010 » something wicked this way comes

[villagemod]

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: ???
WHEN: Day 010
WHAT: Spooks happen. Some sanity loss may occur. (More on that next week!)
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Thank you so much for your patience with this! My Friday was much busier
than expected, so I'm very sorry for the lateness on getting these out to you all.

RECOMMENDED ♫ Deadly Avenger "Gyuki"

DAY 010
“We make up horrors to help
us cope with the real ones.”
—Stephen King
The day dawns but few wake to see it. Only one, who has been exempt from the strange happenings about to unfold. She will face a day like any other, a farce of normality in an utterly abnormal universe — but she will face it alone. For none who will experience these strange happenings are to be found in the town until the next morning dawns. Each has been taken, whisked away to another layer of the town, peeled back and exposed like a raw nerve.

Mathias screams and there are none who can hear it.


THE DETAILS
Each exploration, encounter, and revelation happen separately from one another. Though some may include the same locations, none will overlap in time or space. The circumstances laid out in each prompt are exclusive to that situation — do not assume the answers someone else received will also apply to you.

Players may ask questions as they normally do for logs, but these should be kept as part of the designated thread. You may create a subthread under your header for questions, or intersperse them with your "tags". Your responses may be formatted as IC tags or as a more OOC "telling" what your character does rather than showing.

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DAY 011
All characters involved in this event will wake on the morning of Day 011 in the exact location where they began to sleep on Day 009, but they will find themselves covered in a layer of dust just as thick as that which had covered much of Mathias. The dust does not extend to their surroundings.

The memories of what they encountered or saw remain clear in their minds, no matter how impossible they might seem. Sights, sounds, smells, all may be recalled with crystalline clarity, even if they wish it were otherwise.

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Comments

[abrightboy]

"I would have guessed that about you. You're very independent, very... contained." He felt a wave of vertigo and grabbed Raylan's upper arm for a moment with his free hand, then, after a moment, let go. "Parent," he answered, slightly shaken. "It was a parent."

[tinstar]

While he wondered what Malcolm meant specifically by 'contained', the lurch had him turning a little, his closest hand coming out from his side to 'catch' Malcolm if he fell, and giving him a sturdier surface to lean on by accident.

"Only a few more levels. Thirty or so steps, maybe forty. So your daddy then. What'd he mentor you in?" Talking seemed to help Malcolm and until they were on flat ground again, Raylan would tolerate the chatty conversation. People tended to want to talk about themselves anyway, something that helped him more often than not in his job.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm huffed a humourless laugh.

"Ostensibly? Medicine. He was a heart surgeon. But probably actually murder, if we're being honest."

He let his free hand trail along the wall, just to feel it's solidity. He didn't think Raylan would appreciate Malcolm using him for solidity any more than he already was.

[tinstar]

If a lean needed to happen, it needed to happen - Raylan wasn't above carrying him off his hip if he had to. As it was, he slowed them down.

"Murder?" His head pulled back a fraction with the question and the curl of his features towards Malcolm again, however briefly. "Hellva thing to be mentored in." The set of his brow didn't change as he looked back at the steps. "How well did you take it up?"

Was.. Malcolm on meds because he was psychotic? His suit said New York, private tailor, Raylan knew a good suit when he saw one and could list several different types so that ruled out mental institutions. They wouldn't give a tie to an inmate, no matter how much money they had.

[abrightboy]

"I took to it very well," Malcolm said freely. "Just... not in the way that he wanted. I joined the FBI. Hunted killers. I'm good at it."

[tinstar]

Oh that was a much better possibility and Raylan nodded once, slowly, in understanding as he pieced the frayed bits together. "That's why you're a profiler," he said, largely to himself with a faint nod.

"Ain't beyond people to hide in law enforcement, I'm sure you understand the questionin' of it." A beat passed before he continued. "Actually why I ended up becomin' a Marshal. To spite Arlo. Be anything he wasn't.. Yours get caught?"

[abrightboy]

"Yeah. I turned him in when I was ten, after I found a woman in a trunk in our basement."

He paused.

"'Arlo' is your dad? ...He was a murderer too?"

[tinstar]

"Wouldn't surprise me, but his style was more petty shitkicker theft and property damage. Stealin' cows and scams mostly, plenty of federal crimes but not serious ones." He spoke about Arlo the same way he talked about shit on his shoe - unimportant, barely a footnote. Wasn't even worthy of the title 'father' in general conversation.

"Woman in a trunk huh? That's pretty high profile."

Finally hitting the bottom floor, Raylan paused, one hand coming around to hover behind Malcolm as they came to a stop. "When we get outta here, you need to lay down somewhere and rest. Withdrawl is an ugly business."

[abrightboy]

"She's not even in his official victim count," Malcolm noted. He looked around as they reach ground level, carefully letting go of Raylan's shoulder and testing his legs. This was more manageable, this flat ground.

At Raylan's advice, Malcolm looked at his face for a moment, studying him. "You don't need to worry about me," he lied. "I'm fine. It's just a bumpy road."

[tinstar]

Instead of answering, Raylan gave him a flat, dry and unimpressed look.

"Look, you can lie to anyone else you want but I'm from Harlan, Kentucky. We know a thing or two about addicts. Granted, they're on opioids but most pharmaceuticals are now." One hand gestured out, index and thumb fingers coming together as he moved. Kentucky had an opium problem and had for years, directly caused by big Pharma. That was a different piece of fat for Raylan to chew over. "You ain't the first I've seen in the throes of detox.

Though somehow, Malcolm managed to make it not look as terrible as some Raylan had seen. The composure of him was something of note.

Raylan gestured towards the single door option they had available to them. "You first."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm held his gaze for a moment, then moved through the door, leading them back into the living quarters.

Suddenly he heard a familiar chirping sound and he frowned, looking around.

"Sunshine?"

He spotted her, his eyes widening before she took off and swooped... right out the open door. He stared at the door.

"Was that there before?"

He'd been ransacking the place, but Raylan hadn't.

I.. assume the outside is outside the door, correct us if I'm wrong!

[tinstar]

Did he see sunshine? Raylan stepped in behind him, eyes finding the door with him.

"No the hell it was not," Raylan said in a cold calm voice that only barely hid the flush of frustration in him as he moved around Malcolm and strode angrily towards the door, stepping halfway out to glare at the sight before storming back in and through to the stairs start.

"THIS IS GODDAMN BULLSHIT," he hollered with an accusatory finger at the lighthouse, accent drawing back out as he projected it. He turned and strode back into the living quarters. "Let's get the hell outta here, fuck this lighthouse."

It didn't matter that he didn't know how, exactly, to get back to the town. Out was out and he could deal with the forest in a fucking minute.

[abrightboy]

He didn't see sunshine; it was still grey outside, but he did see Sunshine.

When Raylan stalked back to the stairs, Malcolm followed to the doorway of the living quarters, watching with some interest as Raylan processed the situation in his way.

"If they're manipulating the environment, then there's at least some degree to which it's contrived," Malcolm pointed out, almost jogging to keep up with Raylan's long-legged stride out onto the path.

[villagemod]

The outside is indeed outside this mysteriously appearing door. There is the cliff they were able to see from the top of the lighthouse, the ocean below, the treeline of the forest. There is no clear path to follow.

[tinstar]

There wasn't a clear path to be seen but that didn't change Raylan's stride or the surity of it as he made his way towards the forest.

"What other way is there where that kinda shit happens," Raylan said over his shoulder, one finger gesturing uselessly towards the ground. He did not like games one bit. "But there's no way that's just some trap door we sprung while we were upstairs. There was no handle, no hinge to hide." It made no sense and that only pissed him off more.

"We got a lotta walkin' to do, so we might wanna save our breath. Looks to be about a mile, maybe two, depending on how big this out cropin' really is."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looked at him sidelong. "Are you suggesting I'm asthmatic or do you just want me to shut up?" he asked, keeping an eye on Raylan's expression. "I'm not the former and I can't usually do the latter." He paused, gesturing like he wasn't sure it was that was or the other way around and then nodded. "Yeah, that's right." He waved his hand. "I always get those mixed up," he remarked.

[tinstar]

"I was kinda hopin' the latter," he replied honestly. "I wanna get as much ground under and behind us as possible. Just in case this place decides to make us spend three days wandering in the goddamned trees like fools."

[abrightboy]

"Has that sort of thing happened here?" Malcolm asked curiously. "We could see the town from the lighthouse. We should be able to go there."

[tinstar]

"Like I shoulda been able to get through rain, or there shoulda been a door in that damn wall," he retorted. "I don't trust this place, not a single inch of it."

For all his anger, Raylan's voice didn't rise much, just darkened in its stern intensity, eyes a little wider and wilder than normal, jaw tense as he strode towards and into the treeline.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm managed to keep up with his stride, one arm across his abdomen where the pain tended to ebb and flow but never went away. Like his head. Both were throbbing in the exertion. Maybe suggesting he could keep up this pace was ambitious, but he didn't want to lose the lanky cowboy, so he kept moving at the hurried gait he needed to to stay at his side as they entered the trees.

[villagemod]

As they enter the treeline, there is a sound behind them, something eerie and indescribable, that will cause both men to turn back toward the lighthouse. Strangely, the beacon is now turned on, rotating in the slowly dimming light, and as it turns toward them, a dark figure is illuminated from behind. They have this view for only a brief moment before suddenly a wave of fog engulfs them from behind.

The men will wake in their respective last sleeping places, covered in a layer of dust.