villagelogs | 021-023 » the ghosts of fallen leaves

021-023 » the ghosts of fallen leaves

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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He lets her pull away a bit, but something in the pit of his stomach sinks at the mention of the museum. He doesn't know when the two of them went gallivanting in there but should have stayed the night. Put the signs up. He could have prevented other people going in.

"I know." His arms fall away, sliding off her. "I was there. With Mister Negan." He practically lunged at him, told him not to breathe, shoved him out, but he can't know if he was too late.

"You're the only person I'm safe to be around, right now. I was hoping you could tell me uh..." he takes half a breath in and sighs, running a hand through his hair. "Tell me what symptoms to look out for. Just in case, you know. If I'm already dead I 'on't wanna be takin' my housemates with. And if Mister Negan's contagious I'm gonna... hm." A little wrong to be thinking what if he comes back, but. Doc feels responsible. Guilty. This is a wrong he needs to right.

"I'll deal with it."

She feels hollow at his answer. No. No, he can't have gone there. Fuck, so she hadn't gotten there first. It's been a few days and she should have warned everyone but she couldn't, she could barely process it somehow. And Five hadn't been there to breathe the spores. She's sure he's fine, because if he wasn't, it would be way too late now.

"Fuck, Henry," she says, and it's all she can do for a moment, fidgeting because staying still is too difficult. She thinks about it, what it could mean, what the fuck they're all going to do without guns and with only one sharp goddamn knife and no way out and...

She realises that Henry doesn't really know how it spreads, but that's not the important part. The important part is it can't have been today. It can't have only been hours ago.

I'll take care of it, he says, and she believes him when he does. It's what you have to do, because there's no coming back. If there was ever a chance for a cure, it's living in her own brain. But the doctors who could have figured it out have been dead for years now and nothing fucking matters anyway. And from some people, she might not think they were serious. But she's pretty sure he is. She hates that he has to be, that wherever he's from made him okay saying that and meaning it. But at least it's practical.

"It's not...uh, it's not symptoms like a cold. It's...really quick. It's hours. You wouldn't have had a full 24 hours. You'd already know." She can manage that much without going into the specifics.

"You can't pass it on like a cold. It's...through bites or breathing spores, pretty much. Infected blood spreads it, but it's mostly bites." Somehow through all of it, Ellie herself can't actually get anyone sick, which is the biggest relief of her life.

"How long has it been?" she asks, just to confirm. She can't be reinfected herself, of course, but just as many people flat out die as become infected, thanks to the viciousness of the attacks.

Fuck, indeed. He can think of half a dozen ways to die, even with his own unnatural but limited form of immortality. It's not how he would like to go, but it is the right thing to do, especially if he's contagious. They will just have to worry about the potential coming back part when they cross that bridge.

"Alright. Like... rabies. Well, I haven't bitten or bled on anyone." He will have to check in on Negan, and soon. Make sure he hasn't done that either, or gone and done anything stupid back at the museum. At this point Doc is picturing something like rabies, like going feral, primal, monstrous. He's still not thinking shambling, ravenous, insides-turned-outsides undead. He might have a vivid imagination but it's not that wild.

"We were in there yesterday evening. Or whatever passes for evening in this place. It has been maybe sixteen hours, give or take. I slept fine, kept my distance from Raylan, and Malcolm. Didn't breathe on that-" he points at the baked rice, not that it matters since her housemate is no longer around and she'd be immune. "-and been out the house, just in case." He's not sure what information is relevant so he's just telling her more about his morning than he usually does.

"Figured I oughta return to the museum, board it up. We have some extra dismantled floorboards and nails from when we boarded up those other buildings. Maybe put some signs around the place, so no one else goes in." Do some last bit of good before, well. You know. Just in case his time's up. He's been thinking about a lot of things just in case lately.

"I'm hoping this ain't the last time I'll be seeing you, little lady." Not that he had come to say goodbye. But - haha. Just in case... At least he's done that. "Sorry I had to uh... go test my theory out in person." That was not at all what he was expecting to find in his night in the museum.

"Sixteen hours," she repeats. She hasn't personally watched very many people go through it, but she has seen it, with Riley and then later with Sam. It hadn't taken sixteen hours either way.

"Yeah. You'd...you'd know. You probably wouldn't have been able to remember how to cook in the end. People just...lose their minds to it until there's nothing left in there that's them. It's only hours." Subconsciously, she rubs her right arm with her left hand, tracing the lines of the tattoo that covers her forearm.

"I wonder if there are gas masks anywhere," she says. "They keep people safe going through places with spores. I mean...we should probably just call the museum a lost fucking cause, I guess. I don't know any way to stop the spread other than boarding it up and fucking hoping."

She catches herself, her arm on her wrist. She hasn't told anyone, but...

She pulls her hand away from her other arm and shoves both in her pockets.

"I can help you, I guess. Board it up, I mean."

God, she doesn't want to go back there. She can't put her finger on why. It's just an infection. There's still no way of knowing what the spores can do without exposing someone who isn't her, and she wouldn't do that to anyone here. Sure, there's a couple people back home she might do it to. She let that girl choke on spores in the hospital, but that girl deserved to die anyway.

"Henry, I, um...I can't get infected. I got bitten when I was fourteen. I'm the only person I've ever heard of who survived it. I don't know if you can, because of your weird immortality thing or whatever, but...fuck, I don't want to find out. I don't want anyone else to die, especially if we can keep them from it."

She looks up at him. "I don't know if we're all just going to die in the end here or what the fuck the deal is. But if you were going to die of the kind of infection we have back home, you'd already be dead." Or, well, he'd be gone and whatever was left of him after the cordyceps took over would be stumbling around in his body, which is probably worse.

Well that's not something he has an irrational fear of, at all. Losing his mind until there's nothing left in him. Nothing like sitting alone in the dark feeling water dripping on your arms and head for a hundred and thirty years to feel like he'd be able to come through the other end just fine with his sanity intact.

He would tell her it's fine, that he can handle it alone, that it's dangerous for her, that it's cold outside. But he understands that if she comes along, helps him board the place up, that it's a kind of closure for her. The same way he felt when he buried the damned woman who put him through those hundred and thirty years of isolation and self-inflicted torment.

"Huh. You know I got tuberculosis when I was fourteen." He forces a smile and ducks his head. "Suppose if we survived being 14, then we can get through anything." Their version of 27, or whatever age it is that all these famous people die.

"Anyway. I'm still alive. Means I'll still be here for you. And you can sample more of my terrible food and secondguess whether any spores be affecting my cooking abilities." And that he won't, in fact, die from breathing in some spores. Whether they are those spores she is familiar with from back home, or not. If he makes it through another night, he will have convinced himself he's fine. Since she's going to stick with him to board the museum up, then, well.

"Do bring your knife, sweetheart." Just in case. "I'll just head back to mine, over at 1306, get those supplies we need. Won't be ten minutes, alright?"

She forces half a smile back at him. It's not much, and it wouldn't convince anyone at all, but it's an attempt. "I guess so," she says. She just keeps living, somehow, after all of it. She's not sure there's a point. And she knows Joel wouldn't want her to be doing...whatever the fuck she's doing, the thing she imagines she'll still have to do to make her head feel right when and if she gets back home.

"Yeah. We just have to make sure no one else goes in there. I don't think we can get rid of what's already there, so..." Well, she knows he gets the picture. It had been his idea to board it up. She's just felt so weird and out of sorts since it happened she hasn't been able to bring herself to do anything.

"I'm not a good judge of cooking, y'know. I'll eat whatever anyone makes." She never had the luxury of being a picky eater, so she really will eat everything, if she can get over whatever it is inside her that keeps her from being hungry. It's depression and trauma, but she doesn't have many words for that.

"Okay. Ten minutes and then I'm gonna come looking," she says. That's just how it is.

As he makes his way next door and goes through the motions of taking what they need for this particular mission, his mind starts to wander over their immediate concerns. They may need to climb up onto the roof as well, to see the size of the hole, try and seal that up somehow. Maybe with some tarp if they can find any or... just stand up there in despair, try not to fall in. They will deal with it when they get there.

And then they need to deal with what she's going to do next, whether she is staying or leaving. If it was at all possible Doc would invite everyone over to their place, but Malcolm's night terrors make it impossible for anyone to get any decent kind of rest over there, and he recognises that Malcolm is already at a point where he feels like he is being a burden. Having people start to stay over on a long-term basis will only drive him further into guilt and self-resentment.

Maybe they should not rush to making any decisions today. He will come visit again tomorrow, and the day after, until they are both in a better headspace. As long as she knows that Doc, Malcolm and Raylan's door is open to her anytime, they can leave it up to her to come knocking.

Doc returns to hers with a couple minutes to spare, a stack of wooden boards wedged between his arm and side, a couple of hammers and a flathead screwdriver, more for prying things open than assembling shelves, hanging in his gun belt where he used to keep ammunition.

"Are you ready to go?" he asks when he's back on her porch, managing a smile that comes slightly easier to him. They can talk along the way, or while they're busy working away at the museum. Sometimes it's easier to talk when you're busy.

Ellie puts on her coat and shoes. She puts the dish Henry brought into the fridge. She still hasn't actually eaten any of it, but she'll try it. Later. She makes a promise to try to eat it, at least, but hopefully out of sight out of mind when he gets back.

She grabs her bag and tucks her weird knife in her pocket, then double-checks the mirrors just to be on the safe side. She has a hammer that she found in the garage, but no other real tools.

He does come back, as promised. Of course she can't really keep track, since clocks don't really work here. But she has a decent idea of what it should feel like, and he's not late.

She meets him on the porch and offers the hammer. "This isn't much, but...it's something?"

"It will do us just fine," he says with a smile, taking the hammer from her and sliding it into his gun belt. She can always grab it from him if need be, but it's shaping up to be a fairly uneventful excursion and he's quietly appreciative of that.

The museum is only a short trek away, just like everywhere else in this small town. He slows down once they're a considerable distance away, still a little unconsciously anxious about getting close to that place. Truth be told he's more worried about Ellie, even though she's more likely to be able to survive whatever is floating around in there than he is.

"Here," he offers to her along with a sturdy old plank and a few rusted old nails. They don't have to look too closely to find the worn corner of the main door that's left a sliver of a gap, not quite flush against the doorframe. The harder it is to get inside, the better. "You may do the honours."

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021-023 » the ghosts of fallen leaves

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