nod]

The girl with the lime green scarf's head tumbled from her shoulders and rolled onto the ground, settling at the feet of the girl who was now holding the scarf.

The eyes on the head blink open, staring straight ahead. And then, before any of the three original friends can scream, it says...

[low girly voice] "I told you, I needed it."

[EERIE SILENCE...]

[harryusedworry.livejournal.com]

...ah. Possibly.

[Though to be fair. Harry has heard all the stories.]

[bakaitoukid]

[a silly little grin, and then THIS IS TOLD]

[no-ufo-ending.livejournal.com]

I haven't actually heard a lot of ghost stories...

_{[HENRY ACTUALLY PIPED UP. STOP. EVERYTHING.]}

[bakaitoukid]

[AND THEN THIS STORY WAS TOLD]

[darkenedgales]

Nope, never heard of it.

[It's like they say: different worlds, different folktales... okay maybe they don't actually say that, but you get the picture.]

[bakaitoukid]

[And then Crow listened to this]

[harryusedworry.livejournal.com]

[Sitting with Lisa in his lap. Still a little put off by the amount of people. So he's mostly been in silent dad mode.]

I suppose so.

[Heather you may have to prompt him.]

[foolishwren]

<sub>[The last time Harry was probably subject to like three of Heather's friends at once was back when she was tiny, so it's understandable.]

[Still, Heather leans over and elbows him, still holding onto Hazel.]</sub>

C'mon, Dad! You know some good ones! I remember!

[bakaitoukid]

[sitting! and waiting!]

Let's hear it.

[darkenedgales]

Go ahead!

[So blissfully unaware of what he's about to hear...]

[1/?]

[foolishwren]

<sub>[Heather grins.]

[It's a grin that spells trouble.]

[With one hand, she removes the stick she's been holding from the flames of the campfire and turns it aside so that Cujo can happily gobble the flaming marshmallow from the end of it, which he does with gusto. With the other, she lifts Hazel the Pichu up underneath her chin in the same way one might traditionally hold a flashlight, to cast dramatic and spooky shadows over one's face. It's not quite as effective when the 'flashlight' is actually a squirmy, faintly-luminous mouse, but it works well enough.]</sub>

I'm gonna tell you guys a story... but not just any story.

This one's true.

And yeah, yeah, I know, everybody claims that about their campfire stories... but you can be sure of this one, because it happened right there in my town.

<sub>[... But don't worry. She's not referring to Silent Hill, thank god. Although her tale may still ring bells to a few of the little group...]

[In any case, she clears her throat and begins, voice serious except for that note of mischievous glee that she can't quite extinguish. Camping out, telling stories... it's just part of the feel, y'know?]</sub>

First, there's a little book-keeping to get outta the way.

It's always been thought that when people commit suicide, their souls don't realize they're dead. So they'll just hang around in the spot where they died, for yeeeaaars and yeeeaaars... reliving their deaths over and over again. Got that tidbit? Okay, movin' on.

All through my city, there's a subway system. It's the most convenient way to get around, so everybody takes it, even the kids. So you'd think it'd be pretty safe, right?

Well.

One day, at the Hazel St. station platform... there was a man.

He was around forty, they say-- and wearing a black jacket. Perfectly normal-lookin' dude, from all accounts... He wasn't drunk or stoned, the witnesses say... He seemed perfectly sane and clear-minded when he jumped in front of the moving train and was decapitated.

Messy stuff... they shut down all the trains that day to clean up.

But for years, people still felt weird while standing on that platform...

[2/2]

[foolishwren]

_{[Now that the backstory's out of the way, it's time for the main event. Heather's tone grows softer and she leans in to let the fire's light flicker more eerily on her face, mouth-corners still curled upwards deviously.]}

A few years later... there was a girl on her way home from the mall. Right around this time of year, actually... She'd stayed out later than she'd planned, having lost track of time... by the time she realized how late it was, the sun was already setting.

Now, she could've walked home on foot... but it was already late, and the subway was way quicker, even though everybody knew it wasn't a good idea to go down there late at night... But she was like, 'Well, if I don't get home like, YESTERDAY, I will be so grounded it's not even funny. Challenge accepted!'

And down she went.

There wasn't a single soul down there that she could see, except for her... and as she walked down the dark platforms, aaaall she could hear were her own footsteps echoing...

... Until she reached the Hazel Street platform.

_{[... A dramatic pause as she surreptitiously checks to make sure everybody's paying attention.]}

... As soon as she set foot past the sign, she froze. She wasn't sure how, or why... I mean, it wasn't even the platform she needed to go to to get home... but she did. It was like somethin' was holdin' her in place. Some kinda curiosity.

All of a sudden, she remembered reading an article about the suicide... and wondered if there was any trace of the bloodstains still there on the tracks.

Slowly, she turned... and started to walk towards the edge. For a second, just before she reached it, she had a horrible thought... that she would look down, and see the man's head down there, nestled on all the coal between the tracks.

... But when she got there, to her relief, there was no head. Not even old bloodstains.

Whew, she thought. That was really weird. Well, I'd better get going.

... Except she couldn't.

Like her feet were stuck to the ground... something just made her stand there and keep staring down into the gap... until she heard something.

_{[She pauses again, letting the crackle of the fire fill the silence for a moment. ... And then, instead of continuing to narrate, she suddenly makes a sort of choked, shuddery gasping sound-- ... several of them. Twitching her head for effect-- ... while the Pichu in her hand just looks sort of... horrified. WHAT IS HAPPENING.]}

... That's what she heard... along with shuffling footsteps behind her, stumbling towards her...!

But before she could turn around... a pair of hands shoved her hard in the back, and she fell down onto the tracks before she even knew what was happening. Needless to say, she was totally freaked, and with a horrified scream, she tried to scramble upright to see who had pushed her and climb back to safety...

But it was too late.

The last thing she saw were the lights of the oncoming train, timed perfectly, coming towards her.

_{[... Aaaand Heather leans back, setting the Pichu (who scampers over to Harry) down and smirking.]}

The end.

[no-ufo-ending.livejournal.com]

<sub>[When it's his turn, Henry blank-faces for a bit and actually considers asking to be skipped. Somehow he didn't think Crow or Heather would let that happen. He swaps his bag of marshmallows out for Burger and plops the cat pokemon into his lap so he'll have something to pet. OH GOD PUBLIC SPEAKING.]

[Burger digs it though. Attentioooons <3]</sub>

I'm not a very good story-teller. Sorry.

I took a lot of photography classes in collage and the building we were in wasn't very well-kept on one side. That was the side the dark room was in. Whenever we had to develop something it was like...walking into another building completely. I think most of us decided it was haunted.

_{[Henry goes quiet and tries to gather up more words. He didn't have very many.]}

One night, I had to stay late because some of my film got destroyed and reshoot some stuff. I was walking towards the dark room and heard noises coming out of it--like...moans. It sounded like someone was in pain. It had to be the ghosts, right?

_{[Henry looks thoughtful. He wondered what it would have been like if that building had ended up being haunted instead of his apartment. Nobody would even notice. That place was so creepy.]}

It was just a couple of people having sex though. I couldn't get my stuff developed that night. I got a bad grade.

_{[ 8( Henry lets his anticlimax sink in for a while.]}


This one time a serial killer thought my house was his mom so he tried to murder me. That was weird.

[foolishwren]

_{[... Okay so Heather is kind of immature.]}

Haha, gross.

Who does it in a darkroom, seriously.

_{[She already knows the serial-killer story, so she'll let him get on with it for the others.]}

[harryusedworry.livejournal.com]

[.....teenagers and sex stories. Heather why is he here?]

A real life horror story.

[darkenedgales]

[OH this is bound to be interesting, another ghost story-- wait no.

... Sex in a darkroom? FOR REAL? That's the guy's story?]

You've gotta be kid--

[Oh, and there goes a mention of a serial killer. What the hell is wrong with that guy and his completely random insertions of... weird things...]

... You really are kidding, right?

[HE HOPES HE IS.]

[bakaitoukid]

[... w-what]

That's not very scary.

[a beat]

Did that second one really happen?

[darkenedgales]

[Stories at campfires? That is definitely one of Crow's specialties. After all, he's spent several years telling his kids those. Not the spooky kind, though, oh no -- life in Satellite, which was also known as 'Doorway to Hell', was scary enough on daily basis, so no one felt the need to further depress themselves by something like that.

... Well, okay, Crow and his friends did, but that was back when they were silly teenagers.

Still, the urban legends passed down all around Satellite weren't mere pastime, but rather source of hope for a better future. And there is one story that is (used to be?) particularly close to Crow's heart...

When his turn to tell a story comes, the duelist clears his throat. He, for one, doesn't need encouragement.]

A long, long time ago there was an extremely poor, small island. People who lived there weren't allowed to leave it and could only watch the bright lights of the richer, bigger island neighboring them. On that small island was a man who would always gaze upon the city in the distance from the shore. That man came to that island on a D-Wheel -- that's a sort of motorcycle, for those who don't know -- that no one has seen before. Day after day, the man would watch the city across the sea.

But one day he stopped.

[He makes a pause, letting anyone who'd wish to ask "Why?" here.]

The man realized what he had to do -- free the island. He began building a bridge connecting the island and the city, the Daedalus Bridge. Other people said it was an impossible thing to do and mocked him, calling him a fool. [His voice drops a little at that last sentence, but he visibly perks up at the next part, wiggling his finger with a confident smile on his face.] Still, the man never gave up. The people who had earlier claimed he's crazy slowly started realizing the man might be able to do it and soon joined him. For those people with no visions for the future, Daedalus Bridge became their path to a brighter tomorrow -- their bridge of hope.

[Here, he lowers his gaze and his expression changes completely: the happy grin is long gone, and even the tone of his voice lacks the energy it was full of just a moment ago.]

But, some people who frowned upon this showed up.

Construction of the bridge was halted and the man became wanted by the city's police force. Everyone gave up, figuring it was hopeless... That once the man's caught, everything would be lost. The man was eventually cornered by the police near the bridge construction site, and had to choose one of the two options: be caught and spend the rest of his life in jail, or become a legend while alive.

[This time, Crow looks up at the sky, a small smile making its way on his lips, his voice becoming somewhat softer as he speaks.]

And the path he chose... was to become a legend.

That man, unbound by the laws of common sense or authority... flew.

[foolishwren]

... Daedalus, huh?

Sorta in keeping with the original, I see.

_{[Go figure Crow'd be the first to NOT tell a spooky story... but the way he gets so into his inspirational tale is honestly kind of sweet.]}

[no-ufo-ending.livejournal.com]

_{[Henry wasn't entirely sure whether to take that as, the man jumped or actually ascended. He looks like he enjoyed the story either way though.]}

That's cool.

_{[POSSIBLY STILL THINKING CROW IS A BIRD.]}

[harryusedworry.livejournal.com]

...That was a good one.

[A little confused because he'd been waiting for the story to be creepy.]

[bakaitoukid]

[d'aaaaw Crow. He figures this tale is actually true, particularly given what he knows about Crow's background]

Good one, Crow.