It was the full moon that reminded him of this place, more specifically, of the stories that people tell about this place. People around here tell plenty of stories, about how they are going to be rich, get out of this shit-hole, become rock-stars and movie-gods, stories about how this is the last time they will ever mainline, or how they are gonna skip town on their pimp, never to be heard from again. People around here tell a lot of stories. Fairy-stories that never come true, but they rake the dying embers of hope that this part of town is so good at snuffing out for good.

Standing outside the Redeye, Hyde recalls a decade or three ago (they all seem to run together after a while) when Beauty once claimed this place as her own, when it was a theatre, not the moving picture crap they have nowadays, but a proper theatre, with a stage. Though Hyde never knew exactly what it was, she had some sort of emotional investment in this place.

We Nosferatu have a way of driving the Beast right out of a mortal. Yeah they have 'em too, it's just weak and timid, like a fawn. There are different methods, you can either just scare the life out of it, or you can sing it to sleep. Either way, the end result is the same: a pliable and apathetic creature that will do whatever you want it to. It's also addictive. Bet'cha didn't know that. Some say that it is because the effect puts the victim at such peace that all of their cares just melt away. All of the problems in the world just disappear. Some people dedicate their whole lives to meditation or some such nonsense for just a glimpse of what we can give them and they will just keep coming back for more once they've had a taste.

Beauty employed this tactic for years, on this very spot. Then all of a sudden she just stopped coming here and the place fell to pieces. Well, I have designs on reclaiming the ol' Redeye, crazy ghost-magician or no. Beauty's birthday is coming up, and maybe this little present will serve to get her out of the funk she has fallen into of late. She damnwell can't continue to run the clan if all she's going to do is sit in the back of that infernal car of hers.

So I'm here to take in the show. Or perhaps, to be more accurate, I am here to steal it.

Stepping through the first set of double doors into the empty lobby, Hyde sheds his invisibility in favor of a new skin. Recalling a transient he picked off in this area some weeks ago, he wills himself into the filthy, bearded vagabond's seeming.
(2008-05-26 11:14:13 Hyde rolls 5 dice to Mask (Diff 7) 7,8,9,3,7 (4 successes))

Pushing through the next set of doors into the theatre, coughing and staggering he takes in the surroundings. (2008-05-26 17:40:24 Hyde rolls 6 dice to Perc+Alert 9,2,7,8,10, 6 (5 successes))

The inside of the theatre is a wreck. The chairs are mostly ripped up, the once elegant balcony has caved in and resembles a sort of precarious slide, the plaster walls have been kicked in and any that still stand are covered in graffiti.

The stage itself is littered with debris, from a filthy mattress to a couch with no cushions, even a small fire pit that looks like it once got slightly out of control.

The only light in the place comes through gaping holes in the roof; the light of the full moon invading the trashed theatre and casting confusing shadows.

The place has an undeniable presence, a spirit if you will. The place seems to hold a grudge, like a subtle magnetism to the right of the heart. The same place you might feel a knot of rage or a pang of guilt.

Full moon means showtime... even Hyde can feel it. He is not alone here and maybe if he waits... whatever causes all the stories will reveal itself to him.

...And feel it he does, it is the same place and resonance one feels when in those first exhilarating stages of falling in love, or longer and more intensely when that love is not reciprocated and it feels like there is a black-hole in your chest, devouring all the light in the world. Funny how the same physical sensation can derive from two so dichotomous sources. Hyde knows them both well, Beauty has bestowed them both upon him in vicious cycles over their decades together, though more the former than the latter.

Hyde will wait, intrigued by the sensation he wonders if it is the place itself causing it, or the memories it invokes which beckon his lifeless heart to pine away to nothingness, seeking critical mass.

Hyde will wait.  

As you stare around , you hear a slight shuffling from behind the stage. A man with a coarse beard and tattered clothes comes out center stage. He has on a worn top hat and a ragged black jacket with tails. His pale blue eyes are striking even at this distance.

“Hey this ‘ere my place, goin’ find yer own. I don’t want no trouble, just git.” He stares in a manner of one heavily influenced by years of hard drinking, possibly drug use. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

As you are about to reply, his body seems to seize. The room seems to darken and the shadows lengthen. You can almost hear voices in the seats. The color of the curtains return slightly and you seem to have a slight feeling of vertigo. As he falls you hear a faint “oh god not again,” and after a few seconds he begins to stand.  

--Last edited by Wraith on 2008-05-31 19:20:04 --

Hyde is momentarily stunned when the transient disregards his invisibility, more so when he takes in the superficial resemblance between the man on the stage and the way he himself normally dresses, when not donning armor. Almost as if they had the same tailor - a hundred years ago.

As the man gathers himself from the floor, Hyde swears that there are seats all around him... and they are filled with bustling people. There is even a faint din of voices, though they seem far away, yet all around him. When he actually turns to look at any one place, there is nothing, no one, just an empty decaying theatre, but the ephemeral patrons in his periphery remain.

The only one that persists is the ragged man on the stage, now glaring directly at him, despite his supernatural camouflage. He decides to drop the pretense. Approaching the stage, he puffs his chest a bit, testing to see if his appearance creates any glimmer of surprise in the brittle wino.

"You are the newcomer here me chum. Me an' mine laid claim to this place long ago. We have now come to reclaim it."

He stands tall now with a regal look about himself, gone are the blue eyes now they are bloodshot. He holds himself with a grace befitting someone whom has performed on stage his entire life, all his movements calculated, every action for a specific reason.

 "No, I believe it is you that are mistaken. I've been here a long time, I never leave. Take your seat stranger, I know just the one," as he extends his arm pointing to a seat left untouched by the ravages of time. "The show is about to start, I would hate for you to miss it, your friend never did," the voices start laughing at this, slowly growing louder. There seems to be a light shining upon him like a spotlight, silhouetting him against the curtains and background of tattered moving gauze.  

--Last edited by Wraith on 2008-06-01 06:56:44 --

There is something familiar about the man now, though Hyde cannot place it, something stirring the cobweb-fibers of his memory, yet it remains as intangible as the shadowy audience around him. He is obviously out of his element at this point, he doesn’t understand what is happening. Is this another Malkavian, messing with his head? Or something else entirely? He does not know, but decides that more time to observe this ‘magician’ may shed some light on the mystery.

He turns to see where the man is gesturing, it is the only seat left in the house, front row-center, the one that might be reserved for an honored guest in any other theatre. As Hyde nears it, it is obvious that this one seat has somehow been spared the destruction that has befallen the others, more peculiar is that it has also escaped the rot and decay.  

Hyde stoops down,examining it more closely, wondering if it is a clever replica, if someone has crafted it more recently than the others, the weave of the fabric and the pattern embedded in it are both from the end of an era when artisans still cared about the quality of their wares. He draws in a breath to make some comment about the lengths the man must have gone to to commission the piece when the scent hits him. It is unmistakable, Hyde would know that smell anywhere. As any Beast knows, each of us carries a unique scent, all our own. It is Beauty’s that lingers in this chair.

“Impossible.” he mutters more to himself than anything else. He turns again to find those bloodshot eyes still watching him intently, the man smiling, wickedly and smugly all at once. Now Hyde is certain he is out of his element, as certain as he is that this is no Kindred before him, Malkavian or otherwise. He sits without another word.

 The man seems to be staring at Hyde as he turns. There is a sickened smile upon his face, as if it were not his own. He slowly walks toward the right side of the stage and you can hear the boards creaking.

"Tonight's performance shall be a classic tale of freindship, comradery, affection, betrayal, and abandonment. I like to call it 'Thespian's Lament' I do hope you enjoy," as the light begins to fade upon the man. You hear a slight sound behind you and a light voice that sounds far away, almost belonging to a young girl, "Excuse me sir, could you please remove your hat, I can't see," turning you see a young child burned and disfigured horribly, but when you stare at the seat it appears empty. You only seem to percieve this crowd out of the corner of your vision, they seem fleeting...

  The light begins to grow upon the stage again, illuminating a collection of childhood toys. Dolls and discarded action figures seem to be collected in some sort of strange twisted diorama. You then realize they are moving, and there are no strings.

  A disembodied voice sounds in the darkness, "Long ago in our fair town there was a thespian, great in talent, whom owned a grand theatre. He lived for the stage, it was his life." As you are watching, the toys begin to move about the stage, mimicing his words, as he intones them.

The man's smile seems somehow superimposed, projected from within somehow, as if one were behind the canvas of a movie-theater watching the wrong side of the silver screen. When Hyde turns at the sound of the girl's voice and finds an empty seat, he passes his hand through the void where she seemed to be only a moment ago, then faces forward once more and respectfully removes his hat. He had completely forgotten he was even wearing it.

The toys are a bizarre mish-mash of forgotten relics, from porcelain-faced dolls with deep wounds hemorrhaging dirty cotton-stuffing to a headless and dog-chewed He-Man figure. Each of them eerily befitting their ascribed role in the demented play that itself is a hodge-podge of other well-known productions, borrowing powerful lines from the likes of 'Great Expectations' and 'Faust' to create something entirely its own. The figures move with stunning realism, a master puppeteer at the height of his craft could not hope for such control, when Hyde looks closer and notices the absence of strings, he begins to become... unnerved.

He has seen a great many disturbing things in his centuries of un-life, this, is not one of them. Though his mind is reeling, struggling, grasping for an explanation- anything that would indicate that he is not completely powerless in this situation- none is forthcoming. He forces the fear away as his subconscious mind tells him what any child would know by now: He is surrounded by other things that go bump in the night, other things that, for all his god-like strength, he cannot even touch. For the first time in ages, Hyde knows what it is to be afraid. The magnetic resonance in his breast pulsing.

The implications are staggering for one who has thought himself beyond the reach of Thanatos. If these be spirits, then there must be an afterlife. Do the vengeful gods watch him still, tallying his misdeeds? Has he wandered into some forgotten corner of Purgatory? What will become of him should fierce Helios ever look upon him?

He taps into a well of sheer will that is deeper still than even his physical power, his logical mind wants to know what is happening here. Hyde forces himself to continue watching, eyes wide, fingers gripping the arm-rests of the seat.

 The tale is long, ornate and well crafted. It tells a tale of a virtuoso, whom became an actor. A true thespian and master of the craft. It weaves itself to the time of moving pictures, when the craft seemed doomed. Of him finding his love, his raison d'etre, of a beautiful patron who saves the craft and of his love's death ravaged by a monster. The tale is long taking at least an hour's time, all told. You are repelled, yet cannot leave without seeing this macabre story to its conclusion. The ending seems to be drawing neigh...

 "Our thespian was lost, he fell into his craft. His benefactor gave him back his direction, his drive to perform. He was still distrught and sought a temporary release from the agony, in a symbolic gesture he opened his arm, blood flowing, releaving the pain that he could not bear. His patron, clad in finery was entralled. He was lost in prose when he felt the beast upon him. No longer the aristocrat but a disfigured wretch swathed in disease and filth. He was overpowered, lost to the waking world. Yet he watched from the darkened mirror as his body was ripped asunder and left to decay in an alley. He realized what had happened long ago to his love, he had let it in. He had dealt with the beast and it had devoured everything he had ever loved, leaving him as if he had not even mattered." The dolls finishing the scene before you, as the light fades upon the stage.

"Though this tale seems to be at an end, fear not, it is said there is a theatre in some lost corner of the city. Where it is told he continues his craft, and his audience is the damned..."

You can hear an applause lift in the theatre, and you sense movement about you as if the patrons are standing in ovation over a master's performance.

The sensation in Hyde's chest reaches a fevered pitch with the standing ovation around him, threatening to consume him. If there were still any question about the nature of the living shadows around him, they have now been decisively answered.

There are no words that escape him, only guttural, incomprehensible syllables as he springs from his seat and hurls himself through the doors barring his escape from this waking-nightmare.

[OOC: Very neat thread, bravo, good writing both of you... wow]