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

[thering]

"Alright, mister Five." A man is free to call himself what he likes and since Number Five has firmly established the fact that he is not to be referred to or thought of as a child, Five his name shall be.

"You can do that to return to where you came from?" Of course he can. He can disappear from one place and appear in another. He could possibly be halfway around the world in an instant. Or move through time, fix mistakes in the past, change the present and chart out the future at the drop of a hat.

"That is truly remarkable." Perplexing, still, but remarkable. Doc is admittedly a little envious of being able to right some wrongs so seemingly easily, but at the same time he can see how it would make life needlessly complicated.

"Let us focus on finding some answers about the date, then." They all have family they would like to be returning to, but even if they don't get the answers they are seeking, he would be happy to get just one person back to the place they came from.

"Some newspapers perhaps, or the television?" Not in the kitchen, either way.

[fika]

"Technically," Five doesn't sound enthused. "The last two times I tried anything like that, I ended up stranded in an apocalypse for forty five years. The other time, I scattered my entire family across three years of the 60s in Texas."

It's the abridged version. Shit results before Doc thinks these powers infallible in the same sort of way Five made the mistake of thinking long before. There wasn't an illusion that they were impossibly advantageous, no, the extents of which were still somewhat unexplored. But, freezing waters and acorns and all that.

Actually, he hadn't even tested out his ability of going back several seconds, let alone opening another temporal rift, as of yet, and a part of him was strangely apprehensive to even try. "But I can't give up without trying."

Still, Doc's near lack of hesitation in offering to help him gets him a very curious look. Grateful surprise, maybe, beneath barely raised brows. "Yeah. Yeah, anything like that. I just need numbers."

Speaking of, as he raises his gaze to look around them once again, he stops on the wall clock. "And - let's check if the clocks all stopped at the same time."

[thering]

Even the abridged version sounds plenty complicated and Doc doesn't quite know what to say at first. He's had his own dangerous sort of troubles to deal with but apocalyptic is probably overstating it.

"You look... much younger than you are." Probably a bit rich coming from one 160something year old man, and it might not be all that insightful, but here they are. Five must be in his 60s now. Doc might treat him a little differently, but honestly. Not by much.

"How may I reach you? Should I find some information that you seek?" Doc doubts they will want to be sticking together 24/7. "Should I leave a message at the restaurant?"

[fika]

"I'm 58," it's said with deeply internalized pain, at that, because damn it!! "A mistake in the calculations when I was hopping back." He isn't pouting, not at all.

Never mind the fact that even in the real terms of his age and experiences endured, he's still a kid when it comes to the (lesser known) fact that Doc is a century older than him. It would lessen the sting of Doc's prior approach, though not by much.

"I'll be over at the old Thomasen house," said as he points to the crossed out list of numbers by the phone. "Last place I'll look for the time being, but - the restaurant isn't a bad idea either."

Less unreliable, maybe. "Alright, notes in the restaurant. I'll do the same if I find anything useful."

[thering]

"Some mistakes you can blink and forget about, and no one's any wiser. But others you can't ever come back from, son, even if you did make it back." Sorry Five, he can't help it. Please don't take his kneecaps out.

"I will find you at the Thomasen house then, and if you are not there, the restaurant." Doc tips his hat and flashes a tight-lipped smile before he parts ways with Five, heading back for the door. Unfortunately the weather hasn't really improved, but. Seeing as they've been nothing but wet over the past couple of days, it can't really get much worse.