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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[conning]

He stays where he's put, staring at his right hand where it rests palm-up on his knee. It's shaking, muscles in his fingers and wrist twitching loosely. Absently, he remembers what Malcolm said about his own tremor, about how it went away but then came back and stuck around. He clenches his hand into a fist and pretends he can't feel the muscles still twitching.

When Daisy sits down again, it's like he's realizing she's there for the first time. His unclench hand goes to her cheek. She looks so ashen in the redness of the world around them. "You--" His stomach turns over. "Oh, no. No, no."

He struggles to breathe deeply, to follow that instruction. "You shouldn't have to be here."

[chuju]

Daisy has no concept of what she looks like, not giving even a second of thought to herself or her own well-being. It's just not even on her radar, her whole focus on Neal and helping him not having a complete panic attack.

Absently setting the bowl and bottle on the couch beside her, she turns to face Neal completely, one hand pressing against his over her cheek while the other reaches up to the side of his neck.

"It's okay, Neal," she repeats softly but firmly, leaning in close and doing her best to catch his gaze. He feels so cold... "We're gonna get through this. I will get you through this. Just give me a few deep breaths, okay?"

[conning]

A few deep breaths. He can do that. A few deep breaths. He closes his eyes, focuses on that, focuses on the fact that he can feel her close by and that somehow they can think and walk and breathe, deep breaths, deep breaths.

Neal leans forward slowly until his head rests against her collarbone. He wants to sleep. He wants to just sleep until all of this goes away. Check out of this reality, hop a plane back to New York.

"I'm cold," he finally says, realizing it for the first time. He straightens slowly, starting to feel... something. More alert. More like he stood inside his own skin instead of watching someone else pilot it. He wasn't sure that made him feel better. He touches his torso with one hand, then with both, yanking his shirt up to look at unmarked, unbroken skin. "Did that really happen? Did that actually happen?"

[chuju]

His breathing is better, thank goodness. Years of training have taught her the importance of breathing exercises when trying to control stress levels — she would have leveled the SHIELD base more than once if she hadn't learned proper stress control.

She combs her fingers through his hair until he straightens again, taking in the way he seems to be coming back to himself slowly. If only he'd chosen a different line of thought to follow.

"I don't know," she answers honestly, reaching back for the bottle of water. Twisting the cap, she holds the bottle out to him. "It seems like it did but I don't know, Neal. Here, you should drink this."

[conning]

He takes it, drinking slowly, in small sips. Even though when the water hits his tongue all he wants to do is chug the whole thing down. He's violently thirsty. But that has to be a good thing, right? It means he's alive, it means... it means something.

Neal reaches for her hand, grabbing on, holding tight. Guilt hits in a wave. "...I didn't look for you," he says, voice a whisper. "I just--Raylan, I found Raylan, and we found Negan, and then Malcolm and Doc weren't in the house and Raylan split off to hunt for them and Negan went and I... I just..."

He closes his eyes. He saw the blood on the show, the spot where he died, and shut down. "I'm sorry."

[chuju]

It's good that he goes slow with the water — Daisy would have taken it back if he'd tried to drink it all in one go. His stomach has been through enough without him subjecting it to that too.

She's so confused when he grabs her hand, her other one wrapping around his instinctively, but then she lifts it to cup the back of his neck as she leans in close.

"It's okay, Neal," she assures him quietly, not the least bit hurt or offended by the fact that he hadn't thought to look for her. Why would he? "I can take care of myself, remember? I'm used to bad things happening. It's good you looked for your friends."

[conning]

"I should have... checked for other people, at least."

He closes his eyes. He hadn't thought of the others at all, even though it stood to reason that he and Negan and Raylan couldn't be the only ones trapped in this strange nightmare place. That would be too merciful for Mathias.

Neal makes a broken little laugh of a sound. "I just went back to where it killed me, I just."

He shakes his head.