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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He laughs softly at that admission. "Oh, no. I was serious about that," he smirks, shaking his head a little.

"I mean- how do you prove it either way, right?" He throws a glance back over his shoulder at him. She didn't really say who She was, but... the allusions She made were there. He's mostly sure it was real, anyway.

"I guess you got a point." No way to prove anything, is there? Hell, even this is pretty damn sketchy...

"You see anyone else besides God?"

"Just my dad," he mutters bitterly as they continue their trek toward the boarding house. He's not sure what will be better-- finding evidence of his brother in this mirror version of town, or finding nothing at all.

"Shit, sorry, man." Gotta suck. Getting up there and God isn't who you think and then your shit dad is what you get to see. Although he'd wager that'd still be better than-- this.

"Do you know where your brother hangs out around here? Outside of the boarding house."

He huffs a sound from the back of his throat, a bitter sort of scoff that he couldn’t have stopped even if he wanted to. “It’s my luck, man. Always been that way.” Every time things almost seem to be working out in his favor, a wire gets tripped and activates the worst way possible for him to be denied whatever he was going for.

“Library, town hall, just—” he shrugs, waves a hand dismissively. “He’s everywhere, honestly.” Which doesn’t help in narrowing ideas down on where to look, it at least all the looking will keep them busy.

"Alright, well... we'll check wherever we have to." Negan isn't going to say no. Being up and about is a lot better than sitting and thinking. He can keep his attention on the task at hand, try to solve a problem.

Or at least find them answers about if Five is here or not.

"Better than sitting back and letting this creepy as shit place do... whatever else it's gonna do to us."

He nods and mutters a quiet, "Thanks." trying to keep his voice in check, and not wavering. He needs just keep pushing forward so he doesn't break down. Or that's what he keeps telling himself; Klaus has never been the most pragmatic of the Hargreeves, and he has certainly never been the best at compartmentalizing.

He leads the way into the boarding house and starts calling out for his brother. Kitchen- empty, living room- nothing, he takes the stairs two at a time toward their shared bedroom, which he finds empty, and almost exactly like he remembers it. He's not sure if that's comforting or disturbing in a way he can't put into words.

Klaus spins on his heel to leave the room and walks out and slams right into Negan. He hisses and presses his hands flat against the plane of the other man's chest, eyes squeezed shut as he pressed a slow breath out between his lips. "He's not here," he mutters, curling his fingers into the material of Negan's shirt.

"Whoa--" He wasn't expecting to literally bump into Klaus. He'd been coming down the hall to let him know it's-- probably time to move on somewhere else since this place looks empty as fuck, but.

Klaus beat him to it, apparently. "Hey," he starts, reaching up to give Klaus' shoulders a quick squeeze.

"Alright, well... library then. C'mon. Remember I said we'd look until we're sure."

He draws in a slow, deep breath at the hand on his shoulder. He's right. He knows he is, but that doesn't stop him from feeling like he might fall apart right here and right now. He nods and trudges back out of the boarding house to continue the search.

036 » aftermath: the dead

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