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

kara ( detroit: become human ) open prompts below

[chores]

grave digging

[chores]

( it's a simple scene, gray stone and a bright blue triangle at the center: )

AX400 #579 102 694
April 2032 - November 2038

( in truth, kara is more surprised that she has a place among the other graves. no one back home would bother to bury an android nor do something like give them a stone to be remembered. she'd be recycled, thrown into a dump and forgotten. so it doesn't hurt that her grave doesn't bear her name, the name alice had given her and ultimately: she gives a tired sigh.

it's only when someone approaches near her that she looks up, eyes wet but not crying as she shakes her head. )

There's nothing of interest here.

[necromantiae]

Are you certain?

( because ambrose is definitely interested in at least what's written on the tombstone. the name, the date, everything is just...very curious. he doesn't get too close though because he doesn't want to get punched but he doesn't back away. )

Are you all right?

[chores]

One of the few things that I am certain of.

( it probably is a curious sight. even kara has to admit to that much because, in truth, it's unfamiliar even to her. as mentioned, it's a little more than she ever expected to be showed her way. )

I don't know. ( she says, her voice a half-whisper. ) I'm surprised, mostly.

[necromantiae]

I think that's...a pretty common feeling right now.

( he'd been mostly repressing everything but this, seeing the evidence of his mortality and solid proof that he's dead is jarring. it's hard to ignore even if he's trying really hard to do just that. )

That's yours, then? ( maybe a silly question but best to confirm. )

[chores]

( she makes the smallest affirmation of sound. it is jarring, she thinks, to find oneself face to face with something like this. )

Yes, I prefer Kara though. Less of a mouthful, I think. ( she's trying really hard at this being positive thing. )

[necromantiae]

Flows better too, I think.

( his own name can be a bit unwieldy but it is nothing like what he's seeing on her tombstone. it's curious, of course, but he knows when to keep questions about a potentially sensitive topic to himself. )

Ambrose. A very Civil War name for someone who would not have done well in a war at all.

[chores]

Yes. My daughter gave me it and so, I treasure it.

( huh. weird, huh? isn't it usually the other way around? either way, she offers him the smallest of smiles. )

I am sure there are many of us in the same boat but, Ambrose, I like that.

[necromantiae]

You've got a kid?

( and now she was...here. now, that was unfortunate. he never saw himself as a father but he can't imagine what it would be like to be separated. )

And I thought the whole just being here was hard. Being separated from someone like that? I'm sorry.

[chores]

Yes. Her name is Alice.

( it's not often there's a touch of... well, sunshine in kara's stance or voice but she can't help it when it comes to alice. even after everything that happened to them, alice was (and would always be) most important. )

She passed away shortly before I did. I thought... I thought I might find her here too but I am hoping she went somewhere better instead.

dark waters

[chores]

( "you okay, alice?"

you ask the question with a smile on your face. from the safety of your boat you are surrounded by cold, dark river water but you try not to let it worry you. you're so close now that you can practically see the shore through the dark snowy night, the city lights gleaming― calling to you. freedom is just across the river, you just have to keep telling yourself that.

"when we get on the other side, there are so many things i wanna do." alice says in her small, soft voice. yet there is excitement, hope there that has been absent since you started this long journey. "i wanna read all the books in the world and play music and dance. we can do anything we want right? we'll be free."

"yes. we can do it all." you say, smiling and she smiles back. a smile that you treasure because she's had so little to smile about. your smile only brightly as she continues, her gaze flickering between both you and luther.

"we'll be like a family."

from the front of the boat, luther takes in a breath and grins back at you both. "we won't have to be afraid anymore. there won't be anybody to give us orders. no masters, no slaves. we'll start a new life, a life of freedom." he says, pride in his voice. he's been through so much too but he's stuck by you and, like alice, he has become family. "what about you kara? what will you do?"

"what will i do?" you repeat the question with a touch of wonder. it's not something you have allowed yourself the chance to truly ponder about. after all, you've been so focused on alice that you haven't had time to think about yourself not with everything that has happened. yet, somehow, you know the answer to his question: "i'll learn to live... to love. find out who i really am."

you all drift in silence, rocked by the waves of the river until suddenly a light illuminates you in the darkness. there is barely a chance to react before gunfire sounds off and suddenly there is screaming from the other boats of androids that took to the water. they are begging, pleading but the gunfire silences them quickly and your ears are left ringing from their cries. it's only a matter of moments until their sights are trained on you. you have to move, you have to protect alice―

gunfire rips through the air once more as you accelerate but a shot tears through the boat engine and you throw yourself forward in an attempt to protect the little girl that has become your daughter. everything happens in a flash and suddenly, before you know it, everything is still once again. you want to laugh, you almost do until alice's small voice breaks the silence and suddenly all you see is blue. her hands are covered in the bright blue thirium and already you see it appearing in your vision as you quickly scan her over:

BIOCOMPONENT #5099t DESTROYED
BIOCOMPONENT #674lm DESTROYED
BIOCOMPONENT #3764x DESTROYED
― 00:09:59 BEFORE SHUTDOWN

this isn't happening. this can't be happening. no, no! "... you'll be okay, alice. it's... it's nothing." you lie and you wonder, who you are lying to. her or yourself. "we'll get it taken care of as soon as we're across. you'll be fine."

you try to sound brave, you try to reassure her but there isn't much time to react. she's on her feet, running to the front of the boat and her voice is just so sad as she calls out to luther but unlike alice, there's nothing you can do for him. he lays dead, slumped over and unmoving and your heart begins to drum faster. you can't watch this happen to alice, you have to move but everything around you is spiraling out of control. you don't feel the cold but the water that suddenly swallows your feet tell you the worst is happening. the boat is leaking and you have to move. you can't lose alice too.

and somehow, you make it to the shore―

your biocomponent have begun to freeze, your vision flickering and static but you force yourself up onto the bank before collapsing to your knees and hugging the little girl close. it's enough to wake her from her half-asleep daze and she looks up at you, wide-eyed and curious.

"are we free?" she asks softly, quietly.

"yes..." you answer in a whisper, hugging her closer. rocking her in your arms. "yes, we made it. we're free."

"we won't have to hide anymore. we can be... a family." you smile, eyes watering but nodding eagerly. she's fighting so hard to just breathe. "i'm tired. i have to sleep."

you can feel your world breaking down as she lays back in your arms. she's dying and there's nothing you can do to stop it, nothing you can do to help her. she looks at you with those beautiful brown eyes, smiling peacefully as she speaks: "i love you, mom."

and with one, final tiny breath... she's gone. already tears are falling, snow sticking to your face but all that matters is her. all that ever mattered in your short life was her and now she's gone so what do you have left?

"i love you too."

nothing. you have nothing and, so there is no hesitation to set it your own shutdown in motion. you rock alice, cradle her close and close your eyes.

you failed her― that's your last thought. )

[darkeyed]

<sub>[Invasive. Disrespectful. Needlessly traumatizing for both sides. The argument could be made what M.K.'s doing by choosing to purposely visit others' graves is all three of these things. But M.K. himself doesn't see it that way, not after forcing himself through the first couple of visions. Not at first. The hard truth of it is he doesn't know these people, he's not attached to them, their deaths don't matter to him, but these visions provide information he's intrigued by.

Their deaths don't matter to me. Words he'd told himself, the longer he'd stayed with Pilgrim and the higher the death toll had climbed. Kindling thrown on the inner raging fire that kept him warm, or maybe a reminder. Their deaths don't matter to me.

They had, once. But that was before he'd figured out the key to turning on his power and turning off that traitorous, bruised thing called his heart that kept holding him back. The two had come hand-in-hand--trading pain for soft feelings, strength for compassion.

Hard-heartedness serves him well in this morbid voyeurism. These aren't his people or his memories and he doesn't have to let them drag him down.

But then Kara's grave. Like others before him, he's only curious about the numbers in place of letters on the headstone where a name should be etched, but that turns out to be a mistake when he pricks his thumb like he has so many others and leaves a drop of blood on the ground. Some people's memories have been pitiful. Some strange. Some both. All--physically--painful, but this--

He's not prepared for it. He comes out of her memory sucking in a breath so hard it sounds ragged and burns going in. Are there tears on his face or are they hers? He rubs at his face, and as he does so he unconsciously lowers himself to mimic her kneeling position in her last moments.]</sub>

[chores]

❪ kara recognizes what has happened even before she can see it is her grave that the unfamiliar face is kneeling before. a part of her is angry, upset that her memories are being so easily exposed to the world when she already has so little. a few days worth, hardly anything of worth except for her time with alice. every precious memory with her that she could never (and would never) forget.

she approaches him carefully, glancing down and frowning slightly. is this how she looked on the banks of canada with alice dying in her arms before she decided to shut down? ❫

I'm sorry. ❪ it's all that she can think of to say in the moment. unsure of what else could even be said in such a strange moment. ❫

[darkeyed]

<sub>[It is a strange moment, for how unfathomably inhuman Kara is. Code, and components, and machine-like logic in place of tissue and the colorful chaos of human thought. He doesn't have a word for her in his vocabulary, because there's nothing quite like her in his world. Of course, he could borrow the term from her memories (android), but the closest comparable thing in his memories is a mimic. Except no mimic had imitated human life so well as to be human.

That's the thing, as he catches his breath there on the ground, hand propped on his knee to hold him up. That hadn't just been a mimicry. That had been real. Real human pain. Loss. The same despairing readiness to end it all he'd felt lying on the satin covers of a bed counting the bars of his prison.

The physical pain is negligible--if it had just been that, he could have ignored it, but--

It hurts, and not just from the phantom cold settling into limbs. It hurts in an unprotected way he hasn't let himself feel in some time. A few days. A few days is all it takes to drill into the box he's been stuffing his feelings down into for years.

Her voice takes him by surprise; he hadn't heard her approach. M.K., pale and chill from a winter's day and a swim in frigid water that hadn't happened to him, lifts his head, lifts his head to look at her. Her voice sounds different now that he's back in his own body, but the heavy sadness is the same.]</sub>

That was you, wasn't it?

lost together

[chores]

( during the first few days, you might find kara near her gravestone or around the graveyard proper. she seems to linger near certain ones but never ventures closer and, perhaps, that is for the best.

more often than not she is seated near the bonfire working on a small selection of clothing. either tearing them into generous sized strips or mending them for wearing. whatever the case might be, it is clear that she is limiting what she allows herself to focus in on currently.

otherwise you might find her curled up in a booth at the tavern with knees hugged close to her body, eyes closed and shoulder shaking with the silent tears that fall behind the hands that cover her face. )

the tavern;

[preseance]

( he finds her at the tavern. it ain't on purpose, really, he's lookin' for a quiet place to sit away from the crowd an' he takes her booth to be unoccupied at a casual glance until he's near enough he can see her, an' then he stops dead.

he doesn't know kara by sight, but it ain't to the soul of him to ignore anyone's sufferin', neither. so gene just clears his throat politely to alert her of his presence, an' ducks his head a bit should she choose to look up. )

Miss. Y'mind some company?

[chores]

( she doesn't expect anyone to approach her, let alone, speak out to her. almost utterly lost in her own emotions, kara doesn't even hear him approach until he's speaking and she is weakly looking up from where she has hidden her face away in her hands. she sniffles, bringing her hands to her eyes and tiredly rubbing away the signs of tears. )

Yes, um, of course. ( she says, turning in the booth so she is sitting upright and offers what might be the saddest smile she can muster. ) Thank you.

[preseance]

( break his goddamn heart, why don't you. that smile is the stuff of every sad song by vera lynn he's ever heard, an' his brow furrows with an immediate sort of sympathy as he slides into the booth.

he's nursin' a beer, because while alcohol ain't his drug of choice he happens to be outta that right now, so it's what he's got. it keeps the shakes at bay, an' that crawling sense of nausea that's been sittin' right in the pit of his gut since he gave his last pack of cigarettes to rosinante. )

You need anythin'? I don't mind gettin' something for you from the bar if you think you're up to puttin' somethin' away.

[chores]

( her gaze shifts as he slides into the booth, flickering down to her hands that rest atop the table as she brings them together and squeezes. it helps, she finds. helps her to focus and concentrate on things that are not her memories. )

No― it's okay. I don't need anything. ( it would just be a waste, she thinks but doesn't bother to say. ) It wouldn't do me any good.

[preseance]

( he assumes it's just some manner'a malaise talkin', but he don't push none either. just nods, and fusses with the label of his beer. )

Well, maybe just the company for now, then.

( he holds his hand across the table for her to take. )

I'm Gene.

[chores]

Company. ( she repeats slowly, softly. ) Company I can handle.

( she thinks, she hopes. kara has tried to better open herself up since her initial arrival in this place― allow herself to be helped and help in turn. she tilts her head curiously as he offers his hand to her, carefully reaching out with her own (shaky) hand and taking it with a gentle shake. )

O-oh― you're the one that asked me about bandages. I'm Kara.

[preseance]

Kara.

( he didn't have any inklin' this is what she'd look like — a beautiful young woman that could'a stepped out of any magazine in his time if she only had victory rolls done up in her hair. her hand was even warm in his despite the tremor to it. it could just be residual emotion of whatever's troublin' her, but he realizes — given what she'd said, it could just as much be some fear of him.

how is it that a machine can seem so human? lord, the world must change more than he'd thought it might.

gently, )

Well, it's nice to meet you in person. How'd you make out with your offer an' the rest of town?

[chores]

Mm. It's nice to meet you in person too. ( and she smiles again, a little less sad this time and showing more warmth even if she does look so very tired. )

And I was able to talk to a couple of people. I'm grateful for any response since it helps keeping me busy.

wildcard

[chores]

( for anything not mentioned above! feel free to find kara, perhaps, wandering a bit aimlessly around beacon in the aftermath of everything. feel free to hmu on plurk at kaldwin if you're interested in a starter! )

an offering

[chores]

( for any character that might leave an offering and witness her death, you know, for tracking purposes. )