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quietplacelogs2018-01-15 08:09 pm
bequiet) wrote in quietplacelogs2018-01-15 08:09 pm
INTRO LOG #1
INTRO LOG #1
Muzzle and Mute
Content Warnings: Disorientation, memory loss, confusion
Themes: Arrival, survival, exploration, horror
You wake, standing. A thick, muddy red dust coats your skin and clothes - it sticks to your tongue and blocks your vision. Inhale and it chokes you, exhale and your breath puffs out in front of your face in a transparent maroon cloud. It tastes of copper, tangy and harsh. Movement is difficult, every limb tingles and aches. Look to your left, your right. Evenly spaced in each direction stands another person indistinguishable in every way from the next. You're disoriented and lethargic, unable to grasp onto a single thought. A pinprick of light blooms ahead and grows steadily larger; a door has opened.
Hands grip your wrists, push at the small of your back and guide you out of the darkness into a room with four walls and a thin, sagging ceiling. The plaster is peeling, the air is musty, and the floor is slick. White plastic piping juts up from the center and curves into multiple spouts, clean water flowing in uneven streams. Those hands pull your clothes off and clear the dust from your body, redress you in handsewn jumpsuits. By the time they’re through, you will have begun to come back to yourself.
A finger is pressed to your lips. Kind eyes meet your own and a single word is whispered - hush.
Led out of the room in a line, you’re taken down a short hallway and into another, much larger room. There’s a woman waiting for you there, a child hugging her leg, and a cloth bag in her hands. She reaches in and pulls out a device, passes one to each of you. Once finished, she begins to move both hands in graceful gestures, a language. One of the people who helped you lifts their device and the screen lights up, tracks the woman’s hands. Letters appear on the screen and you understand the device’s purpose. She tells you what she knows and it’s not much.
This world is haunted. Noise attracts them, so it is not allowed. Communication is through body language, soundless writing, and the device. She tells you that your feet must be light and your mouth never used. There is a community outside these doors, where you can survive together, but only if you agree to one thing: complete and total silence. You'll have time to talk it over. You may ask one question and receive one answer.
Acceptance allows you to journey outside. The ground is marked in pathways of sand, lining the paths to each building and everywhere in-between. You notice that the locals hold their devices always, aloft and glance to it often. It will not vibrate or make a sound to signal a message. Notices appear. Rules. Guidelines. Feet on the sand and never anywhere else. To open a door you brush your fingers along the hinges - oiled and you may enter. If not, take the brush from the can sitting nearby and coat the metal with the dark liquid.
Now, you're to settle into your new home.
The Man in the Hat
Content Warnings: Heavy lifting, following the rules, alcoholism
Themes: Moving in, survival, exploration, horror
Once you’ve claimed a room for yourself, it’s time to acclimate to the community. Natives will ask what you need and take you along the sandpaths to different areas in the city to gather supplies - furniture and the like. Heavier items will require assistance and will take longer. Houses are mostly empty so if you and your housemates need something, you’ll have to carry it and put it inside the home. Do not make any noise or the natives will refuse to help you. Getting to know your housemates is key to a smooth transition. They are going through what you are right now; take the time to get to know them. Make house rules.
As the first day gives way to night, the natives can be seen moving at a faster pace outside. They’re hurried, though not frightened. Some even smile at you. When the sun sets behind the ruins of what was once picturesque Reims, your device will signal that it’s time to meet at the center of the community. There, natives will stop each person and give them a small gift - a trinket, a token to show that they are trying their best to make all the new arrivals feel at home. These are all items from the character’s home or from another character's home (they will not be anything that belongs to anyone else). Small, soundless and either something taken during the application process or something brand new. They will have no powers to speak of and are meant to be a momento. If asked, the natives found them the same way they found each of you.
Then the party starts. Sort of. A soundless, stitled kind of celebration. Fun is meant to be had, but it’s not an overly joyous occasion. The natives simply don’t know how to cut loose. There will be extra food in the form of one and two; Phillipa even brought some of her homemade bread. If you stumble across a man wearing a hat, the only man in town who does, and agree to go with him when he offers to show you his house - he’ll gift you with a jar of hooch; it’ll burn on the way down.
Sound Eaters
Content Warnings: Threat, danger
Themes: Survival, exploration, horror, game plot
It’s the second day of your stay, and the natives call for an emergency meeting at the Town Hall. Everyone is paired off (see below) and are asked to walk the perimeter looking for anything out of place and patching any areas that might have been affected by weather. Once finished, the same is done on the inside, and when the community leader is satisfied, the main hall is opened up so that everyone can congregate. Characters, during this time only, are allowed to make sound. This is so that the natives can explain why silence is so necessary...
The Sound Eaters.
In an effort not to frighten everyone, the natives won’t go into the history just yet, but they will warn that when someone makes a sound, it attracts them. They don’t know what they look like because they are so fast. If you’re too loud, then in the blink of an eye, you’ll go through a room reset. This is because either the natives ‘silenced’ you or the Sound Eaters have. They will explain that the room came at the same time the Sound Eaters did and that it doesn’t work for the natives. Sometimes, it doesn’t work on new arrivals. Death, for those born in this world, is permanent. If you attract them, you’ll get someone killed. Hence the need for no noise. During the meeting, the natives will tell each character of their own experiences. Their losses. The families they have left and how they’d do anything to keep them alive. They don’t know if you’ll be reset, but is that a risk you’re willing to take? The meeting will last a few hours and will end on a somber, ominous note - at the end of the month, they are taking everyone to meet them.
OOC
From your mods:
Please be mindful of content - if something triggery comes up or if it goes up a rating to say, something sexy, mark your threads in the subject line. We're very flexible and allow any material; we just want our players to be respectful of each other. If you have questions, pp the mod account, use the faq or comment to the appropriate post below. Have fun!
cw for the thread: violence, death, past trauma
Food is the only thing he might remotely be able to get here so he heads into the kitchen to see if anyone has stocked up–
And stops dead. Jessica is there.
He freezes. For a second he's too stunned to move. Her back is turned but he knows it's her, knows the slope of her shoulder, her cheek, her hair. And the memory comes flooding back: the dock, the watching crowd, Trish and Jessica, Jessica with her hand gripping his jaw, lifting him up, the fear bubbling up in his chest when he realises that she has him, that the inevitable is about to happen and then she tells him to smile–
She snapped his neck. The memory is vivid, excruciating. A flash of intense pain and then... nothing. Waking up here.
The possibility has occurred to him that he's dead and the universe has conjured up an afterlife so unbearable that he'll want to end it all within a week. If that's the case, of course Jessica is here. Of course. She's here to torment him. She tricked him, rejected him, spat on everything that he tried to do for her, treated him like a dog. And the final insult: putting him down.
His skin is hot and cold. He can't tell whether the adrenaline coursing through him is fear or rage. Kilgrave grits his teeth. He can't help it. He has to speak.]
You fucking bitch.
[It's quiet but venomous. His senses are catching up with him and he backs away – he can't be alone with her, she's too dangerous – he has to find a housemate or get out on to the street, even raise his voice if necessary. He shuts the door on her and turns around, his heart beating fast (does that count as making a sound? he can hear it drumming in his chest), then walks as quickly as he can back into the great room then through the foyer to the porch. If she comes after him, he'll run. Fuck that, he'll make a noise if he has to. All he needs is one person he can control, one person, or even an interfering bystander to get in their way. Whatever he needs to do to stop her.]
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she's drunk more than she's eaten but still holes up in the garage for a good hour with the last third of her first jar of hooch. there are two more tucked under the bed, putting her single most pressing concern out of the way for another day or two. all that remains of the previous evening's bread loaf are the crumbs she brushes from the bed, that now live on the floor, feasibly forever. finishing off the moonshine in an ambitious gulp, she almost spits it back up and more, which is what reminds her she needs to eat. each lift of her foot embitters her on her way to the kitchen; she's in the mood to shuffle or scuff, and who knows, one day she might even give stumbling a shot! she'll have to drink more carefully, while simultaneously discovering her super-tolerance for liquor distilled in a hole.
how could this day get any betternot expecting it to even be stocked, she's uninvested while digging through the fridge. huh, let's see: we've got OJ, soda, Sunny D, purple stuff--
the first words she's heard outside of a designated speaking area could be meant for anyone but, come on. Jess knows she's the one being addressed as instantly and mortally as she knows who's doing it. all three in their scant syllables slither up her spine, slipping tongue-like into the spaces between the bones. her grip on the fridge door dents it with a soft crunch that warns her off of it before she rips it from the hinge and throws it what might be, but isn't, a hallucination. she's certain her luck isn't that forgiving; look at where it's landed her. she whips around, dark, drunk gaze searing with disbelieving hatred. yeah, he's real. her brain's not so goddamn on point that she'd imagine him without his peacock feathers, his Fifth Ave necessities and his human accoutrements. he's alone. he's alive.
he's afraid.
Jess gives chase right away. the chance to put him down before he hurts anyone crests on the shotgun surge of adrenaline and gives her a North Star to pursue through the haze of panic swiftly sluicing in. it's impossible to give a shit about being silent, even though she just sat through what felt very much like a school assembly on the dangers of not doing that. fucking Sound Eaters, are you kidding her? they brought this guy in and they're scared of some bump in the night shit? damn, is she glad she saved her question, 'cause she's gonna have a thousand once she's done dealing with this, assuming she lives. she'd like to, but, you know. when life gives you lemons sometimes you have to get yourself killed punching those lemons' hearts to the centre of the earth.
overcoming him is pretty easy, then. she gets a grip on the back of his collar and yanks him back in step with her, shoves him to the wall by his neck. god, he's so weak. no wonder she gave that bus the benefit of the doubt when she should have gone back and made sure he was dead. the snap was telling, the second time, and she almost leans right into it now, but, right, those sarcastic-airquotes "monsters". (who she can really see herself coming around on, in light of this new information.) no comforting snap. her head is a riot, her blood is careening through her vessels like it might shear the insides of her veins, she needs a fucking second, okay? and claps her hand over his mouth before checking over her shoulder for witnesses ]
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Hel–!
[Her hand clamps over his mouth, stifling him, and he's pinned like a butterfly to the wall, but therein lies his only hope: they're outside, they're on the porch and there's the street in front of them, windows in the houses opposite them, surely, surely, someone will see or hear and come to stop her...]
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he hears something, which is already weird. he wonders if it isn't just residual noise in his head at first. no one makes sound out here -- he's already so accustomed to the silence that a man's voice stands out like a stone dropping into a river. frank scours the scene in front of him until he comes up with a sight to match the sound. two people, too far away for him to identify. creeping off the sandpath and out of view, frank makes his way around the building to get a better look. a sniper rifle would be really handy just now, he thinks, but the thought is of little comfort.
his eyes catch the woman's, miscalculating his steps. he remembers speaking to her yesterday, only for a minute. it seems like she can handle herself against whoever this is. he backs away before kilgrave can lay eyes on him. he won't intervene unless she needs him to. ]
cw suicide mention. also, killing
maybe that's why, when she spots a bystander and turns her attention back to her task, it's already half done. his skin seeps out from around her tightening grip, flushed a bloody pink as he futilely struggles for air. her eyes silently bore into his the promise that he won't get out of this, no matter what. if there are Sound Eaters out there, she'll let him scream if she has to. Jess squeezes just a little harder, a little harder, mindful of the twig that is his spine, until she feels the give and crumple of his windpipe, like the shell of a cockroach. her fingers keep her palm locked over his mouth as she eases his body down to the ground, pinning his legs as he spurts and chokes.
that it all happens, that no one yanks her off or calls for help, is even crazier to her than finding him here in the first place. Jess keeps him down, wracking her brain for what to do with what's left of him. if she's going to live in that fucking house then she's not bringing him back into it, much less hiding his body under her bed, but people won't be in that meeting much longer. she scans behind her again, finds whatshisfuck right where he left himself. also crazy.
well, if he's so eager to become an accomplice, she's currently not in a position to be turning applicants away out of hand. if nothing else, it looks like he's found a cozy spot for her to figure out what the hell she's going to do next, and what the hell she is doing. she hefts Kilgrave over a shoulder and heads that way. it's kind of his move, but there's not a lot she isn't prepared to intercept the second this shitbag hits the dirt. ]
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are you okay? he mouths, wondering idly to himself if every chick he meets here is going to have superstrength. the hell. ]
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Except not. It's abrupt, this period of nothingness between dying and awakening. He doesn't remember it, doesn't even remember how he got here, in fact, when he wakes up gasping for breath in a room he doesn't recognise but which he will in time.
For Jessica and Frank, it's equally abrupt: Kilgrave's body simply vanishes. There will be no body to bury.]
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Jess stops, brain and feet, when she hits a wall of mild vertigo. she rubs at her eyes with both hands, lightheaded from the comparative emptiness of her skull without the parade of ceaseless questions. lighter, too, from her burden removed. she looks around as though she could have dropped him without realizing. ]
Shit. [ she mutters quietly, fully prepared to accept the consequences
sorry Frank. this place suuuhuuhuUUUUUUUCKs ]no subject
if he's coming back they have to be proactive. they should also probably get out of the woods, uhhhhhh. frank pulls out his device, tapping her arm in the gentlest way he can to get her attention. ] what now
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where the hell does she even start with that? there's only one answer, and it applies to any and all questions that might go through her head right now. Jess types and barely gives him time to read it before heading back to the neighborhood ] Get drunk
[ could be her last opportunity to. if liquor is that hard to come by out here, she won't be getting any in the Inception-style layered jail inside this larger existential prison ]
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it takes him a moment to realize he's daredevil in this situation. wow, fuck him.
when she takes off, he pursues her quickly, only reading the text after the fact. ] good call. [ no, but actually he approves. ]
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Jess retraces her steps to House 10, distancing herself from her old footprints as they spill into signs of struggle. she doesn't plan to hide what she did so why disturb the crime scene. the door is open and the kitchen is empty, as reluctant as she is to step into it. the dining room, which he must have claimed for himself, leaving one cement wall between them through the night Jesus Christ she gets to the sink right as vomit spews from her mouth. her stomach has little to give; she heaves twice fully and spits the remaining bile and excess saliva into the slowly draining mess. the initial splatter was louder than any sound she made and she's old hat at hiding her distress. when nothing comes to whisk her away, she risks slowly turning the faucet handle to collect a small puddle of water in her hand, but the plumbing doesn't work.
fuck. she'll have to feel sorry about that later. (sorry she didn't make it all the way to the dining room.)
Jess wipes her mouth on the sleeve of her jumpsuit and goes to the garage to grab both remaining jars of hooch, the one from the dog and the one from the good dude at the party, and then she immediately heads back out with no destination except to not be there. if they're going to lock her up for any length of time, odds are it will be in a mostly windowless room. she's not keen to spend the handful of intervening hours sitting around in a mostly windowless room. what's his number? she'll darken that identical-in-nearly-every-way deck instead. ]
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frank paints his door with the oil and opens it for her, ushering her in ahead before shutting it soundlessly behind them. all of his furniture is crammed into one tiny corner, like he has plans for the rest of the space. and maybe he does. his bed is a full-ish and he walks across the cloth he'd set on the floor as a sound buffer and plucks out his own jar of moonshine from under the frame. there are only two other pieces of furniture: a drafting table pinned to the wall by the bed, and a bookcase in the corner of the room. there are about ten or so books with muslin woven between them to keep from making noise as they hit together.
he turns towards her again as if to ask her what she wants to do next. in actuality it's just a stare ]
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she drifts back into the hallway, through the foyer and then out to the front porch, the entrance left ajar for expediency. she'd like to thunk down heavily onto the wood but plays it safe, mindfully setting her ass down, and twice as mindfully setting her last full jar down. having a fourth sip, of actual sip size, she pulls her device out of her pocket to confront her new bff. ]
What do you want?
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what did that guy do to you? [ he turns his frown on her, trying not to let the concern shine through though he knows it does. he knows she doesn't want it from him, too, which is mostly why he tries to hide it. ]
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He has the power to make people do things [ normally she would have misgivings about making that claim to a stranger but he has to have seen stranger
thcrap since he got here. she'll take the chance. ]Torture, murder. All he has to do is say it. I couldn't let him get to anyone.
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if he's coming back we have to be ready
how does it work? is there a way to stop him? [ since killing him doesn't seem like it will be a permanent solution, as much as that's how he prefers to deal with his problems too. ]
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You catch it from being near him and all you can do is wait it out
100 yards and 24 hours the last time I saw [ killed ] him
He can't turn it off and he doesn't want to. [ hence, death. and she could bring up the sufetanol but you know what? naH. ]
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i think there's a way to broadcast to everyone on these things
i'll back you up
[ if people don't believe her, he means. but in a place like this... he's betting she can get the benefit of the doubt. especially with a headstart. ]
what the fuck did they think they were going to do with a guy like that? [ they being the natives. it sounds like he's going to get a lot of them killed before they get to the bottom of this. not very helpful for this whole... sound eater situation. if it's real. ]
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[ He asked for her deal, and she managed to avoid it while telling him what he needs to know. it's not like she can be critical if he chooses to be as broad or deflective. they must have had some interaction for him to plant himself so vigorously in her camp. confirmation is all she's looking for. she doesn't mind hanging her stare on him then, waiting for a response ]
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except the thought of putting it together in earnest is overwhelming. she's scared her fingers will start shaking when she commits to thinking about it. she intends to have scrammed back to the solitude of her garage by then. ]
I don't think he saw you.
If you back me up you're drawing attention to yourself.
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tell me what to do
how to help
[ she should be able to sense already that frank castle does not just quietly go away (unless kilgrave tells him to apparently.) while he's not super keen on getting his face out to everyone here, if it'll help jess keep this madman at bay then he'll do it. whatever she needs. ]
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Don't give him another chance to speak to you.
After I finish these I'm telling everyone what I did. [ or he'll do it for her if he comes back and why the fuck wouldn't he. she can't afford to be optimistic. driiiiiink ]
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what do you think happens [ if they kill each other? the natives don't really seem to give a fuck what they do as long as it's quiet. ]
i've still got your back ok?
it doesn't matter. [ none of it does. ]
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