foolishwren | 007. Video

007. Video

_{[It's dark. But judging by the orange, flickering light lighting up Heather's face as she does the customary squint-at-the-screen-to-make-sure-it's-recording motions, she's got a campfire lit. Satisfied, she puts it down on her pack and adjusts it a little before taking a seat in front of it. She's already laid out the sleeping bag and everything.]}

[Cujo the Growlithe and Arty the Sentret are both out of their Pokeballs, for once-- both are curled in a furry heap somewhere just barely in-view of the camera. Both are asleep .... unlike whatever owned the big red glowing eyes that were glimmering faintly in the dark somewhere behind Heather's back. She doesn't seem too concerned, though, as she's not paying much attention to them, for... for some reason. ... You'd think she'd be concerned.]
Yo.

Sorry to disappoint and all, but unfortunately, my little science experiment did not result in my death, so here I am to annoy you all a little more. Merry Christmas.

I'd also like to extend my thanks to Zack for helping me out with it. He fought valiantly in the great bee battle._{[She flips the horns at the camera and gives a serious nod.]}
You rule, bro.

Anyway. Was hopin' to catch one of those things, but by the time I got back to the scene of the crime-- _{[Why yes, the 'great bee battle' HAD mainly consisted of them running like sissies back to Cherrygrove. Is anyone surprised by this?]} -- they'd all decided they had somewhere better to be. Figures. Ignorance always flees in the wake of science, am I right?

Anyway..._{[The customary pause in which she remembers what she'd originally decided to annoy people via pointless video transmissions for anyway. ... After a moment or so, she snaps her fingers before tugging her knees to her chest and propping her chin on them. Now she remembers. Camping in the woods at night was something she'd never done as a kid (she and her father hadn't really been the country type), but every kid knows there's a few traditional activities one must take part in. She doesn't have anything to make s'mores with, so that left...]}
Oh yeah. So. Nighttime on the way to Violet City. Did I mention before that these woods are creepy as hell at night? Camping sucks. But... I'm bored, and even though I'm prooobably gonna regret this...

_{[She sort of wished she had a flashlight to hold under her face spookily, as was tradition, but aw heck.]}

...Anybody got some good ghost stories?

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Like those things could possibly be tough enough to kill me off! _{[She gives a double thumbs-up to the camera, before blinking, pausing, and looking over her shoulder.]} ..... OH GOD NO-- naaah it's just Claudy. _{[Scooting aside slightly, she pulls the reluctant Hoothoot from behind her. It's not a baby or anything, but it's probably young because it has almost disproportionately large eyes, even for a Hoothoot. ... It's a little creepy actually. Guess what inspired Heather to make the ghost story requests?]} I caught her the other day.

Oh man, the ones you learn as a kid are the best. _{[Namely in that a lot of them were so retarded in hindsight that years later sometimes you can't even figure out why they scared you so much. ... Well. Unless they were the exact opposite which was pretty common, too.]} Did you ever read those 'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark' books? With those creepy-as-fuck illustrations? Dad used to get all worried whenever I took those things out of the library.

!

[Oh wait, just a Hoothoot.]

Sh...she's kind of cute. [In a way only creepy little red-eyed owls could be.]

I remember those. Used to have one when I was a teenager, before I switched to Tolkien and Asimov. [Pause.] Isaac Asimov, not this Asimov.

[He props the camera up against something, which repositions the frame enough to show Otacon on a couch in the Pokemon Center. A certain pink sheep is on his fluffy little back beside him, asleep with a sound very like snoring. Meanwhile, there's a considerably large purple snake wrapped around Otacon's waist with her head on his shoulder.]

But you get the idea. Let's see...knowing you, I'd guess you've heard most of the usual ones.

[A long pause. Otacon thought about this, trying to recall a story past the typical ghost hitchiker on a dark road and hook left hanging on a car door handle. He thought and thought for a minute or two, finally coming to a conclusion.]

[He trusted Heather, after all--and what was more frightening than the truth?]

It's sort of a ghost story, if you turn your head and squint really hard... Heather, do you believe in curses?

Haha, I know, right? I caught her because she decided that four in the morning was a good time to sit in a tree right above my head and make noises like an old lady dying. _{[And apparently trapping it in a Pokeball was the only way to shut it up. So it was what Heather had done.]

[She scoots over a little so that she can lean back on the boulders she set her sleeping bag next to, folding her arms behind her head.]}

Looks like you've got a new guy, too!

_{[REALLY new. Heather's never seen an Ekans before. She doesn't have any particular aversion to snakes, so it kind of makes her curious.]}

Annnd... yeah. _{[A cheeky grin.]} I've heard most of them.

.... _{[Then, sobering up just slightly but retaining the smile, she shrugs her shoulders.]}

I wish I could say that I didn't, but ...

Yeah. Her name's Kotai, I caught her the other day. She's...kiiind of still learning about the whole 'personal space' concept.

[Or she was just making sure no one put their hands on her nerd.]

...I might have one you haven't heard, then. It's a little long, though.

Long, huh? Wellp. _{[Stretching briefly, she pulls her knees to her chest and offers a quirky smile.]} Not like I have anything better to do other than sleep.

Which is overrated.

_{[The stage is yours, Hal!]}

[And like any good Metal Gear Solid character, Otacon launches into a tl;dr unskippable cutscene.]

Once there was this family--father and son, mother and daughter. Both parents were in their second marriages, and the stepson and stepdaughter were really close. Best friends, even--the older brother didn't have many friends, so he spent all of his time with her. Then one day...he did something. Nobody knows what, but something he did broke their family irreparably. His father committed suicide, trying to take his stepdaughter with him.

[Details, details. Nobody needed to know just what had happened with Julie.]

The stepson ran away from home in shame, knowing he had caused his father's death and left his sister traumatized. Because of what he had done, he was left with a curse--that no one he loved would ever survive long enough for him to be happy. Some time passed--he fell in love once or twice, but those he cared for died soon after. It wasn't until...oh, let's say fifteen years later...that he met his stepsister again.

He hadn't had any contact with her since he left home, and seeing her again was terrifying for him. She claimed to hate him, shouted at him for leaving them alone after all that had happened...and that same day that they met each other again, she died in an accident.

She...bled to death in his arms, talking about how 'I never hated you' and how she wanted to be the best at what she did so her stepbrother would finally notice her.

[He took a breath and sighed, trying to look thoughtful rather than depressed as Kotai nuzzled his shoulder affectionately.]

The girl had a parrot; when she slept, she talked to herself, and when she talked, the parrot recalled what she said. After she died, it would on;y say one phrase, over and over again. Her brother's name, paired with 'I miss you'.

[God, he had hated that parrot. But at the same time, it was all he had left of Emma...of course the damn thing had to fly off.]

Wherever he is right now, he's probably still hearing the parrot over and over every night--lying awake thinking about how stupid he was to abandon his family, most likely.

_{[Sometimes, people just have to talk about things. It's not something that Heather's ever been good at, even with people super close to her. But even if SHE'S not the type who ever really bled out her troubles to willing ears, that didn't mean she didn't see how important it was. Sometimes, it just had to happen.]

[So as Otacon talked, Heather just fell silent and listened. It was obvious this wasn't just an urban legend or a creepy campfire tale. No, this was about someone, and... yeah. She was pretty sure who it was, too. Nice poker-face, Hal.]

[If it were an inspirational movie, she'd have looked him right in the eye and said something about not believing in that kind of curse, and how it wasn't the boy's fault, shit happened.]

[Buuut it wasn't. And Heather would be lying if she said she didn't sometimes wonder if maybe if she'd not been a stupid, stupid rebel all those years she should have been grateful for what she had stayed home that night like he wanted her to, maybe he'd still be...]}

It wouldn't surprise me if he was.

... I'm sorry he had to go through that.

[Otacon never was good with subtlety. But it felt good to talk about, even if only vaguely--well, what he hoped was vague.]

[He shrugged his shoulders, sounding dismissive.]

It's just a story.

_{[Sorry buddy, that wasn't vague. But Heather understood. Sometimes you just had to talk about that stuff. She's not going to begrudge him a chance to get some stuff off his chest.]}

It's a believable one, though. Realistic.

_{[UH OH, SHE'S ONTO YOU.]}

... After all, I think a lot of people screw up like that. ... Everybody, in fact.

_{[In his final notes, Ha-- ... Dad had talked about those times when he almost put his hands around that baby's neck... almost did something horrible, out of fear and grief.]}

... I'm pretty sure the only people who manage not to are the ones who are really, really special. Y'know. More-than-normal special.

_{[Cue a biiiig bland shrug, because Heather's not gonna be doing that whole 'significant stare, I see what you did there' thing. Nobody needed that. She'd be pissed if someone did it to HER. Nah, she'd play along.]}

There aren't many people out there like that. Too bad there aren't more, huh?

Yeah...too bad. The world might be better off with more people that tried to fix their mistakes rather than run away from them.

Heh. Even that doesn't always work.

_{[They'd been doing so well just before that night. Things had still been rough, sure, Heather hadn't exactly been World's #1 Daughter, what with the stupid delinquent behavior she'd been pulling previously to act out, but... she'd been trying, and they'd only been getting better...]}

Shit happens, I guess.

Guess so.

[He had never, would never forgive himself for any of it. His own failures came back to haunt him any time someone said his name. That was the name his father had given him, the name that godforsaken parrot kept repeating over and over.]

[...Ironically enough, he never liked his name to begin with.]

To some of us a little more than others.

Heh, don't I know the feeling.

_{[Well this has been a mighty uplifting eveni-- ... early.... morning... NIGHT. It was still dark out, so it was night. There.]

[In any case, Heather... didn't exactly want the conversation to end on a downer note. Her aim wasn't to make anybody brood all night long.]}

SO. 'Fraid I don't have any stories like that _{[LIAR LIAR PANTS EVERYTHING ON FIRE (HAVING BEEN ALESSA KIND OF SUCKED)]} Otherwise I'd share. _{[Shut up Heather you are dumb and your excuses for not talking about your problems are dumb.]} But I have a pretty killer story I heard once in first grade, though.

Oh yeah? I'd love to hear it. Sorry mine wasn't exactly all that interesting.

Oh, no sweat, dude. You gotta talk about what you gotta talk about. _{[And that's the closest she'll come, at least for the moment, to implying that she totally knew he was the main character of that little downer story. Just a little nudge.]}

Anyway. This story was like, the rage on the playground when I was like... seven. I was the best at tellin' it, too.

So.

_{[She leans forward a little, letting the fire cast dark rings of shadow under her eyes. It was traditional.]}

The story starts with an old hotel.

[Otacon adjusted his glasses, listening with interest while Asimov's back leg twitched as he slept. Kotai shifted slightly, still wrapped around Otacon's waist as she stretched enough to rest her head on top of his.]

Yeah...? Sounds good so far.

And the hotel has thirt-- .... nn... YEAH. Thirteen floors. _{[It's been awhile since she's told this story.]}

So one day, a priest comes to the hotel and says 'I need a room, please'.

And the guy behind the counter is like "I'm sorry, sir, but the only room available is on the thirteenth floor, and it's very haunted."

But the priest is all "I don't care, I need a room!" and he goes up to the room to unpack.

Uh-huh...[This seemed vaguely familiar, but hotels and the number thirteen were kind of big with this kind of thing.]

_{[There's probably a million variations of the story-- schoolyard ghost tales all tend to run along the same lines.]}

That night, as he's about to go to sleep, he hears a ghostly voice from the closet...

_{[Making a stereotypical spooky face she wiggled her fingers at the screen.]}

"I AM THE GHOST WITH THE BLOODY FINGERRRRR....!"

. . .

[Blink blink.]

[If you're not scaring Otacon, you rolled a critical failure somewhere.]

Then what?

_{[IT WAS SCARY WHEN YOU WERE SEVEN OKAY.]}

Well, he did what most guys in his position would do, I guess. He jumped out the window.

........

So the next day, a theoretical physicist comes to the hotel!

_{[Otacon if you have any hope of hearing an intelligent story, you'd better abandon it now.]}

. . .

And what'd he do?

[Otacon's kind of stupid like this.]

Well, pretty much the same thing as the other guy after getting up to the room, except instead of yelling "Oh my god" when he jumped out the window, he yelled "Oh, random fluctuations in the space-time continuum!"

Anyway.

The next day, a teenager with a guitar comes to the hotel.

And he's all "Like, I need a room."

So he's sent up to the thirteenth floor. As usual.

[Otacon laughed quietly at that, amused.]

Then what'd he do?

Well, he sits down on the bed and takes out his guitar and just chills out, playing some tunes.

And sure enough, as the sun sets, the voice from the closet goes, "I AM THE GHOST OF THE BLOODY FINGERRRRR...!"

The teenager stops playing the guitar... looks up at the closet door.... And goes "Well, get a band-aid, dude!"

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