036 » aftermath: the dead

[villagemod]

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Mathias Township...?
WHEN: Day 036
WHAT: What happens after death?
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Plotting post over here! And a log for the living.

RECOMMENDED ♫ Deadly Avenger "Kijo 鬼女"

DAY 036
RED SKY AT MORNING
But for the dead, morning does not come. They awake to a frozen world covered in darkness, the night sky above so clear that they make out the stars that are both familiar and strangely not. The moon is full, casting light that reflects upon the snow, but both are covered in a haze of red.

Everything is covered in red. The snow, the ocean, the night sky. It's as if they are seeing through colored glasses, but that filtered hue cannot be removed.

Those who were victims of the Hunt awake where they fell, surrounded by their own blood but curiously unharmed. In fact, their physical state is that of before the Hunt, and the only sign of their injuries are the wild splatters of blood all around them.

There is no sign of anyone in Mathias except for the dead, no matter how much they search. And there is quite a lot now to search — the fog has vanished from the town completely and all paths are clear to be wandered. Time is of the essence, though, for the dead will not remain so for long.

They have only six hours in this place that is Mathias but not.

SAILORS TAKE WARNING
At the fourth hour into their stay, a storm arrives. Perhaps difficult to see at first, before long the clouds can be noticed moving across the sky, at first blocking out only patches of those strange stars but then blotting them out entirely. The moon struggles in vain to shine through their darkness, eventually failing and leaving only artificial light to guide the dead in their journeys.

The storm begins with the fifth hour. The rumbling is like that of a thunderstorm but infinitely more ominous, signaling something approaching that is not meant for the world of man. Within a few minutes, they learn why as lightning arcs across the sky, the cracks of powerful energy echoing through the air. Those branching spikes at first remain in the sky, but then suddenly they crash down to meet the earth, striking the Town Hall. The sound of splintering wood fills the air, followed moments later by the roaring crackle of a fire raging into existence. Those cracks and crashes continue, but no others reach the ground.

The fire spreads with purpose, moving outward from the town's center but never touching the forest. It leaps from building to building, consuming everything in its path. It is a living, breathing thing driven by a need to devour. There is no stopping or controlling it.

As ash begins to fall from the sky like snow and the final hour begins, the earth rumbles like the sky. Like so many of them recently experienced, the ground shakes, sending burning buildings collapsing inward and residents tumbling to the ground. For a full minute, it seems as if the world is truly ending—

And then it stops. The world is silent. No rumbling of the sky, no crackles of fire. For a few moments, there is nothing.

The sound returns with a cacophonous rush, jarring and overwhelming. At first, it seems as if everything is normal, at least as normal as this nightmare world ever is. But residents will quickly begin to notice that the fire is receding, following the same path it took before. Back and back it goes, retreating through the street toward Town Hall. And if residents pay close attention, they will catch glimpses out of the corner of their eye of burned buildings suddenly repaired and standing as they had before the storm — just a glimpse, gone in a flash when faced fully, but enough to have anyone questioning what sanity they still have remaining.

When the sixth hour ends, so too do the dead. They will blink and in one moment be in this empty red hellscape of Mathias and in the next, awakening on Day 037, with only their memories to show for their harrowing experiences.


ABOUT THE FIRE
The fire that spreads through Mathias can be treated as an almost sentient entity. It does not necessarily behave as fire normally does — it can skip buildings, burn when there's nothing to fuel it, and may actively pursue residents. How it behaves in your character's encounter with it is up to you and does not need to match how others perceive it.

Characters may be injured and even killed by the fire. Both will incur sanity loss and may cause your character to gain a Madness (in addition to others they may gain from normal sanity loss).

— All who are injured by the fire lose one sanity point and will wake on day 037 with their burns.

— All who are killed by the fire lose two sanity points and gain the Madness pyrophobia for seven days. The degree of their pyrophobia is up to the individual player.

---

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— THE WEATHER starts off clear, with temperatures well below freezing. The storm begins to move inwards around three hours in, and takes full form an hour after that.

— THE FOG has vanished. The dead may wander the whole of Mathias at their leisure, though there is still a chasm in the earth between Hill Lane and Stine Road. The chasm spans from one side of town to the other, each end disappearing into the forest, and effectively blocks passage to the "northern" (actually western) part of town.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue. Eliot Waugh has now vanished as well. Though none of them will notice until tomorrow...

— 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.

navigation | faq | locations | report updates

Comments

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.)

obligatory death question >_>

[bestfuneralever]

So if anyone dies in the fire.... anything for Klaus to notice?

[villagemodama]

Nope. His powers seem basically nonexistent in this creepy red-filter place. People might be dying but are they really...

[likeknives]

If a character dies in the fire, will they also wake back up alive on 037?

[villagemodama]

They will, yes! Just with extra trauma added. :D

EXPLORATION

[villagemodama]

Comment here if your character is going to explore a usually hidden or inaccessible area of Mathias. This can be treated as the usual question/answer format and is only being separated out for ease of reference later when updating location information.

[conning]

Neal's going to head for the lighthouse, because he wants to get a vantage point where he might be able to map the town. Will he see anything unusual from up there?

Also, while he's up there, what would he see on the opposite side from town?

Re: EXPLORATION

[tinstar]

Raylan wants to head to the other end of town, the bits he saw from the lighthouse that he knows should be there. What will he find? Far too much to go through in the short span of time but..

Needs must ask

Also, those that die in the fire, will they retain any of the scarring from it?

[likeknives]

Eliot's going to pick a random forest path that was once covered up by fog, going vaguely west, and attempt to walk as far as he can get for about forty minutes, and then return back to town and shelter when he starts seeing the storm starting to arrive and clouds gather (so he'll be back before the storm actually hits.) What might he find that far out into the forest?

Neal Caffrey || Closed + Open || Graphic Depictions of Violence

[conning]

DEATH [Closed/Prelude/Narration - graphic depictions of violence/animal death]

[conning]

They wouldn't make it.

The forebrain realization hit as panic drove him down the road after Raylan and Negan, just on their heels. He wasn't a runner, he was a city boy and a swimmer, but he knew they couldn't outrun a thing that didn't seem to break the snow.

Maybe, though. Maybe.

Neal skidded to a halt, turning around. For a moment, he thought he might be able to distract the thing. For a moment, he thought he would be able to get its attention, run another way. Give the others half a chance.

But it was there. Right there, as he turned. Standing, waiting, a formless being that seemed to tear at the edges of his mind as he tried to find a familiar shape in the darkness. He saw/felt something like a smile closing its teeth around any chance of escape, and wet himself as he screamed.

It slammed him down into the snow, and Neal screamed again at the violation of claws punching through the skin of his torso. Pain eclipsed sense, and he rolled, trying to scramble away, dragging himself a few excruciating inches, realizing with those few inches that his lower half had gotten left behind. He screamed, shrieked really, the sound reminding him of being five--

--an empty lot just down the road from their house, the chain link fence around it rusted and curling and broken. He stands at the edge, tiny fingers gripping the metal, flakes of rust clinging to his fingertips. (It's cold, the fence is bitterly cold, it's snow-cold, his hands claw at it and it slides like water under them but no it doesn't, it's a fence, solid and immovable.) Distant traffic, arguing kids half a block away, kids who won't let him join whatever game they're playing. He smells dirt and cigarettes and the musk of humid southern air. The kind of air that says it's going to rain, the kind of air that (it smells like blood, blood and shit and bile, and there's nothing but shadows and red sparking off snow) that that the kind of air that--

A rabbit, nosing in the long grass. It lifts its head and fixes one dark eye on the boy at the fence. (Is he the boy or the rabbit, he can't tell if he's the boy or the rabbit.)

He's not the eagle.

He knows that.

It crashes down out of the blue, and somehow even at five he knows it's young because when it hits the rabbit it doesn't take off and the rabbit doesn't die. Blood spatters into dirt like a balloon full of red popping across brown, and the rabbit screams.

The boy screams too.

(He still can't tell which one--)

Neal clutched at handfuls of snow, hands opening and closing on frost quickly turning to water. He thought he was still screaming, but no, it was just soft whistling noises. He tried to lift his head and managed a few inches, a few, just enough to peer along the top of the snow's crust and see the thing without a shape taking Negan off his feet and to the ground.

(Negan screaming, not the boy or the rabbit.)

(Let Raylan have gotten away.)

(Please, God--)

("If you seek a supreme predator--")

(Let Raylan have gotten away.)

(Who the hell is--?)

The black came then, a predator all its own.

Trauma Llama - Closed to Daisy

[conning]

Neal woke up screaming. He curled in on himself instinctively, dragged his limbs in, covered his head with his hands. He could smell blood, nothing but blood and that particular bite that said winter was there and wasn't letting go.

He screamed until his breath gave out, starting to cough as he sucked in cold air. The struggle to breathe short-circuited his panic, forced the realization that there were no claws in his back, no nameless horror tearing him in two. He uncurled just enough to really look at his surroundings, the red-lit street, the blood all around him.

His legs. He ran his hands over them, up and down, lost in the heaviness of his own body, the desperate relief that he left the weightlessness of bisection behind. Eventually he just curled up on his side, shuddering, crying silently, staring into space. He knew he needed to move. What was left of his instinct to survive told him he needed to move.

The rest of him somehow couldn't act on the message. It was like he sat behind his own eyes, watching a body that didn't belong to him any more, a spectator to limbs he could feel but couldn't shift.

He had to get up eventually. Eventually, he heard Raylan screaming his name and Negan's. That got him to move.

But he came back to the spot after they'd all searched 1306. After they'd split off from each other to try and see if they could find some inkling of the others. Neal changed, at least, wearing the coat that Doc left in the house rather than his own meltwater-soaked one. He stared at the spot where he died for a while in silence, the blood frosting there, the pit where he'd woken up frozen over.

He wasn't sure why he did it. But after a silence that lasted either forever or no time at all, he stepped back into the little dip in the snow, slowly curling up inside it again and closing his eyes.

If death was going to take, he wished it would hurry up.

Raylan Givens | Justified

[tinstar]

Plotting post here!

Death - Narration

[tinstar]

What had started as a quiet evening of coffee on the porch had drastically changed. Raylan had been ignoring the hairs rising on the back of his neck, thinking himself too hyped up, too tired all in the same breath to trust his own instincts. He'd fallen into the lull of security in numbers. It was a terrible mistake.

The crashing sound behind the three men jolted Raylan from his spot, coffee cup dropped to shatter on the porch as he turned around. With what he'd recently suffered, Raylan's first instinct was to get inside and he was right next to Negan and Neal as they shouted and pounded and pushed against the doors of 1306, but it wasn't more than 30 seconds before Raylan realized it would be useless.

"Run," he said to Negan and Neal before breaking for the screen door and out into the cold night, heart beating wildly in his ears. He assumed that Neal and Negan would follow him, but they broke off the other way. Raylan skidded to a halt, looking behind him, already panting with the fear and panic that screamed at him to keep fucking moving. It was the sound of Negan's and Neal's screams that turned the panic into impulse. Raylan felt like throwing up as he scrambled forwards towards the open field, towards the treeline that hoped would hide him. You fuckin' coward.  

The fog was there, true, but he knew how far back it normally sat. He could mitigate once he was hidden, weave across the line.

He didn't get that far.

These boots were made for a lot of things; Running was not one of them. They betrayed him, slipping and twisting out from under him to send the lean Marshal face first into the snow with a rough grunt. He could hear the Thing rumbling up onto him with a terrifying speed, a terrifying clop of its weight against the ground and all Raylan could do was try to scramble to his feet.

He managed all of three feet before falling again and rolling onto his back, eyes wild, hat lost somewhere nearby when he fell. All he could do was punch, fight and it did nothing to stop the swings that rent his flesh. He could hear the screaming as he swung as he pushed futilely at the Thing but it wasn't until just before the fatal swing that mutilated his face for him to realize that the sound was coming from his own throat.

Open + 1 to come for the Storm and fire

[tinstar]

We all float down here- Waking up

Raylan gasped awake, just as frantic and as panic as when he'd... died? and his hands automatically groped across his stomach before flying to his face. All he could remember was screaming and pain and blood everywhere and- Raylan didn't realize he was hyperventilating or that there was wetness pricking at his eyes that made him look more like a lost ten year old than a forty something plus man who steadfastly refused to cry. That didn't stop the hot wet tears from rolling down his face anyway as he looked around at all the blood. His blood.

Horrified and with a terrified whimper that he didn't recognize, Raylan scrambled back and pushed to his feet to gain any kind of distance he could from his own murder scene. With a panicked glance around, Raylan couldn't see the thing that had killed him, and his next thought was -

"NEAL! NEGAN!" If anyone who heard it could sense the raw terror under the names, they could gather how well Raylan was doing.

Run Rabbit

Once he'd found Neal and Negan, along with some semblance of control and a fractured, barely held together mask, Raylan searched through 1306, calling just as desperately for Henry and Malcolm. He went through each room, checking the closets and bathrooms and screaming at the emptiness of it all in his frustration. The table in the master bedroom was hefted and swung freely at the wall as his back curved with his frustrated fury.

Twenty minutes later, Raylan was back outside and striding towards the town center. Anyone who had ever seen him casually amble across a room would sense the difference in his stride, legs stepping one foot almost in front of the other as he strode with a deadly purpose.

If death wouldn't grant him peace, then he would raise a little hell instead.

This is not the bonfire we requested - OTA

[tinstar]

Whatever was going one, Raylan was sure of the cause of it, the heart of it, the root - whatever you wanted to call it, he was sure it was on the other side of the chasm. Call him curious, call him suicidal, call him obsessed - the first place Raylan went after gathering his wits was the chasm. The fucking gap that haunted him and, in a more literal sense, haunted Malcolm. In this in between place - or maybe we should reconsider that Mathis IS hell - he had to hope something was different. That something would give way, let him over, let him see.

It was still there, an ugly rend in the land, mocking him as he strode up to it and stood, hands propped on crooked hips so he could glare at it some more. In death as he was in life, but there was something else missing, Raylan noted several minutes later. The fog. Without hesitation, Raylan picked a direction and started walking.

It took some time, but finally, the trees opened up.

An hour later, he came jogging out of the woods, eager to get the fuck out of dodge with the storm he sensed on the air. For people not used to smelling oncoming trouble, that might have sounded strange, but Raylan had seen and lived through enough storms, tornados and hurricanes to know what the sky was getting ready to give them. Like hell was he getting stuck out here in the darkness with no light of his own. Also, it was bullshit that purgatory had a day and night cycle - the perks of death were far from what he'd been promised.

Peace and quiet.

But Mathis seemed intent on tearing every bit of peace and quiet out of them, piece by piece.

Fire at the Disco

Raylan would have cheered when the Town Hall was hit had he seen it, but he barely got to the edge of the treeline before full dark fell and it was pure memory that had him running in a straight line towards the streets he now knew too well as the sky thundered around him. The sound of it alone drove him faster towards the now burning town.

He wasn't going to run away from this one.

"TO THE BEACH," he yells at the first person he sees. "BEACH OR THE TREES, GO GO."

Raylan kept booking it into town, more concerned about getting people away from the fire, getting back to his own turf, his own people than the fire jumping around him. He had figured the middle of the street would keep him safe, but all it took was a few seconds too long in one spot for the fire to leap out and catch his leg. Raylan stumbled and swore, hands madly grabbing snow and slapping his calf.

It did nothing. The fire seared him into his boot and crawled up him, jumping to his other leg as Raylan started screaming again in short breaths, brain trying to scream for help and not managing the words as he beat uselessly at the flames. In the end all he could do was roll around desperately as he felt his skin frying and breaking, screaming in agony until his lungs and eyes and brain finally collapsed and succumbed to it.

When the fire finally pulls back, what is left of Raylan is unrecognizable outside of the hat that had rolled several feet away and the tin star that could be found if one kicked the ash of his coat away.

daisy johnson | mcu

[chuju]

'Cause when I go I already know
My life will only be a story
All that I've been, all that I've built
All fades away inside a moment
And the pain won't matter, the power won't matter
The shame burns with the glory
When I'm gone my life will only be a story ♫

when i'm gone — narration

[chuju]

and i hope that when i reach the end that i gave you something to remember

Ellie was safe. That's what echoes through Daisy's mind as she sees the younger woman disappear into the boarding house, seconds before she feels that thing getting closer. It takes no thought at all to turn, propelling herself away from the building where so many will be hiding. There isn't time, she knows she can't escape the thing hunting her, but if she can give those people a chance—

She just barely makes it to the street before something sharp slashes across her back, the force of the strike sending her to her knees. The light from the boarding house windows illuminates the arc of red blood in the bright snow, and for a moment it's oddly beautiful. But then another strike comes, and another, and she doesn't even realize when she starts to scream.

So this is how she dies.

There have been so many times over the years when she's come close, again and again dancing near to death's cool embrace before being pulled back by her team. Her family. But they aren't here now. There's no one here to save her this time... and she's okay with that. After all the heartache and grief in her life, she's ready to accept the end, even as her body instinctively tries and fails to fight back.

In the end, it doesn't hurt as much as what Malick had done. That pain had dragged on for what felt like hours, coupled with the fear of him doing it to Sousa too because she wasn't strong enough to stop him. This time, she has the comfort of knowing she'd gotten Ellie to safety. Whether Carter and Eliot had made it too, she might never know, but at least she'd saved one person before dying. Sometimes that's all a hero can ask for when they go.

One last life saved.

Negan | The Walking Dead

[vampirebats]

we all have to go sometime (death and awakening narration)

There were jokes shared over coffee, three housemates hanging out and having something that almost felt like a good time, a brief respite from the general weirdness that plagues Mathias. A normal evening that had gone awry in ways that even Negan's never seen before in his goddamn life. He should have known. Every instinct had been telling him to go back in, hide. Something was coming. Why the fuck hadn't he listened to his gut? Just because you got backup doesn't always mean jack shit.

Everything that comes after happens in a whirlwind and the weight of terrible mistakes made by tempting fate.

Because he always thinks he'll come out on top, doesn't he? Fucking moron.

Something was on the prowl and they were on the menu.

There wasn't any way to get back inside when they tried.

Raylan had yelled to run and they all did, he thinks. But like the headless chickens that they were, they'd scattered wrong, hadn't stuck together. He broke his own damn rule with that one, his bad. Run, hide, survive. Those instincts kept him alive for how fucking long? How long had it kept others alive? But they failed him tonight.

"C'mon," he'd urged Neal, pulse pounding in his ears, hairs on his neck standing up as he wonders where they're even fucking going. They need some place to hide, lay low for a while, and he's about to tell Neal as much when he realizes the goddamned idiot just stopped moving.

"You motherfucking dumbass, you get your fucking ass--" It's too late though. It's too late. It's all too fucking late and Negan thinks for a moment he's losing his goddamn mind as Neal is lost in a hell of a gory fucking display. He can't save him. For a moment, Negan can't do anything. They say your life flashes before your eyes before you die, don't they?

His must be just the bad reels, or maybe it's all bad reels that he's actually got. His mom getting her goddamn face mangled because he couldn't say no to bringing home strays, and all the sneaking around on Lucille, making a fucking murder bat in her honor like that wouldn't twist her stomach. The heads he's bashed in and faces he's burnt with hot irons in the name of punishment and keeping people in line, alive. He can dress it up as nice and pretty as he fucking wants, but for a moment, Negan feels his insides twist up painfully with the weight of all the shit he's done in his life.

The regret because that's not who he ever wanted to be and now he's not sure he'll get a chance to change it even if he wanted.

He's a coward in the end. He can't face what's coming for him with any sort of dignity. He turns on his toe and tries to run away, cursing as a lingering image of a head caved in lingers in his head, along with the mangled words of a dying man making promises to his fucking pregnant wife even with Negan's taunts in the background.

I just popped your skull so hard, your eyeball popped out... and that shit is gross.

He doesn't realize the scream and pained cry that rings in his ears is actually his at first. He's still trying to process the pain that rips and shoots through him, the sickening knowledge that this is actually it. This is the end of the fucking line for him and no amount of bravado will save him from getting fucking torn up and mangled, just like it never saved anybody he's ever killed in his goddamn life.

Part of him is just aware enough to feel guilty that Neal died for nothing on top of it all if Raylan didn't make it somewhere safe. Hell, he should never have died for Negan in the first place, that's already sort of a fucking failure.

When everything goes blissfully black finally, Negan found himself hoping that would be it. He's so fucking tired.

But no, instead he wakes in a panic under an unfamiliar night sky with everything bathed in red. Looking around him, there's blood. His blood? It should be his blood, but he's pretty sure he's goddamn fine fine. Nothing hurts at least. It takes him longer than he cares to admit to find the will to climb to his feet and check properly though.

Part of him wants to stay there and freeze.

The bigger part of him can never do that, no matter how much he wants to stop.

"Goddammit, is this what Hell looks like?" Going pretty hardcore on the spooky vibe, if he does say so himself.

Somewhere in the distance, he hears a familiar voice yelling his name. Raylan--

Fuck, Neal. And how many others were caught in this shit?

That's enough to get him moving again at least.

man about town (OTA)

Well, Negan still isn't sure this shit isn't Hell or some freaky death induced hallucination while his corpse finishes pissing and shitting itself in its death throes. Either way, he can't say he doesn't deserve any of this, if this is some sort of eternal damnation situation. Maybe that's what all of Mathias is. A punishment of some kind for assholes. It doesn't track entirely when he's met plenty of seemingly decent people, but it's a working theory.

After breaking off from Neal and Raylan when he finds them, Negan heads out to search through some shit. 1306, but there's no sign of his other housemates or anything especially useful right in this moment. That's... good? Hopefully anyway. He's taking advantage of the new found clarity in this shitehole and searching whatever he can while he can.

He's also going to keep an eye out for any familiar faces he can. This is all fucked as all goddamn hell, but they're still in this together. They all split up too far without giving a shit about each other, they're just gonna die... again? Whatever.

it's hot in the city tonight (OTA)

Sure, why not a fire storm on top of everything else? Nothing else makes sense, so this might as well goddamn happen to all of them. Negan is near all the action when it starts, the fire almost an entity in its own right. He watches in amazement as it jumps from building to building, leaving some behind unscathed for reasons he can't even fathom or comprehend. It isn't until he realizes it seems like it's coming for people too that he snaps into action.

He can be less of a shit person and try to save someone else, get them out of the way.

Or maybe he'll fail at
even that and get swallowed up by flames before he can even so much as utter "Hey, you! Get the fuck out of the way!"

[tinstar]

Once Raylan and Neal had put themselves together enough to function well enough to put one foot in front of the other, they were pulling forwards as Raylan scanned the horizon for another figure. When he saw one, he had to assume it was Negan - there wasn't even a moments hesitation before he broke back into a jog, mindless to if Neal joined him on that or not.

"Negan!," he shouted, though it was likely Negan already saw them but there was no telling how all this would have affected the otherwise tough as nails man. If he was well enough to be walking, Raylan assumed he was as whole as they were but he didn't trust logic in this place.

"Shit man. I thought y'all were right behind me, I didn't know you'd split - you alright?" Not in one piece, not okay - no one was okay, he'd bet money on that.

Man about town; cw: memories of a violent death and all that entails

[bestfuneralever]

Klaus woke up slowly. Maybe because his injuries had been so bad. Maybe something about the trauma of his death made him unable to allow himself to drag back to consciousness. He shouldn't have a consciousness to come back to in the first place. He'd died. Violently and none too kindly.

He remembers it, clear as crystal, the sharp sting of claws in his sides, the searing pain of teeth shredding into his neck. As he comes back around, he swears he can still feel that monster tearing at his skin. He expects to be be covered in blood, and who knows what else, but that's really all it is. Just blood. No broken skin or bones, no meaty parts of him on the outside where they shouldn't be. Just... a mess of blood-stained snow and skies.

Wait.

He frowns and slowly sits up, staring up at the very obviously red sky. Red... everything, he realizes as he takes a glance around; it was dark, but the eerie crimson glow was unmistakable. The whole town looked like it had been ripped into by that thing, too.

There's something about it that unsettles him, more than the blood-y new look to their not-so-beloved town. Something he can't quite put a finger on, but begins to gnaw at him, starting in the pit of his stomach and slowly, rolling a spreading anxiety-riddled tingling across his skin. Something is so, so, so wrong, here.

But he isn't sure what, so he decides to go seek out someone familiar. Anyone, really. He at least knows the faces of most everyone in town. Though, suddenly, he isn't sure he should want to find a friend in this mess. That would mean they died, too. Still, he isn't stupid enough to assume he's the only one that died; so he sets out to find someone.

Nothing about Klaus in this moment is even a vague shade of 'okay'. He's curled in on himself, like he's trying to make himself smaller, or better still, invisible. There's a panicked sort of tension holding his shoulders tight, which keeps bringing him to look behind him to be sure he isn't being followed.

max guevara | dark angel

[revvedup]

open and closed starters below!

day 36 | open

[revvedup]

The last thing she remembers is the night sky filtered through the woods, a creature she can't make anything out of but shadows hovering over her and the noises it makes. She knows she died because she couldn't feel a thing, but then she shouldn't be waking up at all.

Right?

Others have died and come back from it. It only occurs to her now that she's never asked the people what happened while they were gone.

Max tests out her mobility first, starting with her fingers and toes before pushing herself into a seated position, looking around. Whatever had ultimately killed her doesn't seem to be still around, but the carnage definitely is - her own blood stains the snow, standing out in a darker shade of red, which everything around her seems to be bathed in. She gets slowly to her feet, looking around and listening to the thing responsible for the noises and her death, but she doesn't hear anything. Whatever it was seems to be gone.

So she starts maneuvering her way through the woods, not wanting to stay there any longer, and starts heading back towards Mathias proper. The fog is gone but in its place is the red, and she moves deliberately slowly, trying to listen for anyone else in the same situation she is.

Eliot Spencer | Leverage cw: gore, violence, murder, blood, death

[likeknives]

A. The Long Goodbye - Death Narration

He's faced it many times before.

There were so many times in his life that he thought this is it. And every time, he's faced it directly. Before when he had no one but himself, there was not a lot to regret. There wasn't a lot to think about. Scarcely any emotion other than base anger or fear. But then again, that was his whole life back then, wasn't it? Maybe a faint impression or two about what Damien would think. If he would miss him. But Damien knew the risks. Hell, he was the one ordering him to do half this stuff anyway.

That changed when he met them. That changed when he had people again, people to protect, people that needed to be safe at all costs. There were no regrets either when it came to putting himself in danger. That was his job, that was what he did. The regrets came from other things. Maybe he should have told Parker about the worst thing he's ever done--maybe she'd miss him less if she hated him. Maybe he should have made Hardison one more steak, or sat down and watched one more Star Wars with him. (How many Star Wars were there now anyway? Like more than five, probably.) Or maybe he should have told them how much they meant to him every single. Day.

He knew that they knew but maybe they should have heard it from him, out loud, a little more. One more kindness, one more hug, one more meal.

He always thought he would die protecting them. He should have died protecting them.

Eliot knew that he wasn't gonna make it out of here. He could only hope that Daisy made it someplace safe, that Carter was gonna make it, that this wasn't in vain, that he could make this count for something.

Because when it came right down to it, his debt was gonna be repaid sooner or later. How many lives had he taken? How many check marks against his name? He's sent people to the reaper so many times. The reaper knew who he was.

It's just...he wishes this was something he could fight. Honestly he thought it would have been a bullet. Something like a shot to the back, something he couldn't fight. He was just human after all.

And whatever this was that was after them...definitely wasn't.

He could feel it, hear it, and it's not fair how terrified he is. It's like some fear that wasn't him, wasn't part of him grips his chest and messes with his actions, his reactions, his mind--he's prey and he's being chased.

He's getting tired.

He slips in the snow and picks himself up, and then something tears into his shoulder and he slips around, punching at it--expecting to see a sword or a knife or hell, even a bayonet of some kind--

--it's not anything. It's not anything he can describe or even see, it makes his mind, his existence hurt like a physical thing and he yells. He has to fight it, it burns in his eyes and he'd like to think he got a few good hits in but even then he knows--

--he knows he's not gettin' out of this.

Especially when that something tears into him. It's dull and sharp and hot at the same time, like knives--

--so many knives.

It's fast. He's thankful for that.

He's thankful even as he hits the now-steaming snow running red with his blood, pieces of him here and there and he hopes Daisy is all right and he hopes Carter is all right and he just--

--he wonders if Hardison and Parker will ever know why he went missing and he knows if there's any semblance of an afterlife he won't see them again because they're good and he's...not.

He hopes they're okay and he hopes--

B. The Rundown - OTA

He's mad.

Oh no, not that he's mad about being alive and--well, dead? Not-dead? What was that dumb cat's name again? No, he's pretty sure this is some kind of world of the dead, and they're all about to be punished horribly, but that doesn't mean he can't be pissed off about it.

He 'woke up' with a gasp, in a pool of his own blood and patting his face, his chest, expecting them to be ripped to shreds and they're not and it's just...it's like his mind doesn't want to accept it. It's like something in the back of his mind cracks, just a little, like a faint scream in the distance that won't quit.

He went for a walk to clear his head and now he's back and now the town's under attack by fire and he's just--well, he was pretty much expecting that.

Though he's not quite sure what's going to happen if it gets to them, he just knows it ain't good.

"This way!"

He waves over the nearest person he sees, maybe if they head upwind of this thing they'll have a chance.

C. The End - Closed to Neal

They don't have a chance.

This thing, this fire--it's ugly and it's moving in ways that are impossible. It's almost like it's chasing them--it is chasing them and how do you beat something like this?

How do you beat an invisible, impossible creature that rips you to shreds?

He's getting tired again. He's not sure how that's possible if you're dead or maybe it's just a mental thing. It's not like he ever prepared what to do if you were ripped to shreds and then had to deal with sentient fire. He considered himself prepped for every situation and is pretty good at figuring out plans on the fly but this was just a lot to deal with when he was still reeling from getting ripped apart.

He's got his back to the walls of a building and then he sees someone in the distance--

"Hey! That building's about to go!"

[conning]

Neal has no idea what he's doing. He has no idea where to run. He doesn't do this kind of thing, this particular kind of emergency. This isn't something that needs a quick and clever solution. This is just run, run, run, and everywhere he runs there's fire reaching for him like it wants to drag him into its heart.

He hears Eliot's shout just in time, catches sight of the collapsing house, and bolts toward Eliot as it comes down. Flames shoot outward, clawing at his back, and he feels that same sense of savage desire for death that he got from the thing that sent them all here in the first place.

He skids to a halt near Eliot, eyes huge, panic written in every line of his body. "Thanks," he says, the word choked, shouted to be heard over the chaos.