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

a

[reydacted]

Rey's a survivor, but even she wasn't going to stay in the elements for longer than she needed too. After dark she slipped into one of the seemingly vacant homes, sticking to the couch on the ground floor in case she needed to make a quick exit instead of having to deal with jumping out of windows.

She turns her head slowly, eyes wide and mouth parted just slightly as she's caught. Her pulse is spiking, but it does no good to look scared. She's fought her way out of worse before and she's sure she can do it again.

"Is this your house?" ignoring the question entirely. Rey hadn't been able to get a good look at the (printed! she can't believe it) photos or if the young woman in front of her is in any of them.

[enduresurvive]

Rey doesn't actually answer Ellie's question, but that's fine. She wasn't really expecting a literal answer, after all. If she'd been in Rey's place, she wouldn't have answered right away either.

"Not really," she answers. It's clearly not Rey's house either, or that wouldn't be the response. Besides that, everything is all dusty. No footprints. No bodies. No clusters of the fungus. No spores. It's...eerie, actually.

"I came in from the storm. Like you did, I guess." Five had done the same the day before. Ellie is a little bit softer now, but still clearly on her guard, just in case. "Did you wake up on the beach, too?"

[reydacted]

She nods hesitantly.

"This... isn't like where I'm from at all," which is the short explanation. She doesn't recognize any of the technology here. There's paper and ink and there's no transport vehicles in sight.

"Do you... is there anyone else you know here?" Rey had been so fortunate to have a companion follow her. She's not sure if it's the same case for others here.

[enduresurvive]

"It's a little like where I'm from, except, you know. No dead bodies, no Infected, no people constantly trying to shoot each other." She's gotten the feeling that somehow not everyone here has heard of Infected, which seems utterly impossible to her.

Ellie herself has never heard an accent like Rey's before, other than in old movies. It's not like people do a lot of travelling all over the globe in Ellie's world and time, after all. It makes her wonder, again, how the fuck whoever did this got them all here.

She shakes her head in answer to Rey's question. "No. I've only met a couple people, but definitely no one I know. Why, did you not come here alone?" She's immediately interested in that possibility. Does that mean Dina or Jesse or Tommy might be here, too, hiding from the pouring rain in another house?

[reydacted]

Rey's eyes soften as she gives Ellie a sympathetic look. Rey's loneliness is branded on her skin, like a persistent white noise that occasionally amps up the volume. Wherever this other woman came from, it was not kind, but Rey isn't convinced this place is any better.

She opens her mouth about to warn her to look out for tall, dark, and broody but shuts it quickly, shaking her head and compelled to offer a different answer, "No, I was alone too."

The lie slips out so easily and she's not even sure why. It's not as if the First Order and the Resistance exist here. In a lot of ways it would be easier to explain if there were still lines drawn in the sand that kept her and Kylo apart.

"I'm Rey, by the way."

[enduresurvive]

Ellie's injuries are largely covered by her clothes, aside from the bruise on her face, but it's obvious that she's been in some fights. Her world is brutal, especially lately in her opinion. She still hasn't quite grasped that people aren't from the same place. That's a difficult concept to grapple with.

Rey opens her mouth, closes it again, then answers. Ellie isn't versed in how to tell when people are lying. She knows lots of people lie about shit. She sure does, if she has to, and remorselessly. But she doesn't have any reason to guess that Rey isn't telling the truth, so she just accepts the answer.

"Ellie," she says. "I'm Ellie. Guess, uh, we're roomies now? Unless you have some secret plan to kill me in my sleep. But I gotta warn you, I'm hard to kill." There's humour in her tone, and one corner of her mouth crooks up in amusement. But she's also half-serious; she doesn't want to fight Rey if she doesn't have to, but of course she will. She'll fight anyone, if it really comes down to it.

[reydacted]

Rey cracks a grin, her shoulders relaxing at the joke. It's actually pretty horrifying if she thinks about it for too long, that the two of them stood here joking about how sleep is such a vulnerable state, relating about how they might have to use violence to still a threat, and just how woven that was into the fabric of their lives.

But still, it sets Rey a little at ease that someone might understand what had gone through her head each night as she slept in her AT-AT.

"I suppose, if you'll have me," Rey shrugs. "Same conditions, though."

[enduresurvive]

Ellie has long since lost any ability to be horrified by grim jokes. Gallows humour is the only way you survive surrounded by death and the infection. It's definitely one of the only things that has gotten her through. She finds humour harder to find these days, but she still tries sometimes.

"Definitely no killing you in your sleep," Ellie says holding up both hands in mock-defensiveness. "Seems kind of shitty not to give you a chance to fight back, y'know?" She's still joking, of course, awful as it is. But for her, this is a pretty sincere thing too. She's killed people, but she's not a monster. She hopes she's not a monster, even after the things she's had to do to hunt down Abby.

She pushes that train of thought away again.

"So, um...where are you from, anyway?"

[reydacted]

Rey hesitates just a little, shrugging and tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, "Nowhere really worth knowing."

Home had always been sort of an odd concept for her. It's not even like Jakku was really where she was even from, just where she got dumped.

"I've been sort of all over recently. We tend not to stay on one planet for too long--" she offers this almost idly, like interplanetary travel is decidedly not some technological feat.

[enduresurvive]

Ellie takes Rey's answer at face value, because there's a lot of shitty places out there. There are reasons you might not want to tell someone you just met, either. Fine, she can deal with that.

At first, she mishears what Rey says, something about travelling a lot. But then her brain catches up and she does almost a full-on double take.

"Wait, did you say planet?"

[reydacted]

Rey balks a little bit at the fact that planet is the apparent hang up, but she should have figured something was up when there was nay a transport or speeder to be spotted. Grimacing, she's not quite sure she can redirect that.

"You've never been off world before?"

Not the oddest thing. Rey hadn't left Jakku before she was chased off, but to act like the act of doing so was unbelievable is what gives Rey pause.

[enduresurvive]

Ellie just straight up laughs like that's the funniest thing she's ever heard, but there's an edge to it too.

"No. Anyone who was alive when we still had astronauts was probably a kid then, and like...there's definitely none left," she says when she gets that reflex under control again.

"If I could have been anything, if the world were different, I'd have definitely been an astronaut, though," she says. She thinks of the only thing she's ever really seen outside of books that's really about space. The museum, a couple years ago. She'd sat with Joel inside that model lunar pod and listened to a recording of the moon landing. That had been...god, so much better than pretty much anything that came after it, aside from maybe Dina being into her.

"You really...like, what, went to the moon? Man. I wanna go to the moon, because fuck Earth," she continues.

[reydacted]

"You call your moon just moon?"

Now that was ridiculous. Although what could she expect from the society that named their planet another name for the ground or their solar system Sol.

"I've been to a couple different moons but not that one," she jokes because she likes Ellie. It does trouble Rey a little bit at how easily she is willing to throw away her home planet. Not because Rey longs for Jakku... no, she's pretty sure she's content never returning. But that's only because there's nothing to return to.

"What's wrong with Earth?"

[enduresurvive]

Ellie still looks confused, surprised, whatever, by the idea of your moon. She's not sure what to make of Rey, really. She's only the fourth person Ellie's met so far, and she's vastly different from the others. She has an accent like Ellie's never heard in real life. She talks about space like people really just travel there, like she's not from Earth. But she's not an alien, Ellie thinks. Surely an alien would look different somehow.

"Uh, yeah, it's just the moon. I mean, it's not like there's any other ones. I guess other planets have them. And Mars and Jupiter and whatever, their planets have names. So I guess maybe it's weird the regular moon doesn't." She shrugs that off. "Never thought of it."

She looks at her hands, fidgety.

"Earth is fucked," she says. "The infection killed mostly everyone and almost everyone left is kind of a piece of shit anyway."

She forces her hands to still and looks back at Rey.

"You're seriously from space? Like...I mean, not from Earth?"

[reydacted]

"An infection?"

Rey raises her eyebrows, concerned. It's not that she wants to ignore Ellie's question, it's just that she doesn't find her life on Jakku noteworthy in any way worth mentioning.

"Is that-- do you think that's what happened here"

[enduresurvive]

Ellie shakes her head once. "No, I don't think that's what happened here. There's no sign of it. I mean, I guess it could be lurking outside where we can get to but that doesn't make any sense. There's no bodies or blood or spores here. Things here are too calm. I don't know how that's even fucking possible, though."

But then, how is a girl from space possible? Or whatever Five had been going on about, a different sort of apocalypse? She has no answers.