villagelogs | 037-040 » the reason for time

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037-040 » the reason for time

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central Mathias
WHEN: Day 037-040
WHAT: The dead return and the living wake to changes within Mathias Township.
WARNINGS: Some explicit sexual content in threads. (PM this account to have a warning added!)
NOTES: Plotting post over here!

RECOMMENDED ♫ Kammarheit "Sleep after Toyle, Port after Stormie Seas"

DAY 037
THE DEAD RETURN
“The only reason for time is so that everything
doesn't happen at once.” —Albert Einstein
The dead return to Mathias forever changed by their experiences. Waking along the beach, near the tree line, or among the graves, they will find that their bodies are not as they remember them. They are whole again and not torn to shreds by the shadow creatures that cannot be described, but they are also not as they were before the Hunt. These residents will find, so strangely, that their bodies are in the physical state in which they first arrived in Mathias — any injuries or recovery they have made since their initial arrival no longer exists, as if their time in Mathias has simply been a horrible nightmare. Except they all now carry a last reminder of the Hunt with them: spiderweb-thin healed scars marking their injuries from the Hunt. Those who were injured by fire in the other realm also carry those burns with them.

The dead are not the only things that have returned to Mathias. Inexplicably, fall is back, with the temperature finally reaching above freezing and snow falling from trees to reveal beautiful autumnal colors. As the sun rises higher in the lightly cloudy sky and the day warms, the snow begins rapidly melting, puddles growing in the slowly revealed grass and little rivers forming in the streets. And with that snow comes the frozen blood from the deaths to the Hunt, tinting the street river on Phillips Drive a sickening shade of red.

Another oddity that residents will notice: houses with broken windows from the encounter with the fog on Day 015 have now been completely repaired, though any boards put in place are still there somehow. A small bit of good news, at least? And truly, how kind of Mathias to clean up its own mess.

Finally, alcohol is back. Enjoy in moderation, friends, for more will not be arriving the following morning.

THE NEW ARRIVALS
The newest arrivals to Mathias will wake up on the beach near The Grey Gull. It's quite chilly out with their wet clothes, but surely there's something to help warm them inside the restaurant. Indeed, their timing is perfect, for alcohol has finally returned to Mathias Township — and not just the cowboys' homemade moonshine.

DAY 038-039
THE CHANGE OF SEASON
The continued warm weather proves that the unseasonable shift of the previous day was not merely a fluke. Once again, the sun rises and brings with it a temperature that feels almost spring-like, save for the fact that each day there seem to be more and more leaves on the trees in hues of red and orange. For those who have been in Mathias for some time, this new type of weird may be almost normal at this point, but newer arrivals will likely find it quite odd.

The gently trickling river running along Phillips Drive is still somewhat pink in color as the snow continues to melt and refreeze each night. By Day 040, the bloody snow will finally be gone completely, though the relief will be... short-lived.

DAY 040
THE BLINDING WHITE
In the late morning of Day 040, when the sun is visible through patchy greyish clouds, the fog sweeps into town like a like a tidal wave. It moves in quickly and without warning, not from the waterfront but the forest, cascading through every street in a thick wave of white. Rather than a soft blanket enveloping the town, it is a heavy weight pressing down, blotting out the sky in a way that almost feels suffocating, for none can see further than their outstretch hand.

Those outside when it rolls in are left wandering blind, stumbling toward shelter as you're unable to even see your feet beneath you, let alone any obstacles in your path. Perhaps you call out for help, hoping for another voice to guide you toward shelter or simply another living soul. Or perhaps you were lucky enough to already be inside when the fog descended, quickly closing doors and windows to keep it from creeping in.

Unlike the last time the fog swept into the town, residents who encounter it are not immediately killed. Instead, they are simply disoriented, possibly losing their sense of time and place, and it is only after prolonged exposure that they will begin to feel off. A sense of being ill will cling to them if they are in the fog for too long, including dizziness, lightheadedness, or nausea — the time it takes to manifest varies from person to person, as does the duration it will last after leaving the fog.

By nightfall, the fog still has not dissipated.

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— THE WEATHER conditions are fairly typical for late fall: chilly "sweater weather" days and nights that can dip just below freezing. You don't want to be outside without a coat, but it won't kill anyone if they bundle up. Probably.

— THE FOG remains blocking the paths in the forest beginning a few dozen yards past the treeline, urging residents to stay huddled within the town proper, and it also now blocks the western section of town, beginning just past Hill Lane, before where residents know the chasm in the earth to be between Hill and Stine Road. Venturing into the fog blocking these areas is ill-advised.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue. Castiel and Sam Winchester have vanished, and Dean Winchester has not returned with the others after his death during the Hunt.

— THE GRAVEYARD has now seen around a dozen burials, both below and above ground. With the weather warming, though, something may need to be done about the handful of temporary graves aboveground...

— ALCOHOL has returned to Mathias! A small stock of beer and cheap wine may be found at the General Store, and some homes may have a small store of alcohol in the fridge or pantry. The Grey Gull has also been restocked with its lower-end offerings of a variety of alcohol types. Alcohol does not replenish in the same way as food.

— THE GREY GULL has been cleaned up and stocked with moonshine. Along with the newly restocked usual offerings, the place almost seems like an actual bar again.

— THE GENERAL STORE is in a bit of a state following the brutal slaughter of two residents during the Hunt. Cleanup on aisle 3, anyone?

OOC NOTES

— FOOD is now being mysteriously restocked as per usual, including inside homes and at the General Store. Alcohol is not being restocked. Use those rationing skills, friends.

— REWARD REDEPEMPTION is back and will soon have a new option for anyone looking to spend big AP and learn a bit more of the lore of the town.

— MADNESSES due to the Hunt have been earned by Klaus Hargreeves, Ellie, and Malcolm Bright and may now be claimed. Players may also claim additional sanity loss from the aftermath of the Hunt; only losses from the Hunt itself have been deducted from totals thus far.

— SANITY REGAIN is now available! Players will submit a form with some details of the progress their character has made and the mod will review and decide on the numbers of points that will be regained.

— MOD STATUS The usual 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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Doc's question catches Will so off guard that he pauses in what he was doing and stares for a moment before being able to formulate a response.

"No." Okay not much of a response, but Will shook his head and looked back at what he was working on. "Mr. Bright comes from an entirely different ... err ... dimension, world, existence than myself."

With that point clarified Will took a deep breath and began to pry at a hinge that appeared to be rusted to the frame.

"My examination wasn't about solving a crime," he began in soft tones. "It was about trying to understand the mentality of the killer."

"Oh I wouldn't go that far. He is somewhat unconventional but not that otherworldly." Not like Yennefer and her instantaneously sprouting tomato seedlings.

"What were you going to achieve, with that?" Doc asks earnestly. Was he hoping to find the killer and strike some kind of bargain? Try to do something to prevent it from happening again? Is it simply understanding for the sake of understanding?

He's not sure he understands this FBI... psychology thing. "Everyone seems terribly obsessed with murder," he observes with a sigh. Maybe there's something wrong with Doc, in the way he sees it as just something you do to deal with certain kinds of problems as a very last resort and try to protect people getting blood on your own hands instead, and not deserving of all this attention. Maybe it is more than an uninteresting means to an end.

A few feet away from Doc Hannibal chuckled at the joke, even as Will looked slightly pained. There was silence from the ex-profiler for a bit, long enough that it might appear as if he didn't intend to carry the conversation on any further. Doc's words had been in the form of a statement, at least the last part and could have stood as an end to the interaction.

'A very definitive bit of punctuation.' Hannibal pointed out, which was actually why Will searched around until he found something to say. It was pretty much right along the lines of what Doc was already thinking.

"It is a survival instinct. The drive to understand that which can harm us in order to develop a countermeasure to protect ourselves," he could have been reading out of a psychology book, but Will knew for himself at least it was more than that. He stopped scraping at the hinge and played with the busted screw he was using to dig out the rust. All around the greenhouse Hannibal and the others stood quiet for the moment; watching.

"I empathize with killers," he blurted out because there was just no graceful way to explain any of this. "Actually I can empathize with anyone, I can't not. It's why I avoid," he motioned towards Doc's face -his eyes- giving him a quick glance and looking away.

"Looking at the scenes, the bodies. I rebuild the entire encounter in my head and relive it. Usually through the killer's perspective."

Honestly, he's not sure anything could have been done to protect anyone from what had happened. People had been eviscerated for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. As far as Doc is concerned there had been nothing to empathise with.

He is not certain what Will is trying to avoid. Doc himself? It does not feel that way. He could have been shown the door several minutes ago. But he was permitted to stay. Killers? Or people in general? Small towns might be good for avoiding crowds but it would be impossible to avoid all the people here altogether.

"I hope you don't mind my saying this, but I do not understand how you can have it both ways. It seems to me you can either avoid connecting with killers or you can look at the scenes and the bodies and in so doing, establish that connection."

Exhaling a long, slow breath, Will shifted around until he could sit down on the floor with his back to the greenhouse wall, wrists balanced over his knees.

"I tried," he said after a few minutes. "I walked away from all of it. It was never healthy for me and I knew it. But what I do, in my world, saves lives. Before I came here I had been avoided it for three years but the FBI pulled me back in."

Will shrugged.

"This time there was no putting all the pieces back together. When I realized that I did my best to mitigate the damage. Killed two of the monsters I was tangling with and myself in one go. That was supposed to be the end of all of it." He doesn't sound emotional about his choice, if anything it sounds like he was at peace with it.

"Except I woke up here whatever here is," he said from behind his hands as he rubbed at his face. "If it was just me and all ... them," he motioned around the greenhouse as if introducing Doc to people that weren't there. "It would be fine."

He lowered his hands and just looked exhausted. "Except there is all of you people around and trying to hold on to any sense of reality in this place feels like trying to hold on to mist." Will kicked at a bit of dirt on the floor. "Half the time I convince myself the horror is real and half the time I just want to lay my head back into the stream and let it take me."

Blue eyes looked up at Doc. "I look at you," he said in a soft lullabye sort of tone. "And a part of me wants to remake you in the image I see of you. Lay your torso open like a roulette wheel, spin the ball through organs, place your bets on liver or spleen. Disconnect your eyes from the optic nerve and pull the handle, watch them spin. Jackpot! the rattat of a slot machine ... or a six shooter. Glitz and glam above the dark underbelly of murder and broken dreams."

Off to the side Hannibal was smiling broadly. Will looked at the Ripper and then drove the heel of his palm into his eye as if trying to scrub it out.

"I was ready for it to be over."

Malcolm talks to people who aren't there sometimes. It's disconcerting but not entirely new. Doc had talked to people who weren't there to keep himself sane during his century of what was essentially solitary confinement. He's not so sure they're serving the same function and being such a positive driver for Will though.

Doc wipes his hands against each other and takes a few steps a little closer, finds a spot near Will to sit, also. Not close enough to make Will uncomfortable, hopefully, but certainly close enough to be just out of arm's reach.

Glitz and glam wasn't how Doc saw himself, even if there had been few such good times throughout his short and scandalous life. He wasn't really a cowboy either, not in that vaquero sense, although he never stopped to correct anyone. Murder and broken dreams, he can more closely relate to.

"It- never really becomes over," is the first thing Doc says, resting his forearms atop his bent knees. "Once you have savoured the thrill of it, experienced that kind of... satisfaction, there is no untasting a flavour you have acquired a palate for. That part of you will always be there, in some fashion. You just have to find your own way to live with it."

"I know." He said in a quiet voice, agreeing with Doc's statement. "I had decided I no longer wanted to live with it. With them." He motioned again at the people Doc could not see.

"But this place had other ideas."

"You have a second chance. Not everyone is so fortunate. It seems a waste to let the opportunity pass you by." Mathias, for all her flaws, seems quite liberal with dispensing second chances.

"Is there anything that helps you stay grounded?" Doc isn't sure how he can help or if Will can even be helped. Does he want to come back and stay rooted in this dreary reality or has he completely resigned himself to becoming a victim of his own all-consuming success?

"Maybe it would be less effective to try and drown them out. Maybe you need to replace them with other people you are happier to be around."

"I've had second chances," Will said with a soft sort of despair. "Third chances, you could argue fourth and fifth." The last words came quickly with an edge of hysteria wrapped around them. Will paused and purposefully took a deep breath.

He looked over at Doc and then rubbed his hand over his face.

"At least we're already sitting down," Will muttered before he leaned his head back against the wall and began to talk. "I was working as an instructor, criminal forensic psychology, at the FBI Quantico when Jack Crawford came to visit me. He needed help with a case in Minnesota, eight girls dead ..."

As he had with Raylan and Malcolm Will told the whole story. He made no effort to spin himself as a victim or a hero. Though there was a clinical, almost disassociated manner in which he spoke, he at least had the speaking voice of a born instructor, with lifts and dips that hopefully helped keep the long, sordid tale from becoming monotonous.

He took Doc from the beginning to the end with Dolarhyde, Hannibal and the cliff. Every sordid detail. When he finally wound down there was a pause before he wrapped the entire tale with an answer to Doc's question.

"Dogs. I'm happiest around my dogs. But this place doesn't even have cockroaches and I always thought they would survive anywhere."

This is one of those convoluted tales that one might read in a novel with multiple instalments, and while Will is not as vivid of a melodramatic bard as Doc is - not everyone is born a natural troubadour - the content of what he is saying is riveting enough to keep Doc engaged. He feels for Abigail. He does not know what to make of the Vergers but he had been brought up with the belief that if he has nothing good to say, he should say nothing at all. The... complicated relationship with Hannibal is not lost on him.

"I had said the same thing," is Doc's reply after a stretch of silence as he tries to process all the things that Will had told him. "We are in a place where cockroaches fear to tread. Whatever that says about this place."

He's not sure if all of it had actually happened or if Will's sanity was no longer intact a quarter of the way through the story and the rest of it was just one wild trip. At least, it seemed like Will had described events the way he had perceived it, so Doc will try and see things through his eyes.

Maybe Doc can find a stuffed toy of a dog or something. It's not quite the same, and God knows he wouldn't want any animals to suffer through anything they have been through throughout their tumultuous time here, but at least he's got an inanimate object to talk to. Who knows, maybe he'll even bring it to life inside his head.

Breathing out a sigh, Doc tips his head back and lets his gaze wander around the greenhouse.

"I think anyone can understand not wanting to be toyed with or used anymore. But for all the horrors that this place continues to unleash, I have found good things too. Good people. Good reasons to keep going. I hope you will, too, even if you find no solace in the company of others."

"I am not a good person," Will said quietly, taking a deep breath and looking upwards through the dirty glass at the top of the greenhouse.

"I reached the point where the teacup broke and it could not come back together," he continued his eyes coming down to stare at Hannibal, standing in the center of the greenhouse. "And where I once merely tolerated wickedness, after Molly and Walter were attacked. When I went after Chilton, Bedelia, Hannibal, Dolarhyde, Alana, Jack ... that was delight."

'Beware the wrath of the lamb,' Hannibal repeated the words, smiling and turning his head to look at Doc.

Will reached up and rubbed his fingers over his eyes.

"They're here with me, now. Hannibal," he motioned towards where the elegant Ripper stood. "Thinks your liver would make a nice pate." Will lowered the hand that had been rubbing at his eyes and turned to look at Doc.

"I keep my distance because I know I am broken, and I accept the crazy within my own head," he said with simple directness. "I like doing bad things to bad people and they," again he was pointing at empty air "like just doing things. When the wires get crossed?"

Lowering his arm the ex-profiler shrugged. "I do not want people here caught in the crossfire of my own psyche."

"No. You are probably not. Not anymore." Doc forces a tight-lipped smile at Will. Maybe he was a dainty, well-crafted, beautifully made teacup at one point, the finest china that had ever been showcased. Now he's just broken trash, sharp and cutting and unable to fulfill the only function he was made for.

But, as Doc has come to learn in the twenty-first century, from the likes of Neal Caffrey and other reputable sources of information, even trash can be art.

"These violent delights have violent ends, and in their triumph die, like fire and powder. Which incidentally are the two things you would need to forge a new teacup," Doc points out, tipping his head to one side, blissfully unaware of Hannibal looming over him casting an invisible shadow over where he is seated, weighing up how he can assemble his degustation menu out of today's market special meat on the bone. Will might not believe in redemption. Doc doesn't either. But after death in the fire and powder there is an opportunity for rebirth, amidst the bone ash.

"Bad people are just people doing questionable things you don't agree with. But are you comfortable here? In the company of these people?" Doc does not use the word 'crazy'. What Will perceives is what Will perceives. Far be it from an undead gunslinger to challenge another man's reality unless he wants it to be.

"It is a terrible thing, to be living in fear of yourself, of the next time you would inevitably snap. It would be remiss of us not to at least offer to help, should you want it."

Edited 2021-03-05 01:07 (UTC)

Doc was bringing up good points.

But Will had one question before he could move forward with addressing the man's other thoughts.

"Whose company do you mean?"

"These people you see, who are here with us now. Mister Hannibal." Not yet 'Doctor Lecter'. Perhaps never will be, to Doc. "I'm afraid I don't see them. Nor would I recognise them if I did. I think it's fair to say we all have our own demons." Luckily he has the luxury of not being haunted so doggedly by them the way Will is.

The ex-profiler blinked and cocked his head slightly to the side, before he looked down and smiled gently towards the larger man.

"I would not expect you to see them." He said. "They're hallucinations and I am aware of this fact. To take it a step further, they are hallucinations constructed by my own psyche as representations of the parts of myself I struggle to control."

Shifting his feet slightly Will reached up and pushed his fingers through his hair.

"They represent my own hypocrisy, my outward focus on the monsters they embodied while I struggled to ignore the monster within myself." He took a deep breath and lowered his hand, looking at Doc and this time directly in the eyes. "I am not comfortable with these people, but they are me and there is no escaping them."

Well ... there was but he'd tried and ended up here instead of drowned in the Atlantic Ocean.

Well they all have different ways of coping. Doc prefers shooting things and drinking. Since he can't do the former here, he's been coping with the latter. He doesn't externalise his demons the way Will does. And Malcolm, too.

He wants to help, despite the risks, even though he doesn't know how. He doesn't even think he can. The best he can do is probably this. To hang around, be something real amidst the mirage. Talk, and maybe get some talk in return. If Doc happens to be there when something inevitable and awful does happen, he can intervene. If he's not, he still wants to be in the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. Well, maybe it's not something he actively wants, but it is what he does.

"Okay," he accepts with a few nods. "I know you are dangerous. But if there is some way at all to help you live with them - to live with yourself - better, I should like to help."

The man's offer was generous and a kindness that Will knew he didn't deserve.

"I wish I could tell you what manner of help I need," Will said with a rare directness. "At the moment all I can think to ask, is that if I need to be stopped? Don't hesitate and don't feel guilty afterwards. You'll have done me a kindness."

"Of course," he says with a kind of conviction he doesn't necessarily feel. But he's got a much better poker face than just about anyone else in this town, pulling off a sombre face and a firm nod with ease.

"Where I can catch you in time I would not let you do anything you would regret knowing about," he promises. There's only one of Doc to go around but he'll try and keep an eye on Will nonetheless.

"Shall we finish up here?" he offers gently. Maybe giving Will some manual and menial tasks to work on will help keep his mind off his troubles. Loose screws and broken glass and all.

Logically Will knew it was a difficult thing he was asking but he decided to take the small comfort that came with Doc's promise. Even if they both understood how impossible it might be for the man to keep that promise. Regardless, Will gave a nod of appreciation.

He then glanced around the greenhouse and back at Doc before he lifted a slightly sassy eyebrow.

"You are a hopeful dreamer if you think we're finishing up in here today." He knew what the man meant, he was just being a little shit.

"I am a hopeful dreamer," he confirms. "Sometimes." You don't live this long and not get jaded from time to time.

"This mean I'll see you back here? Same time 'morrow?" He could do the old cowboy a favour and not make him run around so much chasing all these troublesome people around town... What's more, Doc promises to be a hot date. It can't be that bad.

Will gave the man a flat look that said clearly he understood what the man was doing with that soft handed suggestionrequestorder. But there was no reason for him to be a little shit about the suggestion and so he gave a nod of his head.

"I may spend some time scouting empty houses for supplies but I will be here." Such an exciting date Will offers, don't everybody line up at once.

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037-040 » the reason for time

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