logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: ENTER MR. SANDMAN (DREAMERS)

Entry tags:

EVENT LOG: ENTER MR. SANDMAN (DREAMERS)

characters: all characters that signed up as a dreamer for the event.
location: dreamland feat. beacon of the past.
date/time: november 16-29.
content: the dreamers investigate beacon as it once was.
warnings: psychological/existential horror. further cws will arise depending on the location; mods will cw tags appropriately, and you will too!

say your prayers, little one.

Hello, dreamers. Welcome to Beacon.

Below, each group has a toplevel ready and waiting for the investigation to begin. Feel free to tag in however to establish a tag order, and mod responses will begin once each character has tagged in. If you need a refresher on how the event will work, give the OOC info another read!

As for those of you in the ~~sin bin~~ opt out area...

The Beacon of the past isn't all too different from the Beacon of the present, frankly, except for a few notable exceptions. For one, it's far better lit: daylight leaves everything feels a lot brighter and more sensible than eternal night does. Several advertisements for community theater in the Invincible are hung up (Tryouts for the Ice Man Cometh! Cometh try your luck!) and minor lost and found posters are tacked to a community bulletin board nearby. Oh, and a merry little tune is playing on loop from a record player set up outside the Invincible.

It's cheerful, if not a little off-putting. But the signs of life are clear, even if the forest still looks darkly oppressive over yonder.

Additionally, since investigation threads 1) rely on mod responses, and 2) will likely move on the slow side given the nature of the event/size of the groups, if you would like to have your characters "mingle" in their assigned location, please feel free to write your own toplevels! We ask that you post them as separate toplevels not in response to the mod toplevels (so our inboxes don't get super flooded/we don't accidentally miss stuff). Remember that groups may only interact with each other during the event, but you're welcome to assume timey-wimey shenanigans to excuse why your characters are mingling instead of searching for clues—they do have two weeks in this dream, technically, and dreams are not always linear. If your investigation thread has not yet progressed to a point in which you've got enough of a handle on the setting to write a separate mingle starter, ask the mod you're working with! We'll fill you in on some OOC details so you can mingle accordingly while still allowing for characters to discover those details ICly in the investigation thread.

If you're still jonesing for more threading action during the event, we encourage you to check out the TDM!

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( The cracking sound catches her attention, and she looks over before-- ) Nope. No. Fuck off.

( Nope!!! )

That's fucked.

( The paper, the waking up in a weird place, the sudden nail trauma, those things she could take relatively in stride. Smiley faces in glass? )

We're going to be murdered. Probably by a poltergeist, probably because they built a radio station on an ancient burial ground, the cocks. Hey, maybe you should try the password, "we're fucked."

( Is she dramatic? No, never, how dare you. Sarissa starts moving to the door that's still partly blocked by furniture (fuck moving it, seriously), grasping the handle to see if she can just pull (or push) it open. )

This is either a barricade to keep something awful, out or some fuckhead dumped us here and barricaded this door to trick us into taking the other door.

Edited 2019-11-18 23:14 (UTC)

[ daylight is looking up at the drophead ceiling and about to reach out to jiggle a panel out - he has fuzzy memories of auntie laura doing this, helping fix auntie saralyn's office for renovations one fall - when he hears the glass of the window shattering.

between that and sarissa's very eloquent response, the spike of fear and anxiety causes daylight's concentration to waver violently. the poor computer groans in protest at the sudden surge of arc energy coursing through it, forcing daylight to dial back his emotions. it's very, very, very hard when he looks at the direction of the window and sees the smiley face it now sports.

urgh. definitely - as nightbreak might summise - 'some fuckery about right now, fuck.' ]

But why not barricade all the doors here, then? Wouldn't whoever was here be worried about whatever they're scared of trying to get through the other door...? That seems like a major oversight for anyone. [ and maybe that's why there's that awful smell in the air, as kol pointed out just now.

speaking of which- daylight looks to sarissa and kol, a little worried now that he sees they're kinda far away from each other but... they gotta make ground, somehow. he promises himself that the second he's finished checking this out, he'll hurry to one of them to have their back. probably sarissa, who might going further in? kol, who day knows and likes? that's a future him problem for the time being.

with that in mind, daylight regathers his nerves to look up at the drophead ceiling and attempt to find a panel to jiggle free. curiosity only killed cats, right? ]

[ you know what? kol's just going to shove all that furniture aside like its paper. picking up one of the chairs, he tosses it back into the window in a bid to shatter what he feels is a passive aggressive grin. take that, smily face!

it achieves what he wants, though—he stands in direct sunlight and feels nothing but a nice warming sensation. no fizzling, no burning—his skin doesn't even smoke. it should be. he should be either screaming in agony or leaping into the shadowy portions of the room.

instead, all it smells like is that of sweat, whatever daylight smells of, and that gross coppery decay that feels pungent to his heightened senses.

he turns to look at both of them with a frown. eying the panel daylight wiggles and the door sarissa has her hand on, he shakes his head. ] Something's wrong.

[Chairs and desks topple noisily to the ground as Kol clears a path for Sarissa. And hey, now that all the junk is out of the way, the group will spot the sunlight shining in under the door. Apparently, this is an exit.

...Which is why I'll spare you all some trouble: The door is locked, and no matter what they try at this point, it won't open. Weemp womp.

The window shatters as the chair crashes into it, glass flying in all directions. It's a good thing no one was standing too close; that would've hurt. Unfortunately, though, the outlines of the window panes have withstood the assault. No one's crawling through this window anytime soon.

As Daylight jiggles the ceiling tile, he'll notice that it's heavy, much heavier than a thin little ceiling tile should be—

The tile buckles at Daylight's touch, and a thick, wet mass drops to the ground, splattering sickly brown filth across the floor and up Daylight's legs. The stench will hit them at full force now, the unmistakable rot of things long dead.

The thing in the ceiling looks to have been a bird at some point... Or perhaps more than one bird, given the three long, gently curving beaks among the remains. The mass of decaying carcasses is too decomposed to tell which parts go where. The beaks are about the length of a pencil.

Oh, but the flies, the flies, the flies... They're swarming now, having been freed from the ceiling, and there are hundreds. They don't bite or attack, at least, but a good number of them do beeline for the old blood and foulness splattered over Daylight's legs.

The buzzing is inescapable.]

Shit.

( Muttered as they test the door, only to discover its locked. She's about to mention that there could be a key, stepping towards the filing cabinet to give it another once over and see if there could be a key hidden somewhere or taped to a surface, when the ceiling tile buckles.

Sarissa fights a dry heave at the sudden, foul odor that seems to just burst outwards in a wave as the carcasses hit the floor. She has to take a second, and her vision swims for a second as memories that she'd really, really rather not think about start to press in on her.

Pull it together. Toughen up, Sarissa.

After she takes a second, Sarissa straightens up, a lot calmer than she appeared a few moments ago, and walks to the remains, crouching down to get a better look. She waves her hands to try and keep the flies away so she can get an idea what the remains might be of, if they could give them a clue what the remains belong to. Using the pencil she found before, she starts to carefully try to look through the remains, to see if she can see any feathers, bones, anything weird that could have been hidden in the remains.

Tugging part of her shirt up to cover her mouth and nose as she speaks, to keep the flies from flying into her mouth,)

My first guess is that curved beaks like this would belong to birds that need to eat nectar. I don't get why the forest was totally silent but there are flies in here. What happened to all the life in the forest, right?

( This is all fucked up, and she's looking between the other two hoping one of them will have some amazing insight, as she tries to curb her desire to once again declare this totally fucked up. )

[ daylight screams-

possibly. the sound he makes when the corpse(s?) falls to the ground, making an awful mess up on his leg - it happens to be less of a scream and more of a strange burst of electronic noises: a shrill tone, a buzz of static. perhaps an actual yell of fright, buried underneath all of that.

somehow, despite it all, he manages to keep his concentration on the computer and the arc energy that circulates through its wires. it's, perhaps, the only thing that kept him from completely flipping out when the mess finds itself all over his legs. between that and his vision is littered with messages and alerts and error warnings, he finds himself being overwhelmed by the situation and then some.

okay- okay- breathe, day. this isn't... stuck on him. he can clean this up. yeah. he can clean this up and he does so, starting by leaning forward, trying to hastily swipe away at the gore that splattered on his legs, trying to swat away the buzzing, feasting flies that are resting on his limbs to try and eat the rotting viscera. ick- it makes his protoform crawl and itch beneath his plating. he forgot how... messy organic life can get after death. ]

I think they... I think they either got stashed up there or- [ he has to stop for a second, trying to figure out how to breathe around this pile of gore. ] Or they got stuck up there somehow. Couldn't... escape after...

[ daylight wasn't sure which one he wanted to be the answer. he didn't know if he wanted the answer, despite the baffling situation he and kol and sarissa find themselves in. ] Help? Please? There's so much.

[ kol covers his mouth and nose with a hard press of his hand, knowing it won't keep the stench from sitting somewhere in his throat. having a heightened sense of smell means that it feels like his mouth and nose are coated with it, but rather than give into it, it's mind over matter. there's more at stake here than the aftertaste of death.

surveying the mess of bird carcasses on the floor and daylight's legs, he momentarily forgets his previous trail of thought.

oddness. right.

last time he experienced something incredibly weird—with many things not going his way—it'd been at the hands of bloody rebekah toying with him while he slept. it's a leap... but given he can't hear anyone else outside of the radio tower and all their tablets have seemingly disappeared, sometimes it's worth falling back into the arms of familiar paranoia.

at daylight's plea, kol rushes towards him, not bothering to look for a rag or a leftover jacket of a dead body that isn't in the tower. peering down at his legs with a frown, he doesn't start wiping anything away with his hands. there's no point—they'd just be spreading the sickly mess around. they need to eliminate it.

he mutters, ] I don't know if this is going to work…

[ regardless of his uncertainty, kol looks down at daylight's legs nonetheless, eyes narrowed ever so slightly as he concentrates in the familiar sharp and easy way of compulsion... and when he chose to play a prank on rebekah by manipulating her dreams and making her see what he wanted her to see.

what he wants to see is simple. he imagines daylight's pant legs to be clean, then believes it. willing this nightmare to listen to his commands; he tries to grab hold of what he thinks has to be some sort of hallucination or spell and somehow find the strings to at least clean up the mess of daylight's legs.

it's a little bit difficult to believe it can happen when it's all based on a hunch. ]

[Inspecting the remains, Sarissa will notice that it's indeed a mass of smaller carcasses, each bird tangled too tightly with the others to have any hope of separating them. The birds themselves seem about the size of a small duck, and as she roots around in the mess with her pencil, she'll hit something heavy and hard.

Oh, it's one of the beaks! And... a feather? She finds quite a few of these metallic beaks and feathers, all covered in rotten blood and bile.

It's a good thing she's got her mouth and nose covered, too. The flies zoom straight for her as she closes in on their meal. Watch your eyes and ears too, Sarissa.

Meanwhile, Kol wills the dream to bend, and gradually, the filth begins to slough off, dribbling down Daylight's legs and onto the floor as if the molecules had lost the will to cling on. The flies move on too, swarming instead to further corners of the room rather than grouping all around Daylight.

Isn't that something?]

( Despite the urge to pull away, Sarissa herds some of the metallic beaks and feathers out of the carnage. What she wouldn’t give for a pair of rubber gloves and a pack of anti-bacterial cleaning wipes, right about now. The goal is to try and pull them out for inspection, but the rush of flies is buzzing loud in her ears, and her stomach churns for a second.

It reminds her of a terrible summer, when it felt like the whole station was dried out. Flies had picked over everything, that had been rolling masses of mice that seemed to cover just about anything, and a burst of nausea anchors in her belly as cold sweat starts to run down her back.

Get your shit together.

She turns to the stash of papers, grabs one of the cardboard drop folders, and folds it until she can scoop up some of her metallic feathers and beaks, wrapping it up. When she pulls down the shirt she had covering her mouth, she looks between the other two. )

Dunno if these metallic things are gonna do any good, by they could be a clue.

( And, also: ) So, what. You’re the filth whisperer now, Sir Kol?

I think you mean ‘hero’ because he just saved my life right now. Thank you so much.

[ a touch overdramatic, yeah, but the gratitude is genuine as daylight leans down to do a little inspection of his legs. yup— looks like all the viscera and gore had gotten off his legs. it wasn't even in his transformation seams! thank goodness for that little detail too, since the smell would have stuck.

he wants to ask kol if he, like, has super cleaning powers but realises that’s a silly question to ask. and pretty inappropriate, given their situation. perhaps its better for him to refocus their attention on the current situation. ]

I mean- Better than nothing, I guess. We now have proof of wildlife existing here at some point? [ he looks up at the drop ceiling and scowls at it. as if to make his unhappiness with the situation known to it.

and now he begins to inch away from the pile of carcasses from on the floor, wanting some distance between him and that pile of mess. ]

Ummm... I’ll try to type a password into the computer. It's got to have something on it. [ when he's close enough to the computer, he reaches out to computer monitor's keyboard to try out a random set of characters. he knows he's going to get this incorrect and wants to see how many attempts they're allowed to have or something like that. ] Do you guys have any suggestions for it?

[ theory confirmed!

kol doesn't appear as elated as daylight at his clear pants. the smell still reeks, even if it's a little less pungent and right beneath his nose. with narrowed eyes, he looks up at the flies to watch where they go, wondering if they'll try to swarm him or sarissa this time. no bueno. so far, they're not attacking him for meddling—a good sign, even if it puts him on edge.

wasting little time as they talk and investigate, he walks over to the wall of chairs and grabs one—he can't get enough of them! he simply can't keep his hands off their legs, nice backs, and uncomfortable seats.

rather than throw this one at the wall, he places the chair right beneath the open panel. kol looks to daylight. ] Try we're in a bloody dream.

[ you know what he's going to do? concentrate hard enough to try to will up three pairs of gloves to appear right beside the computer.

kol steps onto the chair to peer into the ceiling. ]

[When Sarissa scoops up the beaks and feathers, she'll notice that under some of the putrid goo, they're greenish, like they're covered in a patina.

Daylight tries a random password, and alas, it does not work. Good news, though; the computer beeps to indicate the password is incorrect, but nothing pops up to show that they have a limited amount of tries. That's nice, isn't it?

The gloves appear next to the computer! Kol (or perhaps Daylight since he's right there) will notice a calendar underneath some of the papers that the gloves have landed on. But unfortunately, Kol won't be able to see deeper into the ceiling just yet. It's too dark! There's still a frightening amount of flies up there, though, and judging by the smell alone, it seems there's more fun surprises lurking overhead should they antagonize more ceiling tiles.

The door on the north wall swings open with a slow creak.]

We're... what.

( Smiley face in the glass, doors opening of their own accord, them in a dream. If Freddie Kreuger turns up she is going to flip all of her shit. All of it. Every bit, flipped.

Sarissa turns slowly towards the creak of the door, shoulders very tense, as she holds the little parcel of beaks and feathers. )

Okay. Well, we're in a dream. There's a door that's opening, and we know there's some shit outside this place.

( The shirt is pulled up over her mouth again when she speaks, because FLIES, FUCKING FLIES, and she shakes herself as she stands. )

We need a password, we're in a dream, and the door just opened. The forest is silent and we got dead birds. Three guesses where we gotta go to try and find some clues for the password and what the fuck happened to the forest, kids.

We're what.

[ daylight looks up at kol just as he types in another attempt at a password, disbelief clear on his face. but that's when the gloves decide to pop in existence, right above a calendar(!), and oh.

okay then.

weirded out but knowing it was better to keep a move on, as auntie eps so eloquently once put it, he continues to try out a couple phrases and words that come to mind - beacon, bonfire, world eaters, we're in a bloody dream, and what have you. - and he has a feeling none of them will work. might as well look around to see if they can solve the mystery, as sarissa pointed out-

aaaand that's when the door creaks open and day lets out an audible, ] Nope. That's some cursed, horror-movie stuff right there and then, you guys.

[ ... and yet...

he quickly looks under the collection of gloves, wanting to check the calendar to see if there are any marked dates or notes of interest before he takes a deep vent and makes his way towards the door.

someone's gotta check it out. with kol in the ceiling and sarissa having taken one for the team to get the things from the pile of gross, he might as well help out more and check that out. ]

[ cue the disbelief. he expected it. unfortunately, there's really no time to dissect the fact they're in a dream. that would require him breaking down how he knows, and kol's not quite focused on giving his true (or slightly modified) origins story just yet.

as he moves the chair to place it beneath untouched ceiling tiles—the small it rancid—he glances over his shoulder to the creaking door. a part of him thinks to press his ability to manipulate this dream against it, but without knowing whose dream they're in, he doesn't want to poke too hard yet. better to get a sense of it through his heightened senses of smell and sound and see how best to prod.

as he stands on the chair and easily punches the ceiling tiles—nothing delicate here, guys!—kol speaks again, this time sounding a bit strained. ] I'll tell you lot later if we survive this.

[ if. it really does inspire a lot of hope.

he can hear daylight's footfalls move away from the computer station. ] Maybe you should take something just in case there's someone behind that door. [ there's chairs and bits of broken glass for daylight to take, if he so wishes to defend himself—does a robot need defending?—while kol wishes there was something to defend his nose. in fact, both of them should take something. he can at least rip the ceiling apart.

he does think about seeing if he can summon a breeze, but if he does that, do they lose the one leg they stand on? instead, he just pokes, pokes, pokes at the ceiling tiles. he once hid bodies in a ceiling—it seems kind of fitting something disgusting would be hidden in there. ]

[The calendar is dated 1979, but no one has marked any important dates.

In peering beyond the door, Daylight will find a ladder leading upwards. Distantly, a voice echoes down from above, listing numbers in monotone over heavy static.

Meanwhile, as Kol pokes and prods at the ceiling tiles, Sarissa will find herself compelled to hum a melody... Whether or not she's heard it before, the urge to hum the chorus will nag at her incessantly until she gives in.

And then, just as her humming attracts Kol's attention, the entire drop ceiling creaks and collapses, showering the whole group in rotted bird carcasses and flies, flies, flies...]

( The thought to arm themselves is a good idea, and Sarissa goes to one of the tables that had been stacked up, eyeing the leg critically as she flips the table so it's lying with the legs sticking up in the air, and takes a seat on the underside of the table as she violently kicks at one of the legs to try and get it to break off.

She can't quite think where the some came from, but-- hey, it's just gotta be some kinda earworm, right? The humming might get a little more intense with her kicks, the melody turning slightly punchy at times...

... or it would, if they hadn't just gotten the worlds worst surprise.

For her part, Sarissa just stays sitting for a moment, frozen. And then, )

Fuck!

( Loud and strained, and it's her fear of this shit getting in her eyes and her mouth that keeps her from sliding into a full meltdown as she gets up and just walks out of the room, trying to shake the rotting viscera out of her hair, and pulling a handkerchief out of her pocket to start carefully wiping the stuff away from her eyes and her mouth. )

Kol, what the fuck.

[ feeling bolder at the sight of actual progress and an exit - the creepiest voice he's ever heard or not - daylight scoots through the door, peering up to get a better look at the radio tower.

day is about to call out to the others about his new discovery when he hears the commotion inside. immediately worried for the others, he quickly pops his helm back in as his optics glow bright with worry and concern.

they quickly dim at the super gross sight before him because oh- ew. ]

Gross. Those poor birds. They didn't deserve to... to end up like that. [ he quickly covers his mouth, the smell (and flies) getting the better of him as he quickly retreats back to the direction of the ladder. ]

Um- [ right! the discovery! keep it together, day. you pretty much your concentration on the computer's arc energy after that. might as well try to salvage the situation. ] There's something here! A ladder! It leads out and I hear something from up there too.

I suggest you guys go first if you want to check it out. [ after they... you know... clear away from the grossest pile known to mankind. ]

[ HEY, THAT A KOLVINA SONG!

why the hell does that tune sarissa hums make him think of davina? as skilled as he is at tuning many things out, he struggles to shove that tune aside...

kol can't help but laugh at the outpour of dead birds from the ceiling. it's a bit of a stress laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. lighten up, guys! it could've been worse.

leaving the pile of birds where they are—what's the point? they're in a dream, he'll manipulate the birds to go away—he easily glides toward the table sarissa had been trying to break apart and snaps the leg off as if it were a twig. ] My deepest condolences, Sarissa. [ here's a table leg to make up for the dead bird smell.

breaking off another leg, he keeps that in his hand, he doesn't linger by the table for too long. brushing by daylight to look up at the high ceiling, he listens as carefully as he can to see if there's something dangerous waiting at the top. he tries to listen beyond the ominous numbers being called out. ]

[As the gang listens to the voice echoing down the tower, the first recording finishes and another starts to play. The voice is too muffled for them to make out the words, but the cadence of counting or reciting a list is clear. The tower is silent save for the recording and the faint whistling of a breeze overhead.

Kol and Sarissa are both able to snap off table legs, though, and they should have no trouble climbing with them should they decide to head up the ladder! Sarissa will also find that this mysterious earworm is stuck in her head for the remainder of the dream...

If they do decide to climb, please be sure to specify who's going up and in which order they're climbing. 🙂]

You're lucky I found you delightful the first time we met.

( She snatches the table leg with an excessive amount of grumpy flair, and with that ladder in sight, Sarissa stubbornly starts climbing. )

Come on, then. We can't just sit around here.

( Caution? No. Letting anyone else go first? No. If there's a rusty or rickety rungs then she'll let them know, but she's also climbing fast, skipping rungs and sometimes seeming to jump up a stretch rather than climbing normally. She's grossed out and miserable about whatever happened to those birds, she smells like death and there's a fucking song looping in her head. It makes it hard to totally focus on whatever the voice might be saying, as she hums and keeps heading towards the light.

Probably there's a metaphor or a joke about staying away from the light to be made, but not today. )

[ oh!!! ]

Hey! Sarissa! Wait a minute-

Kol- Come on! We gotta stick together. [ and so daylight - despite what he said only moments ago - is the second one to go up the ladder. he's... he's definitely proportional to his height, ten feet and more, so day tries to compensate by pulling both his armour and winglets tight as he can to his frame.

there's an eerie creaaaaaaaking sound from day as he hustles up the ladder, thanks to how close his armour is to his protoform. he tries to ignore the discomfort and worry he has, determined to be of help to sarissa and kol while they're here in this dream. for however long that will be.

with that said- the first thing he'll do upon getting up is definitely making a beeline to the radio tower, instincts be damned. it's to not only to hear the sequence of words and numbers better but for day to try and communicate with it. it has enough components to be considered a machine, right? he has to hope so.

having learned the hard way with the tablets, day is going to skip making contact and ask his burning question: what's happening here? ]

[ this is how kol dies: crushed by a transformer.

slow and steady usually isn't his m.o., but kol's forced to bring up the rear. it turns out it's fine, given that the further sarissa is away from him, the better he feels. whatever she's doing, it's either on purpose or it's a part of the dream—and he has a feeling it's the latter digging deep into his subconscious. as much of a pain in the ass she is (an enjoyable one at that), he doesn't think of her a malicious.

still, it doesn't help that he can hear her humming loud and clear due to his super hearing. once the roof, kol glares at sarissa. ] Would you stop humming that bloody song!

[ it's a deeply personal song—it's the future song he gets jiggy with davina to and one he's listened to numerous times thinking about her. it's very clear it's pulling at his emotional strings.

not to worry, though, because daylight's doing something completely stupid and fantastic at the same time. turning to frown at daylight, he rushes after him. thankfully he has that table leg in his hand to do some damage with if need be. ] Mate—what are you doing?

[The group heads up the ladder, and before long, they're in open air, scaling their way to the top of the radio tower. Far above, they'll be able to make out what looks to be a small control room at the tower's peak, but they have a lot of climbing to do before they can make it.

It gets darker as they go, despite the fact that they're rising above the treeline, and this onset of night isn't accompanied by a sunset. Rather, the sky dims as if an eclipse is setting in, and there's no sun to be found. The silence of the forest is palpable from up here too, as not even a breeze disturbs their climb. Even the counting voice goes quiet.

By the time they reach the control room, the sky is a deep blue, the only sunlight remaining in the world crowding along the horizon. It's cold, too, and harder to breathe, like the atmosphere is thinner.

But they'll see now: They're in Beacon, though a version of the world still clinging to normalcy. It's late autumn now, the trees still clinging to the last of their leaves, and Lake Red Jacket is choppy as ever. The radio tower juts out of the base of the southern mountains along the coast, giving the group a spectacular view of the lake, the bay, and the lighthouse, standing dormant out on its peninsula. It's still under construction, it seems, the tower still missing its beacon.

They'll also spot a horrible thing silhouetted against the sky as it wades through the lake, so large its difficult to fathom as a mobile creature. But it is, and it's lumbering toward the town, leaving a trail of shadow in its wake.

Inside the control tower is a small office with a single desk and a two-way radio. As Sarissa enters the office, the radio clicks on.]

Comm check. This is Sheriff Owen Hobaugh with the Beacon County Sheriff's Department. We've got 34 survivors here, along with ample medical supplies and access to fresh water and food. We're located at 45.717643, -86.667802.

[There's a pause, the man on the other end taking a breath.]

Dr. Solis is with us, and she has a plan to keep us alive. She's found a way to... temporarily rehouse a person's life force, she says. If anyone's still alive out there, send us a signal. We might just be able to save this world yet.

[But when Daylight tries to commune with the radio, he'll realize that this is a recording, and that recording is being broadcast on a long-range frequency. The radio will also tell him that it's never heard a response.

Looking out over the lake, the World Eater fast approaching, it's impossible not to feel a bit hopeless—in fact, Sarissa, Daylight, and Kol will all be overcome with a deep sense of dread as they watch the light fading from the world. But each of them will react a little differently.

New in town though she is, Sarissa will feel in this moment that Beacon is her home. A thing is not dead until it ceases to be, and what is a thing if not dead? Sarissa is alive, if only because she is here, and she will feel a powerful anger at the thought of giving up whatever life she has left in this new home of hers. She will not bend to the World Eaters.

Daylight, on the other hand, will not fear the end. The natural cycle dictates that all things die so that life may grow anew, and this world's death is inevitable. The portal is still uncontrollable, he knows, and it is irresponsible to cling to a stolen existence while other worlds suffer further consequence. It is selfish. He will feel the great honor of glimpsing the natural cycle at work, to be part of something bigger than himself. He will accept his death.

Kol is the space between them, torn between wanting to live and wanting to spare others from this hell. He will waffle between these two points of view, unable to decide.

Of course, all three of them are aware that these thoughts are not their own. That doesn't stop their influence, but at least it allows them some control over their next move.

Three nooses appear on the railing.]

You are the reason I am covered in viscera.

( Hissed back to Kol, and so: the humming doesn't stop. Even when it feels like the air is harder to breathe, she keeps humming. It's at odds with how she's moving, hyper-vigilant with feral caution - surely being silent would make more sense? And yet, she keeps humming.

Even when they hear the message and she starts repeating the coordinates back to herself to memorise them, it's to that melody, and once she has repeated it over enough to feel like she might have a decent shot of recalling it, she adds more information in: ) Four five point seven one seven six four three, minus eight six point six six seven eight oh two. Four five point seven one seven six four three, minus eight six point six six seven eight oh two. Four five point seven one seven six four three, minus eight six point six six seven eight oh two. Hobaugh, thirty-four, Solis. Four five--

( She keeps going, even as she takes in that monster on the horizon, keeps listening, sees the nooses fall. )

Hobaugh, thirty-four, Solis.

( Softly, and finally, she's silent. There's a rage in her that starts to simmer, the kind of rage she knows in herself to be dangerous and destructive, the anger that has pushed her to survive and has pushed her to be ready to tear herself apart. Anger is less incapacitating than fear; she can use it for something. Some of it she knows isn't her. It's the dream, these strange memories or history or whatever the fuck it is that they're observing.

When she speaks, her voice is flat. )

Kinda poetic, ain't it? We emerged from a tunnel all covered in blood, like some fucked up metaphor for birth, and now we're being faced death.

( Sarissa spins the table leg in her hand. It's not too hefty that her father wouldn't have used it, on a bad day. She remembers a lot of those beatings. Maybe not all, when they were so frequent that they bled together, and when sometimes they left her near unconscious, but she can remember enough. Those days she still fought to survive, and that's the feeling this is giving her, that desperate, hungry need to survive. These days she kept going more out of sheer spite and stubbornness, and as they stand and the monster continues on, she feels really bloody tired. That defiance is burning in her, and she knows it isn't hers, and she so desperately wants it to just stop. For one fucking minute just stop, because in this place even animals hadn't been okay, they'd been shoved in that dark, crowded space and left to rot.

Moving closer to the railing, Sarissa smiles, though there's nothing pleasant in it. Exhaustion and bitterness, maybe. )

This place and me and bloody railings.

EVENT LOG: ENTER MR. SANDMAN (DREAMERS)

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cw dead/decaying animals, flies

sorry for the slow, sickness etc :[ cw: dead/decaying animals, flies, brief ref to vomit

it's cool! i hope you feel better soon. <3 cw: description of gore and flies

cw: dead/decaying animals, flies, the state of daylight's pants lbr

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cw gore, ref to drought and mouse plagues, ptsd

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slowly crawls back 2 u all

//holds with great enthusiasm!!

/pushes you all off the ladder

cw suicide

cw suicide ideation, depression, ref to past abuse, dead animals.

cw: schrodinger's character death and graphic depiction of suicide and suicide idealisation.

cw mentions of murder and attempted suicide.

cw mentions of attempted suicide.

cw: mentions and depiction of attempted suicide and descriptive gore.

cw: references to suicide.