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]

Doc takes most things in his stride, and he gets that reaction enough that it doesn't faze him in the slightest.

"As did I," he reassures her. Or perhaps it's not that reassuring. It is likely that they both have a growing pile of unanswered questions and no one to get any answers from. It just seems bit worse

"Have you eaten?" Even if they're not hungry, food can be disarming, and it might put them both a little more at ease.

[enduresurvive]

She nods, more or less expecting his answer by now. Seems like no one she's met here is from here. All that dust on everything...it's like the people who lived here just vanished. No blood, no bodies, just...dust from a long absence.

"No, I didn't really think about eating," she says, and that's true. She's been running on bare bones stuff since just before she got here. She can survive on very little when she has to, though of course a real meal would probably be a good idea.

[thering]

"Would you care to join me?" He's not much of a chef to be honest, she won't be getting a turducken or puffer fish sashimi, but food back in his day wasn't half as complicated as it is in the world he's become accustomed to. Some bread, beans, beef and potatoes and you were sorted for life. He can at least serve up something hot and edible.

"I think I did spot some bread, in the kitchen. Though I'm not sure how it got here..." In particular, he's not sure how it's not grown into a hedge made out of mould by now.

[enduresurvive]

"You're not gonna expect me to do some weird shit in return, right?" Ellie asks, unable to throw her suspicion aside. A lot of people in Jackson are nice without expectation, but people outside Jackson? Well, you just never know. This man seems nice enough, but people are good at fooling you.

"Wait, bread? Like...someone made bread? Who?" If no one was in town, who could possibly have made bread? The idea of pre-packaged bread is totally foreign to her. It's been long enough since the Infection started that she's never seen pre-packaged food that's still good. And bread? Definitely not. All the perishable things like that vanished before Ellie was old enough to remember any of them.

[thering]

"Um..." He seems a little confused by that question, eyes drifting from left to right. "Well I was. Just hoping we could talk, miss?" Is that considered 'weird shit'?

"Another question in a long list of questions. Come have a look?" he offers, gesturing towards the kitchen. There's all sorts of food, in the kitchen. Nothing smells or tastes off and he has eaten some of it before, and he hasn't gotten sick from it.

"Pffuh, there's even a toaster," he says with a sigh blown out through his lips. It is one of the better modern appliances he has come across, though its uses are fairly limited just to toasting bread.

[enduresurvive]

Ellie makes a sound between a scoff and a laugh. "Yeah, we can talk." That's definitely not weird. If that's really all he wants, then it seems a pretty good trade.

She stands up again and goes to follow him to the kitchen. She's not expecting much, really, because food is a scarcity to her. Yeah, she's been well taken care off the past few years because Jackson is relatively safe. They can grow food. There are deer and rabbit aplenty in the forest. But still, there are harder times.

"A toaster? Wow," she says, actually impressed. She's used a toaster and some other kitchen appliances, but usually she wouldn't bother.

"This is weird, right? I mean...it looks like no one has been in this whole town for weeks but there's edible food? That's fucking suspicious."

[thering]

"Small comforts are known to lull people into a false sense of security," he agrees with a purse of his lips and a few nods, but he's not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Especially when they've been gifted with precious little else to get by.

"I have had the bread and survived. I think it's safe to trust that at least." He spends a good half minute washing his hands and lower arms before popping a couple slices into the toaster.

Getting one of the cans open however, is another ordeal. Can openers looked a lot different in the mid-1800s and he would have just gotten his knife out and stabbed through the lid anyway so he would have never bothered with one. There's a modern type sitting next to the pile of cans, but. Doc just picks the strange contraption up and turns it over in his hand, turning what looks like a handle that is meant to be turned and watching the cogs move.

[enduresurvive]

"Okay," she says, still sceptical. But now that she's thinking about it, she is hungry. And if she can fill up now, that will keep her going a few more days so she can get the fuck out of this weird ass town. She hopes for a map, but she'll go without one. Seems better than being stuck here, and it seems better to go before another storm hits. She's usually more of a planner than that, but desperate times.

Every day she's stuck here is a day Dina is stuck without her. Jesse will take care of Dina, she knows, but...fuck, this wasn't supposed to happen. Of all the shitty things that weren't supposed to happen since she and Dina left Jackson, this is really top of the list.

She watches the whole bit with the can opener, arms crossed, judgmental without quite meaning to be. Finally, taking pity on him, she laughs and reaches for the can opener.

"Come on, Henry, even I've seen one of these babies before. What's up?"

[thering]

"What is it for?" He lets go once she has a proper grasp on it. There might have been one in Wynonna's kitchen drawer but honestly, if he spends any stretch of time in her kitchen, he's not diving deep into her drawers. Baby steps so far have included some appliances, like the microwave, the toaster, the oven, the fridge. There is a coffee machine he is particularly enamoured with at the police station, and he would be the strange out of place-looking fellow making cooing noises at it from time to time. Stranger things happen on the regular in Purgatory, no one bats an eyelid at Doc Holliday's... frequent jarring encounters with modern technology.

"Can you open these?" He picks up a can of beans and holds it out towards her. "With that?"

[enduresurvive]

"Are you fucking with me?" she asks, face pulling into something warier. She can deal with being fucked with, of course, especially if it's funny and no one gets actually hurt. After all, even up to a few months ago, she was likely to fuck with people. She has...less of a sense of humour now than she once did.

"Fuck, okay, here." She takes the beans and opens the can with it anyway, though it takes her a second. She's definitely used these before, but not terribly often. Canned food keeps a long time, if you can find it, but it's not like anyone in Jackson is canning things in these. Mason jars, sometimes, but not these babies.

She offers the opened can to Henry.

"You really didn't know that?"

[thering]

He raises a Disapproving Dad eyebrow at Ellie. Language, young lady. His lips part as if to pass a comment but she stops him in his tracks by demonstrating how to work the can opener. It makes a ridiculously clean cut all the way around the rim of the can and the lid just comes off just like that.

Taking the can from her, he peers down into its contents and looks back up at her. Somehow she grips onto the edge of the can by opening and closing the handles, and there must be a round cutter in there.

"I did not," he says simply, wisely choosing not to comment about her Choice Words before turning around to go back and resume what he was doing. He rinses a couple of plates so that he can microwave the beans - out of the can of course, he's not repeating that mistake of putting metal in the microwave - and pull the toast out when they're ready. The canned fish he can more easily open since there's a tab to yank on, like opening a can of beer, so her meal at least looks... slightly less pitiful.

"Is this alright with you, young lady?" he asks. He's pretty bad at this, admittedly, and there's no pity points to be earned from trying.

[enduresurvive]

She catches his look and doesn't even bat an eye. It's been a long time since anybody gave a shit about her language. The world ends, you stop caring who says fuck and who doesn't. She's said it since she was a kid. Admittedly, she has a dirtier mouth than a lot of other people, but she just doesn't care. Joel just let her go. Still, she recognises Disappointed Dad face. If she lets herself think about it too long, she'll choke on all the things she's still refusing to actually deal with.

So she doesn't think about it. Instead, she crosses her arms and watches the whole thing with the microwave.

"Just Ellie is fine," she says. She's hardly a lady, after all, and has absolutely zero aspirations to ever be one. She's not a picky eater, never having had the luxury of being one, so she's totally fine with the food. She takes the plate with half a smile.

"Thanks, though. It's...this is great. But how'd you know microwave and not can opener?"

[thering]

"Ah." He'll spare her the details of when he put metal in the microwave. "I was shown how to operate a microwave, and I was taught a great many things by the You Tube." He assumes that she knows of the You Tube, as do many other people of her generation, so he doesn't elaborate further.

"I was staying in-..." Complicated lady friend person? "A family friend's barn, before I took over a bar. Did not spend nearly enough time in the kitchen." He had a lot of help integrating into 21st century life. And now he's just figuring out the last few things on his own.

"You seem to know your way around though, Miss Ellie. I think you'll fair much better than me in this town."

[enduresurvive]

"What the hell is YouTube?" Ellie asks, face scrunching in confusion. She actually has no point of reference for it. Joel would have grown up in a time when YouTube was a thing, but if Ellie has heard of it from him or Tommy, she doesn't remember it now. She vaguely knows what the internet is, but none of that was up and running anymore, or certainly not accessible by most people, by the time she was old enough to have used it.

She doesn't bat an eye about the barn thing; before going to Jackson, people would hole up wherever they could. In Jackson, there are definitely barns nice enough to stay in.

She stands near the counter and sets her plate there to eat. No one could ever accuse her of having top notch manners, really.

"Don't know about that. I'm really only good with guns and knives, and somehow, there don't seem to be any of those in this stupid town yet. It's like all the people that hightailed it outta here took their useful shit with them." But the food thing still bothers her. How is there good food, but layers of dust on everything?

[thering]

"It is a place, inside the computers and inside the phones, which houses many wonderful moving pictures of all manner of things." Yeah, maybe don't ask the 166 year old cowboy about the YouTube. At least he's trying his best to describe it.

"I would show it to you, but I suspect my telephone was damaged in the water." No doubt, she might enjoy some moving pictures of cats and dogs right now, if the way Waverly and Wynonna would ogle and coo at them from time to time back home was anything to go by.

He is somewhat surprised and definitely impressed by her preference for weaponry, and he doesn't doubt that she is as good as she says, even if she is smaller in stature than the usual adversary he encounters. There is something reassuring about being armed even if there has not yet been an occasion that requires it - not yet, anyway.

"I had a couple of guns and my knife with me, but I arrived without, too. I'm afraid we will have to make do." Gunsmithing might be a little beyond him but perhaps there will be an opportunity to sharpen any salvaged dull strips of metal, fashion them into something sharp and more useful. Should he find something though, she will be at the top of his list of people to give to.

[enduresurvive]

"A place inside the computers?" she repeats, thinking through what the fuck that means. Oh. "Wait, like the internet?" She only has a vague sort of idea of what the internet was or did, having heard about it and mostly just been awed by the idea of it. YouTube was some thing on the internet that had...videos? She can't imagine it, and really, nothing she imagined would be anything close to the real thing.

Of course, she'd left some things out. She's best with a bow and arrow, but she doesn't feel like it's good to play her whole hand, just in case. Henry seems nice, but people aren't just nice. People are always something else too. It just depends on what that something else is.

Ellie herself doesn't even seem nice these days. Trauma and violence have pushed it out of her.

Manners, though? Well, she never had many of those, and the way she eats probably conveys it. She hasn't eaten anything even this substantial in days, and besides that, she's still talking, not always entirely between bites.

"Yeah, make do til we find that stockpile of all our shit someone somehow took," she says, cynical but not insincere. Those things have to be somewhere.

[thering]

Doc shrugs. "Yes. The Internet." Hopefully she doesn't ask him how that all works. He's only just started learning a bit about cars. One thing at a time.

It's hard not to smile at the way she's attacking her food. Most unlady-like, sure, but he hasn't kept much lady-like company in a long time.

"You seem fairly convinced they haven't been thrown out into the water which we washed in on," he observes. It took a bit of practice and a lot of staring at people talking while eating but he can understand muffled talking with mouths full.

"I should like to find that stockpile too." He reaches over to rip out a paper towel and also prepare a clean tea towel for her cleanup afterwards. "Anything of yours I should be looking out for?"

[enduresurvive]

Luckily for both of them, she doesn't ask. Joel hadn't known how the internet worked, either. Neither had Tommy. She gave up a few years ago on ever figuring it out. It was something people had and don't have anymore, like most things before she was born. But wherever and whenever Henry's from, he had the internet. But not can openers? Hm.

"I guess they could be," she says with a slight shrug. "But this place seems more calculated than that. And like, what, not one person found a washed up gun or anything? Come on." She just doesn't buy it. It's too convenient. And she isn't from a world with magic or any of that, despite having heard that magic might exist here or in some other world. She's still mostly using her own instinct here.

"I had a shotgun. Handgun. Pocket knife. Couple other things but those are the ones that matter most." She says that matter-of-fact, like there's nothing weird about it. Really, for her, there isn't. Without weapons, you die, even when you aren't on a half-mad revenge journey. She has some sentimental attachment to the knife, but it's not that big a deal. It's more useful close up on Infected than fighting other things. In the end, in this place, she'd rather just have a gun.

"There's gotta be more here, right? I mean, more than just the houses and this place. I couldn't get anywhere yesterday because the storm fucked me up." She doesn't elaborate, but it was pretty wild. It was like having all her energy sapped somehow. Maybe John's thing about magic isn't all speculative bullshit.

[thering]

"A shotgun? Oh my. Pity the poor folk who try and mess with you." They're heavy beasts designed for heavy duty work and Doc is surprised she can even use one without putting her shoulder out.

"When the weather clears up, we can explore further. I expect there to be a school, a church, a store of some kind at least." Most towns just needed a school, a church, a store of some kind and a saloon in order to hold a group of strangers together. They're in what sort of could substitute for the saloon so it stands to reason there is at least a little bit more they haven't seen yet.

"I will be taking another look down the beach as well. Just in case anything or- anyone - washes up."

[enduresurvive]

"Yeah. Pity the folk who try to mess with me," she parrots back at him. She means to be sarcastic, but it sounds much darker, closer to a threat. She doesn't correct that, though. She thinks of a girl choking in the spores in the hospital's lower levels. She hadn't needed a shotgun for that. She also thinks of threatening the girl with the headphones. God, she's done some fucked up things the past few days before waking up here. But she can't lose her resolve.

She forces herself back to the present, to the conversation with Henry and not her own grim thoughts.

"You think there might be more people who end up on the beach?"

[thering]

He can hear it in her tone of voice. Untold stories he would very much like to delve into, once she would allow him to be more than a lunch buddy. Trauma, resolve, anger, hopelessness, bitterness, love, contempt, shame; these kinds of things manifest in universal ways whether you've got a 19-going-on-166 or 166-going-on-38 year old face.

"Seems like the way all these folks have come in," he reasons. If there's another way into town, he hasn't heard of nor found it yet.

"Who's to say it is only us lucky ones who were brought here?" Hell maybe if they came in by a boat or something he'd be able to spot that out in the water. That's at least one answer to put one of many questions to rest.

[enduresurvive]

She nods her agreement. "Yeah, seems like it. I guess it makes sense. We can't find a way out of this town, so it's not like someone is going to come stumbling down the road on accident." Or so it seems to her. No one is here by accident, even if they don't know the reason.

She hasn't considered things like boats or whatever yet. There aren't any cars or vehicles to be found, so...who knows.

"Hey, weird question. Has anyone talked to you about, like...multiple universes and shit?" She's still dealing with this in her mind, but hopefully she's not the only person in this town who finds it seemingly impossible.

[thering]

"We could keep walking, but. I'm not sure how far we'll get." He'd rather they spend days looking for transport, even if it is a horse just like them good old days, than spend those days walking and getting nowhere fast.

"Uh- no." He squints at her a bit and tilts his head, eyebrows furrowing before one crawls up towards his hairline. He has not yet experienced firsthand back home what happens when timelines or realities diverge through magical or non-magical means. Honestly, he's already struggling with what is happening in just the one universe.

"Can't say I know what that is, exactly."

[enduresurvive]

If Ellie knew he liked horses, she'd be right there with him. She's spent more time on horseback than in actual vehicles, generally speaking. It's difficult to keep vehicles running without fuel, and fuel is harder to come by than a lot of other things. Horses, though? Jackson is a great place for horses. She tries not to think about what happened to her last horse. One more thing for her to pay those WLF fuckers back for, really.

"God, I don't...I don't really know either. It's like...no one here remembers anything that happened where I'm from and I feel like I'm losing my fucking mind. Different shit happened for all of them, and for you, too. We don't have the internet anymore because the fucking world went to shit before I was born. I mean. We have can openers at least." She manages half a smile at the last bit. At least her sense of humour is hanging on as well as it can.

[thering]

"You do not have the internet anymore?" he repeats, sounding as bewildered as that singular raised eyebrow implies. Doc is far more accustomed to the notion of not having the internet yet.

"Perhaps you are from some..." Doc purses his lips and shakes his head. "Unhappy future awaiting us all. Could you tell me more about where you came from?"