001-003 » a chilling mathias welcome

[villagemod]

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: The east end of Mathias, along the waterfront.
WHEN: Days 001-003
WHAT: The newest residents of Mathias Township are welcomed with a storm.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: A small love letter from your mod. This spot can be used for plotting.

RECOMMENDED ♫ Deadly Avenger "Mara"

DAY 001
THE ARRIVAL BEGINS

Is it the whooshing crash of waves on dark jagged rocks that wakes you? Perhaps. It might also be the near-continuous rumble of thunder growing closer every second, the vibrations almost seeming to come from the wet sand beneath your hands. Or maybe it’s the shivering of your own body as water recedes from the pebble-covered shore, the cold sinking into your very bones as a chilled wind picks up. It could be any of these things that rouse you from a deep slumber that leaves you feeling groggy and out of sorts--

But it’s the fear that gets you moving. A deep, intense terror grips your chest and squeezes the breath right out of you, and you know without a shred of doubt that you have mere minutes before whatever it is you’re so afraid of arrives on that stretch of rocky beach to greet you. Even if you want to stay rooted to that spot and faced it head-on, your body betrays you, a survival instinct etched into your genetic code forcing you to seek shelter.

Welcome to Mathias. You should probably run now.



THE STORM ARRIVES

When the storm crashes into the small township, it's hard to remember what life was like before it. The ocean becomes a raging thing, waves rising and falling as if trying to attack whatever they can reach along the coast. Any foolish enough to venture along the beach have no hope of surviving the encounter; their bodies will be swept out with the current, gone in the blink of an eye.

The wind is a howling beast, screaming between buildings and driving spikes of cold into any crevice it can reach. The rain is just shy of freezing, every drop like a shard of icicle trying to itself into your skin. It will bite at your nerves and leave you shaking if you stay out in it too long, so you had best get inside if you haven't already. You certainly don't want to attract the attention of the lightning that arcs in the sky like a vengeful god ready to unleash its wrath.

The Grey Gull restaurant sits at the edge of the town along the beach, and just a few yards away are two parallel rows of houses lining what might be a picturesque street if the world weren't beginning to resemble an apocalyptic landscape.

Move quickly, and choose wisely.

DAY 002
THE STORM RAGES ON

The storm has somehow become even more violent overnight. The world outside your shelter might be trapped in an endless night, for all you can see through the thick covering of storm clouds. Lightning continues to streak across the sky, thunder following almost immediately in its wake, threatening just how near those spikes of electricity truly are. You can see them touch the shore at times, even the street between the homes, but never the buildings themselves. A blessing, perhaps, or an oddity to take note of?

Some may be foolish enough to try venturing outside. They are welcome to, of course, that is their right, but the rain is still like ice and that lightning is so very near. You may try heading further into town, and you can certainly see buildings beyond this row of houses, but should you walk toward them...

Well. It is far from a pleasant experience. Exhaustion sinks into your bones so quickly that it leaves you reeling, and every second you push through it makes you physically ill with a feeling that you might collapse at any moment. The second you turn away from that path, however, you feel infinitely, and even more so each step back the way you came.

Something wants you to stay where you are. Perhaps you should.

DAY 003
THE CALM DESCENDS

The third day begins much as the second, with waves crashing upon the shore and thunder booming with such force that the ground seems to shake. It feels very much like the world might end right there, torn apart by a force of nature unlike any seen before. Any who venture outside at this time are almost immediately afflicted with a terror so intense that they can make it no more than a few yards or the short distance to cross a street before they become incapacitated by the fear that sets their heart beating dangerously fast. The term scared to death may very well become literal this day.

And then, suddenly it stops. The rain, thunder, lighting— all if it just stops and the silence that fills the night is deafening. There are no sounds of life within the town, no car motors or dogs barking or the voices of anyone beside those new arrivals in the immediate vicinity. In fact, none of those things even exist in Mathias. There are no cars, no animals or insects, no other people. There is just... emptiness and silence.

It may be best to wait until daylight to move further inland.



THE NIGHT DARKENS

For those who are foolish enough to leave the relative safety of the cluster of houses near the Grey Gull, they will find their journey quite chilling, in a very literal sense. There is another row of houses beyond where they had been, branching off on either side into a neighborhood. There are no lights on in any of these homes, though there are occasional streetlights illuminating their way. But as they continue further, reaching a third block of houses, those lights begin to dim, until they have gone out completely, and what had previously been a simple fall chill becomes biting cold as the temperature sharply drops.

In all of this, there is silence. No sounds travel through that night air to comfort them, and even looking up to the sky stretched out above them offers little reassurance. That sky is black, without a single star and not even the faintest outline of the moon to guide them. All that reaches them here is the barest hint of light traveling from the way they've come. The longer they linger outside in this place, the colder it will become, and any light they carry with them will slowly begin to dim as well.

Truly, they should have waited until the sun rose once more.

---

LOCATIONS

THE GREY GULL is what one might expect of the most frequented restaurant in a small coastal town. The wrap-around porch is lined with white chairs characterized by peeling paint. Exposed wooden walls and worn seating speak to its many years of existence, and the mishmash of décor confirms that the owner never much cared for how the place looked. What mattered here was the food, and faded chalk menus advertise soup specials and a daily pie. The bar appears to have once been well-stocked, but all the bottles remaining are unfortunately empty. There is, however, quite a bit of food in the kitchen that is somehow as fresh as if it were purchased that day.

The second floor of the restaurant is a sparsely furnished apartment. There are no personal items to be found; perhaps it was waiting to be rented out to someone.

THE HOUSES are well-kept, middle-class homes, four lining either side of the street. Their doors are unlocked, windows unshuttered, and everything within feels like the owners might return at any second. There is running water and electricity, fresh food in the fridge, photographs on the wall... but also dust everywhere. If you didn't know better, you'd say the place had been abandoned for years, and yet nothing has aged. It is both strange and unsettling, and yet no matter how hard you search, no answers may be found within these homes.

What can be found within them, however, is a phone. One single black phone within a main room of the house, and beside it, a list of handwritten numbers and names that have been crossed out.

1302 8-5491 Thomasen
1304 8-9256 Lyrie
1306 8-4712 Anders
1308 8-3201 Mulcalley

1301 8-0415 Sanderson
1303 8-6762 Reese
1305 8-9132 Evers
1307 8-9025 Hirano

Should your character choose to shelter in one of the houses, you are welcome to choose the features of that particular unit. Please reply to the comment thread below with the details you decide upon, specifying the house number in the subject line.

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Comments

rey - open/closed

[reydacted]

day 1 (closed to kylo)

[reydacted]

[ Rey groans, skin scraping against the jagged edges of the small rocks covering the beach. Claps of thunder fill her ears and the wind whips against her skin with a wicked chill. She moves her arm, groggily, shielding herself from the drops of rain that start to pelt her cheeks, so icy they almost burn the path as they roll across her face.

Despite having apparently been unconscious, her heart feels like its racing, blood pooling in her legs with the intent to run building.

And she feels him. Not some tenuous connection across the galaxy nipping at the edges of her mind. No, he's close and in the flesh, laying on the beach the same as her. She scrambles to her feet, patting at her hip only to find her hilt missing. She stumbles over to Kylo, falling back again to her knees to root around at his belt, his cloak, anywhere he might be hiding either of their sabers. ]

[warfares]

( he comes awake in stages—gradually at first and then all at once, grabbing at the wrist of whoever is rifling through his clothes, jerking it forward suddenly, intending to catch the would-be thief off-guard.

as he does this, one hand slides around to press against the small of their back, enclosing them in a tight bear-hug. )

Tell me why I shouldn't crush the life out of you.

( as if to punctuate his point, the arm around her will tighten. )

[reydacted]

[ She fights, bursting with all the feral and untamed energy that came with life on Jakku. A fight with Kylo doesn't scare her, but it's stupid to think he doesn't have the advantage of size on his side. She throws all of her weight into twisting out of his hold, jamming her shoulder into his chest to force him to loosen his grip, free an arm to elbow his jaw-- anything to help her slip from his grasp. ]

Stop-- [ She hisses instinctually, not realizing that her voice might have been the most effective strategy from the start. ] Let me go, Ben!

[warfares]

( his head snaps back, pain a starburst across his vision. bright, red, ferocious. startled, his grip loosens and rey is able to put some distance between them while he recovers, eventually bringing up a hand to prod at his jaw, testing for injury.

the flare of pain radiating from his jaw aside, everything is where it's meant to be. )

Isn't corpse-looting beneath you?

[reydacted]

[ She huffs, rolling her eyes. Like he's in any position to speak of honor.

She's got a few options here. Fight, although if he's got both their sabers she stands no chance-- or run. Her eyes flick to the side and back to him, so fast she hopes he doesn't notice. She's agile, she could dash over the rocky outcropping and into a patchy forest stand. Is the cover good enough that she could lose him? ]

Corpses don't talk back. Or steal. [ A pretty hypocritical accusation from the girl who seems content to take everything that belongs to him. ] Give it to me.

[ Where else would her saber be? ]

[warfares]

Give what back?

( frustration twists his expression into a snarl as he staggers to his feet. his hand falls instinctively to his belt, seeking the familiar weight of his saber — except that his fingers grasp at empty air, the hilt gone.

panic snaps through him like an electric current, eyes widening briefly. his first thought is that she must have taken it. a thought that gets brushed aside almost as quickly as it pushes to the surface. she can't have it. she wouldn't have risked getting this close to him if she did.

which means someone else must have it, or —

a quick glance toward the rolling waves, mouth pulling down in a frown. if the see has taken it there's no way he'll be getting it back. then, he's back to watching rey. wary. )

Planning to kill me in my sleep? How very like a Jedi.

[reydacted]

[ A low blow. Her features flinch defensively. She had left him unconscious and (physically) mostly unharmed on the Supremacy. Darkness slides against the edge of her mind, it would have been so easy. Even now she can feel a familiar fury building against him on the heels of what she had been pushed to do on Pasaana, her fists clenching as she's tempted to end this once and for all without even crossing sabers.

Lucidity and light manages to break through, though, and her stomach churns at the thought of unleashing the full might of her own power. Her face pales at the realization and she turns to run instead, bolting inland. ]

[warfares]

Frak. ( softly, just beneath her breath. he hadn't intended that reaction—isn't sure, truthfully, of what he's intended except to hurt her at least as much as she had hurt him.

overhead there's the ominous rumble of thunder. bursts of light illuminating the thick wool of the storm clouds overhead, as if to drive home the fact that lingering is quickly becoming a non-option. it takes away some of the sting as he gives chase, long legs quickly eating up the ground as he closes the distance between them. )

day 2 (closed to five)

[reydacted]

[ Surely with the houses seemingly vacant and abandoned, no one will really miss anything Rey can find. Her scavenger instincts are ringing strongly right now, and any collection is an advantage. She will be happy to share with the small population that seems to have found themselves stuck here, but she's not sure everyone will.

It's all she needs to justify her expeditions and explorations into the houses. They're so different from what she's used to, the appliances look strange and the clothing in the closets she's peeked into are nothing like any style she's ever seen before. She snags a backpack from one, but any tools she finds are totally analog and a bit primitive in her opinion. She doesn't give up, though. She climbs through an unlocked window on the ground floor of the next house, finding herself in the kitchen. She starts to root around in the cabinets and drawers to take anything that looks mildly interesting. ]

[fika]

[ Five was, effectively, forced to stay put for a short while, in one of the houses lined up in the neat picturesque row. He's exhausted his powers with determined efficiency, and found himself in the former Thomasen house, clothes damp and cold.

He had just finished steeping over-sweetened black tea, venturing into the living room and away from the kitchen when he hears the rustling, distinct from the billowing noise of terrible weather outside. The latter is more an ambient howl now, flashes of lighting and booming thunder.

Five creeps back through, hugs the wall out of instinct before peering around.

When he sees her, rooting through the cupboards, he snorts. ] They got some Honey Nut Cheerios, if you're interested.

[reydacted]

[ Her shoulders jump up, startled, as the cutlery she was holding slips out of her hands and clatters on the kitchen floor. She turns her head sharply and-- man who let a kid in here.

She scoops up the forks and knives, slipping a few into her bag before she puts them back on the counter.

There's probably far better questions to ask but she's not gonna move past it without knowing: ]

What're cheerios?

[fika]

[ kid excuse u he is an!! adult!! He looks at the assortment of cutlery splayed on the ground, but the question gets a chortle out of him.

because the assumption here is that there's a place and time that cheerios may not exist. which, not unlikely. just...he never thought about that.] It's a sweet cereal.

Here. [ he moves easily over to the tall pantry cabinet besides, before scooping up a box from there.

there's definitely more pressing questions to be asking here than enlightening one to the existence of honey nut cheerios, but this was refreshingly mundane compared to everything else around them. ] For all the shitshow oh unknowns here, they're surprisingly well-stocked.

[a far cry from the last time he got stuck anywhere. ]

[reydacted]

[ She takes the box, eyeing it warily. It's hard to turn down food when a) she's hungry and b) she's eaten her share of questionable things as a scavenger. She flips the tab open on the box, sniffing curiously, and pulls out a handful. ]

It's the fact that they are so well stocked that's unnerving. [ Naturally she is talking with her mouth full because what are manners. The conversation is oddly casual for the circuits that are firing in her brain. No bodies, so it wasn't like they were killed here. ] Even when you're running you take some things. And supplies get picked over quickly where I'm from.

[ She looks down at the box taking another handful. Whoever was chasing them wasn't interested in cheerios. ]

[fika]

[ He takes a sip from his mug, one hand in his pocket and leans back against the counter with one leg cross over the other at the ankle. ]

Like they up and left. Doesn't look like it was in a hurry. [ He nods, in thoughtful agreement, barely noticing her so-called lack of manners. he grew up around 6 other siblings. this was heart-achingly familiar.

He only glances back up at her at the mention of another place.] Oh yeah? And where would that be?

[reydacted]

Nowhere. [ She waves the question off in between chews. She's hungry and takes food when she can get it, even if there is an unexplained relative abundance here. ] Just some backwater junk planet. You?

[ For has oddly as he's dressed, it doesn't occur to Rey that he might be coming from a place that doesn't think of travel on quite the galactic scale. This place may be bizarre and primitive but it's got to be bizarre and primitive to everyone right? ]

[fika]

Planet? [ And she thought she was being elusive. Likely, she still was, but that gets a surprised look her way. ]

Does that mean you're not from Earth? [ Now this was interesting, if true.

Sure, this place seemed a little outdated, a small fishing town off of some coast in what he could only describe as new england, but it wasn't space travel primitive.

Of course, he doesn't immediately offer up an answer to her own question, though not entirely for the purpose of being vague. ]

day 3 night (closed)

[reydacted]

[ The storm cleared just in time for night to fall, but Rey was a survivalist, and if darkness was the only thing that stood between Rey getting the lay of the land, she wasn't going to let it stop her.

Equipped with a battery powered torch, she slips out of the house she shares with Ellie and she stalks down the empty streets to another row of unoccupied houses. In the quiet of the night, her trained ears pick up on even the most subtle noises, including boots following a familiar gate.

Also having the Force doesn't hurt. ]

I know you're there.

[warfares]

( he'd been thinking about trying to push past the huddle of houses, to locate any of the landmarks he'd seen displayed in the evers' home, but the night was thick and dark and the terrain unfamiliar. he'd hesitated.

but rey, it seems, hadn't.

when the connection opens, he's in the living room, paging through one of the coffee table books. some sort of local guide. )

You've been avoiding me.

( it's a statement rather than a question. he knows that she's been avoiding him, just as he knew that it wouldn't last forever. )

[reydacted]

[ She steadies herself, heels dug into the ground and a defensive stance. Even in the dark, he seems to carry the light from whatever place he's chosen as shelter to illuminate him. It's odd and organic, not at all like the manufactured and sterile light of star ships, just one of the subtle details that refuses to let her forget how truly far they are from their home.

It has had her reeling since they arrived. She can't seem to fully wrestle with the very concept of erasing the lines that the galaxy had drawn for them, and it has her reeling.

It fills the spaces of her mind, but she shouldn't let it change anything. It can't. So she does what comes naturally to her when reality conflicts with what she needs to be true: she lies. ]

I don't want to see you.

[warfares]

Then stop looking.

( the implication being that she must be the one seeking him out rather than the other way around. which must be true, at least on some level, because he had never been able to force it no matter how hard he tried.

finally, he closes the book and lifts his head, glancing over his shoulder toward her. like so many times, his gaze skips over, face to body to back again ㅡ lingering a moment on the torch ㅡ in an effort to figure out where she might be. )

Where are you?

[reydacted]

[ She finds the accusation near eye-roll inducing, breathing out a quick and annoyed huff. She wasn't, thank you. She wasn't even thinking about him and where he sheltered, more revisionist half-truths rewriting where her mind had really been since they fled the beach. ]

Do you actually expect me to answer that?

[warfares]

No.

( because that would be too easy, and he knows better than to expect easy when it comes to her. everything with rey is like pulling teeth: a slow, patience-testing exercise that he's never entirely sure he'll best.

but he wouldn't have it any other way. )

But I had to try.

[reydacted]

You had to. [ She mimics, sounding rather unimpressed. As if some obligation had followed them through time and space. ] This isn't our home. You have no reason to chase me.

[ She treads on dangerous territory, taking hits at the ideas that she maintains for her own sanity. Shouldn't she be glad he's still Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader, chasing Rey of Jakku, the Last Jedi, rather than embracing the anonymity of this place? She clutches the torch tightly, wishing it was the hilt of her saber instead. That's a means of communication she knows much better. ]

[warfares]

And who would I chase if not you?

( chin lifting, there's a wry twist to the question that suggests it's more of a tease than a threat. though, with kylo ren it can easily be seen as either. )

Perhaps I enjoy it.