we're a long way from home

[singmod]

OCTOBER 2024 MINI EVENT

Interlopers will find themselves dreaming a great deal more than usual. With that, their dreams are far more vivid — as if they are reliving memories rather than dreaming. Dreams will often be sombre or frightening in nature, nightmares will be more common throughout October. Oddly enough, this is particularly prominent on Aurora nights.

But sometimes, when they dream, Interlopers will experience dreams of things they’ve never experienced before. These dreams are not their own, but of others within the Northern Territories.

FEBRUARY 1994

CONTENT WARNINGS: reference to child death; bullying; assault; head injury; blood.

You find yourself standing in the midst of Milton, but it’s not the Milton you know. The town is… alive, full of people. None of the people here are ones you recognise, though. Cabins are full and lit up, movement inside each of them. People walk about the town, going about their business. Children play, adults holler at one another, trucks and cars fight through the snow.

It is only mid-afternoon, but the skies are already growing dark. Milton is steeped in the gloom of winter, and you can feel the bitterness of the chill in the air. You’re free to walk around the town to explore but you find yourself being pulled in a particular direction for some reason. And so you walk, huddled against the cold.

Soon enough, your feet stop and you’re stood before Milton House. It’s just as any Interloper recognises it: a charred ruin of a building — destroyed by fire. The one that killed three members of the Barker family.

A girl of around ten years old before it, looking up at the house.Some won’t find her familiar, but those who have been in the house and have seen the remains of family photos within the ruins will recognise the girl. She is the daughter of the Barker family — her whereabouts after the fire unknown. Her eyes are wide, filled with horror, but she doesn’t cry.

There had been no record of the girl’s death, nor the mother. They are not buried in the church yard in Milton. While Thomas and his two young sons died in the house fire, they survived the blaze, it looks like. But there is a clear wide-open space in the story of what happened to them afterwards.

You stand with her, staring up at the house in the silence. She doesn’t speak, neither do you.

But a voice breaks that silence, and while you turn the girl does not: a group of four children, sniggering and laughing.

Hey, it’s the freak! — freak, the word is like a stab in your chest. Still staring at the house like it’s gonna build itself back again.

The girl still does not turn around, doesn’t speak. Her hands are closed into tiny, tight fists.

Bet the freak burned the house down! another child cries. Beatrice always has to Bea The Freak. Bet that’s why her Mom left!

Finally, the girl spins around — a roar of thunder as she screams back: SHUT. UP.

The earth trembles a little, the children grow afraid. The girl, Beatrice, steps back with a gasp. She shakes her head. I didn’t mean it. she says softly.

One hurls a stone. It hit smashes against Beatrice’s head and she stumbles back, blood spilling from a cut just shy of her hairline. Rage fills you, but you notice a familiar face that steps forward from behind the group. A gnarled hand reaches for the boy who threw the stone, grabbing him by the hood of his coat and wrenching him back.

Throwing stones at little girls, now? It is Methuselah. Even in his anger, he is calm — a deadly storm behind his eyes.

Hey, get off! the boy cries. Or I’ll—

You will ‘what’, child? Methuselah lets go of the boy, but stares him down. Perhaps I can enlighten your parents on just who broke the window of the Stephens’ home, if we’re so fond of enlightenment.

I didn’t, it wasn’t— there is guilt in his voice.

Am I so old I must be blind? You forget my eyes are all over this place. Methuselah’s gaze turns to all of them. Leave. Now.

The group doesn’t need told twice, running off with tails between their legs. Methuselah watches them go for a long moment before he turns, stooping to help Beatrice to her feet.

Let me see, child.

Why don’t they like me? Why don’t they ever like me? Beatrice asks.

At the root of every anger is fear. Methuselah says gently, reaching for some clean cloth from a satchel at his side to stem the bleeding. They fear what they do not understand.

I’m a freak.

No, you are not. Methuselah tells her with a gentle kind of sternness. You are different, and you are young. As are they.

Are they ever gonna ‘get it’?

Methuselah sighs. I do not know. it is said as kindly as he can. But perhaps one day, someone will. Now— we must get you seen to, come.

The girl stares at him. She doesn’t look like she believes him. Gently, he directs her away from the house, back into the centre of town. You watch them leave, and the world fizzles out.

JUNE 1992

CONTENT WARNINGS: accidental injury; blood; themes of relationship breakdowns, broken homes

It is summer. The air is thick and warm, a calm and pleasant late afternoon. The sun is still high in the sky and you know it will never get dark. You sit on a porch of a cabin in Milton, watching townsfolk return home as you work on a small carving of a bear with a pocket knife. You have been out here for hours, ever since the school kicked out, your skin warmed by the sunlight.

Cars pull into makeshift driveways, workers tiredly exiting their cars and stretching. Others have hitched rides from their coworkers: clapping shoulders and waving farewell as they walk in the direction of home — cannery workers, miners, lumber workers. Hard jobs, hard work. They say the Northern Territories are the real backbone. You wonder which of these jobs you’ll work when you grow up.

You distract yourself with these thoughts as you try to ignore the sounds of an argument coming from within the house. It’s not the first time you’ve heard them fight, but this time you can really hear the weariness in your mother’s voice as she shouts.

This is the reason why you haven’t gone inside yet.

Oh, sure. So you can run back to that cabin of yours and bury your head in the sand?

They’ve been going like this for forever. Your focus on the sculpture intensifies, dragging the knife over the wood to shape it.


My grandaddy this, ‘my grandaddy’ that! The thing’s dead, Bill! Why’re you going around acting like magic’s real. It’s not!

It’s real and it’s coming for you, me, our boy. I’m telling you, if I don’t do something then that—

It’s a bear, Bill! A stupid bear! Long dead! And your family have done nothing but chase after a damn ghost! I can’t do it anymore, you said this was done!

The knife slips in your grasp and you cut your thumb. You gasp, the sharp sting of spliced flesh. It isn’t too deep, but it hurts all the same. Blood drips from the wound. You don’t want to go inside to ask for help.

I’m done. I’m done!

The words hit like a punch, and you stare at the blood dripping down into your palm and onto the porch. The long silence doesn’t feel that long. The door swings open.

William. You turn your head to look at your mother. She doesn’t look angry anymore. There are tears in the corners of her eyes. Come on, get your stuff.

Why? You ask. Your mother inhales, her shoulders are heavy.

We’re leaving. We’re going to grandma’s

But grandma lives on the mainland. You hesitate.

William, please. You mother insists. Now.

You get to your feet, stemming the blood against your jeans.

Your mother stands on the porch to light a cigarette. As you turn into the house, your father sits in his armchair — not looking at you. There are bags already packed. The world goes dim.

SEPTEMBER 2011

CONTENT WARNINGS: themes of extreme weather; ecological disaster; death of animals

It is quiet when you open your eyes, but the sound of roaring waves and howling winds still lingers in your mind. You look around the circular room as you lay in bed, enclosed and cosy and safe. You brush your fingers against the painted brick wall at your side and smile softly. And then the ache sets in. Your limbs stiff, your muscles tense. And then the other ache, an ache you have known for a long time that greets you every time you open your eyes. The kind that meets you in the quiet. And here, there is often quiet.

Pale sunlight filters in from the windows; the storm has calmed, from what it sounds like — the waves like long, steadying breaths upon the frozen shores.

But you cannot forget the long hours of night, the cracks of thunder and the way the skies lit up with lighting streaking across the air. The churning of metal, the ships in harbour thrown about — not even the harbour was safe.

You have no idea of the damage done now that the storm is over, but in your stomach — you know it’ll be pretty bad. Still, this place has weathered plenty of storms. You had been asleep for a few hours, just as the winds had begun to die out, collapsing in your bed still dressed in your clothes a little before dawn.

Sleep muddles you, so you stoke the flames of the stove and set coffee to boil. The seabirds are noiser than usual, and you eventually take your coffee cup and hazard the outside.

The sight that greets you takes your breath away. In the cold light of morning, the devastation of the storm is obvious: destroyed fishing ships in the harbour; the strong, well-built buildings that have beaten back years of stormy weather have even taken a battering. But there’s something else that catches your eye, one that makes your stomach churn.

Out on the shoreline, where the sand meets the half-frozen sea: whale carcasses litter the landscape. You count them with your eyes, more than two dozen — beached and dead. You have never seen this many before. There are no words. There is nothing your exhausted and muddled mind can pull together. You stand for a long time, staring out at the scene in the near-distance.

And somehow, you know. You know this is but a drop in the ocean.

And then the world snaps to darkness.

FAQs

1. There will be no plotting post for the mini event.

2. Players are free to use this post to play out threads, or make their own posts.

3. Characters can have any combination of the dreams: one, two, all or none!