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

[bloodalwaystells]

"Agreed. And there's a constant tension here that makes it very hard to really recover the way we should. There's no vacation, no mental space, because there's always this...dread that wears on us."

He's starting to realize the horror of Gloucester and it's just as much the everyday things as it is the big, terrible occurrences. Eventually, someone is going to break, probably multiple someones. In quiet ways at first, perhaps, but something spectacular isn't out of the question, either. Especially with the constant, grinding pressure of the Entities.

He sighs, a short heavy gust of breath.

"I appreciate it." He pauses, tilts his head, and then looks at her sidelong. "I feel like I owe you an apology for Halloween. For being in my dream, and seeing what you saw. I...that's not something I would have inflicted on you if I had a choice."

[musicdied]

"You don't," she says, without hesitation, but not hastily. Her voice is firm, certain, and when she looks back at him, her gaze is steady.

"You did not have a choice, any more than I had a choice about invading your privacy in the first place. Shouldering the blame for something that was done to you only helps the things we are trying to fight."

She pauses, the corners of her mouth quirking slightly upward in a ghost of a smile.

"But I would appreciate you avoiding a repeat in the waking world."

[bloodalwaystells]

"I'm glad to hear that," he says with a tiny smile. He knows logically that he's not to blame for what the town and the shadow girl thrust on them, but...it's important to hear that Yelena doesn't blame him. That he didn't somehow scar her with the experience of his life as it had been, and his violent and unexpected death.

It's still a lot to deal with, but at least that one particular aspect of the misery lifts with her words.

Sometime, he'll tell her more about his life before, he decides. If it's something she wants to hear. Not the gruesome and terrible parts, but a little more of who he was before. And who he's trying to be now, because he's still figuring that part out.

"And I have absolutely no intentions of repeating the experience if I can help it. Dreams are bad enough, I don't particularly want to visit the reality anytime soon." That last is a little wry, but still game. He glances down at the ground in front of his feet, choosing his steps carefully amid the clumps of dead grass, then up again. Scanning, watching, keeping a reasonable meter on everything around them as much as he can. He's used to observing while on the move, and this is no different.

[musicdied]

"That is very good to hear," she says.

And then, a moment later, "Huh."

The ground gives oddly beneath her feet, like there's something more flexible than packed sand beneath the surface layer. She starts to kneel to brush it off, whatever it might be, and--

She had once, when she was much, much younger, had the misfortune to run afoul of a patch of thin ice. This time, there is no crack of warning, just the ground beneath her feet dipping, but as she tries to scramble back and feels the earth fall away beneath her feet, the torrent of sand an eerie whispering rush around her, it feels very much the same.

It takes perhaps three seconds, between crouching and vanished into the sudden hollow in the side of the dune.

[bloodalwaystells]

They're seldom lucky enough that a "huh" indicates the discovery of a silver dollar or a winning scratch ticket. Jaeger is already turning his full attention to Yelena when she pauses, half curious and half wary, and there's a second where everything seems fine until the ground just...swallows her up.

So he's quick to react, closing the distance in long strides while being as mindful as he can of his own footing. The last thing they need is both of them sucked into sinkholes, but he's going to have to work quickly to get her out. Sand is treacherous, and even more so under such unexpected circumstances.

"Yelena! I'm here." He drops to his knees for stability, to brace his weight against hers as he scrabbles in the sand for a grip. He's got the size and weight to haul her out, he just has to find her in the rapidly filling pit.

[musicdied]

Yelena hits bottom with a jarring thud, impact sparking up along her legs and calves just shy of pain. The sinkhole is perhaps twice the width of her body, enough that it doesn't completely restrict her range of motion, not enough to hint that it's anything more sophisticated than a nasty trap. She might be relieved by this eventually, but right now, with sand raining down on her, obscuring her vision in gritty waves - like ash, like dust - she can't muster that sort of forward thinking. Her hands scrabble at the sides of the hollow, seeking purchase, seeking anything solid, and it disintegrates beneath her touch, adding to the mound of sand already pooling around her feet.

Her head jerks up at the sound of Jaeger's voice, seeking the sound on instinct. "Careful!" she calls, then cuts off, choking and gagging as another torrent of sand nearly smothers her. She manages to get a hand above her to break the stream, and spits out grit, tucking her chin in against her chest and trying very hard to ignore the play of shadows beneath her.

"Careful," she repeats, voice tight with strain that's so far held on the right side of panic. "I think it's still collapsing."

[bloodalwaystells]

It's a very unexpected, unwelcome surprise, but also a brief relief that Yelena doesn't simply disappear completely. He has a chance to get to her, to pull her free of the grasping sand, and when her hands come up to try and find something to grab onto, he's there, on his knees to set his significant weight against hers as he reaches for her. The pit's wide enough to make him need to stretch, crumbling at the edges in a very alarming way, but he's got some advantage with the length of his limbs, and his hands find hers amid the cascading grit.

"Can you brace your feet?" If she can talk, she can breathe. That might not be true for much longer, but for now, it's a relief to know.

[musicdied]

She jerks a little in surprise as his hands grasp hers, then draws a shallow, shuddering breath, and tests the side of the pit with the sole of her boot. The sand shifts unnervingly, but there's more dune here than even a few feet above. Enough, at least, that it doesn't immediately hollow out, though she's painfully aware that were she here alone, it would still be collapsing too fast for her to extricate herself.

"A little. Not for long."

If the sinkhole's shallow enough that he can reach her, they shouldn't need long. The qualifier still feels relevant.

[bloodalwaystells]

There's no guarantee that the hole is going to stay that shallow, and the sooner they can get away from it, the better, in Jaeger's professional and practical opinion.

He's pretty sure Yelena agrees, so he braces himself as well on the ground as he can. "If you can push up, I'll pull. I think I can lift you out, as long as it holds."

That's not a certainty, but Jaeger has confidence in his strength, at least. He's got an easy hundred pounds on her and very little of it is excess bulk. He keeps a solid grip on her hands, ready to lift when she gets enough purchase.

[musicdied]

The sand slips and skids beneath her feet, but she manages to find her footing - to find, at least, as much as she's liable to get. "All right," she says, and if the tension in her voice has ratcheted up another notch, well. Perhaps it can be laid at the feet of precarious balance.

"On three. One...two...three."

She pushes off hard against the side of the sinkhole, and there's a moment where she feels it begin to fall away, when the movement sends another river of sand sliding down her neck, that her heart drops into the pit of her stomach.

[bloodalwaystells]

On three, Jaeger puts everything he's got into lifting and pulling at the same time, muscles bunching and flexing through his shirt as he puts everything he's got into hauling Yelena out of the sand pit.

It's a fraught moment of uncertainty, wondering if she's going to get out, or if the whole thing is going to crumble. Maybe he won't be strong enough, but she's pushing off against what footing she can get and, dammit, he needs to do this. He can taste grit and salt, clouds of sand everywhere in the sudden explosion of effort, but he holds on as tight as he can.

[musicdied]

It's close. It's too damn close, and she can feel the torrent of sand tugging at her feet as the pit begins to collapse in on itself. And maybe it's just gravity and erosion and the general lack of structural integrity of sand in its base form, but it feels malevolent.

And then she's free, and tumbling against Jaeger, deafened by the hammering of her heart and the ragged gasping of her breath, like her lungs don't trust the air to be there a minute from now and are trying to draw in as much as they can against inevitable atmospheric betrayal.

[bloodalwaystells]

When he feels the sand start to give, and Yelena's weight comes free in his grip, Jaeger automatically pitches backward, pulling them both away from the collapsing pit. Another precious few inches of the edge crumbles away into a cascade, but he's at least a little bit clear of it, and then he lands on his back with Yelena on top of him and blessed, solid ground beneath them both.

There's a moment where he's not sure he can breathe, either, a moment of waiting to see if the whole thing gives or if they're safe. Miraculously, the ground stays stable and steady enough for him to heave a sigh of relief a moment later.

He'll give Yelena all the time she needs to gather herself, because that was far closer than he would like to admit, and that minute or so that she's recomposing is time he can use to do the same.

[musicdied]

Her fingers curl against the sleeve of his jacket, the motion almost unconscious, reminiscent of someone checking to see if something caught on the edge of dreaming is real or just their mind playing tricks. After a moment, she shudders violently, and pulls away, rolling up to her knees once there's some distance between them. Grit clings to damp patches on her cheeks and forehead, and she scrubs a hand over her face to dislodge it.

That doesn't work half so well as she might like.

"Thank you," she says. Her gaze slants towards the shadowed depression in the sand that marks the pit as though drawn on an invisible string, and she shudders again, then barks a humourless laugh. "I guess we know now where some people have been disappearing."

[bloodalwaystells]

Jaeger lets her cling as long as she needs to, because that was a terrifyingly close call. If he hadn't been here, or if it had been someone smaller and less fit, then this could have gone far worse.

He's just going to try not to think about that, and calm himself with steady breathing as his heartbeat starts to return to normal. When she pulls away, he lets her go, and moves himself a little further away from the treacherous ground just to be sure.

"We should call in, and have the beach cordoned off." Will they actually do it? Jaeger has his doubts, but ADI should know about it anyway. "If nothing else, it should be recorded." He pauses, considering if he should add more, then decides that no, he's going to leave it at that.

He isn't going to talk about the bodies right now. If there are any, someone will find them eventually, or the tide will bring them in. It's a grim thought, and one that he's going to keep to himself for now.

[musicdied]

Yelena makes a quiet noise of agreement, her gaze still fixed on the hollow in the sand.

After a moment, she scrubs her hands over her hair, dislodging a small cloud of grit, and rolls her shoulders. Her armour reassembles almost in real time, locking away dread and guttering adrenaline behind her usual mask of casual practicality.

"If they spin it as some kind of toxic spill, they can probably borrow extra manpower for a little while."

Which they direly need, given how threadbare everyone's been worn by the blizzard-that-wasn't and the endless stream of disasters both petty and genuine.

[bloodalwaystells]

"That sounds like a good plan. We can call it in, and mark off this area for now."

He watches her rebuild her defenses and he does the same, settling into that quiet, watchful stoicism that is his usual demeanor. If there's a little more softness than usual there, a little more concern, it's hard to notice, little more than an extra lingering of gaze, a tightness at the corners of his mouth.

So much for getting out and getting some fresh air, but then again, it would be foolish to expect anything else from this place. Jaeger takes a few quick shots with both his camera and his phone, before keying in the location as close as he can manage and sending it. A quick explanation follows, short and to the point about deadly sinkholes.

Which also gives Yelena a few more moments to collect herself, without Jaeger's gaze on her. Pay no mind, no notice, everything is fine.