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.

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Comments

[tinstar]

"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."

[conning]

"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...?"

[vampirebats]

"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.

[tinstar]

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.

[conning]

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.

[vampirebats]

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.

[tinstar]

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.

[conning]

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?"

[vampirebats]

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?"

[tinstar]

Raylan brings up the rear and closes the door behind them, just in case he was wrong about the idea of nothing coming charging in after them.

The silence in the wake of Neal's call made Raylan's stomach sink.

"They're not here," he murmured darkly. "Three bedrooms, easy to clear." He nodded at Neal, expression darkly stony. "We might as well make sure."

[conning]

Neal nods, impulsively calling out again as they spread through the house.

"Malcolm? Doc? Hello?"

He can't decide if he's more anxious or relieved that they aren't inside.

He's going with anxious for the time being.

[vampirebats]

"Well, fuck..." He shakes his head, letting out a breath. Three rooms.

"Alright, let's go check it out. See what's here, what's going on. At least Malcolm and Doc hopefully-- didn't meet the same goddamn fate we did, eh?" Is that a comfort? Sort of.

[conning]

"Yeah," Neal hangs on to that, tries to hang on to that, following the lead of the other two men as they go upstairs and clear the rooms.

The house stays silent and deep, deep red.

"Not here," Neal says softly, reconvening with Raylan and Negan after checking the garage. He licks his lips. "Now what?"

[tinstar]

Raylan had fallen in line to get upstairs and very ungently tossed the room, tearing open the closet and the bathroom door to the master before recongregating himself downstairs with a look on his face that suggested terrible things for the wrong face to get in front of.

"Now we look everywhere else. For anyone. Anyone who died with us." Then they start over. They had no idea if they were ever getting out of this red hellhole, ever getting back to Doc and Malcolm, so it was one step at a time. Food. Shelter. Sanity, if that was even possible for them again.

"Meet you back in town center in a few hours?"

[vampirebats]

Fuck, Negan hopes this shit isn't permanent. He can handle being dead, sure, maybe... he's not sure how he's ever gonna get used to this red fucking hellscape though. Not the time to talk about it though. They gotta stay focused.

"Yeah. We'll meet back up. Everybody-- be careful. We don't know any more what's going on than when we woke up here. We don't know if-- whatever attacked us is gonna be hanging around either. Guess we can't die twice, but something tells me we can damn sure still feel pain.""