Dark Reunion (Halloween Double XP with Danny)

Some Place, America

The Museum had been closed and shut for the last two years now. The surrounding properties plummeted in value, as the inhabitants and businesses alike had felt something 'terrible' since the murders at the museum took place. The memorial stone at the museum entrance bore silent testimony to seven teenagers beign murdered, and an eighth gone missing. It was the second anniversary but no one from the school came.

In time everything was set for demolition, and the makings of an amusement park and shopping complex were planned to 'liven up' this property, where once housing and ghettos were. Only the museum was left standing, walled off by a fifteen foot high masonry wall. No one had bothered to claim the exhibits anymore, no one dared. There was talk of tortured spirits, animate objects and even more horrible things, and the steel wire gate remained chained shut. For added measure, a priest had tied it with rosaries.

And now on the eve of the murders, a thick mist blanketed the construction site. Deathly silence fell on the machinery and the supply piles. The night lamps flickered and failed, making it dark. A lone figure walked towards the walled off museum, scaled the fence, and slowly made her way to the entrance. There she saw the dark stone monument, the words engraved in gold letter.

"In Memory of the children who met their end here..." It started, the figure quickly browsing over the names, touching them one by one, remembering the faces of each. The memories resurfaced powerfully, until she came on the last one. "... and Diana Mendoza, whose body was never found, whose whereabouts are unknown to this day. May their souls be reunited with their Maker in Heaven."

She lingered at the memorial for a long while, head bowed in some reverence. And then, she walked inside the museum, a broken window providing easier ingress than the steel barred doors.

A story stuck with Danny for a few years now. When she first started high school, only a few weeks past by before a massive tragedy rocked the entire school. A number of upperclassmen all died horrible deaths. All in all, a pretty heavy handed assignment for a teenage metahuman who mainly dealt with light handed adventures, not dark brooding treks through depravity. She barely knew any of the victims except through initiations and hazings bestowed upon the freshmen cheerleader, but Danny could still remember the sobriety and hollowness that rang through her in the wake of those actions. Again, in previous installments Danny fought funny talking curators and Russian robot bears, but now it seems things need to get heavy.

Dressed in her cheerleading outfit from a charity engagement, Danny followed the lead of the Benevloent man and sought out the museum. Traipsing through the dilapidated yard, Danny reached a point where a thick cloud of mist blocked out all signs of life in a perimeter around the museum. A thick stirring wrestled in the mist, but no visible signs of life made attempts to shoot out towards her. Perhaps it was in her mind, or perhaps it merely waited.

A pair of rosary beads tethered the iron gate shut before Danny. Crawling in through a window would probably set off an alarm or something. But, would that be so bad? If the police came they could escort Danny out from the fog and get her back. The Benevolent Man would need to accommodate a police request after all. Unfortunately, a nearby window already stood opened. Creeping around this place sank in the pit of her stomach, but it felt relaxing compared to the feeling the fog around her put her through.

Rubbing her gems, Danny opened the gate to the museum like a common burglar. Or, at least a common rogue in any tabletop roleplaying game, which Danny would never be able to fit time for even though fighting crime for crazy amounts of time and recruiting people for a young hero society kept getting playtime. The pad lock fell to the ground and the gates opened before Danny. Reaching into her bag of hero tricks, Danny pulled out a flashlight and illuminated her path. She wanted to call out and say hello, but remembered she was on business and not at open house. Still, the flashlight needed to stay on even though it was pretty heavy in her hand. Things around her in the environment in general were pretty heavy, but the flashlight especially. Well, maybe not more heavy than eight high schoolers being murdered. That was pretty heavy.

The air was thick with a nearly undisturbed dust of two years, all the art exhibits having been covered in plastic with equal coats of dust. Second rate artifacts, paintings and sculptures languished here, forgotten by mankind. The blood trails of the seven murders still stained the plaster of the walls, easily tracking their final moments as they ran, one by one, from some horrific murderer that came from the second floor.

To make Danny's halloween more complete, there was a small group of stowed away anthropomorphic animal mascots facing her as she reached the lobby. They were the first mascots for the amusement park, but apparently they were left here once the museum was locked down for good. Their cold dead eyes reflected her flashlight as the light passed over their faces; the cat, the mouse, the dog, the bird... it almost seemed like they were looking at Danny, facing her as she came in.

An observant eye would not the dust in the museum betrayed the first intruder's footsteps, leading up back to the scene of the crime. At the foot of the stairs meanwhile, was something most out of place- a Katana made of jet black steel. A paranoid mind would likely keep an eye on the mascots as well... as their heads would slowly turn and follow Danny when she was not looking... and become frozen when she did.

Somewhere Upstairs

Diana lay curled up in a dark corner of some room, grasping her head and whispering to herself, as the memories of her deeds flooded back to her. "I killed... I killed them... I killed them all... it was me..." she muttered again and again, quietly to herself, as she lapsed into a fit of reality and denial.

"If you did not, they would have done worse." An imaginary voice reached out to her, and offered justification for the unspeakable crime.

"No... no... they... they were just stupid high school seniors... it was a prank... they wouldn't commit murder..." Diana said, having heard of the horrible pranks seniors would play, but never once hearing it becoming as serious as a murder. She struck first, she... did, didn't she?

"You do not remember the events... you do not remember how you were deceived... how you ran... how you resisted... how you were struck..." the voice hissed in Diana's ear, in her psyche. She was confused. She did not remember it as clearly as she should have. There was running and screaming, but who ran from whom? She didn't remember. All she knew was that she remained standing, while seven teenagers lay dead all around her, mutilated and their pieces scattered.

"No... I can't be forgiven... I have to get away... I have to escape..." Diana thought herself getting up, and she began runnning into a vast, empty darkness. She ran as fast as she could, as far as she could, but did not realize the space that did not exist in this museum.

Diana thought she ran, but in reality she walked completely in the dark, heading to a display on second floor. A stone, embedded in the side of a vessel, under a plastic coat...

So the teenage sleuth went deeper into the museum. Well, maybe not a sleuth, more of an unwelcome intruder. Or, perhaps just a regular kind of intruder. At least no one in the museum knew she stumbled in uninvited and started looking around at mystical weapons of great and terrible power. No one but the mice. Keeping around the likes of museum curators and hiding in exhibits, Danny quickly learned every statue looked like the eyes tracked you down because of how you were moving. She told herself that, but knew in the back of her mind there could be a few differences.

A pitch black katana still cast a reflection. Danny let her hand hover over the blade for a moment before pulling it back. Just a little superstition. In a museum where a horrible massacre took place. At night. With an ominous fog suffocating the light. Maybe Danny wouldn't touch the katana after all. But, her hand didn't move back. It remained stuck in place over the handle of the sword. After a few minutes of quiet contemplation, Danny held the sword in her hand, looking down to her reflection and gleaming flicker of sinister light Danny could only think about this adventure taking a turn for the more heavy stuff. Not fighting robot bears or a Taco Tyrant today.