037-040 » the reason for time

[villagemod]

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.

navigation | faq | locations | report updates

Comments

[abrightboy]

Malcolm poured some moonshine in a glass and brought it over.

"You're always welcome," he said, holding the glass out. "It's... not as lively as it was. But. It'll get there, right?"

[bestfuneralever]

He can't help the small twitch in the corner of his mouth as Malcolm sets the glass of moonshine on the table in easy reach. He's tried not to dive too deep into any bottles, spared how much he drinks. He hates seeming over-eager, in that such a goddamn addict way.

But.

Not wanting to look so much like an addict doesn't stop him from almost immediately leaning forward to grab and take a sip from it anyway.

At least he can't just down an entire glass of moonshine the way he'd be able to vodka or tequila. That had to count for something.

"S'fine... doesn't have to be. Just- people." That's not even an explanation, and he has the whole thing defined perfectly in his head, but it's only the day after he woke up dead, for the second time in as many days, and he's not really in a great place.

He'd gotten so used to be in a throng of people at almost all times, with his cult. He could hardly get any breathing room, back then, with all of them. But he'd kill for the incessant mutterings of conversation rolling through the mansion, the soft footfalls in the hallway that had nothing to do with him but existed all the same. And there is some of that where he stays, but it's not the same. And 1306 is a real house, and not a sprawled out boarding house, and the noises of other people just existing in the space together are more obvious.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm perched on the couch next to him, hands never still, looking over at him.

“We should talk about when we want to start holding our meetings,” he said. “And what we want to call them to not discourage people from coming.”

[bestfuneralever]

He sets the glass back on the table and leans back into the couch again, still hugging his knees to his chest. He glances over at Malcolm when he sits with him and somehow, those words drop like a bomb in his chest.

"O-oh. Um..." His gaze drops and his chin tucks toward his chest. He doesn't even feel equipped to exist right now, how is he supposed to hold a meeting, and be encouraging enough about it that anyone showed up, nevermind manage getting anyone else to talk? "I don't know... I don't know what to call it, Malcolm." Right now, he has a sinking feeling no one would even show up anyway.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm watches him shrink into himself, his facial expression, the uncertainty in his voice.

“You don’t want to do it anymore,” he surmised.

cw: depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation

[bestfuneralever]

His heart skips in his chest under what feels like an accusation, a realization of his uselessness, his lack of follow through—

"Number Four, you failed what I tasked you with again."

"You cannot allow your fears to rule you, Séance."

"At this rate, you will never unlock yo true potential, Number Four."

Klaus feels his stomach twist with his father's voice ringing all too clear in his head. He sees the look on Malcolm’s face so clearly: Just another in a long line of disappointments created by him.

"I don’t... not want to do it, I just... I don’t know how." He stops staring at the couch cushion and instead raises his gaze back to Malcolm’s face. "I barely got out of bed... I can barely string coherent thoughts together right now... I died and came back... twice. I- I woke up in the graveyard and- and I feel like there’s something in my head. It- it’s like-" he shakes his head, "I don’t know. It’s like...spiders, in my head. And everything’s foggy and cluttered and it’s choking me, from the inside out."

He’s not really looking at Malcolm anymore, his vision is pointed to some middle distance behind his shoulder. "Maybe I should let it... maybe it would ssstick this time," he holds the word out and his voice fades into silence after that.

Klaus hasn’t felt like this in a long time, and there’s a swell of panic that threatens to rise up into the center of his chest, but the melancholic thing pushing those words out of his mouth is stronger and pushes it back. Numb is better than panic, right...?

[abrightboy]

“Klaus... you’re allowed to not want to do it anymore,” he clarified. “Not right now or not ever or maybe some day. You don’t owe me an explanation. It was your project. It’s not unreasonable not to feel up to it after all that.” He studied Klaus’ face. “Tell me more about the spiders.”

[bestfuneralever]

He blinks in shock at that; an allowance to let go is not what he had been expecting. “What?” His voice shakes with just that one word, confusion swirling in his voice and across his face. None of it makes sense with the patterns he’s known his entire life.

“I- I don’t know,” he repeats, shaking his head. “It happened ever since I woke up yesterday. It’s just- it’s heavy, and it’s...” he lets out a slow, shuddering breath. “thick. Final. It-” he chokes on a sob. “It feels like death, sticking to the inside of my head.”

A thought occurs to him suddenly and it’s the burst of that earlier panic finally pushing its way up, up, and out, words rapid-fire.

“What- what if it’s a curse? What if I’m cursed? I’m- I’m gonna die, this thing is gonna kill me.” He whimpers softly, shrinking closer to his knees.

[abrightboy]

"Do you think it might be a side effect of what the town's done to your ability? There was so much death here - brutal death - and you're normally sensitive to the recently passed. Maybe there's some degree of sensitivity that this enormous amount of death is overpowering whatever it is they're doing to keep you from communicating with the dead."

[bestfuneralever]

He frowns at the question, mulling it over in the back of his mind for a long moment. "I-- Maybe? Maybe it's because I died, too... I don't know..." He's not sure if this line of thought is exactly a comfort at all, either.

[abrightboy]

"Your ability has been dormant since you got here, right? So... it stands to reason that it'll probably calm down. Who could curse you, anyway?"

[bestfuneralever]

"I don't know... this place?" He huffs a laugh. The idea sounds about as logical as anything else, if you ask him.

[abrightboy]

"It's the only logical answer," Malcolm concedes. "But... I think it's your dead people spidey senses, myself. Malfunctioning somehow."

[bestfuneralever]

He glances over at him and smiles a little, a confused, half-amused thing that doesn't reach his eyes. He shakes his head. "I don't know. Maybe you're right." But maybe he's not. And he does know one person in town he could still talk to about curses, even if John is gone.

[abrightboy]

"But you think I'm probably not," Malcolm surmises from his face again. "It's okay. I don't know a lot about the supernatural or how these superhuman abilities work. I'm probably not."

[bestfuneralever]

He gives a slightly sheepish look and shrugs. “According to my dad, I’ve barely even tapped into my full potential, so I don’t know all that much about them either.” There’s a flippant tone whenever he talks about his father, Klaus doesn’t particularly notice it, but it always coats his words when the topic of him comes up.

[abrightboy]

“Was he an expert?” Malcolm asked.

[bestfuneralever]

“He literally adopted us so he could study us and our powers. He’s kind of the expert on our powers.” Technically. Klaus doesn’t know exactly how much he knew or how he knew any of it to begin with, but he does know Dad had notebooks on them, filled to bursting with notes on the experiments he ran on all of them throughout their childhood.

[abrightboy]

"On your powers, because he gave himself the monopoly on them. What about... powers in general? Did he have any qualifications?" he asked.

[bestfuneralever]

“Truth is, I don’t know that much about him? He’s was a... private man. He didn’t exactly have a relationship with any of us.” He shrugs.

He’s unable to stop the rush of a memory, unbidden, of standing in the doorway of his father’s office with his mother, brothers and sisters, hoping to get even the simplest of acknowledgment from their father, all of them vying for his attention like starved dogs. He barely looked up, and Allison was always the bravest and the first to speak out against him, and they all went to bed without the simplest ‘goodnight’ from their father.

“He was a man of science. A trailblazer in several fields. He knew what he was doing.” Even if Klaus couldn’t tell him how the man knew, he knew that he did. Somehow. Klaus didn’t have any reason to believe otherwise. “He just sucked at the execution of how he decided to help us learn about them.”

[abrightboy]

"He knew how to manipulate you, at least," Malcolm told him. "Like referring to himself as your father."

[bestfuneralever]

"Well... by all technicalities, he was. He adopted us." He shrugs. Despite all of the issues he has with Reginald Hargreeves, he was the only father Klaus had ever known; it brought along with it a lot of tangled emotions. "We didn't ask for it, but... he's who we got stuck with. He was awful...but-- I dunno. He's... he's still our Dad, you know?"

[abrightboy]

“He gathered you for his experiments under the guise of adoption,” Malcolm said. “Or I’m reading your story all wrong. Did he ever show any of you any real affection?”

[bestfuneralever]

He drops his gaze to his fingers fidgeting idly in his lap. “No... I don’t think he knew what affection was.” He admits softly.

“But...” he looks back up at Malcolm slowly. “Haven’t you ever had a really complicated mess of feelings about someone that’s supposed to care about you?”

[abrightboy]

“Yeah. Absolutely. He even claimed to,” Malcolm told him.