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

death #1: the tree

[itsaname]

[ You are naked, and you are hanging from an impossibly massive tree. There are intricately knotted ropes suspending you several feet off the ground. They hold you tightly about your chest, between your legs, under your arms, and around your wrists and ankles. One encircles your neck, loose enough to breathe but tight enough to choke you if your head sags too far forward. You cannot break free on your own. You do not want to break free.

In front of you, laying on the ground, is a corpse wrapped in a sheet. You are doing this for him. You are holding his vigil.

The ropes cut into your flesh. You are in pain. Sometimes, you are afraid. Sometimes, you are apathetic and bored, and those are familiar emotions. You shift enough to press your bare back against the trunk of the tree, lessening the pain by degrees. You repeat a mantra to yourself again and again, first in your head and then aloud: ]

It's easy, there's a trick to it, you do it or you die. It's easy, there's a trick to it, you do it or you die. It's easy, there's a trick to it, you do it or you die.

[ Your lungs burn for air. You shift enough to lessen the pressure on your neck, take in a few glorious breaths, and then you sag again. You hang from the tree, and you do not fight it. When you hear chattering laughter, you close your mouth; it continues, and you see that a squirrel has joined your vigil. You hope that it doesn't attack you. You know that you cannot defend yourself.

You sleep. You dream of dead children with peeling eyes that need your help. You dream of a mammoth skull. You dream of an elephant-headed man riding on a giant mouse, and you know he is a god. The elephant-headed god passes the mouse between his four hands, then opens them to show that all are empty. You tell him that the mouse is hidden in his trunk. He nods, and he tells you not to forget.

The rain wakes you. You shake and shiver violently in the cold. You open your mouth and catch the water, and you watch lightning flash across the sky. Wind and rain lash at your bare skin, and you stop feeling the cold. You know that somewhere, the real storm has begun — and you laugh and laugh and laugh.

You feel alive. For the first time in longer than you can remember, you are alive. You shout at the storm, ]

Hey! Hey! It's me! I'm here!

[ You may die doing this, but here and now, you are alive.

You sleep again. Hunger and pain awaken you. You watch a hawk circle the tree; you watch the corpse below and notice that seems to have shrunk; you watch the storm slowly roll back in; you watch the squirrel land on your shoulder and touch its nose to your lips. Your body burns and freezes. Your life unfolds before you, laid out neatly on the sheet wrapping the corpse. You see your mother staring at you with a puzzled expression; you see what passed for your childhood home; you see the eyes of your wife on your wedding day…

And she is here. Laura is with you. ]

"What's so funny, puppy?"

Our wedding day. You bribed the organist to change from playing the 'Wedding March' to the theme-song from Scooby-Doo as you walked toward me down the aisle. Do you remember?

"Of course I remember, darling. I would have made it too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids."

[ Your dry lips crack as you smile, and your voice cracks as you tell her, ]

I loved you so much.

[ She kisses you. Laura's lips are warm and wet; she is alive, and you know that means she is not really here. Your wife is dead.

You sleep again. When you wake, the squirrel feeds you water from a walnut-shell. You struggle, trying to break free. You fail.

Another god visits you, then. Or rather, the son of a god. His fingers are covered in chisel scars, and the wine he creates is sour. He tells you that suffering is sometimes cleansing, and he asks if you know what it means to be a god.

The squirrel chatters in your ear. You wake, but you are no longer you; instead, you are the tree. Your roots drink from the springs of time; your hundreds of arms reach into the sky; your hands palm and switch and vanish the stars. The pain is no longer your own, for you are not the naked man tied to the tree. You are the tree, and the wind, and the sky, and the clouds…

And then you are yourself again, and a naked madman is sitting on a branch and staring at you. He tells you that he is Horus: the falcon of the morning; the hawk of the afternoon; the sun. You tell him that you are called Shadow. He says that the fighting — the war — will begin soon, and he asks if you are dying. You do not reply.

When you wake again, Laura is with you. She is dead, deader than the corpse over which you hold your vigil. The stench of rot and decay wafts off of her, and when she coughs, she hacks up a mass of something white and wriggling. But she is here, staring up at you with her dead eyes, smiling that crooked smile that always pulls at your heart, and you ask her, ]

How did you find me?

"You are the nearest thing I have to life. You are the only thing I have left, the only thing that isn't bleak and flat and gray. I could be blindfolded and dropped into the deepest ocean and I would know where to find you. I could be buried a hundred miles underground and I would know where you are."

[ Your eyes fill with tears. You say nothing. ]

"I'll cut you down. I spend too much time rescuing you, don't I?"

No, leave me. I have to do this.

"You're crazy. You're dying up there. Or you'll be crippled, if you aren't already."

Maybe. But I'm alive.

"… Yes. I guess you are."

[ She tells you that she's thirsty, then. You tell her to get water from the women in the house. The water is important. The water is special. You know this; you insist she needs to drink it. But when she says that she should go… ]

Stay. Please don't go. [ Your voice is little more than a whisper. It's all you can manage. ] Stay the night.

[ She looks up at you, dead and still so beautiful, and she tells you, ]

"I'll stop a while. Nothing's gonna hurt you while I'm here. You know that?"

[ You want to reply. You close your eyes — and when you open them hours later, you are alone.

The pain pounds in your head. It is all you are. It is all there ever was. It pounds and pounds in time with your breath, and when it wanes, there is nothing to keep you breathing. Your heart stops, and the darkness takes you.


Perhaps the vision ends there. Perhaps you are alone, or someone is watching. Or perhaps the vision continues… ]