singillatim | you can run but you can't escape

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you can run but you can't escape

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.

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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?”

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.

“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.

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."

“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!

"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.

Well, she supposed that was comforting in general but not for Jessica. She was feeling weak for staying up past the sun and the lid of the wooden chest she’s in was feeling heavy.

“But it won’t return, right? Not for a while, at least.”

"Um." Well, they don't really know, do they? Its shown up just twice so that's hardly a pattern. Hopefully it wasn't like when new people showed up every few months.

"There were a few months between the last time it happened and now, at least."

This place fucking sucks holy shit. For once she actually wish Bill was here. Or any other vampire, even Pam. They would know what to do.

“Why didn’t anyone this town left after the first attack?”

"...there's not really anywhere else to go. There are no other towns or whatever we can reach. A few people have gone out to look, but never returned." Also he's not sure a thing like the Darkwalker would care about location.

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.

The most of Jessica will see are her fingers gripping the lid, though if should he squat down he can see her clear blue eyes, terrified.

“Yes,” she said. Whatever hit the town was not human and neither was she. Even back home there were people fearful of vampires and right now she didn’t want to start that fear. “Is it gone? What happened?”

".. Yeah, it's gone now."

He's still a little baffled, but considering she still seems to be mostly hiding in there, Bigby decides he should probably say that first. Try to reassure her, if she was terrified enough to be hiding in there.

"It's safe. You can come out, if you want." The man squats down next to the chest, indeed actually being able to see her eyes. When he spots just how terrified she is, he tries to soften his own usually gruff facial expression a little bit. He's not very good at it, but he's trying. The last time he wants to do is terrify an already scared person even more.

He doesn't mind letting her know more about the Darkwalker, but.. well, he figures that breaking that news slowly and gently is probably the best way to go. If he says it all at once now, she might never want to leave her hiding spot ever again. Best to see if she's willing to come out of it a little first.

Jessica can appreciate the gesture. Trying to get down to her level, even if it’s ridiculous to talking to a box. But she can’t pretend to go along with it, for obvious reasons.

“N-no, I can’t go out.” Jessica said. “The sun hurts me. Did you see the note on top of the chest? I’m already risking so much by opening this chest by a crack.”

Bigby frowns. The sun.. hurts her? Sure, he's heard of people having very specific weaknesses before. He does too. But this place has so many mundies in it that he's caught by surprise when he realises it means the person in the box must not be a mundy in the first place.

He doesn't bother thinking on the sort of creatures that don't do well under the sun though. Not at first. Instead he glances around them, trying to find a solution to this problem. Seriously, has everyone just been letting her sit in a box without trying to help?

"How intense is it? I mean, would you be fine if we just covered up the windows in here for a bit?"

The man really doesn't want her to have to sit in a box by herself when the entire town is in chaos and lingering in the aftereffects of the despair and fear they all just felt.

“I burst into flames and die, that’s how bad it is!” She honestly doesn’t mean to sound hysterical, but she is, and worse, she’s hungry. Blood starts streaking down her her cheeks, vampire tears instead of normal ones. Everything starts spilling out, with the heighten fear and her hunger making her a little delirious and desperate. “And I’m so hungry but all I got this fake blood that taste like liquid shit but it’s two bottles and I don’t know what to do when run out! Maybe just stake me and put me out of my fucking misery!”

Jessica is so upset at her situation all she can do is to let the lid fall down in a minuscule but no less dramatic slam, like she would do to her bedroom when she slams the door in a fit of temper.

... Suddenly the man feels like the worst equipped person to help her, and yet the best equipped person to do so. The worst one in the sense that Bigby is absolutely no good at dealing with dramatic teenagers, which part of this definitely seems to be. The best one in the sense that he's used to the supernatural. And somewhere between her claims about the sun, and the apparent blood drinking, and the.. are those bloody tears?

Well, somewhere between all of that, she definitely is some sort of supernatural being. A vampire, likely. And he's a whole lot better in dealing with that sort of stuff than with anything remotely related to teenagers.

He inhales, trying to stay calm, even though he's definitely squatting here now while talking to a closed box. Looking like a lunatic, no doubt.

"Hey, calm down. Let's talk about this."

Bigby pauses, seeing if she emerges from the box even a little bit again, or maybe just the lid slightly going up-- but regardless of whether that happens or not, the man does speak on.

"If you're so hungry, do you think drinking regular blood would help? Rather than whatever fake blood you got?" The man is speaking about it relatively calmly, despite the subject being so otherworldly. Just another day in Bigby's life, honestly..

Jessica spends a minute sobbing, wallowing in her own misery and self-pity. It’s hard enough to be a teenager, but it’s more difficult being an eternal virgin blood sucker kind. The man speaks to her again and Jessica has to lift the lid slightly to see and hear him.

“And after what happen last night, who in their right mind will let me bite them!?” Jessica replies incredulously, wiping the blood away but only made the blood smeared beneath her eyes like some psycho warpaint. Really, who will? Jessica will be more than happy to bite the village bitch, but she already done that with her boyfriend’s mother and look how well that worked out. “Unless you want some asshole gone…”

She definitely isn't exactly seeming stable. The blood on her face isn't contributing to it, but the stuff she's saying? Also not the greatest thing to hear in this situation, especially when Bigby is still so high strung, still determined to take care of any threat he can tackle here, since he apparently just can't do a thing about the Darkwalker as he is right now.

So the least he can do is make sure that Jessica doesn't end up hungry enough to just randomly attack someone in town.

"How much blood do you need to feel less hungry?"

He isn't crazy. He isn't going to get himself killed. But if a bit is enough, just enough to tide her over while he figures something out, maybe seeing whether or not she can't just drink animal blood-- he's got plenty of that, especially with how often he hunts.

“I don’t know…It’s not like I measured how much I drank out of the few people I bit from.” The few times she did bit people while she stayed in Fangtasia Eric or Pam were there to pull her off when they thought she was going on for too long. “But they were fine and walked around without any problems after I was done.”

There is a long dramatic sigh from the box. She feels less panicked about it after talking it out. At least someone gives a shit about her. Even if she doesn’t know his name of the guy she’s talking to.

“I mean, I got two bottles of TruBlood. I’m not kidding about the taste but it does the job in stopping the hunger. I can stretched it out for a couple of nights until I find some other source.”

"You can drink from me."

Maybe it isn't the world's best decision. Bigby doesn't know. But he told other people that he wanted to take care of the people of this town, and isn't this exactly the sort of moment where he's got to step up and hold himself to those words? Sure, this girl may have some supply left as she's saying, but it sounds like stretching that out won't last her for very long either.

If she drinks from him now, then at least it means she'll need to stretch them for one less meal. And Bigby-- Well, he'll just have to trust that the now less terrified girl isn't lying about what she's saying. That she really won't take that much blood.

Still, even with his lack of certainty, his words do sound sure. It sounds like he didn't even really have to think about what he was going to say, right before he said it.

"That'll help, right? One less time you have to find some other source."

And if it goes well, then maybe he'll have strengthened back up enough for her to drink again by the time she's gotten through that.. TruBlood, or whatever that stuff is. Bigby gets that it things can be difficult when you don't exactly eat conventional meals.

“Wait, really?”

With the Darkwalker attack, she doesn’t think anyone would want to go near anything close to supernatural like Jessica. After that horrid light and the gut wrenching screams, a vampire walking around would be like the shitty sprinkles on an awful sundae. So to him just offering his blood like that, it touch her. “I suppose it will…”

But also -

“How do I pay you back?” In her experience, no one offer up being bitten by her without some compensation. The guys in Fantasia get to have their hard-ons by being bitten by her, her boyfriend’s (ex-boyfriend now) mother got bit because she was a crazy mean bitch and Jessica was starving and the trucker…

Well, the trucker was just some guy looking for a hot girl to make out with. She never gave him the chance to offer his blood. A moment of predation driven by heartbreak and hunger.

He shakes his head. "No need to pay me back. If you wanna do anything in return, just make sure you never drink from someone here without asking."

Because that would cause chaos real quick, and that's the last thing they need in this place. Bigby isn't even really sure how it works for her, if it's something that could go out of control if she hasn't had blood for a while, but he might as well say it just in case. He doesn't need to know the details of what's going on with her - just enough so that he can ensure both her safety and the safety of the other people here.

"We're a community," he explains. "And that sort of thing only works out if we all look out for each other. If you have some sorta special diet that you're having trouble with, you should tell other people about it so they can help you. I'm pretty sure at least a fourth of this place consists of people who aren't just your ordinary human beings, y'know."

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you can run but you can't escape

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