Second Temptation ♆ Like hell [accidentally dictated]

[putuporshutup]

[Very suddenly, the muffled sounds of anguished, blood-curdling screams echo from the journals]

[Meg wakes up screaming. The thing immediately wrong with this picture is that she was sleeping in the first place. Demons don't sleep. And it takes a hell of a lot more to make her scream than a bad dream.

But this isn't just a bad dream. It's a fucking nightmare. They said this place was bad, but she had no idea. She's still screaming. She can't stop. And are those tears? What the fuck?

The chilling clarity slices through the blinding terror like a knife. She was human again. For an entire week. And her charred, blackened, jacked up soul was restored that entire time, wreaking havoc on her subconscious while she played along in some schoolgirl fantasy game. This place definitely wasn't fucking around with the metaphysical.

She's remembering nothing and everything all at once, but the week at magic school as an ambitious and mischievous vixen is taking a backseat to a vivid recollection of every foul, wicked thing she's ever done violently ricocheting around her mind. Every cut, every slice on the rack she ever gave or received. Every life she ever snuffed out for the sake of the cause. Every manipulation. Every misguided power grab.

She tries to scream for help, but the words won't form - and what help is there to be had, anyway? All that comes out is unintelligible anguish and choked sobs.

After what seems like an eternity, she manages to regain physical control and at least stops screaming bloody murder. She is still far from okay, and begins to beg and plead with the power that did this to her.]

Why? Why? WHY?! I can't... this is too much. I don't want to feel anymore. Make it stop. Just make it stop. Please. PLEASE.

[[//ooc: Feel free to take full advantage of this very rare (and temporary) emotionally vulnerable Meg. Positive and negative CR equally welcome, but this is a very rare chance to solidly get on her good side and earn some of that unshakable loyalty.]]

Comments

Meg

[unvarnished]

[okay so maybe he only knew her through the false memories he gained at Hogwarts, but there's still the fact that she's screaming and in obvious distress. August isn't sure she'll even answer, but he'll try anyway]

What happened?

August

[putuporshutup]

[The oddly familiar and kind voice startles her, but she clings to it because it's warm yet doesn't burn like every single other conscious thought.]

[Between sobs, he voice raw from the screams] The castle... it... it made me remember. It made me feel. I don't want to... I can't...

Meg

[unvarnished]

["it made me remember". That immediately makes him think of the curse in Storybrooke, and what breaking it must have done to the people there. Not that he thinks Meg was cursed in her home world, but clearly something terrible in her past is coming to the surface.

August remembers her as a friend, or at least a girl he playfully flirted with. There has to be a way he can help her]

You want to talk about it?

August

[putuporshutup]

[She shouldn't want to talk about it. She never wants to talk about it. There's never anything to talk about. But she isn't herself right now, and the offer is a distraction from the searing pain, or perhaps just another outlet for it.]

[She draws a shaky breath] Yes... no... I don't want to. But I need to. But I can't... it's awful. So much evil. Terrible... horrible things. So much pain.

Mag

[unvarnished]

Listen, I've heard a lot of terrible stories in my life. And I've been living in Paradisa for months now. You're not going to scar me with whatever you need to say.

August

[putuporshutup]

[She's more incoherent than unwilling to talk, and she fights to compose herself enough to explain what's going on inside her head, because she needs to get it out somehow]

Bear with me. As... as far as I can tell, I'm... I'm having an all out mental crisis... [She pauses, hesitant to continue, but the emotions are still getting the best of her and she rambles on before she can think twice.]

I'm a demon. I'm kind of good now, but I wasn't... I wasn't always. I was horrible. I did... well... unspeakable things. I was human once, but I sold my soul... ten years later, I was in the pit. I was tortured. Day in and day out. Endlessly. Creatively. Mercilessly. The only option to make it stop was to start torturing others, and by that point I was so... broken. So twisted. I'd have done anything. And I did. At some point I... changed. I became what I am now. I worked my way up. I fought hard. I became more powerful. And then I was let in on the big plan, to spring the devil from his cage and bring the apocalypse. It was my cause, my entire existence. My destiny. The reason for all the horrific things I did. But they stopped us... it just never happened. And everything went haywire.

[She sobs again. It's an empty, hollow sound]

Then this... this awful thing... this place... it changed. And it changed me. It changed me back, soul and all. But I still remembered. I remembered everything. And now? I-I just want it to stop. But it won't stop. What if it never stops?

[She trails off, tears overtaking her again.]

dictated

[kungfuwitch]

Whoa, whoa! Meg, calm down. Where are you?

Meg

[unvarnished]

[he lets her talk through it, listening patiently on his end of the journal. August knows what it's like to do bad things and pay for them. Of course what he's done can't be compared with Meg, but at least in a small way he can feel empathy for her. The fact that she's a demon doesn't really phase him much. He's a former wooden puppet, after all; anything is possible.

When she finally falls quiet, he takes a slow breath to prepare what he wants to say]

I'm not going to lie to you and say it'll go away. You may have to deal with it until you're sent back to your home world. This place may be awful, but it gives people second chances sometimes. I'm taking my second chance, and... you can too, if that's what you choose.

August

[putuporshutup]

[Slowly, very slowly, Meg can feel reason creeping back into the edges of her mind and she dares to hope that she might get out of this misery at some point. The genuine voice at the other end is like a lifeline.]

[She sighs, trying to steady herself a little more.] Yes. I want that. I kind of already did, back home. I started helping the people who were fighting for free will and the greater good because it was my best bet for survival, but I didn't realize I... care. I didn't go through this, though. This would never happen back home. I-I'm starting to realize what people mean about this place, I think.

Dictated

[putuporshutup]

[Between strangled cries] I... can't... my room. 325.

[Muffled, indistinct] Please... stop... please...

Meg

[unvarnished]

[he nods, not that she can see. He's been through a lot here, too, with things he never would face back home]

I've got a feeling you'll get through this. And if you need to drop by, my room's on the seventh floor.

Re: Meg

[putuporshutup]

Th-thanks. I might just do that.

[onlyanapple]

[Crowley shows a rare moment of compassion here. He knows it's hard, being turned human, but it must be even harder for Meg. She WAS human, once]

If it's any consolation, you get used to it, eventually.

/dictated for now

[bro_codebreaker]

[normally Barney would go into White Knight mode, something straight out of the Playbook, but he's still feeling a little muddled thanks to his own backwards memories. and he's never heard anyone scream like that. it makes him feel cold in a way he thought was reserved for cheesy books and movies.]

.... Meg?!

[putuporshutup]

[Meg can't help screaming and gasping when the more vivid memories of torture flash through her mind, but she's sure that if anyone here can even begin to understand, it's Crowley. How ironic.]

Oh God I don't want to get used to it... I just want it to st-stop. Why is this happening?

Dictated

[putuporshutup]

[Meg hears another confusingly familiar voice. The false memories are so hazy compared to the violent flashes of guilt and pain, but it's still oddly comforting.]

[Gasping for breath] Yes. Yeah. It's me.

...Barney?

Meg

[unvarnished]

Hey, don't mention it. We Slytherins have to stick together, right?

[onlyanapple]

Because Paradisa fucks with you, that's why. You either get used to it or go loopy and live in the maze in the basement.

[putuporshutup]

[Oh that's very reassuring thanks Crowley -_-]

Great. Well, fuck off, Paradisa.

[onlyanapple]

[He is the most reassuring]

It probably won't listen to that, but you're welcome to give it a try.

[putuporshutup]

[She screams in pain again but this time finds it in her to chuckle. She's used to pain after all, and it's starting to feel more manageable.]

I guess I'm pretty used to that.

[onlyanapple]

There you go, then. Just ride it out, you'll get through it. Probably.

[putuporshutup]

[More unintelligible screaming. You know. Reliving torture and all that]

I didn't know anything existed that could screw with souls like this. What the fuck.

[onlyanapple]

Yeah, Hell and Heaven lack the imagination of a sentient castle, it seems.

[putuporshutup]

Augh. I wouldn't really know about the first bit but I got about as "creative" as they came in hell, and it was nothing like this. It's like I'm both at once and one is torturing the other. Fuck everything about this.