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

cw: blood, gore

[sulfa]

1. h HOUR ON d DAY : fragments of the d-day landing [optional prelude] [ scene can be watched here. link timestamped for wade's first appearance. ] Your face is wet before you've even touched the water. The cold black waves pitch and throw the landing craft like a ragdoll, spraying salt water into your face, your nose, your mouth, your eyes. Over the past two hours pretty much everyone's vomited - nerves probably play a role, but between the gross oversaturation of adrenaline in your blood and the constant jerks of the craft it would be a miracle if you didn't puke. Nonetheless, you're one of the guys who doesn't. Breathe in. Out. Again. You're not shaking, either. About half of the guys are. Maybe you're less present than them - because you're scared too, God, you're scared, but if you die you die and if you don't you don't and what matters is holding that death off for as long as possible. The longer you're alive, the more people you can keep from dying. "Now!" The gate drops and welcomes in the German gunfire. The kid next to you jerks and falls motionless into the water mid-breath as his neighbors scramble past his momentarily upright corpse. --- You don't think as you fight your way up the beach, weave around the bodies, spit out sand as it sprays into your mouth over and over. Screaming - men are shrieking their lungs out everywhere you go. There's blood all over, more than you've ever seen in your life. The gunfire and explosions of mortars are deafening, almost disorienting. You focus on the task ahead of you, let the world and the looming chance of your own death twist and fade as the blinkers lower onto your face. --- "Move on to someone you can help!" Another shelling. Without removing pressure from the hemorrhaging wound on your patient's thorax you cover him with as much of your own body as you can. The dirt and sand and black-red mist of human remains shower down on you instead of his wounds. "He's battalion surgeon, Sir!" And you're so close. So close. Just a minute, two minutes, he'll be stable. He loosely grasps your forearm as you work, seemingly just to have something to hold on to. More gunfire, closer this time, or so it seems - it's impossible to tell what's close and what's far when flying bullets are engulfing you from every angle like a swarm of lead locusts. You grab the chest of the corpse in front of you and roll it onto its side for a little more cover. Shots pelt it in an instant. And then - beautifully - DeForrest, Battalion Surgeon, stops bleeding. His rapid descent toward death freezes. You have a split second to catch your breath. "I got it!" you yell - you have to if you want to be heard, and your throat is raw for it - "We stopped the bleeding! We stopped the bleeding!" A metallic clang. A bullet punches through his helmet and he goes motionless. Dead. The past several minutes and desperate effort vanishes in the blink of an eye. "Fuck!" You scream. Throw the now-fucking-useless bandages on the sand. "Just give us a fucking chance, you son of a bitch! Son of a fucking cocksucker!" "Wade! Come on!" Someone grabs your shoulder, exerts enough force to push you down as you try to straighten up so the Kraut bastards who just picked off your patient can get a proper look at you. "Wade! Wade, it's Mellish! Wade!" You fall onto your back in the sand as he drags you - all you can do is scream. "Fuck, fuck, fuck--!" and then halfway through the reality crashes down on you, the futility, the fact that you can't fucking help anyone here because they're just going to get blown to fucking pieces three seconds later if you do. Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God. You're in hysterics when you both slam into the steep sand of the seawall and Mellish lets go of your collar, crying like you haven't since you were four or five as reality overwhelms every circuit in your brain. Another shell crashes into the seawall. A guy a few bodies down the line shrieks bloody murder. "Oh my God! My arm! Somebody!" The emotions, the fear, the selfhood that occluded any ability for coherent thought a matter of seconds ago all vanish. Everything stops. You scramble through the sand in the direction of the senior medical officer and the new casualty like an automaton. Blood geysers from his upper arm in spurts. The wound's arterial. You press a clump of red bandages to the wound with one hand and fumble for his brachial artery with the clamp you're holding in the other. His blood sprays onto your face as you work, running down your nose and off of your bottom lip. You can taste it, hot and metallic among the grit of the sand on your tongue and teeth. "Oh my God, it hurts! I'm going to die! Oh my God! Oh, Jesus! Oh, God! God! God help me!" "You're not gonna die! You're not gonna die!" You deliberately project confidence - urgent, but calm. You have to. "You're not gonna die! You're fine! Don't look-- don't look at it!" You jam your elbow downwards, separating his line of sight from the welter of his torn arm, and shield your patient with your own body as inorganic and organic debris rains down on you from another mortar blast close enough to rock the sandy earth underneath you.