Event - Heavy

[apocalypsehowmods]

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Heavy

➥ Deep

(cw: claustrophobia, existential dread, power loss, victim-blaming, time distortion, supernatural compulsion and hunger)

After the cold snap and plumbing issues comes the calm. For a few days, at least, nothing seems to break. Or break more than normal where the Flophouse is concerned. A heavy snow sweeps through and covers the streets. Not a blizzard, but thick white fluff that forms a blanket overnight. The snowplows aren't prepared and it's simply… quiet. People stay indoors, waiting for the weather to clear a bit. There are light flurries throughout the next few days, topping off the snowfall, and for the most part, the city just shuts down.

Even ADI puts out a notice that employees should stay home. Stay safe, stay cocooned in what warmth you have. Just… stay. Each day the message comes out from a generic work email, help@adi.com:

Shelter in place. No work today. Stay safe. We'll get by without you.

The next day is the same. The snow piles higher overnight, covering windows and freezing doors shut.

Shelter in place. No work today. Stay safe. We're s̴̳͘͠ͅt̶̨͂̍r̵̯̼͊͝ŭ̷͚̳g̶̠͋̓g̴̳̱̔͘l̸̤̻̎i̷̭͑͠ń̵̗͜͝g̷̤͂, but we'll get by.

Day after day. Frost creeps into the corridors of the ADI housing complex and the Flophouse. There is no food or other supplies coming and it feels like the hours are stretching out more and more.

Shelter in place. No work today. S̴̬̓t̸͉̿a̴̫̿ỳ̸͉ ̸̠̉s̸̲͆a̶͙͊f̶̢̏ē̷̤. We can't keep doing this, but we have to.

Attempts to leave the housing areas will be met with walls of snow that appear to be impossibly high. Around the flophouse, especially, it's as though they've been placed into the bottom of an icy hole. The walls stretch up higher than anyone can climb or fly, with only a pinprick of bluish light coming down from the opening above, deeper than anyone can dig through. Not even a magical portal or beam of heat can get through. There's just a wall of snow and/or ice through the portal and more snow beyond the beam. What's more, anyone who has supernatural abilities or is tied to a patron, even those not actively trying to feed that patron, will find themselves feeling increasingly drained, like something is sapping away whatever reserves they have, leaving them hungrier and hungrier, their powers waning by the minute, with a very limited set of options to feed upon.

S̸͉͗ḣ̷̦ȩ̵͒l̷͈̍t̸͎̽e̵̺̓ř̵̠ in place. No work today. S̴̬̓t̸͉̿a̴̫̿ỳ̸͉ ̸̠̉s̸̲͆a̶͙͊f̶̢̏ē̷̤. Why aren't they coming? This is their fault.

S̶͔͆h̸̅ͅȅ̴̮l̵̬̈́t̷̯́e̴̥̐ř̷̙ ̶̳̕ì̷̲n̵͓͌ ̷̮̋p̵̟̈́l̶̢̎a̷̺͠c̷̻̈́ḙ̵̊.̷̦̇ ̴̬̀N̸͕͌o̵͎̊ work today. S̴̬̓t̸͉̿a̴̫̿ỳ̸͉ ̸̠̉s̸̲͆a̶͙͊f̶̢̏ē̷̤. Why aren't ỹ̸̡͐ͅô̷͕̫ù̶̟̣͊ coming? Ḟ̴͓i̷̤͗x̶̨͝ ̴̜͒t̵̯̅h̴͔͛i̸͖̽s̶̱̚!

((ooc: Plain text versions of all messages are located here (LINK). You can also hover your mouse over the distorted text for hover text translations.))

➥ Chasm

(cw: warped perceptions, memory-loss, implied trauma, supernaturally-induced feelings of missing out)

You've missed a step.

After what seems an interminable time, someone is finally able to tunnel through, to get out of the massive snowy prison everyone has been trapped in and-

And the city looks normal. Checking the wall you just came through, it's not actually there. As soon as one person makes it out, the effect collapses for everyone. There's a wintry wonderland of Gloucester beyond, and it seems like things have gone on without everyone. But there is a sense in the air that something has happened, something earth-shattering that everyone missed out on.

People on the streets seem to have a look about them. Haunted? Something happened, but when they're questioned about it, they can't seem to come up with an answer as to what. They just seem… confused, overwhelmed. Yes, something happened. No, they can't tell you what. Weren't you here for it? Didn't you see it? Didn't you feel it? How could you have missed something that big?

That feeling will sit with characters as time passes, dragging down on them. It may even begin to feel like a physical weight for the most affected. You missed it. You could have done something to change things, but you missed it.

➥ Stuck

(cw: flooding; natural disasters; damage to homes, workplaces, and possessions; references to burial, suffocation, crushing, and murder; supernaturally induced anxiety, responsibility fatigue, and feelings of inadequacy; illness.)

The feeling of having missed something only intensifies back at ADI headquarters. It looks as though the storm itself attacked the building; several exterior doors have been broken off their hinges, ice expanded within the metal past its breaking point, and the expansive water damage and muck ground into the carpets, walls, and battered elevators conjure images of an indoor avalanche…or a glacier pushing its way through, slow but biting cold and utterly inexorable.

There's no time to dwell on what's happened, on the days of hunger and isolation nor whatever disaster occurred here. There's too much to do, too much to fix, one crisis after another. There's the obvious problem: the need to repair the building and proof it against the cold wind that still blows in across the foyer, but no matter one's work area there is more to do than can be done. Endless requests and projects flood in from every quarter, all of them urgent, all of them important. As soon as one thing is finished, three more problems emerge: contracts to manage, investigations to be made into reported phenomena, glitching computers to repair, vandals to repel from the gaping wound that is the lobby entrance in the middle of the night–the list goes on, and on, and on.

Rumors circulate, stories about a prisoner in the depths of the building's secret basements who disappeared into the crushing ice and grit that had filled the cells, disagreements about whether it was a rescue or if the unnamed prisoner was suffocated, snuffed out by some indiscriminately vengeful force. No one seems to know the truth; no one even seems to know the name of the prisoner, who they were, what they had done to end up there. No one has the time to look too deeply into it; even head of security Neil Grace, is caught leaping from task to task, never catching up long enough to turn his attention to the matter in any meaningful capacity.

The struggle to keep up, the futile effort to keep one's head above water, never relents. No matter one's priorities at work or at home, something is always wrong, always in need of attention, the knowledge of things undone needling at the edge of consciousness like a toothache in one's soul. The Flophouse is in a disastrous state worse even than ADI headquarters, a wild-eyed Bonnie all but pouncing on residents with an endless list of tasks to fix it, to make the building livable again. At the ADI apartments, exhausted caretaker Benny Holt seems to traipse up and down the halls at all hours of the day and night with his toolbelt, gaunt and exhausted and tapping at doors in reply to requests to fix plumbing, lighting, and water damage that never seem to stay fixed. Local staff and interdimensional residents alike begin to fall ill, bodies and minds burning out under the strain, but giving yourself time to rest and heal means piling more work on those around you.

There is no time. There is no rest. There is only the work you are failing to complete.

➥ Sink

(cw: claustrophobia, suffocation or near-suffocation)

As if that isn’t enough, there’s still investigative work to be done. Once again, it seems as if Coffins Beach is a site of interest, as ADI has been tipped off that there might be something (or things) in the water. Again.

For safety’s sake - and perhaps to make sure that no one collapses out there alone - pairs are sent out to the beach to keep an eye on the water and to see if anything interesting has washed up. Orders are to both watch the water and walk along the beaches and through the dunes nearby.

Watching the water doesn't seem to yield any results, no matter how long it's observed. Nothing washes ashore either. But then there's the dunes. Sooner or later, it seems like climbing them and walking among them is all there is to do. Anyone who has spent any time at Coffins Beach might notice that they seem a bit larger than they have been in months past. Not inconceivably, but noticeably. There are dunes tall enough to scale the sides up to the top, though some are still no more than little mounds.

It doesn't matter which, when you fall into it. Small hill or gentle mound, one minute you’re walking on the surface. The next minute, as you put your foot down, it begins to sink. It can't be sinking, of course, sand dunes on a beach don't have quicksand. They’re nothing but dense piles of sand. You can't fall into a sand dune.

You are falling into a sand dune. There’s a hole in the sand, just wide enough for your body and you have fallen into it. Perhaps you're a little bit lucky and your partner witnessed it. Maybe you aren't and you suddenly just disappear. It's a long fall, though, down a tube of sand that seems hard-packed around the edges. At first. The drop is just far enough that light can be seen from above, but not the top of the hole itself. Call out. You might be heard. And maybe your partner is already trying to get you out.

But the moment you hit the bottom, it seems like the hole becomes unstable. Especially if someone is above and trying to reach down. Even if they're not, though, sand begins to crumble from the edges and sides of the tunnel, falling down on the body trapped at the bottom of it. A slow trickle, not a burial. Not yet. Still, it could be, if rescue doesn't come, if the person left up above can't dig you out. Meanwhile, the sand falls and falls, pressing down on limbs and creeping up your body. It’s cold and struggling only seems to make the sand fall faster.

Surely you’ll be rescued before it covers you completely. Or soon after. Surely.

➥ 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 prompts should be sufficient and ordinary people will act like… ordinary people! You're welcome to make up any details beyond that for your specific scene. Please remember that character deaths are permanent and plan accordingly!
  
  
• DEEP (16-20 February) - Characters will be trapped in their homes for five days, confined to either the Flophouse or the individual apartment buildings within the ADI complex. It will feel like significantly longer, even for characters with fully accurate internal clocks. Travel outside of these bounds will be impossible, even with the use of supernatural abilities. The network will be fully operational; though, not the regular internet or anything beyond the internal ADI network. Characters will also receive periodic messages from help@adi.com begging for help, even as they order everyone to shelter in place.
  
  Characters who are outside their homes when the snow starts will find they're able to get inside just fine, but will not be able to get out again. Characters may be trapped with people who are not their standard roommates/at their usual housing, if they're unlucky (or lucky).
  
  
• CHASM (21-24 February) - The first character(s) to break through the snow barrier will feel an especially powerful weight fall upon them before there's suddenly just… nothing. The snow walls are gone. Even if another character was in the middle of digging through, the snow is just there one minute, then gone the next. Characters will experience a profound sense that they have missed something. This may dissipate within a day or maintain over several days. Anyone trying to question residents of the city will receive confusion and incredulity, but no answers. There is no indication that anyone seemed to notice the walls of snow. Even some of the natives at ADI will be perplexed. All non-native NPCs and some native NPCs will have experienced the same thing as the PC characters.
  
  
• STUCK (21-28 February) - The need to be doing more than they can will be ever-present for all NPCs and player characters. Those who would choose to eschew responsibilities at work or try to reprioritize will find that there is always something in need of doing that is important to them, to the point where new problems may seem to arise in impossibly, almost cartoonishly quick succession. Tasks and problems can be mundane matters related to work, building repair, and living spaces; as well as minor supernatural occurrences similar to past Dogtown TDM prompts (players are welcome to make up small supernatural encounters; anything that would affect other characters beyond a single thread should be submitted as a player plot). Characters may find themselves feeling mentally foggy and struggling to focus on core issues in the face of this inundation of needs from the people and environment around them, and may fall sick from overwork. These effects will overlap with both the Chasm and Sink prompts.
  
  
• SINK (24-28 February) - Characters who find themselves falling into one of the dunes will end up in what appears to be a vertical tunnel that is definitely too high to climb back out of, regardless of how tall the dune actually seemed to be when they were on top of it. The temperature of the sand is very cold and in addition to possible suffocation, characters may find themselves slowly freezing. Struggling or rescue attempts will quickly make the walls of the tunnel unstable. Additionally, the tunnel may not be exactly straight, depositing characters slightly or more than slightly off of their original falling point.
  
  

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Comments

[whisperedone]

[He nods and turns back towards the dune ahead of him. He does trust her to keep her word, he might not know much of her yet, but that seemed...inherent. Her phrases were short and too the point, he didn't get the impression she was the type to waste words.

He puts his weight further onto the foot on the dune and uses the end of his glaive to dig deeper as he steps forward. So far so good.

Each step is careful and measured, a testing of his weight before he applies it. It takes him to the top of the smaller rise and for a moment he has the urge to look around like he might notice something new. An urge, luckily, he resists.]

It seems stable enough. I don't know if it's worth it to try and climb some of the taller ones to test them as well, but-

[His quiet words cut off as the sand shifts below and around him in a way that has him freezing in place, both hands on the staff of the glaive. He listens, waiting to hear some sign of movement or tremor below him of a creature surfacing. Instead, there's a moment of more sand falling away and a lurch in his gut as he tries to move off the dune, but as he shifts, there's suddenly no sand beneath him, only open air.]

Katr-!

[There's nowhere for him to move or any way to prevent the fall, but that doesn't stop him from trying to catch himself by jamming the end of his glaive into whatever sand he can find. If the ground is even sturdy enough to hold him anymore.]

[twicelost]

[ It happens too quickly for even her to react in time. One moment he's walking, the next he's falling, the sand cascading in on itself at the top of the dune. ]

Garner!

[ She hesitates just long enough to judge how far up the dune she can go without getting caught in the collapsing of the sand. Then she's there, gazing down into this... this deep pit. She hisses. If she'd been faster, she could've grabbed him by the wrist. He'd be safe. Instead... well— ]

Garner! You hurt from fall?

[ If she goes back to the water, she might be able to fashion a sturdy rope from materials she finds, but even that would be useless if he's too hurt to hold on. ]

[whisperedone]

[His glaive catches only briefly, enough to slow his fall and prevent anything more than jolted bones as he finds the bottom; he would likely ache later, but little else. Small mercies, at least.

He turns his face up as she calls.]

I'm...fine. I think. [Heart pounding, but the falling as stopped, though he can hear the sand shifting around him. A moment of listening confirms it's falling against his boots.]

I think the sand is still shifting, the hole might be collapsing.

[Which is...not a pleasant thought, but his tone remains calm. He shifts his grip on his glaive so he can hold it right before the bladed portion with his leather-wrapped hand and holds it as high above him as his generous height can allow him to try and get the other end near the top.]

Can you reach this safely?

[twicelost]

[ His response reassures her and calms the part of her brain that panics. She worries about her human tribemates. They're weaker, and she can't do as much on land to help them. She is, ultimately, a creature of the ocean.

Sand is familiar, at least, a known danger. Katrina leans a little forward, enough to see light glinting off the glaive's blade, and reaches out for it. ]

Is too far. I move, and more sand fall.

[ This is bad. She has to get him out before the sand buries him. There's no rope here, though. No net—

Yes there is. The netting holding her spear in place. ]

I have plan.

[ Shifting away from the hole, Katrina pulls her spear free and sets it behind her, where its weight won't disturb the sand around the tunnel. Then she undoes the netting around her chest and ties it to the end of her spear, where the joing between blade and wood keeps it in place. She yanks at it, and it stays firm. Good.

She approaches the edge of the tunnel again. ]

I tie net to spear. Try to catch glaive with net and pull you.

[ Steadying herself, she starts to carefully lower the spear into the hole, angling it toward where she saw the glaive catch the light. ]

Try not move. Maybe you not so deep.

[ What she wouldn't give for some long, sturdy kelp to throw down for him. Land is terrible. ]

[whisperedone]

[Land is terrible and some of it is beginning to press around his ankles and land in his face as he stands as still as possible to keep himself a good target for her plan. It's a good plan, nevermind it's their only one.

Not for the first time and not likely for the last, there's a burst of annoyance in him for his own sightlessness, his uselessness to help, especially himself in this case. Most of the time, he could manage which made the times he couldn't all the more stark.]

Promise I'm not going anywhere...

[It's a tense few seconds before something seems to brush against the end of his glaive and his eyes widen.]

There! I think I feel the net.

[twicelost]

[ Time is of the essence. Traps like this, where nature takes its course calmly but it feels like both forever and a few seconds to the person caught are so like the ocean Katrina knows that she feels a deep, visceral fear for her companion. Luckily, her years as her tribe's alpha taught her how to overcome that fear, so she once again manages to focus on the task at hand.

He says he feels the net catch the glaive. Katrina gives a determined, triumphant hiss as she gives an experimental tug. Yes-- there's much more weight to the spear and net now. ]

Hold! I pull now.

[ The trick will be to keep from sending even more sand tumbling below. But she is strong, and he is a tribemate, so she will do this. She tugs, with strength and care, shifting her legs so she can slowly pull herself up simultaneously. It feels good to exert herself like this. It reminds her of who and what she is.

Now is not the time for pride, though. Now is the time to save a life. With another hiss, she keeps tugging. ]

[whisperedone]

[He has a moment where he fears he's too heavy. He's lean, but muscled and tall and hardly weightless, but still he holds on tight. He fears it...but she proves much stronger than he could have guessed.

It feels impossibly slow, those first few moments and inches where she's pulling him from the sand slower than it's falling....but then he's moving and his next breath is easier, even for the quickly filling pit.

As soon as he can feel the edge of the hole, he grasps at the edge to help pull himself up and bring their weapons with him.

A month's worth of time crashes around in only a few seconds and there's suddenly firm, packed, earth beneath him as he lays on his back on the ground, grip still tight on the glaive.]

You've the strength of Pelor in you...thank you.

[twicelost]

[ She doesn't stop until he's completely out, face up on the sand, away from the hole in the dune. As he breathes freely, she hauls their weapons over to safety and hisses, a sharp sound that's between a sigh and a laugh. ]

Not know who is Pelor. I know you. Garner is tribe. Always protect tribe.

[ This man was once a stranger, but now? This experience has made it feel like they really are tribemates, more than just in the nebulous sense that she's been working with for everyone in ADI. They may not be terribly close, but she thinks this feeling is friendship. ]

[whisperedone]

[He grins as his breaths begin to calm.]

He is a god.

[He reaches for some part of her, a knee or arm, and pats it, pleased. It was a sweet sentiment, but one he could certainly stand by with her.]

And I you. Whenever I can.

[He sits up and lightly brushes the sand from the waves of his hair.]

I think that might be enough excitement for one day.

[twicelost]

[ In the water, sirens use signs, posture, and touch to communicate. So when Garner reaches out and pats her arm, she understands. Her chest fills with warmth. He sees her as a tribemate too. Acceptance like this means everything to her. It's how she was able to survive back home, and it's how she'll stop the apocalypse from happening here, with the others. ]

Yes. We go back. Sand is danger now. Not come back until safe.

[ Or until whatever carved those tunnels in the sand is long gone.

She puts a hand over his, a firm touch. She is with him, ready to snatch him from the jaws of death again. ]

I carry you, if you need. Or you lean, and we walk together.

[whisperedone]

[He turns his hand under hers and gives it a small squeeze before moving to stand. He can, only adrenaline has ‘harmed’ him, and while that vibration is still in his blood, he’s pretty certain he’ll manage.]

If you are willing to either keep my hand or allow me to leave it on your shoulder, the guidance and assurance of not falling again will be appreciated.

[twicelost]

You lean.

[ She can easily support him. It's no trouble.

When he's ready, she stows her spear and helps him stand, and they start the trek back to safety. ]