004-006 » it was the possibility of darkness...

[villagemod]

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern Mathias.
WHEN: Days 004-006
WHAT: Where has the day gone?
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Plotting post over here!

RECOMMENDED ♫ Graham Plowman "The King in Yellow"

DAY 004
THE DAY OF DARKNESS

For those who ventured out on the third night, the day will look eerily familiar, for this is no day. The sun does not rise in the morning as it should, and the black sky still stretches ominously above them with no stars or moon to light their way. It is impossible to tell either the hour or the passage of time, a truly disorienting experience for those used to the normal cycle of day and night.

Beyond the safety of that initial cluster of houses are three blocks more of residential spaces, along with streets branching off on either side into neighborhoods. There are no lights on in any of these homes, though there are occasional streetlights illuminating the way. The unwilling residents of Mathias are welcome to explore these home, though it is wise to take care of being out in the cold for too long. The temperature hovers near the freezing point, dipping lower the further one ventures down those side streets. At a certain point, the temperature drops sharply and those comforting streetlights blink into darkness. These same conditions befall those who try to walk beyond the Mathias Public Library.

The silence from the start of the unearthly night also continues into what should be day. No sounds travel through that bitterly cold air and while there is no physical impact on any who wander outside, the silence feels oppressive and like the rest of the world has disappeared beyond their small circle of sound and whatever light they carry with them.


A NEW ARRIVAL

A terrible time to arrive in Mathias, surrounded by darkness and freezing cold. The newest resident will find herself shivering awake beneath a streetlight outside the Public Library, with no sign of how or why she has ended up in this unfamiliar place.

Best get inside, dear. It isn't safe in the cold.

DAY 005
NIGHT CONTINUES

There is still no sign of the sun. No moon. No stars. Nothing but darkness and painful cold greets our weary fellows on the fifth day.

Indeed, it seems almost monotonous, like this stretch of hours will be exactly as the last... until it isn't. At unpredictable intervals, the power begins to fluctuate within buildings where it had previously held steady. Lights flicker, central heating stutters, and as the hours wear on, there is the notion at the back of the mind that the electricity may go out entirely. Many houses and buildings in Mathias have fireplaces — it might be a good time to start using them.

DAY 006
SILENCE BROKEN

Across Mathias, the power fails completely. Now our ill-fated friends understand why emergency kits are so easily found in residences and businesses in town. Candles, matches, crank flashlights — these are the only means to light your way if you're foolish enough to move beyond the safety and warmth of a fireplace.

The silence is no longer relegated to the outdoors now, but has seeped inside. Sounds almost seem to be absorbed by the impenetrable blackness, disappearing into its depth so completely that one might begin to believe they never existed. The feeling of utter isolation becomes almost maddening, relief only provided slightly by the company of others. And then, suddenly, within that dark nothingness—

Voices. Indiscernible whispers from within the black, one voice or a dozen, with no source to be found. Lasting a mere second or for minutes or hours on end, coming from any direction or from nowhere at all, heard by only one person or by everyone, there is no shutting them out. Following the whispers is ill-advised, as they may lead away from the safety of a group, or out into the cold and beyond the point of no return.

---

LOCATIONS

THE PUBLIC LIBRARY A large brick building with a string of round lightbulbs draped across the double door entry way, the library resides at the intersection of Phillips Drive and Jackson Boulevard. The building is older than most in this area and coated in more dust than an ill-used library might usually see. There are a number of tall windows throughout the main room that are either broken with glass and debris scattered across a wide stretch of floor or coated in grime so thick that light couldn't penetrate even if there was any. There are lanterns with candles set around the room on lower shelves or the tops of pedestals, and low lamps with green glass are perched on reading tables at one end.

The books are what one might typically find in a small town library - classics, history, dry biographies, but nothing too controversial and nothing published after 1990. But these books are all collected at the front half of the library — toward the back is a different story. Almost as if walking into a different era, the shelves suddenly filled with old leather-bound tomes that smell add a musty smell to the air. Those shelves rise up toward the high ceiling, the tops barely able to be seen with one of the lanterns should it be lit, and as one reaches the very back of the library—

Streaks of soot cover the shelves, or what remain of them, and those along the wall are a blackened mess of what is left behind when books burn. From floor to ceiling, these shelves are a mangled ruin, and there is no way to tell what these books might have contained, or why the fire did not spread further into the room.

THE RESIDENTIAL HOUSES The stretch of new houses mentioned on Night 3 may still be explored as the night continues. Phillips Drive continues on for three blocks past where Mathias's newest residents took shelter, and the cross-streets of King Lane, Stoker Park, and Jackson Boulevard are also open for one block in either direction. Venturing beyond this area is met with painful cold and debilitating exhaustion.

The houses in this section of town are both locked and unlocked, ranging from pristine (if dusty) condition to rundown and falling apart, as if some houses have aged where others have not. The "oldest" houses have been overtaken by rot, interior walls missing whole sections, holes in the floors between levels. There is running water in all the houses in this area of time, but only the best condition houses have working electricity, though the electricity will begin to fail as the night stretches on. The corded landline telephones found within the homes are still working, thankfully, and new sets of numbers (this time without names) are easily found for each block.

As utterly empty as the "newest" houses seem to be, the oldest are... less so. There's a feeling that someone could walk around the corner at any moment. It is almost the sensation of being watched, or of there being thing else there that cannot be seen. Nothing in the houses is disturbed and there are no shadows springing out, so perhaps there's really nothing there at all...

THE BOARDING HOUSE Another large brick building at the intersection of Phillips Drive and Jackson Boulevard, the boarding house occupies the opposite corner from the library and seems to be almost as old as the larger building across from it. There are three stories to the building: the first floor contains the kitchen (fully stocked), dining room, shared living room space, and a half bath; the second floor has four single bedrooms and one full bath; the third floor also has four single bedrooms and one full bath. There is a locked door on the third floor that leads to an attic. Each room is furnished with a double bed, desk, and small table and chairs, and in each room there can be found the clothing and personal effects of the former boarders. The electricity and other utilities in the boarding house function just fine until the power fluctuations begin as in the rest of town.

Room 1 — unclaimed
Room 2 — unclaimed
Room 3 — Daisy Johnson
Room 4 — Max Guevara
Room 5 — Number Five
Room 6 — Phil Coulson
Room 7 — Claire Novak
Room 8 — unclaimed

To claim a house for layout designing/exploration or a room in the boarding house, comment here. House numbers will be generated in response to comments.

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Comments

[thering]

"Alright." He nudges his duffel bag back into place and cracks a smile at the mention of a treeline, unable to offer up anything more than a small shrug. They can't see shit out here. Sometimes it's like the town itself is conspiring against them.

"There are more travelers to this town than there are habitable houses. I do not wish to impose." That and he's not expecting any lady - or gentleman, for that matter - to provision space for him. Call him old-fashioned.

"There is a distinct lack of coyotes, bears, and wolves. I'll be just fine out here."

[tinstar]

"Distinct lack of anythin' best as I can tell," he replied with no real opinion on it. "Dead zones don't strike me with the most confidence about bein' out in the wild without my gun." Raylan looked up and stared for a long second and the lack of stars and moon before shaking his head and turning his hands back to the fire and glancing over.

"I think you might find that situation has changed. Got a whole new set'a roads with more houses than people. If you find you want a roof and some dusty rooms." The furthest thing from Raylan's mind was talking anyone into sleeping indoors if they didn't want to. None of his business, really.

"You weren't out here in all that rain, were you?"

[thering]

He'd figured that if anyone wanted him dead, he'll be dead already. Of course, that doesn't mean he should go about doing anything too stupid. So far this hasn't turned out to be his most terrible idea yet, so that ought to count for something at least.

"In that case I shall go exploring, in the morning." It has been hard to keep to any sort of daily cycle with how dark it has been these past couple of days, and harder still to go looking for anything especially when he's not yet sure what exactly he should be looking for.

"I weathered the storm in the restaurant, and those houses nearby. It was a bit damp by the time I ventured out." But it was nothing he couldn't handle, and honestly, spending a bit of time outdoors would be good for everyone.

"What we need is a saloon," he laments, breathing out a sigh. He wouldn't mind a bordello, but he'll settle for a saloon.

[tinstar]

Raylan's issue with it wasn't with other people. It was with the unknown out there. If he was in a house, he had a door, a place to watch with no surprises on either side. A thought that would have normally passed without a second thought if the feeling of the house slowly caving in on him wasn't still heavy on his mind. The darkness chewed at his idle passing thoughts, despite his attempts to push himself to distraction.

"Shoulda had sun by now," Raylan groused quietly. "A saloon," he echoed with a faint tilt of his head in agreement that way. "I could use a bottle or two, to tell ya the truth. Shit, I'd take a warm garage beer at this point. I'd say we're in a dry county, but if that was the case, the Gull shouldn'ta had bottles."

He shook his head again. "Might havta consider a still, lasts much longer."

[thering]

"The weather here has been strange of late," Doc agrees quietly. But, more or less, out of anyone's control, or so he would have thought. He can't imagine anyone is doing this deliberately just to mess with them.

"Would keep us busy, brewing up sommin' strong," he muses as his mind circles back to the topic of rotgut. Or moonshine, as they call it these days. Frankly their priority should be getting out of here but with no mode of transport in sight beyond their two legs and no signs as to what they are meant to be doing here, why they are here and all the rest of it, having a pet project to keep them sane and driven might be good to keep their heads on straight.

"We'll be needing those bottles. And a few other things." Was there corn in the restaurant? He'll have to check.

[tinstar]

Raylan grunted noncommittally in agreement. Strange indeed.

Moonshine was a much better topic to focus on, those idle daydreams that kept the real darkness, boredom and facing your feelings, at bay. The joke that had dropped out of his mouth were suddenly growing little legs and Raylan looked over at Henry sidelong.

"You know a recipe? I know most of what it takes but I was kneehigh last time I saw it done."

[thering]

"Used to be a more popular endeavour. I've been known to dabble here and there." Homebrews were a lot more common back in the day when the railroad wasn't even built and supplies came few and far between. You couldn't always trust the bar to be stocked and had to have a backup plan.

"Should take a few days. I will need to find a vacant house. You are welcome to join me. Maybe you'll learn a thing or two." Doc shrugs and flashes that charming, old world smile. Likely the 150 year old method he knows how to make moonshine is not the way people do it anymore.

[tinstar]

"Still was, til the 80's," Raylan admitted with a huff of a laugh before he blew into his hands and glanced over with a smirk. "Join me in mine. Got a bathtub ain't gettin' much use; won't take much to clean it and your choice of two whole bedrooms. Could probably use the company anyway. Haer tell madness comes, you set up a mountain too long on your own."

This wasn't any mountain of the physical kind, but it still felt similar enough.

"Maybe I will learn somethin'." Novel idea, that - he had a pretty set sight of the world. "Got a fire and everythin'," he continued, as though that were the selling point.

[thering]

"Hm." The offer is tempting. Having spent a couple of nights outdoors already, a bit of company isn't so bad. And Raylan is probably the most familiar one of the interesting lot of the people he's encountered so far, even if he is a modern man. 80s admittedly sound like the 1980s rather than the 1880s, after all.

"If it is not too much trouble. I will follow you." He's not too worried about madness just yet but he knows from experience that if he spends too much time alone in the dark, the onset of it will be quick and merciless.

[tinstar]

"No trouble," he promised. He hadn't slept himself, save a shallow hour of a doze - he hoped that maybe, just maybe, knowing there was something else, someone else real in the house would let him drift off for a little longer than he'd been able to before.

"Where you come from, if you don't mind my askin', Mr. Henry." He smirked sidelong at him, in a way to assure that he wasn't interrogating, just asking in a friendly way. "Harlan, Kentucky myself, originally, though I was dropped here outta Lexington."

[thering]

Not many Southern gentlemen around here. They ought to stick together. "I started out in Georgia, but I don't always stay in one place for long." If he can help it, that is. Sometimes circumstances change. Sometimes abandoned towns blindside you out of nowhere, suck you in and keep you down.

"I was last in Purgatory." He doesn't clarify that that's the name of the town and not the waiting room before some self-righteous asshole sends him to hell.

"How is life in Lexington? Kept you busy?"

[tinstar]

"Marshal Trainin' compound in Georgia. Place called Glynco. Taught firearms there for a few years. Wasn't half bad."

Raylan let a beat pass but there was no way that he could answer the Lexington question without asking one of his own. "Job keeps me in Harlan county right now, place where I was born and raised. Back after.. just shy of twenty years. But I'm lookin' to go back down to Florida... Can't say I recall a Purgatory, Georgia.." Just the one he knew from the bible - no way that's what Henry was talking about. But the statement was open-ended, inviting him to elaborate.

[thering]

"Oh well I do beg your pardon, Marshall Raylan." Doc's recollection of Georgia is mightily different, and he hasn't been back in a long, long while.

"Purgatory is many miles north, across the border, near Calgary. Followed a- an old friend, there." And now he's got said friend's great great granddaughter pregnant. Funny how life throws these things at you sometimes.

"Georgia was quite different when I was there." Doc glances over at Raylan, sizing him up a bit before disclosing a little too casually exactly how different it might have looked. "They'd only just finished building the railroad there. We wasn't even linked to the rest of the country."

[tinstar]

Raylan smirked at that, finding it a little amusing that Henry chose his first name and not his last.

"Calgary, Canada?" He let out a low whistle before his brain processed the rest of what John had said. 'Only just finished building the railroad'. As it set in what that suggested, Raylan's head pulled back a little, eyes still narrowed. Which Calgary he'd been talking about no longer mattered.

"You know it's different. What are you tellin' me.." Oh, he knew, in a roundabout way, but he was only just getting his teeth into the idea of magic being a real thing - Time Travelers didn't fit into the puzzle just yet. If John was just from the past, he wouldn't be aware that Georgia was vastly different from the railroad days, or he would have said 'I imagine'. There was too much confidence for all that - John Henry wasn't speaking in hypotheticals.

[thering]

He hasn't been back to Georgia lately to confirm how different it looks, but yes, he knows it will look nothing like home. Not that home means all that much to him anymore.

"Been around a while." Long enough to have seen the railroad being built in his travels. No time travelling involved, unless you count trudging through the years the slow way around. Although they probably do have at least one or two time travellers in their midst. Doc hasn't found out everything there is to know about everyone just yet.

"What year was it, for you, before you came here?"

[tinstar]

"A while," Raylan echoed, face unchanging as he adjusted that information in hand with the question given. His eyes narrowed a fraction more.

"2014. Are you suggestin' that you're some kinda..." His finger gestured in a circle uselessly. Yeah, no way he could bring himself, as a rational man, to suggest that Henry was.. Rip Van Wrinkle was the best and only thing his mind supplied and he defaulted back to something he knew was gonna be wrong.

"What year was it for you before you came here?" Maybe that would be an easier way to come at it.

[thering]

"Old man," Doc finishes helpfully. Yes, he's old. He doesn't feel old, or feeble, or forgetful, or any of those things that are promised in the pipeline. He doesn't feel sick. 20-odd years of dealing with tuberculosis has done plenty of damage to his lungs, and he'd been feeling sick as a dog before he made the deal for immortality. Now time is just something passing him by while he figures out what to do with himself and this mess he has made with a baby on the way.

"It was 2017, so I suppose that would make me very old." 166 years, to be precise, even if he spent almost 130 of it at the bottom of a well. He usually plays these cards close to the chest, but he figures, he's seen some of the folks around here do some very strange things. And he likely won't be seeing any of these people in Purgatory once he returns.

[tinstar]

If Raylan's eyes squinted anymore, they would have been closed. He stared at Doc for a long moment then took a breath and focused back on the fire. 2017 as an answer only served to confuse him more, though it was only the 'hows' and not so much the 'what' that had caught him.

"Huh," he half grunted, frowning at the flames. "And here I thought 43 was startin' to get old." Oh yeah, he had.. a mountain of reasonable questions, but he wasn't great at these.

A beat passed and he found one he could manage. "Why don't you look old?"

[thering]

Doc doesn't flinch. He's either used to being scrutinised or it doesn't bother him nearly as much as it should. He himself never made it to 43 by natural means, having been endowed 'eternal longevity' a few years before that.

"Made a deal with a pretty little devil." Less devil and more witch, but. The devil also happens to be in the details. "I was dying, of tuberculosis. She promised a cure, eternal life."

He flashes a small smile at Raylan then. "You must think me a coward. But I've been dying for over twenty years at that point and I figured, well hell, why not?"

[tinstar]

This time, Raylan didn't look away, watching the faint shift in Doc's profile as he continued on. Deals with the devil was the kind of 'stuff of legend' that ran strong in the foothills but generally, Raylan lumped that in with religion, another unspoken bomb of pragmatic beliefs that didn't match the dogma.

"For findin' a way out of TB?" Raylan shook his head once as he looked back at the fire. "Where I come from, mining is a major industry. Coal mining. Leads the guys that work to the black lung. Not the same as TB maybe but I don't imagine dyin' to be any easier because of the reason you can barely breathe."

He looked over again, eyes narrowed like he could find a lie in Doc's pocket, or make any reasonable sense as to why this was a beneficial choice of one.

"What'd you give up in return?" Every transaction had two sides. He got.. immortality, Raylan supposed, but the giving was just as important as the getting.

[thering]

"I don't much like small, dark spaces." Which doesn't necessarily explain why he's out here alone with only a weak fire for light and memories for company. But at least it's out in the wide open.

"So she threw me in the bottom of a well for a hundred and thirty years." That she did it to spite someone else stings, of course, but the bite of it was not the lengths to which they took Wyatt Earp apart. It was never that. He didn't take kindly to her preying on his claustrophobia.

"Give or take. Felt much longer than that, you can imagine."

[tinstar]

He winced in response, clucking softly as he looked back at the fire. At least fire was still simple..

"Surprised you didn't go mad down there." He glanced over briefly, just in case Doc had gone mad and was just hiding it. He didn't get that sense and he couldn't make it appear because it might make sense to do so.

"This mean the Devil is a woman?" He'd still hold his doubts, pragmatic man that he was, but he wasn't so inflexible or prideful to tell Doc that his personal experiences were wrong. This wasn't opining over the opinion of position on a lawful action - this was something far beyond the scope of the US legal system.

[thering]

"I probably did." Madness manifests itself in all sorts of different ways. For the most part he thinks he is fine, but. Sometimes in those early waking hours, he can't be sure of his grip on reality. The lack of familiar faces isn't helping. He's probably still sane because he has to be. There is no option or time to have a mental break.

"She was a witch. She's been taken care of now." Doc casually omits her whole demon husband thing. It's all very complicated and hopefully that chaos hasn't followed him here.

"Suppose this doesn't all make sense to you. But we have more pressing problems on our hands now."

[tinstar]

Raylan took a deep breath. "I ain't gonna lie to you; it sounds crazy as hell. My gut is to not believe it - Maybe you've done too many drugs, watched too many John Wayne movies and decided to fall into the era, but you ain't the first person here to suggest the impossible with the surety of the insane and none of the other trademarks."

There was no use in beating around the bush, not when confronted directly with his obvious hesitant belief. He was right - there was more important matters at hand.

"Can only argue with the sky fallin' down on me so long... There's stories, in the hills. About ghosts and sorrowful souls that haunt their land, chasin' off good Christian folk who don't know any better." Raylan quirked a faint, soft smile. "Maybe there was somethin' to the old stories after all. Lost their power over time or somethin' with our sense or belief."

He took a deep breath. "Plus, being here defies all the logic I've got anyway, so I'm already at a disadvantage."

[thering]

That's not the first time he's been called a ghost. Doc can only imagine the reaction when he has to tell Raylan the whole story. He's already left out a lot of details, as much as he can get away with that'll still let what he has said so far make sense.

"Would you like to tell me a story of yours? Either one that makes sense or does not." He is willing to listen and reserve judgement. They can hang around a little while longer before Raylan drags him off somewhere more habitable.