villagelogs | 036 » aftermath: the living

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036 » aftermath: the living

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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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.

Edited 2021-02-21 23:05 (UTC)

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.”

Edited 2021-02-22 19:05 (UTC)

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.

Edited 2021-02-22 00:05 (UTC)

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.”

Edited 2021-02-22 01:50 (UTC)

"What are you doing?" Malcolm shouted as he recognized Will from the distance while he jogged across the snow, his coat undone over his pyjamas, bare feet hastily shoved into shoes. He looked exactly the way he was: frantic, having just burst free of the house that usually served as a sanctuary for five men and, more recently, a prison for two while the other three perished. "Stay back!"

He slowed as he reached the scene, expression growing stony as his eyes fell on Neal's face. He surveyed the area himself and looked at Will, sprawled in the snow.

"You moved him. Why did you move him?"

Of course the one night they decided to turn in early is the one night they should have been awake, out with the others, for whatever good it would have done. Doc hadn't been talking much since he returned to the house a couple days ago after getting caught red-handed by Neal trying to take the wall in 1307 out. He is more or less silent now, snow crunching beneath his shoes as he approaches the bodies of the living and the dead. He is dressed up more than Malcolm. Putting on his waistcoat helped to drown out the memories of the way the screaming had sounded like. Helps him compartmentalise and bury another layer of trauma beneath the disturbed dirt that litters his mind.

He has seen plenty of death since he was young and the body count has just kept rising since. It doesn't get any easier, confronting death. It only gets more familiar. The brim of his hat obscures the way his steely blue eyes reflect the storm brewing inside the bottle he stuffs all his emotions in as he keeps his head lowered, gaze following the footsteps like a seasoned tracker.

Much like the way they had happened upon Constantine, Doc doesn't seem to understand or care about the importance of preserving The Scene. Maybe people like Will and Malcolm, they talk to dead bodies. They understand the language of corpses. People like Doc, they read the room. Maybe that's why Malcolm is terrible at reading the room. And perhaps Will too, not that Doc knows the man standing over their friend enough to pass judgement.

Putting himself between what is left of Neal Caffrey and Will, Doc crouches down and reaches out to rest a heavy hand on Will's shoulder.

"It's okay," Doc says, trying to be gentle although the words sound hollow and almost mocking given the carnage they are sitting in.

Will gave Malcolm a look that said clearly he found the question irrelevant and as such was not going to be answering it. He had yet to meet Doc, though he felt as if he may have seen him at the town hall that one time.

His own eyes were a blue hazel that reflected more grey as a result of the cold landscape around the three of them, the expression still dazed as he blinked at Doc. The hand on his shoulder, which would usually have sent him stepping back in a firm declaration of personal space, man was used to further anchor Will to the reality of the here and now.

'Careful how much faith you put in the idea of reality,' Hannibal remarked in a brisk, mocking tone as he continued to stand at Neal's head, studying the gruesome visage. 'Might be a false lead in these circumstances.'

Inwardly Will told Hannibal to shut up. Outwardly he closed his eyes and lifted his hand to cover them, nodding slightly in response to Doc, acknowledging the man though he offered no verbal response for the time being.

Malcolm looked around, crouching near Neal, reaching over to close his eyes gently.

"He stopped running," he told Doc quietly. "He tried to give the others time to get away. He thought he was more... expendable."

Doc knew what that meant; Malcolm had referred to himself as more 'expendable' than Doc and Raylan before. The people in town needed them more than they needed him. "Whatever attacked him was... like an animal. These injuries were made by claws, not blades. He's been mauled by something big and vicious." He looked at Doc. "Maybe whatever was making those noises."

Malcolm has a lot more strength than anyone gives him credit for. Not a lot of people have the stomach for this. He's not sure if Will is cut from the same cloth, but it's not good to leave a man sitting in bloodied snow. It's cold and traumatic. He tries to give the young man a nudge to stand before straightening up himself, looking around over his shoulder.

"An invisible coyote?" Because nothing came flying out of that wall when he bashed it open. He would have heard or felt an invisible coyote but right now, with pieces of their housemates lying around strewn across the blank canvas the town sits on, very little makes sense to him.

It frustrates him that the New Yorkers think so lowly of themselves - nevermind that Raylan and he does, himself. Nevermind that they might have done the same thing. Maybe it's the guilt that is spurring that frustration on. Clenching his teeth, he heaves a sigh and some of that guilt-frustration-pent up everything that has plagued him for weeks slips out.

"If you're both done playing sheriff I would like to lay them to rest."

▶ 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 :) )

Sighing softly Will gathered his legs under him and got up to his feet. He looked at Neal's corpse, then the ground around them and back towards Raylan.

"Not an animal," he said in a quiet tone. "There was no purpose behind these deaths. Animals kill for territory, mates, food. Propagation of the species. This was only about the kill."

Brushing his fingers through his hair, making it stand up further on end Will began to pick his way away from Malcolm, Doc and the bodies. He wasn't one for digging graves.

"Not human either," he said, pausing briefly and turning back, his expression tired. "Despite the mutilation, there was no torture or playing with the victims. None of this was about them."

He looked back down at Neal.

"It had to sneeze and they were convenient tissues." He looked back to Malcolm. "We're all expendable."

With that, the happy little rain cloud of joy that is Will Graham, began to walk away.

Malcolm didn’t argue; what Will pointed out was an interesting perspective and it didn’t exactly contradict Malcolm’s analysis. He got to his feet and looked at Doc.

“I’ll get the wheelbarrow,” he said somberly.

Neal was in pieces. He doubted the others were in better shape.

“Are we taking them where we took the others before?”

"...he a friend of yours?" Doc asks quietly as he watches Will walk away, uncertainty and worry weighing him down heavily alongside the bodies he is actively choosing not to process for the moment. They are still tasks to be taken care of, not yet the half of the house that are now missing. He sees some resemblance between Will and Malcolm as far as... social graces go. He's not sure how much further those similarities extend. This is far easier to dwell on than loss, helplessness, a twisting and disquieting sort of despair.

Something about what Will had said lingers with him, like the last traces of sand still lingering between his fingers. A sneeze. An itch. A burning, neglected craving smoldering away on top of the last pile of whitened ash. He keeps a black hat on those thoughts, files the observations away for later.

"We should." 1306 was their home, but. On the off chance they come back, they shouldn't be reminded of what transgressed here by gazing upon their graves out in the backyard.

"I will fetch the sheets. There will be others."

“I met him once. Raylan took me to see him. Raylan knows him better.” A beat and he looks down. “Knew him better,” he mumbled, heading for the garage.

Once he had the wheelbarrow, he headed back over to Neal’s side to wait for Doc, looking down into the other New Yorker’s face and its horror. He wasn’t sure if they should wrap him first or get him in the wheelbarrow first.

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

boywonder ]

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.

Edited 2021-02-22 05:05 (UTC)

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.

Edited 2021-02-22 05:03 (UTC)

Raylan.

A soft noise rumbles out of Doc's throat, a quiet grunt of acknowledgement where there are no words to say. Seems a futile effort now, carving out some space in a heart rendered stone cold, dead and unbeating for Marshals. They never stick around long enough to make themselves at home.

Doc goes through the motions numbly, pulling the plastic sheeting out of the garage, standing and breathing in stale, cold air staring at the gaping emptiness where his stockpile had been. The house is deathly silent and the shelves are empty. He needs to get through today. He needs to provide for Malcolm, somehow, in a place with no food and no animals and nothing growing in the middle of winter. He needs to check in on the neighbours, the Hargreeves brothers, the young ladies that keep him awake at night. He needs to look for the missing persons. He needs to keep going. And he needs to do all this alone. (Again. Naturally.)

"...you selfish assholes," his voice echoes. He doesn't have the energy to take out the undercurrents of anger in his voice. He's too old and tired for this shit. And yet that little voice in the back of his head can't help but taunt him. This is what he signed up for, to outlive everyone. This is everything he had ever wanted. Freedom from chronic pain. Immortality.

The flimsy empty metal rack where he had kept all the food they had consumed and he had given away crashes loudly onto the garage floor as Doc rips it off the half dozen old screws that kept it attached to the wall, gouging some ugly scratches in the bare cement. Yanking the enchanted ring off his finger, Doc throws it so hard at the wall it almost breaks. The whole house practically trembles when he slams the side of his fist against the wall, gritting his teeth and lowering his head until his hat gets crushed against the wall.

Breathe. In. Out. In. Out.

Breathe.

A trail of plastic sheets follow him as he returns to Malcolm's side. Doc's resting neutral face looks the same as it had been when he first walked out the door this morning. He seems to have decided on wrapping first, since he's just gone on ahead to start on that. He's got a hundred other things he needs to get done today. He is not open to discussion.

Doc is never very chatty, but the silence is different this time. Malcolm watches him for a cue, bending to help him when he sees what he’s doing.

Once they have Neal wrapped and all the pieces placed in the wheelbarrow, he glances around at where the various footprints lead. He points.

“Negan.”

Doc raises a hand to stop Malcolm from going too close. "He was in the museum. He could--" Reanimate. Come back as something they don't need to deal with today. Doc doesn't have the vocabulary for the horrors that both Negan and Ellie are dealing with back home. He just knows it's dangerous.

"-be infected. I will burn him." It brings him no joy to do it, despite how much Negan had gotten on his nerves. There's a sort of meaninglessness to everything. He couldn't even say, what the collecting of leftover canned food and first aid kits every night or the making space in the house was for.

Doc's hand stops him in his tracks, practically mid-step, but he looks at him in confusion.

"Burn him? Infected with what? We all live together."

Could Negan be infected with something and they not be?

"I-I'll help," he adds, leaving the wheelbarrow of Neal pieces where it stands for the moment to move to Doc's side. "You'll need someone to help build a pyre; you need a solid 800 degrees Celsius to cremate a human body," he explained.

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?

1306 was empty and heavy with grief. Malcolm had been sitting at the kitchen island with Raylan’s hat in front of him for hours. At one point he put it on. Eventually he gave in and picked up a bottle of moonshine, pouring a few fingers sloppily into a glass.

And then another.

He was on his third when he heard the banging on the door. He slid off the stool, causing the slightly too large hat to fall forward. He pushed it back a bit and opened the door. He just stared at her for a second, before jolting out of it and taking a breath.

“Ellie. Ellie. Come in. Are you okay?” He staggered aside so she could get in.

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036 » aftermath: the living

QUESTIONS?

Will Graham | Hannibal | OTA

Profile of the death of Raylan Givens cw: Gore

Profile of the death of Max Guevara

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

Profile of the death of Klaus Hargreeves

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number five | the umbrella academy | open

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Ellie | The Last Of Us | closed starters

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

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

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