Event - Spun Out

[apocalypsehowmods]

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Spun Out

With real ghosts and ghouls haunting Gloucester and the aftermath of parts of the town being destroyed still to address, the people of the city are on edge. Word has been going around that it's Dogtown. Stay away from Dogtown. And maybe prune your bushes as far as they'll take it. Plants have been acting strangely this fall. There's too much new growth when everything ought to be dying.

Effects from Dogtown have begun to spill over the edges of the park, as well. Most acutely around the edges, but stretching out further through the city. They crawl with fingers and vines, shadows and the brush of wind. Even if you wanted to avoid all of this, it seems harder and harder to do so. ADI Headquarters seems to have some protections and more limited effects there. The Hunt looks after its own… somewhat, anyway.

➥ The Prison of Your Mind

(cw: memory loss, compulsion, mystery fluids, sleep paralysis, difficulty breathing, medical gaslighting)

Why are you here? It's not a particularly philosophical question in this moment; it's not a review of life goals or obligations that prompts the question. No, it's more straightforward and more worrying than that: you can't remember why you are here, in this specific place and this specific moment, nor how you arrived. Perhaps you've lost only a few minutes–stepped through a doorway and forgot why, maybe, just a little brainfart that left you more off-kilter than usual. Or perhaps there's a gap of hours or days when you suddenly wake up and realize you have no idea where you've been or what you're doing here and now in this moment. Ask anyone around you and it seems you've behaved perfectly normally up until you started asking. It's as though the memories have been surgically removed from your mind, leaving no pain but a numb wrongness in their absence and in the absence of a reason why.

Or maybe you're one of the unfortunate ones whose behavior has, perhaps, not been quite so ordinary. You don't remember where you've been; there's only the physical evidence of your current location to go by–perhaps you're down an alley or wandering the streets, or perhaps you find yourself emerging from Dogtown itself. You're certain you came this way under your own power, but you don't remember doing it and don't remember why…and your hands, feet, and chin are covered in black, viscous liquid. The taste has faded–it was sweet, you think. Taste it again and you'll lose this moment and those that follow all over again.

Your body is a prison. You awake in the night, if it can be called awakening, your body unresponsive and your chest constricted as though there's a great weight resting upon it. There's not enough air–you can't breathe! There's nothing on top of you, nothing stopping you from moving, from inflating your lungs, and yet you're trapped and every inch of you is so impossibly heavy and you can't so much as cry out for help, let alone save yourself. Agonizing minutes to stretch on into hours as your lungs burn and your paralyzed joints ache, the sun never rising and help never coming.

Sleep paralysis is the official diagnosis if you seek medical attention the morning after the ordeal, after you finally slipped back into unconsciousness only to awaken groggy and listless at dawn. There's nothing so unusual about sleep paralysis–distressing, yes, but not unusual. Not supernatural, surely. Only…ask around, and it starts to sound as if all of Gloucester has been experiencing it lately. Within ADI are you shielded from it on at least some nights; out in the city it seems the entire population has suddenly developed a new sleep disorder. But surely that's just a coincidence.

➥ The Scars You Bear

(cw: burning, darkness, leeches, unnatural elongating of limbs, body horror, physical maiming)

There are hungry things about. There’s barely a sign of them there until they’re upon you. A turn of a faucet causes a hiss to emulate before the water pours out, a little more viscous than it should be…and it burns. Like acid and a thousand tiny mouths, the water seeks to eat at skin and muscle and even bone if not wiped away quickly enough. Even once gone, the afflicted area still tingles, burns, or even bleeds for how thin the skin now is. Perhaps, instead, it is the hunger of the empty spaces and corners of rooms and hallways. Areas that might already be dark or seem dark despite the sun outside, feel yawning and desperate. They call to those who stare too long, aching to wrap a curious soul in black nothingness. Or perhaps it’s the onset of the leeches you notice. Ponds, puddles, swimming pools, cups of water…nothing is safe from a sudden slippery, squelching, rush of razor-mouthed creatures seeking something less metaphysical from you.

Time changes all and those stuck for so long in Gloucester are no exception. Some might have escaped marks or scars over the years, but the park is reaching, grasping, seeking more…and it shows. In the middle of a conversation with a friend, your fingers or limbs begin to itch. Begin to ache. Looking down, the transformation is slow: an elongation of fingers, toes, arms, legs, neck…maybe different body parts, maybe at different rates, but it hurts. And you’re the only one who can see it. For now.

You might also be the observer instead of the observed. You look at someone’s face and it starts steadily to peel. Flake after flake the skin pulls away, cracks, layers again. A papier-mache mask of flesh and bone that surely holds a truth underneath, one you must know…if only the rest of that mask was out of the way.

➥ The Fundamental Forces

(cw: existential dread, extinction, acrophobia, helplessness, potential for severe injury/broken bones)

The stars are moving. It's not the normal turn in the sky they make every night as the Earth rotates upon its axis. Instead, those casting their gaze to the heavens may note that the stars have begun to group in clusters, as if the universe beyond this planet is drawing together, away, leaving bigger and bigger stretches of yawning black between them. Will they be gone all together one night? It seems there are fewer and fewer clusters as the days go on. And ordinary people in Gloucester have taken notice. There are news reports of strange phenomena in the night sky. Experts outside of the Cape Ann region advise that there's nothing wrong with the stars or their placement and light pollution is blamed. But those who gaze up know the truth: The universe is expanding and soon enough, there will be only cold quiet and empty expanses as the light pulls farther and farther away and everything dies… utterly alone.

Gravity has stopped working in places. It doesn't seem to be consistent from location-to-location or day-to-day. One person might be affected while the other right next to them is perfectly fine.

It's like a switch being flipped, though. One moment, you might be walking through Gloucester or in Dogtown, itself, and the next, you're falling into the sky. Some may be lucky enough for a more gradual fall into the yawning blue. Like a ship unmoored, they float into the sky, helpless to stop themselves. Others may find themselves hitting terminal velocity very quickly. Regardless, if no one can grab you before you float away, then what goes down must come up. Some may rise only a few stories. Others may reach up to 2,000 feet before switching again and finding themselves hurtling back toward the ground. There's no convenient supernatural fix going this way, though. Better hope someone or something can help to break your fall or you're likely to be a crater on the ground in short order.

➥ Good Fences

(cw: N/A)

An additional prompt, Good Fences is available below!

➥ Mod Notes

• GENERAL - Players are welcome to play background NPCs for themselves when they are needed in a thread. If you need more information on general behavior for these types of NPCs, please feel free to ask! In general, the information provided in the prompts should be sufficient and ordinary people will act like… ordinary people! You're welcome to make up any details for your specific scene. Also, please remember that character deaths are permanent (unless you are using this as an opportunity to shift to an Entity alignment) and plan accordingly!
  
  
• THE PRISON OF YOUR MIND (16 November-Ongoing) - Memory loss can hit anyone, anywhere, though as with all of the other effects it is less likely to happen within ADI property. Characters will be unable to determine the origin or nature of the mystery fluid they appear to have ingested–it seems anyone who becomes aware of its source immediately goes there and ingests it, wanders off, and forgets where it came from or what else they did during that lost time, regardless of whether or not they were acting alone.
  
  
• THE SCARS YOU BEAR (16 November-Ongoing) - Leeches, acid water, and darkness can be escaped/scrubbed away with limited scarring. Those subsumed by the darkness will find themselves waking up alone with large, pitch black claw marks on their bodies or potentially permanently blinded. Those afflicted by elongating limbs or plaster faces will find the effects ending after a few minutes that feel like hours and leave the affected areas aching, broken, or with stretch marks or layers of skin missing at player discretion. Those effects not able to be perceived by another person will often suddenly become visible and at the worst possible moment (i.e. right before the other person’s neck becomes too long to support their head, a bit like watching someone unravel.)
  
  
• THE FUNDAMENTAL FORCES (16 November-Ongoing) - For those seeking to grab or lasso their floating companions, they will find that holding/hauling them back to earth is akin to trying to drag someone up from a normal gravity. It will take effort. Those who are 'falling' will have no control over the upward portion of their fall, even those who may normally have the ability to fly/control their falls. Additionally, this effect will impact objects at random. So, you may have mailboxes or cars falling out of the sky on top of you.
  
  

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