030-035 » a-hunting they will go

[villagemod]

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central Mathias.
WHEN: Days 030-035
WHAT: Unexpected changes come to Mathias, followed by a Hunt.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Plotting post over here! And shiny new CR meme too.

RECOMMENDED ♫ Marco Beltrami "It Hears You"

DAYS 030-032
A CHANGE IN CIRCUMSTANCES
The day after the earthquake dawns like any other in Mathias Township. The sky is a light winter grey, clouds obscuring even a hint of true sunlight, and snow falls off and on in dustings that rest atop the piles left from the storm a few days past. The air is bitterly cold, a gentle wind feeling like ice in the sub-freezing temperatures, and residents should be grateful that the earthquake didn't do more damage than just breaking a few household objects.

It seems like business as usual. It will not be until the second day that residents will begin to notice the difference.

The General Store's shelves have not been restocked. Items in kitchens have not replenished in the passing night. Food from the previous day has aged as normal, and as the days continue to pass, things will begin to grow stale or become moldy as they would in the outside world. Two days pass, three, four... Still, the food does not return.

Perhaps rationing should be considered.



NEW ARRIVALS
The newest arrivals to Mathias will wake on the snowy beach near the Grey Gull restaurant. They should probably hurry inside and get warmed up before hypothermia sets in or something finds them out in the cold...

---

DAYS 033-034
IN THE NIGHT, IN THE DARK
These days, too, seem to be simply more of the same. The days are cold and grey, the food does not replenish, and they continue to be trapped in this eerie town. But when night falls, the story changes.

An hour after sunset, it begins. Scratching sounds at walls, like something searching for a way inside. The ominous feeling of something out there in the darkness, moving through the town, stalking through the night. The inability to find any sign of something being there at all. It's enough to make anyone feel like they're going mad. To happen just one night, it could be a fluke, a trick of the mind as so many things here seem to be. But to happen a second night, with more intensity... There is something there, or they are going mad.

It's hard to know which to hope for.

DAY 035
THE HUNT
This day is not like the others. There is something in the air, a dreadful anticipation that rises inside them all as the hours pass. Every moment that brings them closer to nightfall brings it closer too — if only they knew what it was.

An hour after sunset, the Hunt begins.

Those who are outside at this time are gripped by such terror that they can do nothing but run and be chased. They are prey and the predators that stalk them with steadfast determination are creatures never meant to be seen by mortal eyes. All lights outside go out, from streetlamps to flashlights, and the world descends into deeper darkness, only the clouded moonlight and curtained glow from illuminated houses lighting their way as they flee.

Those who are inside at this time are trapped in their safe havens. No doors or windows can be opened from within, nothing can be broken or forced, and they can do nothing but wait and listen while their friends and neighbors are pursued by creatures whose very presence they can feel in their bones and whose growls echo in the night, entwined with the screams of their victims.

In the thick darkness, these creatures appear little more than shadows, large and looming, deadly and unknown, but in rare glimpses in scattered pieces of light, the Hunted are met with a sight they cannot comprehend and will never be able to properly describe or fully remember, for these creatures cannot be fathomed within the limits of the human mind.

The Hunt lasts for one hour exactly and then the creatures vanish into the darkness, leaving only fear and death in their wake.


ABOUT THE HUNT
— Players may choose to have their resident be one of the Hunted or a Witness to the Hunt. None are exempt from the the Hunt and all will be affected by it in some way.

— Those who are hunted must flee the creatures or they will die. The Hunted may move throughout the town at any speed, for the creatures may choose to move both quickly or slowly, but the creatures will always inevitably find them. The only escape is to seek shelter — the creatures will not enter a building where living people are, but they will follow the Hunted into buildings where there are no other living people.

— Those who are trapped within buildings at the start of the Hunt are unable to open doors and windows from within, but the Hunted may open them from outside in order to take shelter in these safe havens.

— Those who are hunted are unable to fight back against the creatures until the moments just before their death. This is due the creatures only having physical form in these final moments, rendering any attacks against them useless, whether they be physical, magical, or psychic in nature. Attempts may be made in those moments before death, but by then it is too late — the prey has been caught.

— When one of the Hunted is caught, there is no escaping, there is only screaming in madness as death falls painfully upon them. No one can come to their aid and their body will be found afterward, the bloody remains ripped and torn apart by something that cannot be identified. Large sprays and pools of blood stain the area around the corpse, turning the snow sickening shade of crimson that darkens as the hours pass.

— After the creatures have vanished, there are no signs of them to be found in the snow. There are no tracks or marks of any kind save for the carnage of the fresh kill.

— Those who have been sacrificed to the Hunt will revive two days later on Day 037. The conditions in which they revive will be detailed later, but there will be only minor lasting physical damage from the Hunt.

— The Hunted will lose 5 points of sanity. Those Witnesses who find the corpses will lose 2 points of sanity, or 3 points if they are not unaccustomed to this type of sight. Others who are merely Witnesses to the sounds of Hunt may choose to lose 1 point of sanity as a result of the experience.

---

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— THE WEATHER is fairly typical of a northern winter. The sky is almost always grey, the temperature is below freezing during the day (and colder at night), and a light snow falls intermittently. The sun sets early in the evening. Residents should bundle up when going outside and not venture too far into the dark night...

— THE FOG remains blocking the paths in the forest beginning a few dozen yards past the treeline, urging residents to stay huddled within the town proper, and it also now blocks the northern section of town, beginning just past Hill Lane, before where residents know the chasm in the earth to be between Hill and Stine Road. Venturing into the fog is ill-advised.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue. Sherlock Holmes is still missing, and Phil Coulson, John Constantine, Zed Martin, and Helen Magnus have vanished as well.

---

OOC NOTES

— FOOD will be restocked in some fashion in the next full log, don't worry. We aren't going full survival mode yet.

— DAY 036 The next log will cover Day 36 only and will include the locations of deaths and any corpse burials that occur the night of Day 35 or are planned for Day 36. (There will be prompts included for both the "living" and the "dead" in this single day log.) Please submit all information by Wednesday, Feb 17.

— MOD STATUS It's mostly just Amy steering this ship for now, so things will probably be pretty slow for a while. Apologies in advance, and please don't feel shy about pinging me if you're stuck waiting for something.

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Comments

[conning]

Neal looks at Doc blankly for a moment, struck by the suddenness of that revelation, momentarily at a loss for how to respond. Fortunately, his brain thinks faster than he does.

"I think being in Mathias counts as an unhealthy, dysfunctional, soul-wrecking relationship with the town." He raises an eyebrow and his glass, miming a sip without actually drinking anything. "If you wanted an opinion."

He rolls the glass between his palms. Do you want to talk about it isn't the way to do this. The answer to that is no. It's always no, and probably always will be. "Who was it? Before Mathias, I mean."

[thering]

"Suppose I could go down to the beach 'nd yell at 'er," he muses with a shrug, blinking tiredly with his head hanging low as his words lazily drag their feet. "Though I doubt she would yell back." He is used to brooding alone. He doesn't project his voice the same way he does with an air of confidence when he's a little more sober and trying to put on a show of having his shit together. As Neal has witnessed, he clearly does not.

"You would know her as 'Kate'." He turns the hand not holding the bottle upwards to face the sky, as if to shrug without going to the effort of moving his shoulders. "I did not notice anything peculiar about her nose." He didn't think it was all that big, or deformed, or unusual in any way. And even if it was, he would have loved her all the same. He had slept with many people, before and during and after Kate. She was different.

"She stuck through a whole lotta hell with me. Flaws and- tuberculosis and, drinking and all. And I cared for her. Deeply. But oh, did we fight. Even on those days I thought I would be my last and didn't have it in me. Sometimes you stick together for the-... sex or the memories or... whatever you tell yourself to help the both of you sleep together at night. But I'd come down with terminal asshole when they told me I was gonna die same way my mother did, and the sicker I got the less I could still be the man she met. Towards the end I think- we tried to leave each other first so we could be the one to have walked away." He doesn't even think about her much anymore, whatever that says about him. Maybe all the little things about her that are still fresh in his mind even after all this time will start to go, with the passage of time, and all that'll be left is a name that makes him sigh without remembering why she invokes all those feelings within him.

"I've been better, with. Wynonna. Or, I've tried." But he doesn't always know where he stands with her. To be fair, he's not as open about his thoughts or his emotions as she wants him to be. Maybe they're both too busy guarding their hearts and saving the world to want to open up to each other. "We've not- had two bottles of this and screamed at each other. I don't wanna do that anymore." Doc rubs his eyes tiredly, sliding his hand down his cheek and brushing his palm over his mouth.

"Did-... used to make me feel better for about three seconds though." The urge to snap like a tightly-wound spring is there even though the wall has already taken the brunt of his pent up frustration.

[conning]

Kate. It hurts to hear the name, even though he should have expected it. Big Nose Kate. In the old photos he'd seen of her later in life, Neal had never really noticed anything strange about her nose, either. He'd always been curious about that.

The rest, though. Neal has always been empathetic. It got him picked on when he was young. He was always the emotional one, the sissy, and until he learned how weaponize the fact that he felt so deeply, it had been a problem. He had friends in St. Louis with parents who fought the way Doc describes. He'd seen some of those arguments. He doesn't think he's ever been that furious with anyone in his life, not in a way he could sustain. Not in a way that would last across years of verbal and physical abuse. Neal tries to imagine what it was like to be one of the fighters, loving and hating at the same time, but all he can find is the fear of a kid bearing witness.

Three seconds of feeling better doesn't seem worth it, to him. Three seconds of peace, like a poisonous little high.

"Wynonna?" Neal can guess who Doc is referring to, from some of the other things he's said. Being rescued by an Earp, believing their fates are intertwined--it's not a leap to put those details together with the name of someone he wants to care about the way he cared about Kate. "What's she like?"

[thering]

"We're not--" Doc shakes his head and shrugs, breathing out a sigh that can be seen in the chill. "Anything. Beyond a bit of kismet, I suppose." That's important for him to clarify. It's just sex. A baby. The end of the world. They have a relationship that occupies that nebulous space where there are no concise words to describe how important they are to each other, but they are stuck at an impasse. She won't tell him what he means to her. He won't go first.

"She's... an Earp." Much as he might try, it's impossible to mask that twinge of a small, fond smile. If Doc was the kind of man to highlight another's flaws there were a few things he could easily say off the top of his head. Hot-headed and strong-headed. Impulsive. Reckless. The foolish side of heroic. Stubborn as anything. If he was still as angry and bitter as he had been all those lifetimes ago there is no doubt there would be plenty of fireworks to make things worse. But if he has nothing good to say then it would be better to not say anything at all, so he considers for a moment before touching upon a paltry few of the many good things he could have said about her.

"Young, you know. With that kind of energy and an unwavering strength of character to do what is right and take on the world." They don't all have that resilience and determination to keep getting back up every time a setback comes. It does not take gambling men to admire someone who does more than anyone else can with the shitty hand they have been dealt. Lesser men would have folded with better cards.

"I am not young anymore. I cannot deal with- this town. With that same grace."

[conning]

"You know that's okay, right?" Neal reaches out with hesitation, putting a hand on Doc's arm.

"People are meant to survive," he says, echoing Doc's words. It was only a week ago, but god it feels like an age. "Grace isn't necessarily part of that. Not always. Not all the time."

[thering]

It's impossible to hide that little flinch, not because he doesn't welcome the touch but he wasn't really expecting it, either. But Doc doesn't mention or do anything to bring more attention to it. With any luck they can let all of tonight slide. He would cut as neat of a hole as he can manage in the wall. Excuse it somehow. And then they both could simply walk away without speaking of it again.

"Grace is all that I had." He feels he is fast running out of offerings to appease the town. He can't be sure what happens at that point, when there is nothing else to give.

[conning]

Neal stops himself from letting go when Doc flinches. He's not protesting the touch. He's not telling Neal to let go. There's nothing in his bearing that says he's upset by the contact, beyond that original little jerk.

"Now you've got us," he says. "Admittedly, the grace is still lacking, but we haven't burned the house down yet."

A pause. "You haven't given up," Neal adds softly. "You're angry yeah, of course you are, you're losing it maybe, but so are the rest of us."

He remembers what Daisy told him days ago, about people knowing about her weakness, about the fear of what someone might think. "You're human. No one person can be strong for everyone else all the time. I know you think you should be, and I know Raylan probably thinks he should be."

Neal shifts his hand from Doc's arm to his shoulder. This would normally be the part where he would ask himself what Peter would say. What Mozzie would say. What Elizabeth or Diana would say. But Doc doesn't know them.

Neal's lips twitch into a small, ironic smile. Maybe he can't speak in moments like this without using someone else's words.

"In some ways, I think Malcolm and I got lucky, in the grand scheme." He pauses. "Okay, maybe saying Malcolm got lucky is... a giant lie, but what I mean is--we both know what it means to rely on people. I think you and Raylan... I think you've only ever had people need you."

He leans forward a little, to get a better look at Doc's face. "None of us just need you. None of us will fall apart if we have to hold you together. We're all just picking up each other's pieces here. You've cut yourself raw and bloody on other people's fragments, and tried to hold yours together at the same time."

Neal looks away, toward the sky, toward the indifferent stars. "I can't say there's nothing to be ashamed of. You won't believe me anyway. But I will say there's nothing wrong with letting us pick up a few of your pieces when the occasion calls for it."

[thering]

"There is plenty of grace in you. And in that house," Doc points out quietly, watching it from where they sit across the road. "Saving wretches like us." Through all the dangers, toils and snares. Neal is right, ultimately. Making it through this place, it is a collaborative effort, and they have to lift each other up to pull through together. Still, it doesn't make the weight of the responsibilities Doc has taken upon himself feel any lighter or easier to bear. There are more pieces than he can hold in both hands. He doesn't feel free to be losing some of his own pieces and leaking out of six holes as well. He doesn't know a safe or comfortable way to do that, when he's been relied upon since his mother died, through the time he got entangled with Wyatt's business up until now.

"I am trying to be Doc friggin' Holliday here," he jokes mirthlessly. "The only 'pieces' I am supposed to have are my Colts." You're cramping his style, Neal Caffrey. Nevermind that neither the man sitting in front of Neal nor any man in this god forsaken town could ever live up to whatever 'Doc friggin' Holliday' is supposed to be.

"I used to-- crave being screamed at," Doc confesses to the stars. "When my lungs were giving up on me, I would say the most hurtful things and goad her on to pick up my hip flask and throw it at me like she used to. Just so I would know she loved me for the man I was, and that I was still-- at least half the man I used to be. Prayed to whatever asshole's sitting up there watching me suffer that I would die first before she could leave me. I do not have pieces worth soiling your hands over."

[conning]

"If you seek a supreme predator, go find God," Neal murmurs, clearly quoting something. After a moment of self-consciousness, Neal wraps his arm around Doc's shoulders. "You're John Henry with a cool nickname. Doc friggin' Holliday is someone in a history book that no one will ever really have the chance to know again. He's a hundred years of stories you didn't have a part in telling. You're... you. You're better than a legend. You're my friend."

[thering]

"Heh. The Good Lord and I are not on speaking terms." Doc would be judged harshly at the pearly gates. He might even try shooting the self-righteous, judgemental asshole thinking himself a wise apostle who thinks he knows the breadth and depth of all human suffering to be able to pass judgement.

Every self-righteous man Doc has ever come across has been a dick. He sincerely doubts God would be any different.

"As a friend I would-- ask that you not speak of this. Momentary lapse in... composure." The big gaping hole in the wall somewhere behind them is a big elephant in the room that will trample and crush them eventually the longer they don't deal with it. But that's never stopped Doc from keeping said elephant stuffed tightly in his skeleton closet.

He doesn’t have very many friends. He can appreciate the gesture even if he will need some more time working towards acceptance.

[conning]

"But..." He should tell Malcolm. At least Malcolm. Someone who can reinforce the fact that it's okay for Doc to have lost his composure. Neal can't help but think keeping silent is a bad idea. He remembers the times he's lost his own composure without intervention, the disasters that followed. "Henry, I really don't think..."

[thering]

"I had a moment. It passed." Doc doesn't promise it won't happen again. It quite possibly will. And maybe it won't look like a pipe wrench vs wall incident next time. Neal doesn't have to agree, and Doc wouldn't hold it against him if he doesn't. But at the same time, it's not likely that Doc would be cooperative with any attempt at talking about it.

"If it would reassure you any, I'm going to make a round." Around the neighbourhood, he means. Walking it off surely means he's dealing with it healthily and there's absolutely nothing to be worried about, right? "Have a look for some more supplies, find something to scream at." He's only joking about the latter. Probably.

"I will lock up here." Doc seems fairly certain that Neal doesn't want to be sticking around this house on his own.

[conning]

"Right." He wants to say something else. He wants to argue more, be more convincing somehow. "You want company?"

He knows the answer. Neal shakes his head at his own stupid question. "I know I'm not... I'm not Raylan. I'm not Malcolm."

He looks down at his hands, at his untouched moonshine. "I know a guy back home. Peter. He's... my best friend. A good man. Does everything for everyone, all the time, and he's always so surprised when people want to do the same for him."

Neal glances sidelong at Doc. "You remind me of him, sometimes. Henry--"

What is he even trying to say at this point? "You're allowed to need help. You are."

[thering]

One eyebrow rises and then the other.

"You're Neal Caffrey," he agrees. Neal can be rest assured that if he was Raylan, he would have reassured him everything was fine and carried on and that would be the end of it. And if he was Malcolm, he would have stood up and walked off by now. He doesn't handle the line of questioning as well as the others in the house can. It is a distinction he will make with Wynonna, somewhere down his timeline, that she is not the other woman - she is simply another woman. And it is the same with Neal. He is not merely the other New Yorker. The other man in the house. Or the other anything. He does not need to fill anyone's shoes other than his own.

"You're the only one I would not mind coming along, if you wanted to." Raylan sees him. Malcolm sees through him. Negan brings out the murderous intent from within him. He is fine with the company of a man who who can straddle and balance between a kind of reverence and a kind of boundary-adhering concern.

"Wyatt had said the same thing to me. But when I needed his help the most he-..." Doc purses his lips, tips his head to the side and breathes out a defeated little sigh, keeping his gaze downcast. Somewhere under that hat lies some deep-seated abandonment issues and a bottomless pit of self-loathing that he just keeps feeding. "Anyway. It was I who burnt that bridge. And now there is nothing for water to run under. Shall we?"

He gets up and dusts himself off before going back inside 1307. He needs his hat. And to lock up. And to-... not look at the damage he's done. Fix it later.