villagelogs | 036 » aftermath: the dead

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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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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!"

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.

Neal joined him. He stuck as close as he could without stumbling himself or tripping Raylan. The relief at spotting Negan only grew when they got close enough to see he was in one piece.

"Thank god," he breathes out, though the words seem to have a taint of irony, given where they are right now. Neal looks away from the two men with him for a moment, taking in the town washed in red light. The way the redness makes the blood on the snow look practically black. He shudders and looks back at his friends. "What... happened? Where are we?"

Questions none of them could answer, and on some level he knows that, but they come out anyway.

"I'm in one piece," he answers Raylan. He's not okay. None of them are, but at least they're not torn apart still. That's-- something? Maybe. "How about you two?"

He pauses when Neal speaks up, looking around them, trying to ignore the blood still on the ground. "I don't know. You think this is Hell or something? Because goddamn, it feels like it."

"Not missin' anythin' I ain't supposed though, though I got no idea how." He looked back at Neal for his opinion on Hell. "Hell doesn't sound far off, stuck here after that. What the fuck is with the patina? Is that us? Some paint the town red bullshit."

"So it's not just me," Neal says quietly. He thought it might be. He presses his fingertips against closed eyes for a moment, opening them again without any difference in their surroundings. "It's like it's... in the air somehow."

He turns in a slow circle, shaking his head. "None of this makes sense. I--"

That thing tore him in half. He swallows down queasiness as best he can, before turning sharply back toward 1306. "Doc. Malcolm. Do you think...?"

"Yeah... It's-- driving me goddamn crazy." Red every where you look. It's creepy as shit. Hopefully this isn't permanent or something.

The mention of Doc and Malcolm though? That gets him to snap to attention. They don't have time to sit around bitching and moaning when there are some of their own potentially out there.

"Shit, you're right. We gotta go check. We need to be sure. We can't worry about-- that shit." He motions hastily to the blood on the ground.

If they weren't in such a weird, post-dire situation, Raylan would find it almost amusing that he assumed everyone else saw it and Neal assumed it was just him, but as it was, he'd just take the comfort in the fact that they were all upright with enough eyeball to see it all.

The mention of Doc and Malcolm, the next two people that were on Raylan's to check list had his head swiveling back towards the house, wide eyed concern slowly getting replaced with the edges of an anger he kept well tucked away.

"C'mon. I'm not into guessin' not here, not if I can help it," he said, long legs taking to striding back towards where they'd come from. His hope was tangled in pessimism and dark assumptions, none of which included them finding their housemates safe and well.

Neal keeps pace with Raylan, barely, his eyes all over the street as they move toward 1306. He doesn't trust this place not to throw something else at them the moment they get too focused on a single area.

The front door of 1306 is closed, the windows unbroken, which is tentatively encouraging. But after the noises from the walls, Neal can't be sure it's a definitively good sign. He's hit by a coward's instinct to let the other men go first, knows the odds if something is in there waiting, but it's not like either of them will be any better equipped to take it on, not really. He puts his hand on the knob, looking Raylan and Negan's way for a signal.

He nods for Neal to open it. If there's something in there like whatever killed them prior, it's not like they're gonna stand a chance.

And if Doc or Malcolm are in there needing help? Well, they ain't got the time to waste. He's not sure though. He doesn't know what the fuck is going on around here.

Raylan waits - Negan giving the nod was instruction enough - and flexed his hand that itched for the gun that belonged on his hip. The one that might have saved them. He had to believe that it would have.

If he thought he could do any better with what they might find behind the door, he might have told Neal to let him go first, but if there was something behind it that was solid enough to take a hit or worse, he was sure between himself and Negan, they could do something. Or die again, but Raylan was bitter enough to assume they were going to loop in all this.

A new nightmare.

Neal takes a deep breath and throws the door open, moving in and to one side immediately so the others can follow.

It's silent inside. Everything still tinted that awful red. Neal hesitates a moment before calling out--anything in there with them is going to hear them come in, regardless.

"Doc! Malcolm! Are you okay?"

Negan moves forward behind Neal once he's in, looking around. "This is--"

fucking weird, honestly. No sign of anyone, no sign of anything. "It's like they weren't here... Let's move it upstairs?"

Negan | The Walking Dead

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

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