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

[bestfuneralever]

Klaus has already been awake for a bit by the time he finds Max; Negan had taken the brunt of his first moments in this new, crimson-bathed version of the freaky little town. He's seeking out anyone else that may have-- survived feels wrong, because they definitely died, he remembers it too clearly for it to have been anything less than real. Still. There are probably others, and he wants to be sure they find everyone while they try to figure out what to do next.

"Max?" He thinks that's her, just up ahead of him. He couldn't even begin to guess where she might be headed, going this direction, but he hung back, a sick paranoia sinking under his skin. What if it wasn't her? What if they were using her likeness to lure him in? He heard Dave's voice more than once in places around town; it killed him to not follow it, every time, but he'd been warned about the voices when he got here. Maybe this was the next step up.

Congrats, you've been upgraded to the Exclusive Platinum Horror Package!

[revvedup]

By now, she's run into Raylan and tried finding whoever else she can in this horrible, alternate version of an already terrible place. She's trying to search the areas she's most familiar with; the boarding house, beach, and restaurant, looking for any hint of another person.

Klaus calls out to her and she whirls around, eyes going wide when she sees him. She runs up to him without preamble, standing in front of him in a matter of moments, looking very much like she'd like to reach out and touch him just to confirm he's really there.

"Klaus." It's a little sad and broken; he's one of the last people she would have wanted to see here, but she's selfishly glad to see him at the same time. "How - are you - "

None of the compulsory questions she quells the urge to ask feel right. Not when they're both dead.

[bestfuneralever]

Klaus doesn't hesitate once she's in reach, tugging her close into a tight hug. "Hey," he mutters into her hair and rests his cheek on top of her head. He won't let go until she moves and shows she's ready to pull back; he always lets the other person decide how long something like this should last, because he doesn't mind, regardless.

"I don't understand-- do you think this is where the others disappear to? Nobody ever remembers it, though..." He bites his lip. "I wonder if we'll forget when- if we end up going back?" Or are they just stuck here forever now, split off from the rest?

[revvedup]

He pulls her quickly and tightly into a hug and she doesn't hesitate while hugging back, a few tears springing forth and soaking into his shirt. She stays there for longer than she means to, not really wanting to cry but needing to fall apart for a minute and grateful that he's giving her the opportunity to. Raylan probably wouldn't have judged her for it, but it felt more important to keep going, try and find out what had happened to who.

"I don't know," she says after eventually pulling back and wiping underneath her eyes. "I don't know if I'd want to remember this place or if it would be worse to."

[bestfuneralever]

He'll cling to her for as long as she'll allow; he's a tactile person, he's good with casual touch, especially with people he considers friends. He's definitely one of the more in touch with his emotions folks around Mathias, so he's possibly more prepared to handle a little breakdown if it needs to happen.

When she finally pulls away, he doesn't stray far from her, "Yeah, I know what you mean..." He glances around and sighs softly. "Something feels weird, right? Like-" he waves his hand vaguely in front of him and drops it back to his side again. "I don't know..."

[revvedup]

It's a few minutes before she lets go, at least. Max isn't exactly out of touch with her emotions so much as she tries to avoid dealing with them, but this place seems determined to bring out the worst of them in attempts to make people face them head on. She starts walking after they've both had the opportunity to fall apart a bit, looking behind her and making sure he remains close.

"Yeah, it does," she agrees, looking around. "It's - does everything look red to you?"

[bestfuneralever]

Klaus will be sticking to her side for the time being, so she won't have to worry about that. He's not sure if it's more unsettling, or comforting knowing he isn't the only one that feels like everything is off, somehow, but her confirmation...helps, either way. Even if he still feels weird.

He nods, "Yeah... I don't like that, either. Makes you wonder what's coming." Because red? Red was danger, and warning, and he didn't like the idea of Mathias trying to warn them about anything. It never did before, so if it deemed a warning like that necessary... well. It wasn't about to be pretty, was it?