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The Village Mod ([personal profile] villagemod) wrote in [community profile] villagelogs2021-02-20 07:12 pm

036 » aftermath: the dead

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.


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chuju: (146.)

daisy johnson | mcu

[personal profile] chuju 2021-02-23 01:12 am (UTC)(link)
'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
chuju: (149.)

when i'm gone — narration

[personal profile] chuju 2021-02-23 01:14 am (UTC)(link)
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.