Event - Lullaby

[apocalypsehowmods]

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Lullaby

➥ For You Never Shut Your Eye

(cw: supernaturally-induced sleep/fatigue, supernaturally-induced sleep disorders/somniloquy, needles/injections)

The line between waking and sleep is beginning to blur. People will find themselves sleeping far too much, but it never feels like enough. The music is growing more prevalent and persistent throughout town. The effect is still weaker within the building, but as October wears on, more and more people are affected and ADI staff are more intent than ever to find the source and also figure out how to block the effects. Characters will find themselves conscripted (between Halloween Party preparations) into assisting with building or testing anti-music and sleep devices along or with helping to try to track down the source of the music.

For those helping to build and test devices, there is an R&D lab in the basement levels of ADI that will be available. Devices native staff have been able to devise include:

• Headphones that play different frequencies to try to cancel out the sound of the singing.
  
• An armband that periodically stabs a small needle into the arm with a small dosage of adrenaline.
  
• Headbands set to a constant low vibration.

The efficacy of all of these devices is… questionable, but perhaps others may have their own expertise to lend to the efforts, attempting something on a broader scale than just personal protection devices.

For those helping to track the source of the music, finding it seems to be impossible, but there is a definite pattern that characters will note as the days pass. The epicenters of the music are moving, migrating out of the graveyards and converging on ADI Headquarters. As this goes on, the building will become less and less of a safe haven, the music penetrating its walls and affecting the staff there more heavily. You might find yourself having to help a neighbor who's fallen asleep while working. Or you might not even be able to fully tell they've fallen asleep as they sleepwalk and talk almost like they're actually still conscious. Even those who have never been prone to sleepwalking and talking may find themselves affected and… far more open with what they say when in the unguarded state of semi-unconsciousness.

➥ Till the Sun Is In the Sky

(cw: supernaturally-induced sleep/fatigue, thanatophobia, character death, death by poisoning, blood, choking, emetophobia, death by crushing)

By the 25th, some people may find waking up to be a challenge in and of itself. But they do manage to wake up. Seemingly. Perhaps the day is much like any other, heading to ADI or out around the city, grabbing coffee and- something is wrong. Something is very wrong. That cup of coffee you just drank had tasted a little different than usual. A touch of almond to it? It hits you that your throat is burning, bile and blood rising up and choking you as you hack and gasp and vomit. Your legs grow weak, you're losing control of everything, falling, dying.

And then you wake up.

Just a nightmare. Just a bizarre and horrible nightmare. You head out and… is this home? You're home! Or maybe… wait, this doesn't seem right. Have you gone somewhere else? Some things might be familiar, memories intertwined and mixing with fantastical elements, some your own, some not. You notice people you recognize, ones who might be as confused as you are. This isn't where they should be and they remember dying, too. Or seeing you die or someone else. It doesn't make sense, but somehow, they remember they had a dream they shared last night. And then something falls from above and nearly crushes you or your partner. Or maybe it does crush them, and you're suddenly looking at a dead body as the world and this nightmare that feels so very real becomes more and more hostile. Maybe something falls on you.

And then you 'wake up.'

➥ When the Blazing Sun Is Gone

(cw: supernaturally-induced sleep/fatigue, thanatophobia, character death, body horror, detailed description of painful physical transformation, description of the loss and regrowth of teeth, violence, mental status alterations, temporary power-loss, spiders)

Even with people dropping left and right thanks to the odd sleep effect taking hold, ADI staff are hellbent that their Halloween party will not be completely ruined. And on the 28th (a little before the actual holiday), everyone wakes up. Or… seems to. For those trapped in dreams, it will seem very much that they've woken up, the music has stopped, and they can actually carry on. For a few days, it even seems like things are normal. The party on the 31st is a blow-out bash. The entire first floor of ADI HQ has been transformed with decorations. The canteen is serving festive food and has set up a dance floor with holiday-appropriate music playing. Some of the offices feature additional activities, including party games like bobbing for apples in a trough that's been brought in, a guess this gross food booth, and more general party games. For a quieter time, there are also areas set up with board games and card games to play. And for some extra fun spooks a mini-haunted maze has been set up with faux spiders and webs, along with other goofy-looking monster creatures.

It's around 9 PM when the music and lights suddenly cut out. There's nothing for several seconds. Then, a voice begins to sing, filling the halls of ADI. It's a young girl's voice.

"Bye-bye, bye-bye,
Quickly you will die,
On the morning will be frost,
And you’ll go to the graveyard, the graveyard.

Grandfather will come there, too,
And he will bring the coffin.
Grandmother will come along,
Her tears, they will not soften.
Mama sings the prayer song, then,
And falls down on her knees.
Daddy takes you to the grave,
No one can hear his pleas.

Bye-bye, bye-bye,
Quickly you will die,
On the morning will be frost,
And you’ll go to the graveyard, the graveyard.

As the last notes of the song fade away, all hell breaks loose. Those who had been wearing particular sorts of costumes, ones that are more monstrous in nature, may find themselves transforming, growing, twisting, shifting. It's not a clean change, but a violent, agonizing one that cracks bones, tears and reshapes muscles and tendons, pushes out teeth to make room for new ones. Those transformed will find themselves compelled to chase, to hunt, to kill anyone they can get their claws, teeth, or other appendages on.

For those who stay themselves, it's not just their transformed friends who pose a danger, but the decorations they've set up, as well. Those fake giant spiders and webs? They're no longer fake. Neither are any of the other demonic little creatures. The goal of everything in ADI and even outside for those who manage to make it out the doors, is to remind you how very, very mortal you are. Those typically possessed of fantastic abilities will find that they have been sapped away. There's no calling on magic or innate abilities. You are mortal and you are going to die like everything mortal does.

In the chaos, characters will catch glimpses of a young girl flitting amongst the chaos, seeming unperturbed by it all. Trying to catch up to her or speak to her is fruitless, but she's there, and she's humming that song from before.

➥ When He Nothing Shines Upon

(cw: supernaturally-induced fatigue/malaise, thanatophobia)

Those who are killed at the party will find themselves waking up wherever they actually fell asleep a few hours or even days ago. If your character was one of the lucky few who somehow managed to escape the effect, you'll notice people waking up all over ADI HQ and elsewhere. There are no signs of damage on the bodies, but those who died in the dreams will find themselves feeling incredibly weak and generally ill for several hours to several days after the experience.

The music has actually stopped, and this time, it would seem you've actually woken up. Depending on how long you were passed out for, that may be a more unpleasant experience for some than others. There's a message posted from a random ADI employee's phone a few days later to the network:

Mr. S was right. This was fun! I'll have to come back next year to play with you. - Ava, the Lullaby Girl

P.S. Sorry for stealing your phone, horsegirl67. But I wanted to say, hi. C:

Unfortunately, there are no further messages and attempts to respond to the message will receive no reply for now.

But... fortunately…? All of the Halloween preparations are still up, and there's a festive party to attend if anyone actually feels keen on trying it in real life. Pam Ruan, the main organizer is bloody-minded about it now and will have her God damn Halloween party, but those who work themselves up to attend out of festive spirit or morbid curiosity will find it a distinctly muted affair that breaks early in the evening.

Happy Halloween, Gloucester!

➥ Mod Notes

• GENERAL - Players are welcome to play 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 prompt should be sufficient and you're welcome to make up any details beyond that for your specific scene. The Lullaby Girl (Ava) can be seen throughout character dreams, but they will not be able to interact with her during this event. They will either wake up or simply find that the physics of the dream are warped and she cannot be reached or there's a sheet of glass between her and the character or whatnot.
  
  
• FOR YOU NEVER SHUT YOUR EYE (15-24 October) - Characters are welcome to develop their own devices for attempting to stop the music. Characters will have modern day technology available to them along with a few slightly more advanced electronics and tools. Please do not go too out there. This isn't Tony Stark's array of tools and the like. But characters can create additional devices to test within reason. Some of them may be more or less effective, but with how sporadic the effect is, it might be difficult to tell what's actually working or not. There can also be negative side-effects from devices, if you'd like to play those out. Characters with the appropriate magical charge may also attempt to supernaturally block the music, but this will not be condoned or facilitated by ADI. Characters searching for the source of the music will not be able to find it, just discover that it is moving. For characters who are sleep-talking, they may find themselves unusually honest. They may or may not recall conversations with other characters and all that they told them.
  
  
• TILL THE SUN IS IN THE SKY (25-27 October) - Characters will experience repeated nightmares of dying in a shared dreamscape. They will remember every time that they die in the dreams. Feel free to get as creative and gruesome with this as you would like. These are dreams and fantastical situations that might not actually happen (e.g., a robot showing up and shooting a laser through your character) may occur. Players are welcome to introduce elements of their memories into the nightmares and mix those memories around between characters who might wind up in a dream together. Please ensure all top-levels are appropriately tagged for any and all content warnings. Add content warnings as you go along, if needed. Dying in the dreams will trigger the sense of waking up. This can be a fake wake-up or characters might actually wake for a short while and find others passed out around them.
  
  
• WHEN THE BLAZING SUN IS GONE (28-31 October) - Again, this will be a shared dreamscape where characters will be under the illusion (at first) that all has returned to normal. For those who investigate, everything seems to be real, nothing too off, excepting the night of the Halloween party. Once the Lullaby Girl finishes her song, characters who are dressed in costumes that depict animals or other monstrous creatures may find themselves transformed into their costumes. Transformed characters may gain powers for the duration of this prompt/event related to their monstrous forms without mod approval. Go wild, kill your friends and neighbors, and generally trash everything around you. The decorations that come to life will be attempting to murder all characters, transformed or not. If characters escape into the city, they will find all of the festive decorations out there have come to life and want to kill them, as well. Death is unavoidable for this particular prompt, but it can be something swift and painless or something drawn out and horrible at player discretion. It is the only way to actually wake a character fully. Players also have the option of keeping their characters awake. They will not experience the shared dreamscape and will just be stuck with a lot of unconscious people around them for the duration of this portion of the event.
  
  
• WHEN HE NOTHING SHINES UPON (31 October) - Ava, the Lullaby Girl, cannot be contacted or immediately located, but she will be available in future plots for interactions with characters. There is no immediate information regarding who Mr. S. is. Players may have the general sleep/death malaise last for a minimum of two hours and a maximum of three days. Regular medications for the flu can ameliorate some of the symptoms, but they will ultimately clear up on their own. Characters may wake up in whatever state players would like. Feel free to play out the effects of them having been slumped in a corridor for three days without food or water. It's going to be a bad time all around. Those who attend the real Halloween party will be thanked profusely by Pam and showered with candy. At least they'll get a few HR brownie points?

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Comments

[conning]

Neal manages not to glance at the hand on his shoulder, his soft spot for Ren deepening at the action. This is a kid who's never been one. Neal can relate.

"Even the best listeners need a release valve sometimes." He gestures to the bed, inviting Ren to sit, even though this is Ren's room anyway. "None of what's happened here over the past couple weeks is easy to handle alone."

[simulatio]

[He doesn't understand the significance of the music, but it's clearly affecting Monika, and that's reason enough to go. It's not until they're out the door that he remembers it's autumn in the northern United States, and they'd both be better off with jackets, but he's not planning on going back. Freezing to death outside has got to be better than being marionetted and ripped apart.]

Will going somewhere with witnesses make a difference? [It's asked aloud, but it's more rhetorical than anything else.] Are you alright?

[murderology]

[ Jerry fully expects the frenzied and rightfully indignant reaction, so it doesn't bother him any. In fact, his face is lit up as the other springs to wakefulness, as if this was the exact response he had been looking for! ​

It's hilarious as much as it is helpful, if he's being honest.]

No, but I get that a lot. [ He winks and offers a fingergun. ] Also, you're welcome.

[inlieuofadad]

Gil's heart aches, and he wishes life was as simple as acknowledging that you've done something stupid and not making the same mistake again. He'd probably be out of a job, but that wouldn't be a bad thing.

"No." He gives Jeff's shoulder a little squeeze, drawing him toward the ADI apartments. Wherever Jeff might want to be tonight, he's going to be on Gil's couch. "I think you're young, and you're screwed up, and you're shortsighted, but the first one's not a crime and everyone's the second. Just gotta work on how you handle it."

[the_archivist]

Hm, that I understand. Although I always found the nighmares were worse if I avoided sleep.

[They tended to encorach on waking life if he got insomnia too badly. Not that any of it had mattered in the end.]

Trauma does have a way of lingering, unfortunately.

[abrightboy]

The room is not well lit. Good lighting does not a creepy theme party make, he supposes. He's almost on top of them when he sees Neal and the... thing stalking Neal.

He runs up to them, full force, and swings the lumber he's wielding like a baseball bat as hard as he can, right against the side of the thing's head.

"NEAL! RUN!"

[forethinking]

"Then the same goes to you."

Because Ren knows exactly what Neal is doing. Trying to help, instead of being the helped. Go ahead, tell him.

"I'm more mature than I look."

Maybe. Kind of. Depends?

[conning]

Neal hisses in a breath, a cascade of panic rolling through him from crown to the pit of his stomach. Malcolm tells Neal to run. He lurches forward instead, closer to the other man, instincts screaming to get Malcolm away from that thing before it breaks his neck too.

[septieme]

And I'm simply stating the truth. You sure get awfully worked up a lot on an awfully very little... Are you sure being a priest is the right calling for you, mister Nightroad?

[...]

I suppose nothing would be stopping you...

[And thoughtfully, she takes another sip from her mug while barely giving him a glance,]

[simulatio]

[Ice was one of Ren's weaknesses, not his own, but it still fucking hurts. He shrieks, higher pitched than his normal human voice, and flaps his wings as if that might somehow dissipate some of the freezing burn from his back.]

Just another wretch with delusions of grandeur, thinking you're better than the rest? [Talons grip a nearby chair and hurl it at her as he hisses in irritation, back still smarting from the ice shards.] A queen prepared to step on the ordinary people to elevate yourself higher?

[The next closest object is someone's dismembered leg. He doesn't know if it's one he ripped off, or someone else, but it's an effective missile weapon for now to hurl her way as well.]

There's nothing better than casting someone down from the peak. Let me show you!

[His wings buffet again, strong enough to start skidding debris forward, turning pens and erasers into projectiles.]

[simulatio]

Truly?

[He quirks an eyebrow at the idea of nightmares being worse without sleep. In his experience, it was always the opposite; the more exhausted he was, the more likely he would be not to dream, or at the very least, not to remember having dreamt after he woke up.

The comment about trauma lingering does bring a ghost of a bitter smile to his face, though, and he takes a sip from his coffee to give himself time before responding.]

Indeed it does. Were you... hurt, in the recent events?

[Did I hurt you? isn't what he asks aloud, and hopes it's not visible in the appraising look he gives the other man. The dreams of his own deaths are messy and fragmented, but the memory of being a monstrous, bloodthirsty crow is a hard one to dismiss.]

[cacophonish]

There's a noise when it gets whacked in the face. It isn't a scream, or a yelp, or anything that should come from a man or animal. It's the sound of a bow scraping harshly against violin strings, reckless fingers smashing against out-of-tune piano keys, instruments breaking and melodies interrupted.

The creature's knocked down, though it's hard to say if it's only stunned or if it's actually unconscious. It's difficult to tell, given the way its head already hung dead and its glassy eyes (still open) never seemed to look at anything to begin with.

[inutilis]

Now you're questioning my life's work...? Ciel, is there no end to your cruelty? Is it wise to be needling at your coworkers this way, Officer...? That seems counter-productive to forming healthy working relationships, if you ask me.

[ as if either of them would know a single thing about that--

he's ~dramatically~ slumping face into a hand... yet, this melodrama doesn't stop him from shoving half an entire sandwich in his piehole. so this next bit is said around a mouthful of egg sammy: ]

...Your apathetic act is making me tired. Weary. Exhausted. Taking the very years from my life. Is that what you're after? Heartless. It's heartless. See if I offer to make you Sleepytime ever again, Ciel.

[abrightboy]

The thing is still for the moment. When Neal moves towards him instead of away, Malcolm grabs his hand and makes a break for the door.

[horrifictie]

too elven?? the fuck does that mean??

[forethinking]

I couldn't agree more.

(And just because this is a terrible dream, the moment the mask disintegrates in electric blue fire, it's not Satanael that shows behind him. It's Arsène, and while incredible in his own rights, lacks the gun that would make their problems disappear. It's not Ren perse who shoots it... But perhaps he can once more release Arsène from his shackles and summon the aforementioned Persona?)

Do you have any elemental skills? It will repel some, depending on where you hit.

(Not that Ren has too much time to explain before the ginormous being calls him.

"Trickster," it calls. These dreams are revealing more about Ren's role in his universe than he'd like, but perhaps he'll have time to explain everything to Stephen once this is over. ""I release upon you the deadly sin of wrath. You have no means of escape, humans. The passion of mankind shall bring forth ruin...". Ren sighs, nodding to Stephen to attack it with all he has got.)

[conning]

Something in his feral brain thinks finally, and then he's running alongside Malcolm, almost faster than him, forcing himself to keep pace instead of taking advantage of the fact that he has longer legs.

[abrightboy]

“What was that thing?” Malcolm pants as they run. “What’s it doing here?”

[cacophonish]

He's pretty sure they're not heading towards Bonnie's, but he doesn't protest. Somehow, in spite of all the sleep he's gotten over the past... fuck, however long it's been-- After all that sleep, he's still tired. Maybe it's the come-down from the drugs, or the beginnings of a hangover, or maybe he's just spent in some broader sense. It's a kind of exhaustion that goes beyond the body.

He's just so fucking tired.

"I'm sorry I..." he starts lamely, not really sure what he's apologizing for. Sorry he almost swept Gil up in the madness? Sorry he's just... who he is? "Sorry I made you chase me." He keeps his gaze low as they walk, like he's afraid of passing anyone who might recognize him from the 'party' he'd started. "Those people are gonna be okay. It's-- the song wears off on its own."

[conning]

"I don't know," Neal gasps, the panic and terror starting to catch up to him again now that he's not trying to function through it. "I have no idea. There are plenty of instances of horse-headed monsters and demons throughout world mythology. The nuckalavee, the ashvashīrsha, the Tikbalang--but I don't know if any of them have musical associations, I don't know. I don't know why it's here at all."

[abrightboy]

“Musical associations? What do you mean?” Malcolm gasps.

[bossyboiler]

Kate almost laughs at the way he phrased his response. "I like that, it makes it seem intentional instead of..." She blanks on the word that she wants to use. She lets out a huff of a breath. This really is like being drunk without all the fun of drinking. "I'm sorry. I haven't had much sleep. Your name's Neal, right?"

[worthallthis]

And he has very little idea of what to do, here. His first aid knowledge is limited to fixing up his own wounds long enough for the serum to stabilize them, and Steve's various health problems-- not that he remembers those. He just rubs her back helplessly, recognizing the blood at her mouth as something that's very beyond his ability to help, and says blankly, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

[worthallthis]

"I shoot them," he answers, matter-of-fact, as if shooting one's co-workers is perfectly normal. He may have been used for internal executions almost as much as he was for outside assassinations, under Pierce. This is almost familiar, in a weird way.

He eyes her leg, considers what little he can hear and their current amount of cover, and adds, "We have time to bandage that so we don't leave a blood trail. Will you let me?"

[inlieuofadad]

Gil doesn't answer right away, weighing his possible responses. How much of a point needs to be made versus how terrible Jeff already feels.

"That's good." It is. It unknots the sharp fear that he's going to have to bring ADI in to help those people. Put Jeff on their radar. Another few steps of silence before he adds, "They going to remember it? What they did? What it felt like?"