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

[fika]

( were it a better time, maybe five would be inclined to ask. likely not, because that statement alone carried enough implications on its own, experience compounded into a hard statement. he'll take it at face value, because at least that much he knows.

he might be more inclined to ask about the history book, were he less annoyed. )

Are you serious? Of course not. ( he's also not here to bullshit anyone. no, he hasn't looked everywhere. that's an impossible task when you can barely find your own ass, let alone stop your teeth from chattering.

the voices seem to give a particularly loud hiss next to his ear, and it has him jerking a shoulder up with a cuss of his own.

here's the thing. five isn't the sort of person who'll risk his life for a stranger; not for a lack of empathy - though if asked, he'd certainly be inclined to say that - but because his family had always come first. as did getting back to them, and he couldn't do that - he couldn't save them and the world along with them - if he was dead. right now was much the same and he hated himself just a little bit more for it, eyes harder and voice painfully distant. still, he tries and can't really explain why. ) I can get us back. We have ten minutes to look around for any signs of life.

I'm not freezing my ass off before I can find a way out, and definitely not for something I don't think exists.

Take it or leave it.

[thering]

Okay. [He's not going to argue with the young old whatever man. This place is clearly dangerous and he doesn't think any less of Five for wanting to leave. In fact he might even feel a little guilty for making him stick around that much longer.]

Let's keep moving. [For what little that will do to warm him up. There will be apology tea later, or coffee. And maybe apology supper.]

I cannot understand, why would anyone bring us here just to- just to toy with us? [It's... incomprehensibly cruel. He knows that he has done some things in his very long life deserving of cruelty, but surely not everyone here has made those same poor choices. He also happens to know of some incomprehensibly cruel demons who might have this kind of power. But he always... or at least, he thought he always knew what they wanted.]

I went to the library, looking for dates. Could not find anything of use for you. Only more questions, same as everywhere you go. But I will keep searching.

[fika]

( sometimes, survival sucked. it meant doing terrible things for the sake of living long enough to get to the only things that ever mattered.

except, five is still relieved when henry relents, visibly backing off, bowed back straightening. he didn't want to leave him behind, in the cold dark and with the risk of dying from exposure. a shitty death, one that would be on his head. he's had enough of a body count as it were and collateral was worse than the conscious pull of a trigger. the last time someone had tried to actively help him, they ended up dead too.

they were still toeing that line together this very moment, as he turns around and keeps walking and sticks close. motion helps to keep the numbness away, if only just. ) Maybe. Maybe someone's just playing with their food. ( where doc thinks of demons, five remembers the handler. his search had made him fairly certain the commission had no hand in this - a bit too much out of their reach for the rolodex of people gathered here, and even out of her reach. )

Ah, thanks. ( there's a note of surprise, guilt a knot in his chest once more. ) I looked there too. Didn't find anything too useful, but did hit up an old western history book. ( doc might be able to catch the smallest hint of amusement, there. )

[thering]

Food. [Now that is a worrying thought. One that Doc had not yet considered. His brows furrow and he glances at Five before turning his head back to searching their vicinity. The cold is making his movements sluggish and he finds himself now also on the lookout for any signs of a typical predator, in a town that has been abandoned so far to the point where even the animals have abandoned it. Surely they will chance upon some kind of beastly claw marks somewhere perhaps, or blood trails, that sort of thing.

He's focused enough on looking around that his poker face doesn't slip. Although he does pause for half a second, turning his head over his shoulder to give Five a good, long look. There is an instinctive, defensive kind of 'why would you go looking around in there' reaction that he manages to quell down for a quirked eyebrow and playing it cool, turning back to look in front of them.]

Find anything interesting? [Hopefully it just had cartoons of saloons and some notes about railroads, train heists, the civil war and whatever else people are interested in about those old pioneer days.]

[fika]

Hypothetically... ( he hadn't considered that being facetious would lead to very real concerns - natural predators had never been a legitimate concern for five before, but even as offers the small explanation, there's a sting of needle-point anticipation that often comes within the depths of impenetrable dark.

so he keeps his tone conversational and low, attention split between peering fruitlessly around them, and listening. doc's tension doesn't escape his note, however quick and schooled it may be. ) Oh, just some photographs.

The mustache didn't change much. The years were a bit of a surprise though. ( because doc certainly didn't look like he came straight out of the 1880s, which was the interesting point. it certainly suggested something else being amiss. the man did mention magic and dark arts. something to do with that, perhaps? )

Funny luck of pulling out the right book. ( he folds his arms across, tucks each hand under his armpits for more warmth. honestly, he hadn't gone looking specifically for henry's histories - he would have never even assumed to. but the power of association was a strong one. a western histories book conveniently placed out on a shelf, and why not flip through it? ) But I doubt it'd have the answers to us being here. I didn't read much.

Histories are subjective, and all that.

[thering]

[Seems like these days, everyone has an opinion about the moustache.]

They were different times. [Photos are all they have left, Doc suspects. Even if he has a long, long stretch of easily forgettable nothingness, his memory is a little spotty for things that happened so long ago.]

And I was a different man. [He can't make eye contact when he says that, but at least they ought to be looking around for any signs of life, so he has an excuse for that. He doesn't need the opinion or validation of some twelve going on fifty eight year old man he barely even knows, but he does need to keep himself convinced that he has changed for the better. While keeping some of the good stuff he should not have lost.]

But, that does not change the fact that only the worst of us survive. The good, honest men - shared and sacrificed what little they had, took pity on the weak and those pretending to be weak - they are all dead and gone. Only the scoundrels, the dealmakers and the liars, the cheats and the selfish. Only we survive. [It is not a statement of judgement that he is passing of Five's character. He barely knows the man after all. It is merely a fact he holds to be true. Time and time again he finds himself outnumbered by the worst of the lot. And those old photographs of good men, like obituaries without epitaphs, can attest to that.]

We ought to leave, Mister Five. [It is not fair on him, to be braving the cold like this, and the temperature has dropped yet again as they find themselves venturing out further than they had been before. And Five was right - the voices are only growing more distant now. This aimless wandering will only put them in more danger.]

[fika]

( he's quiet, for the time that doc speaks. he isn't wrong, of course. good men don't survive as long as the alternative and five never considered himself anything near good, or honest. he's the product of what the commission made him, but the truth was he let them.

because all that had mattered, all that had ever mattered, was his family. preventing the apocalypse was a close second, but it was second, and he'd toed on deals that would ensure the safety of five people, not the salvation of billions.

so no, five was not a good man. but he wasn't looking to be one. nor would he care enough to judge someone for the sum of their actions. certainly not when that someone was still proving to be a better person than him, self-righteousness and all. )

For better or worse. ( the only thing he says before he stops walking. the voices had only grown more confusing, jumping distances from further to near, and he nods at doc, rolls his neck, plants his feet, and reaches to grip at the other's wrist and forearm. not like he could reach the shoulder, anyway. ) Don't throw up.

( the only warning - better to pull the band aid off quick - before five is shoving both of them forward through spacetime, straight to the point in space before the unforgiving dark.

they reappear at the intersection between the library and the boarding house.

a long distance jump wasn't unfamiliar. he's done it so many times before. less so with a passenger, and even less so with the new limitations and he knows he's pushed himself a bit too far as soon as they land.

he doesn't have time to check on doc's feelings on the jump, because he's very much doubling over, hands on wobbly knees. he sees stars. ] Well, shit.

[thering]

[You know, Doc wasn't sure what he thought this ability was going to feel like. Maybe he'd expected that it wouldn't feel like anything, but to be honest, he didn't give it much thought.

Turns out, it does feel like something. He doesn't even have time to play it cool or pass some nonchalant, flippant and wholly unnecessary comment before he's zapped out of where they were and back where there's some light.]

Jesus Christ-- [That's worse than chugging a whole bottle on an empty stomach filled only with acid and remorse. Doc stumbles and struggles to get his breathing under control, feeling a pressing need to let the nausea out while his head spins and the ground feels like it's on a dangerous tilt.]

Let's- not. Do that again. Mercy me. That what that always feels like? [Five didn't seem all that off kilter when he burst into the kitchen.]

[fika]

[ on any other given day, in any other given time and place, five wouldn't have even felt it. that step through reality, a telltale lurch that's second nature and as familiar as hearbeat.

but right then and there, this felt like swimming against a very unforgiving current, cold and disorienting and if doc would have thrown up beside him, five isn't sure he wouldn't have done the same. but they were back, in one piece and not erroneously displaced someplace else, which was a mark of no small satisfaction and relief. good, he thinks. he can at least do something.

he pulls himself upright - or attempts to, at least - and when the pavement tilts again, he does the next best thing and crouches down, open palms splayed across the frigid pavement. ] No, not always.

Actually, usually not. It's - it's this place. [ ground out with an undercurrent of anger. he does take the chance to glance up, and offers: ] - You okay?

[thering]

[The drama queen will be fine, in short order. He's had worse nights. And while he might not have particularly enjoyed the experience, he is rather grateful that they are back in familiar territory and there doesn't seem to be any strange voices around here.

Doc's not sure what grouching about 'this place' means - must be something that affects the way he travels. If that's the case then he should probably feel lucky to be alive.]

I am fine, thank you. [He's able to stand mostly upright and feel steady on his feet, but he wasn't the one who needed to do the thing. Whatever that thing is called.] Are you? [He steps in closer and when he doesn't fall over he reaches down to rest a hand tentatively on Five's back. They should get going soon - it's not terribly warmer here and they're not far from the residences.]

[fika]

[ oh, they've both had worse, that's a guarantee. but it's frustrating in ways that he would loathe to define more than the haphazardly thrown out comment. the imposed limitations are enough to keep most of his powers, sure and he ought to be grateful he can do this much, but it feels too much like clipped wings.

when doc's hand lightly rests on his back, five tenses.

concern is a funny, foreign thing - none to be found in the apocalypse, after all. and certainly not amidst the years within the commission and when he's met with it even in its subtlest form, he does the best he can do and avoids it. ]

Yeah. Peachy keen. [ he pushes himself back to standing, stumbles, back crooked, belying old habits shoved poorly down into a boy's frame. ] Let's - get in side. I'll make coffee.

[thering]

[Doc lifts his hand and takes a small step back, giving Five some space once he looks to be mostly upright and steady on his feet. He seems fine for the most part, while Doc just trying to walk that fine line between being supportive and being overbearing.]

Coffee, yes. That would be nice. [Getting inside and having some shelter from the elements is probably more important than having a warm drink but the pull of the latter and the unspoken promise for a few more minutes of company, even if it is to be filled with mostly silence and posturing is a welcome invitation that he would not turn down, even if he wasn't in some cold, unwelcoming, perplexing little town.]