EVENT LOG: GRAVES

[inthenightmods]

EVENT LOG:
GRAVES

characters: everyone.
location: Bonfire Square.
date/time: July 12-19.
content: mysterious shrines appear and bring visions of death.
warnings: likely violence and potentially gore.

time to pay your respects.

It happens when no one is looking, when most of the town is asleep and the rest are inside. A makeshift cemetery has come to Beacon, taking up residence in the middle of Bonfire Square. Each monument, shrine, and altar is dedicated to someone who now resides here, a memorial of their previous life.

Some may be drawn by curiosity, others by fear, and some may simply have to pass through this strange graveyard to get to the Bonfire itself. Whenever a person gets near, the altars beckon with a mysterious urge— an urge to approach, and an urge to leave something behind. They will feel compelled to make offerings at the various shrines, but doing so has a curious effect; it causes one to experience the death of the person whose grave they've honored.

Whether you resist the compulsion or give in willingly (or something in between), you'll also have to wrestle with the fact that a grave exists for you. Will you let your death be known, or try your best to keep it secret? Destroying it sure won't work, as it will return— with a duplicate somewhere else in town.

However you choose to deal with this, one thing is hard to ignore— this a tangible reminder of your death, and the fact that it's probably permanent.

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Comments

number five | open prompts below

[fogey]

the grave, itt z desperately hopes her dates are right

[fogey]

[ the tombstone is a simple affair: grey stone, not much ornamenting it. inscribed, in curling letters: ]

Number Five
October 1 1989 - March 29 2019

[ 1) his name actually is, apparently, number five. 2) those dates sure are about 30 years apart, for all that he doesn't look a day over 13 and has told a handful of people he's actually pushing sixty.

five doesn't stand guard over his grave or try, in any way, to dissuade people from leaving offerings. he may, however, teleport immediately behind your character, should they be standing near his grave, scowling impressively. ]

Enjoying the show?

[ world's grumpiest jumpscare, reporting for duty. ]

[voktys]

⟪ melisandre is not one to give into rages, she has lived for too long –– longer, truly, than she has known for herself until just very, very recently, by her own shrine –– to fall to the folly of such emotions. it doesn't matter that egros is, apparently, older than he seems, it doesn't matter at all. what matters is that, instead of a name, he had been given but a number. many of those stones featured a dedication of sorts, some word of comfort she presumes for the dead, but his had the number, and the date, and that was it.

she'd left him an embroidery, flame upon red cloth, but she knows she as to go through his death again. there is much to say now that she knows, and it may... no, it won't make up for a life lived under a number, but perhaps, it will soothe him a little.

she'll need time, though, and time she doesn't have when he appears behind her. he's trained in this, he knows a flinch from the draw of a weapon, and yes, she is startled, but her hand has gone to her pocket –– only stopping when she recognises him. ⟫

This is this teleporting you spoke of?

[fogey]

[ five notices her startle, of course, the way she might've attacked him if recognition hadn't set in. she's right -- he is trained in this, and it's less that he reacts to her aborted motion as that he doesn't, because a part of him had expected it. he's always on edge or near it, ready.

seeing that it's melisandre doesn't exactly make him feel better about the fact that someone is here, and has certainly looked at this, at his memory, but doesn't make him angrier either. it takes him a second to remember the conversation she mentioned, but then he does, a slight lessening to that scowl. ]

This is it. I suppose you never would've seen it before.

[voktys]

No, we do not even have it in our fictions of magic.

⟪ at least not in any of the ones she had read, and not in scripture, either. god communicates through flame, and ash, and smoke. no more –– but no less either, and most of all, she knows these things to be true. ⟫ But by God, do I wish it could be taught.

⟪ this is not a request, she knows very well that, were it possible for her, she could do it by now. ⟫

You have a good soul.

[callada]

[Not too many have caught him at his graveyard crawl. He practically jumps at the voice, then spins, hand ghosting toward a nonexistent holster. Muscle memory, nothing more, and when he finds he's been caught by a kid, the surprise is enough to send him crashing downward off his feet.

Well, hey, at least they're eye to eye now, or just about. And hey, that voice, wasn't that the same one in the vision?]

Oh - hey. Sorry, I didn't notice you earlier. Is this yours?

[fogey]

[ this is not, as a point of fact, the first time five has seen a dead man walking. watching rosinante move, listening to him speak, is no more painful than meeting his siblings again, than speaking to anyone in 2019 with the knowledge that the apocalypse comes in days. so all five says is, ]

I thought I told you to keep your lantern in one piece.

[ which may be answer enough. his network handle matches the name on the gravestone, anyway. ]

[callada]

[All right, yes, he'll take that as confirmation.]

I... I see. I'm sorry for intruding. Something about it drew me in.

[Like his own interest in seeing as many of these things as he can handle so as to better understand everyone he's stuck with. This was not an accident.

Sorry, but hold on, how old is this kid he's looking at? He doesn't think himself a bad judge of age, but a glance at the plaque suggests someone who should look quite a bit older than this. Is he being messed with? The person before him can't be much older than Law, surely. Perhaps the years in that world are a different length than the ones he's used to.]

[chores]

( perhaps it's the simplicity of it all that draws her in. after all, aside from the missing blue triangle at the center, the headstone is not unlike her own. a number instead of a name and simple dates but lacking any... familiarity. any proof that someone cared though, perhaps, it is wrong of her to think that way over something that might just be showing them a small piece of their lives. former lives, she corrects herself.

despite her programming allowing her to react much faster than a typical human there is only so much she can do against someone that is very much, not normal. at least not normal in the sense that most humans do not teleport yet there isn't much of a reaction from her, no movement at all to five's sudden appearance. instead, she simply cants her head and lets her focus linger forward on the headstone. )

I can't say enjoyment is a word that comes to mind.

[fogey]

[ it'd be uncanny, her lack of a startle reflex, if he hadn't grown up with grace hargreeves keeping their house together. kara reminds him so much of his mom, and it's all in the small things he hadn't thought to remember, but hadn't forgotten either. ]

What, then?

[spitefullight]

[ He hadn't touched the grave yet. He had had enough with experience people dying for a lifetime...or second life time. Elden had looked at the grave and had assumed when he saw the name it was of the boy he met. So, Five really was there name. He wonders what kind of parent would just give their kid a number?

If he was being honest he could think of a few parents who could fit that description. But, really what he focuses on is the dates. He can do the math...

30 years. So...this kid wasn't human? He squints at it a bit before he hears the voice and suddenly stands to his feet. Elden looks at the so called boy with recognition, but he's scanning them now. ]'

I didn't look, Five. I've already intruded on enough people's privacy.

[ Still, he purses his lips in thought before saying; ]

So, you're not a kid, are you? Or at least, you age a lot slower than humans do, am I right?

[fogey]

Wrong.

[ he doesn't relax, arms crossed, as he takes in the guesses. even if elden did respect his privacy enough not to look at the memory, five isn't too thrilled about the questions. ]

I am human, Jesus. [ even if he often feels otherwise, all that blood on his hands. ] I just look like a child. Time travel.

death

[fogey]

[ this is how it feels to be number five:

you look around, and what you see is the dream. you see green grass, blue skies, people talking and laughing, buildings clean and fresh, standing, intact. you see that, but what you don't see, what you know, is the truth. you know how the world is going to look in a matter of days: you know exactly the way in which this house will crumble, have seen its foundations, have cut your hands on the broken glass from its windows. you know how the air will choke with smoke. you know where the bodies lie, every single person whose life hangs in the balance if you get this wrong. you see your brother and sister, living and breathing, and you remember how it felt to find them, lifeless, under so much rubble.

those are the stakes.

—

there's a white-hot pain in his gut that he ignores, because it doesn't matter; because he can compartmentalize it, like he's compartmentalized so much over the years. because right here, right now, number five stands in the house of the man he knows caused the apocalypse. he provided the name; diego found them an address, a face; allison had realized his connection to vanya. all of the pieces are finally starting to add up, for the first time in decades.

allison calls from above: "guys, you need to see this."

diego makes to the stairs first, then five (jostles painfully, but he doesn't slow down), and they climb up to the attic. the house had been painfully ordinary, normal, but up here -- now this is where the man hid his crazy. there's an entire cabinet, walls plastered with photos of a group of six children in domino masks and uniforms just like the one five wears to this day, newspaper and magazine clippings, the shelves full of figurines of the same children. one is five, of course, two clearly younger versions of the siblings with him right now. except --

"all our faces are burnt off," allison notes.

not just that -- in every photo, their eyes are scratched out.

"well, that's not creepy," diego answers, which is a big fucking understatement. "this guy's got some serious issues."

"shit," five and diego say in tandem, because what else is there to say, really.

"this was never about vanya," allison says, but five starts to wobble on his feet, looks down again towards his stomach. the wound had been painful before, all day, but now it's too much. allison adds, "this is about us."

-- and five falls to the floor.

"five," allison asks, alarmed, as she and diego get to their knees. "wh -- blood." she pushes back the vest, the shirt, to find the bleeding shrapnel wound.

"jesus, five," diego says, "why didn't you say anything?"

here's the thing: even this doesn't matter, so much. not with what's at stake. so what five says is,

"you have to keep going. so...close."

because that is what matters -- his siblings are closing in, now, on the person who causes the apocalypse, who kills them all, who destroys the world. five gave them the warning, the clue, everything he had, and now the last of it is up to them. they can save the world now; they have to.

so even as he hears allison call his name, feels diego's hand on his face, he slips into darkness, and feels -- something like relief. he did what he devoted his life to: got them as far as he could. ]

around

[fogey]

[ you may find him near his gravestone, once or twice on the first day, giving it an appraising look. his expression is blank, briefly solemn, but then he just shrugs.

that sure is a thing that exists here, right now.

more likely, you might find him on his regular wanderings around town. notably, at least once, a shrine pops up in his path all of a sudden (the sister to one briefly destroyed by someone) -- causing him to teleport around it to avoid falling, and swearing impressively.

most likely of all, you'll find him at the tavern, nursing a strong drink. because what else is there to do, really, with all this going on. if someone comes up to the bar or takes a seat near him, he might comment, ]

At least there aren't any of the damn things in here. [ ... ] Last I checked, anyway.

the invincible;

[preseance]

( seems all things lead to liquor.

gene drops into the seat beside five without a word. he foregoes his customary beer an' just calls for whisky, neat. he'd given the last of his cigarettes to rosinante, an' the strain of the withdrawl is startin' to play on him. enough he's tense, though not much more.

as the drink's bein' poured, he looks askance at five. )

Y'all right?

[fogey]

[ without so much as looking over, five says, ]

Try asking me that again, and see what happens.

[ it's not even about his own death, or anyone else being able to see it. there's the upswell of worry, the knowledge that he didn't see the job through, has no way of knowing what happened after. there's the reminder that he's surrounded by the dead -- not an unfamiliar sensation for number five, but christ is he ever tired. ]

let's get a drink

[originallutece]

[It's hours since she'd left a marker by Five's gravestone, and she's been thinking about what she saw ever since. All of it: the lingering memories of the apocalypse, the way his siblings had looked (and which were they, she wonders, what number), the creepy burnt action figures and obsessive posters, the way his siblings had interacted and the way he'd viewed them . . . she's gone over every aspect of it, and she knows she'll do it again, because Five is too interesting to be given a cursory study.

But there's one thing she doesn't understand. One niggling fact that prods at her, even as she walks into the bar and sees the man in question.

Why not find help? Surely dying won't aid he-- his siblings (and she has to correct herself, because it's hard not to think this happened to me, it's like fighting her way out of a particularly realistic dream). Bleeding out on the floor won't help them get any closer. He isn't even sacrificing himself for them, so why--?

She would never do that. She'd do anything for Robert, but not pointlessly. What's the use of dying for someone if you don't have to? She'd poured out her blood for Robert, she'd nursed him back to help, she'd done what he'd demanded of her, it's always been for Robert, it's always been for Robert, but . . .

Why die? Why not be selfish? There's no logical point to it.]

Wine, please. Red.

[She sits a seat away from him. Does he know what she's seen? Probably. He's far from stupid.]

Have you tried destroying yours?

[fogey]

[ he hears rosalind's approach, before she takes her seat, before she orders, so neither of those things surprise him. he shoots her a look, sideways, at the question; breathes out what might be a sigh before answering. ]

That'd be pointless. Whoever put them there isn't going to let us get rid of them so easily.

[darkeyed]

<sub>[In these two weeks, there have been days M.K. hasn't bothered to get out of bed--if you can call lying awake on a couch for hours "in bed"--and when he has, he's remained withdrawn from the group, in opposition to some who are already happily graduating acquaintances to friendships. Ironic, that their deaths is what helps spur interest in their lives.

He tells himself the sensation of dying can't be any worse the second time around, and actually, Five's is easier to stomach than some in how familiar it is. He'd travelled the Wasteland with an untreated wound in his side, once; dying as Five feels a lot like almost dying as himself. Five has a high pain tolerance. It's bearable, and he comes out only slightly gasping for air.

At any rate, it's not the death itself that draws M.K. to him, but everything else. It takes some deductive reasoning: he doesn't know Five, can't read Five's name on his headstone, and he doesn't use the tablets, but there are clues in the memory. The style of dress on the figurines and in the magazine cut-outs, for one. The height Five had been looking out at in relation to other people and objects, for another.

A boy who might be more than just a boy. Smaller than him. Lighter complexion. Dresses smartly.

It's not so hard to find him, when he's bothering to look.]</sub>

They're interesting.

_{[Awful, intimate, baffling, painful. And interesting. It's a word both thoughtfully chosen and honestly given as he joins Five where he sits. The way he openly studies the younger man is honest, too.]}

You've seen the old world.

[fogey]

[ interesting, the boy says, and five slants him a glance. it's an honest answer, at least, if unexpected -- especially with the pervasive melancholy attitude, how poorly everyone's handling their deaths on display. then the boy goes on and five's eyebrows pull together briefly; he takes a sip of his drink, then says, ]

You're going to have to be more specific.

[ the old....what now. ]

offerings

[fogey]

[ if your characters left something + saw five's memory, feel free to make a note of what they left here! ]

[identifier]

[ from dick, a bottle of whiskey. some of that hit too close for him. ]

[nonscriptum]

[ A tiny slip of paper rolled up into a little scroll is half-stuffed into the earth in front of the marker. On the curled side is a small drawing of a bottle of alcohol with the label Cachaça. ]

[darkeyed]

_{[He literally just bled on it. I'm sorry, he's gross.]}

[jigsawn]

( five gets +1 stick from billy. )