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

[hellblaze]

"Cheers," he nods to her thanks. "Not my coffee. Someone else who came through found it yesterday. Not the best in my opinion, but, suppose it's better than not having anything warm. Especially when the place has no alcohol."

John walks over to the counter and takes a seat at the chair he had been in with an earlier encounter. He checks his lighter and then the cigarettes. Ah, shit. Still too wet. He leans back with an annoyed sigh.

"I don't suppose you've gone beyond those nice houses down the way."

[enduresurvive]

Ellie shrugs. "I don't think I know the difference between good and bad coffee. We don't have much of it where I'm from."

No alcohol? Now that seems weird to her. She's not a big drinker or anything, but she's had drinks before, sure. But this place, this town, doesn't look totally ransacked yet, so why would the booze be gone? Did these people who lived here take the time to take it with them?

She watches the thing with the cigarette but doesn't comment on it.

"No, the storm just...man, I don't fucking know. It sounds stupid, but I felt like I was gonna pass out out there." She shakes her head. This place is weird. John and his accent are weird.

"Thanks. For helping me, I mean. I'm Ellie, by the way." She may not quite trust him yet, and she's not Miss Manners, but keeping allies on your side is probably the way to go in a place like this.

[hellblaze]

"Oh, well, most of it comes to preference. Some like loads of sugar. Others like the idea of it being as bitter as possible. Not much of a fan of the lack of variety here."

He looks over at her as she admits what she does. Eyebrows raise slightly. Not out of judgement or cynicism. If anything? He believes her and is taking a mental note of it. He hasn't gone much farther than the Gull just yet.

"Oh, you looked like you were about to fall flat on your face for a bit, luv. By chance... you didn't run into anything, did you? Feeling like spiderwebs or something solid you couldn't see?" John turns in his seat to look at her. "John."

[enduresurvive]

Ellie isn't big on sugar, largely because it's also not all that easy to get. Yeah, you can get it sometimes, but it's not worth it. So sweet coffee isn't really her thing (which is probably part of why she just finds coffee bitter and overrated). She hasn't really considered the whole food situation much; there were a couple things in her pack leftover, but she knows how to go without. Jackson kind of spoiled her, since they always have food, but...

Well, best not to think too hard about Jackson just now.

Her face scrunches up in confusion at John's question.

"Spiderwebs? What, no, I just felt...kinda sick, that's all. I definitely wasn't hallucinating invisible shit." Even she isn't that far gone, she thinks. What a weird question, though.

[hellblaze]

He flashes her a quick smile. "Better safe than sorry. Especially in a situation like this."

Whatever it is here can just instill dread and that feeling of illness right off the bat? He would of thought it was just a nasty ghost with a vendetta, but, something on this scale? Without that smell of sulfur anywhere? It does leave him a bit perplexed.

"Call me nosy, Ellie, but you look like you're about ready to go to war."

[enduresurvive]

She's still visibly confused. Was that invisible thing a joke? It had to be a joke. There's no such thing as invisibility, after all, except in movies and comics and shit like that. If only there were. But then, the government probably would have fucked it up long before Ellie was even born, she's sure.

Her face hardens a bit at his comment. "There's something I have to do," she says, in answer. It's not quite an admission, but he's not wrong in his guess. Most everyone she knows has been trained to fight, to shoot, but not usually with the aim of fighting regular people. You can't think of Infected as people; they aren't anymore, not really.

She decides to change the subject. She has a pretty good feeling she knows what John will say, based on the few other conversations she's had, but she tries anyway.

"You haven't seen any Infected here, have you? I haven't looked everywhere, but there's, like, not even a sign of them."

[hellblaze]

Oh, wait till she really gets into what his job titles are. Then she'll really think he's certified insane.

He gives a nod to her statement in return. Oh, he understands that. Personal missions and all. Albeit his is a bit more direct mission from Heaven... though he would of fought the Rising Darkness without the feathered bastard demanding his help. Good thing everything all aligned in nice cherry line.

"Can't say I know exactly what an Infected is, but, I haven't seen anyone looking like they're sick. Just half-drowned." He gives a shrug. "There's not a sign of any people in this town other than the ones who washed up."

[enduresurvive]

Ellie barely hears anything he says after don't know what an Infected is. She still can't get this bit through her head. Sure, there's no sign of the infection here, but how can it be that she's the only one who knows about it? The proof is branded on her skin, under the chemical burn on her arm, under the tattoo that covers that burn. The proof is in her brain, too, the fungal infection there but somehow not controlling her.

"You're not just fucking with me, right?" she asks, a frown settling between her eyebrows as she looks at John. "It's not an illness, it's...well, I guess it's an illness. It wiped out, like, most of the population before I born." She doesn't go into further detail. It would be an impossible thing to pretend you didn't know about, she thinks. But after her conversations with others, she has a feeling that John isn't just fucking with her.

[hellblaze]

Ah. So, the conversation about the alternate timelines and all that then already. Bit early considering they've just met, but, John figures why the hell not. Though, like everyone else in this place, he doesn't expect her to go along with it or even believe it.

He raises his hand and starts to draw circles in the dust that remains on the counter. "Thing is, luv. There's this concept of what's called the multiverse. Means there's multiple realities, timelines, universes, worlds, whatever you want to call them. Some are very different and some are barely different. Where I'm from? All that separates the different Earths..."

John draws squiggly lines through the circles.

"...is one vibration, one frequency. Bit science-y for my taste, but it basically means everything resonates a differently from one another. Your reality has this thing that's made the Infected, yeah? Mine has a primordial darkness that's causing the evils of humanity to be even worse than you'd think."

A shrug. "No idea what this bloody town is just yet."

[enduresurvive]

"I know what the multiverse is," Ellie shoots back. "I read fucking comic books. But it's just...comic books. It's not...that kind of thing can't be real." Despite the scepticism, she's...fuck, she's kind of wondering now.

Five asked her what year it was. 1963 Dallas. He hadn't meant 1963 as code. 1963 was the year. That's so long ago she can't even really think of it. She's young enough that really, even the 1980s seems like ancient history to her. But more than that, the idea that people could come here from that far away...

If time travel is possible, why can't she just go back and save Joel? She can't help thinking like that. She's wished it many times, and not just about Joel, but about herself. About dying to save humanity instead of Joel saving only her without her permission. About when she'd been bitten to begin with. All the rest of it.

Fuck, this is too much. Too much what if shit will drag you under, and she knows it. She can already feel it, that spiralling panic that threatens in her mind. It's so much easier to shove it down when she's fighting, seeking her mad revenge. In this place, it crowds her in and she can't escape from it as easily.

"Nothing humans do can surprise me with how shitty it is now, even if I believed in primordial darkness. Which, for the record, I don't." She probably means that. It's nothing personal, of course, but how is she supposed to feel with this guy with a funny accent just telling her this crap matter-of-fact?

[hellblaze]

Comic books. John can't help but give a laugh at that, because of course, it'd go to comic books. That or science fiction. Something about the idea of science fiction doesn't seem to merge with the idea of Ellie. Probably because coffee is so weird to her, he just presumes she wouldn't bother with science fiction.

"Well, where I'm from? That's just the way it is." He gives a shrug and then wipes it away with his hand. "So is Heaven, Hell, and everything in between. Though that bit is harder for most people to take in."

That, and he feels now isn't the best time for a conversation like that. There's something going on with her. Something he intends not to ask on since it's really none of his business. Walls between people were still a good idea, especially when it comes to him. People do better when they're a safe emotional distance from him.

"See, we say that. Nothing can surprise me now." He shakes his head and looks up at the ceiling. "Then something comes along... there's always one little thing that does. When it comes around? Oh, it blows everything you thought you knew right out of the bloody water. Humanity is good and evil, but when it's evil? It really sinks father down every fucking time."

[enduresurvive]

She can't even deal with the idea of Heaven and Hell right now. She doesn't actually know many people who are religious at all. The ones old enough to remember the world ending tend to be bitter and cynical about things like that. The younger ones, like her, don't have much reason to believe in anything. And then the ones that do, the ones she's really seen? They're all fucking bonkers cultists like the Seraphites in Seattle or whatever other goddamn group might be out there.

Ellie doesn't believe in things like god and heaven and the afterlife. She's never found time.

"Look, I almost got chopped into dinner meat when I was fourteen," she says. "And that's just part of it. Human beings are fucking terrible, I know. Way worse than Infected. At least Infected are just...I don't know. Running on some fucked up instinct. It's not personal when they try to eat you." She wishes she could sound dispassionate, but...that's never come easy to her. She feels too much.

"You know this is, like, massively hard to believe, right?"

[hellblaze]

"Cannibals. Nasty business." John frowns slightly at her, as if he's sorry to hear it. There's all sorts of fucked up things in the world... it seems like she and her world know it better than others. "There's few things worse than an evil son-of-a-bitch, but, they do exist. If you want to let yourself believe it."

There's nothing but agreement in her dispassionate tone. John is a humanist, but, he's more than aware what bastards humanity can decide to be.

"Trust me. I've done this bit of the song and dance before. Believers, nonbelievers. Doesn't much change the facts." He points to the ceiling as if to gesture to the town itself. "Facts being we've all been summoned here from different points in time and apparently different realities. Not sure why, but... I plan to find out."

[enduresurvive]

"You have no idea," Ellie says, though she does get the impression John has some idea, sure. It's hard to explain the rest of it, how absolutely awful David was, how they almost burned to death, Joel being sick from his injury...

God. She'd be dead so many times if it weren't for Joel.

She should be dead, though. She should.

Well, that's too many feelings to have in front of a man she's just met who's going on about alternate universes, so she stuffs all that back down to never deal with. That's how it goes, right?

"I don't even give a shit why," she says. "And maybe not how. I don't want to leave my friends hanging, and like...wondering. They'll just think I died, but...they'd look for me. I mean, they wouldn't give up without a body." At least...she thinks they wouldn't. Dina is sick, but that's not really the point. Jesse might want to take Dina back. If Tommy is still alive, though, he wouldn't go back. Not without knowing. Not until it's over. Ellie wouldn't, in his place.

[hellblaze]

"You'd be surprised at the ideas I've run into."

He raises his eyebrows at that statement. "The thing is, most the time you need to know the how in order to reverse it and get back home. If it's done by traditional magic, of course. For all I know it might be aliens."

Hopefully it's magic and not aliens.

She brings up a good point though. What will the others do back home? Well, he stalked off into the rain, so no doubt Chas and Zed will be looking for him regardless. Manny? Well, that feathered bastard should know where he is at anyways. Odd that he hasn't made himself known in some grand entrance.

"Makes you wonder if It plucked us out of our homes without a word... or if something more sinister happened."

[enduresurvive]

"I think I'd prefer aliens to magic," Ellie says, cynicism evident in her tones. She doesn't really think aliens exist, at least...not in her version of the universe or whatever the fuck they're talking about here. Aliens - like the multiverse - are things in comic books and old movies with terrible, amazing special effects. Infected might as well be aliens, sinister and unknowable, even to Ellie, who is technically one of them.

But aliens seem easier to get her head around than this nebulous idea of magic.

"What do you mean, something more sinister?" She wants an answer, but she also doesn't. She's pretty sure she won't like this answer. She can already feel her heart rise into her throat. Dina. I have to get back to Dina. She's surprised at herself that her first thought is of Dina and not of revenge. So maybe she's not a total monster yet.

[hellblaze]

"Most people do. Aliens tend to be tangible, something to fight and punch against. Magic is usually a bit harder to grasp."

At least he doesn't seem to be too bothered that she isn't a believer. Though, she'll either see the world and things that are in it, or she won't. It is a choice they all make at one point in their lives.

"Wouldn't it be nice if I had an answer?" John clicks his tongue against his teeth. "Just a theory, luv. Nothing more. That's all we've got."