021-023 » the ghosts of fallen leaves

[villagemod]

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central/Western Mathias.
WHEN: Days 021-023
WHAT: A cold storm approaches.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Plotting post over here!

RECOMMENDED ♫ Emily Kinney & Lauren Cohan "The Parting Glass"

DAYS 021-023
THE WORLD TURNS WHITE
“Are ye the ghosts of fallen leaves, O flakes of snow,
For which, through naked trees, the winds A-mourning go?”
— John Banister Tabb
The howling wind is what wakes the residents of Mathias each day now as the world turns slowly into a bleak stretch of white. Snow continues to fall in thick curtains of flakes that accumulate on trees and rooftops, swirling sideways in the gusts of wind that bow trees and whistle through any crack they can find. The drifts of snow grow taller against the buildings and the wind makes the already freezing temperatures feel bitterly cold.

By day 022, the far ends of streets begin to resemble the hazardous fog with how little becomes visible as the winds pick up. Buildings can still be discerned as dark shapes but the weather's warning becomes clear — a storm is coming. And by day 023, the storm arrives properly, the wind still screaming through the streets like a winter banshee announcing so many deaths to come. These conditions are far from hospitable and only the truly mad would be foolish enough to venture outside in weather such as this.


THE NEWLY ARRIVED
With an embrace of wintery white, Mathias offers a chilly welcome to its newest residents. They awake along the southern treeline bordering Mathias, near the small makeshift cemetery containing a handful of wooden markers erected without names or signifiers of those buried within. And not far from them is the schoolhouse, where in a snowdrift they will the frozen corpse of a young woman named Rey.

LIGHTS IN THE DARKNESS
“A lantern can give you light only when you light it”
— Munia Khan
When residents wake on the morning of day 021, they will find outside in the snow the abandoned lanterns of those shadowy spectres who have moved so silently through Mathias. Each nestled in a patch of frozen white outside their door, the lanterns are now cold to the touch, the half-burned candle within each one seeming to have been lit so very long ago. Inside the glass encasement is a small rolled piece of paper, upon which is written:

keep it lit
There is nothing more, and the prior owners of these lanterns will not return within these days.

There is one lantern waiting outside the building for each resident wherever they are sleeping — the exception for this is those who may have already claimed a lantern as their own. Removing a lantern from its resting place results in no apparent reaction, nor does lighting or not lighting it. However, whatever residents ultimately choose to do with these lanterns should be reported.

---

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— SNOW continues to fall, resulting over the three days in upwards of a foot of accumulation. The winds blow in gusts over 35 mph.

— VOICES are not openly haunting our residents, though they may still be occasionally encountered in the more heavily decayed buildings where some rooms seem to almost swallow whatever light tries to enter them.

— THE FOG has still receded from the town proper and much of the eastern and northern beach, with the path through the northern forest to the lighthouse still clear on day 021. On day 022, however, as the storm worsens, the fog returns to the paths in the forest, urging residents to stay huddled within the town proper or else.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue to plague the town. While Zed Martin has returned, Rey's corpse will be found in a snowdrift near the Schoolhouse; she disappeared on day 018.

— THE STRANGER is gone.

— THE SPECTRES are gone.

OOC UPDATES

— DISCOVERIES have been collected and collated for your review. Please note that this is OOC information only, put together for the purpose of helping you as players see connections and possibilities for CR and your own character's potential avenues of exploration and investigation. (If we are missing something, please report it so we can add it to the list.)

— AP REWARDS have a new option now — Ideas may be requested if you find yourself stuck. You may now claim up to 2 rewards per log: (1) idea and (1) other reward.

— SANITY may be regained in two ways: self-medication and treatment. In Mathias, this means such coping mechanisms as drinking or drugging oneself into a stupor that allows them to face their fears and issues, or talking to someone about those fears and issues. Since both of these will take some time, best get started. (A form will be added to the Sanity page.)

— REMINDERS — Don't forget about the bulletin board. Please continue reporting your updates to locations, plots, and discoveries. The map of Mathias has been added to the locations page for ease of reference. Make sure your character's sanity level is kept updated. Prospective players are still joining the TDM, so it's recommended to track new top-levels so you don't miss them.

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Dean Winchester | Supernatural

[cholesterol]

( plotting comment )

Day 021 | OTA

[cholesterol]

HELL HAZERS 2: ALL SAINTS DAY

( For those exploring today, Dean's pretty much holed up in one location. He gets his bright idea after encountering Henry and whatever's inside the museum. Frickin' contagion? Yeah, he saw that movie. (And every B-side sequel and knockoff.) Netflix and Amazon Prime have horror selections like you wouldn't believe. He's not about that life. He knows he should get more answers and make more friends but he's reaching the end of his latest rope. Cas being here should've lengthened his candle-wick, but instead knowing Cas saw Jack's happy ending, and got his own in remaking heaven? And is now here? It pisses him off. And Claire died. Because she didn't answer a phone? And what is that?

Distracting himself with music isn't enough, so he decides to take advantage of one of his discoveries on a previous day.

He can be found, first, in the Grey Gull cooking up some popcorn in a pan like a freakin' pro. He takes very small pulls from his flask because he needs to make the moonshine last.

With popcorn made and in a bowl he cleaned out, Dean returns to the movie theatre, lantern in hand. And, though memories of another, more horrifying, movie he watched before are still etched into his mind, stamped even, he returns. He locates the movie he wants and feeds it through the projector. Fuck if he ever expected it to be available.

Starting it, he parks himself in the back row. He remembers seeing it in theaters on one of its' anniversaries. Some movies are just better on a big screen.

Dean starts off fine, just reveling in one of his favorite films. A psycho calling himself Hatchet Man knocks off teenagers in a hospital. It's basically Halloween II, but good.

Eventually, he makes it a drinking game. Any time there are boobs, drink. Any time he says, "Time to slice and dice," drink. Dean eventually starts quoting it. )

Time to slice and dice. ( He mirrors what's being said on the screen. He tosses popcorn when something lame happens or when she does something stupid, like run up a stairwell to the roof. ) Where are you gonna go? You gonna jump? No. You're gonna get thrown off. Every time.

( The film ends, the strip reaching its own climax.

It's over.

Dean should return. Or, find someone. Or, do something. But, instead, he returns to the room and restarts it. He's out of popcorn and the moonshine he'd poured himself.

But he has his favorite movie. )

Why was this never rebooted. We get Freddy VS. Jason but not Hell Hazers: Gen Z?

( Pfft, his lips blow as he props his feet up on the back of the chairs. )

SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT | MALCOLM

( Eventually, Dean tires of the movie, he's hungry again. He has enough sense to put the film back in its' case. He stumbles down the stairs accidentally from the projector room, but catches himself!

It's around mid-afternoon when he stumbles out and into the snow sans lantern, but generally carries himself -- okay. But, he's had half a bowl of popcorn and all that moonshine.

He even makes it to 1303 Phillips Dr. before he trips on nothing, (snow, maybe) and eats shit. Well, that hurts, both his pride and his head. But as he moves in the snow, he likes the cold feeling. It's like a linoleum bathroom floor, but more magical. He turns his head so he can actually breathe as the warmth of the alcohol is drowned out by the cold of the wet snow.

Yeah. This feels good. It's not a horrible idea, or a way to die. )

[abrightboy]

Malcolm spotted Dean weaving his way down the street from the porch at 1306 and by the time the hunter took a header, Malcolm was already making his way over.

"Dean?" he called as he approached. "Dean, are you..." Alive? "Okay?"

[cholesterol]

Dean stirs, groaning, but not aiding Malcolm in getting himself back up. He thinks he hears Malcolm's voice, but, the snow against his ear muffles all sounds outside, including the howl of the picking up wind. He had his morning-afternoon bender, now comes the passing out.

Just in the wrong place.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm knelt next to him as he arrived there, putting his fingers to Dean's carotid artery.

Well, he was definitely still alive. He shifted his position so he could pull Dean up, then leaned his shoulder in to get Dean into a fireman's carry. He headed up the steps and into Dean's house.

[cholesterol]

Dean's pulse is steady, if slow from all of the alcohol. And Dean's a lot of weight to throw over anyone's shoulder. He groans, hanging down behind Malcolm's back. He comes to shortly after warmer air hits him as he starts to flail, trying to wriggle out of his grip.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm is stronger than he looks but he does almost lose his balance when Dean starts to struggle.

He sets Dean down on the ground.

“You fell asleep in the snow,” he explains as he takes a couple steps back.

[cholesterol]

Dean kicks away from him, almost hitting an end table with his arms. He stretches his legs next, below him, as he looks up at Malcolm in his house.

"BAU," he says, looking up at him. "How'd you get in my house."

[abrightboy]

“.....BAU?” Malcolm questioned.

[cholesterol]

"Behavioral Analysis Unit. Criminal Minds," he half-slurs, trying to sit up.

"You stalking me?"

[abrightboy]

“I live up the street. You fell on your face.” A beat. “Sorry, was that what you were trying to do?”

[cholesterol]

He hears your voice, Malcolm. He knows what a tone is. If he had the luxury to not appreciate it, he wouldn't. But, that's not happening. Not much is happening besides Dean just dropping back down to the ground again.

"Yeah, that was my plan, to faceplant into the snow."

[abrightboy]

“The air is subfreezing at the moment. Exposed skin in the snow could develop frostbite in as little as twenty minutes. In the meantime, your body heat would be melting the snow under you, soaking your clothes. Left outside in these temperatures in wet clothes, hypothermia sets in shortly after that. If you remained outdoors any longer, facedown in the snow in wet clothes, your subsequent death from exposure would remove any need for you to be concerned about frostbite on your face. I guess that’s the good news part. Do you have a coffee pot of any kind?” Malcolm asked.

[cholesterol]

"Where coffeepots live," he says, raking his hands down his face. He doesn't need a lecture. He knows it was a close-call. He'll thank the guy after his coffee kicks in, but before passing out. He sees that in his future, too. The world stops spinning long enough for Dean to use the side table he usually puts his keys on to pull himself to his feet. Once his vision comes together, he follows Bright into the kitchen, pulling the afghan from the couch and wrapping it around himself.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm takes that to mean ‘the kitchen somewhere’, and heads there, looking through cupboards until he finds coffee.

“Do you take anything in it?” he asks over his shoulder as Dean shuffles in behind him.

[cholesterol]

The coffee is on the counter, next to the coffeepot, which he'll probably find last since he's checking cabinets. Dean slides down into a chair by the table, pulling the blanket up over his head like a Russian grandmother.

"Cream. Sugar. There's milk in the fridge." He also takes it black, too. He should probably have just said, make it black.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm wouldn't have been surprised if Dean had said black. As it stands, he's surprised the man is even admitting to taking cream and sugar in coffee. Isn't that... precious in some way? He seems like the type to take it black and then slip in some cream and sugar when nobody is looking.

Malcolm retrieves them and puts them on the table by Dean, then goes back to getting the coffee brewing.

"Did the moonshine put you on your face or are you doing your own brewing?"

[cholesterol]

"Moonshine."

Now's not the time to let Malcolm know that just below him under the sink are five storage sized ziplock of fermented wine. But, considering his one-time track record that Malcolm's seen, he'd sooner confiscate his stash than give him the kudos he deserves.

He wonders if Cas felt him, felt Dean's skin cooling to the touch. If Cas can hear him now if he prays.

He doesn't pray. He doesn't want him to worry.

Now there are two of Malcolm again as he slides back on his chair, but only briefly.

"That moonshine really slaps you in the face."

[abrightboy]

“Yeah, it’s... not strictly what one might call ‘safe for human consumption’,” Malcolm noted, turning around to lean on the counter while the coffee brewed.

[cholesterol]

"Like I'm anything but." Sure, he looks and walks and talks like a human. But, his borderline personality disorder, his repression, and his inhuman skill at tearing something apart might beg to differ.

Bright can interpret that in whichever way he pleases as Dean's gaze falls on the one Bright.

"I've drank worse."

And more.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm would never classify mental illness as dehumanizing. That would sure put him in that boat.

"But you're not usually alone," Malcolm pointed out, making a reasonable guess. Dean had been quick to collect the people who came from his world. "You usually have someone to catch you before you fall face first in the snow."

[cholesterol]

"I pass out on floors or in beds," he says, simple. He doesn't go face first into the snow. Mostly in beds. And in this case, he flops forward, his arms propping up his chin.

"Is this you shrinking me again?"

[abrightboy]

“It’s me shrinking you still,” he corrected. “I’m always shrinking everybody,” he pointed out lightly, pouring coffee into the mugs.

He set one in front of Dean with a spoon.

[cholesterol]

The spoon goes untouched as he sits up, wraps his hands around the mug and brings it to his lips.

"Have all the fun you want." He doesn't have to participate. Malcolm can say all he wants.

[abrightboy]

“It’s not for my amusement, Dean. I’m just. Interested in people,” Malcolm explained.