you can run but you can't escape

[singmod]

THE DARKWALKER COMES

The Darkwalker strikes again. This time, it does not come for one Interloper — but four.

WHEN: March 2nd.
WHERE: Milton.
CONTENT WARNINGS: death of playable character; supernatural death; mention of dead body; themes of death; supernatural beings; themes of terror; themes of peril.

YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CAN'T ESCAPE

The sun sets on another day in the Northern Territories. The night is calm but cold, scant clouds drifting low in the skies promising snowfall soon. A waning moon sits in the skies amongst its sea of stars, and those looking up may notice it — slowly, one by one, the stars begin to go out.

Then the moon's light is swallowed whole, and a blanket of green gloom descends upon the town of Milton. One more, the sky is dark and green and terrible. Many of those will recognise it, what this means and what will come. Others will not understand it, not know what it is that awaits them all.

They will soon find out: the Darkwalker comes.

Fear washes over you like a cold wave, a vice-tight grip that squeezes the breath from you. Interlopers will find themselves over-come, and everything in their bodies and minds tells them to run. To flee. And so you run, heading for cover indoors. Curtains will be drawn, some may hide under beds, within closets or wardrobes. Some desperate attempt to conceal themselves, make themselves small, unseen. Some Interlopers, in that fear, may rush to friends or loved ones to hide with them, others may simply cowered alone — crawling and whimpering away from the night. The fear is irrational, unable to be overcome — even by the bravest or most stoic of Interlopers.

The Darkwalker howls: indescribable, unnatural, demonic. Low moans and groans. It comes from the east, the faint booms of footsteps in the distance growing ever nearer. It is coming, once more. It's coming for one of you. And still, you are powerless, unable to do anything. And it is an agony, awaiting its arrival. You cry, you whimper, you cower. Curling up for some shred of comfort, and finding none.

The footsteps draw closer and closer, and you feel like the ground itself may be threatening splitting open beneath you. It isn't you that it hunts, but you notice its path — a straight line from the east towards Milton Church. It seems to go on forever, building into a crescendo. Your heart beats so hard you fear it may burst from your chest, as if you might die of fright.

There is an almighty sound; the Darkwalker devours and suddenly the sky is alight: streaks of pale colour shoot across the gloomy green — almost blinding for one long moment. A woman's scream fills the air and then snaps into silence.

The skies return to normal, the green is gone, the fear melts away from you. It is done.

There is no body in the street. Interlopers venturing out will need to go looking for whoever it is that's fallen victim to the Devourer. The answer will be found within Milton Church.

Towards the altar, peppered amongst faint glimmers of intangible green that will fade by morning, lie the twisted and mangled bodies of Nicholas Wolfwood, Millions Knives and both iterations of Vash the Stampede. There's no blood, no physical wounds — simply the contorted bodies that lie dropped like ragdolls. Each of their faces stare with wide eyes, frozen in horror — just as La'an Noonien-Singh was.

The Darkwalker has devoured more. There is a story, told by Methuselah: It is said that the Darkwalker will awake from its slumber and swallow the world whole. One head will swallow the stars and moon and sun. Another will swallow the seas and lakes and rivers. The third will swallow the land, and every living thing upon it — and only then will the Darkwalker be satisfied and return to sleep once more.

It feels as if the Darkwalker is making good on its story: one by one, it will devour you all whole. And now the Interlopers of Milton must grapple with more death.

FAQs

1. Essentially, a 'party post' for reactions to the Darkwalker's attack, the immediate aftermath, and any funerary preparations. Have... fun???

2. Information on the Darkwalker's attack can be found here.

3. An OOC Rundown for the original Darkwalker's attack, which includes some FAQs can be found here.

4. Notes about the characters:

Wolfwood: He doesn't leave any messages behind. Folks are welcome to go through his house, which is the cabin by the pond -- there's nothing in there of his, and the only changes he made to the house was pulling a twin bed over in front of the fireplace. The wall of the cabin is also scorched from inside, from where his Lightbringer power erupted at one point.

Vash The Stampede (Trigun Stampede): He really didn't have much belongings or anything in particular of note, so it is a free for all situation in terms of possessions.

Vash The Stampede (Trigun Maximum): He'll be leaving behind his meager belongings. all of it can be found on either his person or in the church's living quarters which is also decently stocked with foraged foods. alas he's prepared no messages because he is absolutely atrocious at saying goodbyes.

Millions Knives: He'll leave behind sharpened hunting and skinning knives (hah), some fishing equipment, and scattered feathers around the church.

Comments

[chuju]

[ She nods, stepping further into the room to look around herself. In the weeks since her arrival, most of her wounds have healed, leaving only a light mark across her cheek from the perennial cut she can't seem to leave a fight without. She holds herself and moves with confidence, comfortable in her own body and sure of the space she occupies in the world, but there's something else there too, the weight of exhaustion pressing down on her.

Noting the familiar accent, she's grateful there's no language barrier to overcome. There was SHIELD software that could help with translations, but even if she had her tech here, it would be useless. ]

Yeah, I saw them. And heard they weren't the first. [ Letting out a sigh, she shakes her head, frustration clear in her expression. ] You ever see The Ring?

[flambeaux]

He leans his head in a little closer so that no one can see the intimate expression on his face, which is merely a look that excludes all else, meant only for him. From behind, they look like two men peering at the same book or huddling in the same entryway against the cold.

"C'mon, don't get like that," he half-grumbles, half-scolds, too soft to be either. He gives his arm a very slight push. "You're too easy to flatter. Makes you an easy mark."

Louis has been feeding better than he did in the past. When he feeds well, his scratches heal faster. He still harbors a worry that they won't completely fade, that he will be forever haunted by the thin lines and the love that turned fetid and sour. It would be better if Louis were completely bitter about that instead of filled with a vague but strong yearning. Lestat is indeed one of those "most contemptible creatures."

Satisfied the cause of death wasn't one of their ilk, Louis doesn't intend to stare at the corpses too long. A vampire has no particular affinity for corpses, despite making so many of them, and Lestat taught him to dispose of them promptly. Claudia's trophies were... unusual.

"That one played the piano." Louis points his chin at Knives. All the brothers have splendidly long fingers, but it's Knives's that Louis looks at. He played him Chopin. Louis would have liked to get to know him better.

Lestat has a thing for musicians. Very carefully and neutrally, Louis asks, "Did you know any of them?"

[moralabsolutism]

[Fortunately for Konstantin, Rorschach was in no mood to intimidate or bully anyone that was in the room. At moments like this, full of death and destruction, he tended to withdraw and go very quiet. It was better than feeling everything to the extent that he actually could.

He knew what the general population both back home and here saw him as. Some paranoid nut, a lunatic in a mask, someone three seconds away from killing someone if they pushed him too far. None of them, not a single one realized the extent to which he felt things on an emotional level. It's why his mind was structured so rigidly in its black-and-white thinking. Without it, he'd have to face the world as the cruel, heartless place it often was and that was just too much for him to deal with. So this was as best he could function right now.

As for Konstantin's question, after dealing with his strange curse for over a month now, he had a fairly good idea of why the Communist was asking him this. Clearly, some of his thoughts had been filtering through despite his desire to keep a tight lid on them. Rather than explain, he just shook his head slowly and silently.

Technically, it was the truth. He hadn't said anything, not out loud at least. But another thought, a tendril that just gently brushed across the minds of anyone around him who could hear it, came forth.]

Why is death always so senseless and cruel?

[solitarysoul]

Yeah. A creature or a...spirit or something. It's not natural.

[sputnik]

[ Konstantin frowns thoughtfully, before lowering his voice, keeping the conversation quiet. ]

Tell me more about what you're thinking?

[sputnik]

[ Konstantin takes half a step to the side as though to make room for her. He hadn't expected to encounter anyone else, but he's certainly not averse to it, looking over at his new companion as she speaks. Like him, it seems she's dealing with all of this more belatedly than some of the townspeople here, learning about the death of the woman from others — she must be new, maybe even newer than he is.

(There's a hitch of guilt that lives in him along with many others; he was here when the first woman was killed, but he didn't know a thing about it until later on, when it turned into whispers of dark town gossip drifting to his ears. He hadn't been able to get too involved even after news spread, his body weak, recovering. But maybe if he had... he could have figured something out. Helped prevent more deaths.) ]

The Ring? [ He allows a thoughtful tug of the mouth; it's not familiar to him, but he can piece together a context clue or two from her words. A title. ] A movie? I haven't heard of that one before.

[darkxwolf17]

Uzi hates the fear in her mechanical gut when the Darkwalker comes. It's almost as unbearable as the aurora that regularly deigned to deliver painful ripples through her mind. Some part of her, deep down, had hoped it wouldn't come back. That the Aurora wouldn't either. Yet, here they are.

Time to see what the damage was.

Leaving the quiet, cold existence she had made in the Milton gas station, she ventured into town, a sharpened tree branch affixed to her back for easy access. Would it help her against the Darkwalker? Probably not. God, she missed her powers.

Uzi shakes her head, feeling her tiny body shiver against a cold she couldn't feel. Right now, being alone was almost uncomfortable. She was about ready to admit that.

"Please, don't let me be the final girl," she starts before the quiet is compounded by footfalls in the snow. She turns quickly, blinking wide as she finds a face. "Oh crap. So, that Darkwalker thing left some people this time, too."

[solitarysoul]

A god, or one of its servants.

[Its not quite like anything that happened during Termina, that he knows of, but it didn't seem too different to him.]

[bigbaddy]

[ It instantly explains why Konstantin is here. Even if Bigby wasn't necessarily assuming he was here to do something bad.. it's more that he wasn't really assuming about the other at all in this moment. Bigby's own thoughts are still so taken up by what happened here, spiraling over the people who have been claimed by the Darkwalker this time around and the implications for the village, that he didn't even really have time to think much about Konstantin here. All he could do was just speak up to him.

When the man gets closer to him, Bigby looks away from him. Instead he stares at the spot where the bodies had been lying earlier, even if there's hardly anything left there now. ]

One of them pretty well. [ He slowly answers. ] The others a little bit.

[ Which is.. already more than Bigby would know most people, given his antisocial habits.. But considering the role he's picked up here of attempting to protect the people in town, it means having to get in touch with people a little bit more. Trying to save them from themselves.

.. doesn't mean he can save them from the Darkwalker, huh.

He inhales, and then releases the breath very slowly. ]

None of them deserved that.

[lilredvamp]

Jessica have taken up residence in the Community Center. She wanted a house with her own coffin like everyone else, but for the past several days since her arrival she’s more or less stuck in the Center. She managed to scrounge up a hope chest, which was cramped and uncomfortable but better than being exposed by windows.

Still, just in case, Jessica wrote a hasty note on the chest that says Please don’t open! I sleep here during the day. and taped it on the top. So far no one have bothered her. Jessica made sure not to bother other people, as much as she want to bite down on an unsuspecting throat. She fed on the trucker before she landed in Bumfuck, North Pole, and she have two bottles of TruBlood. But it won’t last and already she’s hungry.

It’s that hunger did she decide to go out. Dressed as warmly as she could she just opened the door when the night sky started to turn green. The fear twisted her gut and she fled back inside with everyone. She pushed people as she ran back to her hope chest, clambering inside and closing it in a snap.

There, for the first time since her turning, she prayed to God. Praying as she cried bloody tears, fingers in her mouth sucking like she used to do when she was a baby girl scared of her closet.

And the screams, oh, the screams and the roars and it won’t end…

Until it did.

Jessica dared not to sleep, even she can feel the sun rising in her bones.

Finally, finally, as the bodies found in the church were taken away, Jessica opened her chest and peeked out. She can hear people milling about, talking, maybe about…whatever happened. “Is it over?” Jessica asked, fingers emerging from the chest like pale spiders. “What happened?”

[solitarysoul]

Its that lady who lives in a box. Levi is very confused by that, but he assumes its just normal for where she's from. Maybe its comfy to be enclosed like that. He won't ask. He will look at her as she asks that, though.

"Its over. A-at least for now. There's a....force here. That can do what you felt last night, and its taken people twice now." He doesn't really want to freak people out, but hiding that truth wouldn't help anyone.

[chuju]

[ Even though Daisy hasn't been especially close with anyone in Milton yet, she still craves being around others. She might not know these people, but as far as she can tell, all of them are as trapped here as she is, and there's a connection in that if nothing else. They're all of them dealing with this same trauma, and they all have to work together to figure out how to protect themselves and each other.

Reaching out, she picks up one of those cans of food stored in the room, turning it in her hand without really seeing it. Her hands have to stay busy, but her thoughts are elsewhere. ]

My friend, Fitz, made me watch it in this big horror movie marathon. I couldn't look at a TV again the same way for weeks... [ Her voice trails off, quiet following as she struggles with the wave of longing for that long-ago time when things were easier and they'd been different people. But she shakes it off after a moment, forcing her focus back to the here and now as she replaces the can on the shelf. ] A creepy ghost girl crawls out of the TV to attack her victims, and they all end up looking like they've literally been scared to death. Kind of like the people here, but nowhere near as extreme.

[lilredvamp]

“Taken?” Jessica repeats in a hushed whisper. Her bright blue eyes could barely be seen between the cracks of the chest. “Like, are they dead then? What happened to them? What was that green glow thing?”

Jessica didn’t feel claustrophobic in coffins before, but in the chest she certainly does. She doesn’t feel safe in the chest, nor in the community hall, or anywhere really. But now it’s daylight she doesn’t dare go out of her chest. For all she knows all the curtains are withdrawn and the sunlight is shining through the windows. She’s already risking a lot by opening a crack.

But she’s already starting to suspect something is different. Whenever vampires stay past sunrise, they get the bleeds, which is blood bleeding from the ears and eyes. That hasn’t happen yet. She doesn’t know why it’s not.

[solitarysoul]

This was so fucking weird, she wouldn't even come out of her box. But he's just going to do his best to ignore that and pretend this is a normal conversation. Well, as normal as something about the Darkwalker can be.

"...yeah, they're dead. If its like the last time their hearts just stopped, and they looked terrified. That green glowy thing is called the Darkwalker; I think Kate put up a picture of it on the board outside, but we don't really know much about it. Its, uh, its supposed to be the end of all things."

Then again, maybe hiding in a box didn't seem so bad.

"We've been trying to find a way to fight it or protect ourselves from it but...we don't really understand it at all."

[ployboy]

There's wetness behind his eyes when Tim blinks, holding in the wariness better than he's holding in the pain of relief. He hadn't scouted the crowd for familiar faces, no, but with the growing group he's yet to see a friend.

He figures, his own anxiety has got to be worse than hypothermia.

And the twisted and horrible fate of the men dead here was definitely worse than... well. Unable to finish the thought, Tim clears his throat. "Blood."

To clarify, "At the... autopsy. We... the kid. He got a sample of the woman's blood. We tested it."

He steps towards Louis, composure beginning to once again take over his blue eyes. He says, "And we found something."

[lilredvamp]

“Oh my God!” Jessica can only cry out, new bloody tears of anguish and fear dripping down her face. “We are all gonna die here, aren’t we? And I’m going to die in this stupid, stupid box.”

She died once before and it was awful. She doesn’t want to experience it again!

[solitarysoul]

"No! We're not hopeless, we don't have to die. We're trying to figure out ways to fight back even against something like that. A lot of things have happened since I got here that might have killed us, but we're still here." Well, each one had taken some people, but the bulk of town was still trying their best to stay alive.

[flanerie]

The push sends a thrill of pleasure through Lestat, boyish and bright. He doesn't mind being an easy mark. Being taken advantage of has never been a particular problem for him, with his fortune secured by the tireless efforts of a loyal firm and his person rarely spurning the opportunity to be used at the liberty of others.

It makes Louis' carefully couched question almost amusing. Almost.

It's true that he hasn't precisely told Louis of his intentions of restraint. There are several reasons for it, beginning with a measure of internal virtuousness at making such a sacrifice unlauded and ending with a greater measure of prickly obstinacy - which is what most virtue seems to be to him, in the end. Mixed in is the leverage of being able to hint otherwise, spurring on Louis' jealousy, even if the other vampire would refuse to admit that's what drives him to ask this question in the first place.

All of it adds up, in this moment, to a flare of unexpected disappointment. He'd thought, perhaps, that Louis would have noticed. It hardly does to suffer in noble silence if no one appreciates it. His face creases with it, the affront minor but wounded.

"I'd met the one," he says, nodding at the brother in question, who was not the piano player, "Only in passing. I've been keeping my own company, lately. So few opportunities to expand my circle of acquaintances with our schedule."

[flambeaux]

Louis wasn't crazy enough to try snooping into Lestat's nonexistent love life, even if it might have been easier in a small town. He's not Claudia. Part of Louis doesn't want to know. Part of him can't stop wondering.

At the look on Lestat's face, Louis knows the jig is up. It feels like a dark cloud overhead, and he stills. This implies Lestat isn't sleeping around, but Louis doesn't know for sure. Why should Louis care? He isn't his anymore, no matter what Lestat says, and Lestat had a long affair even when they were together. Louis shouldn't care, but he does. Both his sweet and bitter feelings cling and tangle like vines.

The only thing Louis did in the end was stoke ill feeling. Louis, stubborn and a liar, acts as if nothing is amiss. (The jacket of their mutual acquaintance blooms redder than blood. Louis does pity him, and he can't look at him for long.)

"Except when things like this happen at night. I meet more people at crime scenes than I do regularly... You think this creature's nocturnal?" Like us goes unvoiced, and he looks at Lestat like he might reveal previously guarded answers about the supernatural things of this world.

[sputnik]

[ Konstantin still has complicated feelings on gods, but he's more than willing to listen, serious as he nods. ]

Let's say this is something like that. Why would it be doing this? Killing people?

[sputnik]

[ The strange man shakes his head, and Konstantin stares at him, brows quirked upwards, unsure what to make of any of this. Is the man toying with him? About to revert back to the hostility he'd so quickly become acquainted with?

Instead, there's another one of those odd fragments of sound — not truly sound, more like something coming from inside. Like it's in his mind, not his ears. The cosmonaut doesn't startle easily, but this place has tested him in ways he never quite expected. Impossible ways. He looks around again, before his eyes lock onto Rorschach. He stares for a moment longer, and then slowly his gaze returns to the bodies. This time, his words come out quiet, somber, but thoughtful. ]

I don't know. I think sometimes death can be a mercy.

[ ....A pause, the frown at the edges of his mouth deepening a little. ]

Perhaps it's better to die than to live a life of suffering. Are we sure that whatever is doing this isn't trying to put us out of our misery?

[solitarysoul]

[He shrugs]

They just do that. I think they like blood, a number of them take blood sacrifice. Actually all of them probably do.

[The religion in his world was so wholesome.]

I-I told you about Termina, right? That was because of a god. They see as as toys or ants or something.

cw: mention of person in vegetative state

[sputnik]

[ Ah. The cosmonaut's eyes soften a little, and he gives his head a small tip forwards, a nod of some quiet acknowledgement. ]

I'm sorry.

[ He truly is. There are some wounds still so fresh within him regarding a lost companion of his own — things he's barely been able to process, with so much happening, a whirlwind of horror from there to here. But his co-pilot... occupies some particular space within him, always. The man didn't deserve what happened to him. And Konstantin, who was responsible for that man, failed to save him at all. Will he stay there in that facility until his life eventually runs out? Hooked to machines, body forced to stay alive, used for observation and possibly even experimentation? The public don't even know. His family don't know.

He'll always wish he had found a way to grant Averchenko mercy before he escaped that place. He'll always feel that he left him behind.

He looks back over to the bodies, left so strange. They almost look haunted, with those expressions of terror locked into their features. Just what had they seen....? ]

What was his name? Your companion.

[sputnik]

[ Konstantin watches the movement of the can in the woman's hands, listening with full attention as she speaks. There's a little smile at the words — he's found, in his days here, that listening to other people relay snippets of memory is a particular thing he clings onto. There's some strange fear that who he was before is someone he'll never be able to reach, again. And sometimes, it's nice just to hear people share a little bit of a personal story, to conjure up his own little mental image that accompanies it. Friends watching horror movies together, one's name is Fitz; it's a brief story, but no less important, he thinks.

Even if this one ultimately lends to a question of his own, and one that's somber, one he finds himself in no hurry to voice. His smile fades a little at the corners, and it's his turn to reach for something to keep in his hands, a knife that looks worn but usable. He wonders if its owner thought about using it for defense, when the attack happened. It wasn't on his person, so... he either didn't think to, or didn't have time to get to it. ]

Do you think it's possible that... what happened to these people was also something supernatural?

[ There was a time he would have laughed a little in amusement at the thought of ghost girls and deaths caused by literal fear, but in his days here... he's felt the ghost of a little boy clinging to his shirt front, and he's felt fear so deep that for the first time in his life he was paralysed. Some part of his mind still insists such things can't be possible, but the other part is more than willing to ask a stranger her opinion, wanting to hear what her thoughts on it are. Maybe all of this is like something out of a horror movie. ]

[bigbaddy]

Bigby went to the Community Center so soon after the attack - running there first thing, considering there's a certain someone staying there who he has to make sure wasn't the victim of the most recent attack.

Thankfully she wasn't. But the attack has still left the man rattled all the same, and he knows he isn't the only one. Everyone seems confused, worried and panicked, and Bigby ends up lingering at the hall, trying to help answer questions and soothe people.

He doesn't even notice the chest, really. He's too busy for it. It's only when he hears a small voice that he turns his head, looking momentarily surprised as someone seems to emerge from said chest.

".. were you hiding in there?" He slowly asks. Not quite an answer to her questions yet, but-- look, this is a slightly odd situation. Even for a guy who comes from a literal fairytale world.