villagelogs | 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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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!"

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.

036 » aftermath: the dead

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

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