036 » aftermath: the living

[villagemod]

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central Mathias.
WHEN: Day 036
WHAT: The living take care of the dead.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Plotting post over here! And a log for the dead.

DAY 036
NOT EVERYTHING BURIED
“Not everything buried is actually dead.
For many, the past is alive.”
— Louise Penny, Bury Your Dead
The dawn shines a new, horrible light upon a gruesome day. Those who escaped the wrath of the Hunt are left to tend to the dead, nine corpses of friends and family left surrounded by more blood than remains within them. The sight that greets each resident who finds one of these bodies is truly the stuff of nightmares, and even when the bodies have been dealt with, crimson snow and splattered floors will continue to remind them of these horrors until dealt with as well.

There is no fresh snowfall today to conceal or comfort those left behind. The gloomy grey of winter does not allow them to hide from this twisted reality that has become their lives, and Mathias will not hesitate to remind them who is in control.



NEW ARRIVAL
The newest arrival to Mathias will wake up on the beach near The Grey Gull. It's quite cold outside, but surely there's something to help warm them inside the restaurant. A nice tall glass of moonshine is just what the doctor ordered to help them through this nightmare.

THE EARTH SHAKES ONCE MORE
Late into the night, residents will be woken by a familiar rumbling in the earth. Arriving without warning just as it did before, the earthquake sets buildings shaking and sends furniture and loose items tumbling to the floor with crashes that echo in the dark.

The town settles once more after around a minute of consistently powerful tremors. There is no structural damage to be found in any buildings around Mathias.

---

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— THE WEATHER is fairly typical of a northern winter. The sky is almost always grey and the temperature is below freezing during the day and even colder at night). The sun sets early in the evening. Residents should bundle up when going outside and not venture too far into the dark night...

— THE FOG remains blocking the paths in the forest beginning a few dozen yards past the treeline, urging residents to stay huddled within the town proper, and it also now blocks the western section of town, beginning just past Hill Lane, before where residents know the chasm in the earth to be between Hill and Stine Road. Venturing into the fog is ill-advised.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue. Eliot Waugh has now vanished as well.

— THE GREY GULL now has a working bar! The selection is not quite what it once was.

---

OOC NOTES

— FOOD will be restocked in some fashion in the next log, don't worry. We aren't going full survival mode yet.

— REWARD REDEPEMPTION is on hold for this log. Sorry, friends! It'll be back next round.

— HOUSEKEEPING Please be sure to have a look at this post in regards to sanity loss from the Hunt and what is being done with the corpses of the Hunt's victims.

— MOD STATUS What will become a regular reminder that it's mostly just Amy steering this ship for now, so things will probably be pretty slow for a while. Apologies in advance, and please don't feel shy about pinging me if you're stuck waiting for something.

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QUESTIONS?

[villagemodama]

Use this space to ask general questions about this log and the circumstances or locations presented within. Players may also use this space to ping a mod to a thread to give feedback on the spooky happenings therein and to ask questions about exploring a residential housing location. (Updates and claims to housing locations should be made here.)

[setthetone]

Two questions: is there anything that Carter might discern from his medical knowledge when he finds Eliot's body (about the types of injury etc.)?

Could he try to contact the shadow person he's been dreaming about to ask about the hunt?

Will Graham | Hannibal | OTA

[this_ismydesign]

Profile of the death of Raylan Givens cw: Gore

[this_ismydesign]

It had been a long night.

At some point the screams had begun to blur into one roiling bellow of agony, overlay with the excited, near manic whispers and calls of Hobbs,

"See, See"

Dolarhyde,

"I change them!"

Verger,

Cruel laughter, delighting in pain

And Hannibal,

"It is beautiful outside, Will. Go see for yourself."
Events became scatter shot after that last voice. Will had brief flashes of memory; his shoulder crashing on the door, fingers clawing at the window frame, knuckles splitting as he punched the glass in the window. Upon waking to a sore shoulder, busted up hand and ripped nails he slowly pieced together his desperate attempts to get out of his house last night.

"To help the victims? Become one? Indulge in the slaughter?" Hannibal’s voice rumbled seductively in his ear. Will gave no answer. Because he did not have one.

Cleaning up his battered right hand, he dressed and headed for the front door of his little house. Memory flashed -yanking at the door … would the blood be black in the moonlight?- Will shook off the whispers and opened the door. He noted that there was no resistance now, the door swung on silent hinges, allowing him to spill out into the grey morning.

He tasted blood on the cold, crisp air. Whether it was a genuine interaction of the molecules on his lips or simply his feral imagination filling in what the screams from last night suggested, Will could not tell. He had not been able to tell that sort of reality from what was in his head, in an awfully long time. Regardless, he turned and began to follow the scent.

Or perhaps his feet simply carried him towards where he had heard some of the screaming the previous night.

Years of living in nature gave Will a silent step across the snow. He moved like a shade, small dark figure, bareheaded with folded shoulders as if trying to make himself even smaller. As he approached 1306 Phillips Drive the stench of blood, shit, guts, and death became nearly overwhelming. Briefly pausing Will’s experienced eyes quickly mapped out two death sites, one larger than the other.

"Two bodies there, third up a way." Hannibal’s voice was crystal clear in the cold morning air. The Ripper was dressed in his finest overcoat, bareheaded, with rabbit skin gloves on his powerful hands. The air even crystalized from his breath.

"They were running," Will said softly. "Got separated."

"You do not have to outrun the zombie, just be faster than the next man?" Hannibal sounded painfully pleased of his macabre humor. Will ignored him and turned to walk towards the individual body.

As he approached, Will purposefully angled his steps. He did this to best avoid the footsteps in the snow, leading to the body, and to clearly differentiate his steps from the victim’s.

"He did not look back," Will said and to his mind he was speaking to Hannibal, though to anyone around he would be talking to himself. "Trying for the cover of the trees." Will paused and looked back and around at the open space. "Tighter quarters, in the hope to slow whatever was pursuing." The ex-profiler glanced to the place where the footsteps were coming from, then towards the woods and back."Futile."

"Very. This killer knows the area. Knows how fast to move to catch its prey before losing the advantage of terrain."

As Hannibal spoke, Will closed the distance to the body. He approached feet first, noting the initial fall as he walked up along the mutilated body. He reached the head and despite half of the face being shredded, it was easy to identify the Marshall.
Will stared at the man’s features for a long couple of minutes, before he responded to Hannibal.

"Not prey," he took a deep breath, then closed his eyes. The sound of his heartbeat echoed in his ears, one sweep, two sweeps, three.

Will opened his eyes. It was dark, pitch black night. He looked up, saw clouded moonlight above him.

"Terror"

He tasted it on his tongue, and briefly Will turns towards the invisible source of the unknown horror. He can feel the kick of excitement in his chest, a desire to know the beauty of this thing that is closing in on him. This is his response, not Raylan’s and in short order the metallic kick of adrenaline overwhelmed Will’s fancy. He was back in the moment from the Marshall’s perspective.

"Flight"

Not a normal response for the Marshall, the man is a fighter. Whatever was out here in the night burrowed its way so deep into the human hindbrain that it sent him barreling towards the woods, the way a child will race across his bedroom floor, leaping onto the mattress before the monsters under the frame can grab him.

Except his shoes were all wrong, coordination hampered by snow and spine numbing dread.

The initial fall.

The scrabble to feet only to take the blow that threw him to the side.

"Fight"

There was no other option. It was upon him. Fists flying but there is no taste of hope from any of the blows.

"You die where you land." Will said in a calm, casual tone as if he were recounting the story to Raylan himself, not his corpse.

The ex-profiler looked up then, frowning. "But what about who was with you?" This is whispered and with the same care he took in approaching the body, Will began to work backwards, following the path that would take him to Neal Caffrey next.

Profile of the death of Max Guevara

[this_ismydesign]

After the strength of …

Not emotion, he could not discern that much -or any- motivation or thought process for the killings. It was more like an instinctive must. It was making Will’s fingers twitch with the desire to taste that intimacy once more.

’You should indulge. I’m sure there are…’ Hannibal spoke cheerfully as he matched strides with him.

“Shut up.” Will said through his teeth.

’Really Will, why do you deny yourself,’ Now Hannibal sounded exasperated.

If anyone were watching they would see Will spin and speak sharply to thin air. “We’ve had this discussion before! You thrive, I tolerate. There is a difference.” He would then stand there for a long moment, listening to a voice only he could hear.

’Your new friend, thrives.’

“Thrive is too weak a word.”

’Yes. But there is no word in human language that defines what you think you feel.’

Shaking his head, slowly, like a bull on his last legs before the matador finishes him, Will turned and stagger stepped further along his original path. He was walking away from the town, deliberately trying to avoid any more bodies. He did not want to tumble once again into the mind, or whatever it was that provided him broken perspective from this killer. As far as he could tell, most of the killings were in the open, around the town. Will figured he was safe up by the tree line.

He was wrong.

Head down, eyes down, his nostrils are so full of the scent of death that his brain blots out the message of another body. He steps past two large splatters of blood before Hannibal reaches out a hand and stops him. Will does not look over towards the hallucination -he knows Hannibal is a hallucination- he forces his eyes to focus on the ruby red stain sprawled thickly across the snow.

’Liver.’ Hannibal remarked passively. ’Whatever this is, does enjoy evisceration.’

Will did not want to look. He did not want to look. His face was as white as the snow, made whiter by the bloodstains that glistened so brightly they seemed to reflect the sky above them. Blue eyes looked up. Saw the body with its jagged tears, flesh flopped over, strips of disregarded meat.

’There could be a psychological influence at work,’ Hannibal continued as Will fought the urge to reach and touch his abdomen. ’Evisceration is a very visceral, punishment. Drawing and quartering in the Middle Ages was considered for only the most heinous of crimes. Being alive while also visualizing your own internal organs, combined with the pain…’

Will rolled his eyes skyward or perhaps he was trying to look inside his own skull, because really brain? REALLY

“Dressing is the first thing you do with a kill,” Will volleyed back but then he was stepping forward, shaking his head. “Except there is none of that in these kills. It is not torture, it is not predator and prey -not the classic sense. It is just about killing.”

’It has to sneeze, and we’re convenient tissues. Hannibal repeated what Will had told Malcolm and Doc.

“Mmmm,” he made a noise of assent as he came up even with the head of the corpse. A woman. Beautiful, he could see that even past the damage done to the body, but he did not recognize her. “I really need to get out more.” Will muttered to himself as he looked around until he found her pathway. He began his crabwalk study of the scene.

This time he did not even have to blink.

Thwump, Thwump, Thwump.

Like Klaus the sounds had driven her out of the relative safety of indoors. The noise like an itch beneath the skin that made one desperate to move, to understand, to escape. Except there was no escape, not from this damn town.

No one coming. No one knows

Perspective swings more quickly this time and Will finds himself in the woods, watching the slim figure realize she has gone too far, and it has gotten too dark. The witness had it wrong with the first one, in the open or close quarters, this … whatever this was … was just as effective.

“Time to kill.” Will’s voice was a sing song, and he began to move with purposeful steps back through the woods, this time unconcerned about disturbing the scene. He no longer saw the scene.

She was quick. Not just because she was small and nimble, but there was something more to her. Does that make a difference? No real answer for that question. The rock is dodged without much concern, it does not encourage of discourage him.

She will hit the opening soon, burst of speed no doubt. Nothing that will bother him. Except her foot slips and she goes tumbling. An unfortunate strike of her neck and the graceful limbs go slack. Marionette without her strings. Terror in her face, eyes the only thing she can control, and they widen, pupils black in the scant moonlight.

“It does not matter to me,” Will says and he is standing over the body, straddling it, hands raised as if there were mighty claws at the end of his fingers. “Her helplessness. It neither excites nor disappoints me.”

’It is not about how she dies.’

“Or how I kill her.”

’It is the killing.’

“The killing, is my design.”

Profile of the death of Neal Caffrey - cw: Gore and suggestion of cannibalism

[this_ismydesign]

As Will slowly backtracked from Raylan’s body he quickly realized that there was more distance between the two slaughter sites. Standing pensively for a moment, he glanced between the two scenes.

'I believe that is your young friend, Neal.' Hannibal pointed towards the face down corpse. 'The hair is unmistakable.'

Will sighed looking down at where his boots had sunk into the snow. He was not particularly close to anyone in this town, but Raylan and now Neal. He had spoken with both men, knew them, had a level of respect for them.

'Respect. As you respected Beverly Katz?' Hannibal’s voice was pitiless as he mentioned Beverly the image of her carefully dissected body, framed in slide after slide of ice, appearing in a graceful fan pattern around the mutilated body on the ground.

Will’s features were drawn and tired when he spoke. “Reminds me more of Andrew Caldwell,” he pointed out.

'I said ‘respected’,' Hannibal emphasized the word. 'Caldwell was rude.'

“Which is why you served his heart and kidneys to your guests?”

'I elevated him,' Hannibal said without concern. 'It looks as if young Neal’s kidneys are still avai…'

“Stop.” Will said, lifting a hand. “Neal is not rude.”

'He was a bit judgmental,' Hannibal’s voice was pensive.

Will closed his eyes and shook his head. “Enough.” He said turning and beginning to walk towards Neal’s body. Again, he sidestepped to do his best at preserving the scene, as well as to differentiate his path from Neal’s. This became more difficult as Will had to trace back to the point where Neal had split off from Raylan, and whoever lay claim to the other body. It was at this point that Will closed his eyes and sank back into the thwump, thwump of his heartbeat.

They had not gotten far before the soul sick need to

Run
Escape

had overwhelmed them.

The initial kick in the gut to sprint for home. Get through the door, slam it behind him feel the wood against his shoulder blades instead of the creeping, horror sick, sweat that tracked slowly along his spine; inside and out.

Flight was natural. Instinctive. As ready a response as breathing, but not cowardice.

Survival

‘Neal Caffrey is a survivor.’ Hannibal stated.

“Was.” Will corrected and he walked to where Neal’s prints separated from the other two men. “I was trying to draw my pursuer away from the others.”

‘Futile gesture,’ Hannibal said bluntly. ‘Run away from them all, save yourself.’

“I’m not that man anymore,” Will said, coming up beside Neal’s legs. “I can’t live in that skin.”

‘A coward dies a thousand times before his death…’

“But the valiant taste of death but once.” Will finished the quote while moving on to Neal’s torso.

Hunkering down on his heels, he shook out the sleeve of his coat, covering his hand as he reached out to roll the dismembered upper body onto its back.

“Panic finally overrode good intention,” the ex-profiler’s voice was level, almost instructional in its tone. “He stood his ground, but after the initial blow, tried to drag himself to escape. An Instinctive response, rather than cerebral, the molecular deep desire to survive. Fear makes us avoid the dark shadows, question the bright red berries, shy away from the scent of death. Except you were already in my sights.”

As he spoke Will felt his perspective shift. No longer was it Neal’s fear he tasted in his mouth, Neal’s resolve, his grief.

No longer did he look up into the cloud covered moon as something unseen closed in on him. He looked down into Neal’s handsome face, screwed up with horror and pain. Eyes wide in the last seconds, terrified and so overly sweet as the kill was upon him.

“I taste this moment of satisfaction, when I kill you.”

The words fall from Will’s lips in an almost inhuman hiss, but then in the next blink he startled and jumped back from Neal’s mutilated torso, landing on his ass in the blood stained snow eyes darting around wildly; completely disoriented.

Profile of the death of Klaus Hargreeves

[this_ismydesign]

Deciding it would be best to leave Malcolm and Doc to tend to the other body in the immediate area, Will began to make his way towards town. He had no specific destination in mind, no one he was particularly driven to check up on, he just let his feet carry him along, pausing briefly at some of the slaughter sites, but moving on if he noticed people already gathered.

He was close to the boarding house, recognizing the structure out of the corner of his eye, when an unattended body caught his attention. If Five was already moving towards the bloody mess that had been Klaus, Will did not immediately notice the boy’s approach.

The sound of his heartbeat thwump, thwump came easier this time -too easy- and between one blink and the next the grey light of rising dawn gave way to the darkness of night.

Why was he outside? Oh yes, listening to music. Music to cover the sounds that were trying to drive him mad. Madder than he already felt sometimes. Cool air helping to blow out the cobwebs a good hit would do a better job of it.

He intends to walk until that feeling eases off his shoulders. Walking and listening to music until the need subsides.

Except darkness falls. The air has grown cold and even through the music of the walkman, the sense of horror is building to a point where he can taste it against his tongue. The thunder of his own heart overwhelms the tinny music coming through the headphones.

Home. Home or inside, he's got to get there now!

There's a sense that if he can make it back home, he'll be safe. Everything will be fine if he can just get inside. And if he doesn't—

His breathing has picked up, already out of breath, or was that breath being stolen by the sense of dread and despair bearing down on him from behind? The moment where walking footsteps obviously began to run.

and there's something on his heels. He feels it.

The way one print is skewed slightly, deeper. Furtive glances over his shoulder. It is a bad idea, slows the running, makes gangly limbs even less coordinated. But the terror just over his shoulder draws him. In the way the ghosts who seek his help draw him. The drugs, the alcohol, all of what he has done to numb and push aside frightening reality ….

‘Were he high or drunk, he would probably function better in this moment,’ Hannibal observed with cool detachment as Will/Klaus struggled and fell, a vice around his rib cage, cold air slicing through lungs that tried to gulp oxygen for muscles that were clumsy with terror.

a half-choked laugh as he sees what he's almost positive is the outline of his brother in a downstairs window. "Five! FIVE! Open the door, I'm--"
Will’s perspective swung. No longer did he lunge awkwardly through the snow, eyes locked desperately on Five’s outline. No longer did he feel a rush of hope that came with seeing his brother. The almost giddy sense of once again defying the inexplicable. Instead, he hovered behind the mewling creature just ahead of him.

Klaus

The ex-profiler tried to grab on to some sense of … purpose … behind the eyes with which he watched Klaus run, but he could feel nothing. Nothing beyond the desire to kill for the sake of it. He moved forward, effortlessly reaching and grabbing the fleeing figure by his ribs. Yanking him away from the destination that had felt so close just a moment before. The figure tries to fight back. Some of them fight, some of them do not. It does not feel as if either option stirs anything within his breast.

He just wants to kill.

“I kill you within sight of sanctuary,” Will says softly, having come up beside the nearly decapitated torso.

’It is not by design.’ Hannibal points out and Will blinks owlishly and looks around again before focusing back on the body.

“There is no design,” he agrees. “Only the kill.”

Evening Night 36 | OTA [action or prose is fine!]

[this_ismydesign]

After an incredibly unsettling morning Will had returned home and spent the better part of the afternoon talking to multiple hallucinations. He had eventually stretched out on the couch attempting to get some sleep but his nightmares had woke him within four hours and left him feeling even more exhausted than when he'd closed his eyes.

Availing himself of a couple of aspirin and water he eyed the fading light outside.

'Which is the greater fear? An unknown monster in the night, ready to tear you to shreds. Or staying here with all of them?' Hannibal remarked with dispassionate cool.

Will looked over his shoulder where Hobbs sat on the sofa cloudy eyes, bullet holes and smug smile. Randall Tier with his sabre tooth tiger lower jaw on the chair. The moth man flitting about with his broken wine bottle wings. Oh lovely. There was even a mushroom garden slithering and growing across the living room floor.

Sighing deeply, Will bundled up and headed out into the rapidly onsetting dark.

He was not foolish enough to simply wander around outside, though Hannibal did try to talk him into exploring the edge of the forest. Will resolutely headed for the Library. He did not hold out much hope of finding anything worthwhile in the available books, he expected that if there were anything worth reading it had already been collected, but it would serve as a distraction. Perhaps one mind numbing enough to allow him a few hours of proper sleep.

It would be easy to find him. Look for the collection of lanterns and growing pile of books. Will might be seated at a table, reading, or he could be in the stacks. If anyone was feeling particularly daring, at one point (at least) he headed down the staircase to the tunnel.

All your normal post night of brutal slaughter past times, right?

number five | the umbrella academy | open

[fika]

▶ DAY 36: finding klaus, ota

---

When he finds the remains of his brother, it dawns on him in cold waves. He’s wretchedly pale, breaths a shallow pass through a constricting throat, clouding the cold winter air.

His posture curls inwards, the planes of his face all hollow shadows and sharp bones, telling of that old age that been shoved so messily into that small frame.

His eyes sting, and it takes him a moment to realize he hasn’t even blinked, staring at dead eyes. The soles of his shoes stand in the puddle of carnage.

He doesn’t cry or scream in that pin-drop silence. But he does break.

He stares at the ruin that’s his brother’s remains. Stares and stares with that absent look, anger and panic rising hot in his throat and it’s a miracle he doesn’t throw up.

It should have been him. He would have been fine with it being him. But instead it’s Klaus.

It’s his failure, again, a fucking slap to the face or an ache in his chest.

He doesn’t flinch when someone sidles next to him. Can't tear his eyes away.

“Four times,” is the remark, rasped against a sandpaper throat. He doesn’t bother to explain what he means, staring at Klaus’ corpses. His hands are stained with fresh, sticky blood, but he doesn’t remember kneeling down to check for a pulse. There wouldn’t be one. When did he?

“Who else?” He hears himself ask, but can’t find it in himself to care much for the answer.

---

▶ DAY 36: around, ota

---

Five will otherwise be found around town, eyes dark and tired and rimmed red, hands shoved into his pockets as he stares out in front of him. If looks could kill, the pavement would be in terrible shape. He barely notices when someone walks by, and flinches when the movement is close enough in his periphery.

It's hard to tell if he's planning a murder or trying to solve a mathematical answer of the universe, a bad plan brewing somewhere in his mind as he stares up with hollow eyes.

---

( ooc; no plotting post for this one! just five being sad about his brother :) )

[thering]

Doc sits alone in the makeshift graveyard close to the Boarding House, surrounded by an army of the dead. Some are frozen under the ground, with Malcolm's makeshift wooden crosses in various states of falling apart. The others are waiting in line, buried under melon and fist-sized rocks that were painstakingly hand-gathered from the rocky outcrop by the beach and brought further inland to cover the bodies up with. It had required too much effort to roll a thematically appropriate boulder from the beach to sit and brood on, so Doc is sitting on this cheap, sun-faded pink plastic lawn chair with the outermost layer of coating bubbling and peeling away dangling and flapping off the rim of the chair's backrest every time a gentle breeze brushes over the dead bodies and undead body sitting there watching over them.

Two empty bottles lie under his chair and he is holding the third on top of the right-angled armrest, puffing away on his cigarette. There is snow and dirt and blood under his nails. Where the empty shelves at the Grey Gull and the General Store have failed them, this is the only place that is replenished with mangled corpses. Although he has spent much of his day here, stocking the graveyard up with fresh offerings, Doc has run himself off his feet seeding hope around the town, dropping off crates of space blankets and bottled water in places where the dead came back last time, just in case God decides to take him up on his offer. There is still time for Him to make a believer out of him. They could all come back to life, like last time.

After Doc was finally finished, he returns to the graveyard at the end of the day, to sit with Raylan on their new porch, just like he always does. A bit of penance, a bit of masochism, a bit of wanting to drink his share for him. No sense in letting good moonshine go to waste. It's a little early to be finishing up the day, but frankly Doc doesn't give a shit.

When Five comes skulking up Doc can't bring himself to look at him. He had promised he would look after Klaus. Like all the other empty promises that came before, it was just another lie.

around, ota.

[notanemptymotto]

Helen manages to stop herself from completely running into Five. She is entirely to blame, of course. Disorientation tends to do that to a person. While Sam had filled her in on what had happened - more or less - Helen hardly could believe it. While an entity or a creature hunting people down is far from the realm of possibility? Her mind is still wandering on how exactly she managed to wander into fog and simply... disappear and reappear. Still, she recognizes Five. A smile graces her face.

"I was wondering where all the familiar faces had gone." A sad smile is offered to him. "I'm glad to see that you managed to make it."

Ellie | The Last Of Us | closed starters

[enduresurvive]

[ if you'd like Ellie this round for something hmu at boywonder ]

Day 36 - for Five - tw death, blood, gore, murder flashbacks, the usual

[enduresurvive]

Ellie is half-exhausted from the effort of trying to open the door, screaming obscenities like that will make it go faster. Anyone else in the boarding house has probably heard her banging at the door once she gave up trying to break the window. She has no idea how long it takes. The screaming outside is over long before the door opens.

When whatever is keeping the door from opening again finally lets up, Ellie yanks the door open hard enough to wrench her arm doing it. That doesn't matter. She knows, she just knows, that Daisy isn't alive anymore. The way the screams stopped, it wasn't like just passing out.

She runs into the street, canvas shoes skidding on the snow. She catches herself before she can actually fall and keeps right on going.

There, in the street, is the gruesome sight of Daisy's mangled body. There's enough left to be identifiable; Ellie knows the clothes anyway.

"No," she says, quiet, hoarse. She can't manage to scream or cry or do anything. And there's nothing here, nothing to fight, no answers. No human could have done this. Infected, maybe, but this is gruesome even for them. And there would be some hint. There aren't Infected here, anyway. There are other things, monsters in the fog, monsters that chase you and chase you and...apparently do this.

And Ellie herself survived. Again. Just like she always does, because someone else died to save her.

She can't manage to stay upright. It's just too much, too heavy. There is so much death, and she can't help feeling guilty for this one in particular. She doesn't know Daisy, having met her only hours before, but she hadn't been able to get Daisy inside with her when the door closed. And now it's too late. She knows people come back here, but...not always. And how the fuck can anyone come back from this?

She just sits there, staring, unable to pull herself away from her own thoughts. She's seen too much blood on snow and it mixes together in her head. She thinks of her dreams, where Joel calls her and she never gets there in time. He hadn't said anything when it really happened, of course, but brains are funny things, conjuring up whatever they can to fuck you up.

Will she dream of Daisy, too? She doesn't know. She tells herself to move, but she can't manage it yet.

Day 36 - for Doc - tw blood, death, murder flashbacks, idk everything is a mess

[enduresurvive]

Eventually, the bodies are buried and there's nothing else they can do for them. They'll come back or they won't. She has no idea how many others were out, running for their lives and failing to get away. Surely other people got inside, but...she's not naive enough to think only Daisy and Klaus (Five's brother? what are they, half a lifetime apart in age?) died in the attack.

She wonders if anyone lived to tell what happened.

But her number one concern is waiting, she hopes, at 1306. She's exhausted, but that doesn't matter. She runs all the way there, cold and angry and tired and wracked with guilt, and bangs on the door. She'll keep banging as long as she needs to, until she can't do it anymore or until someone answers the fucking door.

Please don't let them be dead, she thinks. But especially, because maybe she's projecting just a little, she circles around to Please don't let Henry be dead.

Day 36, evening, 1306 (Doc, Malcolm, Yennefer)

[enduresurvive]

Ellie still hasn't gone home when the sun begins to set. She has no idea if it's safe to go out in the dark or whatever, but who the fuck cares. She's a little scared to go home; if she goes back and Yennefer isn't there, and she's just alone in that house again, she's not sure she can stand it. She can be alone, sure, whatever. Even in the aftermath of this horrible couple days, she could be alone.

Being alone in a house with the empty room that belonged to a friend again, though? That's too much to ask.

At least she took a shower, washed all the blood off. If only the guilt would go with it, but of course it never does. No one living at 1306 is anywhere near as small as her, but she got one of their stupid too-big shirts and curled up on the couch with that and a blanket. She'll have to get new clothes again. She doesn't want to remember the bloody ones.

She still has the bracelet she got from Dina on her right wrist, the one with the tattoo. She fiddles with it idly as she sits here in thought. She should put her damn jeans on and go back home, but...not yet.

elijah mikaelson ( the originals ) day 36

[prevenance]

( closed to elena )

[prevenance]

( elijah isn't really sure what to expect when he wakes up that morning but it's definitely not to be curled around elena gilbert.

consciousness seems to seep in and he berates himself for a few moments that he'd fallen asleep in the first place. he'd meant to stay up, watch the door, listen to the noises and make sure they were both safe. but he'd fallen asleep and he'd...climbed into the bed with her at some point.

he vaguely remembers her asking and he'd been either too exhausted or too wrung out to care. so, that's what he'd done. he'd climbed into bed with her and now, as the day dawns, a grey, dreary thing, he doesn't know whether to move or stay there.

he breathes out, closing his eyes before he looks towards the window. he can see the sky but he knows that doesn't tell the story of what's happened out there.

he doesn't even know if he wants to find out. )

( open )

[prevenance]

( after making sure that elena was all right, elijah steps out of the boarding house and into the snow. it feels...strange out here. he can smell blood thick on the air and he's grateful that he's as old as he is because this would probably be difficult for any young vampire.

death is in the air and, sighing, he sets out to se what has happened. the first stop he makes is the general store, looking around in consternation when he finds that the food is still disappearing. shelves are looking bare and now he starts to worry. if the food continues to not restock, they are going to have big problems.

elijah grabs a few things of crackers and tuna before he heads over to town hall. it feels a lot emptier. he paces around, trying to think of what could cause this level of destruction before eventually finding a chair and dropping into it, rubbing at his temple.

he doesn't know what this place is, why it's doing this. it's torture, plain and simple, but there's no reason for it and no way, that he sees, to solve it.

and that bother him. he can feel anger bubbling and eventually, he smashes a hand against a nearby table, cracking it and sending it into a heap on the floor.

oops. )

Sam Winchester | Closed threads and OTA

[moosey]

Closed to Elena (Early Morning)- will match style

[moosey]

Sam was sitting with his back against the wall of the general store, his head buried in his arms, his knees up to his chest. He had no earthly idea how he ended up here, but here he sat. He knew he had to go home and talk to Cas...

Cas. He could only pray that the angel was still alive.

Sam had witnessed his brother's death many times, each time traumatized him, but this time... felt so much more real...

There were no more deals to be made.

alec hardison | leverage | OTA

[ofthegeek]

( willing to match format and to hash out more specific closed starters! feel free to hit up his plotting comment if you'd like to do that. )

a. arrival

[ Random beach with a random restaurant on it: check. Cold: check. Alone: check.

Hardison, while he's patting himself down looking for a phone or an earbud that he no longer possesses, finds the vibe to be quite rancid from the get-go, frankly. No idea what's going on, no idea what happened to Parker and Eliot, all extremely bad. ]

What the hell-- [ Yes, that's the main concern. What the hell: happened, is happening, does he do to get back home, all of the above. Hardison takes a minute of looking full deer in the headlights scared and confused on the beach. He turns in a little circle.

Nothing is recognizable. He doesn't know what he expected. That's on him.

Seeing how there are no options he's coming up with that don't feel like he's walking directly into a horror movie scene waiting to be sprung, he goes ahead and goes into The Grey Gull. Outside is cold and windy and deadly. Inside is at least not windy. It's also not exactly crowded. Hm. ]

Hhhhhhello?

[ This is one of the worst days of his entire life.

If Hardison stops by a chair for self-defense purposes, that's his business. He's thinking about his life and his choices. ]

I'm gonna get axe-murdered looking at a seafood specials board. It ain't right.


b. the not arrival

[ Now there is a bright side and it's that Hardison did not personally get axe-murdered, trying to talk about the economy or otherwise. That's the only bright side. Everything about this is awful.

But he should maybe not stand around in a restaurant for the rest of the day or his natural life. He should, in line with the advice of most people he's spent significant time with from his Nana onward, "go outside." Hardison doesn't even like the nice version of "outside." Let alone creepy kidnapping impossible supernatural murder-ass towns "outside".

Necessity breeds what it must, though.

He's angling to keep it pretty limited, and basically just dips into Poe's Clothes and Beauty Supply for some basic staples, naturally being out in the open between stops. He'll ultimately be hunkering down in the boarding house, which seems to him like the best fit for him for now.

Scarce though he may be (and extremely subdued after the point in the morning where he finds out Eliot is dead and he missed catching him alive by one night, this actually is the worst day of his entire life), he's still pretty easily encountered. Why? Because everyone in range is now taking part in a stealth-deployed buddy system, of which Hardison is the architect. He's simply not doing things if people aren't in the area doing things. Welcome to... the Friend Zone. This zone is a lot like a Wooly Willy toy with him playing the role of the metal filings. Just be there, he'll be with you shortly.

It's both a safety practice and his first instinct in coping mechanisms. Be around people. Try to connect, throw out some tethers.

Hardison's never had the kind of heart given to growing calluses in response to things. It's the kind that only knows how to make more room and bleed. ]

b.

[setthetone]

[He wants to go home.

It's a simple wish, childlike, it's so strong that it almost makes him sit down and hug his knees to his chest and close his eyes and maybe cry for a little while and wait for all of this to be over. For it to somehow not be real. For the world to magically fix itself if he just waits long enough, if he just wants it badly enough. But Carter knows that it doesn't work that way. Not in his job where sometimes you'd give your best for hours until it felt unreal that you should lose the patient anyway. Not out here where nightmares were real and came for you.

The world just is and then it left you to deal with that.

He cleans Eliot's body gently, tries to stitch up the worst of the gruesome injuries, even if it's difficult in the biting cold. They're not his best work, Benton would hate them, he'd scold Carter for them being uneven, shoddy work. But at least they give something back to the victim, some semblance of dignity, of peace. Maybe he can go into town, find someone to help him move the body... but after the cleanup he's too drained, too tired, too sad so he just covers Eliot's body with some snow for now, vowing to organize a funeral tomorrow.

And then he just... stands there, in the cold, wishing he knew what to say. Wishing he knew the man better, wishing he hadn't run into him last night, wishing Eliot hadn't protected him the way he did.

In the end he gets a candle from the house and places it next to the body, keeping a silent vigil.]

yennefer | the witcher (netflix)

[liliowy]

▶ DAY 36: night, outlasted. ota

---

By the time the night breaks into morning, dreadful in so many ways, Yennefer lets out a ragged breath through straining lungs. It isn't relief she feels in the face of survival.

She’s a picture of ruin, hair falling down her shoulders in a messy tangle, sticking to sweat-slick skin. Coat discarded for when it caught on a door handle of an abandoned house, and kohl of her eyes smudged, painting her in exhausted emphasis.

Her magic is drained, head spinning, pain blossoming behind her eyes as chaos crackles far beyond her control. She cannot call up a single spark anymore, and her breaths come shallow as she stumbles around town, eyes on the blood stained snow. On the carnage and ruins and it reminds her of a massacre of a battle field, and she realizes just how close she’d come to being amongst the corpses.

She drops onto porch steps, curls her arms around herself and leans into the cold handrail, in the hopes of it numbing the punishing effects of over-exertion, or wiping the sight away from her memory.

It does neither, and her eyes sting. Survival, more often than not, means dealing with the fallout. Pain of living, traded in for the pain of death and neither guarantee peace.

Stubbornness alone makes her grip the post and leverage herself up, dangerously teetering sideways.

She has to check. She has to know who is lost. Has to see who’s still breathing.

For the first time since her arrival here, she is too tired to be angry. That fury will come later, promised storms.

She will venture towards their shared home to check on Ellie, then next door for Doc and then will try and find familiar faces along the way. It’s difficult not to feel powerless, but that is exactly what everyone here is.

She wraps her arms tighter around herself, and keeps going.

(ooc; find her wandering around town, or checking in, or when she's sitting on the porch! very ota c: )

[thering]

Yennefer is another case of them really needing to stop meeting like this. The day had started off an utter shitshow and honestly not gotten much better the more it progressed along. Doc was only just now able to step into the house without feeling like he couldn't stay for longer than a few minutes. Everything in the house reopened raw wounds, from the coats of the dead hanging on the hooks to the pillow and blanket on the empty couch to the pile of laundry that doesn't seem worth doing anymore because who the fuck is going to wear those clothes and he looks about ready to bolt when he opens the door.

Only, he sees her, and the state he is in, and as his eyes widen and his lips part, all the things that are hurting him in the house fade away into the background as he reaches out to touch her forearm, move in a little closer to slide his arm around her lower back. Maybe that will earn her ire. It may even be well-deserved. He does not care, at this point. Not until she is inside and warm and cleaned up.

"Jesus Christ woman," he huffs, leading her into the house, closing the door behind them with his foot. Has she met Jesus in Aretuza? She may not understand the exclamation. That is no way to talk to a guest regardless, but they are past the 'ma'am' and 'sir' stage. Not that she's ever addressed him by the latter. "Are you hurt? May I- draw you a hot bath?" He needs something to do. She would be doing him a favour, keeping him busy.

Bucky Barnes | Open

[exsto]

Digging Graves

---

Bucky hasn't slept, though, by the sound of movement around the boarding house, he's well aware that he wasn't the only one. It was not only smarter to stay awake but how could anyone after what had happened the night before? Or the days leading up to it with the scratching sounds that seem to be everywhere and nowhere at all. Even after the Hunt, when all went silent again, people told him to wait for daylight to come so that whatever was out there before could at least be seen.

As soon as he got there, Bucky has been told about all the strange things that happen in the town of Mathias. He's been told of the fog and to be always cautious of the time of day. He's even been informed that people have died and come back. So, when Bucky finally leaves the boarding house early that morning, moments after daybreak, it doesn't take long to see the events that occurred; the scattered and mutilated remains of people that he realizes he might have met in the last five days since his arrival.

He remains expressionless and doesn't react to what he sees, but it's hard with the smell of blood and death hanging in the air not to remember similar scenes as his memory flashes and plays out in the area in front of him of soldiers advancing behind enemy lines while bullets rain down and grenades are launched. It's only when the smoke clears that it becomes all too apparent that the fallen might not be easily identified.

Silently, Bucky goes about gathering wood, making several trips to the edge of the woods and into nearby abandoned houses where can load up on kindling and large enough pieces of wood to keep a few fires going. By mid-morning, the ground closest to the fires has thawed enough to dig into.

Finding Max

---

It's shortly after midday when Bucky goes out looking for someone he's not seen at the boarding house since earlier the day before. He knew there was a possibility that Max was with someone, perhaps rescued by someone in another building like Melanie was by him.

Yet, there was a very sizeable possibility that the sheet he took with him would end up being of use. Sadly, optimism and Bucky aren't the greatest of friends.

It seems like longer than it really before he finally reaches the end of King Lane and sees the pristine white snow, blotted and stained red. He lowers down to crouch beside her and looks at her face and her dark eyes staring straight up into the sky. They only met once but she was nice, almost understanding him in a way that most don't upon a first meeting and as he lightly slides his flesh hand down her face to close her eyes, wondering if they could've been friends.

He sets out the white sheet and carefully wraps her body in it, taking care to do it respectfully for reasons he's not entirely sure of. It's only after he's put her into the ground that he realizes he wishes he could feel more about the events of the night before.

But instead, he feels the anger within morph and become something a little different.

[setthetone]

i. bereft

[It's like he can still hear the sounds of the night. Horrible, like a painful loop that just won't stop and maybe they just wouldn't. Maybe they were here to stay. To remind him that he gets to live while others had to deal with that.

Which is killing him in a different kind of way so he clings to the hope that maybe someone survived the attack, someone that he can still help, that he can still save. He rushes over to the clinic, grabbing everything he needs for a field kit and trying not to drop anything in the process. He should sit down. He should eat. He can't do any of these things, it doesn't feel like he can do any of these things ever again. Not until he knows about the others, if they are okay, if they made it or if they... didn't.

Carter doesn't want to think about that. Once he got everything he needs and everything he can carry, he rushes off, searching the town for - he's not sure what.

Hope, maybe.]


ii. research (library)

[Is he looking for solutions or is he hiding?

Carter isn't sure. He isn't sure of anything anymore; the world, what he knows about it, his place in it. It seems like every day, the town manages to pull the rug from under him a little bit more. People are dead and he doesn't know what to do about that. He wants to mourn but he doesn't know how. He wants to retaliate but he doesn't know against what. He wants to be angry but there is just too much to be angry about and his rage just burns uselessly like a smudge pot in the middle of a desert.

Maybe he'll find an answer to any of these in the books.

Or maybe he can just cry a little in the silence. That works, too.]


iii. wildcard

[for anything that might still come up/ensue from other threads /o/]

[abrightboy]

[Malcolm steps out of 1306 Philips Drive with an empty wooden crate in his hands. He and Doc have already retrieved a load each from unoccupied streets. Stocking up seems a prudent way to keep busy through their grief. He sees John Carter hurrying down the street, his hands full, a bit wild-eyed... but who wasn't today?

He's the first person Malcolm's seen alive besides Doc.]

John?