Anne Marie Cunningham (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
savethebullshit) wrote2013-09-29 07:46 pm
savethebullshit) wrote2013-09-29 07:46 pm
'Cause I remember everything.
This is a little collection of potential memories for people to receive from Anne during the empathy event. I'll write up things for specific characters after we work things out, but otherwise these will just be free to choose from.
Some of these will be drabblethings, and others will be cutscenes from her time in Silent Hill because seriously. Silent Hill. And obviously since some of her most important memories take place on the Tranquility, there will be some of those, as well.
Please note that a lot of these will contain potentially triggering things and concepts such as euthanasia, murder, blood, graphic violence, and all sorts of other awful things because this is Anne we're talking about.
OCTOBER 25th, 2011; Silent Hill
All of the "assorted good memories" and "assorted bad memories" are things I'll write out as drabbles if you decide you want your character to receive them so there's more for your character to work with. Just let me know here or on plurk, or on my event plotting thread and I'll whip them up and throw them into this entry
ASSORTED GOOD MEMORIES
☂ Fun times with her dad, Frank. These probably include things like him teaching her to drive, them going on camping and fishing trips, or just the two of them sitting and drinking beer and shooting the breeze on the front porch when she's older. A lot to memories of making snowmen together and drinking hot chocolate afterward, and decorating Christmas trees and carving pumpkins. They were big on all the holidays and had a lot of traditions.
☂ Random childhood memories. The sort of things most kids would have growing up. Basically her entire childhood was amazing so there are a lot of options here.
☂ Meeting her (canonically nameless but fuck the police) future husband John Cunningham. Also cute stupid shit from the duration they dated before getting married, like going to bars and eating hot wings in the front seat of their car. Mostly not all that romantic because Anne used to be the world's least romantic person.
☂ Losing her virginity on prom night in the back of her date's truck. Which is more of an awkward memory than a good one but it wasn't TERRIBLE so there you go.
☂ Her wedding to John. Which involved a lot of her tripping in high heels and then throwing her shoes at someone later in the night and also shoving cake in her groom's face because she's always been as much of an asshole as she is now.
☂ Graduating from police academy for her CO training.
☂ Getting her job as a correctional officer at Wayside Maximum Security Prison.
☂ Awkwardly adorable things like getting her first kiss when she was thirteen or holding hands with some boy whose name she doesn't even remember on a class trip in grade school.
☂ Shenanigans with her friends in high school, most of whom were male. Things like drinking and just generally making mischief, but in a "I'm gonna be a fucking prison guard I can't fuck shit up like you guys can" sort of way. Anything bad she did was pretty minor because Frank.
☂ Cooking dinner with her husband. Well, lurking and making things hard for him while he was cooking. For her that counts as cooking.
☂ Drinking whiskey with her prison guard pals in the guard station after their shifts.
☂ Just generally palling around with her prison guard buddies, both her Wayside coworkers and some guards from Ryall that she made friends with because she went to visit Frank so much (including T. Willis). They went to bars and out to eat and stuff together a lot, and Frank came a lot of the time before the incident.
☂ Going on a whitewater rafting trip with T. Willis and M. Koonz.
ASSORTED BAD MEMORIES
☂ Being stupid and crashing her car when she was seventeen. She didn't really get hurt, but Frank gave her the "I'm not angry just disappointed" speech which was worse than broken bones.
☂ Getting the news that Frank had been attacked in the prison showers, allegedly by Murphy Pendleton, while he was at work and ended up in a coma.
☂ Watching Frank waste away in a vegetative state after the attack. For several years after he was attacked she took care of him at home until he deteriorated to the point that he needed round the clock care at a hospital and to be on lift support. During his hospital stay she spent almost all of her time with him when she wasn't at work.
☂ Coming home from work one day to find that John had packed up and left, and had left a note explaining that it was because of how distant and borderline emotionally abusive she'd become while dealing with the fact that her father was inevitably going to die, along with how focused she'd become on revenge above everything else.
☂ Going through the long and messy divorce process. She also tried to fight it for a while so it made it even messier.
☂ Turning off Frank's ventilator and essentially actually being the person who killed him after not being able to stand watching him suffer any more. (detailed above))
☂ After Frank's attack much of her life was consumed by her hatred for Murphy and by the notion of getting revenge on him for what he did. It got to the point that she admitted canonically to doing "sick things" to get him transferred to her prison so she could presumably put a bullet in him. For event purposes I'll definitely end up hashing out some of the "sick things" in drabbles if requested but tl;dr much of them involved doing super shady things for fellow prison employees, both at Ryall where Murphy was currently being held and at Wayside. Things that probably involved doctoring arrest reports or other illegal fraud things, possibly roughing some people up (though not killing them, because Anne is unable to actually kill Murphy when she gets the chance and I can't imagine her being able to do it to someone she had no quarrel with), and sexual favors that she probably regrets much more than knocking people's teeth in or otherwise breaking the law.
☂ Getting into a bus crash during Murphy's transfer to Wayside and ending up stranded in the town of Silent Hill. There she encounters monsters, ghostly and horrific manifestations of her father, and spends time trying to survive the "Otherworld". She tries to kill Murphy but lacks the will to actually pull the trigger, and dies several times before she realizes that she and Murphy are permanently trapped in the town until they "finish what they started". Which turns out to be her realizing that a fellow guard, George Sewell, killed Frank and Murphy was framed for the crime. After the two make their peace, they are released from the town. Silent Hill is a big huge chunk of her bad memories so anything related to her time there I'll be happy to write out more extendedly if anyone asks.
☂ Killing Sewell in revenge for her father's death. (detailed above)
MEMORIES FROM THE TRANQUILITY
She and Murphy's first kiss
When Silent Hill intervened on the ship
Confessing her feelings to Murphy
Finding out about Heather's role in Silent Hill
She and Murphy actually becoming an official couple (NSFW)
Meeting her now-bff Firo
Her first fight (and coincidentally first meeting) with Netherlands
Trying to kill Murphy (as a monster but still)
Alex and Heather's awkward attempt at playing matchmaker
Asking Murphy to marry her
Experiencing nightmare fuel while trying not to die of stasis sickness
Almost dying on the Cyllene with Ellis
Almost attempting suicide
It was really easy to gather together memories with Murphy because of Rev's awesome tracking post, but with other CR I wasn't so lucky. Please feel free to send me links to threads with Anne and your character and I'll include them here! Sorry for being a scatterbrained goof and losing track of so many links!
THINGS FOR STAGE ONE
Characters who have coming links with Anne for stage one will most likely experience things such as:
☂ Sudden, intense cravings for cheeseburgers and fried chicken.
☂ Random bouts of intense guilt, almost like something you'd feel if you murdered someone...
☂ Since she's currently engaged to Murphy, all sorts of moments of euphoria.
☂ Random sections of gangsta rap songs getting stuck in their head.
☂ Sudden violent impulses/the impulse to be bitchy.
☂ The unexplainable worry that there's going to be a monster standing over their bed when they wake up in the morning.
☂ The passing but distinct sense of missing someone.
drabblestuff;
OCTOBER 31st, 2011
The hallway is cold, and it’s drafty, and there are prisoners on either side in the cells shouting… whatever it is that prisoners shout. I’ve gotten so used to it back at Wayside that I barely even notice it anymore. Like a background echo, something far less relevant than what’s happening today. It’s been a long time coming.
I don’t talk to anyone, don’t ask anyone where I can find him, because I know my way around, from the days I used to come visit my father at work here in more innocent days. And even if he’s not where he should be, I can wait. I’ve been waiting years already, so there’s no harm in waiting a few minutes, or an hour.
It makes me sick that the son of a bitch has his own office. And he’s inside, just like I hoped he’d be, when I come in. He’s putting some things away in the file cabinet, and I just watch his back after I close the door behind me, cut us off from the world. When he turns, I keep the gun behind my back, and I just stare at him.
“Hey! What are you doing back here so soon, Sweetheart?” he asks me, in that infuriating tone of his. Sweetheart. It I weren’t already so resolved to do what I’d come here to do, I’d have lost my temper at this point and been reduced to babbling like an idiot. But instead, I just stare him down with a look that I’m sure gives away the absolute venom I feel toward this man.
“Can’t get enough of the place?” he tries again, and this time I respond by tossing him my father’s mourning badge, wrapped in black tape and clenched so tightly before in my free hand that it’s sweaty. He gives a short little half-laugh. “What the hell’s this?” he seems genuinely confused, the bastard, and I know he knows exactly what it is.
“You used to work with my father. Frank Coleridge.” I inform him. It’s not a question. At this point it’s a fine line between maintaining this cool composure and absolutely losing it like I did at Murphy the week before, back in that town.
“Yeah? So?” by now he’s starting to sound suspicious, and I can hear the guarded tone that creeps into his voice. It’s nice to see the smug son of a bitch starting to shake in his boots a little. I’m not a good person, not by any means at this point. Not after the things I’ve done. But I can say that I’ve never found pleasure in anyone else’s insecurity before. Right now, I’m feeling nothing but.
I clench the gun a little firmer behind my back and take a few steps toward him. He takes one back, and it’s gratifying, seeing the look of discomfort on his face. “We need to talk.” My tone doesn’t leave anything to the imagination, and it’s clear he knows something is up. But he still continues to feign innocence like the cowardly piece of shit I know he is. Briefly my eyes slide to his name tag; G. Sewell. It’s astounding to me that a piece of shit like him even has a name. I’d have assumed he congealed in a gutter somewhere if I didn’t know any better.
“About what? You miss me, Sugar? That it?”
“I think you know what I wanna talk about.” I gesture roughly to the badge he’s now holding in his hand. “My father.”
“Yeah? Frank was a good guy. Sad to see that happen to him. I guess that’s why they lock guys like Pendleton up.” Though I notice he drops the badge onto his desk like it burns him, despite all his fake innocence.
“Oh really?” there’s a tremor of anger in my voice. A wave of uncertainty crosses his face. “Murphy Pendleton killed him?”
“You read the incident report, Sweetheart. Everybody knows that’s what happened.”
“Everyone.” I take another step toward him. He’s starting to look cornered. “Is that right?”
“What’re you trying to prove here?” Sewell asks, sounding less and less certain. That false jovial attitude is slipping away and I’m happy to see the desperation that’s replacing it. “Officer Cunningham.” Like adding the formal title is going to make up for anything he’s put me through. Put my father through. Put Murphy through. Like it’s going to make me back off.
“I don’t have to prove anything,” I hiss at him, finally losing some of my cool. “Because I know. I know Murphy Pendleton didn’t kill my father.” A pause, and I glare at him so deeply that I hope he feels it in his soul. “You did.”
He gives a shaky, obviously false laugh. “What the hell are you talking about?” he asks, and at that I just completely lose it.
“YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THE FUCK I’M TALKING ABOUT!” it comes out in a roar, and I slam him against the wall and grab the badge from the desk, slamming it so hard into his face that I hear his nose break. A strange, muffled sound comes out of his mouth and there’s blood running down his upper lip from his nostrils, and things start to blur together. The gun isn’t behind my back anymore. Now it’s pointed at him, pressed against his temple, and I’m screaming in his face. “I’m talking about how you murdered my father to keep your own dirty secrets and then fed everyone bullshit and were completely fine with letting an innocent man take the blame! About how you took away the only fucking thing I had in this goddamn world and GOT AWAY WITH IT!”
“I could have security in here in thirty seconds,” he reminds me, and I actually laugh. It’s a cold laugh.
“You ARE security. And so am I. What are you gonna do, reach for your walkie? Move an inch and I swear to god I’ll blow your fucking head off.” I grind the muzzle hard against his temple, trying to break the skin. “Just give me a goddamn reason, you sick bastard. Just give me one. Fucking. Reason.”
“What do you want?” he asks, and he doesn’t sound nearly as cowardly as I wish he did. I wish he was crying and sobbing and begging for his life. But instead he just looks disturbed and naked and vaguely pissed.
“I don’t WANT anything. But for starters you could admit what you did, you worthless piece of shit.”
“And what, are you gonna kill me if I don’t?” he asks, and I cock the pistol. “Okay, okay, fine. Shit. I killed Frank. He got in my way, so I took care of him. What do you want me to say? You think this changes anything?”
“No, I don’t.” I snap, grinding the gun harder. I can’t feel skin break, but I feel like I see a tiny trickle of blood. “But it’s a start.” I’m so angry by now that I feel like I’m losing my mind. I can barely see. “Nothing’s gonna change all the shit that happened because of you. Nothing’s going to take away the fucking shit you did. Do you have ANY idea what kinds of sick shit I did because of you? To get to Pendleton?”
“I was there for some of it,” he reminds me in that insufferable smug tone of his, and the suggestive hint to his voice makes me snap, makes me lift the gun and slam it into his head so hard that he crumbles to his knees. That broke the skin, I’m happy to see. I just do it again, and the force knocks him to the floor, and when he tries to get up I do it again. By now his head is bleeding so much that it’s leaking into his eyes and it makes me feel like I’m on a sort of sick power trip. I don’t care.
“Shut your fucking mouth!” I’m screaming again and I’m kicking him, in the side and the ribs. Hard. I still have the gun in my hand, pointed at his head, but I’m using my feet like a kid in a playground squabble. “Shut your goddamned fucking mouth right now!” I don’t know what I expected. Some kind of relief, or clarity, or maybe a kind of calm zen with that gun in my hand, in this office. But all I feel is the rage I felt at Murphy for so many years, directed in the right place for the first time. Finally. I don’t even realize I’m pulling the trigger but then he’s flat on the ground and blood is exploding from the side of his head, and I’m shooting him again. And again. I empty my entire clip into his head. What used to be his head. Now it’s just a mangled mess of blood and hair and skin peeled back by bullets to expose the cracked skull. By the last three bullets I’m sobbing. There’s blood that splattered my hands, and when I look down at them, at the gun in one of them, it becomes less surreal.
When I realize fully Sewell is dead, it’s less like a weight is lifted and more like something that was a long time coming is finished. When I’m finally calm, I give his body a final kick and holster my gun, and then I lean against the cold surface of the office door.
I don’t feel remorse. But I also don’t feel better.
MARCH 18th, 2011
There’s nothing but us in this room. Nothing but the white walls and the white floor, the white bedsheets, and us. The nurse has left, and your doctor. The sound of voices is gone. Now it’s just the sound of the heart monitor in its slow and measured beeps, the neon line rising in peaks and falling into valleys.
“Hi, dad…”
The chair beside your bed has become familiar now. I’ve sat in it so many times since you first ended up in the hospital. Since you came back here after living at home for a period. It’s a little sick to me that I swear it’s molded to fit the shape of my ass and back by now. It’s hard not to choke up now, looking at you. I usually still see you as the man you used to be, when you were healthy. But now, this last time, I see you as you are and it’s enough to make me reach idly, clumsily for the tissue in my coat pocket.
“After that stroke last week… they don’t think there’s a point in keeping you alive anymore. You’re not going to wake up. And everyone thinks it’s about time to let you rest.”
You were strong once. Atrophied now. Your fingernails are trimmed short and wrapped in bandaids so they won’t grow into your palms and break the skin where they’re clenched. At this point, after so much time, your body is twisted into an inhuman shape on the sheets, spine curled over backwards so your once-straight torso is more and more of an inverted C shape every day. Sometimes I worry it’s going to break. They warned me this would happen, but I wasn’t prepared for it. Nothing could prepare me for the way you’ve become less human-looking every day. The way your skin is scabbed and infected and the way your face has distorted. The way your toes and legs have curled uselessly. They can barely even pry open your fists to change the bandaids anymore. Last week, one of the nurses broke your finger. I wonder if you could even feel it. They say you have semi-awareness. I wonder how much of the pain you still feel.
I wonder if you can hear me crying right now. I hope you can’t.
“So pretty soon, they’re going to… I’m going to…”
It sounds even worse out loud.
“I was lying before, about everyone else. I’m the only one who even has an opinion about this, and I can’t put it off anymore. I’m pulling the plug. I’m sorry. I don’t know if you’re suffering, but if you are… I can’t let it go on anymore. I don’t even know if you can hear me. I just wanted to let you know.”
At this point, I’m pretty sure I can’t keep it all coherent any longer. I stop trying to talk, and I just cry and reach out and hold your hand. I can’t really hold it like I did when you were first in the hospital, before your fingers became like steel twigs and before your hands became more like solid lumps than actual hands. But I can still wrap my own hand around it and I do, I just squeeze and cry. I know there are more important things I need to be doing, but at the moment, I can’t bring myself to even move. It’s several long moments before I can even bring myself to stand from the chair, to bend down to hug you for several moments.
I’ve been in this hospital enough times to know how it works. The ventilator you use here is just as familiar to me as the portable one you used at home, and the switches and buttons and knobs are all so much less foreign to me now. Years ago, they would have looked like space age technology but now they’re disturbingly commonplace. With my hand on the appropriate dial, I take one last long look at your face.
“I love you. I’m sorry.”
There’s really nothing else I can say, no other words that break the silence in the hospital room. Just the hollow little click when I turn the dial.
APRIL 14th, 2009
It’s raining hard by the time I get off work, and it’s not a long walk from my car to the house, but by the time I unlock the door I’m soaked. The rain has all but destroyed the paper bag my groceries are in, and there’s a steady stream of curse words coming out of my mouth as I close the door behind me with my foot. The house is empty; John is at work and he probably won’t be home for at least another few hours.
If I had the ability at all I’d start dinner, but instead I just go and lie on the couch, stare at the ceiling, listen to the rain. I’ve got a cup of coffee with me and the evening is pretty peaceful, all things considered. My feet hurt like hell from being on them at work all day, but that’s nothing new. Doesn’t do anything to dampen my spirits or the casual sense of calm I’m starting to be able to feel. More times than not I’m tense as a spring, but after work I can usually find at least a bit of peace. Especially now.
I’m starting to contemplate taking a long bath when the phone rings. For a moment, I just ignore it; it’s probably for John anyway. He gets more calls than I ever do, and most of the time ones for me are on my cell, anyway. I just lie there and wait for it to stop ringing. I’m too lazy to pick up.
Whoever is calling is persistent, though. It just keeps ringing. And dammit, the answering machine must still be unplugged from my unfortunate tripping incident earlier in the week, because the machine doesn’t pick it up. That incessant ring just continues, and finally I set my coffee aside and sit up, grumbling under my breath. Reaching for the phone. Letting go of my relaxation. I’m cursing all over again until I put the phone up to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Have I reached Anne Cunningham?” the voice on the other end is a man, and he sounds young and uncomfortable.
“Mhm,” wondering what this is about, I idly let my eyes wander over to the clock. It’s getting late. I consider maybe ordering some Chinese and not leaving the house until I absolutely have to again. “Who is this?”
“I’m calling from Saint Jerome’s hospital. It’s regarding Frank Coleridge. You’re his next of kin, is that right?”
“That’s right…” my throat goes dry almost immediately, and it feels like the world has suddenly started spinning. I want to throw up. There’s a pounding in my head and chest, and a hot, acrid feeling that I hope will go away when I realize all this is some sort of joke. “Did something happen?”
“I’m afraid there was an incident. Your father was attacked during a riot in the prison. He’s a guard there, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” my own voice sounds like it’s echoing, and suddenly I’m not here on Earth but lightyears away. Because this can’t be happening. This can’t be reality. But the fact that it is makes me feel sick to my stomach. I can’t breathe. “Ryall State. What… are you sure he…” all that’s coming out of my mouth is random nonsense and I can’t seem to form actual words because my throat is so tight and my eyes are burning so much. “Is he…?”
“He’s stabilized. He’s going into surgery at the moment. His chances are good, but he’s currently comatose. We’re not sure how long that will last, but there’s a chance it could be permanent.”
Swallowing hard, I do my best not to cry on the phone, though to manage I have to bite my lip so hard that I taste blood. I do succeed, however, though I can barely manage to speak and it feels like the pit of my stomach has suddenly become a black hole. Right now, there’s no time for sobbing or breaking down. I just need to get to the hospital, need to give John a call and let him know what’s going on. I need to do something. I can’t just cry. “I’m coming down there now.”
“Visiting hours are—”
“I’m coming now,” I repeat, and I hang up the phone before there can be any further argument. The taste of blood in my mouth I sink back onto the couch, far less relaxed than before, and ball my hands into fists. My fingernails dig so hard into my palms that I wouldn’t be surprised if I started bleeding there, too. Somehow, the pain is almost calming, but I can’t manage to hold off crying any longer. It’s much harder to make the calls necessary on the drive to the hospital while I’m crying, but there really isn’t any chance I’m going to be able to stop.
Some of these will be drabblethings, and others will be cutscenes from her time in Silent Hill because seriously. Silent Hill. And obviously since some of her most important memories take place on the Tranquility, there will be some of those, as well.
Please note that a lot of these will contain potentially triggering things and concepts such as euthanasia, murder, blood, graphic violence, and all sorts of other awful things because this is Anne we're talking about.
OCTOBER 25th, 2011; Silent Hill
All of the "assorted good memories" and "assorted bad memories" are things I'll write out as drabbles if you decide you want your character to receive them so there's more for your character to work with. Just let me know here or on plurk, or on my event plotting thread and I'll whip them up and throw them into this entry
ASSORTED GOOD MEMORIES
☂ Fun times with her dad, Frank. These probably include things like him teaching her to drive, them going on camping and fishing trips, or just the two of them sitting and drinking beer and shooting the breeze on the front porch when she's older. A lot to memories of making snowmen together and drinking hot chocolate afterward, and decorating Christmas trees and carving pumpkins. They were big on all the holidays and had a lot of traditions.
☂ Random childhood memories. The sort of things most kids would have growing up. Basically her entire childhood was amazing so there are a lot of options here.
☂ Meeting her (canonically nameless but fuck the police) future husband John Cunningham. Also cute stupid shit from the duration they dated before getting married, like going to bars and eating hot wings in the front seat of their car. Mostly not all that romantic because Anne used to be the world's least romantic person.
☂ Losing her virginity on prom night in the back of her date's truck. Which is more of an awkward memory than a good one but it wasn't TERRIBLE so there you go.
☂ Her wedding to John. Which involved a lot of her tripping in high heels and then throwing her shoes at someone later in the night and also shoving cake in her groom's face because she's always been as much of an asshole as she is now.
☂ Graduating from police academy for her CO training.
☂ Getting her job as a correctional officer at Wayside Maximum Security Prison.
☂ Awkwardly adorable things like getting her first kiss when she was thirteen or holding hands with some boy whose name she doesn't even remember on a class trip in grade school.
☂ Shenanigans with her friends in high school, most of whom were male. Things like drinking and just generally making mischief, but in a "I'm gonna be a fucking prison guard I can't fuck shit up like you guys can" sort of way. Anything bad she did was pretty minor because Frank.
☂ Cooking dinner with her husband. Well, lurking and making things hard for him while he was cooking. For her that counts as cooking.
☂ Drinking whiskey with her prison guard pals in the guard station after their shifts.
☂ Just generally palling around with her prison guard buddies, both her Wayside coworkers and some guards from Ryall that she made friends with because she went to visit Frank so much (including T. Willis). They went to bars and out to eat and stuff together a lot, and Frank came a lot of the time before the incident.
☂ Going on a whitewater rafting trip with T. Willis and M. Koonz.
ASSORTED BAD MEMORIES
☂ Being stupid and crashing her car when she was seventeen. She didn't really get hurt, but Frank gave her the "I'm not angry just disappointed" speech which was worse than broken bones.
☂ Getting the news that Frank had been attacked in the prison showers, allegedly by Murphy Pendleton, while he was at work and ended up in a coma.
☂ Watching Frank waste away in a vegetative state after the attack. For several years after he was attacked she took care of him at home until he deteriorated to the point that he needed round the clock care at a hospital and to be on lift support. During his hospital stay she spent almost all of her time with him when she wasn't at work.
☂ Coming home from work one day to find that John had packed up and left, and had left a note explaining that it was because of how distant and borderline emotionally abusive she'd become while dealing with the fact that her father was inevitably going to die, along with how focused she'd become on revenge above everything else.
☂ Going through the long and messy divorce process. She also tried to fight it for a while so it made it even messier.
☂ Turning off Frank's ventilator and essentially actually being the person who killed him after not being able to stand watching him suffer any more. (detailed above))
☂ After Frank's attack much of her life was consumed by her hatred for Murphy and by the notion of getting revenge on him for what he did. It got to the point that she admitted canonically to doing "sick things" to get him transferred to her prison so she could presumably put a bullet in him. For event purposes I'll definitely end up hashing out some of the "sick things" in drabbles if requested but tl;dr much of them involved doing super shady things for fellow prison employees, both at Ryall where Murphy was currently being held and at Wayside. Things that probably involved doctoring arrest reports or other illegal fraud things, possibly roughing some people up (though not killing them, because Anne is unable to actually kill Murphy when she gets the chance and I can't imagine her being able to do it to someone she had no quarrel with), and sexual favors that she probably regrets much more than knocking people's teeth in or otherwise breaking the law.
☂ Getting into a bus crash during Murphy's transfer to Wayside and ending up stranded in the town of Silent Hill. There she encounters monsters, ghostly and horrific manifestations of her father, and spends time trying to survive the "Otherworld". She tries to kill Murphy but lacks the will to actually pull the trigger, and dies several times before she realizes that she and Murphy are permanently trapped in the town until they "finish what they started". Which turns out to be her realizing that a fellow guard, George Sewell, killed Frank and Murphy was framed for the crime. After the two make their peace, they are released from the town. Silent Hill is a big huge chunk of her bad memories so anything related to her time there I'll be happy to write out more extendedly if anyone asks.
☂ Killing Sewell in revenge for her father's death. (detailed above)
MEMORIES FROM THE TRANQUILITY
She and Murphy's first kiss
When Silent Hill intervened on the ship
Confessing her feelings to Murphy
Finding out about Heather's role in Silent Hill
She and Murphy actually becoming an official couple (NSFW)
Meeting her now-bff Firo
Her first fight (and coincidentally first meeting) with Netherlands
Trying to kill Murphy (as a monster but still)
Alex and Heather's awkward attempt at playing matchmaker
Asking Murphy to marry her
Experiencing nightmare fuel while trying not to die of stasis sickness
Almost dying on the Cyllene with Ellis
Almost attempting suicide
It was really easy to gather together memories with Murphy because of Rev's awesome tracking post, but with other CR I wasn't so lucky. Please feel free to send me links to threads with Anne and your character and I'll include them here! Sorry for being a scatterbrained goof and losing track of so many links!
THINGS FOR STAGE ONE
Characters who have coming links with Anne for stage one will most likely experience things such as:
☂ Sudden, intense cravings for cheeseburgers and fried chicken.
☂ Random bouts of intense guilt, almost like something you'd feel if you murdered someone...
☂ Since she's currently engaged to Murphy, all sorts of moments of euphoria.
☂ Random sections of gangsta rap songs getting stuck in their head.
☂ Sudden violent impulses/the impulse to be bitchy.
☂ The unexplainable worry that there's going to be a monster standing over their bed when they wake up in the morning.
☂ The passing but distinct sense of missing someone.
drabblestuff;
OCTOBER 31st, 2011
The hallway is cold, and it’s drafty, and there are prisoners on either side in the cells shouting… whatever it is that prisoners shout. I’ve gotten so used to it back at Wayside that I barely even notice it anymore. Like a background echo, something far less relevant than what’s happening today. It’s been a long time coming.
I don’t talk to anyone, don’t ask anyone where I can find him, because I know my way around, from the days I used to come visit my father at work here in more innocent days. And even if he’s not where he should be, I can wait. I’ve been waiting years already, so there’s no harm in waiting a few minutes, or an hour.
It makes me sick that the son of a bitch has his own office. And he’s inside, just like I hoped he’d be, when I come in. He’s putting some things away in the file cabinet, and I just watch his back after I close the door behind me, cut us off from the world. When he turns, I keep the gun behind my back, and I just stare at him.
“Hey! What are you doing back here so soon, Sweetheart?” he asks me, in that infuriating tone of his. Sweetheart. It I weren’t already so resolved to do what I’d come here to do, I’d have lost my temper at this point and been reduced to babbling like an idiot. But instead, I just stare him down with a look that I’m sure gives away the absolute venom I feel toward this man.
“Can’t get enough of the place?” he tries again, and this time I respond by tossing him my father’s mourning badge, wrapped in black tape and clenched so tightly before in my free hand that it’s sweaty. He gives a short little half-laugh. “What the hell’s this?” he seems genuinely confused, the bastard, and I know he knows exactly what it is.
“You used to work with my father. Frank Coleridge.” I inform him. It’s not a question. At this point it’s a fine line between maintaining this cool composure and absolutely losing it like I did at Murphy the week before, back in that town.
“Yeah? So?” by now he’s starting to sound suspicious, and I can hear the guarded tone that creeps into his voice. It’s nice to see the smug son of a bitch starting to shake in his boots a little. I’m not a good person, not by any means at this point. Not after the things I’ve done. But I can say that I’ve never found pleasure in anyone else’s insecurity before. Right now, I’m feeling nothing but.
I clench the gun a little firmer behind my back and take a few steps toward him. He takes one back, and it’s gratifying, seeing the look of discomfort on his face. “We need to talk.” My tone doesn’t leave anything to the imagination, and it’s clear he knows something is up. But he still continues to feign innocence like the cowardly piece of shit I know he is. Briefly my eyes slide to his name tag; G. Sewell. It’s astounding to me that a piece of shit like him even has a name. I’d have assumed he congealed in a gutter somewhere if I didn’t know any better.
“About what? You miss me, Sugar? That it?”
“I think you know what I wanna talk about.” I gesture roughly to the badge he’s now holding in his hand. “My father.”
“Yeah? Frank was a good guy. Sad to see that happen to him. I guess that’s why they lock guys like Pendleton up.” Though I notice he drops the badge onto his desk like it burns him, despite all his fake innocence.
“Oh really?” there’s a tremor of anger in my voice. A wave of uncertainty crosses his face. “Murphy Pendleton killed him?”
“You read the incident report, Sweetheart. Everybody knows that’s what happened.”
“Everyone.” I take another step toward him. He’s starting to look cornered. “Is that right?”
“What’re you trying to prove here?” Sewell asks, sounding less and less certain. That false jovial attitude is slipping away and I’m happy to see the desperation that’s replacing it. “Officer Cunningham.” Like adding the formal title is going to make up for anything he’s put me through. Put my father through. Put Murphy through. Like it’s going to make me back off.
“I don’t have to prove anything,” I hiss at him, finally losing some of my cool. “Because I know. I know Murphy Pendleton didn’t kill my father.” A pause, and I glare at him so deeply that I hope he feels it in his soul. “You did.”
He gives a shaky, obviously false laugh. “What the hell are you talking about?” he asks, and at that I just completely lose it.
“YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THE FUCK I’M TALKING ABOUT!” it comes out in a roar, and I slam him against the wall and grab the badge from the desk, slamming it so hard into his face that I hear his nose break. A strange, muffled sound comes out of his mouth and there’s blood running down his upper lip from his nostrils, and things start to blur together. The gun isn’t behind my back anymore. Now it’s pointed at him, pressed against his temple, and I’m screaming in his face. “I’m talking about how you murdered my father to keep your own dirty secrets and then fed everyone bullshit and were completely fine with letting an innocent man take the blame! About how you took away the only fucking thing I had in this goddamn world and GOT AWAY WITH IT!”
“I could have security in here in thirty seconds,” he reminds me, and I actually laugh. It’s a cold laugh.
“You ARE security. And so am I. What are you gonna do, reach for your walkie? Move an inch and I swear to god I’ll blow your fucking head off.” I grind the muzzle hard against his temple, trying to break the skin. “Just give me a goddamn reason, you sick bastard. Just give me one. Fucking. Reason.”
“What do you want?” he asks, and he doesn’t sound nearly as cowardly as I wish he did. I wish he was crying and sobbing and begging for his life. But instead he just looks disturbed and naked and vaguely pissed.
“I don’t WANT anything. But for starters you could admit what you did, you worthless piece of shit.”
“And what, are you gonna kill me if I don’t?” he asks, and I cock the pistol. “Okay, okay, fine. Shit. I killed Frank. He got in my way, so I took care of him. What do you want me to say? You think this changes anything?”
“No, I don’t.” I snap, grinding the gun harder. I can’t feel skin break, but I feel like I see a tiny trickle of blood. “But it’s a start.” I’m so angry by now that I feel like I’m losing my mind. I can barely see. “Nothing’s gonna change all the shit that happened because of you. Nothing’s going to take away the fucking shit you did. Do you have ANY idea what kinds of sick shit I did because of you? To get to Pendleton?”
“I was there for some of it,” he reminds me in that insufferable smug tone of his, and the suggestive hint to his voice makes me snap, makes me lift the gun and slam it into his head so hard that he crumbles to his knees. That broke the skin, I’m happy to see. I just do it again, and the force knocks him to the floor, and when he tries to get up I do it again. By now his head is bleeding so much that it’s leaking into his eyes and it makes me feel like I’m on a sort of sick power trip. I don’t care.
“Shut your fucking mouth!” I’m screaming again and I’m kicking him, in the side and the ribs. Hard. I still have the gun in my hand, pointed at his head, but I’m using my feet like a kid in a playground squabble. “Shut your goddamned fucking mouth right now!” I don’t know what I expected. Some kind of relief, or clarity, or maybe a kind of calm zen with that gun in my hand, in this office. But all I feel is the rage I felt at Murphy for so many years, directed in the right place for the first time. Finally. I don’t even realize I’m pulling the trigger but then he’s flat on the ground and blood is exploding from the side of his head, and I’m shooting him again. And again. I empty my entire clip into his head. What used to be his head. Now it’s just a mangled mess of blood and hair and skin peeled back by bullets to expose the cracked skull. By the last three bullets I’m sobbing. There’s blood that splattered my hands, and when I look down at them, at the gun in one of them, it becomes less surreal.
When I realize fully Sewell is dead, it’s less like a weight is lifted and more like something that was a long time coming is finished. When I’m finally calm, I give his body a final kick and holster my gun, and then I lean against the cold surface of the office door.
I don’t feel remorse. But I also don’t feel better.
MARCH 18th, 2011
There’s nothing but us in this room. Nothing but the white walls and the white floor, the white bedsheets, and us. The nurse has left, and your doctor. The sound of voices is gone. Now it’s just the sound of the heart monitor in its slow and measured beeps, the neon line rising in peaks and falling into valleys.
“Hi, dad…”
The chair beside your bed has become familiar now. I’ve sat in it so many times since you first ended up in the hospital. Since you came back here after living at home for a period. It’s a little sick to me that I swear it’s molded to fit the shape of my ass and back by now. It’s hard not to choke up now, looking at you. I usually still see you as the man you used to be, when you were healthy. But now, this last time, I see you as you are and it’s enough to make me reach idly, clumsily for the tissue in my coat pocket.
“After that stroke last week… they don’t think there’s a point in keeping you alive anymore. You’re not going to wake up. And everyone thinks it’s about time to let you rest.”
You were strong once. Atrophied now. Your fingernails are trimmed short and wrapped in bandaids so they won’t grow into your palms and break the skin where they’re clenched. At this point, after so much time, your body is twisted into an inhuman shape on the sheets, spine curled over backwards so your once-straight torso is more and more of an inverted C shape every day. Sometimes I worry it’s going to break. They warned me this would happen, but I wasn’t prepared for it. Nothing could prepare me for the way you’ve become less human-looking every day. The way your skin is scabbed and infected and the way your face has distorted. The way your toes and legs have curled uselessly. They can barely even pry open your fists to change the bandaids anymore. Last week, one of the nurses broke your finger. I wonder if you could even feel it. They say you have semi-awareness. I wonder how much of the pain you still feel.
I wonder if you can hear me crying right now. I hope you can’t.
“So pretty soon, they’re going to… I’m going to…”
It sounds even worse out loud.
“I was lying before, about everyone else. I’m the only one who even has an opinion about this, and I can’t put it off anymore. I’m pulling the plug. I’m sorry. I don’t know if you’re suffering, but if you are… I can’t let it go on anymore. I don’t even know if you can hear me. I just wanted to let you know.”
At this point, I’m pretty sure I can’t keep it all coherent any longer. I stop trying to talk, and I just cry and reach out and hold your hand. I can’t really hold it like I did when you were first in the hospital, before your fingers became like steel twigs and before your hands became more like solid lumps than actual hands. But I can still wrap my own hand around it and I do, I just squeeze and cry. I know there are more important things I need to be doing, but at the moment, I can’t bring myself to even move. It’s several long moments before I can even bring myself to stand from the chair, to bend down to hug you for several moments.
I’ve been in this hospital enough times to know how it works. The ventilator you use here is just as familiar to me as the portable one you used at home, and the switches and buttons and knobs are all so much less foreign to me now. Years ago, they would have looked like space age technology but now they’re disturbingly commonplace. With my hand on the appropriate dial, I take one last long look at your face.
“I love you. I’m sorry.”
There’s really nothing else I can say, no other words that break the silence in the hospital room. Just the hollow little click when I turn the dial.
APRIL 14th, 2009
It’s raining hard by the time I get off work, and it’s not a long walk from my car to the house, but by the time I unlock the door I’m soaked. The rain has all but destroyed the paper bag my groceries are in, and there’s a steady stream of curse words coming out of my mouth as I close the door behind me with my foot. The house is empty; John is at work and he probably won’t be home for at least another few hours.
If I had the ability at all I’d start dinner, but instead I just go and lie on the couch, stare at the ceiling, listen to the rain. I’ve got a cup of coffee with me and the evening is pretty peaceful, all things considered. My feet hurt like hell from being on them at work all day, but that’s nothing new. Doesn’t do anything to dampen my spirits or the casual sense of calm I’m starting to be able to feel. More times than not I’m tense as a spring, but after work I can usually find at least a bit of peace. Especially now.
I’m starting to contemplate taking a long bath when the phone rings. For a moment, I just ignore it; it’s probably for John anyway. He gets more calls than I ever do, and most of the time ones for me are on my cell, anyway. I just lie there and wait for it to stop ringing. I’m too lazy to pick up.
Whoever is calling is persistent, though. It just keeps ringing. And dammit, the answering machine must still be unplugged from my unfortunate tripping incident earlier in the week, because the machine doesn’t pick it up. That incessant ring just continues, and finally I set my coffee aside and sit up, grumbling under my breath. Reaching for the phone. Letting go of my relaxation. I’m cursing all over again until I put the phone up to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Have I reached Anne Cunningham?” the voice on the other end is a man, and he sounds young and uncomfortable.
“Mhm,” wondering what this is about, I idly let my eyes wander over to the clock. It’s getting late. I consider maybe ordering some Chinese and not leaving the house until I absolutely have to again. “Who is this?”
“I’m calling from Saint Jerome’s hospital. It’s regarding Frank Coleridge. You’re his next of kin, is that right?”
“That’s right…” my throat goes dry almost immediately, and it feels like the world has suddenly started spinning. I want to throw up. There’s a pounding in my head and chest, and a hot, acrid feeling that I hope will go away when I realize all this is some sort of joke. “Did something happen?”
“I’m afraid there was an incident. Your father was attacked during a riot in the prison. He’s a guard there, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” my own voice sounds like it’s echoing, and suddenly I’m not here on Earth but lightyears away. Because this can’t be happening. This can’t be reality. But the fact that it is makes me feel sick to my stomach. I can’t breathe. “Ryall State. What… are you sure he…” all that’s coming out of my mouth is random nonsense and I can’t seem to form actual words because my throat is so tight and my eyes are burning so much. “Is he…?”
“He’s stabilized. He’s going into surgery at the moment. His chances are good, but he’s currently comatose. We’re not sure how long that will last, but there’s a chance it could be permanent.”
Swallowing hard, I do my best not to cry on the phone, though to manage I have to bite my lip so hard that I taste blood. I do succeed, however, though I can barely manage to speak and it feels like the pit of my stomach has suddenly become a black hole. Right now, there’s no time for sobbing or breaking down. I just need to get to the hospital, need to give John a call and let him know what’s going on. I need to do something. I can’t just cry. “I’m coming down there now.”
“Visiting hours are—”
“I’m coming now,” I repeat, and I hang up the phone before there can be any further argument. The taste of blood in my mouth I sink back onto the couch, far less relaxed than before, and ball my hands into fists. My fingernails dig so hard into my palms that I wouldn’t be surprised if I started bleeding there, too. Somehow, the pain is almost calming, but I can’t manage to hold off crying any longer. It’s much harder to make the calls necessary on the drive to the hospital while I’m crying, but there really isn’t any chance I’m going to be able to stop.