singillatim | but a strange light in the sky was shining right into my eyes

but a strange light in the sky was shining right into my eyes

JANUARY 2024 EVENT

PROMPT ONE — THE AURORA: NASCENCE: Following the strange dream at new year, a three-day Aurora takes place. During which, Interlopers discover a possible ally in the mysterious woman heard in the static and heard in the dream — potentially earning new abilities.

PROMPT TWO — ADUST: The Interlopers find out what happened to the owners of long-destroyed Milton House in the form of hauntings.

PROMPT THREE — THE VISITOR: Interlopers find themselves with an unwelcome visitor — a shadow doppelganger here to make everything absolutely worse.

THE AURORA: NASCENCE

WHEN: January 13th - 15th.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: potentially disturbing dreams; dreams of being burned alive; some minor supernatural horror; some minor ‘ghost’ horror/hauntings; death of npcs in various ways including suicide, murder or exposure to elements.

In the middle of the month, it happens. A herald. The noise starts: faint at first, but then growing louder. An ethereal, high-pitched chorus of sounds difficult to place. There’s a kind of electrical buzzing with it all, a low, endless hum punctuated with cracks and pops. The sky is alive with sound, and with it comes the swirling streaking of colour against the inky black of night: The Aurora has come.

Much of what happened previously happens again: Streetlights, illuminating the town’s roads; lights in stores and homes will come alive, buzzing and flickering at times. Previously abandoned cars will turn on, their headlights blaring. Electronics that had previously seemed broken flick on — and whilst there are no broadcasts available on televisions, and the radio waves only drone on in static, both only occasionally blaring standard emergency broadcasts. Any computers and phones will turn on, but will have no internet or reception. Instead, Interlopers may find texts and emails — many of them unsent. The everyday lives of their users stored within, now readable.

There are still some instances of the ‘ghosts’ from the previous Auroras, but they are now only faint outlines, and far fewer in number. However, whilst the Aurora would usually only last until the next morning on sporadic nights over the month — this time it will last for a full three days. The world is plunged into darkness, a seemingly endless night with only the Aurora to light the skies.

On the second night of lights and noise, a voice calls out to you: static-like, and distant — as if someone speaks over a radio. A woman’s voice. It is the same one you’ve been hearing for a few weeks now, but finally it is far stronger than the scant whispers of name and the word ‘help’. She is far clearer now.

“You.” she says. She may whisper your name, too. “I see you.” You’re unable to speak back, the communication is only one way. She sounds upset, but there’s something more… a kind of wonder, perhaps.

”It’s not just a regular aurora borealis, but then you probably worked that out already, haven’t you? It’s so much more than that. Everything is… changing.”

”I don’t know how you can go back. But— but I can help. Maybe. Maybe I can make this place easier, somehow. I need help, but I’m stuck—” There’s frustration in her voice for a moment. ”It took from you. Took you away. It doesn’t always have to take. We can take, too. Sleep. I will help you take back. You will survive this. You will not go into the Dark. This is not the end.”

You have no idea what that means, for the most part. But you might just end up taking the chance and doing as the woman asked, even if it’s difficult with the noise and light with the Aurora. Sleep, and a dream may come to you.

FREE RUNNER: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape. You dream you are a magnificent stag, galloping through the snowy woods with ease. You seem to go on and on, never tiring, never slowing. You feel like the wind, or perhaps the very wind itself carries you. Not once do you stumble or fall, even when the snow is thick and deep, or the ground is shaky and uneven beneath you. You feel free.

When you awaken, you feel the most refreshed you’ve ever felt since you first came here. For the final day of the Aurora, you are bursting with energy and even when the lights in the sky fade — that revitalised feeling within you remains. There’s something within you that understands: you are the Free Runner. The ground will yield beneath you, your energy will not desert you, the wind will carry you.

LIGHT BRINGER: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape. You dream of sitting by a lonely campfire in the mouth of a cave at night, warming your hands. As you sit, a strange feeling comes over you, a desire to reach out to the flames. And so you do, reaching with both hands into the fire — gripping at the white-hot embers. It burns you, and for a moment there is blinding hot pain as the fire suddenly explodes around you, consuming you whole. But the pain soon stops. The fire doesn’t burn you. No, you have become the blaze — your body warmed. You burn bright enough that the darkness around you turns into day.

When you awaken the next morning, you feel warmed and comfortable. As if even the coldest of winters couldn’t reach your bones. The warmth remains even when the Aurora ends, and you are left with the innate understanding:you are the Light Bringer. The power of flame is at your very fingertips. You master the light, life, warmth.

AURORA CALL: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape. You dream you are standing in the very sky itself, at the Aurora’s height. Colour and sound twirls around you, within you — and you feel it curl into your body. Your head fills with noise, a chorus of voices calling out, snippets of conversation echoing within you. A woman’s voice calls to you, it is the same voice that spoke to you before you slept: “Don’t you understand it now? We are all connected. The Aurora connects us.”

And you do, you do understand it.

When you awaken, you feel connected to the world around you. To the very people who live amongst you. You feel less lonely, a kind of kinship with others. You have heard the Aurora’s Call and you have answered it, unlocked a connection with your fellow Interlopers. You will be heard.

NOTHING: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape, but only for a moment. The edges of your vision begin the blur with black, slowly closing in until everything goes dark and you fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. You awaken, and although you feel rested, as if the dreamless darkness has helped you feel a little more ready to take on the day — nothing else about you has changed.

ADUST

WHEN: From mid-month to month end.
WHERE: Milton House.
CONTENT WARNINGS: fire; house fire; death of a child/children; hauntings; ghosts; mental manipulation; illusions of burning/being burned; potential injuries via falling/unstable building collapsing.

There is a reason why it is advised to avoid Milton House other than the simple fact that it’s a miracle the house is still standing. Once one of the largest buildings in the town of Milton, it is now a former shell of what was once a fine and grand house. It has lain in ruin for many years, dilapidated and host to a great deal of fire damage.

While he is in town, Methuselah will not speak of the place, but he often looks sad when it has been brought up in conversation. “A great tragedy.” he will say before falling into a pensive silence. “A blackened mark on the town’s memory.” He does not wish to say much more of what happened: sometimes there are things that are just too painful. He will continue to advise the ruin is left alone, out of respect, and the fact that the place is a danger.

Of course, advice will not stop anyone from attempting to get into the ruins and exploring the house, even if it is in fact highly dangerous.

The sounds of voices and whispers may be enough to pique anyone’s interest. You're sure you heard something, maybe you should go to check it out?

It is true in the fact that the house itself is incredibly dangerous structurally: floors and stairs may give way and you’ll find your foot (and half of you) falling right through the floorboards. Damp and rot that have long since set in, and it will be dangerous to breathe in. But you’ll find that the house itself is pretty ordinary: this was once a family home. Just about the entirety of the house and its contents aren't salvageable, but you’ll be able to find out a little about who once lived here.

There are faded, half-destroyed photos that show a family of five: a father, mother, and three young children all under the age of ten. The father with warm, beaming smiles, the mother has kind eyes, the two oldest boys with toothy grins much like their father, the younger girl looks shy, wanting to hide against her mother. They look happy. Just a typical family. In a world where so many strange things are happening, it feels so strange to look upon these family photos and around this home to realise that they simply lost their home in a house fire.

But as you hold a family picture, or some half-destroyed trinket: a toy, a shoe, a book, a vase, you’ll find the item will suddenly catch alight, bursting into flames in your very hands. The flames do not burn you, and as you discard the item, it will fall to the floor as if nothing had happened.

Then, it comes to you. Here and there. Different sensations that stop and start suddenly: the house groans and creaks around you; the smell of smoke enters your nose; the sound of fire cracking and popping with a roar fills your ears; the sensation of heat against your skin; the clawing and suffocating feeling in your lungs that makes you cough and choke; the sounds of terrified shrieks of children echoing above you. Feelings flood you: fear, panic. When you next turn around, the entire house is aflame around you, and you can’t tell if this is real or if you’re reliving some terrifying memory.

You need to leave, get out of here. For some, it will be what comes naturally. You’ll have to fight through the flames and escape the house before it burns down completely around you. You’ll have to fight your way out, find an exit not already consumed by flames — through a window, perhaps. Crashing out of the house and into the snow, you’ll look back and see Milton House just as you entered it: nothing more than a half-burned ruin.

But for others, there will be another pull. You are drawn upstairs, to the screams of children. You need to get to them, to help them, save them. You will battle through the flames, heading towards the ruins of what was a child’s bedroom, or towards the bathroom. Inside either, you will find a figure cowering, engulfed wholly in flames: one in the bathtub or one in the closet. You recognise them as the two sons from the family pictures.

Mom. They will call you. Or Dad. They weep, terrified of the flames. I’m scared, I’m scared. I want the fire to go away. Help me. Stay here.

The tragedy of Milton House is before you. More than just a fire. What is more tragic than the death of a child? What silences voices? Breaks spirits? Leaves one helpless to act in the wake of such a passing?

There is something to be done here. You are not so powerless. Calm the child. Offer gentle assurances. They will get out. They are safe. You are there for them. You will stay. Embracing them will set you alight. Too hot. Too bright. It will hurt, but you won’t burn. But don’t let go; holding them will eventually calm them down enough for the flames to grow dim, to slowly ease their spirits to rest.

Soon enough, the flames will go out and the child will disappear, leaving you alone in a decaying, dilapidated room.

In the churchyard of Milton, there is a family grave by the name of Barker. Three lie within it: Thomas it reads, and his beloved sons, Patrick and Christopher.

THE VISITOR

WHEN: The month of January.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: erything absolutely worse.
THE VISITOR — CONTENT WARNINGS: supernatural beings; dream-related horror/disturbing dreams; doppelgangers; themes of depression; themes of self-harm; themes of isolation; potential themes of suicide.

It seems the dream of the New Year and the Aurora dreams are not the only odd sleep-related instances occurring this month. You first notice that something is off when a strange dream pulls you from sleep. The dream may feel like any particular dream you have, whether it be a usual nightmare or strange concoction your brain has conjured up for you this night. Maybe it’s a dream you’ve had before, maybe it’s a new dream entirely. But no matter the dream, there is one thing that is odd about it. In tiny moments within the dream, you notice that there is something different, something that feels out of place. Something is there that shouldn’t be.

A figure, tall and silent, entirely made of shadow stands lurking in the background. It looks human, but there is not much more that you can really describe further. It is a sad, unsettling presence.

When you awaken, eyes bleary from sleep, and you look about the room, to the bottom of your bed, for a half-moment you see that figure standing there silently. That unsettling sadness permeates the room, and after a few seconds of blinking and sitting up — the figure disappears. Perhaps it was just some trick of the mind, some half-awake illusion.

But the next time you sleep, it appears again. The same figure, the same emotions surrounding it. And when you awaken, it stands at the bottom of your bed once more. Only this time, it lingers, and you find yourself staring down the figure before it disappears once more.

Over the next several days, the presence continues to linger more and more. It stands silently in the corner of the room of your home; it hovers by the window, staring out into the snow; it stands in the middle of the road as you go about your business. More and more, it is there. Always standing, always watching — silent and sad.

No one else seems to notice it, only you. And over time, the shape of it seems to change — the vague, undefined shape of it slowly shifts into something you recognise. The same hair, the same height, the same way it holds itself: it is exactly like you. A perfect doppelganger, a second shadow. And with it, it exudes an oppressive sadness, a particular kind of loneliness. It is suffocating, bleeding into you.

It makes you withdraw from the world around you, from the people around you. Perhaps you stop spending time with others, retreating into solitude. You hide from others, keep to yourself. You find yourself not sleeping at all or perhaps sleeping too much. Perhaps what little you already eat becomes nothing. The shadowy doppelganger draws ever closer to you, close enough to touch you - ever hovering at your shoulder. Its presence bores down on you, making you feel small and more and more alone even with its ‘company’. No one else can seem to see it but you, mentioning it to others will earn odd looks, or even concern. It seems you and your double are alone together.

Hopefully, those around you will notice the change in you. How you stopped reaching out, how you’ve stopped taking care of yourself. Hopefully they will see something isn’t right and reach out. You are doomed to the doppelganger's company otherwise.

However, those around you can push the shadowy double away, and can break its influence and hold over you. Genuine care and concern for you will have it shrinking back. Perhaps it is a kind word, perhaps it is the gentle but insisting coaxing to eat. Perhaps it is an attentive ear to listen to your thoughts, to how the presence has made you feel. Maybe it is even the simplest of touches, an embrace or the holding of a hand, the grip of a shoulder. Continued connection with you will slowly have the visitor’s power diminish.

And hopefully it is done before it is too late, or it may be all too easy to fade into the Long Dark.

FAQs

THE AURORA: NASCENCE

1. Aurora Feats are now unlocked! Please see the following page for more information. Aurora Feats are completely optional.

2. Interlopers will only receive ONE Aurora Event. The only time this is available is this month. After January, players will have to wait for the next Feat round for another chance at an Aurora Feat.

3. This Aurora will last a full three days. It will be a period of only night.

4. For more information on the ghostly loops seen during the Aurora, see this previous event, under 'The Aurora: Aftershocks' prompt.

5. For new players who would like a little extra context regarding the woman can look at December's Tales From The Northern Territories, under the 'New Happenings in December' section.

ADUST

1. Characters will not be physically burned in the fire, but only feel as if they have been. The effects of this illusion will last a short time after they're out the house before they will fade.

2. The only real injuries characters can sustain will be from fall damage, or if the floor gives way and their feet go through, etc. whilst in the house.

3. The children cannot leave the house. They will be too scared to leave. In addition, they are tethered to the house, given that this is where they died. Simply being calmed/comforted is the best way to help them and they will disappear after that.

THE VISITOR

1. An Interloper's Visitor can't be seen by anyone but the Interloper themselves.

2. The Visitor can be spoken to, but it will not speak back. It cannot be interacted with and is intangible.

PLOTTING POST

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I. The Aurora: Nascence

He listened to the voice in his sleep. After the nightmares, he didn't exactly feel inclined to trust anyone talking about helping him. He'd already had just about all of the 'help' this place had to offer already. But this dream wasn't like the horrendous nightmare he'd had several weeks ago. It was rather pleasant in an odd and surreal sort of way. After it ended, he thought he had an understanding of what it had meant. But he truly didn't, not with how isolated he'd always deliberately made himself from the rest of humanity.

That was what made it so easy for him to accidentally start projecting his thoughts to anyone who was nearby. His thoughts had always been unguarded given how often he had no one to talk to but himself. So unconsciously he started pushing them out to the other Interlopers of Milton.

A rough, growling voice would randomly appear in the heads of people nearby. There was a number of different long bits of thought that people might have picked up on. Different random speeches like:

"Cities have heartbeats. New York had one. I could always feel it when I moved around the city. Even when I was asleep, it was there. This town feels more like it's about to into cardiac arrest at anytime. Sometimes, the people here seem more half-dead than half-alive, sleepwalking through their days as if not fully aware of what is going on around them, as if caught in one of those old German surrealist films. How many of them will be completely dead by next month?"

Or:

"It is always the case fairy tales that there's some random helpful animals waiting just around the corner to help the protagonist. Or ready to eat them. The fact that the animals here have been almost exactly half and half in their willingness to help or harm makes me wonder if who-- or whatever is running this place is taking their inspiration from classic literature. Does that mean each of us is to play a role here? I wonder which one of us are supposed to be the heroes and which the villains and which are playing the parts of the helpful witches or wizards...though I already have my suspicions."

Or also:

"I once saw three men go after an old homeless man sleeping on one of the grates. The guy had no chance to get away, for he had no legs. Frostbite, I'm assuming, from spending too many winters sleeping on the streets. The cold that swept through the streets felt more like needles piercing the skin than the relentless numbing sensation to be found here in this town. That was back when I was soft enough to let crime live. It was.....'67? '68? Somewhere around there. For some reason, that night has been staying in my head these past couple of days. Compromising when it comes to criminals never works. Should have bashed all three of their heads in like rotten pumpkins. Evil men are like cockroaches: you can try to kill them but they'll always just keep coming back until you finally make sure that they'll never be able to get up off the ground again."

For those that had met him, it would instantly be clear who it was. Rorschach had a very distinctive voice after all. The oddity would be the lengthy sentences spoke in a normal fashion, a stark contrast to the halting, stilted ones Rorschach spoke when talking verbally to other people. For those who hadn't yet had the pleasure of meeting the town weirdo, it would take a while to discover who it was apparently talking to himself partially in purple prose and strange metaphors.

Occasionally, rather than the long, rambling soliloquies that were making their way into people's heads, there would just be some random song from the 50s or the 60s that would filter their way in with absolutely no clues as to where it was coming from. Not unless someone happened to look up to a rooftop and see Rorschach perched there, nothing able to be seen on his black-and-white face as usual as he watched over the town like some strange sentinel.

II. Adjust

Rorschach had been passing by the house when he thought he heard...well, he wasn't sure. It wasn't as if this place hadn't had disembodied voices talking to him before in Milton, the latest in those strange dreams he'd found himself experiencing when he closed his eyes. He was beginning to wonder if it was just a fixture of this place, kind of like how the strange, magical animals also were.

He'd heard Methuselah talking about this house. It wasn't hard at all to gain access to it. There was only a few boards shutting the doors and windows. A little maneuvering allowed him to squeeze inside. It was dim, stuffy, and rather depressing overall. The evidence of the fire that had claimed the house was all over the place.

He walked over to investigate one of the half-burned photos on the wall when his toe hit something that was still on the floor. It was a teddy bear, mostly burned but still recognizable as a beloved little stuffed animal. By now, it was covered in a thick layer of dust. Rorschach knelt and picked it up. When the bear burst into flames, he abruptly dropped it, jerked away, and quickly stood back up. He heard the creak of old floorboards behind him and immediately turned to see who it was, realizing he was not alone there in the possibly haunted house.

III. The Visitor

When the shadowy doppelganger first appeared, Rorschach consoled himself with the fact that at least it wasn't as bad as when he'd had the voice in his head telling him to kill himself. It could always have been worse. But then it got worse. Much, much worse.

Things became as bad as they could possibly be to have another version of himself following him about, staring at him with blue eyes in silence. For it was Rorschach unmasked, Walter Kovacs to be exact, the man he'd been before the...well, before he'd understood the truth of the world. That was whom was following him about and it was driving him to despair.

With how his sense of self had always been fragmented despite his best efforts to hold himself all together and his desire to have a lack of connections with people in general, it became easy to just withdraw entirely. He stopped patrolling, which is where most people would see him on a daily basis, or going to the library. The occasional visits to the Community Hall died down as well. All he did was stay in one of the cabins he'd claimed for himself, no longer caring if he went anywhere or did anything. He wasn't going to be able to snap out of his on his own. This time, the masked superhero was going to need some help in order to be saved.

IV. Library

During the Aurora, he could be found in the library during the late mornings and afternoons. He'd dragged a record player there, which was old-fashioned by the dates the town ran by, but still relevant in his own era. He had a stack of records and was playing them. One could find him listening to something from a while back or sometimes even something that was relatively new. He was going to take advantage of the Aurora while the strange effects it had on electronics lasted and start categorizing the albums he'd found thus far at the same time.

Otherwise, it was business as usual, with one new alteration in place: his thoughts could now be heard by the people that were close to him, including any patrons of the library. Sometimes, it was nothing more than the melodies of the songs he was listening to. Otherwise, it was some of the same strange thoughts that he usually had about the place he was in and the populace of people he was surrounded by. "Why do the electronics only work during the Aurora? We're so caught up with the technology around us and people forget to listen to what's truly important. Instead, they just listen to the blather that comes out of the TV and radio, like people at the racetrack who scream and shout without thought as they watch the horses barreling down towards the finish line. Is this a way to make people stop and slow down?" Or other thoughts along similar lines.

V. Wildcard

[Want a custom prompt or to do things a little differently than the way I've already put up one of those listed above? Give me a poke on my plotting post, at

Light_shade, or .lightshade on Discord!]

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Stupid to be forcing her way back into this crumbling, haunted house; stupid to leave Peacemaker behind. But she knows what she heard, and she knows it'll haunt her if she doesn't go back and see things through; another child's voice joining Willa's in her mind and memory and dreams, calling out to her. Asking why she didn't save them.

The house is cold and dark again, but her nerves are alight, adrenaline pumping through her system. Those flames may have been an illusion, but they were a hell of lot more convincing than any green screen special effects she's ever seen. "It's about to get a lot worse."

Her glance moves up to the guy's face and a flicker of recoil moves across her own. The doctor's voice echoes in her memory, the burned room around her replaced for a fleeting moment with a cold sterile one. A hospital bed. Rubber in her mouth. The hot and cold lightning zap of electricity running into her body.

( What do you see, Wynonna? )

She swallows, sets her shoulders. "It's about to – "

Which is as far as she gets before the fire licks out from the air around them in a wave of searing heat, swallows them whole, just like it had before. "Crap!"

Edited 2024-01-10 20:42 (UTC)

Rorschach had noticed the woman around town but they'd never spoken before. What a time for a first meeting, in the middle of a monument to death and destruction. There would have been less ghosts surrounding them if they had been meeting in the middle of the graveyard.

He was about to ask her what she meant when suddenly the temperature of the air changed dramatically. Then he heard the crackle and pop of things catching alight. When he looked around, he could see flames beginning to light up all around them. His first instinct was to get out of the building as fast as he could but then he heard it. The one sound in the world that couldn't have made him leave Hell itself.

The screams of a child.

He looked sharply at Wynonna to see if she could hear them too. Screams and shrieks of terror coming from the second floor.

Everything is heat and smoke, flames licking at her boots. The air is so hot she thinks her hair might catch fire just from exposure, and her skin feels tight and shiny.

Is this what it feels like for the revs, when the ground opens under their feet and the fire comes and they're dragged screaming back to hell?

There's no time to focus on it. She can hear them, again. Screaming. Terrified. Wynonna coughs, lifts her shirt collar over her mouth to try and filter some of the smoke, mitigate some of the heat, and jerks her head at the hall, her eyes streaming. "Come on!"

Because there's more than one voice calling out, up there. She can't get them both alone.

OTA

II. Adust (cw: electroshock therapy)

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cw: child death mentioned

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