Holly Hell

Wow. I mean just……wow.

Ok, so Ire and I arrived at our group’s base—called the Mansion—this afternoon.

Er--last afternoon, since it’s 5:30am. I really should describe the Mansion and talk about what happened when I met everyone but……I don’t feel like it right now. I’ll do that after Christmas.

Right now……right now I only want to talk about the Mansion’s Christmas decorations.

I am told Thia was in charge of the decorating. The way she decorated the house can only be described as morbidly festive. The outside of the Mansion is decoration-free, but the inside……. Black candles on the table and fireplace mantel, skulls with red and green lights for eyes, entrails with a string of Christmas lights inside them wrapped around the staircase banister, red internal organs decorating the Christmas tree……

The Christmas tree is essentially a giant stick decorated with various human(?) organs and topped with what I think is a heart. I know it sounds horrible, but somehow Thia managed to make it all look really good.

There’s also skeleton hung from the chandelier with a noose made of Christmas lights, and a wreath attached to a deer skull over every doorframe, but my favorite has to be the complete deer skeleton wearing a jingle bell collar.

Deep down I know I should be grossed-out, but I can’t bring myself to feel anything other than impressed.

It looks like we’ll be having a small feast today. I should try to get some sleep. Merry Christmas everyone.

Ire

So I was finally found today. Not uh……Not quite sure what to make of my fellow teammate here….

After a long day of pick pocketing--addictively fun--and running around town--gotta love parkour--I returned to my hotel room to find a man who looks to be in his early 30s sprawled out on the bed watching Batman. The man has unnaturally bright red hair—obviously dyed—and an unusual fashion sense--black butcher’s apron, black fingerless gloves, dark sunglasses, and an extremely odd scarf-like mask that only covers the bottom half of his face.

When I walked into the room he pulled down his 'mask' and glanced at me. “You the new recruit?”

“Um…. Yes? My name’s Coyote.”

“Fucking finally. Do you know how hard you were to find?”

“Very?”

“Not very. You are however very forgettable.”

“So…..you DID forget me.”

“Twice.”

“You forgot me twi—why do you have a rusty saw?”

He tapped the saw against his boot. “One of my preferred weapons of choice.”

“I’m going to assume your name is Ire.”

He hmmed an affirmative and looked utterly bored. “That a whip?”

“Yeah. Technically it’s called a sjambok.”

It looked like he rolled his eyes then, it was hard to tell because of his glasses. He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “kinky” and turned his attention back to the tv.

“So what now? Where’s the rest of the group?”

He lazily swung his saw at me, causing me to step back beyond his reach. “Tv. Watching….”

He ignored me for at least an hour. After a while I gave up on getting any answers and sat down on the couch (as far away from Ire as I could get). Eventually he said that we would leave sometime tomorrow to join up with the rest of the team….group….whichever it is.

I can hear Ire snore as I type this. I would love to get some sleep too, but I suspect that Ire might wake up and kill me in my sleep just for the hell of it.

It was pretty nice out yesterday—no snow or rain—so I decided to see if I could make it past the two towns and out of the area. I left my campsite and walked right out of the woods and past the towns without any trouble—but when I turned to go back the air got...........oppressive, somehow. Sort of suffocating. I decided it would be best to wait for my group elsewhere.

So I walked to the next town over (why are there so many small towns around here?), pick pocketed some guys wallet and am now renting a room at some crappy hotel. Apparently I used to be a petty thief or something, because I am suspiciously good at pick pocketing.